//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Beyond the Veil of Sleep // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Mira didn’t understand. That was nothing new—there was a great deal that she didn’t know, particularly where the ancient magic of her kind was concerned. But usually being around Kallisto meant she would have her questions answered, rather than drown in a dozen new ones. “You could just do this whenever you wanted?” Mira asked, calling over the sound of rushing wind all around them. “Why wouldn’t… why did you wait so long?” Kallisto whistled ruefully. “In my youth, I would have. When the temple of Artemis was a place of glory, I spent lifetimes traveling distant fields of stone and steel.” They landed lightly in the grass, trailing gravel and bits of dirt as they touched down. Only then did Kallisto release her grip on Mira. It wasn’t just a forest, at least none she’d ever seen before. Not that Mira had flown far north of her native jungles, but this… this looked more like something on another planet. It wasn’t daytime, despite her initial impressions. The great glowing ball overhead was the moon, vaster than the sun at noonday, though it never hurt her eyes. Rather than just absorbing the light, the forest all around them glowed with a light all its own. Leaves flickered with blue near their veins, or collected berries of white radiance hanging like fruit. Flowers retreated from their hooves as they walked, coating the forest floor in a diffuse glow of pinks, greens, and blues. “But why not anymore?” Mira asked, urgent. She never wanted to sound ungrateful, not with Kallisto. She was the only pony in the world who had ever given to her, and not expected anything in return. “We could’ve come here, Kallisto! You could’ve taught me about… all of this!” She darted beside a huge, rotten log, nudging it over with a hoof. But she didn’t find any of her favorite white mushrooms clustered near the top—only a cat, which mewled fearfully and backed away into the shadow. “I would have, child. If only I could.” She held Mira by one hoof, pulling her away from the log. She bounced forward from hoof to hoof, leaping up onto a nearby stump. Probably belonged to the same log that lay rotten. “The soul rebels, Mira. I’m no Alicorn princess. I’ve known for years now that my next time into the Dreamlands would be my last. I’ve seen this done before—lifetimes ago. Their hearts stop beating before the sun comes up.” Mira wasn’t stupid—not as stupid as Lud, anyway. But every word Kallisto said only confused her more. I saw her. She was dying. The ancient thestral didn’t want to share all her secrets. But why? “This is the Dreamlands,” Mira said. “What was important enough that it would be your last trip?” Kallisto hopped back down again, wrapping one wing over her shoulder. “The same end to every thestral who ever watched the moon,” she said. “The other tribes watch for the Elysian Fields, where they run forever with their clan. “But for those of us who reach it—the Dreamlands. Where no moth consumes, where rust never cankers. Where I can still fly.” She urged Mira to trot, then run. “This way, child! Come with me this one last time.” Mira had never gone with her outside the walls of Athena’s temple—but she ran now, without fear. It’s real. Everything Kallisto ever taught me. It wasn’t just our old religion. The magic works. The forest transformed around them. It felt like minutes, but it had to be hours, right? Maybe days… but just like that, the trees grew larger, with thick canopies that blotted out the moon and hosted numberless dark shapes. “What city?” Mira asked. “Erebus,” Kallisto replied. “Nothing like you’ve ever seen, Mira. Everything you’ve ever heard me say about the glory of ancient thestrals, the nobility in you—it’s there.” In a way, it resembled Understory, with buildings that clustered around natural stone formations on the ground and ceiling. A twisting metal spire formed the center, with buildings attached to the side just like in her cave. But where she could easily fly from floor to ceiling in a matter of hours, this city was closer to an entire mountain range in itself. She smelled the weight of it even from a distance, so many bat scents that they all blurred into a single, vibrant mass. Kallisto didn’t mirror her excitement. She slowed as they reached the edge of a cliff, hooves skidding on the dark rock. “The city shouldn’t be dark, not here.” She turned, meeting Mira’s eyes. “Only the natives of this realm need to sleep. There are no natives in Erebus—every one of them was a bat from our world. Well, ours or the one before.” She took off, a little clumsily at first, flying off the edge and into the mist. Mira made to follow, then hesitated. There was something on the ground, something that she’d barely noticed. The cat she’d seen now stood on the stone behind her—somehow it had kept up. If it was winter, Mira might’ve considered which soldier to trade it to in exchange for some of the meat. But the winter hadn’t come, and Mira wasn’t nearly starving enough to eat something so cute. “Stay out of trouble,” she said, the way Nacht always said it to her. The cat looked like it might just reply—but then it turned up its nose, slinking over to the edge of the rocks, where it started licking itself. Mira hurried after her teacher, leaping right over the edge and catching herself in the fall. The bat hadn’t slowed to wait for her, but continued on towards the city. But Kallisto was slow and clumsy in the air, like a pony that hadn’t flown for weeks. Mira was fast, fast enough to escape from all but a trained pegasus guard. She caught up after just a few seconds. “Why are we… coming here exactly?” she panted. “So I can join the others at last,” Kallisto said. “Equestria welcomed us, but has almost destroyed us for our trust. But Erebus is out of Celestia’s reach. Here the clans who flew between the fabric of worlds continue those explorations forever. Maybe they will find a kinder home for ponies like us. Either way, this is what I have waited for. I taught the survivors everything I could, did my duty to the last. Now my rest arrives.” They flew between the first, outer layer of buildings. These were built like nothing she’d ever seen—each one was as tall as castles, as tall as whole mountains. Yet they were hollow, and had windows of glass emerging at regular intervals. The interiors weren’t threadbare stone or wood either—she could see furniture through the glass, homes filled with art and soft beds and larders with food waiting to be eaten. Kallisto was right, it was everything that she said thestrals were supposed to be. Except for one thing: there weren’t any thestrals. Many of the gigantic towers were connected by bridges or roads suspended in the air, and many more had balconies for bats to come and go. A city of such size should’ve had a whole army of thestrals in the air all the time, even if they weren’t out with spears to fend off the Solar Army. “I guess they have lots of extra space,” Mira suggested. “All these buildings are where new bats live when they arrive? There must be hundreds…” “Millions,” Kallisto said. But she no longer sounded confident, or serene. She tucked her wings close to her sides, then dove into the center. Just like Understory, there was a temple down there—but instead of deep underground, this temple was at the center of a vast metal framework, with thousands of buildings clustered around it above and below. The city was arranged so every structure got moonlight on at least one face—except the temple. Once they were inside the framework, Mira felt like she was swimming through the light more than flying around it. The colors all washed away, and there was only creamy moonlight extending into forever. Kallisto’s retreating wings were her only guide. Without her, she probably would’ve spiraled off, and eventually crashed into metal supports bigger than whole forts. The temple at the bottom even looked familiar, though it could’ve fit a dozen Temples of Artemis in its courtyard and still had plenty of room for a parade. Instead of painted rock, there were a half dozen pillars of precious stone, each one catching the moonlight and glowing a different way. They represented different parts of the Dreamlands, though Mira had never bothered to learn the specifics. Now she wished she had. Kallisto landed in the center of a fine tile mosaic, seconds before Mira did. “A distant dreamer finds her home at last!” she yelled, each word spoken with ritual clarity. “She searches for an audience with the cartographer, to be weighed for her discoveries!” Wind whipped through the vast temple complex. Somewhere far away, a shutter banged against a wooden wall. Cloth snapped and whistled. Nopony appeared. Seconds stretched into minutes, and soon felt like they’d been standing in place for ages. Mira circled around her, ears tucking backward, and wings folded. “Kallisto, are you sure this is the right place? It doesn’t seem like there’s anypony here.” Kallisto didn’t smile with the wisdom of a lifetime. When she finally turned, her eyes were wide, haunted. “The Solar Army couldn’t find us here,” she whispered. “Celestia… never could’ve come here. She didn’t swear, she doesn’t have our magic.” “Of course not.” Mira retreated a step, voice shaking. “Y-you told me all about that, Kallisto. The moon welcomed us to her land, and in exchange we shared our secrets with her. She became our princess, watching over the bats of the whole world and leading us to prosperity.” That was the story, anyway. Mira couldn’t repeat it with much conviction, even here. “There should be thousands of ponies in this temple,” Kallisto said. “The dead and dreaming of the world should fill the city. But I smell no smoke, and I see no thestrals in flight.” She broke, and took off running towards the largest temple structure. The building had steps so large they had to jump to clear them, or just glide over like Mira did. Despite the wind, the temple had paper windows instead of glass, each painstakingly traced with delicate patterns. But the wind had shredded many of them to ribbons, and each provided a clear view to the darkness within. Then they reached the top of the steps, and Kallisto froze, looking in with horror. Mira landed behind her, and soon saw why. The interior had been ransacked. The pews within were intact, so no one had come plundering precious wood. But the bookshelves on the far wall were mostly empty, the drawers underneath all turned out and emptied onto the floor. The precious stones set into the wall, arranged in maps of the constellations and the Dreamlands themselves—that had been left behind. What did they value to leave all that? What did they take? “I shouldn’t have brought you here,” Kallisto muttered. “We knew when Nightmare Moon was defeated that we would suffer. The Solar Army burned so much, but… I thought this was safe.” Kallisto turned, embracing Mira in a tight hug. “Thank you for coming with me, filly. I imagined we would have the whole night together—I would share the last wisdom I’d gained, you could drink the tea of distant starlight, and say your farewells. Maybe one day you would find your way here, like our ancient ancestors did.” Mira whimpered. She knew the sound of a goodbye when she heard one. She clung tighter, though this pony felt and smelled very much like a stranger. She’d never known Kallisto as anything other than shriveled and ancient. “D-don’t talk like that,” she stammered. “There’s no reason for any farewells! I can go with you!” Kallisto let go, retreating a few steps. “Go with me where, child? Look around you. My rest and yours—there’s nopony here. Our eternity has been stolen. When Luna lost, so did every one of us. There’s nowhere else to go.” Kallisto was the strongest pony Mira had ever met—a pony who could stare into the face of the Solar Guard and not flinch, a pony who could cure the sick and uplift the living with her advice. She collapsed to the floor in front of Mira, and cried like a foal.