Book I of III: The Swords of the Sultan (16 page)

Humonus nodded.

“Oh, and don’t worry about the chair—I’ll
come back and get it later on today. Additionally, the elixir
should wear off in about ten to fifteen more minutes or so, and
then he’ll be back to normal—nothing physical for him for the next
two weeks. Don’t get the bandaging wet—and last but not least,”
Racine said, while pulling out a small bottle still in his bag and
extending it to Humonus. “Here is some pain medication, but do not
give him more than two teaspoons of it every six hours, okay? It
goes down much better with juice.”

“No problem….and thanks, Doc,” Humonus said
appreciatively, while taking the bottle.

“You’re welcome!” Racine said just as
appreciatively. He walked over to the backpack, pulled out another
small leather bag, and began the process of packing all the bloody
supplies into the bag.

By this time, Lydia and Bayema, who had been
sitting in the bleachers with a group of seven others and chatting
about all the incredible highlights of the show, next began the
semi-lengthy process of exchanging their fond farewells to their
friends.

Less than a minute later, after a quick
farewell to Humonus and Baltor, Racine slipped on the backpack and
left the area.

It was then that Lydia and Bayema stood up,
exited the bleachers, and while still giddily chatting away with
one another, began to stroll toward Baltor and Humonus.

At this time, Baltor had just begun to regain
consciousness, approximately four minutes after Racine had left. He
clumsily turned his head until he was looking at his drill
instructor, and then he asked, “Sssirrr?”

Humonus, who had been observing Lydia and
Bayema approach and were now about three dozen feet away, looked
back to his student, and asked, “Yes, Baltor?”

“M I K?”

“Of course you are, Baltor,” Humonus replied.
“You’ll just need to take things real easy for the next couple
weeks. Relax—you’ll be able to ask your questions in a few
minutes.”

“K.”

A minute later, Bayema and Lydia arrived.

Lydia was the first to congratulate,
“Excellent job, Baltor—I’m so proud of you!” She lightly gave him a
hug.

Strangely, Baltor’s mind suddenly became
crystal clear as he said, “Thank you, Mistress Lydia.”

Outwardly, he remained composed as he
returned the hug. But inwardly, he could feel his heart beating
hard in his chest, despite the fact that his body still tingled
from that narcotic medicine he had consumed.

Once they had released the embrace, Baltor
remembered his question, looked over at Humonus, and asked, “Sir, I
was wondering. You said earlier that one can stay in phase three as
long as one wishes. So what does phase four consist of?”

Bayema was the one to answer melodiously, “I
can answer that question, if you don’t mind, Instructor
Humonus.”

In acknowledgment, Humonus nodded his head
humbly toward Bayema, and waited in silence for her to answer the
question.

A moment later, Bayema answered, “Phase four
consists of a mission that you must perform for the Guild—it is a
mission of our choice and not yours. Once you have completed your
mission and reported your findings and treasures to the High
Council, we are the ones who determine whether your mission was a
success or a failure, ultimately!

“If you are a failure, most likely you will
have to wait about another year before you can retest—after all,
there are plenty of other students waiting right in line behind you
to take this ultimate test of all their thieving skills…

“If you are a success, then you graduate to
your first official rank within the Guild—thief! Of course, there
are thirteen higher grades within our organization, all the way up
to Secret Chief, but we don’t need to talk about this subject just
now.”

After taking in a deep breath through her
mouth, she continued, “To keep with the subject matter, sometimes
the missions the Guild has may initially seem simple and relatively
easy only to become very difficult and complex in the end—or
vice-versa. Seldom do these missions involve traveling to some
faraway land in order to acquire a valuable treasure, and very rare
is the occasion to try and acquire a supposed magical
artifact.”

Bayema added with a laugh, “As for me and my
three-month-long mission, which is still labeled ‘top secret,’ I
was pretty lucky twenty-two years ago. Because I trust you all
implicitly, as you are all my valuable friends, let me say that my
successful mission was to steal the legendary Shield of Ariakus
from the third cousin of the Sultan, of who still resides in a
heavily guarded palace here in Pavelus.

“Despite the fact that this valuable
gem-and-rune covered golden shield bore no magical or combative
capabilities, the Guild handsomely paid me 50,000 parsecs! Most
importantly, my mission was deemed a complete success, and so I was
officially promoted to the rank of Thief.”

Lydia laughed, “You were lucky indeed! I had
to sail north-northwest across the Sea of Albusina on a chartered
ship, all the way up to the Ruins of Gravensky near the northpole,
which journey took nearly eight months one way; my mission was to
recover the Tome of Time. The sailors wouldn’t even land at the
nearby ice-covered docks, as they claimed the place was haunted and
they were scared of the undead. Thankfully, they let me use their
rowboat and promised they would return in a month to pick me
up…

“I found out—that very night—that the ruins
were indeed haunted, but other than the loud, clanging noises the
spirits liked to make and only at night, I was safe. After all, I
donned an amulet necklace bearing their religious symbol, which I
had painstakingly chiseled out of mahogany during the voyage and
attached to my silver necklace…

“It took three weeks of diligent searching in
order to finally locate the tome, made of a leather binder with
papyrus parchment and buried within a secret library—one week
later, as prearranged, the ship returned, so I rowed out to the
ship with book in hand, and we sailed back to Pavelus. Upon my
return, I delivered it to the Guild; they paid me 70,000 parsecs
and promoted me to Thief. A year later, they informed me that
although the Tome of Time had been deemed worthless in every way
except for its value an ancient artifact, I could keep the money
they had granted for all my efforts.”

Bayema turned to Lydia and asked, “You were
the one who did that?”

With a smile and a nod to confirm, Lydia
said, “That was me!”

Humonus chuckled one time, just before he
asked, “Oh, yeah? My top-secret mission was to infiltrate the
Thieves’ Guild in the Vaspan Empire’s city of Mauritia, which guild
members call themselves ‘Ponchatas’—venomous-jungle snakes that can
kill a human in less than five seconds. In order to discover the
top secret whereabouts of the kidnapped Princess of Thorium and
rescue her.”

Both Bayema and Lydia wowed in unison,
“
Ooooh!
”

Lydia forthwith asked with great interest,
“You did that?”

After a quick nod, Humonus answered,
“Yup.”

Baltor looked confused as he asked, “Was that
a really important mission or something?”

Bayema was the first to answer, “Yes. Just
about every town and city has their own thieves’ guild, including
Mauritia. However, every guild, including ours, has double agents
that also work for another guild, especially coming from our main
rivals in more than one way—Mauritia! We have spent the last three
hundred years trying to eradicate all of our double agents secretly
working for any other guilds, yet this has almost always proven
futile, despite our greatest oaths and measures, sadly.”

Once Humonus realized Bayema was through with
what she had to say, he next said with ever-growing excitement,
“Anyway, to keep with my adventure, a little over a decade ago, the
princess was kidnapped and held for ransom with an extremely hefty
fee of 200,000,000 parsecs or she would be killed.

“Though this was a figure that was even
impossible for the King of Thorium to pay, his love for his
daughter was so great that he would do anything to get her back,
even if it meant selling his entire kingdom piece by piece! That
was exactly what Emperor-Sedious Vaspan—ruler of the Vaspan Empire
and enemy of the Sharia Empire—counted on…

“For your information, Baltor, sedious was
originally not a name, but an ancient Fasian word meaning
‘overlord.’ This particular emperor is so pompous that he gave
himself two ruler titles, and not just one.”

Baltor nodded his head once before he said,
“Yes, sir.”

Once again enrapt in his tale, Humonus said,
“Continuing on, with only a little help from our Guild, I found out
the
very, very
top secret location of Mauritia’s Guilds’
Chief’s house. So that afternoon, I chartered a merchant ship that
had a neutral flag to sail me to Mauritia. And once there,
two-and-a-half weeks later, I went to the house, snuck my way over
the fence and around all his masterfully designed security measures
that ranged from booby traps to guards—ultimately I arrived within
the Chief’s personal bedroom, completely undetected.”

After sucking in a deep breath, he continued,
“The only thing my informant couldn’t tell me was where his
personal safe was in that bedroom—a safe that contained the map
containing the exact coordinates of the princess. Therefore, once I
arrived, I had to hide under the man’s bed for two nights and three
days with only the food and water I brought with me, until finally,
the man
himself
entered, as well three ‘drop dead gorgeous’
females.”

“About five minutes later,” Humonus added
with a chuckle, “both food and alcohol were dropped off; and
several hours later, they all got pretty wasted. The Chief then
began to brag about all his accomplishments, and of course, the
girls were enthralled, so this made the man even more boisterous.
So, after walking behind the luxurious white couch which the girls
still sat in, he told them to stare deep into the heart of the
fireplace that had been set ablaze just after their arrival.

“The girls did. He turned around to face the
bed where I’m still hiding underneath, lightly tapped the base of
the corner post with his right foot, which caused the entire
fireplace to shift, and then he turned back around. What existed
behind the fireplace was ‘a secret passage’ that led downstairs.
The girls
oohed
and
aahed
, and immediately he invited
them down. Let’s just say that some adult-things happened—both down
and upstairs—I will not get into!”

Even though Humonus paused to catch his
breath, no one said a word. Finally he continued, “Hours after they
had passed out in the bed above me, around midnight, I silently
crawled out from underneath, kicked the same spot that the chief
had kicked, and went downstairs. What I saw at the end of the
passage caused my mouth to drool—tons of gold, jewels, paintings,
you name it!

“But I had come there for one purpose, and so
I searched all around this hidden room until I came to a ruby red
box—this was the very same box my informant had told me contained
the map to the princess’s location. After disarming the trap and
opening the box, which took about an hour, I took the map that I
should have left for a reason I’ll get into soon enough, closed the
box, rearmed the trap, and exited the secret room. Once upstairs, I
lightly tapped the same spot on the bed, in order to close the
trapdoor, and stealthily exited the room, house, yard, etc…

“According to the map, as I discovered in my
own hotel room that morning at sunrise, the coordinates of the
princess’s location was most surprisingly back in Pavelus! So not
even an hour later, I chartered another merchant ship to take me
back right away.”

“And once back nearly three weeks later,” he
explained with a bit of excitement, “I arrived at the princess’s
location, which was in the northeastern section of the city at a
boarded-up factory. There I found the princess tied up in the
basement all by herself, and so I untied her, and told her to
safely follow behind me out the building.”

After coughing one time into the sleeve of
his shirt, Humonus said, “What I didn’t know was that the Chief had
discovered that his map had been stolen the same morning I had left
Mauritia, chartered a frigate ship with twenty master thieves
aboard, and sailed to Pavelus only hours after me. He arrived six
days before me!

“So it was just as I and the princess was
about to walk out the front doors that the Chief and his henchmen
finally revealed themselves to me in the lobby, armed to the teeth
and ready to kill me…”

After a ten-second, hold-your-breath pause
without interruption from anyone, he said with a whole lot of
pride, “After the most ferocious battle I’ve ever experienced or
even seen, I barely won by killing them all! Once it was over, I
brought the princess back to Thorium by a merchant ship, and
finally I dropped her off her city’s doorsteps. Overall, this was a
terribly difficult mission indeed...”

Perhaps ten seconds later, Bayema asked,
“Isn’t that where you got your battle scar?”

Humonus’s hand went to the scar that strayed
up and down his cheek, before he answered, “Yes, my Mistress. But
if it hadn’t been for my face, the princess would have been dead by
the blade of the Chief!”

“Who is this princess, why is she so
important, and what does she has to do with our Guild?” Baltor
asked.

Lydia was the first to answer, “The now
thirty-year-old Princess Calitta is the sole heir to the Kingdom of
Thorium—amazingly her sixty-five-year-old father still lives today.
His vast kingdom lays nearly fifteen hundred miles to the southeast
of Pavelus, yet neighbors our own neighboring nation of Mauritia,
which nation is half our size. Due to all the territorial disputes
between us and Mauritia, and Mauritia with Thorium, the Sharia
Empire and Thorium have become good friends and trading
partners.”