Daring Do glided through the night sky, gliding above the buildings of Ponyville, catching the warm zephyrs floating from the street in between flaps. Clouds streaked overhead in the indigo sky, smothering the glow from the stars and the crescent moon.
The sounds of the resting city faded as she flew towards the northeast, gliding across the river and over the trees. Spotting the side street that led to the Church of the Seven Pillars, she folded her wings and did a loop, swooping down to the ground below.
She spotted the Scout resting against a tree by the side of the road, partially hidden by the bushes. The peppery scent of scarlet mint led her to the detective, who was leaning against another tree, smoking a cigarette.
“G’day,” Phillip nodded, casting an eye over Daring’s outfit. His gaze lingered on the whip.
“I had an interesting education,” Daring answered his unspoken question. “Learned how to fight with a whip in Northern Zebrica.” She shrugged. “It just stuck with me.”
Phillip nodded and took another brief draw on his cigarette. “You ready?” he asked.
Daring took a breath and pushed the memories back, making room for the present. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”
“Ripper.” Phillip stubbed his cigarette out and tossed it aside and the duo proceeded up the path toward the church.
As they proceeded down the dusk-coated road, little colored lights could be seen around them, flitting through the trees. One approached and landed on Phil’s extended foreleg. “Anything, Gossamer?”
“Tha, ceannard: we saw a family of squirrels and a nest of baby sparrows!” Gossamer said cheerfully.
Phillip had to make a visible effort to not roll his eyes. “Did you see anycreature sneaking into the church before the service?” he clarified.
“Oh! Chan e, ceannard,” Gossamer reported. “But more ponies started showing up for the service about twenty minutes ago.”
Peering through the trees, Daring saw the lights of the church glowing in the darkness. A few cars were parked in the lot, with some parishioners milling about the open doorway.
“Right,” Phillip nodded. “We’ll go in at the back of the group and sneak down to the basement. Watch our backs, mate.”
Gossamer saluted, then whistled to his fellow breezies, chirping out a series of orders in Breezespeak. The other breezies clustered behind Daring and Phillip, staring intently at their backs.
“Uh…Gossamer? What are they doing?” Daring asked.
“Watching your backs, Miss Do. Like ceannard asked!” Gossamer chirped.
Phillip’s mouth twitched into a genuine smile. “No, Gossamer, it’s a metaphor.”
The little breezy cocked his head in puzzlement. “What is it for, ceannard?”
Daring Do snorted sharply and had to stuff a hoof into her mouth to stop herself from laughing out loud. Phillip lowered his head, letting out several sharp exhalations through his nostrils as he tried to hide his own amusement.
“Just stay close and watch for anything odd,” he clarified.
“Ohhhh, that makes more sense,” Gossamer nodded. “Right! I can do that!” He landed on Phillip’s shoulder and started to peer around like a hawk looking for a mouse.
Daring snickered. “Awww, that’s precious.”
“You be quiet,” Phillip grumbled, his ears turning red as the other breezies dispersed into the woods.
As the last of the parishioners headed into the church, the two ponies emerged from the trees and trotted up the steps through the doorway, with Gossamer Dance still riding on Phillip’s shoulder.
They entered just as the last of the parishioners were slipping into the sanctuary. Phillip and Daring headed up the stairs to the second floor, which was largely abandoned. They stole down the tile floor, their soft hoofsteps muffled by the sound of the organ a floor beneath them.
They reached the other side of the building and descended another set of stairs, finding themselves back in the hallway with the kitchen and playroom. On tiphoof, they proceeded to the stairs that led down the basement, with the sound of Reverend Word’s sermon following them down.
The basement of the church was still and cold, the sound of the service above strangely drowned out. The hieroglyphs stared out from the walls; an eye of Horus seemed to glare at them as they passed by.
Gossamer Dance shivered on Phillip’s shoulder. “This place is no good, ceannard. Droch dhraoidheachd here. Bad magic,” he whispered.
“We shouldn’t be here long,” Phillip whispered reassuringly. “Daring?”
Daring Do took out the photograph of Eastern Cartographer and studied the stole. The first hieroglyph was a djed, which resembled a pillar with several crossbeams on the top.
“Let’s see, that was…” Daring walked around a shelf and found the hieroglyph etched into the wall in the corner. She rapped against the stone once sharply.
“And next…akhet,” Daring said to herself, locating another glyph that resembled a sun held between two slopes. She rapped sharply at this one three times.
Glyph by glyph, she made her way through the basement. Two knocks, then one, then three, then two again. Finally, she stopped at the wall with amenta.
She hesitated for a moment, doubt scratching at the back of her skull. What if she was wrong? What if she had missed something, or misinterpreted a clue? She’d have to start all over again!
And what about Family Tree’s killer? Would the time wasted give them more time to escape or to cover up more evidence? She sniffed the air: was it her imagination, or did she detect the faint odor of bleach and cleaner at the back of her nostrils? Her blood boiled at the idea; how could anyone just wipe away a pony’s life like that?
She shook those thoughts from her head. She couldn’t afford to let doubt, worry, or anger get in her way. Not now.
She raised a hoof and rapped five times at the hieroglyph that represented the entrance to the underworld.
The wall next to her glowed with a faint blue light and with a soft grinding noise, the hidden doorway slid down to reveal a dark passageway. The duo shone their torches into the tunnel, revealing a set of stairs descending into the darkness. Gossamer let out a little squeak of alarm and hid beneath Phillip’s trilby.
Phillip bent down and scowled, tilting his light to get a better angle. The glow revealed a pattern of distinct dark scarlet marks running up the stairs, like drops of crimson paint. Daring Do shuddered at the sight, her stomach twisting.
“Gossamer, wait here,” Phillip instructed, taking off his hat to expose the breezy hiding in his mane. “You see someone coming, give us a heads-up.”
Gossamer Dance yelped and started tugging on Phillip’s ear, trying to pull him away from the door. “Ow, ow! Gossamer!” Phillip protested.
“Droch dhraoidheachd! Droch dhraoidheachd! Don’t go down there, ceannard!” Gossamer cried.
“Get him off!” Phillip hissed to Daring.
Daring gently pried the breezy from Phillip’s ear, handling the little creature like he was made of china. The veil-thin wings beat frantically against her hooves.
“Gossamer, it’s gonna be okay,” Phillip reassured the breezy, bending down to Gossamer’s level. “I’ll just go down, find what I need, and come back up. Easy as pie.”
Gossamer swallowed and blinked. “You sure, ceannard?” he whispered.
“No wuckas, anklebiter,” Phillip smiled as he pulled out a flashlight and mounted it to his shoulder. “Just give us a heads-up if you see somecreature coming.”
“Okay,” Gossamer nodded. “Okay. Gur math a thèid leat, friends. Be careful!”
“We will,” Daring reassured Gossamer as he flitted over to a bookshelf to hide.
Daring strapped on her headlamp and paused at the threshold of the secret entrance, gathering herself. It really is just like something out of my books, Uncle Ad. I’m almost convinced that this is all just a dream…or a nightmare. Things like this aren’t supposed to happen outside of books…but neither is what happened to you. What’s down there, Uncle Ad? Will it answer my questions or just raise more of them?
“Daring? We doing this or not?”
“Sorry,” Daring shook her head and switched on the headlamp. She proceeded onto the first step, which took her weight easily enough. She proceeded down the narrow stairway, carefully skirting the bloodstains. Behind her, Phillip paused at every bloodstain for a brief moment, studying the drag marks as though they were some hidden cipher that only he could understand.
The spiraling staircase descended deeper and deeper into the darkness; the only sound was the quiet crunching of their hoofsteps on the stairs and their breaths echoing off the uncomfortably close walls.
“It can’t be that far down,” Daring commented out loud, studying the chisel marks hacked into the stone. “I wonder how long it took Cartographer to make this place…weaving the spell to unlock the door would have taken a lot of preparation work alone…”
The stairs ended at a stone threshold leading into a shadowed cavern.
“Blood here,” Phillip reported, scanning his flashlight over the carven entrance.
There was indeed a conical spatter pattern spread across the right side of the doorway. Looking up, Daring spotted more blood spread across the low roof, pointing towards her left.
Phillip Finder looked back down at the ground, grunting quietly as he studied the scuff marks and dark drag lines leading back up the steps hacked into the stone behind them, reading the painted blood like it was a fresco of hieroglyphs.
“One blow from behind,” Phillip stated clinically, though she heard a faint trace of anger behind his cold tone as he nodded at the major bloodstains on the doorway. “At least three more hits while she lay on the ground,” he added, nodding at the streaks running across the roof. “Dragged back up the stairs.”
Daring Do’s stomach twisted and churned within her. Some dried bloodstains against the stone of an underground tomb populated with blasphemous icons: was that all that was left of Family Tree?
She shook her head and refocused. “Family Tree came down here looking for the Prism,” she stated. “I’m going in there to find it.”
Daring Do stepped through the doorway and paused, slowly casting her eyes about the underground tomb. Everywhere she looked, empty eye sockets stared back at her in silent reproach, judging her for intruding upon their resting place. Twelve skulls were set into the slick, damp stone walls, each one set every few feet at regular intervals. Carefully etched into the skulls’ foreheads were cuneiform symbols, sharp lines and dots arranged into bizarre constellations.
Littered across the floor of the tomb were stone sarcophagi, placed with no apparent sense of order or pattern, every one of them inscribed with swirling calligraphy. In the center of the catacombs stood a statue, twice as tall as a pony, and terribly familiar to Daring Do's eyes. Carved out of a strange silvery metallic stone, the statue depicted a great feline creature with an elongated head, huge pointed ears, and a long tail with an anomalous paw on the end. A pair of yellow jewels set on the end of its snout represented eyes: the way they glittered in the darkness, combined with the cruel, hungry smile on its face, made Daring feel as though the loathsome beast was watching her, sizing her up like a cat studying a cornered mouse.
A blend of emotions ran through her mind at the sight: fear, anger, grief, guilt. Uncle Adventure’s scream echoed once more in her mind as she realized that she recognized the monsters, but she swallowed down her emotion and continued looking around.
“None of the lids have been moved for decades,” she observed, running a hoof over the lid of a coffin and observing the thick layer of dust that came with it. “Whoever killed Family Tree didn’t open them…so hopefully whatever she wanted is still here,” she reported.
Phillip let out a low grunt. “Not here for that.”
“Well, I am,” Daring replied. “Besides, we both know the Order wants it. You really want to risk them getting it?”
Phillip was silent for a moment of contemplation, then let out a grunt that Daring interpreted as acquiescence. “Good, now help me open these,” she said, beckoning to the closest sarcophagus.
Phillip nodded and stepped forward. The duo grunted as they heaved the heavy stone lid to one side with a great scraping of stone and shone their flashlights within.
A pair of grinning skulls leered back up at them. A pair of skeletons, a pegasus and a unicorn, lay intertwined within the coffin, the rotted, pitted bones jumbled together in a great mess, making it nearly impossible to determine whose bones were whose. These were the only contents of the coffin.
“Nope,” Daring shook her head and moved on to the next one.
Something scuttled in the darkness behind her and she whirled about, her headlamp penetrating the shadows as one hoof went to the stockwhip at her hip.
“What is it?” Phillip asked, also looking back into the shadows.
Daring was silent for several seconds, her breath held as her ears twisted back and forth, straining for any sign of an intruder. “You hear anything?” she asked.
Phillip was silent for a few moments as well but shook his head. “Should hurry up.”
“Right,” Daring agreed, proceeding to the second coffin.
Once more, their grunts and strains mixed with the slow scraping of stone as they shoved the lid aside. Three skeletons lay within in a jumbled mess, empty skulls staring up at them, but the yellowed bones were all the coffin contained.
Daring turned to the third sarcophagus but stopped. “Wait a minute…” she mused, sweeping her gaze over the skulls embedded into the catacomb walls. She took the photograph out of her pocket and studied it, casting her eye down the cuneiform symbols on the left side of the priest’s white stole. “Cartographer said that the skulls were the key…”
She stepped up to the closest skull, frowning at the setting. “Yeah, looks like this can be pushed back into the wall,” she commented, observing the scrape marks around the edge of the hole that the skull was set into.
“Daring,” Phillip said, looking down at the floor at her hooves.
Daring looked down and noted the circle of scorch marks marring the stones beneath her. The dust that covered the ground was particularly thick around her hooves.
Then she noticed that the ordinary dust was mixed with pale white ash that crunched beneath her steps, releasing a pungent burnt odor. She winced.
Something hard and shiny like glass glimmered behind the skull’s eyes, pale blue beneath her headlamp’s glow. “What’s that?” she asked.
Phillip looked from the cremated bones to the strange glass material and hissed. “Shockcast glass,” he reported. “Booby trap. Set it off, fires a bolt of plasma that incinerates anyone in front of it.” He walked around the perimeter of the catacombs, looking into each of the skulls’ eyes. “Each of them is rigged with one,” he stated, noting more burn marks and piles of cremated bones scattered across the floor.
“This really is like a Compass Rose book,” Daring Do sighed through an ironic chuckle. She lifted up the photograph once more, carefully comparing the symbols on the skulls to the picture.
“Don’t,” Phillip warned, his eyes widening. “Too dangerous.”
“Hey, my name’s Daring Do,” Daring grinned, trying to hide the nervousness bubbling in her gut. “You know I’ve got to.”
After a moment more of consideration, she made her decision. She stepped forward and raised her hoof over the chosen skull, hesitating for a moment. Her heart pounded against her chest; her throat was as dry and coarse as sandpaper.
“I’m telling you, don’t,” Phillip repeated, his voice hardened with fear as he stepped back behind one of the sarcophagi. “We can come back for it later.”
But the archaeologist didn’t seem to hear him. Daring Do took a deep breath, stepped to one side until her foreleg was stretched out as far as it would go, and pressed the skull.
She immediately jumped back, expecting a crackle of lightning that would turn her to ash in an instant…but nothing happened. The skull remained pressed into the wall.
“Ha,” Daring grinned at Phillip. “See? It pays to listen to the professor!”
Phillip just frowned at her.
“Okay, next one…” Daring checked the photograph of Cartographer once more and carefully studied it, then swept her gaze over the skulls again. “That one,” she declared, striding forward.
“Daring…” Phillip hissed.
“Relax, I know what I’m doing,” Daring said, stepping to one side and reaching out to press the skull.
Cocksure, Daring…
She double-checked the inscription, then pressed the skull and leaped aside. Once more, nothing happened.
Confidence blazed like a fire in Daring’s chest. One by one, she identified and pressed the correct skulls, with Phillip watching in silent trepidation all the while. After the sixth skull was pressed, there was a clicking and grinding noise from the base of one of the pedestals that bore the monsters.
Both ponies watched as a small compartment slid forward to reveal a velvet-lined interior. Within sat a multi-faceted chunk of black volcanic glass, about eight inches wide, the smooth sides reflecting the light to cast strange, dancing reflections within the material.
Daring Do slowly approached and lifted the rock. “The Dark Prism,” she whispered aloud.
She tilted the prism, studying her reflection staring back at her from the black mirror. It’s a rock, Uncle Ad. Just a rock. This is what Cartographer founded a church around? This is what Family Tree died for…?
Something moved within the stone. Daring grunted in confusion, tilting the prism. Was that just the light or…?
Her reflection blurred; something was moving behind her reflection. For a moment, she thought she saw a familiar pair of blue eyes within the black interior.
“Uncle Ad…?” she whispered.
Phillip pulled the stone from her grasp. “You’re chasing yowies, Daring,” he scowled at her.
Daring shook her head, feeling like she was clearing fog from her head. “Hey, careful with that!” she protested. “That’s an archaeological artifact!”
“It’s a rock,” Phillip stated, putting the prism back down. “We both got what we needed. Now–”
He paused, then whipped around, pushing Daring behind him with one foreleg as he drew the wooden club from his holster.
“I know you’re there,” he growled, his voice taking on an edge like thunder as he glared at a seemingly empty space between two sarcophagi.
An empty space that suddenly shimmered like a mirage. Before the two ponies’ eyes, a figure revealed itself as the invisibility spell faded. The pony was wearing a charcoal suit with a matching fedora, accentuated with a tie and hatband of pale gold. Their mane and tail were both an inky black; their bone-white flank was devoid of a cutie mark. Despite the direct glow of two flashlights, their face remained hidden behind a shadow that seemed to swallow their light. At their left hip was a curved sword with a stylized hook-shaped handle carved to look like a falcon’s head; a silver bangle with several small charms was secured to their left fetlock, which they extended in an expectant gesture.
“Give me the Prism,” the intruder declared in a distorted voice like a dozen echoes overlapping one another.
Daring stepped back, pocketing the Prism and pulling her whip from the holster. “The Order of the Sphinx sent you, didn’t they?” she asked.
“Give me the Prism,” came the reply, in the exact same tone.
Daring snapped her whip out and slid her hoof into the strap of her pistol, tugging it from the holster. “You forgot to say ‘please,’” Daring frowned.
In response, the intruder drew the sword from its scabbard, the movement unhurried and bringing with it a stench of the grave. The silver blade of the falcata gleamed wickedly beneath the glow of their flashlights. Inscribed into the metal was a long string of glyphs, chief among them a pair of black suns surrounding an icon that was of no script that Daring could identify. Black ooze seemed to seep from the metal itself, running down the curved length and dripping from the tip.
Daring Do’s eyes widened. “The Sword of Asocrac,” she breathed.
The faceless intruder seemed to nod as though in satisfaction and pointed the blade at her. “You needn’t die tonight,” they stated coldly. “Give me the–”
Phillip Finder’s left hoof blurred, snapping to his pocket and then to his foe. A sharp whistling noise pierced the air and the swordspony ducked, narrowly avoiding his boomerang as it spun past them.
“Go!” Phillip ordered, rushing forward while the intruder was distracted.
The blade thrust to meet his advance. Phillip sidestepped, smashing his club down at the exposed foreleg, but his attack merely wooshed through empty air.
The falcata sliced at Phillip’s head and he ducked, his counterpunch to the chest parried with a foreleg. The boomerang flew past Phillip's head and struck one of the sarcophagi, clattering to the stone floor as Phillip somersaulted back out of reach.
“Back off!” Daring shouted, pulling her whip back. The leather cord swooped as it passed over her head and she snapped her wrist down. The earsplitting crack struck the stone walls, painfully slamming against the ponies’ ears.
The cord struck the faceless pony on the neck, drawing a grunt of pain and causing them to stumble, a follow-up thrust missing Phillip by a foot. Phillip dove out of range, vaulting over another sarcophagus; even before he had fully come out of his tumble, he threw another boomerang, the wooden weapon whistling towards its target.
The sword flicked up into the spinning weapon’s path.
Two pieces of wood, cleanly separated by a single slice, tumbled to the floor. In moments, fungus was crawling up the wooden fragments, hungrily devouring the boomerang and leaving behind nothing but crumbling flakes.
The figure flicked the blade at Phillip, who barely ducked in time to avoid the spray of slime that was ejected at him. The ooze spattered against the opposite wall and began to eat into the stone like acid, acrid smoke emanating from the destruction.
So the legends are true, Daring thought, cringing at the smell.
The suited pony leaped over a sarcophagus, slashing once more at Phillip as he rolled out of the way. Their left foreleg thrust out at Daring.
Daring saw the faint red glow beneath the sleeve and the small trigger beneath her enemy’s hoof almost too late to dive aside. A trio of sharp pops like fireworks followed her as she dove behind the base of one of the statues; the tomb was briefly lit up red by the castfire rounds as they whistled through the air where she had been standing. They struck the wall, leaving scorch marks that wafted foul-smelling smoke.
Phillip popped out from behind the coffin that he’d ducked behind, his .38 secured to his foreleg. He pressed down on the stirrup, the sights centering on the swordspony’s head. Daring pivoted around, raising her own left foreleg and snapping the sights on her target.
The attacker raised their left foreleg, the charms on their bangles jingling with the motion. They spat out a word in a strange language, the incantation distorted into unrecognizable gibberish.
A blue smoke-like aura burst from a shield-shaped charm. The spell clung to Phillip and Daring’s pistols just as they depressed the triggers.
Click. Click.
“What the–?” Daring gasped, staring at her glowing weapon.
“Hex,” Phillip snarled.
Another shot from the castfire pistol streaked past Phillip’s ear as he dodged around the sarcophagus. The sword cleaved down towards his head–and missed by inches.
His club did not, cracking against his foe’s jaw and drawing an irritated grunt.
It was followed by a wheeze as Phillip’s elbow slammed into their side, then a growl as another slice missed the somersaulting pony. “Stand still!” the assassin snarled in their echoing voice, drawing the sword back.
Crack!
The whip coiled around the offending limb. “Gotcha!” Daring shouted, pulling them in like a fish on a line.
A fish that suddenly turned and rushed at her, whipping its sword at her face. “Yipe!” Daring gasped, instinctively dropping the whip and leaping into the air, flapping her wings as the fetid wind from the strike struck her face.
Another whistling noise pierced the air. The swordspony ducked. Daring didn’t have time. Pain suddenly flared like fire across her wing, sending her tumbling to the ground with a cry.
“Sorry!” Phillip cried, catching the weapon on the return trip as he closed in with a swing.
The assassin lifted their left foreleg and Phillip's attack bounced off a shield of pale purple energy that blossomed from their charms. Phillip stumbled, then dove out of the way of another trio of castfire shots, tucking and rolling behind the cover of another sarcophagus.
Daring scrambled for her hooves only for a sledgehammer blow to the chest to knock her back down. She sucked in air, fractured ribs burning like a fire in her lungs; through her swimming vision, she saw the pony in the trench coat stalking towards her, raising the cursed blade.
And then, with a strident shriek that was half battle cry and half scream of desperate fixed terror, a little blue light slammed into the shadow-covered face, causing them to stumble.
“Gossamer, no!” Phillip shouted as the little breezy grabbed his foe’s fedora and yanked the brim down over where their eyes should have been.
“Get off!” the swordspony snarled, slapping the breezy away. Gossamer Dance tumbled helplessly until he crashed into a stone coffin with a squeal of pain. He fell to the ground, unmoving, one wing bent at an awkward angle.
Crack!
The suited attacker had just enough time to register the whip encircling their hind legs before Daring heaved and felled her foe like a tree. Closing the distance, Daring seized the whip by the middle of the cord and swung the other end around like a flail. A second crack like a bat striking a baseball for the winning run sounded as the lead weight concealed in the handle slammed into her target’s foreleg, drawing a snarl of pain and sending the Sword of Asocrac skittering across the ground.
Phillip pounced on his enemy like a leopard, snarling in rage as he kicked aside their left foreleg and pinned it beneath a hoof. His face twisted in a mask of fury, he slammed his carved wooden club again and again, gripping it with both hooves like a baseball bat, punctuating each heavy thwack with an equally heavy grunt.
Thwack went the assassin's right foreleg as they futilely tried to block the rain of blows, the warped limb flopping to the ground like a dead fish.
Thwack, thwack went their face and then their jaw, black blood exploding from the anomalous shadows and staining the ground.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
“Hey, hey! Enough! He’s beaten!” Daring cried, rushing forward and grabbing Phillip’s shoulder.
Phillip froze at her touch, breathing heavily through gritted teeth; sweat ran down his face, which was still fixed in that frightful red mask of anger. But slowly, he began to calm down, lowering his weapon as his breathing slowed.
“Gossamer,” he gasped, rushing over to the breezy. “Gossamer, can you hear me?”
The little blue breezy groaned feebly and raised his head. “Oww, dè thachair?” Gossamer moaned. He tried to sit up, then gasped in pain. “Mo sgiath!” he cried, clutching the fractured wing.
“It’s okay, mate,” Phillip soothed, gently picking Gossamer up and placing him inside his hat. “I’ll get you to Doctor Fluttershy. She and Dr. Hugger will get you patched up pronto.”
The suited pony groaned and shifted their head. “You stay down,” Daring growled, aiming her no-longer-hexed pistol down at their head.
In response, the intruder began to whisper, a circuitous litany of strange speech. A high-pitched ringing noise, like a tuning fork, began to fill the air.
The feeling of ice spread across Daring’s side, emanating from where the Prism of Darkness was pocketed, and she gasped in shock, flinching from the unnatural touch. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Cartographer believed it was a window,” the thief hissed in between their chanting. “He was wrong. It’s a door.”
Daring pulled the Prism of Darkness from her pocket and the tomb was instantly filled with a light that glowed an impossible color, somewhere between blue and yellow and green and black, and yet none of them. The piercing tone grew louder and louder, blending with the intruder’s continuing chant. Shadows danced along the walls, twisting shapes.
Daring looked into the Prism, watching the interplay of light and shadows within.
Something twisted and writhed within the stone.
Something turned to look back at her.
She dropped the stone with a gasp and it clattered to the ground. Brighter and brighter the light shone, faster and faster the shadows danced, louder and louder the whistling came, and louder and louder did Daring’s heart sound in her ears. She gaped at the impossible display, torn between dread fascination and numbing horror.
She felt the approach in the back of her head, like distant hoofsteps.
Something was knocking at the door.
She looked over at Phillip, who was clutching Gossamer Dance protectively to his rapidly heaving chest as he crouched near a sarcophagus, gray eyes staring numbly at the unnatural shapes that were crawling along the stone walls, floor, and ceiling. The breezy’s voice was faintly audible beneath the cacophony, squeaking out what sounded like a prayer.
DO SOMETHING!
Uncle Ad’s voice shrieked in Daring’s ears, terrified and desperate, and spurred her hooves to move. Casting her eyes about the room, she spotted the Sword of Asocrac still laying where it had fallen, some of the caustic black slime still seeping from the metal.
She lunged and grabbed the handle of the falcata, whipping around and raising it over her head. “No!” the faceless pony cried, trying to rise back up on their hooves.
With a cry, Daring swung the cursed sword with everything she had. The corroding blade cleaved into the Prism of Darkness and cut the stone in half.
The glow flared into a blinding light, the whining tone rising into a scream. Daring cried out and stumbled, raising a hoof to shield her dazzled eyes.
Something crashed into her, knocking the sword from her grasp. Gunshots clapped in her ears, muted by the echoes of the screaming stone; through blurred vision, she caught a glimpse of the faceless thief running back up the stairs, their outline shimmering and fading away into transparency.
It took a few moments more for the light and sound to fade away, leaving a silence behind. Daring groaned as she rose back to her hooves, wincing as every inhalation sent fiery flashes of pain through her broken ribs.
“You all right?” Phillip asked, helping her up.
“Be better if you didn’t hit me with your stick,” Daring replied, testing her right wing; the muscle still ached, but nothing seemed broken.
“Sorry about that,” Phillip sheepishly replied.
Daring looked over at the broken fragments of stone on the ground, the shattered remnants of the Prism of Darkness. She picked up one of the pieces and crumbled into dust; the black surfaces no longer reflected the light.
“You worked hard to get that,” Phillip observed. “Would’ve been a big find. Made you famous.”
“Maybe it’s for the best,” Daring said, trying to convince herself. “You saw what was happening.”
“Droch dhraoidheachd, ceannard. I told you,” Gossamer whimpered from inside Phil’s hat.
“All I saw were lights and shadows,” Phillip said.
“You heard what he said,” Daring protested, indignation flashing in her gut at the skeptical tone in his voice. “It was a door. Something was going to come through if I didn’t do something!”
“Forgive me if I don’t take his word for it,” Phillip said.
Daring glared at him, but couldn’t find the words to describe the fear that she’d felt…which was fading like how a foal’s terror of the dark disappears when the lights are turned on. What had she seen, really? Some strange shadows and lights, odd reflections in a multi-faceted stone? How could she be sure that it wasn’t her imagination playing tricks on her? Shame and doubt crushed her thoughts, and her past horror withered beneath the light of rationality.
Hoofsteps rumbled down the steps from above and Reverend Word appeared, followed by Screw Driver, his toolbelt rattling as he ran down the steps; when he reached the bottom, his jaw dropped, causing the flashlight in his mouth to tumble onto the floor. The reverend gaped at the tomb in disbelief. “What…what is this?” he gasped, gripping his bangles in horror. He gasped at Phillip and Daring. “How did you–? You found–?!”
“We did,” Phillip said. “And we’re not the first ones down here. Family Tree died down here.” He turned and glared at Screw Driver. “And I know who killed her.”
The sexton stepped back as though Phillip’s anger was a physical blow, his eyes widening. “Wha–you don’t–how can you–?”
“You’re left-hooved,” Phillip snarled, stepping forward and pointing at the blood painting the threshold. “And those blows were made by a left-hooved pony. Family Tree came down here on Monday night; you followed her down here and hit her with a wrench from behind. Then you hit her again and again while she lay on the ground. You dragged her outside, dropped her in her car, drove her down to the reservoir, and dumped her and the car inside the water. And then you came back and cleaned the blood on the floor, thinking that that would be enough to hide your guilt.”
“What? That’s crazy! He’s crazy, Reverend!” Screw Driver protested, but the lie was painted across his reddening, desperate face.
“I visited the reservoir. I saw the tracks you left, and the sand on your boots,” Phillip hissed. “How easy would it be for them to drag the reservoir and find the car with her inside it? Along with the wrench that you used?” he added, nodding to a conspicuously empty loop on the left side of his tool belt.
Reverend Word looked down at the empty loop, suspicion flickering in his eyes. “I did hear you getting up late last night…”
“But how would I know about the Sunken Church?” Screw Driver protested, his knees quivering. The sweat on his brow shone beneath Phillip and Daring’s flashlights.
“Measuring Tape,” Phillip said.
Screw Driver blinked and flinched a bit. “W-what about him?”
“He’s your father, isn’t he?” Daring said, the photograph from Family Tree’s notes swimming before her gaze. “Your ears are the same shape. This whole time, you knew the Sunken Church was real, and you knew that Family Tree might have found a way in. And that you had to stop her.”
Screw Driver cowered, his eyes darting back and forth between Phillip, Daring, and Reverend Word. Desperation and fear shone in his eyes…then they hardened into frustration.
“You saw what that thing can do,” he said to Daring. “You’ve seen how terrible it is down here. My father told me what the Temple was capable of, the things that they saw. What he did. Family Tree was going to dig all that up. I couldn’t let that happen!”
“So you killed her?” Daring snarled, anger flaring in her like oil on a grease fire, snuffing even the pain of her cracked ribs. “You bashed her head in and dumped her in the reservoir?!”
“I had no choice!” Screw Driver snapped back.
“By the Pillars,” Reverend Word breathed. “This is true?”
“It is, Reverend,” Screw Driver answered, lowering his head. “I said that I would work to preserve this church’s history, to remove it from what it used to be. And I’ve done that.”
“This isn’t what I meant!” Reverend Word cried.
“You’re going to answer for what you did,” Phillip growled, stepping forward, one hoof on his club.
"If I hadn't stopped her, we would all be answering for it," Screw Driver protested, his tone solemn despite the defiance in his eyes. He glanced behind them at the ruined temple, sadly staring at the empty drawer where the Prism of Darkness had once lain. "Maybe we still will," he added in a quiet, frightened tone.
Phillip seized his foreleg and carried him up the stairs; the murderer did not resist, though he still held his head high. Good Word stared in disbelief as his loyal sexton was dragged off.
“We should call the police,” Daring said, gently placing a hoof on the holy pony’s shoulder.
Good Word swallowed and nodded, numbly following the duo up out the hacked-out steps, up out of this underworld of blood and death and back into the warmth and light of holiness.