by J J Moriarty
Safia’s eyes widened. Still, she didn’t see it as Hyzou’s open palm crashed into the side of her neck. The blow of vicious, and sent her sprawling in the dirt, gasping for air. In return Hyzou landed a kick into her abdomen. She looked up at him, terror in her eyes.
“It all made sense, once I figured out the clue. You wanted to avoid finding your Qi. You told me you were owning your envy, but you never were”, Hyzou said.
Safia began to gulp down air and moan. Her throat was removing the constriction that Hyzou had forced upon it.
“So this is what we’ll do. An experiment, to try my theory out”, Hyzou said.
She began to scramble to her feet. She was shaking. Hyzou swept forwards and punched her right leg, right in the fleshy part just above her knee. Safia’s legs were swept out from under her, and she collapsed in a heap. She began to scream now.
Hyzou crouched down beside her, grabbed her jaw, and stared into her eyes.
“You will use your Qi, or you will die. So far I’ve only hit you in the places where no lasting damage can be left. Soon I’ll stop doing that. I will break you, then I will kill you”, Hyzou said.
She squirmed and tried to roll away from him. Hyzou drove her into the ground.
“You have one solution”, Hyzou said. “Use your Qi.”
He kicked her in the abdomen again and punched her in the fleshy part of her shoulders. He prepared his left hand, ready to swing it into her cheek. A blow that would certainly break her jaw.
Safia’s right hand shot out and grabbed Hyzou’s fist. Her left closed around his throat. Hyzou grabbed her and tumbled backwards. He kicked off with his legs so that she flew into the air and landed feet away. But she barely noticed, and she snapped back up to her feet in half a second.
The movement, so fluid and so fast, could only have come from someone who had found their Qi. Hyzou raised his arms in surrender.
“I knew it”, Hyzou said. “I knew you could find your Qi.”
“Fuck you. You’re evil”, Safia said.
“I did my duty. I took a vow to teach you. To do that I had to strike you. I’m sorry”, Hyzou said.
Safia’s face softened. She blinked several times.
“That’s why you hit me?” She said.
Hyzou nodded.
“I thought you were going to kill me”, Safia said.
“I would have. If you hadn’t found your Qi. I would have”, Hyzou said.
“Why?” Safia said.
“It’s my duty as a Servant of Qi. I took an oath”, Hyzou said.
“You’re obsessed”, she said.
Hyzou shrugged.
“Well, what now?” Safia said.
She seemed to be calming down a lot. She dropped her fists.
“Tell me. Please Safia. Tell me why you don’t access your Qi”, Hyzou said.
Safia looked around herself, as if searching for the right words on the grassy floor.
“That story. That story you told me, that story that’s always told about owning your envy”, Safia said. “You know the one. You die and you’re offered the chance to live your life all over again.”
Before him, Safia seemed to be shrinking, as she brought her arms in close to herself, and looked at the ground. Hyzou realised she was afraid.
“Yes. You say yes”, Hyzou said.
“I can’t say yes.”
Safia spoke in what was barely a whisper, her voice cracking with her sadness.
“Why?” Hyzou asked.
“When I was younger things happened. I can’t just accept that they should happen to me again. I just can’t. Every time I try I just become so repulsed at the thought of it. I just can’t” , Safia said.
Hyzou breathed deeply, tried to maintain his patience.
Sparrow was right, you are still a child. Hyzou thought.
Somewhere deep inside him he heard a voice screaming at him to comfort her. That she needed him now.
“Your childhood was too brutal for you to accept?” Hyzou whispered.
She was recoiling now. Hyzou must have been showing his disgust on his face.
“I try, Hyzou I try. But every time I try, so much anger wells up in my chest. It burns me, presses against my skull. So much shame and anger, I can barely breathe. You understand, don’t you?” Safia said.
Hyzou stared at her. Deep within him that voice cried out once more, asking him to be kind to her. But it was too late, he snapped.
Hyzou threw his cloak on the ground.
“What are you doing?” She asked.
He then tore off his top.
“Can you see me? Come closer”, Hyzou said.
She stepped towards him. Once she was close enough, she could see his torso. She gasped in horror.
“A creature did this to me. A soulless creature shaped solely to destroy men. At fourteen I was made fight it for the amusement of other men”, Hyzou said.
“So you know then?” Safia said.
Hyzou turned around, showed her his back. This time she gasped even louder.
“The scars from fifty lashes. I received them because I ate a slice of mango. See our master was starving his slaves, probably just for amusement too. I was tied to a pole and whipped fifty times while a group of monsters laughed at me”, Hyzou said.
Hyzou turned back around and walked right up into Safia’s face.
“I’ve seen everyone I love crushed under flaming stone. I saw my home turned to little more than smouldering ash. I saw my betrothed raped and killed. I’ve seen crucifixes as far as the eye can see, all holding my countrymen. Little children prostituted by their Lamyblan masters. I’ve been raped, and beaten near to death, tortured and belittled. Do you think, after that, I’m happy?” Hyzou said.
Safia was shirking away from him.
“No”, Safia said.
“No. I’m not happy, and it’s not even anger that consumes me. It’s hatred. Hatred is a poison that inhibits my every waking thought, I feel it ooze out of my pores when I rest, and it inflects my voice when I speak”, Hyzou said.
Stop. Now. Hyzou thought. Sparrow or Aliya would never be this way with a pupil of theirs.
“Despite that, I can own my envy. That story about the god of death is just a metaphor, an easy way to explain something as complicated as the self. No one will actually make you go through those things again, that’s not the point”, Hyzou said.
“I know that’s not the point…” Safia began.
“When Aliya gave you to me as a pupil I was excited. Her prodigy, and I’d get the chance to finish her work. You told me you had problems and I thought it was even better - I have issues too, who better to work them out. I was going to do anything to teach you. But now I know the truth. Aliya took you on as a pupil because your name was Min Daborah, and she knew you’d be necessary for this mission. You’re no prodigy, you’re not even talented. You’ll never be a Servant of Qi, you’re too weak. Much too weak”, Hyzou said.
Tears were streaming down Safia’s face.
“Goodnight”, Hyzou said.
He took up his cloak and his top and began to make his bed. As he got ready, he could hear Safia sobbing behind him.
As the minutes went by, Hyzou’s anger waned, and other, less empowering feelings rushed in. He remembered a night as starry as this one, when he had been in an overcrowded cart leaving Piquea. He remembered sobbing just as strongly as Safia was now.
Hyzou lay down on the grass and began to drift off. No straw, no blanket, no pillow. Nothing but his growing guilt for company.
CHAPTER EIGHT
An old man, his grey hair tied up in a knot, bowed before a long table. Behind the table, on ornate chairs, sat eight men. The old man, staggering due to the pain in his joints, fell to his knees and kissed the bronze floor.
“Thank you for coming to see us, Gardem.”
The speaker was one of the men sat behind the long table. He was in the middle of the group and dressed the most ornate of any of the eight. He was speaking Lamyblan.
&nb
sp; The old man replied.
“Thank you for having me, Supreme Commander”, Gardem said.
“We’ve been disappointed in your latest petitions. You know those numbers are too low. It just won’t do. These lands haven’t given up anywhere near enough rice”, the Supreme Commander said.
“Please, Supreme Commander, the utmost respect to you, but the land cannot give more. It’s been five years, and a lot of the farmers gave away their seeds to meet last year’s quotas”, Gardem said.
“What are you saying to me?” The Supreme Commander said.
“The quota may not be met”, Gardem said.
“That quota is your tribute. You understand that it must be paid”, the Supreme Commander said.
“Yes, sir, I do. And I do not dispute your wisdom. But I’m here to beg you for leniency. Already, the people of Piquea do not have enough to eat, and they are starving. These new quotas, I’m afraid to say, they will lead to famine”, Gardem said.
The Supreme Commander’s face remained impassive.
“Land only has so many people it can support. It’s not my problem that Piqueans are such prolific breeders”, the Supreme Commander said.
An expression of horror came over Gardem’s face.
“You know. You all know. Know that there will be a famine”, Gardem said. “And you don’t care.”
Gardem seemed shocked.
“The quota will be met”, the Supreme Commander said.
“Once they’re hungry, do you think you’ll be able to keep order in this city? In the countryside?” Gardem shouted.
The Supreme Commander’s face hardened.
“Are you threatening me, Gardem? You are an ally of Pharaoh Ganymedes, I’ll remind you”, the Supreme Commander said.
Gardem teetered on his feet slightly, looking like a man trying to regain composure.
“No. Not a threat, Supreme Commander. But you must agree, the hunger you envision will make ruling Piquea a difficult task”, Gardem said.
“We’ve prepared for that”, the Supreme Commander said.
Gardem’s eyes widened.
“What do you have planned?” Gardem asked.
“This discussion is over. And I will hear no more debate on the quotas”, the Supreme Commander said.
Grey descended over Hyzou’s eyes, and he could see nothing. A voice spoke at his shoulder.
“Do you see?”
“Leave”, Hyzou gasped.
“Did you join my Servants?”
A deep fear settled into Hyzou’s stomach. He began to tear at himself, panic setting into his bloodstream.
“LEAVE”, Hyzou screamed.
“Another nightmare then.”
The grey faded, and another vision played out before him.
Before Hyzou were four huts, built close to one another. Though Hyzou probably had never seen these exact huts, he knew what they were, because he had seen similar set ups everywhere he went. They housed families of people that worked on a plantation. In a grouping too small to even count as a hamlet, the peasants lived together for security. Hyzou had seen places like this all his life, whenever he left Piquea. It was how Piquean farmers lived.
But something was wrong. Very wrong. There was no livestock. No goats tied to a stake outside, no hens pecking at the ground around the huts. Instead, three young children and a man were sat outside.
The youngest child was bawling in pain, and the cries split the air with a mournful tune. All four were shivering, even though it wasn’t cold, and their stretched skin was tight to their skeleton. The man stared with eyes wide open, looking towards something on the horizon that was never coming. Flies buzzed around the children but none of them swatted the insects away.
The children hadn’t been cleaned in weeks, and when Hyzou looked at them, he saw that the two oldest, a boy and a girl, weren’t like children he had seen before. They were, apart from their aggressive shivering, entirely still. No fidgeting, no investigation, no play. Their eyes were dead, no spark; just glassy fixtures reflecting whatever went on outside.
“Stop. Please. Take me from here”, Hyzou said.
“Are you sure? You’ve been here before.”
“Leave and let me go!” Hyzou shouted.
The image before him shifted again. Hyzou saw a tall, beautiful man, standing amidst a valley surrounded by monkeys. He saw a group of tall apes leaving deer carcasses before a roughly carved statue. He saw men, wrapped in grey robes, bowing before the same beautiful man. He saw a naked man and woman lie down in a nest of queensnakes. He saw cities aflame and fields flooded.
“STOP!” Hyzou screamed.
He awoke.
“Hyzou. Hyzou”, Safia said, panic in her voice.
Hyzou looked at her, then realised that he was shaking. He stopped.
“Oh, Hyzou, you’re awake”, Safia said.
Hyzou looked up at her, kneeling over him. Safia reached down and placed her finger on Hyzou’s forehead.
“Hyzou! You’re sick”, she said.
“No”, Hyzou croaked. “It was just a nightmare.”
“You’re on fire”, Safia said. “I couldn’t get you to wake, you were scaring me.”
“I’m scared myself”, Hyzou said.
His face stung, just like different parts of his body, as if he had been bitten by a thousand mosquitos. He tried to sit up, but in doing so he saw his left hand. The nails were red with blood. Hyzou touched the stinging part of his face and winced as he brushed against an open wound.
“You were scratching in your sleep”, Safia said.
“I’m sorry”, Hyzou whispered.
Safia had a cloth in one hand, a flask in the other.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for”, Safia said.
She handed him the flask. Hyzou took a long swig and felt as rice wine burned a path to his stomach.
“I’m sorry about earlier”, Hyzou said.
Safia’s face fell.
“You just said what everyone thinks. I know it’s pathetic - that I can’t find my Qi. But you’re the first person to know why”, Safia said.
“That you can’t own your envy?” Hyzou said.
Safia nodded.
“And instead of comforting you or helping you, I scream at you”, Hyzou said.
“It’s ok, you were right, I can’t complain about my life. What do I have to complain about?” Safia said.
Hyzou shook his head.
“Stupid. It was stupid of me to say that, and I was wrong”, Hyzou said.
Safia’s eyes were watering.
“I just think about how Aliya and Sparrow trained me. They never shouted at me. Never hurt me”, Hyzou said. “I failed as a teacher today.”
“It’s ok”, Safia said.
“It’s not. I was certain that you had your Qi beneath the surface, and I could coax it out with enough pressure. But my duty is to teach, not to bully. I’m sorry”, Hyzou said.
Tears dripped from Safia’s eyes.
“Thanks for saying that”, she said.
“And I’m going nowhere. I’ll be your teacher forever if needs be”, Hyzou said.
Safia nodded and smiled. She didn’t seem to trust her voice.
“You don’t have to forgive me, but just know that I’m sorry”, Hyzou said.
Hyzou handed Safia the flask.
“I understand”, Safia said. “Really, it’s ok. Everything is ok.”
Safia took a drink.
“Can you tell me what it is? The horrible memory?” Hyzou asked.
Panic flitted into Safia’s eyes. Her mouth full of rice wine, she shook her head.
“That’s ok. But it’s strange. Like I said, that story about doing your life over is just that, a story. Saying you’d live your life over isn’t a magic phrase that leads to finding your Qi, and refusing to say it isn’t enough to cut you off from it. Something else is going on with you”, Hyzou said.
Safia’s eyes narrowed.
“What are you saying?” Safia asked.
>
“It’s not as simply explained as you put it, you’re not just choosing not to own your envy. Even by choosing not to own your envy, you are basically owning your envy”, Hyzou said.
“I’m confused”, Safia said.
Hyzou thought for the best way to explain it.
“Finding your Qi requires you to fully understand yourself. You already do that, from what I can see. You can’t just refuse to understand yourself, because to reject that understanding, you must have it in the first place”, Hyzou said.
“So it’s not me that’s causing my problems?” Safia asked.
“No, it is. When I attacked you, you found your Qi. But it wasn’t until I threatened your life that it came out”, Hyzou said.
The relief was clear on Safia’s face.
“You mean…” Safia began.
“It’s not your fault”, Hyzou said.
Safia leaped on him and hugged him tightly.
“Oh Hyzou, you are as good a teacher as Aliya and Sparrow”, Safia said.
Hyzou pulled out of the hug, and looked into Safia’s eyes, just inches from his own. He felt her breath on his face.
“We should go to sleep”, Safia said, looking away from him.
Hyzou sighed.
“Yes. Let’s”, Hyzou said.
Safia returned to her sleeping place.
“And Safia, I’m so sorry. I feel so guilty”, Hyzou said.
“It’s ok Hyzou. Everything’s ok”, Safia said.
“I won’t fail you again”, Hyzou said.
“And I believe you”, Safia said.
It didn’t take Hyzou long to fall asleep. This time there were no nightmares; all he dreamt of was Safia.
CHAPTER NINE
When the road he and Safia rode upon curved at the base of large hill and opened out onto the expanded vista before him, Hyzou was awed.
All around them were mountains, none as giant as the one Uqing was constructed upon, but still insurmountable monstrosities regardless. CaSu had been built in a valley, a giant u-shaped space between the mountains that looked like a god had dragged all the rock out of the way just to make this place hospitable. A humongous river ran through the middle of the valley. The water was a dark brown, approaching black, and it was wider and deeper than anything Hyzou had seen in his life. It thronged with ships of all sizes, carrying cargo along from the depths of the mountains out of the valley. From his learnings as a child, Hyzou knew that this river was the Nehas-Sassam.