Dark water, bubbling and foaming, retreating from the coast by thousands of flows from small winding muddy bottom of streams to rushing rivers, which flip and carry away the open sea fishing boats and merchant galleys. The sea bottom exposed, seen by hundreds of holes that could resemble either of underwater burrows of moles, or blowholes of sea monsters burrowed in the mud. From these holes, clouds of mist hazed out of it.
At first, it was a barely noticeable trickle, but very quickly it gained momentum and soon milky haze surrounded the space left by the water. It hid itself sneakily, busily scurrying away from crabs, from the fishes beating in the throes and skeletons of sunken ships, hung with scraps of seaweed and fishing nets.
Soon it reformed into a state of solid matter as it slowly pulled towards the forbidden land. The first victims were the poor sailors who had jumped down onto the pier from their moored ships that were delayed by the abnormally high waves, being carried away by the water. The poor souls who inhaled the white mist immediately fell dead, the other infected running away shouting madly and with panic toward the city, screaming for help. But there was no point. It didn’t take long before the same fate befell those sailors and the onlookers on the shore.
Panic seized the numerous witnesses who saw what happened. All in a hurry, they all tried to be as far away from the sea in general soon as possible, and in particular the port harbor. Few were able to see how the gap in the clouds on western horizon allowed golden rays of the evening sun to shine through. And less than a few could see this sight covered a giant figure, which was steadily growing massively from its reduced size, preparing for its onslaught towards the city.
***
“Twilight, wake up! What's wrong with you?!”
The young dragon’s shout pulled the unicorn out of her stupor. For a few seconds she looked around bewildered, until realizing that she was sitting at a table in the reading room of the Canterlot's library.
“Spike, you can’t shout here!” Twilight groaned. “it prevents...”
“C'mon, Twilight, there is no one here except the two of us.” Spike interrupted her. “The library is closed, and every one just given up on you. They knows that you can sit for days staring at the same book, and you have a personal permission from Princess Celestia to do that.”
Twilight yawned, rubbing her eyes and rose from the table, mumbling to herself.
“Oh Yeah, I haven't been so passionate about one book for a long-long time” she said, stretching her numb hind legs. “So you're saying no one is here. Even the reception.”
“No one. Hey wait! I don’t really like this look of yours you’re giving. Why are you looking sideways? And why did you unfasten the cover of your bag?”
“Spike, you see... This valuable book...” she pointed by hoof at book with tattered brownish pages. “...can't just lying here on the table. Anyone can take it and put on the wrong shelf! Just think about what terrible confusion it would create.” The last words she spoke in a dramatic whisper, causing her to giggle with enlarged eyes.
“Twilight, I don't like it.”
The unicorn mare stopped grinning and smiled to her little helper.
“Don't worry, Spike, I'll do it according to the rules.” She assured as she opened the shabby cover of the book in question, and with help of her magic took out a yellow card from a paper pocket glued to the cover binding.
“Do you see it? This yellow card! This proves that this book is not barred from issuing from the library, so I would only need to fill it in.” She said excitedly, putting the card on the table and reaching for a pen and ink, at the same time pushing away the book, parchments and her entries into the saddlebag. “Spike, if it is not difficult for you, could you take everything those to the return counter.”
“Okay” Spike sighed, estimating the height of the pile of books and magazines on the edge of the table. He looked around and noticed exactly next to the rack the empty cart for transport books, and walked to it. A few minutes later he had shifted into the cart at least two dozen books into a variety of formats and sizes, that Twilight would only manage to scroll through, find the necessary information, and make records in the present day.
“Wow, "The medieval history of southern provinces"” said Spike, holding in paws the book with green cover. He fumbled it for a moment, and put it in a cart's basket. “I see you were fascinated by that small ethnographic expedition to the southern mountains. However, Celestia had to assume that you would communicate with other ponies, and not be buried back to old dusty books from that place with only your horn's tip sticking out.”
Last time this happened, the haul was so huge that Spike had to adjust the cart closer, then go up on the table to shove excessively voluminous folio on top of the pile of books in the cart. Repeating this step, he read its title:
“List of names of noble unicorns vassals of the Royal House of the Canterlot from time of establishment of the Great Union with enumeration of dignities and executions with a disgrace, and as well without." He recited before chuckling a bit.
“Wow, I think they made the book so big to fit the cover into the title.”
Twilight chuckled behind.
“Actually, no...” she began, but stopped as she caught a sarcastic glance from Spike, causing her to giggle again. “Although, you know, this List helped me to make a discovery.”
Spike raised an eyebrow in surprise, and his mentor and guardian excitedly stomped her front hoof.
“Yes, it did.” happily continued Twilight. “Just imagine, in the comfort of the library, I made a discovery! I found a book that simply can not exist!” She exclaimed, patting her hoof on the saddlebag.
Spike sighed, jumping down to the floor and began to push the cart, which creaked of its massive load as it rolled towards the reception, ignoring her rant before realizing something.
“Twilight, will you help me unload all of this? It’s a bit too much.” He asked.
The unicorn mare had already overtaken Spike and looked at the neatly arranged stacks of books.
“Oh, you did everything well-sorted, so you can just leave the carriage at the return counter. Um...I'll write a note, no, the whole article in the magazine of Canterlot's Historical Society...”
Twilight trotted towards the exit from the reading room, swinging the nose of her yellow accounting card, which was held in a cloud of magic, and went on talking about plans for future publication, already in another rant. Spike sighed one more time, and mumbled something unintelligible. He continued to push heavy laden cart, taking some of it to the left side of the reception desk.
***
The clouds parted above the western horizon allowed the evening sun to fill the sky with golden rays by the central street of the seaside town leading from the port to the east, to a rocky hill on top, a plateau which stood an ancient temple. The temple had seen better days, but still boasted of pretentiousness elegant columns of white marble, pediments decorated with bas-reliefs, portraits in which the heroes of ancient times fought against sea monsters from the depths, and many other statues of half-forgotten gods standing in their niches. Through the giant wide-open doors the sunlight flooded the temple's inners up to the altar by the eastern end.
The last remaining priests had still kept the ancient knowledge, all of them now lined up in a wide semicircle, turning their faces to the seven plates of mica black granite. These rough hewn boulders were stacked as if they were a huge throne, which served in the temple as an altar. At the center of the right armrest lay a giant sword, on the seat an iron armor laid, and to this day no one knows who placed it here and when.
The priests monotonously recited prayers, and from time to time some of them came to a small gong next to the altar-throne and repetively hit it with a wooden mallet. Every time this event occured, the hall was filled with tinkling cymbals, and with each blow a purple glow became visible and noticeable in the darkened altar and in the side niches. Soon, even in the temple exterior, cries of pain and despair were heard, along with a slight odor of smoke. A network of grooves in the floor filled with an opalescent purple haze, which, responding to the pleas of priests, first gained density, and then ran down the side of the altar as it began to sink itself into the sacred armor.
***
“Twilight, wake up!”
“Ah!? What? Where?.. Oh, it's you Spike!” Twilight exclaimed, snapping out of her vision.
“Yeah I know it's me… but I'm not sure that you are you. At least, you're clearly not yourself lately.” Spike replied, showing concern at his friend’s behavior.
The unicorn mare looked around, she was already back at home and once again lying on an open book. That old book which she recently found in the archive Canterlot's library. Spike busily collected scattered items across the floor, plates with records that Twilight did, and put them in a neat stack. Then he picked up a fallen pack of brown parchment and made sure it is empty. With disgust he shoved it into the trash to the broken feathers and scraps of crumpled paper. Taking a scoop and a panicle, He started to clean up the pieces and crumbs of oat galettes, which had fallen out of the bag.
“How can you eat this stuff?” Spike questioned, emptying in the trash a handful of trash.
“Those are very nutritious galettes, and I can at least a week work without interruption...” Twilight began to explain.
“Yeah, but they taste like the sole of winter boots. I cooked a normal meal for you, so don't go anywhere.”
Spike took the already overflowing trash and vanished in the kitchen. Less than a minute later he appeared again, pushing ahead of him a serving table on wheels. It smelled appetizing, the scent of honey cakes and freshly brewed tea filling the room.
“Thank you, Spike” Twilight nodded considerably. “You always know what I need.”
“What you need is sleep. Just look at this bags under your eyes!”
“Just let me finish this article...” Twilight started with her mouth filled, then she swallowed a piece of cake and took a sip from the mug that she levitated in front of her nose. “...Then I'll be sleeping off for the year ahead.”
“You said the same thing when you compiled the report about our last trip to Night's Castle Rock for Princess Celestia. Then you found this book in the library. What so unusual about it?”
“Well, firstly, it was writen by Night Flicker…”
“What! That foal with a cinema camera who has been disturbing us since we went to the south was there too as well?!”
Twilight stared at Spike for a few seconds. Realizing what he was talking about, it caused her to laugh and almost spill tea from the levitated mug.
“No! No, Spike. It's just a coincidence. Although... That Night Flicker...” she pointed a hoof to the book “was the youngest son of the last Duke of Night, who was descended from the former royal family who ruled Night's Castle Rock in the early Middle Ages. And our Night Flicker, as our last trip revealed, is also a very, very distant descendant of those ancient kings. And by the way, You did get along pretty well with that foal.”
“Yeah” Spike said, a bit embarrassed. “But just so you know, those buzz like zh-zh-zh-zh from his camera still ring in my ears.”
Twilight set the mug on the table and laughed once more.
“That's not all, the illustrations for this book — and I'm going to prove it — were drawn by Flicker's sister. You'll laugh, but her name was Chilly.”
“What? Just like the mother of our Night Flicker?”
“Exactly! An amazing coincidence, isn't it?”
“Um, and it deserves to be in the article with torment?”
“No of course. There is something different.”
Spike moved to the book and started looking at the pictures on the pages: hemmed on three sides by the town on the seaside terraced down to the sea and a mountain; in a port harbor came a few rounds of sided ships, bristling rows of oars; straight up to the center of the wide street, which ended in a strange rectangular house. The house seemed to represent several rows of columns with the set on top of them a gable roof.
It was quite an interesting sight, which prompted Spike to lean over to get a better look the details.
“Wow! At first it seemed to me that here under the roof” he pointed a claw at the house with columns “was just a couple of some quirked lines, but when I look closer, there is a picture with strange monsters!”
“Yeah, Spike, the more you peer into the picture, the more detail you notice. And if you start to look closely to certain points, the picture can take you inside it… you'll be able to wander down the drawn streets, hear the sounds of the sea, smell the blooming gardens...”
“But all this is so...” Dragon made a face and spread his paws.
“Flat and disproportionate?” Twilight answered. “Yeah, artists used to draw like this till Leonardo Da Hoovsie changed it. But Night Chilly was able to construct magic pictures, as it was a part of her special talent. She attached a special spell to drawings, which could draw the viewer into the world of the book. Even after four hundred years, no one could repeat this magic till Haycartes. He guessed out her chain of spells and developed a method that allows anypony to get inside any book for a few minutes.”
For a minute Spike stared into the book without blinking and it seems so impossible, that when he finally looked up from the yellowed pages, his face was frozen in an expression of delight.
“I wished that someone would make this idea into one of a Power Ponies comic book...” He started, but stopped when he saw Twilight chuckling, holding her mouth shut with her hoof.
“Hmm, but you seem to be saying that this book can not exist. These two...” Spike snapped his fingers. “brother and sister…”
“Night Flicker and Night Chilly” prompted Twilight.
“…They never worked together? Did the pair actually work?”
“They worked. Ponies in the faculty of history almost prayed for their joint reports, hmm, about archaeological expeditions of The Order. But they were the same ponies who cursed the expedition themselves — oh how much was ruined and destroyed!”
“A-and?” Spike spread his paws. “So what's wrong with this book, why can't it exist?”
“Do you remember the list of names of noble unicorns?” Spike nodded vigorously. Twilight picked up by levitation a sheet of parchment covered with her notes. “So, according the entries in the list, when this book was written, Night Chilly was dead for ten years.”
***
The sun was hanging above the horizon. The figure of whitish haze had already took one third of the way from the port to the temple. Behind her, formed a whole crowd of crazed townsfolk, the survivors, breathing the milky white fog. To the main street from adjacent lanes ran the new crazy ones and joined the macabre procession, over their heads they shook the cudgels and pales with traces of blood. Here and there were heard cries. Cries of flared up conflagrations added more and more red shades to the rays of the setting sun.
When the gong sounded and the last verse was mumbled by the priests, the purple haze fully went into the armor and stood up, folding in the tall figure of a mighty warrior that took his sword and came down from the throne. In a measured pace, he left the temple and walked straight ahead down the street to the west, to meet his enemy.
***
“Twilight! Twilight, wake up!” Princess Celestia gently shook the shoulder of the sleeping unicorn mare, but her reaction was sluggish: Twilight mumbled something unintelligible and turned on her side, releasing a trickle of saliva from the mouth. “How long has she been in a state like this?” Celestia asked Spike.
“Um… for about three days.”
“Really?!”
“Not really… she wasn’t exactly like this until now. Prior it was enough to loudly shout at her to wake up, and she was recovering slowly. But today I found her falling asleep in front of that book and could not wake her up no matter what I tried… that’s why I put her to bed and called you.”
“A book?”
“Uh, yes. She found it in the archive of the library some time ago, and began to study it. She said that she made the discovery that she would put in an article...” Celestia couldn't suppress a fleeting smile with that comment, but frowned quickly. Spike swallowed the lump in his throat, and continued: “And she has been falling into a trance. Everytime I call her, she wakes up as if nothing had happened. At first I thought that she was just tired, since she almost never has good sleep lately. But now this is obviously not the case. Is everything is gonna be okay with her?
The Princess kept silent for several seconds, then put a hoof on Twilight's forehead, then lifted her gaze, her expression serious.
“Show me that book.”
“It’s here, on the desktop.”
Celestia stood up and walked over to the table, which Spike pointed.
“This book?” Princess clarified.
“Yes. And over there stacked the results of her research, I sorted the test records by the numbers, and all the notes are folded into the folder…”
“Thank you, Spike,” She interrupted the dragon, opening the book with the help of her magic.
Leafing through the yellowed pages, Celestia more and more gloomed and muttered under her breath about the need for more than once in a hundred years, to conduct the audit of library funds. From time to time she turned to Twilight, and her horn for a moment covered the rosy glow, the same flicker that arose around Twilight's horn, who was moaning softly. Finally, Celestia closed the book, and again went to her student lying in bed.
“Everything will be well, Spike. Now, please, leave us for half an hour, and prepare a strong, sweet tea.”
“Certainly, Your Highness!” Spike replied, delighted. He waved his paw, depicting something like a salute, and ran to the kitchen.
~~~
“Drink it!” Celestia ordered. She was holding a cup of tea in a cloud of magic to Twilight, who after several unsuccessful attempts to pick up the cup through levitation, took it by hoof and took a sip.
“Oh ew, it's so sugary.” Twilight groaned, grimacing. The blanket had fallen from her shoulder.
“That's the point. You need to restore your blood sugar.”
“Okay,” Twilight quietly agreed, grimly sipping from the cup.
“You must remember, Twilight, that in the Middle Ages — it wasn’t just a time when ponies had weird speech and wore funny clothes, with kings sitting on their thrones in every more or less a major city… At that times ponies treated things differently, thought differently. If a book was written in this text, you can get crazy and lose your mind, meaning exactly what it says. And such an inscription is considered quite the sufficient precaution.” She explained, drinking the same tea as Twilight and levitating her own cup on the table.
“Are… are you going to take this book, Princess Celestia?” Twilight muttered faintly.
“I'm afraid so. And the results of your research too.” Hearing this, Twilight sniffed sadly and set the cup on the table, her hooves trembling. “Although, I must praise the thoroughness of the work done. I read your notes while you're asleep.”
“Thank you.” Twilight replied apathetically.
“I'm really sorry, Twilight, but this article for the magazine… you'll just have to write it on some other topic. However, I see that you're tormented by some questions in the book. Don't be shy, ask me. It’s okay not to understand everything.”
“Oh… ok. I didn’t understand how could Chilly draw illustrations for the book after her death.”
“As far as I know from your records, you already brushed off all rational explanations, such as that it is painted by someone else, that the dating of the book is incorrect…”
“Yes, in the beginning it mentioned events in Nightfall Bay that were dated quite accurately from several independent sources, and...” Twilight interrupted her mentor and stopped in mid-sentence, biting her lip.
“Uh, I'm glad you gradually back to normal” Celestia joked.
“Sorry.”
“Well, Night Chilly's spell is very complicated. She was strong, but she wasn’t a very skillful magician and she couldn't pass this spell to anyone in the usual way, by deciphering and writing. But the usual way wasn’t the only way to do it. Do you remember our lessons about wild unicorns of steppe?” Twilight nodded. “Then you remember how mothers taught their foals vital spells?”
Twilight thought for a few seconds and said with confidence:
“A strong emotional connection can create a mind channel, through which spells can get linked directly from the memory of a unicorn in the memory of another. For example, a strong bond is formed between mother and foal, or...” Twilight stammered and blushed in a dark red color. “Uh, Princess, don't you want to say that they…”
“No!” Celestia laughed. “Lovers they were not... As far as I know. Their relationship is paradoxical. In normal circumstances, they could be described like a cat and dog. They fight and are against each other usually, but if something bad happens, they stand up for one another. Incidentally, Chilly was the eldest, and at one time replaced Flicker as his early deceased mother. So, their relationship is whatever it may be, but the fact is that they had heavy emotional bonds. In such a case that a brother possessed a sister's special talent spell. Unusual yes, but not really that incredible. Especially because he, unlike his sister was a skilled magician, though he did not have a lot of magical energy to support it.”
There was a long pause, during which the princess and Twilight continued to drink the nasty-cloying tea. Finally, Twilight asked the final question:
“And how did you save me from the curse?”
“Oh, everything is elementary” Celestia smiled “I switched it to me.”
“Holy skies!! You didn’t!” Twilight exclaimed, shocked.
At this point, Spike appeared from the kitchen, rolling to a serving table.
“Your Highness, I did everything as you ordered,” he said happily. “Salad with tomatoes, olives and soft cheese, drizzled with soy sauce, and to top it all off, a sauce made of finely grated carrots with garlic and a drop of sour cream. Oh, and Apple juice.”
“Thank you very much, Spike.” Celestia praised, then turned to Twilight: “You have a wonderful assistant, appreciate it. Don't worry about me, I know how to deal with such situations.”
***
Mad cries were heard as loudly as if screamers had already climbed the temple's stairs. However, it had, but none of the priests could not hear it. On the floor of the temple before the altar lay twelve lifeless bodies. In their hands they clutched obsidian knives, which shortly before each of them had cut his throat in turn. Blood overflowed into the grooves leading to the foot of the altar, but the last victim had refused.
The defender did not respond to the call, and the ancient armor was left on the throne lying as useless as a pile of dead iron.
The dull clatter of the smash shook under the temple's arches. A whitish figure took a slow walk through the open door and walked down the aisle. She stopped in front of the first dead body.
After a few minutes of waiting the screams outside began to fade — the crowd dispersed. The need for her disguise disappeared, and a whitish mist began to thin out and dispel. Very soon on the floor of the temple stood a short, but slender white horse with wings on her back and a long twisted horns protruding from forehead.
Looking around, the horse stepped over the dead priests and carefully, trying not to step in pools of blood, came to the throne-altar. She hesitated for a moment, and climbed on foot of the altar, then reared her legs into the air, her wings flapping, striking the front of her hooves into a heap of iron armor. She watches as it crumbled into dust, dust which immediately disappeared into thin air. The same thing happened to the sword, although nobody touched it.
Finally, the horse folded her wings and sat atop the throne.
At that moment the sun dived below the horizon, and only the fast fading glow of sunset and the flickers of fires in town’s lit temple remained.
Author's Note
Hello dear friends!
This story was originally written on russian, an then translated by goggle and me. A lot of thanks i should say to Complete-chankl2, who helps me to drive this text into a human readable form.
