Change came to the Ottoman Empire not with a bang, but with a signature on a piece of paper in Istanbul. A new Sultan ascended the throne. In a gesture of benevolence—and to clear the overcrowded dungeons—a general amnesty was issued for all prisoners who had served ten years or more for "crimes of honor."
The news reached Akka on a Tuesday.
The guards came for Khalid in the middle of the day. He was lying on his straw mat, too weak to work the quarry. The coughing fits were coming every hour now, leaving him exhausted and shaking.
"Get up, Bedouin," the guard barked. "Today is your lucky day. The Sultan has decided you are no longer worth feeding."
Khalid blinked in the dim light. "What?"
"You're free," the guard said, unlocking the shackles on his ankles. The iron had rusted shut; it took a hammer to knock the pin loose. When the cuffs fell away, Khalid's legs felt impossibly light, like they didn't belong to him.
He was led up the stairs. Up from the dark. Up from the damp.
When they opened the main gate, the sunlight hit him like a physical blow. He fell to his knees, covering his eyes, his breath hitching in a wheezing sob. The world was too bright. It was too white.
They gave him his old clothes—the thobe he had worn ten years ago. It was moth-eaten and stained, smelling of mildew. When he put it on, it hung off his frame like a shroud. He was a skeleton wrapped in rags. His beard was grey and matted, reaching his chest. His eyes were sunken deep into his skull, burning with a feverish light.
"Go," the guard said, shoving him out onto the road. "If you are found in Akka by sunset, we arrest you for vagrancy."
Khalid stood on the dusty road. The sea breeze hit his face.
He was thirty-six years old. He looked sixty. He had no money. He had no horse. He had no sword. His lungs were rotting inside his chest.
He turned slowly. He knew where North was. He knew where South was.
He looked South. toward Damascus.
It was one hundred miles. Through hills, through heat, through bandit country.
He took a step. His legs trembled. He took another.
"Layla," he whispered. The name was a struggle to pronounce, his voice unused to the shape of it.
He began to walk. It was a walk of the dead, a ghost dragging his bones home.