Freedom s Sisters

by Naomi Kritzer

  “A spell-chain? In that tiny little backwater? Don’t worry about it.” Zivar kicked her feet out and crossed her ankles.

  “You don’t know they didn’t have one,” I said. “Maybe they invited us to stay and eat because they were trying to delay us.”

  “They just wanted more money,” Zivar said.

  “They made us think they just wanted more money.”

  “You really think they might have had a spell-chain?” Zivar looked a little doubtful now. “Who would have had it?”

  “There could have been a sorceress there,” I said. “Or a trader. Or even an officer…” Unlikely, but I watched Zivar think it over, and I could see doubt creeping in. “If they know we’ve been here, they’ll know where to look for us.”

  “That’s true,” she said.

  “I think we should change direction.”

  “And go where?”

  “The drowned valley, where they imprisoned the northern great river.”

  “The Jaxartes, you mean.”

  “The Syr Darya,” I corrected her.

  “Why do you want to go there? Oh, I know. You told me once you want to free the rivers! I told you the southern one belongs to Persia now—how are you going to get that one back?”

  “Persia can keep it. I don’t know how I would get it back.”

  “But you want to free the Jaxartes.” Zivar’s eyes searched mine. “Why?”

  My answers spilled out, one after another: “Because it might save the Alashi. Because it will infuriate the Weavers. Because everyone says that the rivers’ return will free the Danibeki slaves, and I think even one river returning will free more than I could free in a lifetime. Because I can.” Because I think I’m meant to. I closed my mouth on that answer; I wasn’t sure Zivar would understand it.

  “What do you care about freeing the Danibeki slaves? If they had any gumption, they’d free themselves, wouldn’t they? Isn’t that what the Alashi say?”

  “The Alashi are wrong,” I said.

  “Are they? I know a slave who lived thousands of miles from the steppe who managed to free herself. In an unusual way, mind you, but nonetheless. I know others who are ‘slaves’ in name only.” Zivar leaned back against her pillows, then sat up as she got pricked by the rosebush. “But the Alashi—how would it help them?”

  “The bandits—Alashi are threatened by the Greeks right now,” Xanthe said. “The Weavers have sent the army to try to take the steppe.”

  The vision I’d seen rose up again in my mind, and I shuddered and leaned forward to press the point. “Zivar, you asked once about joining the Alashi. I can go back there now—the Alashi have said they’ll take me back. But they won’t be much of a refuge for you if they’re being destroyed by the Greeks.”

  “If the Weavers realize that I helped you free the river,” Zivar said, “they will have me killed. They don’t need to know where I am. They have my spell-chains.”

  “Do you really want to see magic scattered through the world?” I asked. “Do you want to see green mice running through the grainery? Strike at the Penelopeian Empire this way, and you’ll see it.”

  Zivar thought it over for a long time. Then she shifted her weight and drew her spell-chains out from under her dress. “South,” she said. “And east. I want to go to where the great northern river is bound.”

  I grew up at the foot of a range of high, rough hills. But if you followed the track of the old Syr Darya to the east, you quickly reached the real mountains. The Danibeki called them the djinni’s mountains; the Greeks sometimes called them Zeus’s mountains, since his lost hell was supposed to be hidden under one of the highest peaks. Their peaks were white even in the summer, and you could see them even when they were days of riding distant.

  It was in one of those valleys that the Sisterhood of Weavers had imprisoned the river.

  I craned my head out the window of the palanquin to look at the mountains as we drew close. I glimpsed them in the afternoon of our final day of travel, and thought that we were almost there, but when evening came, they were still distant, glowing white against the twilight sky.

  It had become routine to sleep in the palanquin. We curled up around the chaos, stuffed pillows under our heads and tried to forget about how far we were from the ground. Zivar nudged me awake when it was still dark. “If you haven’t ever seen the sun rise over the mountains,” she said, “it’s a sight worth seeing.”

  Zivar rose and stepped out of the palanquin; I lunged after her, then realized that we weren’t moving and that I could hear her laughing. She’d had the djinni set the palanquin on the ground while I was still asleep. I took a moment to gather my wits and wrap my blanket around my shoulders, then stepped out after her. The night was still quite dark, but I thought we were at the summit of one of the foothills. The air was chilly and dry, like night on the steppe, and my breath hovered in the air.

  Zivar didn’t speak; just clasped her own blanket around herself and waited.

  Xanthe climbed out a few minutes later, rubbing her eyes. “You scared me half to death,” she said to both of us. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re watching the sunrise,” I said.

  “Oh.” Xanthe ducked back into the palanquin, and I thought she’d gone back to bed, but she emerged again with her own blanket. “It’s cold,” she said. “Where are we?”

  “The foothills of Zeus’s mountains,” Zivar said. “Hey! Maybe after we free the river we can go let Zeus out of his hell. They say he’ll grant us all immortality if we can find a way to free him.”

  Sunrise over Zeus’s mountains happened in pieces. The first rays of light broke through the teeth of the mountain peaks. Then the snow on the peaks turned pink, then gold. Streaks of cloud like ribbon wound through the peaks, and finally, the sun was truly up, the sky blue, and, warm in the summer sun, we’d dropped our blankets to the ground.

  “When Alexander defeated Zeus, they say he dragged him from one end to the other of the empire he founded. Then he brought Zeus here, to the mountains of the djinni, ripped the tallest mountain from its roots, and imprisoned Zeus beneath it,” Xanthe said, staring calmly at the peaks. “I never understood why they could say Zeus’s hell was lost, when it was also supposed to be under the tallest mountain. I guess now I do, because I don’t know how you’d know which one’s the tallest.”

  “I’ve never seen Zeus or Alexander,” Zivar said, echoing what the worshippers of the djinni said about the gods. “I’m not worried about either one.”

  “They say that Alexander took care not to make the mistake Zeus made when he imprisoned Prometheus. His chains were forged, not from metal, but from Zeus’s own immortal bones.”

  “I’d never heard that,” I said, shivering a little. “That doesn’t make a lot of sense. How would you get the bones out without killing someone?”

  “Well, Zeus is immortal,” Xanthe said. “Prometheus had his liver eaten every day until he got loose, didn’t he? And he never died. It grew back. Same with Zeus’s bones.”

  “You’d think a mountain would be enough,” I said.

  “Not for a god.” Xanthe pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes.

  “I don’t know how you’d break chains made from a god’s bones,” I said. “I guess it makes sense that he’d be grateful if you could manage it, though. Prometheus granted Arachne immortality, why wouldn’t Zeus grant you immortality if you freed him?”

  Xanthe gave me a quick, half-lidded smile. “I’ve also heard that there are slaves who say that Zeus will make the river return.”

  “I’ve never heard that,” I said. “Is this something slaves say in Penelopeia?”

  “Maybe.”

  “We should get back into the palanquin,” Zivar said. Xanthe looked at it with loathing, then climbed back in.

  We found the track of the old river a few hours later and followed it up through the valleys and crevices where it had once flowed. In the height of summer, it was bone-dry. As I peered down, I caught a gli
mpse of something brightly purple, fluttering in the summer wind. “What is that?” I asked, and leaned out for a better look.

  Zivar muttered something to her djinni, and the palanquin slowly descended to let me take a look. The purple was a torn piece of cloth—from a cape, or a large banner. But as we moved down, I could see the rest more clearly.

  It was a battlefield.

  Zivar shuddered, and would probably have taken us away again, but looked at my face and fell silent.

  The bodies lay where they fell. Scavengers had been here, but this battle had happened recently; they hadn’t had time to do much. There were no Greek bodies, only Alashi; the Greeks, having won the day, had no doubt removed their own dead for burial. They had taken no prisoners. Many of the dead had been struck on the forehead, as if someone had combed through the field after the battle, dispatching the wounded.

  Men and women lay side by side. I felt an overpowering need to see if anyone I knew lay here, even as I wanted to run away. “We can use my djinni to bury them, if you’d like,” Zivar said.

  “Yes,” I said, and swallowed hard. The Alashi normally buried their dead under a cairn of rocks. “Have them dig one big grave. We can’t stay for long.”

  Zivar nodded and barked a short order to her djinni. I walked slowly through the battlefield, looking for faces I knew. I had almost concluded that I knew no one who’d died here when I saw a short male body that lay with its back to me. Not really wanting to grasp the dead man’s shoulder, I moved slowly to the other side of the body and crouched to see the face.

  It was Uljas.

  Zivar saw me pause and came over. “You know him?”

  “When I served Kyros, Uljas was a slave who tried to escape. I tracked him down and took him back. After I was banished from the Alashi, I went to the home of his new mistress and got him out again. He…” I cleared my throat. “He told me if he ever saw me again, he’d kill me.”

  Zivar looked at me, then at the body. “So he was your enemy.”

  “Yes, I guess he was.”

  “But you’re not happy he’s dead.”

  “No.” I stood up and walked away to look at the rest of the bodies. I guess I thought as long as he was alive, there was a chance he might forgive me. I fought a wave of nausea that rose up with the battlefield smell around me. It never would have happened. I hope he’s found Burkut now, and they’re happy.

  The bodies lay thick on the ground. I tried to remind myself that the Greeks had removed their own dead, and there might have been quite a few. Still, though the Alashi would make quick retreats if they thought it would be to their advantage, to leave behind their wounded spoke of desperation. They had lost this battle badly.

  Zivar approached me again. “The grave is done. Shall we have the djinni take the bodies to the grave?”

  I nodded. “I’ll carry Uljas, though.”

  I retrieved the purple cloth that had first caught my eye and wrapped it around Uljas like a shroud. His body was heavy, and still stiff. I carried him over to the grave; it was too deep for me to lower him into gently, so I set him by the side so that one of the djinni could place his body in the grave.

  The Alashi usually put things in with the bodies of their dead, but I had little I could offer Uljas, or any of the others. When all the bodies were in the mass grave, the djinni covered them with the dirt, then mounded rocks over it.

  “Are we done here?” Zivar asked me.

  I nodded silently.

  Zivar strode back over to the palanquin, but didn’t settle herself onto the cushions. Instead, she took out the live rosebush, which was looking a bit worse for wear. She scraped out a hole to plant it in at the edge of the cairn, and patted dirt around its roots. Then she poured water onto it from a jug.

  We stood silently for a moment longer.

  Then we climbed back into the palanquin, where Xanthe was waiting, and continued toward the lake in the mountains.

  There were other lakes dotted here and there along the track of the river, and I wondered how we’d know when we reached the place where the river was bound. But when we reached it, there was no doubt.

  Part of the river was dammed by rocks; it was not entirely magical. There were openings, though, and crevices, and instead of flowing through, the water was held in place, shimmering like a bowl of black glass. An enormous bowl of black glass. I thought I could see the djinni that held it. Hundreds of them, encircling the lake, holding back the waters. All these years. All that effort. Are they tired? Do djinni get tired? “Take me close,” I said.

  “Think it through first,” Zivar said. “Remember what happened at the temple? You just about got crushed.”

  Once I’d freed one djinn, the water would come shooting out through the gap I’d left. I imagined the water, a thousand times more powerful than spring floodwaters…“Will we be able to get out of the way of the water?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Zivar said. “My aerika seem to want to keep you alive. That might motivate them to get us clear.” She thought it over. “The water might not come right away. Surely the aerika are supposed to patch holes, if anyone slips loose. Still…”

  “Perhaps we should wait over the middle of the lake,” Xanthe said. “One of Zivar’s aerika can carry you to the edge and let you free the djinni one at a time. Surely it will be easier to pull you out of the way of the water than the whole palanquin.”

  The thought made me queasy, but I had to admit that it made sense. “Let’s move out over the middle of the water.” I want to see all of it.

  The lake was blue from above, and unthinkably large—much larger than I’d imagined. I remembered my glimpse of the sea near Penelopeia and knew that was larger than this was, but I’d only caught a brief glimpse. This, I could lean out and gaze down and try to take it all in. Larger than Daphnia, I thought. No. Larger than Penelopeia. No. It would cover Daphnia, Penelopeia, and Casseia, were they placed end to end, and drown all the Alashi besides.

  The thought gave me pause. I had known that loosing the river would bring a flood, but until I saw the water I didn’t really understand just how big the flood would be. I had pictured something more like the spring flood after a particularly snowy winter, not the wrath of all the gods falling down from the heights like the end of the world.

  But I was chosen for this, the cold fever whispered.

  “Let’s move down a little,” Xanthe said. She was at my side, leaning out, looking down. Her hands were shaking.

  Zivar brought us low and close to the water, and I leaned out to look, to see how close the nearest djinn was…

  …and felt a sharp blow to my backside, and—gods and djinni help me, I’m falling.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  T AMAR

  Have they forgotten about us?” Janiya asked. It was late afternoon, and we were still alone.

  “It’s not every day that a temple collapses,” Alibek said.

  I glanced at the djinn, still fanning us. The women and men of the household might have forgotten us, but we weren’t alone—not alone enough to speak freely. I picked up a piece of fruit. “They said the gate made the temple collapse.” I glanced at both Janiya and Alibek. Janiya raised an eyebrow. Alibek was sitting on the couch, but when he saw my face, he pulled his legs up and leaned forward, his eyes intent.

  Back when I had been Sophos’s slave, we’d had a way of talking, in the harem, that let us speak a little more freely even if we were overheard. We would say the opposite of what we meant, and then touch our lips as if to say, don’t believe my lying mouth. Surely Kyros’s slaves did something similar. Surely Janiya had done something like this, when she was a slave.

  “I don’t have any idea what they’re talking about,” I said, and brushed my lips.

  “That’s too bad,” Janiya said. “Right now, I feel like I’m standing blindfolded in a city I don’t know.” She turned away with a sigh.

  I wanted to shout at her to pay attention. I bit my lip, frustrated. Alibek understo
od. He got up, caught Janiya’s arm, and spun her around to face him. “Well, we may not be blindfolded, but we are in a city you don’t know.” He brushed his lips. “Aren’t we?”

  Her eyes went to him, then to me, then back to him. “Sure,” she said, and tentatively mimicked the gesture. “Yes.”

  Now that she was paying attention…“I think by ‘gate’ they meant a person. I’d like to meet her. She doesn’t sound like anyone I know.”

  “Certainly not like anyone in your family,” Janiya said, catching on.

  “Nor our sisterhood, back with the Alashi,” I said.

  “If this person were to join the Alashi,” Alibek said, “do you think the Alashi would want them?”

  “Yes,” I said. “They’d never let a person like that go.”

  Nods.

  So now we all knew that Lauria was in Penelopeia—or at least had been, a few hours ago. “From what the djinn said, it sounded like she got away. They don’t know where she is.”

  “Do you know where she is?” Janiya asked.

  “No.” I shook my head and clasped my hands. “No.”

  “Your own sister, now,” Janiya said. “Heard from her lately?”

  We were still talking about Lauria. Janiya wanted to know if we’d met in the borderland. “Hmmm. Yes. Very recently.”

  “After all this time?”

  “It has been a while, hasn’t it? Turns out there wasn’t any particular reason. She just didn’t think about trying to meet me.”

  “Some shaman she is,” Alibek murmured.

  “Ha! What can you do? Zhanna would be shocked.”

  “Did you tell her your own news?”

  “Yes, of course.” No, of course not. “She wanted to hear everything. We had a really long chat, got all caught up.” I had told her about Zivar—how to bring that up? “An old friend of ours was going to visit her part of the steppe, so I told her about that.”

  “Old friend?” Janiya was lost again.