It did not take me long to discover that the black clad men were indeed assassins. Persian assassins. There leader, Zolm, the man with the scared face and the beautiful blue eyes had untied me as soon as we had made it to the outskirts of the oasis.

My whole body ached from being pulled by his horse to the oasis. Blood covered my wrists, sweat soaked my cloak, and tears covered my face.

The sun was setting and I could see a fire burning in the heart of the oasis.

"You will listen to me, or I will kill you, Princess." My first reaction to his barbaric statement was to tell him the I wasn't the 'Princess' he spoke of, but I quickly decided that the wiser choice would be to keep quiet about my true identity.

"You are to stay by my side at all times, if you stray, even once, I will kill you. You are not to speak, at all. You make a noise and I will kill you. If you try to run away from me I will do worse than kill you, rest assured that when I say this I speak the truth, the whole truth." Zolm finished his statement buy cutting the gag that had been tightly tied over my mouth.

I nodded my thanks and stayed behind him while he crouched by a tree. We had been crouched by the tree for nearly an hour when Zolm started to stir. He was speaking in a hushed voice to himself, in a language I did not understand.

I watched the oasis as he continued to speak in an unknown tongue. The men that were staying in the oasis started to wake, and soon enough the whole flock of men, along with one woman were up, and trying to run from snakes that were launching themselves out of the ground.

"Give me the dagger! Give me the dagger!" A man screamed to another, dark skinned man. Seeing the situation around him the darker man cut the lighter skinner man free. As soon as the dagger was in his hand the light skinned man hit the handle of it against his thigh.

I couldn't help but to let out a gasp when I saw the light skinned man step out of his own body and watch as the scene before me played back on itself and even went forward it seemed, into the future. As soon as the gasp escaped my throat I noticed that I was the only one asides from the man with the dagger that was aware of the events going on. Soon enough the scene returned to what had happened previously, but the man with the dagger killed every snake that popped out of the ground.

As soon as the snakes stopped launching out of the ground Zolm's hand was removed from my mouth and he pulled me back to where the horses had been eating at the small supply of grass they could get to. I dared not to speak as he mounted his own horse and pulled me on behind him.

We road for what seemed like days, but I knew it was only hours we had been going. We road threw the night in some forest like area. The trees were everywhere, and for the first hour or so I was completely amazed.

At one point in time I even attempted to reach out and touch the trunk of one of the trees. Before my finger tips could even touch the bark of the nearest tree Zolm grabbed my arm and pulled it back to wrap around his midsection.

"You are not to touch anything, understood?" His question was more of a statement than anything.

"Yes, understood." Was all I said.

As the sun rose the trees became sparse and the snow had stopped coming down like it had been when we had been riding through the trees. I tried to reposition myself by sitting up a little straighter but my legs had no feeling in them and rendered me almost useless.

We stopped, almost instantly, and Zolm was on the ground pulling me off the horse. I tried to stand but my legs hand no feeling in them once so ever. "I can't stand." Was all I said, for fear that my life might be taken. Zolm pulled me up and held me up by my shoulders.

"Listen to me Princess, If you get the dagger, and you return in to me, I will not kill you. I will let you go." What I would say next was stupid at the time, but monumental later on. "One can not return that which never belonged to you." As soon as the final words left my lips I was greeted with a snake, which had slid out of Zolm's sleeve. The snakes mouth opened to reveal surprisingly long fangs.

"I will give you the dagger, rest assured, I do not mean everything I say." I couldn't help but to smile at the double meaning such a statement could give.

But, Zolm with his narrow tracked mind would never discover what that double meaning was.

"Good. Now Princess, if you want to survive the drop you better hold tightly." He gave me no time to ponder the meaning of his statement.

Zolm had grabbed me around the waist and in a great leap we flew through the sky and landed with a thud on the ground. We had landed in the village of Alandrinah the same village I had originally been taken from.

"What are we doing here! Where are the people? Where are my people?" I screamed as soon as I had noticed the battle that was taking place all around us. I scanned the whole village and my eyes landed on Loticus, my old friend who was currently accompanied by his rather annoying Prince, Garsiv.

"Loticus! Loticus what are you doing here?" I ran to him, as soon as Zolm had been engage in battle with a Persian soldier.

I grabbed his arm and pulled him into one of the many clay huts, and in turn he grabbed his leader, pulling him in with us.

"What are you doing here Sholeh? It is not safe!" Loticus asked me. "It is not safe for you! This is my village! What is the Persian Army doing in Alandrinah?" I sneered at Prince Garsiv as I mentioned the Persian Army.

"We have come for my brother, and the dagger." The Prince answered. "Why is it that everyone is after this dagger? What is so special about it?" I asked.

"You know of the dagger?" Loticus asked. I shook my head no. "Whomever controls the dagger also controls time!"

And then it dawned on me, Zolm, who I originally thought to have been a Persian Assassin was indeed a Hassansins. During one of my many trips an old gypsy woman had told me of the feared Persian warriors who served the king.

"Hassansins! Why didn't I notice it before! It makes perfect sense. Those men out there, the men in black are Hassansins, the Kings warriors! I knew it, you and your King are behind this whole dagger business!" I pointed to the Prince.

"How do you know of the Hassansins?" He asked, before I was ripped out of the hut I had been standing in by a hand around my waist.

"Don't let me remind you of why you're here, again." Zolm pointed out the figure of the woman from the oasis running up the side of the mountain to the sacred temple inside. He pushed a knife in my hand and told me, "Do not return without the dagger."

As I ran up the mountain side I fingered the small knife in my hand, which looked almost identical to the dagger the woman had been holding.

As soon as I stepped into the temple I noticed the woman was already approaching the far wall of the temple. "Hey!" Was the only thing that came to my mind regarding what I should scream at someone to get there attention.

I jumped through the air and landed within feet of the women. "I believe I need that more than you do!" I pointed to the dagger with one hand while I stuck my foot out as fast as I could, knocking her to the ground. With her face down in the ground I grabbed the dagger (the real one) and stuck it in the back of my pants.

I dropped the fake dagger and went to grab for it like it was the real one but she stopped me.

"Dastan!" She screamed as another black clad Hassansin jumped from out of no where it seemed, and landed on the young man who had just came running into the temple.

Faking that I had lost I ran from the temple as fast as I could and back to the village. Zolm was nowhere to be found, so I ran into the hut I had left Loticus and Prince Garsiv in.

"Zolm! What are you doing?" Escaped my lips when I found the leader of the Hassansins with a knife pressed against Loticus' throat. The Prince was lying on the ground, with a fairly large sized bump on his head.

"Do you have the dagger, Princess?" He asked, not taking his eyes, or the knife off of Loticus. "Yes, I do. But I will not give it to you until you let Loticus go. Step away from him and the dagger is yours. You and your men will leave, and I will stay behind with what remains of the Persian Army. Deal?"

"Give me the dagger, and I will not kill your friends, and you will stay."

I gave Zolm the dagger and he put his own knife away and left. Soon after you could hear the sounds of the Hassansins leaving.

"Loticus! Are you okay? How is your leg?" I berated the old man with questions as soon as I was sure that we were all safe.

"I am fine, please, please Sholeh. Check the Prince? For me." I did as he asked and check his mighty prince for any major injuries that would later harm him.

"Your Prince, he is fine. Just unconscious from a blow to the head. He should wake within the hour."

"You! You gave the Hassansins the dagger of time! You have doomed us all!" The woman from the temple came running down the side of the mountain. She ran directly into me and pushed me up against the side of the hut I had just came out of.

"I did it to save my life!" I screamed at her. "Yes, and she saved the Princes life, too. And mine!" Loticus said, pushing the woman off of me.

The women came at me again, this time pulling out the fake dagger that Zolm had given me.

"What is this! What is this!" She screamed at me.

She had pushed me up against the wall and had the fake dagger (which of course had a real blade) pushed into my neck.

"It's a dagger, just not the one your looking for?" She pushed the knife into my throat just a little harder and I felt it cut into my skin, not deep enough to harm me, but just so she could draw blood and strike fear into my heart.

"Listen here woman," I spat her title out with disdain. "I am done with this dagger! I don't care who any of you are, just get out of my village! Now!"

"No! You got the dagger that means you can, and will, get it back! I order you!" She yelled in my face.

"I do not know what you would need me for. But I do know two things," I stopped to try and push the knife away but she wouldn't budge.

"And those things are?"

"The people that Zolm and his men killed, they were my friends. Each and everyone of them I knew. I talked to them not a few days ago, before I was kidnapped. I will get revenge for them, if it is the last thing I do. And, nobody orders me around! I am doing this of my own free will, to Gertrude revenge for my people!" When I was finished she finally removed the dagger from my throat.

"Fine, but before we leave I would like to know everything you know about this Hassansin, Zolm, you speak of." She requested.

"Yes, well. From what I know he can control snakes by some sort of chant he does in another language. I've never heard anyone speak it before he kidnapped me. And his men, they are all well versed in the weapons they use. Zolm, he seemed to think me a Princess. I tried to correct him multiple times but he would always silence me and threaten me with death if I spoke again. I think he has mistaken me for the Princess that guarded the temple or the dagger of time everyone seems to be after. I'm not even sure what the reason for him taking me was. The only thing he ever made me do was take the dagger away from you, that's it." I finished explaining.

"He mistook you for a Princess, well then he really isn't a smart man." I turned my head back to the hut where Prince Garsiv had been knocked out to find him standing, or more leaning against the doorway of the hut.

I had no patients to squabble with him, so I grabbed a shovel and took off to find the body of my only friend Leyla. "We do not leave Alandrinah until every body is buried, they at least deserve a proper burial." Was all I said to the group of few soldiers and the bandits that had arrived with the woman and the man she called Dastan.

I found Leyla's lifeless body in the one room hut we had shared. I broke down when I saw that they had beaten her. Bruises and cuts marred her whole body, she laid in the middle of our house. I took the blanket off my bed and wrapped her in it. I used some string we had lying around to tie the blanket around her.

I carried her body all the way out to the rock I had fell asleep on, the last place I had seen her. We were both very fond of the spot. We would often spend hours lying underneath the stars. While her body was laying on the rock I dug out a shallow grave for her. When I was finished I said a prayer to the Gods in hope that they would grant her passage into the nicest place one could get into, wherever it is that we go after death.

"I am sorry, for what I said to you earlier. That was not nice of me. Please, forgive me." Garsiv had snuck up on me while I had been praying.

"You have insulted me before, and there is no doubt in my mind that you will do it again. Prince Garsiv, you know nothing of sorrow. It is my belief that you have never properly grieved for a loved one you have lost. You lash out at whomever is closest at the time to make up for the giant gapping hole in your chest where your heart should lie. But, nothing lies there. You are an empty man, and if you insulting me makes you feel whole, then please keep doing it. Just remember that every time you insult someone, you lose there trust in you. You should be careful, a sharp tongue isn't always a good thing. I forgive you, for now. But next time you think of insulting me because I am lower than you, remember this. I have saved your life, and I have saved your soldiers lives. You are in debt to me, and you always will be. I will never ask anything of you, because I know you have nothing to give." I left him where he sat to ponder his thoughts while I buried all of the villagers I could find.

W

When the dead were buried we left the injured behind, promising them that we would come back as soon as we had accomplished our goal, to heal them properly.

Prince Garsiv was silent to anybody that tried to speak to him. He was silent towards his own brother, which was shocking, but not unexpected.

We traveled by horse to a place called Alamut, which was the most current city taken over by the Persians. It took us a little over two days of constant riding to get to the city, and when we did finally arrive everyone stayed in disguise.

I, of course was the only one that wore my hood down and didn't have a scarf over my face because nobody knew who I was.

"What is your plan?" Dastan asked me once we had arrived and were in a shadier part of the city.

"I don't have a plan. I was actually thinking something along the lines of a distraction coupled with a little bit of thievery." He seemed confused for a moment before he called over Sheik Amar, the ostrich racing entreasure.

"We need to barrow your Ngbaka." Dastan said.

Sheik Amar nodded his head before calling out, "Seso!" The Ngbaka came as soon as his name had been called. "Our new friends here need to borrow your skill." Seso nodded his head and stood in between Dastan and I as I hashed out the quickly forming plan in my head.

"You will have to wait until night fall to pull this off, and you have to be quick." Dastan said when I had finished telling him and Seso my plan. "But it is possible?" I asked.

"You would have to ask Tamina, she is after all the Princess of Alamut. Tamina!" He called.

"Of course she's the bloody princess, as if there aren't to many pig headed royals in this city already." I said to myself.

"Yes?" Tamina asked, coming up behind us.

"Yes, I was wondering, what are the chances of someone climbing to the top of the tower, retrieving the dagger and coming back down, without getting caught?" I asked.

"That's impossible. You would need at least two people if you were to climb to the top of the tower, someone to grab the dagger and another to fight off all of the guards your going to pass on the way up. And, no doubt the guards that guard the dagger. Not to say that two people should be a minimal number. The amount of skill I fear, does not exist in our group." She finished.

"Interesting, yet doable. Very doable. Dastan, tell me, is your brother over there," I nodded by head in the direction of Garsiv, who had been sitting under a tree since we had arrived in the city. "any good at climbing?" I asked.

"Garsiv!" Dastan called out in a hushed whisper. Soon enough Garsiv was rising to join us in circle. "Do you remember that time I challenged you to climb to the top of the library using only the shelves and you beat me?" He asked.

"Yes, why?" The Prince seemed to be confused as to why he was being asked such and odd question.

"Just wondering if you would like to do a spot of reenacting?" I gave him no choice when I pulled him off to the side with a vice like grip on his forearm.

"You and I, my Prince, will be climbing to the top of the tower to retrieve the dagger. Do not, even try to argue, because it shall get you no where." I released my grip on his arm. "We climb tomorrow night, also bring your best weapon you will be fighting off the majority of the guards." I was turning away when he returned the vice grip on my arm.

"I will not kill my own me." Was all he said.

"I never said you have to kill them, you just have to stop them from killing us, more importantly, me." I removed his hand from my arm. "Sometimes one must act in a malicious manner in order to achieve a goal of a more… divine nature?"

"Divine nature? That dagger is nowhere near divine. That dagger is the reason my father is dead!" The Prince whisper-screamed at me.

"All the more reason to get it back then, with the dagger we could turn back time and make it so your father never died. We could make it so my parents never left me atop a holy mountain, and I wont be cursed with ever having met you. So, what do you say Prince? Work together towards a common goal with a beautiful outcome for the both of us. Or would you rather sit around and wallow in self-pity for the rest of your life. You are after all, a fugitive, an outlaw against your beloved Persia. You now have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. So, again I ask, what do you say my Prince, will you work with me to achieve the greater good?" I asked.

"Yes, yes I will." Was all he said before he went to go sit under his tree.