The Hollow Pony

by Type_Writer

49 - The Undertunnels

Four ponies aboard made the raft unsteady, so Red and I remained as still as we could while Meadowbrook and Dinky piloted us forward across the lake, towards the elevator. It gave me time to look at the platform, and the cables of the elevator far above.

They’d been hard to pick out before; a single set of thin dark lines barely stood out, against a backdrop of crisscrossing scaffolding. But now that scaffolding was all so much splintered wood and rusting metal against the mountainside, the cables were the only reminder of the grand edifice that I’d helped destroy. They still ran in parallel to the wall, nearly disappearing into the clouds above, as I tried to see the tunnel entrance.

My vision lowered, towards the platform, as we approached. This end of it had originally looked just as ramshackle as the rest, but it seemed as though it had never actually been attached properly to the scaffolding. Instead, the tiny wooden pier had been cleverly built and disguised to look as though it were attached, and the supports that held it above the lake looked much sturdier than the rest of the floating detritus around us. Still, it meant that when the scaffolding fell, all around it, this tiny platform alone stayed standing.

The full construction of the elevator itself could not have been put together quickly, and it predated our arrival, which seemed strange. Mistmane claimed to have only just arrived before Dinky pulled me out of the lake, and yet this work would have been difficult to complete without a unicorn’s magic. How long had she, and the other Pillars, truly been here in Hammerhoof? And why were they lying to us?

But regardless of how long Mistmane had been here, why did she only emerge to aid us when Dinky had already pulled me out of the lake? Had they been watching her, or watching us, all this time?

I regarded Meadowbrook with some suspicion, but she was too busy piloting the raft to notice. Had she been honest with us so far? I wasn’t sure any more. I was suddenly reminded of Trixie, but I suspected that whatever game the Pillars were playing was a bit more grand than Trixie’s small, selfish goals.

The raft stopped with a bump against one of the wooden ties of the platform, and Dinky stabbed her pole into the silt of the lakebed before she began to anchor the raft. It would be fairly easy to climb up onto the platform a body-length above us, and then we’d take the elevator up, while Meadowbrook piloted the raft back to shore. From there, they’d keep watch over the lake, waiting for us to either bring the elevator back down or open the gate. This would likely be my last chance to ask her any questions, at least for a long time.

“M-Meadowbrook?” She turned to look at me, as did Red. “C-could I ask you s-something?”

“O’ course,” she said, with a nod. She glanced at Red, and he nodded quietly, then went to help Dinky up onto the platform. It wasn’t privacy, not really, but we would be harder to hear down on the raft while they were on the platform above.

It was hard for me to whisper; just being able to talk through my perpetual rasp and the unshakable rattle in my throat took effort, which often drowned words that were too quiet to overcome that obstacle. But I tried my best, and Meadowbrook leaned in close as I spoke. “Wh-what did you mean, b-before? About k-keeping my friends c-close, when I was t-talking about the flask of s-sunlight?”

The mare winced, and looked down at the muddy, poisonous water under our hooves. After a long sigh, she looked back at me. “Ah can only tell ya so much. Z’cora was the one who worked it out. Ah think ah can copy her trick, but…ah’d prefer not to, less ah had no choice.”

She waved a hoof towards me. “Mostly told ya the truth. Mostly. Somethin’ real important to know about Hollows, is that they always get back up, y’see? Kill ‘em, burn ‘em, cut ‘em apart, they don’t stop. The pony inside dies, but the body keeps’ goin, even if it’ll take all eternity for them to heal whatever damage they been dealt. I hear Magnus is just a head now, still livin’, still given’ orders.

“What ya found in Cloudsdale, that’s an important part of the puzzle. Mistmane tol’ me, ‘bout what you found…whatcha did. Ah think Rarity, or what’s left a’ her, is all around us now. Part o’ the background magic of this world, in every breath we take, in every drop o’ water, in every pound o’ dirt. And ah think she’s trying to put herself back together, or we’re trying to pull all o’ her into ourselves. Even the dead, whether they’re a pile o’ ash or a walkin’ skeleton. It’s just enough for the body to keep walkin’.

“Z’cora realized the one thing o’ which we had plenty, without any plants or herbs. Hollows. Even if she didn’t understand why yet, she knew that Hollows gathered that magic into themselves. So she…” Meadowbrook looked extremely uncomfortable now, and she swallowed some bile before she continued. “That pony that attacked us, in town. Your friend, Snips. And that other poor guard, Autumn Leaf. She picked ‘em.”

“P-picked them for wh-what…?” I asked, quietly.

Meadowbrook closed her eyes. “Don’t work with bone often. But I knew the theory, an’ Z’cora knew the rest. Burned the bones into ashes; mixed the ashes into glass. Blew new bottles out of the bone glass, and corked ‘em with silver. And jus’ like she thought they would, they started to fill with liquid sunlight.”

It took me a moment to catch up. When I did, I felt like I wanted to throw up again.

Meadowbrook saw me recoil, and nodded. “Ah didn’t like it. Still don’t. Z’cora went too far, damned near to necromancy, but we agreed to tell the Princess ‘bout what we did first, because we didn’t know whose side she’d take. But then the caravan got attacked, and Z’cora…” Meadowbrook swallowed again, as she looked down at the lake sadly. “Wish ah’d gotten to apologize to Z’cora. Said some stuff ah wanna take back now. And ah coulda pulled her back from the brink, ah know it, jus’...”

I was glad our conversation was quiet, and mostly private. Hopefully Dinky was too focused on the elevator to be eavesdropping; she didn’t need to know this. She wasn’t carrying around one of the flasks with her, wherever she went.

Meadowbrook slowly looked back up at Dinky and Red. “Like ah said, keep your friends close. You’re carryin’ Snips with ya, wherever y’go. Ah don’t think he would’ve minded that.” After a moment, she looked back at me. “Anyway. Anything else?”

I shook my head; I’d had more than enough answers for now. There were more questions, and there always would be, no matter how much I asked, but I didn’t think I could handle my own curiosity being sated any further.

Meadowbrook wished us all good luck, and I climbed up onto the platform with Red and Dinky, while the ancient Pyromancer untied the raft and silently began to pilot back to shore. The elevator sagged slightly as Red stepped aboard, but it looked as though it would hold our weight. Dinky was busy with the magical control mechanism, but she did tilt her head at me; she was curious about our conversation, and the expression on my face, but she didn’t ask what we’d talked about. I was thankful for that; I still had to work out how I felt about it myself.

The locks on the elevator released with a thump, and soon we began to ascend, away from the lake, and away from Hammerhoof. Quickly we passed a dizzying height, and I wanted to avert my eyes, or else I’d be thinking about how I’d seen all of this before in reverse when I was plummeting. My wings itched again, and they shakily spread on instinct alone, but I tried to suppress that instinct as much as I could.

Not that the other topics on my mind were very pleasant, either. I reached into the bottomless bag, and pulled out the flask of sunlight to look at it in the light. It was such a strange artifact, and it had saved my life a dozen times over by now. I could still see the tooth marks in the silver foil of the cork, when I’d pulled it out with my teeth in the hive under Baltimare.

The alternative would’ve meant that Snips was left mindless and wandering, trapped somewhere in Baton Verte. Or he would’ve truly been in one of the barrels on the caravan, and he would have been freed by the fight—I’d wondered where the bodies were, when those barrels had broken open. But even then, he likely would have been slain by Apple Bloom or the burned deer of the Everchaos. There really didn’t seem to have been any good end for the poor colt.

Instead, he was here, as a living miracle bottle that refilled itself whenever depleted. I peered at the green glass, and sloshed the fluid around inside idly. How much of Snips was truly left? Surely, his soul couldn’t have been here still. Just his bones, burned to ash and used as ingredients in some mad work of pyromancy. Maybe it was a better fate, but I didn’t envy him.

It repulsed me. It would be so easy to drop it off the side of the elevator now, and let the flask fall into the lake below. Nopony would ever find it, and I wouldn’t be using a dead colt’s spirit to save our own skin.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do that. As much as I hated what had been done to him, and what could have been done to me if I’d fallen before we reached Baton Verte, it would be doing him a greater disservice to discard the bottle. And I would be helpless the next time I was injured, since I would be forced to rely on my own natural healing, which was painfully slow.

The bottle was full now. It refilled so quickly now, and I wondered why that was. Maybe because we were so close to Canterlot? Or because we were surrounded by death, yet again? There were plenty of vaporous souls all around us, after what I’d done to Hammerhoof. Was it better that they were absorbed by the poor undead below, trapped under the murky surface of the lake, or used to refill this flask?

As it always did, practicality won out. I shoved the bottle back into my bottomless bag, and forced my attention elsewhere. Instead, I chose to focus on the extending spear strapped to my side. It had fallen with me into the poison muck, so it was important that I made sure that the mechanism wasn’t jammed or rusting, and that the enchantment still held.

“C-can I get some sp-space?” I asked quietly. Dinky stepped to one side of the elevator immediately, but Red seemed confused, and I tilted the spear up as an explanation.

Red nodded and stepped aside as well, but as he moved, he asked, “Where’d you get that?”

“B-back in Ponyville, one of the g-guards left it behind. So R-Rockhoof fixed it up, and g-gave it to me, since I was g-going up to Canterlot anyway.”

Red made a noise, a sort of thoughtful grunt that sounded like an acknowledgement, but he kept his eyes on me as I braced my hooves. Actually extending the spear while it was still strapped to my side was difficult; I had to reach under my barrel with the opposite hoof to twist the mechanism. It extended with a gritty clack, and launched flecks of toxic mud across the elevator. Both my companions flinched at the sound, and wiped a couple drops of the mud off their armor and fur hurriedly.

“S-sorry,” I murmured, with a wince.

“S’fine.” Red grunted again. “Still works?”

I flicked the spear in and out a few times, and the gritty feeling seemed to disappear after the first couple of transformations. As far as I could tell, the spear seemed to be in fine condition, though the piercing edge had blunted a bit. It would still stab, but I would need to charge an enemy at full speed to properly impale them. Better to use it for sweeping and jabbing attacks when I could, while Red and Dinky focused on killing the enemy outright.

I nodded to Red. “I th-think so.”

Red grunted again, then asked, “You usually use spears?”

“N-no. Used swords until now, m-mostly. A f-few clubs.” A wooden table leg, Zecora’s axe, the cavalry saber on the way to Baton Verte and back, the rusty shortsword given to me by Applejack, Mistmane’s magic mace, and then the army longsword I shattered in Baltimare. I’d seen a strange variety of weapons so far, but they were all designed to be swung, and only sometimes used to stab. That was probably influencing my sweeping attacks with the spear thus far, I realized. But so long as I didn’t break the weapon by using it poorly, and it kept me alive, then maybe my lack of expertise didn’t matter all that much. I had plenty of time to learn.

Red didn’t look as enthusiastic to be entering a fight alongside us as he had before, down in Hammerhoof. He glanced between us one more time. “Y’all know what we’re fightin’ up there?”

“The c-cockatrice?” Dinky asked.

Red looked upwards, at the cable that trailed upwards into the mist, towards the entrance high above. “Cockatrices are pests. The Dark, in the tunnels. It’s bleeding through here. Y’all ever fight it before?”

Dinky was silent for a moment; she was probably recalling what Mistmane had told us. “N-no, I haven’t. Holly?”

“In B-Baltimare. But n-never directly. There w-was a dagger…it’s not im-important.”

Red examined me, once more. “That staff. Light it.”

“W-what?”

“Won’t have time to wing it. Best learn how to light it now. Keep the lights on, push the dark back. That’s the trick.”

It was as simple as that—light to push back the Dark. Whether by keeping the fires burning, or by keeping the lights on. So long as the Dark wasn’t allowed to overtake us, we could push on.

I swapped hooves, to rest my other hoof on the wood of the staff, where it was hooked into the other side of my armor. I channeled my fire, and it came easier this time; after only a few moments of concentration, I pushed outwards, through the length of wood, and the end flared with brilliant sunlight.

Red nodded, but quirked his lip in frustration. “Too slow. And expect us to be running while you’re using that. We can’t afford to do no dawdlin’.”

So I had to channel my fire without touching it directly, then. Right. That made sense, even if it was asking a lot of me very suddenly. Maybe it shouldn’t have been the spear that I was worried about using. I didn’t have much time to practice before the elevator reached the top, but I spent the time following Red’s suggestion, as I kept the staff lit on our way up.

* * *

The elevator reached the upper platform with another jarring thump and a lot of disconcerting squeaking noises from the crane that operated the cables. There was barely anything left up here; just that crane, anchored to the mountainside, and a fragile platform that connected the elevator to the jagged cave mouth. Though the staff was now lit, it barely pierced the dark entrance of the cave—hopefully it would be more effective as we moved in closer.

The platform was still scarred by our brief battle with the blackguard, and we carefully moved past the missing section of railing that we’d smashed through on the way down, as our present group moved into the cave. It caught Dinky’s eye, however, and as soon as we were a comfortable distance from the edge, in the twilight between the dark of the cave and the light of the world outside, she looked at me. “H-Holly? I n-never thanked you, d-did I? F-for protecting me. That f-fall killed you, but y-you took the b-blackguard with you.”

Maybe I had; maybe I hadn’t. At that moment, I’d been terrified for her, and I wanted to keep her safe, but now that I was thinking about it…it seemed as though the blackguard had only cared about me. It had been watching me, and it had advanced on me, sparing only hateful glares at either Dinky or Gilda. Maybe if it had killed me, it would have left them alone…but maybe not.

Dinky smiled at me, and whether I’d made the right call at that moment or not, I was glad she was still here to smile at me. I nodded at her, and that seemed to satisfy the filly, who glanced at Red. “Are y-you two ready? W-we can rest here for a little w-while.”

Red shook his head, and when he held up his hoof a pyromancy flame sprang to life above it. “Nah. Let’s get movin’.”

He tossed a mote of flame into the shadows of the cave, and it flared to life as it bounced across the rough stone. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for us to peer inside as our eyes adjusted. Thankfully, there was no blackguard lurking at the back of the cave this time, and we started to walk forward, as the blinding light of the sun quickly grew dark against our backs. I kept my own miniature sun burning by my side, and it bathed us in a pool of protective light as we moved forward.

Red and Dinky traded off summoning sources of light ahead of us; Red with his pyromancy flares, which illuminated the cave in flickering, dancing red light and sharp shadows, and Dinky with her magical glowing blue orbs, which weren’t as bright but seemed much more stable. Together, the way before us extended inwards, and it allowed me the freedom to let my mind wander as I examined the walls of the cave itself.

Whatever had sundered the mountain must have done so a very long time ago; these shallow tunnels had already mostly been mined out. The walls were mostly bare stone, but as we pushed the dark away, I saw the occasional glint of a crystal fragment sticking out of a wall. Either they had been too small to be worth mining out, or they had simply been overlooked. As we moved deeper, those glints of light became more frequent, and I found myself looking for them as we advanced, since they seemed to be a good indicator of the tunnel ahead, like stars in the darkness of night.

Dinky seemed confused, as she looked around. “I…wait…this b-bend, it went the other w-way, before. Did we g-get turned around?”

“Nope.” Red shook his head, but his eyes never left the darkness before us. “The Dark does that. Time, space, it all turns weird. Sometimes you’re seein’ a place as it was a hundred years ago; sometimes a hundred years in the future. Sometimes y’ cross a mile in a step; sometimes y’ can’t move an inch for hours.”

That only seemed to unsettle Dinky, and she shuddered. “You s-sound experienced. You’ve f-fought it before, b-but I’ve never heard of this until n-now.”

“Good.” Red didn’t say anything else; he just let the word fill the room, all by itself.

After a long few moments of silence, Dinky spoke again. “Y-you said you saw the f-future? What did it look like?”

Red shrugged. “Mebbe the future. Mebbe a nightmare. But Twilight seemed pretty sure.” After a moment, he added, “Everything’s ruined, or broken, or underwater, or burned. Or jes’ all dark. It’s never good. It’s always empty—y’ never see anything livin.’ After a while, y’ stop lookin’.”

Dinky swallowed nervously, and her eyes turned forward once more.

We started seeing the statues not long after. Most of them seemed to be pegasi, but there were a few unicorns and earth ponies mixed throughout, wearing armor or rags, and all in various states of hollowing. I also spotted a few diamond dogs, a minotaur, and what seemed to be a pony whose body became that of a snake below their barrel. A gryphon gave me a momentary spot of hope that we’d found Gilda, but a glance at his face quickly proved otherwise.

And yet, there was something unsettling about all of them. It wasn’t that most were either frozen in combat stances, or as though they had been turned to stone while trying to flee. It was that for most of them, it seemed as though they were being eroded, like any other stone. Fine details of their fur and armor were smoothing out and becoming lost, and almost all of their faces had started to become blank, as though their sculptor had given up before finishing their carving. But these were living creatures, or at least they had been once. Red seemed fine; what had happened to them?

Dinky paused, next to another pegasus guard, with her wings splayed out to look more intimidating. “Sh-should we try r-reviving them?”

Red stopped to peer at the blank face of a unicorn; two thin strands of stone curled away from the tip of his horn, connecting a pair of stone pistols held in front of him, pointed towards an unseen enemy. “Worth a shot. Pick one of the faceless ones.”

I swallowed. That sounded like an awful idea, but Red had already drawn his axe, and he seemed ready to handle whatever came of it. I chose one nearly at random, so faded that I couldn’t even tell what type of pony they had been before—I could barely guess that they used to be a stallion, judging by size alone. I turned the glowing end of the staff to face them, and focused my fire once more. As our protective pool of light dimmed, just on the edge of my hearing, I thought I heard the whispers of the Dark again.

This time, it was faster. I still felt separated from my body, but only for a moment. I saw the statue, and for a split second, the stone peeled away to reveal…nothing. Suddenly, I felt as though I had been harshly forced back into my own body. The statue before me simply crumbled to dust, and I staggered backwards, coughing as my mouth filled with…I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

Dinky let out a horrified gasp at the sight, but Red merely grunted as he covered his mouth. “Alright. Again, but less faded.”

I turned to glare at him, and Dinky joined me a moment later, but Red met our eyes without giving an inch. “It’s bad. I know. But gotta know for sure.”

He was right; what if it was just him? What about Gilda?

Dinky shuddered, and moved a few paces away. “I d-don’t…I’ll watch the t-tunnel.”

This time, I picked the faceless minotaur. I didn’t have much experience or memory regarding the hulking bipeds, aside from them being a race elsewhere in the world, but he seemed as good a choice as any. I had to crane my neck upwards to look at his lack of a face, and when I focused my fire through the staff…this time, something seemed wrong.

I peeled back the stone, in that state of being that seemed outside my body, and I could feel there was something there, deep within, but it was only strands and fragments of being. I’d once heard that fossils weren’t the bones of creatures, but mud that had solidified in the space left by the bones when they decayed, and that’s what it felt like when I peeled back the stone. There was barely anything left but an animated fossil of a creature, with a faint flickering ember still trapped within. But I peeled the stone back as best I could, and then withdrew.

I fell back with a gasp, and watched the stone minotaur shudder. The hands twitched, and the chest shuddered, as it seemed to come unbound from its pose. But then it seemed confused, as if it didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, the hands slammed into the stone head, scraping and clawing at its lack of face, and Red glanced at me. “Holly! Did y’ finish—”

As soon as he spoke, the stone minotaur’s head snapped to face him, and it began to stagger in his direction. One hand continued to scrape at its throat, as the other reached for Red, who stepped backwards, gripping his axe once more. “Did y’ finish whatever it is y’ do with that?”

I slapped my side and extended the spear once more, as I responded. “I d-don’t know! There w-was nothing in there!”

Stone hands clawed at a stone face, and gravel scattered across the floor. If it could have, I think the minotaur would have been screaming. But all it could do was stagger towards us, on two unsteady cloven hooves made of crumbling stone.

Red didn’t let it take another step. He ducked under the grasping hand, and swung his axe into the minotaur’s side. It twisted, off-balance, and fell away from us onto its front—but when the full weight of the animated statue slammed into the cave floor, it shattered like the brittle stone that it was. The fragments bounced past our hooves, and between all the other statues, and the sound of the statue shattering slowly echoed down the cave. Both Red and I glanced around all the bits and pieces of stone, to make sure none of them were moving, but any life they might have had seemed to be gone now.

“No more!” squeaked Dinky, from behind us, and we turned to see her lighting up the cave with her horn burning bright with magic. “No more of that! Let them rest! We’re just k-killing them!”

Red nodded. “Fine. No more, ‘til we find Gilda.”

Dinky blinked at that, and her horn’s light dimmed. Behind her, the darkness of the cave flooded in to fill the void left by the light’s wake. “F-fine. And if she’s…f-faded, like that…then w-we leave her b-be.”

“Prob’ly for the best,” Red agreed, as he took one look around the room. “Keep ready. We’re bein’ noisy.”

Dinky jerked back to attention, and turned her horn back down the tunnel, as if expecting to see something hiding in the dark only a few body-lengths away. Nothing was there, but she didn’t relax either. “Right. R-right. Shouldn’t be f-far now, I hope.”

I swallowed, but it tasted like chalk. It was all I could taste in here. I forced more fire into the miniature sun by my side to push back the whispers, and we began to advance further into the cave, past the statues.

Author's Note:

What is petrification?

Well, okay, that's a very broad question. There's a bunch of different types, ranging from "a character is just encased in stone, still alive" to "the character is fully turned to stone, all the way through." This variant of petrification is different; it takes inspiration from Destiny's Stasis powers and Doctor Who's Weeping Angels, most directly. As Mistmane said a couple chapters ago, the victim is removed from the normal flow of time—or at least, it appears that way to characters still experiencing time normally around them. It is the opposite of a quantum state—all possibilities have been collapsed into a single location, a single moment, for as long as they remain afflicted. And while that's happening here in the Dark, something is gnawing at them, wearing them away, trying to get at the sparks of life that the victims still have within them.

So how are they becoming un-petrified? That's a much more magical and theoretical question, than anything else. The best answer, the one that's mechanically useful for the story, is that Holly is pushing back the Dark around them, offering the victim her metaphysical hoof, and pulling them back into the normal flow of time—which is why, for the victim, no time seems to have passed at all.

So long as there's still something left over for Holly to touch, at least.

The song for this chapter is: The Peculiar Pretzelmen - Deep Dark Hole

Big thanks, as always, to my pre-readers Non Uberis, Prince-Nightfire93, and Citizen for all their hard work!

I've also got a tip jar, if you're enjoying the story and want to toss me a couple bucks!

Comments

[Thranx]

So, that was the origin of the potion. Though unethical, it has saved Holly plenty of times. I don't know how to feel about that. It's good but it's sinister.

Hearing about the Dark again reminds me of the Dark in Vanishing on 7th Street.

[Rutter]

Good update