War had come to the Crystal Empire. Since the rise of Nightmare Moon, they'd remained hidden in the ice and snow. Thanks to yours truly, even if indirectly, they had been found, and now, those that sought me and my friends laid siege to the ancient kingdom. The explosions and shaking we'd felt underground were multiplied a dozen times over by the time we reached the castle gates. Magical volley after magical volley. Dozens of unicorns under Nightmare's banner and commanded by a very irate Cadence were doing a number to the shield that cloaked the city-state. I could feel my teeth chatter in my skull as I looked to the war front. We were too far off to make out individuals, but the numbers were not mistakable. There must have been hundreds in total. Unicorn magi, thestral flyers, earth pony shock troopers. This was a proper tour of force. Then Cadence alone was worth a hundred soldiers on her own.
We'd gotten lucky in the crystal caverns under Canterlot. She'd been caught off guard in a location unsuited for her magical prowess. This was not those caverns; there was no catching her off kilter. I felt sick. What was to come was not pleasant; judging by Sombra's sneer, he was none too pleased himself. The guards and castle staff were running about like headless chickens. Dozens here and there, what passed for the Crystal Empire's military might was gathering if slowly. If I had to guess, we were outnumbered several times over.
"This Cadence, who is she, what are her skills, her domain, her weaknesses?" Sombra asked. He gave me a measured look and returned to eying his far-off enemy.
Cadence wasn't hiding. In fact, she had put herself s close to the barrier as she could. We'd had no trouble entering once the guard had let us through. This seemed an exception and not the rule. The forces of Nightmare Moon had surrounded us but had made little in an attempt to actually cross the barrier's threshold.
"My cousin is a puppet, a leftover from Celestia's rule. I don't know what Nightmare did, but it was clearly enough to break Cadence. She's not the mare I once knew. Now she's a monster, a tool to slay Nightmare Moon's enemies. A truly sickening affair."
Blueblood matched Sombra with a sneer of his own. It was almost amusing how alike they were at the moment. Two upstart nobles with a chip on their shoulder. Blueblood would know Cadence better than most, especially before the Eternal Night.
"She didn't come to court much. She seemed kind of scared of the nobles, actually. She always looked so sad when you got to see her at all."
Bright frowned, forehooves crossed as he squinted at the foreign army.
"She's the Alicorn of Love, though to what end is unknown, sir."
Sabre had taken his usual spot to my side. He was also back to the 'sir' thing. Here I thought we'd been making some leeway on that nonsense. Sombra tutted and looked back at the spire that towered above us.
"Love, you say? How quaint."
"Yet, Love is a battlefield, and here we are," I said.
"I really want my shovel," Spade said.
"Anything useful to add on this insipid mare?" Sombra asked.
"She's emotionally unstable," Thorax offered.
"That's a start," Sombra said with a nod to the bug.
"So, what exactly are the defenses of your empire, Sombra?"
Sabre leered over my shoulder at Sombra, who in turn reframed from giving Sabre any satisfaction. Sombra took a deep breath, and the aura that enveloped his eyes grew. His horn, like a fire poker, seared the air around it.
"You mean besides me? Are numbers are few, but I have not spent these last years sitting on my laurels. I have prepared should Luna come to claim my throne. So, let us see what this Cadence of love can do against my machinations."
Sombra pointed to a nearby servant. "Wake the golems, and find my captain."
The servant bowed and rushed off. I had a feeling things were going to get very complicated very quickly. The air itself seemed to whip about in an imagined frenzy. The thunderous battery that threatened the shield above and the countless soldiers waiting for its inevitable fall did little for my frayed nerves.
"Golems, you believe such crude creatures can turn the odds?" Blueblood asked.
"Hardly. They are mere pawns. A means to buy time for true efforts to bear fruit."
Sombra was off, and I dejectedly followed. This time, instead of going low as with the dungeon, we ascended, a race to the top of the spire. I hadn't imagined the grandeur I'd felt when I saw the city for the first time. The height and magnitude of climbing the Crystal Spire only added to the majesty below. If the enemy weren't at our door, this would be a breathtaking sight instead of a soon-to-be breath taking view.
"Sir."
Sabre gave me a cross look. I sighed and shook my head. It wasn't like we had much choice at the moment. We either fight, or we sacrifice all those who got us this far. The others seemed to realize just how precarious this was. We made it out of one prison to be caught in a larger one. I really hoped Sombra knew what he was doing.
"So, where are we going?" Bright asked.
"Up," Spade affirmed.
"What's up?"
In that single instant, all party members, excluding Sombra, of course, felt compelled to look to Bright Pitch; even in such trying times, the poor misguided fool walked straight into disaster. He had challenged Spade to a battle he could never win. We all saw it coming. We all felt the call to action. It was inevitable. May his soul rest in peace.
"Not much. How are you?"
There it was. Spade smirked as Bright knit his brow thinking through what just happened. Then like a bolt of lightning, he was laughing. The poor bastard was laughing at an ancient joke that was cliche before even Sombra's time. I would think, though, that asking Sombra might not be the best choice at the moment. The rumble of the barrier reminded us plainly of why we were, in fact, going very, very up.
"Sombra, what exactly are we doing?" I asked after another several minutes of stairs and burning thighs. The last week or so of walking was good, but with all this climbing, the stairs sucked. I needed to get in shape.
"You will see, there is a reason we are yet unmolested by our enemy."
"The whole mystery thing is well and good but can hardly help if you continue to play coy. This whole debacle has been nothing but one headache after another."
Blue had a point, one crisis, then another and one after that one, and one before the one before. It was just a line of dominos, falling in a never-ending tidal wave of survival. The fact Blue looked even more haggard by the endless precession of stairs didn't help.
"The fact you are no longer behind bars and breathing should be enough incentive to show some gratitude and decorum, sun noble."
"A lack of bars does not mean we are free, Sombra. The army at your door should be decorum breaking enough for you to stop treating us as your enemy, sir."
I flinched. Sabre was throwing his 'sir' thing at someone new. That was not promising for our alliance. I mean, him dropping the 's' word on me was one thing, but I doubted Sombra would play along. At that time, the end of the spiraling stairs reached their zenith, and the lovely sight of flat land beckoned to my sore hooves.
"We've Arrived."
Sombra gave no ceremony as he scrambled up and onto the top platform of the spire. At this height, one could conscience the true beauty and bounds of the Crystal Empire. You could gaze forever from one border to the other. It left me in awe of its majesty and dreading what may befall it too soon.
My companions, too, were lost. If we had seen anything from the cliffs in the distance, the same we'd first laid eyes upon this glorious gem, hidden in the blanket of ice, we'd seen nothing still. It was quiet, a somber quiet, one that befits the storm that surrounded us. At this peak, we also saw the totality of Cadence's army. A scurrying undulating black mass that stood in contrast to the surrounding white. Ants, they were ants ready to invade a buffet they'd not known about nor cared about. They only desired to satiate their hunger, their bloodlust. It made me sick to think what I'd brought down upon all the denizens of these lands. No matter what anyone might say, it was my fault. This was my path. I was the guide to this haven. So, I will stand at the gates of Tartarus and be judged, and if that were necessary, so be it.
"I've never felt so much love, all-consuming, satisfying."
Thorax had chosen a different jewel to oggle. In the center of the platform, there was a pedestal that held a gently rotating, radiating crystal, one in the shape of a heart. The same Heart that was even now projecting the very dome that sheltered Sombra's domain. Thorax was drooling as he watched Sombra slowly circle the Crystal Heart, huffing himself as he went.
"You okay?" I asked Thorax.
"So much love," The changeling managed to wipe the trickle of saliva that tickled his chin. His ravenous stare, however, could not be so easily erased.
"This is the very literal Heart of my empire. A magic that denied the furies of nature as it does the furies of my enemies. A heart that even now is breaking. A fact that is very problematic," Sombra announced.
"A Catalyst capable of channeling the will of the very people. Such a tool is both inspirational and terrifying."
Blueblood was now inspecting the Heart. He seemed almost as perturbed as Sombra did at this moment. I swallowed hard as another shallow crack snaked from the Crystal Heart's center. It took one guess as to whom was responsible.
"So, what's the plan then?" I asked.
"I hope he didn't walk us up here just to tell us how utterly doomed we are."
Spade leered at Sombra, who barely noted the comment. I was, however, with Spade. There had to be more to this. No matter how magical a single gem was, it would not save the day alone.
"The Crystal Heart is, as the noble said, a generator. It is an engine for our survival. At present, it consists of my subject's softer emotions. They're love and joy, hope and laughter. All that needs to change is the fuel. That is one fuel source."
"So, what's the other?" Sabre asked.
"In times like these, in the face of war. The only fuel that matters is the will to survive, the very darkness in oneself, the type of darkness that will be buried by history."
Sombra smiled, fangs bared as he looked from the Heart to the foes below us. A chill ran up my spine as he did so. I understood what he meant. History would pave the winner as the hero and the loser as the villain. It would hardly matter how that victory came about as long as it did, in fact, occur. The question was, if the pleasant emotions were the shield, what would the blade in the other hoof be? If not enough to best Cadence, we'd have thrown away said protection for nothing.
"There's more to it than that. If it could save us all alone, you wouldn't have bothered with us at all. So, what is our part to play here?" Sabre asked.
He had placed himself between our group and Sombra. He may not have had his rapier or magic as Sombra did, but it was clear that Sabre didn't rightly care.
Sombra shook his head. "My golems can hold the line for the insects that believe themselves my equal. The alicorn, however, will need another deterrent. The very one that drew her here, to begin with."
"Bait, that's your master plan? You'll throw us to the wolves and hope that they will have little appetite for your crown once stuffed?" Blue growled. He jabbed a hoof at Sombra, who once again shook his head and snorted.
"No, not bait, a trap. You've missed my point completely. For those chosen, for those seeking the spark, you are most uncreative. A pity that truly a waste of potential."
Sombra let Blue and Sabre throw their worst sneers and jeers his way. Even as they did, I started to parse whatever hidden joke Sombra was revisiting as I glanced past us and the barrier beyond.
"Oh dear, the Heart. You're going to feed it, a heart that consumes love."
"A heart that devours, a heart that does not discriminate. It normally has a restrictive consumption rate that can be removed should it need."
"You tricky bastard. That's a fierce, if not an impressive, level of forethought. Bravo, good sir, bravo," Spade said. He nodded along and clapped to Sombra's approval.
"Thus why you're here, the part you will play, to best a foolish god."
"So, we're to sit here and hope that Cadence is so blinded by her goals that she walks right into a trap, one that seems tailor-made for this exact purpose? Do you truly believe she's that foolish?" Sabre asked.
"I do, though it hardly matters. At the level the heart functions now, it would be nearly invisible to all but those already aware of its power."
"What about when you release its fail-safe? I doubt it'd be nearly as innocuous, right? What then?" I asked.
"A matte of timing. When the Heart opens wide, this entire platform will become a vacuum, one that will rip and tear your emotions from you, one that will bleed you dry. All we need is for the love goddess to be on the platform when that happens.
I looked passed Sombra to the gently spinning Crystal Heart and back to Sombra. I clucked my tongue. Sabre and Blue still seemed rather upset all the same. Spade seemed down for or at least understanding of what Sombra planned. Bright had stopped listening and was more interested in standing far too close to the edge of the platform, the railing damned, and pointing out all the shops and city sights he could make out. And Thorax, he just looked hungry.
I shrugged. "Fine, if you think it'll work, then I'm game."
"Excellent. I'm glad we could see eye to eye on this."
"Oh look, marching rocks. So cool. I want one." Bright yelled down at the, in fact, marching rocks. Sombra's golems were up and running, and there were quite a few. They were three times the mass of any pony and lacked things like fear or fatigue. All they needed was magic, which wasn't exactly lacking at the moment. Cadence's forces still outnumbered us four to one, but numbers may not matter, excluding Cadence herself.
"The things I could carve into those living tombstones. The epitaphs we could make together. It would be beautiful." Spade was now the one drooling.
Everyone save Bright made sure to give Spade a bit more space. We'd leave him to his daydreams for now. I think he'd earned them if by no other merit than the fact I didn't want to know what terrible thoughts he was cooking up.
"Right, well, golems aside. How exactly does this Heart of yours even function? Not to mention wouldn't your mere presence here hark to your schemes?" Blue asked.
"That's precisely why you will be attracting the alicorn. I will make a show of being elsewhere. Thus, leaving you to your supposed fate," Sombra said. The look of smug satisfaction did not bode well for our success.
"And the Heart?" I asked.
Sombra waved off my question. "I have already removed the spells keeping the Heart in check. It will take some time before it reaches critical consumption levels. You will simply need to delay your demise until then."
"How will we even know?" Thorax asked.
"I assure you, it will be nearly impossible to miss. You need only ensure the alicorn is here and you are not. A task even a foal could accomplish."
"It is pretty simple," Spade agreed.
"The barrier will also dissolve not long from now, whether we had used the Heart or not. As is, I will be departing. The best of luck, chosen."
The mad cackle Sombra let belt as he descended the stairs was enough to kick something. This had better work for everyone's sake.
"I hate him," Sabre said through his seething.
"Agreed," Blueblood added with a hmph.
"Hey, the barrier," Bright pointed up to the dome's epicenter, where it was clearly and distinctly dissolving.
"Stargazer! Blueblood! Little Insect! Come. Out. And. Play!"
Cadence had noticed as well. The chill down my spine left even the now invading cold of the blizzard that had been held at bay by the Crystal Heart nice and toasty.
"Found You!" Cadence's voice carried on the winter winds.
“Oh, Buck.”