Chapter I continued...
The vizier pushed his chair back, and lunged towards the intruder. But before his blade made contact, his target had gripped his head close and produced a dagger from the recesses of his cloak, which he thrust into the vizier’s neck. He released his grip, and the body slumped to floor, blood flowing out of the gash and staining the extravagant flooring. The room was silent, with only the sound of a cold breeze passing across the side of the building to be heard. Mehmed stood at the head of the table, visibly angry, and he was the one to break the silence.
The dagger wielded by Hastagebe Kalmak
“How dare you storm in here uninvited, and then insult me further by spilling blood in my court! I am the Sultan!”
“I do not care for your position in this pathetic society of yours,
your majesty,” the old man replied bitterly. “You have no precedence over me.”
“No precedence? I am ruler of this empire, and one word could have you dead! Now, tell me who you are and for what you have come here.”
“As you have shown you are not capable of figuring it out for yourself, I will tell you. I do not have a name, but my master calls me Hastagebe Kalmak.”
“Ha! What kind of a name is that?” Said Halim interrupted. “You might reconsider choosing such a master!” He stopped when he saw Hastagebe glance between his weapon and him.
“May I suggest you do not interrupt me again…You, Sultan, have summoned my master to aid you and your declining lands. I hope you did not forget the words you uttered that awakened my master’s spirit, and allowed him to command you to send a party east.”
As silence once again gripped the room, Said Halim took a step back. He looked towards the Sultan as he waited for his response.
“I expected him to arrive in person, not send a slave to do his bidding. And where is the man I sent in search of your master, Padişah-li-Sallamak?”
Hastagebe grinned through a wrinkled and scarred face at Mehmed’s remark.
“The man you sent is…no longer a man.” He laughed slowly and sadistically. “But that is not of your concern, unlike the state this country. You have allowed your country to slip behind the rest of the powerful nations of this planet, and if you were not the one who had made the pact and sold your soul to my-
our master, I would have already…relieved you of your duty…”
“So you will now be advising me of the decisions that must be made for this nation,” the Sultan said as he sat back down. As he summoned for the body to be removed and a comfortable chair to be brought for Hastagebe Kalmak, the previously tense viziers left around the table relaxed. A eunuch stepped out from the corner of the room carrying a large scroll, which he placed on the table in front of Mehmed V and unravelled, revealing a map of the Ottoman Empire. He bowed to the Sultan and backed away to the corner he had been standing at previously. “Now, where were we?”
A map of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of 1914, including its satellite states
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I apologise for this exceedingly late update and I hope I will manage to make myself get the next one up quicker than this. Thanks to everyone who has continued to wait for this, even after such a long time with no update, and I hope you continue to enjoy it (at least if you enjoyed the previous posts 
).
