The Habit of the Sorcerer Read online

  THE HABIT OF

  THE SORCERER

  BOOK ONE OF THE

  HABIT TRILOGY

  JJ MORIARTY

  Copyright © 2018 JJ Moriarty

  All rights reserved.

  The Habit Trilogy

  The Habit of the Sorcerer

  The Habit of the Kingmaker

  The Habit of the Emperor

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  CHAPTER 1

  A song pierced his dark sleep.

  “Wake, little boy, it’s time to go”, it sang.

  The voice was broken, the accent foreign, the singing terrible.

  “If you don’t wake up, you’ll be dead”, the song continued.

  Well, I don’t want that to happen. Hyzou thought.

  He opened his eyes as well as he could. Hyzou was lying on his stomach on the hard ground. Everywhere around him was ash. There must have been a fire. One that had burned out with him sleeping in the middle of it.

  The voice sounded again, this time not in song.

  “You’ve a new life ahead of you!”

  Hyzou turned his head to where the voice came from and saw a man leering down at him. He groaned.

  A weight was taken off his waist, and Hyzou found himself able to move. He took in a large suck of air, but it was laced with ash. Coughs racked through his painful body.

  Hyzou felt powerful hands underneath his shoulders. They lifted him into the air and set him down upon his feet. Hyzou’s right foot gave way in a shot of pain, and he landed in a heap on the ground. This time, the hands were less pleasant about it. Hyzou was lifted by the scruff of his neck and held there, his feet scrambling for purchase.

  Hyzou’s right leg didn’t seem to work. Large patches of his skin were screaming in pain. His head felt very cloudy.

  Hyzou looked around. He frowned.

  Hyzou wasn’t at home; he was in a strange part of Piquea. He tried to figure out where in the city he was. Around him everything was charred, everything was ash. Hyzou’s head hurt, and he began to wonder how much he had drunk last night.

  Enough to end up passed out someplace strange, then be awoken by the guards? Hyzou thought.

  He’d never drunk that much before, but he’d never had a headache like this before.

  Hyzou tried to speak to the guard, to ask him where he was. Instead of words, a low groan and a lost tooth were all Hyzou could manage to cough up.

  The guard began to move, dragging Hyzou with him.

  Who could I have been drinking with? Hyzou thought.

  These days, only Tabiry.

  Hyzou looked around as much as his sore head would let him but couldn’t see her anywhere. Did he abandon her? Hyzou certainly hoped not. It didn’t bode well for a happy marriage if all it took was a few cups of beer.

  The Breaking of Winter! Last night was the Breaking of Winter, Hyzou thought.

  The night had been the same as every year. There was food; there was beer; there were actors.

  And then there was disaster.

  Hyzou remembered Tabiry leading him hand in hand to a roof, her hair bouncing in the fresh moonlight. There, they were alone in the world, and Hyzou remembered knowing everything about her.

  From there they could see the whole celebration laid out beneath them. Hyzou remembered, as if from the sky, the descent of flaming stone upon the celebration. One glance down at the shattered, burning bodies had told him everything he needed to know. Hyzou’s mother, his father, his sister; all had been down there.

  Hyzou remembered taking Tabiry by the hand and running through the city, searching for a way out. He remembered every possible exit being choked by soldiers; all foreign, all carrying fire.

  He remembered the soldiers running through the crowd swinging spears, daggers and khopesh, striking down men, women and children just the same. He remembered a large wooden beer shop collapsing out onto the alley and Hyzou being caught underneath. Tabiry, no matter how much he begged, refusing to run or hide, holding his hand while he was crushed under the weight of burning rubble.

  Despite the pain in his head, Hyzou looked back over his shoulder. At the end of the small alley was a body, badly scorched by the fire. Still, she was identifiable by the plait that came from her blistered head.

  Hyzou screamed.

  The soldier punched him in the stomach, emptying his body of air, and leaving him writhing in pain. Hyzou fell to the ground.

  The two soldiers began to kick him. Hyzou curled into a ball, but it didn’t do much good, as heavy blows landed everywhere. When they let up, Hyzou was a sobbing, shivering wreck. The soldier pulled him off the ground.

  “Not a word, yes? The next time we geld you”, the soldier said, patting Hyzou down to brush off some of the dust.

  As if to emphasise the threat, the other soldier pulled out a knife. Hyzou nodded; the bronze dagger’s edge was jagged and broken.

  Hyzou’s leg was unworkable, and so he couldn’t walk, but shuffling as best he could he was brought out of the alley with the guidance of the men. Beyond the shaded space, Hyzou could finally see his city. The damage done to Piquea was breath-taking.

  In the distance, the skyline had changed entirely. Half the Temples had disappeared and all that was left in their place was ash. One whole wing of the Palace had collapsed. Smoke was rising, and the city was just one big smouldering ball of embers. Around him, not a single house, beer shop or brothel had been left intact. The fire had gutted everything.

  Hyzou limped on. He was too shocked to do anything else.

  The alleyway wound around and then opened onto the Great Stairs. The Great Stairs, which ran up the length of the whole city. One look at it, and Hyzou’s stomach heaved. This time the soldiers didn’t push him, Hyzou saw that their faces had curdled into a grimace and that they found the sight as unpleasant as he had.

  When the city had fallen, Hyzou and Tabiry hadn’t been the only ones to try and run. Most of those who had fled had taken the Great Stairs.

  The brutal canvass laid out before him told Hyzou that few had made it out. The invaders must have lined up at the foot of the stairs and cut down anyone who tried to escape. To allow the extraction of loot, a path had been carved out. In making the path, the corpses had been thrown aside like an inconvenience.

  “Come along”, the soldier huffed.

  “Down the stairs? No, no please no”, Hyzou said, finally finding his voice.

  The soldier cracked Hyzou around the head with his armoured fist. Hyzou swooned, dizzy. His foot slipped, and he landed heavily on his back.

  This time he didn’t manage to protect himself, and the soldier kicked Hyzou in the teeth. Hyzou screamed. The soldier leaned down and grabbed him by the throat.

  “I say. You do. Understand?”, the soldier said.

  Hyzou nodded. He stood and took tentative steps towards the Great Stairs, limping all the while.

  His eyes were shut, but Hyzou could tell w
hen first he stepped upon the brownstone steps. He kept walking, step after step. His skin was burned and cracked, his leg felt enflamed, and his jaw ached, still he kept moving, step after step.

  When Hyzou’s feet finally touched the dry dirt at the bottom of the Great Stairs, he opened his eyes. One of the soldiers kicked his right leg, sending him crashing to the ground.

  He looked around.

  Hyzou was directly underneath the giant gates at the front of the city.

  What happened to them last night? How could they have been breached? Hyzou thought.

  The two soldiers that had brought him were now walking back to the city. He was no longer their concern.

  A man stepped so that he loomed over Hyzou, blocking out the evening sun. He was ugly, a horrible scarred face made worse by the fact that he only had one eye. It seemed almost as though his soul was peeking out at Hyzou from the black hole in his face.

  “Look at ground”, he said, in broken Piquean.

  Hyzou obeyed.

  A collar of rusty, cold metal was clicked tightly around his neck, digging into his skin. It was too tight; it pinched him.

  “Wait”, Hyzou said, and tried to release the collar with his fingers, find some purchase from its suffocating hold.

  A whistle broke through the air, then fire split Hyzou’s back, as pain rolled up and down his spine. Hyzou writhed.

  I’ve just been whipped. Hyzou thought.

  It was worse than he could have imagined. Hyzou tensed, every inch of his body screwed up as he prayed for a release from the waves of pain that throbbed out from his back. He could hardly breathe.

  The man lifted him by the chain attached to his collar and pulled. Hyzou walked in the slaver’s wake, grimacing as the newly made open wound on his back stung in the open air.

  Hyzou looked up at the vista before him. Around him were carriages, hundreds of them. All were constructed in a similar style – a wooden floor with a large bronze cage. Makeshift slave carts, and they stretched as far as the eye could see. Hyzou had never seen so many vehicles in his life.

  The slaver spoke to himself, murmuring madly in Lamyblan. He must have assumed that Hyzou couldn’t understand it, but it was nonsense whether you could speak the language or not.

  Leading Hyzou, the eyeless man shouted over to one of the carts in Lamyblan.

  “One more cheap bitch going. Who has space?”, he shouted.

  A call came from a nearby cart.

  “I suppose one more can be fit in, bring him here.”

  Hyzou was led over to a slave cart.

  A pox-scarred slaver and his weasel-faced assistant were waiting at the door of the cart.

  The weasel spoke.

  “He doesn’t look like much. Think he’s ever carried anything?”, he said.

  The pox-scarred slaver clipped his partner over the ear.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll take him”, he said.

  The eyeless man grunted and then handed the chain over.

  Hyzou looked at the slaver holding his chain, and the slaver smiled.

  “Piquean?”, he asked.

  Hyzou didn’t know whether it was his city or his language the slaver referred to, but Hyzou nodded regardless.

  “Any skills we should know about? Can you read and write? Know any carpentry?”, the slaver asked.

  Hyzou looked up at the slaver. At those greedy eyes lit up with a false smile.

  Hyzou could read and write, but he didn’t know if he wanted the slaver to know that.

  “If you have any you’ll be travelling somewhat nicer than this here cart can offer. You’re worth more, see”, the slaver said.

  Hyzou looked the slaver in the eye, then shook his head.

  “Well, you’ll be getting in then”, the slaver said.

  He pointed to the cart sitting behind him. Inside it was already full, with forty or so naked people pressed hard into the tiny space, so much so that one or two of them were pushed up against the door.

  The pox-scarred slaver grabbed Hyzou. He cut away Hyzou’s clothes and left them in a pile at Hyzou’s feet. The weasel unlocked the door. The slaves already inside began to spill out, but the pox-scarred slaver whipped at them and forced them to cramp together to make the space. The weasel forced Hyzou up the step and in through the door.

  Hyzou gingerly stepped inside, hoping for space, but couldn’t help but be pressed close to the other captives. Hyzou knew none of the faces, all the other captives were strangers to him.

  The heavy bronze door clanged shut, shaking the whole carriage. Hyzou looked up at the smouldering wreck of his home. Piquea, the jewel on a lone hill.

  Hyzou began to cry.

  CHAPTER 2

  His tears dried up by the time the sun descended. In their place, a void settled within his stomach. It wasn’t sadness, it wasn’t anything really. Standing, pressed against the heavy bars, Hyzou found it hard to feel. He was numb.

  This wasn’t to say that he wasn’t thinking. His thoughts raced, a thousand different scenarios a second, but he had lost control over them, and nothing seemed to have any order in his mind. Memories just arose of their own volition.

  His father holding Hyzou’s hand became his mother plucking a duck they would eat for dinner and became the first time he had seen an animal sacrificed and became the birth of Hyzou’s baby sister. What a day that had been, the height of summer and a small pink bundle had been taken from the house out to the street, shown to all the neighbours. Hyzou, proud as a prize pig, telling everyone that the bundle was his sister.

  Hyzou remembered carrying her everywhere when either mother or father had business, teaching her to write and to speak tongues and coming home to let sister know about the incantations he had learned in temple. She had been so quick to learn, well, everything. But especially that old rhythm dance. None of the other children could do it right, but sister, she could have been an actor if she had grown.

  She wouldn’t grow though. The fiery stone had seen to that.

  Hyzou began to remember darker things, and despite himself he couldn’t stop the memories from playing on a loop. The sick crunch of stone on stone. The stench of burning flesh. The screams and panicked trampling. Just at the end, did any of them know? Did Mak, Hyzou’s father, know that the play he was watching was going to end abruptly? Did he know that these were his last few seconds? If he did, what did he think of? Did Hyzou feature? Or maybe it was just blind panic.

  The darker thoughts brought emotions with them. Like shards of ice piercing his brain, they drove right into his psyche, blow after blow. The one that came sharpest of all was the knowledge that they wouldn’t be cremated, instead their charred remains would probably be brought and dumped in a pit whenever the clean-up of Piquea began.

  Hyzou screamed. Face against the bars, knuckles white and teeth bared, he bellowed as loud as his voice would let him.

  He expected the rebuke to be strong. Hard hands to grab him and tell him to be quiet, maybe even a blow. He was surprised when a delicate touch gently graced his shoulder.

  “Hey”, came a voice. “Hey, it’s ok. Don’t be so sad.”

  Hyzou turned and looked into a tear lined face. It was a girl, maybe just a year younger than Hyzou.

  “Wow”, Hyzou said, despite himself.

  “What?” She said.

  “That cut on your shoulder. It looks bad”, Hyzou said.

  She looked down at her shoulder.

  “I know. It’s so warm. I think maybe some spirits got into it”, She said.

  Hyzou thought that very likely. The skin around the cut was turning an explosive green.

  “It’s festering”, Hyzou said.

  “I know. And I don’t know how to fix it”, She said.

  Hyzou looked at the thing. He thought of Tabiry.

  “My betrothed, she was training to be a surgeon”, Hyzou said.

  “Is she here?” The girl asked.

  “No. She died”, Hyzou said.

  “Oh. I’m sorry”,
The girl said.

  “So, I won’t be able to fix your cut”, Hyzou said.

  “I’m sorry she died”, The girl said. “What was her name?”

  “Tabiry”, Hyzou said.

  “I’m Hepatica”, She said.

  Hyzou looked into Hepatica’s eyes.

  “What happened to King Imhotep?” Hyzou said. “He was supposed to protect us.”

  “Do you think he got out?” Hepatica asked.

  “No one got out”, Hyzou said.

  Hepatica looked around her. Then, she looked back at Hyzou.

  “Who were you? What did you do?” Hepatica said.

  “The son of a potter”, Hyzou lied. “And you?”

  “I was a slave. Have been since I was a baby”, Hepatica said.

  “This isn’t anything new to you then?” Hyzou said.

  “My master, he was burned alive. There was no one quite like him”, Hepatica said.

  Talking to Hepatica was helping to slow down the speed of Hyzou’s thoughts.

  “But I shouldn’t complain. We all lost someone”, Hepatica said.

  A silence fell upon them. Hyzou looked at the ground.

  “What’s your name?” Hepatica asked.

  “Hyzou”, Hyzou said.

  “Hyzou. That’s not Piquean”, Hepatica said.

  “It’s from the east, my mother was from the east”, Hyzou said.

  “Exotic”, Hepatica said. “I hope we’re not sent to the mines.”

  “The mines? Why not?” Hyzou said.

  Hyzou hadn’t spent any time thinking about where he was headed.

  “Because all the slaves who work in the mines die. Of poisoning”, Hepatica said.

  “You won’t go to the mines”, Hyzou said.

  “How do you know that?” Hepatica asked.

  “You’ll be used. For other things”, Hyzou said, getting awkward.

  Hepatica giggled. Hyzou had forgotten about laughter. That it existed.

  “Where do you want to be sent?” Hepatica asked.

  “I don’t know”, Hyzou said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  “Slavery?” Hepatica asked.

  “War”, Hyzou said. “It’s hard to know if I’ll ever want anything again.”

  The weasel-faced slaver knocked on the bars of their cart.