BOOK II OF III: The Reign of the Sultan Read online

  Book II of III: The Elysian Dynasty

  THE REIGN OF THE SULTAN!

  J. Eric Booker

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright J. Eric Booker, 2008.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Booker Enterprises Publishing Co.

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.

  BOOK II OF III: The Elysian Dynasty:

  The Reign of the Sultan

  Publisher's Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or, are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  Booker, J. Eric, The Reign of the Sultan!

  Special Sales

  These books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases. Special editions, including personalized covers, excerpts of existing books, and corporate imprints, can be created in large quantities for special needs. Contact: [email protected]

  Edited by Shanna Caldwell—English major from Washburn University

  Copyedited by Em Petrova—Romance Author

  www.empetrova.com

  Cover Art piece designed by Vuk Kostic

  DEDICATION

  I would like to dedicate this book to my Grandma Inge Burns—

  she has always been one of my greatest supporters and fans.

  Love ya, Grams!

  “Always bear in mind that your own

  resolution to succeed is more

  important than any other.”

  - Abraham Lincoln

  EXCERPTED FROM BOOK I:

  The Swords of the Sultan!

  “Good evening, my Sultan.”

  “Humonus, when we are alone, please just call me Baltor.”

  “As you command, Baltor,” Humonus replied at a normal volume.

  Baltor cocked his head toward the balcony and said, “I must confess that I’m a bit nervous, my friend.”

  Humonus declared, “We all get nervous, Baltor. Use those nerves and make them steel—that is what shall make you truly powerful! Show Pavelus you are her Emperor, and Pavelus will be yours! Show the world you are her Sultan, and the world will become your Empire!”

  Baltor was surprised for but a moment as Brishava seemingly came out from nowhere and said, “Ruling-General Humonus is both correct and wise. So, my Husband and Sultan, ready to meet your subjects?”

  It was then that Baltor happily noticed Brishava had not changed her appearance one iota.

  She still wore that beautiful green silky dress, filled of course with actual diamonds and emeralds that ran along dozens of vertical seams on her bodice and arms. Her hair was tightly pulled up into a bun, which then gently splashed and curled its way halfway down her back—can’t forget to mention the tiny platinum crown, stuffed with diamonds and emeralds.

  The one thing that really grabbed his attention was her absolutely adorable face—light-green-and-white eyeliner around her doe-brown eyes, and glossy red lipstick on her thick, luscious lips. In Baltor’s opinion, she looked like a beautiful porcelain doll.

  After giving the sweetest smile, Brishava asked her earlier question, “Are you ready to meet your subjects, my Sultan?”

  Baltor stood to his feet, cleared his throat, returned the smile, and then said, “Yes, I am, my Wife and Sultaness.”

  She turned to the guards stationed at the doors, commanding, “Allow Ruksha to enter, so that he can make the royal announcement.”

  Without word, the guards opened his respective door.

  A man, who appeared to be in his late fifties and regally dressed, entered the room. He bowed upon hands and knees.

  Brishava commanded, “Ruksha, you may rise and call me out.”

  Ruksha rose to his feet and declared with enthusiasm in his voice, “Yes, my Sultaness!”

  As soon as he had stepped out onto the balcony, dozens of trumpeters began to play the royal anthem, which quieted the crowds.

  Once the tune was over, Ruksha proclaimed with pride, “Citizens of Pavelus… It is my privilege and honor to introduce to you the firstborn daughter and princess of the sultan, who sadly passed away last night. Please welcome the new Sultaness of the Sharia Empire—her married name is Sultaness Brishava Elysian!”

  The crowds immediately took to their “Sultaness” as she stepped out onto the balcony, for a myriad of cheering and applause erupted; she waved her hands out joyously to the people.

  Once the crowd had settled down, several minutes later, she then proclaimed, “First of all my beloved citizens, you should know that the time of my father’s cruel and unjust reign is over!”

  Yet again, the crowds broke out into cheering and applause.

  Once settled, many minutes later, the Sultaness proudly introduced, “And now, it is my honor to introduce my husband, the new Sultan of the Sharia Empire—his name is Baltor Elysian!”

  This time, silence immediately reigned in the city, for the citizens became afraid that their “new sultan” might ultimately turn out to be a tyrant like all the other rulers for the last five centuries.

  Baltor cocked his head over to look into the mirror one last time. Not only did he see his present and his past, yet he also saw his future—a future cast in the present! He now knew what he needed to be—his nerves became as steely as the swords on his back—his eyes darted forward—his feet walked onto the balcony.

  As soon as he stood to Brishava’s right, he stopped in his tracks—in that very moment, Baltor’s mind mysteriously tabulated to him that all of his citizens, nearly eighty-two thousand, as well forty thousand, two hundred and fifty-six soldiers of Pavelus had attended, even though only thirty thousand people could fit inside the palace walls. Most were outside the palace gates and in the surrounding streets for about two miles every direction.

  With a lightning-quick flick of Baltor’s wrists, his swords crossed each other above his head and toward the heavens, as he proudly proclaimed: “I have been officially crowned your Sultan, though not too long ago, I was once a peasant…

  “Please listen to my words of warning, or of wisdom, your choice. As I speak, there are more than 120,000 enemy soldiers making their way toward Pavelus—by land and by sea—led none other than by Emperor-Sedious Vaspan. They will try to rape and plunder us of all our riches until bone dry. And they will try to make all our women and children their slaves or worse—the men will all be executed…

  “Unfortunately with my forces alone, we are outnumbered three to one—so the time’s come for me to ask for volunteers. You will be paid just the same as my regular foot soldiers—you will be trained by the best of the best, I swear to that on my honor!

  “Those who can’t fight or will refuse to fight—we shall provide you with safe haven within Pavelus’s strong defenses, or you may attempt an escape on your own, by land or by sea, if you so wish….”

  Nearly ten seconds later, he sheathed his swords in one quick motion, thrust his open-palmed hands out to the crowds, and suggested with fervency, “But consider this option for a moment… Declare me your Sultan and fight for me, and I will lead you all toward successes that are beyond imagination. Believe me, it is my intention to pave the entire streets of Pavelus from gold, even if it means that the walls of this palace be used to build them!

  “So who amongst you sha
ll hail me…your Sultan?!”

  The Reign of the Sultan

  CHAPTER I

  1,167 miles to the southeast of Pavelus, where

  stood the feuding Vaspan Empire’s capital

  city of Mauritia—3 weeks and 1 night earlier…

  At the core of this inland metropolis, whose fortified city walls possessed the shape of a perfect circle that was eight miles in diameter, there dwelt a magnificent royal palace.

  This palace’s outside walls had been primarily constructed of grey, blue, and black marble slabs that looked like giant puzzle pieces seamed together by gold inlay—and this building was nearly double in size as the royal palace in Pavelus.

  Dwelling inside the top floor of the center minaret, of which there were seven minarets spiraling for the heavens, there was a just-as-magnificent bedroom. Lying in the emperor-sized bed in the very middle of this room was a particular man, who had just begun to dream.

  Perhaps a minute after it had begun, this dream began greatly bothering the man, as he not only tossed and turned in bed, yet breathed, moaned, and sweated quite profusely. By the dream’s climactic end—not even two minutes after it had begun—his physical body had jerked involuntarily into an upright sitting position, seconds before his conscious mind returned.

  Still sitting alone in the dark room, he first began the process of breathing deeply, in order to regain a control over his ragged breath. Once he had finally regained that control, perhaps half a dozen breaths later, he flung off the silky sheets that were still clinging to his sweat-drenched body.

  Without any further haste, he yelled aloud into the darkness, “Guard….bring me Ruling-General Thorn immediately!”

  Not even a second later, he heard a guard’s muffled voice reply from on the other side of the doors leading into his bedroom, “Sir, the Ruling-General should be here in about fifteen minutes or so, as it is nearly five o’clock—almost time for your majesty to wake up anyway, Emperor-Sedious Vaspan.”

  “Oh!” Vaspan continued to yell. “Well, go find him right now and have him come to my chambers—it is imperative I speak with him immediately!”

  “Yes, my Emperor. Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine…”

  The guard, not being convinced, opened one of the doors until the light from the well-lit hallway shed directly onto his ruler.

  In turn, this light revealed that Vaspan possessed “a kingly look”—penetrating sea-blue eyes, prominent facial features (nose, cheeks and jawline), thick-black eyebrows, and a long and pointy braided beard. As for the thick and braided hair on the top of his sweaty head, it all splashed halfway down his back in thick patches of black with silver intermixed.

  His just-as-kingly sleeping attire consisted of a silky pair of vertical-striped white and gold pajamas that clearly revealed his very muscular physique, thanks to the fact it was also drenched with sweat.

  Even though the guard saw that Vaspan was only now starting to look angry, he couldn’t help but notice the troubled look and all the sweat, and so he asked with great concern, “Are you sure everything’s all right, Sire?”

  Vaspan howled like a banshee, “Yes I am okay, you blooming idiot! If I needed any other help besides retrieving your Ruling-General, I would have asked for it—dismissed!”

  “Yes, my Emperor-Sedious,” the guard gulped nervously, just before he closed the door and hurried off at top speed to carry out the order.

  Once again sitting alone in the darkness, Vaspan pulled over several very thick and plush pillows, just before slowly laying his back down upon them.

  As soon as his body came to rest halfway between sitting and lying, he immediately propped his hands behind the back of his head for support, sunk even deeper into the pillows, and sighed.

  A few moments later, he began to meditate heavily over his fifty-two years of life … a very successful life that consisted of several successful wars, quite a few successful land-expansion campaigns, and sixteen hardcore battles!

  Really, it was because of Vaspan and all his valiant efforts, that his own empire was now one-half the size of the Kingdom of Thorium and one-quarter the size of the Sharia Empire. Not surprising to anyone, both neighboring nations were bitter enemies with the Vaspan Empire, because he had taken quite a bit of their lands.

  The two empires, once upon a time, were originally “one big happy family!” After all, Vaspan’s original birth-name and title was Prince Vaspan Helenus, and he was the younger of two brothers with no sisters, and for ninety-nine percent of his life, with no mother. His older brother, by twelve years, was Prince Brishavus Helenus.

  Their father was the previous Sultan of the Sharia Empire—Brishavo Helenus the Eleventh. He was forty years old when Vaspan was born.

  Of course, Vaspan did have a mother named Vaspa, but the Sultaness had tragically died the very night of his birth from complications during childbirth—sadly she had only reached the young age of thirty-two … rare were the times that her name, persona, or history spoken of by Brishavo or Brishavus.

  It was even worse for Vaspan because he never knew his mother. Both his father and/or brother would grow angry and storm off whenever he would ask any questions at all about her, especially during his youth. Their bottled-up rage caused him to believe over the years that they secretly blamed, resented and even hated him because of Vaspa’s death.

  A few years after her death, Brishavo began building a harem on the top floor of the palace, and selected the most beautiful women throughout the world to be his harem girls. Inevitably, he and his concubines produced dozens of children, in which the kids alone were “B-grade” royalty. Perhaps it was because of the harem that he never again married, or perhaps there just wasn’t any other woman who could replace his first bride—only he knew for sure.

  During Brishavo’s early years as the reigning Sultan, forty years in total, he had created “from scratch” a second seaport city called Lasparus. During his later years, he easily conquered the small, inland village of Mauritia and transformed it into a thriving trade city.

  Combined with his beloved Capitol of Pavelus, these three cities not controlled the entire western borders of the Sharia Desert, yet also spanned across thousands of miles along the Sea of Albusina. Due to their centralized locations with more than a dozen major seaports, this made the entire Sharia Empire incredibly wealthy, successful and powerful!

  For most of Brishavo’s life, he looked remarkably young, handsome, and strong, as his aging process was more like a fine wine. He had always been healthy and physically powerful, but, not surprisingly, semi-tyrannical to his citizens in his high taxes, and of course the severe penalties for evading those taxes, or for trying to start rebellions.

  However, only a month after his fifty-fourth birthday and for the next eight years to follow, he had slowly begun to rot away due to malicious cancers in his body and his brain, which the medics could not treat even with the best of medicines, nor could the clerics chant or pray away. In fact, he spent his final three years of life completely trapped in his “deathbed,” too weak to move.

  Still, during this bedridden timeframe, the Sultan had wit enough to order the construction of the first layer of stonewall-fortifications to surround most of the seaport of Lasparus. Unfortunately, his crazed tyranny grew far worse as he began killing every single cleric in the Sharia Empire (which there were originally a little more than a thousand priests from about a dozen different religions), destroyed all their temples, tomes, and artifacts within all three cities, and permanently abolished all religions.

  All the while, the two brothers were forced to watch their father transform from a muscular warrior into a skeleton with sunken eyeballs, slightly resembling an unwrapped mummy. In this man’s final week of life, he had gone completely insane, babbling incoherently to himself the entire time he was conscious, and dying only two weeks and three days before Vaspan’s twenty-second birthday.

  Three days after their father’s death and funeral, Bri
shavus became officially inaugurated and crowned as “Sultan Brishavus Helenus the Twelfth!” After all, he was the next in line to rule.

  Exactly two weeks later, upon the day of his birthday, Vaspan finally mustered enough courage to ask Brishavus if they could both rule the Sharia Empire equally; after all, it would probably be many decades before old age and death would finally take his thirty-four-year-old brother.

  Without hesitation, Brishavus snarled out something to the effect of, “Only after my own natural death will you be given the opportunity to rule the Sharia Empire, my little brother….but if I die by any other means, I promise you will never get that chance!”

  Even though Vaspan grew quite frustrated and angry at this response, he ever-so-barely managed to keep his poker face, as he had long ago figured, and ever-so-secretly planned, that this would be his older brother’s answer.

  So, for an additional two months, Vaspan waited with patience—after all, it was no secret that Brishavus would be sailing for Lasparus with half of his naval fleet for a month, consisting of seven hundred ships from sleuths, to transport ships, to frigates and galleons. Twenty thousand sailors would be navigating these ships, and forty thousand soldiers would be coming along for the ride.

  The brand-new Sultan’s first agenda was to inspect the second layer of stonewall-fortifications that six thousand stonemasons had just finished installing in Lasparus ... at the same time he would take what he called his “well-deserved vacation.”

  Once that month was over, his next agenda was to leave a quarter of the fleet and half of the soldiers behind in Lasparus, take half of the stonemasons and sail back to Pavelus for just a week, in order to ensure that his younger brother hadn’t botched things up.