by J J Moriarty
The long fall felt very short as he fell, and when it ended, the river greeted him like an old friend.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Hyzou was hurt. He was hurt so badly that the pain forced him from his Qi. The impact with the water shattered the bones in two of his toes and running up his right foot. It dislocated his right shoulder and opened up the wound in his chest as wide as it could go, blood spurting out among the water. It tore the first layer of skin right off his face, his hands, his legs, his chest. It winded him brutally and he was left gasping for air even after he had submerged. As his surroundings became a dizzy haze, Hyzou could tell that he had been concussed. Badly.
You need to get out of here. Hyzou thought.
The voice came from some part of his mind that remembered why he had jumped. The metallic water tasted awfully (although Hyzou had a suspicion that some of that was his own blood). It was cold too, and his clothes were weighing him down.
Hyzou began to kick like a madman. He scrambled through the water to the silty shore. There, some angry crabs awaited him. He pulled himself along the water’s edge, then reached a series of rocks. He rested his shaking arms on a large boulder, which began to shake too. Hyzou realised he didn’t know where he was. He looked up. While he had been gaining his bearings in the water the river had carried him past the city main. It had even carried him past the making and doing part of the city. Hyzou was in the slums, or the beginning of it anyway.
Safia needs to know I’m safe. We need to kill Kinzonzi. Hyzou thought.
Shivering all over, Hyzou heaved with all his strength, pulling his wet and wounded body from the water. He got to his feet, barely conscious, and began to walk.
He climbed the rocks at the shore, and then reached the series of tiny huts and urchins sleeping in the open air that made up the slums. He felt exhaustion set in but knew he needed to keep moving. For one, Safia would, if she didn’t hear from him, presume he was dead and start the fire.
The Bodyguard also thought he had committed suicide. He would send men along the coast to search for his body. Perhaps an urchin might mention how they had spotted a bloody and broken man limp from the water around dusk. Hyzou couldn’t be anywhere near where he had left the water when they came around.
So he kept walking.
There was nary a torch in the slums, and as night fell Hyzou had to own his envy to find a way to get around amidst the crowds. It was a dangerous slum, and Hyzou saw more than a few blades brandished as he walked among the city’s poorest. Once or twice, someone would come forward looking to steal from him, to take his cloak, or his boots. Hyzou just brushed them off to avoid making a scene.
Hyzou strove ever further northwards, finally leaving the slums behind him by the time darkness had fallen in its entirety. He moved because he had to. Always walking, though he wanted nothing more than to sleep. Still he strode, step after plodding step. He covered himself up in his wet clothes and walked through streets both empty and full, passing through crowds and wide-open spaces. It took three uneventful hours, but he reached the main city of CaSu, the place where all the aristocrats lived.
Hyzou had been worried about how he would manage to enter the city. A lot of the gates were usually shut after dark. But he came upon an image of chaos before him. The gigantic main gates were open, and soldiers streamed out of the city. They were search parties, sent to look for answers in the city itself. A gigantic torch lit them as they passed out of the gate, and the light of the fire flickered in their eyes.
They’ll have the same thing inside the city. Hyzou thought.
That meant that he wouldn’t just be able to return to the Daborah estate. Not through the front gates, anyway. The Bodyguard had sent soldiers looking for him.
The open gates were causing consternation, with crowds rushing inside and outside for free. Hyzou slipped into the city simply by stepping among the crowds, and no one looked twice at him.
Inside, the city main was alive as if it were mid-morning. People were running and screaming down the streets claiming that Kinzonzi had been assassinated. Others were screaming that he was still alive. Priests were praying on every corner, and men belonging to each of the twenty-six families were moving around the streets, either restoring order or growing the chaos depending on their orders. Hyzou passed several dead bodies. Some armed men were lying dead in the gutters, stabbed in the occasional brawl that would break out among the chaos. Others were just commoners or slaves that had ended up getting caught in the melees. Even those who were just outside to watch the electric atmosphere that was swallowing the city weren’t safe. Hyzou passed several people who were seriously injured after having been trampled in the rush.
After all his time spent memorising, Hyzou had no problem finding the Sfaza estate. Just a few hundred feet from the building whose roof looked like a palm tree. Outside the front entrance were forty or so mercenaries standing together with shields and curved blades.
Shumur expected this. Hyzou thought.
He walked to the back of the estate, where the wall of the estate had weathered over the years. There was no one around looking at him, Hyzou could sense it, so he leaped and using one weathered hole in the wall he kicked up and over to the other side.
It took some adjusting. Everything in the garden he landed in was small. Then Hyzou realised that he’d landed in the daughter’s palace, where all the Daborah daughters lived.
This garden must be for toddlers. Hyzou thought.
He wanted to get to a surgeon as soon as possible, but this garden was walled in on each side. On either side the wall was short, and he could jump it without any climbing. But directly before him a building grew tall into the sky. Hyzou realised he was looking at the daughter’s palace from another side.
What to do. Hyzou thought.
He’d climb to the roof of the palace. That would give him a good view of what was below him. Hyzou didn’t know whether The Bodyguard had sent a search party into the Daborah estate. The only way he’d find out was by looking. He couldn’t just jump out of the garden, as he may be seen by a squad of mercenaries.
Hyzou sighed, and he began to climb the palace wall. There were plenty of windows, all were designed ornately and with little sculptures between some of them. This made it easy for Hyzou to climb.
He climbed past shuttered window after shuttered window, one after another, until he had reached the highest floor in the palace. The most opulent of all the windows lay unshuttered and open to the night air. Hyzou just needed to slip past it and he’d be on the roof, and to do it quickly enough that whoever was inside didn’t see him.
Like an ape, Hyzou climbed quickly past the window.
He nearly let go with the shock.
What did I just see? Hyzou thought.
He shuffled back for another look; and then again and again.
There are some things so alien to a human that he imagines he’s going mad rather than believe them to be true. What he saw through the window had that effect on Hyzou, and with gross disbelief he had to keep checking back to see if what he was watching was real.
Perhaps there’s another explanation. Hyzou thought.
But really, he knew there wasn’t. The opulent window to the biggest room in the daughter’s palace belonged to Marrea Min Daborah. She wasn’t alone. Shumur was with her. Both father and daughter were naked.
Hyzou felt bile rising in his throat and found himself begin to wretch.
You have to get out of here, Shumur might see you. Hyzou thought.
He scrambled the rest of the way up onto the roof and looked around. He barely even managed to register that the Daborah estate was quiet, and none of Kinzonzi’s agents were present looking for him. Hyzou found it nearly impossible to think of anything, in fact. He felt like he’d just taken a heavy blow to the head, and he couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d seen.
You have a job to do. Hyzou thought.
His stomach emptied on the roof of the daughter’s hous
e.
He leaped and landed in a heap on the ground just in front of the daughter’s house. He got up and started to limp towards the guesthouse. He still couldn’t think of anything but what he’d just seen. But he kept walking, mainly because he didn’t know what else to do.
Wounded, witless and shocked, Hyzou stopped upon occasion. He leaned against trees, catching his breath. The horrific scene played itself over and over again in his mind.
Finally, Hyzou reached the guesthouses. He felt drunk with the exhaustion and pain, so he was almost inside when he realised that the door to Safia’s guesthouse was wide open.
Slowly, Hyzou creeped over to a spot from which he could see her door. Her room was completely in darkness. He couldn’t see her anywhere. Panic rising, Hyzou limped up to her doorframe.
Once there, Hyzou couldn’t see her, but he could hear her. Sobbing was too calm a word for the noise, these were the kind of screams you hear from a small animal caught in a painful trap.
Then everything became clear for Hyzou. He understood Safia like he’d never understood her before. He understood that Marrea wasn’t the first daughter that Shumur Min Daborah had loved in that manner before.
Hyzou didn’t know what to do, but he knew that he needed to tell her what he’d realised. To tell her that he was sorry, and to tell her that it would ok. He realised how brave Safia had been to return to CaSu, and without complaint too. She had done it because it was her duty, and it must have torn her apart. He needed to comfort her.
Hyzou stepped into her guesthouse. It was dark in here, but not so dark that he couldn’t see. Hyzou owned his envy, and all his surroundings came alive in the orange light.
Why didn’t I do this before? Hyzou wondered.
Maybe he was too tired. Too sore.
Hyzou could see every detail of the guesthouse room. It stopped him dead.
Some broken pieces of chalk lay on the floor. They had been used by Safia to scribble on the walls. And not just scribble. She had, in what looked like a blinding rage, covered the entirety of her walls in angry marks from the chalk. It was nonsense, there was no meaning, they were just mad slashes, the way a child might play with a toy sword. But looking at the markings, Hyzou was awed to inaction.
They were the mad marks of a turbulent subconscious, but to Hyzou they were more beautiful than any sculpture he had seen before in his life. Where a sculpture formed an image of a real world object, person, or god; these scribbles seemed to be nothing more than a scream. The unchecked noise of a tortured animal.
Safia was in the corner of the room. She was facing the corner too, down upon her knees just staring at where both walls met. She cried and cried. Her back was to Hyzou, and she was topless.
Her back was bleeding badly. A bunch of cuts marked her shoulders, some long and some short. They followed a line down to the small of her back. Some of the cuts were new, made tonight and still bleeding. Others were old, scabbed over and fading to grey. Others were so old that they had faded to nothing but a misshapen bump in the skin.
Hyzou was about to rush forwards to embrace her. He wanted to care for her, to clean her cuts, to dry her tears. But he didn’t; he just stood still, his soul cleaved in half by the sight before him.
Finally, he turned and left the room.
He walked to the entrance of his own room, then coughed loudly, kicked the walls a few times. He heard Safia stop crying, and scurry across her room.
“Safia”, Hyzou said.
“Don’t come in!” Safia said.
Hyzou was surprised by how calm her voice was. She spoke as if she was just mildly inconvenienced.
“I just wanted you to know that I survived”, Hyzou said.
“That’s… That’s good. Did Kinzonzi?” Safia said.
“Survive? I killed a decoy of his”, Hyzou said.
“Oh, well that’s unfortunate”, Safia said. “What now?”
“I need a surgeon. I’ll speak to you soon, by then I’ll have a plan”, Hyzou said. “I’ll come up with it.”
“Are you ok?” Safia said.
She came out of her room. She was wearing a heavy cloak, and her eyes were a little red, but Hyzou would have been hard pushed to recognise that she had been either crying or bleeding. She covered up well.
How long has she been hiding this? Hyzou wondered.
“I’m ok”, Hyzou said.
Safia’s eyes widened as she made out Hyzou’s figure in the darkness and saw his wounds.
Safia came over and touched his face, his shoulder.
“You look like you’ve been hurt”, Safia said.
“A surgeon will fix me quickly”, Hyzou said.
“You look like you’ve been really hurt”, Safia said.
“I’ll recover”, Hyzou said.
“The plan didn’t work?” Safia said. “How will we do it now? How can we come up with something special now?”
“The problem is with this decoy. I don’t know where Kinzonzi is”, Hyzou said. “Until I do there’s no point trying to figure out ways to kill him.”
“You’re right. He could be anywhere”, Safia said.
Hyzou shook his head.
“He’s on the Sfaza family estate. There were six hundred Nukhba Guardsmen there tonight, why would they be in the Sfaza family estate if the King of Kings wasn’t. But it’s something else”, Hyzou said.
“What’s that?” Safia said.
“The Bodyguard. When he shouted at me, it was like I’d offended him personally. And I think I did. This isn’t a job for him, or even a vocation. He loves Kinzonzi”, Hyzou said.
“What does that mean?” Safia asked.
“We never like to be too far from the things we love”, Hyzou said.
“He’s on the estate”, Safia said.
Hyzou nodded.
“Along with a small army. Unless I know where he is, we won’t be able to kill him. Exactly where he is”, Hyzou said.
“Do you know how we can find that out?” Safia said.
Hyzou began to walk away.
“I’ve lost a lot of blood, so I really need to go to the surgery. But yes, I have an idea. Give me some time to think about it, to work it out, and I’ll have it”, Hyzou said.
“Don’t go far. We’ve a war to prevent”, Safia said.
Hyzou nodded and walked off towards the surgeon.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hyzou stood from the chair, shaking slightly.
“You really must make sure to rest”, the surgeon said.
“I will”, Hyzou lied.
The surgeon handed Hyzou a towel. Hyzou used it to wipe away the blood on his skin.
“You should bathe too”, the surgeon said.
“I will”, Hyzou said.
Hyzou took up a simple tunic and put it on. His skin was puffy and enflamed where it had just been stitched back together. His broken bones were set, dislocated joints fitted back into place. Once dressed, Hyzou left.
Alum was standing by the door on the way out.
“I’ve prepared your false teeth”, he said.
Hyzou stopped for a second. He’d forgotten entirely about the teeth he’d requested. He almost laughed.
“That doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t”, Hyzou said.
“So you don’t want them?” Alum asked.
Hyzou shook his head.
“Ok then. I sent word on to the Patriarch. That you were here. He’ll meet you in the feast hall”, Alum said. “Are you sure you don’t want some beer? It may numb some of that pain.”
“I need to think”, Hyzou said.
Alum bowed.
“Very well. I wish you well Duck”, Alum said.
Hyzou left him. His broken toes throbbed as he limped along the flowery paths of the Daborah estate. Dawn would come soon, but Hyzou could hear that outside the tall walls of the estate the city was still awake after the assassination. A restless night indeed.
The feast hall was blanketed in a dark silence when Hyzou stepped insi
de. Safia was sat at one long table, her expression one of mute silence. At the head of another table was Shumur. There wasn’t noise between them.
“Hyzou. Good to see you”, Shumur said. “Are you hurt?”
“We don’t have a lot of time”, Hyzou said.
“What happened in the Sfaza estate?” Shumur asked.
“There was a decoy there, instead of Kinzonzi”, Hyzou said.
Shumur’s eyes widened.
“Then all we’ve done is shown The Bodyguard that someone wants Kinzonzi dead”, Shumur said.
“Exactly. And The Bodyguard knows just how skilled I am. Kinzonzi will be very well guarded and very well hidden”, Hyzou said.
Shumur sighed.
“You won’t get your chance to kill him before they’ve moved against the priests”, Shumur said.
“I will. I’ll get one other chance”, Hyzou said.
Safia snapped to attention.
“But you don’t know where he is”, Safia said.
“I can find him. But, Shumur, I need your absolute cooperation”, Hyzou said.
“You think you can find him?” Shumur said.
Hyzou nodded.
“Then I’m your ally”, Shumur said.
“The CaSuan Dome. Tell me about it”, Hyzou said.
“It’s just a gigantic hall. Different families have people there, they sit in their own section, discuss things, do politics. The Sfaza family hold the chair at the head of the room and there’s a throne for Kinzonzi to sit”, Shumur said.
“This morning, how many Sfaza family members do you expect to be in the Dome?” Hyzou asked.
“This morning? After the assassination the Dome will be full. After any emergency it always is. I’ll have to be there too”, Shumur said.
“We still have those mercenaries I hired, right?” Hyzou asked.
“Sure, I have them, yes”, Shumur said.
“I want the mercenaries to enter the Dome and slaughter the Sfaza family members there. They’re to bring blades and do that”, Hyzou said.
Shumur’s eyes widened.
“I couldn’t”, Shumur said.