By Darkryt Orbinautz
Eviler Than Thou
Chapter 5
Of Creaks and Gryphons
"I'm going to get Orion." The minister said as he came back down the stairs. "Somepony needs to make Vivian doesn't find out what happened to her mother. Who knows how she might take it?"
"Uh, minister?" Flam questioned. "I hate to trouble you again, but we're going to go up the bell tower. Would you come with us?"
The minister looked surprised. Understandable, as who would expect somepony to actually decide to go up the tower after what happened to the mares in the other room?
"Go ahead without me." The minster answered. "I'll meet you there after I bring Orion back here." The minister left the house ahead of them.
The three unicorns exited the house and blindly stumbled through the alleyways the minister had led them to. They hadn't the foggiest idea how to get to the bell tower from where they were.
"I think it's that way..."
"No, it's this way!"
"I'm telling you, Flam, it's that way!"
"This way!"
"That way!"
"Shut up, both of you!" Trixie snapped. "We're unicorns aren't we? We'll just use a spell!" A purple light formed on Trixie's horn that transformed into a sphere which floated off into the distance.
"Follow that sphere!" Trixie commanded. They galloped after it, Trixie in the lead. It managed to lead them through the alleyways until they were back out on the less dark, more navigable streets. A pony saw them following the purple sphere, yelped, and hid behind something. They ignored them, focused on the sphere.
Along the way, Trixie heard a odd noise, like a pony in armor slowly walking.
Clink...Clink... Clink...Clink...
She decided to ignore it. It's not like it had something to do with the bell tower, is it?
Eventually the sphere led them the cement stairs of the bell tower and dissipated.
Flim gulped. "...Well, here we are."
"...Yup." Trixie agreed. "Here we are."
Whatever had made Trixie effective enough to use her magic to lead them out of the alley had seemed to have left her when she needed more now then she did then.
Clink...Clink...Clink...Clink.
That sound again. Trixie decided to question it this time.
"...What's that sound?" Trixie questioned.
"What sound?" Flam asked in response. Trixie wasn't sure if he actually couldn't hear it or whether or he was pretending not to irritate her. Remember his comments at Orion's house, she presumed it was the latter. And, here, at the bell tower's entrance, she had the perfect opportunity to get back at him. The familiar green fireball came arching out of the forest and flew right over them.
"...You go first, Flam."
"Why should I go first? You go first!"
"You should go first!"
"NAH HAAAAAAAAAARRGGGH!"
Trixie froze. That sounded like the laughter she heard in the forest when she first tried to get into town. But it wasn't laughter. It was a scream of rage.
The all-too-familiar sound of a firecracker being launched assaulted her eyes. Trixie ducked to the concrete and put her front legs over her head. The green fireball seemed to aim at the bell tower, but stopped short and merely started flying around the bell tower's top, as though trying to scare whoever was in there without coming close enough to risk melting the bell within.
"The Headless Horse grows angrier. We must hurry."
Oh, thank Celestia. The minister had arrived. Just as he had when they were going to Orion's, he conducted them into a group like a mother duckling bading her kids for the swim. They followed him through the entrance, marching like the ducks on the land.
The inside of the clock tower wasn't as...violent-looking as Trixie had expected. Stone log upon stone log stacked on top of each other like a wooden blocks, forming stairs. The walls were white, but they looked just the tiniest bit grey for some reason that Trixie didn't think she wanted to know just yet. In the darkness, the lines of the interlocked bricks looked like insane scribbling.
The four of them started climbing up the stairs, their hoofsteps the only noise. Their shadows, the only movement. More then once, Trixie was startled by a sudden change in the dissonance, but it was only Flim or Flam stepping either more lightly or more heavily on the stairway.
"We're halfway to the top now." The minister informed them after they been through...how many stairs? Trixie lost count. Was she even counting the first place? Bah, she didn't care.
Clink... Clink... Clink... Clink...
She tried to ignore the sound. She probably would've come off as crazy if she kept pestering anypony about it. Although she started caring again when she stepped on something.
"EEEET!"
"AAHHHH!" Trixie backed away and fell backwards. "RAT RAT RAT!"
"EEEEEEET!" The tiny brown rodent shrieked, then it ran down the stairs, trying to get away from whatever had just crushed it's tail.
Trixie started taking deep breaths, trying to calm herself. Mercifully, the rat hadn't tried to bite her. Of course, now that she saw it, she couldn't but wonder if maybe her speculations in the hotel had some grain of truth to them.
"Trixie has a question..." The blue unicorn said as they resumed their march up the stairs.
"Ask away." The minister encouraged her, keeping his eyes on the stair.
"Does anypony else think the rat Trixie stepped on could be what hurt Pink Cloud?"
The minister and the Flim Flam Brothers snorted.
"...What?"
"First of all, that rat was too small to give the wounds Pink Cloud had. Second..." The minister turned around with an amused grin on his face. "That was a mouse."
"...The Great and Powerful Trixie knew that! You think Trixie incapable of telling the difference between a rat and mouse?"
"Oh, none of us think that, Trixie!" Flim assured her.
"We know it." Flam whispered into Flim's ear. The two snickered.
Trixie remained indignant. "What are you colts laughing about? Trixie demands to know!"
"Nothing."
"Stop!" The minister instructed, holding his leg out to keep Trixie from going any further up the stairs.
Clink... Clink... Clink... Clink...
"We are almost at the top."
"That's...good." Flim said slowly. "...Right?"
The minister pointed his hoof. "Look."
In front of them, what should have been another tedious set of stone logs was instead a collapsed wooden...hut within the tower.
"What the-!?"
"An old hut that leads into the bell's chamber." The minister explained. "The ponies that built it thought it added 'flair' when the material that the stairway was made of changed suddenly just before visitors got to the top. As you can see, it didn't work that well...Come on then, the rest of you go before me. If you fall in, I can pull you out."
Trixie and Flam looked at each other. Flim, seeing they wer about to get into another spat about who went first, volunteered to be the first across.
Flim cautiously, tensely put one hoof on the intact part of the wood. He shakily got another one, then his hind ones.
"Don't be afraid, Flim." The minister told him. "Being afraid will only serve to create a valid cause of concern."
Flim gave the minister a bewildered look at his cryptic way of reassurance. Regardless, he tippedhooved his across and made it over the way and to the door that led into the bell's chamber.
"Now Flam." The minister instructed.
Flam did the same as Flim, stepping his way over cautiously. He lost balance once, though, and got poked in the side by a broken piece of wood. "Ow!"
"Flam! You all right?" Flim called.
"I'm fine! I've had worse." He rubbed his side and gave the broken piece of wood a filthy glare. "Then again, I've also had better." In spite of the wood's ever so clear malicious intent, he made it the rest of the way across without anything breaking. (Either on the wood or him.)
"Your turn, Trixie."
Trixie lowered her head to look at the wood. She raised her head back up in a 'Humph!' gesture. "Once again, Flim Flam Brothers, you have forgotten that you are both unicorns!" Trixie took a few step backwards, scraped her hoof and came running at the broken hut. Just as she was about to take her first step on it, she jumped into the air.
Flim covered his eyes, thinking that Trixie was about to fall crashing through the floor.
Trixie wasn't a dumb pony, though. She knew what she was doing. When she began to lose altitude, she grabbed the whole of her own body in her magic and used it to hurl herself across, landing on her tushie in front of the door to the chamber.
"Very well then. I guess that means it's my turn, eh?" The minister joked. He started leisurely trotting along the wood as causally as he would if he was out on the street in broad daylight.
Flim became concerned at his seeming whimsy. "Minister, are you sure that's a good idea?"
"Don't worry, it's fine." The minister answered. "I used to walk this thing whenever there was a tourist group-WAAAOOH!" Despite his claims of having walked the path before, the minister's hind hoof hit a weak spot in the wood and the floor crumbled beneath him, sinking the entire rear half of his body into whatever pit lied beneath the wood.
"MINISTER!"
"I'm fine!" The elder dismissed their concerns. "I'll be able to dig myself out...but that'll take a while. Go stop whoever's in that room!" The minister started pedaling his left hoof under the wood while using his right one to keep himself out of the aforementioned pit.
Trixie and the Brothers turned to look at the door.
"Well..." Flam began. "Last chance for anypony to change their mind."
"I thought that was when we were waiting outside?" Flim questioned.
The three of them braced themselves, taking a deep breath and a moment to remember Pink Cloud and Doctor Vaccine.
Trixie, thought quivering, put her hoof on the doorknob and pulled it open. (So much for being a unicorn!)
They entered the room, not finding what they were expecting to find.
The gigantic bell was there, undisturbed as far could be seen from looking at it. They were a few spots of blood on the floor just in front of the door they had the misfortune to step in. (Eeuck!)
But still, aside from those spots, there wasn't really anything there. No prankster pony ringing the bell for cruel laughs, no warlock and his pet monster ringing the bell to draw out the Headless Horse. Nothing.
"Oh, would you look at that! There's nopony here. What a shame. Come on, let's go home." Flim turned around and headed for the exit, but Flam stood in his way.
"We're not leaving here until we find something." The mustachioed brother scolded.
Trixie looked around the room. There was something they were missing. The bell, the blood from Pink Cloud's unfavorable encounter, the four windows.
The windows! There was probably something in them. Trixie started scrutinizing them, judging them for anything that was there that should not have been. She got more then bargained for when she saw something move on of them.
"Flim! Flam! The window!" Trixie squeaked for their attention. She got it, and everypony stood there shivering in fear as the shadow on the window made its features visible. First, it stretched it's wings, which even blotted out by the darkness looked proud. Trixie might've thought it was a pegasus, but she would've have thought wrong. Pegasi don't have pen-sharp talons or beaks made for cracking shells.
Each unicorn exclaimed as the shape took off from it's roost and crash-stomped landed in front of them. It was more then a little terrifying-wait, wait, no, it was a she! A blood soaked creature with an eagle's wings and head, but a lion's hind legs and tail. Trixie tensed, expecting something to happen. For the hybrid to scream at them, claiming they were intruding on it's nest. For it to ask them a riddle that none of them knew the answer to.
She was not expecting it to smooth its head feathers back and greet them in a totally carefree manner.
"'Sup?"
The three unicorns all looked to each other for an answer to the creature's question.
"...Trixie does not know the meaning of this 'sup' you speak of!"
"Sup." The creature repeated. "You know, what's up? 'Sup? So, seriously, 'sup?"
Flam cleared his throat. "What is 'up' is that somepony's been ringing this bell here, and a lot of ponies are starting to get hurt because of it! Do you know who's been responsible?"
"Yeah." The creature replied. "Me."
Flam sputtered. "Y-y-you? You've been ringing the bell?"
"Yeah. Heard that nopony likes it when the bell gets rung. Thought it be a great prank."
"Prank!?" Trixie exclaimed. "Prank!? Because of your prank, Trixie nearly lost her wagon, Pink Cloud lost her blood, and Doctor Vaccine's lungs nearly went out!"
The creature gave the three of them a dubious eyebrow. "I don't if you noticed, but that little pink pegasus isn't the only one that lost her blood!" She flexed her wings out, showing horseshoe imprints on them that were consistent with having been in a fight. "That pink chick saw me ringing the bell and went nuts! I barely managed to throw her off me and out the window! You think you can just come in here and make me stop ringing the bell after that cos you asked nicely? Sorry, dweebs, but that's NOT how Gilda rolls!"
"I beseech thee, madam, please stop ringing the bell."
"I just told you dweebs I wasn't gonna stop ringing the bell!" Gilda snapped.
Trixie shifted her eyes between the two Flim Flam Brothers. "Trixie didn't say that."
"I didn't say that." Flim insisted.
"Wasn't me." Flam added.
"Rrrraaagh!" Somepony screamed. "We had hoped to avoid this direct course of action, but our patience hath runneth out!"
Everything went grey in Trixie's eyes. Everything lost its color. Not that everything had lost its color, she was just so badly afraid that it seemed that way. She was afraid...because she knew. Knowledge really was a terrible thing after all.
She knew who was speaking in that old, outdated tongue...she knew whose patience 'hath runneth' out...She knew where that awful sound was coming from...
The Headless Horse was coming.
The Headless Horse was coming.
THE HEADLESS HORSE WAS COMING!
... CLINK.
... ... CLINK.
... ... ... CLINK.
... ... ... ...CLINK.
... ... ... ... ... CLINK.
... ... ... ... ... ... CLINK.
... ... ... ... ... ... ... CLINK.