Gods Behind the Sun

I: The Secrets Below

Twilight slowly pulled her book shut, placing it down on the pile beside her. The Golden Oak Library was a mess, every inch of floor-space strewn with books. The only free space was the small pony shaped gap where Twilight had been resting on the floor. Every single room was now packed full with texts and tomes of every age imaginable.

A few months had passed since Cadance’s wedding and the attempted changeling invasion. Most folk had eased again, returning to their normal lives as yet another threat was quashed. Everything was as it was before, calm and relaxed. But Twilight had been severely shaken by the ordeal. She wasn’t scared by any means - more confused. How was it that - with all her texts and all her knowledge - she wasn’t able to see through Chrysalis’ ruse? She’d stumbled into the Changeling trap, same as every pony else, and she hated herself for it. Cadance had been Twilight’s carer when she was a foal, one of the family. And yet she wasn’t able to see through a simple disguise, risking Cadance's very life. If she hadn't been dumped in the Crystal caves, she would never have found Cadance at all. It sickened her she could be so naive about the way the world worked.

All of her books and all of her studies, and yet she couldn’t see through an animalistic trick. It wasn’t something complicated, just smoke and mirrors. And that failing of hers made her think, made her concerned. What else did she fail to understand about the world she inhabited? And what if another villain emerged some day, bigger and stronger than the likes of Chrysalis? One that bent the world to its own will? One that couldn’t be beaten by emotion or magic? To defeat an enemy, one surely had to know them. And Twilight needed to learn everything she could about Equestria, so nothing and nopony could ever catch her off guard again. She couldn’t let her own lack of vision endanger her friends and loved ones again.

With that very real fear, Twilight’s quest for self-enlightenment had begun. She’d cleared out every bookstore she came across, rented the entire catalogs of multiple libraries, and filled Golden Oak from floor to roof with texts. To hell with the fines. She’d even spent large amounts of her personal savings travelling to Manehattan and purchasing rare tomes by Starswirl the Bearded. Of course her friends had tried to convince her such a massive investment was unwise, but what did they know? Nothing, the same as every other pony. These books would save all of them! They just didn’t seem to understand it. But they would do, once Twilight had unraveled the mysterious beasts and legends of Equestria.

“Twilight! Your train is going to be leaving soon! Don’t you think you’d ought to get going?”

Spike’s voice rung down from the upper floor of the Library, where he’d been staring out a window. His eyes surveyed Ponyville, having finally come to rest on the clock tower a little way off in the distance.

“I still don’t understand why you feel the need to go to Canterlot City Library on your own, again! You’ve already pilfered pretty much everything they have in stock, haven’t you! You've picked it clean."

He motioned towards a vast pile of books in a far corner. There must have been at least 200 books stacked high, all borrowed from Canterlot Library alone.

“Spike! I’ll have you know those works were not pilfered! I merely kept them past their due return date so I could properly absorb and appreciate their wisdom! Do you really think they’d be missed if they came back a month late, anyway? I mean really now, who else other than me is going to want to read Understanding Anatomy of Carnivorous Plants, Volume Six of Twenty-One?”

Silence.

“Precisely, Spike. I rest my case. Now, as you most kindly warned me, the train will be departing soon. If there is even the chance I’ve missed any texts that could be of use to my studies, I simply must find them! Must dash! Oh, and look after the place while I’m gone!”

With that Twilight was already out of the Library, slamming the door closed behind her. Spike rolled his eyes as one of the more precarious book stacks plummeted to the ground with the reverberation.

* * * *

Canterlot Library. A home away from home for Twilight. The place made her feel valuable. Being inside a receptacle of such great knowledge, Twilight couldn’t help but feel like she was destined for bigger things. The giants of history had gifted her their minds, and she was here to absorb all they had to offer.

Though that would be a little difficult. Canterlot Library was almost bare. Sure, the sections for foal's books and romantic thrillers were still stocked high, but Twilight wasn’t going to find the secrets of Equestria in there! No, she’d been trawling the academic wings, sifting through glass cases piled high with work. Of course, in the end she just decided to take it all. Moving into that wing of the library, Twilight felt chills run down her spine. The place was like a ghost town. Usually the place would be full of scholars searching for reference materials, but now there was nothing for them to study anymore. Trotting through the dusty hallways, Twilight happened upon the Reception Desk for the Academic Wing. There was normally a gruff, silver-haired mare that worked this desk, but she had presumably been moved to work elsewhere for the moment. No point having her sat here when there were no books and no visitors.

Approaching the desk, Twilight cleared her throat in an effort to attract attention. The old mare might of still been around somewhere. There was an old, wooden door behind the desk that presumably led to a staff area. Perhaps she was on lunch? Calling out, Twilight’s voice echoed through the hall. No response. She was clearly all alone in the place. Twilight was about to turn away, when a nefarious idea flashed through her mind. She’d already broken one rule, keeping all those books past their return dates... What would be the harm in breaking one more rule on top of that? Quiet as the breeze, Twilight lifted herself over the reception desk with her magic. Setting herself down, she quickly began to scour beneath the desk, looking for any books hidden away. Nothing. Nothing under the desk, nothing in the drawers. Twilight was starting to get angry, when a glint of light dazzled off of a metallic object buried in one of the open drawers. Pulling it out, there she held a set of keys. Perhaps some books were being kept in the staff area? That must of been where these keys gained access to.

Spinning on her hooves, Twilight experimentally prodded each of the keys into the door-lock. None of them seemed to work, and Twilight was growing rapidly exasperated. Finally though, her eyes lit up as one of the keys satisfyingly clunked into place inside the lock. She was in. The interior of the staff area was quite unkempt, but largely unexciting. A slim corridor tapered away before her, with several connecting rooms off to either side. Twilight listened for the sound of hooves, but heard nothing. This place was empty. Moving forwards, she poked her head around one of the doorways. The room that greeted her was presumably a staff lounge, with several plush sofas and a small coffee table. Atop the coffee table were several board games and, more importantly, a book! Unashamedly eager, Twilight bolted into the room. Scooping up the book in her magic grasp, she studied the title, before her heart sank.

Fifty Shades of Neigh

Twilight couldn’t help but shudder. This kind of smut was a waste of paper. The printing press was invented to document the word of Equestria’s smartest, and now look what it was being used for. Deplorable.

Carelessly tossing the book aside, Twilight returned to the hallway. A ghost, she moved silently, scanning each room’s interior. A kitchen, a cloakroom, a lavatory. What Twilight needed was a storeroom, some guarded space where the Library’s rarest books would be stored. She knew there was more knowledge to be claimed from this place than the books she’d already accumulated. She could feel it.

Reaching the end of the hallway, there was another door. This one, unlike all the others in the staff area, was locked. Intrigued, Twilight selected a key at random and forced it into the lock. First time lucky! The door swung open, exposing an old elevator.

How perplexing! What would an elevator be doing in the middle of a library? It couldn’t go up, could it? Surely not. After all, the Academic Wing was on the highest floor of the building. It must have been used to transport books up from the lower floors… but that wouldn’t make any sense? The Library was littered with dumbwaiters, which would deem a transport elevator useless.

“Oh, curiosity. The things you can do to a pony like me…”

Twilight tittered to herself as she slid into the elevator. Studying the service panel, a large single button stood out. It was just too tempting. Clicking the button with her hoof, Twilight jolted as the lift suddenly shuddered into life, before rapidly sinking downwards. The apparatus was old and in dire need of care; the whole mechanism rattled violently and loudly as it descended. Anyone outside in the library would surely be able to hear it. Though that made Twilight wonder herself: why had SHE never heard it? In all the months worth of time she’d spent studying magic here, she'd never heard a sign of this elevator being used.

Eventually the device clunked to a standstill. Stepping out, Twilight was engulfed in darkness, the cold stones beneath her hooves the only hint to her location. Casting a luminescence spell, that space was bathed in light. Just as she’d suspected, she was in some kind of cave network. And if her assumptions were correct, she’d wager it was a section of the crystal caves system.

Moving onwards, Twilight made note of several tall, wooden struts supporting the roof. Strange. That would imply this cavern had been excavated, and was not a part of the original system at all. That, or the supports were just a protective measure to defend what was down there. Whatever was down there…

“W-what in Equestria is this place?” This made no sense. Why was the Library connected to a cave network? Whatever could be the purpose of such a structure? Still, Twilight was a clever one. She’d have to get sleuthing to figure this place out.

Torch sconces lined the walls, though the torches they held had long since gone out. Large piles of ash littered the ground. Stopping in her tracks, Twilight stooped to closer study the floor. Pressed into the rock and gravel were two thick, deep grooves, that ran from the elevator shaft off into the distance. Something had been dragged down into this place on top of a sledge of some description. Something heavy. Moving ahead, cold air danced across Twilight’s neck. Breaths of wind were blowing down the elevator shaft, filling the cave with ice cold air. This place was incredibly unnerving, but Twilight would not flee. This structure had been mined out by ponies’ tools. There had to be meaning to a place like this. Up ahead the cavern narrowed into a small tunnel, the walls only slightly wider than Twilight’s frame. But before Twilight could move much further, a door blocked her path. Same as before, a small lock was embedded in the woodwork. Buoyed by her luck with the door prior, Twilight selected a key at random and jammed it into the lock. The key didn’t fit. But it wasn’t because it was the wrong key, it was because something else was already in the lock. Stooping down to peer inside, Twilight spotted a key had already been snapped off in the lock. How strange.

Stepping back, Twilight’s horn burst into life. Sparks danced from her horn as she focused on the door, grunting with effort as she conjured the spell she needed. Yelling with the exertion, she released the spell, catapulting a bolt of pure energy into the door. The spell punched straight through, rendering the door into splinters. Smiling smugly, Twilight stepped through the smoldering remains and continued her search.

The tunnel felt like it stretched off into infinity, a maw of darkness cloaking the way. Twilight knew she had to keep calm, but really, she was starting to panic. The air was rapidly growing ever colder, and a more paranoid mare would’ve been convinced that the sounds of whispers filled the space. Twilight was confident the noises could be explained though. They weren’t really voices, they couldn’t be. Twilight was alone down there. It must have been pareidolia, her mind convincing her there were voices when in fact there were none.

Then, hoving out from the darkness, another door. This one was very different to the flimsy wooden doors that had hindered her progress before. These were huge, arched structures, seemingly carved from fine marble. They were taller than the elevator, so how could they ever have been brought down here? The light from her horn glinted over a gaggle of gems and crystals embedded deep into the face of the doors. They were laid out in a shape reminiscent of a star, or perhaps of the Sun. Above the pattern, a phrase had been carved into the marble. While smeared with dust and residue from the cave, Twilight could just about make out the words

Here lies the School of Eyes, entombed forever, to protect Equestria from Above.

Twilight cocked her head.

“...That… doesn’t mean anything. Peculiar.”

Pressing her hooves against the door, Twilight searched for a locking mechanism. There had to be one somewhere. But no, other than the carvings and objects embedded into the marble surface, the whole door was entirely smooth. Twilight stepped back, pondering a little. If the door did not have a physical lock, and could not merely be pushed open, it must have been locked with a form of magical bond. Magical bonds were complex spells, and with the nature of this secretive structure, there were only a few unicorns who could be behind it all. Could it really be a secret buried by the Princesses themselves? Twilight’s mind began to race.

“I shouldn’t be down here.”

“If the Princesses have locked something away, it must be dangerous!”

“This thing shouldn’t exist!”

“Why is a secret so huge locked beneath the Academic Wing of Canterlot Library?”

“It could help me.”

And with that final thought, all the other worries just melted away. If the thing locked behind this door was created by an ancient school of scholars, it had to be useful to her! Just think, the remnants of an entire school of study, just lost to history! The knowledge of Equestria she could surely glean from the secrets locked beyond this door! No enemy of Equestria would ever be able to trick her again!

Unable to contain her excitement, Twilight began the process of dissipating the magic bond that held the door locked. Undoing spells was a complicated process, having to methodically every undo of thought the creator had gone through to create the spell in the first place. But this binding spell was surely ancient by now, perhaps as old as the Princess themselves. No one knew for certain how old they were, but some believed they were as old as the planet of Eqqis itself! And if the spell was even of a fraction as old as that, it would have grown weak with age.

The work was arduous and slow, but sure enough Twilight could eventually sense the binds giving way. The doors yawned open, tens of thousands of years worth of dust and residue falling away as they did. Eventually they ground to a halt, exposing a small cavern untouched for millennia. Inside lay a single solid crate atop a pallet. The pallet was old and rotten, but the crate was still in one piece. Twilight rushed inside, prizing the box open with her magic. Inside, hundreds of books. Old and musty, but protected from the elements by the crate they rested in. Twilight was going weak at the knees by now. Her mouth watered with excitement as she lifted the crate into the air with her magic. The contents were not too heavy, and would not need much focus to lift with magic. She could easily cloak the crate with her magic too, allowing her to escape the cave and the library without being spotted by prying eyes. With the tomes now in her possession, she ran from the terrifying cave as quickly as possible, trying desperately to ignore the strange, chant-like whispers her mind still imagined around her.

They couldn’t have been real.