Prologue

Lurking Shadows

The darkness clung to the air, resisting all efforts of the sparse lamps scattered about the entrance to fight it back. A doorway stood, apparently embedded in nothing, made of a stone that seemed to absorb any light that touched it. The doors themselves seemed to flux and change, one moment made of a dark red wood carved in patterns of flames licking up and around the bodies of screaming ponies, the next a deep azure-blue metal engraved with lightning bolts scouring the earth and the ponies scattered about in poses of death and agony. So many other images morphed across so many surfaces, all visions of death, destruction and pain, it churned the stomach to look at for longer than a glance.

Two ponies huddled beside each other, eyes glancing around almost frantically in the void surrounding them, unable to see anything but each other. For a time, their breathing and their heartbeats were the only sounds filling their ears, but then a sigh echoed around the dark space and a pair of eyes opened, one as red as the heart of Tartarus, the other a dark blue, glowing with menace and hatred. They were eyes that commanded instant and unquestioning obedience, and could chill a pony to the core with just a glance. They were the eyes of a cold and calculating mind and spoke of age the likes of which none but the Princesses might know.

A slick, vile voice rang out in the darkness. “Your incompetence may prove to be something of a nuisance, however I’ve waited too long already and cannot spare the time to find suitable replacements. No matter how many cards we have up our sleeve, we still must put up with the ones we are dealt until the time of reveal is right.” The last it seemed to address to itself, before chuckling, a sound like breaking glass, grating gravel and screaming ponies.

Icy shivers ran up the spines of the two ponies, who had not spoken or moved, other than to drop into a deep bow that almost put their faces on the ground. They knew better than to say anything, or do anything but grovel and obey. Their minds were still fresh from the memories of charred skin and burnt fur, the broken bones and gouged eyes they had been forced to feel, but not physically experience, not a few hours previously. Their eyes still watered and their bodies shook from the pain.

“The fact that this age couldn’t produce ponies any more resourceful than you simpletons continues to astound me” the voice mused, seemingly to itself again, before once more focusing on the pair, who had sunk even lower to the ground. “I will let your second failure in Ponyville pass, for no reason other than I have so few resources available to me at present and I still have need of you two.” There was a vile emphasis on the word ‘second’ that would have frozen dragonfire.

A large book floated towards the two pathetic forms from out of the darkness and they flinched. It was a thick tome, bounded in what repulsively appeared to be leather. The cover held no title, no words or images of any kind bar a single gothic symbol depicting a unicorn’s head with the horn aglow with magic.

The voice spoke again. “This book is enchanted. The pages contain no words, but the message will be transmitted directly to your tiny brains. As with whenever you leave this room, you will remember nothing, but think that everything you learned was of your own design.” A measure of chagrin entered the tone alongside the hatred and menace. “It galls me to allow you two to believe yourselves possessive of such ingenuity, however for the sake of security and my need to keep hidden for the time being, it is a necessity I must bear.”

It did not need to be said what message the book contained. The pair would read it, even if they knew it would sear their eyes from their skulls, because they knew the price of failure or refusal made such a fate sound pleasant.

“You may go. Do not fail me a third time.” The dismissal was accompanied by the disappearance of those soul-shackling eyes into the darkness and the two ponies sagged and let out the breath it felt they had been holding since they entered the room.
The doors shuddered with a loud rumble, and then opened, letting in a slit of harsh daylight that did nothing to illuminate the darkness, which seemed to absorb the light, swallowing it whole. A stallion entered the room to escort them out, and he made the two shiver almost as much as the horrific eyes and vile voice in the shadows. The stallion had no mane, no tail, and his wings were tattered and broken, though it appeared he didn’t notice, or even feel them. It was his eyes that were the most disconcerting though. Those eyes held no light, no brightness of life. They were dull, grey as the husk the pony himself had become. He never said a word, never made any expressive gestures, never showed any emotion at all. The reason scared the brothers more than any threat of physical punishment ever could.

The pony had no soul.

They had seen it. Non-unicorn ponies would enter the room they were currently occupying, and come out empty and soulless, the pegasi always with their wings broken and disfigured, so they would never fly again. Unicorns that entered, however, always came back out shaking, often crying, but always with their horns and souls intact. Unicorns were more useful with their souls still inside them. Besides, they could hardly raise a unicorn Empire if they stripped the souls from every unicorn who opposed them.
The two unicorns ignored the soulless pony as best they could, and attempted to rush out the door, which was currently some form of blood-red liquid held in shape by an invisible force, without showing even the slightest sliver of haste. The outside light blinded them for a moment as they exited, as everything that had happened inside the room was burned from their minds.

They blinked. What had they been doing? One turned to the other, stroking his moustache. “I say brother, were you saying something?”

The other turned to face his brother, his own bare upper lip pursed in thought, a curious look in his eye. “I don’t think so, why, did you ask something?” The pair sat and removed their matching straw hats so they could scratch their heads as the flaps of the tent they had exited into flowed sinuously from the breeze outside. Eventually, one noticed the book the other had gripped in his magic’s embrace.

“Brother, what’s that you’re carrying?” Startled that he had been carrying anything at all, the aura of green magic disappeared from the strange tome, letting it fall to the ground. They gathered around it, slightly revulsed by the thought that the thing’s cover was made of leather! “Should we read it brother?”

The question was somewhat rhetorical. They both knew that it had to be read, though neither could say how or why, but they both knew grievous punishment awaited if they didn’t. Picking it back up in his magic, the moustachioed brother trotted over to the desk only a few pony-lengths away. The canvas of the tent rippled the other way as the wind changed direction and the two ponies sat behind the desk with the book between them. They opened a page.

It was blank. So was the next one, and the one after that. Every single page in the putrid book was completely blank from the first to the last. Why would they be given a blank book?

Then images began to flash in their minds, images of machines, more complex than their cider-making contraption and weapons more powerful than any they had ever seen. Blueprints began to form in their heads, describing intricate designs for technomagic instruments powerful enough to bring down even the mighty Princesses.

“I-I say brother, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I believe I am brother. I’m thinking we’ve got work to do.”

As one, they jumped to their hooves with matching flourishes of their forelegs and all but galloped out of the tent, the book now turning to ashes on their desk completely forgotten.

Outside, the grassy hill that the tent was pitched on rolled down into a valley that wove between several other hills around the landscape. Sparse trees dotted the rises accompanied by shrubs and other manner of flora that would soon be trampled into oblivion when the city was built. Thick, ominous clouds overhead seemed stuck by the decision of whether or not to unload their water while the last of the birds and other animals took cover from the inevitable storm.

A large hole, which occupied the side of the hill opposite the one possessing the tent, disappeared down into the depths of the ground where ponies were working day and night to excavate the cavernous ruins of some lost civilisation. They had already found several confusing technomagic gadgets, almost too corroded to be recognisable as the powerful weapons they were.

The origin of the buried city was unclear, or exactly how old it was, but all of the ancient murals and statues they had uncovered had all depicted unicorns to the point of exclusion of all the other races. It seemed fitting, and not odd at all, because in the brothers’ eyes, Unicorns were the superior race. How they had stumbled upon the ruins was another thing neither of them thought to question. They had suddenly had the idea to travel with an archeological crew to this specific location and start digging. It was an area rich with history, though neither unicorn knew much of any of it. They were inventors, technomagical geniuses, pioneers of the future, they had no time for the past.

The pair ran down the hill at a gallop. They had things to do, places to be, they couldn’t spare any time idling about admiring the scenery. The labs would need to be set up immediately, before the city’s construction was completed, for work needed to begin as soon as possible. The two crews would simply have to work around each other.

More and more images, ideas and blueprints flashed through their minds, enough to fill an entire book, each burning itself into their memories, along with the almost limitless possibilities they all presented. Plans also began to form. Strange and devious schemes that they would have laughed and scoffed at the ridiculousness of them had they not come from their own minds.

Several were so dangerous, so questionable, that they began to doubt themselves, but they felt an insatiable urge to bring these plans to fruition. They had to, there was no question. Besides, they were schemes they had thought of themselves, what could possibly go wrong?

The most troublesome of these plans, the most dangerous, still gave them pause in their stride and required the most preparation. The city would likely be fully constructed before they could execute it, for many of the implements flashing through their heads would need to be created and perfected first.

The plan in question was dangerous; it was highly illegal and unquestionably amoral, but it had to be done. It had to be. Neither brother could say why, exactly, it had to be done, but it involved a certain troublesome purple unicorn they had met briefly during their most recent debacle in Ponyville, not to mention their first failed expedition. She was the reason they had failed to seize the beginnings of their control over Ponyville by taking over the Apple farm in that original disaster, and it was one of her friends who created the second. Their methods would not be so friendly the third time.

The brothers smiled. Revenge would be sweet, but not as sweet as control over Equestria.

The Age of the Unicorn would rise, and all else would fall beneath magic, might and technology.

Author's Note

Wheee, been working on this on and off for 4 years (!!!!!!) got a bunch of chapters to upload, so have this prologue and chapter 1 for now, I'll upload one chapter every week or two (depending on how I feel) until I'm out of the backlog, then I'll just upload them whenever I can. Enjoy!