”Sleeping beneath all flesh. Sleeping beneath all flesh. Sleeping beneath all flesh…”
The endless chant cut through the night air, burrowing into Daring Do’s ears. Daring spun about in place, looking into the darkness that surrounded her. The trees that encircled the empty plain groaned in the wind, naked branches seeming to reach out towards her. Stones jutted out of the barren ground around her, like uncovered fossils; the crumbling structures were marked with hieroglyphs in a language that she could not read, but she recognized from a nightmare.
One shape marked into a nearby stone drew her attention: a great dog-like creature that bared its teeth at her, clutching a pony in the paw on the end of its long tail. For a moment, Daring thought she saw the black pits that passed for the thing’s eyes glow.
Looking up, she saw the stars swirling overhead; dots of bizarre colors ranging from sickly green to boiling red and venomous yellow, constantly forming, falling, and reforming into bizarre constellations.
“Who’s there?” she shouted, squinting through the forest. She saw no figures in the shadows around her, but for a moment, she thought she saw lights in the distance. Lights from a city.
“Sleeping beneath all flesh. Sleeping beneath all flesh. Sleeping beneath all flesh…”
The chant grew louder and louder in Daring’s ears, and with every repetition, she swore that she could feel something...stirring beneath her skin. Something in her blood, in her bones that was rising up, awoken by the voices. Daring grimaced, clutching her arm as jolts of pain shot up the limb, like thrashing appendages in her veins.
A crackling beneath her hooves made her gasp. The ground was stirring and shifting as well. Like something buried long ago was waking up.
Jagged tears ripped through the dirt around her. Daring spread her wings to try to take off, only to scream as her muscles contracted against her will; the things beneath her bones ripped and tore at her skin, and she bent down to her knees like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
The stone before her exploded, raining debris down on her. Daring stared up in horror as a great limb burst from beneath, stone and dirt falling from the dark blue fur. The claws flexed with a terrible cracking and popping as the enormous paw slammed down on the ground before her. A cloying miasma slammed into Daring’s face like a solid wall, the scent of rot nearly making her vomit. Up close, she saw that the paw, which was large enough to crush her, and the limb attached to it were heavily decayed; patches of skin were eaten away to expose muscle, and there were even patches where yellowed bone was visible.
“EHI! EHI! AHUIZOTL! EHI! EHI! AHUIZOTL! EHI! EHI! AHUIZOTL!”
The chanting around Daring reached a fever pitch, as did the frantic shifting and stirring of the things beneath her skin. She commanded herself to run, to fly away, to scream, but her muscles would no longer obey her. All she could do was stare in silent horror, her heart pounding in her ears, as a massive head, as decayed and rotted as its limbs, lifted itself out of the ground. The great golden necklace about its chest glimmered in the eldritch light. It shook its tangled mane out of its gaze, letting a putrid breath out of its jagged, rotting teeth.
The glowing green eyes snapped open, slit pupils glaring at her like she was an insect, a filthy thing to be squashed. The jaws opened wide…
Daring Do returned to the waking world with a gasp, jolting upright in bed. Her hoof went to the pistol on the bedside table, her foreleg sliding into the strap.
The other two occupants of the room jolted awake at the noise. “What’s going on?! Are we under attack?!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she sat up in her own bed, looking around wildly.
Phillip sat up from behind Daring, blinking blearily. “Daring? What is it?” he asked.
Daring’s heart slowed as she recognized her surroundings. She was in a small room, the brown walls decorated only by a few black and white photographs. The sun was slowly rising outside the window, casting the sky and the street in gold.
Daring let out a slow exhalation, lowering her weapon as the last vestiges of terror fled her. “I’m fine,” she said, wiping her face. “Just a bad dream.”
She felt Phillip’s hoof slowly slide down her arm to her hoof, giving it a gentle squeeze. She returned his grip in kind, turning around to give him a brief smile of reassurance. “Just a dream,” she said.
“Aces,” Phillip said, stretching with a great yawn and tumbling out of bed. “Since we’re up, might as well get some brekkie and get moving.”
Rainbow yawned and kicked off the heavy hoof-stitched quilt as she pulled herself out of bed. “Ow, shit,” she grumbled, wincing and massaging the stump where her left wing had once been. Her face fell into a scowl as her gaze panned down to the metal wing on the floor next to the outlet it was plugged into. The green light on the limb indicated that it was fully charged.
With a quiet sigh, Rainbow unplugged the prosthetic and rolled the charging cable back up. Carefully, she inserted the wing back into the metal slot on the end of her stump, securing the false wing with a click and a grimace. She flexed her wings, the metal limb responding in chorus with its flesh and bone counterpart.
“So what’s the plan for today?” Daring asked, buttoning up her vest.
“You and Dash should go back to the buffalo camp and talk to Starlight and Tempest again,” Phillip said, pulling his shirt over his head. “I’ll take a walkabout ‘round town. Might think of something we missed.”
He opened the door to the hallway of the Watering Hole, sniffing the air. “But first things first. Coffee,” he declared, following his nose towards the continental breakfast.
“Right behind you!” Rainbow Dash declared, following him out.
Daring rolled her eyes with a smile as she donned her pith helmet. “Compass Rose and the Quest for the Black Gold,” she muttered to herself.
Daring Do and Rainbow Dash approached the buffalo camp, the smoke from the campfires scratching at their noses. Buffaloes were milling about the teepees, tending to fires, organizing firewood piles and stores of food. The buzzing of conversation blended with the laughter of calves as they frolicked through the camp, chasing each other around the grass under the watchful eyes of their parents.
Daring’s eyes went to the massive form of Chief Thunderhooves, who was conversing with a smaller light brown cow dressed in a white and blue shawl decorated with beads and precious stones. Eagle feathers dangled from the cow’s ears, and her face was decorated with white and blue paint over her eyes and forehead.
The painted buffalo looked up at their approach. Chief Thunderhooves followed her gaze, scowling up at the golden pegasus. Daring shifted slightly and lowered her head in response. Chief Thunderhooves huffed and stomped off.
Rainbow scowled after him. “She’s not going to steal from you again, you know!” she shouted after his retreating form.
“Dash,” Daring said, raising a hoof towards her protege. “It’s fine.”
The cow in the shawl made her way up to the two mares, greeting them with a small smile. Upon closer inspection, Daring noted that there were shadows beneath the buffalo’s green eyes, not quite hidden by the facepaint; her mane was tangled and snarled, her coat unbrushed.
“Greetings, travelers,” the buffalo nodded in welcome. “I am Walks Many Trails.”
“Howdy,” Rainbow nodded. “I’m Rainbow Dash, and this is Daring Do. You’ve probably heard of her.”
“I have,” Walks Many Trails replied. Her smile faded into a pensive expression as she studied Daring’s face.
“You saw something last night,” she said. “Didn’t you?”
Daring blinked in surprise; images of a rotting limb and swirling, alien stars danced before her eyes. “I...take it you had bad dreams last night, too?” she asked.
Walks Many Trails nodded grimly.
“Hey, we’re not here to talk about dreams,” Rainbow Dash pressed. “We’re here to talk to Starlight and Tempest. Where are they?”
“Starlight Glimmer is in her teepee,” Walks Many Trails said. “And Tempest Shadow is helping repair our sweat lodge.”
“What’s a sweat lodge?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“It’s part of our traditions,” the shaman explained as she guided them into the midst of the camp. “We use hot coals to make the interior of the lodge hot. After performing a cleansing ceremony and smoking a bowl of herbs, we sit inside, meditating and praying to the spirits. The sweat purifies us of the dust of the world and opens us up to visions.”
Rainbow cocked an eyebrow. “So you smoke drugs and sit in a sauna?”
“Rainbow!” Daring scolded.
Walks Many Trails chuckled. “I suppose that’s not entirely inaccurate,” she mused. “But you’d be amazed as to what visions the spirits have given us in the lodge.”
She looked over at Daring. “We will be holding a ceremony later for a sweat. I think it would benefit you to join us.”
The chanting of unseen voices echoed in Daring’s ears. She met the shaman’s eyes, studying the trenches dug into her tired face.
“I…” Daring found herself nodding. “I think I’d like that.”
Walks Many Trails nodded with a small smile as they walked through the camp. They paused at a small teepee near the center. A large campfire sought to banish most of the morning chill, crackling merrily away at the nexus of the village; some of the camp’s elders were sitting around the flames, murmuring to one another over pipes and basket weaving.
“Starlight is in here,” the shaman said.
“Thank you,” Daring nodded. She prodded at the entrance to the tent, raising it a bit. “Starlight?”
The inside of the teepee contained two low mattresses, with a small stone circle for a campfire at the center. The sheets of one bed was so tightly folded that Daring was pretty sure she could have bounced a coin off them; the jackets and boots placed nearby were neatly folded and perfectly arranged, the horseshoes spitshone to a high polish, like a cadet’s kit waiting for the drill sergeant’s inspection. A few books, mostly military and history texts, were stacked nearby.
The other mattress, however, was a slovenly display, with the quilts thrown aside in a heap. Books and notebooks were scattered about everywhere, the papers covered in writing that was so sloppy it looked like another language.
Starlight Glimmer was sitting on her own mattress, sullenly repairing the broken kite. The unicorn looked up at their entry.
“Oh. It’s you again,” she mumbled. “C’mon in, we’ve got plenty of hard-packed dirt for everypony!” She gestured around the teepee with a feeble chuckle.
“You okay?” Daring asked as she and Rainbow sat down.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Starlight replied airily. “There’s a maniac who might be out to kidnap or kill me and I made my best friend angry all because I wanted to do something nice for her! I’m totally fine!”
Her last words came out in a sharp bark, her horn sparking aquamarine at the cry. She glared up at her visitors for a moment, tears shimmering in her eyes, then turned away and wiped her face with a foreleg. “I’m sorry, I…”
“It’s okay,” Daring replied, raising a hoof. “I don’t blame you.”
“Tempest sure does,” Starlight mumbled, staring at the half-broken kite.
“She’s not mad at you,” Daring said. “Not really. She’s scared that she’s going to lose you. That she won’t be able to protect you.”
Starlight looked up. “You think so?”
“I’m sure of it,” Daring said, glancing at her companion’s prosthetic wing.
Rainbow glanced back at her and Daring returned her gaze to Starlight. “If we’re going to stop that freak, then we need your help,” she said. “When you went to the general store, who else did you see?”
Starlight rubbed the back of her messy mane. “I...couldn’t name them,” she replied. “Tempest and I don’t go into town often, and when we do, we usually wear glamours. We don’t know many ponies in Appleloosa.” She sighed and stared at the kite. “I just wanted to go as myself once…” she mumbled. “I’m so sick of hiding! I just…” She sighed in disgust. “Now look where that got me.”
“I don’t blame you,” Daring said. “But what’s done is done.”
“Do you recognize any of these ponies?” Rainbow asked, holding up photographs of Open Casket, Della Delivery, Coal Tender, and Golden Crust.
Starlight squinted at the pictures, then shook her head. “No, I’m sorry,” she said. “Never was that great at faces…”
“Great,” Rainbow mumbled, putting the photos away. “Why would the Plague Doctor want you anyway?”
Starlight fell silent, looking up at the two mares.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?” she said quietly.
Rainbow blinked. “You said that your name was Starlight Glimmer.”
“It’s not that…” Starlight mumbled.
“You were working for Sombra during the war, right?” Daring asked quietly. “And you were forced to do something you knew was wrong, right?”
Starlight blinked up at Daring, tears leaking from her eyes, and mutely nodded.
“I was in the same boat,” Daring sighed, glancing down at her right hoof. For a brief moment, the crude brand in the shape of a ring of keys appeared on the flesh.
“I used to be a member of a group called the Family,” she explained. “A group of mercenary treasure hunters, thieves, and spies. It was all good: we stole from rich and corrupt ponies, found ancient treasures, didn’t hurt the innocent, all that jazz. But...” A shudder ran down her spine.
“The boss of the Family...Mojo...hired me to assassinate a target. I told him no and he...he beat me for disobeying him. And that's when I learned the truth: all that talk about looking out for each other and not hurting anypony who didn't deserve it was bullshit. The Family was all about money, and that meant that we were supposed to do anything, steal anything, hurt and kill anypony, all for the right price. And if we disobeyed, we..." She swallowed and shivered again.
Starlight was staring at her in a mixture of horror and pity. Rainbow’s wing draped about Daring’s shoulders. The golden pegasus stiffened for a moment, then gave Rainbow a small, grateful nod.
“It took me three years to work up the courage to turn them in,” Daring continued. “Mojo’s dead and the others are all in prison.” She looked up at Starlight. “So I know a thing or two about having a dark past hanging over your head. I’m not gonna judge you; whatever you did, I know you’re sorry and you’d take it all back if you could.”
Starlight was silent for a few moments of contemplation, then closed her eyes and took in a breath.
“Darkstar,” she whispered. “I helped invent Darkstar.”
Daring and Rainbow gasped. A memory flickered before their eyes: a mushroom cloud hanging over the ruins of Vanhoover, immortalized on the front page of the Foal Free Press.
Starlight dug around in her pack for a few moments, then extracted an old, faded photograph. The picture showed a younger Starlight, her bangs cut into a straight line, standing in front of a great building of blue sapphire. To her left was Tempest Shadow, her mane cut into a shorter mohawk and wearing a stiffly pressed uniform, smiling shyly at the lens; on Starlight’s right was an orange unicorn stallion with a scruffy mane, beaming up at the camera with Starlight’s foreleg around his shoulders.
“This was my graduation day at Cuore University,” Starlight explained. “That stallion was my best friend, Sunburst. He and I graduated with degrees in magic; Tempest got a degree in military history and joined the Army as a lieutenant.”
“You’re Crystal Ponies?” Daring asked.
“Only technically. Sunburst and I grew up in Sire’s Hollow, on the southeastern outskirts of the Empire; Tempest is from a smaller village right near the Equestria-Crystal Empire border,” Starlight explained. “It’s why we don’t, well, sparkle.”
“How’d she lose her horn?” Rainbow asked.
“Rainbow,” Daring hissed, elbowing Rainbow in the side.
“It’s fine,” Starlight waved her off. “She told us that she went into an ursa minor’s cave when she was a filly looking for a lost ball and it attacked her. She fended it off, but lost her horn.”
“Whoa,” Rainbow said, her eyes widening. Daring let out an impressed nod.
Starlight sighed. “Sunburst and I went into the University with big dreams of how we were going to change the world, push the boundaries of magic. We graduated in 1941...the same year the war started. And suddenly, everything changed.”
“It did for all of us,” Daring noted solemnly.
“Sunburst and I were picked up by the military because of our...talents,” Starlight continued, bitterness seeping into the final word. “We were told that our work would end the war, that we’d get even with the Princesses for taking Empress Amore from us…” She glanced up at Daring. “I know it seems obvious now that Celestia and Luna didn’t kill Amore, but from our side, it wasn’t that simple. We were told over and over that they’d murdered our Empress, and well...when somepony in charge tells you something enough times, you start to believe it.
“At first it was just medical research, communications, things like that,” Starlight continued. “But after a year or so, we started working on weapons.
“Sunburst was the first one to realize that something was off about all this...while I just happily charged on, excited about all the new things that we were learning, thinking about all the praise that I was getting.” She sighed. “Maybe if I’d listened to him…but anyway, he was the first one to start protesting the weapons projects, saying that what we were doing was wrong. That we were creating things that were too dangerous to exist. Delving into magic that shouldn’t be tampered with…”
“And then one day…” She shivered. “The Doctor showed up for him.”
The quiet rolled through the lab like a wave, the sudden silence punctuated by the clacking of iron horseshoes on the tile floor. Starlight looked up from their worktable and gasped.
Three ponies were walking down the hallway of the labs towards their table. All of them were wearing black and blue uniforms, their faces covered with balaclavas. On each of their breasts was a gold shield with a black snowflake embossed on the center and a motto beneath: Organizzazione per la Vigilanza.
Starlight’s eyes went to the one in the center: a pegasus with a sickly yellow coat. A raven with a red mark on its chest stood astride its shoulders, its head flicking from side to side as it studied everypony in the room with its beady black eyes. The pegasus’ red eyes were focused on the stallion next to Starlight.
Sunburst could only stare in silence, his confusion giving way to realization, then horror as the officers of the secret police reached them.
“By order of King Sombra,” one of the officers said, approaching Sunburst. “You must come with us.”
“No!” Sunburst protested, backing away, but the two junior officers strode forward and grabbed his forelegs. Hoofcuffs snapped over his wrists; the golden light on his horn flickered and died.
“You have an appointment with the doctor, son,” the speaker sneered at Sunburst, nodding to the stallion with the raven.
“Starlight, help me!” Sunburst cried, his hooves scrabbling futilely against the ground as he was dragged around.
Starlight started to step forward, but a hoof clapped down on her shoulder. She turned to find the cold blue eyes of the head scientist, the elder stallion in his major’s uniform shaking his head.
The fight went out of Starlight in a moment. She could only watch as her best friend was dragged from the laboratory, his screams for help fading into the distance. The stallion with the raven stared around the room; every head lowered beneath his gaze, every worker quietly returning to their tasks.
Starlight met the scarlet eyes for a moment before the colonel exited the laboratory, closing the door behind him.
“Consider this a learning experience, Miss Glimmer,” the head scientist said, turning and walking away. Starlight was left alone at her station, staring at her work without truly seeing it.
“He came back a few days later,” Starlight continued. “But he was just...robotic. Almost no emotion at all. When he looked at me, it was like…” She sniffled. “Like he was seeing right through me.”
“They brainwashed him,” Rainbow concluded.
Starlight nodded numbly. “After that, I knew to just keep my head down and my mouth shut, but then…” She swallowed again. “We started Project Darkstar.”
Silence blanketed the room for a few moments before Starlight took a deep breath.
“That was the last line for me,” she said. “I told them no, I wasn’t going to work on that. But…”
Her shivering increased, her eyes going ever more distant. “The doctor made an appointment with me,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
Daring hesitated for a moment, then reached out and laid a hoof on Starlight’s shoulder. Starlight stiffened up, then relaxed with a long sigh.
“I don’t remember much of what happened after that,” she continued. “Right up until…” She swallowed. “Vanhoover. After that...what we’d done...it was enough to snap us both out of it. That’s when we realized that we had to get out of there.
“We got in touch with Tempest--by then, she’d been reassigned to help protect important sites at the homefront--and the three of us destroyed all of our research on Darkstar and fled for Equestria. When we got to Canterlot, we told them everything we knew.” She let out a mirthless laugh. “They said we turned around the war by telling them where the Darkstar launch sites were. Well, now look at us.”
“What happened to Sunburst?” Daring asked.
Starlight flinched, shuddering and closing her eyes. “He...didn’t make it,” she mumbled.
“I’m sorry,” Daring whispered, rubbing Starlight’s back.
Starlight blinked back tears and sighed. “Thank you,” she muttered. “After the war, Tempest and I started sort of wandering around Equestria; I would study magic while also helping out however I could, and Tempest...kinda became my bodyguard, I guess.”
“And you’ve been trying to fix her horn,” Rainbow observed, her eyes going to an open notepad on Starlight’s bed. Scrawled on the paper were several sketches of what looked like a fractured horn, with writing crammed around every perimeter.
“Yeah,” Starlight nodded. “It was something I was working on before…” Her voice trailed off for a moment, then she cleared her throat. “Been kinda short on proper labs, materials, and funding, though,” she commented with a dry laugh.
“What’s amberclaw?” Rainbow asked, noting a circled word on the notepad.
“A rare mineral that’s only found in the mountains of Thrussia,” Starlight said, clearly relieved to be talking about something else. “Since it can conduct magic, I was thinking about using that as a material for a replacement horn. Of course, can’t really afford a ship to Thrussia right now,” she said with another dry laugh.
“I don’t suppose you or Tempest knows who the Plague Doctor is,” Daring prodded.
“No one does,” Starlight muttered. “He and all of the other members of the Office of Vigilance--Sombra’s secret police--had their identities kept secret, even from us.”
The unicorn returned her attention to the kite, finishing up a few touches with an aquamarine flicker of her horn. The kite’s frame looked almost new, the twine about the wood all tightly and neatly wrapped around the fractures so that they could not be seen. Starlight stared at the kite for a few moments, a pensive sigh escaping her.
Rainbow stood up. “Well, that kite isn’t doing much good just sitting in here, right?”
“Tempest is busy,” Starlight mumbled.
“I don’t think that she’s too busy for you,” Rainbow said. “She’s stuck with you this long. You think she’s gonna give up on you now?”
Starlight stared at the kite for several moments of contemplation, then sighed. “Right. Here goes nothing,” she mumbled, picking the kite up and following Rainbow out of the teepee, with Daring on her tail.
“This way,” Starlight said, pointing towards the outer borders of the camp, where several other buffalo were working at a single construction.
The sweat lodge was a squat, round hut covered in woven animal pelts. A low doorway pointed to the east, just high enough for a buffalo to crawl through, allowed entry. A few of the smaller buffalo were bringing soapstone, limestone, and gypsum rocks to a nearby pile; a couple of buckets sat nearby, already full of water.
Tempest was trotting up to the lodge, carrying a large bucket full of water in her mouth. She paused at the sight of Starlight carrying the kite, staring at her with impassive blue eyes.
Starlight smiled nervously, shifting in place.
Tempest hesitated a few moments more, then slowly set the bucket down next to the others before turning and walking back to Starlight. She stared at the kite for a few moments of silence.
Starlight’s expression started to fall and she took a step back, but Tempest held up a hoof and sighed.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said, keeping her gaze steady on Starlight. “What you did was foolish...but I can’t blame you. You’re right: I’m tired of hiding, too.”
She reached out and took the kite, examining it for a moment, then giving the smaller unicorn a shy smile. Starlight beamed back and pulled Tempest into a hug; the taller unicorn grunted in surprise, then gently put the kite down and awkwardly patted Starlight on the back.
“Daring?” Walks Many Trails announced, striding up. “We’re about to begin the sweat.”
Daring nodded and followed the shaman to a cluster of younger buffalo surrounding a large crackling fire that was heating the gathered rocks. Rainbow shrugged and followed Daring, joining the group under the eye of Chief Thunderhooves.
“Welcome!” Little Strongheart smiled at the ponies. The other buffalo glanced at them and Chief Thunderhooves let out an irritated huff through his nostrils, but none of them raised any protest.
A few of the elder buffalos began playing sets of drums, rainsticks, and other instruments. Murmuring prayers in a soft rolling song, Walks Many Trails blessed each of the participants and gave them a small offering of tobacco.
“We throw these onto the rocks when we go into the lodge,” Little Strongheart explained to Rainbow in a whisper, noting the pegasus looking curiously at the small bag in her hoof. “The smoke carries our question up to the spirits.”
An acrid scent stung at Daring’s nose. A younger buffalo with similar adornments to Walks Many Trails was passing around an old pipe, decorated with feathers, beads, and painted icons. The smoke rising from the bowl was a conglomeration of herbs, tobacco, and other scents that Daring could not identify.
One of the buffalo reverently took the pipe and inhaled a puff, exhaling a roiling cloud of smoke as he passed the pipe along to the next. The second buffalo, a younger bull, looked at it querulously for a few moments, then passed it on without imbibing.
“You don’t need to smoke the pipe if you don’t want to,” Little Strongheart whispered to her guests. “But some of us believe that the herbs make it easier to receive visions.”
The pipe passed to Strongheart, who calmly inhaled a great puff, exhaling the smoke with an experienced casualness. The pipe was passed into Daring’s hooves.
Daring Do studied the pipe for a moment, then shrugged and lifted the reed to her lips. “Gently,” Little Strongheart advised her as she took a slow puff on the pipe. The warm smoke filled her mouth, both sweet and bitter tasting.
The smoke invaded the back of her throat and Daring hacked violently, the pipe nearly tumbling from her hooves as she coughed. Several of the buffalo around her chuckled; even Walks Many Trails and Little Strongheart tittered behind their hooves.
“Pretty strong,” Daring said with a forced smile, passing the pipe to Rainbow. The younger pegasus immediately sucked in a large breath, only to double over in a violent coughing fit, to the buffaloes' amusement.
“Perhaps leave that for the more experienced next time,” Walks Many Trails suggested, taking the pipe from the green-faced Rainbow and gently patting her on the back until her coughing subsided and her face returned to its normal color.
One by one, each of the buffalo knelt down and crawled into the sweat lodge. Little Strongheart went ahead of the pegasi. At Walks Many Trail’s nod, Rainbow crawled through, then Daring.
The undecorated interior of the sweat lodge was already warm, heated by the many buffalo inside, who all sat in a circle around a small central pit; the flames of the candles set within cast weird, flickering shadows about the animal skin walls. Daring took a seat next to Rainbow, who was staring about the room skeptically.
Walks Many Trails entered the lodge last, taking a seat at the head of the room next to a bucket of water with a ladle waiting inside. From outside, one of her neophytes used tongs to pass the heated rocks into the smaller pit. The lodge began to heat up rapidly; already, Daring could feel beads of sweat on her brow.
“And now we call to the spirits,” the shaman declared, lifting the ladle from the bucket of water. “Spirits, we ask you for your guidance.” She splashed some water on the hot rocks, spreading steam through the lodge with a hiss; the moisture seemed to cling to Daring’s skin, blending with her sweat. “Spirits, we ask you for your wisdom,” she said, splashing another ladleful onto the stones. “Spirits, we ask you for your compassion. Spirits, we ask you for your strength.”
With each ladle, more and more steam filled the lodge. Daring breathed in the hot, wet air deeply, feeling her heartbeat slow with every moment. Her mind fell into a tranquil lassitude, her thoughts washing away like the steam flowing out the door.
A sudden pattering drummed against the roof. Daring looked up at the sound. “Huh. Was it supposed to rain today?”
She looked around the lodge and blinked in shock.
She was all alone in the tent. “Hello?” she called, standing and turning in place. “Rainbow? Where’d you go?”
No reply. Struggling to comprehend, Daring crawled out of the tent and looked around, her eyes widening.
The buffalo village was gone. Instead, the sweat lodge was sitting in the middle of a vast plain of red sand, scrub brush rising in irregular patches. Rain fell from the light gray sky, the clouds only a thin veil that allowed the sunlight through. Before her, a massive red stone rose out of the ground, stretching out in both directions.
“Uluru?” Daring asked. “How did I--?”
“Hello, ampa.”
Daring turned around to see a familiar figure behind her. The zebra-like mare with the long white mane and the cutie mark of a set of clouds over a river lowered the hood of her cloak as she approached, beaming at Daring with bright blue eyes.
“Creek Fog,” Daring gasped. “If that’s actually your name…”
The Aborigineigh guide slyly winked at her. “I’m sure you have many questions, ampa,” she said, sitting down next to Daring. “This is your chance to ask.”
Daring Do sat in the shade of the great holy rock and took a breath. “Okay. First question: is this real, or is it just happening in my head?”
Creek Fog chuckled warmly. “Obviously it’s happening in your head, Daring Do. You did just inhale a significant dose of hallucinogens. But that doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
Daring Do stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay, next question. You wouldn’t happen to know who the Plague Doctor is or where he is?”
Creek Fog’s face fell and she shook her head. “If I did know, I would tell you in a heartbeat,” she said. “But the Plague Doctor serves a dark master: a slave of the Old Gods. Their dark magic clouds them from our vision.”
“Sombra,” Daring breathed. “Then...he’s alive?”
A scowl formed on Creek Fog’s face. “The one that you know as Sombra is far more than a pony in some ways...and far less in others,” she said. “He has lived and died dozens of times, wearing dozens of different faces. With each life, he serves the will of his puppetmasters, coming closer and closer to their goals.”
“And he’s in Ponyville now?” Daring asked.
“Yes,” Creek Fog nodded. “Under a new name and a new disguise.” Sensing Daring’s protest, she raised a hoof. “If I knew who he was, I would tell you, but you must understand: we do not see the world from the same perspective as you. Sombra is hidden from our gaze by his masters' dark magics; we cannot perceive him unless he acts openly. And there are limits on how much we can do.”
“So it’s up to us,” Daring grumbled.
“Yes, unfortunately,” Creek Fog nodded, placing a hoof on her shoulder.
“Why us?” Daring burst out, flinging her hooves up in frustration. “I mean...I know we’re awesome and all, but…” She sighed. “Were we chosen or something? Why?” She glanced down at her right hoof. “Why pick me?”
“I told you before: your life is your own choice. Your songline is of your own writing,” Creek Fog replied gently. “You are here because of your own decisions. And your decisions alone will carry you down the path before you. You could choose to turn away from this if you wanted...but I know you won’t.” She stroked Daring’s cheek with a hoof, turning her around to face her calm smile. “Because you are our children. Two brave, strong, intelligent ponies who are willing to fight for what they know is right, who will always have the support of their loved ones.”
The memory of a mother’s kiss and the touch of rain brought a calm smile to Daring’s face. “Thank you,” she said.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Daring looked up to see that darker storm clouds had started to roll in, smothering the sunlight and bringing heavier rain. Suddenly, she remembered her dream from last night.
“That dream I had earlier,” she said to Creek Fog, who was scowling up at the sky. “It wasn’t just a dream, was it?”
Creek Fog shook her head. “The last ahuizotl is waking up,” she said grimly.
“What are ahuizotls?” Daring asked. “I know that they’re ancient mythical beings, but…”
“Monsters from beyond your world,” Creek Fog explained, bile in every syllable. “The Old Gods brought them here to serve as their priests. For far too long, our children suffered beneath their cruel yokes. Centuries ago, Faust and the Seven Pillars waged war on the ahuizotl and destroyed them all...save one. This last ahuizotl was trapped in a temple in what is now the Everfree Forest; we used our own magic to hide it from the gaze of its masters, but Zugzwang’s evil weakened the seals keeping it asleep. It is starting to stir, calling out once more. And Sombra’s ultimate goal is to find it and wake it up.”
She turned to face Daring, the anger in her normally kind eyes momentarily frightening. “If it is freed, it will try to wake its masters as well. That cannot happen.”
A chill briefly ran down Daring’s spine, a feeling like she was standing at the shore, watching a tsunami rush in to crush her tiny form beneath its mass. Then she took a breath and released the fear, letting it float away on the wind.
“How do we stop it?” she asked.
“The map that you recovered leads to its resting place,” Creek Fog explained. “Find the city of Thicket. There you will--”
The sky was suddenly split by a flash of lightning, blinding white and blazing hot. The ground beneath Daring’s hooves cracked, then gave way. Daring fell into the darkness with a scream, her wings flapping futilely.
“No!” Creek Fog shouted, diving for her, but their hooves missed by inches.
Daring plummeted down into infinite inky blackness, the light sucked away from her in moments. All sound was smothered...then, from beneath came a voice that was not a voice, a chaotic sensation that only fancy could transmute to speech, but that she somehow understood in a moment of horrid comprehension.
“NYAGLATH, GER’UH ANGFAH.”
The True Masters, sleeping beneath all flesh.
Motion beneath her. Daring turned to see a pair of eyes staring up at her: venomous green, the slit pupils three times her size. All she could do was scream as the massive mouth opened beneath her, a sickening miasma of rotting breath rushing up to meet her…
“Daring! Daring!”
Daring woke up with a scream, sitting upright and whirling around. Colors flooded back into her eyes and she found several faces staring back at her, alight with concern.
“Easy, easy,” Rainbow Dash said, gently pushing her back down onto the cool grass. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”
Daring slowly realized that she was back in the buffalo village, laying in the shade of a massive tree. She was nude save for the totem necklace, her body soaked with her own sweat, skin still burning like she was on fire. Rainbow, Starlight, Tempest, Little Strongheart, Walks Many Trails, and a few other buffalo were gathered around her.
“What happened?” Daring groaned as Rainbow placed towels soaked in cold water on her forehead.
“You went into a trance and started mumbling,” Rainbow said, placing more wet towels in Daring’s armpits and around her neck. “Then you started shaking and burning up. I dragged you out of there; I think you went into heatstroke.” She blinked, distress flickering in her red irides.
Starlight levitated over a pitcher of water, which Rainbow lifted to Daring’s lips. Suddenly realizing that her throat was as dry as the Saddle Arabian desert, Daring drank the entire thing in one go, sighing in relief once she was done. “Thanks, kid,” she nodded to Rainbow, offering her a smile that the younger pegasus returned.
“You had a vision, didn’t you?” Walks Many Trails asked.
Daring stared at her for a few moments, then slowly nodded. Despite her own heat, she felt herself shiver as she reached up for the totem of Awely-Awely, trying to draw some comfort from the cool wood.