6 : 236 : 05 : 03 : 46

Okay, here’s a tough one. How do you break into a heavily fortified royal residence in another country to steal a thing without even knowing what the thing actually even looks like, and then sneak back out again, undetected, uncaptured, without having to spend the rest of your days in an unsanitary antique dungeon, poked with hot tongs?

You may remember this, but the palace has an overdone wall going all the way around it and they don’t let anybody in without proper authorization, or an especially good reason. A hand-picked force of twelve hundred elite soldiers guards the district and related facilities around the clock. Sure, they haven’t seen much real action in a century or two, but they also have nothing better to do in there but train hard every day, and they are prepared to die for the Sultan, whom they view as the middle-man between Heaven and Earth. So going in like Jet Li in 'Hero' might not be such a great idea.

Well, if you have a lot of money and friends in high places, you can simply have a neighboring kingdom declare war and throw in an army as a little feint, before strong-arming your way through. But what if you’re only one not that rich, for the time being single but distractingly attractive, exceedingly talented mage apprentice with a thing for feet? And the only backup you have is an old-fashioned spy dude with a heavy case of white man’s guilt, and a seniors' reading club on speed dial?

Ah, did I mention there’s a time limit? Three—excuse me, a little over two days now.

Well, Sephram’s off to a start, of sorts.

He happens to have what Hume wanted: a map of the Sultan’s palace.

Not the blueprint, but a floor plan commissioned by a queen consort two centuries back. There were two copies made at the time, one of them left as a reward for the artist, and it ended up passed down to the artist’s nephew’s grandson’s cousin’s mother-in-law’s second daughter’s youngest son’s scribe apprentice, who sold it to us for a lipstick print produced by yours truly. On a card, not his face.

Dear Lord, the things I must do for the good of this planet.

The map roll is so big, it covers our whole living room table, with a good quarter of it left over on the floor. The whole wide surface from corner to corner is full of hair-thin lines, rectangles, triangles, and itty-bitty names of places written in an ancient alphabet. I don't even want to imagine how long it took to draw that thing. And the guy made two of them?

After our Zoom session with Master Endol, Sephram has spent the dimming hours of the evening absorbed in quiet study of said map.

As you might think, there isn't a big red marker there saying, “this way to the ancient vault of godly weapons.” Anything remotely important is unlableled, or given false names to mislead dishonest map-owners. You have to look at the layout itself, the style of the architecture. Newer additions follow the building procedures of their time and can be identified with the help of a pile of reference books. We need to somehow find the parts of the palace that are visibly different and older than the rest and which could be connected to the ruins on top of which the whole shit was built. And it's only after we know where we're going that we can figure out the best way there.

If only we knew how to get through the walls first.

I offer Sephram my strong emotional support—sitting quietly, out of the way. Let me tell you, I understand as much about floor plans as I understand curling. What is ‘curled’ there, anyway? And what’s the deal with the brooms? Isn’t it just fucking pétanque, but on ice? They really struggled to pad out the winter Olympics, didn't they?

Sometimes, I throw in my two cents, just to seem relevant.

“I don’t want to say it, but I’m going to say it: sewers.”

Knowing how the town smells above the surface, I’m not too keen to find out how it’s under the surface, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

Sephram raises his face to look at me. “The palace is over a thousand years old. It’s not connected to any sewer lines.”

“Huh? It’s not?”

“No?”

“Then where does the Sultan poop?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yikes. I hope our visit there won’t take all day, ‘cos otherwise I might need to.”

“And I don’t want to hear another word.”

A shocker, I know, but it’s not only rosebuds that come out of this ass.

Sephram feigns disinterest and goes back to staring at the squiggles.

“Which brings me to my next proposal,” I continue. “The back door.”

The guy frowns at me again. “Why does the back door come only after the sewers?”

Does he intend to get anal about every little thing today?

“Because I only thought about it just now?” I answer. “I think it's perfectly natural continuation to the topic.”

“Wouldn't you normally consider a secondary entrance before anything else?”

“Look, I don’t know about you, but I'm not that thrilled with the back door. Not if there’s any other opening available. There are times when you start to feel adventurous, but take my word for it, it’s not always worth it. Things can turn unexpectedly messy.”

Sephram squints his eyes into narrow lines. “Please tell me you’re still talking about the palace.”

“Uh-oh! Somebody here has a dirty mind.”

“You’re the last person on the planet I want to hear that from!”

“By the way, I was totally talking about the sexual meaning.”

“Why are you even telling me?” Sephram loses his temper. “That’s it, no more going to the clubs for you! They’re a bad influence, clearly!”

“It’s all for the mission,” I piously answer. “Know your enemy, their operations—you’ve taught me so well, my Master.”

“Now you act like a student?”

“Remind me again, what were we talking about?”

“There are no other entry points,” Sephram taps at the map. “The main gate is the only way in and out of the royal district, unless you can fly.”

I raise a brow. “Isn’t that terrible design? What about fire safety? What if a maid—say, drops a candle and sets a carpet on fire? Panic mounts, everybody rushes out…only to get stuck at the same exit, and then they all die a slow, painful death. Which could’ve been easily avoided by following proper building guidelines.”

“The royal district is mostly constructed of marble and sandstone,” he informs me. “It doesn’t burn very well.”

“That’s what they’d want you to think.”

Does it smell like foreshadowing here, or is it just me? Wink-wink.

“It’s possible there exist unmarked hidden passages past the wall,” Sephram continues. “But because they’re not marked, we can’t tell where they are. Because they wouldn’t be hidden anymore, if they were. And if no one has managed to find even one in the centuries the palace has been there, we have very little hope of uncovering it in the mere two days we have left. I wouldn’t call the search for such a good investment of our time.”

“Okay. So if there’s no way around it, we simply go over the wall.”

My suggestion is received with another blank stare.

“...How?”

“What do you mean how?” I'm astonished by his lack of imagination. “Come on, you’re the spy here! Don’t tell me you’ve never seen this before? We get a really long, light rope and tie it to an arrow. Then we shoot the arrow over the wall, wait ‘til it gets stuck on a convenient edge, and then climb the rope under the cover of the night. Or, alternatively, you shoot the arrow from a nearby rooftop that's taller than the wall, and just slide right over. That’s way cooler, and doesn’t require half as much muscles. Yeah, we should go with that.”

Somehow, I’m not selling the plan.

“A convenient edge?” Sephram comments, looking like he very much wants to give me a slap.

“You’ve heard me.”

“The wall is almost seven fathoms tall.”

“Yes? And?”

“What about all the guards on the wall? You want them to pull you up?”

“I said, we’ll do it at night, when they can’t see so well! Time it between their rounds!”

“Have you ever tried that before? Tie a rope to an arrow, shoot it over a wall? ‘Wait till it ‘gets stuck’? See if that can hold your weight?”

“Well, no,” I have to admit.

“Want to give it a try now?” Sephram proposes. “I have rope. I believe I can arrange for a bow as well. You can practice on our rooftop. It’s barely half the height we’re talking about, plenty of footholds along the way. A lot easier. Excellent for building experience.”

“Nah, on a second thought, I think I’ll pass.”

I didn’t think I’d have to put personal effort into this.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“No, really, you should try it,” he eggs me on. “Go on. And don’t come back until you’ve done it at least five times, okay? Only then shall I put my faith in your plan.”

“I’m not—I’m not going to do that.”

“Are you sure? If you can make it work, I promise I will call you the master from today on.”

“Really? You will?”

“Absolutely. A knight’s word of honor.”

“Come on, I’m not falling for that crap. I’m not Lieselot.”

“Gods damn it, Zero.”

Like this, we continue to spitball ideas late into night and then retire for a few hours of reluctant rest. This brain-twister isn’t that easily cracked, it seems. If it were, our opponents wouldn’t have bothered to start a war to settle it. Hiring any old burglar would’ve done the job. In fact, thieves would’ve emptied the Sultan’s coffers hundreds of years before we even got here.

But it’s not a bank from Duckburg we’re trying to bust into. It’s a stronghold hailed as impenetrable for a millennium.

And the clock, the clock's ticking.

2 : 270 : 11 : 31 : 10

I lean against the backrest and turn my chin up.

Through the glazed roof above I see the clean blue sky above the Cradle, without one stray cloud to spot it. I close my eyes and listen to the fountain’s quiet, melodic burble behind my back, a sound that remains unchanged after untold eons. I breathe in deep the clean, cool, fresh air that's a little unhealthily low on oxygen, and then heave out a sigh.

I've come to like this place.

When you sit on the highest floor of the tallest artificial structure on the planet, if we discount the Heaven’s Pillars—it helps put things into perspective.

It'd be an understatement to say it makes you feel small. Whenever I stare at the timeless, judiciously artful hall of crystal, metal, and marble that archs around the fountain, I experience firm companionship with dust particles and tardigrades. But at the same time, mysteriously, any earthly problem I may have will start seem just as small.

Not worthy fussing about.

Coming to terms with your mortality can be a weirdly liberating feeling. Consoling. Like, it may bother you so much right now, but in another ten years, no one will remember that awful hit song that haunts you every time you go shopping or open the radio. It happened to Macarena. It happened to Gagnam Style. What Does the Fox Say. They'll simply fade away, buried in the waves of late night radio. Time—time will go on. What a relief!

But sometimes, even this lofty view doesn't help, and I can’t help but be bothered.

Unable to deal with this anxious feeling, I ask aloud the question I’ve always wanted to ask a real hero:

“—Do you ever get afraid?”

Seated next to me on the bench by the fountain, the legendary hero of the Dominion and my fellow bookclubber, Giolgnam An Duí Sar-Tarentum, turns his starry gaze my way.

“What does it mean, to be afraid?” he asks back.

It’s not a rhetorical question, to set up insightful dialogue.

By the clueless look on his handsome face, I can tell he honestly doesn’t have a clue. It’s like the whole feeling is completely alien to him.

I make an effort to explain myself.

“It’s like, you have something super important you have to do. And you have a rough idea how to do it too. But you know there are so many ways it can all go to hell, you have to ask yourself if it’s even worth getting started in the first place. Or, if it wouldn’t be better if you just…didn’t. Because if you make even one small mistake somewhere down the line, it means many, many people are going to suffer terribly, and probably die in agony, and the life that you loved can never be the same again. So, if the worst thing that can happen is worse than what happens if you do nothing, then wouldn’t it only be insane to get involved at all? I’m sure nobody at Disney ever asked that question even once in the past ten years.”

I just spilled it all out.

Ah, sometimes it feels good just to get it off your chest.

But despite how many books and songs mortal hands have written about this particular, particularly complex subject, Giolgnam doesn’t mull over it for long. His reply comes in less than two seconds, together with a smile,

“Isn’t that the best part about living?”

“Huh?”

“Not knowing what is going to happen. The thrill of staking what is dear to you for glory and purpose.”

I can’t even guess how many candles this guy puts in his birthday cake, but the smile he has is no different from that of any young human boy, when he thinks what he's going to do after school.

“What you have stumbled upon, my friend, is the core of adventure,” he says. “It’s not something you should be afraid of. Embrace it with open arms, and be glad. When you live as long as I have, you’ll find those precious moments grow painfully sparse and fleeting. They get ever harder and harder to find. So appreciate them when you have them. Thank the stars for bestowing you the chance to agonize over them and find a new side of yourself. That there is the flavor of being alive.”

Listening to Giolgnam's confident words, even I start to feel a little braver, like it’s actually a good thing to be scared shitless. I mean, to have situations that can scare you. Adventures, as you might call them. Maybe I am lucky, to get into big pinches as often as I do? I never thought about it that way before.

But then the shadow of doubt sneaks into my heart again and turns my smile wry.

“But...if you fail, people are going to suffer.”

It gets a little difficult to embrace the adventure, knowing that side of the story. I mean, it’d be a bit weird to treat the existential peril and suffering of others as only casual entertainment for you, to enrichen your days. There may be sort of screwy undertones. Or is that just me?

But, as always, Giolgnam has an answer ready

Comes with immortality. You have the time to think about things, and find the answers that you like.

His smile unclouded, bright gaze free of doubt, the emiri hero looks back at me and says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world,

“Then don’t.”

6 : 235 : 19 : 52 : 14

I make up my mind at around four in the morning. It's still dark but it can't wait. The time is running out and the sooner we get the bothersome part out of the way the better.

I get up quietly from my carpet bed in the corner and tiptoe to the door of bedroom, where Sephram’s still sound asleep. His breathing is steady, brain in the REM stage, consciousness dispersed upon the clouds of dreaming. You wouldn’t think anyone could sleep in a situation this desperate, but he’s trained to tap out at will. Being able to rest whenever you have the chance to is a vital skill for a warrior. Hard to save the world if you can't even take care of yourself.

I go in and climb onto the bed to straddle his sleeping figure.

As you'd expect, that wakes him up. What a slow reaction. What if I were an assassin? He'd be dead already. Or is he so skilled, he only reacts to genuine killing intent? Or, maybe I’m just that good at sneaking? Yeah, has to be it.

“Huh…?” Sephram squints at me in the dark. “What are you doing?”

“Hi. I changed my mind about spooning.”

“What?”

“Gotta throw the shippers a bone, you know. Our view count is pathetic. Dungeon core stories are wiping the floor with us. We have to take extra spicy measures to turn this around, or I’m going to have to kiss goodbye to that movie deal.”

“For all that is holy, Zero!” he groans. “It’s not even four yet! I’m not mentally ready to deal with your madness. What do you want?”

I'm impressed by the accuracy of his innate sense of time. But that's really the only thing I'm impressed by.

“You have a hot chick with animal ears sitting in your bed; this isn't the part where men normally ask questions. Are you actually gay, or what?”

“Oh, pardon me, but I prefer humans in my bed, as a rule. And truthfully, at this hour, I find you mostly only unsettling!”

“Gods, if I weren't mentally hardened by a traumatic childhood, my self-esteem would be in a million pieces now. Then again, if you actually tried anything, I'd flatten your nuts. But I'd respect the sentiment.”

Sephram exhales a long, weary sigh and rubs his tired eyes.

“So, in the end, was there any real reason I had to have this jumpscare in the middle of the night?”

Seeing as he's starting to get annoyed for real, I see it wisest to move to business.

“I know how we’re going to get into the palace.”

“What...?”

“Today.”

“How?”

I’m not proud of this plan.

I’m fully aware the plan sucks.

I wouldn’t ask anyone I know to try it, never mind try it myself. The odds of success are positively abysmal.

But sometimes, you have to get a little adventurous, if you want progress. Desperate times, desperate measures.

I lean down close, look Sephram in the eye, and put the message as clearly as I can:

“The same way as in any healthy Catholic relationship: unprotected through the front door—with no chance to abort.”