Chapter I:
The Stone Door
Clarity’s mane rippled in the wind like the roiling currents of a river. Small waves ran across her royal blue coat and through the brush and journal adorning her flank as she trod the path up the mountain. Every few moments, she would glance to the side at the small form clambering along the tops of the stones lining the edge of the trail to ensure it was still following. When the cold rock gave way to the edge of a high glade, a familiar voice chirruped happily, “It sure is pretty up here! Thanks for bringing me!”
“Well it was your idea, Saph,” Clarity replied, smiling at her small companion. Blue of coat and bright of manner, Sapphire Shine’s name matched her as a key matches a lock. “Besides,” continued Clarity, “We can hardly spend all of our days off shut up with our books.”
Clarity slipped into quiet reminiscence as the path wound through the trees. A year prior, just after her graduation from higher studies at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, she had been offered work teaching and looking after a private student, the only daughter of a noble family. At the time, she had been nervous at the prospect of taking on a student, to say nothing of a ward, for fear of being unprepared for the responsibility. As she got to know Sapphire, however, her fears were gradually allayed. Saph was an energetic but agreeable filly with a natural thirst for knowledge, more likely to beg to stay up reading than to refuse to do an assignment. In fact, the young unicorn often showed interest in Clarity’s own areas of study: natural magic and archaeology.
“I think I see it!” Saph called, tugging Clarity from her reverie. The elder mare had to quicken to a canter to keep up with the excited filly.
Soon the pair arrived at a sheer face of stone. Where the path met the wall of the mountain, a great stone door was set, its smooth granite showing clearly against the rough rock surrounding it.
“I thought you said it was thousands of years old,” said Saph, “It’s so smooth it looks brand new.”
“It hasn’t weathered because of the enchantments on it,” Clarity explained, “That’s also why nopony has ever managed to open it: It’s sealed shut with magic. Unicorn mages have been examining it since it was discovered. They’ve found out it has four magical nodes, but nothing that’s been tried has made any difference.”
“Ooh, Clarity, Clarity!” the filly said, eyes wide, “Can I see if I can find them? You’re always saying that trying new things with my magic is good practice.”
After a moment’s consideration, Clarity replied hesitantly, “Well, I don’t see why not. But only because the door has already been studied, so we know there are no dangerous spells on it.” Before she had finished speaking, her student was already leaning against the door with eyes pressed shut and tongue in cheek, horn glowing with a soft glassy light. Sapphire would likely find the diffuse energy of the doors enchantments, and perhaps locate the nodes after some searching.
“I can feel them! The magic is still bound up!” the filly exclaimed almost immediately, “There’s two on each side, and they’re all different!”
Clarity’s eyes shot wide. She scoured her memory for details in her studies that might have suggested so little spell decay or differences in the magic. “None of the records said that—”
“And there’s another spot too! It’s weak, but right in the middle the magic gets reaaaaaally twisty and then has a hole right through it, like somebody made an extra-fancy spell map super small, but didn’t finish it.”
“A what!? But there was nothing anywhere about anything other than the nodes… How could everypony have missed something like that?”
Clarity immediately began to focus, letting her magic reach out into the stone. She felt about for the nodes, carefully tracing the spells around each one. They were simple but potent magical resonance structures, designed to harness and channel particular sorts of arcane energy, and all had the same form, despite what Sapphire had said, and the filly would not have been deceived by such basic spells. She examined them again, forcing herself to ignore the structure, and found that there was a faint difference in their texture, easily overlooked; a difference in energy without one in form would be out of the question in unicorn magic, and a mage not looking for it would likely dismiss it as imagined. She made a note to study potential causes of such an effect.
The center spell that Sapphire had mentioned was more difficult to find. It was small and weak enough to be mistaken for a minor flaw in an enchantment, and after a cursory examination, Clarity determined that it was incomplete and inactive, thus explaining its lack of energy. She withdrew a journal from her saddlebag and set to work fervently, forgetting all else as she carefully noted what she could glean from the unfamiliar magic, painstakingly mapping out its every contour and becoming lost in its complexity.
Satisfied with her findings, she sat and said, “Sorry for going wild like that Saph, but this could be an enormous find,” only to discover that the filly was no longer standing by the door.
Her first reaction was worry, and she quickly turned to scan her surroundings. Much to her relief, she discovered the filly in a blue bundle near the rocks at the edge of the clearing, sleeping with her head on the pages of a novel. Clarity gave her student a soft nudge.
“Morning sis,” mumbled the filly. Clarity nudged her again, and her eyes fluttered open. “Oh good, you’re done. I couldn’t get your attention and I was getting bored, so I came to climb on the rocks and then got my book out when I got tired.”
“I was worried when I didn’t find you by me.”
“Sorry…” Saph said as she returned the book to her saddlebag, “I stayed where you could see me, though. Ready to head home?”
“Yes, let’s. If you like, we can do some research on the door’s magic tomorrow.”
“Sure!”
~~~~~
Blackness. Silence. All around her, nothing but an abyss. Clarity stood in place, imagining what might be there, hidden from her. Monsters and treasures, stirrings and secrets, flowed through her mind. Fear. She was afraid. But there was also peace. She savored the emptiness. The possibility. The mystery.
Then there were lights beside her; stars in the darkness. Clarity turned her attention. Four of them shone there, each alike. But no, not quite, very nearly, except that each had a different colour. The lights spun themselves into shining thread, and wove between them a lock, and Clarity had only to find the key to open it. She thought she knew where it was, as well.
As she turned to begin her search, something caught her ear, a noise, faint even against the silence. “Trapped,” it said, “Forgotten. Lost, but not gone. Need only to be found…”
Then the silence was gone, and with it, the voice. A dull light suffused her surroundings and she felt herself being shaken lightly. And then there was another voice, small and sweet, saying, “Get up, get up! Today we were gonna do research, remember?”
“Okay,” she mumbled as she rubbed her eyes, “But we’d better have some breakfast first.”
~~~~~
In the main library of Celestia’s School, Clarity pored over yet another book on spell nature and formation. Another grim prognosis, she thought to herself. Every volume she tried spoke entirely of unicorn magic. No more than a passing mention of other ways of casting or enchanting spells in any volume. Perhaps, she thought, I would be having better luck if this were the Zebra realm. She let out a sigh.
“Clarity?” chimed Saph from her perch atop the room’s other desk, “How old exactly is the Door again?”
“Well,” came a tired response, “We can’t tell from wear because of the enchantments, and magic decay can be very inconsistent, but it was discovered at least as early as surveys for the construction of Canterlot. For all we know, it could be nearly as old as the mountain.”
“Could it be from before the Blizzard? Some of these history books say the Cervidaeans that used to live here were already skilled in magic. They may have had some special ways of etching enchantments.”
The fatigue fell from Clarity like a blanket being shrugged off. Her eyes shone with delight. “Saph, who taught you to be so clever? We won’t be able to find any volumes on Cervidaean magical theory on these shelves, though. Ready for some hunting?”
Sapphire jumped to her hooves. “The archives?”
“The archives.”
~~~~~
The dust seemed to settle in thick layers even as they read. The oldest and most obscure of magical texts were kept in the deep stacks, beneath the main floors, in an enormous chamber cut into the mountain itself. The lower floors were great cavernous spaces, but were transformed into little more than towering hallways by the hundreds or thousands of shelves stretching to the ceilings. Clarity and Sapphire had cleared the dust from a section of floor to use for reading rather than make the walk to and from a table each time they gathered more texts. Sapphire sat nestled against Clarity’s side as they perused their findings between the high shelves, chatting in hushed tones even though the countless volumes ensured that the chamber remained quiet and free of echoes, while around their haven, stacks of books grew up like castle walls enclosing and protecting them.
“I think I found something!” Saph whispered over the tome she had been digging through, “Not many unicorns have been able to study Cervidaean magic because most of their mages had moved to the Deep Woods by the time ponies came to Equestria, but this wizard named Dense Fog met some of them and they let him visit one of their hidden cities.”
Clarity’s eyes shot wide, and before she had a chance to think, she found herself paging through the reference catalogue searching for anything related to the wizard. She barely suppressed an excited squeak as her eyes lit upon the words, “Dense Fog, Journal of. Copies available to borrow.” Without missing a beat, she leapt up and used her magic to gather the piles of volumes that had accumulated around them.
“Something to check out!” the mare sang in joy as she shelved the books she carried, though the silence of the stacks made it seem a shout. “And you’ve done exceptionally well today,” she added.
Saph smiled in response, but found herself unable to stifle a yawn. “Can we take the rest of the day off and save the homework for tomorrow?” she asked.
Clarity thought of the journal and the keys it might hold, then set the matter aside. “Sure we can. You’ve certainly earned it.”
