Darkest Shadows

by FireOfTheNorth

Festivity and Blood

The stallion’s breath misted in the air as he trotted down the abandoned road. He really should have just taken the train to Canterlot, but was too stubborn. It was tradition to hike the trip to the city every winter, and he wasn’t going to let anything stop him from following that tradition. Inclement weather had delayed him, and with nowhere to camp when dusk fell, he’d been forced to trudge on ahead in the darkness. Now it was nearly midnight, and he was still traversing a path that straddled a cliff edge.

He picked up the pace as he spotted a flickering light ahead that indicated a campfire. The sheer wall to his right moved back from the edge and gave way to a small patch of grass and trees. Among the trees, a group of ponies with three wagons had made camp. A few were seated around the fire, but most were still involved in setting up the campsite. On the far side of the fire was a large figure covered in a cloak with a hood, and it beckoned for the stallion to come nearer as he approached.

“Hello there, traveler,” the figure greeted him with a silky stallion’s voice with an accent he couldn’t place, “What brings you out on the road to Canterlot so late at night?”

“I’m on the way to city to visit my family for the holidays. The snow threw a bit of a kink into my plans, though,” the stallion explained, “I hope it’s not too forward of me, but would it be alright if I camped with your group tonight and shared your fire? I’m too beat to start one myself.”

“But of course!” the strange stallion crooned, “Please, take a seat.”

“I’m Snapdragon Whip,” the traveler introduced himself as he sat down on a log across the fire from the pony he was talking to, “My friends call me Snappy.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Snappy,” the hooded figure said as he gave a slight bow, “You may call me Grigore.”

“Oh, are you a griffin?” Snappy asked as he set his heavy saddlebags down beside himself.

“No, I have hooves just like you,” Grigore said, “Ioan, Mihaela, get our guest some soup. I’m sure you’re famished.”

“To be honest, I am,” Snappy replied as the two ponies other than Grigore at the fire trotted away to get him food.

“We don’t have much, but what we have we will share,” Grigore said, “A band of travelling performers doesn’t make much money, as you can imagine, though we have plenty of tales to tell. Would you like to hear one?”

“That actually sounds quite pleasant, thank you,” Snappy replied.

“Well, then. Our tale begins long ago, in a land far from here, when a seven-headed dragon held a kingdom in a grip of terror. There are many versions to this tale, but on this night you shall hear the true one …”

Grigore went on, weaving the story as only a true wordsmith could, and soon Snappy was enraptured in the saga. It was a tale of hardship and tough choices, but also of triumph, and it was filled with interesting characters for one to root for or against. Ioan or Mihaela brought Snappy some bean soup at one point, but he barely touched it, he was so involved in Grigore’s story.

“…in the end, the beast was slain and the kingdom restored, but the slayer received no credit for his acts. It would be unseemly to say that a nearly-silent stranger wearing a cloak and strange armor had killed the beast; instead, tales spread that the king’s youngest son had been the one to perform the deed. So it is with many epics of this land, that the hero disappears and another stands in his place, claiming the fame. One may wonder why this black stallion of the legends never speaks up to claim his deeds. Perhaps he prefers the shadows, but now we shall never know, for he is surely long dead,” Grigore concluded the tale.

Snappy said nothing as he stared straight ahead, his eyes glazed over.

“Well now, that was easier than I expected,” Grigore said as he reached up with legs strangely thin for the size of his body and pulled his hood back.

The head that appeared was monstrous; it resembled a pony’s if it had been elongated, but in no other way. The ears were floppy like a donkey’s, and horns curved down over them from the top of Grigore’s head. The creature unhinged his jaw, revealing several rows of teeth, and inhaled deeply. If somepony attuned to magic had been nearby, they might have seen the thin wisps that trailed from Snappy’s body to Grigore’s mouth, but there was nopony there at the moment to witness the monster consuming the pony’s soul. Snappy twitched slightly, then slumped over when the process was complete.

“Well, that ought to tide me over until we get to Canterlot,” Grigore said as he moved his jaw back into place, “The rest of you, eat up while he’s still warm.”

The other ponies in the camp trotted out of the shadows, their eyes glowing as they approached Snappy’s lifeless body. Their cheeks tore to accommodate extra-wide grins filled with sharp, pointed teeth. As one, they fell upon the corpse, and the sound of tearing flesh and snapping bones soon filled the night. The creature calling itself Grigore sat back and closed his eyes as he listened, and thought about the feast soon to be had in Equestria’s capital.

Darkest Shadows
Part the Fourth: Festivity and Blood

***

“I know you’re here!” Beryl shouted into the shadowy room, “You can’t hide, and you can’t escape either!”

The room Beryl was trotting through was one of the suites at the top of Manehattan’s many skyscrapers, but it looked more like an ancient cathedral. Several floors had been knocked out to make room for soaring stone columns, and the windows were in the process of being swapped out for stained glass. Candlesticks stood around the room, providing just enough light to cast shadows in all directions. The pony living here seemed to have an obsession with the past; it was understandable, since he was over three hundred years old.

“We’ve killed all your thralls and servants, there’s no more hope for you!” Beryl called, keeping her crossbow ready as she scanned the many hiding places in the room, “Come out and finish this already, vampire lord!”

At the sound of claws scraping on stone, Beryl spun and fired her crossbow. The bolt struck the wall and glowing blue sparks exploded from it, lighting up the corner and revealing the vampire lord as it flapped away from the light. The creature that had once been a pony circled around a column as Beryl reloaded her weapon. As it emerged from the darkness, plummeting toward her, she fired. The wooden stake struck true in the vampire’s heart, and it fell to the floor with a thump.

The vampire lord was like any other vampire, but more powerful. Extra talons on this one’s wings, the shape of its eyes, and its elongated fangs spoke to its power. Another feature, this one particularly troubling to the Ministry, was that powerful vampire lords often attracted other lesser vampires to follow them, and built up a kingdom of organized bloodsuckers. An increase in vampire attacks in Manehattan had led the Ministry to conclude that a vampire lord had set himself up somewhere in the city, and the search for that monster had led Beryl here.

She trotted up to the beast, who was still moving, though blood oozed from the wound in its chest. Beryl jumped to the side as it snapped its head up and spat blood at her that would have done serious damage. Drawing a silver blade, the Ministry agent closed the distance with the vampire lord and sliced its head off. As the body started to crumble and decompose, Beryl trotted away. Another job completed, she could return to Canterlot.

***

Snow fell upon the morning train as it chugged up the tracks to Canterlot, but Beryl was nice and cozy in a heated compartment as she read an early copy of the Manehattan Times. The headline for today read “Sixty dead after gas leak in Manehattan theater!”, which was a tragedy, but at least there was no news about vampire attacks. The Manehattan branch of the Ministry’s Information Containment Bureau was doing its job.

The head of the Ministry’s Manehattan branch office had thanked Beryl personally for leading the investigation of their vampire problem before seeing her off at the train station. It was odd that a Canterlot agent without Inspector status had been sent to Manehattan, but Beryl assumed it was a sign of faith in her from the Ministry’s leadership. Several changes had happened recently that she wasn’t going to complain about, among them being a raise in pay. Things had really taken off for Agent Beryl Fields since she’d met Shadowmere less than half a year ago. Her time studying with the stallion had really paid off as she began to be noticed at the Ministry again. More important and high-profile cases kept coming her way, which had kept her busy since the djinn’s attack.

Speaking of the djinn, there was still no new information on that front. Whoever had begun the chain of events that caused Beryl and Shadowmere to meet had yet to reveal themselves. In a way, it was frustrating that they had no way to track down those behind the monster attacks, but it was also fortunate that no other big monster attacks had come since the djinn. She didn’t know what she preferred: frequent life-or-death scenarios, or the threat of them constantly looming. Neither was a good choice.

Beryl folded her paper as the train pulled into Canterlot Central Station, and disembarked with the rest of the passengers. Many of them carried parcels and suitcases, only in town for the holidays. As they waited for the rest of their luggage to be unloaded, Beryl brushed past them and made her way down the icy streets of Canterlot until she reached the Ministry.

“Nice work on taking out that vampire lord and his entire circle. That should give the bloodsuckers in the area pause for a few decades,” Siren’s Song commented as he looked through the report Beryl had written up on the train, “Very good, indeed. I’d insist on you taking this vacation even if it wasn’t your year.”

“Thank you, sir,” Beryl replied, “Am I … free to go, then?”

“Indeed,” the deputy director said with a smile and a nod, “Do you have plans? Maybe attending the pageant? I heard Celestia herself might attend this year.”

“Are you kidding? Those tickets have been sold out for weeks,” Beryl answered.

“Fair enough; just staying at home then, I take it,” Siren’s Song said, “Try to get some rest.”

“Thank you,” Beryl said as she left his office.

She had already cleaned up her own office and put everything away, so there was nothing stopping Berry from leaving the Ministry. She passed several groups of ponies knotted together, talking about their Hearth’s Warming Eve plans, as she headed for the exit. In the entry hall, everything was business as usual, except for the Hearth’s Warming Tree erected beneath the status boards, whose alarming numbers were overshadowed by the decorations.

“Hey Berry, off for Hearth’s Warming leave?” Roaring Thunder asked as he flapped down and landed next to her.

“That’s right. The one week of the year I don’t have to see your face,” Beryl retorted, half kidding.

“Oh, you joker,” the stallion said as he trotted next to her, “Well, my turn was last year, so I have to work this week. You enjoy yourself, though, and happy Hearth’s Warming!”

“Happy Hearth’s Warming,” Beryl responded as Roaring Thunder flew off toward another group of agents. It was hard to be too resentful around Hearth’s Warming Eve.

Once she was outside the Ministry, she was officially a civilian for a full week. She loved the work she did at the Ministry, but she was still glad to have some time off. Upon reflection, the training she would be doing during her break might not have been considered taking time off, but she was free to do what she wanted during this week, and who said she couldn’t at least spend some time learning how to be a better agent?

First, she headed back to her apartment and dropped off her uniform and equipment. As she pulled on a coat and boots and threw her saddlebags over her back, she considered that if she was going to visit Shadowmere it might be prudent to have a weapon handy. She slipped the crossbow into her saddlebags, along with a few quarrels just in case.

The orphans of Rosethorn Hall were outside building snow-ponies when Beryl arrived, and they greeted her by throwing snowballs her way. They were easily deflected with her magic, but she let a few hit the unexposed areas of her body anyway. Once inside the manor house, Berry quickly made her way down to the basement and into Shadowmere’s quarters. After taking off her winter clothing, she joined the immortal stallion where he was seated in the sitting area.

“Another one finished,” the mare announced as she took the book 1008 Creatures of Romanean Folklore out her saddlebags and passed it to Shadowmere, “Are all those fairy tale monsters real?”

“Most of them,” he answered, “At least, they were real. Many of them are now believed to be extinct.”

“After what we’ve encountered, I wouldn’t count on it,” Berry opinioned.

“Indeed,” Shadowmere harrumphed, “Always know what you’re up against, even if naysayers tell you it’s pointless because what you’re up against doesn’t exist.”

Silence stretched on for a few seconds as the two ponies sitting across from each other didn’t know what else to say.

“Have you found out anything new about the djinn?” Berry finally broke the silence.

“Come with me,” Shadowmere said as he rose from his seat and set 1008 Creatures of Romanean Folklore on the table.

Puzzled, Berry got up and followed him. Up to this point, the only rooms of Shadowmere’s hideout she had seen were the sitting room and the passage to the outside. The door Shadowmere led her through was not the one that led out; rather, it led to a long hallway with unevenly spaced doors on either side. The passage curved slightly to the left, until it suddenly turned right at a 90-degree angle. At the end was an iron door reinforced with several other metals, and Shadowmere unlocked it and stepped through. On the other side was a wide room with shelves that ran off into the distance, all stacked with strange chests and containers.

“This is the djinn we captured,” Shadowmere announced as he stopped at a familiar clay pot.

“Have you been able to get any information from it?” Berry asked as she stared at the seemingly harmless piece of pottery before her.

“The djinn is currently being weakened, but it’s nowhere near weak enough to question yet. That’ll take years, maybe even decades,” Shadowmere answered, “I was able to glean one useful piece of information, though. This djinn is the same one that I captured and imprisoned here over seven hundred years ago.”

“So somepony was able to break in here?” Berry asked, connecting the pieces.

“Troubling thought, isn’t it,” Shadowmere said solemnly, “I’m not aware of anypony powerful enough to get past my seals, locks, and traps, and then replace the djinn’s container with a fake without me noticing.”

“Do you think that whoever stole the djinn was the same one behind the gargoyles and the tantibus?” Berry asked as she looked at the endless rows of magical traps and containers. What kind of terrifying beasts were ensnared within them?

“I would bet on it,” Shadowmere answered, “The only time it could have happened was while we were in Hoofington. At least in part, the tantibus may have been meant to draw me away from here so that the djinn could be retrieved.”

“In other words, we almost certainly know that the ones orchestrating these attacks were here, but there’s no way we can find out who they are, and we’re no closer to finding them than we were months ago.”

“You paint a bleak picture, but it’s not inaccurate,” Shadowmere admitted, “However, I think we may have one chance to find out the identity of our attacker. I know a pony who keeps a close eye on Canterlot. It’s not a certainty, but if anyone noticed something out of the ordinary, it would be him.”

“Well, what are we waiting for; let’s get going!” Berry said enthusiastically.

“You’ll need a coat,” Shadowmere replied, “We’re leaving Canterlot.”

***

In a dense evergreen forest in Equestria’s north, a rent suddenly tore open, and the stale air of a ruin rushed into the bitter winter cold. Two ponies stumbled out of the hole, both bundled in warm winter clothes. As their hooves touched the ground, the rent snapped closed and the forest was still again. Beryl and Shadowmere had traveled a hundred leagues in a matter of minutes, courtesy of the immortal monster hunter’s personal passage. Unlike the one they had travelled to reach Canterlot from Hoofington, this passage had been free of monsters, or at least the visible sort, and instead of a wasteland, it was a twisting tunnel of broken buildings and crumbling heaps of stone. The upside was that their trip was free of attacks, but the downside was that the tunnel aspect meant one couldn’t always reach their destination directly. Hence, the duo had emerged in the forest outside the city they were headed to, not within the city itself.

“How far to Stalliongrad?” Berry asked as blowing snow replaced the dusty stillness of the passage.

“The city wall is just over that ridge,” Shadowmere said as he pointed through the trees at a landform nopony but the immortal stallion could see through the dense forest.

He knew what he was talking about, though. Once the trees came to an end, the land sloped upward before plummeting back down toward the high stone wall that surrounded their destination. Stalliongrad had been around for several decades, but only recently had it joined Equestria. Becoming an Equestrian city had drastically changed the settlement, as it had become a center of industry. The city quickly swelled to fill the wall that had once surrounded farmland, and three of the city’s four gates were now places that railway lines converged on their way into the metropolis. This drastic change had made Stalliongrad a strange city where modern factories and ancient fortresses stood side by side.

As they entered Stalliongrad, Shadowmere pulled a pair of tinted goggles over his eyes. Sunglasses would look out of place in the north during winter, and none of the city’s citizens could be allowed to see his eyes; besides, they made him look more like a native. Beryl’s coat, though not too nice, was still less coarse and thinner than those worn by Stalliongraders. The two visitors still didn’t stick out, though, since strange ponies were not an uncommon sight in any city around Hearth’s Warming Eve.

“So, where does this friend of yours live?” Berry asked as they trotted down the mostly-deserted city streets.

“I’m not sure; it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him,” Shadowmere said, “We’ll have to wait until one of his agents finds us.”

“He has agents? What, is he in charge of some monster hunting organization?” Beryl asked, “How are they supposed to find us?”

“Don’t worry; even in this outfit, they’ll recognize me,” Shadowmere answered as they moved to make way for a pony leaving a nearby shop, “They were probably dispatched to search me out the moment we left my passage.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you since we fought the tantibus, and I’m even more curious now,” Berry said as they turned down an alley formed by a monastery and a warehouse for sofas, “What exactly are passages?”

“In short, the remains of other worlds,” Shadowmere said.

“Remains? Other worlds?”

“Mm-hmm, our world used to be one of three realms,” Shadowmere answered her confusion, “Other than the mortal realm, there was also the Beyond—inhabited by the Draconequi—and Aetherius—home of the Equines, alicorns so powerful that ponies worshipped them as gods. Eventually both realms apart from our own crumbled into ruin, but not everything just faded away. Pieces of these worlds remain loosely linked to ours, and form the passages. Once ponies discovered a way to enter and exit them, they became the fastest method of travel—apart from teleportation—for those with the skill to use them. That art has long since disappeared, though. I doubt anypony but me makes use of passages any longer.”

“I see,” Berry said as they exited the alley and crossed the mostly empty street, “So, what’s with your personal passage?”

“I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a fairly uninhabited passage, centuries ago, and found that it can always be accessed from the yard where I built Rosethorn Hall. It’s not perfect, as you know, but at least I don’t have to worry about being attacked during my journey like in most other passages.”

Beryl nodded her understanding, but she was also amazed by just how much she didn’t know. Nothing in her Ministry training had even suggested that passages existed, much less that they were all that remained of two separate worlds. Was all this knowledge truly lost, or like the existence of gargoyles, tantibae, and djinn, was it simply hidden away as unnecessary or classified? The Ministry’s existence and operation revolved around keeping secrets, that was how they had always done things, but was it really right to keep secrets from themselves?

As Beryl pondered this, the two ponies trotted into an alley bordered by a large factory on one side and a low row of shops on the other. They were a third of the way through when a whistle mounted on the factory wall blew a long note. Seconds later, the doors along the factory wall opened and the workers swarmed out. As a wave, the crowd of ponies swept over Berry and Shadowmere, buffeting them around as they passed. Once the workers had dispersed, a soft laugh came from one of the shops’ stairwell.

“First time in Stalliongrad?” a mare’s voice came from the stairwell, “Come on down here and out of da snow.”

Shadowmere led the way over to the stairwell and paused before trotting down the steps. A canopy overhead kept the enclosure free of snow, and a mare dressed in warm Stalliongrader clothing, including a set of earmuffs, stood at its bottom. She seemed utterly unremarkable, just another Stalliongrader, yet Shadowmere seemed to think they ought to speak to her, so Beryl followed his lead.

“I am Quartz Rose, and you must be Shadowmere,” the mare said, before looking past the stallion at Beryl, “And you; Dietrep was very interested when two ponies emerged from dat passage. So, who is dis dat da great Shadowmere sees fit to take on as a companion?”

“I’m Beryl Fields,” Berry introduced herself as she stepped forward to stand beside Shadowmere, and she thought about it before adding, “Agent of the Ministry.”

“An interesting choice for one so hunted by da Ministry, eh Black Briar?” Quartz Rose commented.

Something wasn’t sitting right with Berry about this mare, and at once everything came together. It was freezing out, yet when Quartz Rose talked, no mist formed from her breath, and the scarf wrapped around her muzzle was completely free of frost. At first she had thought the extra tufts of hair at the end of her ears to be a peculiarity of the northern breeds of ponies, but now it was apparent that they were there for another reason, and the shape of her ears wasn’t quite right. Though her eyes had a soft quality to them, they seemed unsettling thanks to the blood-red irises, and Berry realized that her pupils weren’t quite circular. As quickly as she could, Beryl drew her crossbow from her saddlebags and pointed it at Quartz Rose, a wooden bolt sliding into place.

“Stop,” Shadowmere said as he moved faster than her eyes could follow and pushed her crossbow to point harmlessly upwards.

“She’s a vampire!” Berry protested as she pointed her weapon back down.

“You think I don’t know that? I can smell it on her.”

“Dat is kind of creepy,” Quartz Rose said, and she shuffled to the side to get out of the line of Beryl’s crossbow.

“Do you trust me, Beryl?” Shadowmere asked.

“I do,” she said with a sigh as she lowered her crossbow, “That doesn’t mean I trust her, or why we’re dealing with a vampire in the first place.”

“It will all be clear soon,” Shadowmere promised, “In the meantime, know that if you trust me, you can trust Dietrep, and to a lesser extent you can trust Quartz Rose.”

“Oh, dat hurt!” Quartz Rose said jokingly as her scarf slid down to reveal her fangs, “You don’t trust me, Shadowmere?”

“It’s nothing personal, but recent events have shown that even Dietrep’s higher vassals may not be as under control as he wishes,” Shadowmere said.

“Vassals?” Beryl asked, “So Dietrep is a vampire lord?”

“He is so much more dan a simple vampire lord,” Quartz Rose objected, “Dietrep is knyaz of all north-central Equestria. Every notable vampire lord, baron, and graf from Vanhoover to Manehattan swears loyalty to him.”

“When can he meet with us?” Shadowmere asked when she finished.

“Ah, of course!” Quartz Rose said as she struck her forehead with a hoof, “Here I am, gabbing with you, when I should have been leading you to him. Dietrep is very eager to see you. Come; follow me!”

***

“Please, sit down,” Dietrep said as he motioned toward a pair of chairs placed opposite his throne.

Quartz Rose had led them through Stalliongrad’s streets to another stairwell similar to the one they had met her in. This one led to a private residence that the vampire had the key for, and the residence also just so happened to link up with an abandoned set of tunnels beneath Stalliongrad. Well, the tunnels weren’t entirely abandoned. There was evidence that the vampires beneath Dietrep used them often to get around and even out of the city. A tunnel that seemed exactly the same as all the rest eventually terminated in a set of stairs that led the ponies up into an old castle.

This castle was Dietrep’s home, and it was fully staffed and stocked for the vampire lord’s convenience. When they reached the throne room—which was really more in the style of a large sitting room, with a fireplace on each end and wide and towering set of windows in the center—Beryl was shocked to see that it was outside of Stalliongrad’s walls, and looked out over the forest she and Shadowmere had appeared in earlier. The castle was hidden, that much was certain, and Shadowmere’s statement about not knowing where to find Dietrep made her think that it wasn’t always in the same place either. Powerful magic was at work here.

The throne and chairs were set up with the window to one side and the entrance to the room on the other, so until she got closer, all Beryl could see of Dietrep was his profile. Once she and Shadowmere were seated, she got a much better look at the vampire knyaz. Usually with a vampire, one could at least guess what they had once looked like as a pony, but with Dietrep it was hard to tell. His coat was thick and colored the gray of a sky just before a storm breaks, and his mane and tail were black as pitch with just a hint of crimson to them. His mane was swept slickly back and his tail was tied into braids; both had an exotic luster to them that one usually didn’t see. There were several distinguishing features that Beryl had learned to distinguish a vampire lord from a lower vampire, and Dietrep’s appearance took these to the extreme. His ears were unmistakably those of a bat, and they dominated the sides of his face, and even his nose had taken on the shape of a bat’s. Dietrep’s eyes were crystal clear, and she could feel his piercing sight bore into her. His irises, a bright red that seemed almost aflame, dominated the eyes, and the pupils were the most peculiar shapes, as if a vertical and horizontal slitted pupils coexisted. He was dressed in a finely tailored suit of black fabric, with a crimson cravat serving as the only splash of color to his outfit. As he sipped a goblet of what Beryl hoped was (but was almost certain wasn’t) wine, she got a good look at the multiple rows of wickedly long and sharp fangs within his mouth. Large leathery wings were folded behind his back with fully articulate claws clasped together behind his head.

“It’s been a long time, Shadowmere,” Dietrep spoke smoothly, finally breaking the lengthy silence.

“I’ve been busy,” he answered slowly, “As have you; I don’t even recognize Stalliongrad.”

“Surely you don’t think that I have the influence necessary to bring about an industrial revolution in this town,” Dietrep said as he bared his teeth in a smile, “Maybe I had some of my agents push the important ponies in the right direction when they were deciding whether to join Equestria or not, but no more.”

From where Beryl was sitting, it was strange to witness this conversation between two immortals. How long had the two known each other? Centuries? Millennia? Stalliongrad had only joined Equestria in the last fifty years, but how long before that had Shadowmere and Dietrep last visited? They had been apart a long time, perhaps even centuries, but they were talking like friends who had been separated for a short number of years.

“But enough about me; obviously something interesting has transpired in your life. I must say, I was quite perplexed when I sensed two ponies emerging from your passage. So, tell me, who is this that the solitary Shadowmere has chosen to accompany him?” Dietrep continued, and he turned to face Berry with the last question.

“I’m Agent Beryl Fields of the Ministry,” she introduced herself as she held eye contact with the vampire lord, “I’ve been training with Shadowmere over the past few months.”

“What an interesting combination,” Dietrep practically purred, “A mortal and a monster both claiming to be hunters of monsters. And now you’re within the monster’s lair. I would like to think I know Shadowmere’s thoughts, but what will you do, agent of the Ministry? Will you blindly follow a stallion you know next to nothing about and place your trust in me, or will you stake and decapitate me as you did to another vampire lord in the wee hours of this past night?”

How did he know that? Was Dietrep’s information network so good that it could even access Ministry secrets, or had Manehattan’s Information Containment Bureau let something slip? Shadowmere had said that Dietrep kept a close eye on Canterlot; was it possible that he had agents within the Ministry? Far more likely was the possibility that the vampire lord Beryl had killed was one of Dietrep’s vassals. After all, Quartz Rose had said that he ruled vampires from Vanhoover to Manehattan, so it would make perfect sense.

Something was out of place, though. Shadowmere was too earnest in their time together to make her suspect he had simply been using her for his own purposes, or the purposes of this vampire lord. Add to that the fact that they were guests here, and Dietrep and Shadowmere seemed cordial enough. Why was Dietrep goading her, then? Obviously there would be bad history between the Ministry and a vampire lord, but that couldn’t be all there was to it. Was this some kind of test?

“I am a guest in your castle, Dietrep, and though I may be wrong, I choose to believe that you would not harm somepony you invited here to speak with you,” Beryl said as she stared him down, “As for trust, I choose to trust you to a certain extent, and I trust that Shadowmere’s faith in you is not misplaced. After meeting Shadowmere, I’ve experienced things I never thought possible before. Maybe having a conversation with a powerful vampire lord that doesn’t end in his death won’t be my strangest experience.”

“I can tell that you’re no fool. I am knyaz over all north-central Equestria, including Manehattan. I would assume that by now you have figured out that the vampire lord you killed last night was, in fact, one of my vassals.”

“I have,” Beryl answered, “I also know that a subordinate is not their master; their views and even actions don’t necessarily reflect the views of the one they are serving.”

“They taught you this at the Ministry?” Dietrep asked as he sank back into his throne.

“You could say that,” she replied, thinking about Director Thistleback and Siren’s Song.

“How intriguing; you simply must tell me more later,” Dietrep said, just the corners of his mouth jerking up in a smile, “For now, though, I only ask that you accept my gratitude for your actions.”

“Your … gratitude?”

“Indeed; you saved me the trouble of killing Iron Gloom myself and dealing with a potentially messy scene to wrap up before the Ministry caught wind,” Dietrep answered, “What he did in Manehattan was unacceptable, not even counting exposing our community to mortals. Forgive me for the lecture, but like your Ministry, vampires must stay hidden. Non-vampires will never accept us into their society, even if we’ve changed our ways, and that will never change. It’s best for us to remain in the shadows, but we can’t do that if one of our number goes on a rampage killing mortals. So, once again, my thanks for taking care of the problem.”

“Um … you’re welcome, I guess,” Beryl said, taken off guard by Dietrep’s sudden change in mood, “What was that you said about changing your ways?”

“Surely you know that vampire activity in Equestria has decreased in the last few centuries. Why do you think that is?” Dietrep said, “No, don’t bother answering; you know. I’ve found that many vampire lords, as they grow in power, become more bitter and vengeful towards mortals for the slights they’ve encountered over the years; not me. Thankfully, I learned that violence begets violence, and that the only way to live at peace with non-vampires is to remain hidden from them and to not affect their lives any more than necessary. You keep looking at the goblet beside me. What do you think is in it?”

“Wine?” Beryl guessed as he held it toward her, even though the consistency seemed wrong for that to be true.

“Be honest,” the vampire lord commanded.

“Blood,” she said as she looked him straight in his eyes with an emotionless face.

“You would be wrong on both counts,” Dietrep replied, “This is an elixir of my own creation that can sustain a vampire indefinitely without the need to feed on other ponies. By drinking this potion, we can survive without needing to feed, and without any of the effects such acts have on ourselves and others. I created the ‘Aqua Vitae’ elixir nearly thirteen centuries ago, and I was still an idealist. I didn’t realize that just because I had formed a way for vampires to live without harming others, that didn’t mean they would take that option.

“So, I began to play the political game, to carve out a nation of vampires that would coexist with mortals by leaving them be. Eleven centuries ago, I became a baron and built this castle. Six and a half centuries ago I became vampire graf of Vanhoover. That was a difficult fight, and I spent a good fifty years putting down rebellions of vassals who wanted the old ways to go on. Eventually, though, I was successful and my power continued to grow. For the past hundred twenty years I’ve been knyaz of a growing swath of Equestria that is now mostly free of vampires that reject my ideology.”

“And nopony noticed this going on?” Beryl asked.

“Like I’ve said, I know the importance of remaining hidden,” Dietrep said, “Can you imagine what the Ministry would do if they found out a vampire lord was consolidating a power base of the size I have, regardless of my intentions? The takeover in Vanhoover was messy, with many vampires killed on both sides, and I know the Ministry discovered some of them, but the reason I’m still here today is that they didn’t manage to put the pieces together.”

“I see,” Beryl said. She truly wanted to believe him, but something inside kept her from trusting a vampire lord completely, regardless of whether he seemed to have good intentions and of Shadowmere’s assurances.

“Well, I know you didn’t come here for a social call or to hear history you already know, so what brought you here?” Dietrep asked as he turned to face Shadowmere.

“I know you keep a close eye on Canterlot,” Shadowmere said.

“Two, as often as I can spare them,” Dietrep said with a chuckle.

“Here’s what’s going on; I know that somepony broke into my hideout in Canterlot on the Eighteenth of Fading Light,” Shadowmere explained, “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary on that day?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t say that I did,” Dietrep said as he shook his head, “Canterlot has been troublesome lately. So much darkness is coalescing there that it’s hard to pick out individual points. I’ve been wanting to warn you for some time, Shadowmere. Something evil is lurking at the center of Equestria, some darkness hidden within the very core, close to Celestia herself. I can sense it, but so far whoever or whatever it is has managed to throw me off. Be wary; strong magic is at work here, and I shudder to think what will happen when it achieves its purpose.”

“Could this possibly be the force behind the monster attacks?” Beryl asked Shadowmere, before facing an intrigued Dietrep, “Do you know anything more about the reappearance of gargoyles, a tantibus, and a djinn in Canterlot?”

“I’m afraid I don’t, at least not consciously,” Dietrep said, “However …”

“No, you can’t,” Shadowmere cut in as the vampire lord moved to rise from his seat.

“This is a serious matter, and I insist,” Dietrep said obstinately.

“And if you die, what then? All your work will be undone.”

“All Equestria will be undone if this darkness at its heart is not cut out soon,” Dietrep said as he rose and trotted away, a cape swirling behind him.

“What’s he going to do?” Beryl asked, seeing the concern on Shadowmere’s face.

“He’s going to go into a trance to create a dreamscape,” he replied as Dietrep returned with a crystal ball, “This is a dangerous venture for any vampire, but especially for him. You remember what happened last time.”

“You didn’t let me die then; I’m confident you won’t now,” Dietrep huffed, “Now, if I could begin …”

The vampire lord shifted around in his throne until he reached a comfortable position, and then placed a hoof on the crystal ball sitting on the table next to him. His breathing deepened (or more accurately, it finally became noticeable) and his eyes slid shut. It seemed at first like nothing was happening, but then Dietrep went rigid in his throne. His body began to spasm around, and when his eyes momentarily cracked open, Beryl could see that they were rolling wildly. Through it all, his hoof remained firmly pressed against the crystal ball, and every time she looked back at it, Beryl saw more sparkling mist congealing within.

After several minutes of jerking around like a madpony, Dietrep went limp and his hoof disconnected from the crystal ball. Shadowmere jumped from his chair, knocking it over in the process, as he rushed to the vampire’s aid. All the blood seemed to have been drained from Dietrep’s body, and Beryl could see some of it trailing from his nostrils.

“Don’t die on me,” Shadowmere commanded as he grabbed the goblet of Aqua Vitae and poured some down Dietrep’s throat.

With his hooves, Shadowmere quickly drew runes in the air around Dietrep’s body, some of them becoming visible and sinking into his flesh. At last, the vampire lord began to move again, and shakily pushed Shadowmere away as he coughed. Carefully, he propped himself upright in his throne, and Shadowmere gave him another drink of Aqua Vitae.

“You fool. That better have been worth it,” Shadowmere scolded Dietrep as he returned to his chair.

“It will be, I’m sure of it,” Dietrep said, “I couldn’t make out much, but I did manage to gather that whoever it is you are hunting is nearly ready to make their next move. Something is coming to Canterlot soon, within the next two or three days at the latest.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Beryl asked, feeling a little bad to be pushing him after what he’d just gone through, but knowing that it was necessary.

“No; the rest is up to you,” Dietrep replied as he shook his head.

“Up to … us?” Beryl asked, pointing to herself and Shadowmere, “How?”

“Within this crystal ball is a dreamscape generated by my trance,” the vampire lord said as he picked up the ball and held it out, “By traversing it, you will hopefully be able to learn more than I did. I wouldn’t wait to do so, though. Once I saw that something was near, I tried to focus my attention, so most of what you learn should be immediately helpful in dealing with the trouble coming to Canterlot.”

“Thank you, Dietrep,” Shadowmere said as he took the crystal ball, “We’ll let you rest now.”

The moment the two non-vampires left the room, Dietrep’s subjects rushed in to tend to their master. Beryl looked back until the door slammed shut, cutting off view of the peculiar vampire lord.

***

“What do you mean I don’t have access?” Beryl asked the crystal on her desk.

After leaving Dietrep’s castle, Beryl and Shadowmere had returned to Canterlot via his personal passage immediately. Given the vampire lord’s warning, Beryl wanted to examine the dreamscape right away, but Shadowmere had explained that some preparation was involved, and they wouldn’t be able to do so for several hours at least. So, Berry had returned home and gotten a good night’s sleep. In the morning, she’d figured she still had some time before they could undertake their task for the day, so she headed to the Ministry to do some research. She wanted to trust Dietrep, but the feeling that he was hiding something wouldn’t go away. She searched for the history of vampires killing other vampires in Vanhoover he had spoken of, but when she did so, her desk locked her out of the Ministry records.

“Agent Beryl Fields is currently denied access to Ministry records for the following reasons,” the crystal said in a magically prerecorded voice, “Agent is currently on holiday. To prevent misuse of Ministry resources, access permissions are temporarily disabled.”

Beryl groaned and leaned back in her chair. The sensible thing to do would be to leave and forget about the issue until next week, but she had already come to the Ministry on her vacation with a specific purpose, and she didn’t plan on leaving until she’d accomplished it. Rising from her seat, she trotted over to the door and opened it, looking out into the hallway. Two offices down, she saw an open door; she knew the pony inside, so she closed her office back up and trotted down to it.

“Hey Smoky, can I ask you a favor?” Berry asked as she stepped into the office after making sure only one other pony was inside.

Smoky Dale looked up from her work, levitating her reading glasses away from her face as she did so. The creamy yellow mare had been Berry’s friend since the beginning of her time at the Ministry, but over the last four years they’d rarely seen each other, each going their separate ways. Still, that past relationship remained, and Berry hoped it would insure she wouldn’t be treated like a complete stranger when asking something of the other mare.

“Berry? I thought you had Hearth’s Warming Eve off this year,” she said as she brushed a long strand of smoky gray hair away from her face.

“I do have it off; that’s why I need to ask a favor,” Berry explained, “There’s something on my mind that I need to check out, but I don’t have access to the Ministry records until my vacation is over. Could you look it up for me?”

“Sure, what do you need to know?” Smoky said after a moment’s pause.

“The decrease in vampire activity in Equestria over the last few centuries; it started in Vanhoover, didn’t it?” Berry asked.

“I think so, if I remember correctly,” Smoky said, “Why?”

“Could you check when that was, and if there were any reports of vampires killing each other in the same time period?” Berry requested.

“Um, I guess so. Give me a second,” Smoky replied.

While she accessed the Ministry’s records with her voice, Berry’s eyes looked around the office. Just like hers, it was pretty bare, with no decorations to speak of. Perhaps that had been one of the reasons the two ponies had become friends in the first place. Neither saw any need for frivolities, preferring to remain focused on their work, and that still hadn’t changed.

Berry’s eyes wandered to the report Smoky had been reading when she’d walked in. Apparently the day before, somepony had discovered an abandoned wagon at a clearing on the path to Canterlot. When they’d tried to pull it away, they discovered the sparse remains of a pony underneath that had either been brutally murdered or devoured. The torn and bloody clothing and teeth marks on the splinters of bone left behind seemed to point to the latter. That was a cheery case to be working on Hearth’s Warming Eve.

“Looks like 650 years ago, the Vanhoover branch started reporting finding the bodies of vampires killed by other vampires,” Smoky said as she looked through the reports returned by her search, “This went on for about fifty years, until vampire attacks in the region stopped almost overnight. After that, it looks like only three major vampire incidents occurred in Vanhoover to this day.”

“Thanks, Smoky; that’s all I needed to check,” Berry said, and she turned to leave the room.

“Hey, Berry,” Smoky said and she turned back, “Don’t spend tonight by yourself. Nopony should be alone on Hearth’s Warming Eve.”

“Don’t worry; I’ll be fine,” Berry said, “Happy Hearth’s Warming.”

“Happy Hearth’s Warming to you too,” Smoky said as Berry left the office.

She wouldn’t be alone for Hearth’s Warming Eve. She probably wouldn’t be celebrating, but she would be doing something more important. Soon she and Shadowmere would be preparing to face whatever terror was coming to Canterlot.

***

By the time Shadowmere and Berry were seated before Dietrep’s crystal ball, the mist within had thickened to the point that it now resembled a roiling storm cloud, albeit one filled with twinkling stars. The sphere itself rested at the center of a circle of thread laid out on the table, two seven-pointed stars within. One was pointed toward Berry and the other toward Shadowmere.

“Are you ready?” the stallion asked from across the shining globe.

“What can we expect?” Berry asked.

“The dreamscape is a kind of pocket world created from Dietrep’s vision, so it should tie into what he saw,” Shadowmere explained, “That said, we could encounter anything. It’s not called a dreamscape for nothing; the rules of this world aren’t often followed, and anything could happen, no matter how implausible. A benefit we have is that we’ll know we’re dreaming, which will give us a small measure of control and the dream more stability. The drawback is that our own minds will be tied to the dreamscape in order to traverse it, and sensations can flow both ways.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Berry asked with concern.

“Our own thoughts and memories can spill into the dreamscape. In fact, it’s likely that they will, to a small degree, shape what we see. It’s important, though, that we keep tight control of our minds so that they don’t flood the dreamscape and overwhelm us. If it seems at any point that you are experiencing more of your own thoughts than the dreamscape, immediately clear your mind, or think about a sequence of unrelated things to keep from being overwhelmed. Understand?”

“Yes, I think so,” Berry answered.

“Good, now get in a comfortable position and we’ll begin.”

Berry stretched herself out on the sofa, but kept her head turned toward the crystal ball. Shadowmere was settling into the chair on the other side, and began to recite something in a language unfamiliar to her. Berry had no idea when she stopped perceiving the real world, and when she was fast asleep and within the dreamscape. Just like a natural dream, she found herself in the middle of it with no idea how or when she had arrived.

The dreamscape was extremely disorienting at first, and Berry struggled to gain her bearings. She appeared to be within some kind of maze, though it was unclear whether the walls were hedges or planks of wood. Perhaps they were both, for they were constantly shifting, making it impossible to focus on one for any extended length of time. Through some unseen light source, the maze was lit up like daylight, but a deep darkness loomed overhead. Though she couldn’t see it, Berry had the feeling that there was a ceiling somewhere far above; maybe it was the lack of stars that convinced her she wasn’t looking up at the night sky. When she’d arrived, the maze had seemed silent, but now she could hear clattering wood elsewhere in the maze, as well as what sounded like wind blowing through scattered cables. She could also make out a slow flapping in the distance, as if made by some massive pair of wings. They sounded leathery, definitely not made by a pegasus, bird, or any other creature with feathers.

“Berry, there you are,” Shadowmere called as he darted out of a place where the maze split up ahead.

Though Shadowmere had been wearing only his suit back in his hideout, he was now decked out in his full uniform, along with some extra weapons slung here and there on his person, floating strangely, as if gravity didn’t have a firm hold on them. Examining herself, Berry saw she was still wearing the civilian clothes she’d had on in the real world. Shadowmere had said they would have a small measure of control in the dreamscape, so she gave it a shot. Instantaneously, she was wearing her Ministry uniform along with a belt of hoofmade grenades and her crossbow.

“You have the basics down, I see,” Shadowmere commented.

“Thanks; what now?” Berry asked as she looked around the maze.

“Now we traverse the dreamscape,” Shadowmere said as he led the way, “There’s some piece of information here we have to obtain if we want to move on.”

“Move on?” Berry asked, but after voicing her question, she immediately realized there was something behind her and getting closer.

Drawing her crossbow, Berry spun around and fired a bolt off. The thunk of metal on wood reached her ears before she realized what her stalker was. Down the passage, moving undeterred toward her, was a pony-sized puppet. It was crudely made, but clearly a pony, and its movements were nightmarish as it was tugged this way and that by silvery threads leading up into the darkness. The wooden mouth clacked open and closed, and its glassy eyes spun around toward Berry as it drew closer. Berry fitted another bolt into her crossbow, this time an explosive one, and fired it at the marionette. Splinters of wood flew everywhere as it was blown to bits. The sound of more clattering wood came from past it as other puppets were drawn to the sound of their comrade’s destruction.

“We should move,” Shadowmere stated the obvious, and Berry followed him.

They wove through the maze, turning this way and that, encountering a puppet from time to time and annihilating it before it could do them any harm. As they reached a point where the maze split, Shadowmere turned left and Berry right. Instantly she came to a halt, and her body fell to the ground as it was dragged backwards. Shocked, Berry looked around and tried to figure out what had happened. In a moment, it all became clear. Leading from the joints of her legs, as well as her back, neck, and head, were silvery strands that trailed upwards without end.

“I’m a puppet!” she exclaimed hysterically, which was true except for the fact that she was still flesh and blood.

“Don’t panic,” Shadowmere said, and Berry turned to face him, only to see that he also had cables attached to him.

“You’re a puppet as well!” she said, which somehow made things seem better, though she had no idea why.

The immortal stallion drew a sword and tried to slice through the strands tied to him. Berry, beginning to recover now from the jolt of being pulled back, also came to her senses and conjured a blade of magic to cut the strings. Except, they wouldn’t snap. Even when she increased her sword’s strength well past what she’d be able to manage in the real world, the strands remained completely untouched. Shadowmere wasn’t having much more luck; even Daybreak had no effect on the cables. Frustrated, Berry fired her crossbow up toward where her strings converged, but the unseen explosion of her bolt only caused them to sway slightly.

“You know, this could be a good thing,” Shadowmere commented after they’d both given up trying to free themselves of their tethers.

“Just how is that?” Berry asked skeptically.

“With any luck, we’ll be guided down the path out of here as long as we follow where our tethers lead us. This could actually work out quite well.”

Berry hated to admit it, but he did have a point. The sound of clattering wood reminded her why they’d been running in the first place.

“Well, I guess we have to hope for the best. Let’s move!” Berry said as the first of the puppets appeared down the path she had almost taken.

Thankfully, the puppets were still vulnerable to the duo’s weapons, and Beryl blasted them to pieces in an explosion of bluish fire from a special quarrel. Shadowmere led the way, slicing through the puppets with a sword to clear a path as Berry guarded their rear, turning any pursuing puppets into splinters or slicing them with her magical sword if they got too close. As Shadowmere had predicted, the tethers seemed to be leading them somewhere, as every now and then they’d take a wrong turn and be yanked back violently. Berry hoped that whatever was leading them along truly was guiding them to some destination, and not just pulling them around aimlessly. The maze walls all looked identical, and there was no way of telling if they hadn’t just looped back around to their original position. If only they could fly, but neither pony was a pegasus, and so were earthbound.

After what seemed like an eternity of running, they stumbled into a large open area with doorways around the edge leading back into the maze. At the very center of the open space was a rough podium that looked simultaneously like a stump and a pony-constructed piece of furniture. Embedded in it was a crystalline sword, the hilt pointed straight up. Shadowmere sheathed the sword he was carrying as they approached it.

“Do you think that will cut the strings?” Berry asked as she stared at the gleaming weapon.

“One way to find out,” Shadowmere said, and he grabbed the sword in his mouth and pulled it from the podium.

Instantly the floor panels beneath them fell away, and Berry and Shadowmere found themselves suspended over a bottomless pit, dangling from their puppet strings. The puppets that had begun to enter the open area were now also hanging out over the abyss, but they were still moving toward the duo, albeit at a slower pace than before. Shadowmere motioned to Berry before throwing the sword to her, and she caught it with her magic. Giving it a swing, she sliced easily through the strings holding Shadowmere in place. A few more swipes, and the immortal stallion fell into the darkness below. The puppets were closing in now, and Berry quickly cut her own strings, swiftly falling out of their wooden reach.

Only moments after she’d begun to fall, the sword slipped from her magical grasp and disappeared into the darkness. Berry tried to see what she was falling toward, but there was nothing to see, and the drop was making her eyes water, anyway, so she looked up instead. The maze’s mysterious light swiftly shrunk until there was nothing left but a pinprick of illumination. Slowly, more lights appeared above her until it resembled a night’s sky. Out of the corner of her eye, Berry even spotted the moon, though it didn’t have its distinctive pony head pattern for some reason. She looked down just seconds before the ground rushed up and met her.

Instinctively, she closed her eyes, but when she opened them she found that she had arrived on the ground completely intact, with none of the injuries one would expect from falling from such a great height; she was even standing upright. Berry had landed on a rough dirt road bordered on one side by a low stone wall and on the other by a rickety fence. Fields stretched out into the distance on either side of the road, and mountains ringed the horizon. To the left the path seemed to lead to a distant castle, but there was a small circle of light in the middle distance that seemed to be coming from a lantern.

“We should get moving that way,” Shadowmere said from right beside Berry, startling her.

“Will you ever stop doing that?” she asked with annoyance as she stepped to the side and made sure she could keep him in sight.

“Probably not. I’m old and set in my ways,” he said before trotting off toward the castle.

Berry sighed and followed Shadowmere down the path. She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. Probably a little of both, she decided. Sometimes it seemed like he was just another pony, but many times she was reminded just how different he really was. An immortal, and that was just about the extent of her knowledge. She had no idea how he’d become immortal, what his immortality really meant, or really anything about him besides the few scraps of information he’d chosen to disclose to her. She acted like she knew him well, but in reality Berry knew very little about her companion.

She ceased her musings as they reached the nearby light source. It turned out to be a lantern mounted on a post at a crossroads. Directly beneath the lamp was set up a wooden table, and standing behind it was a stallion in clothing taken right out of a history book on the founding of Equestria. He was swiftly shuffling a deck of cards between his hooves, and he stared at Shadowmere and Berry as they approached.

“Care for a game?” the pony said smoothly, “It’s high risk, but the rewards are unimaginable. Oh, the tales I could tell you.”

“We’ll pass, thanks,” Shadowmere said gruffly as he trotted past.

“It’s your loss, Ghost of Cluj Naponi,” the pony said as he tipped his cap toward Shadowmere and narrowed his eyes.

The only reaction he got was that Shadowmere stopped in his walk for a moment before continuing. Berry trotted to catch up, ignoring the card-pony as she did so.

“What was that about?” Berry asked.

“I would think you’d realize never to make a deal at a crossroads,” Shadowmere said, not letting up the pace a bit, “I can imagine the tales he has to tell. All of them end with his opponent forfeiting their eternal soul.”

“Not what I meant. Why did he call you the Ghost of Cluj Naponi?”

“This area of the dreamscape, it reminds of a place I visited a long time ago,” Shadowmere said as he gestured around, “The residents gave me that name. That the pony back there knew it is just because the dreamscape is shaped by our memories as well as Dietrep’s.”

“I see,” Berry said.

It didn’t explain why he hadn’t just brushed it off and moved on, though. Was this another thing about his past he didn’t want to talk about, like founding the Ministry? What secrets was he hiding?

“There’s nothing else around, so I’d wager that castle is where we’re supposed to go next,” Shadowmere said, pointing at the towering structure in the distance, “Let’s concentrate on reaching it.”

***

The hinges squealed in protest as Berry swung the door open. Upon entering the castle, it had seemed very familiar. Now that Berry had opened this door, she realized why. The room she trotted into looked nearly identical to the room they had met Dietrep in, including the large set of windows looking out in the direction she and Shadowmere had come from. The throne was rotated so that it faced the window, though. The only light in the room was coming from the moon outside, so all she could see of the throne was a silhouette, but as she got closer she realized that something was wrong.

She galloped forward when she spotted the sword hilt sticking out of the back of the throne. The rest of the sword had been plunged through the throne and the pony on the other side, and a pool of blood had formed on the ground. The pony slumped over in the throne looked strikingly like Dietrep, except for the vampiric aspects. So far as she could tell, the king (his crown had rolled across the floor) was just a regular pony. Still, brushing anything off in the dreamscape as coincidence could be dangerous.

“Does this mean what I think it means?” she asked Shadowmere after the two of them stood silently for several minutes.

“I certainly hope not,” he said solemnly, “Come on, we’d better keep moving.

Berry gave one last look back at the slain king before trotting over to the door Shadowmere had gone through. As she passed through, she immediately found herself in an earthen tunnel with flames surrounding her. She quickly cast a spell to protect her from the fire, and looked for some indication of which way was out.

“This is my memory; I know the way out,” Shadowmere announced as he ran up the passage at Berry.

The flames seemed to jump out of his way as he galloped down the tunnels, and even when they did hit him, they were deflected off the cloak he was suddenly wearing for some reason. In fact, his whole outfit had changed, perhaps to fit the time period of his memory, and though he still looked terrifyingly immortal, he somehow seemed younger. How far in the past was this memory from?

Pieces of the ceiling began to fall as they continued through the passages, Shadowmere never faltering for a second. He seemed to know the layout of this place intimately, and Berry wondered what it had once been to him. They’d passed through several dining and sleeping areas, so he obviously hadn’t lived here alone. Had an order of monster hunters once dwelled here?

The two ponies finally made it to a set of stairs that led into a large cavern with a waterfall and pond. Shadowmere pointed the way to a tunnel on the far side that would lead out, and urged Beryl to run for it. Shadowmere himself stood still for a minute, looking back at a side passage, and Berry followed his gaze. In a nearby room was a large metal coffin leaning against the wall, covered in strange runes.

“Not this time, either,” Shadowmere whispered barely audibly before breaking his stare at the coffin and taking off for the exit.

Berry managed to get outside first through the skull-shaped door, and she found herself in the middle of the woods. Running back and forth through the trees were earth ponies with torches and pitchforks. Many of them were calling for Shadowmere’s head, and some were calling for his head again. In all the confusion, the two ponies were able to slip past them and into the forest.

“That went better than in reality,” Shadowmere commented once the sounds of angry villagers faded into the distance.

“Did they execute you?” Beryl asked.

“No; they did catch me, though, and I had to fight my way through,” Shadowmere said with a frown, “I’ve been many things in my life, but always a killer. I’m glad the time is past that the things I kill are ponies.”

“So, that was the past. Is there any way to tell if what we’re seeing is the past, the present, or the future?” Beryl asked as she looked around at the trees, which seemed to be closing in and forming a corridor.

“The nature of the dreamscape makes it difficult,” Shadowmere admitted, “It could be any or all three at once. Even something that you’re certain is just a memory could tell you something new if some feature is different from what actually transpired.”

“I see,” Berry said as the trees firmed up into an actual corridor.

In a transition that the mind couldn’t comprehend, the forest became a hallway with shops on both sides. Ponies in warm clothing spilled out into the hall, and soon Berry and Shadowmere were walking through a crowd. Cheery tunes were blasted out of speakers in the ceiling, nearly drowned out by the multitude of pony voices.

“This is the Mall of Equestria in Whinnyapolis,” Berry realized.

Just like in the real world, it also appeared to be Hearth’s Warming Eve here. The mall and stores were packed with ponies trying to get last minute deals on gifts. None of them seemed to pay any mind to the heavily armed duo standing in their midst, for some reason.

They hadn’t been there too long when the crowd surged forward, carrying Berry and Shadowmere with them. The excited shouting became louder as everypony converged on a bookshop. Berry and Shadowmere tried to break free from the flow of ponies, but no matter what they did, they were still propelled along and funneled into the shop. The door swung shut and a little bell tinkled as the crowd finally came to a stop, packed into the bookstore so tightly that one could hardly move.

Everypony’s attention was fixed on a blue-coated unicorn in a suit seated behind a folding table. She was signing and distributing copies of a book to the members of the crowd, and Berry realized that a sign to her right was advertising just that. It read:

Book Signing and Sale Hearth’s Warming Eve Only!

1008 Tales and Legends of Romanean Folklore
by D.K. Night

Only 1 soul to purchase!

The last line made her do a double-take. The cost for a book was one soul? They were in a dream, but even so … Could this be something important to be learned from the dreamscape? Souls, tales, and a title suspiciously similar to the book she’d returned to Shadowmere the day before. What parts were from Dietrep, from her, and from Shadowmere? Was there any way to tell?

“Hey, you! Miss Night!” Beryl called to the author as she pushed her way through the crowd, choosing a direct approach, “What’s the meaning of all this?”

“Oh, do you want a book?” she asked, holding a copy out toward Beryl.

“No, I don’t!” she said as she knocked it to the floor, “You can’t go around taking ponies’ souls as payment for your books!”

“I didn’t think there’d be a problem,” D.K. Night said as she cowered away, “I was assured everything would be alright.”

“What seems to be the issue here?” a stallion asked as he emerged from the shadows behind the author.

His coat was an even darker shade of blue than D.K. Night’s, and he too wore a suit. His mane was tied back into a ponytail, and he also wore a hat and dark glasses on his head. A shawl over his back covered his wings.

“Who are you supposed to be?” Beryl asked the newcomer.

“Why, I’m Miss Night’s manager, of course, but who I am will soon be the least of your worries,” the stallion said as he flashed a smile, and Beryl spotted a sharper than normal tooth in his mouth.

The pegasus stallion clapped his hooves together and the store vanished. Bookshelves and Hearth’s Warming Eve shoppers transitioned into an amorphous state for a moment before solidifying into a new scene. Flames were all around and at first Berry thought that they’d been transported back to the burning tunnels, but then she looked up at the blazing building in front of her. Canterlot Castle was on fire, and as Berry looked around she saw that the whole city was burning. When was this? The past? The present? The future? Where was Shadowmere at?

A roar drew Beryl’s attention upward, and she froze in horror at what she saw. A wyvern flew past Canterlot Castle, dousing it in flames, before spinning around and hovering in place. She couldn’t look away, and the dreamscape began to warp and twist around her as her breathing quickly reached an alarming rate. She heard familiar screams, and spears flew past her as she began to shake. Nearby, Shadowmere broke through the door of a burning building and galloped toward the mare as fast as he could without being sucked into the tumultuous region surrounding her.

“Berry, think about something else! Break free! Snap out of it!” he shouted, but she could barely hear his voice.

Flaming pieces of ceiling fell around Beryl as she screamed and darted away, squeezing under a bed, covering her head with her hooves. Magic crackled around her as protective spells broke apart and the wyvern’s roar shook everything. Blood flew through the air and Beryl ran, only to come face to face with the monstrous lizard. Its jaws opened wide and its throat glowed as it prepared to roast everything in its path.

Then, everything in the chaos was swept away by an even more chaotic storm. The scene around Beryl changed so quickly that she was only able to catch snapshots. A burning building, a sleeping pony, a seven-headed dragon, Celestia seated on a throne, a cream-coated pony with sword and staff, a moonlit grotto. The scenes continued to flash by faster than Beryl could fully comprehend, and quickly became more disturbing. Blood flowed and monsters perished, or succeeded in tearing apart helpless victims. There were so many victims, so many ponies that died in exchange for those saved. Beryl could feel it: the sadness, the helplessness, the weariness. Then she experienced death, not once, but over and over. Decapitation, incineration, mutilation, death by beast and pony, death by overexposure and drowning, death by choice. It was terrible, and she couldn’t bear it. A scream she didn’t hear erupted from her throat and darkness and silence replaced everything.

***

When Berry’s eyes cracked open, she saw only darkness. She was lying on something soft, and realized after a moment that she was in a bed, with the covers pulled over her. She sat up quickly, not trusting anything. Was she still in the dreamscape, or back in reality? As her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she saw that she was wearing her civilian clothes once again. That was no guarantee, though, so she tried to use her imagination to change them into her Ministry uniform. When nothing happened, she decided that the better odds were for her being in reality again.

Berry climbed out of bed once she’d taken a minute to gain her bearings, and trotted over to the door. On the other side was a hallway of the same style as the one Shadowmere had led her down the day before, with dim gas lamps leading past unevenly spaced doors. It didn’t take her long to realize that it was not the same passage as before, which begged the question: how large was Shadowmere’s hideout? Certainly it had to be larger than Rosethorn Hall at this point.

Since Berry was completely unfamiliar with this area and had no idea how to get back to the sitting room, and because the passage didn’t seem to be coming to an end, she started trying doors. Most were sealed with various locks, and Berry passed those by, but she was able to access a few. One led to a rainforest-like room filled with exotic plants. Another had a crystalline chamber on the other side. Other rooms were more recognizable, like an armory filled with weapons, and the place Shadowmere did his laundry (which Beryl subconsciously knew had to exist, but it was still strange to see it).

She had opened quite a few doors and was still completely lost, when she spotted a large, ornate set of doors ahead that were propped open. Curious, she trotted up to them and saw that they led into a library. It wasn’t an unimpressive library either; this collection of books easily rivaled the size of the Canterlot Archives. Shelves soared to a second level, where railed walkways were suspended. The way the ceiling extended past the last shelf of books suggested that there was more to the upper level than could be seen from down below, so Berry trotted up a spiral staircase to the second floor to take a look around.

Past the bookshelves was a small sitting area with a table and chairs (and more bookshelves, these with locked gates in front of them). Seated at the table was Shadowmere, a pile of open books before him, along with a journal in which he was writing with a quill. When he noticed Berry, he finished what he was writing before setting down the quill, closing the journal, and tying it shut.

“Feeling better?” he asked as he began to consolidate the tomes before him.

“What happened in the dreamscape?”

“Your mind was beginning to take over the dream, and it would soon have overwhelmed it,” Shadowmere explained, “Something you saw caused a strong reaction from your memories, and they began to flood in.”

“But what about your memories?” Berry asked, “You said that the burning tunnels and the forest were part of your memories, and that the land with the castle and the card-dealer were familiar to you. What was the difference?”

“Those scenes were part of the dreamscape, constructed from my mind, not by it,” Shadowmere said as he finished stacking the books and pushed them to the side, “When I experienced my memories, I kept a tight hold on my mind, but you are unexperienced in traversing dreamscapes and were unable to do so. I assume you saw something familiar that triggered the collapse, something constructed from your mind, an unpleasant memory most likely.”

Berry nodded with a frown and she stared at the floor.

“Don’t feel like this was your fault,” Shadowmere continued, “What I saw … I can’t imagine anypony traversing a dreamscape for their first time and facing something from their past like that without the same result.”

“At the end, it was different though, wasn’t it?” Berry asked, “At least, what I saw certainly weren’t my memories.”

“Correct; they were mine,” Shadowmere said, “I saw that you wouldn’t be able to break out of it on your own, so I released my own memories in order to shock you out of the dream.”

“So, everything I saw?” Berry asked, recalling how terrible the things were she’d seen.

“Yes; they were my memories,” Shadowmere said, “now we’ve both seen a bit of each other’s minds.”

Berry let that sink in. It was hard to remember exactly what she’d seen, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Also, what had Shadowmere seen of her past? As a Ministry agent, Berry had very powerful spells protecting her memories from being read, but apparently that didn’t apply to the dreamscape.

“So,” Berry said, clearing her throat, “What did you learn from the dreamscape?”

“Not much, yet,” Shadowmere said, gesturing to the stack of books, “We still have to finish traversing it, after all.”

“You mean you didn’t continue after I … woke up?” Berry said, for lack of a better phrase.

“Impossible,” Shadowmere said, “Once two begin traversing the dreamscape, they must be the ones to finish traversing it. After all, it can’t exist without our contributions to it, now can it?”

“I suppose not,” Berry said.

“Well then, shall we try again?” Shadowmere asked, “I should warn you that we’ll reenter the dreamscape exactly where we left it, so prepare yourself so that your mind doesn’t begin to flood in again.”

“Let’s do it,” Berry said, resolving not to let that happen.

They didn’t have the time to afford another mistake. With every second that ticked by, the likelihood that what Dietrep had seen coming to Canterlot would arrive increase, and Berry saw on a nearby clock that their first jaunt in the dreamscape and her time spent sleeping downstairs had already cost them several hours of the day.

Berry finally knew exactly where she was when Shadowmere opened the door out of the library’s sitting area and she saw that the other side was his hideout’s main sitting room. Dietrep’s crystal ball was still sitting on the table, and Berry and Shadowmere returned to their previous positions on either side of it. Berry closed her eyes and steeled herself for what was coming while Shadowmere repeated his chant.

When she opened her eyes, she was standing in the burning Canterlot once again. She squeezed her eyes shut again when she heard the wyvern’s roar. Against her better judgement, she slowly opened her eyes again and looked back up at it. She could feel her memories begin to tug at her, and it was hard to fight from being pulled back into them again, but this time she was more prepared. She forced herself to look away from the wyvern, and instead looked at the moon behind it. It was then that she realized that daylight was fading, and that the glow around the moon was the sun hidden behind it. She recognized the eclipse, though neither she nor anypony she knew (except maybe Shadowmere) had ever experienced one. The last eclipse had occurred … well, a few centuries ago at least.

“Berry!” she heard Shadowmere call, and turned to see that he was down the street, pointing at a hooded elderly mare beckoning for them to come to her, “This way!”

Blocking out the rampaging wyvern as best she could, Berry ran down the street to Shadowmere and the crone. She stopped beckoning when they reached her and led them into a burning house. The smell of smoke disappeared as soon as they stepped through the door, and as it slammed shut they could see that they were in a different building entirely.

They were within a theater, and the crone led them through the aisle between the stage and the first row of seats. A cold silence seemed to fill the place, and Berry felt that it would somehow be wrong to talk here, even about the things she was seeing, for there was much to see. The seats of the theater were filled with pony skeletons, the bones so clean of flesh that it looked like something had eaten every last morsel. Strangely, each and every one of the skeletons were poised on the edge of their seats, as if they were entranced with some unseen show on stage. On stage there was nothing much remarkable, except for piles of clothes that Berry soon realized were discarded costumes. At least, if this theater was supposed to exist in the modern day, they were. Clothes like that hadn’t been worn since the first Hearth’s Warming Eve.

The crone continued to lead them on to a door on the far side of the theater and out into an underground cave. Looking back, Berry saw that there was no door behind her anymore, but a large cave entrance that looked out on a setting sun. A path had been carved into the cave floor, and the crone led them down it to a small ferry boat. She climbed aboard and beckoned for Shadowmere and Berry to follow her, so they complied. Still in silence, they rowed out into a subterranean river.

They had been floating along for several minutes when Berry saw a pale hoof reach over the edge of the ferry. As the pony it belonged to attempted to pull itself up, she saw that the flesh was peeling off the foreleg, or perhaps rotting would be a more astute description. The crone gave the hoof a sharp whack with the pole she was using to steer the ferry and the hoof let go, making a small splash as it descended beneath the water. Curious, Berry moved over to the edge and peered into the river, only to recoil. Just beneath the surface were thousands of the living corpses, all reaching up for an escape from their watery grave.

“What is this place?” Berry asked, more to herself than directed at anypony.

“A river of the dead,” Shadowmere answered anyway, “Some pegasus legends spoke of such a place, though the rest of the design is reminiscent of Tartarus’s entrance.”

“Indeed,” the crone said in a deep and menacing voice, and Berry turned to see with surprise that the crone was a crone no longer.

The hood and cloak were still there, but the form beneath it was no longer that of a pony. The lower half resembled the torso of a stocky pony, but where the neck should have been was a torso like the upper half of a minotaur. Berry remembered reading about these creatures before, but centaurs were truly an extinct race. Perhaps that’s why this centaur was a skeleton; it gripped the pole in a pair of bony hands and gave the duo a fiendish lipless grin.

Shadowmere appeared to be far more shocked that Berry thought he should have been, and he staggered backwards, away from the centaur, with a look of dread on his face, before falling from the boat. Berry ran over to the side as the centaur used its pole to bring the ferry to a halt. Shadowmere was sinking away, the masses of the dead dragging him deeper under. Seeing no other option at the moment, Berry dove in after him.

The water was freezing, and Berry could quite literally feel the cold, bony hoof of death reaching out for her as she swam after Shadowmere. Her horn glowed every few seconds as she sent out a bubble of magic that forced the corpses away from her. When she at last reached Shadowmere, she conjured her magic sword and used it to drive the dead away, before grabbing hold of the stallion and rocketing toward the surface.

The two ponies emerged from the water in a spray of foam and landed heavily in the ferry. The centaur paid them no mind as Berry greedily sucked in air and Shadowmere coughed up water. Berry stood, lamenting that she’d be dripping wet for hours, until she realized that she could easily imagine herself dry and it would be over. As soon as she had dried herself, Shadowmere promptly splashed her with water as he tried to wring out his dripping mane, which had pulled free of the strand keeping it tied behind his head.

“What was that about?” Berry asked after drying herself again.

“I was reminded of someone, that’s all,” Shadowmere said.

“The centaur?” Berry asked as she turned to look at their guide, only to see that he was no longer standing in the front of the boat.

“It appears our guide wishes to guide us no longer,” Shadowmere said as he picked up the pole dropped on the floor of the ferry, “Looks like it’s up to us to find our way to the end of the river.”

***

Berry froze when she stepped through the door, though what she saw was exactly what she’d expected to see. At the end of the river was a castle just like the one where she’d found the dead almost-Dietrep. And just like then, upon reaching the throne room, the sight that greeted her was a throne with a sword sticking out of the back. As she trotted around with a heavy heart, she realized that something was different. The pony sitting in this throne was a mare, and an alicorn like Celestia. Her coat was more of a cream than white and her mane was spark-filled and golden, but the resemblance to Equestria’s monarch was uncanny. When Berry saw the blood dripping from the dead pony’s mouth, she had to look away.

Outside the window, looming huge in the sky, was the eclipse again. Berry looked around for the wyvern, and breathed a small sigh of relief when it didn’t appear. What could all this mean? In both the burning Canterlot and here, an eclipse dominated the sky, and in both places tragedy had befallen Equestria’s capital. Was it symbolic of a great threat to come, or did it have a more literal meaning?

Shadowmere beckoned for Berry to follow him, and the two of them left the throne room again, this time ending up in a moonlit grotto. Thankfully, the moon here was normal, and it cast a cool and reassuring light on the cavern. As the duo trotted forward, the light glinted off a massive sword planted in the ground at the center of the grotto. Their steps halted when a deafening howl went up in the distance.

A gigantic wolf vaulted over the edge of the grotto and bounded to the sword, grabbing it in its teeth and yanking it from the ground. Berry and Shadowmere ducked as a blade the length of a train car whistled over their heads. Looking around frantically, Berry realized that there was no way out of the grotto, including the now non-existent door they had come through. Her thoughts on the strangeness of traversing a landscape that constantly changed were jolted from her head as the wolf brought down the sword between her and Shadowmere, sending chips of stone and the two ponies flying.

Berry drew her crossbow, but after firing a few shots—including explosive ones—at the wolf and seeing it brush them off, she gave up on hurting it. The beast seemed more concerned with keeping Berry and Shadowmere apart than killing them, as it had many chances to strike them and instead chose to separate them with a swing of its sword or a swipe from its massive paws. Only when they were apart did it try to kill them, and always with its gigantic weapon.

Trying to break free of this perpetual dance on the edge of death, Shadowmere began to gallop as fast as he could along the edge of the grotto, and, suspecting his intent, Beryl followed his lead and galloped the other way. When they met, the wolf brought its sword down and the blade sank through the grotto wall, halting as it became stuck. When it tried to pull it free, it shifted the rock and a crevasse was formed; a way out.

Giving up on the sword, the wolf took a position in front of the escape route and snapped with its massive teeth at Beryl and Shadowmere as they galloped for the crevasse. Beryl conjured her magic sword into existence and swung it fluidly as they reached the wolf’s head, slicing through its left eye. Howling in pain, the wolf stumbled out of the way and pawed at its wounded eye, which now somehow had an eyepatch over it. Shadowmere seemed like he wanted to pause for a moment, but then carried on galloping, and he and Berry left the grotto side by side.

Berry came to a halt as she found herself standing on the streets of Canterlot under a dark, storm-cloud filled sky. There was nopony around to be seen, and the feeling that the city was deserted hung heavily in the air. She was standing on Monument Lane, Canterlot’s main road from the city’s entrance to the castle, but there were no carriages clogging it as there normally would be. The massive statues that lined the road were not surrounded by tourists snapping photos, and the food carts at the bases that catered to them were nonexistent.

Around Berry were the six largest (and some said oldest) statues that lined Monument Lane: sculptures of the Six Founders of Equestria. Princess Platinum, Commander Hurricane, Chancellor Puddinghead, Clover the Clever, Private Pansy, and Smart Cookie all looked down at the road. Then they turned to look at Berry.

The statues of the Founders were all alive, though their hooves appeared to be rooted in place and their movements were slow and ponderous, as one would expect from statues of such great size. As lightning flashed across the sky, Berry got a better look at their faces and realized that each and every one was actually a porcelain mask sculpted to match their appearances perfectly. From behind the mask, Beryl could see blood dripping down over the statues’ jaws, though whether it was their blood or if the blood was dripping from their mouths, she couldn’t tell.

Darkness descended over the street as the Founders loomed closer, and Berry was worried what was coming next. Nothing came next, though, as Beryl found herself lying on the sofa in Shadowmere’s sitting room. Her eyes fluttered open, and she sat upright, a bit dazed from being returned to reality so quickly from the dreamscape. The crystal ball on the table between them was now clear, the last residue of smoke fading away.

“How are we supposed to learn anything from that madness?” Berry said after a long silence.

“Indeed, traversing the dreamscape is merely the first step,” Shadowmere replied, “We may never understand everything we encountered there, but we can begin by piecing things together that we can understand to get a better view of what’s coming. Dietrep tried to focus the trance, and thus also the dreamscape on the most urgent and immediate threat, so we’re more likely to figure that out than anything else because we’ll have more pieces to work with.”

“I think that the danger is going to occur today,” Berry said thoughtfully, “At least, the Hearth’s Warming Eve sale and the Founders at the end seem to suggest so.”

“Good; we can work with this,” Shadowmere said, “I think I know what we’re up against: a crossroads lobgoblin.”

“Explain,” Berry said as she tried to determine how he’d come to such a conclusion. Thanks to 1008 Creatures of Romanean Folklore, she wasn’t entirely in the dark as to what a lobgoblin was.

“I first suspected it might be a possibility in the Mall of Equestria, when the price for a book of tales was one soul. The theater of very attentive skeletons confirmed it, and the card-dealing pony suggests that it’s a crossroads lobgoblin we’re dealing with.”

It was probably the sturdiest argument they were going to get, and it made sense. Lobgoblins were known for luring ponies in with fantastical stories and entrancing them before stealing their souls. Crossroads lobgoblins were simply a subset that tended to also materialize at crossroads and offer ponies deals where they would grant them anything they wanted in return for their eternal soul. Their gifts were almost always tainted, and when the ponies they’d dealt with came to complain, the lobgoblin would offer to tell them a tale, then collect their souls early.

“I think I know where the lobgoblin is going to be!” Beryl said with a start as she came to a realization, “The Hearth’s Warming Eve references weren’t just about the date. In the Mall of Equestria, ponies were frantic to buy something only offered today, the Six Founders of Equestria were the only things featured on Monument Lane, and then we have the empty theater. The lobgoblin is going to strike at the Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant.” And Celestia might be there.

“It makes sense, but is that it?” Shadowmere said contemplatively.

“What do you mean?”

“Lobgoblins don’t touch their victims’ bodies, but the audience was picked clean.”

“Maybe they don’t eat their victims, but it could have companions that do,” Berry said as her mind began to race, putting things together, “In fact, I’m almost sure that it does, and that it’s done this before. Two nights ago in Manehattan, a ‘gas leak’ in a theater killed 60 ponies, but I don’t think it was a gas leak at all. I think that the lobgoblin stole their souls, and the Ministry was covering up the truth. Yesterday, the remains of a pony were found on the road from Manehattan to Canterlot, devoured and hidden beneath a wagon belonging to a Manehattan acting troupe. I’d be willing to bet that same acting troupe was performing at that Manehattan theater, and is now preparing to perform the Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant at the Canterlot Royal Theatre.”

“Performing already,” Shadowmere said as he stared ahead intensely.

“What?”

“Look at the time,” the stallion said as he sprang to his hooves, “The pageant’s started by now.”

Berry jumped up as well and saw that he was telling the truth. While they were in the dreamscape it hadn’t seemed like that much time had passed, but it was now surely after sundown, and the Canterlot Royal Theatre had been packed for almost an hour. When would the lobgoblin choose to strike? Were they too late already? They couldn’t worry about these unknowns as they quickly grabbed their things and left Shadowmere’s apartments. Whether they were late or not, they still had a duty to catch the lobgoblin before it could get away again. Berry just hoped they weren’t too late for Celestia’s sake.

***

It was quiet in the Canterlot Royal Theatre, but just in case it was a low part of the play, Beryl slowly opened the door. It was a Ministry agent’s job to cause no disturbances whenever possible, and if she could defeat the lobgoblin without the audience knowing anything was amiss, all the better. At the moment, she didn’t look much like a Ministry agent, the situation being too urgent for her to retrieve her uniform, but hopefully ponies would respect a mare with a loaded crossbow and ammunition for it slung across her chest.

Within the theater, the seats were filled with ponies transfixed by the play, or by something anyway. Their blank stares and glazed eyes told Beryl all she needed to know, and she sprung through the door without a moment’s hesitation, pointing her crossbow at the stage. Onstage were six ponies dressed as the Six Founders, only halfheartedly acting out the story of the first Hearth’s Warming Eve now that the audience was completely docile. In the middle of them was a cloaked lobgoblin that had thrown its hood back to reveal its face. Faintly, here and there, Beryl could see trails leading from ponies in the audience to the lobgoblin’s gaping mouth as it siphoned away their souls. Beryl leveled her crossbow at the center of the stage and fired.

The lobgoblin’s eyes twitched as it spotted Beryl, and it somersaulted backwards as crossbow bolt sped toward him. The quarrel struck the stage right where the lobgoblin had been standing a second earlier and exploded, sending splinters of the stage flying in all directions and a blue-tinted fireball billowing upwards. One of the lobgoblin’s companions (the actor playing Clover the Clever) was struck by the fireball and didn’t rise from where it had fallen on the stage. A few moments later, the pony transformed; its coat changed color, its hooves turned to clawed paws, and its jaw widened to accommodate a multitude of pointed teeth. It was a brownie, without a doubt, which Beryl also knew from 1008 Creatures of Romanean Folklore.

As Shadowmere and Beryl advanced toward the stage down separate aisles, the rest of the actors shed their disguises and transformed into brownies. The masked and bloodied Founders from the dreamscape now seemed to make far more sense as brownies dressed as the Six Founders began to clamber down from the stage. Beryl fired her crossbow as one dressed as Chancellor Puddinghead scampered toward her. The bolt went through the creature’s eye, but it continued on, until it pounced at Beryl and she sliced its head clean off with her magic sword.

“Daybreak, to me!” she heard Shadowmere call as he summoned a sword of his own.

Beryl skewered another brownie with her sword before yanking the blade up and through its shoulder, and it flopped to the ground. Shadowmere had dispatched one brownie with Daybreak, but two more were closing in on him. Beryl pointed her crossbow at the pair and fired off an explosive bolt, praying that it would strike the brownies and not the audience. The explosion was smaller than the first one (she was taking as few chances as possible with the safety of Equestrian citizens), but one of the brownies was completely consumed. The other jumped nimbly out of the way and began to run across the backs of the theater’s seats toward Beryl.

The wingless Commander Hurricane dodged two shots from her crossbow, then sidestepped her sword when it came in melee range. Beryl tried to get a hit in with her sword, but kept failing, and she was no more successful in trying to strike with sword and crossbow at the same time. She jumped back as the brownie’s paw raked her side, easily tearing through her unenchanted civilian clothing and slicing four deep trails in her flesh. Beryl gritted her teeth as she went on the defensive, trying to keep the brownie away from her as she backstepped and tried to fashion a makeshift bandage for her wounds with her scarf.

There was no gaining back the initiative once she was finished, though; the brownie had the upper hoof now and wasn’t going to return it unless it slipped up. She continued to fend off its attacks until it sank its claws into her other side. Moving swiftly, she managed to pin its foreleg against her (and the claws in her flesh) and swung her magic sword up. The brownie swiped at her head with its free paw, but she ducked out of the way and all it got was her stocking cap. The brownie had missed its chance to kill her, and it would never get another one, as her sword sliced upwards and cut the creature nearly in half.

Beryl groaned as the halves of its body fell to the ground and the claws pulled out of her side. Before she could bleed out too much, she grabbed pieces of the brownie’s costume and wrapped them over her injury. Wincing as she did so, she turned to face the stage where Shadowmere was facing off against the lobgoblin. The monster’s agility was its strength, and Shadowmere deprived it of that strength by hacking off the ends of its long, spindly legs, bringing it down to his height. The lobgoblin appeared to increase its efforts to steal the audience’s souls in its last moments, and Shadowmere thrust Daybreak through its open mouth and out the back of its head. A greasy stain was left on the blade as the lobgoblin slid off and fell to the stage with a thud.

Beryl looked around frantically at the audience, which was no longer staring at the stage. Each and every pony was slumped over motionless in their seats. When she examined them, though, she saw with relief that they were still breathing. She looked up through the audience, but saw no sign of Celestia. It appeared Equestria’s princess had chosen to skip the Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant this year, for which Beryl was grateful.

“Berry, get up here,” Shadowmere called from the stage, and she turned around and trotted up to him, holding a hoof to her most wounded side.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked as he held up a silver amulet that had been around the lobgoblin’s neck.

Beryl took it from him and examined it more closely. It was old, and the design on it was intricately detailed. The amulet turned out to also be a locket, and Beryl carefully opened it up to take a look inside. Within was a small scrap of parchment covered in writing she couldn’t decipher and a tiny bundle of dried grass.

“This is the lobgoblin’s home talisman,” Beryl said as she passed it back to Shadowmere, “This is meant to guide it back to the land it was born in, and to prove it belonged to a clan.”

“It’s also enchanted,” Shadowmere said, and Beryl immediately understood the implications, “The spell is hard to detect, but far from impossible. A lobgoblin’s home talisman is tied deeply to them in more than just a physical way; it’s a link to their soul. This enchantment has allowed somepony to take possession of this lobgoblin and use it for their own purposes.”

“Our mutual friends who sent the gargoyles, tantibus, and djinn our way?” Beryl asked.

“I aim to find out,” Shadowmere said solemnly, “I’ll need to do some research, and also travel to this lobgoblin’s homeland. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but it will probably be months at least. While I’m away, I want you to have access to my chambers beneath Rosethorn Hall for anything you need.”

He passed Beryl a very old and rusted key, and she accepted it, tucking it into her ruined coat’s pocket.

“I don’t need to explain how important it is that we find whoever’s responsible for these attacks as soon as possible,” Shadowmere said before looking out at the slumbering audience, “I trust you have everything handled here, Ministry agent. Stay safe.”

***

Beryl waited nervously outside Canterlot Castle’s throne room. The wounds hidden beneath her Ministry uniform were still bothering her, but now it was more of an itch than pain. The Ministry had responded swiftly once Beryl notified them of what had happened at the Canterlot Royal Theatre (though she’d of course left out the details regarding Shadowmere), and all members of the audience were examined and found to be in perfect physical condition, with no memory of the incident except that “the last half of the play sucked.” Even after saving the lives of over a hundred ponies, though, the Ministry still refused to extend her vacation, and she returned to work one week later as planned. Her first assignment: report directly to Celestia.

“Celestia is ready to see you now,” the princess’s assistant—Raven according to the nameplate on her desk—announced.

Beryl rose and approached the towering golden doors, which swung upon easily with a push (obviously enchanted). It was a long walk from the throne room’s entrance to the throne, a journey past towering columns and beautiful stained-glass windows. Surprisingly, Celestia was not seated in her throne. Instead, the monarch stood just a few paces within the room. Beryl paused as the doors slammed shut behind her.

“You wanted to speak with me, your Highness?” Beryl asked, giving a slight bow.

“Yes, I wanted to personally thank you for saving all those ponies on Hearth’s Warming Eve,” Celestia said, exuding all the regality one would expect from an immortal monarch that moved the heavenly bodies with her magic.

“It was my honor, your Highness. I’m just glad that I was in the right place at the right time to step in,” Beryl said, at a bit of a loss for words. Celestia is taking the time to thank me personally!

“You went above and beyond the call of duty, acting while you were technically not on duty. I admire that, and I’m also glad that you were there at that time. I shudder to think of what might have happened had things transpired differently,” Celestia said, “Did you know that I was seriously considering attending the Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant this year?”

“I had heard rumors,” Beryl admitted.

“I assure you that they were quite true,” Celestia said as she trotted over to face a stained-glass window, and Beryl followed her, “My two closest advisors both had very strong opinions on the subject—opposing opinions—but I ultimately chose to go with whom I trusted more.”

Two closest advisors? One of them was certainly Director Thistleback, but who was the second? Malthus? Could Malthus have known about the lobgoblin and attempted to assassinate Celestia? No, these were crazy questions, and Beryl knew she was jumping to too many conclusions. There was no proof that Malthus was involved, much less plotting something. Still, the seed was planted in her mind, and the thought refused to go away.

***

“You fool! What were you thinking?” one of the statues atop the Moon Tower berated another while a third watched on in silence.

“I was merely attempting to forward our plan,” the second figure replied as it stretched its bat-wings, “I was under the impression that our goal was to kill Celestia.”

“None of that matters if we’re caught before Her return!” the first—the leader of the trio—said, “We have a flawless plan to execute, and we’ve ensured that nothing will be able to interfere with it. With these actions you’ve taken, you’ve endangered the whole operation. It was sloppy and irresponsible.”

“I’m sorry if I’m eager to take my revenge-”

“That’s not the issue here,” the leader cut him off, “We will have our revenge when the time is right. When Nightfall recruited you to our cause, it was to assist in the execution of a predetermined plan. Now will you follow the plan or not?”

“I will, and I apologize for my actions,” the new bat-pony said, yielding to the leader’s will.

“Thank you. And be patient; we will have our revenge,” the leader replied, “We’ve waited nine hundred ninety-nine and a half years; what’s six months more?”

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Why did you make the chapters so long? You respond to comments by moving your mouse over to the right hand side of the comment that you want to respond to and then clicking on the >> that appears.

[FireOfTheNorth]

7680962
Truthfully, I originally planned for these chapters to be longer than those of my previous fics, but not quite as long as they turned out. The idea was to be able to tell some longer self-contained stories in each chapter with a two story arcs loosely tying them together. I thought 20 pages (I write each story in Microsoft Word before publishing it here) would be enough, but it turns out 30-40 was more accurate. Another reason they're so long is that this story will be much shorter than fics like The Equine Scrolls: SkyFiM, which was 87 chapters long (not counting the prologues and epilogues). Darkest Shadows will be exactly 20 chapters long, divided into 2 10-chapter arcs. Hope I answered your question with my long response.

>>FireOfTheNorth