The Atlas

Deep within the castle, Twilight, there is a room protected by wards new and old, seeped with more protections than anything barring the Elements could break through. Inside is not a king, a tyrant, or even a weapon....

Inside that room is a book.

A book that is older than I, older than Discord, older than Equestria, even...

It is named the Atlas, but has no author. A fitting name, really; it is a written map of our world and everything in it. It contains more knowledge than the libraries of Equestria combined, but none of it is safe.

Each page has a magic to it, the power to change the world. In my quarters I have only a single page that fell from the Atlas- that page tells of the Tree of Harmony.

It was that page that allowed us to defeat Discord, and perhaps it was another page that drove him to become the Lord of Chaos in the first place.

If you value your life- no, if you value Equestria- then do not ever open that book. Should Luna and I be gone, make sure the wards are strong every day so that it does not fall into the hooves of any pony, good or evil.

Power can corrupt, but the Absolute Power of the Atlas would corrupt absolutely.

Long ago, when the night was proclaimed eternal...

The Sun pushed at the horizon, but the Stars pushed back. A mare, no, a demon in a mare’s form, looked at her glorious Night. The mortals, she decided, would love the Night ever more than the Day and that hateful Sun.

She was not Luna, not anymore. “Nevermore,”whispered the Demon, her voice quivering with a madness fresh and new, “shall I be named by what I was. I am... Nightmare Moon, and the Night shall last forever!” The Nightmare laughed, growing more confident every moment.

At her hooves lay a torn page from an ancient book, its words carrying the madness of fate and of magic from ages past.

The guards marched in formation, surrounding the newly crowned Princess Twilight Sparkle.  All of Twilight’s guards had protected the marble halls of Canterlot for over seven years; each and every one of them remembered when they had been given the most feared duty in the castle: guarding the door.

Many had claimed to hear whispers from beyond the door, many more had felt an uneasy pressure in the air- like something was with them- something unnatural. Some had even needed to take a month off after doing their time guarding the door- nopony could fault them for that.

Winding through the dungeons of the castle, through layers of magic new and old, Twilight’s guards stopped in a huge, vaulted room made not of marble but of a grey stone that seemed to sap color from everything that touched it. Twilight recognized it as Coldstone, one of a handful of substances that was immune to magical tampering.

At the other end of the room was a door that gave off a pressure not unlike the feeling of walls threatening to fall on oneself, made of a crystal so dark that Twilight found it hard to look at. It was not painful; more like.... like her eyes just slid off of it, seeing almost nothing at all.

At the base of that door, a navy blue alicorn stood silently, staring back at Twilight.

Celestia looked at the sheaf of pages lying on her desk, but she saw nothing of their contents. Her mind was elsewhere; it was with Twilight Sparkle and the Dark Vault Door that she had brought from the Everfree to protect the Atlas, wondering if Twilight would be able to pass the test of absolute power.

If she failed- Celestia glanced at an ancient paper dominated by a sketch of the Tree of Harmony- the world would suffer for Celestia’s trust in her student.

“Strange, is it not?” Luna mused, the doors of black slowly swinging open, making not a sound. “This door was made by one of the eldest of dragons, whose name has been forgotten. Some say that he forged it deep in the Abyss, using Dark as a smith would iron.”

“The Abyss actually exists?” asked Twilight in a wondering tone, thinking of other legends that might turn out to be true.

“I have been there,” replied Luna, shuddering as if chilled, “and it is not a pleasant experience. If you value your sanity, Twilight, stay out of that place.”

Beyond the doors was a long hallway made of yet more Greystone, through each arch a door made of clear crystal; if one looked closely, they could tell they were covered in faint blue runes. “Behind that door lies Godsend, a sword so vile that not even Sombra would use it. It does not draw blood, though... it cuts the soul,” said Luna, nodding at one such door. She indicated yet another door, saying, “In there lies our weapons... Mine and Celestia’s weapons, made for us by a dragon. I pray that we never again have to use them.”

“Um, Prin- Luna?” Twilight injected as Luna drew breath. “I’m sorry for asking, but why are you here with me?”

Luna paused, looking at her hooves. “So that you do not give into temptation and read more than the Atlas desires to show you. I gave in, and spent a thousand years thinking about it.”

Twilight could not think of anything to say to that. They continued in relative silence, accompanied by the sound of their own hooves echoing through the hall. After a moment that seemed to stretch on for centuries, they arrived at a small door, coated in more runes than Twilight would be able to read in a week.

It swung open, revealing a huge, battered old tome- it reminded Twilight of the book she had hid the Elements of Harmony in. The book looked like it was well-travelled; it was singed, cracked, and torn; yet not a single page was more than a little frayed at the edges.

The book opened on its own, eliciting a gasp from Twilight. The pages flipped by rapidly, turning one way then the other, as if unsure what to show Twilight. Eventually, it stopped on a page hoofwritten in black ink, entitled:The Dark and the Abyss.

Luna nodded encouragingly at Twilight. “It wanting to show you something is in itself a compliment. The Atlas isn’t harmful if you only read what it presents you.”

“The Dark,” Twilight read aloud, “is not innately evil nor good. It is the opposite of Light, which itself it not good nor evil. Just as Light comes from the Heart of the Sky, the Dark has a home- the Heart of the Abyss.

The Abyss is a place unlike any other; it is not entirely physical, and entering it is entering the wellspring of the Dark. It is not actively harmful to the world, though at times it can leak through, on a seemingly random basis. In reality, it is an upward scaling leakage that will peak precisely one year after the ascension of the Alicorn of Magic, and unless the Abyss is sealed, it will spill over into the world...” Twilight trailed off, comprehending what The Atlas was trying to tell her. “Oh dear.”

The Atlas snapped shut with the sound of a thousand whispered voices,

Harken!                                         arrives!

The

Dark

Beware                        comes

what                                out....