Once the group reached the city the next morning, the journey to the Dragon Archives was fairly uneventful. The badlands were difficult to traverse by hoof, especially while the group carried their supplies, but they managed as best they could. Twilight had copied the exact location of the archive on a map and was expecting to see a doorway or pillars of some kind, but instead found a cave opening wide enough to fit a fully-grown dragon. It seemed unassuming enough, and was not particularly interesting by itself. No wonder no pony thought to explore it. And even if they had the dark mites … she shuddered at the thought.
It would be too late to start investigating today as it was already late afternoon, so the group decided to set up a base camp and settle down for the evening. They eventually made camp on an area far enough from the entrance so they would not provoke the dark mites but close enough to have fairly easy access to it come morning.
Spike helped Applejack unload the sleeping bags while Twilight set down the barrels of dragon oil from the cart. Eventually, they had a homey little campfire, courtesy of a certain purple dragon and had several of their lanterns lit and forming a circle around the campsite.
Not a moment to soon, as soon the sky darkened and the night rolled in. They laid down on their bags staring at the starry night sky and reminiscing on past adventures, when Pinkie and Applejack brought out the food. It was mostly bitter camp stuff that Spike did not particularly care for, so he hoped Pinkie would eventually offer him a gem he heard she had brought along.
As they ate, Twilight went over their plans.
“Alright every pony,” she spoke with authority and Spike couldn’t help smiling when he thought how becoming a princess made her seem more leader-like, “tomorrow morning, we descend into the Dragon Archives, but we need to make sure nothing can go wrong. Spike and I will go in and make a map of the place while the rest of you search through the works to try and get an understanding of how they are organized. I can teleport Spike and myself away when the time comes to leave, so we’ll meet up with the rest of you. Spike usually has a good handle on time so I think we’ll know when to leave. We’ll probably be looking for a book or scroll about purple eggs with purple spots or parents missing a child. One of us has to keep an eye on the timer so we don’t risk staying too long.”
“I’ll watch it!” Pinkie Pie volunteered, “I’ve always wanted to watch a timer.”
Twilight gave Pinkie a serious expression, “Pinkie, this is serious. Can we count on you to warn us?”
Pinkie saluted Twilight with a free hoof, “you can count on me, ma’am!”
Twilight had her doubts but Pinkie was usually serious when it came to the safety of her friends. Twilight continued.
“Then, the next day we can begin searching through the records and keep track of what we find. From there on, we’ll just keep reading through until we find something.”
“Do you really think we can read an entire library the size of Canterlot?” Applejack asked uncertainly.
“We don’t have to read thoroughly,” Twilight responded, “just skim over the contents until you find something of interest.”
“Here’s an idea,” Rainbow Dash interjected, “why don’t we just take all the stuff out of the archive so we don’t have to keep coming back?
“I had considered the idea but I think it’s too risky,” Twilight explained, “for all we know the dark mites might not let us take anything outside the archive. And even if we could, we would still have to read millions of papers, and I hardly think we have the ability to transport all of them. Plus, if a dragon comes by to check on the archive, I don’t think it would do us well to dump all of their pieces outside. We might not be able to reenter.”
Rainbow Dash nodded reluctantly and sat back down.
“It will be difficult and dangerous,” Twilight warned the group.
“When hasn’t anything we’ve done been difficult and dangerous?” Spike asked. Then as an afterthought he added, “still, I won’t think any less of any of you if you don’t want to go in.”
“Aw, can that talk, Spike,” Applejack snappily answered, “we’re all doing this for you, and none of us is going to let you down.”
Spike smiled as every other pony nodded in agreement and Twilight continued, “No pony or dragon should be without one of Rarity’s protective suits, a lantern with Spike’s fire, or some of Fluttershy’s anti-venom. Travel together in groups and make sure you meet up at the entrance before night. Soon,” she glanced at Spike, “we will have the answers.
***
Morning approached and the group rose from their slumber. After a quick breakfast, they walked to the cave entrance with Spike at the lead. Scanning the cave walls, he saw the torches Starswirl had mentioned, all connected to each other with one pipeline, and lit one closest to him. Instantly, the others lit up in a chain reaction and the whole cavern was illuminated similar to the way the secret room in the castle had. He motioned for his friends outside the cave to follow and together they descended several stairs and came to a large room covered in darkness that sometimes seemed to twitch.
So far, so good Spike thought as he lit another nearby torch causing another chain reaction that lit torches across the entire room. Spike and the others gasped when they saw how truly massive this whole place was; Starswirl was right when he suggested all of Canterlot could fit in here, but Spike wondered if they could fit perhaps three or four more. At the entrance, he saw the same pedestal Starswirl had mentioned and beyond that there seemed to be endless rows of shelves that stretched so far and so wide that Spike was not certain he could see the end. He had no idea how he would read just one of these immense books much less one half of the large scrolls, when he could not fit them in his hands.
Instinctively, he walked over to the pedestal and placed his hand on top of it. In a second, the books, and scrolls, shrunk to a size he and his friends could carry. The shelves were still stretching out incredibly far and wide but at least they could manage with the texts.
The group nodded to each other and set about their tasks. Spike mounted Twilight’s back and drew his own parchment and quill, ready to map out this structure as she flew.
***
Originally, they had planned to fly along the walls of the cave to map out the archive, but Rainbow Dash suggested they just fly above the cases and draw a map looking down.
After a good ten minutes with a bird’s eye view, Spike had a decent map of the structure of the library. It was square-shaped, and there were shelves lined up in rows with decent space between them. Now he just had to count the number of shelves. To facilitate this process, Twilight suggested he count the rows and columns and multiply them.
As Spike counted, he decided to talk to Twilight about what he saw on the train the previous night.
“So,” he said, “I heard you woke up that night on the train and every pony followed you.”
“Well, I was having trouble sleeping and wanted to take a walk,” she explained.
“No need to humble, I heard everything you all talked about. Twilight.”
She tensed up a bit at her name, “Yes?”
“Thanks,” Spike smiled remembering it all with great fondness, “you have no idea how much I needed what you all said. I’m glad you’re my friends.”
She smiled as well remembering the events with similar fondness, “we’re glad you’re our friend too, Spike.”
“One thousand.”
“What?”
“I was just counting the columns,” Spike quickly explained, “getting a rough estimate.”
“I counted over one hundred thousand on the rows,” Twilight explained.
“How many does that come out to?” Spike wondered prepared to do the math.
“Over one million shelves,” Twilight said glumly, “with who knows how many records.”
Spike suddenly didn’t like their chances of finding anything.
***
Returning to share their discovery, no sooner had he dismounted off Twilight than Pinkie ran over to Spike with excitement and a book.
“Hey, Spikey,” she hopped up to him and handed him the book, “get a load of this!”
Spike read the title, The Art of Breathing Fire: Making the Deadliest Flame with the Smallest Effort.
“Hmm,” he grinned appreciatively, “I want to read through this one later.”
“There’s a whole shelf just dedicated to fire breathing,” she exclaimed taking back the book to return it to its rightful place, “and another shelf on how to fly.”
“You can’t learn how to fly from a book,” Rainbow Dash snorted as she walked over to Twilight, “those dragon blunderheads are probably too clumsy to know how to fly anyways.”
“Well, most dragons can’t read,” Twilight said with a glare, “they had to use their instincts.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Rainbow Dash dismissed the thought, “anyways I looked through a few shelves, found a map that showed the dragon migration routes, where to find the tastiest gems, and some of their history before Discord came to power, but nothing about eggs.”
Rarity soon joined the group and shared her findings, “Well, I found a most interesting collection of various prominent dragon clans, but,” she looked a bit crestfallen, “nothing that matched Spike’s description or mention of lost eggs.”
Applejack came trotting along and had similar luck, which is to say none. She only found some book detailing dragon wars of thousands of years past.
Fluttershy found a scroll that mentioned stolen eggs but none of them were purple or even had spots. Once Pinkie Pie returned, Twilight showed them Spike’s map.
“Where are all the shelves?” Rarity asked, “the map looks rather empty.”
“Well, that’s the problem. There were too many to draw,” Twilight began, “Spike and I estimated there to be well over a million shelves.”
The group looked a little disheartened. They couldn’t possibly hope to find what they sought within a year, much less a week.
“Well,” Rainbow Dash put on her showman confidence, “we aren’t going to get anywhere standing around all day! Let’s get started.”
The group nodded and made larger copies of Spike’s map. They agreed to split up in groups of two and divide the archive into three different sections and categorize each shelf they found until they found some sort of pattern. Twilight had to admit Rainbow’s suggestion for mapping out the library, definitely saved them time. They could get a fairly decent start on their search today.
***
Spike groaned at another wrong lead. He had read of a missing purple egg similar to his but this egg was lost centuries ago. Not his.
Placing the scroll back on its shelf, he picked up another scroll, hoping it would be a more recent scroll. No luck, it was from centuries ago. This whole shelf was from centuries ago. Spike marked the subject of the shelf on his map and heard a similar growl of frustration from Twilight on the adjacent shelf.
Let’s see, that’s twenty shelves down on our side, Spike kept tally, just about 333,313 more to go. Spike felt any optimism he might have once had melt away. This is hopeless.
***
Three hours later, and still nothing. Twilight was getting really irritated at all of these books containing nothing relevant to their searches. Then she glanced over at Spike and recognized similar frustration. Determined not to let Spike see her upset, she assumed a confident posture, marked the shelf, and proceeded to the next.
***
This is hopeless, Spike thought once more as he shoved another useless book back into its shelf. We need some way to just find what we’re looking for. At the rate we’re going, we won’t be done within this decade.
He sighed and sat down a moment, rubbing his throbbing head and marking off another shelf. Suddenly, he tensed as he heard something. He would have been startled hearing most anything in this stone quiet tomb but this sound was unnatural. No living being could possibly make such an awful, chilling, sound.
“Twilight?” He looked for his purple alicorn protector and saw nothing but empty shelves. Was he going insane? He heard the unnatural sound once more but this time it curve itself into words.
What shall we do? We cannot smite these intruders now when they have dragon fire and this dragon at their side.
Spike stood up and glanced around nervously, wondering where in the name of Celestia had Twilight gone off. These voices didn’t sound natural, they didn’t even sound like voices. They reminded Spike of various noises that had no speech, hooves on pavement, fire crackling, pattering of rain, or the wind blowing. None of these noises should have a voice. What he heard now reminded him of these noises. This noise was never meant to have a voice and yet its noise was twisted to emulate a voice. It was sound given words.
They are cleverer than others. They plan to leave come night and return the following day to defile our home. Defile our archives.
Spike was beginning to think he was listening in on something he should never have heard in the first place. When he heard the all too apparent contempt and bloodlust, he felt a chill down his spine and his tongue felt tied up in his mouth
Strange that a dragon would not know how to summon the text he sought. He need only ask us at the pedestal and we would provide.
Spike now felt beads of sweat rolling down his face as he realized he might very well be watched. He tried to muster up his courage.
But the ponies are a problem. We are tasked to guard this place and given it as a home in return. If our accomplices find out we cannot hold up our end of the bargain …
Spike narrowed his eyes. They were tasked with guarding this place? Would that mean this was the voice of those dark mites? He hoped Twilight would find him soon. She could make sense out of all of this.
We cannot let our brothers in the other archives be punished for our failures. When night falls, we will return to full strength then we shall act. Tonight we stop the ponies from defiling our home any further. Tonight we shall collapse the cave and destroy the archives!
“No!” Spike couldn’t help screaming at this voice, “I need to know about my family! Please, don’t destroy these archives!”
There was no response. Spike began to wonder once again if he was going insane. Minutes passed and there was nothing but empty darkness. Then he heard it again.
If you wish to know the truth, little dragon, you have only to ask.
Spike blinked in surprise and glanced around in the darkness. Finding his courage he spoke again.
“Please, tell me and my friends the truth about my family.”
Not them. The secrets of dragons are not meant for non-dragons.
“But they’re my friends! Please, you have to make an exception.”
We are sorry. But more will come and defile our home if we even gave one scroll to them.
“They’re good ponies,” Spike insisted, “if you asked them not to tell any pony about this place they would.”
Truly?
“Yes.”
The voice seemed to consider his statement. After a few minutes, it spoke.
Meet us at the pedestal tonight alone in secret. We will share the truth only with you. Once we have shown you the truth, do you promise your … friends … will never return and jeopardize our safety?
Spike took time to consider their offer. He didn’t like it. Twilight had warned them not to hang around this place at night or those dark mites would—Spike really preferred not to think about it.
“Forgive me if I don’t trust you,” he said wary of any offer they might make.
Forgive us if we do not trust you. No dragon has ever willingly brought a pony into this place. It upsets the balance. If you show yourself to us tonight, we swear we will not harm you. Once you prove to us that you are not afraid to seek the truth no matter the risk or consequence, we will reward you with the truth.
“I’ll have to tell my friends that we would be meeting—“
NO! The truth must be sought alone! If you willingly bring them before us at night, we will be forced to collapse this place. Then you will never know the truth.
The voice became silent and Spike considered his options. Do nothing and cowardly let the Dragon Archive collapse and never discover his past, making this whole journey a waste and leaving all of his questions unanswered? He didn’t want to lose this one chance to find the truth, especially after his friends had given so much just to help him. Allowing a priceless archive to collapse seemed like a pathetic way to repay them.
Or lie to his friends, risk his life, and receive the answers, then convince his friends to never return? He really didn’t want to lie to his friends and betray their trust, but if he didn’t take this opportunity, wouldn’t that be throwing away all they had done to get him here? They often risked their lives for him. Maybe he should risk his life just this once to show how much all their efforts and love meant to him.
“After you tell me the truth,” Spike asked, “would you please let me let me tell my friends about you, how you all want to be alone and us being here risks your safety?”
Only after. Do we have a deal?
Spike gritted his teeth and silently whispered, “yes.”
***
“Spike? Spike, wake up,” a familiar voice roused him as he felt some pony shaking him. He opened his eyes to see Twilight staring intently at his face.
“Your lantern went out,” she held up a lantern whose flame she rekindled, “you were just sitting there sleeping.”
“Twilight?” Spike rubbed his eyes and groggily rose to his feet, “did you hear them?”
“Hear who, Spike?” She frowned at his question, “there’s no pony here but you and me.”
Spike remembered his promise to those dark mites and was certain he did not dream it all. He also remembered he promised not to say anything about them.
“Um, sorry,” he said as he faked a yawn, “I must have been dreaming.”
Twilight studied her friend for a moment. Spike was certain she suspected something. If she did, she didn’t say so.
“Come on,” she said hoisting Spike onto her back, “it’s almost night.”
They met up with the rest of their friends at the entrance, all of whom looked rather tired from a day of non-stop, fruitless reading. Wordlessly, they marched out of the archive into the tunnel.
Spike glanced back at the archive nervously. He promised those creatures he would meet them. He promised to betray his friends to save this place from destruction. He felt sick to his stomach just thinking about it.
“Don’t worry about it, Spike,” Twilight said noticing her friend’s glance, “it’ll still be there tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Spike knew it would be. He was going to lie to his friends to make sure it would. Soon, they crossed out of the tunnel into the sunset.
***
Dinner was uneventful, to say the least. No pony had found anything of interest and no pony had made a considerable dent in their section. They ate with mental exhaustion and fatigue.
“Ugh,” Rainbow Dash groaned as she squinted her eyes, “I think I’ll settle for never seeing another book about snacking on gemstones for the rest of my life!”
“On the bright side,” Pinkie said trying to smile, “I learned a lot about how to breathe fire.”
Applejack gave Pinkie a tired look. Under any other circumstance, she might have found Pinkie’s humor amusing, but tonight, she just found her annoying.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Twilight frowned as she looked through her friends’ sections. “None of these books are organized in any logical order. They’re just random! It’s like something just haphazardly tossed the books randomly in the shelves and said ‘that’s fine, it’s not like some other dragon will want to find those later’.”
“Spike, dear, aren’t you going to eat your food?” Rarity glanced at Spike’s hardly touched dinner plate.
“I’m not hungry,” Spike said despondently. He was not looking forward to what he promised to do. When he realized that his friends noticed he seemed unhappy, he spoke trying to fake an upbeat attitude “why? Did you want it?”
Rarity exchanged a concerned look with Twilight and looked back at Spike. She could only surmise he was unhappy that they couldn’t find anything in the archives today. She wanted to promise him they would probably have better luck tomorrow, but found she couldn’t bring herself to say so.
***
The ponies went to sleep at last and Spike put his plan into action. Quietly as possible, he snuck out from under his covers and grabbed a lantern. He had decided grabbing one of Rarity’s protective suits might or Fluttershy’s anti-venom might cause too much noise and reluctantly decided to return without either.
He glanced back at his sleeping friends, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rarity. He whispered one more apology and walked to the entrance.
After lighting the lantern and the torches, he actually noticed the darkness scattering away from the light like insects. Except whatever those things were, they couldn’t be insects. Even insects didn’t move that ... unnaturally.
He descended down the stairs back to the room with the pedestal. He lit up the rest of the torches and glanced around. Nothing was here.
“I came,” Spike spoke to the darkness, “now you tell me the truth and please don’t destroy the Dragon Archives.”
He glanced at the roof of the cave and saw the darkness moving. Like a beast, crouched and ready to attack.
Nervously, his eyes shifted around the library and came to the pedestal. What had the dark mites said before? Simply ask what he wanted at the pedestal and it would be given?
He uncertainly walked towards the pedestal and placed his hand on the panel like he had before and breathed another small flame into it.
“Please give me the truth, like you promised.”
Nothing happened for a second. Spike was beginning to think this was pointless, when he saw two small specks of darkness approach him bearing a scroll. They stood before him expectantly placing the scroll within his grasp. His sweaty claws wrapped around the parchment and the two specks flew away, disappearing faster than his eyes could track. He looked down at the scroll. This was it.
Hands trembling, he carefully and nervously unrolled the scroll and began to read.
Then he screamed.