The Habit of the Emperor

by J J Moriarty

  He struck them, using all his formidable force, with closed fist and his head. Dust, plaster and brick flew everywhere as Hyzou’s rage grew. He screamed the whole time, as his knuckles were cut, alongside his face, and his blood mingled with Safia’s.

  “Don’t go”, Hyzou sobbed. “Do anything, just don’t leave me. don’t abandon me.”

  He fell to his knees. He could see her clearly now, floating on the water. Her expression was one of peace.

  “I failed you”, Hyzou said.

  He crawled over the wet floor, then reached out and took a hold of her rapidly cooling hand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “I know this place”, Hyzou murmured.

  He looked at the trees that surrounded him.

  Without knowing quite why, Hyzou pulled the reins of his horse and stopped the stallion dead in its tracks. The horse’s stopping kicked up tufts of dead grass.

  Iset passed Hyzou out, then looped around to come back to him.

  “What’s wrong?” Iset asked.

  “I know this place”, Hyzou murmured again.

  “I know you do”, Iset said.

  The trees were thick here, the undergrowth knotted.

  “Have I been here before?” Hyzou asked.

  His voice was cracked and broken from all his crying.

  “Not in person”, Iset said.

  Hyzou recognised it now.

  “The vision. The vision where we’re riding together through a forest. This is it, isn’t it?” Hyzou said.

  Iset nodded.

  “I found the place from your descriptions”, Iset said.

  “So this is the future”, Hyzou said.

  “Come on, we’ll break here and eat something”, Iset said.

  Trust Iset. Hyzou thought.

  He slid off his horse.

  It had become his mantra these days. Trust Iset, because Hyzou sure didn’t trust himself. When he had locked himself away in his chambers, she was the one who had convinced him to come back out. She was the one who had told him that he needed to return to Piquea, as quickly as he could. He could find peace there, find some solace there.

  Hyzou didn’t question it, he just rode out of Lamybla with Iset in the middle of the night, just a day after Safia had died.

  After the stallion was tethered, Hyzou sat down in the grass and pulled his knees up underneath him. Iset sat beside him.

  “What will you have to drink?” Iset asked.

  “I’m not thirsty”, Hyzou said.

  “You have to drink something. Here, take some rice wine”, Iset said.

  She handed Hyzou the flask. Hyzou glowered at her, then placed the flask against his lips. He swallowed half of it in three large gulps.

  “Happy?” Hyzou asked.

  “Ecstatic. Take this”, Iset said.

  It was a small bowl. Hyzou began to take handfuls of the rice inside and place them into his mouth.

  “I’ve to piss”, Iset said. “I’ll be back in a second.”

  Normally Hyzou would have told her not to be so precious, but he wasn’t in the humour for talking much.

  He finished the bowl. He sat where he was and tried not to think.

  Within minutes, twilight descended. A hazy darkness on the small path that

  Twilight? But it’s just after noon. Hyzou thought. Where has the sun gone?

  Hyzou reached up with his hand and touched his face. His lips felt heavy, as did his eyes. He could feel the blood pumping to his brain, the dull throb as it began to slow.

  Slow? Why? Hyzou thought.

  He knew the answer, but he couldn’t think much about anything, his thoughts were too sluggish.

  Hyzou stood, then staggered, unable to keep his balance.

  Poison. Hyzou thought.

  Iset must have failed to screen the food or rice wine properly.

  Hyzou reached down and unsheathed his sword. He staggered out onto the track road.

  He saw them. They were all headed his way, walking slowly. Twenty-five or so men and women, dressed in the grey robes of the Servants of Qi.

  Hyzou looked behind him, at the way he had come into the forest. He could grab the stallion and make a dash for it. Maybe he could reach Lamybla in time.

  He could still run.

  Hyzou turned back to the Servants and charged. Sword down, he ran towards the robed figures. They drew their swords too.

  With a brutal thud, he crashed into the first of the robed assailants. Even drugged, Hyzou had considerable power in his legs, and he sent the Servant flying. When the Servant landed on the road, his neck whiplashed, and the back of his head connected with a loose stone. The Servant’s head split open and spattered across the dirt.

  They fell on Hyzou, a whirl of swords. Hyzou responded in kind, blocking and parrying everything thrown his way. He threw his shoulder into the chest of the fighter to his right, and the face of his enemy came into focus.

  “Sudgata!” Hyzou screamed.

  He was standing there, a focused face full of fury. He wanted to kill Hyzou.

  And Hyzou finally understood who he was fighting. The Archaiers, the ones who had abandoned Uqing when Hyzou seized power.

  Hyzou laughed, a crazed maniacal shriek, as he threw his best blow at Sudgata. Sudgata blocked, but the force of the attack sent Sudgata’s sword into the right side of his face. Sudgata lost his eye and crumpled in screams of pain.

  Hyzou whirled. He could barely use his Qi, and the poison had sapped him of his energy, but he was still laughing like a madman.

  He had failed. As a father, as a brother, as a husband. For all that, he still had one thing left. Not even poison could take away his ability to defend with the sword in his hand.

  So he laughed. He laughed when he cut the legs out from under one of the Archaiers, he laughed when he smashed an enemy’s jaw.

  His legs gave out, an effect of the poison, and Hyzou fell on his back. He leaped up to his feet but had to parry an attack immediately.

  Arisha, an older Archaier who had once been trained by Sparrow, was the one attacking. Hyzou knew all these combinations, all the moves, the open stance and the fast flicks.

  Hyzou fell into the defensive stance Aliya had taught him to use all those years ago in Lamybla. He ducked under Arisha’s lunges and then come back up to grapple with the old man, before pushing himself free.

  The other Archaiers surrounded him, forcing him off the road, onto the uneven and bushy forest floor. Hyzou sensed Iset come up behind him.

  “Iset, run. They’re too strong for you”, Hyzou said.

  He parried two more lunges, and flicked his own counter out, rapping one of the assailants on the knuckles, breaking some fingers in the process. Still, patiently, Arisha came forward as Hyzou stepped properly beneath the foliage.

  Iset hadn’t run. She was behind Hyzou now, sword drawn, ready to fight. Hyzou knew she wasn’t trained well enough.

  “Iset stay behind me! You can’t beat an Archaier!” Hyzou shouted.

  Iset lunged and drove her sword straight into Hyzou’s back.

  The pain of the blow was enough. Hyzou lost the use of his Qi entirely, it was ripped from him and he was forced into reality.

  He didn’t know why, but as waves of agony rolled out from the stab wound in his back, Hyzou knew that even if he did survive, he could never go back. He was like Abe now, the pain did it, he’d lost the use of Qi forever.

  Iset pulled the sword from his back, and he collapsed onto the ground, his head colliding with the earthy ground. He tried to move, but he couldn’t. He just shivered in agony.

  The only thing comparable to it was when he was whipped, fifty lashes as a slave in Lamybla. But even that pain had just been the breaking of his skin. This time, Hyzou could feel that his back was broken, his muscles torn, his innards shredded.

  You’re about to die. Hyzou thought.

  He wouldn’t live to see the nightfall.

  Two arms grabbed Hyzou beneath the shoulders, and another grabb
ed him by his legs, and both lifted him into the air.

  Hyzou bellowed in pain. It didn’t matter, they didn’t care.

  “Leave him here”, Arisha said.

  Hyzou was thrown on the ground. He screamed again. There was no one to hear him. The last time he’d been in this much trouble, his leg broken in CaSu, Safia had rescued him. There was no one anymore.

  “You’re to be tried”, Arisha said. “Tried for your crimes, before we execute you.”

  Hyzou tried to reply, but all he could manage to do was spit up a load of blood.

  “Hyzou of Nuyin, do you deny that you have launched a bloody coup d’etat, which destroyed the procedural integrity of the Servants of Qi?” Arisha said.

  “I saved Uqing”, Hyzou managed in reply.

  There were laughs among the group surrounding Hyzou.

  “Saved it? How many Servants died so you could sate your thirst for power?” Arisha said.

  “They fought for Uqing. I fought for Uqing. Cowards”, Hyzou said.

  “Cowards? Do you think we’re cowards? We’re the ones who have spent two years planning your demise. The others were happy to follow you into butchery. They’re the cowards”, Arisha said.

  “They love me”, Hyzou said.

  “They fear you, Your Majesty. But true, the peasants and slaves do seem to love you. That makes you all the more dangerous. You must be stopped, and we’re the ones to do it. You must pay for your crimes”, Arisha said.

  Hyzou began to cough.

  “Do you deny that you started a war that has seen nearly a million people die?” Arisha said.

  “I didn’t start it”, Hyzou said.

  “Yes, you did”, Arisha said.

  “I’m the hero here!”

  Hyzou shouted it, then descended into a coughing fit.

  “Have you any last words?” Arisha asked.

  “Why, Iset, why?” Hyzou shouted.

  He couldn’t see her, but once he shouted her name she appeared before him. She knelt and took his bloody hand in her own.

  “You killed Menes. I loved him”, Iset said.

  “Vengeance? All this for vengeance?” Hyzou asked.

  The pain was unbearable, and Hyzou was forced to let out a brief, but brutal, shout.

  “Not quite. He was a wonderous man, bred to rule the world. Ganymedes was a brute, but the world Menes and I would have built. You should have seen it. His followers adored him. You have to bully and bribe men into following you, while Menes never had even to ask for loyalty”, Iset said.

  “All this, for fucking vengeance”, Hyzou said.

  “No, Hyzou. You don’t understand. I shall be sure that Menes shall rule again. My son is a lovely boy, and he’ll grow into a great Emperor, with me as his regent. Orman shall be your heir, and I’ll raise him. He shall take one of your daughters as his Queen”, Iset said.

  Hyzou moaned. Using the last of his reserves, Hyzou threw Iset’s hand away.

  “You fool. This gang will kill Hetep, kill Orman, as soon as I’m dead”, Hyzou said.

  “No”, Arisha said. “Our sole purpose is to see you destroyed. We fled once you were elected and joined the Pharaoh, but he was a madman, and he failed to beat you. So we fled the Pharaoh’s side, all twenty five of us. In the wilderness, we made a solemn vow that we would not die until you were dead first. No matter how long it took us, we promised that you would not enjoy the spoils of the destruction you sowed. Exile awaits us now.”

  “Do not worry, the House of Nuyin will outlive you. Our children will rule the world”, Iset said.

  “It doesn’t make sense”, Hyzou whispered. “Why didn’t you let Tsy…”

  Hyzou began to cough again.

  “Let him kill you? Because why would that benefit me? No, it would have left me and my son most disadvantaged. It would have led to a civil war. The throne would have been imperilled. No, I was no friend of Tsy’s. But there was an even deeper reason. See, you needed to trust me. To trust me totally. Because the truth was that even were Tsy to have attempted, he could not have succeeded. You’re too strong for one Archaier to defeat. No, I needed more than twenty of them”, Iset said.

  Hyzou lay back and waited for the blow.

  “You needed to trust me, totally. You needed to give me control of your food, be willing to follow me anywhere, when I asked. I saved you from Tsy, and you gave me all of you”, Iset said.

  “Safia”, Hyzou began.

  “I didn’t factor for that. It’s why I’ve spent so long befriending her these last few months. But, as it happens, her death leaves me in total control over the four children of the House of Nuyin. It leaves me the control of the future”, Iset said.

  “And a beautiful future it will be”, Arisha said. “Now, let’s finish this.”

  He stepped forwards, with his sword ready to loop down on Hyzou’s head.

  Iset raised her hand.

  “Wait, he barely has a minute left”, Iset said.

  Arisha sheathed his sword. Everyone sheathed their swords.

  The final touches of delirium set in. Hyzou began to lose his sight, the poison and the wound together were draining his mind of thought and memory.

  He reached out with his hand, towards Iset’s face, just as he forgot who she was.

  That face, so familiar, hung in Hyzou’s vision.

  Who are you? Hyzou thought. I can’t remember your name.

  From deep within him, the answer came. He remembered her name.

  “Tatka”, Hyzou whispered.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT