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The Celestia Code

by iisaw

Chapter 14: 14 Ancient Evil

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Chapter Fourteen
Ancient Evil

I walked out into the half-natural cavern that contained the crystal, and Jigsaw followed at my shoulder, nearly touching me. It was difficult to judge the scale, but the thing was certainly huge, at my first estimate nearly two-thirds the height of the Crystal Empire's palace—but nowhere near as beautiful. In fact, it was downright hideous. It was jagged and asymmetrical, with smaller spurs and stubby branches sticking out of its sides. Flickers of pale green and purple force leaped from point to point. When I got to the lip of the ledge the door opened onto, I could see the pierced dome of corroded bronze and glass that encircled its base. The top of the gigantic crystal was hidden in shadows, but I was fairly sure the point at its apex lay just below the pedestal of the cornucopia.

"I'm betting we've found the power source," I said quietly.

"Ya think?" I'm sure Jigsaw meant it to sound glib and confident, but the tremble in her voice kind of spoiled it. "So... what now?"

To our left, there was a short set of stairs, leading down to the cavern floor. At their base was a free-standing arch, and a rough trail led from there, across the cavern, to a door in the bronze dome at the crystal's base. I moved toward them.

"Wait!" hissed Jigsaw. "If we can't use magic in here, how are we going to check for traps?"

"Let me try something. Stand away from me in case this doesn't work."

She jumped away from me like I'd suddenly become red hot. "Wait! What are you—"

I concentrated and brought up an ancient matrix that was a subversion of everything I'd learned while growing up. It was a dark, unsympathetic power that my dear teacher Celestia had revealed to me, perhaps unwittingly, or perhaps with some long purpose in mind. I could never quite decide which was most likely.[1]
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[1] And there are some things that a pony just doesn't discuss with The Alicorn of Sunshine and Purity.
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I felt the surge of thick, heavy power flow through me, leaving my horn more like smoke than radiance, as I cast it out across the stairs and the floor of the cavern. Then I breathed out and let the energy gutter and ebb away.

"Holy stars, Twilight," Jigsaw gasped. "Your eyes! They went all..."

"Yes, I know. It's the same sort of magic as in that crystal. Doesn't seem to evoke a reaction, which was what I was hoping for. The stairs and path should be safe. Let's go."

She followed me without another word, and we crossed the floor of the cavern. The crystal towered over us oppressively, long before we neared the door in the dome. As we passed between a pair of stalagmites, I felt a sudden surge of fear: I had missed something! I suddenly knew that I had made a disastrous mistake that was going to cost both of us our lives. I nearly jumped from the crudely flattened path and bolted into the field of razor-edged crystal spikes that littered the cavern's floor before I caught myself. I bit my lip, hard. The feeling passed. Looking down, I could see the twin purple crystals embedded into the backs of the stalagmites. Nasty. I told myself to widen my parameters on my next sweep for traps.

I turned and faced Jigsaw. "When you step between these stone spikes, you're going to feel an irrational fear. Just keep going and I'll help you through it. It's... not quite a trap, more like a discouragement, but it'll be dangerous if you panic. Are you ready?"

Jigsaw's ears swiveled back. "That's the fear I'm feeling right now?"

I shook my head. "No, what you're feeling right now is perfectly reasonable and rational fear. Come on." I motioned her forward with a hoof. "I'll make sure you're okay."

She took a deep breath, nodded, and stepped forward. Suddenly her pupils shrunk to pin-points and she cried out, "No! No! Sesseressia! What are you doing?"

I hooked her forelegs with mine and pulled her forward, snapping her out of her hallucination. "You're okay! You're okay! It wasn't real!" I hadn't expected the charm to hit her so hard.

Her eyes darted around wildly for a moment and then she fixed them on my face. "Not real?"

"It wasn't real," I nodded. "It's all over. Take deep breaths. And... who or what is Sessa... whatever?"

"Sesseressia," she said. "That's the general's name."

"Oh." I frowned. "What was she doing to you?"

"She wasn't doing anything!" Jigsaw blurted. "It was... uh... You know, I'd rather not talk about it."

"That's fine. Are you okay now?"

She just nodded.

"Alright. Just a little farther to go."

When we got to the dome, we found the doorway twisted and deformed. The door itself lay to one side, obviously wrenched from its hinges and tossed aside. "Looks like we may not be the first outsiders down here," I observed.

Jigsaw tapped my shoulder. When I turned to look at her, she pointed to the side of the path opposite from where the ruined door lay.

The pony skeleton was still wrapped in desiccated hide, and wisps of brittle hair clung to it where the mane and tail used to be. It certainly was no student's prank. The stub of the horn was cracked and blackened.

Jigsaw pressed her shoulder against mine. I reached out and lay my wing across her back. After a moment, I said, "I want to go on, but if you—"

"I'm good."

I didn't ask her if she was sure. I just nodded and turned to the doorway. Another pulse of dark magic on my part told me that there was no immediate threat awaiting us, so I walked into the dome, Jigsaw following closely.

The giant crystal narrowed drastically as it passed through the tightly-fitting hole in the roof of the dome, and ended in a very sharp point just a hoof's span above the floor. Surrounding the point was a large confusion of bronze loops and struts that reminded me of the big orrery that stood near the palace in Canterlot. But it only took a moment for me to determine that this structure didn't represent the mechanism of the heavens. There were no epicycles or ellipticals, and instead of spheres and points representing the stars and planets, there were oddly shaped tablets and plaques at seemingly random points.

As the huge crystal turned, arcs of dark magical energy leaped from its jagged edges to various places on the bronze structure, casting eerie green and purple shadows on the curved walls.

I scanned the room, looking for anything else of interest. Opposite the door, there were dark shapes on the floor, but it was impossible to make out what they were with the bronze mechanism in the way. I pointed the shapes out to Jigsaw with a wingtip and she nodded. I don't know why I was reluctant to speak, but I went with my instincts. I moved around the periphery of the room to the left, keeping as far away from the mechanism as possible, and motioned for Jigsaw to follow behind. We weren't far from the shapes by the time we could make out that they were bodies.

Funny. Just a short while before, I'd started and almost screamed at a silly wooden skeleton. But, at that time, looking down at the desiccated remains of several ponies, I just felt a deep sadness. Behind me, I heard Jigsaw draw in a sharp breath.

I carefully built up the energy for a spell, ready to respond instantly at any sign of an unexpected reaction from the tangle of bronze or the crystal point turning slowly within. Black vapor flowed from my horn, drifting toward the mechanism as if carried by a slight breeze, rather than being propelled by my will. It brushed the metal and nothing happened. I curled wisps of the dark magic around the biggest piece of bronze, a flat, nearly level arc that ran half-way around the room, and squeezed gently. Nothing happened. I stepped closer and pushed more forcefully against the top surface of the arc. Beneath the flaking corrosion, tiny gems lit up in lines and patterns. I withdrew my magic and the lights faded.

"Twilight," Jigsaw whispered to me, "I know you're curious about that thing, but something killed those ponies, and I'd feel a lot more comfortable if I knew what, exactly, it was."

I'd gotten lost in my own head again, and hadn't thought of what Jigsaw might be thinking. I'd already figured out the most likely scenario that had led to the death of those poor ponies and had gone on ahead with my own experimentation.

"Sorry," I said, quietly. "I'm pretty sure that it was their own magic that got them killed, but... hmn... I think there's a safe way to confirm it. Stand back a ways."

I didn't have to tell her twice. I think she was a lot more disturbed by the whole situation than she let on. When she was a good distance away, I used the dark magic to raise a barrier of black, magic-reflecting shards all around me, similar to the trap that had been set by King Sombra at the top of the Crystal Empire's palace. Only, this time, I was the one controlling it. Then I let the dark energy fade away and brought up a simple spell I'd known since foalhood. It was the one that most unicorns learned first: a soft glow of light from the tip of the horn. It was enough to see by, but not enough to draw attention. Just perfect for sneaking into the kitchen, late at night, on a cookie-jar raid.[2]
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[2] Of course, I first learned to turn the pages of a book with a shaky pulse of levitation. The light spell came soon after, though—just after I realized it would make a perfect under-the-covers booklight for illicit reading after bedtime, in fact.
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The response was immediate and violent. A blast of black force wreathed with green lightning slammed into the black shards protecting me, crackling and hissing, making the crystalline surface pop and spatter as it went molten from the impact. I dropped the light spell instantly, and the room went dark.

"Yeah, that's about what I thought would happen," I said, trying very hard to sound like a mare who hadn't been on the edge of leaving a puddle beneath herself. I dismissed the black shards and turned to Jigsaw, who I could barely see with my dazzled eyes. "You okay?"

"Fine," she said in clipped tones. "No using magic down here. Got it."

I resumed poking at the strange bronze structure with dark magic. I cleared away as much of the crumbly verdigris as I safely could, and began playing with the lights again. I soon realized that they were controls of some sort, but they weren't arranged in any sort of pattern that made sense to me, so I avoided changing their position or orientation. I wondered if the bronze not-orrery could be the weapon mentioned in the code, but there didn't seem to be any obvious way of directing it. The energy of the immense crystal could certainly do harm to Celestia, but the unicorns couldn't have depended on luring her down into the cavern to use it, could they? Perhaps there was some way to open the roof of the cavern above and fit some other sort of device to direct its energy? But it would still be a very short-range weapon.

While I turned the possibilities over in my mind, Jigsaw crossed behind me, and went to examine the bodies. She looked down and tapped something with a hoof-tip. It was a large box that bore the crests of Canterlot University and Crinet College. There were two other boxes among the corpses. "Twilight, these are specimen crates. Can you open them?"

I turned away from the mechanism and looked at the—at the pile I had been avoiding looking at. I carefully tried to unlatch the hasp on the first crate, but it crumbled under my touch. The iron had corroded until it was just layers of rust in the shape of a metal strap. I gently probed the crate and then backed away. "It looks like these were carefully sealed. The contents might still be okay, but the metal and wood is about as sturdy as spongecake. The boxes will come apart if I try to move them."

"Could you teleport them to the surface?"

I considered that. "Yes. I don't think the crates will survive it, but the contents might. I don't see that we have a better option."

"Void take the contents, Twilight! Can you do it safely?"

"Oh, right." I tried to make it into a joke. "Safe as houses, Peachy!"

Jigsaw gave me the stink-eye. "The Mare Who Would be Queen didn't turn out so well for Peachy and Dandelion, did it? As I recall, Dandelion got decapitated and Peachy went mad."

"Okay, bad example." I shrugged. "How about this? I'll take all the notes I can about the controls on the mechanism first, and then you can carry our stuff up the stairway. When you're safely out of the cavern, I'll wink the crates and myself up to the surface. How does that sound?"

"Terrible! You're going to take all the risks yourself? What if something happens and I'm not there to help you?"

"But, if you stay, you'll be in danger, too!"

"I'm not just thinking about myself, Twilight!" She stomped a hoof for emphasis. "I care what happens to you."

"I—"

"How about this instead?" Jigsaw steamrollered right over me. "When we're ready to go, you raise the biggest, jaggedy black shield you can around both of us and the boxes, and then pop us all up to the surface?"

It wasn't a bad plan. I saluted. "Yes, Sergeant Dandelion!"

She tried, only partially successfully, to turn the snort of laughter into one of derision. We went to work.

While I fiddled with the mechanism, Jigsaw gently examined the bodies. They were even more fragile than the crates and would have crumbled to dust long ago if it weren't for the dry, still air of the cavern. We couldn't give them any sort of burial, but Jigsaw found a way for us to give them a sort of memorial. Just before we left, she pointed out their saddle bags. They had clasps and embossing that were almost certainly representations of their cutie marks. When we returned to Canterlot, we could find out who they had been and record the circumstances of their end. Maybe they had descendants we could contact.

There was one of them who wouldn't need to wait, though. The bags of the big mare nearest the mechanism bore a design stitched in gold thread: A torch crossed with a writing quill. Now we knew what had become of the famous rebel, Sharphoof. Had she returned to claim the weapon when her rebellion had failed? Or had she had nowhere else to go when she had been banished from Equestria? Did it even matter?

I sighed. "I think we're doing this archaeology stuff wrong, Jigsaw. Too much gloom and doom. Why aren't we running into colorful villains with strange accents to fight?"

Jigsaw rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and why don't we totally destroy a few priceless pre-classical sites while we're at it? Ruin any chance of learning anything of historical significance just to grab a shiny doodad and write a sleazy book full of half-truths about it for a stack of bits!"

"Wow." I shied back from her sudden outburst. "You really don't like Daring Do, do you?"

"She's a—[3]."
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[3] I absolutely refuse to even hint at the word that Jigsaw used. Just hearing it was like a bucket of ice-cold water to the face.
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I guess my gasp and flaming cheeks was enough to make Jigsaw realize how shocked I was. "Sorry," she said sourly. "But, yeah, I really don't like her."

"Why? It can't just be her books," I finally managed to say. "Or her approach to archaeology."

Jigsaw sighed and pressed a hoof to the bridge of her nose. "I'll explain it to you when we're not standing next to an incredibly powerful artifact of ancient evil, okay? The thing makes me nervous."

"Oh." I grinned sheepishly. "Right." And I began to go through the preparations to get us and the boxes out of the cavern in one piece.

For once, nothing went wrong.

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