Ch 1: An Unsettling Discovery
CANTERLOT LIBRARY
Following the nearly disastrous reception of the Yak prince, the Princess of friendship Twilight Sparkle, decided it would behoove her to become well acquainted with any and all information Equestria had on the tribes. True she could have learned plenty by going to the tribal lands herself, but in this case a bit of Rarity was rubbing off on her, and she decided that whatever she could gleam from the libraries of Canterlot and the Crystal Empire would be sufficient.
So she messaged to her sister-in-law Princess Cadence if she could have any literature regarding the Yaks. Since she had learned thus far that the Yaks themselves kept next to no written records, their’s being an oral tradition, she figured it was the best she was going to get.
The reading so far was fruitful, it turned out the Yaks had an ancient history in the far northern lands. Descended from fearsome raiders and warriors, they lived very much in the same way their ancestors did, excepting of course the frequent pillaging of nearby pony settlements, which ended with the Northern Accord after their defeat by the Kingdom of Thule.
“Huh?”
She re-read the passage in the lantern lit room, her brow furrowed as she tried to figure out if she has misread something. “The Kingdom of Thule…” she said aloud, this time sure that she had not misunderstood.
“I’ve never heard of ‘Thule’ before, why?” She was quickly acquiring more questions than answers in her mind. The familiarization with Yak customs would be interesting she had no doubt, but the curious mention of a previous unknown kingdom demanded attention, especially if it was capable of bringing the hundreds of formidable Yak hoards to heel.
Her horn alighted as she used her magic to flip through the pages, looking for any other mention of Thule. But there was nothing. “Hrmm” she grunted. “There must be more about it somewhere in here.” She left the book where it was and began wandering the aisles. She had located ‘The History and Culture of Yaks” in the history section, and returned there to look more closely. There were books on The Crystal empire, the settling of Equestria millennia ago, and even a few varied tomes on the distant lands of the Zebra tribes and Griffinstone. But nothing on anyplace called Thule.
“The library in the Empire might have something, but it’s strange for a library as old as Canterlot not to have anything. Maybe it’s cataloged elsewhere.” So she checked geography, language, art, spell casting reference, even music, but nothing came up.
Frustrated, she sat on her haunches staring at the history section, trying to understand the dearth of any works about this confounding kingdom of Thule.
“Wait a minute! Maybe…” years ago, she had worked out a spell that when activated, would illuminate a particular phrase or passage she wanted to locate. It came in handy when a highlighter wasn’t around. With her horn alighted, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the word ‘Thule’, and felt the radius of the spell expanding through the library, seeping into the books like water.
She opened her eyes, and looked about, searching for the tell-tale purple glow that indicated a location for the word. She hoped it would be a quick process, dinner time with Celestia and Luna was getting close. She looked, but the only sign was the same book she had been reading.
“Hmm, I’ll just have to ask Princess Celestia if she knows anything.” She chuckled, “Celestia’s probably forgotten more stuff than anypony knows.”
Twilight collected the Yak book into her saddle bag, and trotted for the exit. She was just passing the unmanned librarian desk when a tiny sliver of light caught her eye. She turned, and saw that on the side of the bookcase directly behind the desk, was a glimmer of purple light.
“So there is something in here!” With a smile for the small victory, Twilight guided over to the book case for a closer look. It was clear that the furniture piece had been there for a very long time, centuries for all she knew. It certainly looked heavy enough to be a from the older eras of workmanship. She wedged her magic between the wall and the shelf, and grit her teeth as she tried to move what must be several hundred pounds of wood and book.
“Jeez!” huff “What is this thing made of?” Finally the piece budged, a little bit, and a small crumb of debris fell and bounced off her snout. Then it hit her. “This thing weighs a ton because it’s made of rock!”
Indeed, inspecting the fine carvings and detail along the surfaces, she saw now that the entire shelf was exquisitely carved from a single block of stone. “Whatever’s behind here, somepony really doesn’t want anyone to know about it.” She paused, considering the logical inferences. “Maybe this is something I should leave alone. I mean, whatever’s behind there, somepony pushed a ton of rock in front of it to keep it there.”
She began to turn away when she realized that the light had gotten bigger and brighter, indicating that plenty of mentions of Thule lay beyond. She bit her lip, her eyes darting back and forth, the temptation of pursuing hidden knowledge overriding her good sense. Finally she gave in and recast the spell, doing her best to widen the gap enough to expose what lay beyond. “I sure wish, hrm, AppleJack was here!”
The push continued, and steadily the bookcase moved, swinging wide out of the way. She concentrated on pushing the fixture, and it wasn’t until she was satisfied that she looked to see what was uncovered. When the purple light dissipated, there remained a large ornately carved set of double doors, emblazoned with a intricately detailed relief Twilight didn’t recognize. “That looks like an old sun wheel” Eyeing the symbolism with a narrowed gaze, she noticed where the slim divide of the doors intercepted a small circular opening.
“And that’s a keyhole for a unicorn…” She arched an eyebrow, her appetite for study overcoming her awe for a moment. Quickly, she extracted a quill and notebook from her bag, and copied the strange depiction. “I’ll definitely have to ask about this.”
Finished, she glanced again at the set of doors, tapping her hoof on the floor. “Dinner’s not for another half-hour…” Twilight glanced side-to-side, making sure nopony else was watching, slowly, she crept up to the door, lowered her head, and with her magical aura aglow, pierced the darkness of the aperture. She had encountered a few of these before, and hoped that this one was not spell-bound to anypony in particular, like the one Princess Celestia had used to store the Elements of Harmony.
It took a few moments of her focusing on the idea of the door opening, but eventually, the doors began to move. Much like the book case, when she stepped back she heard the sound of stone scraping against stone. Strands of cobwebs and tiny bits of rock fell from their former perches; “This door must have been locked for ages, but why?”
The path now lay open, the space beyond the doors cloaked in pitch blackness. About now she was starting to think Spike had the right idea, hanging around the pool while she busied herself with hours of research. “Well, it can’t be worse than the Everfree Forest.”
She cast a brilliant glow around about her horn, which provided a range of illumination, and stepped inside. The room was much wider than she expected, “This is an whole ‘nother room!” she scrunched her face, and the bubble of light grew exponentially, revealing far more.
“Oh my…” Around her, came into view hundreds of books stocked on shelves, romantic busts of unicorns she had never seen before, and ancient maps of Equestria which displayed in tinged red patch of land to the north. She approached one of the maps, and studied the work, trying her best to decipher the archaic lettering. Across the highlighted area, was a name: ‘Þule’
“That must be where the Kingdom of Thule was!” She scanned over the map, and stopped when she saw the unmistakable iconography of the Crystal Empire to the east of Thule. “Thule and the Empire must have existed at the same time! But that would mean that this map is at least a thousand years old!”
Suddenly taken aback by the magnitude of the revelation, she stepped back and gave the rest of the room a more thorough look-over. There was a set of armor placed on a wooden figure. Finely crafted and durable looking, she had no doubt that this armor would still stand up to the swords of Celestia’s royal guard. Hanging from a metal peg, was an hugely oversized necklace of serrated, triangular teeth, each about the size of dinner plate. Twilight gulped at the thought of a creature that might bear such teeth.
Moving on, she saw more books, examples of pottery, weaving, and a few more articles of dress. “This was a whole civilization, how come I’ve never even heard of it before? And where did they all go?”
Something higher caught her eye, a banner, no…, an old tapestry. “Rarity would lose her mind if she saw this!” as she observed, the length of woven tapestry was painted with depictions of the general history of the kingdom. She scanned from left to right, trying to understand the scenes depicted; Unicorns battling against dragons, giant worms with wide mouths and many teeth. Twilight glanced sideways to the necklace again, now realizing the significance.
Continuing on the tapestry, she then saw armies of Unicorns and Yak engaged in war, which gave way to a scene of the Yak bowing to a regal looking Unicorn. Next was the image of a single pony with blue in his mane, facing up to a monstrous looking dragon that fumed with fire from its body. The next scene showed the same pony standing over the fallen dragon, his foreleg raised in triumph.
But Twilight stopped cold when she saw what was next. It was the right end of the tapestry, and depicted standing alongside the unicorn from the previous panels, was one she was very familiar with. With a red horn, and flowing black mane, there was no mistaking King Sombra.
“King Sombra… he was from Thule… I’m starting to see why they were so unpopular. But who was that other one? He seemed like a hero.”
Twilight used her magic to lift the end of the tapestry from where it hung for a better look, but as she did, the length of it fell and crumpled on the floor. Aghast at the thought of ruining the priceless work, her body tensed to react to her blunder. But the cloth settled on the stone floor, no worse the wear. “whew…” she exhaled, reassured that she had not destroyed a 1,000 year old piece of art.
But beyond where the tapestry had been hung, she saw the outline of something that she saw in every other part of the royal castle, a stained glass window. Using her magic to stretch the tapestry from one corner of a bookshelf to another, she stepped closer to the window, and her mouth dropped.
Depicted in the various shapes of glass, were two unicorn stallions. The one on the left reared back on his hind legs, and was charcoal grey. His mane was parted, with black bangs hanging down on either side of his head, and the center a dark blue combed back along his neck and held in place with a metal bracelet. Around his horn he wore a golden crown, with white gems embedded along its width. Above him was another symbol Twilight had never seen before, it looked like another sun wheel, but much more intricate.
“That must be his cutie mark… Oh, did they even call it that?” she wondered.
On the other side, was the unambiguous visage of King Sombra, similarly posed, but nonetheless looking exactly as she knew him. His crown was the same, silver, with long thorns at the side and centered with a red gem that was flanked by another set of spikes.
She then noticed the plaque beneath the window, which she gawked at for some information as to what she was seeing. The top half was inscribed in some incomprehensible script, which she deduced must be the written language of Thule. But the bottom half was written in an archaic but readable form of Equestrian.
“The good Prince Aeclypse, Principate of the Kingdom of Thule, and his brother, Prince Sombra, Principate of the Thulian Guard!”
Twilight's mind reeled, Sombra had a brother, Sombra was really a prince!
“Oh… I need to sit down.” She sat on her haunches, trying to wrap her mind around what this meant. “Ok, so Sombra is definitely evil, no question there. But his brother was good? And if this ‘Aeclypse’ was so good, and Thule so renown, why don’t ponies know about it?”
She looked again to the window, at the figure of Aeclypse, and wondered just what kind of pony he was. She again took out her quill and notebook, and sketched the cutie mark that hung above Aeclypse. She finished and returned her gaze to the blue-maned figure. “I’ll be back, Prince Æclypse” she said, trying to sound out the proper spelling on the plaque. “But right now I’ve got dinner to attend, and a lot of questions that need answering.”
Twilight left the antechamber, closed the stone doors behind her, and expended the effort to replace the leviathan bookcase. She didn’t want anything to disturb her investigation into this mysterious kingdom.
A bit later, back in the castle proper, she was rounding a corner when she saw her number one assistant Spike heading the same way.
“Hey Twilight! We’re just in time for dinner! Did you find anything good on the Yaks in the library?”
“That I did Spike, and so much more.”
Spike paused mid-step, allowing Twilight to move past him. “What does that mean?”
“It means…” she started coyly, “That I’m about to have some very interesting dinner conversations with Princess Celestia.”
Leading the way, Twilight opened the double doors to the executive dining room, where Celestia liked to host private dinner parties with friends and dignitaries. And there sitting in the center was the Princess of the Dawn herself, looking over some parchment letters.
“Hope I haven’t missed the appetizers!” Twilight cheerily asked, smiling as she took a seat to her teachers left side. Celestia gave her the same warm smile she always had for her, ever since Twilight first became her student.
“Not to worry Twilight, we’re still waiting on Luna, she tends to be a little slow getting out of bed in the evening.”
The Alicorns shared a small chuckle, as Spike took his own set to Twilight’s left; “That’s good, the chef here always makes the best deviled gems over toast, just the way I like ‘em.”
Twilight rolled her eyes at her companion, enjoying the levity. But her mind quickly went back into hunger mode. “Celestia, I was in the library, where I came across a few symbols I’ve never seen before, so I was wondering if you could tell me what they were.”
“Sure Twilight, I suppose it’s a useful trait of having been alive for so long.”
Twilight fished out her notebook, and flipped to the pages she had sketched, the door relief and Æclypse’s cutie mark on opposing pages. Celestia was taking a sip of tea when Twilight presented the images to her. Suddenly, the white Alicorn’s eyes widened in shock, and she came perilously close to spitting her tea all over the table. Twilight and Spike gaped in terror as their beloved ruler choked on her drink.
“Celestia! Are you alright?”
Celestia raised a hoof to stop them from approaching, swallowing the drink at last. All three remained silent for a moment as Celestia collected herself. Her guests looked on in anxious concern.
“Twilight, where did you find those symbols?”
Twilight stammered for the answer, still taken aback by her teachers reaction to seeing the sketches. “I was in the library reading about the Yak tribes, when the book mentioned ‘The Kingdom of Thule’”.
Hearing this, Celestia’s posture stiffened, as if something that was supposed to remain secret was coming out.
“Anyway,” Twilight continued, “I got curious, and searched for any more mentions of Thule, which led me-”
“-Behind the stone bookcase.” Celestia finished for her. “Where you went through the doors bearing that crest.” she pointed a hoof to the relief of the sword and sun wheel, “and saw the window depicting a unicorn bearing that cutie mark.”
“Yes.” Twilight answered, nervous in the shadow of her mentors tone. “The good Prince Æclypse, and his brother, Sombra.”
Celestia nodded, accepting the fact that her favorite student, somepony that she held as close as a daughter as she would ever have, had stumbled upon a part of history she had hoped would remain locked away.
“Umm…” started Spike, raising a finger; “All I got out of that was ‘Sombra’, he’s not coming back is he?”
“No Spike,” Celestia responded, “Sombra is gone for good. Twilight, it pains me to have ask this of you, I know how passionate you are about seeking knowledge and truth, but, just this once I need you to forget about Thule. I locked that chamber away for a reason, and it serves no purpose to resurrect bad memories now. So please,” Celestia used her magic to close the notebook and put it down on the table. “don’t ask me again about Thule, or the good Prince Æclypse.”
The latter part Twilight couldn’t help but note was said with a tinge of bitter remorse. “If you think it’s best Princess.”
Celestia winced at the sound of her favorite student Twilight Sparkle addressing her formally at a private dinner, but there was one more thing she had to ask. “Twilight,” she began regretfully, “I must also ask that you make no mention of any of this around Luna. The memory is very… difficult for her.”
Twilight put her book away and nodded, “I understand.”. Celestia softened her features, genuinely sorry for the imposition, and placed a reassuring hoof on Twilight‘s shoulder; “I will explain it to you someday Twilight, all of it, I promise.”
Mentor and apprentice smiled at each other. “You too Spike.” Celestia mentioned sidelong at the diminutive dragon, “Not a word.”
Spike put his little hands up in a show of surrender, “Not a peep from me.”
“Good.” Celestia said with finality. And not a moment to soon as the double doors to the side of the room opened to revel the Princess of the Night. Luna strode in with the casual grace of a feline, a soft yawn escaping her lips.
“Do forgive our lateness sister” she began, slipping back into her archaic speech pattern. “But we’ve had a fitful slumber this day. Greetings Princess Twilight, greetings young Spike, it’s always a pleasure to see your jovial faces in this aged citadel.”
“A pleasure to be here Princess Luna” Said twilight, a bit unsure how to take the compliment.
Luna paused for a moment as she approached her own throne at Celestia’s right. Her face furrowed in curiosity, suddenly becoming aware of the odd air that hung between the dinner party. “Is something amiss? Did something happen? Is that scoundrel Discord up to his old tricks?”
Celestia chuckled, breaking the tension. “Nothing so dire sister, Twilight was merely asking me what I knew about the Hydras in the Everfree swamp.”
Luna scoffed, taking her seat; “Nasty beasts, terrorizing the Everfree as if they owned it. If you ask me Celestia,” Luna used her magic to pour herself some tea, and waved her cup around to accent her words. “You and I should don our armor once more, ride-out in chariot like we used to, and vanquish those loathsome creatures once and for all.”
Luna took a sip of her tea, and all relaxed. Spike took a bite of his tea cake and reclined in his seat. “Yeah, there’s always some monster making trouble in the Everfree.”
EVERFREE FOREST
DUSK
Somewhere in the murky woods, a filly screamed.
A head popped up, back-lit by the setting sun, water dripping from his mouth. A young grey stallion looked in the direction of the cry, his dark blue mane kicked-up by the wind.
