The Habit of the Sorcerer

by J J Moriarty

  “Yes, Myirs has that effect. And his looks aren’t deceptive. He really is as dangerous as his appearance would lead you to believe’, The Whisperer said.

  Hyzou could distinguish something that looked like the shape of a human face among the grey and red before him.

  “Are you human?” Hyzou asked.

  Myirs spoke, but his voice was a distant echo, as if it had been shouted through a large ravine.

  “Yes”, Myirs said.

  The man placed his hood back over his head. Hyzou looked away from Myirs, back to The Whisperer.

  “Where’s Abe?” Hyzou asked.

  “I put him to sleep. I don’t have the deft touch of my sister, but I can still send a man to dreams when I want to”, The Whisperer said.

  “I’m frightened”, Hyzou said.

  “Of Myirs?” The Whisperer asked.

  “Of the surgery”, Hyzou said.

  “As well you should be. You’re brave, not stupid”, The Whisperer said.

  “Vo visited me earlier today”, Hyzou said.

  “Did she?” The Whisperer asked.

  “Yes, well, she came to visit Abe, but we ended up alone”, Hyzou said.

  “I didn’t know that”, The Whisperer said.

  “I didn’t know you were coming tonight”, Hyzou said.

  “Nor did I, but I had a whole night with nothing to do. So I decided that tonight was the night”, The Whisperer said.

  “The others, Vo and Abe, they were planning to stay here for a while. How didn’t you meet them?” Hyzou asked.

  The Whisperer shrugged. “It’s coincidence.”

  Hyzou nodded.

  “My sister frightened you?” The Whisperer asked.

  “She said no one has ever survived your surgery before”, Hyzou said.

  “She was right”, The Whisperer said.

  “So I won’t survive”, Hyzou said.

  “You might not. But you’re not like the others”, The Whisperer said.

  “You told the others that too”, Hyzou said.

  The Whisperer laughed.

  “They were all vain fools, chasing glory and power. I spent my time convincing them they weren’t special”, The Whisperer said. “They never listened.”

  “But I’m special?” Hyzou asked sceptically.

  “Very. I know it”, The Whisperer said.

  “Why did you come to Lamybla? If you came to find me, how did you know I’d be here?” Hyzou said.

  “How did you know I came to Lamybla to find you?” The Whisperer asked.

  “Vo said it”, Hyzou said.

  “My sister says far, far, too much”, The Whisperer said.

  “Did you come to Lamybla to find me?” Hyzou asked.

  “I spoke to a relative. The wisest figure in my family. He told me that the boy I was looking for would be in Lamybla. I took his advice”, The Whisperer said.

  “Why were you looking for a boy?” Hyzou said.

  “I am always looking for power. It attracts me like most men are attracted to sex. And you are power. If you survive tonight; it will be you, Hyzou of Nuyin, not the Pharaoh, who will be the most powerful person in Lamybla”, The Whisperer said.

  “That’s a different kind of power”, Hyzou said.

  “They’re all the same”, The Whisperer said.

  Hyzou swallowed heavily.

  “Ok, I’m ready.”

  “Undress”, The Whisperer said.

  Hyzou took off his gown and left it tattered on the floor. He unlaced his sandals and stepped from them. The night was warm, but his skin was alive with goose-bumps.

  “So nervous”, The Whisperer said.

  He ran his finger along Hyzou’s bare chest. Hyzou didn’t speak.

  “Get against the board”, The Whisperer said.

  Hyzou twitched with fear. The Whisperer stood away from him. Hyzou walked to the board and stood with his back to it. He was shaking now.

  The Whisperer clapped loudly. Myirs walked over and began to wrap the chains around Hyzou. They were tight, so tight Hyzou couldn’t move. He’d never been so frightened in his life.

  “It will all be over soon”, The Whisperer said. “One way or another.”

  The tall pale gelding walked over to the table. Hyzou watched him all the while. The Whisperer picked up the blade first, so sharp it didn’t even make a noise as it moved through the air.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Hyzou said, voice breaking.

  The Whisperer ignored him. Hyzou didn’t care now, he began to panic, sucking in air as fast as his lungs would let him. Never getting enough.

  With a quick movement, The Whisperer cut straight through Hyzou’s left eye, straight to the back of it.

  Hyzou howled.

  Before he had even registered the pain, and it was painful, The Whisperer did the same to his right eye. Hyzou was completely blind, both eyes cut from their sockets.

  “STOP STOP STOP! GET ME OUT! STOP! IT HURTS!” Hyzou bellowed. “I WANT TO QUIT.”

  Hyzou, in his panic, found his Qi. He tried to figure out what was happening around him. He strained against and tore at his chains.

  Hyzou sensed the two thin iron needles coming towards him. They were brutally sharp at either end. Hyzou felt as The Whisperer placed one in each ear, then pushed them in. They followed his ear deep into his head, until the sharp ends of the needles met his eardrums and tore right through them.

  Hyzou screamed and screamed, begging for death, because then, at least, the pain would stop. Somewhere, between his hopes for any release from the pain, Hyzou realised that he couldn’t hear his own screams. In fact, he couldn’t hear anything. Hyzou was deaf.

  He tried, desperately, to reach his Qi to find out what was happening. But he just hurt too much. Something entered his nose, like sand, but a little thicker.

  The whistles and the powder. Hyzou thought.

  Compared to the other two sensations this seemed normal and easy, or so he thought. Suddenly the powder expanded within his nostrils, and he recognised the sensation just before it began to sting. He remembered it from the sack of Piquea. It was fire, there was fire inside his nose, burning all the skin inside.

  Perhaps Hyzou screamed, by now he didn’t know. He couldn’t hear, and he couldn’t see, so he didn’t know where he was. A thousand green stars played against the black canvas of his blind eyes. He felt himself slip into madness. A certain nothing, a certain everything. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t hear, he couldn’t smell.

  Then the flames went out, and though the pain lingered, the burning went and allowed him to remember who he was. He prayed to any gods that would listen, begging them for respite from the shocks to his psyche. None came.

  A flask was placed against his lips, and the liquid tipped into his mouth. It began to weigh heavily inside his jaw. Hyzou’s tongue froze, growing very cold.

  The freezing flowed down his throat, and his whole tongue died. He felt it, the entire organ, begin to crumple and rot away into nothing, and each crack in the mass of flesh was living agony. This was the worst pain of all, and each time his tongue disintegrated Hyzou’s mind seemed to spin away from reality, and he literally felt himself go insane with the pain.

  Fingers were run along the back of his neck. Hyzou couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t taste. He couldn’t smell. He could only touch and be touched. Within the darkness he only knew that there was a sharp pain on one side of where his shoulder touched his neck. The pain was sharp, as something broke through the skin and into the bone and sinew beneath. Perhaps Hyzou screamed, he wasn’t very sure.

  It’s the scythe, he’s cutting me with the scythe. Hyzou thought.

  The scythe was in his neck and being dragged along. The sharp iron was cutting into his spine, and Hyzou felt the bone give way under the sharp edge. The scythe was in the centre of his spine.

  Then he felt… nothing.

  He felt nothing. Stripped of his touch, there was no outside world, and with nothing to r
elate it to, as there was no inside world either. Perhaps they were seconds, perhaps they were hours, or perhaps they were units of time incomparable even to gods. In the dark there was no time. In the dark there was no space. In the dark emotion and reason descended into nothing. Everything was nothing.

  Time dragged and dragged ever onwards. Hyzou knew nothing but fear, fear that the pain would return. Everything was dark, and soon Hyzou began to forget things. He forgot what the room looked like first, and the plank against which he was tied. He forgot what Lamybla was, and the colour red. He forgot what it sounded like when a dog barked, or when a priest slapped him for forgetting his scripture. He forgot sight and taste and food and smell. All he knew was the memory of the pain and how he must run from it.

  Although, now that he thought about it, it wasn’t the only thing he remembered.

  Hyzou. My name is Hyzou. Hyzou thought.

  Aside from that, well, he could be anyone. Anywhere. At any time. Boy. Girl. Mother. Brother. Slave. Master. Hyzou could have been any of them, or all. He just couldn’t remember.

  Hyzou. My name is Hyzou. Hyzou thought.

  An insane vision of random light exploded before him in colours he couldn’t see. Hyzou tried to shield himself from the explosion, but the light overcame him.

  Hyzou found himself landed upon an island.

  He had no body, but rather was pure thought, if such a thing could be. The island, too, was not of substance. It was standing suspended in a starless night’s sky. Three hills raised before him. On top of each of the hills was a different figure, and all seemed to have just recognised Hyzou.

  They walked down, their eyes fixated upon him.

  The figure from the hill on the right arrived first. It was a tall king with a large jewelled crown, a feminine face, and some very wise eyes. Long brown hair ran down his back, while garments of the finest silks were slung over his shoulder. The freshest of perfumes emanated on the wind that blew just for this king.

  The king didn’t speak, and nor did Hyzou. Hyzou wasn’t sure if he knew how to. The king just nodded to Hyzou, and proceeded on his way. Behind him, Hyzou heard the king step off the edge of this small island, step out into the night sky.

  The next figure to descend from the hill was on the left. This was a boy. A boy who had never learned to walk. He was an urchin of some sort, spitting and cursing with every word. Filth encrusted every inch of his figure, and the boy had been struck by every disease imaginable. He was limp from polio, scarred from the pox and blind from the measles.

  Hyzou stepped away, as the broken boy in rags shuffled along, and then stepped out into the night sky, following the king.

  The final figure descended, shrouded in dust and light.

  It was only when it got close that Hyzou noticed how strange this creature was. The figure was shaped like a man, but it had no face. Instead, upon his shoulders there rested a void; as black and empty as existence itself.

  “What are you?” Hyzou asked.

  I can speak. Hyzou thought.

  The void didn’t reply. Instead it came straight to Hyzou and wrapped its arms right around him. The embrace was cold, formal, but fascinating. Hyzou’s thought came alive with a tingle, as he tried to break apart the hug so that he could consider the dark face once more.

  But the void pushed him, and he was sent flailing off the island and into the darkness. Into the night sky. He fell for an eternity, he fell for a second.

  When he landed, it was with a horrible crash against the ground. It was dry here, and his whole vision was obscured by a haze of dirty dust. His surroundings were little more than shadows flitting this way and that.

  There was noise however, and Hyzou chose to follow its source. It was a low moan, throbbing through the atmosphere.

  He came upon some company.

  A woman was cut open, her guts spilling out, while a man feasted on them. She giggled the whole time, and lightly tapped his head. The man turned around when he heard Hyzou approach. He had no eyes. Instead, two wooden stakes stared up at Hyzou. At the end of each stake someone had drawn an X in chalk.

  “Want some?” The man asked, holding the woman’s liver up to Hyzou as an offering.

  Hyzou stepped away from them.

  “Suit yourself”, the man said, shrugging.

  He brought the liver to his lips and began tearing thin strips off with his two front teeth, eating as a rabbit would.

  “Oh, that tickles”, the woman exclaimed.

  Hyzou shuddered and kept on walking. He came upon two naked men kissing. Their genitals had been replaced by two snakes. The serpents wound around one another, hissing all the while. Neither man looked at Hyzou, and he just passed on.

  Next came a man sobbing gently. He was on a crucifix, standing upside down. Two jackdaws stood on his feet and pecked off morsels of flesh. The man was in pain, though the birds seemed not to notice his protestations, as they worked their way through the skin.

  “Are you here to drink?”

  Hyzou jumped in fright and looked around. The dust had dissipated somewhat. Before him was a large man with the head of a vole. He was defecating into a well. At the other end of the well were two men and a woman holding tin soup spoons. They took a spoonful of the liquid, swallowed it, then dipped and took some more.

  “Please, it just tastes so bad”, one of the men said.

  “Nutritious though”, the woman said.

  Hyzou shook his head, then kept walking. Silence fell, and it was a long time before he found some company again.

  He came upon a man, holding a knife and dressed in the costume of a hawk. He sang a song while the blood dripped from his blade.

  “I am the surgeon. I am the king’s surgeon. I chop and change and change and chop.”

  Hyzou watched the knife warily, though he knew he had no physical form to stab.

  “Come, come, look upon the king’s surgeon’s work”, the hawk said.

  He stepped aside and revealed a deep trench in the ground. Hyzou stared down at it.

  Each inch of the ground was made up of people and animals, stitched together with the strangest of styles. Arms had replaced legs, horns had been placed on the heads of humans, hands on the heads of bulls. It stretched as far as the eye could see.

  “Are they dead?” Hyzou asked.

  “As dead as you and me”, the hawk sang.

  “Am I dead?” Hyzou asked.

  “I know not, I’m the king’s surgeon. I chop and change and chop and change.”

  Hyzou turned away from the king’s surgeon.

  From among the dust a figure stumbled towards them. It was woman, with eight hands stitched onto her torso, and a javelin protruding from her throat.

  “You’re not supposed to be out of your trench. Oh no, oh no. You’re not supposed to be out of your trench”, the king’s surgeon sang.

  With all eight arms the woman pointed at Hyzou, and she began to scream.

  “This is your fault. Hyzou of Nuyin, this is your fault”, she wailed.

  “I… I’m sorry”, Hyzou said.

  “And why did you do this to us, Hyzou of Nuyin? WHY ARE YOU SO CRUEL?” She shouted.

  “I’m sorry”, Hyzou said.

  But the woman kept lurching, and for the first time in this dusty environ Hyzou felt fear. He sprinted, as far from the king’s surgeons and his curious creations as his non-existent feet would carry him.

  The ground began to ascend. Hyzou was climbing a hill. He had no muscles to tire, no legs to hurt, no lungs to wheeze. Regardless, he seemed to slow while he climbed.

  At the top of the hill, he fell upon a view. He could see for miles and it was the most horrifying view.

  He saw the ocean, or maybe a lake, at the banks of which miles of sand had built up. The sand was thick with bodies, all victims of wars and massacres. Piles and piles of corpses. In the very far distance Hyzou could see a hill, at the top of which the burned-out shell of Piquea smouldered, a lonely tendril of smoke creeping up to the
sky. It would keep rising for eternity.

  Out in the water were tall wooden stakes that found their purchase upon the ground beneath the waves; and someone was impaled upon each one. They swung limply upon the wind. All dead and making no noise. None feeling any pain.

  Beyond the stakes, further out in the water, was the largest animal Hyzou had ever seen. Its tentacles stretched miles in every distance, and the beast’s very breath seemed to shake the world. Its body grew so high that Hyzou couldn’t even see the top.

  “Leviathan”, Hyzou whispered.

  As if in response, the leviathan moved, displacing a large body of water. The tide rushed in, before rushing back to normality, but Hyzou saw it, if only for a second, beneath the waves, near the shore.

  He broke into a run, down the dunes, the sand sliding beneath his feet. He ran between the bodies, stepping wherever he saw clean sand. None were decomposing. Here, there was no time. Nothing rotted away, and nothing grew anew.

  Hyzou ran straight into the water until the waves swept him off his feet. Swimming here worked just as easily as walking. Such things were easier without a body.

  He swam through the green water, towards the kraken, towards the leviathan. Hyzou wasn’t sure if the great animal had an eye, but it didn’t seem to be turned onto him. He swam past the stakes, where the impaled floated on the breeze, and further out again until he was well under the shadow of the leviathan.

  The water here was deep, so Hyzou had to dive to reach the floor of the ocean. He swam and swam, always downwards. There was no need to worry about air around here.

  The ocean’s floor was peaceful, quiet and calm.

  Hyzou wasn’t, because amidst the quiet ground, he saw it. Laying among the muddy stones. It wasn’t as tarnished as the others. A small orange pebble. Hyzou picked it up and rolled it among his fingers.

  He leaned down and gave the pebble a kiss.

  All went dark.

  It wasn’t the dark of despair, nor the dark of insanity, it was simply the darkness of a blind man. There was the silence of the deaf, the speechlessness of the mute, the senselessness of the leper, and the absence of any smell.

  In the dark, Hyzou owned his envy. He recognised that he was Hyzou of Nuyin, and that nothing could change that. He felt it pulsating within him, many times more powerful than he’d ever experienced before.