BOOK II OF III: The Reign of the Sultan (15 page)

As soon as the captain’s horror-stricken eyes
reached his Sultan’s, he painfully began, “My Sultan, I… I am
Captain Fletch, from Lasparus… The Duke of Vispano and his
men….they ambushed and attacked the city two weeks ago, after our
commanding officer let them in because we received no orders to the
contrary. They attacked us right away, killing every soldier they
ran across, or any civilian trying to fight…

“We were so horribly outnumbered, as half of
our forces had been sent here… I… I believe I am the only soldier
to escape and sur—” Fletch managed to say, just before he died with
his eyes wide open.

Humonus permanently shut Fletch’s eyes,
crossed the captain’s arms over his chest, and laid his own hands
lightly on the man’s hands while throwing a little prayer for a
speedy trip to the afterlife, which prayer took about ten
seconds.

Once he was complete, the two guards that had
brought the captain into the room on the stretcher took his body
out.

Meanwhile, Baltor looked over at Humonus, and
then he sighed aloud, “I guess that it’s really true what King
Thorven the Great said, more than a thousand years ago, in his book
called,
The Chronicles of the Eternal King
: ‘When peace
finally emerges between two warring countries, war will erupt with
still another…so always, always, always be ready.’”

“What are your orders, my Sultan?” Humonus
was the first to ask.

Baltor answered, “Tomorrow, Ruling General,
we shall inform the troops that one hundred ten thousand soldiers
and sailors shall be deploying by land and sea to Lasparus, led by
me: Not only will we be taking back our city, but then we shall
conquer the entire Vispano Province. The Duke can no longer be
trusted…”

After taking a deep breath, he ordered,
“Forty-five thousand, twenty-eight soldiers shall stay here in
Pavelus, in which I have every confidence in my Sultaness’s ability
to more-than-sufficiently rule the affairs of the Sharia Empire on
her own…

“The remaining forty-five thousand soldiers
will immediately deploy back to Mauritia, in order to reclaim this
city and her surrounding lands once more, led by you, my Ruling
General.”

Nearly ten seconds passed before Humonus
finally answered, “As you command, my Sultan.”

“Tonight,” Baltor added with a little smile,
“we say nothing, and simply celebrate our first victory. That’s
it.”

“Yes, my Sultan.”

Brishava, who had been paying fervent
attention as always, commended enthusiastically, “All great ideas,
Hun!”

Baltor glanced over at his wife, and said
with a wink, “Thank you, Love!”

Humonus abruptly cleared his throat, before
asking, “If you will please excuse me, my Sultan and Sultaness? I
have many missions to accomplish and very little time to do it
all.”

“Of course! See you tonight at the
celebration, my friend,” Brishava said with a pleased smile.

After delivering a low bow, Humonus walked
toward the doors that the two guards had just opened.

The guards instantly snapped a sharp salute
to their ruling-general as he passed them by, which salute was
returned. Once he was gone, the guards exited the room, shutting
the door behind them.

Only three seconds later, Brishava had
already finished glancing all around the room, discovering that
they were once again completely alone.

She next looked on over at Baltor, threw off
her robe, and said with a crooked yet very sexy smile, “Now, back
to what you were suggesting originally about some hanky panky, but
listen up first…this is important. We only have one hour before our
assistants will arrive, mine in my dressing room, which means we
have about thirty-to-forty minutes to have a little fun, so that we
can
also
take a quick bath before they arrive. Oh, of
course, we need to make sure your bandages don’t get wet!”

“Okay,” he replied with his own crooked
smile.

She purred like a kitten in desire, and so he
growled like a tiger right back—still like a kitten, she
immediately crawled to him, and passionate touching and kissing
began between the lovers….

Exactly one hour later, Brishava departed for
her dressing room, while Baltor stayed where he was. His assistants
had already arrived, pushing the closet-on-wheels.

Only a moment-or-so after they had bowed,
they started the process of dressing and grooming him up. Right
away, Baltor announced, “I’ve decided that I want my hair to get
long enough to put it into a ponytail, but you can do everything
else you normally do. Understand?”

“Yes, my Sultan,” the lead assistant replied
with a nod, before he and the rest of his assistants continued to
work.

After they were done and gone, thirty minutes
after they had started, Baltor’s eyes only then began to perform
his self-inspection in the mirror.

The first object to draw his attention was
his royal Sultan’s crown, perfectly placed on the top of his head.
Then it was his two highly prized necklaces, one of them a gift
from his wife and the other from one of his best and oldest
friends, Humonus.

Then it was his snazzy-looking purple tunic
that had tiny silver-swirls sewn throughout, as well the silver
buttons that buttoned up the front of the shirt, as well his
silver-colored breeches.

Then it was his royal insignia, his wedding
ring, and his pinky rings. Finally, it was his pair of knee-high,
white, leather boots.

Not even a second after his inspection had
ended, and he was quite satisfied with the result, he saw—still
through the mirror—Brishava enter the room, noting that she now
wore a shimmering golden evening dress, as well a pair of matching
high-heeled shoes. Her hair loosely flowed straight down both her
front and backside, held in place at the top of her head by her
matching yet smaller crown. Her eye shadow consisted of several
horizontal gold and silver glitter layers. Why, even her painted
ruby red lips had silver-and-gold glitter on them!

When both husband’s and wife’s eyes cast upon
each other, they gazed at one another in astonishment and
wonder….

“Oohhh—you look good,” both stated
simultaneously and with ear-to-ear smiles.

In the very next moment, they replied in
unison, “Thanks—so do you!”

At that, both husband and wife began to burst
out laughing with merriment at the very same time.

Only three seconds after the laughter had
begun, however, someone was already knocking on the bedroom
door.

Still chuckling, Baltor replied, “Enter…”

Humonus and Chelsea were the first to enter,
and they were both dressed up formally for tonight’s event. She
wore a beautiful black evening dress, while he wore his “Class A”
uniform. Following behind was Jamar, also wearing his own formal
attire. All three bowed for a moment.

Upon rising, Humonus was the first to say,
“Your transportation has arrived, my Sultan and Sultaness. Are we
ready to leave?”

Yet again in unison, both Baltor and Brishava
replied, “Yes we are.” At that, neither could help but burst out
into unrestricted laughter from the parallelism. A teardrop had
even started to form at the inner corner of each of her eyes!

Humonus’s eyebrows rose in confusion, but he
said not a word. On the other hand, Jamar had a few words to say,
and so he said them frantically, “Please, my Highnesses, your
mascara!”

Both she and Baltor instantly checked their
laughter by lightly clearing their throats, as they both had
eyeliner on. A moment later, Brishava added, “You’re right—thank
you, Jamar.”

“No problem, my Sultaness.”

Brishava had to clear her throat one more
time before she could say, “I need to check myself out in the
mirror one more time before we go, especially as important as this
celebration is—and so do you, Honey.”

“Already done, Sweetheart,” Baltor replied
with a wink and a knowing smile! He had done just that only three
seconds earlier.

Moments later, the group casually exited the
room, and joining them out in the hallway was a platoon of guards,
marching in front and behind their rulers. After exiting the main
doors to the palace and into the courtyard outside, they, in turn,
entered the over-sized royal carriage that had twelve horses
pulling it along.

Once everyone was comfortably seated with the
door closed, the chauffeur clucked his tongue a few times, while
snapping the reins and driving them out of the palace grounds.

Joining them outside the palace walls was the
entire army already assembled in formation, and following behind
them, all of the nobles who rode in the back of their carriages.
The vast majority of the “commoners” had all been hired to set up
tonight’s victory celebration—cooking, cleaning, decorating, etc.,
etc. They had all been working non-stop since being hired.

Jamar had been put in charge of elaborately
designing and preparing the coliseum for tonight’s event, despite
the fact that it was still only half-built, so that the coliseum
could comfortably seat, feed hungers, parch thirsts, and entertain
all
two hundred, eighty thousand guests!
Overall, it could
hold three hundred thousand people.

Nearly fifteen million parsecs had been spent
in order to produce this one single night of celebration—three
quarters of the “total bill” was taken care of, most graciously, by
the nobles of Pavelus out of their own pockets.

Once they had arrived at the coliseum, about
an hour-in-a-half later, Jamar escorted Baltor, Brishava, Humonus,
and Chelsea into the royal waiting room, while everyone
else—nobles, common folk, officers, and enlisted soldiers began to
locate their assigned seats, and then sit down.

Nearly thirty minutes later, everyone was
finally seated, and so Ruksha walked out onto the balcony. After
the two trumpeters had played the Empire’s national anthem, Ruksha
proudly introduced the Sultan and Sultaness. Thanks to the fact the
balcony had been acoustically built to magnify all sounds, he did
not need a megaphone to be clearly heard by everyone.

It was then that Baltor and Brishava walked
hand-in-hand to their thrones and sat down—all the while, the royal
trumpeters had been playing the royal tune, while everyone else
bowed their heads in sovereign respect.

Once the two rulers of the Sharia Empire had
comfortably seated themselves, and the trumpeters had stopped,
Baltor commanded, “You may all rise.”

Everyone rose.

Ruksha next formally introduced
Ruling-General Humonus and his lovely wife, Lady Chelsea.

Again, the trumpeters blew out another
melodious tune—already had the entire regiment of soldiers snapped
their sharpest salute to their Ruling General.

Humonus just-as-sharply returned the salute,
and then he and Chelsea headed over to the main rectangular table
and took the seats on the outside, which had been set for four—it
had earlier been briefed to them that Baltor and Brishava would
inevitably be sitting in the two middle seats, during the course of
dinner.

Meanwhile, the soldiers dropped their
salutes, and took their seats. Without the salute, the nobles had
already begun to take their seats.

Just as before, a servant came out holding a
gold serving tray, which held three other gold objects: two jeweled
goblets, and a matching jug filled with wine. After another servant
had come out and tested the wine, and that servant appeared okay
fifteen seconds later, the wine was poured into both goblets, and
distributed to their leaders.

The second Baltor was given his goblet, he
rose to his feet, raised the goblet high into the air, and
declared, “It is an honor to be your Sultan! I promise that I shall
always be just and fair to the very last one of you, until the very
last moment of my life!”

After taking a deep breath through his nose,
he continued, “As your Sultaness and I are like the brain in the
human body, you all are our eyes, ears, noses, arms, legs, hands,
and feet! It is only as one single unit that we can give duty,
honor, and glory to the Sharia Empire! Be the Sharia Empire! For
the Sharia Empire!”

With the conclusion of his toast, Baltor
consumed the entire goblet of wine, and once done, he raised the
goblet back into the air.

Everyone else repeated in unison, “For the
Sharia Empire!” They also slammed the entire glass down, even if
they weren’t normally hearty drinkers.

Baltor allowed the servant to dutifully fill
his goblet with more wine. He then proclaimed, “Your Sultaness
earlier commanded to me that she has her own toast to make, which
command I must obey…Honey?” Without waiting for a response, Baltor
laughed as he sat back down upon his throne.

Most of the people either lightly chuckled at
the “endearing title” or the “jest” he had just made. Meanwhile,
almost all of the adults began to refill their own glasses with the
pitchers of alcohol—ale or wine—that had been sitting in the middle
of the tables. Parents filled their children’s glasses with juice,
milk, or water.

Once Brishava saw that everyone had a full
glass, about a minute later, she rose from her throne, and while
raising her own goblet high into the air, she declared, “My toast
goes out to my husband, Sultan Baltor Elysian the Fifteenth…

“After all, not only has this man saved us
all from an all-out war, which war would have minimally cost the
lives of tens of thousands, and possibly everyone present here
tonight, yet he has inspired each one of us to make the most out of
ourselves with every precious moment! These are the valuable
qualities I admire most about this man who is my friend, husband,
teacher, and leader. Baltor is not just your Sultan—he is equally
mine!”

With that, she raised her goblet high into
the air, and said with jubilation, “For the Sharia Empire!”