“I’ve got a bad feeling about this next stop,” Rarity said. The ride was once again a long one between stops, and hours ago fog had overtaken the train and made it impossible to see anything outside except suggestions and glimpses of form punctuated by the occasional lamp post flashing past.
Diana carefully wiped her mouth. Kyanite had brought them salads to eat as a light lunch. They were nothing terribly fancy, a fall-inspired mix of dried fruits and nuts over dark greens and accompanied by a sweet dressing, but they were easy on the stomach even while one was on a rocking train and the anxiety of the unknown pressed in on all sides.
“It’s not going to be a happy place.” The Conductor trotted into the car, glancing at the opaque windows and tugging his coat tighter around him. “You’re right to have a bad feeling. It could even be dangerous.”
“More dangerous than Discord’s realm?” Diana asked. Not that she’d ever thought it was dangerous, but it was the kind of place ponies had to be cautious, at least so they didn’t end up as the butt of a bad joke.
“Much more,” the Conductor said. “We’re going to stop in a Realm called Clostra. It’s about as far from a vacation spot as you can imagine. It’s like one big foggy city.”
“That doesn’t sound too awful,” Rarity said. “There are plenty of perfectly nice foggy cities. Have you ever been to Trottingham back home? I swear they can go months without seeing the sun.”
“Clostra is different,” the Conductor said. “You’ll see when we get there. I wouldn’t go anywhere alone if I was you. Actually, if I was you I probably wouldn’t leave the train. There’s nothing worth seeing or doing there.”
That made Rarity curious. She was perfectly capable of defending herself, so the dire warning seemed more like an enticement. Rarity also couldn’t imagine it could really be that much worse than some of the worst neighborhoods in Manehattan.
“I’ll be careful,” Rarity promised.
Diana shook her head. “If you think you’re going to get foalnapped, I’d appreciate it if you scream loudly enough that I get a warning.”
“Please, darling, I’m not going to get foalnapped,” Rarity scoffed. “Besides, how bad could it be?”
“Don’t join any cults,” the Conductor warned, turning back towards the engine. He shot a glance through the window. Rarity followed his gaze, and for a moment she thought she saw something through the mist, something dark and reaching for her.
She remembered the shadow in her home, surrounding her in the boutique and cutting off all light and life. Panic gripped her. Darkness edged in at the sides of her vision, a tunnel closing in.
“Are you alright?” Diana asked.
Rarity blinked, and everything was okay again.
“Yes, of course,” she said, trying to play it calmly. Nothing was wrong. She shook her head, trying to shake off that feeling of falling. “I suppose all this travel just made me tired. It will be nice to sleep in a real bed.”
Rarity stepped off the train. The view from inside had remained all but totally obscured by the mist, but once she was on the platform it cleared up a bit. Diana pulled her dark cloak tighter and looked back at the Aether Express.
“How odd,” Rarity mumbled to herself. Fog still clung to the train like a ghostly shroud of cobwebs.
“It must be something in the train’s magic,” Diana decided. Rarity nodded. It made as much sense as anything else. She turned away to look at what little she could see of their surroundings. They’d arrived at an underground station, with a vaulted roof overhead and the tunnel curving slightly to vanish into the darkness just beyond the flickering gas lamps that provided light. It was dark, but not supremely so, merely the gloom of candles instead of midnight.
Murals and old posters covered the slightly curved walls, showing strange words and symbols that Rarity didn’t immediately recognize.
“Look at this,” Diana said. She motioned above them to an archway framing the stairs leading up. A wrought iron gate filled the space, hanging ajar just far enough that they could slip through without touching it. The single word ‘Clostra’ was worked into the metal at the top, as a combination sign and warning.
“Not a terribly inviting place,” Rarity said. Down here, it was damp enough that the fog was lingering around her hooves despite being indoors, almost masking the cracked tile of the floor. “How long will we be here, again?”
“Two days, almost exactly,” Diana said. She produced a pocket watch from inside her coat. “The Conductor said the hotel should be safe, or at least safer than the streets. We’ll have to be cautious until we find it.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Rarity scoffed. “It’s certainly a bit spooky, but you’re from Hollow Shades, aren’t you?”
“I’ve seen into enough of the dark corners of the earth to know that caution and safety are a matching pair. As long as we remain aware of our surroundings, we shouldn’t have much to worry about.” Diana squeezed through the iron gate, thin enough despite her height that she had little trouble slipping through like a ghost.
Rarity had slightly more trouble. The designer knew her own measurements all too well, and was aware that she was a full-bodied mare in some ways -- something many stallions preferred! Long legs and lanky physiques would be out of season soon. She was sure of it. That absolute assurance is why she wasn’t mad at all, even when her flanks touched both sides of the gate at the same time.
She shivered. The iron was cold. Not in a weird, unnatural way, but in the totally natural way that something buried into the earth and untouched by the warm hooves of the living simply became. Cold like an icicle. Cold like a corpse.
“I hope the rest of this Realm isn’t so run down,” Rarity said. The stairs were long and narrow. A trickle of water ran down them from the leaking roof, though it was impossible to pinpoint a source.
Emerging into the street was like walking out of a mausoleum. The station entrance was a block of solid-looking masonry, big marble blocks framing a square building with a sloped roof, the whole thing decorated with a combination of vague geometric shapes that wouldn’t have been out of place in almost any place or time.
The cobblestone street was damp, and streetlights gave enough light to read by, but the fog was thick, and Rarity couldn’t see much further than a block in any direction. Iron fences tipped with spikes lined the streets, barricades protecting the creaking buildings beyond them that sprouted like mushrooms in the wet gloom.
Rarity only saw one pony in the street, a figure wrapped in a cloak and standing on the street corner, seemingly oblivious to her and Diana.
“Not quite as much of a vacation spot as our last stop,” Rarity noted quietly.
“There are bars on all the windows,” Diana noted. “The ponies here must value their privacy.”
“Perhaps we should check in at the hotel?” Rarity suggested. “I’m sure one of the ponies around here must know where to go.”
She walked up to the cloaked local, who didn’t seem to be threatening at a distance. Diana stayed close behind her, watching the shadows. The uncertain light and the many blind corners and shadows cast by bars and fences meant the shadows changed with every step, some of them in ways that seemed unnatural.
There was certainly something odd about the local on the corner. They didn’t turn to face Rarity as she approached. They stood on unsteady hooves, humming quietly to themselves.
“Excuse me?” Rarity asked. “I hate to be a bother, but I was hoping you could help me with… some… directions…” Her voice slowed down, the words coming out almost on automatic as she tried to get a better grasp on what she saw when the other pony turned to her.
The mare was wrapped almost entirely in bandages, only her mouth and snout showing. They were old, filthy rags, with a suggestion they covered more than just bruises and scrapes. The tiny amount of flesh that did show was pale, her coat thin and almost pure white. Not the same tone as Rarity herself, but that almost transparent, pinkish color of an albino.
“Directions,” the mare said, the word a sigh of lament. “Thou are lost. How sorrowful for thee, mare from a faraway land.”
“I’m not… that lost,” Rarity said. “I simply need--”
“This land is not a peaceful place. Tis a land of angry songs for those who know to listen. Raging iron prisons, singing of old conquest and fallen empire. Dost thou serve a fallen one?”
“We’re merely passing through,” Diana said.
“Heh heh heh…” the mare chuckled. “Thou would say that? Thou who art fallen herself? Take care and be wary that the jailers do not hear the song you sing, or it shall be a lament eternal.”
“I don’t believe this mare is sane,” Diana whispered.
“You might be right,” Rarity agreed, trying to be quiet.
“Left, then left again. Up the walk and down the bridge. Go through the field and past the prison there. Then thou will find what thou seeks,” the mare said. “Let it not be said that I did not aid thou, mare from a faraway land and her fallen master. Still thy wrath, and keep thy gifts. My own patron would think ill of me.”
“Thank you,” Rarity said. “Let’s… move on, shall we?” She looked at Diana. The taller mare seemed more than just uncomfortable. She was positively spooked, ready to bolt back to the train. Rarity nudged her, and Diana forced herself back to placid calm, stilling the panic that had started to boil.
“Lets,” she agreed, quickly walking to put distance between herself and the bandaged mare. Rarity had to jog to keep up with the fast, long steps.
“Did she scare you that badly?” Rarity asked. “What did she mean by ‘fallen one’?”
“I don’t care to know,” Diana said. It was clearly a lie but one that didn’t allow polite argument about the truth. They took a turn to the left, then the next left, and followed a narrow path hemmed in on both sides by iron fences that reached above their heads and joined into a trellis, eventually going over a canal of dark, deep water. Rarity could see lights in the water. Oddly-colored and worrying lights.
“Did you see that?” Rarity asked.
“It’s likely best not to look,” Diana said, keeping her eyes forward. Rarity tried to do the same. There were colors there, under the water. Colors she hadn’t seen before. She didn’t even have names for them. It hurt to look, and she had to turn away. The pathway opened up again as they emerged in front of a wide, open field.
“This must be some kind of park,” Rarity said. There were pathways leading in, along with benches. “At least it’s not all cobblestone streets.” Her hooves were already getting a bit sore from the uneven, slippery cobbles.
“She said to go through it,” Diana said. She led the way, staying on the path. The grass was just slightly overgrown, patches of harsher scrub plants growing tall in places. Circles of darker grass dotted the uneven ground, most of them only as large as a pony lying down. Some of them were circled with mushrooms. Rarity stayed away from them, instinct saying not to disturb whatever they were.
Rarity was so preoccupied with her footing that she didn’t notice Diana had stopped walking ahead of her. She bumped into the mare’s flank. Diana looked back at her, then nodded ahead of them.
It was something like a sculpture. Iron beams and stone were joined together, twisted into a shape that wasn’t entirely organic or artificial. It was roughly polyhedral, framed by girders around a silvery core that somewhat resembled a seashell and somewhat resembled a boulder that had been melted in some great inferno. Runes had been carved into it, geometric shapes and lines covering it like the markings on a surveyor’s map.
“What is that?” Rarity asked.
“I think it’s a meteorite,” Diana said.
Rarity’s ear twitched. “Do you hear that?” she asked. It was a strange sound, like a glass harp playing somewhere nearby. If she listened very carefully, she could just barely make out the tune. It didn’t quite repeat, and--
“Rarity!” Diana snapped. Rarity opened her eyes. She hadn’t even realized she’d closed them. She could have sworn she had been looking at the symbols and the way they glowed all the way around the meteor. She’d stepped off the path, and was halfway to the iron cage built around it.
“I don’t know what came over me,” Rarity apologized, hurrying back to Diana’s side. “I apologize, darling. It was the strangest sensation.”
“I can imagine,” Diana said softly. “Let’s get away from it. The hotel should be on the other side of the park, if that odd blind pony was correct.”
“Blind?”
“She had bandages around her eyes, anyway,” Diana said. “Blind might be the wrong word. I had the sense she could see quite a bit.”
“You know, this might be the first time I’ve seen you quite so out of sorts,” Rarity said, as they hurried their pace past the space rock. The other side of the park was visible now, and with the wrought iron bars around it, there was almost a sense that it was a prison cell keeping the meteor inside.
“Are you saying you’re at ease here?” Diana countered.
Rarity shook her head, felt an urge to look back at the captured meteorite, and fought it off. What she needed was a decent night of rest in a real bed.
They walked out of the park in silent haste and found themselves back on a wide boulevard, but this time there was no mistaking where they had to go. There was only one building with its lights on and its gates unbarred, but not unguarded. Two ponies stood at the door, one at either side, holding long poleaxes and wearing heavy, armored coats to ward off the weather and blows alike.
“Halt,” one of them said, turning his weapon to block the way in. He was a pegasus, fluttering his wings and knocking dew from his feathers. He must have been standing there for a while.
“They’re obviously not cultists, Rustung,” the other pony, an earth pony mare, replied. She knocked his axe away with hers. “These must be the travelers. You heard the train whistle just like I did.”
“Bah, Beil, you’re not careful enough.” Rustung relented and stepped aside, clearly not really thinking they were a threat. “One of these days a vault is going to crack and you’ll try talking to what slithers out.”
“A vault?” Rarity asked.
“It’s not wise to speak of such things out here,” Beil said. “Especially not so close to one of them.” She motioned with her chin towards the park and the thing inside it. “Come inside. We were told to wait for you and make sure you arrived safely.”
“You can buy us a drink for our trouble!” Rustung laughed.
“I admit I don’t have much of a taste for beer, but this is quite refreshing,” Rarity admitted. She was on her second mug, the ornately detailed pewter filled with a generous draft of sweet brew. It tasted like it was made with spices and fruit along with grain. It was, more importantly, strong enough to help calm Rarity’s nerves.
The surroundings of the inn helped just as much as the beer. It was all warm wood inside, with a crackling fireplace and candles that gave everything an orange glow. It defied the cold fog outside and kept it at bay, with murals on the walls showing a tapestry of ponies in the hills and valleys of someplace that had to be far from here, a place with real sunlight and tall mountains. It was better to look at those than the narrow, barred windows.
“I have to agree,” Diana said. She set down her mug and wiped foam from her lips. “This is far more pleasant than the streets.”
“It’s a pleasure to serve travelers from a faraway land,” the barmaiden said. She was young and had curves that Rarity wasn’t sure if she should be jealous of or simply have sympathy for. They were curves that drew wandering eyes and made athletic activity all but impossible. The earth pony carried herself like she was weightless despite that.
The mare put a platter down on the table. There was an odd assortment of food on it. A jar of sliced pickled beets, slices of dense black bread, raw red onion, and something like a black oat cake with a savory, seasoned scent to it.
“Something while you wait for your rooms to be aired out,” she said. “We haven’t had many visitors lately, at least not ones who need a bed.” She looked at Beil and Rustung significantly.
“We’re your best customers,” Rustung said, holding out his hooves helplessly. “I even paid off my tab!”
“Technically, Frau Rarity paid off your tab,” Beil pointed out. “And I paid it the time before that.”
“Let’s not squabble over details,” Rustung mumbled.
“Could you tell us a little about this place?” Rarity asked, cutting in. “I’m afraid we don’t know many details, and I worry that there could be dangers I’m not aware of.”
“Being aware of some of the dangers is what makes them dangerous,” Beil retorted. “Clostra is a prison.”
“That might explain the iron bars, I suppose.” Rarity shifted on the bench seat. “I suppose it’s a bit like Tartarus back home.”
“Yes,” Diana agreed, with a slow nod. “It is similar, isn’t it? The air is dead in the same way, like the entire world is somehow indoors.”
“You’ve been there?” Rarity asked. “I didn’t even know it was real until… well, there was a minor Cerberus incident. There was also time travel involved, I think. It was a strange week.”
“Briefly,” Diana said. “Before you ask, no, it wasn’t as a prisoner.”
“Ah, a guard, then!” Rustung declared. He patted Diana on the back. “Good! It’s better to be part of the solution. There’s little to do here except hunt monsters.”
“What kind of things are imprisoned here?” Rarity asked.
“You passed through a park to get here,” Beil said. “You must have seen one of the Vaults. They’re hard to miss.”
“I assume you mean the rather large… structure,” Rarity said. She didn’t have a better word for it.
Beil nodded. “They’re like prison cells, and they existed here before ponies started coming here. Each one holds terrible things. The smallest are only this large.” She mimed holding something about as large as a hoofball. “They get dug up from time to time or we find them hidden in little shrines.”
“Ponies worship the blasted things,” Rustung scoffed. “Idiots. Whenever one of them cracks open, monsters come out. Whole families end up eaten alive and our job is to clean up the mess.”
Beil sighed at that. “Our job is to try and keep ponies from getting hurt, but it’s not easy when they’re hurting themselves and they do their best to hide what they’re doing.”
“Why do ponies come here, if it’s so bad?” Rarity asked. She reached for the food. It would be polite to at least try it. She assembled the bread, onion, beets, and strange cake into something like an open-face sandwich.
The barmaiden leaned in to whisper. “If you listen to the legend, the Gros Eisenberg was the first thing here. It’s a Vault the size of a castle. It was banished here from some far-off realm, and everything else accumulated around it over untold eons. Ponies end up here because they were cast out of their worlds. It’s a prison for us, too. Some of us work to keep the peace, others just try to make do as best they can.”
“I see…” Rarity mumbled. She took a bite of what she’d put together. The oat cake had a metallic, bitter taste underneath the spices. The strong flavor of vinegar from the beets and the tang of the raw onion paired well with it and the black bread.
“We’ll have to be cautious,” Diana said. “If ponies were banished here, they might do anything for a chance to escape, including trying to take our tickets.”
“What is this called?” Rarity asked, taking another bite of the food. “I don’t think I’ve had anything quite like it.”
“It’s called a black pudding,” the barmaiden said. “We make them ourselves. They're good food for your health. Lots of iron in them.”
Rarity nodded and ate a bit more. Something called pudding couldn’t be all that bad, even if it was more savory than she’d expect with a name like that. The little puck of oats seemed pan-fried, with crispy edges.
“How do you make black pudding?” Rarity asked.
“You can’t still be sick,” Diana sighed.
“I will be sick as long as I want!” Rarity groaned from the bathroom. She’d managed to keep everything together until the room was ready and she could be sick in peace. It wouldn’t have been right to empty her guts in front of the mare who’d served them the food. Guests had to abide by at least some laws of hospitality.
The room hung over the edge of the building, the second floor of the inn larger than the first, whole rooms cantilevered out over the stone and iron walls protecting the lower level. It would have given a good view if there had been anything to see aside from fog and the buildings around them.
Diana rolled her eyes, lounging on a narrow bed that had so many layers of patchwork blankets and linens that she’d given up on actually finding a mattress under them. Half of the small, hard, lacy pillows had been put on the floor where they weren’t entirely in the way. “You’re being needlessly dramatic. You enjoyed it before you knew what it was.”
“That’s because I didn’t know it was made of blood!” Rarity snapped. She winced, worrying she might have been too loud. She quieted herself, not wanting to be heard out in the hallway. “Ponies do not eat meat, Diana!”
“I’m not sure blood actually counts as meat,” Diana mused. “Is it more like milk?”
“I know a few cows and I can assure you they’re quite happy to provide milk in return for lodging and fair payment from the farmer. If Applejack asked them for blood they’d assume, correctly, that she had gone mad and they needed to find somewhere else to live.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Diana conceded. “We’ll be more careful at breakfast.”
“I’m not certain I’ll be ready to eat anything by then.” Rarity stumbled to her bed, away from the small bathroom. She swooned and fell onto it, dust puffing up from the layers of linens. “We have to stay here for two days…”
“If you’re really uncomfortable, we can go back to the train in the morning,” Diana assured her. “As long as we’re here, there’s no sense not getting some rest. The beds are narrow, but not as narrow as a seat on the Express.”
“True,” Rarity agreed. She was starting to get sleepy. “Quite soft, as well. I believe they’re padded with pegasus down.”
“Sleep. I’ll keep watch while you rest.”
“Keep watch?” Rarity cracked open one eye that had already closed. “For what?”
“I don’t know yet,” Diana said. “I expect once it happens, we’ll know.”
Rarity woke up to Diana gently shaking her. She was about to ask what was going on, but Diana put a hoof to her lips, shushing her. Once she was sure Rarity was awake enough to understand that she needed to be quiet, Diana nodded to the door to the hallway.
It felt like the middle of the night. Late enough that even the most determined night owl would have turned in. Early enough that morning ponies wouldn’t be stirring yet. But outside the door, Rarity could hear whispers and scratching, the creak of hooves on floorboards. A rattle that she identified as keys once one was inserted into the door.
The door opened slowly, and stopped a moment later, hitting the dresser Diana had pulled in front of it while they slept. Somepony outside swore in a guttural voice.
“We need to leave,” Diana hissed.
Rarity had questions. A million of them, but this wasn’t the time or place. She tossed the blankets off and ran to the narrow window. It was barred from the outside, literally barred, a grid of iron protecting it. Or perhaps it had always been intended to be a cage to keep ponies inside.
“You get the screws on the left,” Diana said. The tall pony started pulling them out of the bars. Rarity copied her on the other side, struggling to get the stubborn fixture to move. They were rusted, just enough to almost seize them entirely. The ponies outside the room must have heard them, because they abandoned the pretense of stealth and started banging on the door, trying to force the dresser side.
“Come on…” Rarity mumbled to herself. One screw fell away, then another. The bars groaned. Behind them, the dresser shifted an inch.
“No time!” Diana yelled, taking a step back and turning to kick with her rear hooves, popping part of the bars free. A second kick , even harder, tore them out of the wall entirely, sending them to the street below.
Rarity looked down. It wasn’t a long fall, but it was enough to make her wish she had a spell that might slow her descent. Diana gave her a push from behind, and Rarity scrambled out, her flank catching in the narrow frame. She yelped.
“I’m--” Diana gave her a harder shrug before she could even finish telling her. She popped free with a sound not entirely unlike a cork coming free from a bottle. Rarity made a ladylike sound of surprise and distress, falling into the street and managing to catch herself with instincts born from years spent with unexpected adventure and surprise around every corner. She even struck a pose on landing, which was less than good for her knees but would have impressed anypony watching.
She dearly hoped nopony was watching, since they were in the middle of fleeing.
Diana landed next to her, not nearly as graceful. She yelped and almost immediately started to fall. Rarity caught her, pressing against her side and holding her up.
“Are you alright?” Rarity asked.
“I sprained something in my ankle when I kicked the bars out,” Diana said through gritted teeth. “That fall made it worse. You might have to leave me.”
“Don’t be silly, darling. I’m supposed to accompany you on our little journey, aren’t I?” She offered Diana a smile and helped her start to limp away, trying to find somewhere to hide if they couldn’t run.
Before she could even get around the next corner, the ponies finished breaking into the room and ran to the window. Rarity looked back when they shouted, and saw what kind of ponies had been chasing them. She couldn’t tell if it was a mare or stallion, only that they were wearing scraps of bandages and rags that were turning moldy around the edges from constant dampness. They wore an iron cage like some twisted medical brace, all around their head and neck.
“I think the Conductor might have been right when he told us to stay on the train!” Rarity yelped. The pony at the window snarled and retreated inside, probably running for the stairs. If they were using the front door, Rarity had a few moments while they ran around the inn.
“We need to get off the street,” Diana said, her voice pained.
Without time to look for a perfect solution, Rarity shoved against the nearest iron gate, pushing her way into the overgrown yard in front of a dilapidated row house. She heard hooves coming closer. There wasn’t even time to try the door. She shoved herself and Diana down behind the low stone wall.
Ponies rushed past on the street, iron clanging along with the march of hooves. Torchlight flickered above them. One of the ponies towards the rear of the pack stopped. Rarity could hear him there, just on the other side of the wall, so close that he could reach out and touch them. All he’d have to do was look through the bars and he’d be practically on top of their hiding place.
He sniffed at the air a few times like a mangy dog, then ran on, chasing after the retreating pack. Rarity waited a few more seconds for any other stragglers, then finally breathed.
“That was too close,” she whispered.
“I don’t know what they want from us, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to let them get it,” Diana said. She sat up a little, craning her long neck to look out into the street. “We should make our way back to the train station.”
Rarity nodded and started towards the iron gate to the street. Diana grabbed her hoof.
“Wait,” Diana said. She struggled upright. “They’ll be back this way soon when they don’t find us. We can’t outrun them. Or at least I can’t.”
“Since I’m not going to leave you, I can’t either,” Rarity said. “But what do we do? Clearly the inn doesn’t offer much shelter if they let those brutes inside.”
Diana looked up and Rarity followed her gaze. The row houses formed a solid wall of wood and mortar down the street. Even where a cross-street joined, the houses to either side met in the middle above it, growing together like architectural fungus.
“Can we get there just by going through houses?” Rarity asked.
“It wouldn’t hurt to try,” Diana said. She limped to the door of the house they stood next to, trying the handle. It rattled, opening slightly. A chain was visible through the crack, holding it shut. Diana’s aura tugged at it, freeing it from the door and letting the portal swing open. “Even if we can’t go the whole distance, we can find our way to another street.”
Inside, the house seemed abandoned. Cobwebs filled the corners and the floor was all warped wood under a thin, stained layer of carpet. Rarity shut the door carefully once she was inside, hanging the chain back up to secure the door behind them.
“I can’t say much for the decor,” Rarity said. The wallpaper was peeling, and it hadn’t been all that attractive even when it was brand-new. The hallway was choked with furniture and boxes, and had clearly been used for storage instead of any kind of actual living space.
“At least nopony is living here,” Diana said. “Let’s find a way through to the next house.”
It didn’t take them long. There was a hole in the wall on the second floor, a place where water damage and rot had eaten through plaster and wood. The edges looked almost chewed.
“Do you think there are rats?” Rarity asked. “I hate rats.” It was one reason she had a cat. Not that Opal was particularly good about hunting them -- it was more effective to just have Fluttershy ask the vermin politely (but firmly) to leave. Still, having a cat was a deterrent, no different from hanging a ‘no trespassing’ sign in the window.
Diana leaned closer, squinting through the gloom. Neither of them dared to use their magic to light the way. It would be too easily spotted from outside. Even in the half light leaking in from the street lights, she could tell any rat that had made those marks was the size of a foal and had inch-long fangs.
“I don’t think so,” she said, managing to make it sound reassuring. It was almost certainly true.
Thankfully, Rarity took that the way she’d intended. “Thank goodness. That’s the last thing I’d need after everything else today.” She cleared away some of the loose splinters with a rag before squeezing through to the other side and looking around for a moment. “It seems safe,” she whispered back.
Diana squeezed through, shuffling on her knees. Her height made it even more difficult than it had been for the smaller, rounder mare.
“What was that sound?” somepony said from downstairs.
“I thought you said it was safe!” Diana hissed.
Rarity gave her a sheepish smile and pulled her through. They walked to the stairs and saw shadows moving downstairs, coming closer.
“The attic!” Diana whispered, pointing up. Rarity nodded and helped her to the other set of stairs, narrowly avoiding the ponies coming up from the first floor. There was a door there, and Rarity barged through, but in a quiet and delicate way.
She pulled a steamer trunk in front of the door and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down.
“The door opens out,” Diana pointed out. “That trunk won’t stop anypony.”
Rarity realized she was right. She pretended she’d known all along. “Even so, it makes me feel better.” She turned around and froze.
“What’s wrong?” Diana asked. She followed Rarity’s gaze to the far corner of the attic. There were candles there, thick slow-burning tapers in dirty yellow, the color more like earwax than beeswax. They surrounded a low table, a circle of fire around an altar. And on that altar was a silvery stone, as big as Rarity’s head. A wide crack ran across the surface, and fragments littered the dark cloth it lay on.
“Do you remember what those guardponies said about… things escaping these Vaults?” Rarity whispered.
“My memory is all too good,” Diana mumbled. Her eyes flicked to the unseen corners of the room. There were dozens of boxes, pushed away from the altar. More than enough room for anyone or anything to hide without being seen.
Rarity couldn’t hear a tone like a tuning fork or breath blowing across a bottle, but it was getting increasingly hard to continue not hearing it.
“There’s a window,” Rarity pointed at a boarded-up section of the wall. “It must lead out to the roof!”
“It will be dangerous to go out there,” Diana said. “But not more dangerous than staying here.”
The two mares started pulling on the boards. One came free unexpectedly, and Diana stumbled back, her bad ankle failing her at the worst moment. She fell into the ring of lit candles, knocking one over and snuffing several more. She collided with the broken Vault and the fragments on the altar and gasped in pain.
“Diana!” Rarity was at her side in a moment, helping her up. Trying to help her up. Diana groaned and struggled. It was like her mane had gotten tangled in something sticky. Rarity whispered something to try and keep her calm and stepped around to her side to figure out how to help.
The open crack of the Vault was latched onto Diana’s mane, sucking at it like a mouth, trying to draw her through the opening.
“I can’t--!” Diana gasped.
“Hold on!” Rarity grabbed the Vault with her hooves, yanking hard at it. The stubborn thing was latched on somehow, despite the fact it should have just been a shiny rock it had a grip like a full-grown rockodile! It took both of them straining against it to get Diana free, losing a few strands of her pale blue mane in the process. The strands were sucked into the Vault, vanishing within.
Diana breathed heavily, backing away from the magical rock as far as she could.
“It was trying to eat me!” she gasped.
Rarity kicked it to the far corner of the room, the silver stone skidding across the dusty floorboards. The fallen candles had found something almost as interesting - a box full of old papers. The flames were starting to grow even as they watched.
The sound of hooves from downstairs increased, and shouting joined it.
“I believe some haste in leaving might be warranted,” Rarity said, her chest heaving. She grabbed the last board across the attic window with her hooves, needing a moment to collect herself before she could do anything. Outside, the moon hung huge in the sky, the fog clearing just enough that she could see it.
It wasn’t like Luna’s moon in Equestria. That had a kind of beauty to it, distant and glowing in the sky. The moon here was pale not like argent silver but like a bloated corpse, dark spots stretching across it that seemed more bruises than craters, horribly alive and dead and never alive to begin with all at once, a thing that shouldn’t be.
A chill went down Rarity’s spine, and that shock of cold was enough to give her the strength and focus she needed to pull the rotting board away and swing the window open. Diana was there in a moment, helping Rarity up and onto the roof before joining her, needing a helping hoof with her injured ankle.
“I’m not sure I can make it,” Diana said. “I’m ill-suited for acrobatics.”
“You keep trying to make me leave you behind,” Rarity said. “Darling, I’m beginning to think you want to stay here.”
Diana shuddered. “No. I’ve been imprisoned before. I can’t… I couldn’t survive it again. I could feel it when that Vault pulled at me, Rarity. There’s a feeling to an oubliette, a sense of terrible forgetting and isolation. I think if I’d been alone it would have sucked me inside and I would have been there for a very long time.”
“It was barely as big as my head!” Rarity scoffed, trying to dismiss the thought.
“Yes,” Diana agreed, her voice a dry whisper. “I don’t think it would have been pleasant.”
The way across the roof was a nightmare of gables and random slopes, the houses built by ponies of dubious sanity but impressive woodworking ability. Rarity tugged Diana along, urging her to hop across the short gap to the next house.
Something smashed into the roof ahead of them. Rarity squeaked in surprise. Talons squeezed tight, tearing into the dark wooden shingles and ripping them apart. A creature levered itself up, trying to climb up to meet them. Two more long limbs grabbed for purchase on chimneys and reached for the peak of the roof. None of them had the same number of claws.
It looked something like a dragon, if you preserved it in formaldehyde for a few centuries and let it pickle. It wasn’t rotten, but any trace of real life seemed long gone. Too many blind eyes in a rubbery, twisted face turned to look at them, black fangs parting in an evil grin.
“Get down!” somepony yelled. A barrage of flaming arrows peppered the rooftop. Rarity took shelter behind a convenient chimney. The dragon or monster or whatever it was screeched with a voice that seemed half mechanical and half bestial, falling back down and into the street below with a heavy thud.
“Perhaps we found somepony else sane?” Diana asked. She got up from where she’d found shelter and limped to the edge of the destruction. Where the arrows had hit the roof, the damp shingles had put them out almost immediately.
“Oy! Are you alright?” Somepony yelled from the street. Rarity joined Diana. Below them, three ponies stood in flickering torchlight. The horrible creature had landed badly, a tangle of limbs that seemed more akin to a tumbleweed than an animal. Something hissed from slits in its flesh that opened and closed like the gills of a fish, black ichor spilling out onto the stones and sizzling with the smell of hot tar and poison.
The tallest pony kept aim on it with a crossbow. He waved up at Rarity.
“The guardsponies from the tavern?” Rarity asked, recognizing them after a moment. The only one she didn’t recognize held up a Vault in her hooves, pulling it from underneath a ragged, tough cloak weighed down by iron bands of armor. The silvery meteor fragment was inside an iron cage, and when she opened it, the carvings on the fragment started to glow a purple-green color, and the creature screamed, siding across the ground and into a growing, flickering light from the stone.
Space twisted around it, and Rarity had to look away, the twisting making her feel motion sick. There was a sizzle in the air not entirely dissimilar to the ozone after a lightning strike, and when she looked back, the creature was gone. There were long ruts in the ground leading to the stone where the creature had fought against its pull.
“Yes, I think it would have been very unpleasant indeed,” Diana mumbled.
“We’re alive, but could we trouble you for some help getting down?” Rarity shouted to the guardponies. “We’re having a bit of trouble with the local color!”
“Get them down,” the pony with the Vault said. She closed the little cage around it and started wrapping it with silver wire.
“Thank you again,” Rarity said.
“Sorry about what happened in the inn,” Beil said. She offered Rarity her canteen. Rarity took a long sip and coughed, not expecting to find it full of beer. It wasn’t particularly strong, but she’d been prepared for plain water.
“We had to go take care of the basilisk,” Rustung told them. He leaned on the cleaver he’d used to finish it off. “Terrible thing with a taste for ponies. Barred windows and doors won’t stop them, either.”
“It was released as a distraction,” the third pony said. She wore a long, beaked mask with goggles over her eyes. “They must have been planning this for some time, waiting for the right victims.”
“The right victims being us,” Rarity surmised.
“Why?” Diana asked.
“It is dangerous to know too much about the star cults,” the masked pony said firmly. “They shine a light into the dark to learn what is there, but holding a lantern in a dark forest means everything else sees you, too.”
“Could we trouble you to help us back to the train station?” Diana asked. She winced as she tried to put weight on her injured leg again.
“Whatever they want you for, the best thing for this Realm is for you to leave,” the third pony said. “Yes. We will help you. But if you get caught, we will do what we must to ensure the safety of the Vaults.”
She checked her crossbow and trotted off, obviously annoyed with the whole situation.
“Sorry about her,” Beil said. “The Hunter has seen ponies die for a lot of stupid reasons, but the cults are the stupidest ones of all.”
“Can you imagine worshiping something ponies hated so much they banished it all the way out of their world?” Rustung scoffed. “If it was worth praying to, they’d have done it back where they came from.”
“Let me bandage up that leg, then we’ll get moving,” Beil said. “The Hunter can lead us on a safe route back.”
“It might be more difficult than I thought,” the Hunter said, walking back with slightly more haste. “We need to take a wide path around. We’ll need to pass close by the Gros.”
Beil hissed through her teeth.
“Is that bad?” Rarity asked.
“You are both unproven,” the Hunter said sharply. “Even ponies with strong wills can hear the call of the First Vault.” She said it with extra capitals. She stepped closer to Diana and reached into her mane, grabbing something.
Diana yelped. The Hunter produced one of the fragments of silver meteor that had been on the altar that had almost eaten Diana alive. It was stuck to several strands of Diana’s mane that the Hunter had pulled free along with it.
“The Vaults are tools of great good. They yearn to seal evil away from the world. They’re harmless to normal ponies. I wonder what you did to make yourself so attractive to them…”
“I did nothing,” Diana said sharply.
“Perhaps,” the Hunter allowed, nodding. “Sometimes a being is imprisoned unjustly. Sometimes. But never without powerful enemies. When we approach the Gros Eisenburg I will watch you with great interest. If it starts calling to you…”
She trailed off, leaning closer to Diana.
“Please, there’s no reason to fight,” Rarity said. She stepped between them. “Diana is a good friend of mine. I trust her with my life.”
“You should never trust anypony with your life,” the Hunter said. “There are too many ways ponies can fail you. Being so foolish that you forget that is how you fail yourself.”
“You must be a very lonely pony,” Rarity said, feeling sympathy for the masked pony.
The Hunter stared at her in silence for a long moment. A horn blew somewhere in the street behind them, something between the rude noise of a vuvuzela and a brass blast from a tuba.
“We need to move,” the Hunter said, pushing past them to lead the way.
The path led uphill, through side streets where stairways joined different levels of the city together. A light rain had started up as they walked in silence. It wasn’t the quiet where ponies didn’t have anything to say to each other, it was quiet where Rarity felt hunted by unseen predators. Things moved in the shadows around them, hiding just when she turned to look. She held her breath sometimes, straining her ears to listen for the clop of hooves on stone.
Curtains moved as they walked past. In the middle distance were voices, just on the edge of hearing, too far away to make out the words themselves and leaving only the bare sense that words had been spoken, the pattern and pace of conversation with the meaning blurred away. Worse than that were the inequine hoots and indescribable sounds. Some of them had the Hunter raise her hoof for them to stop while she checked the area ahead of the group.
It was unnerving, like being in a jungle instead of a city.
They crested a hill, and the light rain that had been coming down around them started to peter out.
“There it is,” Rustung said quietly, nodding into the distance.
It emerged out of the fog like a ship pulling into port, the weather breaking around it. It was a huge fortress of ornate, gothic towers and iron, a literal mountain made by ponies. It was bigger than any castle had a right to be, uselessly large, overgrown and impossible. It made Canterlot look like a mere summer cabin.
And it sang. It sang with a low, thrumming voice that Rarity couldn’t hear with her ears but she felt in her bones. It sang and called for ponies to gather. It sounded like power, and like something so far beyond her understanding that from the perspective of whatever was making the sound, Rarity and an insect were all but indistinguishable.
“The Gros Eisenburg,” Rarity whispered.
“The First Vault,” Beil confirmed. “The heart of this place. We don’t know who built the castle around it, or what they built it for.”
“There’s only one reason to build a castle,” the Hunter said. “You build it to keep ponies out. It was built by something larger and older than ponies. Something that could build a mile-high tower without having the whole thing collapse.”
“It is rather intimidating,” Rarity said. “And the First Vault is inside?”
“We must be cautious,” the Hunter growled. “There are few enough sane ponies here, and most of the ones who can fight have to work hard to keep the cultists away. They live inside that thing for as long as they’re able. Most only last a few years fighting the mad before they retire or die.”
“Not much of a career path,” Diana noted wryly.
“No. Good, devoted ponies lead hard lives,” the Hunter said. “Most of us can manage to be determined, but to be truly good… we likely wouldn’t end up here in the first place. So we must try harder. That is what it means to sacrifice.”
Rarity was very familiar with sacrifice. She often sacrificed sleep in service of deadlines, or profits when a pony was in need and simply couldn’t afford her normal services. What sacrifice really meant, to her, was taking on the burden of another.
“So I take it we are going to be… going inside that leviathan?” Rarity asked.
“Perhaps if you have any plus-sized clients you can use it for inspiration,” Diana tried to joke. It fell flat in the face of the looming shadow of the mountain of steel. They fell into silence as they walked closer to it, and Rarity could see how the land seemed to be piled up around it, clustered around it like filings to a magnet. For the first time, she could even see the seams in the town itself.
“These buildings were banished here too, weren’t they?” she asked quietly. There were places were a home simply stopped, cut halfway through by an invisible knife. Places where the streets didn’t quite line up.
“Yes,” the Hunter’s voice was little more than a whisper. Somehow, this close to the Eisenburg, its shadow fell in every direction, the lights in the sky perpetually behind it. “They’re not all from the same world, before you ask. We believe there were wars, great wars we can’t imagine, and weapons were used that simply erased places from their universe. They ended up here. Not imprisoned, just victims. Poor souls.”
She shook her head, old sorrow hurting like the ache of an infected wound.
“How horrible,” Diana mumbled. “I wonder, is it worse to be imprisoned alone like Luna, or locked in a madhouse like the ponies here?”
“You won’t have to find out,” Beil assured her. “We’ll have you out of here. Don’t worry.”
Rarity felt less and less sure about that as they approached the Eisenburg. Only a block away from it, the street stopped entirely. The ground dropped away, cracked and broken and crumbling at the edges like a meringue. The only way across was a long, narrow bridge. With the fog rolling back in, it was impossible to see the far side.
“Rustung,” the Hunter said. “Fly across first and make sure the way is clear.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he said, taking off and soaring across the gap.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” the Hunter muttered. In most of the city, the air had been deadly still, caught between narrow streets and holding tight onto the fog lingering between rows of dilapidated buildings. Here, there was enough open space in that yawning canyon that the wind could breathe, a slow mournful moan. Just above it was an urgent hiss.
“Down!” Rarity gasped, but the Hunter was already in motion, turning to put her back to the moat and rearing up to cover the others with her own body. Arrows hit her back, armored coat catching the bolts.
The Hunter grunted and collapsed to her knees. The thick layers of material had stopped most of the projectiles, but not all of them. Two had gone in deep, crooked shafts of splintery wood skewered into her flesh.
Rustung flew back overhead, cursing and coming in for a hard landing. “Archers!” he yelled. He’d caught an arrow in his own flank.
“Thank you,” the Hunter said shortly. “Here.”
She reached into the coat that was now pinned to her body and hissed in pain, retrieving two dirty glass vials. She gave one to the pegasus, and he yanked the arrow free and popped the cork on the potion, drinking it quickly. The injury healed over near-instantly.
“Help me with these,” the Hunter ordered, motioning towards her back. Beil yanked one free, then the other. With the second arrow, she swore, looking at the broken end of the shaft she’d pulled free.
“The arrowhead is--”
“Yes, I can tell, thank you,” the Hunter said. She raised her mask a little with one hoof and drank the potion anyway. “I’ll dig it out later.”
“There are a lot of them,” Rustung said. “If you go out on that bridge, you won’t make it halfway across before you’re a pincushion.”
“I don’t suppose either of you know any spells that might help?” the Hunter asked, turning to Rarity and Diana.
“I know something that will get stains out of your clothing,” Rarity said. “I don’t think it would be particularly handy for storming a fortified position.”
“No,” Diana said shortly. She stared into the mist. The Eisenburg looked as big as a world from this close. “I think it might be unwise to even use magic here. There’s a presence in the air.”
“True enough,” the Hunter agreed. She pointed to one of the nearby buildings. “Get the door.”
“We’re going inside?” Beil asked.
“No. I said get the door.”
“I can’t believe that worked,” Rarity said. Rustung tossed the door aside. It was peppered with dozens of arrows, a deadly pincushion that had come down in a rain heavy enough to make the heavy timber start to crack and splinter.
“Survival means using everything we have at hoof,” the Hunter said. “This is a place of scarcity. Little food, almost no fuel for fires. Much of what we do have has been discarded. Unwanted trash.”
“Used up and tossed aside,” Rarity mumbled. Something tickled at her memory. She’d heard something similar before.
“Would you say that about these ponies?” Diana asked. “Are they garbage?”
The Hunter shook her head. “Of course not. The fact somepony else threw them away is infuriating. Do you know how most ponies arrive here? As unwanted orphaned foals. I do not know what world banishes them, but if there was any justice, it wouldn’t exist.”
“Is that how you came to be here?” Rarity asked.
“No,” the Hunter said. “I know why I’m here. I accept my fate. That doesn’t mean others should suffer the same way. Come along. There may be more cultists.”
“They never stay scared off for long,” Beil agreed. “I’ll watch our rear for stragglers.”
Inside, it was clear the iron castle of the Gros Eisenburg had not been designed for ponies. The first thing to come to Rarity’s mind was Canterlot, but that was entirely inadequate to describe the scale of the black fortress. Across the bridge they found themselves in what seemed like an aqueduct but which Rarity realized after a few minutes of standing in fetlock-deep water was merely a gutter for a sloped roof.
Boards had been placed to provide a ramp onto the roof proper, and a crude walkway had been built across what resembled a cliff face more than a building. The pitons and rope guideline reminded Rarity of something she’d seen before - photos from the early days of mountaineering, when ponies vanished in avalanches.
She swallowed and resisted the urge to look down.
“Just a little more,” Diana encouraged. Rarity fixed her gaze forward at the end of the path. There was a ledge. A window ledge, true, but still as large as the grand gate of Celestia’s palace. She felt the thin planks under her hooves wobble and made a sound so high-pitched that only certain species of batponies were able to detect it.
Rarity tried to scramble to safety and freeze in alarm at the same time. Diana shoved her from behind and the balance was broken, sending her forward. Rustung caught her, steadying her and keeping her from slipping off the window ledge.
“There we go,” Rustung said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“You have wings,” Rarity accused, breathing heavily.
“And that’s why I had to go on ahead,” he said. “We can go inside here. That should be better, right?”
“I’m starting to think there isn’t anything better,” Rarity mumbled.
“You’re right,” the Hunter agreed. “Even so, we’re almost there.”
“I hope so,” Diana said. “I didn’t want to be the one to bring it up, but we don’t have forever.”
Rarity gasped. “You’re right! How long do we have before the Aether Express leaves?”
Diana produced her silver watch. "I didn't get a chance to keep this old thing wound... I’m not sure. Half a day at most. I’d still like to get there as quickly as possible. The cultists might be determined, but it should be impossible for them to touch us once we’re onboard.”
A wail rose up around them. Beil was the last one across the bridge, and she stopped, holding her spear in her teeth and looking around for the source of the sound.
“Above us!” the Hunter yelled.
Somehow, the cultists had found their way up a level, to a second ledge above them. They were pouring over the edges with ropes wrapped around their limbs, coming down like screaming marionettes with knives in their teeth and wearing broken cages around their limbs like armor.
One pony wasn’t using a rope at all, and just slammed into the thin walkway in front of Beil, smashing through it like an anvil and laughing madly all the way down to the mist below. The earth pony guardsmare yelped and dropped her spear, grabbing onto the rope guideline and catching herself on it as the path collapsed under her, straining to hold on for dear life.
“Beil!” Rustung yelled.
Rarity instinctively grabbed for her with her magic. The best she could do was help tug the mare into a better position, hooking her legs around the rope so she could spread out her weight a little.
“I can’t carry her myself,” she said. “Diana?”
Diana strained, trying to help Rarity lift her, but after a few moments of effort they lost their grip and nearly dropped her, Beil only barely keeping her grip with the shock of the drop.
“Go on without me!” Beil yelled. “I can figure something out!”
“Don’t be stupid, I’m not leaving you!” Rustung shouted back to her. He threw his spear, severing the tether of one of the descending cultists and sending him tumbling down past the walkway. There were only seconds before the first of them arrived.
“We need to save her,” Diana said. “Maybe if Rarity and I try again--”
“If you’re here it will make things more difficult,” the Hunter said. “They’re after you. More will come as long as you linger.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Rarity asked.
“Take them to the exit,” Rustung said. “I’ll stay back here with Beil and hold the cultists off.”
“I understand,” the Hunter said. “Come.”
She turned, her heavy coat sweeping around her, making a clear effort not to look back.
“But--” Rarity started.
“Don’t argue,” Diana whispered. “They’re right. We’re the cause of this. If we leave, the cultists will follow after us and give Rustung a chance to save his friend. We can’t help.”
Rarity didn’t like it, even if she could see the logic behind it. Behind them, the first cultists landed on the ledge. Rustung bellowed a challenge and charged at them.
“Don’t get distracted!” the Hunter snapped, bringing Rarity’s attention back to what they were doing. The three ponies galloped inside and into a room that was just too big. There was no other way for Rarity to think about it. It was so large it was developing its own weather systems, with clouds and fog obscuring the edges of the space. What she could see were columns stretching up to a distant ceiling, with rafters as wide as streets. Occupied streets. There were moving torches above them.
“They’re looking for a way down,” Diana said.
“Most of the pillars have ladders bolted to them,” the Hunter said. Rarity tried not to think about climbing a ladder that went up ten stories.
“We don’t have to go up there, do we?” Rarity asked. She was sure she’d never make it. It was perfectly acceptable for a lady to be afraid of heights and even if she wasn’t, she’d still seen plenty of heights already today.
“No. We cut through to the other side,” the Hunter said. The cloaked pony set a hard pace to follow, as tireless as Applejack or Rainbow Dash but without the encouragement that either one might have given Rarity. Instead, she had only Diana there to support her, and the mare was fighting off pain from her bad ankle already. It was enough to shame Rarity into pushing herself harder without complaint.
The huge room ended in… well, it was a portcullis, in theory, but Rarity couldn’t imagine what kind of army it was designed to guard against. The bars were so thick she could have wrapped her hooves around it and only gotten halfway there. Even a full-sized dragon might have been able to squeeze past the gaps.
It seemed impossible for the gate to hold anything back, but the Hunter still hesitated on the threshold.
“What is it?” Rarity asked.
“Be cautious. Close your heart and focus your thoughts only on following me.” She took a deep breath. “Do not trust your eyes or ears.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Rarity asked. A hunting horn from behind her drove her to stop asking questions and hurry on. She stepped between the bars and everything changed.
The cold iron and fog vanished into glowing gold and light, a shimmering aurora flowing around her hooves. It was a river of light and stars. The walls of the fortress had suddenly grown resplendent and covered in fine fabrics and jewels, murals and tapestries replacing arcane symbols hammered into steel.
The Hunter was there, seemingly unchanged. She was whispering something to herself over and over again. It sounded like a prayer. Rarity wasn’t sure if she was praying to whatever was here or praying for protection against it.
“Come to me,” something whispered. The river of light flowed from it. Rarity found herself drawn towards the sweet, soft voice. It sounded the way a foal imagined a fairy queen would sound.
Diana said something behind Rarity, but she didn’t quite catch it. There was soft singing in the air, a chorus of bell-like voices that drowned her out without even being as loud as a lover’s muttering.
There was only one way to go anyway, so surely it wouldn’t hurt to go ahead. This part of the fortress was warm and inviting. It must have been the part where the rest of the Hunter’s friends lived, the ones she said guarded this place. Yes, that made sense. She could feel reassurance that she was right and safe, coming from all around her like the warmth of a fireplace on her coat.
She smiled and followed the entrancing lights, flickering balls as big as her head floating around her like disembodied torches in every color of the rainbow, and a few she didn’t recognize. It was the same color she’d seen in the river, deep below. A color she couldn’t quite describe.
It took Rarity a moment to realize she’d been led into a throne room. There was a huge lounge-shaped seat, for the equally huge lounging inhabitant. Part of Rarity was tickled pink to see how it was nearly identical to her own chaise lounge.
The being on the throne was difficult to see. They were right there in front of Rarity, but they were veiled, literally and figuratively. Twice or thrice the size of Celestia, covered in almost-transparent veils, lit from behind in a way that cast their features into shadow aside from hints of gold and the gleam of amber and ruby.
“Thou hast journey’d far and overcome much,” the great being said. “Please, come closer, little one.”
Rarity found herself drawn a few steps closer. As she approached, she stepped into that being’s shadow, and her eyes started adjusting to the shade. She could make out a few of its features, the veiled alicorn seeming almost to be cast out of seamless marble, yet breathing softly.
“There is beauty in your light, little one,” she said. “Let me admire it for a time.”
“M-may I ask who you are?” Rarity asked. The beauty of the great one was otherworldly. Unnerving in a way, the details hard to hold in her mind in the way it was hard to read in a dream. Ideas came through, feelings and emotions that seemed more like they were imposed than truly felt.
“For tens of thousands of years, I led the revels of my empire, and the stars themselves burned sweet and clear. In time the jealous and short-sighted rose up and sent me into exile. Would thou not offer me thy name?”
“Ah, right, of course. I am a guest, I should introduce myself. My name--”
“Stop!” A voice came sharp and hard, cutting through the chorus. Diana’s hoof gripped Rarity’s shoulder and yanked her back. The world shifted in an instant. The gold vanished, tarnishing black. The light snapped off. The floating lanterns suddenly seemed as pale as corpses.
The great and ancient being was gone. Rarity was standing not in a throne room but on the edge of an iron walkway. Before her was a silver pyramid of cratered, pock-marked silver that looked older than the universe itself. Tendrils of shadow and mist reached out towards her, like the wake of an invisible octopus caught only in reflection.
Rarity scrambled back, terror gripping her heart.
“What happened?!” Rarity gasped.
“It tried to take you,” Diana said.
“The thing imprisoned inside is older than the stars,” the Hunter warned. She stood far back. She seemed unwilling to approach closer, clearly afraid to even be this near to it. “It nearly had you. Your friend saved you. I was wrong about her. I thought she would be the weak link.”
“I would never let anything like that have my friend,” Diana said. She helped guide Rarity back to safety.
“We must be away from here,” the Hunter said. “Hurry. There is an exit to the Curdle nearby.”
“The what?” Rarity asked, still feeling dazed. Her head was still spinning, and the size and sameness of the corridors made it hard, impossible really, for her to do more than simply follow along, hooves running down a labyrinth of cold hallways and vast empty spaces. “Why is it called that?”
“You’ll see,” the Hunter said.
“No,” Rarity gasped. They’d gotten out of the fortress, and now Rarity wished they could go back inside.
They’d exited a massive archway onto a drawbridge as wide as a city block and held in place by iron chains with links thicker than tree trunks. Shacks had been built on the edges of the bridge, and even with the dirty hovels clinging to the sides, there was still enough room for a Manehattan avenue between them.
Whatever ponies lived here were hiding, and Rarity had to assume they were hiding from the horrible odor.
It was some kind of swamp, or at least that was the best way to describe it. There were islands of packed garbage and hardened sludge, but it was mostly puddles and slime, all in unnatural colors. The water had a rainbow sheen of oil, and the mist here was a worrying shade of yellow-green. Even with most of the smell gone, some part of Rarity knew the foul air wasn’t safe to breathe for long.
“It makes sense,” Diana mumbled. “If you had a spell that could simply banish something entirely out of the world, one of the things you’d use it for would be to get rid of… undesirable waste.”
“It’s not an open sewer, even if it smells like it,” the Hunter said. “This is why I wear the mask. Here.”
She produced a small bottle and some rags.
“This is peppermint extract. It’s obnoxiously strong.” She dabbed some on the rags. “Wrap it around your faces. It will keep the worst of the miasma out.”
Diana and Rarity took the rags. The mint scent was so powerful it was choking, but it was still several orders of magnitude better than the alternative. Rarity wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to eat a candy cane again, though, without thinking of the Curdle.
“There’s a path through the mire,” the Hunter said. “Some ponies trawl the trash heaps for anything useful that they can eat or sell. You see the guideposts?”
She pointed out the nearest set. There were ropes and chains strung up between some of them.
“You’ll be following them. If you see lights, ignore them. You’ve already seen what the wisps can do. They’ll create illusions and lure you off the path into deep mud. If you follow them, you will die. If you get lost, you will die. If you see another pony…”
The Hunter hesitated.
“You’ll die?” Diana guessed.
“They’re not all completely insane savages who eat pony flesh, but too many of them are. Keep your distance.”
“Thank you for all the advice, but you’re saying it like we’re parting ways,” Rarity said, chuckling slightly.
The Hunter nodded. “This is as far as I can take you.”
“Why?” Rarity asked. The Hunter didn’t need to answer. Behind them, the first cultists finally appeared, spotting them and yelling for others to follow.
“I’m going to stop them here,” the Hunter said. “You’re an important pony, Miss Rarity. I’m not sure why or how. I doubt it’s limited to just this world. There’s someplace you need to be. I can’t let you get trapped here with the rest of us.”
“You can’t hold them all back,” Rarity said. “You’re only one pony!”
The Hunter chuckled. “Yes, but I’m not alone.”
She reached into her cloak and produced the caged stone she’d used to trap the basilisk a few hours ago. The Hunter shook it, and it rang like a bell, in the way that a chunk of stone shouldn’t be able to.
“I’m going to do something incredibly unwise, but it should give you more than enough time to escape.”
“Will that work?” Diana asked. “If I remember, you said they were the ones to release it in the first place.”
“Just because they released it doesn’t mean they can control it,” the Hunter said. “Don’t worry. The beast is no friend of theirs. I’ll release it once you’re far enough away that it won’t spot you.”
“And then?” Diana asked.
“And I’ll recapture it later,” the Hunter said. “You’ll be well away by then. It’s nothing you need to be concerned about. My job will be easier if I don’t have to protect you at the same time.”
She put the lantern-shaped cage on the ground and put her hoof on it.
“Before we go,” Rarity said. “I never… you never told us your name. Miss Beil and Mister Rustung called you Hunter, but that sounds like a title.”
The Hunter hesitated, then reached up and took off her wide-brimmed hat and her mask, shaking out her mane. It was white, but shot through with a band of metallic rainbow colors like pastel bismuth.
“Taffeta,” the blue-coated mare said. “But it’s been a long time since I used that name.”
“It’s a beautiful name,” Rarity said quietly. “I’ll remember it.”
The Hunter nodded and put her hat back on, leaving the mask off.
“Go,” Taffeta said. “You have a train to catch.”
Rarity sobbed and struggled against the impossible.
“It’s all over!” she wailed. “I can’t go on!”
“Ah, so I should leave you here,” Diana said, not immediately launching into a pep talk or doing her duty as a friend to immediately tell Rarity how amazing and beautiful she was, even with her white coat tarnished by muck. The tall unicorn simply nodded. “That’s too bad. It was nice knowing you.”
She started walking away, and Rarity somehow found the strength to pull her hooves out of the squirming, stinking mud.
“You could at least have had the decency to finish me off!” Rarity yelled. “How could you leave a friend here?!” She chased after Diana and managed to find another puddle of water that was somehow ice cold but also possessing a distressingly warm current that brushed against her skin.
“I wouldn’t,” Diana said. “But I knew you’d be along. You’re stronger than you think. You simply enjoy being rescued.” She sounded exhausted but still slightly amused.
“You have those long legs like stilts,” Rarity huffed. “You’re not even half as dirty as I am!”
“And yet you continue on,” Diana noted. “How admirable.” She didn’t make it sound enough like a compliment. Rarity needed one at the moment and latched onto it despite the slightly soured flavor.
“Do you think we’re getting close?” Rarity asked, after a few moments of silent trudging.
“I hope so,” Diana said. She slowed to a halt, looking around. The mist was thick around them, and the poor quality of the air was making every breath burn slightly, half from exhaustion and half from the slow poison of the fuming swamp. “Do you see any sign of the city? If we’re truly going back to the station, we would have to see some buildings, right?”
Rarity peered around. All she could see was effluence and rot. There were a few scraggly trees of the sort that were determined to grow in even the worst conditions, with only a few blighted leaves and exposed roots that sank like greedy talons into the mud.
“I’m sorry, darling. I don’t see much of anything at all,” she admitted.
“Did we get lost?” Diana mumbled to herself. It took Rarity a few moments to realize that in addition to not seeing the rows of buildings that they should have been approaching as they closed with the station, she also didn’t see the path.
“Diana, do you…?”
“We’ll have to retrace our steps,” Diana said, resigned to it. She turned around, looked past Rarity’s shoulder, and froze in alarm.
Rarity turned, her hoof caught in a soft, slippery spot that suddenly seemed greased instead of merely wet, and a bandaged hoof caught her.
“Alas, to have strayed so far from grace,” the soft voice of the pony who’d saved her said. She waited for Rarity’s balance to recover before letting go. “Thou mare from a faraway land, I heard songs of thy flight, and yet thou wander in the doldrums.”
“Be careful, she might be one of them,” Diana cautioned. She peered around in the toxic mist, looking for signs of other cultists.
“O fallen one, I do not serve a mistress but if I did it would be one such as thou,” the bandaged mare whispered. “I did not wish for thy song to end here. For one to have been set on a journey, it is the duty of those who remember the light of the stars that do not shine here to be thy guide.”
“What does that mean?” Rarity asked.
“Come along,” the bandaged mare said, ushering them into the mist.
“Should we follow her?” Rarity looked at Diana, but the taller mare had no good answers, only bad ones.
“She gave us directions to the Inn,” Diana said. “Which is also where the cult tried to get us. But…”
“But we have few options?” Rarity asked.
“I am very nearly ready to let the cult take me if it means getting out of this bog,” Diana admitted. Rarity felt the same way. It wasn’t merely that the place was awful, it was a place that felt actively hostile, trying to kill them in every way it could. Even if it was a trap, perhaps it was a trap that had been set near the correct path. A wise mare knew that when the enemy knew the land better than she did, the snares they placed were almost as good as guideposts.
The bandaged mare moved slowly and steadily, letting the two follow her and never getting so far away that they felt rushed. She picked her way from dry patch to dry patch, somehow managing to avoid ever falling into a surprise puddle or trip on a half-buried branch. Rarity found herself following exactly in her hoofsteps and everything felt instantly more manageable.
“We’re going downhill,” Diana noted. Trickles of something that was mostly water went past them.
“Yes,” the mare said. “To the faster path of darkness and flow.”
“What does that mean?” Rarity asked. “Is it-- ah. Of course.” The mist parted, and the answer was revealed. The river was ahead of them, cutting a path through the landfill of the swamp, the sides revealing strata of garbage and diseased slime. None of it seemed to end up in the water itself, which seemed supernaturally pure in comparison.
“Nearly there,” the bandaged mare promised. “Look.”
She pointed to a collection of boards and broken branches, lashed together into an uneven platform.
“A raft,” Rarity nodded. “Thank goodness.”
“Were you worried you’d have to swim?” Diana joked.
“Don’t be silly,” Rarity scoffed. “I’m a very strong swimmer, darling. Summer fashion is all about swimsuits, you know. A lady has to know how to make them look good in the water, not merely while sunbathing.”
“Of course,” Diana agreed. The awful smell was lessened here. The air felt cleaner. They could very nearly breathe normally, and Rarity found herself sucking in deeper breaths as if she’d been holding her nose for a long time and only breathing the bare minimum.
The bandaged mare stepped onto the raft, picking up a pole. “Come along, fair travelers. It is nearly at its end.”
It was almost a calm end to the journey. The river was slow and the cultists apparently hadn’t thought to post guards along it. The blind mare took them downriver, humming a song to herself that seemed to wax and wane without ever settling on a tune. Eventually, they found themselves at a ladder, just to the side of the bridge near the train station. Rarity recognized it even from this low angle, thanks to the enclosed cage of bars around the span.
“Alas, I must leave thou here,” the mare sighed. “O fallen one, I hope you will dream of me.”
“When she said fallen one, she means you,” Rarity whispered to Diana. “You should say something to the poor dear. I believe she’s infatuated!”
Diana gave Rarity an inscrutable look and then acquiesced. “Thank you for your help,” she told the mare. After another moment, she gingerly put a hoof on her shoulder. “I wish I could be whatever it is you need me to be. I’m sorry.”
“Do not apologize, dark one,” the mare said, shaking her head. “There are times when things are wrong and times when they are right. A great syzygy is coming!”
“I… I see,” Diana said. The strange bandaged mare seemed almost ecstatic. Before she could ask what the mare meant, and before Rarity could ask what the word syzygy meant to begin with, a whistle cut through the air.
“The train!” Rarity gasped. She scrambled up the ladder, pulling Diana up with her. The bandaged mare gave them a last wave as they hopped down over the stone wall and into the street beyond.
“It’s just on the other side of the block,” Diana said. She limped on three legs. Rarity tried to offer help, but Diana waved her off. “I’m fine!”
The two bolted down the uneven cobblestones. The whole city felt haunted, as dead as a graveyard, and the ruined buildings loomed like huge tombstones in memory to some lost civilization. Had it really all been banished here in the middle of some terrible war? What kind of world would be left if entire cities were erased?
The whistle blew again, just as the station came into view. A solid block of a building, a stop leading down underground. They’d made it.
“That was horrible,” Rarity sighed, collapsing onto the floor of the train car.
“I did warn you,” the Conductor reminded her. “You should have stayed here.”
“I promise next time, I’ll take you more seriously, no matter how much I might want to sleep in a real bed.” Rarity sighed. The train’s whistle blew again, and it started into motion with a soft rumble. Rarity blinked and looked up, a thought arriving as their bodies left. “Shouldn’t you be up front?”
“Hm?” the Conductor tilted his head.
“Driving the train, I mean,” Rarity explained.
“It’s a magical train,” he reminded her. “It drives itself. That’s why it’s important you don’t miss the departure time. I can only do so much to delay it. If you’d been a minute later, we’d have gone off without you.”
“Thank you for worrying about us,” Diana said, the first thing she’d spoken since sitting down heavily in her usual seat.
The Conductor nodded, tipping his hat. “I’ll go check on our arrival time at the next station. Ladies.”
He made his leave.
Rarity sighed, laying there until the cold, hard floor made her more sore than she was exhausted, and she managed to motivated herself enough to stand and find her way into a seat.
“Diana, can I ask… some of the things that ponies said to you, and that… event with the Vault…”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Diana sighed. “Isn’t it enough that we escaped?”
“I suppose you’re right,” Rarity said. “I wish other ponies could say the same. Not those awful cultists, but the innocents.”
“Can we say they were not also innocent?” Diana asked. “It’s not the guilty that go mad in prison. Most of them probably wished for an explanation. Why me? Why was I banished to this terrible place? A guilty pony has the answers, an innocent pony must invent them.”
“And a guilty pony might think they know how to escape,” Rarity guessed.
“While one who has simply suffered an injustice might go mad reflecting on every sin they might have committed.” Diana sighed, her eyes closed. “Do you remember how Taffeta said she knew why she was banished?”
Rarity nodded.
“It let her be at peace with herself. Those of us who know what we have done wrong cannot always make things right, but we can remember not to hurt ponies the same way again.”