The Radiant

Before the world was made, there was only a great darkness, a silent void over an endless ocean.

The creator came then, and spoke. He opened vault of the sky to the crystal sphere of the starry heavens above, and soon after, the sun rose for the first time upon the world. The oceans receded into the deep, and the dry land was formed. With the light of heaven, he sculpted the land into continents and islands. With the cool of night, he caused all manner of living things to grow. He shaped all manner of living things, from the birds in the sky, to the fish in the sea, and everything that crawled upon the earth.

But when he looked at his works, he was not satisfied. The life had not awakened. And so the creator descended from the heavenly vault and walked upon the dry land. From his blood, he made the first unicorn. From his breath, he made the first pegasus. From his bones, he made the first earth pony. But from his flaming heart, he made humanity, and so it has been that humanity has ever since been called sons of fire.

And when he laid down to die, he created two sons, and he named them Destroyer and Preserver. He tasked them with watching over his creation – The Preserver to keep his creation from descent into chaos, and The Destroyer, to prune what was dead, and to from death beget new life.

But they were wicked, and did not love the works of their father.

-On Creation (Preface), Princess Luna, Restricted Archive, Royal Canterlot Library

“We’ll stop here.” Dirge said.

Trixie raised a single eyebrow, taking stock of their surroundings. They were in the Everfree Forest, and as far as she could tell, it looked just about like every other part of the Everfree Forest. Green, dark, foreboding, and ultimately boring.

“Trixie doesn’t see what makes this spot any more special than anywhere else in this forest. Why here?” she dug a hoof through the dirt, and grimaced when she unearthed a fat, wriggling grub.

“This is Avalon. Are you not impressed?” Dirge said, smiling easily. He did that far too often for Trixie’s liking.

“This, the everdistant city, our utopia, the dream in the heart of mankind.” he sighed softly. “A city of towers, of marble and gold, of kindness, and gentleness, nobility and wisdom. The great spire would shine eternally, they said, an artifice of diamond and stone and holy fire, an everlasting symbol of the supremacy of wisdom and law.”

Trixie’s face was one of indifference, but she couldn’t keep the curiosity out of her eyes. “I see. What happened to it?”
“Then came death, and the King of Bones. Ah, but you weren’t here in the age of Discord. Avalon wasn’t just a city. It was –the- city. He couldn’t touch it, so long as our hearts were strong. But when Avalon fell, our hearts grew sick, and we all died.”
Trixie made an uninterested noise, and chose a particularly vivid orchid to look at. “So sad. Still, it sounds like you gave up a bit quickly.”

Dirge smiled wide, and laughed like she’d made a joke. Trixie attempted to ignore him – he often did such things, finding the strangest sights or comments hilarious. Her attempts to needle him into anger were often met with such reactions.

She was used to traveling alone, but he’d refused to leave her alone ever since she agreed to help him. When they reached civilization, instead of disappearing like she’d hoped, he’d taken the form of an earth pony, Last Stop, with a white lily for a cutie mark. Trixie loved having other ponies attention, but she wasn’t used to having someone with her every moment of every day. Off the stage, she was a bit of a loner. Traveling all the way from Appleoosa to the Everfree had been quite the exercise in patience for the Great and Powerful Trixie.

Another thing that made his smiles unsettling; his teeth. They weren’t flat like ponies’ teeth were. He had fangs, like some kind of animal.

“I…well, I suppose, I suppose we did.” Dirge coughed, catching his breath, and gave one last chuckle. “I’m sorry, it’s just…well, you live in such a nice time.” he paused, taking his glasses off and cleaning them on his shirt. “Discord is a statue in your Princess’s flower garden. Children are taken on tour to see the frightening Draconequus, with all his scary claws and silly horns.”

He replaced his glasses, giving Trixie a sharp look. His expression was less amused. “You don’t live in a place where the sky can rain chocolate milk, or blood, or fire, if it feels like it. You’ve never watched your brother get turned into a fish. It sounds funny, until it never turns back into your brother. Is he still in there? Can he hear you? How can you know? And in a week he’s belly up in the bowl, and you still have no idea why it happened. “

His lip raised in a sneer. “To be entirely honest, Trixie, I couldn’t care less what you think about us. You ponies have been spoiled by peace and opportunity. Your personal problems are your own fault, and if it wasn’t for my generosity, you’d still be peddling your little vaudeville amongst the plebian rabble of this country for scraps and wooden bits.”

Now it was Trixie’s turn to smile, and she put on her best performer’s grin. She rolled her shoulders just so, and her cape caught the breeze, billowing out around her. “My my, someone seems a little touchy. Trixie feels very sorry for you, but Trixie cannot help but feel you’re being slightly…rude.”

With that last word, she raised her nose high in the air, refusing to look at him. “Apologize to the Great and Powerful Trixie, and she might still cast your little spell for you.”

The sneer disappeared from his face, and the Dirge bowed. “Of course, Great and Powerful Trixie. I apologize.”

Trixie’s grin grew even wider, and she deigned to look at him with a single eye. “Oooh, manners. Trixie is impressed.”

She wasn’t sure how he got so close so quickly, but in less than a moment he was standing right in front of her, holding a several tattered pages in one hand. His eyes, normally an unremarkable brown, were solid black, and she could count stars in them.

“Then cast the spell.”

Trixie said nothing, but gently grabbed the pages with her Telekinesis, letting them hover in front of her face while she perused them.

“It says this must be cast on a…battlefield.”

Dirge nodded. “This is one of the oldest.”

“And it must be cast where the sun casts no shadows?”

“A metaphor. Celestia has wrapped the world in a protective cocoon, but here, at the heart of what was once the proudest city of Men, her power is weakest. You will be able to cast it.”

Trixie tapped one forehoof on her chin. “And this, the…soul of a hero? This is necromancy.” she wrinkled her nose in distaste. “What kind of spell is this? I’ve read magic penned by both Princesses, Unicorns of every school, and even one by Leorial the Pegasus. This is almost completely different. I can’t even tell what it will do.”

Dirge smiled. “That is because it is my spell – or, rather, the spell of Tebryn the Archmage, who is also me. Celestia burned every copy of it she found, but of course, what you hold is not actually paper.” he said. Trixie checked the pages; they smoked gently at the edges, like mist.

“It is called the Contest of Heroes. And worry not, I have the soul of a hero. Several, actually. Now, how to do this…”
He tapped his head once or twice, and then grinned, and like a boy about to do a magic trick, put both his hands behind his back. “Choose one.”

“Mmm.” Trixie said, less than enthused. “Left, I suppose.”

His left hand extended theatrically, holding a tricorn hat. “An excellent choice, mademoiselle. This soul has been just dying to get out of here anyway.”

Trixie picked up the hat, and set it at her feet, and returned to perusing the arcane formula put out in front of her.
“Trixie thinks she is ready then. Anything else Trixie should be aware of?”

The Dirge just smiled.

“But…wait. You’re saying that every dead hero from the entire history of Equestria is going to start walking around and destroying everything? Princess, that doesn’t make any sense!”

Celestia shook her head gently. She and Twilight were currently sitting on two plush cushions on the balcony outside her personal chambers, watching the sun set over Canterlot, and in the distance, the Everfree Forest.

“Not every dead hero. And not every hero. And some will come from before the history of Equestria. I know that it seems strange, Twilight, even impossible, but you must understand that Tebryn was a most gifted student of magic. Somepony has cast his spell. A familiar darkness grows in the Everfree. I can feel it.”

Celestia stared hard at great forest. It was motionless, all green and black, and shadow.

“…soul, clap it’s hands and sing, and louder sing…”
The Everfree had had disappeared, at some point, replaced a desert of endless black sand. The entire world was silent, except for Trixie’s chanting. Nothing but black sand, silence, and the endless, fathomless stars.
“O Sages, standing in God’s holy fire, as in the gold mosaic of a wall, come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, and be the singing-masters of my soul…”

Twilight bit her lip. “Princess…I’ve studied every form of magic there is, and there isn’t any kind that could do what you’re talking about. You cannot call upon spirits you don’t know about.” Twilight said, pointing with her hoof for emphasis. “It would be like trying to teleport somewhere you haven’t been before, or remembering something you’d never learned. You’d have to be some kind of crazy history buff to cast a spell like this.”

The Princess nodded, adjusting her posture to better catch the evening breeze. “You are correct, my faithful student. But when wizards become great, they look at the rules of magic as obstacles to overcome, not guidelines to follow. And, as I have said, Tebryn was gifted. He knew he could not remember the heroic dead, but he knew of something else that did remember them. Equestria itself.”

Twilight’s mouth opened slightly. “I… what?”

Celestia smiled apologetically, then looked away. “I’m afraid I must ask your forgiveness, Twilight. I… there is a particular form of magic that you have not learned. A piece of magic, rather. Luna and I have kept it hidden since the humans died out almost a millennium ago. Kept forbidden to every mage, and hid as best we could. Magic the human mages perfected, and used to keep Discord at bay.”

Twilight blinked, looking left and right, and finally down at her hooves. A few moments passed before she managed to look back at her teacher.

“It… sounds like it was pretty dangerous then.”

Celestia’s expression was pained. “I did not keep it from you out of lack of trust, Twilight, or lack of faith in you. Such magic has never brought anything but the worst kind of trouble, tempting everyone it touches to the most egregious excess, tempting them to think that there is truly no limit to their power. Luna and I hoped to keep it hidden forever. This spell, Tebryn’s Contest, is an example of the horrific things it is capable of. But you are the Element of Magic, so I suppose in some way…no. In every way, this is appropriate. “

Celestia shook her mane, and looked around the balcony. She spotted a dead twig, perhaps brought to the balcony by an errant breeze, or a left there by a careless gardener tending her plants. She picked it up gingerly, wrapping it in the golden glow of her telekinesis, and held it aloft in front of them. Perhaps out of a certain amount of anxiety, she felt herself slipping into her Teacher role yet again.

“What is the first limitation of magic?”

Twilight thought for a moment, before giving what she thought the most appropriate answer. “A wizard cannot create life.” she said. It was true, and traditionally taught as the most important limitation on magic.

Celestia nodded, letting the telekinetically-grasped twig twist slightly in the breeze. “Correct. Even earth ponies cannot quicken any material – only seeds, roots and such things, not the plain mud beneath their hooves. But…”

Celestia concentrated. The glow around the twig intensified, the golden sun-color darkening to a deep honey. It shone for a moment, and then sprouted leaves, and soon after buds which burst into pink peach blossoms.

Twilight’s eyes goggled.

“The twig is dead, but it was not always so. In the Age of Chaos, Humanity found that when Discord corrupted the earth, it remembered what it was before it was twisted, and with a little prodding, could even be reminded of it.”
Celestia paused again, looking glum. “That isn’t a perfect explanation, unfortunately, but it’s close enough. It is what the human mages thought. And it is this principle, that the earth remembers, that allows Tebryn’s spell to call upon it for its knowledge of heroes of old.”

Twilight was silent. A million questions ran through her mind, but she found she couldn’t quite articulate a single one of them, and instead turned her gaze towards the Everfree Forest. “I…see. So, if that magic can do all that…what happens now?”

The stars above her were wheeling in place, as though days, then months, then years were passing in quick succession, turning from pinpricks int he sky into vast circles of starlight. Her chanting had grown louder since she began, beginning to shake the very desert, but the louder she spoke, the less she heard. The black sky above her began to run together with the black sand in the distance, until she could no longer tell the two apart, and she felt the sudden, immense pressure of an immeasurable blackness. Through sheer will, she forced the words of the spell from between her teeth.

“Consume my heart away! Sick with desire, and fastened to a dying animal, it knows not what it is,”

The foundations of the world quaked. A thousand images of fire and death assaulted her mind, and the dull, chilling sensation of falling through an endless, fathomless dark.

“Gather me, into the artifice of Eternity.”

Celestia stood, fluffing her wings just slightly, and turned to walk back inside her room. “Two locations will be chosen to host the spirits. Then, they will then be divided in two opposing teams. Whichever team’s location is destroyed first, loses.”

Twilight scrambled to her feet, trotting neatly behind the princess. “It’s a game? The spell that does all that is just for a game?”

“To those that are victorious,” Celestia quoted, “They shall be granted a single wish, and the spirit of the world shall grant it.” She sighed, pacing around her room. “He was so foolish. The only remaining step is for the heroes to be chosen. I’d say we have a few days.”

Twilight stopped, mouth agape. “A few days?! That’s not enough time!”

“It isn’t. There’s never enough time.” Celestia stopped pacing. “I need to organize the royal guard, speak to the Minister of State about the disruption this is going to cause, speak to the emergency weather team regarding evacuations…and of course, I need to appoint a minister of defense.” she muttered.

Celestia looked at Twilight guiltily. “Twilight, I hate to say this, but…if it comes to conflict, I cannot help you in this.” She raised a hoof, stopping Twilight before she began. “ I am bound not to interfere directly with the contest. I am the deity of this world, not a hero. Any action I take will be undone by the power of Tebryn’s Contest. I could break the spell, but breaking the spell now would near break the world. And…I will need you to help, if it comes to conflict. I am certain the spell will choose you as one of the heroes of Equestria.”

She raised a hoof before Twilight could speak. “Talk with Luna first. This is something you must seriously think about, Twilight.”

Twilight paused for a moment, then nodded. “Alright, Princess. I will. But, um. Why Luna?”

“The last time this spell was cast, Luna was chosen as our champion.”

Trixie fell to her knees, panting, and with wide eyes looked up at the canopy of trees above. No stars; only the nearly-black green that made up most of the foliage of the Everfree. She turned to look at Dirge, noting that the man was indeed still there, and looked far too pleased.

“Most excellent, O Great and Powerful Trixie.” he said, taking slow, deliberate steps towards her. “All that is left, I believe, is the small matter of your…reward.”

His eyes were the black sky, filled with stars. His smile split his face in two, with row upon row of feral, animal teeth.

The moon of Equestria is not uniformly barren, but a desert. And like a desert, it has its wastes, and its oases.

There is in one oases a shrine, built of basalt and moonstone and lapis, framed with slender, silver trees and adorned with gold flowers and pale blue ivy creeping up the walls. A black statue rests there, of a black pony, with slitted eyes and a narrow muzzle, and a fiery mane that is frozen in stone.

The Everfree called. With a sound like thunder, the stone cracked in two, and a single starlight-shod hoof stepped onto the moon’s surface, kicking up dust.

“THE NIGHT”

Another hoof joined it, and the creature bucked. The solid stone pedestal it had rested on shattered like glass.

“WILL LAST”

The creature called, and the blue, frozen fire answered, caressing her form gently before exploding outward, leveling the shrine with the force of a bomb, and shredding every shrub and every living thing in the clearing, leaving only a crater.
Her yellow eyes smoked with rage. She took a single step, moving like black silk drawn across water.

“FOREVER!”