BOOK II OF III: The Reign of the Sultan

by J. Eric Booker

  Because it was daytime, he felt much weaker than normal. Still, as he always relied more upon his skill, speed, and dexterity than upon any power, he tiptoed to the part of the wall where he knew his swords were stored in their sheaths during his sleeping hours.

  After drawing the swords, his body set itself into a position of defense, while his mind attempted to ascertain what his instincts had just set into motion.

  From somewhere within the pitch-black chamber, a voice whispered only a second later, “My, you are as quick as they say—though a little too slow. I could have killed you already.”

  Baltor immediately twisted his body around, until he and his swords faced the direction where the voice generated.

  It was only then that he realized that what had awoken him from slumber was a slight stinging sensation across his neck—though he no longer felt any pain at all!

  ‘Was I cut?’ Baltor thought to himself with a bit of shock, as he cautiously checked his throat with the back of his sword-bearing fist.

  Even though there was no longer any evidence of blood or pain, he still wondered for a moment if this unscheduled visitor had actually cut his throat!

  Before the next moment had even passed, Baltor realized that he or she must not only be very good to have been able to slip past all the defenses of the guarded palace, perhaps even the guards posted outside on the balcony, but extremely good to have been able to slip past his own personal defenses.

  He therefore decided, as the palace guards couldn’t stop her, he would handle the matter himself, and so he rose to his feet standing in his bed.

  In order to learn the current position of his visitor’s whereabouts from where he was, he growled in a low tone of voice, “Who are you?”

  From across the room, a woman’s voice quietly spoke, “Doesn’t much matter who I am. But I will say that I came to kill you, my Sultan, which I could have already done.”

  Without so much as a sound, Baltor had already drawn close to the spot where he believed the voice had last been.

  Using ventriloquism that he had learned from Cheo, Baltor cast his voice back to the approximate location of his bed. He asked, “Would you please give me one good reason why I should not alert my guards to your presence, and have you immediately sentenced to death for the plot to assassinate your Sultan?”

  From a completely different location from somewhere far off to his left, the woman answered, “Because they will find two assassins in here—not one.”

  Despite the fact that Baltor realized that he would never be able to find this woman in the dark with her short answers, he decided to continue casting his voice into other parts of the room, so she wouldn’t know his whereabouts.

  That is, he thought, unless he could goad her into a lengthy explanation, or maybe even get close enough to take her out in this cat-and-mouse game. Doing just that, he asked, “So you’re with someone else?”

  About fifteen seconds later, from somewhere behind him, the woman answered, “Yeah… Within this room are the two best assassins in the land, actually. Me and you!”

  “What in the hell are you talking about?” Baltor accidentally asked from his current whereabouts.

  The woman answered, “There is a very good reason I did not make the final cut into the first orphaned boy in history to become a master thief and an authentic Sultan—even though my dagger is still quite warm from the blood that now tarnishes its steely surface! Something inside of me stopped me.”

  Baltor could have made the “final cut” after she had uttered the word “orphaned,” but his curiosity stayed his hand. Throwing his voice into a different location, he asked, “So you’ve been sent by a remnant of the Thieves’ Guild to assassinate me, eh?”

  She answered, “Yes. However, there’s much more to it than just that—I am, in fact, the Secret Chief to the Thieves’ Guild of Pavelus. Yes, I have been watching you for decades, though I have never before seen you in this light, until today…”

  After clearing her throat, she asked, “Will you allow me to light a candle so that you can see my face? I promise that the light will be nowhere near to your position, but it is very crucial that you see me as I give you the full explanation with proof, my Sultan.”

  “You better have proof, or I will finish you off myself,” Baltor promised from his new location.

  “If you’re not satisfied with my proof, then I will allow you to plunge your swords into me, my Sultan,” the woman countered evenly.

  “Go ahead,” Baltor said.

  A few seconds later, his eyes observed as this woman lit a candle several inches below her neck, revealing a young face that not only was very soft and beautiful with gorgeous green eyes—surrounded by soft, brown hair that was long and curly. He would have remembered this stunning woman had he seen her before.

  A few more seconds passed before she explained, “Baltor, I have been very wary of you ever since the day that you returned from your quest for the Guild—more than fifteen years ago!

  “Yes, I was there in an adjacent room to the throne room watching you through a tiny peephole. I listened as you not only revealed a fractional portion of information regarding your journey to find the rod, which you said did not exist, but your ‘noble intention’ to assassinate Sultan Brishavus Helenus and free the people of Pavelus from tyranny.”

  She asked, “Yet instead of you fulfilling your intentions, what do you do after arriving at the palace? You end up stealing his very own beloved daughter, the very heiress to the Sharia Empire! And where do you two lovebirds go first?”

  Answering her own question, she said, “Directly violating the oaths that you swore to upon entry into the Guild when you were a wee lad, you bring the princess back to my headquarters. With of course the assistance of Mistress Lydia, who was very confused about the situation and most especially did not know that the woman you brought with you was the princess, she still helped you hide away in one of my underground tunnels.”

  Even though the woman had delivered a lengthy pause that lasted about twenty seconds, Baltor remained silent as he could tell by her facial expression that she had much more to say … she did.

  After taking a deep breath through her nose, she added, “While the two of you slept throughout the day, word rapidly spread throughout the entire city of Pavelus that ‘the princess had been kidnapped,’ and that there was a ‘five million parsec reward’ for her safe return!”

  She purposefully cleared her throat twice, before stating, “Early the next evening, the High Council convened. It wasn’t hard for us to add one plus one, figuring out that you were the one who stole her. We immediately informed Mistress Lydia that she needed to go retrieve the two of you, along with six escort thieves in case you were unwilling to come along, so that you could explain yourself to us—they did…

  “But, instead of abiding by our summons, what do you do, Baltor?”

  Without waiting for an answer from Baltor, she answered for him, “Not only do you kill a Ruling-Mistress, yet kill three more of my thieves, shortly before you accomplished your miraculous escape with the princess!

  “I kid you not—hundreds of Guild members and I spent years and money trying to track you down. We even combed several times through the Galgaa Jungles, but found no traces of you or human civilization! A few dozen of my thieves died … from quicksand, or lions, or mosquito bites, or ants, or crocodiles, etc.

  “And while we’re all off in another continent searching for you, you and the princess return to Pavelus, but instead of patiently waiting for your turn to rule like every other good princess and prince, during the first family reunion, the princess murders her own father.”

  Baltor’s mouth slightly dropped open in shock that this woman was aware of that most-top-secret truth.

  Finally, the woman continued with a smug smile on her face, “And only several days later, without even so much as a funeral for the dead Sultan, you two inherit the empire—very impressive for an orphaned thief!”

&
nbsp; Baltor could tell that this woman still had more to say, so he remained silent.

  About three seconds later, the woman continued, “I must admit, however, that I was even more impressed that you didn’t immediately send your troops to the Thieves’ Guild, and try to annihilate us all! Instead what do you do?”

  Answering her own question yet again, the woman continued, “You go alone without Humonus, beat nine of my thieves in combat without killing a single one by your own hands, and ultimately manage to convert my entire Guild to your own Special Forces Guild—most impressive.”

  A few moments later, Baltor finally responded, “So, the reason why you waited more than a decade to assassinate me was because I stole your Guild?”

  The woman chuckled out her nose before answering, “No, that’s not the reason, because I kind of like what you did, even though I lost a lost millions and millions of parsecs in the process. First allow me to tell you the reasons I was going to assassinate you, before I tell you the reason I changed my mind in the end.”

  Baltor said, “Okay.”

  “My name is Maline. Even though I only look eighteen years old, I am actually six hundred and thirty-two years old. I have recently begun to wonder if I may be an immortal, as I have never aged a day since my eighteenth birthday.”

  Baltor looked on with disbelief, but he remained silent.

  After a five-second pause, Maline continued, “The first four years of my life were spent with my parents. I still have relatively strong images of what they looked like, both young and attractive, that they loved me very much, and that things were vastly different than the way things are here on this world.”

  Baltor remained silent.

  Maline took a deep breath of air through her mouth, before continuing, “However, this was not to last. One day in particular, I remember that I had just finished eating a tasty lunch that had been stored in a metallic can, and that my mother let me go outside so that I could play with my dolls in the sandbox. While sitting and playing, all of a sudden, I found myself getting very sleepy, and before I knew it, I even conked out in the seated position.”

  After taking another deep breath, she said, “When I awoke from my nap, I was no longer dry and comfortable in a sandbox, but very wet and cold because I was lying on my back and floating in a puddle of water; upon opening my eyes, I saw clear blue skies all around me...

  “Even stranger was the fact that after I sat up, I saw that I was sitting in the middle of a flooded farm field with no signs of civilization. It was only after I stood to my feet and looked around that I saw a dry dirt road nearby. Alone, wet, and scared, I walked over to the road, but still, there was no one in sight. As I didn’t know what to do next, I began to cry.”

  Baltor was about to ask Maline where she was going with her story, but he didn’t get a chance as she stated, “Next thing you know, I look up, and there’s both an oriental man and woman dressed in peasant attire standing before me, and a strange-looking horse-drawn wagon behind them. This may surprise you to hear, Baltor, but where I had originally come from, people drove machines that ran off the power of electrical batteries—in other words, I am not from your planet!”

  Now totally in disbelief, Baltor said his first word with sarcasm, “Right…”

  Maline shrugged her shoulders, just before she said, “I don’t expect you to believe me just yet, but keep listening to my history—please. Anyway, this oriental man began to ask me some questions in some foreign language, but as I didn’t understand their language one smidgen, I said nothing—only continued to sob even harder. The woman said something to the man in that foreign language of theirs, and then she began to speak to me in very soothing tones.”

  After releasing a deep sigh, she added, “The tone of her voice is what calmed me down, and after I was calm, the woman gestured for me to enter into the back of their wagon. I did, and they took me to their straw hut that was on the far northern end of that farm field, which was only a few miles to the southeast of an oriental seaside village.”

  Baltor was confused as to why he was getting all this history of this woman who claimed to be over six hundred years old. He was even more confused as to how this all related to him, except for possibly the immortal part. He really didn’t know what to say yet, so he continued to remain silent.

  A few seconds later, Maline continued, “That very first night in my new strange-looking home, I realized that something had also changed within me—even with no light at all, I could completely see like a dog or a cat!

  “Ever since, I have been able to see this way. Even in the pitch-blackness of your bedchambers, I watched you as you threw your voice into different parts of the room, and I assuredly stayed as far away from your two lethal blades as possible. This is but one of the many abilities which have made me into the supreme-master thief I am today.” She had whispered those three emphasized words.

  Baltor was shocked.

  Maline obviously wasn’t done with her story as she revealed, “Anyway, to keep with my history, despite the many months that passed, as my new parents spent in search of my biological parents, I quickly picked up the language. Moreover, I began to learn the skills of sewing, cooking, and cleaning from my mother, and fishing, hunting, and martial arts from my father. Shortly before my sixteenth birthday, my mother died; only a year-in-a-half later, my father joined her in death…”

  After releasing a sad sigh, she said, “I decided that the time had finally come to try to find my biological parents, so I spent the next thirty-four years traveling across the lands and the oceans in search. Dozens upon dozens of adventures occurred throughout this timeframe, which I will not get into right now, as it will literally take months of explaining...

  “To keep with how this relates to you, it was only when I had come across an imperial city, controlled by a tyrannical Sultan Horas Helenus the Second that I decided to temporarily stop the search for my parents…

  “Right away, I found a couple of volunteers to join my special thieves guild, in order to give the poor a chance to become rich, as well to help me track down magical artifacts. To get to the point, I am the original founder of the Thieves’ Guild of Pavelus—more than five hundred years ago!”

  Baltor asked, “So how does this all relate to why you tried to assassinate me, but didn’t?”

  Maline answered, “I was just coming to that. Even though I have carefully planned more than a decade to assassinate you, which shortly began after I arrived back at Pavelus, which timeframe was only about six months after the ‘Dark Gnome Wars’ had ended, something inside me happened tonight as I held the dagger against your throat.”

  After a short pause, she next said tenderly, “As I watched your peaceful face in slumber, I must confess that I have instantly fallen in love with you—you are, by far, the most beautiful and soulful man I’ve ever seen…

  “You are also an immortal, as you haven’t aged a day in the last fifteen years, and I was thinking—when I held the dagger against your throat—that you and I could maybe travel the world and explore it together forever—maybe even other worlds. Yes, yes I am most certainly in love with you, my Sultan!”

  Baltor was actually a bit shocked by this woman’s unusual reason why she didn’t murder him. Still, in order to ensure that she fully understood his position in the matter, he revealed, “I hate to tell you, but I’m a happily married man with a woman that I’m deeply in love with—despite our marital problems, she is my soul mate!”

  No longer sounding in love, but upset, Maline said, “I see…”

  Baltor added, “Last but not least, I promise that I will compensate you for your losses with the Guild, no matter the cost—also, I will let you go, but you must promise never to come back!”

  “If you will not join me, then,” Maline snarled while dropping the candle to the floor and drawing her sword. She concluded, by howling like a banshee, “You must die!”

  Baltor yelled out, “Guards! Assassin!”

  Alrea
dy the front doors to his chambers had been kicked open by booted feet, thus allowing light (fortunately not sunlight) from the hallway to enter the room, and in ran two guards with swords drawn. More guards were already on the way, while yelling out, “Assassin in the Sultan’s bedroom!”

  Even though Maline attempted to bolt for the curtains, in order to make her escape—Baltor had already blocked her way to those curtains with both swords drawn!

  Maline turned around to face the guards.

  A fierce battle was waged between the losing-guards and the winning-Maline, while Baltor stood in the defensive position in front of the curtains.

  Within the next few minutes, more than eight guards had already died by Maline’s short sword!

  The second Baltor realized that she was too skilled a warrior for any of the guards to handle, he finally called out, “Guards—back off! I will battle this assassin myself!”

  Dozens of guards backed off. Dozens more guards had arrived but had to wait outside the bedroom, as more guards blocked the entryway.

  Maline turned to face Baltor, and said, “Every last martial arts trick you know originally came from me—soon enough, you will die by my hands!”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Baltor replied, “but I cannot allow you to live so long as you’re a threat!”

  Maline leapt forward into a cartwheel, and while coming out of her cartwheel, she aimed her short sword down at Baltor—he rolled to the side and avoided the impact of the short sword.

  For the next ten minutes, Baltor and Maline battled it out, all the while using cartwheels, somersaults, attacks, and defenses quicker than the guards’ eyes could see—neither individual could score an attack on the other! The dozens of guards that watched the battle watched in utter awe.

  Seven minutes after the battle had begun, Brishava, who was in the throne room, heard the report about the assassin from a guard, and so she rose from her throne and rushed over to the bedroom as fast as she could.