I. What's Past is Prologue

Cantor, Valentina noted, cleaned up rather nicely. More so than he realized. The new black cape was a particularly posh accent to his pale coat. Given how much more self-assured he was recently, he lacked only that sense of arrogant haughtiness commonly (and often falsely) associated with the upper classes to seem almost regal.

But, she thought as she clung to his fore-leg (looking quite decorative), as soon as somepony approached and saw his warm, friendly smile as Cantor almost, but not quite, looked at a body … well, that simply ruined the air of high-society reserve and general snootiness he didn’t quite manage to project.

Valentina’s grip looked light, but it wasn’t. She knew Cantor was nervous, which meant his mind was on other things than where he was putting his hooves. The whole point of looking nice was to blend in with the various bibliophiles and society socialites here for the unveiling of a new donation of rare books. If Cantor wound up taking a tumble, then blending in would be right out the window. Possibly literally.

Valentina knew Cantor was grateful for the assistance. Although the sweet dear had, of course, been worried about dragging her into possible trouble. But she wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Cantor ought to be more worried about what would happen to him if the librarians realized that he wasn’t here for the speeches, wine, cheese, string quartet, and polite conversation … but rather to sneak back into the underground office that had been set aside for “Mr. Luggage’s” use.

The two “literary researchers” had stayed late. Well past the final call, until the head reference librarian had personally come to kick them out of the library – with threats that if they were going lose track of time that badly, he might not permit them to return. The end result was that there hadn’t been time for the staff to clean up their assigned reading room prior to this evening’s gala, only to hastily lock the rare books back into one of the cases.

Valentina didn’t know when Thretan had gotten copies of that case’s key, the hall keys, and the room key but the changeling assassin had, and now Valentina had all those copies tucked into a smart black purse that matched her dress perfectly. In theory, she and Cantor could be admitted to the party, mingle, enjoy some wine and crackers, listen to a spot of music, and then – when the speeches began – duck down one of the back stairs, let themselves into the reading room, open the case, and have Cantor do the, admittedly somewhat spooky, magical workings that would, they hoped, reveal the location of Tambelon.

There shouldn’t be any major problems.

But if there were problems Valentina had been relieved to note that there were allies nearby, ready to help them escape to their fall-back position. On their way back to the New Bodleian, after their quick change into their formal wear, she had spotted Thretan (in her young Katherine Hoofburn disguise) apparently doing some sort of “tourist of the evening” walking-about around campus. On earlier visits over the past week or so, Valentina had occasionally spotted a zebra or two … just around, not obtrusive, who she had assumed were in the vicinity should trouble erupt. It was nice to know that Thretan herself had eyes on the building tonight.

Valentina and Cantor mingled. If they had just been here for fun, she would have dragged him into the midst of the crowds of ponies. As it was, they stayed more on the fringes – where Cantor was surprisingly charming to the occasional celebrant who paused to make small talk. Cantor knew his books and his art and his history, and was able to converse about those subjects in a most enjoyable fashion. Perhaps not as a true expert, but at least as a very well informed and interested amateur.

It was a big crowd. Staying out of the way of the chief reference librarian wasn’t a problem. That stallion was far too busy keeping the event running smoothly to pay close attention to a couple of ponies on the fringes of things who didn’t want to be noticed.

Valentina may have had one too many glasses of bubbly by the time the music was done, the horse d'oeuvres were nibbled, and the speeches started. She wasn’t surprised that she had to give Cantor a slight tug to remind him that they needed to take advantage of the crowd’s shift in focus to the guest speaker to duck out rather than listen to a talk on bibliography.

They ran into a security guard almost immediately, but rather than try to avoid the mare, Cantor went straight up to her and said, “I say, do you happen to know where the powder room is?” Valentina giggled. She didn’t need to fake the slightly slurred buzz from the champagne.

The guard answered, quite professionally and with accompanying hoof gestures, “Down the stairs and turn left, sir. You can’t miss it.”

Down the stairs they went, but not towards the facilities. Half way to their destination Cantor tensed and whispered “Guard coming.” Valentina, who had already retrieved the keys, tried two before getting a side door open. They ducked into the office, shut the door, and Cantor – with a touch of magic – flipped the bolt-switch to relock it.

Outside the guard passed by. He (or she) tried the door handle, just as part of the routine Valentina suspected. Perhaps two minutes later Cantor said, “Thanks Magpie!”

Valentina chimed in, “Oh yes, thanks loads!” Grinning at Cantor, she added, “You have the nicest friends.”

“I do indeed,” Cantor agreed, but he also sounded worried. More worried than he should.

“What is it?” Valentina asked. The wine had her feeling good. The excitement had her feeling even better. But something in Cantor’s tone threatened to put a damper on the otherwise quite enjoyable cloak-and-dagger of the evening.

“I don’t know … the ghosts are … there’s something wrong. Magpie says her hooves are prickling something awful, Fairweather doesn’t know what he’s feeling – but it’s not good, and Morari says that there’s some sort of magical disturbance underway.” Cantor paused, “He thinks. He thinks there is some sort of magical disturbance underway. Whatever it is seems to be distressing all of them and …” Cantor frowned at thin air. He sounded quite quizzical, “What do you mean ‘more real?’”

“Cantor, we’re on a rather tight schedule.” Valentina tugged at his leg. “Chatter with them while we trot. We aren’t likely to get two chances at that book.”

Cantor nodded, distracted. As they made their way back out into the corridor and down more steps to the subterranean portion of the archives, most of what he was murmuring sounded more reassuring than anything.

Valentina felt a shiver run down her own back. The spooks were spooked? What would frighten a ghost? From what little she caught of Cantor’s soft and supportive speech he was trying to calm and quiet them. When he focused on being persuasive, as he was doing at the moment, his musical voice really did make one want to believe him, to listen to him.

No more guards, and within minutes they were outside the door to the small chamber that had been repurposed to their study room. Valentina tried the key. A near perfect fit. The door unlocked and swung open with nary a protest.

Valentina flipped on the lights, watching the crystals set into the ceiling start to glow. Cantor might be able to see in the darkness, but she couldn’t. And Magpie was the one best suited to waiting in the halls and watching for approaching trouble.

Cantor went over to the case containing the Iron Book of Shadows. Valentina remained by the door. Cantor looked over his shoulder, raised an eyebrow, and said, “Keys?” Without really thinking, Valentina tossed them to him. They were both a tad surprised that he caught them successfully.

Unfortunately the key to the case wasn’t quite so perfect a fit. Cantor fiddled with it for a moment, then banged the side of the case once, fairly hard. Honestly, he wasn’t all that strong a pony either. Still, it was enough to jar loose the lock and pop the case’s door.

“Thanks, Fairweather!” Cantor grinned at a spot nearby that appeared empty to Valentina. Then his expression began to shade back to worried. “It will be fine. You’ll be fine.”

Cantor looked over at Valentina. “We need to hurry. Something here is seriously, seriously wrong. I’ve never seen them like this. Not since …” Cantor started to go pale, then shook his head. “No. No … would you get the lights?”

He had the Iron Book of Shadows open and was standing behind the desk. The room was as they had left it: a mess. The waste-bin overflowing with Cantor’s failed attempts at sketchwork, loose piles of notes, and two of Valentina’s own drawing pads. Fully a dozen common reference works, all brought down from reference rather than being dug out of the secure portions of the archives, had been left out. Anything rare had, like the Iron Book, been locked away in one of the room’s cases before the librarian had let them set a hoof outside the room.

Valentina flipped off the lights. The room was windowless and underground. The darkness was absolute. A moment passed.

“Well … that was surprisingly easy. And … uh … it works.” Cantor’s voice came from the darkness some paces in front of Valentina.

“That’s good.” She replied. She could also hear the distinctive sound of the book's iron cover being unlatched, and the rattling of it's volcanic glass pages being flipped.

“Apparently the whole ‘pulling the shadows’ around me thing just takes a bit of concentration. And yes, Magpie I’m still here. You can hear me talking, right? Apparently, Valentina, they can’t see me at all when I … uh … do …” Cantor’s voice trailed off.

Valentina had a bad feeling.

“Cantor?” She asked.

“I’m reading as fast as I can you two. With the book invisible like this, I can still see it, and I was right. Entirely different text and images. There’s stuff here about the shadow realms … theory on how to draw in the essence of lightlessness to do … stuff. No, I don’t need transportation or communication … nor concealment … nor imprisonment … wait!” As Valentina listened to the distinctive clicking of Cantor flipping through the obsidian pages she thought that whatever magic he had done may have rendered him invisible, but it hadn’t made him any harder to hear.

“Tambelon … Tambelon – Vale of Shadows … points of planar convergence … Aha!” There came the unmistakable sound of Cantor scribbling frantically as he copied information from the tome. After a few minutes of this, the scratching sound of quill on parchment stopped.

“Got it?” Valentina suddenly frowned to herself. “Did you say Magpie is in here? Why is Magpie in here rather than out there?”

“Yes … got it. And she’s in here,” Cantor’s voice was uncommonly grim, “because she’s terrified.”

Valentina blinked. From what she knew of the ghosts, Magpie was the last of the three she would expect to be terrified. Something really must be wrong.

The dull thud of Cantor closing the book echoed in the room. Valentina heard the distinct off-kilter sound of Cantor limping across the room. “Done. Now we just …”

As he was speaking Valentina heard a distinctive click from just to her left, in the dark of the room.

The door opened.

Before she could do more than reflexively flinch back, the silhouetted figure in the doorway flipped on the light switch.

Doctor Caballeron looked from Valentina (standing beside the door) to Cantor (visible again, and half-way back to the book case) to the Iron Book of Shadows in Cantor’s hooves.

Caballeron sighed and adjusted his grip on the surprisingly large metal-bound briefcase he was carrying.

“Always with the complications,” he remarked to no pony in particular.

Cantor was caught entirely unprepared. Somewhere in the back of his mind he could hear his own voice saying, “Well, crap.” Time seemed to slow.

“Doc—“ Cantor was in the process of saying Caballeron’s name. A surprised, largely unconsicous reaction to his sudden appearance.

Valentina was unfurling her wings and taking a pace back. Magpie, still shivering, had started snarling at Caballeron in an almost feral fashion. Admiral Fairweather’s face was twisted into a mask of equal parts fear and rage – the whites of his translucent eyes seemed to glow and his smile wasn’t in any way friendly.

And as for Morari, the ghostly unicorn took a half step back and, for the first time Cantor had seen, a spectral glow enveloped the shade’s horn. So Morari had been right … apparently he could tap into the increasing surge of magical power that had been flowing into the haunts.

But all of that was a distraction from Cantor’s focus on Caballeron’s lunge across the chamber. The Doctor swung the steel-bound case murderously hard, catching Cantor high in the jaw with an armored corner of the thing. The case, as Cantor had noted, was large – a little over three feet to a side, and perhaps a foot deep. It was hefty, even without the muscle Caballeron had put behind it. The pain was intense. Cantor’s vision was marred with flashes of light. Cantor thought he felt something crack as his head whipped around.

Cantor wasn’t fast. He wasn’t graceful. And he wasn’t particularly strong. But Cantor had survived the panicked attacks of ponies – singly, in pairs, in mobs – before. While he wasn’t entirely certain it was a good thing, Cantor sure knew how to take a beating.

Caballeron seemed a touch surprised that Cantor was not dropped immediately. That sort of a blow could usually put a more formidable looking pony than Cantor down for the count. It could possibly even kill them. The archeologist hadn’t been pulling his punches. And while Caballeron vastly preferred to have a few henchponies around to do his fighting for him, when push came to shove, the rogue archaeologist felt certain he could handle a bumbling marshmellow of an academic (whether mad or not) and some little filly.

Cantor staggered back, wildly off balance, and Caballeron followed up by tossing the briefcase straight into Cantor’s face.

Now that hurt even worse than whatever had happened to his jaw! Broken nose or not, Cantor’s hooves flew up to his muzzle as he toppled over backwards, blood splatters flying through the air.

In doing so, he dropped the book. Tossed it upwards really, a graceful – soaring arc.

Doctor Caballeron wasn’t clumsy at all. He caught his briefcase on the rebound and caught the Iron Book of Shadows before it could reach the floor.

“And a plea—“ Doctor Caballeron’s intent had been to say “And a pleasant good evening to you too, Mr. Mortalis,” his tone appropriately sarcastic. But it was half way through “pleasant” that Valentina completed her leap and dive and struck him square in the back with all four hooves accompanied by a surprisingly musical shriek of “Hii-yaa!”

That leap and soar had bounced her from the wall, to the ceiling, and then straight down on to the archeologist with as much speed and force as she could build.

Caballeron hit the floor, hard, with an almost comical splat – briefcase spinning out of his hooves in one direction, Iron Book of Shadows sliding away in the other.

Valentina kicked him in the head. She wasn’t pulling her punches either. She went for a second kick and Caballeron caught her hoof and managed to use her own momentum to throw her into the desk.

Cantor was struggling to get up. The toppling desk landed on his bad leg – not pinning it, thank goodness, but chalk up one more serious bruise. Papers and reference books went flying everywhere.

Caballeron was up again, he made a grab for the Iron Book. He got it. Cantor made a grab for the briefcase, he got that too.

Valentina rolled over to get up. Caballeron gave her a solid kick in the head.

But Magpie’s shade had leaped at Caballeron, her hooves had wrapped around his leg as he swung. Her ghostly teeth seemed to sink into his muscle and bone.

That shouldn’t do anything.

But it did.

Cantor felt a surge of horror when he saw that, while not stopped, some of the force of Caballeron’s blow had been sucked away by the angry haunt. And that faint, bloody teeth marks spontaneously appeared on Caballeron’s leg. The blow which struck Valentina was considerably weaker than it should have been. Even though she wasn’t well braced to receive it, it only rocked her back rather than knocking her flying.

Ghosts weren’t supposed to be physical enough … real enough … to actually touch the living.

And as Magpie snarled, Cantor saw faint wisps of dark energy begin to lift from her ghostly form … slowly spiraling around her.

“Oh no,” he groaned. The dark and terrible vortex couldn’t be reforming ... it couldn’t! ... could it? What was this magic? Where was it flowing from?

Fairweather, in turn, leaped on Caballeron’s back, going for a choke-hold. Had Fairweather been alive, the old war-horse would have had the archeologist down in a matter of seconds. The maneuver had been flawlessly executed. As a ghost, the attack should not have worked at all. But it looked almost as if the Admiral’s hooves were digging past the flesh and into Caballeron’s spirit, crushing and squeezing it.

Caballeron gave a little cough, shook his head, and started to go pale.

Morari unleashed a burst of magic. That was another thing that shouldn’t happen. Cantor and Morari had spoken extensively about how, as a ghost, Morari simply couldn’t make his magic work at all. Whatever Morari had tapped into, soaking up the ambient energy like a sponge, it had – Cantor supposed – made him “more real” … just as he had commented upstairs while they were hiding from the night watchpony.

The resulting blast caught the Iron Book and sent it spinning out of Caballeron’s grasp.

Cantor hugged the briefcase tightly to his chest and managed to stagger to his feet. Of course he also put one foot squarely in the overfull waste-bin, but upright was still better than prone.

Caballeron had staggered back three paces. Valentina, shaking her head, snatched the fallen book.

Caballeron produced a handful of small, round objects from one sleeve of his shirt while pulling a lighter out of the other. With an expert flick and pass of the flames, all of the overflowing hoof-full of weapons were hissing merrily. Over his shoulder he gave a shout – not very loud, but pitched to carry well into the hallway.

“Mon cher! Trouble!”

Caballeron threw the objects in a wide spray before him. He had raised one leg to cover his eyes.

Now why would he do …?

Cantor realized they were explosives barely in time to blink his eyes shut.

A rolling series of incredibly loud bangs left him staggered, his ears ringing. The rapid flashes of brilliant light, even through his eyelids, had nearly stripped him of his vision. Valentina had been making a lunge for Caballeron, wings outstretched. Judging from the sound she had missed … possibly been tripped in her passing … and slammed, hard, into one of the book-cases.

Thankfully those were bolted quite firmly to the walls, and the glass was shatter proof. She rebounded, hit the floor, but was still thrashing about.

Worse, at least some of those explosives had fallen among the scattered papers and tumbled reference books. Cantor reflexively kicked off the waste-bin, which was becoming uncomfortably warm far too quickly. The ongoing hissing (coupled with the smell of chemicals and smoke) was, Cantor guessed, an indication that at least one of those tiny bombs had been a small phosphorus grenade. None of the chemicals had gotten on Cantor himself. He was sure even over the pain of his jaw, nose, and leg he would have felt the sort of burns that would have resulted in. And Valentina wasn’t screaming in agony, so it hadn’t splashed her as well.

But there was now, most definitely a fire in this side room. Several small fires actually.

That analytical, removed portion of Cantor’s mind recalled that there would soon be an alarm. When that alarm sounded, they would have exactly five minutes to get out of this part of the archival sublevel entirely before the fire doors shut and the chemical flame suppressants were deployed. When that happened, anything that needed to breathe air had best be outside.

A sharp kick to Cantor’s shin and he was down again. And he dropped the briefcase on hitting the floor. Caballeron scooped it up.

Cantor was blinking furiously. The explosion, or the small fires that were consuming stray papers, books, and a portion of the wooden desk had also done some sort of damage to the lighting. Half the crystals overhead were burned out, the other half were flickering wildly.

Caballeron turned and raised the briefcase, preparing to bring it down on Valentina, she raised a hoof and a wing to try to catch the blow.

Morari let out another blast of power. It was a big one. It didn’t knock the case from Caballeron’s hooves this time, but the force of it did snap both the case's hinges. Armored or not, it hadn’t been designed to take the sort of magical beating Morari had unleashed … especially not on top of its recent heavy use as an improvised flail.

The force of Caballeron’s blow was much reduced, enough that while Valentina was hammered back to the ground, it didn’t look like anything other than the carrying case had been broken.

With the case flopping open, several papers came spilling out. So too did a large clay tablet, wrapped in an old silk cloth, which almost as big as the case itself. The tablet was only two inches thick. It occurred to Cantor that, prior to the loss of its hinges, the Iron Book would have fit snugly into the briefcase along with that tablet, the papers, and whatever else was within.

The tablet hit the floor with a resounding crack. It had landed flat rather than on one edge or a corner. Caballeron swore, “Merde!”, as he dropped to his knees to try to gather it back up.

Cantor didn’t bother to attempt standing, he threw himself across the floor at the cloth-wrapped tablet, seizing one corner. Even half-stunned and flat on her back Valentina managed to grab the other corner. Caballeron released his hold on the baked clay to snatch at the Iron Book while simultaneously throwing the wildly flapping metal case over his shoulder and out the door. It landed in the hallway.

Valentina and Cantor fell away from one another. Both found themselves holding roughly half of a clay tablet. It had pulled neatly apart along a break that ran down the middle of the thing leaving a large golden ring (a little over two feet in diameter) lying there in the floor. Caballeron’s eyes were focused on the ring entirely so both Cantor and Valentina let their halves of the tablet fall.

The next fifteen seconds were pure chaos. The flickering crystals overhead and the flaring light and shadow from the fires caught a wild series of seemingly still images as Caballeron managed to get his hooves on either the Iron Book or the Golden Ring, but not both. Nor could Cantor or Valentina both manage to seize of these items between them without at least one of them being pinned, pummeled, tripped, or cut – for Caballeron had pulled a switch-blade from one shirt-sleeve in the confusion. Round and round the melee spun … Caballeron got his knife-wielding hoof through the ring, kicked Cantor in the teeth, snatched the Iron Book as Cantor went hooves over head, and then Caballeron went down with Valentina gripping one of his rear legs while Cantor’s own wild flailing entangled the other.

But Caballeron was suddenly breathing easier, and his strength was returning. The haunts had fallen free from him and were backing away from the door towards the far corners of the room.

Why would they be fleeing Caballeron? Cantor wondered.

“What is taking you so long?”

Her voice was ice and knives, claws on a chalkboard, the echo of the howl of a blood drenched predator. The contrast would have made Thretan sound warm and fuzzy. Though more whisper than sound, her voice cut through the din of the battle and thrust a chill into the hearts of the living and the dead alike.

A figure stood in the flickering light of the burning fire and the damaged crystals. Seeming to be no more than a hooded cloak drawn up and around a form of pure darkness, in a shape that might have been that of a pony, and with eyes that glowed with a yellow light.

As if on cue, the fire-alarm sounded.

Five minutes. Cantor thought. Five minutes and we’re all dead.

Magpie clutched her head, screaming. She cowered back against a corner of the room. The darkness that was flaking off from her began to swirl more intensely, binding her in place.

Morari blanched, shuddering away from the newcomer, throwing up one hoof in front of his face as, in a choked voice, he began to whimper, “Th-thou arch-sorcerer, thou h-hast attacked C-cantor, let that witchcraft recede f-from him into th-thy marrow and th-thy b-bone …”

It was a very old spell, intended to defend a pony or beast attacked by evil spirits.

Fairweather was snarling in a corner, panting, and starting to mutter the word “no” over and over to himself, the volume soft, but slowly rising.

Cantor had managed to climb, swaying, to his feet. Caballeron rolled away from Valentina who, punch drunk, still clutched at the Iron Book.

Cantor looked at the cloaked figure. His voice was a whisper of disbelief. “You.” His eyes were pure black in the flickering light.

Her yellow eyes widened. Her own whisper was one of equally shocked disbelief. “He can see.”

Cantor spoke again, his volume rising. “You!” Both Caballeron and Valentina turned their head to look at him. No longer disbelief, but recognition.

“Caballeron! Kill him! Kill him now!” Her icy voice howled like wind over the tundra.

Valentina and Caballeron both reflexively cringed backward, not from the shadow’s wail, but from something entirely unexpected. Something truly shocking.

Rage. Wrath. Kind, sweet Cantor’s scream of “YOU!” was murderous. The unfettered anger of a gentle stallion is a terrible thing to behold.

Cantor and the shadow threw themselves at each other. Cantor’s horn flared with silver light, and a wash of flickering power coated his body. From beneath her cloak, tendrils of shadow reached out, flakes of darkness spinning and flashing … only to rebound from the arcane protection which now warded him.

For a moment, it didn’t look like the magic would hold. But it did.

She couldn’t touch him.

Cantor, on the other hoof, had grasped the cloak firmly with both forehooves. He held it pinned against the wall. The shadows beneath it writhed in the flickering light.

“Caballeron!” she shrieked.

Cantor’s horn shimmered anew, this was a trivial spell … an easy spell … a spell designed to move objects. Almost any unicorn could put that one off as easy as winking.

With it Cantor snatched up the remaining half of Valentina’s smaller sketchbook. A book that was still burning wildly, as it had taken one of the two white phosphorous bombs pretty squarely on its cover, and he thrust that brilliant flame into the darkness beneath her cloak and held it there.

Cantor’s voice was shaking with intense emotion – rage, pain, grief … but no fear. His voice dripped power, “There is nothing in the darkness to fear. Nothing in the darkness but rest and joy. Begone back through the cracks that spawned you. You are a lie, a falsehood. She has cast you off. She doesn’t believe you any more. No pony believes you. You have no power here.”

She screamed. Not with one voice, but many. Beneath the cloak there was nothing but shadow and air, the flames ate away at her bodilessness as if she were paper. Remarkably, Cantor’s chant seemed to burn her even worse than the fire.

Caballeron’s rear hooves smashed into the back of both of Cantor’s own rear knees, a powerful buck. The knee-brace buckled and warped from the force of the blow, and the other knee buckled to. Cantor fell, and lost his grip on the shadow and his flaming book both.

Valentina lay against the far wall. She was trying to pick herself up again and carry on the fight. In the moments that Cantor had been focusing his magic on the shadow, Caballeron had managed to land a couple of telling blows and wrest the tome from Valentina's hooves. She was alternating between gasping and little giggles of terror and excitement both. Valentina was running on little more than alcohol and adrenaline – but the shine in her eyes said that, beating or no, she (like her ancient pegasi fore-mothers before her) knew the joy and thrill of battle.

She also had Caballeron’s switchblade lodged in one wing-joint. Flying wasn’t going to be happening any time soon for her.

Caballeron raised the Iron Book.

Morari gasped. The ghostly wizard inhaled … not air, but dark magic. Drifting, scattered motes of darkness, burned free from the shadow figure in the cloak and floating about the room like ashes, flew into him. He grew darker, more solid, more real. But that power came at a price. Morari was fighting to regain a grip on his mind and sanity … fear gnawed at him, whispered at him, stripped him of his strength as fast as he drew in more. Perhaps even faster.

Morari knelt and dipped his spectral horn into a splatter of Cantor’s blood and, sudden as waking from a bad dream, the fear fell away.

But the power remained.

The Iron Book came down, set to crush Cantor’s head. It rebounded from a bubble of force that Morari conjured as he spoke a word of warding.

Valentina and Caballeron both stared in shock.

“Leave him be, living pony, the dead protect him.”

Flickering into and out of their sight, transparent but glowing with dark power, Morari was visible to both these living combatants. He was unicorn of mature years, with a small goatee, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose, a white blaze on his forehead, and no sign of a mane at all.

His horn and eyes were glowing with a terrible, blue-black aura that bubbled and seethed.

“Little shade, you think to steal my power to use against us?” The shadow stood in a pocket of darkness, away from the scattered fires in the room. The sound of her voice shattered two of the last remaining semi-functional light crystals in the chamber. She lowered her head and the magic Morari had absorbed began to stream out of him. He screamed in pain and faded from the view of Caballeron and Valentina.

“Mon Cher, we need to get out.” Caballeron took advantage of Valentina’s momentary distraction to drive a knee into her midsection. She had managed to seize hold of the golden ring sometime while Caballeron was busy trying to kill Cantor. But Caballeron got one hoof on the ring as well. The positioning of this battle wasn't good for Valentina. With one of his back hooves pinning Valentina to the floor, it wouldn’t take Caballeron long to pry the ring free from her grasp.

“No! The unicorn must die!” She snarled.

“Kill him yourself then!” He snarled back.

Cantor flopped about, trying to get to his feet again and failing entirely. His legs weren’t working properly. One of them rarely worked properly any more, he reflected, so perhaps he should upgrade that assessment to his legs weren’t working at all. Morari had collapsed, whimpering. Cantor thought the ghost looked paler, more transparent, than usual.

The seemingly distant, and continuously rising, cries of “No, no, no” had reached a crescendo. From an overlooked corner of the room Admiral Fairweather hurled himself at the shadowy figure. The spectral grip of his forelegs wrapped around her, cloak and incorporeal body both. It was a crushing hold.

Beneath him, his rear legs bent, gathering power.

“Altius!” his deep voice cried out the word. His wings sprang open.

“Volantus!” Fairweather's legs flexed with all the strength he could bring to bear, his wings beat in a downdraft that sent papers flying and flames flickering. The jump was powerful enough that Cantor heard the spectral thoom of the sound barrier being broken.

Fairweather, shadow pony in his grip, went straight up.

He vanished through the ceiling.

She didn’t.

The impact as her cloak (and what passed for her body) hit the roof was strong enough to crack the concrete. She fell to the floor with what Cantor thought was a most satisfying thud.

Then Fairweather came back down. The Admiral had somehow picked up even more speed and a trail of shadowy energy came down with him. They slammed into her fallen form, just as she lifted her head.

The scorched cloak was driven into the floor hard enough to leave four shattered, hoof-print-shaped depressions two inches deep in the stone … and a spiderweb of cracks branching out from the sites of impact. She grunted in pain.

Fairweather stood there. For a moment all was still. But Cantor could tell something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

The hood of her cloak was pressed against Fairweather's chest. From between his shoulder blades, Cantor could see the tip of a horn of shadow, wickedly sharp, and now dripping ectoplasm.

While Fairweather had crushed her badly, he had also impaled himself in making that landing.

The shadowy figure struggled to stand upright. Thought badly staggered by the Admiral's attack, she succeeded. With a toss of her hood she threw Fairweather’s limp haunt to one side. There was an inch-wide hole in the middle of his ghostly chest now. It was oozing something that wasn’t exactly blood. He wasn’t moving when he hit the floor.

Cantor had to remind himself, briefly, that Fairweather was already dead. You can’t kill the dead.

But, Cantor found himself thinking, it sure looks like you can stun them!

All three haunts were out of the action: Fairweather stricken down by his own momentum; Morari drained of what energies he had struggled to use – and, against all odds, had briefly succeeded in mastering; Magpie, still screaming in terror, trapped and thrashing about in a vortex of dark, evil magic. A vortex that was slowly growing strong. A vortex that already looked far too familiar to Cantor.

There was a nagging sound that seemed to be striving to gain Cantor’s attention.

Oh yes, the fire alarm. Only three minutes, at best, left before the doors came down, locked, and the vents would start letting in a dry chemical and gaseous mixture that would suppress the flames before the priceless collection of ancient scrolls and manuscripts were consumed. It would also effectively remove the oxygen from the room … the books wouldn’t mind, of course, but it did mean Cantor and Valentina would suffocate.

Caballeron gave his rear hoof a cruel twist against Valentina’s throat as he finally yanked the ring free. He glanced up at the flashing light of the fire alarm as well.

“Cher. We are leaving. Now.” Caballeron bolted from the battlefield, pausing only long enough to gather up a hoof-full of his fallen papers. Both the golden ring and the Iron Book of Shadows were in his grasp. He was limping badly, his face and body bruised and sporting more than a few cuts. He was spitting blood and growling something about needing to bring along his usual henchponies if there were going to be more fights like this in the future.

Cantor couldn’t do anything to stop him from leaving. His attention was still on the cloaked shadow.

Cantor spat out some blood as well. Then he said, “There is no fear in the dark. Only rest and peace. You are but a shadow of what might have been. A lie. A whisper in the blackness beyond night. No pony believes you any more. You don’t exist.” His bloody grin held no hint of defeat. No sign of fear. “You never did, really.”

Even without the magic of compulsion ringing through his voice, she cowered back from him. For a moment she seemed to hover there, a cloaked figure in the doorway, glaring with murderous hatred at Cantor.

“I can see you,” he said.

A visible shiver of fear shook her cloak. Valentina watched, stunned, as the shadow fled.

A minute passed.

Cantor lay there, breathing heavily. His eyes focused on a seemingly empty corner of the room. He was whispering now, “Shh, shh. It’s o.k. Magpie, it will all be o.k. Let go of the fear. The fear isn’t real. Everything will be fine. Trust me … trust me … I am your friend. Your dear friend who loves you. You will not be alone in the dark. Never alone.”

“Cantor,” Valentina had less trouble speaking than she did standing. The adrenaline was starting to fade. “We have to go.”

Cantor reached out weakly with one forehoof, but he couldn't seem to stand. Instead, he scrambled at the half-burning bits of mess on the floor, pawing at a piece of cloth and some fallen debris.

Valentina got one hoof around him and started to drag him towards the door. She knew they weren’t going to make it.

By the time she processed the sound of approaching ponies, strong hooves had already lifted Valentina. It was a vaguely familiar looking zebra. His voice was deep as he said, “Easy there, miss. We’ve got you.” She looked over at Cantor to see Katherine Hoofburn … no … not her … it was Thretan who had lifted the fallen scholar onto her back. Cantor was hugging something to his chest.

They made it out of the security doors with twelve seconds to spare. Upstairs there was considerable commotion, and the sound of approaching fire-trucks. Thretan didn’t bother with the niceties of doors and went straight through a window, morphing into a pegasus mid leap and gliding to a landing below. The zebra carrying Valentina muttered, “Show off,” then eyed the switchblade still stuck in Valentina’s wing. He shrugged and leaped out the window as well. He stuck the landing, though from his grunt it wasn’t a fun experience, then he took off after Thretan at a gallop.

They made it to the café. One block away. The rendezvous point that had been agreed on, and which they had hoped not to need to use. Two other zebras were already there. One of them, bedecked with golden jewelry, tsked quietly to herself as she broke out a first aid kit.

“What … was that?” Valentina figured she should get the question out before her mouth got any more swollen. She hadn’t been in a fight that rough in years!

Cantor lay slumped on a table. For a moment she thought he hadn’t heard her, and that he might not even be conscious. But then he leaned slowly back, wincing, and stared at an ancient piece of cloth, embroidered with an unknown symbol … and the two large broken pieces of a clay tablet that he had scooped up in it.

When he spoke, Valentina was expecting the exhaustion and the pain reflected in his voice. She wasn’t expecting to hear the echoes of that terrible rage.

“That was the Pony of Shadows.”

“A shadow pony?” One of the zebras flinched in superstitious dread. Valentina stared. She didn’t understand.

Cantor shook his head. “Not ‘a’ shadow pony. ‘The’ Shadow Pony. That … that abomination is a tattered piece of what’s left of Nightmare Moon.”