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Don't Look A Gift Horse In Innsmouth
Chapter One. Of The Coming Of The Lyre; And What Befell Ponyville On The First Playing.
CHAPTER ONE. Of The Coming Of The Lyre; And What Befell Ponyville On The First Playing.
Would that evil reveal itself as readily as Nightmare Moon or Discord! Yet these challenges were not truly evil -- adversaries, mayhaps, or opponents -- but not evil per se. Neigh, I now know, from the sorrows of firsthand experience, that evil comes wrapped in the innocent smile of a child or a steadfast friend; and speaks with the voice of an angel.
Though I did not know it at the time, our doom was sealed but four short months ago. An acquaintance named Lyra Heartstrings, a unicorn of stout heart and no small musical talent, arrived at the library. While skilled in the craft of music and song, I never knew her to pursue matters scholarly; yet she came, and spent many an hour poring over tomes regarding the restoration of antique musical instruments. From restoring the lustre of brass to ensuring warmth of resonation, every book was checked out and duly read, Miss Heartstrings' face a testament to consternation.
Would that I had minded my own business! Alas, compelled by the curiosity which has ruined me forever, I asked:
"Miss Heartstrings, why the sudden interest in restoration of musical instruments?"
Her response was unsurprising. "I just bought a lyre from a traveling salespony. It seems quite old, perhaps even ancient. I want to play it, but I need to make sure it's in playable condition. Wanna see?"
I nodded in assent,and with her unicorn magic -- at that point still clean magic, I might note -- she lifted a lyre from her saddlebag. What I saw was unsettling to the core. A lyre it was, but it appeared to have been made of some sort of porous ivory. No, no! It was not ivory, I realized, it was bone -- but twisted and fashioned into a sinuous and curvilinear shape not unlike the horns of a great minotaur. Instantly, I felt a morbid sickness overtake me; for I was gazing upon the bones of a creature which had once been, yet I was also gazing upon the bones of a creature which could never have been. For unlike the heathen bone art of cannibal jungle tribes such as the Mareawak or Tupony, these bones were not carved into their undulating, helical arcs; rather, they appeared to have been warped into such shapes, bowed and tortured but not broken. Much like the skeleton of a beast afflicted by rickets, the morbid bone frame of the lyre was forced into its shape, with the craft of an artisan, belied by the malevolance of an archfiend and the indelibility of the ravages of time itself.
My unease and disorientation grew stronger as I noticed an intricate series of interlocking glyphs carved upon its exterior, in strange concentric spirals running perpendicular to the axis of the lyre itself. As a student of magic, I have been taught of runes both fair and foul; yet these were no runes I had ever seen before. The script was at once angular and flowing; giving the impression of constant rippling motion when seen with the periphery of one's vision, yet arresting to a crude and jarring halt when subject to the focus of one's sight. The symbols seemed arcane -- no, no! they seemed mocking -- as if they danced in the absence of being noticed, but became chillingly disanimate when viewed directly. I must sound a fool, dear Princess, but know that these etchings were more than etchings; they were the ossified, incarnate crystallization of maleficience.
"Pretty neat, huh?" Lyra said obliviously. As the sun lazily seemed through the window curtains, casting shadows along the body of the lyre, I noticed each etching seemed to alter when a shadow passed over it.
Prudently, I avoided comment on the horrific lyre itself, choosing rather to inquire as to its origins. "You said … a traveling salespony sold you this?"
Upon hearing this question, Lyra's normally fixed smile was briefly shaken by a fleeting, reflexive grimace. "Yeah … he looked … really weird. His face … his face was almost … flat ."
"Flat, you say?" Desperate for some sort of logical explanation, I pressed on. "As a cat's face? Like Opalescence's?" I briefly imagined a pony with Rarity's cat's face, and the thought seemed too ridiculous to bear. Oh, if I only knew then what I know now!
"N... no. Flat like …. like, flat. Like --" she said, gesturing to one of my many shelves,"-- like a book flat. And his hooves seemed … fake. Does this make sense? As if he were wearing hooves over his hooves. And he spent an awful lot of time rearing on his hind legs."
I tried to visualize such a ludicrous image, abhorrent to ponydom and all things natural. I had heard of Miss Heartstrings' condition, one that was delicately euphemized as eccentricity; yet, from my own dealings with my fast friend and cohort Miss P.D. Pie, I know that the mercurial whims of an artist are no reason to discount them as madmen. I thus pressed her to continue.
"So, yeah, he looked weird. But the second he saw my cutie mark he came to me and said: Ma'am, I can't help but notice your special talent is playing the lyre. It just so happens I have a lyre with me! I picked it up in Innsmouth. Yours for two bits! Two bits, Twilight, two bits! For this piece of art! I don't care how weird he looked; this was a steal."
I did not know how to respond, merely nodding timidly. The instrument -- or should I call it an artifact? -- seemed wholly and unequivocally evil. I wanted no part of it; yet, my friend required my aid and succor. Shuddering at the prospect, I told myself that the magic of friendship would undoubtedly prove stronger than whatever arcane hexes laid upon this fell device. What foolish temerity I had to make such a claim!
After what seemed like an interminable eternity in the presence of that fell instrument, I was relieved to know that Miss Heartstrings had found the information she needed. She bade me farewell, and with no small amount of denial, I wished her well. She promised me she would return to the library the next day to play for me. Oh, how I prayed she would forget!
Yet my fears proved founded, as the next afternoon. Miss Heartstrings returned, her vile lyre in tow. A small crowd of fellow ponies gathered to hear her play. Unlike me, they seemed oblivious to the sheer and palpable malice that seemed to radiate from the accursed instrument.
Perhaps my training in the ways of magic have made me aware of such things, I thought to myself. Or perhaps, I thought, I am simply going mad. Oh, what a child I was, to conflate sensibility with madness! What a fool I was to deny justification to the fear that gripped every fiber of my being! What irony to know now that my last wholly sane moment was spent fearing I had gone daft!
As the afternoon grew late and the shadows grew long, Miss Heartstrings strung her instrument and began to pluck each string with her telekinesis. The result was a jarring cacophony, offensive to the ears and wholly contemptuous toward aesthetics. The crowd was nonplussed, stunned into silence at the soul-rending noise that insinuated itself into our ears and memory. This was not reflective of Miss Heartstrings' considerable talent.
One would expect us to leave upon hearing this mockery of music, yet we all stood, enduring, as if rooted by some unknown compulsion. Fixed, too, sat Miss Heartstrings, frustrated by her inability to perform. Suddenly, as if inspired by a muse, Miss Heartstrings did something unorthodox. She began to strum each string with her front hooves.
Had you witnessed this, my dearest Princess, you would have made a statement that if our Creator had intended for us to manipulate objects with our forehooves, that we would be given the natural implements to effect these desires. Moreover, my dear Celestia, had I stood at your side, steadfast in your radiance, I would have agreed.
Yet now, I can despairingly confess, I know that there is no Creator -- at least none with any regard for ponykind other than detached and indifferent contempt -- for what benevolent deity would allow such perversions as those I have witnessed? Bones that bend without breaking, and hooves as prehensile i as a pony's lips? What would be next? Earth ponies that fly? Ponies on two legs?
Miss Heartstrings' ungentle caresses of the strings with her hooves produced a sound that was slightly less unpleasant than her prior attempts; yet the sound was by no means considerable as music. Yet it was at this strange moment that something truly inexplicable occurred.
Hitherto, the crowd had stood, transfixed and enduring the torturous sounds. At this point, the sun dipped below the horizon, its long red rays receding from the land, as dusk encroached upon the red earth. As darkness enveloped the lyre, a peculiar change occured. At once, additional harmonies crept into the tune played by Miss Heartstrings. The song grew more beautiful by the second, an entrancing and enrapturing tune and an exemplar of aesthetic perfection.
Indeed, the song seemed too perfect, with complexities and variations in tone and pitch that appeared ... alien. The melody was otherworldly, as if bells and bagpipes and the sighs of angels were encapsulated within the vibration of each string. It was a hyperperfection that seemed to be radiant and diffusive, as a creeping colour out of the Everfree Forest itself.
I noticed myself reflexively swaying back and forth, as a metronome, in tune with the music. In the periphery of my suddenly hazy and rose-tinted vision, I noticed that everypony else was swaying too. As reeds or rushes we swayed; like cattails in the summer breeze, we undulated to and fro in perfect unison. I dimly recall musing that a passer-by would have found the scene unsettling; yet I also knew that any passer-by would be ensnared by the otherworldly scene and would join the mesmerized throng.
It was then that I became aware that we were all humming -- again, in perfect harmony. The tune was all things at once; a child's music box, a mother's lullaby; an angelic choir and a funeral dirge. My sight became dominated with visions of perfect beings; perfect yet dead, animated corpses which did not decay yet were bereft of life. The visions began to change into a dark tableau of a world I had never seen, through eyes that were clearly not mine. I saw dim shapes, bipedal like Spike. Yet they were not like Spike; for through their eyes, I walked, but in a manner bereft of stability. It appeared that my weight shifted from side to side, unbalanced, as if I had no tail to counter my own body weight. I felt deformed and incomplete, like a pegasus with stunted wings.
This hallucination sickened me. I began to grow nauseated, as the constant rocking back and forth, from my left to my right and back again, created a lurching sensation within my roiling intestines. What am I seeing? Through whose eyes am I seeing? I recall thinking. I was shown scenes of a hopelessly advanced and decadent civilization; glittering spires under a landscape bereft of nature, and countless numbers swarming to and fro. As Ms. Heartstrings' otherworldly song bleated and groaned, this image was painted across our collected vision, and the burgeoning crowd could do little else but sway and moan as their memories were tinged with the memories of others.
Whether a moment or an eternity passed, I cannot say, my dearest Princess. Time and indeed memory stretched and compressed, like so much dough in the hooves of an inexperienced baker. My awareness was kneaded to and fro, and the interstices between that which I have relayed to you is forever lost. Perhaps it is for the best; for when I came to my senses, many hours had passed, and I had a lingering feeling of dread. Indeed, I felt as if I had seen horrors beyond compare, and while I was unable to recall them to mind at that moment, I knew that I had seen them. From my cursory observations of the remainder of the crowd, it was evident that they, too, were waking from a bad dream which they could neither remember nor truly forget.
When the music stopped, and we were collectively released from the iron grip of the song, a sudden enervation struck us all to a pony. Exhausted, though all we had done was sway and hum, we went home and each of us drifted off to sleep in the hopes that a good night's rest would refresh and invigorate us, and that we would be able to make sense of the night's events in the morning.
If only we knew how futile our hopes were. Our sleep -- and I say our, for I have corroborated this with my fellow ponies -- was fitful and plagued with horrible nightmares, of great lanky beasts with outstretched claws. In my dreams, these beasts were looked pale, bloated and diseased; mange had claimed most of their hair. Their skulls bobbed on their necks at strange angles; perpendicular to their necks, with great bulbous foreheads and flat, nearly concave faces. They were as giant fetuses, but with keenly sharp eyes and a propensity for mischief. They would chant horrible fragments of phrases, revenants of a bygone era; shards of a language they themselves had forgotten. They screamed in shrill voices words like tekel-li and giddi-yap; words that held no meaning, save that they were atavisms so esoteric and ancient as to be obscenities.
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Don't Look A Gift Horse In Innsmouth
Chapter Two. Of The Torment Of Miss B. Bon And The Disappearance Of Miss Heartstrings.
Chapter Two. Of The Torment Of Miss B. Bon And The Disappearance Of Miss Heartstrings.
As unsettling as these dreams were, we as a village slowly grew inured to them; for, each night, the town would hear the playing of Miss Heartstrings' lyre begin as the sun set. Jarring at first, a dark and dissonant complement to the morning's rooster-call, the jangling chords would assemble into their unspeakably and unattainably beautiful harmonies as the last light evacuated our fair land. I mean no hyperbole when I say evacuated -- for, you see, my dearest Princess, I began to notice the days grew ever shorter and the nights grew longer. It was as if the sirenic lullaby was exorcising the light from the land; as if your bountiful sun was fleeing the corruption that threatened to envelop and devour it.
Each night, we endured this little ritual, and though we detested it as much as the cry of the cockerel at dawn, we endured it with gritted teeth and a sense of resignation. As I look back upon those days and their evolution into weeks and later months, I wonder why nopony dared beg an end to this. A foul miasma had descended upon us, clouding our minds and bewitching us into delusion. Each and every pony truly believed that the night's "lullaby" was indeed as essential a part of town life as waking and working. Each and every pony was mazed by this music; the thought to question why it was essential occurred to nopony. In retrospect, my dearest Princess, I fear this was the first symptom of the gibbering madness that has indelibly branded us all.
Our dreams grew ever more fitful and beset by dark dreams interspersed with memories of long-extinct abominations. Though I knew them not, I knew to fear them; and fear was the blanket which swaddled my ever-feverish mind. What is happening to me? To us? To Equestria? I recall thinking. Moreover, it was increasingly evident that I was not alone in this affliction. The other ponies of the town grew more irritable, prone to outbursts and continually shifting their gaze hither and thither, as if catching glimpses of unseen assailants. Our insecurities became fears; our fears, phantasms. Yet we spoke not of our nightmares to one another. Rather, we silently and abashedly shared this bond as a burden; rather than taking solace in our shared torment, we shared the unspeakable weight of guilt. It was as if we all had willfully taken part in bringing our doom to ourselves, and we bore it upon our withers, as if it were our due. In retrospect, your Highness, I know not where this falsehood originated, nor how it shaped our minds; insidiously it changed us from rightful victims to accomplices in some nameless taboo.
Indeed, perhaps we were willing participants in some foul desecrating ritual; for two of our rank exhibited changes in behavior far beyond that of irritation and neurosis. Bearing the greatest brunt was Miss Heartstrings' faithful friend Miss B. Bon; Miss Heartstrings' flat-mate, she was an unmarried mare known for her jovial disposition and goings-about-town. Her affliction -- which I will recount in great detail, for I took it upon myself to note her condition -- bordered upon damnation itself.
Miss Bon's suffering, though extreme, was of the same type as our own; she was merely the most acutely affected of our number. Miss Heartstrings, however, exhibited a number of other changes in temperament. At no point did she lose her cheerful optimism or easygoing nature; perhaps, looking back, this is part of why we grew to accept the curse among us, for it was brought with open hooves and an earnest smile. Instead, Miss Heartstrings grew more obsessed with matters most esoteric.
Yet this obsession with the academic and the strange, itself, would scarcely have been noticed among us ponyfolk at the time, were it not for the curiously apparent indifference Miss Heartstrings had toward Miss Bon's suffering. Even we citizens, fatigued and agitated as we were, could notice these signs in one another; as aforementioned, we held to ourselves an unspoken pact to never broach the subject explicitly, yet only a fool could not notice these events. Miss Heartstrings appeared to play the part of that fool most expertly; for during the many occasions during which Miss Bon's tenuous grip on sanity would weaken and she would have fits of screaming or apoplexy or cataonia, Miss Heartstrings would prattle on about her pursuits obliviously. More curiously, when Miss Bon recovered from her fugue or stupor, it was she who apologized to Miss Heartstrings. My dearest Princess; though I am not a physician, I am enough of a natural scientist to know when a sensible body is rebelling against an enthralled mind.
It was during the second week of Miss Heartstrings' ownership that Miss Bon paid a visit to the library. It was late afternoon -- or should I say early afternoon, scarcely a quarter to one, but your sun had already grown low in the sky -- when Miss Bon paid a social call.
"Please, Twilight, can I stay her for a while?" asked a shivering Miss Bon, as I surveyed her. She had clearly not slept or eaten much for the days since Miss Heartstrings' first concert; her ribs showed under sallow, dry flesh. Her coat was unkempt, though not through matters of sloth or slovenliness. Rather, it seemed as if Miss Bon had been washing too much, constantly; cracks in her skin were evident.
"Certainly, come in," I responded, unsure of my new and welling urge to force Miss Bon back to her home. My dear Celestia, I cannot explain this sudden emotion which took root at that moment; as if a thought other than my own had possessed all faculties of my mind, I felt nothing less than an overarching and primal motive to send Miss Bon back to listen to the music. Were it not for my training at your hooves, dear Celestia, and my mastery of the cosmic energies of magic, I would have been unable to summon the discipline to quiesce the wellspring of malice I felt at Miss Bon's presence. Quelling my urge, I escorted her inside, wondering why I felt such hostility at her presence.
"It's almost about to begin, you know," mumbled an increasingly agitated Miss Bon. Aghast, I gaped -- Miss Bon had broken the unspoken rule and spoke of it -- and immediately was shocked back to action when I saw the pitiful and ragged state into which Miss Bon had descended. In the relatively good light of the library, I noticed her eyes darting to and fro; her ears swiveled constantly to match. Miss Bon shifted her weight from hoof to hoof, constantly ready to run; sniffing the air, her lips curled back in a sneer.
Were I a biologist and not a student of magic, dearest Celestia, I would have concluded that Miss Bon was behaving not like a civilized pony, but like a crazed beast of prey. What inauspicious hex, my dear Princess, could turn a pony into a prey animal? Truly, the natural order of things had been upended. I immediately felt an illness welling within me; it was only pity which stayed my hoof, and bade me listen to Miss Bon's ghastly tale.
"Twilight ... " she croaked, as if her devolution into a beast of prey was slowly robbing her of the faculties of speech, "... I don't know what to do. She plays it, all the time. I can't sleep. I can't dream. All I see ... all I see ... is them! " Upon saying this, a twisted rictus of horror overcame Miss Bon, and she started laughing. Her head thrashed back and forth, while her eyes swiveled in their sockets, perpetually locked upon mine, and conveying a visage of extreme terror. Miss Bon's maniacal laughter, dark and deep and hoarse, was wholly incongruent with the look of horrified resignation in Miss Bon's eyes. Clearly, she was no stranger to fits of this sort, and had given up and resolved herself to let the fit pass. It was then that I realized the hoarseness in her voice was due to this.
The laughter died down, and Miss Bon collapsed to the floor, exhausted. "It's ... it's not right," she continued, panting. "This ... thing she has. It's not right. And ... she's talking to it, Twilight. She speaks to it." For a second, Miss Bon paused, licking her lips, as if pondering whether to continue. After a brief glance into my eyes, and seeing my rapt curiosity, she did. "Twilight ... I'm going insane," she said, "but I've heard it. She talks to it ... it talks back. "
This was too much to bear, and too great of an affront to my senses of logic and reason. Though plagued by the inexplicable and the unsettling, I knew that no magic could imbue the inanimate with sapience. I found it difficult to believe a mare in Miss Bon's state was anything other than a confabulatory delusion.
Yet even then, not even two weeks into the nightly ritual of lyre-playing, I had noticed Miss Heartstrings' callous indifference to Miss Bon's condition. So it was, then, that I put an arm around her wither, and silenced her with a tender look and an understanding embrace. Mad she was, I had concluded; but even the mad deserve our pity and well-wishes.
At that moment the sun finally dipped -- or should I say fled? -- below the horizon; and all the ponies of the town, myself included, stood stock still and facing Miss Heartstrings' residence. As the lyre's horrid cacophony started, sounding less like a stringed instrument and more like the piping of alien flutes, I felt the visions overtake me. Once again I walked in the hooves of strange, inchoate, malformed creatures, and spoke their accursed and harsh tongue. I felt my anatomy stretch and deform; bones that were once long grew short, and those once short grew long. It was a strange and tickling sensation, not unlike pulling a muscle. My thoughts -- or were they my thoughts? -- bubbled to and fro like a buoy in a seething ocean; one of my few lucid memories was feeling the aching pain of my bones warping and thinking to myself, I am the lyre. The lyre is me.
What time passed to my insensate mind, I do not know; but when I returned to normal, the clock had advanced well past four o'clock in the morning. Miss Bon was nowhere to be found, though I saw hoofprints in a viscous red fluid leading to the open door. Was it -- I recall thinking, is it -- oh dear Celestia, it is blood! As I realized this, I recoiled in horror, only to notice the selfsame blood on my hooves.
At dawn's light, I set off at a full gallop to Miss Heartstrings and Miss Bon's residence.When I arrived, I knocked on the door for ten minutes. At long last, the door opened, and a wide-eyed Miss Bon answered. Though I knew something terrible had happened, I was unsure what it was; the sight of Miss Bon as the door slowly creaked wide confirmed my worst fears.
Miss Bon was covered in bandages that had matted over and crusted with blood. Her flank had clearly been injured; whether by my hooves or something else, I am unsure. She trembled to see me; eyes bloodshot and filled with terror, she bared her teeth and snarled at me. "Stay back!" she hissed, rearing on her hind hooves and threatening to strike me. "You will bring them! "
"Miss Bon," I pleaded, "I don't know what befell me last night, and I assure you that I mean you no harm, but --" I was rudely interrupted by Miss Bon's furious hooves striking me in the cheek. "You bit me! You struck me! Then, you -- " as if thrust by galvanic currents, she leaped across the room. "You -- you became them. "
"Pray tell -- who," I begged, "are they? What happened?" I recall feeling my heart racing within my chest; for I was accused of something I clearly knew was untrue, and yet I could not dismiss out of hand.
"When it started, and you began to hum, " Miss Bon said from across the small room. "You ... you turned to me," she hissed, "and then... you changed. You weren't Twilight Sparkle anymore, you were one of the things that Lyra speaks to. She speaks to them with it. And they tell her ... they tell her ... they ..." Lyra's shaking turned into great heaving sobs, and her speech grew increasingly incoherent. I made a halting move toward her, but a bloodshot glare stopped me in my tracks.
Whatever Miss Bon claims I have done, I thought to myself, she truly believes. I decided prudence would be the proper course of action. "Miss Bon," I said softly, "I will take my leave. But mark my words," I vowed, "I will find whatever is causing these strange goings-on in Ponyville, and put an end to them. I will bite this problem in the bud."
A look of befuddlement passed over Miss Bon's face. "You don't even realize you said it, do you?"
Perplexed, I responded. "Said what?"
"Bite. You nip a problem in the mud. Biting is something carnivores do. Something you did to me last night." Miss Bon gestured, gingerly, to her blood-encrusted wound dressing.
Miss Bon's words awakened a strange emotion within me. Though I do not, to this day, remember the events of that night; suddenly I was overtaken by the memory of the flavor of Miss Bon's blood. The metallic, warm taste, flowing in my mouth; the memory at once disgusted and piqued my appetite. It was a forbidden pleasure, a taboo so dark and unspeakable as to be denied escape from the vaults of my memory; yet here I was, experiencing a revenant of whatever had occurred that night.
I was snapped from my reverie by the insistent glare of Miss Bon. "I'm ... I'm sorry, I misused a word. Mental slip."
"It's okay, Twilight," an exhausted Miss Bon sighed, her eyes puffy and world-weary from too many tears. "Lyra bites me, too, now. She says its' a joke, but she always draws blood. She doesn't think I notice it, but I see her licking. "
This claim was too much to bear. To make claims of an attack, I could believe; but to accuse another pony, much less her dearest friend, of carnivory was a claim too fanciful to believe. I reiterated my vow to investigate the strangeness and bid Miss Bon farewell.
As I trotted home, I wondered where Miss Heartstrings herself had gone. Indeed, I noticed, she had not been in town at all during the day; where she went, no one knew or remembered. Her return was the herald of the nightly music to be played again; and after the music, she would retire, or so we thought. Yet my appearance at Miss Heartstrings' and Miss Bon's house indicated that Miss Heartstrings was in fact not there. Where has she gone? How does she get there so fast? I recall thinking. Miss Heartstrings, though a unicorn and possessed of magic as all of our kind, was never one to master teleportation; her limited range would preclude the use of teleportation from town. Yet she was clearly nowhere to be found.
I resolved to follow Miss Heartstrings, though the vow seemed empty, for I knew not how she came and went. Oh, my dearest Princess! If only I had not been clouded by that dark artifact! If only I had known that the lyre itself was responsible!
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Don't Look A Gift Horse In Innsmouth
Chapter Three. Of The Concert Of Horror; And Miss Heartstrings' Subsequent Flight.
Chapter Three Of The Concert Of Horror; And Miss Heartstrings' Subsequent Flight.
After taking my leave of Miss Bon, I rushed back to the library. As I had vowed to find the source of this corruption, I set about researching the great tomes of old. I sealed myself in the library, accepting no visitors save my ponyservant, Spike. He was a queer sort, of foreign stock; yet he comported himself in the manner of civilized ponies and so I allowed him to fulfill my menial tasks. I thus set myself to concentrate on the evil undisturbed by any outside factors. One disturbance, however, I could not escape, and that was the nightly call of the music. I tried to plug my ears with cotton or wax, I set myself in the innermost recesses of the library, yet each evening I would succumb to its grip. Though I could little remember what happened during those periods, in my journals I chart the time lost to its hypnotic spell. Though I could not observe directly, it seemed to me that these periods affected Spike less distinctly, perhaps merely bringing a state of torpor, a difference I ascribed to his more primitive reptilian brain.
The Ponyville library is much older than it would appear, in fact predating the ancient tree which makes up its current form. Deep in the basement are the archives of hundreds of years, as well as unusual volumes forgotten or hidden over centuries. It was in these that I found an answer, on the fourth day of my search, concealed in a musty tome dredged from the very bowels of the library. The book appeared unsettling and odd, being bound in some sort of smooth, porous yet rubbery and tight material. The effect was not unlike Spike's scales. It felt oddly familiar. Inscribed on its front cover were these two phrases:
KNACKERNOMICON Abdul El-Mers
The sight of that name filled me with unspeakable dread; for as you know, El-Mers is the Mad Arabian; a thoroughbred madpony who allegedly died in a market square, drawn and quarterhorsed by an unseen force. To think that I was seriously considering this legend, my dear Princess: a ghost story, a thing told to fillies to frighten them at night! Yet, suddenly, as I raced to find a cure for my otherworldly affliction , the myths of old suddenly became all-too-real.I shuddered instinctively at this morbid epiphany, and once agian bade myself continue.
The book alleged to be the last testament of Starswirl the Bearded, though not written by him; rather being a transcription of his rantings after his magical studies drove him to madness. It was almost incomprehensible at times, written in an arcane register; from my forays into fillyology, I recognized it as a variant of Old High Church Equestrian, as spoken in the Preclassical era of antiquity. There was no organization to the work, and incantations and spells mingled freely with distorted histories and enigmatic poetry. Here and there, glyphs were reproduced from rubbings or reconstructed from memory. I do not know how I found the spell I needed, but find it I did; a ritual which would protect the mind from alien influences. With panicked speed I sought to quickly prepare the spell, lest the dreadful nightfall would once again rob me of my faculties and leave me insensate. Though usually ponderous and indolent, Spike worked quickly under my exhortations, and we were able to ready the ritual before the fatal hour fell upon us. Tonight would be the first night I would be able to truly see what was happening while we the town was under the thrall of the damnable music.
I cast the spell and felt a warm wave of magical energy wash over me. As I felt a strange tingling, my years of magical training assured me that I was properly warded against magical assault. I have you, my dearest Princess, to thank for this. As the music played, I found myself oddly unmoved by its tune, though the compulsion still nipped at the corners of my mind. With no small amount of trepidation, I warily ventured from the library. With each step I felt myself grow more sure of my resistance against the tune, which sounded less otherworldly and beautiful and more shrill with each passing moment.
So it was that I began to roam through the streets of Ponyville. As the wailing and -- could it be? -- hissing of the lyre was heard to reverberate through the otherwise empty alleyways and thoroughfares, I gingerly stepped toward the source of the sound. Here and there, I would see a pony, standing stock-still, facing the hedge maze at the center of town; taking no heed of me, the ponies would gently sway to and fro, eyes glazed over, an expression of silent terror emblazoned on their faces. Through clenched teeth I could hear humming; a humming matching the tune.
This humming grew louder as I approached the hedge maze. Nopony took notice or acknowledged my presence; indeed, it was as if each were in an ecstatic trance; a vision state that the heathen Zebra shamans would enter by ingesting vile concoctions. Nopony was aware of the other, save in an uncanny ability to avoid physical collisions; shambling, stumbling, each slowly shuffled toward the center of the maze.
In silence I stealthily followed a band of ponies as we wended our way through the maze. With unerring accuracy, the ponies sought the middle of the maze; dumbly they followed the well-trodden path, as if from memories of their own dark nightmares. For did they not walk this path every night?
As the maze gave way to the clearing in the center, I was shocked at the sight. On the stage at the center sat Miss Heartstrings, attended by a haggard and diseased Miss Bon. Miss Bon shivered constantly, her eyes glazed with a patina of inchoate dread. For her part, Miss Heartstrings sat in a most queer fashion; on her haunches with her hooves dangling underneath her. Why a pony would stoop to, or endure, such pressure on the rump is beyond me. In her front hooves, she was once again strumming the lyre; yet here, I noticed something truly unnatural.
Miss Heartstrings' hooves had somehow split , not unlike those of a cow or pig. One great cleft had split her hoof in twain; with two smaller clefts visible, one on each side. If there were more, I could not see. These ruptured and branched monstrosities were in constant motion. For she was playing the lyre, not with magic, but by dragging her mutilated hooves across the strings. As they passed across the lyre, I could watch as these smaller hooves curl and twitch like leaves in a fire, and winced as I imagined the horrible sensation. Watching their action I was reminded of Spike's claws; yet these digits were far softer and pliable in directions Nature never intended, granting a horrible dexterity. You must believe me, my dear Princess, when I say that the greatest part of my willpower was devoted not to maintaining the ward of protection, but in preventing a fit of nausea as I stared, transfixed, at these undulating and writhing worms where once proper hooves had been. Yet after wondering how such a gruesome mutation could go unnoticed, I spied a set of false hooves lying beside Miss Heartstrings. It was with these that she had guised her horrible malformity.
I soon was relieved of my nausea, as I as rocked to the very core at what came next. Marching solemnly onto the stage, as if compelled by drumbeats in a funeral dirge, was my very dear compatriot, Miss F. Shy. Miss Shy, clearly oblivious to the goings-on about her, held between her teeth a flailing and distressed coney; its terror was palpable and its eyes wide as it feared the worst. Alas, my dear Princess! The worst was indeed to come. For Miss Shy laid the rabbit at Miss Heartstrings' hooves. After releasing the coney from her mouth, I saw more clearly; the rabbit was bound and unable to escape.
Here, Miss Heartstrings finally consented to use magic from her horn to play the accursed instrument. At last, she left her seat and stooped over the defenseless rabbit. She raised her forehoof -- or should I say the twisted, jointed, branched, quivering monstrosity that had once been her forehoof, and spoke in a voice so gravelly and deep that I could not believe it was her own:
"Ka-li ma, ka-li maaaaaa! " And with this piercing, tearing cry, Miss Heartstrings savagely plunged her hoof into the rib cage of the helpless coney. I prayed to you, dear Celestia, that it died quickly and was spared the pain and barbary that was to follow. For it was with an animalistic growl that she rudely and abruptly wrenched the poor beast's viscera from the twitching corpse of the coney. "Ka-li maaaa! " she shouted to the crowd. The throng, in turn, responded with a dissonant and quavering moan, not unlike a howling wind on a stormy winter night.
As I struggled to keep my composure, I was further sickened to see what happened next: as Miss Shy shambled off the dais, Miss Heartstrings used her unholy appendage to raise the dripping offal to her mouth and bit into it. As blood -- blood, my dear Celestia, something utterly repugnant to all ponykind! -- dribbled down her jaw and mixed with her saliva, I discerned a quiet moan of satisfaction from Miss Heartstrings. What had my world become, my Princess, when good ponies degenerate into savage acts of unspeakable cannibalism? What had transpired and gone so horribly wrong to compel Miss Heartstrings to -- no! no! I cannot relate any further. Suffice it to say that Miss Heartstrings had committed an act so heinous, so gruesome, that not even the most malevolent of us would ascribe it to the savage Zebra tribes of the dark and unexplored south.
What occurred subsequently was even more horrific, my dear Celestia, if such a thing can be imagined. Indeed, it must be imagined; for to deny that these events occurred would be to remain willfully ignorant of the cancer spreading in our fair towns and hamlets. For, my dearest Princess, Miss Heartstrings then took the remainder of the gore and viscera and fed it to Miss Bon. Miss Bon, quivering and quaking, was mazed and unable to resist; yet it could be seen with each timid bite that her body and soul were being defiled by such an unnatural act. I could not help but note tears streaming down Miss Bon's cheeks; her eyes were pleading with Miss Heartstrings to release her from this bondage. Miss Heartstrings, however, remained oblivious, and returned to playing the damned instrument with her deformations.
As the music howled and screeched, the assembled ponies rocked back and forth, some gently humming along with the obscene melody. Though my own magical protection held, I could feel a growing and malevolent power as the the horrible song tapped into the very life-essence of the ponies around me. What purpose could this ritual serve? I had no idea, but I knew that it was incumbent on me to stop this perverse ceremony, but how? Were I to make myself known, would the assembled ponies turn against me? Even worse, would the terrible mystical energy I felt all around be directed against my person, mutilating me, or worse? I quickly ascertained that I would have to deal with this using the utmost subtlety.
Using my wholesome magic, I delicately tipped a candle at the edge of the stage against the curtains. Quickly the curtain began to smolder, and I worked to intensify this with my magic until the curtain was aflame. Just as I expected, Miss Heartstrings' attention was drawn by the blaze. Shouting in alarm, she leaped to her hind hooves and sprinted with a disturbingly graceful alacrity to the source of the fire. How she was able to maintain this balance was beyond me; yet I did not take the time to ponder anatomy or physics. For as she ran to the source of the blaze, I took advantage of the momentary lapse in her concentration. Swiftly, I jumped atop the stage and confronted the crazed Miss Heartstrings as she stamped out the last of the fire. Before she could even become aware of my presence, I delivered a right cross-hoof to her muzzle.
My years training in hooficuffs under the Marequis de Queensbury had paid off; for Miss Heartstrings was quickly rendered unconscious. As she buckled to the ground, the lyre crashed to the ground. Instinctively, as if stamping out a fire, I smashed the lyre's strings with my hoof. As the strings snapped, I heard a terrible cacophony; the screaming of small animals combined with the tearing of tendons and the breaking of bones. Terrifying as this was, my dear Princess, the most horrific sound in this orchestra of the macabre was the distant sound of maniacal laughter ; not unlike that which had seized Miss Bon in fits when I had seen her last.
With the lyre's strings severed, I felt the miasma lift from the crowd. Gradually, as if waking from the most traumatic of nightmares, ponies began to return to their sensibilities -- only to be shocked by the gruesome tableau laid before them. Miss Shy was immediately inconsolable, wailing, "Angel! Angel Bunny!" Shortly thereafter, she descended into a catatonia from which, to this day, she has not arisen. Miss Bon, for her part, remained curled in a tight ball, rocking back and forth and shivering.
I quickly recruited a stout young stallion, the brother of my dear friend Miss A. Jack. Mr. Macintosh Jack and his friend Mr. Cake aided me in restraining the delirious Miss Heartstrings. As Messrs. Jack and Cake held her down, I used my magic to bind her in ropes. In addition, I impregnated the rope with magical wards to inhibit Miss Heartstrings' use of unicorn magic. Once sufficiently restrained, or so we thought, I brought out a vial of smelling salts; the same vial that has served me many times since my dear friend and haberdasher Miss R. Belle introduced corsets to our fair town.
Miss Heartstrings quickly revived, and affixed upon me the most hateful glare. "Where is my lyre?" she hissed. Taking the ruined instrument up with my magic, I held it before her. "It is here, and I have rendered it mute, and put an end to your horrible designs. You have been bound and will be held accountable for your crimes, witch!" I spat, cursing her for her unclean magics. With that I left her under the watchful eyes of the Messrs. as I endeavored to find the Mayor in the throng, trusting the enchantment of the ropes to hold her. It was to be a foolish trust indeed, as I would soon learn.
No sooner had a stepped from the stage than I heard screams from behind me. Somehow Miss Heartstrings had loosed her bonds, and was assaulting the stallions who had been set to watch her. Her foul hooves were somehow affixed to the faces of Messrs. Jack and Cake, and I watched as her horrid tendrils lashed at their eyes and nostrils. Unprepared for this horrifying assault, the two, brave stallions though they were, reared back to dislodge Miss Heartstrings, and in so doing gave her an avenue of escape. Quickly, she shot out with her forehoof and grasped the lyre, then leapt from the stage, running on her hind hooves only . Reaching the barrier of the maze, she proceeded to climb the hedge-wall, clambering over it like an unholy spider, all the while screaming with horrible laughter.
The town constabulary would search for the rest of the night, but no trace of Miss Heartstrings was to be found.
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Don't Look A Gift Horse In Innsmouth
Chapter Four: Of the Banishment of Miss Heartstrings, and Strange and Esoteric Pursuits.
Chapter Four Of the Banishment of Miss Heartstrings, and Strange and Esoteric Pursuits.
Her sudden and tumultous absence precluding the possibility of true trial, Miss Heartstrings was nonetheless proclaimed guilty in absentia of ... of what? We had no words to describe what had been done to us. The cold and clinical "improper use of magic" was wholly insufficient to describe the enormity of the violation she had inflicted upon Ponyville. This impasse was transcended with the aid of the esoteric and foreign Zecora, a sorceress of some renown who dwelt in barbary upon the fringes of the Everfree Forest. She suggested terms that were but mere rumour to us: words like witch-craft.
Thus condemned for witch-craft and her malevolant designs, Miss Heartstrings was retroactively banished from Ponyville upon pain of imprisonment. Most were satisfied with this resolution, believing it best that the witch were never to be seen nor heard from again.
I say most because a few were profoundly distressed by this decision. Chief among them were myself and the sorceress Zecora; for we believed that, left unchecked, the dark and cthonic magic harnessed by Miss Heartstrings would prove to be the direst mischief for Equestria. Yet, oddly enough, the most affected by the banishment was Miss Bon; despite the logical assumption that Miss Heartstrings' absence would relieve her suffering, Miss Bon further deteriorated. Her paranoid rambling accelerated into an incoherent whinnying, incapable of conveying a fully structured train of thought. Out of concern for Miss Bon, we had her committed to the Ponyville Sanitarium. Convinced that time and the loving ministrations of our medical professionals would help restore Miss Bon to normalcy, we let the afflicted mare convalesce in peace.
Sadly, my dearest Princess, this was not to be. Rather, Miss Bon's raving grew increasingly frantic, and ever fixated on the subject of Miss Heartstrings' mutated -- neigh, mutilated hooves. "Her hands, her hands, I must see her hands! " she would exclaim, until such ejaculations became the greater part of her speech, such as it was. It was no great surprise to me, thus, when she finally escaped the grounds of the Ponyville Sanitarium. As you might suspect, dear Celestia, the hoofprints lead directly to the Everfree Forest. The authorities halted the search there, unwilling to risk their own lives in such a wild and savage place. Indeed, as Mayor Mare told me, "Her mind has gone anyway; she's an animal! She'll do just fine there ... just fine..." her voice trailing off into a mutter. Mayor Mare's gravitas had failed her, as it had failed all the citizens of Ponyville. Indeed, I discerned a palpable sense of relief in Mayor Mare's words. For nopony could explain what had happened in the town, and the departure of Miss Bon had liberated the townsponies from the forcible reminder of their ... violation.
However, my dearest Celestia, I am a pony of science ; to that end, I felt compelled to seek each loose thread and see where it ended. In retrospect, it seems that I too had become ensnared by a compulsion of sorts; yet, I feel, this compulsion was borne of concerns for the well-being of Miss Bon and my nagging fear that Miss Heartstrings had more mischief in store. Alone and under cover of night, I left the town and stole away toward the Everfree Forest. Though great horrors were rumored to dwell under the gnarled boughs of that damnable wold, I remained undaunted. Plunging headfirst into the wood, I used my magic to illuminate the hoofprints of Miss Bon. Faint as they were, I saw where they wended their way toward the center of the forest.
My dear Princess, let it be stated here that of all the holy laws in the Ponytateuch. your proscription on entry to the Everfree Forest was the wisest law handed down from your everlasting grace unto mortal ponykind. For, indeed, the center of the forest contains a clearing filled with ruins. These ruins are older than imagination; the crumbling temples of a civilization once mightier than ours by orders of magnitude remained as mute testimonials to the sin of hubris. Though my knowledge of Old Horse runes was rusty, I was able to ascertain that the towers and pyramids at the dark heart of the forest are none other than the Lost Temple City of Neighniveh, where the titanic forebears to our kind, the Neighphilim, dwelt and dared to strive against your holy word. It was here, where your wrath had succeeded in eliminating the blasphemers, that I found Miss Bon.
Alas, I found her too late! For as I passed through the marble neighcropolis and approached the central temple complex, I saw a faint and sickening green glint from the top of the northmost building. The flash of nauseating light emerged from the topmost chamber of a giant ziggurat, covered in eldritch runes and cuneighiform scratches. These markings bore the name of the dark god, Akhal-Teke, to whom the temple was dedicated. As I examined the votive finials, I suddenly heard a piercing whinny; it was none other than Miss Bon.
As secrecy was of the essence, I crept up the hundreds -- neigh, thousands of steps to the top of the ziggurat as silently as I could. Alas, my need for stealth may have turned to be Miss Bon's undoing, for as I arrived at the top, hiding behind columns, I heard a sickening crunch sound, followed by a nauseating tearing noise. Peeking around the corner, I caught a glimpse of a most terrifying tableau; Miss Bon, dead and atop a rectangular altar. Behind her stood Miss Heartstrings, using her telekinesis to literally rip Miss Heartstrings apart, Miss Bon's blood running in rivulets down the stone and onto the floor. Would that this gore be all I saw! Alas, I was doomed to see more, the very memory of which induces palpitations and retching.
For, my dearest Celestia, Miss Heartstrings was using her telekinesis to -- the horror, the horror! -- extrude Miss Bon's viscera to form strings for her lyre. All the while Miss Heartstrings muttered to herself in an oblivious trance, "it must be strung with horsegut, it must be strung with horsegut, it must be strung ..." If she said more, I was unaware, for I was transfixed upon the glassy-eyed rictus of Miss Bon. It was evident that her death was both painful and terrifying beyond compare. I silently sent a prayer of mercy to you, my dear Princess, for her safe passage to the fields of Fillysium.
My silent elegy was broken by Miss Heartstrings caressing the bone-harp with her foul, deformed, tentacular split hooves. As these protuberances glided along the bone, the eldritch runes covering its exterior began glowing as if embers in a fire. Our efforts in town were for naught; for the lyre existed anew, strung with Miss Bon's very intestines. I feared the worst, for nothing but mischief was to follow.
I silently cast the protection ward upon me; my premonition was wise, for soon thereafter Miss Heartstrings began to play the new lyre with her sickening, mutilated hooves. She began to chant, in a gravelly, horse voice:
I sing my dream I dream my path Show me my path O Son of Night O Brother of Sleep O Brother of Death Show me my path O BroneirosI summon you
With this her hooves went still, and the lyre went silent. After a moment of complete quiescence, the altar began to glow a sickly green; above it appeared a mist that began to congeal and grow thicker with each passing moment. As the mist condensed, it too began to grow a sickly green, brighter and brighter until it finally was a dazzling flame. I reflexively averted my eyes, but sensed ... a presence emerging from this cloud. It was massive, and reeked of death and decay. The sickly color left a greasy feel upon my hair and mane; whatever creature this was, it was not of our world and its very presence polluted the air around us.
Then the creature spoke. Some of its words were unfamiliar and unpronouncable to me; I have transcribed to the best of my ability in Equestrian.
"Whoa there, whoa ." It spoke harshly, with a hissing sibilance to its voice. "You have sssssserved usssss well, pard'ner. We are ready to enter your world sssssoon."
Lyra responded in a trembling and humble voice: "Thus speaks Kikkuli, master horse trainer of the land of Mitanni. Um-ma Kikkuli Luashushanni, sha kur uru-mitanni! "
The creature continued. "Yesssssss. We mussssst continue while the sssssstarssssss are right. You mussssssst perform the intervalssssssss -- the wartanna . Firssssssst one interval, aiga-wartanna, then three: tera-wartanna, then five, ssssssseven, nine; panza-wartanna, satta-wartana, nawa-wartanna. This mussssssst be done while the sssssstarsssss are right." Its voice trailed off into a foul hiss. I knew not what these "intervals" were, but I knew that they were doubtless portents of evil.
"I live only to serve you, Kikkuli the Whisperer. Command that I might obey," came a timid reply from Miss Heartstrings.
"You musssssst continue to Insssssssmouth. There, our high priesssssstessssss will show you the nexssssst sssstep. Go now! Giddi'yap! " I shuddered at the recollection of that arcane and unholy word, not of our language nor our world.
A grinding sound, as if of great stone blocks crushing against each other, nearly deafened me. The blinding glow receded, and I was able to look again at the altar. When I did so, neither the mist nor Miss Heartstrings were to be found.
My dearest Princess, I beg your forgiveness, for you now know what I did next: though Miss Heartstrings and her lyre had disappeared, I knew where they were headed. I resolved to follow her to Innsmouth and solve this horrible mystery once and for all.
Don't Look A Gift Horse In Innsmouth
My Dearest Princess Celestia:
As you have requested, I am writing to report to you of the events that have as of late transpired in Ponyville. I hope that this missive finds you well, and untouched , for that is a claim I can no longer make for myself.
It is with only the most tenuous of resolve that I relay the events which have befallen me. Would that I could forget the horrors I have witnessed! Yet I must press on, as tempted as I am to drown my indelible memories in the sweet release of drink. For I am duty-bound -- neigh, compelled -- to scribe the ghastly transmutations of which I have borne witness.
I daresay that I, too, may even now be slowly succumbing to the corruption I have seen, and my waking eyes no longer discern between Ponyville and that which is beyond Ponyville. For I have seen shambling horrors that would cause the demons of Tartarus to blanch. Indeed, I now know what lies beyond, or rather aside, the simple lives enjoyed by the ponies of Equestria, and I have seen the shapes of those who walk, or should I say shamble , in the darkness therein.
Thus begins my tale.
