Song of a Dead Star

by Zamil Akhtar

  “You ain’t free.” He grinned. “You’re my slave now.”

  Always dodging my questions. She threw sand on him.

  He stared at the sky. “Besides, I’m the one who’s free.”

  What does that mean? “Kav, tell me, why were you wearing that mask?”

  “It was wearing me.”

  Huh? “Well, that mask...I remember my father used to wear a mask just like it when he would meditate. It was a tradition of the Qandari Tariqa.”

  His inhalation was smooth, but he exhaled like something squeezed his throat.

  He might have an infection, yeah. “Your breathing strange, let me check you.”

  “No, I’m good.” He rose to a sitting position; his breathing normalized. “See? So, tell me more. You know a lot about everything, don’t you?”

  “About what?”

  “Qandari...thing.”

  “The Qandari Tariqa? It’s a very old Way that teaches...strengthening your willpower and how to control your desires and purification of your inner self.”

  “Qandari...that name’s familiar.”

  “Of course it is. It’s named for the Saint Iskander — the very same person who erected the Barrier.”

  “Every time I spend time with you, I learn something,” Kav said. “Tell me more, tell me a story. Anything.” He lay down, like he wanted a bedtime tale.

  “Umm, I guess I’ll tell you what my dad told me. Nur gave the dominion of the entire continent to Saint Iskander. He was a great conqueror, and he went from country to country, winning battles and adding to his empire, until the entire continent was his. Except for the land across the Barrier — the Plane of Haem. He was never able to conquer them, and he feared them so much that he built the Barrier that separates us from them.”

  “I like how you say the word ‘do-minion’. ‘Do-minion’.”

  “Uhh, thanks?” She covered her cheeks in case she was blushing. “So...shouldn’t we talk about what happened?”

  “The Barrier of Iskander — look at the horizon.” Kav put his finger on the sky.

  At first, she didn’t see anything except a ruddy discoloration. It appeared once she squinted: a red line cut the sky in half, as if imprinted onto the heavens by a divine pen.

  “Holy Nur! Is that...”

  “Yep, this beach faces the western ocean that leads to the edge of the world — the Barrier of Iskander.”

  “Incredible! My eyes can barely believe it. It’s like someone used a quill and drew a line in the sky and below it nothing could pass — not even water. I guess when I’m with you, I learn something too.”

  He was too silent. She stopped gawking at the wonder in the distance and turned to him. “Kav?”

  “Sorry...I’ve brought you such bad luck,” he said.

  “Don’t say that. When no else would help me, even those who claimed they were my family and that they loved me, you did.”

  “I heard you calling...that’s all. I had to help. Even though...I...had to...give her up...”

  “You heard me? What? What do you mean? Give who up...Kav?”

  He was too still.

  “Kav?”

  Eyes closed, head to the side.

  “Hey? You need me to fill you with light again?”

  His coarse breathing returned, slower...

  She shook his arm. He felt like a cold bucket.

  “No.”

  At the neck, she checked his pulse. Thud...thud......thud........thud.............thud............

  “Oh Nur.”

  She looked down the beach front. Not a soul.

  “Don’t leave me.”

  Just waves and sand and squawking seagulls. She put her hand in his shirt and warmed the skin over his heart.

  “Not you too.”

  CHAPTER 12

  LITTLE BRO

  You could smell revolution. You could smell it in the way folk ran to their houses for shelter, and in the dust kicked up and the mango peels rotting in the streets. And when you stuck your tongue out, the sulfur in the air had that aftertaste — iron-smoked revolution.

  The promise of a new world enchanted Mezzin, keeping him up through UHR. Other Sons slept on mattresses laid out around the house, and they had talked well into UHR about the plan, and he had reassured the youngins that this would work, that strength was on their side this third time.

  Orders were due from command about their exact role in the events to come. Until then, they’d been told to settle their affairs, sell all inventory, and write their wills.

  A will? Me? But there is that inventory...got to sell her off today.

  He hadn’t felt like this on the day of the Uprising four years ago. Back then it was all fear: angst eating his heart, and his limbs quivering. Today he could fly, say good bye to an oppressed existence, and welcome a more just one.

  Mezzin covered his broken prosthetic with a curry stained undershirt, then went to the office.

  A wide-awake Nesmith tended the books. “What should we do about that one girl? You know we have to close the books.”

  Oh yes, that girl. That freakish girl who babbled only nonsense.

  “My contact hasn’t gotten back. But we’re gonna wait on it.”

  Nesmith wore a blank stare and continued scribbling in the accounts book. Mezzin knew what was behind that stare. Up until a few days ago, this branch of the Sons of the Deep was Nesmith’s; he was the boss, and everyone looked up to him. An old coat. And now he had to take orders from a young up and comer like Mezzin.

  “You hear that?” Nesmith said.

  Wails — a few rooms down. Like someone beat a donkey to death. It was her, again.

  “I’ll do it.” Mezzin face-palmed and shook his head. “Ugh, does this mean I have to touch her?”

  What was this girl’s deal? Every day she needed light conducted into her skin and would cry for it like a whore on a ride. And all that silicon nailed into her? Sure, after Mezzin cut off his own arm they gave him a metal prosthetic — but that wasn’t inside him.

  He opened the door to the holding room. “Look — shut up. I’m here now. I’m here to rescue you. Your savior has arrived.”

  She grated like a donkey and shivered in her blanket. Mezzin brought the sun into his aperture; its rays filtered through his twicrys and became a fire within. He grabbed her bare shoulder.

  The ice almost put his light out. Her chills blew through him; snowflakes piled in his veins and froze the fluid in his eyes. A crystal death. Her soul stole his warmth, because it had none, but he had so little too, and every second his skin was on hers he felt chilled to death.

  “Stop!” He pulled away and stumbled. “The hell are you doing to me?”

  She said something in her gibberish.

  “Mezzin.” It was Nesmith at the doorway. “Someone’s here, at the door. I think...it may be your contact ‘cause he’s asking about this girl.”

  “Nah, that man would never come here.”

  Who could it be?

  “Zauri! Zauri!” Someone shouted from the house door.

  Nesmith looked down the hall. “I told you to wait outside!” His old coat face wrinkled and reddened.

  Shit.

  Mezzin reached for his blade, but he didn’t have it on him. No one would dare enter a house of the Sons without permission.

  “Get out!” Nesmith sidestepped out the way; the intruder dashed into the room.

  A pale Almarian, unarmed, medium height, well-built. Mezzin was confident he could take him with one working arm. Nesmith waited at the doorway, looking ready to do his part.

  “Hold it! He’s heavy!” Mezzin could see the knife, hidden in his sleeve. “The hell do you want?”

  “Zauri!”

  “This girl? You’ll have to pay for her.”

  “Zauri,” he pointed to himself, “sister!”

  “Your sister? I don’t give a waterbird’s ass. You want her, you pay. Money! Twinsen!”

  His sister may try something to help him.

/>   Mezzin checked his left — her mattress was empty. Shit. He sidestepped toward the wall as if she was behind him. She wasn’t. Instead, she was on the far corner, covered in her blanket, shivering.

  That man looked at her with desperate eyes. “Zauri!” And then he babbled nonsense.

  She screamed at him, something hostile, her voice spiced with dread.

  The intruder’s hand began loosening, loosening, until the knife was no longer held tightly. Mezzin rushed at him with his covered arm, pounced around his neck, knocked his knife down, and locked his hand. Other Sons, now awake, helped hold him down.

  “Tie him up and, and someone get me a translator!”

  That girl was huddled in the corner, and of all things, she was crying. For the first time, Mezzin saw tears stream down her face. She never seemed upset to be here and oddly enough was perfectly obedient. Why had she saved her tears for this?

  “Don’t cry,” Mezzin said. “Today is a great day. Today our countrymen will take their boldest step toward freedom. Can’t you taste it in the air? Smile! Laugh! Rejoice!”

  She listened as if she didn’t hate him, yet he wanted her to.

  Where the hell is that old sheikh? He’s obsessed with these diseased women.

  Bayer strode in, buttoning his shirt. “Boss — a message from command. Eighteen hours till we commence. But boss, we still don’t know what we’re supposed to do.”

  “’Course not. They won’t make the same mistake as four years ago. With all the intelligence leaks back then, they know not to reveal the plan until it’s time. So relax, take the day to kiss your children.”

  And Mezzin had something aching on his will, something he had to make good before it was too late. He told Nesmith he was going out and would be back in a few hours, and by then they better have an Almarian translator on site.

  As he traveled through the simmering Hyserian streets, he thought about the man he’d just wrestled down. She was scared of him, shivering in the corner. Didn’t he say she was his sister? Why would she be so afraid of her own brother and not of me?

  A thought crept into his head — as if it wasn’t his own. And what of your own brother?

  My brother? Was he ever my brother?

  Was he? That day, how many years ago was it? Clouds devoured the sun, and rain was surely coming, so Mezzin hurried home from school. What a decrepit school that was, full of corrupt teachers who you could pay off with drugs or cash for good grades, who half the time didn’t show because their pay was that lousy, who took joy in smacking their students when they did. But Mezzin went to school, every day, because that’s what Mother wanted.

  That day, on the way home, he took a shortcut through an alleyway and bumped into some older students.

  By the insignia tattooed on their necks, Mezzin knew they were KA — Keldan Alive. They blocked his path as he tried to back away. The tallest one had straw hair, grime under his eyes, and an iron cane.

  “Well,” he said, “if it isn’t the little shit with the servant mother and the crooked arm.”

  And Mezzin didn’t know what to say.

  “Your mommy feeds you with Shirma money, isn’t it so?” The tall one twirled his cane.

  And Mezzin didn’t know what to say.

  “You know what we do to the little children of those who work for Shirmas?” The tall one was a foot away.

  And Mezzin didn’t know what to say.

  Someone threw sand in his face, and his face was forced onto the gravel, and they kicked his ribs while someone yelled, “Don’t kill him! Just send a good message!”

  Raindrops piled and he lay there. He couldn’t get up, his good arm broken, his polio-stunted arm useless as usual. Raindrops flooded him, and he felt as if he was floating, floating through a river in Paradise, where Mother told him he would surely go because he was a good person.

  He was pulled out of that river by the boy who’d been living with him and his mother, but who’d taken no interest in being Mezzin’s friend — a boy who spent his nights in silence and his days somewhere they never knew.

  When they took him in, Mother said it was because she knew the boy’s mother and couldn’t stand to see him grow up on the streets. He was a “good kid,” raised by a “good mother,” and the two should become friends. But the kid never talked, and Mezzin was too shy anyway.

  But that day, the boy carried him home, and Mezzin awoke shivering, his mother in tears beside him. That boy was rubbing his wounds and bandaging him.

  “Why are you doing so much?” Mezzin asked him. “Why do you care?”

  “’Cause...we’re brothers. Isn’t that right? And brothers got each other’s back, and a brother is all you have when the world’s against you.”

  “But we’re not brothers.”

  “Not by blood. But what your mother did for me, I’ll never be able to repay. And I know she loves you more than anything else in the world. So I love you too. You’re my brother. My little brother.”

  That’s how it began. That was his brother — a motherless boy named Kav. And his brother taught him the meaning of strength in a world where it was all that mattered.

  Out of that memory, the salty air proved the presence of the Deep Blue just beyond the oppressive Settlement walls. Walls that walled out a people from their birthright and walled them into servitude. Walls they would crumble so the water could taste free. And in the shadow of the walls stood the house Mezzin had bought with every penny he toiled to earn for the last three years.

  It was classy enough that it wouldn’t look out of place within the Settlement. You could imagine a Shirma nobleman sitting on its porch, his wife gardening in the back, his children laughing as they threw sand on one another in the yard. But all was still, until one of the house guards noticed Mezzin and stormed out.

  They stood face to face. “So...how is she?” Mezzin asked.

  “You ought to see her, sir. You came at the right time, the doctor is visiting.”

  It was a home inside: clean, smelling of sugar and flour. The maid is doing a great job, I ought to increase her wage. The master bedroom door was shut. After turning its brass handle, Mezzin finally saw her.

  It had only been a week, but she looked thinner and her rosy complexion was ghosting. Bitter lemon stank the room because beside her, this Shirma doctor was mixing that cheap substitute Mezzin told him last week never to bring again.

  “Glory be to Nur, it must be my birthday. My son has come back to see me,” Mother said. “Or maybe it’s the Saint Issam disguised as my son, granting my only prayer.”

  “Mam, I’m home. I meant to come sooner, but you know, work and all.”

  I’m going to kill this worthless excuse for a medicine man.

  “Mam, why are you taking this, this concoction that we know doesn’t work?”

  The doctor’s hand slowed from mixing the herb. “I’m very very dismayed, sir. You see, because of the mega inflation, the price of camphor has increased almost a hundred-fold, to the point where the importers have told me they didn’t even bother bringing in another shipment. And so, I couldn’t make the proper medicine.”

  “Right. Tell me, do they have camphor in the Settlement?”

  Sweat dripped off his forehead. “Well...the short answer is yes. But I haven’t been able to convert the emrils you gave me into twinsen in order to buy it from the Settlement, primarily because all the banks have refused to make the exchange.”

  I knew it. Cheap bastard. I ought to kill him. Does he fail to realize I work as a money lender? Last week, banks were taking emrils for twinsen at steady rates! He dare play with my mother’s life?

  “Listen, let’s talk outside so my mother can rest.”

  Grabbing her walking stick, Mother pushed into an upright position on the grand bed. She groaned, and as she sat up, sighed a frail cough and smiled. “Don’t leave my sight just yet. You haven’t even let me hug and kiss you. Come here!”

  He did. She smothered him, but it wasn’t tinged with that
nostalgic life-giving breath. Rather her kiss was dry, and her arms wrapped around him like a skeleton. He could feel it then: dread, malice, rage, emerging like a droplet of light in a black ocean, spreading like waves over shadowed earth.

  Downstairs, as the guards manned the exit, Mezzin glared at the doctor and watched fear drip off his face into puddles on his shirt.

  “I...I did everything I could. I’m sorry if I failed you, it...it was my utmost intention to help her with every possible method at my—”

  “Shut up.”

  Mezzin’s hand crept toward his blade, and then passed it, into his pocket. He took out a sash of twinsen. “I have...around 3000. What will it take?”

  The doctor stopped trembling. “Oh! That’s enough for two months worth of the stuff. With that, I could definitely get a supply of camphor from the Settlement and make the drug.”

  “Great — it’s all yours.” He threw the sash into the doctor’s hands. “I don’t ever want to smell that lemon crap in here again, got it?”

  That was that. Even though the maid offered to, Mezzin spent the next half-hour helping his mother to the bathroom and preparing her meal. Now he sat before her on the dining room floor, while she sat on a pillow seat. In the middle of breakfast, she finally asked him.

  “Why do you have that cover over your arm? Tell me, boy!”

  “Mam, I got into a little accident with the prosthetic. I’m getting a new one later today. It’s no big deal, so don’t worry.”

  “Don’t worry? That’s all I do, Mezzy. That’s all I do. I lie in bed and worry about you, my only boy. I will pass soon, Mezzy, but you need to live a full life.”

  “Don’t say that. You ain’t gonna pass soon. I won’t let it happen.”

  “Why don’t you find a nice girl and get married already? Instead of paying for this house and the maid and doctor you could live the good life with a good woman.”

  Mezzin looked away and muffled his mouth with his cup. “I’m not ready for that yet.”

  His nothing response killed the glow on her face. “Oh...but you should be, Mezzin. You ought to fall in love with someone. The thought of seeing my grandchildren keeps me alive more than any drug. If only you were more like...more like Kav. Why, I remember he was always chasing girls before he...”