Darkest Shadows

by FireOfTheNorth

Labyrinth

Bat wings rustled atop the Moon Tower of Canterlot Castle. The three bat-ponies were less concerned now that they would be seen, but they’d become accustomed to their places among the statues. It was unlikely that anypony would look up at them, not when the castle staff was busy preparing for the summer sun celebration only hours away. This would be the one thousandth time the summer solstice was celebrated, and ponies all over Equestria were excited for the event. They had no idea what was in store for them.

“Everything is in place for Her return,” the leader of the bat-ponies announced, though they each already knew. It was comforting to hear that everything that could be done had been done to ensure their Lady would return without hindrance.

“Celestia’s advisor, Malthus?” the newest member of the trio asked, having not been privy to the intricacies of the plan for centuries like the other two.

“In position,” the leader said affirmatively, “The Usurper will be taken care of before She arrives.”

“And the Deathwalker will not intervene?” the third member asked.

“Both he and the Ministry agent he has been training are in no position to interfere,” the leader said smugly, “The coming of the cat sith was most fortuitous. No further acts need be taken against them at the moment. They will have no part in this.”

The bat-ponies sat in silence for another few minutes. Down below, ponies bustled around preparing things for the dawn that would never come. Up here atop the castle, things were still, as they had been in the night sky for centuries. The stars and constellations were dull, moving with mechanical precision and lacking the vibrancy and life that their Lady had always endowed them with. All that would soon change. They stared at the moon and its horsehead arrangement of craters, watching while the stars around it broke free from Celestia’s tyrannical ordering and flocked to their master.

“Rejoice, my brothers, for Her return is nigh!” the leader called out, “Rejoice at the coming of Nighttime Eternal!”

“See ya, Berry! Have a good solstice!” the stallion behind the counter called out as Beryl Fields left the coffeeshop.

“Same to you, Roan,” Berry replied, levitating the cardboard carrier and its three cups of coffee over another patron entering the shop before she stepped through the door.

It was still dark out, but the streets of Canterlot were filled with ponies. They were all moving in the direction of Canterlot Castle, but at different rates. Fillies and colts rushed around the legs of the adults, ignoring the calls of their parents to stay in sight. Some ponies grouped into clusters of friends making their way to the castle together. Others were doing the same thing Berry had just completed, seeking out caffeine to give them a boost. The summer solstice was always an extremely profitable day for Canterlot’s coffee vendors.

The summer sun celebration would begin soon, and this year’s ceremony was one that couldn’t be missed. Banners bearing the number 1000 were hung everywhere, and some ponies wore glasses shaped like the number, peering through the first two zeroes. It was a momentous occasion, and Berry was glad to be in Canterlot for it. As she hurried through the city, she caught a glimpse of the aeroport and the zeppelins tied up there. One of them bore the name Inquisitiveness on its side, and she had come in on it the night before. She’d been worried she wouldn’t make it in time, but the airship’s captain had wanted to be here as badly as she had and had pushed the vessel to its limits.

“Berry! Over here!” a unicorn mare called out through the growing crowd as she neared the castle.

The mare was not alone; a stallion stood at her side and helped wave to get Berry’s attention. Deftly, she made her way through the crowd without spilling the coffee. Berry rolled her eyes when she saw that the mare was wearing a pair of the novelty glasses, but smiled as she approached the pair.

“Mum and dad,” she greeted them as she embraced them in turn and then passed out the coffees.

“We’re so glad you could make it back in time,” her father said as he directed the group toward Canterlot Castle, “Where did they send you off to this time again?”

“Beyond the Forbidden Jungle,” Berry replied, “There are deserts and cliffs like you’ve never seen. It was quite invigorating, but it’s good to be home.”

“I don’t see why they have to send you to the middle of nowhere all the time,” Berry’s mother commented, “Can’t they send you somewhere close by once in a while?”

“Mum, it’s the Royal Cartography Ministry. The only places that still need to be mapped are far away,” Berry laughed.

“Oh, I know, I just don’t like to think of you all alone out there,” her mother replied.

“I’m not alone, Mum,” Berry reassured her, “There are other surveyors with me, too.”

“Like Stargazer?” her father asked with a sideways glance and a grin.

“Was he on this latest trip?” her mother asked.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, he was,” Berry said, sipping her coffee.

“You’ve been on quite a few trips with him lately, haven’t you?” her mother asked, trying and failing to appear innocent.

“I suppose so, but what’s so strange about that? We work well together. Stargazer is a … friend.”

“Mm-hmm,” was all her mother said in reply.

Berry’s protest was cut off by the blaring of trumpets, drawing everypony’s attention to the stage set up in front of the castle. The square erupted in applause as Princess Celestia appeared, regal as always, and took her position in the center of the stage. Her advisors trailed behind her, taking positions off to the side. Berry’s attention was drawn to one in particular, an earth pony stallion with a coat as black as night. His clothes were several centuries out of date and he was wearing sunglasses, odd at night, but not completely out of place at the summer sun ceremony. Something seemed familiar about him, but Berry couldn’t place her hoof on it.

“Who is that?” Berry whispered to her parents as a functionary droned on about the importance of the sun to pony life, “Did Celestia get a new advisor while I was away?”

“You know who that is,” her father said, perplexed, “That’s Lord Briarheart, he’s been Celestia’s confidant for years. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Berry said slowly, also confused.

She knew who Lord Briarheart was, or at least she thought she did. It was all coming back to her, memories of seeing him at events with Celestia, his name in the papers always praised even if nopony knew exactly what job he did for the princess. Something still seemed distinctly … off, though, even if nopony else seemed to notice it. Lord Briarheart. The name brought an itch to her mind as if there were memories that wanted to surface but remained out of reach. She remembered nothing more of this pony, but an unrelated thought came to her mind.

“What’s Celestia doing here?” Berry whispered to her parents, “Isn’t she supposed be in Ponyville this year?”

“Ponyville? For the thousandth summer sun celebration?” her mother laughed, “Why on earth would Celestia spend such an important event in a tiny town like that instead of Canterlot? Really, Berry, are you feeling okay? When was the last time you slept?”

“Just hours ago,” Berry replied, though she was less and less sure of everything around her, “I was sure that-”

Somepony in the crowd hushed her as the functionary finished her speech and Celestia stepped forward on the stage. While everypony else stared at the princess, Berry watched Lord Briarheart. Somehow, he seemed to be just as disoriented as she was at the moment. In his fidgeting, his sunglasses slipped down his nose, and Berry caught a glimpse, just for a moment, of a blazing red eye.

He wasn’t a pony! Lord Briarheart was something else! Suddenly, memories sprang unbidden to her mind. Tracking Lord Briarheart through the streets of Canterlot. She was an agent, not of the Royal Cartography Ministry, but of the Ministry. She’d followed him to his home, learned he was the Black Briar, and more. There were monsters out there, and they’d hunted them together.

Nopony in the crowd around her paid her any mind as she tried to grapple with these new memories. The gargoyles, the tantibus, the djinn, harmless vampires, and the lobgoblin. She and Shadowmere—yes, that was his true name—had hunted them down together. Rholharrak the werewolf, former friend of Shadowmere, and the Nocte Corporation’s witch coven, who’d tried to bring Yx to Equestria. The cat sith and the Knights of the Crimson Banner in the past and Roaring Thunder’s sacrifice to save her.

It all came rushing back in a torrent, memories incompatible with the world she was in. Celestia wasn’t supposed to be in Canterlot; Shadowmere stayed in the shadows; she was a Ministry agent, not a surveyor; and her parents … Her coffee fell from her magical grasp and splashed against the cobblestones.

“Dear, what’s going on?” Berry’s mother—not her mother—asked, but Beryl Fields was already pushing herself through the crowd.

“Shadowmere! Lord Briarheart! Shadowmere!” Berry called as she neared the stage.

She was momentarily blinded as the sun, bright and enormous, rose over the horizon, turning Celestia and the other ponies onstage to silhouettes. Celestia’s royal guard moved to block her as she approached, but she zapped aside their spears and jumped over them, using her magic to give her a boost onto the stage. Shadowmere was looking at her now, and though she couldn’t see through his heavily tinted glasses, she was sure there was realization dawning in his eyes.

“Shadowmere!” she called as he staggered backwards and Celestia’s other advisors gave him some distance.

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” he assured her as he steadied himself, “I just have more memories to reclaim than you.”

Berry looked around them. The guards weren’t coming to throw her off the stage. The crowd was completely silent. Everypony was motionless, as if frozen in time. Even Princess Celestia had paused mid-sun-raising, her horn still lit up from the action.

“What’s going on? Where are we?” Berry asked, “What happened?”

“Think. Try to remember how we arrived here,” Shadowmere ordered as he did the same.

“You … found what had been stolen from your hideout while we were tracking down the cat sith,” Berry recalled, “We traveled to the griffon lands, but … I don’t remember what happened once we got there.”

“No doubt our prey found us before we found it,” Shadowmere said, his voice low, “We were hunting a lor, one I’d locked away.”

With a faint prickling sensation, more memories were coming back to Beryl. Weeks had passed since their adventure with the cat sith by the time Shadowmere had discovered what had been stolen. Whoever kept stealing from the ancient monster hunter seemed to have an eye for creatures unable to be killed, only sealed away. Last time they’d stolen a djinn, this time it’d been a lor[LS2][JS3]. Lor were elaborate maze builders, and not just in the physical sense. Their lairs were labyrinths, but their true talent was in constructing artificial mazes. Once they found a suitable victim, they would render them comatose and seal their minds within a world of their creation, designed as a nearly inescapable labyrinth.

“So, this is …?” Berry said, gesturing to the world around them.

“Indeed,” Shadowmere replied, before craning his neck to address the heavens, “Auzischell! Your ploy has failed! Show yourself!”

A cold breeze blew through the air and the morning suddenly became darker. A shadow passed over the bloated sun until it was eclipsed. It was incredibly eerie, given how large and close the sun seemed, and became even more so as the lor stepped through the eclipse as if it were a doorway and stood on nothing. The lor’s body was shaped like a pony’s, but that was where the resemblance ceased. Rather than hair, the creature was covered in scales, and its tail was that of a lizard’s. Its ears were mere holes in the scaly expanse beneath horns that started as ridges over the eyes and curved around behind the creature’s head. The lor bared a smile that was all pointed teeth as it stared down and Beryl and Shadowmere.

“Shadowmere, what is it about you that makes you so averse to living in contentment? I did the best I could to create a world you could be happy in, but your miserable outlook on the world stretches so far back that it’s beyond my power to rewrite that much of your history. At least you’ve found somepony else to share in your misery,” Auzischell said, turning his attention to Berry, “I really thought I’d constructed the perfect world for you, but I suppose Shadowmere does stick out, doesn’t he? I really ought to have used separate labyrinths.”

“But you can’t, can you? It’s beyond your powers!” Shadowmere shouted up at the lor, who nodded with a sour expression, “You know I’ll escape your maze, so why not make this easy and let us out right now?”

“You’re no fun,” Auzischell moaned, and a forked tongue escaped his mouth, “I thought to have some enjoyment from this alternate world, but it appears you long for a more conventional maze. So be it.”

The lor backed away into the eclipse and the dark circle shrunk into nonexistence, the sun once again bathing the world in dawn’s light. Ponies remained frozen in place, however, with only Berry and Shadowmere able to move around. In the distance, Berry could see mountains and clouds shift and bend. Soon that distortion grew very close. and Canterlot folded in on itself with baffling motions. All laws of reality seemed to break as the universe itself twisted, constricted, slid, and expanded all at the same time. Then, there was darkness.

At first, Berry wasn’t sure whether it was just so unimaginably dark that everything appeared the same with eyes open or shut, or if they truly were surrounded by nothingness. As she grew accustomed to the darkness around her, however, she felt a firm floor beneath her hooves, though it seemed to be radiating cold. There was still nothing visible, which meant there really was no light at all here. Berry cast a spell that gradually brightened a light at the tip of her horn until she and Shadowmere were bathed in the dim purple glow. They appeared to be in a large room with a high ceiling, all surfaces composed of a glassy black substance. She would’ve thought the room endless were it not for the reflection of her spell on the distant walls.

“Daybreak, to me!” Shadowmere called unexpectedly, his voice reverberating in the empty space, but his sword did not appear, “I had to try. Auzischell controls the laws of this world, so there is no telling what magic may or may not work. It seems he has seen fit to let you retain your unicorn powers.”

“So, you’re powerless?” Berry asked, worried that she’d be fighting without the aid of the immortal.

“Hardly,” Shadowmere snorted, “It will just be more difficult. Now that I fully realize who I am again, he cannot take that from me, and all my internal powers will function, including my regenerative abilities. My magic may be limited, however, or only appear to function.”

“So, what do we do now?” Berry asked, looking around at the empty room.

“We find the way out,” Shadowmere said as he struck out toward a random wall.

“Will there be a way out?” Berry asked uncertainly as she followed after Shadowmere while testing that all her spells still worked.

“I’ve never known a lor that didn’t provide one,” Shadowmere answered, “They like their prey to have a sporting chance; makes it more entertaining for them to see them fail if there’s a possibility of success.”

“And if he changes the maze again?” Berry asked, shining her light along the wall as Shadowmere started to feel along it with his hooves, even if she didn’t know if it was helping or not.

“If we’re quick, he won’t be able to. He must’ve already had a second maze prepared beneath his false reality, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to transition so quickly,” Shadowmere explained as he continued to tap along the wall, “Though lor can construct mind-bendingly intricate and expansive labyrinths, it takes a great deal of time, energy, and concentration to do so. If he were to switch us right now, the best he would be able to come up with is perhaps a hedge maze, if the hedges were tessellated copies of a single hedge. No, we can trust that the maze will not change for a while.”

Without warning, Shadowmere was suddenly pulled into the wall and vanished. Beryl rushed up to the spot he’d been standing in and tentatively placed her own hooves against the wall. She sensed magic only an instant before she too was drawn into the cool, black stone. She could see nothing but her horn’s light reflecting and refracting through the crystalline structures around her as she passed through them, sucked through as if pulled by an ocean current. Abruptly, she broke through the stony substance and went flying through the air. She flipped over as she tried to slow herself with magic and absorbed the fact that she’d just come hurtling out of a cliff face and was now headed for the edge of a narrow, snow-covered ledge.

She skidded and bounced through the snow, coming to a halt before flying over. As she rose unsteadily to her hooves, Shadowmere appeared and hefted himself over the ledge, having not had the benefit of magic to slow his flight. Carefully, Berry wandered over to the edge and peered down, involuntarily leaning back as she saw the sheer drop to the narrow ribbon of a river far below. A shiver passed through her body as the cold cut into her, the clothes she was wearing more suited for the longest day of the year in Canterlot than the exposed snow-covered cliffs she was now on.

“This is a conventional maze?” Beryl asked Shadowmere as he sat down a moment and took in their surroundings.

“For an experienced lor, this is quite common,” he said, “Stringing together small, self-contained worlds with obstacles is one of their favorite methods for constructing a labyrinth.”

While Shadowmere was recovering from climbing up the cliff face, Berry examined the layout of their surroundings. The ledge they were on was narrow, only wide enough for five ponies to walk shoulder-to-shoulder, but it was more than just an outcropping of rock. It was remarkably level and stretched off with roughly the same width in both directions along the cliff face. Berry’s roll through the snow had revealed a path had been worn down the center, and a path had to lead somewhere, though maybe that was an unfair assumption in an artificially constructed world. Curiously, there was a wooden sign along the path, its post leaning slightly away from the abyss, and Berry approached and wiped the snow from it.

“Do you think there’s actually a town that way?” Berry asked, suddenly conscious that her teeth were chattering.

“Or a trap. Or both. Either way, it’s worth the risk,” Shadowmere said, placing his cape over the shivering Berry, “The cold doesn’t affect me, but you won’t survive much longer unless we get you some suitable gear. I could also use a weapon if there are any to be had.”

The wind picked up as the two ponies followed the path, chilling Berry to the bone even through Shadowmere’s cape. He was right; she needed winter gear soon or she wasn’t going to survive. She wondered what would happen if she died in this artificial world, if her body would actually die or if she’d just remain comatose. The thought distracted her long enough for them to reach the village of Andvyryk.

It was a quaint little village, no more than a smattering of houses with steep, snow-covered roofs, and a large common house in the center of town. Fire and candlelight shone through the windows, so somepony had to be living here. Beryl and Shadowmere approached the common house’s ornately carved door and pushed it open. A large fire roared in the pit at the center of the building, illuminating the faces of the griffons sitting around tables drinking or playing games. Berry wanted to get closer to the fire, but Shadowmere steered them toward the bar at one end of the room where a griffon was wiping down the counter with a well-worn rag. Berry’s eyes lit upon the food and supplies behind the griffon, some of which would fit a pony of her stature.

“Vyatya vyante, stangaya?” the griffon asked and Shadowmere looked like he was trying to remember something.

“Vyo neegan vintya gyoro,” he answered the griffon after recalling the language she was speaking, “Kotor ayn byoten vyr hyar, ayn vyeporen eyf yi avye taem.”

“Kotor vyr da ponye,” the griffon said as she examined Berry, “Ya, ey avye. Yet vyel kozen yi dortye kopeken.”

“I was afraid of this,” Shadowmere said as he turned to Berry, “You wouldn’t happen to be carrying any gold on you, would you?”

Berry checked her coin purse, but it was gone. She had definitely had it in that false Canterlot for buying coffee, but now it was gone. Apparently, the lor had seen fit to deprive her of it when the city had collapsed. She shook her head.

“You may as well warm up by the fire,” Shadowmere sighed, “This is going to require some haggling.”

Berry was happy to do so, for the cold was still with her, and she had no idea what Shadowmere and the griffon were saying anyway. As she began to thaw, she considered the situation they were in. The lor had placed them in a position that wasn’t impossible but would certainly be difficult to bypass—obstacles in the maze. At least she was still able to use her magic, but that relied on her not dying from the cold first, in a land where she didn’t speak the language. Shadowmere seemed overly concerned with getting weapons, which meant he suspected something to block their way that could only be dealt with by killing it. To make sure everything was in working order, Berry tried out her combat spells, forming a blade from pure magic and shooting beams of energy into the fire. She stopped when she realized she was being stared at by griffons and the nearby table of earth ponies.

“No luck with the coat?” Berry asked as Shadowmere sat down next to her empty-hooved.

“Not exactly,” he snorted in annoyance, “No kopeks, no sale, but there’s another way.”

“Does it involve stealing it?” Berry asked uncomfortably.

“And killing the patrons?” Shadowmere asked with a raised eyebrow, “No, but that would probably be easier. Seems everyone is inside out of the lovely weather because there’s a monster in the town well.”

“And she wants us to kill it,” Berry said. It wasn’t a question.

“She’ll let us take anything we want if we do,” Shadowmere said, “Do you feel up to it? You might have to do most of the work, I’m afraid, since I don’t know how much of my magic will work.”

“The sooner we do this, the better, right?” Berry said, though she was only just beginning to feel healthily warm again, “Let’s get to it.”

The griffons watched as they headed back out into the cold, clutching their coats tighter against themselves. It seemed to have gotten even colder since they’d arrived in Andvyryk, snow now coming down steadily and the wind blowing as the first signs of a blizzard. Perhaps it was the lor’s intent to trap them in the town until their bodies in the real world wasted away. They had to find the way out soon.

Shadowmere approached the town’s well and peered inside. With his unnatural eyes, he could make out the water far below, which was miraculously unfrozen. Picking up a stone that had fallen out of the well’s wall, he whispered some words to it and was pleasantly surprised when it began to glow red-hot. He tossed it down the well and stepped back. A few moments later a muffled thud and a thin trail of steam emerged from the well.

Immediately thereafter, a head shot up from the well, a long sinuous neck trailing behind it. The beast looked like a river serpent, a dragon’s head with long, sinewy moustaches trailing from its upper lip, but it was composed entirely of ice. The crystalline structure shimmered in the light as it moved, making it difficult to know exactly where the ice serpent’s body ended and the blowing snow began.

Berry wished she had her incendiary-tipped crossbow bolts with her. And her crossbow. Without her primary weapon, she’d need to make do with her magic alone. The Ministry agent shot a blast of fire at the ice serpent’s snout, and the impact blew off one of its moustaches. Instantly, the beast retaliated and dove toward her, its body continuing to slide up the well. Berry dodged the snapping icicles, though she got herself covered in snow in the process.

An explosion rocked the beast as Shadowmere succeeded in casting a spell that blew a chunk out of its body near the well. The ice serpent whirled on the stallion, trailing ice crystals and a bluish mist that left a crust on the snow from its wound. As it pursued Shadowmere, Berry regained her hooves and poured her energy into conjuring up a magic sword long enough to span the ice serpent at its widest point. Angling the blade, she let the beast do most of the work. Spines snapped off its back as the sword cut through them, and then the blade was in the serpent’s icy flesh. The magic weapon cut deeper, until it was nearly halfway through.

The ice serpent had caught on to Berry’s ploy and would not be severed so easily. It whipped its head around at her, careful not to move the lower portion of its body and pull her sword farther. As it opened its mouth to snap her up, she let off a cascade of small magic fireworks. The embers embedded themselves in the ice serpent’s face and began to melt the ice from the inside. It tried to shake the burning coals free, but only succeeded with some.

Beryl spotted Shadowmere running up at the beast from behind, and she realized his plan as he looked purposefully at her sword before leaping. She drew the sword from the serpent’s flesh, the magic sizzling as blue mist drifted off of it. Shadowmere struck the serpent in the back of the head, driving it down with the impact. Berry’s blade was in just the right place that as its head fell to the ground, her magic sword severed it. The draconic head rolled to the side and began to disintegrate into snowflakes, as did the rest of the body.

Berry was breathing heavily, and nearly choked on the ice crystals she accidentally inhaled. All this for a coat that didn’t exist to protect her from weather that didn’t exist in a world that didn’t exist. It wasn’t the oddest thing she’d done since discovering Shadowmere.

“Over here!” Beryl called, gesturing for Shadowmere to follow her.

The stallion pressed through the crowd of ponies, and they moved aside to let him through, their crystalline coats sparkling as they moved. When they’d first arrived in this part of the labyrinth, Berry had been taken by surprise, both by the inhabitants and from Shadowmere's explanation that ponies like this had really existed. The city they were in wasn’t quite as real, though it was based on the crystal ponies’ home. Streets of crystal crisscrossed a city of crystal spires, skyscrapers, and tenements.

After defeating the ice serpent in Andvyryk, the griffon had kept her word and given Berry all the winter gear she’d needed to survive the winter conditions. She and Shadowmere had left the village immediately and headed farther up the cliffs until they’d found a door to another part of the labyrinth. The cliff face had been marked with the lor’s symbol: three crossed keys of gold, silver, and crystal. That same symbol was on a sign hanging next to the shop Berry was leading Shadowmere to.

The Three Keys Bookstore seemed unassuming enough until they opened the door and were hit with a blast of cold air. Berry put back on the winter gear she’d removed after leaving the cliffs of Andvyryk before stepping through. Through the bookstore’s window, one could see its interior and the shopkeeper snoring in a reading chair, but the door did not lead to that room. It was merely a portal to another constructed reality that formed the lor’s labyrinth.

This portion of the maze was just as snowy as Andvyryk, but no storm was raging here, and there was no precarious precipice to fall off. Pine forests stretched up the slopes of mountains in one direction, and the land descended to a chilled sea in the other. They were near a coast, perhaps of an island, given the proximity of sea and mountains.

Shadowmere looked uneasy as he glanced around, looking for the best way to the next area of the labyrinth. Berry noticed the small village at the base of the rocky hills they were standing upon just a moment before she heard screams coming from it. Many buildings were on fire and others were being set alight by marauders. The screams were those of dying ponies or those being forced onto the longboats haphazardly docked against the shore near the village. Berry started down the slope toward the village at a brisk pace, drawing the longbow she’d gotten from the griffon in Andvyryk.

“No, stop!” Shadowmere yelled, and she halted in surprise, snow and gravel flying beneath her hooves.

“What? Why?” she asked.

“It’s a trap; there’s nothing we can do,” Shadowmere proclaimed, appearing almost rooted in his spot at the top of the incline.

“How do you know?”

“I know,” Shadowmere replied, still unmoving, “The next door is not in that direction, it is in the temple at the top of that mountain.”

Berry looked back at the village. The marauders were launching their boats and leaving, but the fire was spreading. The screams from the village had ended with the marauders’ departure, but one voice cried out from the burning buildings as its owners hiding place was found by the flames.

“There must be something we can do,” Berry said, watching the fire consume the village.

“This is not real,” Shadowmere insisted, though something in his tone suggested that she wasn’t the only pony he was trying to convince, “We have no time for this; we must get out of this labyrinth.”

He was right, of course. In Andvyryk, helping the inhabitants had been the path forward, but here it was an obstacle in the way of escape. Even knowing that nopony in this world was real apart from her and Shadowmere, it made Berry uncomfortable to abandon the village. Their job was to stop the lor, not whatever it conjured up unless it got in their way. They needed to keep moving and escape before the lor changed their maze.

“Okay,” Berry said reluctantly as she lowered her bow and headed back up the slope.

Trees were cut down in a flurry as Berry and Shadowmere galloped through the forest. They’d made it across the mountainous island and into its temple, which was inhabited by shambling undead. After fighting through that unpleasantness, they’d found the door to the next stage of the labyrinth, which turned out to be this forest. A traveling merchant who had a banner with the three keys on it hanging from his saddlebags helpfully directed them toward the next door, but they hadn’t gone far when a trap was sprung, and a three-headed dragon began pursuing them.

“Do you think we’ll find anything if we keep going, or is it better to stand and fight, search for the door after?” Berry asked, ducking down as the dragon’s lighting-breathing head expelled a crackling storm over her.

“That merchant didn’t lie to us, he just neglected to mention the dragon,” Shadowmere replied, sheathing the greatsword he’d taken from one of the zombies to talk, “We’re in no shape to fight this thing at the moment, so we’d better find a way out of here.”

Berry slung the longbow across her back and put on some extra speed. She was barely keeping pace with Shadowmere, but he wasn’t breaking a sweat and didn’t sound winded in the slightest. The Ministry agent hastily teleported herself as another of the dragon’s heads laid down a wall of ice in front of her.

The merchant had said to look for a watchtower, and Berry spotted it ahead, its crumbling top poking out over the treetops. Entire trees flew over her head, thrown by the dragon, and a few crashed into the watchtower. When she and Shadowmere arrived, the stones had ceased tumbling down from the broken tower, but the door was blocked by rubble. Shadowmere began to heave the stones away with his hooves, and Berry assisted with her levitation magic. The dragon’s fire breath rained down around them, and they squeezed past the remaining rubble to force open the door.

It was cooler on the other side, though not cold, for which Berry was grateful since she’d changed in and out of the winter gear from Andvyryk too many times already. They were in a dark tunnel without much room to maneuver. Berry cast her light spell and drew her bow as they trotted forward. It all seemed oddly familiar, and she nearly dropped her bow when she realized where she was. She had been here before.

The tunnel soon came to an end and opened onto a cave, in the middle of which crouched a wyvern. Its scales were a sandy brown, letting it blend into its surroundings were attention not drawn to the fresh blood on its claws. The wyvern turned its head to regard them as they entered the chamber, eyes shining with wicked intelligence. Even were this not a false reality, Beryl knew how such a large being had made it into the cave through the narrow tunnel; this was no ordinary wyvern, but a were-wyvern, able to hide among ponies in their form.

“It’s not real,” she told herself as she remained transfixed by the wyvern while it rose up and spread its wings, “It’s not real. He’s dead.”

“I’m far from dead,” the wyvern rumbled, breaking Beryl out of her paralysis as she jumped in shock, “You never killed me.”

Unconsciously, Beryl began to draw back her bow.

“We won’t be able to defeat it now,” Shadowmere said as he moved closer to her, “The door is just past it, see. We need to run for it as soon as we can.”

Her longbow twanged as the arrow was released and sailed into the wyvern’s eye. It roared in pain and belched fire at them, separating Berry from Shadowmere. Berry fired more arrows at the beast, but the first one had been a lucky shot and the rest bounced off its scaly hide. Somehow, the stones of the cave were catching fire, but Berry still stood in place, frozen there. The wyvern brought a claw down at her, but Shadowmere shoved her out of the way and slashed at the wyvern’s leg with his greatsword.

“Run!” he urged her as his weapon became stuck in the wyvern’s flesh.

Berry looked around for her weapon, but the longbow had fallen into the flames and the bowstring had snapped. She still had her magic, but Shadowmere was right. Her mind was beginning to take control again and allow her to cope with what she was experiencing. This wasn’t the same were-wyvern; of course not. She picked herself up and ran toward the far side of the cave, Shadowmere and the wyvern close behind.

There was the lor’s symbol etched on the wall, but no sign of a door. Skidding to a halt, Berry pressed her body against the wall and a section of it gave way, turning into a ramp. She slid in darkness for a bit before falling through rotted old boards and landing in a pile of rags. Hurriedly, she moved out of the way before Shadowmere could land on top of her.

When the stallion got up from the floor, eyes glowing, he looked around in recognition before rushing around in the dark. Light came to the room after he’d determined that they were safe for the moment and he lit a lamp. Berry looked around as he further illuminated the room by opening heavy shutters that stretched floor to ceiling. The room they were in was a workshop of sorts, or had been once. Weapons and traps in various states of construction were scattered around the room, and Berry recognized a few as being used against monsters. The workshop was circular and took up the entire floor near the top of a rickety tower. Through the shutters, one could see similar towers and ruined buildings surrounding it, an entire city with no lights. Shadowmere sat down in a padded wheelchair in the center of the room to think once he’d finished opening the shutters.

“What was that about?” Berry asked, gesturing upward, even though the were-wyvern’s cavern was there no more, “That was … it was …”

“Something from your memories,” Shadowmere finished for her, “Yes, I thought so given your reaction, the same as in Dietrep’s dreamscape when we encountered a similar beast. A lor can only build mazes from what they know, things they’ve experienced themselves or torn from the memories of their victims. It was no mistake that it’s used our pasts against us, for there’s no more effective an obstacle than to force you to relive something that frightened you in the past.”

“You recognize this place,” Berry said, before he could ask her what memories she had of the were-wyvern, “What unpleasant memories might attack us here?”

“Here? Nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, most of my memories here are pleasant, except …” Shadowmere said, and frowned thoughtfully before continuing, “The island we were on; that was from my memories. It was when I … became what I am. That’s why I knew there was nothing we could do.”

Berry sensed there was much more to the story than what Shadowmere was offering. However, she wasn’t willing to tell him about her past, so she wouldn’t press him. Maybe one day they would tell each other the stories they weren’t willing to now, but this was not the time. They had to find a way out of the lor’s labyrinth.

“The maze’s worlds are getting smaller,” Berry commented, “Does that mean we’re nearing the exit?”

“Maybe,” Shadowmere replied as he rose from the wheelchair, “We shouldn’t let the workshop’s gear go to waste, though, just in case there’s more waiting for us ahead, and I fully expect there will be.”

The two of them got to work stripping the workshop of useful things. It was clearly a monster hunters’ workshop, which didn’t surprise Beryl in the slightest, knowing that this place or something similar to it had once existed and Shadowmere had been a part of it. She managed to find a compact crossbow easily and plenty of bolts for it, which made her feel almost normal. Shadowmere procured for himself both a uniform like the one he normally wore and plenty of weapons and traps. The undead greatsword left behind with the wyvern, he now had a scythe at the end of a long chain on his back and a rapier at his side.

Outfitted like they would usually be to take down a monster, they headed to the rickety elevator set into one of the workshop’s walls. Shadowmere pressed a button with the faded symbol of three keys, and the elevator began to descend. Darkness soon engulfed the pair, nothing but the creaking of the elevator to keep them company. At last, it ground to a halt and the railing slid away. Berry cast an illumination spell, and they trotted down a rocky tunnel.

At the tunnel’s end, the stone swung open to let them through, and they found themselves hit full in the face by blowing snow. Berry pulled her winter gear tight around her, and they set out into the blizzard. They were on a cliff again, though the snow was piled deeper here than it had been outside of Andvyryk. The ledge to the right had crumbled away, so they headed left, keeping to the narrow ledge until they came to a snow-covered sign. Berry brushed away the snow out of curiosity of what awaited them this time.

They’d gone in a circle and returned to where they’d started. They were no closer to leaving the labyrinth than when they’d first found themselves here. Just to be sure, they forged ahead to the mountain village. The broken well was still there, as were the griffon inhabitants who seemed not at all surprised to see them again, though they eyed their new weapons suspiciously. Hastily, Berry and Shadowmere said their goodbyes and continued on.

Higher into the mountains they went until they found the lor’s symbol in the same place and passed through into the crystal city. It was much quicker this time to navigate the city and find the Three Keys Bookstore, which this time led to the forest with the three-headed dragon. More concerned about finding a way out than fighting the creature (even though they now had the means), they hurried on to the watchtower and stepped through into the mountainous island. From there, the maze led to the workshop, then the crystal city, then Andvyryk, then the forest, then the workshop, then the island, then the crystal city, then the workshop again.

“This is no good. We aren’t making any progress,” Shadowmere announced, pacing the workshop.

“Is there no exit?” Berry asked, “If we’re going in circles, maybe the lor intends to keep us here forever.”

“No, like I said, lor always give their victims a way out, even if they don’t know it,” Shadowmere said, “I’ve seen them surprised by how their victims escape before, but never that they had the chance to. Something in them compels them to make the maze solvable, even if its done unconsciously.”

“If the lor doesn’t even know how they built a way out, how are we supposed to find it?” Berry asked.

“Maybe there’s a reason we keep ending up in this workshop,” Shadowmere said, looking around, “This lor—when I trapped it before, it was here. Perhaps we can trap it again.”

“Trap it within the labyrinth?” Berry asked, “Would that even work?”

“I don’t know,” Shadowmere replied, “But what other choice do we have?”

If the labyrinth hadn’t been set up with the intention of them trapping the lor, then there were certainly a large number of coincidences that made it seem so. Most of the equipment necessary for containing the lor was available in the workshop and the rest of the supplies were available elsewhere in the maze. In the crystal city, they were able to buy essence of crystal with some coins they’d found in the workshop. They still needed essence of fire, essence of ice, and essence of lightning, which would normally be difficult to find all in one place, but they knew a source.

Berry’s shield held as she pushed away the burning branches and advanced toward the three-headed dragon. As the ice-breathing head opened and mist drifted from its maw, she fired her crossbow. The explosive bolt struck the roof of the creature’s mouth and the explosion tore off its jaw. The ice-breathing head swayed uncertainly before going limp, the lightning-breathing head briefly trying to hold up the neck next to it.

The dragon spread its wings and pushed off the ground, trying to get out of range of Berry’s crossbow bolts. While it had been preoccupied with her, Shadowmere had circled around behind the beast and now struck. His scythe flew through the air, chain trailing behind it, and impaled the dragon just above its left hindleg. With supernatural strength, Shadowmere yanked on the chain, and the dragon was pulled from the sky. It crashed into the ground, broken tree trunks scraping off scales with the impact.

Berry was upon it before it could get back up, her magic sword burning through the scales on the back of the fire-breathing head’s neck. The conjured blade sank through flesh and bone and decapitated the dragon’s head, sending it tumbling across the charred forest floor. A cry from Shadowmere alerted her, and she turned around to see the lightning-breathing head coming for her.

She tried to teleport away but wasn’t quick enough. The dragon’s teeth closed around her and picked her up off the ground. Before it could fly from her magical grasp, which was weakening with both pain and erratic motion, Berry transferred the crossbow to her mouth, wielding it like a non-unicorn would. She still had to use her magic to reload it, which was difficult since some of the dragon’s teeth had pierced her saddlebags and bolts were tumbling into its maw. She fired off an incendiary bolt that struck the dragon’s eye and was rewarded with a geyser of flame. She continued to fire, even as lightning began to crackle around here, until at last the dragon’s head collapsed to the ground and she rolled out of it. Her body punctured in several places, she saw Shadowmere approaching her before she blacked out.

It wasn’t really her body. She knew that intellectually, but it was hard to square that with the pain one felt after being cut up by a dragon’s teeth. Shadowmere had healed and bandaged her up as best he could, but she still wasn’t long for this world. Hopefully, this world wouldn’t last much longer either.

Lor were inherently curious creatures. Their labyrinths were as much to drain energy from their victims as to study the actions of creatures other than themselves. They were also incredibly interested in memories. Their labyrinths were often built from them, after all. Shadowmere was counting on these two things for their plan to succeed. In the workshop, they would reenact the scene that had led to the lor being trapped in the first place. Berry would be playing the part of one of Shadowmere’s fellow monster hunters, named Eileen, and she held a hastily prepared script in front of her, reading it in the lamplight.

“That lor is a scourge to the city. Commoners believe that a demon or an incubus haunts the night, and the Scholars are no better,” Berry read confrontationally, “They know what it is, and they believe that these alternate worlds it creates are true pocket realities siphoned off from our own, which will inevitably lead to our own world becoming unstable!”

“Foolishness,” Shadowmere replied, “Since when have the Scholars ever said anything plausible?”

“Be that as it may,” Berry said, punctuating every word as it said to do in the script, “They want it gone just as bad as the commoners. They’re the ones who spread the rumors, and they’re the ones who riled up the commoners to light those fires the last three nights. They think they can burn it out, but all they’ll accomplish is burning down their own city. This has to stop! That lor must die!”

“It can’t be killed,” Shadowmere said.

“Everything can be killed,” Berry scoffed, “And if not, there’s always the option to contain it until we find a way to kill it.”

“It shouldn’t be killed,” Shadowmere said firmly, “Auzischell wants to learn, that’s all. He has hurt nopony.”

“And how do you know that?” Beryl demanded, “Because he told you? Eighteen ponies have gone missing in the last month, and they were all found dead yesterday, having wasted away in comas. Explain that!”

“Am I interrupting something?” Auzischell asked, hovering near the ceiling.

It worked! They had drawn him in! He was still liable to vanish at any moment, so they had to continue the scene until the lor had been trapped in the past. The lor looked confused, though whether that was how he’d looked in the past and was just reliving the memory or if it was because of the odd situation, Berry didn’t know. She did know what she had to do next, and she didn’t relish the thought of it.

“There it is!” she yelled and fired her crossbow at the lor.

The bolt glanced off its scales, and it fixed her with a penetrating gaze.

“No!” Shadowmere yelled as her eyelids grew heavy and slammed shut.

In the past, Eileen had been dropped into a labyrinth by the lor, and Berry was experiencing the same thing. Because they were already within the labyrinth, though, there was nowhere else to go. Apparently the lor was incapable of fully using its powers within a constructed world, so Berry found herself surrounded by a vast expanse of nothingness. Now she had to wait for Shadowmere to trap it, so she could wake up.

Feeling and weight returned to her limbs, and she opened her eyes. The lor was nowhere to be seen and Shadowmere was standing over the container it was trapped in. It wasn’t truly trapped, however, just in this false reality. Without the lor to command it, the world began to break apart. Things began to shift much as they had in Canterlot, but this time the world didn’t withstand the shift. Reality itself began to shatter until nothing was left.

Slowly, Berry opened her eyes again. She was looking up at the roof of a cave, the mineral deposits identical to the ones in the place they’d been hunting for the lor. They were back in reality. She stretched the stiffness from her limbs as she got up and realized she was incredibly hungry and thirsty. There was no telling how long they’d been here.

Shadowmere was getting up next to her, and nearby stood the lor, slowly blinking its eyes as it too returned from the labyrinth it had constructed for them. All their equipment, including the trap to contain it, which resembled a diving helmet, was stacked against the wall behind the lor. Seeing the direction of Berry’s gaze, the lor made a break for a nearby tunnel entrance, hoping to disappear into the real maze it’d constructed. It had no reality-bending powers here, though, and she was easily able to grab it in her magic, keeping it from getting away.

Realizing that it wouldn’t be able to escape, the lor turned its gaze toward Berry. She threw up a foreleg to cover her eyes, even if that made it more difficult to keep the lor in place with her magic. She wasn’t going to be dropped into another false reality; she’d had quite enough of that for today. Shadowmere dashed to their supplies and retrieved the trap.

“Auzischell!” he called authoritatively, and the lor looked at him.

The top of the trap flipped open and four tendrils of energy reached out to grab the lor, restraining each of its limbs. It struggled, but it was no use, and it was drawn into the trap, converted into raw energy as it entered the device. Berry dropped her foreleg as the trap slammed shut and Shadowmere heaved it to the side.

“It’s over,” Shadowmere announced.

Both now and in the workshop, he seemed to regret having to contain the lor. He’d known its name, and from the scene they’d recreated, Berry suspected that was because they’d once been acquaintances, if not friends. But how? She wanted to ask, but maybe now wasn’t the time. She was beginning to worry about Shadowmere’s past acquaintances, though. Dietrep seemed fine, but first Rholharrak and now Auzischell had turned out to be problems. Would more of Shadowmere’s old friends resurface and cause trouble? If they did, she had more than enough reason to confront the ancient stallion about it.

She said nothing now, though, as the two of them retrieved their gear and navigated through the maze that Auzischell had bored in the mountainside. Compared to their jaunt through miniature worlds, it was a piece of cake to navigate this, and they were soon outside. From a ledge on the mountainside, they were able to look out over the griffon lands, the forests dark under the night sky. The moon hung huge in the sky, looking odd, though Berry couldn’t quite say why.

“How long were we out?” she asked, “What day is it?”

“It’s the summer solstice,” Shadowmere said with some concern after checking a device from his saddlebags, “Mid-morning.”

“Mid-morning? That can’t be right,” Berry said, “It’s still clearly night.”

“Yes, but it’s not supposed to be,” Shadowmere said, staring at the moon.