2.Azad's Palace
837 Words
PRINCE : Trust not a man who has betrayed his master, nor take him into your own service, lest he betray you too. I learned the truth of this, to my sorrow, the day that we arrived in Azad as the Sultan's honoured guests.
KING SHAH RAHMAN: My friend!
SULTAN OF AZAD: My friend! Your visit brings joy and honor to my poor and humble dwelling. If only you'd given me time to prepare a proper welcome.
KING SHAH RAHMAN: The glories of Azad are famed throughout the world... and yet, the best is yet to come. I give you the Sands of Time. May the friendship between our kingdoms endure as long as time itself.
SULTAN OF AZAD: The sand! Why does it glow?
VIZIER: I can tell you. Inside the hourglass is a marvel that no living man has seen. Alas! Only the dagger can unlock the sands of time… and it belongs to a greater one than I. A young prince, dearer to his father than all the wealth of India. Perhaps, he would oblige.
[The girl's clearly excited about what's going on. The prince takes the dagger out of the sheath and goes to the hourglass.]
GIRL: No! DON'T! STOP! NOOOO!!!
[The prince inserts the dagger in the hourglass. The sky is tightened by clouds and the sand from the clock falls to the floor.]
SULTAN OF AZAD: Is it made to do this?
[The Vizier chanting a spell.]
PRINCE: FATHER!
[The King and his guards are beginning to turn to monsters.]
VIZIER: Give me the dagger!
PRINCE: NO!
VIZIER: You have unleashed the sands of time. I can undo what you have done. GIVE IT TO ME!
PRINCE: ARGH!
[He runs away, and the aisle behind his back collapses. The prince finds himself face to face with several monsters created by the sands of time.]
GIRL (offscreen): Prince! Use the dagger! Strike with the dagger. Take his sand. Now! Finish him!
PRINCE (offscreen): Each time I struck with the dagger, they rose to fight again. I soon realized that only by taking them into my own dagger, the sands that possessed them, could I liberate them from their monstrous living death.
[Having defeated the monsters, the prince decides to use a pole of light and sand to save the game. He sees scenes from his future.]
PRINCE (offscreen): You think me mad. I can see it by the look in your eyes. You think my story is impossible. Perhaps I am mad. Who would not be driven mad by horrors such as I have lived? But I assure you, every word is true.
[He finds a way to get through the rubble.]
PRINCE : The guest rooms, where my father, all our entourage and I should have passed the night, lay cold in silent. The sands of time had swept through, stealing life and warmth from everything they touched. And I, who unleashed the cataclysm, had been spared. Were there others like me, who yet clung to life, hiding in fear among the ruins? It did not seem so.
[Soon he sees the same two in the red dress.]
PRINCE: STOP! I won't hurt you. Had I really seen her?
[He continues to explore the palace and fight against the spawns of sand of time.]
PRINCE : Or had my senses given way under the burden of horrors too great to bear and conjured up a phantom? Either way, I could not rest until I had found her again. I soon discovered that when I had collected enough sand, the dagger gained the power to stop time… not for me but for the enemy I struck.
PRINCE : The miracle I’d discovered by accident in Maharajah's treasure room I now discovered that I could triggered at will by pressing the switch on dagger’s handle. I COULD TURN back time! Whence came these visions that assaulted me thus, like fever dreams. Each time, I awoke feeling drained and beaten. And each time, what I had seen came to pass. As if the sands of time were giving me a glimpse into my own future.
[He finds a strange room in the middle of which there is a fountain with several bridges leading to it.]
PRINCE: What the? Hello? Is anyone there? I have a feeling I'm not in Azad anymore. Water?
[The prince drinks water, hears otherworldly voices and teleports back to the palace as if it was just a dream. His health is increasing.]
PRINCE: What just happened? Strange… I feel… wonderful!
[When he walks through the palace, someone grabs his clothes and drags him into the room.]
GIRL: Give me the dagger.
PRINCE: Who are you?
GIRL: I am Farah, the daughter of the Maharaja from whom you stole it. This is your doing.
PRINCE: I saw my father turn to sand!
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