Freedom's Sisters

by Naomi Kritzer

  “But when you freed him from the spell-chain, he moved the bandits…”

  “He still had the strength from the spell-chain, even though the binding had been broken.”

  Zivar had stopped listening; she had gone back to twisting wire as quickly as she could. She clearly intended to finish the spell-chain whether Tamar liked the idea or not.

  Tamar touched my hand. “Once we steal the spell-chain, we can free the river,” she whispered.

  All that water. I remembered how it had looked, shimmering in its vast bowl. With the spell-chain, I wouldn’t have to hope my helper snatched me away from the water in time to avoid being swept away—we could just smash the stones, free the djinni who’d stood there for centuries. And expose the gate, I thought.

  Without the gate, there will be no more sorceresses, no more Sisterhood of Weavers. No more enslavement of Kasim and the others who are desperate enough to live in that valley.

  I wondered what Tamar would say about that idea. Or Zivar. Or Alibek, for that matter. Well, we can’t free the river and have the gate stay open. It would make it far too easy for another person with an inner gate to stumble through.

  Zivar had almost finished the necklace now; Tamar bit her lip and averted her eyes. One link undone, Zivar closed her eyes for what seemed like mere heartbeats, then closed the final link.

  She opened her eyes: the djinn hovered beside her. “Break my chains,” Zivar said sharply. There were four sharp snaps and the chains fell away. Her eyes alight, she looped the spell-chain over her head and leapt to her feet. “Stealing a spell-chain, you said? Kidnapping Kyros? Let’s do it. Come on.”

  I took a moment to rob the guard of her sword and boots, and tie her with her own belt. Kasim left her and joined me in my mind again. Up, he said, and we ran for the stairs.

  We came up the stairs into the heat of the day. I could almost see Zivar’s fever rising off her like steam; I wondered if my own was as visible to her. There was no one at the top of the stairs. Up, Kasim urged again, and I saw another staircase across the hall and followed it. Up. He was scouting ahead; I could feel him leaving, returning, and leaving again. It made me feel dizzy and a little sick—or maybe that was the sudden heat, and the ache of hunger in my stomach.

  We emerged onto a small balcony, a fair way up. Now what? I asked Kasim.

  Send the slave for a palanquin, he said. Take it and get out of here.

  “Send the slave—the djinn—for a palanquin,” I said to Zivar. I turned to Tamar. “Where’s the spell-chain you want to steal?”

  “I think it’s there,” she said, and pointed.

  It was one of the needle-like towers that rose up, built by djinni and inaccessible except by palanquin. She was still speaking—saying something about gates and the magias—but I found my own thoughts seized by a flood of memories that weren’t my own. Yes, I thought, and I wasn’t sure if my certainty came from myself, or from Kasim. There. It’s there. “Let’s go,” I said.

  “We need to wait,” Tamar said, eyeing me nervously. “We still need the palanquin.”

  I tried to nod crisply. “Well, of course,” I said. Tamar exchanged a glance with Alibek; I ignored it.

  It seemed to take hours for the palanquin to arrive. The one that arrived, finally, was scarlet and gold silk, and very small. It was as luxurious inside as any larger palanquin—the interior walls were lined with blue and green silk, embroidered with golden pictures of fish. We piled inside and the djinn took us up. It took us up fast—my stomach lurched and my ears felt as if they were underwater, then suddenly out again. Tamar pressed her hand to her head. Then we stopped. “There’s a djinn out there, just outside the window,” Zivar said. “Lauria?”

  I drew aside the curtain and looked out. There was a djinn; it hovered in the air just outside the window. We were just out of reach.

  “Can we move in a little closer?” I asked.

  Zivar looked out and mulled it over. “There are djinni who were bound by sorceresses who are now dead. It’s still risky to tell them to kill someone, because sometimes they kill the holder of the chain, but there are times that the dead chains are used that way. If you’re right about what’s up here, this will be one of those times. If we come too close, it will kill us.”

  “I have to touch it in order to set it free.”

  “Yes.” Zivar sighed. “We could just get out of here, you know.”

  I met her eyes for a moment. She was nervous, but I could see excitement lurking. “You don’t really want to do that,” I said.

  Zivar looked out at the djinn again, then at me. “Lean out,” she said. “We’ll hold you.”

  Tamar and Zivar pinned my legs. Alibek took my left hand, bracing himself against the edge of the palanquin. I inched forward, leaning out toward the djinn. I found myself looking straight down at the ground. That is a long way down, I thought, and was momentarily almost overwhelmed with nausea. A long, long way down. The people below me were so small I could barely make them out; the flying birds below me looked the size of insects. Just pretend that’s what they are—bugs, crawling things. A tiny world, not the distant real one. Don’t imagine falling…hitting…

  I reached for the djinn. It was still beyond my hand. “We need to be a little closer,” I said. “Carefully, so I don’t fall.” I heard Zivar’s voice murmuring to her djinn. Despite her instructions, we moved with a lurch, and I felt Alibek’s hand tighten on mine.

  I’ve trusted my life to my worst enemy, I thought. I didn’t dare look up at Alibek; I wasn’t really positioned right to look at him, anyway. All he has to do is let go. The weight of my fall would pull my legs away from Zivar and Tamar.

  “Trust me, Lauria,” Alibek said softly. “I’ve got you.”

  I wriggled forward a little more. Almost there.

  The djinn turned on me; with the part of my mind that was Kasim, I could see its face, wild with anger, mad from its years of solitude and slavery. Die, I heard it scream, as it came at me like a thornbush caught in a whirlwind.

  I flung open the door in my heart. Go, I screamed back. Find your home.

  The djinn tore through me like a barbed arrow; it had aimed to tear me to pieces, and even thrown through into its own land it came close to succeeding. My body jerked, trying to escape the agony and nearly wrenching away from the hands that held me. I screamed. There was a sharp pain in my shoulder, and then I found myself lying on the silk rug of the palanquin.

  Kasim?

  Silence.

  Had he been forced through the door when I opened it? Had he dragged the other djinn through in order to save me? I had no idea.

  “Lauria? Can you hear me?” Tamar asked.

  My mind was quieter now, at least. “Yes,” I said. “I’m all right.” My chest ached, and I rubbed my breastbone with my clenched fist. “Are there any others?”

  “I don’t think so,” Zivar said.

  “Then take us in.”

  Here at the top of the tower, there was a tiny balcony to land palanquins on; there was also a stout door, locked. “Break it,” Zivar said to her djinn, and it smashed the door open.

  “I’ll go first,” I said. “In case there are any more…”

  The room was empty. Built into the wall was a strongbox: the djinn smashed it open. One final djinn emerged. “I am the guardian and the messenger,” it said in toneless, perfect Greek. “I was bound first by Nikephoros, apprentice to Sostrate, apprentice to one of the First Twelve; I was re-bound most recently by Lydia. What say you of Athena and Alexander?”

  I looked at Zivar. She shook her head, her eyes wide with alarm. “Free it,” she hissed. “If we give the wrong answer, something bad is going to happen.”

  That was clearly already the wrong answer; I could see it pulling back from us, whether to give the alarm or take us all prisoner or both, I wasn’t sure. I stepped forward, grasping with my fists, feeling the djinn solid under my hands for an instant, like carved rock—and threw open the door. This djinn passe
d through like melting smoke. We say of Athena, praise her, and praise her name, and praise her Weaving. We say of Alexander, that he is a fit servant for our mistress. Now you know the answer, if you are asked again… and it was gone.

  I stepped forward and took the necklace out of the strongbox.

  The necklace that bound the Syr Darya was not quite as big as I had imagined. It weighed less than a good cooking pot. Still, where most spell-chains looped twice or even three times around the neck this chain would loop at least twenty. The strands glittered with cut glass and gemstones, but also glinted with the shadows of karenite—this spell-chain held scores of karenite beads, each binding a different djinn. They were in one chain, so they worked together. The guardian-messenger I’d freed had probably carried instructions to the rest. Surely there’s another way to speak to them…Well, I could summon them all here, that would be one way to free the waters… I picked up the necklace.

  “Wait,” Zivar said, her voice tense. “You are a sorceress. As am I. Why should you have this?”

  “I’m not going to keep it,” I said.

  “So you say.”

  I handed it to Tamar. “Tamar is no sorceress,” I said.

  Zivar shrugged and acquiesced.

  “Now let’s get going before anyone notices we’re up here.” Tamar started toward the palanquin, then paused. “Do you know where we’ll find Kyros?”

  “No. Kasim—” I bit my lip. “Let me see if I can find Kasim and ask if he’ll come back, and scout for us again.” He could find Kyros unseen, and lead us there…

  I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and closed my eyes. Surely the gate in my heart opens both ways. Can I pass this way to the borderland? Or at least look through? Behind my closed eyes, I imagined a door, wood and iron with a latch. Hello? I nudged it open a crack, and peered through into the shadowy darkness. Anyone here?

  I felt a jerk as if someone had grabbed the front of my shirt with both hands and yanked with all their strength. And then I stood, facing a furiously angry white-robed woman, in that central hall of the temple in the djinn city.

  “You fled us,” the woman said.

  “You were going to kill me!”

  “We need a gate. Need one! It is your duty to return—you must. Swear it.”

  “I’m never coming back. I’m doing this my way.” I felt dizzy and strangely weak, standing there—like I had felt those times that I had spent too much time at the bottom of the lake. I need to get back—get back—

  And there I was, hunched on the floor, Tamar’s arm shaking my shoulders as she tried to rouse me. I sucked in a deep gasp of air and realized that I had not been breathing in my absence. No wonder I felt odd….

  “Did you find him?” Tamar asked. “Is that Kasim?”

  There was a flicker of light in the room with us—a djinn. “That’s not Kasim,” I said. My voice was hoarse. “This isn’t one we can trust. Why did you come back with me?” I addressed the djinn. “What do you want?”

  “Will help,” the djinn hissed.

  “Sure you will,” I muttered.

  “Give it a chance,” Tamar said. “Would it serve their purpose for you to die here?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then it’s to their advantage to help you get away.”

  “They set me up to get caught by Kyros,” I said.

  “But if you were caught now…”

  “The Sisterhood would cut my throat and figure out what to do about the gate later, I think,” I said. I tried to laugh to cover my own nervousness, but it sounded ghastly. “Maybe the djinni want a gate here.”

  “No,” the djinn said.

  “If you want to be helpful, find Kyros for us,” I said. “Tell us where he is, then possess him so that we can take him with us easily.”

  “Show me Kyros.” The djinn approached. Nervously, I put out my hand and summoned a memory of Kyros to my mind. The djinn touched me; I felt a feather-light brush against my thoughts. “Stay. I will return in a moment.”

  It was gone.

  “Stay?” Zivar said. “Let’s get out of here. Forget Kyros. You have the necklace to free the river—what do you need Kyros for?”

  “She’s right,” Alibek said. “It would be nice if we could make it look like Kyros stole it, but the Weavers aren’t idiots—they’d probably figure out what happened. Just freeing the river would be enough of a disruption.”

  There’s something they’re forgetting, I thought. Something they told me back when I first returned. It came to me a moment later. “My mother,” I said. “She’s with Kyros, isn’t she? I’m not leaving without my mother.”

  “I thought you didn’t even like your mother,” Zivar said.

  “That doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon her here!”

  “No,” Tamar said. “You’re right. We’ll stay, and look for Andromeda.”

  The djinn was back. “I’m not letting you in my mind, so don’t even ask,” I said. “You’ll have to tell us where to go as we fly down. Can you possess Kyros?”

  “No. He has a strong will.” The djinn’s glimmer brightened for a moment. “Like you.”

  We climbed back in to the palanquin and descended from the height. I felt pressure build in my ears as it had when I’d been diving to the bottom of the mountain reservoir. The djinn guided us to a tower; I recognized the enclosed garden where I’d passed time as a prisoner, below. “Within,” the djinn said when I pointed at a window.

  “The rogue djinn may not be able to possess Kyros, but Zivar’s bound djinn could hold him,” I said. “Keep him from speaking—which is important, because he has a spell-chain.”

  “It’s not going to be able to do that and hold up the palanquin at the same time,” Zivar said. “Let’s land this on the roof and go down the stairs.”

  It was high noon. The sun was scorching hot on our heads as we climbed out of the cramped palanquin. I shaded my eyes with my hand as we went down the stairs from the roof. There was a single door at the bottom. “Is Kyros behind this door?” I whispered to the rogue djinn.

  “Yes.”

  I glanced at Zivar. She gripped her spell-chain; I could see her lips moving, instructing the djinn. She waited a moment, her eyes intent. Then she nodded.

  I swung the door open.

  And found myself face-to-face with Xanthe.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  TAMAR

  An angry woman drew her sword as we came through the door. “You’re dead!” she shouted. “How can you be standing here? You’re dead!”

  “Yeah, I’m dead, Xanthe,” Lauria said, grinning fiercely. She snatched up a heavy clay pitcher to swing like a club and threw herself toward the other woman.

  Xanthe—I remembered her now, from the raid—fell back a step and her eyes went wide. Her free hand moved to her collar. “Stop her,” Xanthe shouted. “Grab her!”

  Xanthe had a spell-chain, I realized. Lauria whirled to face it. She thrust out her open hand and for a moment I saw a hand clasp hers. Then the djinn spun in the air, shrinking to a pinprick of light, and plunged into Lauria’s chest like the point of an arrow. Lauria shuddered as it happened, and her eyes closed.

  Xanthe raised her sword. “No!” I said, knowing what was happening too late to stop it. Someone brushed past me, and Alibek threw himself between Xanthe and Lauria, holding the sword we’d taken from Zivar’s guard. He caught the edge of Xanthe’s blade with his own sword and threw her back. Lauria opened her eyes, then leapt onto the bed, out of the way. Kyros stood frozen by the bed, held by Zivar’s djinn, and Lauria snatched a spell-chain from around his neck. “Take Xanthe’s sword,” she shouted, and I saw the sword fly through the air as the djinn snatched it out of her hand. A moment later Xanthe knelt on the floor panting for breath. With Alibek guarding Xanthe, Lauria jumped down off the bed and faced Kyros. “Where is my mother?”

  “He can’t talk,” Zivar said. “Should I release him?”

  “Yes—No. Wait.” Lauria searched Ky
ros. She found a dagger and a small knife, but kept looking. “I need to get at his feet,” she said to the djinn. It lifted Kyros up, and she yanked off his boots. Looped around one of his ankles was a second spell-chain, made from gleaming black stones. Lauria held it up and looked it over, a faint smile on her face. She nodded and gave Kyros a knowing look.

  “The one he had around his neck was rightfully Zivar’s, I think,” Lauria said, and tossed it to her. She handed Alibek the black one. Kyros’s eyes were open, and I saw fury and despair pass through them as he watched. She searched his other boot, then said, “All right, Zivar. Let him talk. Where’s my mother?”

  “Why should I tell you anything?” Kyros asked.

  “I don’t know. Do you want us to keep you alive? Or do you want to die? We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Then kill me and get it over with.”

  “Not with a sword. We’ll take you up in the palanquin and shove you out.”

  Kyros blanched. He opened his mouth silently, then began to stammer. “You have to understand, Lauria, I trusted your mother. I trusted her. I trusted you, too, and both of you betrayed me.”

  “What did you do to her?” Lauria whispered.

  “As soon as she was brought to me, I—” His voice faded. Then he straightened his shoulders, as much as the djinn would allow, and said, “I took her down to the courtyard, and had it cleared. We sat in the shade. I told her to close her eyes. Then I cut her throat. She died in seconds.”

  “I betrayed you,” Lauria whispered. “And you didn’t kill me.”

  “I promised myself not to make that mistake again.”

  Zivar stepped forward and caught Lauria’s arm, gently. “We need to hurry,” she said. “I think someone’s coming.”

  “Have the djinn carry him,” Lauria said. “Stop his mouth again.”

  Kyros’s eyes bulged with protest, but no sound emerged. Zivar went out, Kyros carried behind her like a big sack of rice. Xanthe had pressed herself into her corner, as if she hoped we’d forget about her, but Lauria turned. “Stand up,” she said. Xanthe stood. “Alibek, have your djinn hold her still, if you would.”