by Zamil Akhtar
Spectrum confirmed this. Civilians were being swept from the area, and soldiers were moving in. Merv could see their scans on his spectrum, pinging and hitting everything but him. Normal pings couldn’t refract off his blacksuit, giving him a degree of stealth.
Then, as if on cue, the sky bellowed and it started raining.
No...Nur please, not now!
Rain made his suit ping as another black hole. No more stealth — advantage nullified.
Merv crouched, crawled onto the street, and ducked beneath a window. Spectrum showed five soldiers moving into the building. It also showed three unarmed persons still inside.
Cups shattered, shelves crashed to the floor. Glass screeched a crystal screech. A woman screamed, a man shouted back, in the brutal Shirmian language.
The door of the building banged open. A Shirmian uniform stepped out, a blade in his right hand; in his left, he had the hair of a woman, her head dragged by that hair, her body dragged by that head. She fell on the wet street. A round Keldanese woman, in her night gown.
Next, a little boy was flung out the door. The rain dampened his fuzzy purple socks. A big Shirmian soldier walked out after him. Then another one, even bigger. Two more soldiers, one with a bandaged head and one with a bandaged arm, followed.
The even bigger soldier stood over the round woman and shouted something in Shirmian. She sobbed and pleaded. He gripped the hilt of his blade and bashed her head in.
The round woman fell flat. The boy with purple socks cried. Wailed. Screamed. The tears could not be seen in the rain.
The mass group of soldiers are about 200 feet south...this must be an advanced group that recently encountered a fight and are now holding this point for the line to catch up.
Merv crouched toward the soldiers. They were bumps on his way to the Tower. His footsteps made a tish-tish sound. The big soldier spun around. With endangered eyes, the soldier swiped his blade at Merv.
Merv dashed off the ground. Lightning trickled into his fingertips, their metal ends throbbing with desire. He scraped the cheek of the big soldier, exchanged light for blood. Explosion — the soldier’s brain cooked, and in a fractioned second, Merv dodged a light beam and lunged at the bigger soldier. At the neck, he burned his spine, and the next soldier found death by decapitation, and the two injured ones could only scream their throats out as Merv did what he did with his fingertips.
Buckets of Shirmian blood spilled on the round woman and the fuzzy purple socks. The rain would wash the blood away. The Keldanese boy remained frozen at his dead mother’s side.
Merv stopped staring and continued toward the Tower. With the rain dousing his stealth, it was unlikely he could penetrate the advanced lines and rescue Zauri.
But I have to. I can’t return without her. My mission was to bring her back. I won’t fail. I won’t face the Marshal or my comrades as a failure. I can do this.
A message hit him from base.
Merv — the Marshal requests you return within the hour. Please confirm.
Lightning cracked the sky.
But my mission is incomplete. I won’t come back until I have her.
A small delay. Merv opened his mouth to taste the rain.
Incomplete or not, the Marshal demands you return. According to the map you sent, Zauri’s position has changed. The weather has also changed the dynamics of the mission. Therefore, he demands you return for new orders.
Fine...I’ll be there within the hour.
The truth was cold and helpless. Colder than the rain. The way the lightning bore shadows, dark and transient, reminded him of that day, all those years ago. But this chaos could never compare to the day when Midnight fell upon the colony of Khatlon.
Load-shedding put the colony in darkness even though the sun flickered at the horizon. The overseers would complain that the people of Khatlon didn’t generate enough power for the colony’s needs, which is why the power went out so much. Generating a certain quota per day, for every person over the age of maturity, was the law — and Merv never wavered from it.
When the power went out that day, the blood-red horizon became the only light. Merv’s unit was deployed to secure the boundary zone where the world fades into darkness. It was where the colony ended, because sunlight could no longer be seen beyond it.
Merv hadn’t expected war in peaceful Khatlon. Still, he’d heard Khatlon was sacred land, and they would surely target it, and the Colonization Forces would be ever ready.
When it started, it seemed like the sun was covered. As if a celestial object of such magnitude could actually drown beneath something. Battle sirens sounded, and no one knew what would happen next.
Circles appeared in the sky — flat — or were they spheres? Merv was unsure if he imagined them. Lens covers capping the sun.
“They’re coming!” someone shouted. “Can we really fight them with our numbers?”
“Oh Nur! Oh Nur!”
“Don’t panic! Remember your training. Everyone take cover and focus on spectrum. That’s our only advantage.”
Merv swallowed fear in the crevice beneath a parked levship. Spectrum wouldn’t align, scrambled by nervousness.
Everyone in the unit compiled their spectrums together. That’s when they noticed it: distortions around them, in random patterns — coming closer.
The Haemians were here. Terror would fill throats, and there would be screams, and shearing darkness, and you wouldn’t know who was alive and dead. This was how the Haemians fought.
For the briefest moment spectrum would pick them up, but they were swift and you could never find them, until you were face to face with something wrapped in shadows, exhaling terror, trembling the world.
That day as Merv trembled with it, he found himself surrounded. Haemians never fought in the light. He made some from what he could muster and saw the darkness on their faces. They wouldn’t kill him. They just stood and stared, as if they knew what he knew and wouldn’t kill him because of it.
A retreat siren sounded. Merv ran for the retrieval point blinking on his spectrum. A levship, his salvation, waited, loading all the survivors of his unit. Just before it buzzed into the sky, Merv jumped on board.
“You? Why don’t you stay here with your own kind?” The captain pressed his foot against Merv’s chest and kicked him back onto the dark earth. Then the levship took off, meandering through heaven.
Merv stared up from the dirt and grasped out his hand, hoping someone from the sky would catch it. The levship was a speck, and then that speck became a flame. It exploded — a brief flash and smoke, characteristic of Haemian weaponry.
It was over for Merv. The darkness was on top, around, even inside him. Was he to be reclaimed? How dark was the Haemian womb that bore him?
He stared at the sky as the Haemians paralyzed and carried him to Nur knows where. Perhaps to the Throne of Angra Mainyu Himself.
Then, up in heaven, as the black circle-spheres danced, a new sun ripped through the night.
The Maymanah...the Emigrant’s new battleship...
It annihilated all the Haemian crafts. Such was its grandeur that it released the sun to shine again.
The Haemians dropped him and vanished. Merv watched the Maymanah sail through the clouds, an armada alone. He heard the sky whisper.
You.
Who is this? He responded.
Wake me up. Please.
Zauri awoke. The words “Emigrant Fleet 01” were painted on familiar metal walls. A blanket covered her in a candle-lit room, where the smell of sweat and rust mixed to make her want to vomit.
Why am I back here? Why am I...inside myself...
She pushed the blanket to the floor. It was too cold for her naked skin. She grabbed the blanket, covered herself, and decided she couldn’t stay.
She didn’t know anything about her insides: where to go, how to get out, what led to where. It scared her. She picked a dark direction.
She must have stepped in blood. It stuck to her feet, sloshing. Ro
tting flesh swam in it. Her sense of smell, fresh like a newborn, couldn’t take it.
This is all inside me...
Zauri turned. There were eyes, blue dots on a porcelain mask. She fell backward, into the pool of human parts, and stared at the masked thing.
“You’ll get dirty,” it said. Was its mouth moving?
Her arms and legs disobeyed her order to flee.
Footsteps sounded in water. “Swimming in a pool of the dead...how fitting.” It was him, the man who’d bought her. “Help her up.”
That masked thing approached. The blue dots were gone — eyeless sockets in their place. She crawled the other way, to the man, to find protection.
“What did you do to scare her?” the man said.
Zauri cowered at his heels. He was familiar, Elkarian. No — here, these people were called Almarians, they only looked like Elkarians.
He took her by the hand and helped her out of the dead puddle.
“Why am I here?” she asked. “I don’t want to be here!”
The man clenched her hand, hard. “Take it easy. I’ll keep you safe, from all that you fear.”
Those eyeless sockets were behind her, breathing on her skin. Closed spaces filled her throat and arms. She yearned to drink sunshine.
“Please...take me out of here.”
“I’ve waited a long time, an endless time, to see your pretty face again, Layla.”
Last time, he called me that too. Does he know?
The Almarian man embraced her. All the blood on her spilled onto him. “Layla...did you come back from the grave? Across the barrier that separates the dark and the light, the dead and the living, the day and the night?”
She could feel the masked thing at her back, closing in, cutting off her way out. She grabbed the man tighter.
“I’d rather not interrupt,” it said, “but we don’t have much time.”
“Let’s get her cleaned up then.”
The Almarian man took her hand and led her out this dreaded coffin. She heard the sound of water, deep and resonant. They went up an elevator and into a glass tube; she peered out at a strange blue world.
It was like a wall of liquid night, brimming with colored things. She let go of the man and ran to the glass, awed by it all. “We’re inside the ocean?”
Fish and coral glowed in murky darkness. The sun barely shone through this blue depth. The light of the fish and coral flickered pink and green and lavender.
“Not just any ocean,” the man said. “This is an ocean from which angels are born, walking on two feet. Here, in the Deep Blue, even the fish in this sea are of heaven. Look, see that?”
The fish — were they made of pearls? Emeralds glowed in their skin, and rubies in their bellies, and diamonds in their eyes.
The Almarian man put his hand on her shoulder. A warm hand.
“Layla, you’re even greater. You’re something else entirely. More than a mere angel. So much more.”
On a dead street there was a small cottage.
I’m here. Open the door.
Inside waited what was left of the Emigrant Fleet. The survivors, who managed to get off the Maymanah using life capsules, found each other and made base in this house, which had a very expansive underground level. Probably an abandoned smuggling house. Merv walked inside and dreaded that everyone’s eyes were on him.
“The Marshal wants to see you,” said one of the officers.
The Emigrants seemed uneasy. Things were too still. There were soldiers and civilians — men, women, and children. Infants in diapers, grandmothers with rough faces. Pious men and impious men. All Elkarians who hoped to make Eden their home. Everyone stared at Merv, but avoided eye contact, as if he was something to be shunned.
The Marshal’s room seemed so far away. The walk felt like an age.
Merv opened the door and found himself alone with Marshal Jahangir of the Emigrant Fleet.
The man stared at a lifeless wall as if looking out a window. A battery unit, salvaged from the Maymanah, lit the room. The Marshal was not in regalia; he wore his blacksuit, mask off.
“Ready for new orders, sir.” Merv saluted.
“You make me sick,” the Marshal said. “The sound of your voice, and your stench, filling this room.”
Merv trembled. The man standing before him could, with a word, usher the end of his world.
“I’m sorry I failed you, Sir Marshal.” Merv dropped to the floor and prostrated. “I will get her back, just send me out there. I will redeem myself for the Emigrants and Elkaria.”
Merv was afraid to look up at the Marshal, to see his face and eyes swollen with indignation.
“You’re two of a kind, of course you want to save her. You love her, don’t you? You’re obsessed with her. Her blood is just as inhuman as yours.”
Boots clanged toward Merv. The Marshal’s presence tingled the hairs on his neck. He didn’t dare raise his head.
“Get up!” The Marshal pounded the wall. “The groveling of an animal won’t appease me.”
Merv looked up. Dust swarmed his eyes. He rubbed them.
“I realized something, and I’m going to tell you, and only you,” the Marshal said. “Our ship falling into the sea was a blessing. Now we’re here, and we can just...be ourselves. We’re home. And it’s much better than we imagined.”
Back on his feet, Merv cleaned the dust off his shoulders. “But, we mustn’t forget our brothers on the other si—”
The Marshal lunged at him, boot in the air. Merv’s eyes bulged. The Marshal’s boot clamped his neck and pinned him against the wall.
Why? I’m your...
An irresistible righteousness burned in the Marshal’s eyes. “But this isn’t your home. You’re a foreigner, an invader. I’m doing these wonderful people a favor by ending you.”
No wind could pass Merv’s throat to voice his desperation.
Get off!
Force was his only card. He slid the Marshal’s boot down on his chest, releasing his lungs. Air filled them enough to utter one word. “Don’t!”
The force of his boot only increased.
“Son of my father!” Merv choked out.
“What did you say?”
“Broth—”
The Marshal kicked his jaw. Merv recovered on his fours, click-clicked his jaw to confirm it wasn’t dislocated. Blood pooled into his right cheek.
“Don’t say another word!” the Marshal said.
“I won’t.” Merv coughed blood. “I won’t.”
“Rohimna...I’ll respect your orders, even here. I won’t kill him, since for some reason, you value him so much. Now get up, get out!”
Merv held his jaw and swallowed blood. Thin and metallic, flavored like the steel walls of a levship.
Outside the room, Emigrant children stared at him with powerless eyes. He found a corner to nurse his wounds.
It’s not so bad. There’s no dislocation. No teeth missing. Just bloody gums.
He sat there and watched people go about their business, all the while plagued by his mind and its indecision.
Zauri, she could be hurt, violated. What am I doing sitting around?
No, I can’t. I can’t disobey orders.
To hell with orders. To hell with the Marshal. I can save her.
No, I can’t. I have a duty to fulfill.
They’ll kill me anyway if I stay here. Look at how they stare, hungry for the moment when I fall.
No. One day, they’ll all know my name. In fear or in hope, my name will shake their hearts.
A while later, the Marshal came out. Instinctively, Merv lined up with the others and saluted. The Marshal began his address.
“We’re thousands of miles from any help.”
In his blacksuit, the Marshal Jahangir looked like any another soldier. This humility was one reason why Merv counted him among his personal heroes. He recalled a poem, written about the great Jahangir.
Remember our hero Jahangir. His words crumbled mountains, the seve
n seas were ink for his pen. The streets were alive with his sayings, and the hearts rested upon his teaching. He was our saint, our teacher, the wisdom of an age.
Never forget our hero Jahangir. When a child cried, his father slaughtered by the oppressor’s sword, his mother defiled, our saint dropped his pen. He reached for his blade, and light upon light, he never put it down until his life would dry that child’s tears.
Be like our hero, Saint Jahangir.
You couldn’t tell the warrior was once a scholar by the way he spoke today. “We have a job to finish. There’ll be no change of plans, ship or no ship. We’re not home yet.
“Our next operation will require a team of four, the very best we have left. If this operation fails, then our mission is over. Those of you who survive will have to disband, live among the people, and wait for the coming of the Mashamah. Even if it be years or decades.”
No one said anything. The room didn’t swell with motivation. The deadest compliance settled in the air.
“Myself.” He paused. “I will lead the operation.”
Of course, there was no better conductor than the Marshal.
“Nisreen, you will accompany me as our scout.”
Who?
“Aymin will act as our rearguard.”
One of the better snipers in the Fleet. Lucky to still have him.
“And Merv, you’re coming. All of you, be ready to depart in half an hour.”
What?
Does the Marshal really consider me among the very best?
Is that why I’m still alive?
Not the first time he wondered why he was alive. Not the second, or the third, or the fourth. But it didn’t matter. His life still had meaning, and he felt that meaning throb with its remaining breaths.
I’ll bring her back, and they will all know my name.
All those years ago, when Merv got back to his apartment after being left for dead by his comrades, he set fire to “Ferdowsi’s Book of Kings.” He pulled it from the pile on his bedside table, held it against the sun falling through the window, filled his aperture, and burn!
He watched it char in his hand. Fire scalded his palms, rippled onto his finger tips. He walked to the bathtub in the corner of his only room and drowned it with his hand. Ink floated off the pages. The stories of his heroes bled into the water.