The Habit of the Sorcerer

by J J Moriarty

  “No”, Hyzou said.

  Yash hit Hyzou with an open-handed slap.

  “You don’t defy me!” Yash said.

  “Please”, Hyzou said, still struggling. “Please. Not in the morning.”

  “I decide when. I decide where. You know that. Now shut up and show me your back”, Yash said.

  Yash pushed Hyzou to the ground. He reached down and tried to take off Hyzou’s loincloth. Hyzou squirmed and pushed away.

  “Stay still”, Yash hissed.

  A loud noise rang out among the silence. It was the sound of two bronze pans ringing against each other.

  “Everybody up!” Came a slaver’s scream.

  It was the time for training. Yash’s face was livid.

  “Tonight. I’m going to make you regret your defiance. Just you wait and see”, Yash said.

  The slave stood and walked back to his own straw bed, leaving Hyzou alone.

  Hyzou steadied himself, pulled on some tattered robes, then got up for the day.

  When the line for breakfast formed, Hyzou took his place at the very end. There wasn’t much left for him when everyone else was done, but Hyzou knew that thinking about a full bowl just made his hunger pangs even worse. He finished off what he was given and got his khopesh to train.

  Today, he started lucky. The first two training partners gave him nothing worse than two sharp raps against his bones. He blocked everything else. It was a skill he had picked up out of necessity. Attacking was a fruitless pursuit for Hyzou, he was too slow and far too weak. He learned that a much more effective tactic was to use his wooden khopesh to get in the way of his enemy’s swings. Sure, a lot of the time he missed, but if he was lucky and faced ponderous opponents, he didn’t hurt himself too badly.

  By mid-morning his luck ran out. Hyzou was paired with Bee – a giant simpleton who had forged a close friendship with Yash over the last few weeks. Bee had been a bandit and fought like one too. Hyzou didn’t know if Yash had told Bee about his plan to hurt Hyzou later, or whether Bee was so cruel just for the fun of it, but from the first blow, Hyzou knew he was in trouble.

  Bee didn’t charge, he just walked up to Hyzou, calmly waiting for Hyzou to attack, to try something. Hyzou backed away, but there was only so much space he could run away to, the yard was clotted with slaves training. Bee kept walking forwards. Each step slow, each step steady. Hyzou held his wooden khopesh in front of him, ready to block.

  The blow never came. Bee just edged forward, step after step. He came until his nose was almost at Hyzou’s khopesh. Unsure what to do, Hyzou poked the khopesh forward, aiming for one of Bee’s eyes.

  Bee swung his blade in an underhand blow, full of pace and fury, that crashed into Hyzou’s chin. It was a brutal uppercut, and it sent Hyzou flying in the air, knocking the only weapon he had from his hands. He landed on the sand and sunk deep into the soft mixture.

  Bee leaned down and grabbed Hyzou by the arm. Holding Hyzou in his left hand, he began punching Hyzou in the face. Hyzou tried to raise his hands to protect himself. It was useless, he was completely overpowered. Each blow jarred his brain. He could understand less and less each time. His vision began to close in.

  A figure crashed into them. Then another, and another. They were slavers, restraining Bee.

  “You’re not supposed to kill him!” A slaver shouted.

  Hyzou looked around with the one eye that was working. Bringing his hand up, he tenderly touched the skin around his right eye. It had swollen shut.

  Hyzou felt a trickle on his cheek. He followed it with his finger, thinking that it was a tear, but instead found that it came from his ear. Groaning, Hyzou forced himself to his feet. He saw the slashes of red that had dyed the sand below him. They had come from his face.

  Hyzou took a deep breath and tried not to fall over. His head was still dizzy, but he knew that his feet were planted on the ground whatever happened.

  Then he noticed something strange. Looking down Hyzou saw that the slightest of rips had formed in his loincloth.

  As casually as he could, Hyzou reached down and touched the rip. There was something there. Tracing the outline of the object, Hyzou tried to figure out what it was.

  It was a nail, long and of the kind used to fix a man to a crucifix. It must have been beneath the sand and got caught in his loincloth while he was too dizzy to notice.

  Hyzou noticed that Abe was looking at him, and quickly he stopped tracing the nail. Hyzou wondered whether he should try and get rid of it.

  No, because then someone could see you with it, and the slavers would punish you for having a weapon. Get rid of it later. Hyzou thought.

  “Hyzou”, shouted one of the slavers.

  Hyzou turned, as slowly as he could without hurting his head.

  “Yes sir”, Hyzou said, his voice somewhat blurry.

  “Sit down. And keep your mouth shut”, the slaver said.

  Hyzou did as he was ordered and took his spot on a bench. He was grateful for the rest.

  It wasn’t to last. The slavers only let him sit out one of the rounds before making him get up to fight again. He had two more duels before the afternoon’s training was done. In both he was quickly overpowered, but once that had happened the slavers intervened and made Hyzou lie down again. They were worried he would die. Hyzou wasn’t.

  Finally, evening fell, and Hyzou got a drink of water. The water was in a giant basin, enough to give a drink to a herd of cows.

  The slaves lined up to take their fill. Hyzou was last, but he didn’t mind. Water was water no matter who had spat or bathed in it. A slave didn’t complain.

  As he waited while the other slaves spent their time drinking and washing, Hyzou fingered the nail in his loincloth. The texture of the bronze gave him a curious kind of comfort.

  The queue passed. The water looked a delight to Hyzou’s parched throat. The slaver who stood over it, once he saw Hyzou approach, hacked up from the back of his throat and then spat into the liquid.

  Hyzou didn’t care. He drank deeply and he drank long. Come the night, when he was locked in the sweltering cellar, he wouldn’t regret a single drop.

  Hyzou finished his drink, and, keeping his head down, he walked over to the stairs to the cellar. He avoided any eye contact with Abe.

  As he descended the stairs to the cellar, the darkness and the heat grew. But it was silent. All that could be heard was the buzz of the mosquitos that were planning another night’s feast. Normally when descending into the cellar, especially after practice, the place would be filled with noise and song and shouts. Hyzou’s suspicion grew.

  He took the last few steps of the stairs, then opened the door. It creaked into a deathly silence.

  A heavy blow shuddered through his skull, and Hyzou heard pottery breaking. His eyes watered and he fell to his knees. He was kicked, straight into the gut, and it left him winded, squirming on the ground.

  He looked up through the only eye that could see, and saw Yash, with Bee at his shoulder.

  “What do you want?” Hyzou gasped.

  “We’re going to kill you. First though, everyone in this cellar gets a chance to fuck you one last time”, Yash said.

  “Why?” Hyzou asked, trying to see through eyes that were watering from the pain.

  “Because we can”, Bee said.

  Hyzou whimpered.

  Beg, beg, beg you fool, beg. Hyzou thought.

  Yet his mouth stayed shut. Hyzou had had enough of begging. It was all he had done for weeks.

  Bee came over to him and began to strip him of his rags. Hyzou shut his eyes and breathed deeply. He almost did a double take.

  Not now. Hyzou thought. I don’t need a vision now.

  But, as always, Hyzou didn’t choose when they came. A sudden flash of orange, and Bee was no longer in front of him. Or, he was in front of him, but he didn’t look the same. Bee was made of orange. Everything was different shades of orange.

  Hyzou breathed even deeper, and saw that even within Bee’
s figure there were different shades of orange. Bee was brighter where his bones were, and darker where there was blood. Using the light Hyzou could sense everything about Bee.

  Hyzou opened his eyes, and the darkness of the cellar returned, seen through normal sight. Then he closed his eyes, and everything lit up in orange.

  His eyes closed, yet still able to see, Hyzou saw that everything was going slightly slower. Not just Bee, but everything. Yash, the other slaves, the mosquitos buzzing about the cellar.

  It’s exactly as if I’m in a vision. Hyzou thought. But I’m not seeing the future. I’m seeing the present.

  But he couldn’t be. It didn’t make any sense.

  Stop thinking so much. Hyzou thought.

  Hyzou took the nail from his loincloth. Everything now just seemed so clear in his mind, and he was feeling no panic. He was feeling no fear. He just was.

  Hyzou looked up and down the body before him with his eyes closed. He saw how the orange outlined the blood pulsating through Bee’s veins.

  Pick a spot. Hyzou thought.

  The inside of Bee’s thigh seemed to throb particularly strong, as gushes of blood raced just beneath the skin. Everything still seemed so slow.

  Hyzou lunged, driving the point of the nail into the side of Bee’s thigh. Bee screamed. It had pierced his skin. Eye still shut, Hyzou removed the nail to allow blood to stream out.

  Bee swung a fist at Hyzou, and Hyzou didn’t have time to duck. The fist crashed hard into the side of Hyzou’s head and left him sprawling on the filthy floor. The blow seemed to jar him back into reality. Hyzou opened his eye, the orange went, and real colours returned. He turned and looked up at Bee, who was staggering around, grasping at the hole in his leg, a pool of blood forming beneath his feet.

  In seconds, Bee paled and collapsed on the ground.

  Yash rushed Hyzou, landing blow after blow upon him. Hyzou shut his eyes and returned to the orange world.

  He was much better able to defend himself here. Yash was slow, as blotches of orange spread over his skin, telling Hyzou where the next blow was coming from.

  Every time a fist came towards him, Hyzou reacted quickly enough to push it away or dodge it. Mostly. Some landed. The blows still hurt, but Hyzou no longer felt their pain in the same way.

  Still, despite all this, Hyzou could tell he was in trouble. Yash would kill him if Hyzou didn’t act fast.

  Panicking, and eyes still closed, Hyzou aimed his kick straight between Yash’s legs. He connected, but Yash still charged, still swung at him.

  Then Yash stopped. Hyzou struck Yash’s nose as hard as he could and felt it crunch under his fist. Yash howled, but Hyzou rolled away and began to search through the puddle of blood until he found it. The nail.

  Delighted, he lunged at Yash. They clashed like two wild dogs fighting over a mate. Yash, being heavier, knocked Hyzou over and landed on top of him, hands closing around Hyzou’s throat.

  That didn’t matter. With a precision he didn’t know he had, Hyzou stuck the nail straight into Yash’s open eye. Grabbing the back of Yash’s skull, Hyzou pushed the nail as deep into Yash’s head as he could. Yash’s whole body snapped into limpness.

  With difficulty, Hyzou flipped the heavy dead body off him and opened his eyes.

  He glanced over at Bee to make sure he was dead. The pale face and the film of blood that covered the whole cellar told him it was so.

  It’s so quiet. Hyzou thought.

  Hyzou looked up at the others in the cellar. They had slunk back to the wall where they huddled in a group. Hyzou looked down at himself, his body drenched in the blood of his foes. He stood up. The other slaves were all trying their best to stay as far away from him as they could. They didn’t even notice as the blood slowly flowed over their feet.

  Hyzou frowned. Then finally he recognised their faces and understood what was happening.

  He stepped back to the opposite wall and curled up, resting out of sight of everyone else. He slept soundly.

  CHAPTER 9

  Hyzou was sat on the back of a chariot on a summer’s day. His father was bringing him on a trip to the east. They had paid for passage with a group of merchants, who were more than happy to share their costs with the crippled scribe and his two children.

  Mak was jabbering in some foreign tongue with one of the trip’s guards. Hyzou didn’t recognise the language. Hyzou’s little sister was being taught some old nursery rhyme by the cart driver.

  Hyzou had been given a cup of beer and lay out on the back of the cart as the countryside went by. He did nothing but listen to the patter, patter, patter of rain drops. He placed a hand behind his head and sighed his contentment.

  Hyzou awoke to find that blood was falling from the ceiling. Pitter, patter.

  He looked around him. The walls, the roof, the floor, everywhere was covered by the red fluid. He was too.

  Hyzou looked to his left. There lay the two bodies. They were drained and pale, the heat of the cellar slowly setting in a rot, though they’d only been dead for a few hours.

  Hyzou looked to his right. There lay the rest of the slaves. All of them were sleeping in a pile together by the wall – away from Hyzou. They had become bloody too, but they looked nothing like Hyzou. There wasn’t a patch of skin or cloth on him that wasn’t stained a deep, dark red.

  If the master came down now he wouldn’t struggle to figure what had happened. Here were two bodies, here was a pile of people sleeping by the wall, and here was Hyzou drenched in blood. Hyzou stretched his neck as best he could and tried to think through his headache.

  I have two advantages. Hyzou thought.

  For one, no slaver would truly imagine that Hyzou could have killed Bee and Yash. He didn’t even understand how he had manged it either. Just yesterday the guards had to stop Bee from killing him in the yard, and this morning he was standing over their corpses.

  Another advantage were the other slaves who, after seeing the fight, had hidden away in the corner. Perhaps they weren’t scared of him, but they also didn’t understand him, which was pretty much the same thing. Hyzou didn’t know how to turn on whatever power he found last night, but they didn’t know that.

  An idea formed in his head.

  Hyzou picked up a piece of wood that had once held a torch. All the oil had long been burned away. He took it and limped over to the side of the cellar, where a series of copper bars divided the room in two. Pain shot all through his body, so excruciating he could barely think, though think he must. Wincing, Hyzou pulled back the stick, then broke it over the copper bars, causing a loud ringing to run through the cellar. The sleepers awoke with a jolt.

  Hyzou limped over to the dead bodies and put one on top of the other. He stood on top of the pile. The other slaves were looking over at him.

  “I heard the guards talk yesterday. One of us is festering with the pox”, Hyzou said.

  The others looked too tired to understand, but finally Hetep, another Piquean, spoke.

  “The pox? They wouldn’t leave an infected down with the rest of us.”

  “Really? Do you imagine they care if we all die?” Hyzou said.

  “They paid for us, they need us”, Nagyember, a Drascian slave, said.

  Nagyember’s Piquean was broken and inconsistent. He also had the white-hot pride of a Drascian. He was perfect.

  “Is that why they let me slaughter two of their best fighters last night? They’ve left us down here to rot”, Hyzou said in his best imitation of bravado.

  “Slaughter? You got lucky. You’re a whore”, Nagyember said, laughing.

  “Nagyember, do you want us to ignore the smallpox?” Hyzou asked.

  “I don’t understand”, Nagyember said.

  “You’re the one, you have smallpox”, Hyzou said.

  Nagyember began to walk over to Hyzou.

  “Fuck you, I’ll kill you”, Nagyember said.

  The Drascian raised his fists in a fighting stance. Hyzou smiled.

  “Somebody chec
k his tongue for a rash!” Hyzou shouted.

  Orhtep, a blood relative of King Imhotep of Piquea, stepped between Hyzou and Nagyember.

  “Let me see your tongue Nagyember”, Orhtep said.

  Orhtep reached out and tried to touch Nagyember’s mouth. Nagyember grabbed him and landed a punch square on his face, breaking his nose.

  “Fuck off you cock”, Nagyember said.

  “Got something to hide Nagyember?” A slave said.

  Nagyember raised his fists.

  “Fucking find out”, Nagyember said.

  One can always rely upon a Drascian to let pride get in the way of sense. Hyzou thought.

  Hyzou’s spark quickly became a blaze. Three slaves rushed Nagyember, who unleashed a flurry of fists in response. Regardless, the Drascian was bowled over.

  There was a curious tension in the air. All the slaves seemed on edge – perhaps spending the night sleeping in the same room as two butchered bodies and a puddle of blood did that to you. The tension burst the moment the fight started.

  A wave ran through the room. Suddenly, everyone was fighting everyone else, fists and feet flying everywhere. Hyzou joined in, and even landed a punch, but before he knew it was on the receiving end of a beating, blows sinking into his body with a soft oof. For the second time in two days he found himself trying to limit the pain he suffered at the hands of a stronger opponent.

  Whips flashed through the room.

  Their cracks rang out louder than any of the slaves’ screams. There was a loud bark. Hyzou turned to see a pack of hounds run into the room. Hyzou sprung to attention and lay on his back. A large dog came over and began sniffing at him, teeth bared. Then the hound passed on.

  The dogs attacked anyone who wasn’t lying on the ground. They bit into their arms or legs, twisted and brought them to the ground, bones snapping loudly in the small cellar.

  Hyzou looked around. The chaos had thrown the puddle of blood everywhere in the cellar. Everyone was tainted red.

  “What the fuck just happened in here?”

  It was the master, his pox scarred face livid with fury. At his heels was Abe, characteristic frown creasing his face. The master cracked his whip.