Song of a Dead Star

by Zamil Akhtar

  Who was that guy?

  Hena was on his shoulder; he slowly eased her onto their pillow.

  “Mmm,” she said, still asleep.

  Kahr got on his good leg. The wound on his other leg shouldn’t keep him from walking. He slowly put weight on it. Pain flared. He collapsed, but grabbed the wall just in time.

  “Kahr? Where are you going?” Hena said, eyes half open.

  “Hena...go back home. To your guardian.”

  “What?” She stood, rubbed her eyes. “Wait, why?”

  I can’t tell her, it would only make it worse.

  “Say something!” she said.

  Just listen and obey for once.

  “Hena, do you like being here?”

  She splashed her face with the rain water in the basin, pausing at the question. “Why do you ask that?”

  “I ask because you must have had a much more comfortable life before this.”

  She had no cloth to dry herself. Water dripped down her cheeks like wet pearls.

  “I had no life at all before this.” Her words were broken by tears, mixing sweetly with the water. “Lacan treated me well, but I couldn’t stand being there. You saved me.”

  “Please, go back to the Settlement, back to Lacan.” Kahr so wanted to hold her and make her smile.

  “Lacan was never family to me. He would provide for me just so he could conduct his tests. You’re everything to me!”

  Kahr wanted to kick the basin just to see water drench the walls. “I can’t protect you! Look at what I put you through. Look at this house, and the nothing inside it.”

  She shook her head. “So what? Look at the trouble I cause you too. If people knew about my hair and my disease, they wouldn’t put up with me. Why is it that you do?”

  If I fail, and Mezzin comes back here...

  “Hena, I’m leaving to deal with this mess. Go back to your guardian, I mean it. Or I’ll divorce you, and you’ll have to go back.”

  She charged at him, buried her head in his chest. His shirt became moist with tear mixed water. Her hands rolled against his arms, across his throbbing wrist. “Whatever it is, I’ll face it with you. Whatever you did, I don’t care. I don’t want to go back there ever.”

  “Then you’re divorced. Pack your things and get out.”

  “No!”

  He grabbed her wrists and forced her off. “They’ll kill you. No, they’ll defile you and sell you into slavery! I can’t protect you from them. It’s my fault that they’re after you. I’m to blame. Let me go and settle this, you go back to Lacan — he can keep you safe.”

  “What if you don’t come back?”

  “I promise I will, okay? Just go. I’ll see you off at the gate, then at the end of the day, I’ll come pick you up. I promise. I swear upon the Glory of Nur Himself.”

  Forgive my false oath.

  She trembled; Kahr rubbed her shoulder.

  “Why don’t you ask Lacan for help?” she said. “You said someone from the Settlement started this trouble, he has a lot of power over there.”

  My lies come full circle.

  “No...not from the Settlement. They’re Keldanese. They’re Sons of the Deep. Beyond Lacan’s reach.”

  She looked away in silence.

  She must be thinking horrid things about me. That I lied to her. And that I’m dangerous. Good.

  “Fine,” she said. “Then I’ll go back. If that’s what you want.”

  And so Kahr walked her to the gate of the Shirmian Settlement. Beyond its high walls, the TEX Tower stood like a needle threading cotton clouds. It was the tallest structure in Hyseria and shone on the horizon for onlookers miles away. Kahr wished he was that high, in the clouds, where he could escape consequences. But he stood on the earth, about to watch his wife walk through a gate he would never be allowed to enter.

  “Hena...take care.”

  Should I hug her?

  His shoulders needed it. He waited for her eyes to soften, for her arms to wrap around his back, for her cheeks to caress his. But instead, she just walked to the gate.

  The TEX guards, covered from head to toe in black, noticed her hair and signaled with their hands. It took five seconds for the gate to slide open and another five seconds for her to walk through.

  “Until tonight, Kahr.”

  It closed. She’s safe now.

  After limping away without thought for five minutes, it hit him.

  Oh Nur, what did I do?

  He wanted to send her a message so she wouldn’t hate him. He wanted to tell her the truth — he wanted to tell her why they were after him, and why he borrowed all that money.

  The sun’s rays were strong, easy to collect with his aperture. But when he tried, his wrist ached and reddened. Hena? Hena? He couldn’t write words onto light. Not even a trickle would conduct through his burnt out aperture.

  Hena...Hena...

  It’s over now, let her go, it wasn’t supposed to be in the first place.

  The slums sprawled around him into bungalows and dirt roads. Universal Resting Hours were at an end, and jobless people sat in the dirt, smoking and sighing. The few open shops seemed bare, and more buildings were boarded up than not. The sun cast a jittery light on the streets, cutting through broken overhangs. The smell of shit infected Kahr’s breathing.

  As he struggled up the steep roads, he noticed staring. Eyes traced his movement. People followed him — one, two, three, four of them. Mezzin’s men. They clenched their knives as they surrounded Kahr.

  “Free Keldan,” one of them said.

  “Free Keldan,” Kahr parroted.

  That was the last thing he heard and said, until he woke up with his head splitting. He was on a chair, tied down, mouth bound. Two people were conversing in the next room.

  “I love you baby.”

  Is that...the fat guy?

  “Aww, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

  “I love your eyes, and your lips, and your body. I can’t live without you, baby. Come home with me tonight.”

  “You know I can’t, I have to work tonight. Unless you want the nightly rate. But it’s beyond what you can handle.”

  “I can handle it baby, I’ll show you what I got.”

  Sun bled through window panes. In this bare room, a single item stood on an empty desk: a foot-long pole bearing the Keldanese flag.

  The door squealed open.

  “This is a criminal waste of my time.” Mezzin.

  One of his thugs came into view, holding a sharpened scimitar.

  “I have better things to do than sort out disobedient debtors,” Mezzin said.

  The rope binding Kahr’s mouth was tugged off.

  “First of all, where are my brothers, the two who never came back?” There was no playfulness in Mezzin’s expression.

  “I defended my family,” Kahr said.

  “You did them in? I don’t believe it. But I guess I have to. So now, you owe me a lot of things. You owe me your life, your money, your house. You owe it all to me. And I want it, so I’ll take it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Mezzin didn’t smile. “Your kind is the worst. You think I don’t know about you? You’re not a fisherman. You’re a traitor. You know what we do to countrymen who work for TEX?”

  I had no choice. I had to eat. She had to eat. “So...did you know all this time?”

  “Yes, asshole, I did. I know everything that goes on around here. This is my turf, Sons of the Deep’s turf. No TEX dog can show their face here without getting it. And you got it. And you’re gonna get more.”

  “Then give it to me.”

  “Shut up,” Mezzin said. “I can’t stand your kind. You know what happened to one of my boys yesterday? He stood up for freedom, for our independence, and refused to pay taxes to the Shirma oppressor. And what did they do? They demolished his shop! To the ground, they leveled it, the shop his father owned, that had stood in that spot for thirty years, providing freshly baked bread to our peopl
e every morning. Good bread at decent prices.

  “And so I went to him, gave him food, money, told him he didn’t have to pay me back, told him to keep the dream of a free Keldan alive, and to be there for when Keldan needs him. That’s the kind of man I am.”

  “You’re a great man,” Kahr said.

  “And those two boys you did in, married men with children, both of ‘em. Now I have to tell their wives and kids that pops ain’t coming home because some traitor didn’t want to pay up. I hate doing that. Every day without your loved ones it becomes harder to keep the hope of freedom alive.”

  I don’t care about your rebellion. I just want a small space to live where I’m free, I don’t need an entire country.

  Mezzin continued, “And I know what you did with my money, which brings me to my last point.”

  He couldn’t know. How could he?

  “You gave it to a man named Lacan, in an agreement to purchase some property from him, right?”

  Kahr’s thigh itched uncontrollably. “Who’s Lacan? Don’t know him.” He shifted in his seat to give his thigh some delightful friction.

  “Yeah, I’m sure you don’t. So, with my money you bought a certain test subject from him, and you can’t pay me back, therefore the property must be seized by the bank — by me. That’s the way things work.”

  Mezzin stood still as if transmitting. The door screeched open. Someone entered. Mezzin smiled like a donkey. Who just came in?

  That someone breathed heavily. Familiar. He swallowed his heart. No — no — no.

  Then he saw her — his favorite sight in the world.

  “Hena! Why are you here!?”

  She crawled to his knees. “Kahr. Sorry. Sorry.”

  Kahr wanted to hug her, but he couldn’t break the rope.

  “Aww. She’s here ‘cause we got spies all over the Settlement,” Mezzin said. “Nothing’s out of our reach. There ain’t a safe hole for you on this side of the sea.”

  Hena clung to Kahr’s legs. She usually took such good care of her hair, which she’d only show him. But now it was so frizzled.

  “What’re they gonna do to us?” Her trembling chilled him.

  “I’ll be taking my property back now,” Mezzin said. “Who knows what I’m gonna do with her — well, it’s none of your business. As for you, Kahran, you need to be punished for killing Sons and brothers. A life for a life. Although, you did kill two people, and no man can die twice, so as punishment before I kill you, I’ll let you watch.”

  “Mezzin, listen. Listen. Don’t. I’ll do anything, there’s nothing in the world I won’t do, nothing, just please, let her go. You can use me, for whatever purpose, just — please!”

  Mezzin laughed. “Kahr, you’re so selfless. If she’s all you’re worried about, then be at ease. Because, like I said, I just adore Keldanese women.”

  Mezzin pulled her hair, strained her blue locks. Twisted them through his fingers.

  “Leave her!”

  Mezzin’s metal claw tore her white skirt. He pegged her against the wall. She cried.

  “There’s no way out, sweety. The less you struggle, the more fun you’ll have.” Mezzin’s claw searched inside her dress. She tried to push him off. Then he reached back and grabbed the flagpole with the Keldanese flag.

  “Sweety, you love your country, right?”

  “I do,” she cried as he rubbed against her.

  “Why’d you marry someone who fucks your country then? How about I fuck you back,” he waved the flag pole — silver stars on blue, “with this? Fitting enough?”

  The air became white.

  Lightning spiraled in every direction. Blood exploded — it swirled in the air and men fell dead. Mezzin yelled. A white blade shattered his metal arm and pegged him to the floor.

  Behind him stood the leper wearing a silver mask.

  More thugs dashed into the room.

  “No one move,” the leper said, “or I’ll end your leader.”

  Hena covered herself, crawled to Kahr’s legs.

  Mezzin struggled to turn his neck and see his attacker. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I want you to untie him,” the leper said.

  “You ain’t the boss here!”

  The leper pushed the blade deeper, sundering Mezzin’s upper arm and making him wail.

  “Untie him!”

  Mezzin nodded. One of the thugs cut the rope binding Kahr. The smell of blood and sinew collided in his nose as he rushed to his wife. Her clothes were in tatters. He rubbed her arms, warming her skin.

  “Now, let them go.”

  “First, let me go. I can feel it, you know, the pain in my arm. It is still my arm.”

  The leper sliced even deeper — metal grinded to the shoulder blade. Mezzin wailed some more.

  “Alright,” Mezzin said, breathless, “let ‘em leave.”

  Armed men surrounded the door. Hena clung to Kahr. He held her skirt up where it’d been ripped.

  “Move, go! Run away.” The leper gestured toward the door.

  Kahr moved, holding her, to the door, to freedom. He took it step by step, each step a hope that the next was possible, as he stared into the eyes of Sons who yearned for his blood.

  “So, you’re a Magus, aren’t you?” Mezzin said. “I can see your reflection in your blade. That mask — I know you.”

  “No — you don’t know me.”

  A Magus? Ignore it, just go.

  In the hall there were stairs leading outside. Just then, the fat man ran down.

  “Everyone! We’re surrounded!” he said. “TEX soldiers have surrounded the building!”

  TEX?

  “Everyone to the tunnel! Go!” The fat man waddled through the hall.

  A thundering deafened everything. Kahr grabbed Hena and ducked under a desk, shielding her as lightning coursed the air. Shouts and scurrying and screams and heat filled the world. Minutes passed like this, where he saw nothing, heard only hell, and felt every fear. And then the world calmed, and it was as if there was no one left.

  Shadows filled the room as boots stomped along the floor. Kahr didn’t know what was coming.

  “Get up!” A TEX soldier stood before him in slender black armor.

  “Is it safe?” Kahr asked.

  “The fight is over, now get up!”

  They were detained, questioned briefly about their involvement in a Son’s of the Deep funding cover, and released. Kahr had asked them about a man wearing a white mask, a leper — if he was alive. They had no recollection of any such man.

  Death cuts every bond.

  Back at home, Kahr padded down their straw mattress, laying a new sheet over it — provided by their neighbor. Hena curled up inside. Kahr couldn’t get the leper out of his mind, and the way that mask had an unreal lining of silver.

  “Who was that guy?” Kahr buried his head in their pillow; Hena’s hair brushed his nose.

  “He was...very sad,” she said.

  “Sad? Why do you say that?”

  She shuffled around in bed to face him. “When you were asleep, the old man told me about himself. His life had been so...miserable.”

  “Being a leper is a miserable existence.”

  “That’s not it. He said everyone he loved had been cut from him, and now he felt nothing, and had become nothing. And he kept lecturing me, about how you and me should be happy together and not fight, and appreciate what we got, because it’s all going to end.”

  Kahr wanted to rinse his hand through her hair, but he dozed off with every word.

  “Did he tell you if...he was a Magus?” The feathers of sleep lulled him into a cotton cloud.

  “No,” she said. “But he said his name was Kav.”

  CHAPTER 11

  RED GIRL BLUE GIRL

  “You don’t know who I am.” Saina curled up in her corner and mumbled lines from her fantasy conversation. Make it more intimidating.

  “You’ll regret this — do you know who I am?” She wasn’t aware she voiced he
r thoughts until the girl next to her spoke.

  “You talking to me?”

  A flustered Saina shook her head. I live in my head too much — how embarrassing. But her problem was far from being solved. Is this really going to work? It has to work. They have to listen.

  More girls came into the room. Two sisters, it seemed — one barely adolescent. She looked like she’d spent the day crying, with circles around her eyes like storm clouds.

  Isn’t that how I felt the day before yesterday?

  The day before yesterday, when Saina awoke here. At first, she was grateful to be alive. Her last memories, soaked in a dreamlike terror, seemed a lifetime ago. Reborn and renewed, she desired to be free — but that hope was extinguished by this reality.

  The door opened. Her captor, a bearded man named Nesmith, peeked inside. He eyed Saina and moved his burly self toward her. Butterflies fluttered in her arms.

  I need to perform.

  “So,” he said, “we decided we’re going to keep you.”

  “You’ll regret your decision, you know who I am.”

  “Well, we don’t think you’re who you say you are.”

  Dammit — was I not convincing? “Prince Rumaysal, the eighth from the throne of the Kingdom of Almaria, and the Emir of Nirwan, my husband, will...will burn this place to the ground when he finds it!”

  “Well...if he does that, then you’ll burn with it, since you are inside.”

  She had no comeback except an awful stare, from which Nesmith cringed and backed away. Her other captor stood at the door, eying her as Nesmith whispered in his ear.

  They both approached. Nesmith said, “Then tell us how you got here.”

  “I was on a cruiser. It...there were problems, so I had to abandon ship, and that’s all I remember.”

  “The tidal wave did you guys in? What ship?”

  “A...our private ship — it was a new design, a prototype, a gift to our family from the Shah himself. We were heading to Kaysr, an island of Necia, for our honeymoon.”

  The other guy didn’t blink as he watched her. Creepy.

  “Bayer here says they found you in a black container of some sort. Strapped to the walls.”

  What was I doing there? “A lifeboat. Very expensive kind. You won’t find them on normal ships.”