“Dreams are a curious thing. They take many shapes and instill many emotions in the dreamer. Certain dreamers have reoccurring dreams, some of which influence other dreams. These I refer to as ‘the forest of dreams’. The dreams are like trees in a forest, their roots deep in the dreamer’s mind. These roots frequently entangle, and from them these crossover dreams are born.”
–Thoreaubred the famous psychologist
The black forest spun around Twilight Sparkle. The very trees seemed to bend toward her. Vertigo seized her, its fist striking her stomach. Nausea overtook her and she purged herself, spitting out the bitter remnants afterward.
A keening note resounded through the forest for a brief moment causing a spike of pain to shoot through Twilight’s head. As she held a hoof to her head, a wet snarl drifted from nearby. Ignoring the pain, Twilight spun to look for the source.
A pack of direwolves – ten strong at least – were slowly emerging from the deeper reaches of the forest. Naught but shadow and flame, the beasts eyed the mare hungrily. The largest sprang at Twilight.
She jumped out of the way only to strike a tree. She felt a sharp pain in her side. Had to be a bruised rib. For a brief moment, she wondered where that tree had come from, but the thought drifted away as the next direwolf leapt to tear her throat out.
Then, with a literal flash of inspiration, Twilight cast one of the easiest spells she’d learned: An illumination spell. Light so brilliant one could not look on it for long filled the forest, banishing the shadows for a split second. The leaping wolf was gone when the darkness returned, an afterimage burned into the air where it had been.
The mare smiled slightly, pride at her work filling her.
With a metallic screech, the terrible note began again, louder and more painful than before. It was so intense Twilight could not bear to stand. Her very soul was being assaulted by the riotous noise. There was warmth in her ears and she knew with a horrifying finality she was bleeding from them. The direwolves would fall on her, tear her apart; there was no way around it. She closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable. Oh, Spike. I’m sorry. Then the light took her.
That soul-piercing note grew every iteration. Even the druids, wrapped in cloaks and counterspells were beginning to feel it. Daydancer could feel it pressing against the magical barrier Moon’s Omen had placed around her. Soon it would break the barrier and begin its work on her too.
Of them who waited for the new world to begin, only Barsabas was untouched by the note’s power. He could feel it on the periphery of his mind, testing him then withdrawing. And then… there was something else. Something familiar.
His head shot up and to the side, cocked like a dog listening to a high pitched whistle. Bone ground against bone as he did so. The blue darts of light in his eye sockets shone brighter. It had been revealed. It was close.
Defiler, his voice rumbled. He started for It, following the disturbance It left in the natural world.
Applejack had never liked hospitals. They were cold, white sterile things. All that came to mind in a hospital were bad memories. Memories of when Granny Smith went into surgery to have her hip replaced. She remembered bouncing on her knee an Apple Bloom too young to understand what was going on.
The cold air ruffled her mane. She would always take her hat off when entering a hospital. It seemed disrespectful otherwise.
“Ms Applejack?” came a voice. The mare looked up from her musings. An amber unicorn in a lab coat was walking towards her, a clipboard hovering beside him, sheathed in a dark blue aura. “You came in with Ms Dash, correct?”
“I sure did. Is Rainbow okay?”
The doctor’s expression darkened slightly. “It’s hard to say right now. We stopped the bleeding and disinfected the wounds. We also had to set her leg – you know how fragile pegasus bones are. But… I’ve never seen something like this, to be honest. Minour second-degree burns around the bite marks… And the wounds themselves have an odd tinge to them, like there was some kind of venom.” He shrugged. “It’s very peculiar.”
“Well can I go in an’ see her?”
“She’s resting now, b-” The doctor cut off as he grimaced in pain and put a hoof to his head. He moaned in pain. The clipboard struck the floor with a clang.
“Is somethin’ wrong?” Applejack asked, jumping up.
As quickly as it has come over him, it passed. He blinked, still holding his head. “You… you didn’t hear that?”
“Hear what?”
He shook his head. “I… never mind, just a sudden migraine. She’s asleep now, but you can go on in. Just don’t disturb her. Room 12, just down the hall there.”
The doctor continued on, still shaking his head. Applejack made her way down to Room 12, the incident with the doctor passing from her mind.
Nothing. Nothing was a very odd thing to feel when direwolves were devouring your body. Twilight peeked an eye open. The forest was still dark, but afterimages hung in the air, much like the one that appeared when she banished the first shadow wolf. The stabbing pain of the noise was gone as well.
Standing on unsteady legs, the mare looked around, searching for whatever had stopped the noise and saved her. A shining white creature slowly shambled towards her. It had wings on its back, tattered and charred. A long horn grew from its forehead. Its face – no its entire body – was lean and haggard. Deep in its eye sockets, a dull orange light shone.
“An alicorn,” she breathed.
“After all these years,” the alicorn rasped, his voice almost too quiet to hear. “After all these years, somepony touched by Providence has come. Sky Above, never have I been happier to see a face, a friendly one and not a banshee of guilt.”
He came up to her, gazing down at her with those defeated, barren eyes. “A thousand thousand years I have slept, not a restful night during any of those. Now, my time for the eternal sleep is here, and I can wash myself in the great river to cleanse my sins.”
“Who are you?” Twilight asked, voice full of wonder.
“A name? Have I need of a name? ’Tis been millennia since I had need of a name. Of the wails of names in my head, the one that stands out the most is Stypticus. That must be my name. If not my life-name, my death-name it shall be.”
“Providence… Sky Above… eternal sleep – You’re talking about the ancient alicorn religion!”
“It pains me to think on this, but all things must pass. Indeed, I speak of that. But time, time is a predator. It hunts us. We are but cattle to it. We must quicken, there is much to be said. I did not place this simulacrum of myself here to prattle like an old maid.”
“Wait – how did I get here?” Twilight rubbed her head, trying to dredge up the memories. Only wisps came
(–gur– the hole–)
fragments
(–like a charnel house down here–)
of what happened.
Stipticus frowned, his jaw muscles standing in stark relief on his shallow cheeks. “Though time we are limited in, the tale of your passage will be related.”
You left Bastion, following the oracle Augur. The pace was quick, the run tiring. You and the other, the gypsy-witch Beatrice Lulamoon, you traded off in casting spells to restore your stamina. As you neared the Giants’ Spire, the air grew chill. The sound of death echoed in your minds, harsher and more deafening than before.
As you enter Allophylus, you felt surprise and admiration. The ruins of the Giants were more beautiful and imposing than you expected. The shadow of the Giants’ Spire soon consumed you.
Augur followed the spoor of the witch-doctor, deep into the ruins, very near to the Spire. A great hole you saw there, one that seemed infinite.
“They must have gone down here,” he said, and looked over at you. “Can you levitate us down?”
You shook your head. “Keeping our stamina up’s exhausted me. I don’t know any good levitation spells for a group anyway.”
Lulamoon shook her head. “I don’t know any either.”
Augur circled the hole. The edge began to crumble, though none of you noticed at the time. “We have to get down there. We need to find out how they got down safely.”
“A lift of some sort?” the gypsy-witch suggested.
“No doubt.” The edge crumbled more, the piece of land the oracle stood on beginning to crack.
“Augur!” you cried. “The hole – it’s – ”
It was too late. The edge gave, and he went tumbling down. The cracks spread, too quick to avoid and the ground fell from beneath your feet.
Down and down you went, until you struck ground. It hurt, though you were puzzled as to how you survived. Picking yourself up, you saw the floor was engraved with runes – our runes, an enchantment of slowfall. Even in death we protected you.
You saw Lulamoon being helped up by Augur. “You made it safe too,” he said. “What luck… I think I found a way deeper over here.”
There is nothing else you could do. You followed him, deeper into the catacombs. The deeper you went, the more grisly the place grew. Shattered bones, ancient skeletons of alicorns and the Giants were strewn everywhere. You shuddered when you heard the snap of bones underneath your hooves.
As it grew darker, Augur created a flame to guide you, though you wished he hadn’t. It showed you the full extent of the carnage left here millennia ago.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, you reached here. My chamber.
“When you entered, my enchantments placed a sleep spell on you, so that I may speak to you.”
“I remember now,” Twilight said lowly. “There was an amber statue of an alicorn.”
“Yes. A punishment, atonement for what I did in years past.” He looked away from her. “As I said, time is a predator and it creeps yet closer to us. You must know the past of the Giants and their Spire, and the destruction of their people and Allophylus.
“Long ago, the alicorns roamed the world searching for a home. We came here, and found the Giants. We tried to make peace with them, but they desired something we could not do. Lanky and bestial, with fangs that could rip a pony like you to shreds. Taller still than an alicorn, it would take two alicorns standing atop each other to even reach their neck.
“They had a lofty ambition: Grant the gift of magic to the world. Magic was already in the world, but only those who could properly focus it could use it. With their plans, the Spire would spread its magic like snow on the ground. All peoples would know how to use magic.
“But we learned something in those days. Magic was dangerous when loosed with no focus. We held a moot and decided to stop the Spire from being activated.
“Alas, the damage had been done already. A Giant named Barsabas; a necromancer of great power had begun to spread his gift of magic among the lesser Giants. When he had enough followers, he sacrificed them, including his lover, in a dark ritual.
“The war, if one could call it such, was a short and bloody affair. Our greatest sorcerers changed the runes at the top of the Spire, changing its purpose. I activated the Spire. All who lived here were wiped out in an instant. Why I was spared is a mystery I pondered over the years.
“I felt the horror of what I had done, felt the screaming voices of those I murdered in my head. My penance started with changing the runes yet again. As my final act, I froze myself in the amber, so that I may never cause the death of another.”
Twilight stared at him, mouth agape. She had heard every word of his story, but it wasn’t sinking in. Some part of her refused to believe, refused to accept the concept that an alicorn such as he could be in wrong.
When he saw her, frozen there, he continued. “You must do something for me. When you reach the ritual chamber, seize the phylactery of darkness. Follow the Emerald Path! Follow it to the end!”
The mare barely understood what he wanted her to do. The words were familiar but nothing she had no idea how they fit into the alicorn’s plan.
A dark shadow rose above Stipticus, easily double his size. A skeletal arm ending in great claws shot from the shadow, seizing the horn of the alicorn. Stipticus struggled, but another clawed arm held him down. With a quick pull, the creature snapped the horn off.
A bright flash blinded Twilight, and sent her flying. When she opened her eyes, she was in a circular room made of stone. Arcane symbols and pictographs were scrawled in the walls and floor. In the centre, where Stipticus had been was a mass of amber shards, and a towering beast made of bone.
The bonewalker stood easily twelve feet tall, a comically shaped beast head on the body of a minotaur. Its long ape-like arms ended in claws like a dragon’s. Though Twilight had never seen it before, she knew its name.
Barsabas the Giant.
A jar. That was what Daydancer saw when she awoke from a terrified sleep for what seemed the hundredth time. Reflecting prismatically on her face, it hovered above her. A slithering, shimmering light writhed in the jar.
She did not know what it was, but she felt a fear deep inside her. An instinctual fear, like some sort of ancestral memory being dredged up.
“Your moment of glory is here,” Moon’s Omen hissed. “Are you ready to take hold of it, dear?”
She struggled against her bonds to no avail.
“Stop that! Stop it!” The old druid was trembling with rage. “This is an honour! Through your sacrifice, you give the rest of the world new hope! Stop!”
Daydancer looked at him, panic in her eyes. “Hasn’t it occurred to you this may be a bad idea? Ponies could die! You don’t know what you’re tampering with!”
“I do know! I’m fixing a mistake!”
There was a disturbing madness in his face. He jerked around in spasms of rage, his hood slipping from his head. She saw his face, his horn, she knew now he was Allie Horn.
“Allie?”
The unicorn grabbed his hood and covered himself again. “You don’t understand. All I want is to help you. All of you. We were all born under a curse. You were cursed with spiritual blindness; I was cursed with magic. The world needs to be even! All of us, equals! No one pony shall rise above another!” The phylactery hovered over Daydancer’s face, dangerously close to her eye.
Barsabas the Giant raised the horn as though he were a worshiper offering his god a gift. Then, he brought the root of the horn slamming down on his skull. The skull and the horn cracked, then they seemed to melt into one another, the horn melding with the skull. Soon, they were one, the horn jutting from his forehead as though it always belonged there.
Twilight struggled to her feet. The Giant noticed her for the first time. Thou follow the spawn of murderers. No quarter shall be given thee.
She barely had time to react when the necromancer lifted one arm and casually flicked his wrist. She quickly put up a barrier spell. His magic, almost invisible but for a mirage-like shimmer. With the precious few seconds the barrier bought, she weaved a counterspell. The air shimmered with a faint purple glow, the glow slowly forcing the colourless glow of the Giant’s spell back towards him.
A duel between sorcerers such as this was an once-in-a-lifetime sight. And there was nopony awake to bear witness.
The glow around the phylactery vanished as the keening note began again, splitting Daydancer’s head open. She gritted her teeth, and the phylactery bounced off her lower parts and rolled between her legs.
“No! Stop!” the druid cried to some invisible force. “I’m doing as you asked! Stop!”
Like it was responding to his voice, the sound stopped, leaving only a memory and pain behind.
“Who are you talking to?” the mare asked.
“Who? Who? Isn’t it obvious?” He turned towards her, purple eyes glowing with a pale light. “Him! The Vulture-Changer who whispers madness! You don’t hear him?”
The unicorn had gone quite mad, Daydancer decided. She could feel Augur nearby though, coming ever closer. The longer she kept him raving, the longer Augur had to save her. “No, I don’t hear them. Who are they?”
He grimaced, spittle frothing at the edges of his mouth. “I know what you’re trying to do, you stupid nag. You don’t think I can fee-”
A blue bolt of energy struck him in the side of the head and he was knocked off his feet, crashing into a nearby pillar. Daydancer felt her head beginning to swim, and before she blacked out, she saw a blue unicorn and Augur rush to her side.
Twilight slid back slightly, dust kicked up by the friction between her hooves and the stone floor. The rippling effects of the magic forces colliding filled the space between her and the Giant. Sweat was pouring down her back, and her veins stood out on her face. She was already tiring, but the lich showed no signs of anything. She doubted he would ever tire.
The very concept of a wizard duel was one of finesse, not raw power. Whoever could weave a spell more subtly than the other. Whoever could slowly chip away at the other’s stamina. But when one party had such an advantage, the sleeplessness of the dead, there was only one way it could ever turn out.
She would lose. And she knew it. Still she fought, pouring her strength, to delay the Giant just one minute, one second longer.
Once Trixie had opened the restraints keeping Daydancer bound to the altar, the oracle scooped her up, placing her gently on the floor. Her leg caught the phylactery, and sent it rolling away. It slipped past his sight.
“You should get that,” he said to the magician. “We can’t let it fall back into Moon’s Omen’s hooves.”
“Maybe we should just destroy it,” Trixie mused, levitating the phylactery. Her reflection showed on the glass, and she stared into the twisting lights, as though she were hypnotised.
Trixie clasped her hooves to her head as that piercing, strange wail sounded again. Lost in her pain, she failed to notice the phylactery drop to the ground again and roll across the floor to where Moon’s Omen lay.
Twilight gritted her teeth as the cacophony rose in her mind. She could feel the enamel grinding away as she stood her ground against the barrage of noise and magic. Through the wall of sound she could hear her hooves scrape the ground as she slid back further.
The sound reached a sudden crescendo, and the Giant swung his head to the side, like some massive decayed dog listening to a whistle. He lowered his arm, the shimmer of his magic fading. Twilight’s magic struck the side of his naked ribs, blowing through his tattered robes and pounding his bones beneath to dust. He blurred, his form going out of focus, seeming to fold in on himself.
A sharp crack! cut the keening noise off, though it still rang in Trixie’s ears. Woozy, she slowly lifted herself up off the ground, head spinning. She fought back a sudden urge to vomit. Forcing her eyes to focus she saw the one thing she didn’t want to see.
Moon’s Omen, one hoof in the glass splinters of the phylactery, the rusted metal ends on either side.
Then, with a banshee’s wail, echoes by a million voices, all hell broke loose.