by Zamil Akhtar
Reddish-orange glowed off Kav’s arms. “Nur made clouds white for a reason.”
“But everything one color’s so boring.”
Even the Shah’s own levship couldn’t top this. Comfy seats waited beneath windows on a marble floor. Kav tasted air, not engine belch, felt silence, not grinding sunsinks.
“You ever flown before?” Layla asked.
“Nah.”
A plate of fruit waited in reach. Bananas, dates, apples, pears, grapes, and prickly pineapples.
Kav grabbed an apple, sunk his teeth into it. Juices swirled down his throat.
Layla glared at him. “Is eating all you want to do?”
“Why not? You got all these fruits over here just begging to be a part of me.”
She grabbed a pineapple and threw it at him. It brushed his arm; the pain was slight — dull.
“Hey! Don’t waste food!” Kav said. “Actually...never mind.”
They sat on a sofa facing a glass panel. The diamond sun sank in the cloud sea, casting colored shadows across the sky.
“Did you make all this?” Kav asked.
“I’m not sure. I think...this was always inside me.”
“Beautiful, inside and out.”
She blushed. “You talking about me?”
“No, I’m talking about this ship. But you’re okay too.”
All she could do was giggle. The flaming diamond reappeared atop a teal cloud.
“Why do I have this feeling,” Kav said, “that any minute, I’m gonna wake up?”
“Well, when you’re dreaming, how could you know?”
“It’s just, my dreams never last this long. And I don’t want it to end.”
Layla opened a cupboard next to the sofa, took out a bottle and two glasses. She handed Kav a glass — silver, yet translucent. The red juice fizzed as she poured him one.
“Wine,” she said, “to make you stop worrying.”
“Wine? What’s it made of?”
“Shut up and try it.”
He sipped. Bittersweet sweet. He sipped again. His worry that the dream would end lightened with each sip.
“You said you’d never left the Palace,” Kav said. “Is that why you come here? To be free?”
“I am free here. But also alone. Until you came.”
“So I’m the first to see this? How do you do it anyway?”
“Enough talk! I have something to show you!” She snapped her fingers.
Now they were in a city. Towering steel buildings stood on a surface of stone, casting shade over empty streets. A soundtrack played. Talking and laughter and motors and horns.
Kav gaped in awe. “Where are we?”
She smelt like flowers next to him, the only vibrant thing in this grey world.
“A dead city.”
“Why’s it dead?”
“I don’t know. It’s another place inside me.”
A chilly wind breathed through. Burdened clouds covered the sky. What if it ends? The worry returned. No wine to kill it.
“You’re thinking it’s going to end again, aren’t you?” Layla gazed into him. “I can see it in your eyes.”
He stared at the stone ground. It was laden with cracks.
“Time isn’t the same here,” she said. “It’s kind of like...one hour of time here is a second over there.”
“Really? So, let’s say I sleep for four hours, that’s...” Carry the one, multiply the eight...
She held up six fingers. “Six-hundred days. But I’m just guessing.”
“We can actually stay here for six-hundred days? I’ve had dreams that felt long, but six-hundred days?”
“You said you didn’t want it to end. It will one day, but if you want, stay with me until then, okay?”
Layla came closer. Kav had tasted and felt this world, but for all he knew, she was a ghost. She stopped just short of his body, an inch away. Kav looked her in the eye. Saw that she was something real.
“No doubt. I’ll stay as long as I can.”
As the world darkened, the Magus lit the room with fire in his hand. The light illuminated a bush on the far side, revealing two people standing behind it.
Kav didn’t care. He wanted battle so he could end the one he hated.
“I ain’t scared of you, Magus,” Mezzin said. “You’re the oppressor we need to beat to win our freedom.”
The Magus held up his fire hand as the last bit of sun blackened. “The sun is gone, do you want to know why?”
Now and again, some Sons would stare out the window and gape at the dark, but the drowning sun was second to the danger of this confrontation.
“First we win our country back!” Mezzin shouted. “Free Keldan!”
“Free Keldan!” his men cheered.
The Magus brightened his fire. It turned blue, then white. “There won’t be a country to win. The Wall is gone, the sun put out, and from the other side will come armadas which will scorch these islands clean. Haem is coming.”
Kav noticed one of the two behind the bush staring at him. He squinted to see. A bald girl, pale skin, sitting on a hospital bed.
He stared back.
She blushed — pink cheeks under sapphire eyes.
It’s her.
I swear to Nur it’s her.
“Layla!”
She looked at him with longing.
Kav broke the line and ran toward her.
The Magus put out the light.
And it was dark. A conduction beam blazed in front of Kav. He ducked. Screams echoed. Conduction sheared. He closed his eyes to find her.
It was her!
Her ping drifted on spectrum, crowded by Asha’s dreaded radiance. Kav projected light from his wrist. A giant butterfly sword split a Son in half. Blood sprayed across the lit path.
Without sunshine, his twicrys wouldn’t replenish. He crouched and tried to see. Layla was nowhere. Conduction flashed like daylight through a bloody storm. He used the light to move.
Spectrum showed her blue aura heading to the elevator. Kav kept low and trudged through the mud. The elevator was ahead; he dashed for it.
A tree on his path caught fire. He ducked. Sons beneath burned, screamed. Those screams turned to whines, and wails, until their lungs must have burnt out.
Layla descended on spectrum, her ping a raindrop falling into a puddle. It was her! Deafness in his ears, blackness on his eyes, Kav ran for the elevator.
There was silence. Whimpers replaced shouts and shears. Where was Saina? She looked like any other Son. Was she whimpering or silent? No time. Kav projected light to find the control conduit. He found something else.
A white demon. Mezzin stood before him.
“You!” He limped forward. His blade arm dripped blood. He pointed the thing at Kav. “Now, I do recognize you!”
“Get out of my way!” Kav raised his blade. “I don’t have time for you!”
“Oh, you gonna make time, Magus. He’s told me all about you.”
“Magus?”
Mezzin approached. Kav backed up onto the mud, the flaming tree heating his scalp.
Tri-blast. White lightning sheared off Mezzin’s blade arm in a cross pattern. They flew right, left, and center, grazing the skin off Kav’s shoulders. Glass screeched to pieces behind him. Back step, he slid behind the burning tree, crawled against its melting bark. Fire and sap blocked his nose.
Sweat made his blade slippery. He clenched it and closed his eyes for spectrum. But he was breathing too fast to concentrate.
Mezzin’s boots sloshed on the mud. Something shrieked. White blazed through the tree, blew the fire onto Kav. He rolled to his side, barely dodging the searing log. Mezzin appeared in front of him. Shit. Kav rolled to his feet, ran to his brother.
Triple lights arched off the blade arm, missing Kav and shattering the ceiling. He charged and stabbed Mezzin as glass rained.
Metal pierced flesh. Mezzin’s eyes bulged. Shit, my brother. Kav pulled his blade out.
Mezzin fell to
his knees. Kav touched his cheeks: cold as a ghost.
“Bro? You can’t die yet,” Kav said. “First, you gotta say sorry.”
Mezzin held the hole in his stomach. “Say sorry? For what?”
“You hurt me, bro, more than you can know.”
“This another trick in your Magus deck of cards?”
“Why you calling me a Magus?”
Mezzin coughed out bloody spit. The white light around him withered. Blood painted his clothes.
“I’m not a Magus. It’s me, Kav. I slept in your house. You had the bed near the window, I had the one near the door. After you’d eat a lot of fish curry, you’d always take a long nap. Remember when Mam got you perfume? She got me a book of poetry. Figured I needed some culture, and you needed to not smell like shit.”
There was barely any light in Kav’s aperture and barely any in the world. All that remained was the glow of the burning tree.
“You don’t have to say sorry. But I have to do this, bro. It’s justice.” Kav raised his blade to end it.
“You’re not Kav. I don’t know how you know all that, but you’re not him.”
Kav paused like a statue ready to strike.
“You can’t be Kav.” Mezzin sat up, his voice coarse and watery. “You can’t be him! You’re not my brother! Don’t ruin my brother’s name, you demon! Don’t desecrate his soul, by saying such things.”
Mezzin cried as he bled.
“His soul?”
“Kav’s in heaven, in Paradise. He didn’t make it out of Kerb. He’s a martyr. And soon, I’ll be one too.”
Kav lowered his blade. “Didn’t make it out of Kerb?”
In this place, time was reckoned by the bond they built. A day after they married four years ago, Kav sat under a tree at the river of milk. Milk streamed out a hole in the sky, pouring into a river before falling off the edge of nothingness.
I’ve been here so long...it feels like it’s going to end soon.
The thought would always come back and dampen his euphoria. He feared being ripped from this place, from her, at any moment.
Her head splashed through the creamy milk. She finally returned from her dive. “I think I found it. Come in!”
“I’m allergic to dairy,” Kav said.
“A giant cow in the sky didn’t make all this! Get in!”
“But why would it be in there?”
“It’s in a river, that’s all I know.”
“Is there a river of curry? Can we hit that up next?”
“Eww!” Layla said. “If I said there is, would you come in?”
He jumped in. The muck warmed his body. She grinned an evil grin, then splashed his face. Milk assaulted his eyes. Before he could splash back, she dove down. He inhaled lots of air and chased her.
After their dive through the milky world, they carried it out: a treasure chest. Inside was a carved stone.
An eight-sided star.
“So, this is the key to get through the door in the sky?” Kav fingered one of its eight sides. Smooth. “This little thing?”
She stared at it in silence. “Let’s go...get out of these milk-soaked clothes.”
Back at the cabin, in the bedroom with the virgin bed, Kav turned his back to her and stripped to his underwear. He imagined she’d done the same near her closet. But imagination wasn’t enough.
He turned to watch her. Right behind him — Layla breathed on his shoulder. In cute blue undies and aqua socks.
He threaded his hand through her hair, caressed her neck.
She took his hand, pulled him onto the bed.
She stuck her tongue in his mouth. Then took it out. “Wait.”
“Why?” He nibbled her ear. It tasted like milk.
“If we do this, we might wake up.”
“So what?” Kav reached to untie her bra. “I can see you again tomorrow night.”
“There won’t be a tomorrow night.”
He froze. “What does that mean?”
“We’re moving. Away from here.” Layla turned away. “It’s not safe in Keldan anymore, for our family. There’s talk of a war about to start. So we’re moving to Devshirme.”
“And you didn’t tell me? All these months, and you said nothing?” Kav got up, grabbed his pants. “I won’t let you leave. I’ll come get you and save you from that Palace.”
“The truth is...there’s something I have to show you, before I’m gone. And once I show you, we’ll wake up. That’s why I brought you here, Kav. I never thought...we would end up together.”
“And you talk like there’s nothing we can do to stay together!” He slipped on his pants, buttoned his shirt. Then he put on his ring. Their wedding bond.
“If somehow you managed to get me out of the Palace, they’d send the whole Continental Army after you. There’s just no way.”
“There’s always a way. Even if I have to put down the Continental Army and seven more like it, I will. Or I’ll die fighting. That’s who I am, Layla.”
Kav left the bedroom to get some space while she dressed. He leaned against their wooden dining table.
It can’t end, I won’t let it. There’s no way I’ll let her go.
Layla walked in wearing that white dress. The one from the first time he saw her, on the otherworldly tree.
“Listen,” Kav said. “After we wake up, I’ll find you. And whatever stands in our way, we’ll get through it.”
Layla had that eight-sided star in her hand. She stared through Kav as if lost in a daydream. “We never consummated our marriage.”
“That’s what I was trying to do.”
“It’s up to you. If you want to go to the Other Side, beyond the sky, to the place I told you about, then we can do that. Or if you want to consummate our marriage, we can do that.”
It was cute how clear minded Layla was when serious. She put the eight-sided star in his hand, pressed her body against his.
She wants to go to this Other Side place. But what’s the point?
He held her, stuck in indecision. Her warmth slowly scalded him.
She brought me here for a reason, don’t let it go unfulfilled.
But our bond matters more.
I should do what she wants.
I can’t take this. I need her.
He kissed her, unwrapped her white dress and blue undies, and threw her on the dining table. He never took off her aqua socks.
Sweat drenched him. Chirping. Chirping. Cicadas. Stiffness tied him like a corpse. He saw a forgotten ceiling, one he’d seen a few hours ago, but hadn’t seen in years.
Her memory was a fading dream, evaporating as reality burned it out of his mind. Layla. I won’t let it end.
Kav ran out his house. War held Kerb in its fiery hand. The explosion of Saint Ad’deen’s shrine threw out shrapnel which bloodied his head. It took him an hour to reach the Palace. A monstrous eight-sided levship hovered over it, singing a dead song. Before he entered the gate, she messaged him.
Kav...run. Don’t let me be the cause of your demise. Our bond will outlast this world into the next. We’ll see each other again, in the Garden, so run.
It was hard to stand still, but he had to reassure her.
I can’t. I can’t run from my own soul.
He saw her in the courtyard. Lying in the grass. And Mezzin was on top of her. She was screaming, begging him to stop.
“Oh Nur, no!” Kav screamed. “Get off her! Not her!”
But Mezzin wouldn’t stop.
“Not her!”
Eruptions quaked the world, like the earth was sinking into the sea. Kav charged, tackled Mezzin to the dirt, punched him, got up, kicked him so he stayed down. He ran to Layla. She lay in the grass. Blood seeped out her thighs.
He kneeled next to her. “Layla.” The wound in his head gushed. Dizzy swirls ensnared his vision. “I promised...”
Something above transfixed her gaze. The dizzy swirls spread to Kav’s muscles and bones. He lost his balance and fell on his back in the grass. R
ight next to her.
In the sky, beneath the eight-sided ship, light whirled into a tornado of stars. The last thing he saw.
A frozen Kav couldn’t kill his brother. But he couldn’t let him live. Mezzin’s breathing was the only sound, the fire of the tree the only light.
“I’ll never forgive his killer.” Mezzin sat up. “That day, in the Palace, he killed him. I don’t know why he spared me. I don’t know why he let me go. I’ve never seen anything more terrifying. The White Mask. He killed Kav.”
“Camel shit,” Kav said. “You always wanted to do it. To show your power. Layla suffered ‘cause you’re an animal!”
“Layla? You talking about that Hayat girl? Was that her name? I did what any Son would’ve done. You here to judge me for that? And it was Kav’s idea. You’d know that if you were him, but you’re something else, aren’t you?”
“Even as you bleed out, you gonna keep spinning up tales?”
“Ain’t no tale, you fucking demon. The White Mask, he stabbed Kav, right in the heart. You’re him, right? You’re the one who came to me, attacked my station, broke my prosthetic, ain’t you?”
The memory was fresh. A few days ago, to save that couple upon the guidance of the Whisperer, Kav attacked one of the Son’s stations, encountered Mezzin, and shattered his arm. And the whole time, that Mask covered him with the light of Layla’s bond.
“Your lies won’t save you,” Kav said. “Don’t think words are gonna get you out of this!”
Mezzin’s breaths became sparser. “Whoever you are. A Magus, an angel, a saint, or even death. Just do one thing for me — take it out. My twicrys, take it out. So the words stop. The whispers, I don’t want to hear it anymore. Not now, not when I need to pray.”
Whispers?
It glowed faintly. Kav picked up Mezzin’s arm, saw the tiny bead in his aperture. No doubt, it was her twicrys, the jewel from the ring Layla gave him.
“How’d you get this?” Kav pulled on it.
Mezzin screamed as if someone clawed his soul out. Kav pulled harder; the silicon wires of the aperture strained and snapped.
Mezzin wailed. The bead twinkled in Kav’s hand — the color white.
