Disclaimer: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is the property of Hasbro. Them's Fightin' Herds is the property of Lauren Faust and Mane6
“Are you sure about this, Uncle Ad?” Daring Do, better known to most ponies as novelist A.K. Yearling, mumbled grumpily as she trotted through an ancient underground cavern. Cyclopean pillars surrounded her as dozens of ponies busied themselves photographing hieroglyphics or packing away artefacts for transport back to Canterlot.
“Are you joking, Popit?” Gallant True, better known to Daring as her “Uncle Ad”, exclaimed excitedly. The milk chocolate colored unicorn practically skipped on his hooves. “I can’t remember the last time I was this excited! I can’t believe we were invited to take part in one of the most historic archaeological expeditions in Equestrian history!”
“I know, I just never expected the National Archives for Equestrian Artefacts and Ponthropology to invite me to an official dig after… the incident,” she whispered in hushed tones.
“Oh, I’m sure everypony’s forgotten about that by now,” Gallant True said looking to shift the conversation. “You know, popit, according to carbon dating, this temple complex is over three thousand years old! It predates the very founding of Equestria by over a millennium! There isn’t even supposed to be any ungulate habitation in this region going back that far, and it was under Canterlot Mountain this whole time!”
“Yeah, that is pretty exciting,” Daring grinned, enjoying the nerd-rush.
“Gallant True!” a dark greenish Earth Pony with a Blue-black mane waved at them, clad in standard khaki. Her cutie mark resembled a small toothbrush and a broken piece of pottery. “Glad you guys could…” The Earth Pony trailed off when she recognised Gallant’s traveling companion. Her face became unreadable.
Daring didn’t like where this was going.
“Hello again, Doctor,” Gallant waved back. “Popit, this is Dr. Brush Strokes of the National Archives. Doctor, this is my niece…”
“OMIGOSH!!!” Brush Strokes nearly bowled over Gallant to vigorously shake Daring’s hooves. “I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally meet you, Ms. Yearling! I’ve been reading your books since I was a filly! You’re the one who inspired me to get into archaeology in the first place! Can you sing my copy of Daring Do and The Marked Thief of Marapore?”
“Um sure,” The Pegasus adventurer chuckled. “But you can just call me ‘A.K.’”
“Sorry,” Brush Strokes smiled apologetically. “I’ve been a little hyper these past few months. I’m just really honored you came”
“I’m honored you invited me here, Dr. Strokes. This place is incredible! But I don’t understand why you asked me here? I mean, I like to keep up to date but I doubt I could tell you anything you don’t already know.”
“I’m flattered but this goes a little beyond conventional archaeology,” the Earth Pony pulled out a small crate, carefully removing a layer of wrappings. “We found this about a month back.”
Daring stepped forward to examine the artefact. It was a large key, pure white and of the most exquisitely masterful workponyship she had ever seen. “It’s beautiful, I can’t quite identify the material though. It’s not metal. Some sort of treated wood?”
“Not exactly,” Brush Strokes said. “We had a chemical analysis done but when the results came back, I ordered a second round of testing just to be sure, and then a third…”
“And...?” Daring asked.
“This key is carved from pure Unicorn horn.”
Gallnet True winced.
Daring could only imagine how he was feeling, a unicorn’s horn was the source of his or her magic. The idea that any unicorn would willingly gave up their horn to forge this talisman was unsettling enough. The other possibility was downright unthinkable. “What does it open?”
The Earth Pony smirked cryptically.
*
“Here it is,” Brush Stokes gestured wide to encompass the vast stone door that stood before them, dwarfing the three ponies that stood at the foot of its steps. Its surface was carved with what Daring recognized as the Tree of Harmony, a great metal lock embedded in the stone trunk. “Go on, try the key.”
Gallant True levitated the ancient key into the lock, silently grateful he didn’t have to physically touch it. He gritted his teeth as he turned the key and the lock gave a soft click, before slowly creaking inward.
Daring gingerly peered through the crack. The lamp attached to her pith helmet revealed a large corridor stretching out as far as its light could reach. Dotted along the walls were several doors similar in size and shape to the very one she now peered through. “This is amazing, Dr. Strokes! This complex must run under the entire mountain!”
“Uh… Popit?” Gallant interjected.
“Uncle Ad?” Daring drew her head back and looked around. “Where are you?”
“Back here.” Her uncle poked his head from behind the door frame.
“But how…” Daring gasped. She hadn’t realized it until now due to a trick of perspective, but there was no mistaking it. The vast stone doorframe wasn’t embedded in the cavern walls. It was a free standing structure.
The strange corridor beyond should not exist.
*
“Did I mention that this is a very VERY bad idea?” Uncle Ad asked as he secured a thick rope to one of the larger columns. “A very very very bad idea?”
“Did you? I hadn’t noticed,” Daring responded as she secured the other end of the line to her saddle. “Don’t worry, Uncle Ad. I’m just going to look around a little then come straight back.”
“Yeah, it’s no biggie,” Brush Strokes loaded Daring’s saddle pack with lamp oil, camera, extra rope and various other bits of gear. “Granted, most of the spooky ancient corridors you explore don’t exist in hyper-dimensional space.”
“Heh, yeah,” Daring chuckled.
“I mean, for all we know, it could be the gateway to the realm of some god-like cosmic horror that drives anypony that looks upon it completely insane!” the Earth Pony continued.
“I don’t think…”
“Or an impossible to escape maze imprisoning a crazed Minotaur.”
“I get it!” Daring yelled.
“Sorry,” Brush Strokes said. “Anyway, if you get into trouble just tug on the rope and we’ll come get you.”
Gallant gave Daring a small hug. “Just be careful, Popit.”
“I promise,” she said squeezing him back.
Daring stood at the threshold of the ancient stone door. She pawed the cave floor with her hooves in what she hoped to Celestia looked like a nonchalant manner.
She took a deep breath, and stepped across the threshold.
When nothing happened, she took a few more tentative steps. Looking back, she saw Uncle Ad gave her an encouraging wave. She smiled back jauntily before pressing further into the darkness.
The lamp Gallant had packed gave plenty of light. Yet everywhere she shined it, the darkness seemed to draw back only reluctantly, greedily reclaiming lost territory the moment the light passed on.
The stone corridors twisted and winded like a maze, making Daring that much more grateful for the golden cord tying her firmly back to reality. “No sign of crazed Minotaurs, at least,” she mused.
Everywhere she turned were great stone doors like the one she had entered. And just like that door, each was fitted with a metal lock. She wondered if the unicorn key might fit any of them.
Every door seemed to have its own unique mural inscribed on it, just as the door at the dig site had depicted the Tree of Harmony. The first door she noticed seemed to portray a great city with a red, green and blue rainbow shining over it. Another door was emblazoned with three shields or coats of hooves; ornate letters “S” and “W” and a stylized bat.
She gasped, coming to a door at the very end of one of the many winding passages. It was one of the few doors to be carved with creatures she recognized. Unicorns, Cattle, Deer and countless other ungulate races were depicted among great cities, towns and woodlands going about their daily business much as they did in Equestria and the surrounding kingdoms.
She almost assumed the door must depict Equestria until she got a closer look at one of the unicorns. The figure was tall and lean, more like a horse than a pony. The tail was like a lion’s, long with a tuft of fur on the end. The single horn was oddly curved and the hooves cloven like a goat’s.
Another figure, she had originally mistaken for a Pegasus until she noticed it’s oddly reptilian features. That and the fact its mane, tail and wings all appeared to be on fire. The carved figure didn’t seem the least bothered by that fact.
Her eyes narrowed when they came to the lock near the base of the door. Both the lock and the surrounding stonework work were heavily tarnished and scratched. It looked as though the claws and teeth of some gigantic beast had tried to tear and gnaw their way through the stone door to no avail.
She decided it was time to go.
She turned and began silently following the trail of the golden rope leading back to the outer world. She turned a corner, stopping dead in her tracks.
“Oh hay…”
The golden rope lay severed at her hooves. The fibres were roughly frayed rather than cleanly cut. Somepony, or something, had chewed through the line.
Another pony might have panicked but Daring had spent countless adventures honing her sense of direction and the corridors didn’t seem that complex compared to some of the mazes she’d escaped in her career. All she had to do was take her time and keep her head clear.
Daring rolled to the side as shrieking shadow pounced past her, landing on the stone with a frustrated snarl. It was a sleek black panther, little more than a silhouette in the gloom.
The big cat’s teeth flashed as it pounced again. Daring barely had time to spin around and buck her attacker in the face.
“Rrrooowwl! Shtupid meat!” the beast snarled.
Daring’s eyes widened in shock. “You can talk?”
“Yesh, I can talk,” the panther whispered. “And I can eat!” Again it pounced sluggishly, again Daring dodged. The creature lay on the stone floor panting and wheezing.
In the light of her torch, Daring could see the big cat was thin and scraggly from hunger. She found it hard not to feel sorry the beast. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t need your pity, meat,” the panther hissed as she tried to stagger to her feet before collapsing under her own weight, what little of it there was.
“How long has it been since you ate?” Daring asked.
“Ignorant meat,” the panther wheezed. “Time doesn’t mean the same thing here as it does on what you call ‘Foenum’. In the Hold, there are no days or years, only gnawing endless hunger.”
Before Daring could ask what “Foenum” meant, the entire corridor reverberated with a distant roar unlike anything she had ever heard before.
“What was that?” Daring whispered.
“The Devourer…” The panther’s eyes widened in horror. “Our leader, it must have our scent!”
“What will it do once it finds us?”
The panther glared up in annoyance. “What part of ‘The Devourer’ did you not understand, meat?”
“Point taken,” Daring answered. “Wait, what will happen to you?”
“The weak feed the strong. That is the way of the Hold.” The panther responded emotionlessly.
Before the panther could respond, Daring had manoeuvred herself beneath the predator’s body. With a shrug, she shifted the cat’s weight onto her shoulders.
“What are you doing?” the panther asked?
“I’m not leaving you here,” Daring replied as she stood up, carrying the slumping beast over her shoulders.
“Stupid meat!” the big cat hissed. “I am a predator! Do you think I would do the same for you?”
“Probably not,” Daring grunted. “I take it you’re the one who shredded my line?”
“What of it?”
“You know where I can pick it up again?”
The panther was quite for a moment. “Third corridor on the left.”
“Thanks, I’m Daring by the way. And you are?”
“Gora, if you must know.”
Daring found the golden thread right where the cat had said it would be. “Okay, Gora, just hold out a little…”
Stone chips fell from the ceiling as another roar shook the corridor, this time much much closer.
“The Devourer comes!” cried Gora
“Then we go faster,” Daring took off galloping along the path of the golden thread as fast as she could.
As Daring galloped, the cavern rumbled with the rhythmic shaking of giant paws drawing closer and closer. Her legs ached under Gora’s weight but the adrenaline only pushed her harder and faster.
Daring didn’t risk looking behind her but she could feel the looming presence of the Devourer just behind her. It snarls of hunger sounded uncomfortably closer with every second.
She could make out the light of the door home up ahead.
“We’re not going to make it!” Gora yelled.
“Just hold on!” Daring felt the Devourer’s hot rancid breath on her neck. She put everything she could into the last stretch but her legs were already starting to give out and the door seemed very far away.
“Daring… thank you for trying.” Gora fell from her shoulders.
“GORA!” the Pegasus cried as she turned to see a massive shadow fall upon the panther. It was already too late. She turned away, her wings carrying her across the threshold, crashing into the dirt floor of the dig-site.
“Popit!” Gallant rushed to her side.
“SEAL THE DOOR!” she screamed.
Gallant True leapt to the task, slamming the door and turning the key just as a massive clawed paw could be seen reaching out from within. The cavern reverberated as something on the other side of the stone door slammed futilely into the stone barrier, howling in frustration.
*
Daring Do sat in a makeshift infirmary near the dig-site, nursing a sprained hoof. She wished that was the worst thing she was feeling at the moment.
“Poppit,” Gallant True called through the plastic screen ringing her bed. “There’s somepony here who’d like a word with you?”
Daring groaned. “If it’s Dr. Strokes, tell her I’m not in the mood right now.”
“Not exactly,” Somepony spoke softly as the curtains parted. The visitor was tall and majestic. Her snow white coat and prismatic ever-shifting mane seemed to radiate a gentle light even in the gloom of the dig site.
“Princess Celestia!” Daring tried to scramble to attention, momentarily forgetting her sprained hoof and wincing in pain.
“Steady, steady there,” the Princess said soothingly as she eased the Pegasus back into her cot.
“Did Uncle Ad tell you what happened?”
“A bit, but he thought it best I hear the to story from you… if you feel up to it?”
Daring spoke of the strange corridors of stone and bizarrely carven doors. She spoke of Gora the panther’s final sacrifice. By the time she was done, she was surprised to find her voice hoarse and dry.
The princess extended a wing over the adventurer’s shoulders. “I am truly sorry about your friend.”
“I don’t know if I’d call her my friend. I mean I only knew her for about half an hour, and she did try to eat me.”
“Gallant True says you were only out of sight for a few seconds,” said Celestia without accusation of confusion.
“What? No that’s…”
“Time flows differently across Worlds.”
“I… Was in another World?” Daring gaped.
“Not quite,” Celestia spoke. “More like the space between Worlds. Such pathways are not unknown but I never even suspected this doorway existed until recently. That is why we must collapse this cave and bury it forever once everypony has left.”
“What?” Daring bolted up. “You can’t!”
“I can and I must,” the Princess spoke sternly. “You have no conception of the horrors that lurk beyond our World, A.K. Yearling. There are things that would make your so-called ‘Devourer’ seem tame, things that would stop at nothing to consume all of reality as we know it!”
“NO!” Daring felt her blood rise. “You can’t just bury the past and pretend it never happened! If you do that, you’re dishonouring not just Gora’s memory but the memory of everypony who gave their lives so we could live in a better World. It’s wrong!”
Celestia was taken aback, not by the vehemence of the young Pegasus’ words but the burning tears streaking down her cheek. “You truly believe that, with all your heart?”
“I do,” Daring replied.
“Very well, I will take your consideration under advisement. I still intend to quarantine this site until it can be more safety secured but until then, try to get some rest.”
“Uh, yes, Your Highness. Sorry for getting carried away there.”
Celestia smiled, “It’s quite alright. I wouldn’t be much of Princess if I was afraid of my subjects speaking their mind and holding fast to their beliefs.” She turned to excuse herself but stopped. “There is one last thing though?”
“Oh?” Yearling asked.
Celestia’s horn glowed, pulling a copy of Daring Do and The Eternal Flower from her satchel. “Would you mind signing this,” the Princess of the Sun grinned sheepishly. “It’s… um… for Luna.”
*
The Devourer seethed with fury. It had come so close to finally escaping the pit the Prophet had cast it into centuries ago, so close to finally slaking its eternal hunger.
No matter.
It clawed into the Door bearing the tree, marking it for future reference. Soon it would lead its kind in the conquest of the World of their birth. Once it had finished gorging itself there, it would turn its attentions to the next world, then the next.
And it would never go hungry again.
The End
