Book I of III: The Swords of the Sultan (40 page)

After Tricia had looked to her left and right
and saw that most of the High Council was shrugging their shoulders
nonchalantly at the one-minute extension, she said, “Sure, go
ahead, Baltor.”

Baltor first cleared his throat before he
spoke, “During my journey, I learned many other important things
that pertain to the past, present, and toward the future—very
relevant things that simultaneously pertain to the Guild.”

After a ten-second pause, he revealed, “The
Guild, from what I have ultimately learned, is nothing more than a
secret rebellion against the Sultan’s tyrannical dictatorship!
Moreover, the time has come for us to unite the people of Pavelus
and overthrow him for good! I believe that this can easily be done
once—”

A feminine voice interrupted, “Overthrow the
Sultan? Are you out of your freaking mind?” The High Council began
furiously whispering amongst one another; that is, except for
Lydia, who still had a distant and sad look in her eyes.

Baltor did not answer either question, but
continued in the speech, “Once the Sultan and his imperial forces
have left Pavelus in their attempt to conquer the city of
Mauritia—this is when we shall make our strike. I can guarantee you
that he certainly will not be expecting an attack to come from
within his own beloved capital city at the very same time!”

Another voice, this time masculine,
questioned, “I, for one, do not think that we can afford to take
that chance—mutinying against the Sultan! What makes you think that
you stand a chance in hell?”

Baltor answered confidently, “We will only be
successful once the peoples of Pavelus have been secretly united,
and we overthrow him together as one, and together we create a new
republic!”

“Preposterous!” screamed one.

Another one yelled, “I’m not taking that
chance of exposing all that we have worked so long and hard!”

“Agreed,” said another.

Still another cried, “I have a family to
think about!”

Lydia continued to remain quiet the whole
time, though she had just now cast her eyes to the ground.

Baltor had already turned around to leave,
but before he did so, he stated, “If the answer’s no, then I shall
go about the task alone.”

Tricia’s voice said from behind, “If you do
decide to undergo this task, you will go through with it without
the assistance from the Guild. If you should become captured alive,
you must remember your oath, no matter how they might tease them
out, Thief!”

“I understand, my masters and mistresses,”
Baltor said before exiting the room.

On his way to the Sultan’s palace, Baltor was
able to extract the blueprints, thanks to Briggs’s visual memory
banks that revealed a map: The only part of the palace Briggs had
never visited or seen on any map was the top floor. Still, Baltor
reasoned to himself that the Sultan’s bedroom had to be on this
floor, as it wasn’t located anywhere else.

It only took him five minutes to near the
palace’s external walls—thanks to his superhuman speed and sticking
to the shadows the entire time. By the time of his arrival, he had
already formulated a simple yet effective game plan.

First, he would sneak his way passed the tons
of guards until arriving at the Sultan’s bedroom. Next, he would
hide under the bed, wait for the man until he had arrived and gone
to sleep, assassinate the Sultan, and escape.

Indeed, it turned out to be “easy as pie” for
Baltor to sneak past a large group of guards that were all
drinking, chatting, and laughing away by a roasting fire. He next
passed between two of the many bodies still impaled upon spears
around the palace walls—slightly less than a third of those impaled
were still alive.

Only seconds later, he made it to the
eighty-foot palace walls, themselves.

Once he saw that no guards were looking, he
rapidly scaled the wall, and only seconds later, cautiously poked
his head over the top. Once he saw that the coast was clear right
on the other side, he climbed over the wall, dropped the eighty
feet to the ground, rolled out his body to spread out the shock,
and then hid in the middle of the nearest large and thick bush.

Only then did he take a good look at his
surroundings. He first observed that around him lay an extremely
huge and lush garden that made the Ambassador’s garden pale in
comparison.

Before being given a serious chance to marvel
in this beautiful, tropical paradise, his eyes had already locked
onto a breathtaking five-story palace, lit by a golden lamp on
every corner that literally made the gold walls illuminate.

A pair of palace guards, obvious by the
purple capes and the silver chain mail armor bearing the Seal of
the Sultan, guarded every set of double doors that led into the
palace on the first floor. There were also a whole lot of palace
guards patrolling the paths, every few minutes passing near
Baltor’s hiding position. In total, he counted more than a hundred
guards stationed within the palace’s perimeters.

He sat in his position for a grand total of
thirty-two minutes and fifteen seconds.

Until finally, the palace guards that stood
by the doors looking outward acted in unison—they each took a step
forward and then toward each other, walked to the center of the
double doors, turned toward their respective door, opened them,
entered as one, and then closed the doors behind them.

He bolted across the garden in the blink of
an eye, and in the next blink, he had already leapt onto the
first-floor balcony. Quickly he hopped from balcony to balcony,
until he finally hung by his hands on the balcony of the top
floor.

After poking his head up over the ledge, and
discovering that the room was dark and void of occupants, he rolled
over the ledge and crouched onto the balcony.

He was about to enter the room, but he
stopped in his tracks upon unexpectedly hearing Briggs’ voice say
in his mind,
Only royalty, their guests, and officers with the
rank of colonel or above ever visit this floor. Including of
course, the Sultan and his beloved daughter, Princess Brishava,
whose bedrooms are located here
. Briggs actually had sounded
nice and respectful, Baltor startlingly noted.

He was just about to enter the empty room,
but Briggs’s voice stopped him yet again, as he added,
Even
though I’ve never been on this floor myself, of which I’ve heard
that there are a dozen rooms, including a harem room, I am sure
that the Sultan has four bedchambers. Two colonels continuously
guard each bedchamber, except during the changing of the guards at
night. The princess has three bedrooms, also guarded
.

This time, Baltor waited a few extra seconds
to see if Briggs had more to say.

Sure enough, he did,
Only Ruling-General
Glacius knows exactly which room the Sultan will sleep. It is
during the night shift change that the two men walk the halls
alone—the Ruling-General leads the Sultan to the pre-assigned room,
and selects one of the other three bedchambers to spend the night
before the guards have returned, so not even they know who sleeps
where
….

Without replying, Baltor waited another
minute to see if Briggs had any additional thoughts, but none
surfaced, not even an apology. All the while, his night-vision
eyesight had been scanning the room—a regal room decorated with
very exquisite valuables and furniture, including an emperor-sized
bed that lay in the center of the bedroom, surrounded by hundreds
of silky purple veils that hung down and around the overhead bed
frame. There were more of those same veils loosely hanging from the
corners of the walls. Also fashionably hanging on the walls was a
wide assortment of beautiful scenic portraits. A gold chandelier
with dozens of unlit candles dangled from the center of the room,
above the bed.

Once that minute had passed, he quietly made
his way for a double set of mahogany doors—doors elegantly designed
with gold vines, and set with diamond-studded knobs, probably
real.

He was just about to turn the knob on the
left door when he heard a little girl’s voice whine from the
hallway, “But it’s not fair, Daddy!”

After letting go of the door handle, he
positioned himself behind the door while leaning up against the
wall, just in case the door should happen to open.

“I don’t care what you think, Brishava. You
will not wear that dress at dinner tonight, and embarrass me in
front of everyone!”

“Fine then, be a butt-head.”

“You will not call me names either, young
lady! If any of my subjects ever heard you talking like that way to
me, they’d instantly be rebelling! Remember that I am not just your
father—I am foremost the Sultan! Now, I will be back to check upon
you in thirty minutes, so go change!”

Baltor heard a few sniffles as she said,
“Yes, Popa.”

Two seconds later, he then heard the sounds
of a door closing to his right. Fifteen seconds after that, he
finally heard the sounds of another door closing farther away to
his right.

He wasn’t sure which of the two rooms to his
right that the Sultan had just entered, but he was cautiously
determined to find out. He opened the door a split crack and peeked
out into the hallway.

The floors of this rather long hallway were
constructed from some type of dark-stained wood; covering only half
of the floor’s width was a royal-red-interlaced-with-gold carpet,
whose length appeared to span the entire hallway.

Additionally, there were abstract
three-dimensional designs artistically chiseled and polished into
the shiny marble walls on both sides.

Hanging from the ceiling above each set of
double doors was a crystal chandelier filled with burning candles.
An artist who loved to portray angels in a variety of acts had
masterfully painted the ceiling, and the prismatic reflections from
those crystals caused the angels to appear rather mystical.

Finally, the end of this rather long hallway
turned left while continuing down in that direction—he could see
through the crack on the other side of the door that the hallway
turned right at the opposite end, and that there were no doors at
all in that direction.

What really drew his attention, however, were
the two guards stationed at the other two other sets of double
doors in this hallway, though he did not know the reason why his
own bedroom was currently unguarded.

Unexpectedly, the door to Baltor’s immediate
right reopened, and stepping through that door out in to the
hallway was this “Lady” wearing a shimmering white evening gown—he
strongly suspected she was Brishava, the Sultan’s daughter.
Fortunate for him, she had begun to walk toward the room at the far
right, instead of having turned his direction.

As he continuously watched her from behind,
he thought,
I don’t see anything wrong with that dress
.

His binocular-vision scanned in, and he could
now see small, prismatic diamond studs sewn into the dress; as
well, studs sewn into her jet-black hair ran down her back in thick
weaves, while being pinned down at the base by several diamond
barrettes. He couldn’t tell, despite his superhuman powers, just
how old or young she was from this angle.

She turned toward her father’s door and
neared it—only when she turned did Baltor observe that she also
donned a white silky veil that perfectly concealed the lower half
of her face, a veil filled sporadically with tiny prismatic
diamonds.

As for the upper half of this girl’s face,
who he guessed to be sixteen years old, it looked flawless in every
little detail, or so Baltor’s opinion immediately became—this
breathtaking woman unquestionably bore the face of a
true
princess
.

A few moments later, she raised her hand up
as if to knock upon the door but didn’t—a few more moments passed,
but still she didn’t knock.

Instead, she abruptly turned around and
walked back up the hallway, back into his direction! Baltor closed
the door until it was but a tiny sliver, just enough to allow him
to glimpse through.

“
Ah
…” When his eyes really scanned in,
he now understood the reason for the Sultan’s disdain—the front of
the dress had been cut into the shape of the letter “v,” revealing
a fractional portion of her full cleavage. What competed for this
area’s attention, however, were several varying lengths of platinum
necklaces interjected with small yet brilliant diamond studs.

That wasn’t the thing that really captivated
this thief’s attention—it was again her face. Moreover, there was
one thing about it all that stood out in particular—it was her
doe-brown eyes, which sparkled ever so radiantly.

The more that he stared, the more he found
himself not wanting to look at anything else, until suddenly,
something else grabbed his senses, but this time, it came from his
sense of smell.

As he took a concentrated whiff, a scent
fully penetrated his nostrils and his brain—thanks to his
superhuman powers, he had the full opportunity to learn that it was
exotic, wonderful, and a flowery fragrance, making him want to
sniff the air more and more.

She had just turned toward her room, but
suddenly, her head and face stopped directly into his direction,
her hands cupped lightly over her mouth.

After giving a slight gasp, she breathed out
the word, “
You
.”

It was only because of his super-hearing that
he was able to hear this word from more than one-hundred-feet
away!

One of the guards that stood closer to her
current position by her bedroom door asked after a low bow, “Yes,
Your Highness is there something that you want from me?”

The princess quickly looked over to the
guard, and stammered,

“No, no, there isn’t, colonel. I was just,
uh, talking to myself again, sorry. I forgot my, uh, my favorite
comb in the spare bedroom, yes. I need to go get it, right
away.”