Urania

“The next morning was cold and gray. The clouds had invaded the sky, and an annoying drizzle had been falling for some time. With the grass now wet and slippery, I had no intention of traveling farther.

“‘I suggest we remain here until the weather improves,’ I said. Since everypony agreed, we decided to have breakfast. We struggled for a solid quarter of an hour to ignite the branches, around which we huddled to warm ourselves. After sitting around the fire for an hour, we were beginning to get seriously bored. Rocky proposed we played a card game, but nopony was really enticed by the idea. We were all wondering what to do, when Sandy Dune suggested we climb up once again and try digging a hole on the top.

“‘If this mound is really made up of remains, as the legend claims, we should examine them. Maybe we could learn something valuable?’ she explained. That sounded a good idea to me. Ten minutes later, we were clambering the hill anew, trying to deal with the slippery slopes. Pulling the carts along the hill with all the necessary stuff was not easy, to say the least. Eventually, everypony reached the top, though. We grasped our shovels and started a rough excavation.

“We had been digging for about half-an-hour when the blade of somepony’s shovel hit something hard. We stopped and looked. It was thin and white, still partially buried. We fetched a pick and soon had unearthed what appeared to be a long bone from the ground. We rinsed it and gave it to the doc.

“‘Tibia,’ he diagnosed. He watched it more closely. ‘Young adult. See? The cartilage is barely calcified between the epi- and the diaphysis. Hmmm… Heavy stock,’ he added.

“‘How old is this bone?’ I asked Rocky.

“‘Difficult to say,’ he answered. He scrutinized the wall of the hole we had shoveled out. ‘The soil we drilled through was not homogenous. The top is of eolian origin, that’s for sure: sediments deposited by the winds. But,’ he pointed at a color shift in the underground somewhat above us, ‘there seems to be a sharp transition. Either it is due to a clear-cut change in the composition of the organic detritus, that can be caused, for example, by a sudden alteration in the direction of the prevailing winds, or it could be an artifact, most likely a layer of foreign earth spread out to cover up something below, like a frosting on a cake. There’s no way for us to know without any further analysis. However, if you really insist I give a reasonable guess, I’d say between 75,000 and 125,000 years. That’s a pretty conservative estimate.’

“‘Would that coincide with the beginning of the ice age?’ I inquired.

“‘Yes, it would. I wouldn’t dare claim the two are strictly coincidental, but more or less in the same time frame, yes.’

“‘Hmmm… Would tally with the tale. Let’s see what we find deeper,’ I proposed.

“So we resumed our digging, enlarging the excavation. One hour later, we had gathered twenty different specimens of bones. And they were, apparently, many more below.

“‘Do you think this mound is a big heap of bones?’ asked Carolyn, who was standing on the brink of the excavation, standing sentry and helping with tools. ‘That’s creepy.’

“‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘But if we dig a bit deeper and still find some more, there’s a fairly high probability, yes.’

“Precisely when I finished speaking, my shovel chanced upon another hard object, which soon reveled itself to be a vertebra. ‘Here you are,’ I handed the newfound piece to Bones, who scoured it. ‘Hmmm…’ he pondered, ‘cervical, 100% sure. Oh!’ he suddenly exclaimed, ‘look here!’ He pointed at a dent on one of the edges. ‘Not natural. That was left by a honed blade, and not your shovel. I’d bet the farm this poor guy had the neck severed.’

“‘Severed?’ I asked, surprised. ‘You mean, he has been intentionally killed?’

“‘I imply nothing,’ the doc answered. ‘Could have happened postmortem, too. There’s no way for us to know.’

“I mulled over for a short while. ‘Strange,’ I said, ‘I am not aware of any known civilization, even in the Paleopony period, that practiced decapitation. That’s why I opted spontaneously for murder.’

“‘It can also be an isolated case, or an accident. You can’t draw a definitive conclusion from one case,’ the medic observed. ‘Not enough evidence.’

“‘You’re right. Let’s carry on and see what we find.’

“But the next hour was disappointing: we shoveled nothing except mundane earth, as if we had stumbled on the lone skeleton of a unfortunate explorer. I was about to propose a respite when I heard a shout just behind me, immediately followed by a thud, slightly muffled. I turned around and saw Sandy Dune desperately clutching to Bones’ hooves. Obviously the ground had given way under her, and her rear legs were dangling loose in a wide hole. I rushed to help the doc heaving Sandy out of danger, and soon we were standing on the brink of a dark patch that seemed to open into a vast cavity. I took the lamp, tied it at the end of a rope and slowly let it slide into the darkness below. But there was little to been seen except nothingness. At last, I felt that the lamp had touched some deeper ground. ‘Crypt?’ I put forward. ‘This seems darn deep, in any case. Five meters minimum.’

“I pulled the rope and untied the lamp. ‘Now, Bones, time for you to make use of your special talent!’ I said. ‘Ready to levitate both of us down?’

“He focussed silently and a faint glow appeared around his horn. I felt lifted, and we soon both disappeared into the chasm. After a seemingly unending fall, we softly touched the ground of the cave. High above us, light was pouring out of the aperture we had accidentally made. We waited a short while for our eyes to adapt to these quasi-nocturnal conditions. At last, we begun to make out some details. I switched my light on, and the doc did the same. We were standing in a large tunnel whose extremities were lost in the gloom. Here and there, crude sconces had been attached to the walls, which proved definitely that the place had served some yet undiscovered purpose.

“‘Where do we go now?’ asked Bones.

“I drew a plumb line out of my pocket and gauged the vertical. ‘The ground is slightly aslant,’ I stated. ‘Shall we go down?’ I asked. Bones grunted an approval, and so we set out downwards. The clops of our hooves were resonating deeply, disturbing the sepulchral silence. I felt oppressed.

“We had not trodden twenty meters when we entered a vast vaulted hall. We swept the room with the beams of our lamps and discovered a grisly spectacle: in the middle of the cave, whose floor was strewn with tens of skeletons, a dark stone table stood; a skull lay on it, pierced by what seemed a gleaming dagger. Behind the table, oodles of other skulls were set in a crude earth wall, carefully aligned in countless perfect rows.

“Wordless, we stared at each other in awe. Obviously, we had stumbled on an underground temple consecrated to an evil deity, wherein some kind of deadly fight had taken place eons ago.

“‘That can’t be,’ Bones finally murmured, as if the sight had broken his voice. ‘I… I just can’t believe my eyes. I’ve always thought we ponies were a big friendly and peaceful race…’

“‘Now you understand why I consider the pony evolution theory is just a bad spiel? I mean, we are lured into believing that our past was happy, that we constantly chose the bright side, that Sombra or Nightmare Moon were just isolated cankers of our blooming tree of innocence. Under Discord’s tyranny, we were the victims; since Celestia and Luna have taken over, we’ve been pretending that all evil is gone. Forever. So we’ve become complacent. We look at what we are, gentle, benevolent, and think we’ve always been the same. And then’ – I wavered my lamp all around the shambles – ‘we uncover this nasty truth and our petty idealistic theories suddenly shatter; we fall harshly from the pedestal we placed ourselves on and we have to face this crude reality, that we are not angels, that we have a dark side, maybe deeply pent-up, but here nonetheless. Yes, we did shed the blood of our peers. Yes we fought unholy wars and obviously we did enjoy it. We are not the ponies we pretend to be. No, we are just… full of weaknesses and obscure impulses.’

“Bones did not answer. I padded carefully towards the altar, avoiding trampling on the bones as best as I could. Arriving in front of it, I realized it had been hewn from one chunk of onyx. I picked up the skull. The dagger, driven up to its gilded hilt, had cleft the bone right between the two orbits. It must have been a mighty blow.

“I got hold of the skull and examined it under various angles. The blade appeared unstained by rust, a miracle in this damp environment. In the feeble light, it seemed to me that the forte had been engraved with minute shapes. Letters? Some kind of inscription? A magic spell? It evoked the image of a dark priest holding his sacrificial dagger during some wicked ceremony, shedding the blood of a guiltless victim to gain the favor of his thirsty god.

“I was lost in thought when the medic whistled, rousing me from my dreams. He had been scrutinizing the skulls on the rear wall. ‘What’s up?’ I inquired.

“‘Look here,’ he said, pointing at some skulls with the beam of his lamp. ‘These are almost perfectly normal. Well, I mean, slightly regressed from modern ones, but that’s what you’d expect from a hundred-of-thousand-year old skeleton. But, those’ – he moved the beam towards a row of ten skulls – ‘those are in stark contrast. The muzzle is longer, the overall shape is thin and elongated. They all have more than thirty-four teeth, as far as I can judge, and the front incisors are sharper and slanted. Cranial capacity seems less than ours. I’m positive those remains do not belong to Equus Sapiens.

“‘Do you mean we finally have found evidence of our ancestors?’ I asked, rapt.

“‘I don’t know. It’s definitely another species. But they could be our cousins, rather than our fathers. In any case, it is obvious we lived contemporaneously. Why they have become extinct is beyond my knowledge.’

“‘And mine too,’ I admitted. ‘But we absolutely must take a sample of both types of skulls and take them away with us. I’m going to ask for the pick. Come with me, I’ll need your levitation knack once again!’

“So we both headed back to the selfsame spot where we had landed before. ‘Hey!’ I shouted as loud as I could. I saw the head of Sandy appear through the opening. ‘Right here! Are you all right?’ she yelled back.

“‘Yes, but we made a startling discovery down below. Can you throw the pick?’

“‘Yep, sure. But watch out for it!’ she warned. She let the tool fall. It landed with a clang.

“‘Thanks!’ I said loudly. ‘Now, can you grasp this skull and secure it somewhere while we finish our job down there?’

“‘Yup!’ she acknowledged. ‘Go ahead!’ I asked Bones to levitate the skull up to the hole, which he did, and Sandy seized it. ‘Wav!’ she exclaimed. ‘Terrific! Where did you get that?’

“‘I’ll tell you the whole story when we’re done and back up. Meanwhile, try to show the dagger to Carolyn, I glimpsed something that resembles a carven inscription.’

“‘Okay, will do!’ yelled Sandy, ‘Good luck!’. Her face disappeared.

“‘Let’s get this over with,’ I said to Bones. And so we shuffled down into that gruesome hall again.

“Extracting both skulls turned out to be easier that I thought. The earth was reasonably moist, and the skulls were not deeply embedded into the wall. We did not use the pick: a few careful nudges with the hoof were enough to dislodge them. Bones then removed them easily using his levitation ability. All in all, in half an hour, it was done.

“‘Let’s go back and breathe some fresh air,’ I suggested.

“‘Wonderful idea,’ Bones replied. ‘But, I’d like to see what’s at the other end of the tunnel. Would you mind if I give just a quick look?’

“‘No, and I’m even coming with you! Better to be two in this kind of place…’

“Since Bones did not object, we left and walked past our landing spot towards the other side of the cave. Soon, however, we had to stop. What we surmised was the old exit had been blocked by tons of roughly dumped earth. The artificial origin of this slide was blatant: the entrance had deliberately been blocked.

“‘Whoever won the fight had the clear intention to seal this place off forever,’ I commented.

“‘Seems obvious,’ responded the physician. ‘That sounds like some kind of punitive expedition. I wonder if the bones we found earlier match the pierced skull of the altar. I’ll have a look. Let’s scram. I’ve seen enough skeletons for today!’

“He levitated both of us, and soon we were returned to the top of the hill. I took some photos of the skulls, then delicately put them into a box filled with absorbent cotton. I then inquired about the dagger, that I found in the hooves of a deeply puzzled Carolyn. She had scrubbed it, and the knife was now glittering brightly despite the rather dull daylight.

“‘Are you flummoxed?’ I smirked.

“‘In fact,’ she answered, ‘this blade is an enigma.’ She handled it back to me, and carried on while I was talking various pictures of the object with the camera. ‘The hilt is gilded, no hesitation. Here’ – she showed me the pommel – ‘look at this big red gem. It's a fire ruby, one of the most precious minerals in Equestria. And the blade is evidently forged of a metal that does not rust. One could even say that it shines on its own, that’s how brilliant it is. It is almost weightless and yet’ – she grasped the weapon again and tried to bend it, but to no avail – ‘very rigid, and’ – she made various gestures with it – ‘the whole thing is perfectly balanced. Completely out of reach of the metallurgic skills we have developed, even today.

“‘Now to these engraved signs. I’d say yes, they are letters of some sort, but I’d need your magnifying glass to get a clearer view.  I’ll also have to check my copy of Old Equestrian scripts and languages, because they don’t look like anything I’ve seen so far. Fortunately, I’ve brought this reference with me, so I’ll be a matter of minutes for me to know, if you lend me your magnifying glass.’ She gave back the dagger to me, trotted to her cart and began rummaging inside. I clicked a macro-lens on the camera and shot several other detailed pictures.”

“Do you have this dagger here?” interrupts Twilight. “I’d really like to see it.”

“No, unfortunately not,” answers Dark Wing. “But I can show you the pictures I took.”

He picks up an album from his desk and leafs through it. “Ah, here. Look!” he says, handing the album over to Twilight.

“Oooh!” she marvels. “Amazing handiwork. And these are the famous letters…” She draws the album closer to her eyes and gazes at it. “This is no script I’m acquainted with,” she finally admits.

“Indeed. Puzzling, isn’t it?”

“But did you eventually decipher the engraved inscription?” inquires Twilight.

“My dear, you are curious like a magpie. Can’t you wait a little? Well, yes, we did.”

“And what is written?”

“‘Sanguis amorque innocentum / meum est nutrimentum.’”

“What gibberish is this?” blurts Twilight, bewildered.

“An old forgotten language, whose name does not matter,” Dark Wing answers.

“And what does that it say? You know?”

“Of course: ‘I feed on the blood and the love of the innocents.’”

“Brrr!” squeaks Twilight, shuddering. “Squicky motto.”

Dark Wing shrugs. “What do you expect from a message engraved on a sacrificial dagger? A declaration of universal love? Now let’s go back to my story, if you don’t mind.

“I was about to unload the film from the camera when I heard Carolyn swearing behind my back. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked

“‘I can’t find the book I told you about. Darn, I’ve looked everywhere in my cart. I’m positive I consulted it yesterday. What a featherbrain I am: I must have left it in Sandy Dune’s great-uncle’s barn.’

“‘Are you sure? Did you check really everywhere? Have a look in other carts. We may have moved it inadvertently,’ I suggested.

“‘Yeah, will do that, but that’s hopeless.’ Indeed, she came back to me a moment later, shaking her head. ‘Hon hon,’ she said sighing. ‘Zilch. I have left it behind for sure.’

“’Well,’ I replied, ‘that’s not such a big deal. It’s not even noon yet, and the farm is only three hours away provided you’ve nothing to pull. If you really value your book, then go back and fetch it. But don’t spill the beans about our discoveries!’

“‘Oh! Thanks so much!’ she uttered in gratitude.

“’Why don’t you stay here and let me go instead?’ Sandy Dune proposed. ‘If you tell me what your book looks like, that will be a breeze. I failed to kiss my great-uncle goodbye, that’ll be the perfect opportunity to redeem myself.’

“‘Sandy, I’d rather you stayed’, I protested. ‘I need your help to plan our future itinerary.’

“‘But –’

“‘Your great-uncle won't start a vendetta with you because you forgot to give him a peck on the cheek,’ I joked. ‘I’m confident Carolyn is smart enough to cope on her own. In addition, how could she get lost? We left so deep a trail that she’ll just have to follow it…’

“‘Okay,’ Sandy Dune yielded reluctantly. ‘If you need me…’

“‘Carolyn,’ I proposed, ‘do you want somepony else to go with you?’

“‘No need!’ she answered, ‘I’ll handle it, don’t worry!’

“‘That’s settled, then.’ I concluded. ‘Now, I suggest that everypony checks his own luggage. This is the very last opportunity to go back and pick up items left behind!’

“Everypony checked, but only Carolyn’s book was reported missing. And so Carloyn set out. ‘By the way,’ I shouted as she was leaving, ‘please gather some tinder! We will need it for tonight’s fire!’

“‘Sure!’ she responded. Then she was gone.

⁂

“‘Good!’ I said once she was out of sight. ‘Now we have plenty of time…’

“‘But what for?’ wondered Bones. ‘I wish we were on the other bank of the river.’

“‘Don’t be so impatient,’ I retorted. ‘When you travel in realms untrodden, your best ally is nice weather…’ I raised my head and looked at the sky, desperately dull and gray. ‘I hope the rain will be over by tomorrow morning. It can’t last forever.’

“Bones mumbled something about foul weathers. ‘By the way, did you have a look at the skeletons lying in the hall?’ I asked.

“‘Not really. Just a quick one. But nothing struck me as wrong. They were all normal, as far as normality goes back in time.’

“‘Thus we can conclude that our supposed punitive expedition was led by modern ponies only. Where could the other ones come from?’

“He shrugged. ‘How should I know? I guess they picked their victims at random.’

“‘Could they have been slaves?’, I thought aloud.

“‘A group of ponies that practices equine sacrifice can surely enslave beings considered as inferiors,’ observed Bones. ‘But there is hardly any proof of this.’

“‘I suppose you’re right…’ All of a sudden a thought stroke me. ‘Did you see any unicorn skeletons?’

“‘Hmmmm…’ hesitated Bones, trying to recollect. ‘I don’t think so. What’s the point?’

“‘Nothing in particular. I was just wondering…’

⁂

“I spent the rest of the morning discussing our future path with Sandy, while Chromatin and Bones were busy studying the various bones we had collected. We then had lunch, after which we dozed for a little while. It was about three p.m. when we suddenly heard an approaching gallop. Carolyn appeared, out of breath, evidently terrified. She stopped when she saw us. Everypony rushed toward her.

“‘What’s up?’ I inquired. ‘What happened to you?’

“‘There… There…’ she stammered, panting. ‘There is no farm!’

“‘What?’ we all blurted. ‘Do you mean the farm has been destroyed?’ squeaked Sandy.

“‘No, I just mean there is no farm. Nothing. No wrecks, no rubble, no charred splinters. No hollow either. Just grass and shrubs. As if nothing had ever been built in the first place,’ she explained.

“‘I knew it!’ shouted Rocky. ‘The map was right. It was all fake. We were trapped.’

“‘Unwind!’ I sighed, somewhat relieved. ‘You must have strayed and emerged from the wood in a wrong place. Are you sure you followed the trail carefully, as I suggested?’

“‘Of course I did. Thoroughly. And look…’ She opened her saddlebag and drew a big and soaked book out of it. ‘I found my book in the grass. So this was the place all right.’

“There was long hush as if everypony had been stunned. ‘Well,’ I eventually said, ‘I wouldn’t call it a trap. We haven’t been trapped. Unless…’ I looked around, ‘unless there is a hidden cage around us, which obviously isn’t the case. What puzzles me is who could to set up such a trick? I mean, this was a very realistic illusion that lasted for three days. Whoever cast it is evidently a master of magic. But who can it be? Nobody, except Celestia and maybe Luna, is aware of our trip, let alone the way we chose…’

“‘Sandy,’ Bones cut in, ‘whom did you told about your great-uncle?’

“She pondered a little while, trying to remember. ’Nopony I can think of,’ she eventually replied. ‘I mean… His existence has never been a secret. I may have mentioned his name on some occasions. But I’m pretty sure nobody ever asked me personal questions about him, especially the way he looks like. Besides, it has been ages since I did chat about him. And I would have been totally unable to explain where he lived…’

“‘That’s why you, and we, were tricked so easily,’ I said. ‘You had no reason to suspect his farm was in the wrong place.’

“‘It seemed odd at first, but not that crazy,’ she admitted.

“‘That still does not tell us who did it or what for,’ I grunted.

“‘Can’t it be Celestia or Luna, precisely?’ proposed Chomatin.

“‘Don’t be silly!’ I replied. ‘If they had something to tell us, they could have done so directly. What was the need for this… sham?’

“‘Granted,’ admitted Chomatin.

“‘The only remaining possibility,’ said Rocky, ‘is that someone or something is living in or monitoring this area, and spotted us when we walked in. Then somehow our minds were read.”

“‘But what for?’ protested Sandy. ‘What was the point in creating my great-uncle’s farm?’

“‘I’d bet somebody wanted to divert us right here, on this hill,’ carried on Rocky. ‘Remember how your faked great-uncle insisted we climb the mound, purportedly to get a bird’s eye view and plan our trip?’

“‘You’re right, but what was the real reason then?’ wondered Sandy.

“‘Beats me!’ I exclaimed.

“But all of a sudden I had an epiphany. It was evident. Crystal clear. Without a word, I dashed to my cart, under the puzzled look of all other ponies, picked up the box in which I had put the dagger and opened it.

“It was empty.”