Freedom's Sisters

by Naomi Kritzer

  “Old friend?” Janiya was lost again.

  “We’ve known her—hmm. All our lives.” Alibek was nodding. He knew who I meant.

  “Think they’ll meet up?” Alibek asked.

  “Oh yes,” I said. “If they manage to find each other. It’s a big steppe. Who knows, maybe they already have.” I had a plum untasted in my hand, and I rested it lightly on the table. “Speaking of family…” I looked at Janiya. “That most trustworthy person…” Xanthe? Why shouldn’t we trust Xanthe? Hearing that Lauria had gotten away should have made me feel better, but was Xanthe with her? Could I do anything about it if she was?

  Janiya coughed, poured herself a drink, and sat down. “I’m not sure I can quite explain myself,” she said. She glanced around the room, at the djinn that fanned us. “Perhaps I can just speak plainly. There are four magias; they take the office in turns, so that power can be held by someone who is not fully in the grip of either melancholia or the cold fever. Naturally, they do not always agree on the best course of action. There are alliances that form. This was true thirteen years ago. I believe it’s still true now.”

  I didn’t see what difference that made.

  “I believe this person misleads many people about her loyalties. I believe that she was trying to mislead me, when we talked.” Janiya swallowed hard, then drummed her fingers on her cup. “So. I think I do”—not—“trust Rhea.”

  “I feel the same way,” I said. Alibek nodded.

  “I’m glad we’re agreed,” Janiya said. She swirled her juice for a moment. “I’m not sure what we’re going to do about it.”

  We heard footsteps and fell silent. Rhea came in. She looked us over, and I thought that if she’d been listening, she hadn’t been fooled. “Let me speak plainly,” Rhea said. “We are quite interested in your offer. We believe that this might indeed be mutually beneficial.”

  I tensed, fearful that some demand would follow, but she dismissed my concern with a wave of her hand. “It’s late,” she said. “I have always found it uncomfortable to sleep in a palanquin, and I’m sure you’re less fond of it than I am. Why don’t you spend the night here. Eat an excellent dinner and sleep in a comfortable bed. One of my associates will transport you back to the steppe in the morning; we want to come to an understanding as quickly as possible.”

  I nodded. My stomach still churned, and I would not feel safe again until I was back on the steppe, well out of the grasp of anyone with a spell-chain. But they would be fools to mess up this opportunity, and it sounded like they knew that.

  “That’s fine,” Janiya said. “Thank you for the invitation.”

  We were shown to a single large room. Parvaneh arrived with an entire train of lesser servants with dinner: roast chicken, roast lamb, roast carrots and onions, two different kinds of bread, steaming rice that was a deep buttercup yellow, and another pitcher of chilled juice. My mouth watered. I wanted some of the crisp brown chicken skin. I’d seldom had roast chicken, and I could smell the nut-brown crispness from where I stood. But when the other servants had gone, Parvaneh still hesitated by the table.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said.

  Janiya had started to reach for the food, but she turned and gave Parvaneh her full attention, so I reluctantly turned away from the chicken.

  “I found out this afternoon that you’ve met an associate of mine,” she said. “At least one of you has. In Casseia.”

  “The—” I clamped my mouth shut—someone might be listening. Was she speaking of the Servant Sisterhood? Zivar’s servants?

  Parvaneh nodded. “Servants,” she said. “Yes.”

  I wanted to ask if she controlled Rhea, but the djinn was still right there. I asked instead, “Who exactly runs this household?”

  “Ha. I’m here to observe, really, not to run things. Unfortunate, but true.”

  “And how far up…?”

  “You don’t need to know that. What you need to know is that it’s not the Weavers who are behind the invasion of the steppe.”

  “What do you mean?” Janiya asked.

  “Sorcery is an art that is not open to all,” Parvaneh said. “Not to men, not to women without the right connections, not to anyone who hesitates at the price exacted. The army…” She glanced around and lowered her voice again. “There is a group, we don’t know who, that came from one of the Temples of Alexander. They have risen to positions of leadership in the army—they’re not the official leaders, but they’re kind of like the Servant Sisterhood. They’re controlling the army from the back rooms. When the conquest of the steppe is completed, they will control the karenite. They will measure it out and exact payment. The power is not in the sorcery; it’s in the control over aerika. The conspiracy of Alexander understands this.”

  “Surely the Weavers must see that,” I breathed.

  “Why are they allowing it to happen?”

  Parvaneh shrugged. “They believe that they have enough power now to take the steppe from their allies once it is secured from the Alashi. I think they’re wrong. But they are not behind the invasion of the steppe, and if they fall to squabbling with the Younger Sisters, it will only make it easier for Alexander’s conspirators to take over, in the end.”

  “Gods.” Janiya rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “So who can we turn against the army? How do we distract them, if they’re perfectly content to have the Weavers and Younger Sisters fighting among themselves?”

  “I don’t know,” Parvaneh said. “I must say, this took us somewhat by surprise, as well. We had been preparing for years, working toward a certain goal—only to find that overnight, the ones we thought would someday be our servants were challenging us for control. It shouldn’t have surprised us, but it did.” She looked us over and said, “Let me tell you one thing. The Servant Sisterhood would be happy to come to an understanding with the Alashi. But what you need is to find a set of tongs that will allow you to grasp not the sorceresses, but the Greek army. And good luck to you, because we haven’t found one.” With that, she went out.

  The chicken had cooled, and the skin was not as crisp as I’d hoped. We were silent.

  “Well,” Janiya said, and fell silent.

  “Excellent news,” Alibek said, finally. “I couldn’t have asked for better news.” Then he turned his head to the side and spat.

  There was a great deal to discuss, but no privacy. When we were done with our food, and the lesser servants had cleared it away, I clasped my teacup and stared out the window into the darkness. My thoughts were jumbled. I wished I were back on the steppe. Or somewhere else—even Casseia or Daphnia sounded good right now. Anywhere but here.

  But more than that—I wished I could talk to Lauria. And not the confused, rushed conversation that we could have if I found her in the borderland at night. I wanted to sit down with her face-to-face, tell her everything we’d done, and ask her advice.

  On the one hand, we had the Sisterhood, with its generations of power and its four-headed leader. On the other hand, we had the Younger Sisters—restless for power of their own. On yet another hand, we had the Servants, like Zivar’s servants and like Parvaneh, who hoped to find power through controlling the Weavers. And on still another hand, we had the conspiracy of Alexander—soldiers, not sorceresses, who hoped to control the sorceresses by controlling the karenite that they needed.

  This could not hold for much longer.

  The alliances—particularly the peace between the army and the Weavers—couldn’t hold. It would shatter on the anvil of the conquered steppe, but that wasn’t good enough. To save the Alashi, we needed it to break now.

  A faint breath of breeze came in through the window, making me think of the djinn slave that still fanned us. I’d almost forgotten that it was there. I looked around and saw that it had followed Janiya to fan her as she laid down to sleep. “I wish I could free you,” I said aloud. It occurred to me that I knew how Lauria did it, and I had never tried. For all I knew, I could free it. I got up, and went
over to face it. I could see it in the air, when I concentrated. It hovered, a faint smudge of shimmer in the dark.

  I saw djinni all the time in the borderland, but I rarely spoke with them here. Jaran had his friend the Fair One, but no djinn had adopted me the way the Fair One had Jaran. I touched it, and my hand tingled faintly as if it had gone to sleep. “Return to the Silent Lands, lost one of your kind,” I whispered. I felt foolish, doing this where Alibek and Janiya could see me. “And trouble us no more.”

  Nothing. The fan continued moving. The djinn was silent.

  “Are you forbidden to speak to us?” I asked. Not that silence would be an answer. Maybe it was forbidden, or maybe it didn’t feel like talking. I had just about decided it wasn’t going to talk to me when it spoke.

  “You are not the one I wait for,” it said in a gravelly voice. “But your heart is kind.” I felt something lightly brush my forehead.

  I turned back to the window and saw that Alibek was awake and watching me. My face flushed. I waited for him to say something mocking.

  “Is that how she does it?” he asked, instead.

  I nodded.

  He rose and came to stand beside me. Then he touched the djinn and murmured the words. Nothing. There was a faint rustle from the djinn. A laugh, I decided.

  “Surely there are other gates,” Alibek said. “Other people who could do what she can, if they ever tried.”

  “Yes,” the djinn said.

  “So you laugh, but should we wake Janiya, and have her try, too?”

  “No,” the djinn said. “I would know.”

  “Will they have you report on our conversation?” Alibek asked.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Will you tell them anything useful?”

  “Unlikely.”

  “Is anyone else listening? Can you tell?”

  A pause. Then, “You must flee,” the djinn said.

  “What?” Alibek said.

  “Run!” The djinn spoke urgently though the fan never broke its slow rhythm. “I tell you this because you tried to free me. Danger approaches. Take your friend and go now!”

  I bowed to the djinn, then shook Janiya awake. “We need to go,” I said. Janiya rose and followed without question.

  The hallway was empty. “It didn’t say what kind of danger,” Alibek said. “Enemies? Earthquake?”

  “Let’s just get out,” I said, and we went out to the courtyard. The outer door would be barred and guarded. “Should we climb the wall?” I asked. It was smooth marble, and didn’t look good for climbing.

  “Bribery will be faster,” Alibek said, and held up a clay jug from our table. He’d snatched it up on the way out. “I doubt he’s been ordered to keep us in.”

  Sure enough, we were out in the street moments later. We walked away, not running in case anyone saw us. “How far?” Janiya asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I—”

  A bird’s screech cut me off. I tipped my head back and looked. The moon was about three-quarters full, and it was too dark to see the bird, but I saw something else. Something large, black, and silent moved swiftly over our heads. I caught my breath and pointed.

  Janiya and Alibek looked up. Another one was passing overhead now. The Sisterhood. Or the Sisterhood Guard.

  Was this because I had told Kyros to fear the Younger Sisters?

  “Follow me,” Janiya whispered. “I know somewhere we can hide.”

  We hurried through the streets. Behind us, we could hear shouts, but they didn’t grow closer. Rhea’s house was in a fancy neighborhood. Each house was like its own tiny city surrounded by a wall, with a statue in front. The streets were almost as well kept as the houses, paved with bricks so that even in the rainy season they wouldn’t be muddy, and even in the dark we could walk without falling. The walls loomed up beside us.

  The air made my mouth dry. I smelled wood smoke and baking bread.

  “Where are we going?” Alibek asked.

  “A neighborhood where no one will look for us,” Janiya said. “It’s a long way from here.”

  We rounded the edge of a closed-down market square. I heard a sheep bleating and smelled rotting garbage. We crossed a bridge over a small canal, and I pinched my nose shut to block out the stench. From there we passed more houses and closed-up shops. I heard raucous voices, somewhere distant. They grew louder, and I saw lights and smelled roasting meat. The voices came from a large tavern—no, I realized as we passed, three taverns side by side. We kept walking.

  The houses were getting nicer again, though they lacked the statues Weavers put out front. I could hear distant voices again, and the scrape of shovels. Janiya paused at that and listened for a moment, then led us on, only to stop short when we saw a bright light in the sky, like a small, low moon. “What is that?” I asked.

  Janiya shaded her eyes and squinted. “I think—I’m not sure—I think they’ve got a bonfire on a platform, or something, to shed light below. We’re very close to the temple….”

  “The one that collapsed?”

  “Yes. I think we can hear them digging it out.”

  “That light makes me nervous,” I said. “Do we have to get any closer?”

  “A little, but we’ll skirt the edge of the square. We’re almost there.”

  We heard the voices clearly now, though we couldn’t make out any words. They had djinni to help them, but human soldiers were the ones digging. I wondered why, and then realized that if a djinn accidentally let a rock fall on a survivor and killed them, that would free the djinn and kill the sorceress.

  Beyond the edge of the temple square, we scrambled down a steep bank to another canal. There was no bridge here, just half-submerged rocks we could hop across. It was hard in the dark. Janiya made it first. The rocks were slippery, and I almost fell into the stinking, garbage-laden waters. “Bleah,” I said, trying to wipe my feet on the dirt of the opposite bank.

  “This is it,” Janiya said.

  The houses here were squat and run-down, built from mismatched bricks mixed with rocks, mud clay, and odd scraps. The narrow streets were bare dirt. Fires glowed inside a few houses, shedding the only light. Some of the shacks looked barely larger than the palanquin that had brought us here. There were larger houses, too—some built fairly well, with sturdy doors barred shut against the hungry crowds outside.

  I thought we were simply going to hide here, in this part of town where the city guards didn’t like to go, but Janiya seemed to know exactly where she was going. We followed her to a slouching, windowless house. The door was sturdy, and closed. Janiya raised her hand to knock, then hesitated. She looked back at me and Alibek, started to speak, then changed her mind and just knocked.

  Silence inside the house. Then a voice called, “Who is it?”

  “Janiya.”

  A long pause, then a bent, gray-haired woman flung the door open and glared out. “What are you doing here?”

  “I need your help. I—”

  She slammed the door shut.

  Janiya pounded on it. “Look, just let us in. I’m not going to shout my story from the street, all right? I need to talk to you.” She stepped back. I saw her shut her eyes for a moment, draw a deep breath, let it out. “You were right. I was wrong. I don’t need you to do anything for me but let me in, with my friends, who don’t deserve your scorn.”

  The door opened again. “What made you think you could come here and get help?” the old woman spat.

  “All I know is, you’re not going to hand us over to the Weavers.”

  “Who are these two?” the old woman asked.

  “Alashi bandits. Now let us in, because even if you won’t turn us in, your neighbors might.”

  The old woman stepped back to make way for us. It wasn’t much of an invitation, but Janiya went in, and Alibek and I followed her. The old woman barred the door behind us. “It’s good to see you again, Damira,” Janiya said, her voice resigned. “You look well.”

  “Don’t bother trying to li
e. I don’t look well. You look well, though. Which was it that agreed with you so well—serving the Weavers or being a slave?”

  “Neither,” Janiya said. “I escaped to the steppe and joined the Alashi. Quite some time ago.”

  Alibek sat down by the hearth. He hadn’t forgotten how to fade into the furniture. I’d learned to do it as a slave, but it was a useful skill even for a free person. I sat down next to him. I did not want to get between these two women.

  “You might have sent word,” Damira said.

  “How? The Weavers’ messenger service? I’m no shaman. Besides, when I left to join the Sisterhood Guard, you said you never wanted to hear from me again. When did you change your mind?”

  “Never,” Damira said. “But I don’t hate you enough to close the door on two other people who need help.” She gestured toward me and Alibek, her eyes still on Janiya. “If you’d never come back, I’d have died a happier woman.” She thrust her chin forward. “Go ahead and say it, Janiya. I saw the shock in your eyes when you saw me. I’ve gotten old. You were expecting to see the girl you used to know.”

  “I was just glad you opened the door,” Janiya said, but she lowered her head as she spoke. “I suppose you’re right, but it’s not just you. When I come across a mirror, or a still pool, I’m always shocked by my gray hair. Who is that old woman staring back at me?” She raised her head, but turned away from Damira and looked at the light and shadows from the fire against the dark clay walls. “What happened to…”

  “Anyone you’re going to ask me about is probably dead.”

  “But you’re not. I knew you’d still be alive.”

  “And still here.”

  “Where else would you be?”

  For a moment, I thought that Damira would grab Janiya in a fierce hug, but instead she turned away. “Who are your friends?”

  “This is Tamar, and this is Alibek.”

  Damira looked us over. For a moment, I was reminded of the eldress of the Alashi, and the way she had looked at me before presenting me with my first bead strung on a thong. Then she hobbled over to a cushion in the corner and sat. “Why are you here?”