Twilight explained what she’d been told as they walked, Spike interrupting periodically to add in the often trivial information that she omitted.
“Well, I s’ppose that’s fine. I don’t mind helpin’ out here for a spell. And it’s not as though collecting a few trinkets is terribly hard,” said Applejack. “What’d you think, Fluttershy?”
“I think it’s alright. Maybe. I’d like to hear what the others think before I commit.”
Twilight nodded, making a mental note. Applejack has voted to stay in the Bureau and do as they were asked. Fluttershy appeared less certain, but would likely choose to assist as well once the votes were tallied.
“So, uh. Did your magic typewriter tell you anything ‘bout… dyin’, or anything?” Applejack asked in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner. “What happens to a ‘body afterwards. Y’musta asked, right?”
Twilight thought back to the conversation with her host.
“Could you tell us what happens after a pony passes on?” Twilight asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
I’M AFRAID NOT.
“Well, there has to be some sort of afterlife, correct?” Twilight inquired carefully. “This paperwork you’re filling out ends up going somewhere, right?”
DOES IT HAVE TO BE GOING SOMEWHERE? CAN’T IT MERELY SERVE AS PROOF THAT THESE PEOPLE ONCE EXISTED? IF YOUR ONLY REWARD FOR ACCOMPLISHING WHAT YOU HAD IN LIFE WAS THE DISPASSIONATE EMBRACE OF OBLIVION, WOULD YOU NOT WANT TO BE REMEMBERED?
“Is that really all this is?” Twilight gaze fell to the dusty floor. “I just thought… I don’t know. Maybe there was more to us.”
The typewriter continued, unperturbed.
YOU CAN CHOOSE TO BELIEVE WHAT YOU WILL. WHO AM I TO TRY AND SWAY YOU?
“You’re the one with the answers. Right?”
NO.
HOW SHOULD I HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE YOU SEEK? I AM LIKE YOU; I HAVE NEVER BEEN BEYOND THE BUREAU. IT WAS MY FEAR FOR WHAT LAY THERE THAT DROVE ME TO BECOME A REVIEWER. IN WORKING HERE, I POSTPONE MY OWN DAY OF RECKONING. THOSE THAT DEPART CAN NEVER RETURN TO RECOUNT THEIR EXPERIENCES. AND NO WAKING EYE MAY SEE BEYOND THE VEIL OF DEATH FOR FEAR OF BEING BLINDED FOREVERMORE.
“Nopony knows, then,” said Applejack. “That’s not too surprisin’.”
The rotmite hovered in front of her face for a few seconds before she shooed it away. Even after Twilight and Spike identified the creature, Fluttershy opposed disposing of it. Applejack and Twilight remained uneasy around the rotmite, but for the time being it was not hindering their progress.
The hallway ended in an enormous chamber. There was no outside wall to speak of, merely a large window looking out onto the rest of the Bureau and the blinding skies. The floor lay perhaps a hundred feet below them, with the only thing keeping them suspended being a narrow bridge. Although worn, the bridge looked stable enough to last another thousand years, possibly longer. The other two ponies glanced at Twilight tentatively.
“Where are we going, Twilight?” asked Fluttershy.
“This is the way to the first artifact, right?” hazarded Spike.
“That’s right,” said Twilight. “There is no other way, at this point. The Bureau will steer us and our friends toward our objectives. Otherwise, it’d be unlikely that we’d ever find what we’re looking for in a place this big.”
“There’s always another way,” said Applejack.
“Not in the Bureau. Even if we turn around and walk in the other direction, we’ll probably just loop around and come back sooner or later.” Twilight looked over the side of the bridge. Windlasses and conveyor belts decorated the floor below. Crates full of what Twilight could only assume was paper were being moved to the various corners of the facility. The hum of machinery permeated the air.
“But that’s not right!” Applejack exclaimed. “It’s like we’ve got no choice at all but to do this fella’s bidding!”
“It doesn’t matter what choices you make,” said Fluttershy. “Everypony ends up in the same place.”
Twilight felt herself bristling slightly. Fluttershy’s observation left a bad taste.
“Come on.”
The party began crossing in a single file, with Twilight and Spike in the lead. The light from the window fell upon them, but gave no warmth. Outside, the vents expelled amorphous clouds of steam which distorted the harsh effulgence, but only barely. The omnipresent nature of the light insured that shadows were short, insubstantial. Spike decided to break the uncomfortable silence.
“Why does everything die, Twilight?”
Twilight looked back at him disapprovingly.
“Aren’t you a little too old to be asking questions like that?”
“I’m with Spike,” said Applejack. “I’d be interested to hear your explanation. And if you could spare us the sighin’ and the eyeball-rollin’, I’m sure we’d be mighty thankful.”
Barely restraining herself from partaking in these two things, Twilight considered the query for a second. Why did life, whose only purpose was to perpetuate itself, inevitably expire? The answer seemed self-evident.
“Were ponies to live forever, we would succumb to overpopulation and expend the land’s natural resources,” she exposited.
“What if it was more difficult to, y’know, reproduce,” Applejack pressed. “An’ if we only used renewable resources. Would livin’ forever work then?”
They arrived to the other end of the bridge. The hallway beyond was a gaping, windowless maw, illuminated only by the dim, flickering tubes hanging from the ceiling.
“But that’s not how things work, Applejack,” Twilight said with a hint of impatience, as they entered the corridor. “Even if it was, would you really want to?” Applejack opened her mouth to speak, but Twilight cut her off. “Age spells do exist, you know; they’re difficult and very few unicorns are powerful enough to use them. But they’re there. How do you think the two Princesses have lived so long, virtually unchanged? Nevertheless, those who are capable rarely extend their lifespan by longer than a century. Star Swirl the Bearded famously called these spells a ‘foal’s folly, futile and ill-founded.’”
For a split second Applejack’s eyes betrayed a trace of anger, but she quickly regained her composure. This brief lapse was not lost on Twilight, however, who wondered why Applejack was so concerned with these metaphysical matters.
“So,” Fluttershy muttered hesitantly. “So is it death that gives life purpose?”
“That’s a pile of horse apples!” said Applejack. “There’s so much to see and do! So many ponies to meet! Why not continue living?”
Twilight licked her lips.
“You remember when you were a little filly and just ten minutes seemed like a really long time?” she began. “And as you got older you learned that ten minutes wasn’t really all that much? Your perception of time changes as you age. Increments of ten minutes become smaller and smaller percentages of your life. Princess Celestia told me; for so-called immortals like her, days, months, even years or decades pass in the proverbial blink of an eye. You alienate yourself from your peers because you know they’ll never stick around for any considerable measure of time. Nothing does, anymore. Life becomes a chaotic blur, so you cling desperately to the happy moments, trying to make them last. Make no mistake; if there are gods, they undoubtedly envy us for our mortality.”
Applejack didn’t respond. Twilight wondered if she was getting through to her at all. Meanwhile, Spike scanned the environment furtively, seeking to divert the group’s attention from these matters. He was regretting posing the question that triggered the discussion, as he found its course depressing. They came to an intersection. As the four looked at the passageway running perpendicular to their own, a hint of color in the corner of Spike’s vision drew his attention.
“So if what you were sayin’ is true, it shouldn’t matter which path we take, right Twilight?” asked Applejack.
“Maybe. But I’d imagined there would be some indication of the shortest route. I guess—”
“There’s a red stripe on the wall leading this way,” Spike interrupted, pointing left. There was a brief pause as the three others tried to make out what the dragon was seeing.
“I don’t really see any red…” said Fluttershy, squinting at the corridor.
“Now wait just a darn second.” Applejack stooped down to have a closer look at something she couldn’t be sure she saw. There, near the point where the wall met floor, was a single line, a little wider than a hair and scarcely visible against the brickwork. “Don’t think I’d call this’un a stripe, Spike. How’d you even see something like this so quick-like?”
Spike shrugged.
“I dunno. Seems pretty obvious to me.”
“Dragons feed on gemstones,” said Twilight, remembering what little she’d gleaned from the few books and field journals written on the subject. These journals tended to end abruptly, often with pages scorched beyond legibility. “Their vision is developed to the point where they can spot deposits on the ground in midflight. It’s not impossible that this paint was prepared with traces of ruby or some other precious stone.”
“A’right. So should we go this way then, or what? This line might not mean a thing, y’know. It might just be the mistake of the painter, or, what is it y’all call it? A red herring?”
Spike scratched at the line with a stubby claw.
“It’s not coming off. And the width is the same throughout. Whatever this is, it’s been put here on purpose. Should we follow it, Twilight?”
Twilight looked down the narrow corridor. It veered off at an irregular angle. Another might have wondered why the architect had designed something so inefficient in utilizing what space the facility had available, but Twilight was better informed than that.
“I suppose it won’t hurt to try.”
Once more the four set off, following the red ray along the side of the corridor.
Applejack spoke up again, though, to Twilight’s relief, not regarding their prior argument.
“So, these four artifacts... What exactly are we supposed to do once we find them?”
“The reviewer said we’d have to return to Equestria and give them to Princess Luna,” said Spike.
“Why, what’s she gonna do with them?”
Spike’s brow furrowed under the burden of recall.
“Uh, Twilight?”
“I don’t know,” Twilight replied. “He was awfully vague concerning their nature. He mentioned that they were confiscated from her after her rebellion and subsequent banishment. Now that she’s reclaimed the throne, they are to be returned. What all this has to do with the Bureau remains a mystery.”
Twilight was not entirely forthcoming about her thoughts. She had a theory concerning Luna’s involvement with this situation. Luna was the Princess of the Night, and sleep by extension. Twilight had heard tales of the Lunar Princess visiting the dreams of her subjects. Whether these rumors were true or fabricated she couldn’t say. However, if Luna truly had power over the moon and stars, as well as sleep and dreams, perhaps she had some say in matters of death as well. Sleep and death were, after all, the closest of cousins. If Luna was somehow involved in this decedent business, it made some sense that the Bureau would completely fall apart in her absence. The four artifacts could be symbols or physical vessels for her power.
The fluorescent tubes hanging overhead grew steadily dimmer as they progressed. At last they guttered out completely, flooding the way ahead in thick, preternatural darkness. The crimson line running along the wall glowed, gliding through the black void, guiding them. Twilight tried to light the way with her horn, but the feeble glow of her magic was swallowed by the darkness, illuminating nothing. She shrugged at her companions.
“It looks like we’ll have to trust the way ahead is safe enough, but tread carefully. I’ll maintain the light of my horn. You girls stay close.”
They were alone in that place, accompanied only by the sound of their hooves on the floorboards, and the persistent buzzing of the rotmite beside them. Time passed. No conversation interrupted the drone of that insect, and there, in the dark, Twilight suspected that she was going mad. That awful buzzing seemed to be amplified by the lack of other sensory stimulus. She knew she’d lose it if she had to put up with the noise for one more minute. She’d flail in the dark until she’d found the irritating rotmite and crushed it.
But that moment never came. The red ray built in thickness ahead, until the entire wall was covered in phosphorescent crimson. As they turned a corner, the opposite wall took on the color as well. As the floor caught the light of their surroundings they saw that it was checkered black and white; squares of ivory among shining obsidian. The buzzing of the rotmite reached an octave, and began to recede into the distance. The creature had fled.
“W-wait!” Fluttershy called after it, unheeded.
“It’s alright,” Applejack tried to reassure her. “Let it go.”
They continued along the hallway until it led them into an atrium of sorts. Stained glass windows decorated the outer walls of the space, colored predominantly in shades of red. The harsh light of the outside was weakened significantly by its passage through the thick glass, emerging dim and of a deep carnelian shade. The air was oppressively warm and humid. Were she more poetically-inclined, Twilight would imagine the combination of the lighting and temperature gave the room a womb-like atmosphere.
An ancient horn was suspended beneath the largest window, curving around itself several times, as though removed from the oldest of rams. Twilight and Spike approached it to have a closer look. It was hollow, and the tip had been replaced by a brass cone with a hole on the end. This was an antique blowing horn.
The gryphons had used instruments like these during their skirmishes with the nomad sheep-people of the Tungsten steppes. As they were made from the horns of their fallen foes, they were intended to demoralize and degrade, little more than war trophies to the belligerent gryphon kingdoms of yore. Twilight has always found this particular piece of history somewhat mean-spirited. Relations were strained between the gryphons and the rams to this day.
Letters were inscribed into the body of the horn.
Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni.
Issue forth the banners of the king of... something or other. The last word was unfamiliar to her. She heard Applejack’s voice coming from her periphery somewhere.
“Is this it, then?”
Twilight nodded half to herself.
“Must be.”
She freed the horn from the hook that kept it affixed to the wall and turned back to her companions.
“And that’s all we have to do, is it?” asked Fluttershy.
“Yes. Just a simple delivery job. Here you go, Spike, you can carry this.”
Spike dutifully grabbed the blowing horn and the party collectively looked back to the black corridor that led them to this place. Applejack tapped on the floor impatiently.
“Let’s get moving, then. Won’t do to keep the others waiting.”