Shaken, I backed off a step. Then I touched another one, and again heard the words in my ear. “Welcome home, chosen one, welcome home, chosen one, welcome home, chosen…”
Did they know I had touched them? I saw no rising tension.
They want me to step into the circle. That’s what I’m supposed to do.
Well, maybe I should. It’s not like I have some better idea of what to do next.
I touched one more singer, a young man.
“RUN AWAY, LAURIA. RUN AWAY, THEY’RE GOING TO KILL YOU. RUN AWAY, LAURIA. RUN AWAY, THEY’RE GOING TO KILL YOU.”
I stumbled back. If hearing the thoughts of the others had been like having someone shout in my ear, this was an anguished scream. I suddenly noticed that every white-robed acolyte in the circle had a silver knife on their belt, gleaming in the dim light.
I touched the man again.
“IT’S A TRAP. IT’S A TRAP. IT’S A TRAP. IT’S A TRAP.”
He knew I was here, so surely the others had an inkling of it. But if I left—how would I find him again, to ask him what was going on, where I was? If they’re going to kill me, does that mean I’m not already dead? There were others coming into the room now, and I saw the man’s eyes open just a fraction. I touched him again, and this time, instead of words, an image washed over me: a hill outside of town, a particular rock. And then a word, so forceful that I felt my head would break from the impact: GO.
A new circle was forming along the edge of the room—more white-robed singers, the sharp knives at their belts. Rather than passing through the door again, I lifted up, past dust and cobwebs and muttering birds, out an upper window and over the town. No force held me back, and I didn’t wait around to hear whether the hum turned into a shriek of frustration.
As I glided back down the hill, I realized that I could see the white-robed acolytes everywhere, their silver knives at their sides. How had I not noticed them before? The brightness seemed to have gone out of the day. My own fear seemed to be reflected in the faces of the ordinary people in the streets now; how had I ever thought this was a peaceful place? They didn’t shrink from the people with knives, as I did, but their eyes darted around, and their bodies were tense.
As the echoes of the man’s shout faded, I realized that there was something oddly familiar about his voice. Where had I heard it before? If this was the underworld, could he be someone I’d known, who died? It wasn’t my long-ago friend Nikon, nor was it Thales, the soldier who’d probably died with his garrison because he recognized me when I raided with the Alashi. Not that he’d be inclined to help me out even if he could, I thought. It couldn’t be anyone from the Alashi because I’d spent my time there with women, and this had been a man.
No. Wait a minute.
I remembered a man’s voice speaking within the camp of the Sisterhood. You ask me to make a choice? I would stay with you.
The djinn from the bandits’ spell-chain—the spell-chain I’d used during that final fight. The djinn I’d freed by smashing the binding stone. The first djinn I’d ever freed. How could that man have been him? How could he be here?
And then I knew. I am in the borderland—the Silent Lands. When I passed through that gate, I came here with my body rather than just my spirit.
When the people here go through that gate to my side, they become djinni.
And now I have passed through to their side and am a djinn myself. A rogue djinn, with none of the substance or power lent by binding. Was that what they’d hoped to do with the spell-chain in the temple? But we didn’t kill djinni when we bound them, and the man—djinn—had told me that they meant to kill me. Why?
I decided to forget about finding the man who’d warned me—I needed to get home. I flew back to the hills, to the place where I’d come out of the tunnel. Surely there was a way back. Somehow. Even if I drown in the lake, better that than whatever they’re planning for me here.
I found the place in the hills where I’d come through, but no tunnel, gate, or secret door—just rocks, grass, and scrubby bushes. Then—There. I saw a flickering light appear in the air. It was almost like seeing a djinn, but I knew that’s not what I was seeing. It’s one of ours. A shaman or a sorceress. I eagerly looked for a doorway behind it and tried to slip through. I could see a glittering thread that fastened it back to its own side, but I couldn’t follow.
The spirit hesitated for a moment, then approached me. I tried to grab its arms, to shout, “Help me get home!” but it was already moving on, as if it could tell that I was not what it was hunting.
Then it began to fly, much as I had, but skimming along the ground like a low-flying bird. I followed it to a creek near the edge of the city, fed by water running down from the mountains. A group of women squatted at the edge, scrubbing clothes and spreading them out to dry. The women all wore crimson, with crimson scarves to keep their hair out of their faces; they hummed as they worked, and as I came near, following behind the spirit, I could hear that they hummed in harmony.
Then one of them saw the spirit and let out a piercing trill. She flung the clothes she was scrubbing at it, and the women scattered.
For a moment I couldn’t see the spirit. Then I spotted it, pursuing one of the running women. Something glittered, and a moment later I saw the woman surrounded with a burning light. My eyes watered and I had to look away. This is what a spell-chain looks like to the djinni, when Weavers come for them.
The woman let out a high, horrified wail. Then they winked out together like a snuffed candle, and the sound was gone.
The other women drifted back to the bank of the creek. They gathered up their work and left, their voices silent, their shoulders slumped.
I felt sick. Could I have intervened? I don’t see how. I couldn’t even touch the sorceress. I drifted slowly back to the hill where I’d come through. Near it, I saw the acolyte who’d warned me, hiking toward a spot higher up. I followed behind him silently. He’d shed his white robe and was wearing vivid blue clothes instead. He glanced behind him, but didn’t see me—he was looking to make sure no one had followed him. Surely they hadn’t wanted him to warn me. Had they known who sent me away?
He reached a flat rock—the one he’d shown me—and lay down on it with a sigh, looking up at the sky.
I brushed his shoulder, not sure how else to get his attention, and he jerked upright; his cat’s eyes focused on me, and I saw him smile faintly. He stretched out his hand and thrust it into my chest.
You are bound either way, the woman said. Would you rather that we continue to hold your chain, or would you like us to return you to the bandits? And then—How do I free you? The woman was me; I was seeing what the djinn remembered.
“Yes,” I said. “I remembered your voice.” I gestured toward where I had come out of the tunnel. “You warned me to run—thank you.”
The man bowed, and pantomimed taking a hand and kissing it.
“What is your name?”
This was a harder question than I had expected. Finally, he said, “Kasim.”
“Kasim—why did they want to kill me?”
Kasim held up his hand, flat, for me to touch. I gently pressed my hand to his, and again the pictures washed over me. Again, I saw myself—and I saw the gate the djinni saw, within my body like a whirling flame. Then, the drowned gate, the gate I’d found under the lake.
Then another set of pictures—these were rough, sketchy, and I realized he was trying to show me what could happen, not what had happened. I saw a woman in white robes stabbing through my chest, pinning my body to the floor with a long, thin knife. And then a dark slit in the air—my gate, fixed to the spot where I had died. And then stones laid on stones, building a doorway like the one under the reservoir. Gate.
“Why?”
Kasim dropped his hand and thought a moment, his face showing impatience and frustration. Then he held up his hand again. This time his pictures showed me first one gate, with glints of light passing through it, then two. When I still shook
my head, baffled, he took a deep breath and spoke aloud. The words came out thick, and difficult to understand. “You have a gate. Now”—he stabbed a finger at my chest—“now we have a gate.”
“Are you saying there isn’t a gate on this side? Or wasn’t until I came through? But I’ve seen djinni—your people—on our side, who weren’t bound!”
Kasim held up his hand, and I touched it. This time he told me a story in pictures. First, I saw a ghostly sorceress: a silver thread led back to her own side, to her body, and I watched as she dragged a reluctant djinn with her. Then I saw a shaman, also with a silver thread; a djinn grasped his hand as the shaman followed his own thread back through the gate, vanishing in a brief flare of light.
What would it mean for the djinni to have a gate of their own?
“Would a gate on this side help your people—the bound djinni—to return?”
“No,” Kasim said aloud.
“Then what—”
He raised his hand, and when I touched it, he showed me another picture: a woman with cat-slitted eyes, twisting wire into a necklace. She’s making a spell-chain.
“You could enslave us,” I said. “The way we enslave you—you could do that to us.”
“Yes,” Kasim said.
A wave of panic and horror crashed through me, rocking me like Kasim’s voice had, back at the temple. Kasim was holding out his hand—he had more to tell me. Grimly, I took his hand to see the pictures. It was sketched pictures again—a trail of nuts leading to a crude trap, only the animal walking into the trap was me.
“You’re saying I was lured here? How?”
This time the images Kasim showed me were a jumble of my own memories. Dreams, messages, hints from the djinni. “This was all to lead me here? The idea that I was supposed to free the river—the message about where Thais was—all of it?”
Kasim said, “Most.” He held out his hand to pass me another picture: Xanthe’s face, avoiding my eyes.
“How was Xanthe ever mixed in with this?”
A picture of the magia, the one I hadn’t seen. Lurking in her eyes, there was a djinn. She was not possessed, exactly, but…inhabited. And then Xanthe, kissing her hand.
“Xanthe never met my eyes,” I whispered. She didn’t want me to see… “I need to get home. How do I get home?”
Kasim shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said aloud, and his face reflected the horror I knew was in mine.
“Maybe the gate will work for me, since I don’t belong here.”
Kasim offered his hand and gave me a picture of sorceresses and shamans flickering in and out from a hundred different points, like a tapestry sewn with a hundred different needles.
“You’re saying they come through randomly? All over?”
He shrugged and gestured toward the valley.
“They come through randomly, but only in this valley?” He nodded. “Why live here, then? When the sorceresses come here to kidnap you?”
Kasim chuckled a little, an unnatural laugh. The images he sent made no sense: a gang of children wandering through the streets, an acolyte at the temple, a woman who looked like she was starving to death. I must have looked baffled, because he tried another: meat, flung to savage animals, to keep them satisfied.
“You’re saying that you live here because someone has to?”
Another image: a family climbing out of a wagon, receiving gifts of clothing and food. The marketplace stall where all comers were given the strands of glass beads that could be used to buy all they needed.
And then I understood. “They pay you to live here. You came here because you were starving, and here they feed you. And they pay people to live here because that way, the Weavers won’t stray beyond this valley to look for prey.”
Apparently I’d gotten close enough. He folded his hands.
“I’ll try going back with a shaman,” I said.
I thought about walking around to try to find one, but I wasn’t sure that would accomplish much; I lit on the rock beside Kasim and waited, instead. Shamans were more likely to come through at night in any case. “Why aren’t there more gates?” I asked. “I mean, gates like me. I know there have been others, but if it’s the djinni who made me into a gate, why not make every shaman into a gate, or every slave?”
Kasim showed me someone cooking, making a complicated recipe with a rare ingredient. It wasn’t quite that easy, in other words.
“How many others are out there?”
Kasim shrugged.
“Do you think we can wait here safely? Or are the people from the temple looking for us?”
Kasim shrugged again, pointed at me, and gestured upward. Oh—he wants me to go look. Yeah, I could do that. I lifted and circled for a bit, looking to see if anyone was coming. No one was.
“What are they going to do now? If I’d stepped into the circle, they were going to kill me, but I didn’t, so now what?”
Kasim held out his hand. The picture he showed me was a sketch of me in the pit.
“You’re saying they think there’s no escape, so they’ve got time to figure it out?”
“Yes,” he said aloud.
The afternoon passed slowly. Several times, I saw sorceresses come through; Kasim tensed, but all moved in another direction. I wondered if there were always this many hunters in a day—if they came through all over the valley, there were doubtless many we weren’t seeing. Kasim knew at a glance that these were sorceresses, not shamans; apparently the sorceresses burned more brightly because of the weapon—the spell-chain—each held. I had met a couple of sorceresses, back at home. I wondered whether I might recognize one of the sorceresses here if I stood face-to-face with her—wouldn’t it be strange to meet Zivar here?—but I feared drawing their attention to Kasim.
In late afternoon, I saw a shaman come through. Kasim pointed him out to me as someone we had no need to fear. I tried to grab him, but I lacked the substance to seize his robe. It wasn’t Jaran, or Tamar, or anyone else I knew; he didn’t seem to even know I was there, though he made a respectful bow toward Kasim. When he left, he was gone, and I was left behind.
Night was falling around us. This was when most of the shamans would be coming. Perhaps it will work yet, I thought. Perhaps I just need a shaman that I know—someone I have a connection to.
Kasim had come without food or a blanket; he curled up in a hollow place under the rock to sleep. I will keep watch over you, I thought, though I doubted I could protect him from much of anything. I rested on top of the rock, staring up at the sky and the all-too-familiar stars. I thought about the river—the distant river I had thought I was meant to free. It was all a lie. They didn’t mean for me to free the river, or the djinni that bound it—they just wanted me to come here, die, and become their gate.
I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter what they had meant for me. I reached for the certainty that had once filled me with strength like a flooding river. I found only a still, placid pool within. The madness is gone, I realized with a sudden clarity. The sorceress’s madness, it’s left me. Or I’ve left it.
I thought back over the last months—the dizzying energy I’d felt when the cold fever raged, the stark despair of the melancholia. It was the cold fever that told me to free the rivers. It was the cold fever that told me I could do it, and it was the djinni that told me I was chosen for the task—but they were lying, trying to lure me to the northern river’s source so that I would come here. Come here to die.
I wasn’t chosen. This was not my appointed task—it was a lie.
I need to go home. And when I get there, to hell with freeing the river. I’m going to find Tamar and go with her back to the Alashi.
If the river’s going to return, it’s going to have to find its way out without me.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
T AMAR
I woke to the sound of wood splintering, and a woman’s voice shouting, “Open, in the name of Athena!” The house was full of women with swords in their hands. I rea
lized with sick despair that it was the Sisterhood Guard. Who sent them here? Had one of us been seen? Or was Andromeda reporting on us? It couldn’t be Andromeda, I decided, because they’d have come sooner.
They jerked me to my feet and took me outside to stand against the wall of the house. “Stay calm,” Alibek whispered as they shoved him beside me. “Fighting right now would be suicide.”
Where was Janiya? Damira? Had they slipped out earlier? They must have. The guards brought Andromeda out, bound her hands, and stood her beside me and Alibek. One woman who seemed to be in charge touched Andromeda’s cheek and smiled at her. “Remember me?”
“Xanthe,” Andromeda said. Her voice shook. “I thought you were on our side.”
“Your daughter is dead,” Xanthe said. “Drowned. No longer a problem to the Sisterhood. But Kyros would like to see you.” She turned to the other guards. “Bring the other two as well.”
At least Janiya hadn’t been here. Surely Xanthe would have recognized her. I felt sick as I stumbled along through the dark streets. The sun was rising when we reached the Koryphe. As soon as we were inside, Xanthe took Andromeda in one direction, and the rest of the guards took me and Alibek in another. Andromeda glanced over her shoulder as she was being led away. Her lips moved. “Xanthe lies,” I thought she said.
Alibek and I were marched down a long spiral stair and into a dim hallway lined with barred doors. It was cold. The guards opened one door, shoved Alibek inside, and then touched a spell-chain nailed to the wall and muttered something. On to the next cell, where they pushed me in. The door shut, and as the guards touched the spell-chain, I felt a heaviness seize my limbs. I stumbled, then lay down on the floor as there was nowhere else to go. I had thought that Alibek and I would be able to talk to each other, but it felt like my mouth was full of cotton. I could breathe and groan, but not speak. The spell-chain, I thought. They must be using djinni to help guard prisoners. I was bound up like a fly in a spider’s web. I couldn’t even shift my weight to ease the ache in my bones where they pressed against the stone floor.
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