Hey all, so here is the start of a story that I've been kicking around in my head for some time now. The original Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was one of my all-time favorite games, but I was somewhat disappointed with the direction the series took in the Warrior Within and the Two Thrones, and the 2008 reboot and The Forgotten Sands, while pretty, weren't too much to my taste either. So, my goal here was to take the ending of the Sands of Time as a start point and retool the series a bit – rework things so Warrior Within and the Two Thrones gel more (in my opinion) with both the tone of Sands of Time and the broader mythology that the 2008 reboot and the Forgotten Sands started to introduce. Beyond the games I'm going for a general sort of mythologized pre-Islamic Near East (Sassanid or Parthian era empires with a general Zoroastrian flavor for any of you history buffs out there), and that will start to creep in more once I use up the "canon" material. For now though, just know that things pick up after the conclusion of the Sands of Time, and that all else will be explained. So sit back, relax, and please enjoy Prince of Persia: The Sands Reborn
"Most people think of time as a river, swift and sure that flows on in one direction. But I have seen the face of time, and I can assure you – they are wrong. Time is an ocean in a storm. You may wonder who I am, and why I say this. Know this – I am a son of Shahriman, a prince of mighty Persia, but I have acted as the greatest of fools and was left the poorest of men. In my blind lust for glory I was made the pawn of a wicked Vizier, and unleashed doom upon the city of Azad.
"The Sands of Time, the spoils of our conquests in India, turned man and beast alike into monsters, corrupting all it touched – and I was the one responsible. The Dagger of Time, the key to its prison, saved me from its dark magic just as the Vizier's enchanted staff had and just as Farah's necklace had for her. Farah…she was the daughter of the Raj, brought as prisoner to Azad with the rest of the spoils of war. Together we fought through the horrors that the Sands had wrought and the devilish contraptions that guarded the halls of Azad, but just as victory neared I faltered. I doubted her, and feared what I felt for her. I doubted how I could truly trust her, a prisoner of our armies. I doubted myself, how I could ever be worthy of a creature as perfect as she. And then I watched her die at the hands of monsters I had unleashed.
"Through the power of the Sands, I took the Dagger and travelled back through time, back far enough to stop my father's assault upon the Raj's stronghold before it even began and to slay the Vizier before his machinations could come to fruition. I saw my Farah breathing once more, but it was not to be. The world I knew was not hers – its horrors no longer existed. But neither did a world in which she knew me. I returned to our army's camp and convinced my father to continue on to Azad, leaving India behind us. I write these words within that palace's halls as sleep eludes me. I cannot see this palace without visions of monsters haunting my dreams, cannot look upon my father without seeing the abomination the Sands twisted him into.
"I am haunted day and night by a past that no longer exists. Farah and my father both live, the Vizier is dead, and the Sands remain locked away. Yet I do not feel at ease. Something is wrong in this new world, this world untouched by the Sands. Doom will reach it one way or another, I know it. I can only pray that when it does it will not be one of my own making."
Three Years Later
The Prince stood upon the prow of his ship, winds buffeting his face as the sun began to fall towards the horizon. He pulled his cloak tighter about himself and turned his attention to the ship. The sails were proud and full, the same strong wind that had driven them all week at their backs. He offered up a silent prayer that it would hold- the men were getting restless.
"Land ho!" came a cry from above, and whirling about the young prince could scarcely believe what he saw: a blot on the horizon but one that was growing fast. Just as the old man had said to him what felt like a lifetime ago.
"Bring us around, boys!" he called with a hoot. "We'll be on dry land by nightfall!"
The galley sluiced smoothly through the waves as they headed towards an island none had thought real. I suppose I should not be so quick to judge what is real and what is not, the Prince thought ruefully as he stared at the distant speck of land. He rapped his fingers nervously against the rails of the ship; he was in dire need of a mythical island to hold very tangible solutions. Still he was loathe to stand idle so the man busied himself with making a final round of inspections on the deck, checking and rechecking every line, knot, and board. Anything to keep his mind busy.
Daylight continued to die as they approached the island looming ever larger on the horizon, but it had not been the only thing to grow. Dark banks of clouds roiled overhead, surrounding the island in a grey halo as thunder rumbled out across the water. Its once glassy surface churned with foam.
"Never seen anything like it, m'lord," came the voice of the captain from behind him. "A storm like that brewing that quick this time of year?"
The Prince turned in time to see the weathered old man furrow his deep brow and scowl. "Its unnatural it is."
"You've come with me this far, Captain," his prince answered him in turn. "Are you with me still?"
The older man sighed but nodded. "To the end, my lord," he answered him solemnly, placing his fist over his heart. "To the end."
All too soon the black clouds overhead had swallowed what remained of the sun as their ship drew ever closer to the isle, distant cracks of lightning illuminating its jagged contours against the stormy horizon. Timbers creaked and groaned as they rode one swell after the next, the wind drowning out the protests of the wood and the cries of sailors alike as it howled. Sheets of rain fell from the roiling cloud. Light and slow at first but with mounting fury until the rain pelted each man above deck with a stinging bite and a cold that chilled to the bone.
"Ship approaching off the port side!" came the cry of the sailor perched atop the mast, his voice ringing out even over the din of the storm. Every man who heard it turned and froze. It rose over the next swell like a wooden leviathan, its lanterns throwing off a pallid grey-green light that illuminated its blackened timbers and cracked frame. Looping his arm around a mast-line to steady himself the Prince's hands flew to his belt and raised his spyglass to his eye. Men with skin like ash prowled the deck of the craft, masks like the heads of animals obscuring the face save for red pits shining in the darkness where their eyes should have been. A curling horned motif emblazoned their chests and masks alike, stark black against pale flesh and wood; the sight of the design froze the Prince's breath in his chest.
"Ready your weapons!" he managed to croak out at last, lowering the glass and drawing his own sword. "The enemy will show us no mercy, so we shall respond in kind!" He prayed that the fear he felt in his heart had not been betrayed by his voice. His mind raced, desperately trying to grasp at how that monster's servants could be waiting for him here of all places. The leviathan lurched towards them relentless and unyielding, and as the massive vessel crested the next wave twin fires seemed to fly forth from its deck. A heartbeat later two great iron hooks crashed into the deck of the Prince's ship wreathed in flame and dug their teeth deep into its deck. Their vessel lurched and men screamed as the heavy chains attached to the hooks ran taut, the unearthly fires blazing on and spreading in defiance of both sea and sky, and with its prey trapped the leviathan surged onwards. The prow of the enemy ship loomed ever closer, dwarfing their own, and a massive ram affixed to its front cut through the churning waters like a knife.
"Brace yourselves!" came the call of the old captain
More flaming missiles launched themselves from the deck of the dreadnought; heavy ballista bolts buried themselves in the deck and shattered wood wherever they landed, the same ghostly fire the hooks had borne spreading out from the craters they lap at soaked wood and men alike.
I've doomed these men, the Prince thought as he hugged a railing with all his strength. I've doomed us all.
The leviathan struck them like the fist of an angry god shattering timbers as the massive iron ram and the heavy chains locked the two vessels into one. The masked men poured onto their deck in a flood with blackened iron cutlasses in hand. They scrambled and lurched across the ship like animals as they howled in delight. There came a scream, and the Prince turned his gaze skywards in time to see the poor sailor who had cried out the warning shaken from his perch in the rigging by the impact. The man dropped like a stone and struck the deck with a hard thud, and it was the last strain the tortured timbers could take. The boards splintered beneath the Prince's feet before he could as much as move, and with a cry he found himself tossed below deck.
Seawater greeted him pouring in through innumerable cracks in the keel, and the clash of swords and screams of men joined in with the groan and moan of the ship's battered frame. Sword in hand the Prince slogged through the bilge and let his cloak fall away with his fear. If he was to die, it would be on his feet. As he entered the ships galley he felt his blood boil; two of the ashen beast-men held the ship's old cook beneath the water as he thrashed, laughing as they did. A third laid dead with a kitchen knife through his heart. Once the cook ceased his thrashing the remaining two gave a grunt of approval as they delivered a kick to the fresh corpse.
With a roar the Prince held his twin blades aloft and charged through the bloodied waters. The first creature's head was parted from its shoulders before it could raise its cutlass to the ready and the second barely managed a sloppy parry against the young man's fury. Once, twice their blades rang out against each other, but a flick of the wrist on his part sent the monster's weapon flying from his hands and dropping into the waters with a splash. Its red eyes went wide as his second blade cut a swift line across its abdomen and set its blackened guts tumbling out. Their blood was thick, dark, and pungent, and as the creatures died they began to wither. What manner of monsters are these, the Prince wondered in horror before the screams of his crew from above shook his focus from the grotesque sight.
The stairs to the upper deck were aflame, but the young man's eyes fell upon the pulleys and lines of the cargo elevator and a manic idea took hold. Sprinting over to the mechanism he took hold of the line in one hand and slashed the rope holding its counterweight with a blade in the other. The line went taut and its pulleys screamed as the rope launched him up through the open hatch and beyond. For a split second he flew above the carnage on the decks, the timbers gnawed at by flames and soaked with blood and seawater, but then gravity once more took hold as he tumbled down towards the waiting blades of the beast-men. Desperately he leaned forward and thrust out his blade; the sword ripped through the battered galley's main mast and sliced a long slit through it as he fell. He arms and shoulders screamed as the sword jerked against every thick line of stitching before he finally reached the sail's end and dropped to the deck, battered but alive.
Beast-men screamed and died as he danced across the deck but they were simply fodder. The Prince screamed and his sword sang as he carved his way through the attackers, but for each who fell another two took its place. Lightning crashed and through the corner of his eye the young man saw a dark silhouette take shape aboard the leviathan's prow; a woman with skin pale as a corpse stood proudly in blackened armor. Wicked curved iron hung at her hip as she barked commands to the beast-men. She turned and locked gaze with the Prince across the din of the dead and dying laid out on blood-slicked decks, pulled back thin lips into a cold laugh, and stepped back out of sight.
Fury seized hold of the young prince as he slashed through the back of another of the ghoulish attackers, the creature's own blade planted into the gut of a wailing sailor. The Prince grimaced as he raced past the dying man; there was nothing he could do for him now. All around him his sailors died, hacked to pieces by the gleeful monsters that tore into them with blade and claw alike. In his heart the Prince knew that the battle for the deck had been lost the moment the leviathan had set its hooks into the ship. Even more deaths to be laid at his feet. He could not bring them back, but as the fury in his soul hardened he vowed to avenge them.
With a cry the warrior dashed across the deck slicing madly as he went, until he at last reached where the prow of the leviathan had slammed into their galley. Its ram was sculpted into the snarling visage of an iron beast and the Prince found ready footholds in its curling teeth. He scrambled up and over as the screams of the dying rang in his ears and leapt onto the deck of the larger vessel. Its timbers were grey-green with rot and age and slick from the sea spray and scum that grew upon them. With a howl the Prince charged ever on, slicing, slashing, and dodging the ship's demonic crew as he worked his way towards the vessel's aft deck. Silhouetted against the lightning stood the smiling figure of the woman in black, her hands upon the wheel.
"You've much to answer for," the Prince spat as he mounted the stairs to the upper deck. The woman simply smirked as she turned to face him, releasing the ship's wheel to draw her blade.
"I do hope you give me a good show, little prince," the woman hissed as she circled her foe with delicate steps. "It's been eons since I've gotten to have any fun." At her final words she bared her teeth and lunged; her cold blade sang through the air and sparked off of the Prince's own. The young man staggered back shocked by the inhuman strength of the blow, and quickly spun away from her next strike. Sparks flew as their blades clashed as the two combatants danced around each other, the moldering deck rolling beneath their feet with every swell. Clashing once again with the ghoulish woman the Prince moved to step back only for his boot to meet a patch of deck slick with algae and sea spray. He cursed and shifted his weight to right himself but the single moment of distraction proved to be enough; howling in triumph the woman knocked his blade aside with her own and whirled to deliver a swift kick.
Her boot slammed into the young man's skull and sent his world spinning. He staggered back until he felt the ship's rotted railing dig in his rear, desperately trying to focus on the shifting smirking face of his assailant. The Prince could feel the wood groan beneath his weight and as the woman advanced with her sword held aloft the leviathan lurched against the force of one last wave. It was enough; tortured timbers snapped and the prince tumbled as the railing gave way. He toppled from the deck, flying for a heartbeat, before his head struck the water and the world went black.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The first thing he heard was the waves, the relentless pound of the surf against the rocks. The salt stung his eyes as the young man blinked twice. Numb fingers dug into any purchase they could find, and he clawed inch by inch desperate to haul himself from the water. Seawater and bile spewed from his mouth as the Prince coughed, and when he finally freed himself of the water he rolled to his back and gazed skyward. A sky of gray roiling storm clouds framed by jagged cliffs was what greeted him. Crows cawed harshly in the distance as he hauled himself to shaking feet.
The shattered shells of a thousand ships spread out on the beach before him, a field of wooden corpses clinging to rocks and half-buried in coarse sand. Great walls of stone loomed above the entire beach. Their entire face was crisscrossed with gnarled vines and crumbling masonry. With a shaky breath and trembling legs the Prince took his step down the beach; the Isle of Time waited for no man.
That's a wrap – the next chapter will be a little more significant. Let me know what you think!