Five Thousand Years Ago: The Temple in the Desert
The sounds of ponies drummed into Zerephonzidas’s head as he stroked his chin, looking out over the vast sandy landscape beyond his balcony. Despite the heat, the air was humid, as the warmth carried the steam and water vapour from the swampy oasis below up to the higher rooms in the temple.
Zerephonzidas had seen many kings and queens in his long life. They tended to have palaces and castles. This one was different. The Emerald King has a temple, a site dedicated to his glory. In the eyes of himself and his nation, he was more than a mere ruler: he was a god. Ruler of water. Having posession over the oases in the desert made him custodian of life itself.
Zerephonzidas smirked. If the Emerald King was a god, then the sphinx was creation itself. Owning a few water holes didn’t make him any more powerful, or long lived. Give him fifty, sixty years and he’d be underground and his successor would be ranting about how omnipotent he was minutes later.
Life was a fickle thing. It could be taken away at any moment.
It could also provide many wonders. It was what convinced Zerephonzidas to stick around, unlike many of his more disillusioned brethren. It was common for sphinxes these days to actively seek an end, convinced that after millions of years, the world held no more surprises for them.
It was a lack of vision that had cost the sphinxes more dearly than the rise of the alicorns. Oh, that had been a fun little century. Ponies had, at last, evolved a method of dealing with the apex predator. Ponies that could fly and rain down magic from above, larger and stronger than an average pony. Moreover, they would be strengthened by proximity to their herd.
If sphinxes were the apex predator, then alicorns were the apex prey that sphinxes were no longer able to stalk without consequence. It had taken a century for his kind to learn that they simply weren’t worth the bother to exterminate.
Besides, with the sphinxes gone, the alicorns number would dwindle, slowly but surely. That was the beauty of a long life. If you had a problem, just wait long enough and it’ll end itself on its own.
Zerephonzidas heard hoofsteps behind him. He rolled his eyes. If the magic in this kingdom weren’t so interesting, he’d have been very tempted to leave for twenty years so that the current captain of the guard, some upstart named Grass, would be replaced.
“Sphinx,” came the loud, commanding voice.
Some ponies were simply born without a survival instinct. They were the most pesky of all. They never seemed to treat him with the respect a million year old lifeform was due.
“Little pony,” Zerephonzidas replied. “Does your king require my counsel?”
Grass nodded. “He does. I shall escort you to…”
“You will trot off and I will go there myself, alone, unsupervised,” Zerephonzidas said.
“That is not what I said,” Grass replied, his expression darkening.
“...Or I might kill you,” Zerephonzidas warned. “After all, only one of us is replaceable, no?”
Grass tightened his grip on his spear. The little fool was wearing armour made out of emeralds. Emeralds! As if they would help him at all. Steel would have been a wiser choice, although it occurred to Zerephonzidas that the ponies here didn’t know how to make steel. Brass or copper then, perhaps?
Zerephonzidas rolled his eyes, and got to his paws. He towered over the stallion, who was not a small pony by any stretch of the imagination. Delicately, he pushed past him, sliding the heavy guardpony across the stone floor.
“I’m on my way,” Zerephonzidas taunted. “Don’t get your tail in a twist.”
Grass moved to follow him, but if there was one place the unicorn guard could not follow Zerephonzidas, it was out the window.
Zerephonzidas escaped the escort by soaring over the temple. The sandy rock seemed to glitter like gold as it jutted from the swampy oasis dotted with colourful flowers and palm trees. The sound of lapping water was ever-present, as was the sound of pony life. To think that millenia ago the thought of ponies wandering outside mud huts was little more than fantasy. Even the smallest of creatures could surprise, Zerephonzidas thought.
Statues dedicated to the masters of magic of the era guarded the entryways to the temple and watched over the deep, dark passages of this utopian masterpiece. It was a dedication to opulence and awe. Murals coloured blue, gold, and above all, green, marked an age of art and beauty.
Other creatures than ponies dotted the temple. Minotaur workers were some of the only creatures stronger than even a sphinx, and dragons flew above the temple like crows. Neither was as advanced as the pinnacle of pony society, and showed the Emerald King due respect.
Zerephonzidas was perhaps the only animal in the entire temple to not treat the King like some kind of god sent down from the heavens to deliver upon ponies water. They said his blood ran with water, as if he was a fountain. They also said grass and greenery sprouted up wherever he walked. The King even believed it himself.
Oh, there were spells that could conjure up plants and water, but Zerephonzidas could see that it was no divine gift. Living through everything had given Zerephonzidas a somewhat anti-religious viewpoint. After all, he was older than most ‘gods’. Ancient temples ponies thought had been dedicated to the ‘true ruler in the sky’ Zerephonzidas knew to have been built by ponies with too much imagination and time on their hooves.
The trick, of course, was to keep quiet. Let them believe what they wanted. If you proved useful enough, religion could be amended and bent.
He landed in the courtyard. The temple doors towered many stories above him, and the steps crawled up the sides of the building like a spiderweb caught on a wall. Zerephonzidas slid towards the doors, his heavy coat running across the stone like a cloak.
The doors opened. The corridor beyond could have contained a cathedral, and was built as such. Long, dominating windows let in only slivers of green light. Columns loomed over him, stretching up as if they could reach the clouds themselves. The floor was a mosaic dedicated to the glory of the Emerald King.
Zerephonzidas passed yet another door, this one smaller, but adorned with gold and diamonds.
“The King is anxious to see you,” came a small voice, but one used to respect.
Zerephonzidas paused.
“Then perhaps you should stop interrupting me and let me see him,” he told the mare standing next to a column covered in mosaics. “Or aren’t I fashionably late enough?”
The mare looked left and right. “Where is Grass?”
“Why, in the temple.”
The mare frowned. “He was to escort you.”
“He cannot fly, unfortunately.”
A shadow of fear passed over the mare’s face. Zerephonzidas stored that little memory in the corners of his mind for further use.
“He is likely struggling his way down the stairs as we speak,” Zerephonzidas said. “Now, I shall be off, Queen Flowing Water.”
The Queen glowered at Zerephonzidas. There was little love between the pair.
“Unless, of course, you have anything useful to say?”
The queen folded her hooves.
“Nothing you can’t hear from the King.”
“He dislikes explaining things.”
“That doesn’t sound like any concern of mine.”
Zerephonzidas tilted his head. “How caring.”
Flowing Water brushed the comment aside and strode past Zerephonzidas towards the end of the corridor. “Like king, like queen,” she muttered.
The pair made their way through the increasingly ornate forest of pillars. Plants and flowers of every colour sprouted from pots and from holes in the walls. Fountains bled water like they were gushing wounds. Zerephonzidas dipped his paw in one of them to cool down. It was fresh and clear.
Then the sphinx and the queen passed the third, and most ornate, door.
A mountain of steps led to the throne, which was flanked on either side by a trickling font of water. Greenery grew all around it, and a small battalion of ponies held large fans to keep the king cool.
As for the king himself, he was invisible behind an emerald and jade mask, and a full suit of armour made completely out of green. He was less pony and more golem. Even his eyes were invisible. No stallion alive could shift that armour without assistance, which explained why he needed to be carried and assisted by a small contingent of slaves every second of every day. Supposedly he removed it to sleep, but Zerephonzidas hadn’t bothered to check.
“Your highness,” Flowing Water said, bowing.
Zerephonzidas gave a small bow as well. His personal feelings aside, he still needed to coexist with the Emerald King.
The king, on the other hand, said and did nothing. His first magician, a robed unicorn named Reed, stepped forwards.
“Our scouts have found something of great import,” Reed said. “The king wishes to know whether the long lived sphinx has ever seen its like before.”
Zerephonzidas raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps. What is it?”
“Deep in the desert, there is a ruin. It is old, and we cannot discern its origin. Inside is a strange column.”
“A column?” Zerephonzidas asked.
“Yes. Here is our scouts impression of it,” the wizard said, handing Zerephonzidas a sketch.
“I daresay your pony doesn’t have much career potential as an artist,” Zerephonzidas said. “This is little more than a scribble.”
“It was made of a material unknown to us,” Reed said. “It has been in those ruins for an indeterminate amount of time, although we believe it to predate the ruins by many thousands of years.” The magician raised his eyebrow. “The fact you have not heard of it or seen it is concerning in and of itself.”
“Hardly. I cannot have been everywhere at once,” Zerephonzidas said. He looked at the sketch. Despite the poor quality of the drawing, he felt the cold touch of destiny up his spine. “Regardless, I should like to examine this column.”
“As would I. The scouts were in quite a state when we found them,” Reed said. He looked up at the Emerald King. “This column could be of use to your highness.”
Likely as a weapon, Zerephonzidas thought. He stroked his chin. It was a very curious looking thing, regardless. Well worth investigating. It might perhaps be the most interesting thing to see this century.
Or it could be little more than inane scribbles on a piece of parchment. Zerephonzidas didn’t know for sure.
Zerephonzidas bowed to the king. “With your leave,” he said.
Slowly, the heavy emerald mask lowered in a curt nod.
The sphinx smiled. Good. At long last, more to see. More to do.
He left the throne room. Reed followed him.
“I trust you will prepare quickly?”
Zerephonzidas nodded. “Of course,” he said. “I can hardly wait to get going.”
There was little wonder the scouts had found this place, Zerephonzidas thought. The rock jutted out of the sand like the prow of a sinking ship. It was practically begging to be investigated.
The small batallion of scholars and guards trotted in front of Zerephonzidas, entering the small gateway to the ruins. Zerephonzidas had to admit, he didn’t recognise the architecture. It was old, though. Not quite as old as a sphinx, but it was certainly doing its best.
Zerephonzidas stepped into the darkness. The horns of the unicorns, including Reed, lit up the stone walls.
“We’ll have to paint murals in the glory of the Emerald King, of course,” Reed said to one of his colleagues. “Just in case he visits.”
Zerephonzidas walked through the small army. The ruins were labyrinthian. It occurred to him that he had seen similar ruins in Minos, where the minotaurs lived. The minotaurs hadn’t built their labyrinths either.
“Very interesting,” Zerephonzidas muttered. But where was the column?
The group continued exploring, splitting up where there were forks in the passages. Zerephonzidas trusted his eyes to guide him towards his true goal. He could almost see the strings of magic tendril out from the true center of the ruins.
Almost. It was like trying to see a ghost. There was only the faintest of outlines. Less than that, even. More just the sensation that something was there, without any of his actual senses detecting anything worthwhile.
It was a frustrating thing to see, but it filled Zerephonzidas with hope and anticipation. This was something he had never seen before. He was excited.
When he finally reached the black column, stretching above him like a mountain, seemingly with no end, he was frozen to the spot.
It was truly, absolutely, completely unique.
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Ouch, that hurts the story by a little!
Anyways, did you kill off Clover just like that?
7746556 Cheers for pointing that out! This excuse is going to get old real quick, but it is tricky to spellcheck everything whilst still pumping out the words for NaPoWriMo.
Frankly, I didn't intend to make it look like Clover died: more that Zerephonzidas was merely keeping her away from Celestia. Thing is, though, I don't really mind people thinking she kicked the bucket: it's really rather the same result either way.
I'm quite happy to leave that up to reader interpretation.
7746562 Ohh okay I see, well, I hoped that she lived on.