by J J Moriarty
Below him, Abe was frowning.
“It’ll do”, Abe said.
“I never knew I could jump so high”, Hyzou said.
“You’ll soon learn you have a lot of abilities Hyzou of Nuyin, that you didn’t think you could ever to aspire to”, Abe said.
Hyzou looked around himself, and retained his deep breath, and with it the Qi.
“Jump to the nearest stake”, Abe said.
Hyzou looked at the one closest to himself. It was eight feet away.
He propelled himself towards it but realised midway that he had overshot the jump. Reaching out, he managed just to get hold of the stake as it flew beneath him. Hyzou crashed into the wood and cried out in pain.
“Up, get up onto it”, Abe bellowed.
Hyzou did as he was told. Abe flung a stone at Hyzou, so he shimmied out of the way, and teetered on the lip of the narrow top of the stake.
“You cannot stumble, if you stumble before the Colossus, it’ll kill you”, Abe said.
Abe flung two more stones, and this time Hyzou didn’t grow imbalanced while trying to avoid them.
“Good, now onto your hands”, Abe said.
Hyzou jumped into the air and landed back down on the stake on his hands. Abe threw some stones at him. One hit him, but Hyzou moved out of the way of the other two by allowing his body to fall over and be held in mid-air, suspended by a strength he never knew he had. He returned to standing position using the same strength.
“Leap from your stake to another, jumping from your hands”, Abe said.
With feet high in the air, Hyzou lowered his shoulders to the top of the stake, then pushed off. He flew through the open air, and then landed on his feet on the nearest stake.
“Good. Now come down”, Abe said.
Hyzou jumped from the stake and landed on the ground without making a noise.
“I never knew I could do that. Any of that”, Hyzou said.
“This, boy, is just the beginning of your rise to powers you never knew possible”, Abe said.
Hyzou smiled.
“That’s something I haven’t seen before. Did you smile often in your old life?” Abe said with a chuckle.
Hyzou grew embarrassed. He shrugged.
“Now back up onto the stakes with you. We’ve got a lot of work to do”, Abe said.
Hyzou jumped back onto them.
He trained on the stakes all morning and through the afternoon, continuing the combat training. Mostly it involved his avoiding objects that Abe threw at him, as well as strange manoeuvres used for avoiding opponents. Finally, Hyzou resting on the one hand, Abe shouted stop.
“Are you tired?” Abe asked.
“I am. Sorry, but I am”, Hyzou said, breathless.
“That’s nothing to be ashamed of”, Abe said. “A final flourish now.”
Hyzou obeyed. He jumped from one stake to another, until he had been on all seven. Next, keeping one hand in the shape of a fist, he jumped from each, but he landed on his feet on one, on his lone hand the next, and so on. After they were done he jumped to the ground.
“You’re a quick learner”, Abe said.
“Can I defeat the Colossus?” Hyzou asked.
Hyzou didn’t mean to blurt it out like that. He found that his voice came out much softer than he had intended when he mentioned the Colossus.
“You can. I truly believe it”, Abe said.
“I don’t know”, Hyzou said.
Abe came over and placed his hand on Hyzou’s shoulder.
“You listen to me. We’ll be friends long after the Pharaoh’s birthday. You will survive the fight. You will win”, Abe said.
Then he hugged Hyzou.
“Thank you”, Hyzou whispered.
“You shall overcome this challenge. You’re the best I’ve ever seen”, Abe said.
Hyzou nodded his thanks.
A voice sounded out across the yard. Though it was nothing more than a whisper, Hyzou heard it clearly.
“I must say, Abe here is very unkind. His description of your abilities is modest”, it said.
Hyzou turned around, saw The Whisperer standing in the yard’s corner.
“I think you don’t understand quite how talented you are. You definitely are the best Abe’s seen”, The Whisperer said. “You’re the best anyone’s ever seen.”
“Thank you”, Hyzou said.
The Whisperer made him uncomfortable and Hyzou didn’t know what else to say.
“It wasn’t a compliment”, The Whisperer said. “A statement of fact.”
“Hyzou”, Abe said. “All of this is nothing more than a distraction. You need to eat and then rest. Tomorrow you may be returning to the master’s yard to train with the other Warriors. I need to show the master what you’ve learned.”
He threw two bronze disks to Hyzou. On the back of them were prints of the face of Pharaoh Ganymedes. Hyzou picked them up and walked back to the house.
“Goodbye Hyzou of Nuyin, I hope we speak soon”, The Whisperer said.
Hyzou bowed to The Whisperer. Then he left Abe and the gelding to their conversation. Abe seemed angry to see The Whisperer.
Abe’s house had a pot and hearth for cooking, but Abe said that they had been installed for a tenant wealthier than he. The old Servant insisted that they eat out like any normal urchin. Abe had his meal delivered from a stall worker every day at noon, but Hyzou had to go buy his.
Right by Abe’s house was a beershop, but snake and rat were the only options. Seeing as he might die someday soon, Hyzou felt that spending his two coins every day on some good meat wouldn’t be a sin he would regret when he was being mauled by a Colossus.
Hyzou’s favourite beershop was two streets over, a gigantic establishment run by a Mujaden family. Inside, the evening crowds were already starting.
The room had a greasy atmosphere. At the dice tables the regular players were throwing down onto the beaten and chipped wood. They were only gambling pittances, but from the look of them, Hyzou guessed that a pittance was a lot.
The daughter of the house looked to Hyzou from behind the bar. She was betrothed to a merchant’s son, or so Hyzou had heard from the other patrons. There were other women too, and Hyzou found his eyes wandering over the surgeons and saleswomen getting their evening meal just like Hyzou. Hyzou hadn’t had much interaction with women in his new life. Not since Hepatica. Hyzou wondered what happened to her.
Hyzou walked up to the bar.
“What’s in the pot today?” Hyzou asked.
“We’ve boiled a fowl, so you’ll get some of that meat with our rice, and for a little extra you’ll get a cup of beer and a cup of berries thrown in”, The daughter of the house said.
Hyzou placed the two disks on the counter.
“That’ll do fine”, She said.
She set off preparing his food. Hyzou sighed.
He began to wonder what the master would make of his new abilities when he trained at the old yard with the rest of the slaves tomorrow. Assuming Abe brought him along, of course.
Despite doing a day of combat training, Hyzou had yet to fight anyone. His confidence in the Qi may be misplaced. The other slaves had been training all this time too. It would look terrible if he had been gone for weeks of special training and he lost his fights to the others. It would make Abe look bad, something Hyzou didn’t want to do. He’d have to stick to what he knew when fighting any of them: the ability to move and dodge.
“Here you go”, The daughter chimed.
She placed a slab of wood on the counter. On this she put a cup of beer, and a smaller cup full of wild berries. Next she tipped over a few spoonfuls of rice, and a few spoonfuls of fowl. They sat nicely in the middle of the tray.
Hyzou didn’t need to be told to take it. Abe may feed him better than the master did, but hunger was still as all invasive as ever. Hyzou took the tray to an empty spot on the bench nearest by the dice tables.
Some of the players were good, very good indeed. The others howeve
r, they seemed to be just content with throwing the dice with whatever force they could muster and praying to whoever would listen for a number high enough to break even.
Hyzou shovelled his food into his mouth while he watched. This was punctured by an occasional sip of beer. The beer was good and thick, made to accompany meals. Drinkers got something else entirely. The players and other assorted patrons nodded to Hyzou, but no one stopped to talk. Hyzou was ok with that, his food tasted just as nice with or without company.
Just beside him, an older man with the hands of a launderer was talking to a woman half his age. His day of work was just ending, hers was just beginning.
His meal finished, Hyzou brought the tray back over to the counter. With a smile and a wave at the daughter of the house he headed back out into the evening air. Hyzou enjoyed the sensation of the rain as he walked through the city’s streets.
Abe’s house was deadly silent.
Or so Hyzou thought when he was standing on the street. Upon approaching, he realised that he could hear voices speaking. Their tone was hushed, their tempo was rushed. They were coming from the garden.
For some reason, a suspicion overcame Hyzou. He had always been paranoid as a child, imagining that his parents were speaking about him whenever they’d whisper, or taking it personally when the priests wouldn’t believe that he’d learned his scripture, and asked him to prove it every week. That familiar feeling settled into Hyzou’s stomach, a dark suspicion that something sinister was occurring.
Hyzou breathed deeply and owned his envy. He felt the now familiar sensation that told him he had found his Qi. He jumped up and grabbing onto a few holds in the house’s cracked exterior, scaled the wall up to the roof. The wattle and daub was strong enough to hold his weight, though some bats and birds were frightened by his stealthy movement across it. Once on the roof, he looked around.
Hyzou found what he was looking for in the garden.
The Whisperer and Abe were speaking. Abe was agitated, The Whisperer leaning against one of the stakes, relaxed.
“- you’ve always, always been like that”, Abe said.
“Careful Abe, I may get the impression you don’t like me”, The Whisperer said.
Abe growled, more agitated than Hyzou had ever seen him before.
“You scare me Sku. You scare me. Why are you still around? Leave me alone!” Abe said.
“Not while the boy’s still in the city. I’m here for him”, The Whisperer said.
“If I thought that boy would bring you around I’d have left him to die at the hands of his other slaves”, Abe said.
“The other slaves wouldn’t have killed him. You know they would only have unleashed the monster within him. You took him away for their safety, not Hyzou’s”, The Whisperer said.
“Why do you want him?” Abe growled.
“Give him to me, and I’ll leave you alone”, The Whisperer said.
“No, because if he escapes, I’ll be the one blamed. You don’t get him”, Abe said.
“You’ve seen his power though, he could do so much more in life than just be torn apart by a Colossus for the Pharaoh’s amusement”, The Whisperer said.
“The Pharaoh’s amusement is my highest priority. It’s my job”, Abe said.
The Whisperer laughed. It was a laugh so light it was barely audible.
“I knew it, and so you’ve finally admitted it. You don’t care about the kid, and you know he’ll die in the fight. Humans can’t kill a Colossus”, The Whisperer said.
Abe scoffed. “I know that humans can’t fight a Colossus. But the Pharaoh demanded an entertaining fight. I told the kid he has a chance. I’m going to train him to run away and dodge. Come the fight, he will spend a half-hour running from the Colossus, and then the animal tears him apart. That’s the kind of entertainment that the Pharaoh values, not the regular shows the master puts together.”
Hyzou gasped. Loudly.
Abe turned, but Hyzou powered off the roof with his legs, backwards out of view. He tumbled, then fell off the roof. He broke his fall, but still, the pain was mind bending.
He got up and brushed the dust from his robes while biting to ignore the pain in his back. He must have opened some of the scars from the whipping, ones he had thought closed for weeks. Hyzou’s eyes watered with the pain.
The treacherous fuck, I was destined to die all along. Hyzou thought.
He swallowed his anger with all the discipline he had. Abe’s front door opened with some weight. The house was empty and dark. Hyzou picked up the bronze dagger Abe used to cut meat. His blood was pumping, his breath coming fast. He threw the knife as hard as he could against the wall. It stayed there, pinned against the brownstone.
Hyzou looked around for something, anything. He found it in a pot resting on the counter. Full to the brim of foul-smelling rice wine. Hyzou took up the whole pot, and slowly brought it to his lips. The liquid was awful, and it ran down his throat like poison.
He took another gulp. Tears escaped from his eyes. Hyzou swallowed his anger with all the discipline he had.
CHAPTER 13
Hyzou looked over the yard. Saw the slavers sitting in the stand. Saw the empty pots that this morning must have held gruel. A shiver ran through his spine, and he felt the desire to run away. Abe looked over at him and tutted his disapproval. Hyzou ignored him and stared at the slaves training in the yard. They had gotten a lot better than when Hyzou had last been here.
Hyzou was drunk. He knew it. Abe knew it too, although it had taken him long enough to find out. He had woken Hyzou and forced him out of bed. Told him that he was going back to the training ground to test some of his skills in combat.
Abe had been drunk himself, so it wasn’t until they were near the yard that he realised that Hyzou’s stagger was even worse than Abe’s own. Abe was not best pleased, but he had already told the master that he was coming.
“Just let me do the talking”, Abe said. “Just get through today and everything will be ok.”
Hyzou ignored him. He opened the gate without waiting for Abe’s approval.
They spotted him, the master and some of the slavers. They took their eyes from the fights that went on in the yard and looked at Hyzou as he entered.
Hyzou stumbled.
The master laughed, his guffaws echoing around the training ground. Everybody stopped fighting. They turned to look at Hyzou swaying in the morning rain.
“Look at this, bitch tits. Just look at this”, the master said. “Abe decides to get himself a butt buddy he can train just by himself. Next time we see our Hyzou, he’s drunk. Well Abe, I don’t think you’re teaching him the right things.”
Abe turned red.
“If you wanted a chicken you could drink with, there’s a brothel just down the road where they’re much prettier than this ugly horse’s dick”, the master said.
“He wasn’t supposed to drink today”, Abe said.
Hyzou growled.
“Oh, and the butt buddy speaks. Well Hyzou, how do you feel about doing a bit of training? Show us some of those special moves that Abe has been training you in? Let’s hope for a better showing today than your last time”, the master said.
“I don’t think that will be necessary”, Abe said. “Hyzou’s in no state to train, he needs to sober up.”
“I’ll duel. I.. I want to duel”, Hyzou said, barely recognising the slurred speech as his own.
Everyone cheered. The master laughed.
“A slave disobeying his master’s order is to be punished by death. This time though, I’d be happy to see you disobey Abe. Come to the centre of the yard and you can fight”, the master said.
Abe came over and grabbed Hyzou’s shoulder before he could move.
“What are you doing?” Abe hissed.
“I’m training with my fabulous brethren of the hope. Just like we discussed”, Hyzou said.
“What? What does that even mean?” Abe asked.
“No idea”, Hyzou said.
&n
bsp; “Hyzou, don’t do this”, Abe said.
Hyzou ignored him. He walked to the centre of the training yard.
“Afret!” The master shouted.
Hyzou recognised him. Afret. A Piquean just like Hyzou.
A slaver passed Hyzou a wooden khopesh. Afret got similar. They faced across from each other in the centre of the yard. Everybody was watching.
“Now, Abe, we get to see what your protégé is capable of”, The master said.
Hyzou stared at his opponent.
“Do you remember, Afret, do you remember…” Hyzou slurred. “Do you remember the time you beat me? Over there, wasn’t it?”
Hyzou pointed over to the spot.
Something began to burn at the back of his throat. He burped gently, and tasted rice wine on his tongue.
“Oh fuck”, Hyzou said.
He keeled over and vomited. Gales of laughter rang out through the training ground.
Afret charged him, and landed blow after blow upon Hyzou. Hyzou took the strikes until they drive him to the ground. Afret backed off.
“Looks like your apprentice is the same bitch tit he always was”, the master shouted.
Using the wooden khopesh, Hyzou slowly got back to his feet.
“You should stay down, or I may be forced to actually hurt you”, Afret said.
“You did once”, Hyzou slurred.
Hyzou breathed deeply and owned his envy. There was but one truth this morning, and that was that Afret was going to suffer.
Afret charged again, and took a wild swing aimed at Hyzou’s head. Hyzou ducked so that the tip of his hairs felt the brush of the wood. Underhand, Hyzou drove his fist into the soft patch of stomach just below Afret’s ribs. Hyzou grabbed his breathless adversary, and swung the khopesh into Afret’s skull twice. Afret’s cheekbone shattered beneath the well-placed blows. Hyzou grabbed Afret’s arm and twisted. Afret screamed, but Hyzou didn’t stop. Hyzou heard the crunch as Afret’s arm bone shattered into several different pieces. Then Hyzou drove his khopesh straight into Afret’s mouth, sending teeth flying into the air with the blow.
He threw Afret on the ground, who began to wail in pain. Hyzou looked around at the shocked faces of the small crowd that had seen it.