Chasing Smoke

by GreyGuardPony


The Empty City

Without the aid of a magically constructed boat it took the rest of the day to leave the palace of the ghuls behind and reach the outskirts of their destination. Dagin Mucevher, or Jewel of the Mountain in Equestrian, seeming to be built in varying tiers and levels, rose at the end off the pass like a collection of crooked teeth. Behind the skyline was the largest mountain in the range they had been travelling through, a true spike of dark granite that almost seemed to scrape the sky, tipped with a small cap of white snow.

The city either had no walls or they had long since been torn down, so they advanced into the outskirts finding a collection of buildings at the end of a circular street to camp at for the night. With the close call that was the ghul attack, Parlak doubled up on the watches. Two spear camels and a crossbow pegasus in each group with four groups set up with overlapping fields of vision.

Trixie and her friends were given the second floor of one of the homes to themselves, so that they wouldn’t have to sleep with the troops. The wall between two of the bedrooms had been broken away, giving them a nice wide open area to lay their bedrolls down. Out the window, the sun was beginning to set for the day, signaling the fourth day of their time in Naqah.

At the moment they were sitting in the loose circle they had set their bedrolls in, Carrot Top fussing with Cheerilee’s forehead.

“That was a real hit you took there.”

“He got lucky. The armor basically covers everywhere else.” She nodded towards Ditzy, smiling softly. “I’m still amazed that you managed to talk Yangin through that spell.”

“No, I talked her through being calm. She did the magic.”

“I still say it was impressive.”

Raindrops glowered, resting her chin on her hooves. “I’m just eager to get this done at this point. I’ve had more than enough with the close calls here.”

“I get the feeling they won’t be done, even once we finish here. We’ll still have to deal with Corona once we’re done here.” Trixie said.

Silence settled over them, the truth of that statement something they were unable to avoid. After a few moments of awkward silence, Ditzy looked out the window and sighed.

“Girls...do you ever spend time wondering how this thing with Corona is going to end?”

“What do you mean?” Trixie asked.

“I mean...is the goal still to banish her? On Tambelon, she seemed…,” she frowned, considering her words before giving a shrug. “I guess less crazy would be the word. But she’s still planning to seizing power.”

Carrot Top fidgeted in place, nervously rubbing her hooves together. “I really don’t know. I know that Princess Luna would like to have her sister back. But...the Elements haven’t been able to do that.”

“But she has had a change of heart. We all saw it, as slight as it might have been. Maybe next time it’ll be different?” Lyra shrugged.

Cheerilee sighed. “And maybe she’ll snap out of it herself. Who really knows at this point. We’ll just have to do what we have to do.”

“Do what we have to do?” Ditzy frowned.

“Well, we are the Elements of Harmony and knights now. It’s like we said on Tambelon. Everything’s different now.”

“Does all of that include foalnapping someone?”

The outburst had come suddenly and quite strongly. So strongly that Ditzy found herself blinking at her own anger. Nervously ruffling her wings, she sank back into her seat and fixed her friend with a steady glare.

“I’m not happy about it! But it’s what I had to do! How else were we going to get the information we needed?”

“What you did still isn’t right! Cheerilee, she saved you and our friends. Just let her go!”

Wincing, Cheerilee fiddled with the anklet. Her internal conflict was writ clearly on her face. But before she could make a decision, Raindrops slammed a hoof down to grab everypony’s attention again.

“Don’t do it. I don’t want to let her go without Princess Luna right at our side.”

Lyra frowned. “Because of what happened with the ghuls?”

Raindrops squeezed her eyes shut, thinking back to what she had seen leaving that canyon. “She made a thunderstorm of fire and she has a temper. I know that this probably sounds bad coming from me, but I really don’t want to let her go without an alicorn backing us up if the worst case happens.”

“I don’t like this,” Ditzy glowered. “She did save us. We’re just going to assume that she’ll turn on us? Cheerilee didn’t even have to force her to come. She did that on her own!”

Raindrops gave her deadpan stare. “And you’re not concerned about that explosion back there?”

“I’m not.”

That comment had come from Trixie and now everypony turned to stare at her. Forelegs resolutely crossed she shrugged. “You heard it straight from her. She fought these things back when this was still an actual city. She was, in effect, doing what she was created to do. And those ghuls did try to eat us and worshiped Tirek. I’m not saying that I’m jumping for joy over what she did, but I’m not going to pretend the world isn’t better off without them.”

Ditzy’s tail was thrashing angrily now. “I can’t believe this! We argued for Grogar being imprisoned over being locked away in shadow forever and now we’re okay with living creatures being killed?”

“Hey, I didn’t shed any tears when we were forced to use the Elements on him. And I’m not saying that we don’t let her go. I just want to have an alicorn there in case she gets difficult.” Raindrops growled.

Now it was Carrot Top’s turn to be angry. “But Grogar was already a lich by then! It’s not the same thing! It’s not the same thing as holding an intelligent creature hostage! It’s not the same thing as not caring about what might have happened there!”

Sinking completely to the floor now, Ditzy covered her eyes. “I’ve had enough of this. I just want to go home. I want to be with my daughter again and deliver the mail and just take a break from running around the world as a hero! Look at what this is doing to us!”

Cheerilee held her head as high as she could. “It will pass. I have faith that if we stick together and try our best, that things will work out. After all...we’ve done the impossible already, haven’t we?”

“Yeah...I suppose we have.” Ditzy said. Though she didn’t sound entirely convinced.

Trixie rolled onto her side. “Come on. Let’s get some rest. I’m completely exhausted and who knows what we’ll run into tomorrow.”

With those thoughts playing through their heads, they turned in for the night. They would find out what secrets the city held in the morning.

- - - -

The dour mood of the night before was somewhat alleviated in the morning when Raindrops and Cheerilee awoke to find their cutie-marks restored. Thusly it was after a hearty breakfast that they began to move through the city again. Thick dust lay over almost everything, the detritus of ages having built up in the centuries since it was used by living creatures.

“Should we ask Yangin to come out?” Raindrops asked. “She was going to be our guide.”

“I don’t know. She did fight a whole ghul tribe. She might need the rest.” Cheerilee said.

Trixie stared at her friend with a rather deadpan expression. “But the Army could be anywhere in the city! Are we supposed to search every one?”

Parlak rubbed his chin, humming to himself in thought. “The legends have always been clear that the caliph’s palace was built right into the mountain. Considering the stories about his paranoia it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume he’d keep it near him. At the very least we might be able to find some clues, if the army isn’t there.”

Trixie considered that for a moment before shrugging. “Sounds like a starting point at least.”

They walked for what felt like quite a while, winding through the empty streets and- sometimes- through empty buildings. In fact it was so empty that the sheer starkness of the former city was beginning to grow unnerving. Trixie and her friends found themselves jumping at little sounds and occasional shadows alike. Yet, no matter what they imagined hiding around the corner, their scared glances revealed nothing but more deserted streets.

Progress was slow going, however. Even with minor earth jinn to help clear the way, there were many instances of wrecked buildings choking the streets, the remains of a long past battle laid bare for all to see. But despite all the destruction there were no remains of interior furnishings or anything that would hint at the camels and ponies that had once lived here.

Every so often, Raindrops and one of the crossbow ponies would fly up to get the group’s bearings. They were quickly finding out that the city was massive, easily equal to Canterlot, but laid out in a long sprawl, compared to Canterlot’s tight, concentric rings. But after about an hour of this process, Raindrops came dropping back down with a bit of odd news.

“The streets are opening up a bit up ahead. It looks like they’ve been cleared or something. There’s an old market place up ahead too and...we...I thought I saw movement in it.”

Parlak immediately perked up at that. “Movement? Was it Grev? More ghuls?”

“I...don’t know. Couldn’t make out all the details. But whatever it was looked a smaller than a camel or a ghul.”

Parlak frowned, the unknown nature of what might be ahead clearly bothering him. “I have no idea what else could be up here. Unless some ponies didn’t evacuate after the fall?”

“How likely is that though? I can tell just from walking around that this ground isn’t good for farming. What would they have survived on without jinn?” Carrot Top said, stomping a hoof for a little bit of emphasis.

“Well...they could have jinn I suppose. Either way, I suggest we proceed with caution.”

Advancing, now with a slow and cautious manner, they followed the now increasingly clear streets towards the palace. With the supposed marketplace directly in their path, they could begin to hear noise. The flow, pace and rising and falling nature of the tones made it clear that it was speech of some manner, though nothing they could understand. Parlak had cocked his head as they walked, face screwed up in concentration.

“It is...Naqhan,” he said, now looking quite confused. “But it’s strange. The dialect is very, very archaic...but the sentences sound...broken too.”

Setting her jaw, Trixie prepared to unleash her illusion spells on a moment’s notice. “Let’s see exactly what we’re dealing with then.”

She ran forward, sprinting the rest of the way down the wide avenue towards the city square. Bursting into it with a jump, she reared back to declare her presence and apply a little shock and awe for a change.

“Nopony move! For I, the Great...and Powerful….Trixie…?”

Her friends galloped into the square behind her, quickly joining their friend in her state of shock and confusion. The marketplace was full of jinn. And not bound jinn either. Free ones, walking around like anypony would be on any given market day in Ponyville. For a moment, it had seemed that they had stumbled upon a whole community of Yangin’s.

Yet, even for six mares that weren’t used to the idea of seeing jinn everywhere, these ones looked distinctly...off. Each one seemed a mishmash of elements, thrown together without care or reason. Earth would abruptly give way to fire, only to switch over to water and then back to earth again.

Then there was the way they moved. They all walked, rather than fly or glide or even slide through the ground. But they walked with limps and jerky movements. It was almost like a bunch of puppets being dangled along by somepony that only had a passing knowledge of what they were doing. The daily routine of a marketplace was clearly being imitated as well. Some of the jinn stood behind half formed stalls with collections of rocks for their wares. Others walked a circuit of those stalls exchanging their own rocks for other rocks, only to move onto the next stall and do it all again.

It was Raindrops that ended up speaking for the group.

“What in Luna’s name is going on here?!”

“Really bad pantomime?” Cheerilee asked.

“It’s like somepony is pretending to have a weekend market,” Carrot Top said, just staring at everything around her.

Parlak and his soldiers began to file into the square now, all of them looking just as unnerved as Trixie and her friends were. Parlak was looking particularly grim as he stared at the jinn.

“Something is very, very wrong here. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that someone was trying to do what the Caliphate did.”

Lyra blinked, the realization hitting home a moment later. “They’re all elemental mixtures. They’re all attempts to make more Yangin’s!”

“We need to get to the palace. Now,” Raindrops almost snarled. “I’d put good bits on the Army being there with whoever is doing this!”

“This means more running doesn’t it?” Trixie sighed.

“Yes.” Parlak said.

Now haste was the order of the day and they took off with a full gallop. With the streets wide and open now, they made good time, passing scores of these patchwork jinn. Every one of them seemed to be locked in these repetitive loops, imitating the nature of an actual functional city and growing thicker the closer they came to the palace.

The royal palace had been built directly into the side of the Barrier Peak, the dome like roof looking quite odd, half cut off by the mountain. Carved by jinn, camel or pony, no one really knew- save for perhaps Yangin- but as they approached that was the furthest thing from their minds.

They slowed as they entered the wide courtyard before the building. The former beauty of the courtyard was still evident through the dust and grime. Square tiles of marble made up the floor, arranged in twisting, flowing patterns that seemed to hint at the different elements jinn came from. Old planters were scattered around, mostly tucked between cracked and chipped sitting benches, choked with soil long dead and fallow. Whatever glories this place once contained, they were long gone, like the rest of the city.

Yet, one could almost be forgiven to forget that as they entered. More patchwork jinn worked at crude attempts at maintenance. Some snipped at the air with hedge clippers while others stood around chatting animatedly with each other in their broken language. Their regular paths across the courtyard had left clear trails through the dirt and dust.

“This is beyond strange,” Lyra said, watching one of the jinn as it walked past, ignoring them entirely.

“An imitation of an actual city. Who in their right mind would take the time to make something like this?” Trixie asked.

Carrot Top shrugged. “Somepony not in their right mind?”

Ditzy placed a hoof on Cheerilee’s back. “Maybe you should wake Yangin up now? I think we need her knowledge.”

Nodding, Cheerilee reached for the anklet. “Yangin? Can you come out please. There’s something here you need to see.”

Just as abruptly as she had entered the anklet, Yangin came flowing back out. Yawning, she made a great show of stretching, her expression quite bored.

“What?”


Cheerilee just motioned to the jinn around them. Yangin looked, only to do a double take at what greeted her eyes.

“I don’t suppose you have any idea who could have made these?”

“I really have no idea! No one lives in this city! We elder jinn made sure that everyone left.”

“Could it be more ghuls?” Carrot Top asked.

Parlak frowned. “Unlikely. I’ve never heard of ghuls being able to turn their claw towards jinn summoning.”

“For once, I agree with bucket head over there. I’m not even sure that ghuls have magic of their own. It’s all bartering with Tartarus for power with them.”

“What about the Army of Smoke and Fire? Think it’s in there?” Trixie asked.

Yangin glanced back at the towering face of the palace. “There’s a good chance. The entrance to the secret vaults is hidden in the main ballroom.”

“....Why put it there?”

“Seriously? Have you paid any attention to this city? Nothing here makes sense, even to me and I helped build some of it!”

“In that case, I suggest we get moving,” Parlak said, shaking his head. Glancing past the patchwork jinn, towards the great entrance doors made from gold, he frowned. “We have seen no sign of Grev. It would be wise to assume that they are already inside .”

“Agreed,” Cheerilee nodded.

Yangin stayed quiet as they swept towards the doors, looking unsure as everyone else. Parlak motioned the buffalo forward with one hoof, while pointing to Raindrops with the other. “Dame Raindrops, if you would do the honors?”

Taking to the air, Raindrops flew close to the top of the towering doors, giving herself plenty of clearance from those canons. Placing her hooves against the metal, she flapped her wings a little harder for extra power and pushed.

The doors practically glided open, rather than grinding against the floor, or on long rusty hinges like she expected.

To summarize the entrance hall in one word, massive would have been a good choice. Two large, twisting staircases on either end of the back wall ran up to the next floor, while nothing less than six different doors and archways lead out of the room. And, like most of the ancient city, it was decorated in age battered finery. More illusions wandered around in the guise of castle servants. Everything seemed calm, albeit somewhat creepy looking.

“This way,” Yangin said, motioning with a hoof.

Striding through a doorway to their right, she wove her way through the old hallways. Every so often, she’d pause to stare at a patch of wall, or rub her chin.

“Something wrong?” Trixie asked.

“Mmm...just old memories. Time has really done a number on this place. Anyway, it should be in here.”

She stepped through a wide archway and into what was obviously once a massive ballroom. It was a huge rectangle, easily wide and long enough for dozens of camels to dance in. It was also in a better shape that most of what else they had seen in the city so far. In fact it approached being pristine. The wood was polished. The chandelier devoid of dust and cobwebs. The dance floor clean and well maintained. Yangin walked right for a small stage at the back of the room, where musicians might have played when the room was still used. She placed her hoof against its front and then pushed, tripping a hidden switch. The back wall ground open, revealing very large and dark hallway beyond.

“Don’t get dizzy when you head through,” Yangin warned. “The dear old caliph spent a lot of money to bring some unicorn wizards here to set up a teleportation field.”

“Really? Those aren’t easy to set up.” Trixie, said, trotting forward to examine the edge of the hallway.

“Well, it doesn’t go far or anything. My sisters and I carved out a massive chamber into the mountain for the vault. The teleportation circle takes you the thirty feet or so into that room.”

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “Is it safe? I mean...it’s been here for how many centuries?”

Yangin blinked and stared down at the line on the floor. “Hmm. That’s...a good point.”

Frowning, she reached out with a hoof and tapped the spot where the ballroom ended and the hallway began. There was a bright flash of light as she vanished, leaving everyone rubbing their eyes for a moment. They waited for a few moments, expecting the jinn to pop back in short order. But when she didn’t, nervous glances began to be exchanged.

“What now?” Raindrops frowned.

“If it’s a malfunctioning circle, then she could have wound up anywhere.” Trixie sighed.

“....Not anywhere,” Parlak said, amusement clear in his tone.

Trixie and her friends looked at Parlak, who was looking up at the ceiling with a smile. Following his gaze, it was all that some of them could do to not burst into laughter.

Yangin was hanging from the ceiling, her hind quarters either in the stone, or the room above. It was hard to tell which. Her expression was one of supreme disgruntlement as she crossed her forelegs.

“Anyone laughs and I set them on fire.”

“Really, Yangin?” Cheerilee smiled. “I think we can be friends. I just think that there’s almost something...holding you back.”

Ditzy snorted, biting back a burst of laughter. Lyra, in contrast, groaned.

“Really? That joke is so below the Element of Laughter!”

“So, are you saying that I need to make my jokes a little more….highbrow?”

Cheerilee punctuated that pun with a giggle and a nudge in her friend’s side. That proved to be too much for Ditzy, who burst into laughter, falling back onto her haunches. Lyra did her best to maintain a stoic expression but another nudge in the ribs from Cheerilee sent her over the edge too. The laughter rippled through the group and the army as well. Even Yangin rolled her eyes and gave an over-exaggerated sigh.

“So, you’re all going to stand there and laugh at me?”

“Come on Yangin,” Cheerilee smirked. “We all know you can move through stone and rock and stuff. Why are you hanging around up there?”

“...If you must know, I was annoyed that I didn’t see that coming.” The ceiling let go of her with a clap of her hooves and she floated back to the ground. “Right. Forget the teleportation circle. We’ll do this the brute force way.”

Storming past Trixie and company, the placed her hooves against the wall, next to the original hallway. Taking a deep breath, she channeled power through her hooves and began to push. Slowly, a new passage was carved from the stone, Element Bearers and army following along behind Yangin. After a minute or two of walking, they burst through another wall and stepped into a room that almost glittered like the sun.

The amount of gold that they had walked into was nothing short of obscene. The coins, mixed with gems and other glittering treasures, were stacked so thick and so high as to actually form walls and those walls effectively formed a maze.

Trixie gaped at the piles of gold. “Just how decadent was this caliph? There’s so much gold here that even Corona would think this was a bit much!”

Yangin frowned. “Okay, there was not this much stuff in here back in the day. This is like...I don’t know...if you had a jinn just sitting around, making treasure for centuries.”

Ditzy asked the obvious question. “....Would a jinn have been sitting around, making treasure for centuries? There were those patchwork jinn out front. Somepony had to make them.”

“If there’s a jinn behind this, I am going to be very cross.” Yangin growled. “No one touch any of this stuff. It could be trapped for all we know.”

“Well, we won’t find out standing around here. Remember, Grev is still out there, somewhere.” Cheerilee said, beginning to enter the maze.

“Agreed.” Parlak said, following suit.

Yangin floated a little higher for a moment, before dropping back down. “There’s still a big open section towards the middle from what I can tell.”

The maze of treasure proved to be annoying to move though. The walls all looked the same, just unending slabs of gold with occasional gaps that would lead off another direction. Thankfully, they had two pegasi and a jinn on their side, who could occasionally pop up above the walls to make sure they were still heading the correct direction. So, onward they pressed.

After what seemed like quite a while, they reached the center of the maze. It was a wide and circular chamber carved from the middle of the gilded forest, easily the size of a large town square . A small circle shaped platform of stone stood on the far side of the “room”, built in the ornate, geometric style of Naqhan architecture. A throne was at its side, as old and moth eaten as anything. In it an old and dusty camel skeleton slumped, the tattered remains of long fine clothing hanging on its frame.

“There it is,” Cheerilee said.

“....Umm….anypony else think this is way too easy?” Trixie asked.

“If what we went through to get here was easy, I don’t want to see hard.” Raindrops frowned.

Motioning to the nearest entrances to the chamber, Parlak passed out orders, his troops moving to guard the approaches.

“Cover me,” Trixie said.

She crept forward horn already glowing in preparation to snatch the the bottle off its resting place.

“Ah-ah-ah,” a feminine voice echoed through the area. “No touching.”

Trixie’s hooves were locked in place by a sudden surge of stone. Something began to move beneath the ground, bulging and rippling the solid rock like the surface of a pond. The swell circled the group, almost like a shark.

“Hmm. Ponies and camels. And some of you are armed. My, my.”

Yangin was standing stock still now, eyes wide. The lump stopped in front of Trixie, beginning to grow and swell, a creature rising from the depths of the ground. She was obviously a jinn, much like Yangin. Both had taken the forms of camels for their base, but where Yangin’s mane and tail were flickering flames, this one’s was the churning dust of disturbed earth and where Yangin’s coat was polished brass, hers was green of freshly cut grass.

“The vault is not open to visitors however. Please leave.”

“Dunya?”

Yangin had stepped forward and was staring at the new jinn with a very odd expression.

Dunya gave a slight nod back. “Yangin.”

“You know each other?” Ditzy asked.

“She’s one of my sisters! We were all...well..made during the same batch, I guess.”

A marked changed had overcome Yangin. The previous surlyness was gone and it’s place was a much more excited mood. It was precisely the manner that one might act upon seeing an old friend that they hadn’t seen in a very long time. Dunya, however, looked much less excited.

“Yes, we are siblings of a sort.”

“What are doing down here? Why haven’t you tried to contact us?” Yangin asked.

“I’ve been guarding the Army of Smoke and Fire,” Dunya responded with a raised eyebrow. “The dear caliph’s wish was quite specific.”

“We thought you were dead!”

Dunya smiled sweetly. “Well, I’m glad that it only took you fifteen hundred years to check one of the most likely places he would have hid his valuables.”

Yangin sputtered a bit, recoiling from her sibling, who went onto smile at the rest of the group. “As I said. The vault is not open to the likes of you. Leave.”

“We can’t,” Cheerilee said, frowning at the new jinn. “There’s somepony else coming for that army too and we can’t let them have it.”

“I do not intend to let anyone take it. My...effective orders, are clear. The Army of Smoke and Fire will not leave this room.”

“Really? I might have something to say about that.”

Everyone turned towards the new arrival, but familiar voice. Grev and his own army, noticeably mostly camels, now stood at one of the many entrances to the chamber. It seemed that his path through the winding tunnels had brought his force in on their left side and Parlak now scrambled to re-orient his forces. Soon the two sides were facing each other on a diagonal line, Parlak’s army between Grev and the bottle.

Dunya watched the new arrivals with an impassive expression on her face. “And now there’s going to be a fight in the middle of my vault.”

“Oh, and now its your vault?” Yangin glared.

“What, is it supposed to be the skeleton’s?”

Grev rolled his eyes. “I have come for the Army of Smoke and Fire, jinn. Step aside or deal with the consequences.”

“I do not care how many of you arrive. The bottle does not leave.”

Trixie was amazed at how calm the jinn was staying. The prospect of a massive battle erupting around Dunya was being treated with the same bored energy that she might apply to doing paperwork.

“Al senin olsun!” Grev barked.

His army surged forward with a bellowing roar. Spear camels charged down the center while crossbow camels on the wings took aim. Kindle and Terrorwing took to the air, and the salamanders vanished into the ground as they burrowed.

In response Parlak’s spear wielders lowered their weapons, crossbow and cannon look aim, and the pony line breakers prepared to counter charge once the first round of fire was exchanged. Trixie cursed, glancing toward her friends. Carrot Top was already digging out her potions and bombs, Lyra raised her instrument and the rest of them prepared for the chaos of combat.

Dunya tisked. “Very well. Time for everyone to leave.”

The gesture she made was subtle, almost undetectable but the smoke began to billow from the now unstoppered bottle. It flowed forth in great choking clouds, slipping through Parlak’s soldiers and forming into neat, orderly rows between the two armies. Grev’s charge came to a shuddering stop, the units milling about in confusion. Then, within the smoke rows, forms began to solidify. At first, it seemed like they were more ghuls, being bipedal creatures with long necks that jutted forward from the body. But that was where the similarities ended.

A single, unblinking red eye tipped their heads made of smoke, peering out from slitted helmets of brass. Long arms-also made of smoke- hung from sturdy brass shoulder pads, with hands that looked twice as large as they should have been, tipped with sharp claws and gripping oversized blades. Their bodies- made of swirling ashes of embers within smoke- looked almost comically thin, with hunched backs that gave them an almost stooped appearance. They had no legs, instead possessing more of a singular trunk of smoke

“Kill them. Until they get the point and leave.”

Raising their weapons at once, the bound jinn unleashed a cry that was half hiss, half roar, before charging towards both armies with a strange flowing motion. Orders were barked out, Grev and Parlak bracing their lines for the attack of the mad jinn.

Crossbow bolts and canon fire were brought to bear against the new targets, lancing through the air, tearing into the massed ranks of the jinn. Trixie felt her heart lighten for a moment, as the grape shot tore multiple jinn apart, their smoky bodies collapsing in on themselves. But then, to her horror, they flowed back into the bottle, only to come spilling back out again.

As the replenished jinn rushed past her and her friends, crashing into the back of Parlak’s line, order and discipline began to collapse. Units broke apart into disorganized mobs of individuals locked in combat. Grev, noticing the weakness, pushed his units forward as they cut the jinn in front of them down. His units began to encircle as they advanced aiming to be the hammer to the jinn’s anvil.

It seemed that Dunya had been waiting for this, however, for with another gesture of her hoof, the walls of gold began to move. Coins rained down from the walls in showers, with a sound not unlike a heavy rainstorm on a tin roof. Rattling together the treasure formed into large, glittering, serpents. Gemmed eyes roamed over the battle for the briefest of moments before the serpents struck, biting at Grev’s forces and grinding them to the floor.

Now things descended into complete chaos. All semblance of an ordered battle plan was washed away in the sudden rising tide of jinn summoned creations. Trixie found herself in the middle of a swirling maelstrom, surrounded by her friends, who were in turn now surrounded by the smokey jinn that made up the Army of Smoke and Fire. Without any other options, she grit her teeth and and began to cast.

Blasts of light burst from her horn, the dazzling arcs cutting across the cyclopic eyes of their attackers. They snaked back from the flashes, leaving a gap that now Raindrops and Cheerilee exploited. Raindrops’ strikes remained as strong and well aimed as ever, bashing jinn back into flowing smoke, while Cheerilee tumbled and twisted around swings bucking others over. But it was Carrot Top who was having the most luck. Those jinn caught in her sticky bombs stayed put and didn’t return to their bottle only to rejoin the battle.

But now a few more of the treasure serpents uncoiled from the walls and mobbed them again. When the ground opened near the pedestal and the salamanders pulled themselves free, however, Cheerilee did the first thing that sprang to her mind.

“Yangin! Stop them!”

Bound as she was, Yangin had no chance but to obey. She dove towards the salamanders, making a sweeping motion with her hooves. The section of rock under their bodies exploded catapulting them away from the bottle.

“Ha! Take that!” Cheerilee shouted.

Her elation was short lived. One of the glittering snakes struck out, jaw clamping around one of Cheerilee’s forelegs. The world became a blur to her, the snake thrashing its head about like it was a dog that had just grabbed a bone. Then, in the next moment, she was sailing through the air, getting a rather full view of the battle.

Something crunched when she hit the ground, but there wasn’t time to think of that, as she was in danger of being trampled by the swirling flow of clashing camels and jinn all around her. Throwing herself into a roll, she shot between two pairs of legs, and sprang back to her hooves with a wince. Her side was throbbing. Something was bruised there at least. Wincing again, she glared back towards the pillar and the source of their current woes.

Ignoring the pain, Cheerilee galloped back across the floor and right towards her target. More jinn came flowing out of the bottle and rushed towards her. The swords came whooshing through the air, sounding all the worse with the cracks and pops of the fire that composed them. Cheerilee dove forward, sliding between their strikes to more punches of pain to the ribs. Hissing, the jinn twisted completely around to attack again. But a pair of sonic blasts slammed into their bodies from the side, bursting them back to smoke.

Lyra grinned, then took to running herself, the bite of a golden snake hitting the ground where she had been a moment before. Cheerilee took off again, but had only made a few more strides towards the bottle when a shriek and a shadow descended on her from above. She threw herself flat, Terrorwings’ strike barely missing her. The griffin twisted about in the air and landed solidly in front of her.

“Oh, come on!” Cheerilee exclaimed.

Terrorwing unleashed a flurry of swipes at her, with all the grace and skill of a charging rhino. Cheerilee backpedaled juking and twisting to avoid the onslaught. But before he could unleash another flurry, Raindrops slammed into his side. The charge had been quite unexpected and Terrorwing was sent tumbling end over end with a noticeable dent in his armor.

“I got beaky here! Go!” Raindrops said.

Cheerilee took off again, now drawing within a few feet of the pillar and the bottle.

“I think not!”

Grev had broken from the battle lines, sword clutched in his mouth as he rushed straight for Cheerilee. She spun to the left, saber tip lightly scraping against her side. Spinning back, she cracked him across the snout with a hoof and ran for the bottle again. Grev stayed right on her tail though, and the two found themselves fighting at the base of the platform.

Grev took a wild swing at Cheerilee while reaching for the bottle. Cheerilee pulled back, rolling behind the ornate pillar, coming out the other side and lashing out with a kick at the camel’s spindly legs. Pitching forward, Grev’s chin cracked off the edge of pillar, sword and bottle clattering to the ground. And as the latter rolled away, both dove for it.

Each of their hooves closed around its and they found themselves in a tug of war. The smoke that still flooded from the open top swirled and flowed across their coats, staining them grey as they grappled with each other. But Grev proved to be the stronger and he steadily pulled the bottle towards him.

“You...are...done!” Grev snarled.

Gritting her teeth, Cheerilee saw only one option. Taking one hoof off the bottle, she slammed it down on Grev’s fetlock to hold it in place. With bottle pinned against the ground, she threw her head forward as hard as she could, aiming for the round and bulbous bottom. Stars exploded in her eyes to the shattering of glass, a few shards digging into her forehead.

The next moment an explosion of magic blasted her off her hooves, followed by another and another. The jinn of the army were detonating, one at a time, in raw fonts of arcane power that flooded the room. Cheerilee’s head was swimming, as she stumbled back to her hooves, desperately looking around to see where everypony was.

The battle had ended as the jinn detonated and now the combatants were pulling themselves up again. Yangin and Dunya were floating in the air, the latter banishing the creatures summoned from the treasure piles with another subtle gesture.

“And just like that, we’re done here,” she said.

“Done here?” Cheerilee blinked through her still partially dazed state.

“The Army of Smoke and Fire is destroyed. I am no longer required to protect it.”

“Did...you do all of this on purpose?!” Trixie shouted.

“Well...no. I was bound to protect the item,” Dunya shrugged. “But I was hoping that I’d find a way out of this.”

Yangin’s grin was about as wide as it could be. “Ha! This is perfect! I fulfill my bargain and find my missing sibling!” She jabbed her hoof at Cheerilee. “Fulfill your promise Equestrian and give me back my anklet!”

Nodding to herself, Cheerilee reached for the loop of platinum on her fetlock. But her hoof touched against soft and warm fur, not cold and hard metal.

It wasn’t there.

Rapidly looking around, she wracked her mind for when she might have lost it. When the snake threw her across the room? When the jinn detonated? Did she have it on when she was wrestling with Grev?

The click of the anklet echoed across the room like a cannon shot.

Cheerilee and Yangin’s heads whipped about about so fast that they threatened to detach from their necks. Kindle stood tall with a shiny new platinum addition to his golden armor.

“You little VERMIN!” Yangin roared. A javelin of stone appeared in her hoof. Kindle jumped back, raising the anklet in response.

“STOP! I have your item, you must obey me!”

“RAGGGHHH!” Yangin snarled in blind, berserk fury, her limbs locking in place.

“...Let her go Kindle,” Cheerilee said, taking a stumbling step towards him.

“I am afraid I can not Dame Cheerilee. With the Army of Smoke and Fire gone I must bring Celestia something.”

“Let her go! This isn’t her fight!”

Kindle tilted his head slightly. “...She became part of this the moment you brought her along.”

Cheerilee was rushing him before she even realized she was doing it but she hadn’t even gotten halfway there when stone swallowed her limbs. Everypony, save for Kindle, Terrorwing and the salamanders in their golden armor was locked in place. Cheerilee swore and cursed as she tried to break free, twisting her neck to look back at Yangin and Dunya.

Dunya was calm, with one hoof raised. Yangin’s expression was ashen, a mixture of fear and hurt feelings.

“Dunya...what are you doing?”

“Sister, I spent the last fifteen hundred years stuck down here because of you. Serving this one mortal’s need, whatever they might be, is scarcely even a down payment on what you and my other siblings owe me.”

Her voice was icy, the anger very clearly coming through.

“We thought you were dead!”

Dunya swooped down on her sister, the calm demeanor now completely gone. “Did you bother to check?! We all built this stupid vault, it should have been at the top of your minds! But no, you ran off over fifteen centuries, leaving me with NOTHING!” She jabbed her hoof into Yangin’s chest, sending the fire jinn floating towards Kindle. “Take her with my compliments and get out of my sight!”

“You TRAITOR!” Yangin screamed, trying to throw herself back at Dunya.

“Stop!” Kindle commanded. “We don’t have time for this. Get us out of here.”

Forced to do what Kindle commanded Yangin began to summon her magic shooting a death glare towards Dunya. “I am never going to forget this. You and I are going to have words someday.”

With that, a hole was opened in the ceiling and Yangin pulled Kindle and his fellows skyward. Dunya watched them go, smiling to herself as the hole was sealed. She looked down at those she had trapped in her stone vices, giving a curt nod.

“Those will wear off in a few hours. Long enough for me to get far away from the lot of you. No desire to wind up like my sister.”

“I can’t believe you did that! You just handed your sister over to a complete mad mare!” Raindrops shouted. Corona’s going to use her to tear down Equestria!”

Dunya shrugged. “Seasons change and nations die, their glory spent in times gone by. If Equestria falls, it won’t be the first or last.”

Floating over to the caliph’s ancient remains, she pulled a platinum anklet similar to Yangin’s off the bony fetlock. Sliding it onto, she gave a slight bow to the group. “For what it’s worth, you do have my thanks for freeing me from the binds of the caliph’s wish. You may help yourself to any of the lucre that’s here.”

Floating high into the air, she passed through the roof and out of sight, leaving two armies and the Element Bearers alone with their thoughts. No one talked in the intervening time, giving Cheerilee plenty of time to stew over the situation. Almost two hours exactly to Dunya’s statement, the stone cuffs around their hooves crumbled away, leaving everyone free to move again.

The sound of a sword being picked up caught Cheerilee’s ears and she turned towards Grev, who was looking ready to start the fight all over again.

“Really?” she asked, giving the emir a very angry glare. “You don’t have Corona anymore! You’re done! Just give up!”

Grev’s expression was almost manic as he flourished his saber. “I do not need the alicorn! I will save Naqah or die in the attempt! Naqahn’nin ogullari! Koll-”

Whatever the command was, the crack of two vials shattering against the back of his head, and the flood of glue that engulfed him cut it off. Carrot Top gave a self satisfied nod, rather uncharacteristic of her, as she flipped her saddlebags closed again.

“Thank you Dame Carrot Top. I’ve had quite enough of him for now.” Parlak said.

Facing the soldiers that were now nervously eyeing their stuck commander, Parlak spoke a single sentence. In the next moment, weapons clattered to the ground en masse, hooves raising into the air in a gesture of surrender. The leader of the rebels was captured, the civil war most likely now over, or at least in its final gasp.

And yet, Cheerilee didn’t feel happy about it at all.

- - - -

It took almost about four days for them to march their way back out of the mountains without Yangin’s magical aid and the extra bodies they now had to deal with. With the destruction of the Army of Smoke and Fire, the fight seemed to go out of Grev and his camels.

The now ex-rebellious emir had been promptly locked in shackles once he had been removed from the the glue, and was carried along by a small collection of summoned jinn. He said nothing during the journey, having only asked Parlak to go easy on his soldiers. Their weapons had been confiscated and when they marched they did so surrounded by loyalist troops.

Things became a blur of activity once they returned to back in Al-Astianna. There was a victory feast, presided over by Sultan Pirinc, followed by the presentation of medals. The Order of Naqah, Third Degree. It was the highest honor that a foreigner could receive for their role in ending the civil war.

But soon that all came to an end and Trixie and her friends found themselves on a train bound back to Equestria, in a first class car.

“Well, that was quite the adventure,” Lyra said, idly plucking away at her lyre.

Ditzy nodded. “Yeah, it was. But now we can finally go back home.”

Cheerilee shrugged in her seat. “Yeah...I guess.”

Sliding off the bench, Trixie trotted over to Cheerilee’s side, hugging her close. “Hey...we’re not done yet. One jinn that Luna whooped the flank of before isn’t as bad as an unending army.”

“Maybe not…,” she grunted, rubbing at the bandages wrapped around her forehead, “but it’s my fault she got grabbed by Kindle. I forced her to come with us. Ditzy was right. What I did was horrible.”

Trotting over to Cheerilee, Ditzy gently took her friend’s hooves in hers.”Cheerilee...yes, you made a mistake. But mistakes are fixable.”

“I don’t see how this one is. She’s probably halfway back to being in the hooves of Corona by now!”

“And, when Corona pops up with Yangin, we’ll free her. And we’ll find a way. Because that’s what we’ve been doing since we found the Elements of Harmony.”

Cheerilee didn’t look convinced. “Really that easy huh?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But we always back each other up. Look...I know I was hard on you...but you did mean well. And we’ll get past this.” Ditzy said.

She was suddenly embraced in a hug, Cheerilee pulling her tight.

“Thanks Ditzy.”

The rest of their friends joined in, pulling together in a big group hug. Holding it for a few minutes, when they broke apart again Cheerilee was looking a little more upbeat.

“So! Should we start making plans?”

“Oh, we will,” Trixie said, trotting back to her seat. “But for now, let’s just enjoy the trip back home. We’ve earned it, I think.”

And as the train raced across the landscape the group of friends let their mind wander towards what might come their way next.