Age of Kings

by A bag of plums


85 - Foreign Law and Order

It was chilly down in the cell. Emerald had experience with being in prison cells, and this one wasn’t too different from the one in Canterlot. Not as damp and roomier, but a jail cell was a jail cell no matter where it was. It wasn’t a place she would recommend.

She was sitting on the floor, arms crossed and glaring at the wall. The walls were hard, but they weren’t made of the same stone blocks that Canterlot used. This one was mostly smooth and slightly brownish, but still tough enough to keep her here. Her weapons and armor had been confiscated. Again.

One Saddle Arabian guard stood outside, keeping his narrow eyes on her. Sensible, since she had tried to kill Masyaf’s crown prince. Emerald just couldn’t believe it. Sombra was the prince of Saddle Arabia. Her mortal enemy was the prince! How could she even trust any of the Saddle Arabians now? They had all seemed so nice, but if they were on Sombra’s side, then they were her enemies. Simple as apples.

She didn’t know what had happened to the rest of her group once she had been apprehended; she had been so close to getting within striking distance when the king of all people had blasted her aside with some kind of power. Then the guards had quickly stopped her from moving. Capable as she may have been, she didn’t have the skill and strength to fight off eight fully-armed guards at once.

She continued to sit on the floor, ignoring the prison guard for the time being.

She was very angry for what felt like hours, then greatly unhappy for another few, and by the time someone came knocking on the cell door, she was merely disgruntled.

“What.” Emerald grunted. She had no idea what time it was, as there were no windows down here in the dungeons.

“H-Hey, Em,” Came a small, timid voice. Emerald looked round. It was Honeygold. The girl was holding a plate of food and a skin of water, which she slid through a slot in the jail door. “Ya might want to start on the bread first, Em.”

The little farm girl gave her a wink.

Emerald smiled. Just like their old escape plan.

Before the tray could be fully inserted in, a grey hand appeared and stopped it. Both Honeygold and Emerald looked up to see Prince Sombra squatting beside Honeygold, motioning with his head for her to leave.

Honeygold gulped, but then did as she was told after giving Emerald an apologetic look.

“So…” Sombra pulled the tray back out and inspected the bread. He peeled it open, revealing a wrapped up parchment inside. “Is this how it is in Canterlot? Your prison escapes must be frequent.”

He rolled up the note and pushed the tray under the door for the spymaster, but she wasn’t focused on the food anymore, now that he was here.

“You!” Emerald rammed herself against the cell door, but all it did was shake dust all over her from the ceiling.

Sombra stood there on the other side of the cell door, looking at Emerald with something akin to confusion on his handsome face.

“You act like I have done something to wrong you,” the prince said at last. 

“Something to wrong me?!” Emerald exclaimed in shock and anger. “Are you out of your mind? You foul, evil…” Emerald could not find words strong enough to express her current maelstrom of feelings. Her arms came between the bars, trying to throttle him with her fingers.

Sombra said nothing for a long while. He stared at Emerald through the bars, staying just out of reach of her grasping hands. 

“You know,” Sombra said at last, leaning back against the prison wall. “For all intents and purposes, you have been treated like an assassin, come to kill me. Yet I do not understand your method. Yes, your entry was perfect and not at all suspicious. But to openly declare your intentions to kill me and uncover yourself like that, doesn’t match your previous cleverness. It does not make sense.”

“I didn’t know you were here,” Emerald snapped. “And if I did, I would have come to kill you much sooner. What dark magics have you done to King Aldilu and his kingdom to let your stinking hide stay here?”

Sombra’s frown deepened. “I have lived here in Saddle Arabia all my life. King Aldilu raised me from a babe into adulthood. There are no enthralling magics here; I am the true heir of Masyaf, and will take the throne once my father passes.”

Emerald’s snarl grew wider. Now he was just plain lying to her face. “You sit on a throne of lies!” she shouted, flinging herself at the door again. It held firm.

Sombra watched Emerald struggle against the bars of the cell for a while longer before he shook his head and turned on his heel to leave the dungeons.

“I shall find my way out of here and when I do…” Emerald shook her fist at him. “You will wish for death long before it finds you! You murderer! You usurper! No throne will ever be yours!”

Emerald continued to shout and rant even as Sombra’s shadow vanished from the dungeon entrance. Panting with exertion, Emerald punched the bars one last time and then sat down to fume.


The days passed slowly for Emerald Edge. The air down in the dungeons was cool but stale, and she found herself wishing for a breath of wind, even if it was hot.

Honeygold didn’t come to bring food for her again, instead it was the jailer, a hulking man wearing a Masyaf guard uniform that looked two sizes too small for him. At least the food was decent. Better than what she had eaten while in the Canterlot dungeons. 

But the quality of the food was not something she cared about right now. In her mind from when she woke up to when she lay down to sleep, plus probably her dreams, she thought about Sombra and how she could get her hands around his rotten neck. Or perhaps she would rather beat him to death with these new hands of hers. She had become quite adept at hand-to-hand combat while being a knight, and she smiled with grim satisfaction as she imagined pummelling in his big, stupid, lying face.

After what was a week by the scratches that Emerald had scraped into the stone wall next to her cot, someone came to visit.

It was a Saddle Arabian man wearing refined, yet modest-looking clothes and a turban. His pink face was adorned with a thin beard and a curled moustache. He was accompanied by two beefy guards.

“Emerald Egg, was it?” the moustached man said in a weedy voice.

Emerald sat up. “Edge. Emerald Edge.”

“Yes, that is what I said. You are from Canterlot, yes?”

Emerald didn’t say anything.

“I will take that as a yes. I am here to inform you that your trial will take place in two weeks. From today.”

“Trial? What trial?” Emerald asked, coming closer to the door. The guards bristled and reached for their weapons.

“You tried to assassinate the crown prince of Saddle Arabia,” the moustached man clarified. “And so you will be put on trial to determine your fate. You also have the right to an attorney.”

“A what?” Emerald’s face contorted as she took in this information. Back in Canterlot there had been no trials or attorneys or anything like that for common folk like her. People were either jailed or executed by the king’s word. If people wanted the right to a trial, they had to be nobles.

“Surely you Canterlotians are not that backwards that you do not have trials or attorneys to defend you in them,” the man sniffed. “You will await the date of your trial here in the dungeons. Is there anything you wish to ask about?”

Emerald stared at the man, her mind grinding along slowly as she tried to process what she had just been told. 

“What happens if I lose the trial?” She asked eventually.

The man’s expression did not change. “Your sentence will be decided by a jury, as well as the king’s word. Beyond that, I cannot say.”

He turned to leave, but Emerald suddenly threw herself at the bars. 

“Wait! What about my friends?”

“Your friends?”

“Yes, the people who came in the throne room with me,” Emerald implored. “What has happened to them?”

“Oh, the rest of your foreigner friends,” the man said, stroking his beard. “They seem to have been consigned to house arrest until the date of your trial. They will testify in court, so we could not risk any of them escaping, or worse, trying to break you out of prison. Law and order must be upheld in Masyaf.”


“What are we gonna do, Ma?” 

Honeygold voiced this as a pair of guards came into the commandeered house that the questors, sans Emerald, had been confined to. They were followed by some palace workers who brought in trays of food and drink for the house’s occupants. After Emerald had been imprisoned, King Aldilu had rounded up the rest of the party and had them moved to one of the houses of one of the nobility of Masyaf who had recently moved into the palace. The furniture was sparse, but there were enough beds for all of them, so they had accepted without much protest. 

The dozen or so guards who had escorted them here made any rebellious outbursts rather undesirable too.

They had been forbidden to leave the house, and more guards had been stationed outside the estate to make sure nobody tried to escape.

“Ah don’t rightly know, Honeygold,” Apple Bean sighed as they sat around the table for dinner. It was all good, if somewhat exotic-looking food. But by now they were more used to Saddle Arabian cuisine and they ate without complaint. “Ain’t much we can do to help, us bein’ trapped in this house and all.”

“Two weeks…” Spectrum said, taking a sad bite from her meal. “Em’s going to be on trial in two weeks. What are we going to do? I’ve never even seen a trial before, let alone participated in one!”

“I do not know how Saddle Arabian trials are conducted, but if they are anything like Canterlot’s variety, the king himself will be there.” Light Speckle stared at the tabletop as if she were searching for answers in the woodwork. “Which probably will not bode well for us, seeing as how Emerald attempted to kill his son and heir.”

“Why did Em flip out like that, anyway?” Guard Streak asked as he brushed crumbs off his lap. “It’s not like her to just lose control all of a sudden.”

“Ooh! Is it because she’s on a mission to stop an evil king who’s called Sombra and she mistook Prince Sombra for that evil Sombra who she’s fighting to beat?” A cheerful female voice said from the window.

Everyone turned to look and see who it was. It was the dancing girl from King Aldilu’s court, leaning on her elbows on one of the windows to the house, a wide smile on her face.

Posey leapt to her feet. “What are you doing here, uh…”  

“Parisa!” The girl chirped as she did a fancy twirl that showed off her slender body. “Parisa Pie. I didn’t mean to startle you, but I just had to come see you.”

“Oh,” Nightfall tilted her head to the side in puzzlement. “Why?”

“Well, because you’re the first ever visitors from Canterlot I’ve ever seen, that’s why!” Parisa grinned wider and leaned in the window. “My mother taught me all kinds of languages and useful tricks, but I haven’t had to use English until now. It’s a fun language! I very much get why you speak it. So many vowels. That’s a fun word, vowel. Vow-well.” She rolled the word around in her mouth as if savoring a tasty treat. 

“Well, I guess it’s nice to meet you. Again,” Posey said. “So you just came to say hello? Shouldn’t you be up in the palace?”

“A little more than that,” Parisa hooked a leg over the windowsill and did a flip into the house, landing squarely on her feet. “King Aldilu won’t want another dance until tomorrow, so for now, I’m free!”

“The exact opposite of us,” Spectrum muttered. “We need to find a way to get out of this mess. Two weeks. We cannot wait that long! Morn’s on his way and we need that artifact.”

There was an uncomfortable silence that even Parisa seemed unwilling to break.

“King Aldilu did tell us where we might find it,” Light Speckle said uncertainly. “But without Emerald, the artifact would still do us no good.”

Parisa’s smile shrank a little bit as she listened. “Uh, all right, so is that why you went to see King Aldilu the other day? To get this ‘artifact’ thing?”

“Eeyup,” Golden Nugget said heavily. “Though Ah don’t know how things’re gonna work out now.” The farmer exhaled deeply and reached for his cup of water, draining it in one gulp. “Em’s really put us on the spot with that move of hers.”

“It is a strange coincidence, finding another man with the name Sombra all the way out here,” Jewel Pin voiced. “Almost everyone in this room knows about Emerald’s quest, and how she swore to defeat the evil King Sombra with the artifacts. We also know that there are two versions of us, one on this side and one on… the other side.”

“Go on,” Light Speckle wore an interested expression on her face, as if encouraging this line of thought.

“But as we have seen,” Jewel Pin was getting on a roll now, and she grew more confident. “The two selves are not always the same. Like how this world’s Emerald Edge was a mere guard instead of a spymaster. They also had rather different personalities. So, could it be possible that the Sombra on this side is different from the Sombra Emerald knew in her world?”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Posey said quietly. “But Emerald was nursing that seed of revenge and justice for so long that as soon as this side’s Sombra appeared, she thought it was her Sombra and attacked him. In a way, I can’t blame her. Emerald’s Sombra was responsible for enslaving and killing all her friends and countrymen.”

There was another moment of silence as they all digested this.

“So that’s why Em was so angry,” Guard Streak said quietly. “I understand, but I still wish she could have kept herself under control. We’re in big trouble now, like it or not.”

Parisa looked from gloomy face to gloomy face, unsure of what to do. 

“I want to help you,” the dancer said eventually. “But I’ve never even been out of this city before in my life, much less been to other kingdoms. Maybe I can help make King Aldilu go easier on you if I knew the whole story?”

“Ya would do that for us?” Honeygold said, perking up slightly.

“Sure! We’re friends now, and friends help each other!” Parisa beamed and gave Honeygold a quick pat on the back. “But come on, tell me the story of how you got here! I bet it’s a real gripper of a tale,” She sat down swiftly, crossing her legs and placing her hands atop her knees, rocking back and forth excitedly.

“Ya have no idea,” Apple Bean said, smiling for the first time that day. “It all began when me, Honeygold, and Golden Nugget here were taking some apples to the capital city…”