Freedom s Sisters

by Naomi Kritzer

  “She took your mother to Kyros,” Alibek said.

  Lauria raised the knife to Xanthe’s throat, and I caught my breath. But Lauria only used the blade to force Xanthe’s head up and make her meet Lauria’s eyes. “You have a master, I see,” Lauria said softly.

  “Not a master,” Xanthe said defiantly. “A guest.”

  “No wonder you never met my eyes. How many are like you?”

  “Few.”

  “To whom are your loyalties, really?”

  “To the Sisterhood of Weavers!”

  “Truly?” Lauria pressed her palm to Xanthe’s forehead. “Return to the Silent Lands, lost one, and tell them this: I will never be your tool again.”

  There was a moment of silence, then Xanthe swayed, even in the grip of the djinn, as if her legs had suddenly lost their strength.

  Lauria put away her knife, took Xanthe’s shoulders, and looked into her eyes. “Do you know why the djinn told you to throw me into the reservoir? Because under the water is a gate to the Silent Lands, and they wanted to force me to the other side. Because if they killed me there, they would have a gate. And they could make spell-chains, and enslave humans to serve them—and not just the other way around.”

  Xanthe shuddered, but didn’t answer.

  “I live because they failed. But you served them, Xanthe—you served the aerika against our kind. You were their tool. Don’t let that happen again.” Lauria turned away. “Alibek, have your djinn hold her here for a quarter of an hour, without letting her call out. Then have it let her go. Her weight would slow us down, and I don’t have the stomach to kill Janiya’s daughter.”

  We went back up to the palanquin. It was even more crowded now with Kyros, but at least we had more djinni to carry us. I wondered what happened to the rogue djinn who showed us where Kyros was—it had disappeared. We pressed inside, and the djinni lifted us up. “Hurry,” I murmured.

  “Don’t worry,” Lauria said. “If they follow us and we need some extra speed, we can just unload Kyros.” There was an edge to her voice that made my hair stand up.

  “Why do you keep talking about throwing him down, Lauria?” I asked.

  “Kyros is afraid of heights. He doesn’t like flying.”

  I leaned close and whispered into Lauria’s ear, “I want the Weavers to think that Kyros stole the river chain. If he’s dead, they’ll know he didn’t. It’s possible Xanthe will run away without telling anyone what happened…”

  Lauria nodded slowly. “We’ll need to keep him out of the borderland, then. He knows how to go there. They gave me a drug…”

  “We’ll put the palanquin down somewhere and see if we can buy some.”

  Kyros’s eyes were wide with terror or cold fever. “Unstop his mouth,” I said.

  Kyros licked his lips and swallowed. He couldn’t move his head but his eyes traveled from me, to Lauria, to Alibek, to Zivar. Zivar caressed the beads of her spell-chain. She had a faint smile. Alibek’s face was strangely serene. He held the unsheathed sword across his lap. Lauria’s eyes burned with rage, cold fever, and grief.

  “May I have some water?” Kyros asked. His voice was scratchy and weak.

  “Do we have any in here?” I asked Zivar. “Where did this palanquin come from, anyway? Whose is it?”

  Zivar shrugged and dug through a lidded wicker basket. She found a clay jug of water, a clay jug of wine, and a whole roast chicken. Lauria reached for the water jug, but I didn’t want her drowning Kyros with it, so I took it and let him have a swallow, then passed it around. “Anyone hungry?” I asked. I was. The chicken smelled of herbs and crisp skin. Alibek and I each tore off a leg and sat back to eat it. If Kyros was hungry, he didn’t say so.

  His thirst only slightly satisfied, Kyros looked from one person to the next. His face grew desperate. He couldn’t hope for help from me, or from Alibek, or from Lauria. I wasn’t sure if he knew who Zivar was, but he wasn’t likely to get help from her, either.

  We couldn’t really talk in front of him, though. The weight of the river chain rested against my chest. I had looped it around my neck, and the strands kept bunching up, sliding so that one or two wrapped tightly around my neck. I tugged at it to loosen it. Could I simply summon all of the djinni at once? Let the river just—go? I wasn’t actually sure how to summon djinni with a spell-chain. Did I have to take it out and look at it, or could I put my hand on it to use it? Would I say “djinni—come,” or just think it?

  Zivar gave me a secretive smile. “The spell-chains I’ve made have just one aeriko each. It can be sent on any errand and used to do whatever I want. Not all spell-chains are like that. Some aerika are bound to a particular task: to hold up the stones of a temple, for instance. Those aerika can’t be easily summoned away from their task even if you have the spell-chain. You can break the spell by breaking the binding stones. Or, if you’re Lauria, you can touch the aerika and free them that way. That’s what she was about to do when Xanthe pushed her into the water.”

  “I see.” I let my hand fall to my side.

  Zivar looked at Lauria. “I heard you cry for help after Xanthe pushed you,” she said. “I wanted to kill her. She had hidden spell-chains and used her aerika to hold me still and silent. If she hadn’t, I swear I’d have told my own to rip her heart out, I was so angry.” Zivar shuddered. Her voice had started shaking. “I thought you’d surely drowned.”

  Lauria looked up and met Zivar’s eyes. I could see a glint of humor despite her sadness. “Dying to kill Xanthe wouldn’t have done me much good.”

  “I was too angry to care,” Zivar said.

  “Is anyone following us?” Alibek asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Zivar said. “My aerika are supposed to be watching. You could have yours keep watch, too.”

  “They might not tell us in time,” Alibek said. “Is there a hammer in here? Can we free the djinni in the river chain now?”

  Lauria raised her head again. “I don’t know if we should,” she said.

  “You what?” Alibek said.

  “Why?” I asked. Janiya had risked her life to keep the river bound, but Lauria?

  “I don’t think this is a good time to talk about it,” Lauria said, and jerked her chin at Kyros.

  We fell silent. “We’ll find the drug soon,” Zivar said. “In the meantime, if we see anyone coming…” She held out a pair of pincers like she’d used to twist wire. “You could probably break the stones with this, if you had to.” She gave them to me. Lauria watched but didn’t say anything.

  We put down a few hours later, in a good-sized town. “I’ll go buy the drug,” Zivar said.

  “Do we have any money?” I asked.

  “Kyros has jewelry,” Lauria said, speaking for the first time in several hours. “Two rings. One has a ruby in it.”

  “That would be too noticeable. Besides, we won’t need money. I’m a sorceress; I’ll trade a bit of work for what I need. The rest of you—no, I take it back. Lauria and Alibek, you stay here with Kyros. Tamar, come with me.” She slid out and I followed.

  “Wait,” Alibek said. “Are you just going to take the river chain with you?”

  “Do you think anyone in this backwater is going to take it from her with me standing right there?” Zivar snapped. “I certainly think I can protect it better than you. Come along, Tamar.”

  “Why do you need me?” I asked, falling into step beside her.

  “I don’t. But this way we can talk privately.” She waited until we were beyond earshot. “Why do you want to free the river?”

  “Because when the rivers return, that’s supposed to free the slaves. All the slaves.”

  “Rivers. Not river. And do you really believe that?”

  “I think that enough people believe it that if even one river returns…it will happen.”

  “Or it won’t, and they will despair because even the prophesied return didn’t help them.”

  “You may be right.” The necklace had wrapped itself tight around my neck
again. I tugged at it. “But it’s the best I can do.”

  “I have seen the northern great river where it’s bound,” Zivar said. “Lauria has, too. It’s bigger than you realize. If we free it, thousands will die. Didn’t you live near the old course of the river? People you know will be among them.” She lowered her voice. “How many Greeks are you willing to kill to save the Alashi? How many Danibeki?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Well, think about it.”

  We were at the edge of the town. A curious crowd was gathering. “I wish to see an apothecary,” Zivar called. There was a nervous shuffle, and then an older man stepped forward.

  “I’m the apothecary,” he said. “What do you need?”

  “A remedy for sleeplessness. I have trouble sleeping—great trouble. I’ve had a remedy in the past that would put an ox to sleep. Can you prepare it for me, quickly?”

  “At once,” he said. “My shop is this way.”

  We followed to a cottage. Herbs hung in bundles, and the shelves along the walls held jars stopped with corks. The apothecary brought down a large jug, opened it, then used a funnel to pour thick syrup into a smaller bottle. He corked it and gave it to Zivar with a tin spoon. “One spoonful should do it. Don’t take more than three. If you’ve drunk a lot of wine, take less than you would otherwise.”

  “How shall I pay you?”

  “My roof leaks near the chimney. If you could have your aeriko patch it, I’d consider it an excellent trade.”

  While one djinn did that repair, Zivar had another split firewood in exchange for a pot of stew he’d made for his own dinner, and a cask of wine. We were soon on our way.

  “They tricked Lauria into drinking this,” I said, holding up the syrup. “I don’t think we’ll be able to trick Kyros.”

  “I think that if he’s given the choice between drinking the syrup and being thrown down from the height, he’ll choose the syrup,” Zivar said with some satisfaction.

  “Why do you hate Kyros?” I asked. “Because he held one of your spell-chains?”

  Zivar’s eyes flickered. “The spell-chain that Lauria found in his boot,” she said. “He made that. I’m certain of it. Men are not supposed to learn sorcery, but he married a sorceress who failed in her apprenticeship, and I would wager he persuaded her to teach him. Magic…” She shook her head in disgust. “Magic is for women.”

  “What about shamans?”

  “Eh. They’re nothing to do with me.”

  “Why do you dislike men so much?” Even among her servants, there were no men. “I spent years as a concubine, and I don’t dislike all men.”

  Zivar sighed. “Do you really insist on a reason? They smell bad. They shed. Some of them have hair on their backs.” She threw up her hands. “They’re men. What more of a reason do you need?”

  I would never understand her. I resolved not ever to trust Alibek’s safety to Zivar, and followed her back to the palanquin.

  I poured syrup into the spoon and held it up where Kyros could see it. “This will make you sleep,” I said. “Nothing more. Open your mouth.”

  Kyros hesitated. I wondered if he feared it was poison. I saw no advantage to poisoning him over killing him some other way, and neither did he, apparently, because he opened his mouth and swallowed it. I dosed him with two spoonfuls, then thought it over and gave him another half spoon. He was bigger than Zivar. His eyes soon took on a glazed look and he fell asleep, drool running from the corner of his mouth onto the cushions.

  “It smells like rank feet in here,” Zivar said as the djinni lifted us up.

  I sniffed. “I’ve smelled worse,” I said.

  “Oh, I’ve smelled worse,” Zivar said. “It still smells rank. Ugh. I wish I’d had the aeriko steal a larger palanquin.”

  “Wouldn’t that be heavier?” Alibek asked. “Slower?”

  “I don’t think anyone’s following us.”

  “Sure they are,” Alibek said. “Even if Xanthe lied or ran and they believe Kyros stole the spell-chain, he’d head in this direction.”

  “Maybe.”

  “It’s the most likely possibility.”

  “Have your aerika seen anyone coming? Mine haven’t,” Zivar said.

  “And of course, no aeriko has ever chosen not to see something it was supposed to be watching for,” Alibek said.

  “What would you have me do? We could abandon the palanquin and go on foot…”

  “I think we need to take care of the spell-chain now,” Alibek said. “We have it. We can break the rocks and free the river, and no one will be able to put it back together.”

  “That’s not true,” Zivar said. “We can free the river, but the Sisterhood can just bind it back up again.”

  Lauria stirred, but said nothing. “Kyros is asleep now,” I said. “Lauria? You used to say that you wanted to free the river.” I thought about all the people in the path of the water. “Did you change your mind?”

  Lauria straightened up and looked around at all of us. “The real reason the Sisterhood bound the northern great river was to hide the gate that leads to the Silent Lands.”

  This was not what I had expected her to say.

  “You’re going to have to explain that a little more,” Alibek said.

  Lauria sighed. “There’s a gate that leads to the Silent Lands—the borderland—the place where the djinni live. It’s a real gate, built out of stones. I found it after Xanthe threw me out of the palanquin. Tamar, you send your spirit through that gate every time you visit the borderland. Zivar, you go through that gate to find djinni when you make a spell-chain. It opens into their world. They have no gate into ours.

  “They lured me through because I have a gate in my heart. If they’d killed me on their side, they would have a gate. They could use it to bind us, to make spell-chains that enslave our kind.

  “If we free the northern great river, that gate will be exposed. If we leave it, they’ll lure another person like me through to their side. If we destroy it, there will be no more sorcery. Maybe even no more shamans.” Lauria tipped her head back against her cushion and sighed.

  “There was a Weaver who believed that Zeus was under the reservoir,” I said. “She was going to break the spell-chain to find him. Janiya stole it to stop her.” I swallowed, thinking about what Janiya had sacrificed to keep the river bound.

  “Yes. I heard that story from Xanthe, shortly before she dumped me in. I think the story might have been invented by the djinni, as bait for someone before me. They failed, but the story lives on.”

  “If we destroy the gate, what will happen to existing spell-chains?” Zivar asked.

  “Bound djinni will stay bound unless they’re freed. If they’re freed, well, there are other gates. I think they’ll find their way back eventually.”

  “If the aerika can go back, why wouldn’t I be able to get to the borderland?” Zivar asked.

  Lauria shrugged. “Well, I could be wrong. But it’s not easy to get there now. This gate is big and it stays in the same place. If you go there once, you can usually find your way back. And it will be gone.”

  No more Sisterhood of Weavers. But no more shamans, either.

  “And a lot of people will die,” Lauria said. “The reservoir is huge. All that water, coming down from the mountains…It will go far past its banks. I don’t know how far or fast it will go, but it will be a bad flood.”

  “But it wouldn’t just save the Alashi,” I said. “It would save the djinni. The Sisterhood couldn’t enslave them anymore.”

  “And it would save us,” Alibek said. “Or—maybe not us, but our children or grandchildren. The djinni came really close to getting Lauria’s gate. There are other people like her out there. They failed with Lauria, but surely they’ll succeed eventually.”

  “But thousands of people will die,” Lauria said. Her eyes were shadowed.

  “Is there a way to drain it slowly?” I asked.

  “If we drain it slowly enough to avoid a f
lood, that will give the Sisterhood time to stop us. When they realize what we’re after, they’ll guard the gate. Even if they don’t realize what we’re after, I expect they’ll guard the reservoir as soon as they can.”

  “Can you try telling the djinni to start letting the water out tonight, and maybe we can break the spell-chain in the morning?” I said. “At least there’d be less water to unleash. Right?”

  Lauria still hesitated.

  “Why not?” I said. “Even if we decide tomorrow not to break the spell-chain, just the water coming down will make a lot of people think the river has returned.”

  “For a time, I thought I was meant to free the rivers,” Lauria said. “I thought I’d been chosen. But that was a lie. That was just the djinni trying to lure me through the gate.” Lauria closed her eyes for a moment, then went on, her voice shaking. “I am afraid that by freeing the northern river I might somehow be making myself their tool again.”

  “The rice-eaters wanted you to come through the gate,” Alibek said. “The barley-eaters—surely they want you to destroy it.”

  Lauria raised her head slightly and looked at Alibek.

  “I always thought the old line about the rivers’ return just meant that we would never be free,” he said. “But now we can make one of them return.”

  Lauria looked at Zivar. “You agreed once to let me free the river, but that was before we saw it. And before you knew what it concealed.”

  Zivar touched the two spell-chains around her neck. “You would infuriate the Sisterhood,” she said. “And my servants, as well. But—I think I would enjoy that.”

  Lauria nodded. “I’ll need to hold the necklace to summon the djinni in it,” she said to me. I untangled the strands and tugged it off. My shoulders felt suddenly much lighter. Lauria held it in her hands and closed her eyes. Usually it was easy to summon a djinn, but this necklace was supposed to keep them where they were. Still, after a bit, I saw the sparkle of a djinn in the darkness of the palanquin.

  “Your freedom is at hand,” Lauria said. “But first, I want you to let the water out gradually. Start with a stream. Then let more and more come, faster and faster. Let those who no longer need to hold back water carry it in enormous raindrops to places where it will do no harm, and leave it there. Let two others come here to watch for sorceresses coming toward us—if they catch us, they will take the spell-chain, and you will stay slaves. Can you carry my bidding to the others?”