Chapter Twenty One
Some Disassembly Required
I touched the crystal that sealed the stairway and watched a wall of stone blocks slide steadily upward, slamming into place like the doors of a tomb.
"A light spell is okay to use here," I told Sesseressia. "Just drop it when we get to the bottom. There's enough light from glow spots in the cavern to see perfectly well."
Her horn glowed—a soft peach color rather than the normal changeling green—and she followed Jigsaw down the stairs.
"What is the plan, Twilight?" Jigsaw called back to me as she descended. "Please tell me you're not just improvising."
Oh, I definitely had a plan. But I certainly wasn't going to tell her it had come to me in a dream. No sense in making her nervous. Okay, more nervous. "I noticed that the reactive blasts from the crystal came from the spikes on its surface. I'm pretty sure they're designed for that purpose. A coating of little spurs and branches that act defensively, like armor against potentially hostile magic."
"Uh... if you say so. You're the expert, I guess." The doubt in her voice was in no way comforting. "How does that affect us?"
"It means that step one is to strip the armor away from the central core of the crystal. Then we can access the dark energy directly. It should be fairly easy."
I saw the pool of light cast by Jigsaw's horn jerk and come to a stop. "Easy?" she asked, sounding just a teensy bit outraged. "When were you going to tell me—"
"Hold your horses, Jigsaw. Draining the crystal is still going to be difficult and dangerous. We need to be as cautious as possible even during the so-called easy bits."
She continued to descend, remaining silent—at least for the time being.
"As for draining the dark energy away," I continued. "I've come up with a way to neutralize most of it."
"Ah," Sesseressia quipped. "Finally, some good news. It… is good news, isn't it?"
"Pretty much," I said, in clipped tones. "Considering that the amount of dark energy that crystal could release into the land, even non-explosively, would turn it into an environment that would make the Everfree Forest look like a potted geranium? Yes, it's good news."
There was a long pause where the only sound was that of hooves on stone, then Jigsaw said to Sesseressia, "This is the first trap, here where the chalk marks are. Just don't put a hoof on that step and you'll be fine. There's a pit a few steps lower, but it's uncovered and obvious."
Once we were past the treacherous staircase, Sesseressia spoke up again, this time with considerably less sarcasm in her voice. "So, we remove the 'armor,' then drain and neutralize the crystal's energy—is that all that needs to be done?"
I had debated with myself whether or not to share my other concerns with Jigsaw and the general. They deserved to know what they were getting into, but worrying them with a possibly nonexistent menace wasn't fair, either. Telling them that one of the unicorns who had probably built the monstrous crystal below us had also booby-trapped an entire city to disappear for a thousand years—well, I just couldn't see how that would be helpful.
"Hopefully," was all I said. And then, so they wouldn't start asking uncomfortable questions,[1] "The main difficulty will be in placing the grounding spikes exactly. In order to get the waveforms to cancel each other out, their location will be critical. On top of that, you two can't use your magic to help because the spikes and cables need to be in place before I strip off the armor."
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[1] Rule Two: Change the subject.
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"Are you sure—" Sesseressia began.
"Hang on," Jigsaw interrupted her. "Twilight, what do you mean by waveforms canceling each other?"
I took a deep breath. "Well, magical energy produces pulses in five dimensions at certain wavelengths determined by the granularity of the field substrate of the originating dimension and matrix..."
Jigsaw held up a hoof to stop me and said, "Yep, I think she's sure."
I grinned. "I'll be standing by to smooth out any rough spots, using my own dark magic to flatten out any unexpected surges."
"Your dark magic?" Sesseressia asked incredulously. "I thought you Equestrians were all sweetness and light."
I noticed, with no small degree of satisfaction, that she hadn't said 'you ponies.' "'Brightest lights oft' cast deepest shadows,'" I quoted, for lack of any better reply.
"What have I gotten myself into?" she muttered.
I didn't have a good answer for that, either.
When we got to the cavern, we followed the same rough path toward the dome at the crystal's base. I let my horn smoke and simmer with dark magic as I passed through the delusion trap with no effect whatsoever. That was one of my guesses proven correct, at least. I back-kicked one of the little crystals that powered the trap and it shattered with a puff of purple smoke and a spatter of green sparks. Should have thought of that last time, I mentally rebuked myself. Too busy gaping at the giant crystal, I guess.
When we got into the dome, I realized that we would have to clear away the remains of Professor Sharphoof and her colleagues in order to make room for arranging the cables. I thought we ought to try to bring them back to Canterlot for a proper burial, so I tried to shift them as gently as possible. Unfortunately for me, they pretty much fell to dust and leather as soon as I touched them with my magic. Dark magic just doesn't have the capacity for fine control, and fine control isn't my strong suit even when I'm using normal magic. I set all of the remains down in a jumbled heap, far away from the bronze control hoops, trying hard not to think about what exactly I was levitating.
"Twilight, look," Jigsaw said, as I turned away from my grisly task.
On the floor, where the body of Professor Sharphoof had lain, was a flat, mummified-looking chunk of thick fabric. It took me a second to realize that it was one of her saddlebags. She must have fallen on it when she died, and her body had protected it from the full influence of the crystal. I brushed at it with my magic, but it held together. There was no time then to examine it, so I bundled the whole thing into my own saddlebag and got on with the preparations.
"You two stay in the dome," I told Sesseressia and Jigsaw. "I'm going to teleport all the equipment down to us, and the walls should provide you with some protection if something goes wrong."
Everything arrived intact, with no untoward side-effects. "Remember," I said, as my two companions peered out of the dome's doorway. "Use teeth and hooves only! Unpack that crate of grounding rods and take them and the reel of thin wire inside the dome. I'll work out here for now. Let me know when you're finished."
We got everything laid out pretty quickly, and then I got down to the delicate part of the operation. I couldn't bring myself to trust the others to make the necessary measurements with the fine degree of accuracy that was required, so I had to do that myself while they waited and conversed in low voices.
After I'd triple-checked all my distances and angles, I began driving the long copper rods into the hard stone of the cavern. I had cut to length several sections of the heavy cable and Jigsaw and Sesseressia pulled them into place as I worked on the rods. When we finished outside, we continued inside the dome, pulling in the free ends of all the heavy cables and attaching them to a big electrical bus that I'd placed under the center of the crystal. I would have preferred a ring-shaped piece of brass or copper, instead of the oblong of copper and insulating material, but evidently nothing of that description had been within the crystal's range.
I began driving in the rods that would hold the web of finer wire that would act as a resonating guide. When I stopped to re-measure one rod and changed its location by less than a straw's width, Jigsaw couldn't help but comment.
"Twilight, it looks like you're just sticking these things in at random! Does it really need to be that exact?"
I could have told her that a mistake the length of an eyelash[2] might get us all vaporized, but I really didn't want to worry her. "You know how fussy I am about stuff like this," was all I said. It seemed to relax her a bit.
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[2] The mean length of a pony eyelash is 1.63 inches, so that's really a fairly decent safety margin.
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When I was finished, and the connections had been all checked one last time, I went to the controls of the bronze hoops. "I'm turning off the limiters, now, so please try to think nothing but happy thoughts... and don't say anything from now until the crystal is dead, okay?"
The two of them looked at each other and then back at me, nodding.
After I'd removed all the safety constraints on the dark crystal, I led us all out of the dome and picked out a big stalagmite half way across the cavern floor. "We'll take cover behind that," I said. I carried several extra rods and a spool of light wire along with me. If anything got badly out of tune, I figured I might be able to re-balance it from a distance.
Once we were safely behind the stalagmite, I settled in and really let my dark magic flow free. Sesseressia took a couple of steps away from me, and even Jigsaw flinched. Jigsaw's reaction I could understand, but the ex-changeling? Considering where she'd grown up, I was a bit miffed that she considered me anywhere near spooky.
I reached out and touched the now-dead limiting mechanism, stretching and pulling at the interlinked hoops until they were all large enough to slide upward around the crystal, but not large enough to avoid the spikes and spurs. Then I did the gravity vs. momentum trick I'd come up with in my dream. I kept putting energy into the opposing forces until the cavern was echoing with the crackle and hiss of excess power spattering the inside of the dome.
Then I flipped the direction of the gravity. I had really wanted to directly observe the result, and had planned to raise a shield around us to protect from stray energy and shrapnel, but everything happened too quickly. The hoops became a golden blur along the height of the crystal as they obliterated the branching bits and then slammed into the ceiling of the cavern. Rubble and stalactites began to fall, most missing the crystal, but quite a number bouncing off of its now smoother surface. The rotating mass wobbled just a fraction. Not a good thing.
I quickly reached out with my dark magic and stabilized it, then took what I figured was the biggest risk of the day: I sent a lance of pure, normal magic at the base point of the crystal to crack it. If I had been mistaken about the spikes and spurs being the only source of reactive counter-measures, I would have been... well, toast, as Rainbow Dash likes to say. Fortunately, I was still un-toasted after my attack. Even better yet, the dark power in the crystal was rushing out, being channeled away by my system of energy drains.
"Is it working?" Jigsaw gasped as she peered around the edge of the stalagmite.
I really wish I had prepared some clever quip for the occasion, but all I could say was, "Yes, it seems to be."
I reverted to the use of dark magic and gently probed the web of copper we had set up. The surges of varying pulses were canceling each other out perfectly. I waited for any imbalances to show up, but the system was operating just the way I'd designed it, magical energy phasing away into simple, non-specific forms. Light, heat, vibration, and sound that dispersed almost as soon as it was created. Looking upward, we could even see the dangerous magic bleeding away. The top of the crystal was going gray, and even white along the edges. At the rate the color change was traveling down the crystal, I estimated it would only be twenty minutes or so before it was a just dead chunk of mineral.
Of course, we didn't get nearly that long.
The crystal wasn't quite two-thirds drained when the ceiling fell in. The earlier falling debris was nothing compared to the weight of paving stones, tiles, and gems that crashed into the top of the big crystal, causing it to wobble even more than before. Worse still were the cracks that shot down the length of it, because when they reached the level that still held dark magic, it began to leak.
The beautiful, falling hum of dark magic harmonizing itself into random energy became a throbbing heterodyne of mismatched tones that made my teeth ache. Jigsaw shrieked in surprise and Sesseressia cursed. I was far too busy to indulge in either of those tension-relieving activities. I took hold of the crystal with my magic, first trying to stabilize its erratic wobble and then attempting to seal the still growing cracks.
I might have been able to do it if I hadn't had to fight off the attacking changeling drones.
They swarmed down out of the hole in the ceiling, spreading out into the cavern as they searched for us. It didn't take them long to spot the alicorn whose horn was blazing with black and green magic.
They had spellcasters working as they flew, using warding and canceling magic, no doubt designed to work against what they knew of my shield and offensive spells. Luckily, they hadn't ever even considered fighting against dark magic. With an aching jaw due to clenched teeth, I swatted them out of the air and pinned them to the cavern floor with roiling blobs of thick black goo that instantly bonded with the rock of the cavern. I hit them in bunches, and it only took a minute or two to clear the air and imprison them all.
I turned my attention back to the crystal just before the second wave of changelings poured into the cave, but it was too late. The top third of the crystal sheared off and toppled, crashing to the cavern floor with a bone-jarring impact.
The cavern lit up in ghastly shades of actinic green as the remaining dark energy erupted from the ruined crystal. Changelings sparked and vanished in midair as tendrils of the dark power hit them, but some lucky ones were able to retreat back up through the hole where the cornucopia mosaic had been.
I couldn't do much but try to protect the three of us from the deadly bolts and lashes that were ripping at every surface in the cave. My shield held firm, but I could see that the dark magic was already distorting the fabric of reality around us. Stalagmites began to move and writhe—a couple of trapped changelings started to grow sucker-and-eye-covered tentacles—and that, I knew, was just the beginning of the horrors to come.
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