Chapter 13: The Face of a Forgotten King

Chapter 13

The Face of a Forgotten King

As they moved down the city's broad main street, they saw more and more of the macabre, once-living statues. The horses – earth horses, unicorns, pegasi, stallions and mares, colts and fillies -- were all frozen where they had stood. Most were clad in elaborate garments that seemed suited to some type of festival, and which were totally inappropriate to these icy climes. Laurel wreaths crowned their heads. They were of every color, and had cutie marks, just like ponies. Their faces showed no signs of fear or knowledge of whatever doom had befallen them. It would most likely have been less unsettling if they had. Instead, they seemed mirthful and joyous, as if they had been in the throes of some great celebration. Just as they had for aeons, lovers shared kisses, fathers and mothers knelt to nuzzle their foals, dear friends lifted their cups high in salute of one another, and the old smiled with satisfaction as they looked on the mirth of the young. It seemed that in an instant all had been frozen, along with their entire city. It was completely surreal, a scene to fill the heart with wonder and fear.

The ponies continued onward toward the center of the city, proceeding towards a soaring palace they could see rising over even the tallest of the lesser structures in the distance, its top crowned with a spire that gleamed gold, even through its icy shell. As they walked, the crowds of frozen horses became thicker and thicker, growing first into groups of dozens, then into groups of hundreds, and finally into what must have been many thousands, so that they had to weave themselves amongst the grim, eternal revelry. Not even Pinkie Pie was irreverent enough to touch or disturb these long-dead ancestors of her own diminutive race, and not one pony uttered a word. Only the sound of their horseshoes on the pavement heralded their advance.

At last, their journey brought them to the outer wall of the palace grounds. The gates, which were similar to those of the city's outer wall, though somewhat smaller and more ornate, stood conveniently open. Passage through them seemed impossible nonetheless, since throngs of the frozen horses had been filing into and out of them at the moment of whatever catastrophe had left them in their current state.

Twilight Sparkle exhaled, long and slow, watching her breath dissipate into the cold, cold air. “We're going to have to wiggle our way through," she said, and she shuddered at her own words.

Rarity cringed. “Creepy~.” She trilled the final syllable through gritted teeth.

“Eeyup,” said Big Macintosh.

“I don't like this,” mumbled Fluttershy, slinking backwards, so that her haunches bumped into Rainbow Dash's chest.

“None of us do,” said Shining Armor, “but we came here to do a job.”

“It's okay, Fluttershy,” said Pinkie Pie, trying her best to sound cheerful, and yet somehow failing. “We'll get in there, find that thing, and be out of here in a jiffy. Just shut your eyes, and...”

Fluttershy shook her head rapidly, and began to hyperventilate. “I can't do it. I can't... touch... them.”

Rainbow Dash tapped her on the shoulder. “Just come with me. We can fly over and find a spot to wait for everypony else.” She smiled reassuringly, and Fluttershy began to calm.

“Okay,” she said, and stretched her wings.

The passage through the crowd was cold, claustrophobic, and unnerving, but each pony found paths by which to wedge and push him or herself through. Big Macintosh was of course the most impeded on account of his considerable mass. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, for all their own discomfort, had to stifle laughter at their friends' expressions and behavior as they squeezed themselves out of the frozen crowd.

Spike, who had apparently dismounted from Macintosh' back, arrived first, his small size lending itself to the quick discovery of acceptable passages.

His words confirmed what his expression had already imparted: “That. Was. Gross.”

Rarity arrived soon after, to a chorus of “Eww, eww, eww, eww, eww, eww!”

Applejack came next, merely sighing in relief.

Shining Armor emerged next, followed by his sister. He was only slightly shaken, but Twilight's right eye and the corner of her mouth twitched violently.

Big Macintosh finally managed to find one last parting in the crowd and squeeze himself through it. His countenance betrayed not a hint of emotion.

“Well,” he said “that was cold.”

“Yeah, are you guys gonna do that again?” Pinkie Pie was somehow standing next to Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. “How long have you been there?”

“Since right after you two; I went around.” She pointed across the crowded courtyard to a smaller side gate, also open and mostly devoid of the statuesque traffic that clogged the main entrance.

Applejack smacked a hoof into her own forehead, and huffed, loudly. “At least we ain't doing that again on the way out.”

The ponies now took a moment to survey the courtyard. It apparently had been the center of the festival. There were ice-bound dancers and musicians, and all of the horses here seemed to have been intent on what the entertainers had been doing. Several horses wore garments that hinted at priesthood or some other office of considerable rank. One unfortunate pegasus mare, a dancer by the look of her costume, lay in several grizzly, frozen pieces strewn across the center of the circle, her severed head's face unmarred by agony or horror. She had most likely been in flight when the city was frozen at whatever terrible moment, so long ago. The impact of her fall had shattered her frozen body like glass. She was the only real indication thus far of violence, and it was violence she had not even been alive to experience. All of the ponies stared at her wordlessly for several seconds before Twilight noticed that Fluttershy was beginning to hyperventilate.

“We should get moving,” she said, and nudged Fluttershy with her shoulder so as to divert her attention from the disturbing sight.

As the group moved away from the shattered pegasus and towards the large palace, Twilight thought, It probably doesn't help that it's a pegasus.

The thought prompted her to look back over her shoulder and take one final look at the mangled, frozen mare. She was surprised to see that Rainbow Dash had not moved, but stood stone still, staring downward at something that lay on the ground before her.

“Definitely doesn't help that it's a pegasus,” she mumbled. “You guys go on, We'll be right along. I think this place is getting to some of us.”

Twilight galloped back and stood beside Rainbow Dash. The little pegasus was staring downward at a severed, frozen wing with feathers that were a shade of blue uncomfortably close to her own. She wasn't visibly upset, but she seemed totally unaware of Twilight's presence at her side.

“Rainbow?”

The pegasus did not reply.

“Rainbow Dash.”

No response.

“Are you okay?”

Rainbow Dash nodded slightly. By force of will, she finally tore her eyes away from the frozen wing and looked into Twilight's own. Something behind those pink-purple eyes made Twilight take a step back instinctively, but she was unable to identify quite what it was.

“Let's go,” said Rainbow Dash, her voice devoid of emotion, and she walked off in the direction of the group.

Only a minute's walk brought them to a stairway that led upward into the palace. They paused at its base, all of them reluctant to continue onward.

“Well, I guess we gotta go in there, whether any of us likes it, or not,” Applejack said, as she lifted her hoof onto one of the stone stairs, poignantly aware of how small it seemed.

“I wonder what it's like for Celestia to have to live in a world meant for ponies half her size,” mused Twilight in a detached voice, as she followed her friend.

The rest of the group followed, moving gingerly over the ice-coated stairs. Macintosh and Shining Armor quickly overtook the mares by virtue of their longer legs, so that they reached the top first, where they stood in silence and waited, staring forward at something the others could not see.

As they reached the peak of the stairway, the ponies all realized what it was that had so transfixed the two stallions: The door to the palace stood open, and something inside was casting a dim, golden glow.

“Can I just wait here?” asked Fluttershy, as Shining Armor took a step forward.

The unicorn turned his head towards her.

“Alone?”

Fluttershy followed him immediately, the first pony to do so.

Twilight, her curiosity overcoming her fear, ran ahead of the other ponies and was the first through the door.

“Twilie, wait up! We don't know what's in there!”

Shining Armor's plea went unheeded, until, that is, Twilight actually reached the door, and saw the scene which lay beyond. There, she stopped in her tracks, and surveyed her surroundings as the others all came to crowd around her.

There had been a great feast taking place. Important looking horses were everywhere, along with entertainers of all types. The hall was circular, forming the base of the great, golden spire that towered above, and surprisingly, that spire was totally hollow, so that looking up seemed to draw one's eyes into a deepening black void, though a great spiral of chandeliers that would once have lit it did seem to begin in its lower reaches. The circumference of the hall was hung with great, crimson tapestries, now frozen as solid as the horses themselves. Each one bore an infinity symbol woven in gold, and rendered as a pair of snakes, each one consuming the tail of the other, as in an Ouroboros. Everywhere, there were signs of decadence. Piles of food and even what appeared to be various kinds of narcotics sat frozen solid upon platters all over a huge, semicircular table that ran around three quarters of the hall. There were horses obviously passed out, horses frozen in acts of drug use, and horses surrounded by and even publicly receiving the services of courtesans. It was a scene of bizarre, macabre, debauchery.

As the ponies gathered around Twilight, they expressed varying degrees of amusement, horror, and disgust.

“This must have been one hell of a good time,” said Pinkie Pie.

“I agree,” said Rarity. “At least until they were all frozen solid, that is, but if you have to die, I suppose you could do worse than an instantaneous death while tripping balls and neck deep in chocolate.” She looked at a pale yellow unicorn mare who stood frozen nearby, clad in an elegant ensemble that marked her as probably having been an expensive courtesan. “And you stay fabulous forever.”

“Look,” said Shining Armor, nodding across the hall.

There, frozen like all the others, seated on two thrones, were a pair of alicorns. One was obviously a queen, white like Celestia, but with a solid green mane, thick with curl and pooling with her tail about her seated haunches. Her head hung low and her posture betrayed what appeared to be sadness, even amidst this unrestrained excess and mirth. The other, who was granite gray and had a stark white mane, they all recognized as the same alicorn depicted by the great statue at the gate. He sat high and proud, wings outstretched, gazing upon the source of the dim glow that illuminated the hall: the Aethervox.

The frozen alicorn king had it balanced on his extended right forehoof. It looked exactly as Celestia had described: a golden horse's heart, clad in bands of polished black iron which were themselves ornately engraved and studded with diamonds.

“Well, that's what we came here for, isn't it?” said Shining Armor, taking a deep breath as he stepped into the hall.

“Yes,” said Twilight. “Let's go get it.”

Moving amidst the strange scene filled the ponies with a sense of utmost dread and trepidation. Here the cold seemed greatest, and its intensity grew as they neared the thrones. Ascending the stairs that led to them, they found themselves shivering violently, even in their cold-weather clothing.

“Gods... I don't know how we'll be able to carry it, if it's what's causing this cold,” said Twilight.

She thought briefly that there was a very real risk she would be frozen solid if she laid a hoof on it.

“Ice is technically just a mineral, right?” she thought. “Not as if I've never been turned to stone, before.”

She took a deep breath, and reached up towards the heart. As her hoof neared it, she stopped, astonished by a most unexpected sensation.

“It's... warm?” Twilight's voice was soaked with surprise.

She laid her hoof on it, and at her touch, the golden heart throbbed with an audible thump. Twilight drew back her hoof in surprise, and in doing so, accidentally touched the extended foreleg of the frozen king.

She screamed in pain, jerking her hoof in close to her body, and her brother jumped to her side.

“Are you okay!?”

“I'm okay,” she said. “He's so cold! It felt like a burn!” She grunted and bit her lip, then wrung her hoof for a second before placing it back on the floor. “The cold is coming from him,” she said, nodding sharply at the king, “not the Aethervox!”

“Well, let's just take it, and go,” said Rainbow Dash, moving towards the golden, beating heart.

“Hold on!” Shining Armor extended a hoof out to stop Rainbow Dash. “We don't know what will happen when we move it. It could be what sustains this enchantment. If we remove it, they might all unfreeze!”

“And what?” asked Macintosh. “Start to stink? They're all dead.”

“This is powerful magic, said Shining Armor. They could turn into wraiths or even some kind of zombies or something!” Spike gulped as Shining Armor continued to speak. “At the very least, they might all somehow still be alive, and wonder where we came from, and why we're crashing their party.”

“Twilight, you promised me there was no such thing as zombie ponies,” said the little dragon, reaching up to tug at Twilight's mane.

She replied without even bothering to shake the frightened dragon's claw off of her hair. “One, I said nothing at all about zombie horses. Two, Nightmare Moon, Discord, Changelings, elder gods of entropy, – oh yeah, and the city we're all standing in; those weren't supposed to exist, either. Three, that's a golden, iron-clad, still-living equine heart, which, theoretically, should allow us to communicate with beings that could probably destroy us in ways our senses can't fully comprehend. In short, I've kind of backed off my position on the whole 'undead' thing, Spike.”

“Take it.”

Twilight sighed, then spoke again. “Not until we... Wait, who said that?”

“Take it, I beg of you,” came the same disembodied voice, raspy, weary, quiet, and above all pleading.

The ponies all looked around in alarm, unsure of who or what was speaking.

Shining Armor's horn glowed as he readied a defensive spell. “Who are you? Show yourself!”

“I was known to the world as Omnequus Rex,” came the voice, prompting all eyes to turn towards the king on the throne, whose haughty expression had somehow changed to one of crushing sorrow. As the voice continued, he remained frozen and unmoving, but all of the ponies were certain that he was its source. “But in the days before I took that name, I was called Windigo.”

“Windigo? Do you mean to tell me...” The voice continued before Twilight could finish her sentence.

“Please, take it. Take it from my sight... forever.” The king's sapphire-blue eyes glowed faintly for just a moment, and somehow, through the ice, itself, a huge tear emerged. Steam poured off of it as it rolled down his frozen cheek, but it never reached the floor. Instead, it became a single, tiny icicle which hung beneath his face.

“Please.”

“Al... Alright,” stuttered Twilight, but when she attempted to take the Aethervox, she found that her magic could not levitate it. Something about its very nature canceled even her most basic telekinesis. She gave it a push with her hoof, and found its weight impressive, which was unsurprising, given the fact that, despite its slow throbbing, it was solid gold, and the size of a large horse's heart -- larger even than Princess Celestia's, Twilight had already surmised.

“Big Mac, I can't carry it with magic," said the purple unicorn, "and it's really heavy.”

The big, red pony positioned himself just beside the king's hoof, and winced as his hide came into contact with the frozen alicorn's warmth-stealing corpse.

“Push it off onto my back,” he said. “Spike, hop up there and balance it as best as you can.”

Still afraid of some horror being unleashed by the disturbance of the artifact, Twilight took a deep breath and pushed, grunting loudly. Seeing that the heart remained unmoved, Rainbow Dash flew over and added her own impetus to the task. Slowly, the Aethervox half-slid, half-rolled off the frozen hoof upon which it had sat, unmoving, since time immemorial. Everypony held their breath, looking around in fear and horror, expecting some cataclysm as the iron-bound, golden heart landed heavily on the red stallion's back, prompting him to grunt under its weight.

Nothing happened. The ice did not melt. The horses did not unfreeze. No monster or wraith appeared to seek vengeance. There was only the faint sound of a breath being slowly released, as by one breathing his last. It might have been the wind moving through the open door of the palace, but they all knew better.

They left in silence, shutting both the door of the palace and the mighty gates of the city behind them as they went, for the doors of a tomb, after all, should remain shut. There for all time would that place remain, just as it had been at the moment when the legend of the Windigo was born. It would remain unchanged but for the absence of the Aethervox' light in the great hall, and for the presence of a single icicle, a tear upon the face of a forgotten king.