Thicker Than Water

As the group descended, the temperature rose. It was no humid heat, like in the mushroom jungle; Inger felt as though they were slowly walking into an open oven. By the time they reached the bottom, his mane was sodden with sweat. Cranberry looked even worse off, peeling golden curls back off her face.

He wasn’t sure what to say to her. After Apricot had fled from him, it was clear that this fight between him and Cranberry was starting to tear his family apart. But every time he worked up the nerve to talk to her, the dragon reminded him, she doesn’t have a horn.

What if his father was right? Inger recalled Windstreak’s pestering, her frustration that Rye and Tyria hadn’t gotten around to having children yet. Perhaps there was more to it than a busy professional life. If it was true, if Rye and Cranberry really had been…

She’d seemed righteously enraged at the accusation of an affair, but Inger had lost all faith in his own ability to read her. With the dragon squeezing around his neck, he found himself poring over every memory of his wife and his friend, searching for hints of anything more than the foster-sibling relationship they’d professed to share.

A look here, a lingering hug there, those gifts the ambassador always bought for her on his trips abroad… not only for Cranberry, true, but the mementos for everyone else could simply be to cover his tracks. When Rye and Tyria offered to watch the kids, was Inger’s friend really just seizing the chance to spend time with a young unicorn colt he couldn’t openly dote upon?

Sweat ran down Inger’s snout as his hooves clopped on the stone stairs. The feverish thoughts whirling in his head would be enough to drive anyone mad. During his brief sleep beneath the mushroom caps, he’d revisited a long-forgotten memory from a night together in Sleipnord.

They’d grown close by that point on their journey, but neither had yet shared their attraction aloud. He and Cranberry had cozied up beside the fire and talked for hours. It was the first time she told him about her parents. He thought she’d come close to giving him a tentative kiss, before Rye had arrived and interrupted them with a suspiciously loud sneeze.

At the time, Inger had just been embarrassed, but now he burned with paranoid reflection. Just how long had Rye been watching them from behind that tent? Was that intrusion an attempt to stop their burgeoning relationship?

This is crazy, he told himself for the hundredth time. I would have noticed before now if she was sleeping with someone else. And Rye loves Tyria.

A pony can have more than one love, came the dragon’s unwelcome reminder. And Apricot was born before Tyria even entered the picture.

Inger wished he’d taken Kaduat’s offer of rum. Right now, all he longed for was to drink himself into oblivion and escape the dreams and the dragon for even an hour. Glancing down the stairs at the camel, he shook his head. Kaduat clearly wasn’t taking sobriety well, either. She hadn’t smiled once since their talk beside the fire.

They reached the bottom of the stairs to find another giant block of stone on rails. “You know the drill,” said Pollux, as the three spellcasters united their auras around it. The door shuddered upwards, and a blazing orange light spilled from the crack below. A wash of shimmering air, even drier and hotter than the stairwell’s, rushed up over the group. Inger squinted as the door ascended, feeling his eyes tear up in the harsh glow.

The intense light within was blinding, forcing him to shield his eyes with a raised foreleg. He stepped under the door after Cranberry and Kaduat, instantly wilting in the heat as they entered the next chamber. It was as hot as the deserts south of Equestria, a place Inger had only visited once during the final days of the war. But the heat baking the sweat from his skin was not the sun’s.

The chamber was a long channel, not a dome. It ran across their path in either direction for a great distance, though it was not that far to the opposite side. The ceiling, high enough that individual stalactites were impossible to make out, arced over to the other wall about two hundred meters away. But the crossing was barred by the thing filling the length of the cavern. As Inger’s eyes adjusted to the light, he realized that he was standing on the bank of a dark river.

Black, glossy obsidian seemed caught mid-flow across the center of the cave. He could see ripples, waves, the gentle rush of a current, all frozen in the surface of the dark glass. Countless lumpy shapes dotted the blackness, some kind of mineral impurity backlit by the glow from beneath. Below, shining up through the translucent glass, was the source of the orange light that flooded the cavern: a moving river of molten glass beneath the cooling obsidian crust. Inger could see it slowly flowing beneath the surface, oozing forward as it carried chunks of half-solidified glass that caused the refracting light to dance on the walls.

Far to the left, at least a kilometer away down the endless cavern, the cave suddenly rose in a cliff. A titanic, obsidian-encrusted waterfall descended from it, the glowing magmatic glass drooling down below its black surface. Blobs and arcing jets of solidified glass surrounded the waterfall’s impact, as if it had been frozen mid-splash. To the right, the river curved until it vanished behind the walls of the arcing cavern. It was impossible to say how far it extended in either direction.

Inger blinked, his pinprick pupils picking up more details. From the surface of the river, between the gentle crests of frozen waves, rose hundreds of spiky extrusions. The spindly glass spires stretched up, branching again and again as they ascended, looking for all the world like the antler-crowned aspen trees of the burned forest after the wildfire. He revised his counting of their number up and up as he looked across the length of the river. There had to be thousands of them, an entire glass forest growing out of an obsidian stream. The air stank of sulfur.

Nothing about this cave could possibly be natural, but he saw no design in it. It looked for all the world like this immense river of glass had simply formed on its own, running down into the cave and sprouting those dead trees like a perverse law of physics. That kind of magic leaves echoes, Cranberry had told him. It wasn’t just the heat that left his mouth dry.

“Oh, gods,” whispered Kaduat. “Look at them all.”

Inger’s eyes sharpened, and he peered more closely at the strange, lumpy shapes suspended within the glass. His breath sucked in as he recognized them at last.

Bodies. Hundreds upon hundreds of bodies, all trapped like insects in amber. The ones close enough to discern in detail were mostly elk, but he saw ponies, zebras, griffons, even a yak… They were up inside the extruding tree-spires, too, so well-preserved within the clear, dark glass that they looked for all the world like they were still alive.

Instantly, Inger recalled a rainy night long ago on the streets of Canterlot, spent huddled together with his mother behind the cobbler’s shop, taking shelter from the freezing rain beneath that wide roof. Pomegranate had soothed her shivering, wet colt by telling him old pegasus stories, of gods and monsters and heroes journeying to the underworld and back. Many no longer believed those myths, and Inger had counted himself among them, but this…

Castor took a step back from the black shores. “Kóree, show mercy on those in your care,” the pegasus whispered in fervent prayer. He gazed with the others at the entombed bodies, making a swift hoof motion as if placing coins upon his eyes; an old gesture to wish safe passage to departed souls.

Even Tybalt looked nervous. “Locke had mentioned a r… riv…” His voice trailed off.

“There’s a door,” said Cranberry, subdued. “See it? On the other side? Another stone block.” She pointed through the spiky forest. Inger followed her hoof, spotting her target. It was almost directly across the river from them, through two hundred meters of frozen forest and slumbering corpses. “Let’s get moving.”

“Wait,” said Castor, licking his lips in the heat. “Maybe we should take a minute to…”

“Locke’s group made it across, pulling heavy carts,” said Cranberry forcefully. “We can, too.”

“I don’t think this is wise,” he said, his eyes darting across the bodies trapped in glass. “We should find another way. Maybe there’s another passage back up by those mushrooms—”

Startlingly, it was Beatriz who spoke. “Come on, Castor,” she said. “I’ve been with Katabasis almost from the start. We’ve walked through a dozen hells together, you and I. Alastria. Southlund. Whitetail.” She paused, looking at the river. “Simone. And now Vergil…” With a deep breath, she nodded. “We’ll get through this one, too.” She offered a hoof and a weary smile. “We don’t have a choice.” Her eyes flashed toward Cranberry.

After a moment’s contemplation, Castor took her hoof and shook it, swallowing. “You’re right.”

She nodded, and gently led him toward the river. Castor inhaled slowly. “You know, I’ve never thanked you enough, Bea. For being with us through it all.” He exhaled. “I’m sorry about Virgil,” he said quietly.

“Look!” called Zaeneas, from the edge of the river. The zebra pointed up at the nearest spire. “Another chalk marking!”

Castor slowly sighed, and then stepped past the others to make his way toward the edge of the glass. “The professor is right. If Locke’s team got carts of food and lumber across this, it must be thick enough to hold our weight. But I’ll still feel safer if we go spread out, in single file.”

“Same,” said Kaduat, nervously eyeing the river’s surface. It was hard to tell how thick the crust was—at least a meter or two—but the flow of molten glass beneath it felt threateningly close.

“And we’ll put a pegasus at the front, center, and rear of the column, in case anyone breaks through the surface. Count Vallen—”

“I’d best take the rear,” said Tybalt.

“Agreed,” said Castor. “And I’ll take point. Dragonslayer, if you’ll handle the center…” Inger gave him a nod. “Good. Everyone: stay calm, stay together, and we’ll make it through.”

The group began the crossing without further preamble. Castor was the first to set his hoof on the river, unable to resist holding his breath. When the hard obsidian remained unyielding beneath his touch, he set off after the chalk markings with Pwyll following close behind. Pollux and Apricot came after, then Cranberry, followed by Inger, with Kaduat and Beatriz behind them. Zaeneas and Tybalt fell in at the rear.

The glass beneath Inger’s hooves was hot. He suspected that laying against it for long enough would burn skin, but the glowing river below the crust seemed buried deep enough to let them pass safely so long as they were quick. It was hard not to look at the faces of those trapped beneath. They all had their eyes closed, as if peacefully asleep, but Inger could see pain and terror in many of their faces. Some, closer to the surface, were still clothed, in garb bearing insignias he didn’t recognize. They could have been trapped in there thousands of years ago, he thought, swallowing. The nations those sigils represented might have long since faded away into history.

The ones deeper in wore nothing, elk and non-elk alike. Some were so far down that they touched the molten glass. Any part of their bodies exposed to it had been burned away, leaving only bones. Inger felt a chill despite the heat. How long did it take a body to sink down through the endlessly melting and cooling crust of the river? Bones beneath obsidian, he thought. Just like the grave-glass. Was this the birthplace of that jagged monstrosity?

“Ah!” Tybalt gave a cry of sudden alarm, causing everyone to stop. The count pointed at a body beneath his hooves. “It’s—I recognize him!”

Inger’s eyes creased with worry. “Father, you’re tired…”

“No!” said Tybalt, shaking his head but not breaking his eyes away from the antelope imprisoned within the obsidian. “It’s, uh, it’s…” his voice shook. “I think his name was… A-Alonzo. He’s one of the mages Hobb brought with him on the expedition. See? He has that pendant they all wore.”

Inger peered into the glass, noting the antelope’s ruddy brown robes and the small pendant his father had pointed out. It hung suspended in the glass as though floating gently in water. The antelope was very close to the surface, only centimeters below it. It looked for all the world like he’d just fallen in, as if Inger could reach a hoof down and pull him back out…

“If that’s one of Locke’s people…” muttered Kaduat, not finishing the thought. She didn’t have to. Inger looked around, suddenly wondering if the rest were likewise entombed beneath this river.

Tybalt, eyes wide with horror, cast his gaze around. “There’s another,” he whispered, pointing to a zebra about three meters ahead. “Zerrikess. Locke said she perished in an accident. I think it’s her, anyway… I always had trouble telling them apart, with the stripes…”

“There’s nothing we can do for them now. Let’s not linger,” said Castor, jerking his foreleg forward. The column resumed its course across the river, hurrying their pace.

As they settled into line again, Inger caught Cranberry muttering to herself under her breath ahead of him. “Doesn’t make sense…”

His gait sped to a light trot as he pulled up beside her. “What doesn’t?” he asked, whispering.

She glanced up at him, hard and wary, but she didn’t pull away. Cranberry looked down as they passed over another body, biting her lip in thought. “Locke said they made it across this river without incident. I think if anyone had been somehow trapped in the glass, he’d have mentioned it.” Her eyes flicked anxiously across every floating pony they passed.

Searching for her friend, Inger realized grimly. “He talked about this in his reports?”

“Barely. He mentioned a river, but didn’t give any details. Not even in his—” Tight-lipped, her words suddenly cut off.

In his journal, Inger thought, realizing with a flash why she’d been staring at that blank book at every opportunity. “You figured it out,” he said, more a statement than a question.

Cranberry nodded reluctantly. “The tóirse’s light reveals his words,” she explained, hushed. “But please, Inger. Don’t tell your father. Locke hid it from him for good reason.”

Of course. It always came back to Tybalt. The dragon puffed smoke, squinting at Cranberry. She hates him for telling you the truth you were too afraid to confront.

Inger bit back an irritated snarl. “What reason?”

“He…” Cranberry sighed, looking almost relieved to talk about it. Her voice low, she leaned closer. “Locke thinks the gate network is part of an elken machine called a solar siphon, at the center of the city below.I don’t know what exactly it does, but my friend believes the elk tried to tap into Celestia’s power to end some kind of famine.”

“So why keep that a secret? My father funded his expeditions, maybe he’s got answers—”

“No!” Cranberry looked panicked. “Inger, Locke wrote KEEP AWAY FROM VALLEN, all capitals,right beside instructions for Hermia to get the book and tóirse to me. He thought—he was worried that your father might misuse whatever he found.”

“Misuse how? We don’t even know what this thing is, or how it works.”

“Inger, if they were trying to steal the power of a goddess, who knows what Tybalt could use it for? A weapon, or a way to blackmail Celestia—” Cranberry drew a sharp breath. “What if he’s trying to become a god himself?”

“That’s crazy.” Inger shook his head. “If you’d ever even tried to talk to him, you’d know that’s the last thing he’d ever want.”

“I did try,” she said with sudden vehemence, looking hurt. “And he accused me of betraying you. The same way he betrayed his wife.” She turned away. “At least I know who put that idea in your head.”

“Damn it, Cranberry,” Inger growled. “I find out you’ve been hiding secrets and lying to me for years—what am I supposed to think?”

“We all have secrets.” Her frown was cold. “And I never lied.”

“No?” he asked, bitterly. “So you weren’t going to tell me in the tent that night, after I told you my own dreams?” Cranberry’s eyes widened. Inger’s scowl was accusing. “But you didn’t. Lies of omission are still lies.”

Her frown softened, and she looked away. “You’re right,” she admitted, “I’m not blameless in all this. But you keep being so, so—” Frustrated, she exhaled. “I’m fed up with it, Inger! I’ve told you the truth over and over, but I don’t know how to make you believe me. All your worries about me, about us, about Apricot—the more you act as if they’re true, the more you make them true.”

Shaking her head, Cranberry clenched her teeth. “And if you don’t wake up, quit being so pig-headed, and stop letting your insecurities control you, you’re going to ruin it all for real.” Her eyes held buried pain. “And I’ll lose you forever.”

Insecurities? snarled the dragon, incredulous. “I can’t believe you’re trying to make this about me,” said Inger furiously, his voice rising. “You’re the one who—”

“Stop it, Inger!” Tears brimmed at the corners of her eyes. “Please! I’ll beg if I have to. Just—please, come back to me.” Choking, Cranberry suddenly broke into a light canter, returning to her place a few meters ahead of him in single file.

Good going, Hero, he thought despondently. You made her cry again.

She deserves it, the dragon hissed, angrily squeezing around his throat. And worse. You should hurt her the way she’s hurt you. See how she likes it.

Inger tried to ignore that niggling suggestion, bowing his head beneath the towering glass spires as he trudged after her.

* * *

In the dark reflections of the glossy black spires, Apricot watched the scene behind him as his mother split away from his father in tears. He was so distracted that he bumped into Pollux when the chalk marks led the group into a sudden turn.

“Easy, there,” said the mage, gently correcting his course. “Keep your eyes forward, Apricot.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

Pollux sighed heavily. “It’s not your fault.”

“No, I… I wasn’t watching—”

“I meant that,” said Pollux, jerking his head back toward Apricot’s parents. “It’s not your fault.”

Suddenly, the fear and sadness were back with renewed weight, just as overwhelming as before. Apricot bit his lip. “How do you know?” he asked desperately. “What if it is? What if they—”

“Shh. Listen to me.” Pollux tipped Apricot’s chin up to soberly meet his eyes. “It’s not your fault,” he repeated, with another sigh. “I’ve overhead them a few times. What’s going on between those two isn’t because of you.”

Apricot’s heart lightened by an infinitesimal sliver. “Really?” Then more crushing worry descended. “Then… what’s…”

“It’s not my place to say,” Pollux apologized. “They’re going to have to work it out themselves. Just know that it’s nothing you did, or didn’t do.”

That knowledge should have made him feel better, but now things seemed even more dire. How could Apricot begin to understand, to fix the problem, to find any hope at all if no one would even tell him what was wrong? He took a shuddering breath, falling back in behind Pollux.

Their hooves clunked across the frozen river as the group wound back and forth through the clusters of spires. Apricot stared at the bodies around him with morbid curiosity. Some of them were species he’d never even seen before. He wondered how they’d wound up inside the glass, and just how long they’d been there, floating like that.

As they wound back and forth across the river, following the chalk markings, they passed a particularly thick glass spire. Apricot’s eyes traveled up, following the dozens of glassy tines that branched from its higher reaches. Inside the trunk, just a head’s height or two above him, rested an elk with the most marvelous antlers that Apricot had ever seen. They matched the spire’s tines, splitting and curling back in magnificent arcs above the elk’s head.

Apricot leaned in close, holding his breath. The dark glass was clear enough for him to see the individual tufts of the elk’s fur. And those fully-grown antlers, so different than Pwyll’s… They weren’t covered in soft velvet. They looked more like bone, but darker. Where Pwyll’s antlers ended in round bumps, these tips were sharp and pointed. Apricot wondered what it felt like, to use magic with such a complex horn.

Half-consciously, he reached forward into the song. There was no music beneath the surface of the glass or within the elk, but he could trace out the pattern of its antlers. Spellsinging with those must be like voicing a whole choir by yourself, he thought, pressing a hoof to the surface of the glass.

A single chord, harsh and flat, burned in his horn. Beneath the glass, the elk’s eyes opened, staring into Apricot’s.

He yelped, leaping back. Ahead, Pollux whirled around. “Apricot, what did you—”

A tremendous cracking sound rent the air. Everyone froze, staring at the glass spire. A huge, thin line stretched up from the base, widening with another crack.

“Oh, gods,” whispered Castor.

The surface of the glass tree suddenly turned white as another sharp crack burst across it, fracturing into a million reflections. The base let out a huge, grinding crunch and snapped clean through. The entire spire began to tilt toward him.

“Run!” roared Pollux. “RUN!”

* * *

Time froze around Cranberry as she watched the spire topple. Apricot’s name formed on her lips, and her throat burned, but her scream seemed caught in her throat like tar. The spire fell, and the pink colt beneath it flung himself sideways to avoid it.

The spire crashed down with a colossal noise, and time suddenly resumed.

The huge mass of shattering obsidian smashed into the crust of the river. sending huge cracks racing through the glass beneath their hooves. Cranberry heard Pollux shouting run, run, but before she could heed his frantic words, the whole world seemed to tilt under her. With a rumbling THOOM, a massive geyser of pressurized, liquefied glass shot up from the impact point. It sprayed through the air as it lengthened along the damaged cracks, splitting and racing toward her.

The plate of glass she stood upon jerked up, flinging her backward. Cranberry’s hooves wheeled in the air, until her back collided with the glass below. She tried to stand, slipping and staggering, as the whole river seemed to buckle and heave beneath her. More gouts of molten silicate exploded around them, and other spires began to crack and topple. With each that fell, new tremors shook the ground, the chain reaction spreading rapidly across the frozen crust.

“Go, go!” yelled Castor. “Get to the door!”

Ahead, through the chaos, Cranberry saw Pollux and Apricot racing after the pegasus, heading for the exit on the other side. Pwyll, just behind Castor, suddenly cried out and fell as a crack stole his footing. The ground beneath him rose precipitously, and he clung to the edge as he suddenly found himself dangling over a yawning gap. Liquid glass sprayed around him.

“Hold on!” Castor’s wings flared as he sprang to aid the deer.

Pollux and Apricot skidded to a stop as the crack raced across their path. “We’ve got to go around!” said the mage, his head rapidly swerving back and forth as he looked for a path.

“Inger,” Cranberry yelled, “help Apri—”

“I know!” A red blur streaked past her after their son.

Cranberry stumbled back, losing her footing again as the slippery glass tilted violently. A sudden jet of liquid glass burst up in front of her, so close that she could feel the heat of it searing her skin, flinging the chunk of crust and her up and away. Cranberry screamed as she tumbled through the air, before slamming once more into the shattering river. She skidded over the glass, bouncing into a shattering spire, before sliding under the collapsing shards and onto an intact plane of obsidian.

Breathless, she tried to stand. The air was filled with shouting and the sound of crashing glass, with the rumbling cracks of the shattering river growing louder and echoing throughout the chamber. Someone grabbed Cranberry’s hoof, hauling her upright. “Come on,” yelled Kaduat, pulling her forward. “We’ve got to—oh, shit!”

A falling spire beside them toppled into another, and the tangled mess of breaking glass came crashing down above. Kaduat hurled Cranberry away, and dove in the other direction. The two went sliding apart as the spires collided with the ground, smashing clean through the crust and vanishing in a burst of burning liquid.

The river had become so broken up that the crust began to look like like ice floes on a glowing sea. More spires fell every minute, rending new holes in the surface. The molten glass below was under such pressure that now, with points to release itself, it was driving the reaction, spreading more cracks and breaking apart the solid obsidian.

Across the new gap, Kaduat stood unsteadily. “Professor!”

“I’m fine,” Cranberry croaked, looking around for a way forward. The ground shook and nearly sent her falling again as her chunk of glass broke away, carried by the current below. “Ah!”

Kaduat ran parallel to her, dodging another falling spire. “You’re going to have to jump!”

“I can’t!” yelled Cranberry, panicking. “It’s too far!”

“I’ll help you!” From behind, she heard Beatriz’s voice. Cranberry whirled to see her antelope friend’s horns blazing blue. Beatriz was clinging to the broken trunk of a half-missing spire from the other shore of the crust. “Take a running start, and you’ll make it!”

“What about you?”

“I’m okay for now, but you’ve got to get off that chunk before you get carried away! Now go!”

There was no time to argue. Cranberry took a deep breath, and sprinted toward Kaduat. Her hooves pounded across the glass, feeling it tilt and wobble beneath her. It was moving faster, pulling away from Kaduat’s semi-stable section of the crust. The gap widened another meter. Cranberry reached the edge, flinging herself into the air. Blue light shimmered around her, as she felt a weak tug upward.

Her forehooves hit the edge of the glass, and her body slammed into the side. Mere centimeters below, the churning river of molten silica burned. Cranberry scrabbled at the edge. “Help! Help!” One of her hooves slipped, dangling.

The camel skidded to a stop above her. Kaduat’s feet grasped her hoof, pulling. “Come—on!” she groaned, hauling her back and up. Cranberry’s other hoof gained purchase, and she came clambering up over the edge to relative safety.

The two lay gasping beside each other for a moment. “Thanks,” panted Cranberry.

“Can’t stay here,” breathed Kaduat, rolling over to stand. “Got to move.”

“What about Beatriz?” Cranberry looked across the gap toward the antelope, still clinging to the broken pole of glass. It was at least ten meters, too far for even a magically aided jump.

“Nothing we can do. One of the pegasi will have to—”

An enormous, echoing crack from upriver drew their attention. Cranberry’s eyes widened as she watched a glowing line sear its way across the frozen waterfall. “Oh, gods,” she whispered. “If that goes, it’ll fill this whole cavern with molten glass.”

“When that goes,” corrected Kaduat through clenched teeth. “We’ve got to get out, now.” She cupped her feet to her mouth. “Just hang on, Bea! We’ll send back—”

She was interrupted by a cry from Zaeneas, who came running past them. “Incoming!” yelled the zebra, pointing behind her. Cranberry’s eyes fell to the newest danger.

A massive tangle of bodies, broken crustal fragments, and pieces of fallen spires, all carried by a bed of molten glass, was sliding across the solid surface with gathering speed. It crashed into more spires as it went and rolled over them without pausing, adding more mass to its barreling momentum. Liquefied glass burbled around it as it flowed over the edge of the crust, sinking it down and cracking off another chunk. Corpses, exposed by the breaking glass, rolled limply under the crushing progress of the wave as it headed for them like a mudslide.

Cranberry and Kaduat ran after Zaeneas, darting past more glass trees and over the rippled surface of the still-frozen river. Cranberry panted heavily as they galloped. “We’re heading the wrong way!” she warned, watching as the door receded further upriver.

“No choice!” said Kaduat. “It’s gaining on us,” she panted, looking around. “There!” She diverted course, and the others followed her. Kaduat led them toward a massive tree-spire, the largest that Cranberry had seen. The crust beneath it, broken from below by the pressurized glass melt and sinking under the spire’s weight, tilted it upriver. The incline was severe enough for the three to run up along its length.

Zaeneas shook her head as they reached the base. “The hell kind of plan is this?”

Kaduat didn’t hesitate, running up along the spire and weaving past the branch-tines. “We can’t outrun that wave, so we’ll go over it. When it hits this tree, the whole spire will tip over like a lever, and put us down on the other side.”

“That’s crazy,” gasped Zaeneas, but Cranberry couldn’t think of any better ideas, so she followed the camel up. Staring after the two of them for a moment, the zebra swore, before following.

The three clambered up the spire, sparing glances toward the oncoming wave of debris. Cranberry caught Beatriz’s horns glowing from the far side, and allowed herself a sigh of relief that the wave had missed the antelope. She wasn’t sure that the she and the others were going to be so lucky. This was a desperate idea, but it was already too late to turn back. She tried not to look at the bodies entombed in the glass beneath her hooves, or muse that she might soon be joining them.

Near the top of the glass tree, where the spire had grown so thin that they could no longer walk on it without balancing, the three of them all took precarious hold of the glass branches. The sharp tines twinkled threateningly in the warm light. Cranberry watched with her breath held as the wave rolled inexorably toward them, then under them, until finally it collided with the base of their refuge.

The trunk of the spire snapped like a twig. Cranberry couldn’t restrain a scream as they suddenly tilted and fell. The wave passed below, leaving a wake of cooling glass and the stubs of shattered spires behind. The air rushed past them as their tree came toppling down. Cranberry closed her eyes and clung to the branch.

They slammed into the river surface with tremendous force. Glass tines exploded all around them as the tree’s crown fractured. Cranberry’s branch snapped, and she was flung free. Her eyes snapped back open as she went rolling across the glass, still searing hot from the wave’s passage. Her scream turned from fear to pain as it singed her coat. Cranberry stopped her rolling with an outstretched foreleg, quickly regaining her footing as she stood.

The tree had fallen over a gap in the crust to the edge of the wave’s wake, its crown resting at the edge of the still-glowing trail it had left. The impact had tossed Kaduat free onto a thick plate of glass, strong and unshattered by even the fall of the spire. Cranberry raced toward the camel, feeling her hooves shriek in pain as they trod over the superheated glass. She exhaled in desperate relief as she crossed onto the cooler crust.

Kaduat was lying motionless where she’d fallen. Cranberry reached her and knelt beside the camel, lifting Kaduat’s head. “Hey! Come on, don’t die on me, please, please…”

A fragment of glass had struck the camel’s head, leaving a gash between her ear and eye. Blood streamed freely down the side of her face, but Cranberry held up a hoof to the camel’s mouth and felt breath. “Zaeneas,” called Cranberry, “help me carry her!”

“Aaaah!” cried the zebra. Cranberry’s head whirled back to see Zaeneas on her back, her hind legs pinned beneath the body of the glass tree.

Cranberry’s heart pounded. “Hold on,” she said. “I’ll—I’ll—”

Flapping wings from above drew her eyes up, and she felt sudden relief course through her. “Inger!”

“Apricot’s safe,” he said, dropping to the ground beside them. “He and Pollux are holding that door open, but we don’t have long before the waterfall breaks and floods this place. It’ll make that last wave look like a splash.”

“Kaduat’s out cold,” said Cranberry. “Can you carry her to them?”

He nodded. “What about you?” Zaeneas let out another shriek of pain, and Inger’s eyes widened as he saw her predicament.

“I’ll help her,” Cranberry said, hoisting one of Kaduat’s legs up over her shoulder. “Go on, the faster you get Kaduat to safety, the faster you can come back for us. And tell Castor that Bea’s still trapped on the other side of the river. She needs a ride.”

“Got it. Where’s my father?”

Cranberry shook her head. “I haven’t seen him since everything started collapsing. He might be over there, too.”

“Damn.” Inger’s face was tense as they settled Kaduat securely onto his back. “All right. Once you get Zaeneas out, head for the door. I’ll meet you halfway and carry her, if need be.”

“Thank you. Now go!”

With a nod, he was off. Cranberry meditatively watched him soar away. She wondered how to reconcile her husband’s unshakable calm in a crisis with that panicky, jealous stallion from the argument mere minutes ago. Oh, Inger, she thought mournfully, am I really so much scarier than mortal danger?

Another yelp of pain from Zaeneas shattered her moment of contemplation. Cranberry raced over to the zebra, who was straining against the spire with her forehooves. “Help,” Zaeneas gasped weakly.

“If I push on it, I think I can give you enough wiggle room to pull yourself out,” said Cranberry, leaning against it with her shoulder. She paused for a moment as she laid eyes on an earth pony, his eyes peacefully closed, frozen just a hoof’s breadth beneath the glass.

“Nnngh,” managed Zaeneas, nodding with clenched teeth. “Hurry. Leg hurts,” she panted.

“I know,” Cranberry gravely acknowledged. “That’s probably two hundred kilos of glass lying on it. I’ll do my best.”

Clenching her teeth, she pushed against the pillar with all her might, but Zaeneas screamed. “Ahh! Stop!”

Cranberry let it rest, shaking her head in puzzlement. “What’s—”

“Leg—!” the zebra whimpered.

Cranberry ducked her head to peer below the spire, and her eyes widened. Zaeneas’s right thigh was surrounded by pooling blood. After a glance around at all the shattered branches, a gruesome realization clicked. One of the shattered tines, still attached to the trunk, had impaled the zebra’s leg. Aside from the horrific pain she must be in, it was trapping her under there as much as the weight.

“Oh, Celestia,” Cranberry breathed. “Zaeneas, there’s no way I can lift this far enough off of you to get that out. I think we’ll have to just… pull you hard enough to break the glass spike off with you.”

“No, no—” choked the zebra. “The wound’s bad enough already, if you—we can’t! I-I’d lose my leg,” she pleaded.

“I’m sorry,” said Cranberry, feeling tears in her eyes. “I don’t see another way.”

“Wait for… wait until your husband…”

A sudden crack rent the glass beside them. Apparently, the crust here hadn’t survived the impact, after all. Cranberry watched in horror as the crack widened toward them, glowing liquid seeping up through it. “There’s no time,” she said. “I’m sorry, Zan.”

Hollowly, and with a few shaky breaths, the zebra nodded. Cranberry took a deep breath. “Okay. Grit your teeth. Here we go.”

She pushed again, and Zaeneas screamed. The zebra planted her forehooves on the spire and pushed, trying to free herself. Her eyes closed as sweat streaked down through her striped coat. She pounded a foreleg on her thigh, trying to snap off the glass branch, her whole body twitching violently with every impact. The crack in the crust crept closer, oozing and spraying little jets of molten glass. Cranberry strained with all her strength, but the immense weight of the spire wasn’t budging.

Suddenly, the ground tilted. The plate that they were on was breaking free. The whole thing jerked, suddenly dropping them a few inches, and Zaeneas’s scream rose in pitch before cutting off. The zebra’s eyes rolled back as she let her head drop, wheezing with pain.

Cranberry planted her hooves back on the ground, trying to keep her balance as the plate shifted. “Zaeneas! Come on, we have to try again. There’s no time…”

She heard the sound of wingbeats again. Back already? she thought, her heart lifting. But when she looked up, it wasn’t her husband coming to their aid.

Tybalt hovered just above them, looking at the pony and the zebra with those piercing golden eyes of his. Cranberry met them, feeling a sudden chill despite the heat. She could see the guarded hostility in his face, a grim knowledge that they both suddenly shared.

Well, she thought, gazing up at her father-in-law, if he wants to be rid of me once and for all, he’ll never get a better chance than this. All he has to do is leave… and then Inger will be his alone, forever.

“Help me,” she begged anyway. “Please, Tybalt.”

A long moment passed. Tybalt glanced at the zebra. “Come, then,” he said at last. “Take my hoof.” He offered it to Cranberry.

She blinked. “No, I mean help me get her out of there!”

He frowned. “It’s too late for that, Professor. We should go.” His eyes flicked back to the zebra, and he exhaled. “I… I am sorry.”

Zaeneas’s eyes bulged. “Wait! You can’t just leave me!”

The crack widened again, jerking toward them. Cranberry staggered as the plate tilted beneath them again. The whole thing was sinking under the fallen spire’s weight. Molten glass crept up from the edges, oozing toward them. “Tybalt! Please!”

He swooped at her. Cranberry recoiled, before the pegasus swung through, threading beneath her and lifting her onto his back with one smooth motion. She flopped over his back, feeling his wings beat beside her, widening her eyes in shock. “Wait!” she yelped, as he carried her up.

Below, Zaeneas screamed as the crack in the glass raced underneath her. The screams went louder and louder as blazing orange liquid sprayed up from beneath her. She writhed as the glass sank, suddenly falling silent as the obsidian beneath her buckled, and her head vanished into the glowing liquid. A hoof stretched up, before going limp and collapsing to the surface as the river took her.

Cranberry pounded on Tybalt’s flank as he flew away, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Damn you,” she gasped, her head sinking to rest on her foreleg. “Damn you!”

“There was nothing we could do, Professor,” he said, his voice strained.

“You could have at least tried!”

“And tired myself out too much to carry you?” He fluttered unsteadily, and they dropped a meter before his wings regained their rhythm. “Then we’d all have died. Sometimes the few must be sacrificed for the many, Cranberry.”

As they soared through the cavern, another immense series of cracks echoed through the air. Cranberry turned her head upriver to see that the waterfall was finally beginning to fail. Jets of glass melt sprayed from the huge cracks in the wide cataract, and above it she could see the glow beginning to intensify. It seemed like the entire river was about to burst.

They suddenly careened into a sharp descent. As Tybalt landed, one of his legs gave out and they toppled to the ground. Real ground, made of rock, not glass. Cranberry scrambled back to her hooves, finding herself standing before the massive stone door to the exit, held aloft by a blend of crimson and rose light. On the other side stood the rest of the party. Pwyll, Inger, the mages, and Kaduat—her eyes open once more, one foot massaging her bloody forehead—all stood anxiously behind the giant door. Cranberry and Tybalt darted under it to join them.

“Cranberry! Father!” Inger rushed forward. “I’m sorry, Cranberry. I had to catch my breath after getting Kaduat here; I was just about to come b—”

“It’s all right,” she told him vacantly, still reliving the memory of that striped hoof sinking into the glass. “Tybalt saved me. But Zaeneas—she didn’t make it.”

Kaduat and Pollux’s eyes sank at the news. The camel swore quietly, lowering her bloodstained foot to stare at it.

“Thank you for getting her out, Father,” Inger said, giving the other pegasus a desperately grateful look. Tybalt returned a ghostly smile with a nod.

Cranberry just thought about his cold apology to Zaeneas, and shivered. “Apricot,” she asked, trying to focus on anything else, “are you all right?”

“Yeah,” her son said weakly, staring up at the door. His horn flickered. “But I’m… I’m so tired…”

Beneath a shining crimson horn, Pollux wiped sweat from his brow. “Hold on just a bit longer, Apricot.”

“Wait, who’s still missing?” Cranberry asked, starting another headcount. “No—Beatriz! Did anyone—”

“Castor went to get her,” said Inger.

Cranberry looked back out at the chaos on the river. Geysers of liquid glass and raining shards of exploded tree-spires filled the air. “Sisters! They’ll need a miracle to get through all that. How long has he been gone?”

“He left moments before you arrived,” said Pollux, straining with the effort of holding up the door. “Don’t worry. He’ll get her out. Look! There,” he said, pointing with a trembling hoof as he panted with exertion.

Cranberry spied the antelope then, illuminated by the blue glow of her horns. She had climbed up one of the surviving spires, the base of which had completely sunk into the river. Beatriz clung to the highest branch-tines as she sank lower, holding out a hoof. Castor was darting through the tumultuous rain of glass and collapsing spires toward her, his bronze wings flashing as he did a somersault to avoid an angled spray of glass melt. Against all odds, it looked like he was going to reach her.

A roar filled the air. Cranberry looked right up the river and felt her breath vanish. A tidal wave of molten glass burst through the frozen waterfall, obliterating it in a glowing tsunami. The river above exploded with it, erupting in a flood that filled the cavern nearly to the roof. The molten glass crashed the cliff, barreling toward them. It was so high that it would completely bury the doors once it reached them.

“Come on, Castor,” muttered Kaduat, leaning forward. “Come on!”

Pollux panted. “Apricot. The moment they’re through, we have to drop the door. Are you ready?”

“R… ready…”

Inger’s wings lifted, but Cranberry held up a foreleg. “No, honey—You won’t reach them in time to help. Castor can do this.” She squinted at the distant pegasus as he reached Beatriz. Castor fluttered beside her, helping the antelope climb onto his back. The spire slipped away as she kicked off from it, finally toppling and sinking beneath the surface. With visible effort, Castor’s wings beat mightily and he came soaring back toward them.

The surging torrent of molten glass raged hungrily down the tunnel toward them. Cranberry’s heart was in her mouth as the pegasus and antelope drew closer. A gout of liquid sprayed up in their path, only narrowly dodged. It was going to be close, desperately close. The wave crested, curling in on itself as the tremendous force of thousands of tons of melted glass careened forward.

“Come on—hurry—” strained Apricot, watching them with wide eyes beneath his blazing horn.

The incredible roaring of the wave filled Cranberry’s ears and chest. A few leading splashes of glass flew past Castor. He was close enough that she could see the glinting determination in his eyes.

“All right—Apricot,” grunted Pollux. “On the count of five!”

Apricot nodded, biting his lip and shuddering beneath the magical strain.

“One!”

Cranberry leaned forward, clutching a hoof to her breast. Go, go! she urged silently.

“Two!”

Beatriz clutched Castor tight, pressing her head to his neck in a desperate bid for an extra scrap of aerodynamic speed.

“Three!”

The wave arced over them, so close that splattering drops singed Castor’s wingtips.

“Fo—”

Pollux was suddenly cut off with a gasp. Cranberry’s head jerked to the side to see him staggering back, as Tybalt hurled the unicorn away from the door with both forehooves. Pollux’s horn winked out, the crimson light vanishing from around the stone slab.

Apricot cried out, “I can’t—” before his horn flashed a brilliant white and extinguished. The massive stone door crashed to earth, mere inches from Cranberry’s snout.

An instant passed in shocked silence. Then there was a deafening, bone-shaking THOOM as ten thousand tons of liquid glass slammed into the stone.