Shattered Pentacle

Lyra shuddered as she stepped through the ghostly portal, the chill of the Underworld seeping through her. They walked through fog for a long time, with only the occasional flash of dark stone or the glow of a candle flame to suggest light in this place.

After a few minutes spent hiking nearly blind, she worked a little magic. Being a cat in a place like this would make her too weak, and unable to wield most useful weapons. But if she changed her ears, made them able to move independently and follow any outside sound—then gave her eyes the same sharpness she was used to—suddenly she wasn’t blind and deaf anymore.

It barely helped. Cat eyes pierced the fog, showed her a tunnel sloping downward, covered with a faded inscription. The occasional skull poked out from within, empty eyes seeming to follow her.

“Is it always like this?” Lyra asked, her voice trembling.

AJ looked back in Lyra’s direction. Despite the fog, her eyes lingered on her forehead, and what should’ve been impossible to see with so little light. “You’re jokin’, right? Three steps into the realm of the unquiet dead, and you’re a cat girl.”

She flushed, new ears pressing flat in her hair. “I felt blind! Do the ghosts care? Besides, I didn’t do a tail.”

"I don’t suppose it makes much difference. Should be into the Depths in another few minutes. Stay close. If you lose me in the fog, I might not be able to find you again.”

It wasn’t that much further—they came to an arch of white stone, towering several stories through dense cavern. Through it, Lyra finally saw her first glimpse of the Underworld, brighter than any human eyes could.

It could’ve been a cave, bigger and broader than anything that could possibly remain stable. It stretched away from her like a sports stadium, so far that her eyes had trouble focusing on distant objects. Clouds formed in the space above, diffusing a strange pale light over the landscape.

No grass grew here, though patches of strange lichen did rise from between rocky crevices. Bones littered the ground and seemed to form the rough gravel of the trail. How many bones had to be broken to make a road?

There were no trees, at least none with leaves. Plenty of bony remnants rose from the bleak floor, stretching lifeless branches up towards nothing.

Then she saw someone had joined them. They lingered behind AJ, almost as though they knew how horrifying they would be and wanted to stop from being seen. It didn’t work.

They were a corpse, burned so badly that only a few scraps of skin clung to the bones. A pair of still-living eyes somehow perched in a charred black skull, glancing briefly at Lyra before moving away again.

Reagan nodded at the figure. Her friend had her own little radiance down here, a bubble of repulsion that kept aside the ash and fog. It made her skin seem almost luminous by comparison. “AJ. Were you expecting company?”

She nodded curtly. “Yes and no. Honeycrisp is always with me. It’s just that you living folk can’t usually see him. Small mercy. We’re... a package deal. But he’s harmless, far as spirits of the dead go. It’s the ghosts we have to worry about.” She pointed down the slope, down a gravel road into... a town?

The Underworld had buildings too, it seemed. Even stranger, Lyra recognized some of them. Not from her real life, but... she’d seen the photos. “I thought they tore the old school down,” she whispered, gesturing at a schoolhouse up on a hill. “And that’s the library that burned down a few years back. How is...”

“When they’re gone in the living world, they’re born here,” said the dead. How he could speak at all from that charred mouth, Lyra couldn’t say. Somehow sound came, as though he were still alive. Almost—his tone was still harsh and low, chunks of gravel grinding against each other. “Ignore them. We must travel further.”

Lyra shuddered. If she were a cat right then, it would’ve made her tail stand on end and her body tense to run. This thing was worse than any spirit she’d ever hunted in the night. How could a spirit be so human?

“Tabitha, your magic seems to be holding up. Whatever you did... there’s usually a crowd by now. There’s so many dead, and they all want something. They seem to be keeping to themselves. Let’s take our opportunity to get down to the river.”

They set off together at a jog. Not rushing, despite the urgency to get out. If they seemed like they were rushing, it would only invite the very kind of attention they all wanted to avoid.

Even so, Lyra got her first good look at the dead. None were terribly interesting as individuals—just people, moving about inside the old buildings or shuffling along the empty streets.

To human eyes, they might not even seem that strange. A little pale from lack of sunlight, maybe.

To her magical senses, it was a very different story. Though they moved and spoke and even seemed to breathe, Lyra felt nothing from them.

She felt Reagan, Tabitha, even AJ—but none of these. Somehow, they were even more lifeless than the Embraced. They didn’t even have the false life stolen from living blood.

There must be a reverse form of this magic, to show the living in a world of the dead. Would Tabitha’s mask be powerful enough to hide them?

AJ led them through an older Ponyville—a town of thatch roofs, of a city hall shaped like a huge round carousel, and the corpses of long-demolished shops down what had once been Main Street.

AJ waved to some of the ghosts, even stopped by some for a chat. With one she gave an offering of a bright red apple, muttering something Lyra probably wasn’t meant to hear.

Her cat ears were too sharp, though, and brought even faint whispers to clarity. “Taking these new ones to the river,” she said. “We’ll be out of your way, mayor.”

Mayor... right! Lyra had seen that photo before! But shouldn’t the mayor be older? Ponyville’s first female mayor had been almost a century when she passed.

“Strange times,” the mayor said, accent thick. “Walk quickly. Ponyville is hungry tonight.”

Soon they came to the river.

A river should not be so wide, or flow with such incredible ferocity.

Lyra stopped on the bank, staring out across the water. Here the broken buildings of an ancient Ponyville crumbled into the bony stone, until there was nothing but featureless white cave before them. Cave, and the constant rush of roaring water.

Through it, the dim clouds of this subterranean world concealed, blocking her view of whatever waited on the other side. “I hope you brought what I asked you,” AJ said, as they approached. “We’ll need offerings to cross. The boatmen are always skeptical of outsiders.”

Lyra reached into her pack, withdrawing the item in question. Not a pair of drachmae, which would’ve at least made historic sense. Instead, she had an old family photo—one of her last that still had her together with her parents. She’d scanned it before bringing it down here, but this was the original.

“Something sentimental, right? Important?”

“Sympathetic,” Reagan muttered, holding up a little bundle of fabric. Lyra squinted, and realized what it was—a bridle, handmade and well-worn with time. “Don’t like how that sounds. There’s no way to stop them from using it against us.”

AJ stopped just beside the water. She touched two fingers into the cold flow, shuddering visibly at the contact. Then she reached to the side, letting the moisture fall on the head of her ghostly companion.

The creature screamed, so loud that his voice was almost a foghorn, booming over the water. Lyra shuddered at the noise, drawing out her magical tool from her belt. Even if her magic wouldn’t work on the natives, the dagger was still sharp.

“It doesn’t work that way,” AJ said, once the ghost stopped screaming. “Once you give something to the ferrymen, it’s gone. No one will use it against you, because no one will ever see it again. Not even you.”

“Weren’t we trying to keep a low profile?” Reagan whispered, moving in close. “There’s no way all those ghosts didn’t just hear that.”

“They did, and they will fear it,” said the charred husk of a ghost. “No ghost in these depths wishes to go further before their time. They hear whispers of the Dead Dominions, and terror consumes them. They scatter and flee.”

A light broke the fog ahead, followed by the low hum of a motor. Lyra squinted, and watched a boat approach them. Not an ancient wooden rowboat—more like a small fishing boat, with a little electric motor in back and a few narrow metal seats up front.

The driver was obscured in black. Pale skin emerged from her robe, along with a shock of vibrantly red hair. She eyed them from her seat, seeming to glower directly at Lyra.

She was probably just imagining that—she couldn’t even see the stranger’s eyes.

The voice was younger than she might’ve expected, at least in years. Her words were slow and sad, as though she’d spent lifetimes watching others suffer, and never been able to help.

“I am called,” she said. “The living call me. They should not go beyond this river.”

“Yet we must,” AJ said, stepping towards her. “All are prepared to pay.”

The robed figure folded her arms, attention now fixed on AJ. “Their conduct may be answered on your head, Abby-Jo Howard. Some Dominions punish the fools who bring the living here, not just the guilty.”

“I know.” She offered something in one hand, a jug that could’ve been a pitcher of lemonade. Only this one was filled with something faintly green, glowing with the same light as the Underworld itself.

The woman took her offering, then tucked it into her robe. There was no volume within, no suggestion of a body—just more dark fabric.

AJ stepped onto the boat, which rocked slightly with the weight.

She held out her hand to Tabitha next. She offered a little plastic tiara, hands shaking as she gave it over. Reagan came next, passing over the bridle. That left Lyra, with the last photo of her family in one hand. She lingered on the shore, not quite handing it over. “Will you… take care of it?”

The robe slipped back a little. There was a face underneath. Her features were lengthy and regal, like looking into the face of a queen. Or a goddess.

“You don’t have to give this to me, Lyra Harper. But if you don’t, you can’t get on my boat. All must pay for passage. The Cocytus would not permit you otherwise. You could never fly far enough, or swim fast enough.”

Lyra closed her eyes, then shoved the photo into the boatman’s outstretched fingers. They were strangely warm, at least compared to the cold of the Underworld all around them.

“And so it is. Something in life cowers before death. Yet both know we are not strangers. Without a life, death is nothing. And without death, change is impossible.”

She sat, crowding into the narrow gap beside Reagan. A little engine began to rumble, and they made their slow way across the river.

“What about getting back across?” Tabitha asked. “Not to question your foresight, AJ dear. But I didn’t bring a second offering for the return trip.”

“Getting back is always easier than going down,” AJ said, without turning around. She kept her eyes on the water, cradling the two fingers she’d used to touch the river. Both were now bright red, the flesh around them swollen. Should Lyra help?

Not now. Maybe if she didn’t have to do the magic in front of the boatman…

“You do not belong here,” the boatman whispered. Her voice was flat, calm. This wasn’t about judgment, just explaining how things were. “You are swimming against the current, hiking up a steep hill. Every step will be difficult, until you put your backs to the Dead Dominions and move. The gates will open for you then, eager to disgorge you from a realm you do not understand.”

“Oh. I suppose that’s… a relief,” Tabitha said. “The more of this place I see, the less I understand why anyone would ever wish to come here. No… offense to its permanent residents, of course.”

The boatman chuckled. Her hand remained steady on the engine, taking them deliberately across the river. They must be getting close to the other side!

“None should be forced to come here,” said the boatman, her voice low and pained. “The universe is sometimes cruel. The innocent suffer. The just fail. I have carried children on this boat. Brought great scholars and wicked kings. The Underworld doesn’t care how good or bad you were. Does something bind your soul? Let go, if you can.”

The boat jostled against something hard, then came to rest. “We have arrived. Please use the ramp, and step carefully. I bear no responsibility if you fall into the waters below.”