The sun’s scorching heat began to return as Emerald Edge and her group arrived just outside the tall stone walls of the city of Masyaf, standing proud in the middle of a sea of sand, a little worn with age, but still a testament of the masonry behind it.
“They don’t have holes in their walls like ours.” Spectrum pointed out. “I wonder if they have stronger walls than us.”
“That was because of that plunderseed plant, Spectrum,” Guard Streak reminded her.
“Oh. That’s right.”
This was clearly no small village. Emerald could see dozens of trained soldiers patrolling the walls, and there were at least ten of them standing by the main gate, keeping a close eye on everyone who went in or out of the city. They wore lightly colored clothes and an assortment of cloth, plate, leather, and chainmail armor, and were armed with spears, curved swords, and bows, as well as some kind of signal horn that hung from their belts. Some of them wore hoods and scarves, while others had conical metal helmets.
“So this is the place,” Honeygold said slowly. “It’s a lot bigger than Canterlot.”
Salt Flats led the caravan through the front gates, but stopped partway through. A guard with a feathered plume in his helmet came forward and began speaking to the trader in loud tones. The guard and two others without helmet plumes walked up and down the caravan, occasionally looking at the goods that were strapped onto the camels. Emerald kept her hood up and her hair out of sight. For some reason, she didn’t feel comfortable standing out right now, not when they were so close to their destination. She knew enough about soldiery and guarding to know that this was a routine checkup to make sure nothing was being smuggled in. She also could tell these guards weren’t taking their job too seriously, not even bothering to check all of the people on the camels that they were examining. Again, Emerald was glad for her hood and scarf, as it hid her glittering hair from view.
The guard with the plume on his helmet shouted something and the caravan began to move again, this time into the city proper.
It was bustling with people once they made it past the gates. Thousands of people hurried back and forth, most of them dressed similarly to Salt Flats and his traders, albeit more colorfully. There was the chatter of hundreds, from merchants hawking their wares to just ordinary people talking to each other, all in the Saddle Arabian tongue. Emerald made sure her glittering hair was hidden; she had not felt this out of place since she had first come to this world.
“So, Em,” Spectrum rode her camel next to Emerald’s one. “We’re here. What do we do next?”
Emerald had been expecting this kind of question. She had given it a lot of thought in the two weeks that they had spent wandering the desert.
“Same approach as I did back in Canterlot. We go to the ruler here and ask if there’s anything he or she knows about the artifacts. Royalty usually keeps educated people around, so it stands to reason that there would be someone who speaks English up there.”
“And if they don’t?”
Emerald scrunched up her mouth and looked away. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, all right?”
“Right. If there is a bridge.” Not exactly reassured, Spectrum pulled her camel back to the Apples.
The caravan eventually made it to a large stone building that had other camels and horses around it. Many Saddle Arabian workers were loading and unloading goods from the animals, as well as brushing, watering, or feeding the beasts.
Salt Flats dismounted from his camel and stretched, then went over to a fat man dressed in purple robes, gesturing for him to come over.
The man in purple was followed by a band of men and women who were dressed less colorfully, and at the directions of the other members of the convoy, began unloading the traders’ wares from the camels.
Salt Flats walked up to Emerald and gestured at her. The man in purple said something in Saddle Arabian to Salt Flats, who responded in kind.
The man in purple then said in a heavily accented voice, “You Canterlotian?” Emerald nodded. “Ah, good. Salt Flats says you have been good companions, but now it is time to part ways. He has work to do, and he is certain you do too. He wishes to thank you for the payment, and wishes you good luck on your quest.”
“Tell Salt Flats that he has been an excellent host, and that I couldn’t have asked for a better leader on the trip here,” Emerald replied courteously. The man in purple translated for Salt Flats, who grinned.
Emerald and her party dismounted the camels and shouldered their possessions, while the traders set about with some other people who were apparently documenting their wares that they had brought along all this way.
“By the way,” Emerald caught the fat man’s sleeve as he turned to walk away back to the warehouse. “Do you know how I might get an audience with the… ruler here?”
“Oh?” The man’s eyebrows met in thought. “Well, how do I say this. The, ah, ruler of Masyaf is the king of all Saddle Arabia, King Aldilu. He has ruled over this land for almost sixty years, but still has the strength and look of a man in his thirties.”
Emerald nodded politely, though she wished he would just cut to the chase.
“Ah, but to see him, you must first offer a gift. It is Saddle Arabian tradition to not visit on an empty hand.”
“A gift,” Emerald repeated. She raised a finger to her mouth, thinking. “Hmm.”
“Of course, it is tradition to bring something that the host might want or need, but I do not think King Aldilu has anything he needs or wants!” The man laughed. “It is more of a token courtesy in his case.”
“Thank you for the tip,” Emerald said seriously. “I still have one more question. How do I go meet King Aldilu? Is there a certain time that he sees people?”
“Ha! If I did not already know you were a foreigner, that would have given it away. King Aldilu is unpredictable for when it is safe to see him. But I wager your best bet would be to try after lunch, when the sun is highest. Nobody wants to work during those times, so the palace will be clear. Hopefully.”
Emerald thanked the man again and turned to her friends, many of whom were looking around at their surroundings with great interest.
“This place is amazing!” Honeygold gushed. “It’s like a whole ‘nother world here!”
“It kind of reminds me of Canterlot,” Spectrum said slowly, watching a group of women walk past, carrying baskets of strange, purple fruit. “Only not Canterlot. You know what I mean?”
“A little,” Light Speckle pulled off her hood and rolled up the cloth to put in her bag. “If Saddle Arabia is anything like Canterlot, then the king will probably be in the central palace.”
“It’s a lot bigger than Canterlot Castle,” Golden Nugget observed, looking toward the towering structure at the center of the city. “The king here must have a lot of people working for him.”
“Or a big family,” Guard Streak added. “What?” He asked as Spectrum gave him a weird look. “Just because Dawn Saber didn’t have any heirs doesn’t mean this place’s king doesn’t.”
“That is true,” Nightfall acknowledged. “We know next to nothing about King Aldilu. If only one of us spoke the Saddle Arabian language, we might learn more about him and the city as a whole.”
Emerald nodded ruefully. It was regrettable that they did not know the local tongue, but it couldn’t be helped. Not even Moon Tide had been this far east before, so they were deep in uncharted waters. Or sand, as it was. An ocean of sand.
“First, we’ll need to establish a base,” Light Speckle affirmed. “A place where we can rest up and regroup for the night.”
Honeygold looked up. “Like an inn?”
“An inn would do for starters,” Light Speckle nodded. “But if we are to stay in Masyaf for more than a few nights, we will need to find a more permanent solution.”
“We should probably find our way around, first. It’s late morning now, as the sun is positioned, but I don’t want to get caught out in the open after dark. It’s obvious we’re foreigners, and every city has all manner of unsavory people lurking around after the sun goes down,” Emerald decided.
As for how they were going to find such a place in such a big city, Emerald did not know. She felt as out of her element as she had when she had first arrived in Canterlot. Only this time, there was no Sir Morn here to save her.
Emerald gritted her teeth together. How had it gone last time? It had been so long that she had pretty much forgotten. After having a good long think about it, she remembered it had been Honeygold and her parents who had found her the day she arrived in this world. That had almost been eons ago, but Emerald could still remember the smell of roasting apples by the fire when she had awoken that night, crawling around without clothes on.
“Let us just start looking...” Emerald sighed, pulling her hood further over her face. “We can plan out what to do next from there. This place does have inns, yes?”
“Ah would reckon so.” Golden Nugget scratched at his chin as he looked around. “Every town’s bound to have some place for strangers to stay, like traders and them del-uh-gates.”
“Big city like this must get a lot of foreigners,” Apple Bean added. “And that man back there spoke English. There’s bound to be others who speak it too.”
But as it turned out, finding someone else who spoke English wasn’t as simple as the group first thought. Acting on the assumption that the city was laid out like the ones they had visited before, they set out looking for the wayfarer’s house past the front gates. While they milled about, not daring to get too far away from each other, merchants and hawkers pressed in on all sides, shouting offers and deals in Saddle Arabian. At least, they thought they was offers. Not a single shred of English was heard, and at Emerald’s suggestion, nobody spoke too loudly for fear of being targeted as foreigners. The city seemed safe enough, but as Emerald had learned in Canterlot, even the nicest looking cities housed its own catalogue of ruffians.
Finally, Guard Streak shouted out, and everyone turned to see what had caught his attention. The squire was pointing at a tall, multi storey building that was situated next to a covered set of stables and a small pump to draw water from. It certainly looked like an inn, down to the sign outside that displayed a cobra coiled around a brimming mug.
“That does look like an inn,” Nightfall Gleam agreed after examining the premises. “Hopefully it’ll be the same as that town where we met the traders.”
“What was the name of that town in the first place?” Spectrum wondered, turning to Guard Streak, who shrugged.
“Probably something Saddle Arabian that we wouldn’t be able to pronounce.”
“Oh, yes. That would probably be the case,” Spectrum agreed gloomily. “I miss when I could understand what people were saying.”
“In any case,” Emerald said quietly, just loudly enough to be heard over the hubbub. “We should get indoors; the sun’s on its way down.”
The group filed into the inn, which had a moderate number of people in it. Like in the other inns they had visited, there were serving girls scurrying about, and a bar where a large man with blue skin and a darker blue beard and turban was serving drinks.
One of the servants caught sight of Emerald’s group and walked over. She wore a motley collection of multicolored cloths that left her midriff exposed. The girl said something in a questioning tone, but none of the questors understood a word, and could only offer a cringy grin and a shrug in return.
The serving girl looked perplexed, then gestured to them to follow her. She led them around the tables and into a back room that was draped in a rainbow gala of silks. There was some kind of scented fire in here, and lounging on a pile of cushions at the back was a woman with olive skin and light green hair that was done in an intricate braid. She wore a pale blue and teal dress with tassels.
The serving girl bowed to this woman and said something in rapid Saddle Arabian. Emerald felt herself slowly readying to deploy her hidden blades. There was something about this new woman that rubbed her the wrong way.
Finally, the serving girl finished her speech and left the room quickly, drawing the curtains shut as she went.
“So,” the olive-skinned woman said in heavily accented English. “You are from Canterlot? You look like it. Am I right?”
“Uh, yes,” Light Speckle nodded. “You can speak English?”
“I know it well enough. More than many of the people who live in this city; I can’t imagine it was easy finding this place, not being able to speak the language.” The woman sat up from her nest of pillows and surveyed them all with a critical eye. “My name is Androula. I am the landlady and owner of this inn, The Coiling Cobra. And I have been seeing quite a lot of foreigners recently.”
“Why’s that?” Spectrum blurted out before she could help it.
Androula reclined back onto her throne of cushions. “It’s all to do with that winged beast that’s been sighted outside the city. King Aldilu’s court has issued a bounty for it, on account of it scaring traders away. Ten thousand gold bits for the monster’s head. That’s why you are here, no?” She smiled expectantly.
Emerald cleared her throat. “Actually, no. We’re here on a quest from our homeland, to look for… something that is somewhere in Saddle Arabia.” Emerald decided against telling Androula all the details, as she didn’t think that the landlady deserved that kind of trust just yet. She didn’t want any rumors circulating around that might draw more attention to the questors.
“So you’re not monster hunters, then?” Androula huffed. “Should have guessed as much. You’re woefully ill-equipped to deal with a monster, and you have children with you. So you’re treasure hunters or something?” The landlady shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me. So long as your coin is good, we’ll get along just fine.”
“No need to worry about that,” Light Speckle said, sounding reassured. “We’ve got bits to spend, if you’ve rooms to let.”
Androula smiled and spread her arms wide. “Now you’re speaking my language.”