A book arriving at the doorstep of Castle Friendship wasn't anything out of the ordinary. After all, Twilight was insistent on spending a portion of her annual royal stipend on purchasing almost every single book, scroll, magazine, and election campaign pamphlet she could get her hooves on... often within days of them being published and added to an ordering catalogue. The paper-wrapped parcel lacking a return address was a tad more curious, but still nothing she hadn't seen before... some donations came from kind individuals who wanted to remain anonymous, after all. No, the most worrying aspect about the latest addition to the library (and the reason Spike was currently hiding under a table) was the fact that the newly arrived book seemed to be glowing black.

A scientific pony would tell you that it was impossible for something to 'glow black', as darkness in itself implied the absence of light and not its emission, but the book was unmistakably emitting an aura of pitch-black murky shadow that seemed to suck away all the light and colour from around it. Yet despite these shadowy emissions, the cover of the tome was still easily legible through the shadowy covering, the book emblazoned with blood-red lettering labelling it 'Necroponicon' across its cracked and aged leather surface.

"Uh... Twilight? I'm not sure this is such a good idea." Spike hissed from underneath the table. Twilight just rolled her eyes and laughed in response.

"Don't be silly, Spike. It's just a book! Well, a book with some enchantments to make it seem menacing maybe, but still a book! What's the worst that could happen?" She chastised, trotting towards the desk that now held only the tome and a few discarded quills. Spike winced at her words, muttering something about 'death-flags' and holding up a large copy of the Encyclopedia Equestrianna as a jury-rigged literary shield. Twilight on the other hoof was blatantly and clearly unworied about her new book's uncanny presence. Books contained knowledge, and knowledge was good, these tennets were clear and sturdy facts in the feverish nightmare of uncommon sense Twilight called her mind and psychiatrists called a 'Fascinating Subject'. If you expanded and extrapolated from this internal information, it clearly implied to Twilight that all books were, by nature, inherently good. It really was easy and simple logic, which she was already planning to sit Spike down for a three hour lecture of later that day. Maybe four hours, actually... she really didn't want to skimp on his ~~indoctrination~~ education.

Picking up the book in her aura, Twilight strolled over to her usual reading chair with a calm and collected gait. That big, comfy armchair had been one of the few things to survive the absolute thaumic annihilation of the original library, but she'd sooner lose her wings than get rid of her favourite, albeit soot-covered, reading spot. Sitting herself down with a satisfied grunt, she floated the new book down into her lap with an excited clapping of her hooves. "And now, to reading! Oh, Spike? When you're finished panicking and cowering, I'd appreciate a cup of coffee." Wrinkling her nose at the dust on the cover of the newly acquired tome, she called out again. "Better make it a princess-sized one. I'm certain that this studying session will be another all-nighter." Spike only let out a sigh in response, slinking into the kitchen to get his ~~slavedriver~~ caretaker her usual nightly cup of liquid dark matter.

With her assistant out of the room, Twilight began to carefully leaf through the old and tattered pages of the tome, excited to begin her favourite step of reading a new book: identifying what wonderful and wisdom-filled lost knowledge hid beneath its ancient words. The pages, while showing their wear and tear from years spent on shelves in dim light, surprisingly did not feel as fragile as she expected them to. In fact they felt rather stiff and thick, with a texture unlike any paper she had touched before. The lettering too was unique: harsh and roughly pressed into the material like it had to be carved in with a knife. The actual language and glyphs were strangely unique as well, which was odd considering the front cover had been written in the standard Romane glyphs of modern Equish. The ink that composed the strange sigils appeared near black in tone and saturation until held under the dim luminescence of candlelight, where the dark red hues finally showed themselves like blood upon the storied pages. Actually, the scent of iron that wafted from the pages like rust from a blade, led credence to the idea that the pigment was perhaps more sanguine-sourced than traditional gall ink. With a scrunch of her muzzle at the smell of the old, dried blood, Twilight sent off a tendril of arcana to open the nearest window, a futile attempt to avail herself of this off-putting stench. A small frown sat on Twilight's face as she flipped through a few more pages before she returned once more to the start, carefully examining a small tucked-away note tucked between the first two pages, written thankfully in a more familiar language.

Dedicated to my love, Cinderspark. May your soul rest easier than those that betrayed us, for they shall never know such kindness as the soft and slow slumber of death.

And with broken hearts I now leave this vessel of knowledge to you, the one cursed enough to have this tome fall into your possession. Maybe you could achieve what I failed, and everyone before me... and give up on this sin before you too are consumed by your hubris. Burn this book and its pages, seal its ashes in the damnedest pits, and hope to yourself that you have freed Equus from this knowledge at last, less another soul is blackened with the tar of the unholy knowledge these darkened writing contain.

But if you are the same as all those who fell before you, carry further and let your heart be hardened to commit all blasphemy in the face of the sun. This book shall grant your every wish, your every dream, your every satisfaction, but never, reader... never your happiness.
- Crescent Heart, Seventeenth Arcanist of the Celestial Court

Twilight blinked a few times, tilting her head from one side to the other as her eyes finally fell across the final words... and with a slow breath she spoke her whirling thoughts at last. "What is this, some kind of angsty teenager's diary?" Shrugging to herself without a care, she turned the page and came face to face with an inked series of concentric circles, each filled with so many symbols and squiggles that she couldn't resist the smile that was brought to her face.

"What's got you in such a good mood, Twilight?" Her assistant asked, returning at long last with a tall travel mug of coffee and a plate of peanut butter crackers.

"Just nostalgia, Spike. I haven't seen a thaumatic matrix since MAG 105, History of the Arcane." She could still remember the crotchety old teacher's raspy voice, his tweed jacket smelling softly of moth balls and his mane as old and ethereal as the subject he taught. "This was how they used to record the knowledge of spells, to pass down and teach information to other ponies millennia ago. Nopony uses them anymore, there have been hundreds of revisions to newer and better systems since then, but it was still a fascinating chapter of history." Squinting her eyes tighter, she took a sip of her much-too-hot and much-too-strong coffee as she scanned slowly across the page, gazing between each ancient glyph and the pathways connecting between the circles. "That being said... I've never seen one this complicated. Ten separate rings... I wonder how a third-dimensional rearrangement would work?"

Spike just slowly blinked in response, his gaze a void of any semblance of understanding, as it always was when Twilight went off on advance arcanic theory. "I'll... assume that's a lot? So that weird spiral thing is a spell? What does it do?"

Twilight frowned as she squinted closer. "I'm not actually sure. That's one of the reasons we switched to new methods, as it's a lot easier to describe cause and effect using say, Starswirl Arcanum Encoding... though that only came into existence after its namesake much later down the line. Perhaps Rubican Prism Theory would be a better comparison? Whatever, the point is: this old style of spellscribing has no dedicated place for actually describing what the spell does, and with one this large... it would take years to try and decode an approximation of its effects. That's why the author would usually write a brief title and description near any thaumic matrix..." Her words petered out as she continued to scan the arrangement for a few more moments, before Twilight finally lowered the book down to the coffee table and lit her horn.

"Uh... Twilight? You're not... going to try and cast an unknown spell again... r-right?" Squeaked out her assistant in a mixture of panic and exhaustion. It wouldn't be the first time, after all.

"Don't worry Spike, this castle is heavily warded against any sort of destructive magic. I've even got runic stabilizing arrays in the floor to redirect any ill-borne curses and such. What's the worst that could happen?" She closed her eyes and began to focus her mind inwards, translating the memorised sigils from the strict and precise spiral illustrations into actual arcane patterns. It was... impossible to truly write down a spell: magic had no such geometric shape, or at least not one that could be easily described in so few dimensions as a drawn figure. Even rune carvings were more about intent than the actual symbols carved. Regardless, magic was a tactile art, the most a drawing or writing of any kind could do was give vague directions for the way to 'push' the energy, the intent and emotion to focus upon, and the end result to manifest. These things could not be described with words, after all, but Ponies much like Twilight had spent millennia figuring out the best way to at least try to do that exact thing, mostly in futility. Lighting up the leylines beneath the hardened keratin of her horn with a brilliant blaze of energy, Twilight slowly opened her eyes. Concentric rings of sparking aura began to form from its tip, driven and spiralling around her horn as discarded quills and paper levitated from the floor and desks, caught in the updraft of thaumic energies. Spike could only begin to back away slowly, hiding behind a wastepaper basket as waves of pressure began to slowly pulsate around his guardian, the bright light growing brighter and brighter until it was near blinding...

...and then it was over. The spell ended suddenly, like one of Rarity's sewing machines whenever Sweetie Belle tripped on the cord. There was no bang, or puff of smoke, or event sparks. Just a sudden absence of the glowing light as the floating objects fell back to the floor and disarray, gravity once more taking its stubborn hold. Peeking out from behind the bin, Spike blinked slowly at the still figure of his guardian, clearing his throat. "...Twilight? Was that supposed to happen?"

Twilight didn't respond, as her corpse was preoccupied with falling off the chair. Dead.

Spike, of course, screamed.

Author's Note

Edit January 7th, 2025

Hey, y'all miss me? Thought it would be fun to go back over this old fic, spruce it up a bit y'know? Shout if you see any problems.

~~Hey, been a while, thought I'd post the idea I've been working on. I know the chapter is short, but I'll try (and fail) to post more chapters for this fic fairly frequently if people seem to enjoy it. Let me know in the comments what you think!~~