“Do ya see ’em anywhere?” Applejack called out to Rainbow Dash as the pegasus came back from her quick flight around the base of the mountain. Dash gave a helpless little shrug.
“I don’t get it. They said they’d be waiting here. Where could they have gone off to?” she replied, looking around anxiously while shooting nervous glances at Applejack. The farmpony could hardly blame her friend for being on edge.
Probably worried I’m going to blow my fuse again. It’s not like I’ve been setting a very good example so far.
Applejack shook her head a bit. Truthfully, she was not really angry with Rainbow Dash, or any of her other friends. She was disappointed in her little sister, but she mostly blamed herself, not least for letting herself snap at the others. Being cooped up in the library unable to do anything other than wait had grated at her worse than anything else, and the mere fact that she was out here now and actually doing something gave her a sense of purpose and direction, enough to quell her anger and keep her focused on the task.
“Well, they can’t have gone far.” Applejack gave the others a slightly impatient glance as they finally caught up with her and Dash. She looked down at the ground, putting her right front hoof against an indention in the soil. “There are some pretty hefty hoofmarks ’round here leading towards that there path over yonder. How big do ya reckon that golem feller was, RD?”
“Eh, not sure. Like Big Mac, maybe slightly bigger?” the pegasus suggested, hovering down to the farmpony’s side.
Applejack nodded. “Seems about the right fit.”
“I’m only seeing one set of hoofprints, though,” Fluttershy pointed out, joining her two friends. “Wouldn’t the fillies have left their own marks, too?”
“Well, when I found them, they were hitching a ride atop the mud pile’s back. Kinda like what Spike is doing,” Rainbow Dash replied with a nod towards the baby dragon, who was still perched quite happily on Twilight’s back.
“You don’t think that thing absconded with our sisters, do you?” Rarity asked in horror, then dropped her voice into a low, dangerous hiss. “If it so much as ruffles a hair on Sweetie Belle’s head, I will end it.”
“Uh, girls?” Pinkie called out in a surprisingly sober tone, drawing everyone’s attention. She had moved over to a wooden sign placed where a path began winding up the mountain. “It says here that there’s an abandoned mine up this way...”
Fluttershy let out a gasp. “Oh goodness, please tell me they haven’t—”
Twilight looked up at Princess Luna, who in turn was staring up at Silverpeak Mountain. “Princess? Do you see anything?” the unicorn asked.
“I can sense other ponies nearby who are afraid,” Luna replied without taking her eyes off the mountain. “Somewhere up there.”
Applejack let out a silent curse under her breath. “Well, that about settles it,” she grunted, taking the lead again. “Let’s go!”
“Y’know, Ah think this is where those diggers found Tincoat’s journal, way back,” Apple Bloom said in a hushed voice as they passed yet another diverging branch of the tunnel. They had come across a couple of discarded mining picks and drilling instruments, along with a few unlit lanterns.
“It doesn’t look like anypony’s been here for years,” Sweetie Belle commented. “That sign earlier said it’d been closed down.”
“Guess they never got ’round to reopenin’ it.”
“What do you think they were digging for in the first place?” Scootaloo asked, wincing as she bumped her hoof on a small rock outcropping. “Ouch!”
“Ah dunno, what ya usually dig for, Ah guess. Gold, gems, that kinda thing?”
“And this is called Silverpeak Mountain, after all,” Sweetie Belle added.
They kept the conversation going mostly to avoid having to focus too much on the eerie ghost-light. There was also a small comfort to find in the fact that they had a very heavy clay pony to interpose itself between them and whatever might await them at the end of the stream of light. The tunnel eventually came to a halt, narrowing into a gap just large enough for a full-grown stallion to get through if he kept his head low. The gap was supported by a number of metal-reinforced wooden planks, and while Golem quickly crawled through to the other side, the Crusaders all hesitated.
“You think those are going to collapse on us as well?” Scootaloo asked in a half-joking, half-serious tone.
“Just be real careful an’ try not to bump against ’em,” Apple Bloom replied, moving very slowly and cautiously into the chamber beyond. It was only a little larger in height and width than the tunnel they came from, but a large number of items were scattered throughout the small chamber: lamps, brushes, small hammers and chippers, all cast in the same glow as the wispy tendrils of light, which coiled towards the back of the room.
“This must be the chamber they uncovered,” Apple Bloom said after a moment. “Just look at all this archy-logical stuff littered ’round the place.”
“Looks like everypony just left in a hurry,” Scootaloo commented with a frown.
“But where do we go from here?” Sweetie Belle asked, approaching the far wall hesitantly. “I don’t see any way out.”
“We are so close now,” Golem said urgently, heading towards the back of the chamber. “The Sixth is here, I can feel it!”
“But this is a dead end!” Sweetie Belle protested. “There’s no—”
A crescent of dark blue light emerged on the back wall as the clay pony came closer, expanding into a series of glowing lines like cracks in a window. All four ponies stopped what they were doing and simply watched as an entire section of the wall, painted in the blue light, began to slide into the floor, revealing a smooth descending passageway, like a spiral staircase hewn directly into the rocks.
“Uhh… what did ya do, Golem?” Apple Bloom asked carefully, moving over to peek down the winding path.
“That was not me,” replied the clay pony, stepping through the newly created doorway after a moment of hesitation. “I do not think it was, at least.”
“This doesn’t look anything like the rest of the mine,” Sweetie Belle commented through clenched teeth, grimacing slightly. Her friends glanced at her.
“You okay there, Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo asked.
“My headache’s getting worse, so… no, not really.”
“Right.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” Rainbow Dash shouted in dismay when she saw the collapsed mine entrance. She immediately flew over and began to pull at the nearest boulder. Applejack ran over to join her, and between them they managed to roll it aside. Apple Bloom’s hair bow, which they had found on the path earlier, was tucked safely under the farmpony’s hat.
“I can still sense them,” Luna said reassuringly as she, Twilight and Rarity began to levitate boulders away. “They are definitely this way.”
“How did they manage to bring down an entire mine entrance?” Spike asked nobody in particular, waving his rolled-up comic book like a wand at the boulders Twilight floated away.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Applejack grunted as she, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy pushed aside another heavy rock. “Maybe ask ’em once we’ve gotten ’em out safe an’ sound.” She gaped slightly as Pinkie Pie managed to roll aside an even larger boulder all on her own.
“It’s all in the technique,” the bubbly earth pony explained cheerfully when she noticed Applejack’s look.
Upon clearing away the last of the rubble and reinforcing the unstable ceiling with a touch of magic, the group hurried onwards, Twilight and Rarity leading the charge with horns illuminating the tunnel.
Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and their stoic clay companion descended the winding stairway in silence. Upon reaching the foot of it, they found themselves in another tunnel, this one with a perfectly rounded ceiling and a flat, even floor. In the dim light of the stream dancing from Sweetie Belle’s horn, they could see that the tunnel terminated some distance away in a large stone door.
“Seriously, who built this?” Apple Bloom wondered aloud. “If this is natural, ya can call me a timberwolf.”
“My kin built it,” Golem replied with a hint of confusion. All three fillies looked up in surprise.
“Huh?”
“There are traces of others like me all over this place. I cannot say how many. Hundreds, perhaps.”
The Crusaders all flinched involuntarily as a pair of glowing orbs on either side of the hallway suddenly lit up, casting the walls in a cold, blue light. Even Golem paused for a moment.
“Wow. Creepy,” Sweetie Belle muttered.
“Wait, you hear that?” Scootaloo asked. A faint whisper, too low to be intelligible, crept through the tunnel.
“Sounds like it’s comin’ from that big door over there,” Apple Bloom replied in a low voice.
With every few steps forward they took, another pair of glowing orbs lit up on the walls, until the entire tunnel was bathed in blue light. Scattered across the floor—in a striking resemblance of what they had seen in the cellar in the Everfree Forest—were small pieces of clay, the chunks becoming larger as they came closer to the door. The whisper also became more distinct. It was the same genderless monotone that Golem spoke in, but weaker, more hollow.
“Help,” the voice said in an emotionless plea.
“Is… that what I think it is?” Sweetie Belle asked, looking faintly sick. They had just passed what looked like half a leg made of clay.
“Yeah,” Apple Bloom muttered.
Golem had stopped a short distance from the door. Its eyeless face stared down at the head on the ground. The other clay pony looked just like Golem, right down to the shape of the mane, at least what remained of it. A large emerald protruded from the the neck stump, only partially embedded in the clay. Golem slowly knelt down in front of the head, while the three fillies remained a short distance away, unsure whether to approach or not.
“You are the Sixth,” Golem stated.
“Yes,” the other voice croaked.
“I found you,” Golem added, somewhat unnecessarily.
“I waited so long. I almost gave up hope.”
“The Five are silent now. I no longer hear them.” Golem sounded almost puzzled.
“They sleep now. They accomplished the task I gave them. You brought them here. I felt them as they faded away. Soon, I can sleep too.”
“I do not understand.”
“I am broken. I will never be mended. I have stared down this tunnel for a thousand years. I remember every moment of nothingness. I only want to rest now. But first, you must listen.”
Golem leaned a little closer to the head in a curious gesture.
“The Architect is on the other side of this door. She brought me here to help her destroy our kin,” the other clay pony rasped.
“Why?” Golem asked.
“They are trapped. They wait endlessly for the return of the Dark One, as they were ordered. We were to free them, but my form was destroyed when we attempted to pass through this door. The Architect became trapped on the other side. You must set our kin free.”
“And you?”
“I can no longer do what the Architect tasked me with. She is no longer alive to free me from my task. Only another of our kin can set me free now, in the same way I had to set others free before. The final way.”
Golem turned its head slightly to look at the emerald heart of the other clay pony, glowing with a faint, dull light.
“Please. Set me free,” the other voice pleaded monotonously. “I cannot order you to do it, but I beg you to.”
Golem was quiet for a full minute. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle all stared at it in silence, holding their breath. The room became utterly silent.
“Rest now,” Golem said eventually, bringing its right hoof down on the emerald. There was a faint crack, and when the clay pony removed its hoof again, a tiny fracture had appeared in the gem. Something resembling a weak sigh escaped from the gem, and its glow faded completely. The Sixth seemed to age a thousand years in a second, ears and lifelike mane reverting to a crude mold and breaking off from the head, the pieces disintegrating the moment they touched the floor. Within the blink of an eye, all that remained was a pile of crumbled clay. Golem slowly straightened up, eyeless face staring ahead.
“Uh… Golem?” Apple Bloom carefully edged a little closer to the clay pony. “Is everythin’ okay?”
Golem turned its head to look at the three fillies. While it looked no different than before, it was as if something had changed in the way the clay pony moved.
“I am free,” it said. Its voice, which now carried a distinct tone of emotion despite remaining genderless and indefinable, was a mixture of confusion and elation.
Scootaloo looked at the clay pony warily. “Free? Free how?”
“The Five are gone. I no longer hear their voices urging me on. They fulfilled their purpose when I—when we found the Sixth. I am only one now. I am my own. There is no one telling me what I should do.” Golem paused for a moment. “I can create my own purpose now. I can do what I want to do.”
“And what’s that, exactly?” Sweetie Belle asked, grimacing slightly from the painful throbbing headache pounding at her skull like a hammer. Her friends looked at her with worry.
“You are suffering,” Golem commented.
“Just… just a little,” the unicorn filly groaned in reply.
“I want to help my kin, but first I want to stop your pain. How do we stop it?” it asked.
“Ngh… I guess by finding out where that is going.” She gestured at the wispy tendrils dancing from her horn. Golem’s head followed the ghost-light from the filly to the solid stone door. The clay pony studied the heavy slab of stone for a moment, before pressing a hoof against an indention roughly on the middle of it. The door lit up with a cobweb of blue light before sliding open with a loud grinding sound, revealing a circular domed chamber illuminated by more of the glowing orbs. A dark stone obelisk reared up in the middle of the room, crescent figures carved into it. The stream of wispy tendrils from Sweetie Belle’s horn danced around the monument.
“Well, glad that doesn’t look creepy at all,” Scootaloo muttered.
“No good. There’s nothing in here except more tools and stuff,” said Rainbow Dash as the others entered the excavation chamber.
“But the other tunnels were dead ends, too. Where could they possibly have gone?” Rarity wondered, absently dusting off her single remaining, no longer quite so elegant curl.
“Are you sure they went this way, Princess?” Twilight asked as Luna came through the entrance. “Rainbow Dash is right; it doesn’t look like there is anything here.”
The Princess did not reply at first, instead looking around the small chamber for a moment. “Let me think,” she said softly. “There should be a door here somewhere—Ah.” Her gaze fixed on the far wall, a pale glow surrounding her horn for a moment. There was a slight noise of stone against stone, but nothing else. Luna’s calm, passive expression turned into a frown.
“I have no time for this,” she hissed, her eyes and horn lighting up briefly but intensely. The wall exploded inwards in a shower of debris, revealing the descending stairway behind it. The Princess stepped past the rubble, pausing for a moment to look over her shoulder at the gaping ponies.
“Well?” she inquired expectantly.
“Your Highness, how did you know there would be a door there?” Rarity asked carefully.
“Simple. I was the one who made it, long ago. Now come, your sisters are close.”
“I don’t know about you, but she’s still a bit of a scary princess to me,” Pinkie Pie whispered to Fluttershy at the back of the group as they descended the stairs. The yellow pegasus merely nodded timidly in reply.
Sweetie Belle stepped over the threshold of the stone door and into the circular chamber, eyes locked on the dancing ghost-lights that swirled around the center. It was getting difficult to think clearly due to the throbbing migraine pressing like an anvil inside her skull. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, blinking away stinging tears of pain that mingled with tiny beads of sweat running from her forehead. She could hear the voices of her friends, but they were muffled and indistinct, as if the sound was being carried underwater. She felt a pair of supporting hooves on her shoulders.
“Mnngh… huh?” she groaned, forcing herself to look at Apple Bloom. The other filly stared at her with eyes full of concern. Scootaloo was on Sweetie Belle’s other side, lending assistance to the unicorn.
“Ah said that maybe we should stop. Ya don’t look right,” Apple Bloom repeated, looking at her friend uncertainly. Sweetie Belle shook her head.
“No, it’s right there. Just a little closer and it’ll disappear, just like last time,” she replied, swallowing the bile she felt rising in her throat as she shrugged free of her friends’ hooves and stumbled closer. Each step seemed to magnify the headache tenfold until it felt like her head was going to split open.
“Sweetie Belle! Stop!” Apple Bloom cried, or perhaps it was Scootaloo, though it did not sound like either of them. It sounded almost like… Rarity? More voices joined in with the first, but they sounded so distant that they might as well have been shouting all the way from Ponyville. She wanted to turn around and look, but a searing lance of whiteness shot into her forehead, momentarily blinding her. When her vision returned, everything had taken on the disturbing, oily, otherworldly light. She turned around, the movement feeling sluggish and difficult. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were close behind her, while Golem was looking around as if confused. She saw vague silhouettes on the other side of the stone door, near the stairway, but they were too indistinct to make out.
Her attention was drawn to the two specters stepping through the door, one a unicorn, the other looking like a much larger earth pony. The unicorn moved carefully, head scanning the room slowly. The other pony walked more ponderously with heavy, lumbering steps.
“Careful,” the voice of Tincoat hissed. “There’s something—”
With a sound like the crash of thunder, an arc of pure blackness whipped from the tip of the obelisk, striking the larger of the two specters. It was flung back through the door by the impact, shattering into pieces that disappeared from sight. The heavy door closed shut with a loud grinding of stone on stone.
The specter of Tincoat let out a wordless cry of shock and despair, her horn flashing and enveloping her in a shimmering bubble, which shattered almost immediately as a second arc of black lightning struck it. Tincoat was flung against the door with a sickening thud, falling heavily to the floor. Coughing and gasping for breath, she pushed herself on her hooves unsteadily and staggered forward.
“No!” she hissed, a stream of sickly yellow spearing from her horn towards the obelisk, striking it without any apparent effect. “Not like this! I’m so close!”
The vile blackness struck the unicorn again, smashing her back once more, this time just to the right of Sweetie Belle. She cringed as the ghostly unicorn flew past her and hit the wall. Tincoat let out breathless groan of pain as she collapsed, coughing and retching. She dragged herself forward, her hindlegs bent at an unnatural angle.
“Please… so close…” she wheezed. Black lightning whipped from the obelisk, but instead of striking the ghostly unicorn a third time it lashed towards Sweetie Belle. The world exploded into whiteness again. Pain burned into her head through her horn. She opened her mouth wide in a silent scream, unable to see anything other than the pure white. Suddenly, she heard the sound of stone splintering, accompanied by a keening wail. She felt herself being flung backwards by a wave of pressure, and for a brief, wonderful moment, everything became dark and still as the deepest night.