Song of a Dead Star

by Zamil Akhtar

  The prince stared at Shar, as if he wanted to see inside him. “Kirsa of Hayat.”

  The girl’s eyes flung open, tears surging, breaths filled with fear.

  “You have been found guilty of treason...take it and do it in the back room.”

  One of the guards grabbed the baby, but the girl wouldn’t let it go.

  “Stop! Please!”

  The guard smacked her face and took the baby, then handed it to the executioner like it was a trash bag.

  It cried, wailed, filled the ground with its screech. Into the back room, with the black-garbed executioner — screaming and crying. And then it stopped, it went quiet, and the girl was sobbing in despair. The prince trembled as he looked at the next paper.

  “Shar, former Yanisari. You have been found guilty of murder. The punishment is death.”

  Two guards dragged Shar to center stage. He didn’t fight, he didn’t fear. He hadn’t thought of last words, because he knew he wouldn’t die — not by the blue sword of this executioner.

  The Continental officer, who’d been quiet the whole time, pointed at Shar and said something in the prince’s ear.

  “It seems the Shah has ordered you be pardoned,” the prince said. “Wonderful. You’re to be transferred to a prison near Kostany. And that’s the last command.”

  The girl continued to sob on the ground.

  “What about her?” Shar asked.

  “She’s not on the list. We have no right to keep her here. She’s free to go. As for you, your levship leaves in twenty minutes.”

  The Almarian prince stepped into the darkness of the balcony and never came back. The guards unchained the girl. “Get up and go,” one said.

  But she wouldn’t stop crying. One of the Continentals took Shar by the arm and began to escort him out. Shar pushed away, darted toward the girl, and slid next to her.

  “That thing you want to do before you die...do it, okay? You better,” he said. “I’ve seen worse than what you saw today, don’t let it kill you inside.”

  But she wouldn’t look at him, her tears wetting the ground.

  “Don’t give us no trouble!” The Continental pulled Shar up. Another guard squeezed his arm in a lock. They pushed him out of the ground, out of the prison, and onto a levship. It flew him back to Devshirme, nearer to the Shah of the Continental Empire.

  Today, Shar stood before the survivor of the levship crash. “Here’s what I want to know first,” he said. “How did you survive when no one else did?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is, the Keldanese boy from Kerb. He’s a spy, a terrorist spy. I saw him in the room with the dead Magus.” The way this malnourished survivor talked, it sounded like thorns pricked his lungs as each breath passed. To call him a skeleton would be generous.

  Shar shook his head. The whole time, that’s all he’s been saying. Sounds mindwritten.

  “What’s his name?” Shar asked.

  The survivor bobbed his frail head. “I knew he was a spy all along. There was something wrong with the boy. He had this motivation about him, to kill.”

  “A name you corpse!”

  “Name...yeah...his name is Kav.”

  It gushed from Shar’s stomach — a tidal wave. He kneeled over and vomited, coughing out all he’d put inside today. Look, in the middle of some kernels of chewed and acid bathed corn, those cinnamon buns. Stomach barely got to them. They looked good for another round.

  Asha’s disfigured shadow appeared over the vomit. “Something amiss, dear representative of the Shah? I can call for a doctor.”

  The survivor continued, “When we opened the prime conductor’s door, after the shaking started, we saw the Keldanese boy. The Magus was dead. The ship was headed for the hills. Kav did it. Why...am I...still alive?”

  The orange juice Shar had in Kostany spewed into his mouth; he puked it out next to the puddle of food.

  Kav...

  Shar wiped his mouth. Half-digested food clotted his nose. He bent down and examined the boy. Skin wrapped around the boy’s bones, barely colored. This boy had been unable to retain food for days, kept alive on sunshine.

  “You said his name is Kav?” Shar said. “Did he go down with the ship?”

  The boy shook his head. “No. A jinn took him on its wings, flew off, back to the dark. I saw it happen.”

  “A...jinn?”

  “So, what you’re saying is, someone retrieved him,” Asha said. “Tell our dear representative what this ‘jinn’ looked like.”

  “Red. Black. A monster with angel wings. It flew off with Kav in its arms.”

  Nothing was left in Shar’s stomach, but that nothing still begged to come out. Nausea kicked him down once more. Just spit — it dangled from his lips and dripped to the floor.

  “You ought to see the doctor,” Asha said, “we can’t have our dear representative in such poor health.”

  Shar stumbled to the door, exited, and found himself in the hall of the medical ward. Dizzy, he banged into the wall and fell on the floor. Medics scurried around him, ignoring his sickened form, busy with the survivors who streamed in off trains from a dead Qindsmar.

  Kav...no way, no, can’t be the same Kav. Can’t be. That Kav died.

  A shadow loomed over him. Shar looked up and saw a face he hadn’t seen in four years. A ghost, a man, a tree man, a body of wood, a mask of tin. It had ears made of leaves.

  The Magus Dahma stood before him.

  “Dahma? You too?” Shar said. “Now, this is just mystifying.”

  It glared at him with tin eyes. It really did look like a walking talking tree with a tin mask for a face. Shar stared at its legs — chaffed oak bark.

  “Shar the Yanisari, you don’t look well. No, not at all.” It’s voice was muffled by the metal. Unlike Asha, it had a mouth beneath that tin face.

  “You look pretty good.” Shar stood up, face to face with the Magus he hadn’t seen in four years. “Much, much healthier than the day I killed you.”

  CHAPTER 6

  MINDWRITER

  TRANSCRIPT 0131 BETWEEN MESSENGER 01 and PILOT 01

  Merv: Zauri?

  Zauri:

  Merv: Was that too much?

  Zauri:

  Merv: They may push you to the edge, but they won’t let you go over.

  Zauri:

  Merv: Not hearing you, I feel so out of place and alone.

  Zauri:

  Merv: Dream well.

  Trains, having made their final journeys, lined the path to the concrete fortress that stuck out like a wart on the forest. Hordes of people clung to the trains, some sheltered inside; others huddled outside and stared at the sun, as if a monster appeared on the horizon.

  But when Saina looked, she saw nothing. Just empty, monsterless sky.

  A bowl of water in hand, she pushed through the crowd and into the train, where Uncle, Aliya, and Kav waited.

  The fuzzy stretch seat was now their home. Saina gave the bowl to Uncle. Aliya stared out the window. Kav pressed his palms to his eyes, like they were hurting and he had to shut them hard.

  He’d been sick ever since he stabbed out his twicrys in the forest, and it only seemed to get worse once they arrived at the base and reunited with Uncle and Aliya. What had happened to him? What had happened to all of them?

  None of them had the will to do anything but sit. As if the monster in the sky had destroyed their determination.

  Saina couldn’t afford to think about the monster, about what happened. Thoughts would distract her from solving present problems. She had to keep her determination, or none of them would survive.

  “Uncle, how’re you feeling?” she asked.

  A jittered old man stared at the bowl. He looked at it with a child’s eyes and gave a weak nod. How much of Uncle was still there?

  Saina didn’t want to know. She pinged Time Service. 04:15. They had announced a handout of rations at 04:30. Better get in line.

  Uncle still
had Zulfiqar sheathed in his belt. In his state, he’d better not have it. Saina unclipped the sheath, feeling the heft in her hands. On a better day, she could unsheathe the sword, take it apart and tune it, polish it, then have fencing practice with Dad. With Dad.

  She slid it down her back and clipped the sheath to the neckline of her dress, then went outside.

  Where the food line started or ended was a mystery. Saina stuck herself between two people. In front, a plump woman stood alone. The kind of woman who must have mothered half-a-dozen children. But where were they? Sweat stained the puffy eyebrows above her tear-filled eyes.

  Saina decided the ground was the best place for her gaze. Everywhere, eyes were like that. Aliya’s eyes were like that. Kav, who knows what his were like.

  She found out. When she turned around, there he was — watching her.

  He looked like he’d woken from a thousand-year sleep. Eyes mostly shut, head drooping.

  “Sai-na.” It was as if a ghost said her name. Kav grabbed her hand, pulled her toward him. A savage pull.

  “Oww! What’re you doing?” Saina said.

  He dropped her hand on his shoulder and whispered in her ear, “Light.”

  “Huh?”

  “Conduct light into me.”

  “Kav...we hardly know each other.”

  His forehead hovered closer to hers. “If you don’t...I’ll die.”

  She pushed him away, but held onto him lest he fall. “Do you have...A’ab disorder? My dad told me only people with A’ab disorder get sick without a twicrys.”

  Kav shook his head. “Didn’t your pops tell you only blue-haired people have A’ab disorder? Now do it, or I’ll have to go around asking.”

  It wasn’t right. But Saina wanted to see inside him. And she couldn’t let him suffer. If her warmth could heal him...

  Saina felt his back. Her palm brushed his neck hair. Her hand slid over to his spine. “Here good?”

  “Just get it done.”

  She closed her eyes and looked inward. A sun shone in the sky of her mind, but it was blue and green and red, and it dropped its fire on her. Through her aperture and into her twicrys, the fire collided and swirled. She willed it onto her hand, through her fingertips, onto the skin of the boy. His veins burned with the dye of her light — blue and green and red. She saw the pattern of what lit his soul. Or rather, what darkened it. Just a void, a whirling black wind. A dead world with a beating heart.

  She pulled away, leaving the light of her being inside him.

  Kav’s retinas became solid, the way a flickering firebulb turns smooth and strong. He took his time to blink and breathe. “We shouldn’t have to wait in these lines,” he said.

  Saina kept quiet. She didn’t want to think. That part of her must remain off.

  Kav didn’t say any more. He simply stood behind her while she stared at the ground, at the shadows of people and the patches of grass on rocky turf.

  Trudges now and then moved them forward. But a leaking thought eroded the wall she built in her mind. She felt it drip-drip-drip. Cracks appeared, water seeped through. Drip-drip-drip. The wall burst and the thought flooded her.

  No more feeding Emmi ice cream. Nothing can be the same. My whole world has ended.

  She pressed her head, as if to patch the leak.

  No more weddings. Life will be awful now.

  The thought cycled over and over. Her eyes strained. Breaths became shivers, her arms quivered. She heard herself tremble and sob. Kav surely heard her too. He hovered closer and peeped over her shoulder.

  She turned away. Her face must have been all red. With her palms, she scrubbed the tears into her skin. Some of it got in her mouth. Salty, bitter tears.

  No more playing in the rain with Safia and then sitting near the fireplace. I’ll never smile again.

  Up ahead, a Continental soldier handed out silvery packets. The plump woman’s turn came. The soldier took out a ration packet and handed it to her. She stared at it as she walked away.

  Saina was next. “I need three.”

  The soldier held out a single packet, shook it. The crumbs inside rattled. “One per person. Take it and go.”

  “But, my uncle, and my cousin, they need to eat too. Please, at least give me two.”

  “One — per — person. They want food, they must stand in line. Those are rules.”

  “They’re sick, and...please. I can’t—”

  Kav pushed in front of her. With vitality in his stance and eyes full of life, he faced the soldier. “How about you just give her what she asked for?”

  The Continental eyed him like a cautious animal. Without even a signal, two more soldiers approached.

  One of them was an islander. “Don’t make us kick the shit out of you. Get back.”

  Kav raised his hands in a surrender posture. “Whoah brother, I’m not picking a fight. I’m a soldier too. Pilot, with the Second Bombardment Group. Eleventh Squad. So how about a favor?”

  The islander spit; it curled in the wind and hit the turf. “The Eleventh Squad? That was on the 409 when it went down. Don’t shit on me.”

  “The 409 is, was, my ship.”

  “Oh really? You a ghost then?”

  The other Continental whispered something in the islander soldier’s ear.

  The islander glared at Saina, then at Kav. “Your name?”

  A breeze wisped through Kav’s hair. He was about to speak, but didn’t.

  “What — is — your — name?” the islander said.

  Kav stroked his chin. “Give me four packs and I’ll tell you.”

  The islander reached into a box, and one by one, took out four ration packets.

  Kav grabbed them. “My name is Buktansir. Check the registers.”

  Upon hearing the name, one of the Continentals nodded and took off. “Buktansir” hustled away. Saina followed.

  Through hordes of hopeless faces, they walked toward the train. As the forest came into view, Kav stopped.

  “Is that Aliya?” he said.

  At the mouth of the forest stood a girl in white.

  “It’s her.” Saina pushed through the crowd to get to her.

  Aliya was standing still staring at something: a train track. It threaded through the forest clearing.

  “I got you food,” Saina said. “You should eat. Where’s Uncle?”

  The grass rustled as Kav caught up. Saina took a packet from him and tore it open.

  “How can I eat?” Aliya’s voice crumbled. “I don’t even feel alive. Perhaps I died, and I’m with Atash in the grave, and this is all a nightmare.”

  Saina stopped to feel. She didn’t feel alive either, but she knew this was no dream. What she felt in Kav, that whirling blackness, was darker in her.

  I can’t...I don’t want to see...

  Kav grabbed the food packet. He shook it, looked inside, and took out a crumb of something. After examining it with a bulging eye, he finally popped it in his mouth. “You’ll live, if you eat this. I mean, it’s edible.”

  But Aliya’s gaze wouldn’t leave the train tracks.

  Kav bit down on another crumb. Crunch. “I know what you feel.” He chewed some more. “Aliya, you hope a train is gonna stream down those tracks, and your man’s gonna hop off, and you’re gonna be so relieved because you’ll have someone in whose arms you can cry, about all this that’s happened.”

  Her eyes tensed and moistened.

  Kav stopped mid-chewing. then swallowed. “This is the best comfort I know how to give you. Let go of your hopes. You won’t see him again in this world. Don’t ever hope to. Hope is a disease, it makes you do stupid things. No train is gonna come.”

  She knelt on the grass and covered her face with her hands. Saina wished she could too. Just fall, and let someone catch her.

  “You grieve a bit and move on,” Kav said. “That’s how it ought to be. That’s how it should be. Don’t pretend like he’s gonna come, don’t play games with yourself. Just ‘cause you didn’t see him bu
rn, doesn’t mean—”

  Aliya cried. Her chest throbbed with the breaths of a little girl. Saina envied her. She wanted that freedom, the freedom to release. But all she felt was stiffness.

  They each ate a little. None of them could stomach more than a few stale crumbs. Saina was full after one.

  Uncle concerned her. Once it seemed Aliya was ready, they returned to the train. Saina broke through the wall of people and looked down the passage to their seat.

  Uncle wasn’t there.

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Uncle?” She pushed through toward the back, Kav behind her, Aliya behind him.

  “Uncle! Uncle!” she cried. “Has anyone seen my uncle? He was wearing a beige shalwar.”

  The response was a collective headshake. The old man, who could barely walk, was nowhere.

  “Has anyone seen my uncle!?”

  Just blank stares.

  Kav touched her shoulder. “We’ll find him. Don’t lose it from your end.” Then he coughed.

  He put a hand to his mouth, coughed again, and looked at what he coughed on it.

  Blood.

  “Kav,” Saina said. “You seriously need a doctor.”

  That’s when it happened. A man that looked like a tree walked inside the train, with red and blue leaves on the bark of its arms. It had a mask of tin and walked with thick branch legs. There were red and blue leaves orbiting him.

  The leaves raced into Saina’s eyes and covered them. Sleep overcame her as she went limp and hit the floor.

  “Wake up.”

  When Kav did, he felt a heaviness in his stomach. A throbbing pain stung his lungs. He looked around and couldn’t see anything. Was he in a pitch black room, or had he lost his eyesight?

  “I’ve taken the boy’s sense of sight away, as well as his ability to speak and move,” said a sharp, deep voice that made him shiver. “He can’t harm you. So confirm it, is this him?”

  “This kid killed Magus Vahman? Lud-ludic-ludicrous.”

  “Confirm it.”

  So many people were talking, though Kav had no idea who they were. He tried to say something, but his tongue wouldn’t move. And then a hand pulled his hair.