Prologue: New Maps of Hell
PRINCESS TRINITY
The Gates of Hell
by D. G. D. Davidson
When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.
--Matthew 12:43-45
Prologue: New Maps of Hell
The land of Equestria knew not war. Princess Celestia guarded the day, Princess Luna guarded the night, harmony ruled, and the ponies lived in peace, as they had for thousands of years.
Yet in the midst of the peaceable kingdom lay a scorched, blackened valley where nopony dared go. Behind dark, craggy mountains carved with horrific gargoyles and demons by ancient, long-forgotten peoples, the valley stretched for miles, its floor of cracked hardpan occasionally broken by twisted, stunted trees. In the middle of the valley rose a mountainous pile of boulders heaped up like a giant’s altar, and atop the boulders stood the doorway to Tartarus. Built of cold iron inlaid with silver, covered in spikes and fixed on studded hinges, crossed with chains and laden with locks, the gate was shut. In the ancient past, a sorcerer had discovered and then closed up this mouth of Hell to save the land from a hoard of harpies that often poured forth from the depths to plague the world. He cast great and terrible weirds upon it: anyone who dared to bring weapons against the gate or touch its locks would fall under its curse. No fire could come near it without blowing out. No rain could strike it. Any blade or stone or wood brought to it would rust or crack or rot away. Naught could open the door save Doomsday. On its great granite lintel, this inscription was engraved:
Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.
Justice incited my sublime Creator;
Created me divine Omnipotence,
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.
Before me there were no created things,
Only eterne, and I eternal last.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in!
Before the gate stood the dog Cerberus, his six eyes ever watchful, his three fang-filled mouths dripping drool. Day and night Cerberus paced back and forth before the closed gate of the netherworld, awaiting the day when its denizens might attempt to escape so he could feast on their flesh.
Behind that door, dark tunnels of stone wound deep into the bowels of the earth. Through them, lost souls--the only beings who could pass through the sealed gate above--wandered long years before at last stepping inevitably to the shore of Acheron, river of tears, which marked the border of Hell. Beyond the river lay a rude land of smoldering tar pits, noxious thorn forests, howling deserts beaten by falling ash, frozen wastes of cold ice, and burning pools of molten rock. The whole of Hell reeked with the stench of charred flesh, and screams echoed against the heat-reddened roof of stone. The damned cried out to Heaven, but Heaven did not hear.
Five rivers carved the hard floor of Tartarus: Acheron flowed into Styx, river of putrefaction. Styx flowed into Lethe, river of forgetfulness. Lethe flowed into Cocytus, river of lamentation. Cocytus flowed into Phlegethon, the river of boiling blood. Phlegethon emptied into a black pool of fire that gave no light, the Burning Lake.
Against the surface of that lake, his enormous, ruddy limbs bound with adamantine chains, lay Tirek the centaur. Every nerve in his body was numb with pain. All around him, other creatures, chained as he was, groaned and screamed and wept in the fire, but Tirek made no sound. Able to move nothing else, he raised his chin against high Heaven and silently blasphemed the gods. He lay this way for long, slow eons, and he might have lain this way for many eons more, but the day came when a black hoof rotten with decaying flesh reached through the flames, touched the chains across his chest, and broke his bonds in twain.
“Arise, ancient bane,” said a silky voice, “and wreak havoc on the world once more.”
He tried to stand, but his legs, so long immobilized in the raging fire, refused to move.
“Who are you?” he croaked.
A black equine face with a crooked horn and two needle-like fangs lowered out of the gloom and hovered before him. “I am Queen Chrysalis of the changelings. Take my hoof, and together we shall be queen and king of Hell.”
Unable to lift himself, Tirek wrapped his hand around the putrid flesh of the limb Chrysalis offered him. In spite of his great size, she with little effort dragged him from the fire and brought him to the shore. He lay panting against the glassy, razor-sharp stones.
“A drink,” he gasped.
She laughed. “Would you have me dip my hoof into water and cool your tongue? You forget where you are, my dear. You can find no fresh water here except that in which Tantalus stands, and neither he nor anyone else may drink it. The rivers of Hell would burn your gut as surely as this lake has burned the rest of you.”
“Then why did you pull me to this shore? I have no wish to reign in Tartarus.”
“Would you rather roast in it? You are damned, Tirek; wherever you go now is Tartarus. You have no hope of redemption, so give yourself to revenge.”
“Revenge?” He blinked, rubbing a hand against his head.
“You have tasted Lethe, I see. Here.” She touched her horn to his forehead. In a flash of green light, his memories returned and strength entered his limbs.
As his pain and weakness ebbed, he slowly stood and looked out over the dim, smoking expanse of the underworld’s torture pits. “I had forgotten my life,” he said. “I had forgotten everything. I thought I had always been in Hell.”
“So Hell’s denizens always say. They remember their hatred for the good, but goodness itself they forget entirely. In time, nothing remains to their minds except the hate, a pure hate with no object.”
“I have something specific to hate now,” Tirek hissed. “The ponies. And that blasted little girl--”
“Your enemies are dead,” said Chrysalis. “They died many ages ago, and Dream Valley has become a frigid wasteland.”
“Then I have no one on whom to avenge myself.”
Chrysalis licked her fangs and tugged at the long, greasy green forelock hanging over her face. “Not so. The race of ponies lives on, but they are diminished from what they once were. They have new mistresses now, immortal princesses who control the sun and moon. Under such powerful rulers, they have grown weak and complacent. They’ve forgotten you, Tirek, as surely as the river Lethe made you forget them. You cannot take revenge on your enemies, but you can take revenge on your enemies’ descendants.”
“Why do you want me to do this?”
“Because they destroyed me in much the same way they destroyed you. Let us together wipe these ponies from the face of the earth. We are condemned to eternal perdition, but we are not powerless: here against this very lake lie the old gods. They too hunger for vengeance, so let us free them, join with them, and burn the world.”
Again Tirek looked out over the waste. He was silent a long while, but at last he said, “Once I was a great king. I had the power to cloak the world in darkness. I turned ponies into monsters to pull my chariot. I was a god, and I am a god still. If I must be a fallen god, then I will drag all that I can down with me so that I may spit in the face of the divine justice that damns me.”
A grin spread across Chrysalis’s muzzle. Again she licked her teeth. “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. Come, we will free those who are of like mind with us.”
Their bonds burst asunder, the old gods, though their bodies were misshapen and covered with boils, proved energetic and powerful. Working together like hornets in a swarm, they dug their claws into the hard, blood-caked stones on the floors and walls of Hell until they pulled forth precious metals and gems. Forging these materials in the molten pits, they shaped monstrous parodies of beauty and built a gleaming city on the edge of a smoking volcano. They constructed tall towers of steel and gold glistening with diamonds and rubies. Each winding spire stood as a defiant finger raised in mockery of the thrones and principalities of high Heaven. The fallen gods named their city Pandemonium, and in its midst they built a citadel of white marble, within which they set up on a high dais two great thrones of gold.
Hissing like snakes, the fallen ones slithered about the thrones, snapping at each other and leering with narrowed eyes at the pair who had freed them and presumptuously proclaimed themselves lord and lady of the netherworld.
Sitting in his throne, Tirek looked around at the writhing mass and proclaimed, “All of you once held seats among the gods in Paradise, but the day came when the One cast you out, abandoning you to suffer torment in a fiery pit thrice as deep as the dome of Heaven is high. Swear fealty to me and Queen Chrysalis, and together we will bend, twist, and desecrate all that is good, making it as we are now.”
Out of the seething mass rose Asmoday, lord of lust. His hairy body was like that of a goat standing on its hind legs. He pointed a claw at Tirek and snarled, “Why should we bow to you, centaur?”
Beside Asmoday rose Belphegor, god of gluttony. He had a grotesque, elephantine figure covered in bloated rolls of fat. “We are gods, you presumptuous mortals! It should be you bowing to us!”
Chrysalis leaned back in her throne and placed a rotting hoof under her chin. “Ah, are you the gods who could not even break the chains holding you to the Lake of Fire? It was my magic that freed you. You owe me fealty.”
Beside Belphegor rose Moloch, whose gaping mouth was stained with children’s blood. “Fealty? To you? You are powerless against us, pony wench!”
Chrysalis’s horn blazed green. Moloch fell to the floor, clutching his face and screaming.
Her ragged, insect-like wings buzzing, Chrysalis rose into the air and shouted, “I am no pony, fool! I am a changeling! I feed on love, and before I fell into this pit, I gorged on it! I have brought love to Hell, and Hell cannot hold it. You are nothing to me, for no power of this realm can be greater than my power.”
Wearing a fine yet tattered robe, Mammon, prince of parsimony, stood. “You fell nonetheless,” he said. “Your power is stolen, and in time you will exhaust it. What then prevents us from tearing you to shreds?”
“Nothing, as far as I’m concerned,” Chrysalis answered, settling back into her throne. “But in the meantime, you will do my bidding.” Her horn crackled.
“What is your bidding?” buzzed Beelzebub, lord of the flies, who sat at the foot of the dais and rubbed together his insect-like forelegs.
“I wish to turn Equestria into a new tract of Hell,” Chrysalis answered. “I wish the ponies to suffer forever as I must suffer.”
Beelzebub laughed. “Ponies? You are calling up gods to battle against ponies?”
“Do not underestimate the ponies,” said Moloch, quivering and wiping his burned face. “Though we have long lay chained in this abyss, our minds have always been free to roam the world above. I have seen these ponies: they command the storms and the lightning, they possess magic, and their princesses are like the gods themselves; the very heavens answer their commands.”
Beelzebub cackled again. “I fear no ponies.”
“It might be a pleasant diversion,” Belphegor said, “to rend and devour horseflesh. As I lay against the lake, I too beheld these creatures. Magical they may be, but ponies can offer us no real resistance, for they are small and soft.”
“And cuddly,” Asmoday added.
Mammon nodded, rubbing his chin. “They would make fine slaves. I wouldn’t mind having a set of unicorns to do my bidding, and I understand they come in an array of interesting colors.”
“I hear each one has a special talent,” buzzed Beelzebub.
“Enough!” Chrysalis roared. “They are not toys, you fools! We are not collecting ponies! We are destroying ponies! We are boiling ponies forever in vats of pitch, forcing them to gallop with their entrails hanging from gaping wounds, burying them in ice and making them gnaw one another’s skulls--”
“I’m game,” said Belphegor, belching and scratching himself. “I like skulls.”
“Wait!” cried Moloch. “These two who’ve called us up, have they not been defeated by these ponies? If the love magic of one vile changeling is enough to cast us to our knees, how will we stand against a race rife with it?”
Chrysalis smiled and licked her fangs. “I, and all my kind, are parasites: we suck the love of others and store it in our guts. I was able to carry it here because it was not my own. The love the ponies possess they must make themselves, but how can anypony love in Hell? Merely spread the borders of Tartarus and the ponies you catch will be powerless before you, to do with as your appetites suggest.”
“I’d like to keep at least one intact,” said Asmoday, “you know, to snuggle. I have trouble getting to sleep at night.”
“You offer us a world to conquer and playthings to ply with petty tortures,” Mammon said, “but what do you ask in return?”
“Nothing,” Chrysalis answered. “That is enough for me.”
Mammon rubbed his chin again. “I think you lie.”
Chrysalis chuckled. “A liar in Hell? Heaven forbid. But you’re right that I’ve withheld something from you, Mammon: they have a third princess who has just now come into her full power.”
“What is her power?” Mammon asked.
“Love.”
At the word, Asmoday hissed.
“Her power is great,” Chrysalis said, “but her love is her own; thus, she has the same weakness as every other pony. Destroy her love and you destroy her. Is not the perversion of love your specialty, Asmoday?”
Asmoday looked uncertain. “It is, but--”
“But what? Surely you, a devil of Tartarus, are not afraid of a pony princess?”
Laughter echoed from the back of the room. Everyone paused and looked to the sound. Through the crowd of fallen gods strode an enormous figure: he had three heads like a lion, an ox, and a goat, upon which he wore three golden crowns. Upon his back he wore a long cloak of crimson. In his left hand he bore an iron staff, and he dragged his cloven hooves, walking with a limp. He stepped to the throne, stood before it, and laughed again.
“Who are you?” Chrysalis asked.
“I am Astaroth,” the monster answered, “and I am here to tell you that the ponies are already in our power.”
The devils mumbled amongst themselves.
“Explain,” said Chrysalis.
“Do not presume to command me, changeling queen,” Astaroth replied. “I do not bow to your ridiculous love magic. You’ve grown overconfident because you can cow Hell’s lesser gods, but some of us do not fear you.”
“Explain,” Chrysalis repeated.
Astaroth laughed again. “More than a millennium past, a sorceress called me up in a magic circle and demanded from me awful gifts. She requested forbidden knowledge, endless wealth, fleshly comforts of every sort, and power. I gave all, but with each desire I granted, I wound more and more of her soul around my finger. She sold herself to me, signing her name in blood. Our contract stands, and I am within my rights to drag her into this very pit.”
“Who is this sorceress?” Chrysalis asked.
“Princess Luna,” Astaroth replied, “who at that time called herself Nightmare Moon. If you wish to destroy these pony princesses, begin with her.”
“Why have you not claimed her?” gasped Asmoday.
“She studied the blackest magic and learned many wards,” Astaroth answered. “She has carved my name and the names of all the lords of Hell into the flesh of her inner left thigh. As long as those names remain, none of us may touch her.”
“Then your information is unprofitable,” said Mammon.
“Not so,” Astaroth replied. “Destroy her wards and she is mine. We fallen gods may not touch her physically, but this Queen Chrysalis commands changelings, does she not?”
Chrysalis grinned. “I think we can arrange for Luna to lose a leg. So, if the devil of lust destroys Princess Cadence and if I can arrange the destruction of Luna, that leaves only Celestia, whom I have defeated once before.”
“Then it is settled,” buzzed Beelzebub. “Hell shall make war on ponydom.”
“The way is shut,” said Moloch, still rubbing his face, “and Cerberus guards the gate. How are we to leave Tartarus to battle these ponies of yours?”
Tirek, his hands steepled before his face, chuckled. Everyone in the room fell silent and watched him. “For that,” he said, “I believe I hold the way.”
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You had me instantly sold with the poetic inscription.
Things are gonna get BIBLICAL in proportion!!!
526695
Thank you! I should probably mention that the inscription is not my own; I pulled it from Dante's Inferno. Inferno and Paradise Lost references will abound!
The Princesses take on Hell itself? I'm game.
It's high time we got an adventure fic starring our favorite winged unicorns, and in the present. Shit's gonna get fucking biblical yo
img.ponibooru.org/_images/8c284f83c8c9804a01e0ecd612b458fc/147291%20-%20animated%20dis_gon_b_gud%20FAIC%20macro%20pinkie_pie.gif
...
I feel like I should recognize these God's and Goddesses, darn memory.
Back to reading Dante's Inferno!
Hmmm fallen gods, a mission to destroy the three princesses, and all of it tied around revenge. This is gonna be good.
Follow The Tears - Heaven and Hell
RIP Ronnie James Dio
this was kinda interesting waiting for next episode before i favorite
Well first of all, let me say that for a work where half of the setting was taken from pre-written stories, the other half being intuited and warped from those stories, this was fairly well written. Your description, while not entirely original, is aesthetically pleasing though not entirely accurate for the purposes of this work. I must admit the number of views that sprung up so quickly for this makes me a tad jealous as this is the sort of story that I write many a day though no one desires to read my works, but I digress.
What I don’t like it that you give these characters only common language. The characters in your story do not speak in an epic or even elevated tone, but they use short, fragmented speech that has some epic moments, but the tone is not held throughout. While you claim to borrow from Milton you do not emulate his style. Furthermore, you simply take away some of Milton as well as Dante's most glorious quotations (the inscription upon the door and Satan’s statement on rebellion) seemingly for the sole purpose of doing it. The latter case doesn’t even seem to be something Chrysalis would say out of the blue, but it’s almost like she’s heard that saying before. This doesn’t help the fact that I do not like Chrysalis’ character at all and consider her to be the most poorly designed villain in the series yet. Also you build up the aesthetics of your work in the beginning by describing the daunting impenetrability of the gates of Tartarus, but then go you and stick Chyralis right in there without a word of explanation.
I’m nitpicking here, but your choice to have Tirek drink from Lethe is non-canon. Both Milton and Dante agree that no one can receive the comforting waters of forgetfulness. Also, Tirek seems to be angry at some divine god in the sky who damned him, but you haven’t specified who or what the god is. Certainly it is not Yaweh in this world, is it? Nor is it one of the three alicorns, for they came on the seen after Tirek's downfall.
It’s also odd that you don’t even change the names of the demons of Paradise Lost, but you did change Satan to the G1 Tirek. As for Asmodeus (or Asmoday as you call him. not sure where you found that spelling) his character is amusing, but out of place for a god after centuries of torment.
As for Astaroth (your Ashtoreth. I now see you are using the Babylonian and not the Demonological spellings), your choice to use him is very interesting indeed as you could just consider him to be the male equivalent of Ishtar, but demonologically, he is the Beast himself. Thus, coming to the end, I proclaim this to be an interesting start, but you chose some odd ways of moving the story along.
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Thank you for reading and for the thoughtful critique. You're correct in that you caught me misspelling Astaroth as Ashtoreth, probably because I was reading about ancient goddesses recently. I might fix that. Asmoday is a real variant, though I'm unsure of its origin. Sorry that you don't like his goofball character; that was deliberate, but I can understand how it could be jarring.
The use of Lethe is also deliberate; the inspiration comes from Lewis's Great Divorce, in which the damned forget all pleasures of their past lives and say they have always been in Hell. I thought something akin to that was in the Inferno, too, but I may be misremembering. At any rate, I'm paying homage but making no attempt to be slavish to either Milton or Dante; their layouts of the netherworld contradict each other anyway, and though attempting to harmonize them might be interesting, I think it would be beyond my power.
You bring up some interesting questions. The depiction of the gate is inspired by the legend of the gates built by Alexander the Great to enclose Gog and Magog in the Caucasus, combined with the legend of one of Charlemagne's knights (I think Rogero), who closed up a mouth of Hell to block a horde of harpies. I hope to make all clear and answer all the questions you've brought up as the story continues.
This is one of those different stories that I just love. Things are gonna get mythical real fast up in Equestria.
4.bp.blogspot.com/-B8FUYFlvL3s/T3UKWqFcG-I/AAAAAAAACsk/YAJHE5KkSps/s1600/rainbowMeme.PNG What is this?
Can it be?
m.alltheragefaces.com/img/faces/large/determined-serious-chiseled-not-okay-l.png
What the divines have said is true?
google.com/imgres?start=73&um=1&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=625&tbm=isch&tbnid=QSgGlDXfmy_oTM:&imgrefurl=http://evill97.deviantart.com/art/Fuck-Yea-188121079&docid=aq8ZxJqnxocuSM&imgurl=http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/340/8/a/fuck_yea__by_evill97-d34035j.png&w=600&h=479&ei=db6mT4ikOKSV6AGkg_jdBA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1062&vpy=199&dur=444&hovh=201&hovw=251&tx=99&ty=94&sig=117044468420191539523&page=4&tbnh=114&tbnw=143&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:73,i:17
You sir!
images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/29400000/you-re-awesome-tamar20-29422336-359-450.jpg
I've been looking for a new story to read since I've caught up on my unread favorites (Yes! I've caught up on The End of Ponies!)
THANK YOU!!!
Dude. This rocks.
I'm really looking forward to a showdown between Asmoday and Pinkie Pie. His whole "and cuddly!" thing cracked me up. The idea that the demonic god of lust just wants to snuggle with ponies is both really funny and potentially really disturbing.