At the Edge of the Hellfire...
...It's the End of an Empire.
To Sombra, fear was an infinitely flexible tool.
Sometimes he’d use it as a scalpel with veiled threats and subtle hints, leaving most of the work to the victim's imagination. Sometimes he dispensed with the subtlety and used it as a sledgehammer with public executions and the secret police. He breathed fear. Drank it. Sweated it.
And as the smokey-grey stallion stared across the conference table at his surviving generals, he could taste it. Wafting through the air. Flowing into his nostrils. A delicious taste of sweet, sour electricity, with the heavy aftertaste of impending doom.
For a while, Sombra let a thick, cloying silence hang over the table relishing the taste of fear-stew brewing in the room. Nopony dared to disturb it. The only sounds were the faint groans of flanks shifting in seats, the occasional cough, and the mechanical heartbeat of a clock. All the while, Sombra froze his muzzle into a mask, as cold and impersonal as the Loyalty Helms of the twin bodyguards flanking his seat. The only sign of emotion he allowed himself were a few barely-noticeable twitches in his bloodshot eyes.
“Gentleponies,” He said, mercifully dissolving the silence. “Do you know why I summoned you here?”
More silence. The generals looked back and forward like cornered animals, eyes darting around, glancing anxiously at the door.
“Here.” Sombra trotted up to a crystal scrying mirror set into the wall, stroking it a few times. “Allow me to enlighten you”
The enchanted glass swirled with color; whites, greys, blues, and reds, before slowly resolving into the snowy wastelands of the Frozen North, crisscrossed by trenches, pillboxes, and miles upon miles of barbed wire.
In the frozen trenches, lines of soldiers clad in the steel grey of the Crystal Empire loaded, aimed, and fired their mage-rifles like clockwork automatons, faceless behind their iron Loyalty Helms, while gunners fed countless shells into the hungry breeches of their guns. Hulking alchemical warbeasts rampaged across no-pony’s land, blasting rebels with their cannon-arms, snapping at them with their snake-like heads, stomping them with elephantine feet.
Thanks to the Helms, everything was perfectly synchronized. Every volley of mage-fire, every shell landed exactly where it was aimed. Like the gears of a fine watch, no part moved by itself. Every soldier knew their place.
It was perfect. It was orderly. It was doomed.
The rebels hurled themselves against the trenches, pink and blue uniforms a stark contrast against the muddy slush. They were sloppy, inefficient, moving as individual parts rather than an organized whole. Still, what they lacked in coordination, they more than made up for in numbers. And firepower. Pony infantry carrying sacks of grenades methodically swept the trenches, finishing off survivors with quick-loading magerifle fire. Lumbering minotaur Landships slammed through the lines like treaded battering rams, crushing wire, smothering warbeasts under a hurricane of shells. In the skies, dragon mercenaries and pegasi soldiers dueled with winged warbeasts, slicing them with wing blades, scorching them with fiery breath, occasionally sending one of the beasts screaming to earth bleeding from a million cuts.
The mirror shifted to the rear lines. Technicians and officers suddenly morphed into Changeling drones, cutting telephone lines, spiking guns, and issuing false orders, while zeppelin gunships and bombers turned ammo dumps and supply depots into craters.
Slowly, the front lines bent, bulged, then, finally broke. Some soldiers attempted to throw down their weapons and run, only to drop dead as their helms pulsed with green lightning. Others, their helms damaged, just stood there, drooling through their breathing grilles. A pink and blue banner rose over the main command bunker.
“That…” Sombra said, stroking the mirror again and returning it to normal. ”Was captured less than an hour ago.”
He paused for a moment, blowing a strand of greasy black mane out of his face.
“Gentlestallions, how many combat-effective divisions do we have left defending the Capital?”
One of the braver generals stood up.
“My Lord. “ he stammered, clearing his throat “We...we can still h-hold them off. Long enough to evacuate the Palace.”
“Hold them off?” Sombra chuckled softly, relishing yet another delicious spike of fear. “May I ask with what?
“Well, we…” The general gulped, tugging the collar of his dress uniform as if it were trying to strangle him. ” We still have a few hundred non-combat personnel left in the city.”
“Brilliant idea!” Said Sombra with a toothy smile. ”We will have our supply clerks charge the rebels, stabbing with their pens and pencils! And our mechanics, they could bludgeon the enemy with their socket wrenches!”
The smile vanished from his face. The general shriveled into his chair, wringing his hooves like washrags.
“Get out,” Sombra growled. “Now!”
The generals practically stampeded out of the conference room until the only ones left were Sombra’s two bodyguards, completely expressionless beneath their Helms.
Sombra stood up for a moment. His body began to shake uncontrollably, like an earthquake before a volcanic eruption. Unfettered, undiluted rage surged through him like a flash flood, demolishing rational thought. Boiling his blood. Scorching him from the inside out. A red haze began to fill his vision...
The next thing Sombra knew, he was sprawled amongst in the wreckage of what used to be his war room, the world spinning around him.
The thick oak conference table had been split in half. Chairs were smashed into splinters. The walls were pockmarked with glowing craters, molten crystal flowing like candlewax. Tapestries and banners had been shredded into confetti. The scrying mirror was smashed into a spiderweb of cracks, sparking and crackling with magic.
“My Lord, are you all right?” Said one of his bodyguards, helping him up.
“I’m...fine,” Sombra growled, shaking his head. Once, his physician had prescribed medication for these “episodes”. They’d blunted his rage just fine. But then there were the side effects: the dizziness, nausea, the headaches. Obvious signs of poisoning.
Brushing splinters and sawdust from his robes, trotted out into the Grand Hall of the palace, his bodyguards trotting along behind him like a protective shadow. They had to; if either of them moved more than fifty paces from their lord’s side, the Helms would kill them instantly.
They were some of the very few ponies he trusted.
As his hooves click-clacked on the polished marble floor tiles, Sombra’s eyes wandered around the hall. When he seized control of the Crystal Empire some thousand years ago, one of his first acts had been to redecorate the crystal palace. Anything depicting Queen Amore had been destroyed. Portraits and banners had been publicly burned. Reliefs, sculptures, and carvings had been fed into rock grinders.
Now, whenever ponies walked through the palace, all they would see was him. Massive banners hung from the walls, emblazoned with the two crossed swords over a black crystal he’d adopted as his insignia. Life-sized portraits and busts decorated the halls, judging passers-by with painted eyes. Decorative reliefs were carved into the walls, depicting scenes from his life: his conquest of the Empire, his return from millennia of imprisonment, the second conquest of Canterlot.
Despite what the Rebels might say in their propaganda, he was not a vain stallion. Far from it, These decorations weren’t some vanity project, meant to prop up his ego. They were there to remind ponies who was in charge.
“You were a fool, Amore,” Sombra mumbled, shoving an unlucky servant out of his way. When she’d had him court-martialed, she’d decried his use of fear against the raider tribes plaguing the city: the burned villages, the slaughter of so-called “innocents”.
Such a hypocrite. Wasn’t it fear of the dungeons that kept the criminal element down? Fear of the police kept citizens obedient? Fear of the army kept rebellions in line? She’d been just as much of an acolyte of fear as he was.
His only crime was that he didn’t try to hide it.
Once he reached the study, Sombra telekinetically forced the doors aside, nearly wrenching them from their hinges. He turned to his guards. “If anypony attempts to disturb me, kill them.” The guards barely had time to salute before he slammed the door shut behind him with a thunderous boom.
He needed a drink. Now.
Sombra trotted over to his work desk, leaning down and rapping on its side. A panel opened in the cherrywood desk, revealing a bottle of wine and a jade goblet. Pulling out the cork with his teeth, Sombra poured himself a cup, sniffed the wine, then dipped a Poison Perception crystal into the red liquid. When the gemstone turned green, he tossed it aside and quaffed the wine
These days, paranoia was a virtue.
The taste of berries, pine needles, and ethanol washed down Sombra’s throat. A gentle warmth bloomed in his belly. It wasn’t enough. Sombra reached for the bottle again, tossed the goblet aside, and drank wine straight from the decanter like a foal at a bottle, damping the inferno in his chest, if only for a little bit.
As he drank, Sombra did something he didn’t dare to do anywhere else: he let himself relax. This room wasn’t just his study. It was his refuge. The windows were sheets of enchanted diamond, strong as steel. The doors were carved with enough runes of protection and reinforcement runes to stop an artillery barrage. At any moment, a protective shield could be deployed around the entire structure. Both his bodyguards could be teleported in at a moment’s notice.
The one place where he dared to let his guard down.
Sombra plopped down in his chair, the rare hydra-leather molding around his body.
Everything in the study was the fruit of his labor. In a corner, the empty husk of Queen Amore stood encased in crystal, eyes blank, and jaws slack. The chair and desk had been gifts from the Minotaurs. Well, back when they were still allies. His goblet had been taken from the leader of the Diamond Dog uprising. The wine looted from the cellars of Versaddle Palace. Lining the bookshelves were scrolls and texts taken from the Royal Archives of Canterlot.
And on his desk was the greatest prize of all...
“Heh, Hello, Celeshtia.” He slurred, taking another swig from the bottle. “It's...it’s been a while.”
Celestia’s petrified head sat on his desk atop some documents, face frozen into an eternal scowl. Even as a paperweight, Sombra could still feel the eyes of the former Sun princess burning through him, judging him. Condemning him. He could already hear her berating him for “enslaving the Crystal Ponies” and “reckless use of dark magic”.
Dark magic. What a ridiculous name. Magic was magic; it was no more “good” or “evil” than the pony who used it. Sure, the spells he’d used were powerful, even dangerous, but so was a fire. You didn’t see anypony trying to ban fire, did you?
A shame she’d been so inflexible. she would have made an excellent queen.
Picking up the princess- turned- paperweight with his telekinesis, Sombra swiveled his chair around and gazed out the window, drinking in his empire. Or, what was left of it.
An eternity ago, the Crystal City had been the jewel of his empire. Everything, from the humblest shop to the palace, had sparkled in the arctic sun like oversized diamonds; more works of art than dwellings. The streets had been p- straight, perfectly flat, and expertly crafted. Its gardens had bloomed with flowers from all over Equus. Everything was in its proper place. Everything was in order.
Sombra took another gulp from the bottle, blood-red wine dripping from his lips. Now, his empire was reduced to a few, shrunken islands in a sea of rebellion. The capitol had become a reflection of this war: Houses and shops were replaced by iron bricks of factories, ore and chemicals and excreting munitions, armor plates, and thick black smoke that blanketed the city in an impenetrable haze. Helmed guards patrolled the streets, moving as if they were a single organism. The flowers had been plowed over and replaced by rows of vegetable gardens in an attempt to feed the city.
Something caught Sombra’s eye. Down by the base of the palace, a guard was watching over a team of POWs who were struggling to fill a bomb crater. One of them, a griffon that was little more than a walking skeleton, dropped his shovel and collapsed to the ground. Without hesitating, the guards hoisted the hapless griffon onto his back and dragged him to a nearby vat of bubbling green liquid.
These days, nothing was wasted. Nothing.
“I...I never wanted thish.” Sombra slurred, gesturing towards the window. “The Loyalty Helmsh, the war, none of it.” He drained the last bit of wine and tossed the bottle aside. “ All I...ever wanted was peace. Unity.”
“It never would have happened under Amore, under the old order, with their shquabbling kingdomsh and their fetish for’ freedom’ and ‘shelf-determination’. So disorderly, so dishorganized. We needed shomething stronger, shomething that was wasn't afraid to... to get its hooves dirty.”
“And until your sishter and that...that pink whore decided to rebel, it was all going to plan. Yesh, yesh there were the labor camps, the indentured shervitude, the purges,but...but those were...were just birth pangs.”
He sighed, mind slipping further and further into oblivion. “My new world would have... would have been a paradise. No more war. No more crime Every being would’ve been...been fed, employed, and content. No more two-bit villiansh, vilansh…bad guys trying to take over. Just peace everlashting.”
For a while, Sombra just stared out the window, gathering his jumbled thoughts. “Now...now it’sh over. My empire has hoursh left to live. Rebels...they’re already on their way. They’ll besiege the Capital, try me before some kangaroo court, then.” He hiccuped. “They’ll have me shwing. The old order will return, Chaosh...it’ll return. ”
Sombra’s right eye started twitching again. He could feel the rising tide of rage once again. His lips curled into a snarl.
“Because of them ” The rage surged through him once again, burning the warmth from his body He growled, tossing aside Celestia’s head. “My subjects. When they were not cowardly, they were weak. When they were not weak, they were incompetent. When they were not incompetent, “ Sombra growled, “they were treacherous!”
Sombra started giggling uncontrollably, his snarl turning into a twisted smile. “That’s right, treacherous. How else did the Rebels manage to get those shining toys of theirs? How else did they manage to unify all those squabbling kingdoms? Friendship? Kindness? Oh no no no!” He snarled “Treachery!”
“Well,” Sombra chuckled, rubbing his hooves together “they know the punishment for treachery”
Hooves shaking, Sombra pulled a crystal orb out of a drawer and stroked it. The transparent crystal turned milky-white for a moment, before resolving into the face of a helmed soldier.
“What is your bidding, m’ lord?”
Good. Somepony here still knew their place.
“Commander,” Sombra giggled. “I have new orders for you. Very important orders, heh heh heh.” he cleared his throat. ”I need you to gather up every stallion, mare, and foal you can find, arm them, and lead a counterattack on the Rebel lines.”
The commander recoiled. “My-my Lord!”
“Did I stutter, worm?” Sombra snarled, baring his teeth.
“I-I.” The guard’s helm began to glow. Webs of green lightning started to play over his body. “Of course- of course, my lord!” He blurted out before the helm fried his nervous system.
“Good. Very good. Good job. You’ll get a medal for this. Big medal. Huge medal” Sombra stroked the orb again, returning it to transparency.
“No, that’s good enough.” He mumbled to himself, wringing his hooves. ”Not nearly enough. That’ll teach the rabbles, but the rebels, oh the rebels will still win. Can’t let them take the Palace. Can’t let them have anything. Destroy. Need to destroy it all. But how”
“Of course.”
Sombra trotted over to his desk and ran a hoof along the grain of the wood, following the curves and swirls of the wood forwards and backward, like a hiker along a winding mountain trail from memory. Not his memory, but one he’d “borrowed” from the former Queen. The swirling grain glowed a faint pink, and a panel slid open, revealing a jeweled pendant and two crystal keys recessed in the wood
“Guards!”
Both guards filed into the study, spears at the ready.
“Here!” Sombra tossed a key to each guard, then reared up on his hind legs and galloped down the palace halls, both stallions struggling to keep up as he bowled over servants, guards, and anypony else unlucky enough to get in his way. He dashed down the halls. Into the Royal Kitchens. Past the scullery. Down the steps to the Palace wine cellar.
“You’ll get nothing from me, usurper!” Sombra mumbled in falsetto as he dashed through the maze of wine casks. “Torture me, kill me, do what you want, I will never talk!
“Oh my dear, dear Amore,” Sombra laughed. “I don’t need you to tell me anything.” He stopped at an old, rotting cask, tucked away in a corner, minding its own business. It was so perfectly mundane, so extraordinarily ordinary that his mind couldn’t be bothered to focus on it. The moment he broke eye contact, he almost completely forgot it was there.
Clever. Very clever
“Guards, break that cask!”
Without a word, the duo pony-handled the cask from its socket and smashed it against the stone floor, dashing it to pieces. Sombra levitated one of the barrel’s iron bands up to his face.
“Thought you could disguise yourself did you? He grinned and pressed the glowing amulet against the rusted iron ring, mumbling a jaw-breaking twenty-five syllable incantation as he did. The band trembled, glowing with a faint green light, then flung itself at the opposite wall, sinking into the stone like a ring being pushed into a block of clay. The metal ring filled with darkness, turning to a solid black disc, then expanding into a pony-sized hole, pushing aside the stone, molding into a yawning staircase, winding down into the foundations of the Palace.
“Onward, my brave soldiers!” Sombra laughed and charged into the hole, down dusty, spiraling stairs that were old when Equestria was young. Down into the Vaults.
--
Not many ponies knew about the Crystal Vaults. Fewer still were allowed into them; Even fewer would want to. It was a prison of sorts, but not for anything as mundane as ponies or even monsters; it was for objects. Objects too dangerous to remain free, but too powerful to destroy.
“Surprise yes it’ll be a big surprise all right the biggest surprise the world’s ever known they’ll never see it coming,” Sombra mumbled over and over again as he made his way down steps that were old when Equestria was new.
Amore’s mind had been full of secrets. Valuable secrets. She’d tried locking them all inside her head, safe behind an indomitable will. And his MindScour spell had broken through it in mere seconds. More proof of the weakness of the old order.
The stairway ended in a vaulted chamber, the air thick with dust, every surface covered in cobwebs. All around him were doors of solid black iron plate, thick as a pony, each one locked by padlocks as big as he was. Teasing him with their mystery. Almost beckoning him to open them up.
“Not here.” These were the lightly protected vaults. Low security. Drunk tanks. The artifacts in them were only deadly. He needed something much, much more powerful
A spider dropped onto Sombra’s head. He brushed it off and trotted deeper into the Vault. The deeper he went, the thicker the doors, the more numerous and complicated the locks. Padlocks were replaced by combination locks, which in turn could only be used after reciting an incantation. Towering stone golems covered in cobwebs stood in their alcoves, glowing green eyes watching him, eyes focused on the medallion around his neck. The air reeked of dust, mold, and the ozone stink of magic from heavy-duty wards.
Undaunted, Sombra trotted further and further into the vaults. The walls turned from stone to reinforced iron plate, studded with magic-absorbing gems and carved with runes of reinforcement. The golems were even bigger-slabs of stone and iron with legs, carrying swords as long as a pony.
Finally, the corridor opened up into a seemingly empty chamber. On the opposite wall, the largest vault of them all.
For a moment, Sombra just stood there, jaws slack. It wasn’t even a door in the traditional sense; more like a solid slab of black iron, every inch of which was inscribed with glowing runes of reinforcement and strength. One could have dropped a mountain on it and it wouldn’t so much as a dent.
Something shook inside Sombra. A ball of ice started forming in his stomach. The fog started lifting from his head. Was this such a good idea? Even during Amore’s reign, simply knowing about this thing had been grounds for the death sentence.
He shook his head. “A good idea? It’s a great idea? A perfect idea. Brilliant. Ingenious!” he mumbled, eyes twitching uncontrollably. Sombra mumbled an incantation, and the shrouding spell on the door dissipated, revealing two keyholes on each end.
“Well?”
The Guards nodded and trotted over to their respective keyholes, inserted the keys, and turned them at the same time.
Something clicked inside the door. Ancient gears clanked, whirred, like some ancient beast slowly waking up after millennia of sleep Massive bolts slid back, and a seam appeared in the black iron, thin as a hair at first, but slowly widening as the two halves of the door retracted into the walls, revealing a second, smaller door. Another incantation and dozens of hidden panels on the door slid open, each revealing a massive combination lock.
Sombra ignited his horn and slowly started rotating the first dial. Right thirty-two, left ninety-one, right thirty. Over and over, spinning the knob, again and again, listening to the tumblers click and whir.
Finally, the first lock clicked. There was the grinding sound of a bolt being retracted. Without a moment’s pause, Sombra started work on the next lock, then the next, and the next. Sweat started trickling down his chin, which a guard carefully mopped off his face. His eyes burned.
Once the final lock was completed, the door slid open to reveal yet another, smaller door, featuring even more locks. Undaunted, Sombra unlocked that door as well. Then another, and another, and another, each one slightly smaller than the one before it, giving the illusion of an impossibly long hallway, until finally, all that was left was a single door, as tall as he was. Every inch of it was covered with tiny, spidery microscopic runes of warding.
Sombra reached into his stolen memories and pulled out the incantation, slowly reciting all thirty-two syllables of it from memory. He couldn’t rush this one. A single mispronounced word or misplaced phoneme and the spell would burn him to ash in an instant.
The moment the last syllable left his lips, the runes began to glow an eye-watering shade of purple, then the door disintegrated into fine black dust. Inside, crammed into what was little more than a cubby hole, was a solid block of lead. Sombra charged his horn and shot a thin red beam of magic into the block.
Like ice on a hot skillet, the metal cube softened, then sagged like melting chocolate, rivulets of grey liquid trickling down its sides. With his telekinesis, Sombra reached into the sagging, softening mass. Something “stung” him, like a bolt of cold lightning. “Feisty little thing, aren’t you?” He said as he slowly pulled. Slowly, surely, the block gave up its prize, collapsing into a pile of grey goo.
The taste of sour metal-filled Sombra’s mouth. His bodyguards dropped to the ground, vomit pouring from their breathing grilles.
“Look!” he said, holding out the artifact, ignoring the prickling sensation on his face. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
At first, the artifact looked innocent enough; a crystal globe the size of a pony’s head.. If one looked a little more closely, they’d see something; a tiny black flame, no bigger than a candle flame, giving off no light. Slowly, it grew, filling the globe with an unnatural fire. He could feel something inside the swirling mass; a desire to be free, to grow. To consume. Practically a soul mate.
“Shh...it’s okay little one.” Sombra cooed, stroking the orb, ignoring the burning sensation in his hooves. “Uncle Sombra’s here.” He said, laughing uncontrollably. “And he’s got a special treat for you.”
Wrapping the globe in his robes, Sombra reared up on his hind legs and galloped down the vault, tufts of fur falling from his body. As he ran, hidden alarms tripped. Klaxons blared. The Golems broke free of their alcoves and moved to block the corridor with their bodies.
“Out of my way!” Sombra roared. A blast from his horn blasted the animate statues to dust. Iron blast doors dropped from the ceiling. Sombra merely teleported through them. Faster and faster he ran. Through the seemingly endless corridor of the Vault. Up the twisting spiral stairs, and through the Palace basement into the palace proper. As he ran, guards and servants dropped to the floor, convulsing and vomiting uncontrollably.
Sombra just ignored them. Fools. They had all served him poorly.
Up the stairs, he ran, until he reached the grand balcony overlooking his kingdom.
The rebels hadn’t wasted any time. Already their siege mortars had punched massive holes in the City’s protective dome. Fat, wobbling shells slammed into the ground meteors. Some smashed into buildings, burying themselves inside then exploding them into a shower of iron and crystal. Others buried themselves into the soil, blowing out massive bubbles of dirt, debris, and occasionally, bodies.
Spitting out a tooth, Sombra stroked a crystal on a small platform in front of him. His face appeared above the platform, blown up a hundred-fold. He grabbed a microphone.
“Hear me, Rebels!” His magically-amplified voice boomed over the city, audible even over the bombardment. He spat out a bloody tooth.
“You claim to fight for freedom? Well here,”
The globe levitated above him.
“Take it!”
Magic formed into a vice. Slowly, surely squeezing the orb. A crack appeared in the flawless crystal. Then another. And another, growing into a web of cracks.
Then. it shattered.
The last thing Sombra saw were jet-black flames exploding out of its prison.
The last thing he felt was a spike of fear, stronger than any he had ever felt before.
It was delicious.
Author's Note
Inspired by this:
