Chapter 49
Untitled scrap of ancient parchment, filed away in the basement archives beneath the Starshine Memorial Building, New Canterlot City
…uman philosophers were full of such cruel brilliance. Take this one, for example. “He who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.”
Or here’s another. Same guy. I wish I’d met him when I had the chance, but I had no idea just how brilliant he’d become.
“If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.” In this cont… [section torn and unreadable] …ike you or I would say ‘stallion’. But the quote’s relevant, right? If the Sparkle Bitch had shut any of us down to begin with, for good, maybe her own country wouldn’t be…
[The rest of the fragment is unreadable]
Makucha ya Paka, 1113 AF
The six ponies and one changeling stared down into the inky darkness that gaped open at their hooves. There was no sound from inside, no musty smell, no indication of what might lie beyond. Rarity allowed her horn to blaze brighter, but even then could barely see more than a few steps down into the darkness.
“Well, nothing ventured…” she said. Rarity tried to be fearless as she planted her hoof on the first step. Nothing happened. She moved to the second.
“Rarity!” Emberglow’s voice was worried. “Maybe one of us Knights should go first!”
What a dear. Emberglow was always so protective of her. She landed on the steps right in front of Rarity, holding her shield out in front with one hoof. Lofty quickly pulled up alongside her, and the two old friends shared a smile.
“Kinda weird to be going into battle with you, Emberglow,” Lofty whispered, his voice bouncing off the cave walls and down into the depths below.
“I never thought it would happen,” Emberglow replied. “I always thought our duties would keep us far apart.”
The six quickly fell into a marching order of sorts, with Topaz and Rarity safely in the middle, surrounded by Knights. Heartwing and Terminus brought up the rear, while Emberglow and Lofty led the way. Escher offered to stand guard outside the door, which Heartwing quickly agreed to.
Lofty quickly cast the floating light orb spell, giving off a small smirk as he did so. “You remember our first practical magic lesson?” he said. “I think we were the first of Sir Sablebeard’s class to not send more than half a dozen to the infirmary.”
Even the light spell failed to penetrate to the bottom of the stairs, so the six of them moved slowly, one step at a time. Rarity kept an ear out for any sounds, but the only thing she could hear was their hooves clopping against the solid stone.
“I’ve always disliked caves,” Rarity muttered to nopony in particular. “There’s no way of telling just how far do—”
“Here’s the bottom,” Lofty interrupted, and Rarity felt her face flush. She turned back; she could still see the light of day filtering in through the open door.
“If it is so shallow, why couldn’t our light illuminate all the way to the bottom?” Rarity asked, grumpy at having been embarrassed.
“I imagine it’s some sort of dramatic flair,” Heartwing suggested. “The kinds of creatures who build these sorts of places are always so opaque. The need for mystery and misdirection is sometimes a compulsion.” Rarity snorted with amusement.
“There’s a door. It’s made of stone, just like the one up above,” Lofty reported from below them. Rarity hurried the last few steps to see.
Indeed, much like the hidden door at the entrance, there was a series of somewhat natural looking cracks in the stone, cracks that looked at odds with the nearby strata. Emberglow and Lofty were carefully running their hooves over it.
“Perhaps it opens like the one above? When one of us touches our magic to it?” Heartwing suggested. His horn glowed, and surrounded the large, flat stone. It didn’t budge.
“Forgive me, darling,” Rarity tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “But are you sure it’s your magic the door responded to? I can’t say a secure magical cave constructed to hide the Element of Magic might respond favorably to the pony who…”
“You try, then,” Heartwing said, stepping aside. Rarity’s horn glowed brightly, and the door slid open just like the first one.
Only that wasn’t all; as the door in front of them slid open, the light from the sunny day outside suddenly cut out as the door behind them slammed shut.
Everypony gasped, and Rarity rushed up the stairs, followed closely by everypony else. Rarity could hear pounding on the other side, and muffled shouts coming from Escher.
“Is everypony okay?” he shouted.
“We’re fine!” Rarity called back. She lit her horn to try and open the door again, but there was nothing. “I can’t seem to open it from this side.”
Heartwing tried as well, but there was no response.
“One moment!” they heard Escher call from the other side. Then he went silent. Rarity stared at the door, wondering what Escher had in mind, when suddenly she saw in the light of her horn the tiny form of a little red and black spider crawling through the crack between the cave and the wall.
The spider was consumed by a burst of green fire and Rarity fell back. Escher was now standing right in front of them.
“Heh, sorry about that.” He rubbed at the back of his head. “At least I can get in and out.”
“Yes, well, that doesn’t seem to help us much, does it?” Rarity said testily, but then immediately regretted it. “Sorry, darling.”
“It’s fine.” Escher waved a hoof. “So… should I sneak out again and go get help?”
They stood in the darkness for a moment, considering. Finally Rarity shook her head.
“It’s nice to know that’s an option, Escher. But let’s see what’s in the room at the bottom first, before we look into escaping.”
“It could be like the cave where we found you,” Heartwing said. “There was another way out, there.”
“Let’s go see.” The fear of being trapped here was nothing compared to the curiosity she felt. Once again they descended into the darkness, this time with Escher as well.
The door had opened into a small, circular room, perhaps only about five pony lengths across. The air was stale, but Rarity could feel the tiniest of breezes, so it wasn’t completely still. There was an odd sort of dusty smell.
In the center of the room was a stone plinth, empty except for an odd collection of runes carved into the top. The runes were carved in concentric circles around a small blank spot in the center.
The air felt charged, practically humming with magical energy. It reminded her of the times she stood in the presence of the Tree of Harmony, or even that time she and her friends had gone to Ponehenge to find the Pillars. It was like the magic in the air was waiting for something, a predator poised to pounce. Rarity carefully began to move over to the plinth.
“Is this… who I think it is?” Heartwing said, and Rarity glanced where he was looking. Against the northern wall sat a pile of dusty bones, covered in scraps of cloth. The bones were impossible to identify, but there was no mistaking the crystalline peg leg that rested among them.
“Captain Celeano,” Rarity breathed, trotting over. She picked up the peg leg, turning it this way and that. It was indeed the parrot captain’s prosthetic. “Did you manage to do it? Did you manage to bring the Element here?” She felt tears stinging her eyes. “You shouldn’t have had to die in a place like this. But thank you.”
“Ponies, spread out and search.” Heartwing’s voice was businesslike. “But be careful. Eyes only. We have no idea what could be hiding here.”
“I found more remains,” Emberglow called out. “There’s barely anything left. But if this cave’s over a thousand years old, there shouldn’t even be this much.”
“Can you tell anything about the remains?” Heartwing asked, trotting over to her. Rarity also left the bones of Celeano to come see.
“Without touching? Probably not. But there’s more than one. I see at least three pelvises. Probably ponies, most likely mares. There’s… some kind of bag, there. I can’t tell for sure.” She pointed at a bag, made of what looked like some sort of synthetic weave Rarity wasn’t familiar with.
“Surely there can be no harm in looking?” Rarity mused, reaching out with her magic to lift the bag from among the bones. It was a simple, sewn bag, only the size of her hoof, with a drawstring design. The string itself had probably rotted centuries ago. She pulled the bag open, and glanced inside, before carefully spilling the contents out onto the floor. It was a dozen shards of tiny red shattered glass.
“Does that mean anything to any of you?” Rarity asked, staring at the shards of glass. She looked around the room, meeting blank stares and shaking heads. “Hmm. I wonder who they were, then.”
“Emberglow?” Heartwing was standing by the rune-carved plinth. “Come tell me what you see. Rarity, you too.”
Rarity left the mystery of the red crystal shards and stepped over to the plinth. She stared at the runes for a few moments, before shaking her head.
“I can’t make sense of them,” she admitted. “But then again, isn’t rune notation an invention after my time? Twilight doesn’t use it to write her spells.”
“It’s complex,” Emberglow said. “Really complex. There’s an illusion spell, a really complicated one. It’s designed to create an image of a pony? Like a recording played over a radio, but with a visual.”
“It may have been left by Celeano!” Rarity cheered. “How do we turn it on?”
“Rarity, I would—”
But Rarity didn’t want to wait to hear what Heartwing would do. She lit her horn, touching the surface of the plinth with the hint of her magic. The runes in the stone glowed with a pale green light, filling the room with a sickly pallor. Emberglow and Rarity both jerked away from the plinth, in time for a flickering, translucent image to appear in the room before them.
“I-is it working? Is this working? I hope so. This might be the last chance I get.” It was a pony Rarity didn’t recognize, an ancient pony with more wrinkles than Rarity thought possible. She had yellow fur, and a mass of orange hair that hung limp and greasy around her shriveled face. “This will have to do. I’m not setting all this up again. So hey, Sparkle Bitch. I hope you’re grateful. This is all for you, after all.” The pony laughed, a cruel, cackling sound. Her voice was harsh and grating, like sandpaper dragging over Rarity’s ears.
“Wait, you’re probably dead, aren’t you? I went to your funeral, you know.” She laughed again. “But if anypony has the ability to cheat death, it’s probably you, isn’t it, Sparkle Bitch?”
“Who is it?” Emberglow whispered, from right next to Rarity’s ear. Rarity shook her head. She had no idea. But she could see the bag, the same one she’d spilled the red shards out of, hanging from a small cord around the pony’s neck.
“I know it’s an awful literary cliché,” the pony continued, “but I can’t help myself. I’ve got a captive audience, and I’m the villain. So it’s time for my dramatic monologue!” The pony struck a melodramatic pose, with one hoof to her chest, the other in the air. She held it for a moment, then stumbled with a cry of pain, her limbs trembling. “Damn, I’m so old. Okay. First things first.”
The illusory image reached for something Rarity couldn’t see, her hoof reaching invisibly before returning with something that looked horrifically like a bone saw. Rarity gasped when the image raised the saw to her own horn.
“Watch, Sparkle. Watch, so you know I’m serious.” She began to drag the saw across her horn, whimpering and moaning in pain with each pass.
“How is she even…” Rarity watched, horrified. Her stomach churned and twisted, and she felt like she could lose her lunch any second. It shouldn’t be possible. The pain would be so intense.
Everypony in the room watched the wretched creature amputate her own horn. With one last gasp of pain, her horn snapped off and fell to the ground with a dull thud.
“T-there. I’m dead. And nothing’s going to change that. Now. Time for the monologue. You should have killed me, Sparkle. Or banished me, like that coward Starswirl.” She gave another witchlike cackle. “Who cares what damage we might do to another reality, if you and your family aren’t there to see it?
“I know you’re dead, Sparkle. So maybe you found a way to cheat. Or maybe one of your limp-brained friends has caught up to me. Like Sunset.” She spat against the floor angrily. “I don’t know how you did it, Sparkle. But I have to admire your cruelty. Even I didn’t expect you to throw away one of your pet bugs like that. They must really love you.
“Doesn’t matter, though. Because I won. We won. And all it took was stealing a page out of your own book. Friendship is Magic. And you left a lot of ponies in your wake who were willing to bond over their shared hatred of the mare who humiliated us, imprisoned us, and crippled us.
“Like Cozy Glow, a genius for manipulation. Or Tirek. Or maybe the bug bitch. Though she had to be put down. She had her own ideas, and they didn’t really fit the symphony I was trying to conduct. But there were minor orchestra members, too; ponies willing to sell their souls for a pittance. It was so easy, Sparkle.
“It’s kinda fun, being friends with a bunch of ponies who hate you. It’s like an after-school club, only we get to murder ponies you care about! But, I suppose, you’d like answers to some of your questions.”
The pony made another flourish with her decrepit hooves, bowing low. “So here begins the final performance of Adagio Dazzle, once the greatest of Sirens, now a mere unicorn pony, downgraded and disrespected and crippled by the Bitch Princess. Bet you didn’t know when you and Sunset stripped me and my sisters of our magic, that we’d become ponies on this side, did you?
“Anyways. To answer the first question I’m sure you have, it was the portal. The portal, complete with the alliance I forged with Tirek, Sombra, Cozy, Chrysalis, and a dozen others. All it took was a couple of spells to make sure the portal didn’t sync up the way it should, you know? I’d share the formula, but you’re Twilight Sparkle.” The figure bowed low in mock respect. “You probably could figure out complex spell formulae like that in your sleep. So the portals connected, but out of sync, so time is now passing faster on this side than on that filthy cesspool of a world that Starswirl banished us to. Then all I had to do was assemble my own team of friends, equip them with all sorts of resources from the human world, and let your own world destroy itself.”
The phantom sighed with pleasure. “Your world wasn’t prepared for what I brought, Twilight. It was so easy to make them hate. Cozy was especially good at manipulating things behind the scenes. Did you know she died happy? At least that’s what I hear. Happy and satisfied to have ruined everything you built.
“So you know what, Princess? Or whatever lackeys came in your place, because you’re dead? I won. I continue to win. Because you might find the Elements again. You might fix the world. You might ‘bring back Harmony’.” Her voice twisted in a sickeningly sweet parody. “But you never bring back the dead. You never bring back those who suffered. You never change the past.
“That’s my legacy, Twilight Sparkle. That’s my revenge. You took from me what I held most dear and sacred. So I took the same from you. Harmony. Friendship. Love. Peace. So I win, Twilight. And so does Cozy, and Tirek.” She coughed, and wavered on her hooves. “I don’t know if you can hear that, Twilight, but Tirek’s pet Knights are coming. Did you know they’ve started to split apart into ‘Orders’, following some sort of twisted version of you and your friends? Wasn’t even mine or Cozy’s idea. Just like humans, ponies can be truly creative when motivated by hatred.
“When they get here, I’m going to give them the Element of Magic. Clever of you to send your pet dragon to hide them with all these obscure background characters. I’m also giving them my horn. Tirek will use my horn as the final component to the machine he’s built. There should be enough power in it to be very useful. And I’ll be gone, forever dead, forever free of your own justice.”
“Does she even realize Twilight is gone?” Heartwing whispered.
“She has to, right?” Emberglow said. “I mean, she said so…”
“Hush!” Rarity cut through them.
“I guess that’s all I really wanted to gloat about. One last thing, though. My idiot sisters. They tried to stop me, you know? Said ‘it’s too much’. You probably noticed their corpses. But after all I’ve done, what’s a little sororicide and blood magic, right?
“But what’s a good villain monologue without some kind of absurd death trap at the end? So Sonata and Aria gave their lives,” she paused to giggle, “quite unwillingly, mind you, but gave them they did. All to power one last petty little bit of spite.
“So as soon as this message is done, I’ll have to take my…” she coughed, and even in the hazy illusion Rarity could see blood, “… my final curtain call. Farewell, Twilight Sparkle. If you managed to cheat death, let’s see you do it again.
“I’ve taken a little device Tirek made for me. Cute variation on his ‘magic stealing’ routine, only this one steals a pony’s life, and converts it into magical energy. Thank goodness he’s not putting it into mass production. Even we’re not that terrible.” She cackled. “So, after binding my traitorous sisters with my magic and spilling their blood all over Tirek’s ingenious device, I managed to fill a specialized battery with enough magic to make a crater here the size of six of these islands. And then set it on standby, ready to power the spell you’re watching right now. And when the spell runs out…” she tapped her chin with one hoof, thoughtfully. “Well, Twiggles. What do you think will happen to that much stable energy, contained, bottled, and imprisoned for years, suddenly given a glimpse of a way out? I estimate you have minutes before the island explodes in a hellfire of corrupted wild magic. Ta!”
The recording bowed, giggling and cackling with her voice that sounded like so much gravel tumbling down a rocky slope. Then the image glanced up suddenly, and spoke, not to them, but to somepony they couldn’t see. “This way, good Knights. The Element is here, ready for you to take. As is my horn. Deliver it to your pontiff, with this le…”
The light filling the room flickered off, and the illusion was gone. The silence lasted barely a second, but it felt like an age. Rarity could see the stunned, frightened looks on everypony’s faces.
“Okay, ponies. No time to panic, I need calm, rational minds here,” Heartwing’s voice cut through the emotion thick in the room. “I’m going to need you to set aside what you just heard, and we can all focus on getting out of here alive. Once we’re safely on the ship and away, then we can talk about what just happened.”
The three Knights, long conditioned to military obedience, snapped off salutes to Heartwing while Rarity and Topaz shared a look.
“First off, Emberglow, you’re the most studied about magical theory. You and Rarity both, now, I guess. What she said… is it possible she was deceiving us? That the danger is misrepresented?”
“No,” Emberglow said instantly. “At least, if I can trust my own training. Motes improperly stored in a battery can be a danger. Motic leak can happen if a pony is killed after writing the runes of a spell, but not allowed to release the magic. It can also happen if the battery is pierced by something incredibly strong. It could mean the motes just leak out over time. It could also be an explosion, like she said.”
“Can we hope for the first? The slow leak?”
“We could,” Emberglow mused. “But it would be like Manehatten. Or Klugetown. Only much worse, and more concentrated. Motic irradiation. We’d be facing madness, mutation, disease.”
“So the explosion is actually a best case scenario,” Heartwing muttered darkly. “Okay. First things first. Find the battery. Detection spells, ponies. Throughout the room. Triangulate and locate the source.”
The four Knights spread as far as they could. There was a sort of calm urgency to their actions, something Rarity admired. She was shaking, terrified, helpless, and useless. Nothing she did could…
“Shh.” Topaz was beside her, hugging her tight. “There’s no reason to worry. They’ll get us out of this. Just be ready to help however they need.”
“But…”
“Don’t waste your time thinking of what could go wrong. Look for ways to help.”
“There is nothing I can do to help,” Rarity snarled. Nothing she’d read in Twilight’s books, nothing she’d practiced or spoken about with Twilight herself, had prepared her for this new magic. Twilight, or rather Twilight’s construct, had included a few notes about the beginnings of rune magic, but it was merely a theory. Nothing that would even be a little helpful.
“You can be calm. You can be strong. You can inspire.” Topaz shrugged. “Emberglow takes strength from you, you know. I’ve seen the way she looks at you. You inspire her. Among other things.”
“How can you be so calm?”
“I’m not,” Topaz admitted. “I’m shaking as much as you are, see?” She held up a trembling hoof. “That’s why I’m hugging you so tightly. But I know Lofty and the others will do fine. They’re all wonderful improvisors.”
Rarity had let the conversation take her out of the moment, but when Topaz finished talking, she could now feel the floor of their prison trembling and heating up. The Knights were all casting complex spells, ignoring the growing threat of the cave floor.
“There,” Emberglow pointed. The other three, as well, their hooves angling down below the floor.
“That would place the battery somewhere below the plinth?” Heartwing surmised. “Probably about twenty feet down. Buried?”
“Or in another chamber,” Emberglow suggested.
“I could teleport, if I knew there was a space,” Heartwing said.
“On it,” Escher said as he ran towards the plinth, his body engulfed in green fire. Once again he was tiny, this time a centipede. He skittered between the tiny cracks in the floor.
“Might take him a while. Other solutions?”
“Clover’s Fifth Law of Magical Conservation,” came a voice. It was Starlight. She was standing just beside Rarity.
“Oh! I think I read something about that!” Rarity’s excitement surged. “Emberglow, you said this sort of thing can happen on a small scale when a Knight finishes writing the runes, but is unable to actually complete the casting? That’s why the magic is becoming unstable! Because it has force, but no direction!”
“So all we need to do is burrow through twenty feet of stone, retrieve the battery, hook one of our gauntlets to it, and cast a spell to siphon away the power?” Lofty sounded sarcastic. “Sounds easy.”
“Won’t work,” Emberglow shook her head. “I…”
The room was rocked with an explosion, the floor lurching up in vast cracks. Stones tumbled down from the ceiling, falling all over their heads. Ponies grunted and cried out in pain as they were tossed about and rained on from above.
“Escher!” Topaz shrieked, jerking to her hooves from where she had fallen. Rarity could see blood dripping down her face, from where a rock had struck her forehead. Rarity pulled herself up as well, following after Topaz and tossing a shield over the two of them. Rocks and pebbles rained down. Topaz began clawing at the ground below the plinth, now broken and cracked.
“Topaz, I’m sure…”
“He’s down there! He’s down there and it’s breaking, and blowing up! Help me!” Topaz screamed desperately.
“I can’t! If I use my horn, it could break things up more! I’d crush him!”
“But...” Topaz whimpered, her eyes darting back and forth between Rarity and the broken stone.
“Trust him. He’s tiny, he’ll be fine,” Rarity lied. She didn’t even believe what she was saying, but she saw her words had an effect. Topaz began to breathe heavily, deliberately trying to slow her own panic.
The rest of the room’s occupants were coming to their hooves as well. Starlight was nowhere in sight. Emberglow stood over Terminus, casting a spell. Terminus was limp, but his eyes were open. Lofty struggled to move a pile of stones that had fallen on top of Heartwing’s hind hooves, who was swearing and panting with pain.
“Emberglow! Triage, then shield spells!” Heartwing grunted through his pain. “We can’t worry about minor stuff.”
Terminus and Lofty both heard the command. Terminus, eyes clenched in pain, still lifted his hoof and began a shaky cast. Lofty did the same. Soon glowing walls of force began to spread out over the splintering walls and ceiling. There was a noticeable decrease in the amount of pebbles and dust raining down on them from above.
“It’s…” Heartwing grunted. “It’s only temporary. We need to find the source and contain it!”
There was another rumble at Rarity’s hooves, and she jerked away in surprise. The ground underneath her was moving! The stones shifted to the sides, and suddenly a small mole was peeking his head out from underneath a slab of rock Rarity had been standing on.
“Escher!?” Topaz rushed over as the mole crawled out of the hole. He transformed, panting and out of breath.
“There’s a chamber. Still intact, for now. It’s wide enough for maybe two ponies. The battery is down there, connected by some cords to the plinth up above. Though they’ve been cut, by now.”
“I can teleport down there!” Rarity said, hope surging in her heart. Heartwing shook his head. “What? I’ve been studying. I think I’m ready…”
“You’re ready to begin teleportation practice, in safe, controlled conditions,” Heartwing said. “I’m not risking your life on a gamble like that, no matter how confident and strong you are.” For a second, Rarity thought she could see the glow of the Element of Loyalty from beneath his yellow armor. “I’ll go. How far down did you say, Escher?”
“About twenty feet, just like you thought,” Escher said. “Small chamber, round, with the battery in the center. Plenty of those cave spikes that look like icicles coming from the floor and ceiling.”
“Wish me luck,” Heartwing flinched as he lifted the last few stones off his hind legs. His horn glowed brightly.
“But sir, your legs are injured, you shouldn’t be…” Emberglow tried to sprint over the broken floor towards him, but Heartwing disappeared with a pop and the smell of ozone.
Rarity could hear the sound of ringing, and then a bright, blinding flash of magic filled the room. Heartwing reappeared, flung through the air hard enough to strike the ceiling before collapsing to the floor with a grunt. Emberglow rushed over even as he was trying to stand.
“Teleportation wards. That insane bitch. She put up teleportation wards,” he muttered, before slumping to the ground.
“He’s out cold,” Emberglow muttered, sounding terrified. Rarity could see her trembling, but her next words were clear. “What do we do next?”
“Emberglow, see if you can get him on his hooves,” Rarity said. Emberglow saluted, an instinct that Rarity found somewhat amusing, before beginning a complex set of runes. “How are your batteries on motes, Knights?”
“Full,” Lofty said in surprise, his voice rising with wonder. Terminus nodded weakly as well. “It’s like… the leak is filling our gauntlets.”
“So power is not the issue. Just solutions. Keep up your shielding spells.” The same could not be said for Rarity’s magic; she was beginning to feel the strain of holding the shield over herself, Topaz, and Escher.
The two stallions also gave their own salutes, casting furiously. The room’s walls were soon filled with glowing light, covering every surface.
“We can keep reinforcing the ceiling, Rarity, but no amount of magical shields will do a thing if these rocks decide to squish us,” Lofty said.
“I know, darling, I’m thinking. Emberglow, before the explosion, you were saying why we couldn’t simply cast a spell to siphon off the extra energy?”
“There’s no spell large enough to siphon off enough,” Emberglow said. “Nothing I know of could possibly be enough!”
“I know a spell.”
The room seemed to grow still. The rumbling, the earsplitting cracks, the falling dust and stone all seemed to fade into the background at Starlight’s words.
No, Rarity thought. It’s still unfinished. It’s still going to take one of us. I couldn’t possibly…
“I know a spell,” Starlight repeated, from right next to her. She was holding her book. “It's not finished. It’s not perfect. But it will be enough.”
“No, darling. No, you can’t…”
“You’re right, Rarity. I can’t cast it. Your rune gauntlets require a living body. But somepony else could.”
“We still haven’t figured out how to bring two people back with us!” Rarity yelled. “It’s incomplete! Whoever we send back is doomed to fail!”
“What if…” Escher whispered, shaking beside her. “What if they didn’t? What if they already succeeded?”
“Escher!” Lofty’s face went pale. “Escher, what do you mean?”
“I overheard,” Escher said, looking away with shame. “I was curious. I listened in, when you and Starlight were working on the spell. I thought… I thought it sounded like a story Lofty told us once. About one of my kind, somehow saving Sunset Shimmer. Taking her place, dying in her cell so she could be free.”
“I absolutely forbid it!” Rarity screamed, desperate terror filling her voice. “I won’t allow somepony to give their life, just so we can—”
“Live?” Escher interrupted, and Topaz gave a sob. “I’m sworn to protect the royal family. To protect my friends. I-I’m trained to take a spear before they do. My life before theirs. My breath before theirs.”
“Escher, there has to be another way!” Topaz reached out, taking him tightly in a hug. “I won’t let you!”
“Starlight?” he whispered, barely holding back sobs. “If I make it down into the chamber again, the one with the battery, can you follow me? Can you bring a gauntlet, and show me how to connect it?”
Starlight nodded.
“Do it, please.”
“Escher, no! Don’t you dare leave me!” Topaz was weeping, her hoof beating on his chest. “Escher, you can’t!”
“You c-can’t stop me,” he whimpered, as the walls cracked. The ceiling contracted, jerking down a few inches, barely held up by the shields in place. “I have to save you. Goodbye, Topaz.”
“Escher!” Topaz squeezed him tighter, but there was an explosion of green fire. Once again, Rarity saw for a second a tiny insect scurrying across the floor. “No. No!” Her hooves scrambled furiously across the stone, digging and tossing rubble aside, trying to find the changeling. But he was gone. “Starlight. Starlight! You have to…”
But Starlight was gone, as well. Instead, she was standing over Heartwing’s still, unconscious form, unbuckling the gauntlet on his armor.
Topaz’ face twisted with rage. “Starlight, don’t you dare! You can’t do this to me!” Tears poured out of the corners of her eyes, leaving muddy streaks down Topaz’ yellow fur. “There has to be another way!”
“It’s my fault she’s dead,” Starlight whispered. “It’s my fault they’re all dead. All those ponies Adagio was talking about. It’s my fault. What’s one more corpse?” She managed to free the gauntlet right as Topaz lunged at her, hooves outstretched, reaching, grasping…
… at nothing.
“No! No, Starlight! Escher!” Topaz’s wails echoed off the walls and the shield, filling the room and drowning out the violent rumbling of the cave. “Please!”
Lofty moved over, catching Topaz just as she collapsed. There was nothing to say. The ponies all stared at each other while Topaz shook and sobbed. Emberglow had even paused in her own work, between spell casts.
“We knew,” Topaz’ whisper suddenly cut through the stillness. “We knew it was going to happen. From the story you told us, Lofty.” Rarity was confused. What were they referring to? “In your story. In that thing you read. Did it ever describe what the changeling looked like?”
“Red and black carapace,” Lofty whispered, and Topaz let out another wail. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. Maybe he got out. He could have escaped, after. We don’t know. It’s possible.”
“Did he, though? Is that what your predecessor wrote?”
“Topaz…”
“I’d rather deal with the truth than live a comforting lie, Lofty,” she sniffled, lifting her head enough to look him in the eyes.
“We can’t be sure,” Lofty said, his voice low. “But Sir Jabbernote wrote that he killed the changeling. So I don’t…”
“Okay. Okay, thanks, Lofty.”
“Um, did anypony notice?” Emberglow was looking around her. The walls weren’t shaking and cracking any longer, the floor was cooling off. Everypony looked around them in awe, staring at the walls that only moments ago were threatening to crush them all. “Are we… safe? Did it work?”
“It must have,” Terminus groaned. “Escher succeeded. He won. He beat her, whoever she was.”
“Starlight? Did it work?” Emberglow called out. But there was only silence.
“Maybe… she got killed too?” Rarity sighed. “Maybe she gets to rest, finally?”
“No…” the whisper filled the room, and suddenly they all fell back with a yelp as the chamber was filled with a blinding golden light. Everypony clenched their eyes shut, stumbling to block out the searing radiance.
“What…” Rarity managed. She tried to light up her horn, to cast some sort of shield, but the magic filling the room was like a presence, a pressure wave shoving her back and keeping her down. She managed to open her eyes, just the slightest crack, and saw, silhouetted by the blinding light, a skeletal pony. The magic was charring her, tearing her apart into dust.
“Not yet. There’s one more piece of me.” It was the most lucid Starlight had ever sounded. Her words pounded into Rarity’s skull. Rarity wanted to cower, to hide underneath the blast of brightest sunlight, but she couldn’t shut her eyes. “You know what I created. What I built. Tantabus. Part of me lives in it. Emberglow knows where I am. Where they took my horn. Where the Tantabus lives, still. Please. Let all of me rest, Rarity.”
There was nothing left but a disintegrating skull, floating in the air, but it turned to where Lofty and Topaz still trembled and cowered. “Tell Sunburst… I mean, tell your son goodbye for me, Lofty Tale. And thank you. You let me find myself, again. You let me help. Thank you. Thaaaannnkk….”
The last bit of Starlight Glimmer faded away, seared into dust by the blinding light. Slowly, achingly, it began to dim. Rarity still couldn’t see anything, but she could tell it was dying down, fading, growing quiet. The light began to pulse, throbbing like a heartbeat.
No, not like a heartbeat. It was a heartbeat. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Calm. Steady. Grounding. She managed to pull herself to her hooves. Whatever was causing it was surely dangerous, but Rarity felt compelled, drawn forward, as if helpless to her own curiosity. Everypony else was still blinking, struggling to their hooves. She managed to grow close enough to see what was glowing and pulsing.
It was a pony. A mare, in fact. Her eyes were open, glowing pure, featureless bright white. A thick, wavy mane of red and gold spilled down her back, matching a glorious tail of the same colors. Her cutie mark was a stylized sunburst. Her horn stood out from her mane, and magnificent feathered wings were curled up on either side of her.
“Is that…” Emberglow breathed from behind Rarity. “Is that an … alicorn?” She stumbled a bit over the unfamiliar word.
“It is, darling. And If I’m correct, it’s Sunset Shimmer. Not only did Escher save all of our lives, he saved this one, too.” Rarity reached up to the glowing, floating mare, and gently took her in a cerulean glow. Sunset’s eyes slipped closed, and the light in the room was suddenly so much dimmer. Rarity gently caught the sleeping mare in her hooves and lowered her to the floor. “Emberglow, darling? Your assistance, please? We need to see if she’s all right.”