“He might not have expected treachery from you a week ago,” I said. “But surely he would be wary of you now, unless you could persuade him that you’ve been a prisoner this whole time.”
“I could tell him that I escaped from Lauria and Xanthe far from Penelopeia. I’ve been traveling since then, walking back here to return to him. I’m ragged enough for that to be believable. He’d figure out I was lying—he has his ways—but not right away. At first, I think, he would believe me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “For our plan to work, we need to kidnap him, not just kill him.”
“Have you spoken with Lauria since she escaped?” Andromeda asked.
“Since she escaped? Yes.”
“There’s something you’re hiding from me,” Andromeda said.
I shook my head, even though I knew exactly what she was talking about. But I saw how she looked at me, and knew she knew I was lying. “I am a shaman,” I said. “I tried last night to find Lauria in my dreams, and I couldn’t find her. When she was a prisoner, and they were drugging her, I couldn’t find her, but I could always see the thread between us. Last night, I looked, and I couldn’t see it. Not at all. I…I don’t know what that means.”
Andromeda took a breath as if she were going to say something—then let it out, silently, squeezed my hand, and went to lie down to go to sleep. Maybe she was going to try to find Lauria herself. Well, and if she could—wonderful.
I lay down and saw Alibek hesitate, his blanket in his hands. He was looking at me, and I realized that he was trying to decide whether to lie down close to me or not. He was looking at me to try to see what I wanted. I turned my face away from him and closed my eyes. Alibek lay down, and I thought he might have stretched out his hand for me to take it, but I was too heartsick about Lauria to take it.
It was Alibek’s fault, I thought. It was because of Alibek that Lauria was cast out.
I had a hard time going to sleep that night. I thought I’d try to find Lauria again, too, but I was afraid of what I would find—or what I wouldn’t find—and that fear kept me wide-eyed, trying to get comfortable on the hard dirt floor. I hated this house, Penelopeia, the barley district, everything. I wanted to be home. That got me thinking about how I wouldn’t have a home anymore if we couldn’t stop the Greek army.
Lauria had thought she was going to free the rivers. My mother had always said that when the northern river returned, it would sweep away the Greeks and their empire—Weavers, army, and all. We’d lived right in its path—if it had returned in a huge flood, it would have swept us away, too. There were times I would have welcome it anyway, as a child.
Only the rivers’ return can free us all.
In the darkness, I could hear Andromeda breathing. I knew which breath was hers—after all the weeks of travel, I knew the sounds Janiya and Alibek made at night, and Damira had a raspy wheeze. I thought Andromeda was still awake. I knew from things she’d said that Lauria didn’t get along with her mother, but I could see the inner strength that Lauria shrugged off. Andromeda got her freedom by manipulating a master of manipulation. She’d raised her daughter as a freewoman—and despite her own loyalty to Kyros, she’d escaped and hidden quite well since slipping out of the Koryphe with Lauria and Xanthe. Lauria didn’t give her enough credit. But then, I’d never had to listen to her nag.
My mother…had been the one who told me that the river would free us someday. I couldn’t remember her face anymore, but I could remember her voice saying, “The djinni promised us.” The first time she said it, it was right after one of the other slaves had run away. I wanted to run, too, and she’d stroked my hair and said, “No, no, we can’t do that. We’ll all be free someday, when our river returns. The rivers’ return will free us all.” I’d imagined our river returning for days after that. Of course, in my fantasies, it came in a gentle rush, rolling down from the mountains but never so much as splashing beyond the banks. “Look,” I’d imagined shouting to my mother—of course, in my fantasies I’d somehow been on the riverbank to see it coming, not closeted up in the household of our owner. “Look! The river! It’s coming! The river has returned!”
Alibek thought the saying meant some people would never be free because the rivers would never return. Except, if it was bound up by djinni, Lauria could free the northern river. She could go to the valley where the water was bound, and free the djinni. The water would come crashing down like the temple had. And then what? Then we’d see death that would make the fall of the temple look harmless. Janiya had sacrificed her life to protect the spell-chain that kept that river bound. But that was when she was loyal to the Greeks.
The river would kill anyone in its path—Greek, Danibeki, Persian, foreigner. But the Danibeki slaves believed that the rivers’ return would free them—and many slaves, like my mother, were really only thinking about the northern great river when they said that. If it came back, would their belief make it true?
Slaves often outnumbered their masters—maybe not here in the heart of the Penelopeian Empire, but in Elpisia, Daphnia, Casseia…If the slaves believed that they were destined to be free and rose up, the Greeks around them wouldn’t stand a chance. And neither would the army. With no one to watch its back…nowhere close by to get food and supplies…
Besides, if the river returned, the Greeks would also believe that their empire was doomed. They’d heard the same stories. Just because they mocked the slave stories didn’t mean they wouldn’t believe them if they looked up to see the flood coming. Even if only the northern one returned.
The flood wouldn’t touch the steppe.
That made it much easier for me to feel that the destruction would be worth it.
But Lauria was dead. Lauria was dead, and the river would never be free. Not in my generation.
I gave up on sleeping, and opened my eyes, staring into the darkness. Andromeda was asleep now, I thought. Janiya and Alibek were asleep. Damira had gone to sleep ages ago. I was the only one awake. I sat up and leaned against the wall, feeling a restlessness stirring inside me. I wished I could go for a walk. I wondered if this was how Lauria felt when the cold fever had her. Probably not exactly.
It was during one of her cold fevers that she decided that she was supposed to free the rivers. That it was her destiny. I was no crazy sorceress, and I could think things through sensibly, even on a restless, sleepless night, even fearing the worst about Lauria. And so it wasn’t until some dark, dark hour that I decided that even if Lauria was dead, I refused to give up hope. If she could not free the river, then I would. Janiya had stolen that spell-chain once. It was still in Penelopeia, and stealing it again had to be possible.
Maybe, I thought.
I would try.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
L AURIA
When I first heard a sound, I thought I was imagining things—that I had been walking in the dark, in silence, for so long, my mind was beginning to make things up to amuse itself. I stopped walking and listened, and heard nothing until I held my breath. Then, there it was, very faint: the sound of trickling water.
I walked for a while after that without the sound growing any louder. Then I realized that I could hear it even when I was not holding my breath, and sometime after that I realized that the darkness around me was no longer complete. I could see the outline of my hand when I held it up before me—barely, faintly, in the dark.
Then I walked for another long while before I realized I could see light, somewhere up ahead.
First, I saw a faint gleam, like one of the stars that disappears when you look straight at it. That grew brighter, then larger. The speck became a glint, then a crevice of light. I kept walking. And came, at least, to the doorway, where I could look out of the tunnel. I saw hills—green hills, and mountains beyond them—and bright sunshine. I stepped out onto the grass, still damp with dew, and stumbled almost immediately. The world felt wrong around me—or perhaps I felt wrong. In that first moment of confusion I wasn’t sure. But I p
ut out my hands to catch myself, and realized that I couldn’t see them. Surely I am dead, I thought. A ghost in the world. I turned to look back. The tunnel was gone. Instead, I saw the city.
The city was set into a valley. From the hill I stood on, I could see it all like a box of jewelry spilled onto a table. The buildings glistened in the sun like pearls, but pearls of a hundred different vivid colors. A path led down from where I was, and I started down it.
Last winter, during my melancholia, Zivar had become convinced that if only we ran fast enough, we would be able to fly—this, she was certain, would cure me. She’d dragged me outside and made me run around in the snow before letting me go back to bed. As I walked along the path, my recollection of that day came back to me with a vivid force, and I started to run again, even though I was barefoot. After a moment or two of running, I kicked off with a foot as if I were pushing up from the bottom of a lake, and the air lifted me as water would have. I can fly. Truly. Just as Zivar said…
Flying took no particular effort, as it turned out—merely intention. I probably hadn’t needed a running start. I set myself toward the shimmering flower garden of a city, and a short while later I soared over it, then down into it, alighting like a bird on the roof of one of the tall buildings.
The buildings here were tall and narrow, as if they’d been stretched out, and the colors shimmered within the rocks themselves. The building I had lit upon was blue, with an orange roof. I slid down to the edge and peered at the street below. There were people here, and they looked like people. Tall, but otherwise fairly ordinary, at least from above: black and dark brown hair, tanned skin. No one looked up at me. I hesitated for a moment, then slid off the edge and floated gently to the ground, landing in the street itself. No one looked at me. They passed quickly, busy with their own errands. They all had a faint shimmer, I decided, just like their buildings. Perhaps the shimmer was in my eyes and not my surroundings. And I saw the eyes of a woman as she passed. They weren’t brown, like normal eyes, or even blue. They were red, and with slitted pupils like a cat’s. I recoiled, and for a moment her eyes flicked toward me and I thought she would see me. But they looked right through me, and she kept on.
I raised myself to my toes, then up into the air again, gliding over people’s heads. They couldn’t see me, and that made me wonder if they also couldn’t touch me—but I flinched at the thought of trying to stand still and let someone walk into me, or through me. I skimmed along the edges of the buildings; I could smell the velvety scent of the red flowers that cascaded from window boxes. When I hovered just outside a window, I could smell a delicately earthy scent like rice cooking. I wondered if I could eat here. At least I could smell.
I could hear their voices, too, but no words. Each voice I heard was singing—humming, really. Some of them seemed to be humming in harmony. Just a few of the people in the streets seemed to be doing it; most were silent.
If this is the underworld, why is everyone else different from me?
If I am a ghost, why am I a ghost somewhere so strange?
The city was very strange: the brightly colored buildings and the oddly colored eyes were the least of the strangeness. There were no horses here—none at all. There were large animals that looked a bit like oxen who pulled wagons, and there were people who rode in the wagons, but no one rode astride the oxen. The clothing was all as bright as the buildings: red, blue, green, yellow. Dyes like that would cost a small fortune, but even the simplest clothing seemed to be colored that way. Finally, when the sun went down, the city didn’t become as dark as it should have. In nearly every window, I could see the soft glow of a steady white light, as if every person in this city owned bottled moonlight and took it out as needed. I peered in windows, and each household seemed to have a stone the size of my cupped hands that glowed brightly, giving them light as they went about their business. The white stones never stopped glowing; if someone wanted to go to sleep, they simply tossed a black cloth over it to dampen the glow.
I stretched out on the roof of one of the buildings and stared up at the sky. I felt no urge to sleep, no tiredness. Well, that could just be the cold fever… Or it could be this strange place. The moon was in the same phase as it was at home; the stars were laid out in the same patterns. I saw Alexander on his throne, and Bucephalus with his tail that pointed north. Somehow the stars being right, with everything else that was wrong, almost made things worse.
I miss Tamar.
If this is the underworld, then surely I will see her again—someday. Surely we’ll be able to find each other when she dies. But I didn’t feel convinced. I wished I could sleep, but I couldn’t, so I lay awake and waited for the sun to rise again.
As the sky began to lighten with the edge of dawn, I heard the rattle of a wagon in the streets and the scrape of a bucket as someone drew water up from a well; the city was beginning to wake. I heard the squawk of a bird—it was as noisy as a rooster, but its call sounded like it was saying rrk-awk, rrk-awk, rather than the erk-a-rrk-a-roo of a rooster. As the sky grew lighter I could see a wagon below, drawn by a pair of the oxen. I glided down for a closer look and saw that there were people riding in the back of the wagon, looking haggard and exhausted as they clung to the hard wooden benches.
The other dead? I wondered.
I followed along behind the wagon, which rattled to a stop in front of a small house. Three people—a man, a woman, and a little girl—climbed out. They were each presented with an armful of clean, brightly dyed clothing and a box of fresh fruit. The door to the house was open, and the family went inside. The wagon moved on.
Surely they’re the other dead, and this is the underworld. But why did they arrive here so differently from me? I felt suddenly chilled. Is it because I lacked for funeral rites? I had no burial, but drowned in that lake? I slid into the wagon anyway.
We stopped at five more cottages. Each was small but clean, freshly painted the same bright colors as everything else, and with a pot of bright red flowers next to the front door. Each person was presented with clothing and fruit, then left at their house. At last, I was alone in the wagon. I looked into the face of the driver, but like everyone else, he did not appear to see me. Instead, the oxen began to pull us up the hill, toward what seemed to be the center of the city.
We passed through a market square. Like everything else, this was both familiar and foreign. I could see all sorts of goods available. The uncut cloth was the same vivid colors as all the clothes; the fruits, vegetables, and other foods were utterly unfamiliar, though they looked rather tasty. The people shopping at the market used glass beads rather than metal coins; they carried them on thongs around their necks, tied with complicated knots, and when someone wanted to make a purchase they untied their necklace and counted out the sum. This seemed reasonable enough until we passed a stall near the edge of the market square, where people were being handed the necklaces of beads in exchange for nothing at all.
I had seen no books, I realized as we pulled away from the market. No paper or ink. No scribe for hire to read and write letters.
Beyond the market was a large building of green and blue stones—grander than the other buildings I’d seen. It had pillars, and a huge staircase leading up that looked like it was mostly there to impress people. Most of the people going in seemed to be carrying baskets of fruit, artfully arranged; a few carried flowers. A temple. I left the wagon and followed the faithful up the stairs and inside.
Beyond the pillars I hesitated for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the dimmer light. I was in an entryway. White-robed acolytes accepted the baskets of fruit and offered blessings, but the faithful seemed to penetrate no farther. There was a hum coming from within the building, and I realized it was the sound of many voices singing in unison.
The laypeople did not seem to go beyond the entryway, but the door to the interior stood open. Not only was it open, on looking a little closer I realized that the edge was decorated with a mosaic that looked exactly like one of
the designs Saken had done on her vest last summer. My heart leapt a little. Is Saken here? Maybe she can explain to me what’s going on… I went through the door.
The interior of the temple was a huge, shadowy room with a high ceiling. It was filled with white-robed singers. They weren’t singing words, merely holding a note together, endlessly; it echoed in my head and in my bones. The note has a color, I thought, but I couldn’t place it. Or a taste. Zivar would love this.
The people faced inward, their eyes closed as they sang; there were men and women. I took a hesitant step forward out of the doorway. There was a path of green stones set into the floor, leading into the circle. White flowers—real ones, not mosaic ones—were scattered along the edges of the path, and the scent rose up to embrace me. I could glimpse the inner mosaic that the singers surrounded, and I realized that one of the pictures looked just like something I’d embroidered on my vest last summer. A wineglass, except that the one I’d embroidered was broken, and this one was whole. And a horse.
I took another step forward. No one looked at me. Did they know I was here? Certainty rose up that if I stepped into the circle, they would. This is for me. They are here for me.
I took another step forward. The singers were smiling, their arms linked. An image nudged at the edge of my thoughts, and at the edge of the circle, I suddenly realized what this reminded me of: a spell-chain. The way a spell-chain looked when you held it in the borderland, hunting a djinn.
I hesitated and backed away a step. I thought I’d go around the circle, or maybe fly up over it. As I leapt up, I brushed against one of the singers, and her thoughts echoed loudly into my own, as if she had just shouted into my ear. “Welcome home, chosen one. Welcome home, chosen one. Welcome home, chosen one.”
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