Freedom s Sisters

by Naomi Kritzer

  “Yes,” the djinn said.

  “Will they obey the commands given through you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then go, and carry out my orders.”

  When it was gone, I asked Lauria, “What will happen if someone dies from the water they let out?”

  Lauria shrugged. “I don’t know. If they kill me, I guess you’ll get to decide without me whether to break the binding stones. And it will be up to the three of you to break the gate.”

  There was nothing to do until morning. Zivar made herself a nest and lay down to sleep. Alibek wrapped one of the silk cushions around his sword and tied it with a ribbon, so that it wouldn’t cut anyone who rolled over in the night. He set it where he could reach it, arranged some more pillows under his head, and closed his eyes. I checked Kyros, who was still breathing, but not moving otherwise, then lay back against some of the pillows. Lauria lay beside me. I heard Alibek fall asleep, and I thought Zivar slept as well, but Lauria was still awake.

  “Do you want to kill Kyros?” I asked softly.

  “There’s no harm in keeping him alive a bit longer,” she said. “Just in case the plan worked.”

  “I suppose,” I said.

  “It won’t bring my mother back.”

  I had expected to hear rage but Lauria’s voice was worn and quiet.

  “Did I ever tell you what my mother did the first time I got into a fight?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “I was, oh, probably five years old. Maybe six. I fought with a boy down the street, a year or two older than me. He was mixed blood, like me, but everyone considered him Greek because he had a Greek father who actually lived with him. Anyway, I think technically he won the fight but I bloodied his lip and gave him a black eye, and later his mother showed up at our door to demand that my mother punish me for hurting her son. What she wanted was for my mother to summon me downstairs and then beat me in front of her. What I wanted—I was listening, of course, from the upstairs window—was for my mother to stand up for me. I hadn’t started the fight. The boy was older than me, bigger than me! Instead, my mother wept about the difficulty of being a woman alone—she always implied that my father had died in a skirmish with bandits before he could settle down with her—and how she just didn’t know how to handle me, a girl who didn’t act like a proper girl. After a bit the other mother left in disgust. I was relieved, but disappointed.”

  Lauria let the spell-chain rest on her stomach. I could see the glitter of the stones, but it was too dark to see her face.

  “That was always the way it was. My whole childhood. She always found some way to get me out of trouble, but it was always a spineless way. Always the way with the least risk to her. I guess I assumed…” She broke off and took a harsh breath. “I guess I assumed this meant she’d always find a way to get herself out of trouble. Out of the trouble I got her in.”

  “You can’t blame yourself,” I said.

  “Of course I can blame myself. She wouldn’t have even been in Penelopeia if it weren’t for me.”

  “I met your mother in Penelopeia,” I said. “She sought me out when she heard my name. She was not what I pictured.”

  “Other people’s mothers never are.”

  “True.” I thought that over, wondering what Lauria would have thought of my mother. “Your mother would willingly have traded her life to save yours. But…she’d have gone to her grave more happily if she’d had one more chance to tweak you for never getting married like a proper daughter.”

  Lauria let out a short laugh at that.

  “Could you ever have been the daughter your mother wanted?”

  “No,” Lauria said. A long pause, then she added, “She didn’t raise me to be that daughter. Even though she always said she tried.”

  “Maybe that’s not really what she wanted. Maybe she really wanted you, even if she couldn’t admit it.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Is there anything you could have done differently to protect your mother?”

  “Not gone after Thais. That put me in Kyros’s hands.”

  “We wouldn’t have the river chain.”

  “My mother’s life, for the river’s?”

  “Would she make that trade?” I asked.

  “No. Remember, she always looked for the weak way out.”

  “But she raised you to choose otherwise.”

  “Yes. My mother never would have made the trade, but…it’s not impossible that she would choose for me to make it. So long as I felt properly guilt-stricken afterward.” She fell silent, and after a while, I fell asleep.

  I looked for the borderland that night. I wanted to talk to Zhanna or Jaran, to tell them what we had done. Instead, I found myself face-to-face with a djinn. “See,” the djinn whispered, and I felt myself caught in a whirlwind and blown distant. See.

  I saw a stone room, and four women shouting at each other in Greek. A bracelet like a coiled serpent lay on its side on the table in front of them. They were all talking at once. I could barely make out what they were saying, but they were talking about Kyros, Lauria, and the river chain.

  “Of course the army aims to betray us,” one of them said. “I never doubted this. But they hadn’t the means, until—”

  “—surely he won’t dare,” someone else cut in.

  “Surely! Surely you won’t assume anything this time!”

  “Why go to all the trouble of seizing the karenite if they were going to render it worthless?”

  They all started talking again.

  “Are they the high magias?” I asked my guide.

  Yes.

  “Where is Xanthe? Didn’t she report what happened?”

  Silence.

  Piecing together the conversation, I thought that they did think Kyros had stolen it. They thought that Xanthe had lied about Lauria’s death, and Kyros and Lauria had been working together. “She’s his daughter, after all,” one of them said.

  I wanted to find Zhanna or Jaran, but someone was shaking me, dragging me back. It was still mostly dark. “Someone’s coming,” Alibek said.

  I sat up. “Are we going to break the spell-chain?”

  “How much water remains?” Alibek asked Lauria.

  “I don’t think we have time to ask,” Lauria said.

  “Put down the palanquin,” Zivar said to her own djinni. “I know you’re going to do it.”

  Lauria looked at me. “I’m not going to decide this on my own. But yes. I’ve thought about it, and I think we should do it. It might not be worth the destruction if it were just to save the Alashi or just to free the Danibeki. But it’s also to free the djinni. And to prevent the djinni from ever enslaving us.”

  I nodded. So did Alibek and Zivar. Kyros was still sleeping.

  “Let’s do it,” I said. “Let’s do it now.”

  We put down somewhere on the steppe. The eastern sky was faintly gray. I smelled dry grass and cool air, and felt a rush of longing to be back with the Alashi. Soon.

  “Everyone find two rocks,” Lauria said. We were near a rockfall, and I dug out a flat stone, and another I could hold comfortably in my fist. Lauria dropped the spell-chain on the ground and spread it out into a big circle.

  “I think it’s best if we space ourselves out and all smash the first stones together,” Lauria said. “On the count of three. Then move on around the circle, breaking the binding stones as fast as we can.”

  We took our places.

  “Do you want to count?” Lauria asked me.

  My mouth went dry and I almost couldn’t speak. “The world will be made new,” I said. Then I raised my stone. “One,” I said. “Two.” In the lantern light, I saw Zivar, Alibek, and Lauria raise their stones, as well. “Three.”

  I brought my stone down. I had seen djinni freed this way before, but this time, I thought I heard a clap of thunder as we brought our rocks down. The binding stone shattered to dust under my own rock. I moved quickly to the side, searching for the next karenite bea
d.

  In the twilight, the karenite beads were hard to see. If I wasn’t sure whether a bead was karenite or something else, I smashed it. I had hoped to hear the voices of the djinni—Lauria could hear them speaking when she freed them—but I didn’t. Maybe they were too far away. I could hear my own heart beating, and I could hear the clatter of the rocks against each other.

  The sun was rising when we finished. I scanned the sky to our west but couldn’t see our pursuers yet. Lauria took the pincers and snapped one of the links, then started passing the chain through her hand to look for any last pieces of karenite. “Now what?” Alibek asked.

  “I dreamed last night about the Sisterhood,” I said. “I saw them arguing over what to do. It seemed like a djinn-sent dream. They believe Kyros did it. I think they think he wants to destroy the gate.”

  “We need to keep them uncertain,” Lauria said.

  “They won’t be looking for travelers on the ground,” Alibek said. “We could bait them by sending the empty palanquin away—they’d probably never catch up.”

  “We have no horses…”

  “So? We have feet.”

  “We’d have to carry Kyros, unless you think we can wake him up,” Lauria said. “He’d have no reason to try to walk quickly.”

  “Sure he would,” Alibek said. “He knows we’ll settle for leaving him dead.”

  “The palanquin will only work as bait if they’re looking for a palanquin, rather than the five of us,” Zivar said. “Or the spell-chain.”

  My head came up. “They’re probably looking for the spell-chain,” I said. “We could leave it on the palanquin.”

  Zivar shook Kyros awake and dragged him out of the palanquin.

  “Let’s lighten the load as much as possible,” Alibek said. We took out the wicker basket, the jugs of water and wine, the remaining food, and of course the bottle of syrup and Alibek’s sword. There were cushions and blankets inside, so we pulled all those out, too, leaving silk-covered walls and the rug on the floor.

  “All done?” Lauria asked, walking up with the spell-chain bundled in her hands. We nodded. She had coiled the chain, and she set it neatly inside the palanquin.

  “Where should I send it?” Zivar asked.

  Lauria thought it over. “Casseia, perhaps? It’s where the other great river turns south—perhaps we’d make the Weavers think we meant to free both rivers.” Zivar shot her a narrow-eyed look, and Lauria gave her a shrug. “I still haven’t thought of a way to free that one. But the Weavers won’t know that.”

  “We kidnapped Kyros to persuade the Weavers that the army had turned against them,” I said. “Is there some way to send the other half of the message to the army? Let them know that the Weavers are turning on them, and persuade them to break off their own attack and turn on the Weavers?”

  “Yes,” Lauria said, and her eyes were suddenly fierce and intent again. “We can send them the old river-chain. And a note.”

  We found paper and ink among the goods from the palanquin. Lauria spread out a piece of paper, dipped the pen, thought for a moment, then wrote. She gave her note to Zivar to read. “What do you think?”

  Zivar read it aloud. “ ‘The Weavers have turned on us prematurely, but never fear; plans have changed. Their power will shortly be at an end. Move south and ready yourselves. The bandits and the steppe are no longer a concern.’ Why should they believe this?”

  “Other than the fact that it’s accompanied by the broken river chain?” Lauria looked Kyros over. “It would help if it were clearly from Kyros, wouldn’t it? Kyros, take off your ring.” She pointed at a ring on his finger—a ruby nearly the size of my thumbnail, set in gold. “We’ll send this along.”

  Kyros had been rubbing his eyes, still foggy from the drug. Now he straightened up slightly. “Let me sign the note,” he said.

  Lauria narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

  “Because you’re right that the Weavers will likely turn on the army now. I’d like them warned.”

  Lauria thought that over, then handed him the pen. He dipped it in the ink and carefully signed his name. Lauria blew on the ink gently to dry it, studied the note, then shrugged and tucked the note, the ring, and the broken chain into a silk-lined compartment built into the palanquin.

  Zivar murmured to one of her djinn, and the palanquin rose and flew away. Kyros watched it go, then said, “I’m thirsty. May I have something to drink?”

  Alibek sent his djinn to fetch water for us, and we had it fill our jug to pass around. We let Kyros drink his fill and eat some of the food. There wasn’t much point in taking him with us if we were going to let him fall dead from thirst on the walk. We gathered up the useful things from the palanquin, bundling them together in knotted blankets and ripped-open silk pillows. I loaded Kyros down with a share of the heavier stuff, then bound his hands. “If you try to run,” I said, “or if you try to hurt us, I will think up a very painful and unpleasant way to kill you.”

  “I believe you,” Kyros said, and gave me a grim smile. “I won’t try to run. Or try to hurt you.”

  He wouldn’t run or try to hurt us today, anyway, I thought. Tomorrow might be different.

  “Why did the Sisterhood of Weavers bind the southern great river?” I asked Zivar. “Do you know? Is it covering anything?”

  “I don’t believe so,” Zivar said. “There’s no reservoir, as there is with the northern river. They just diverted it, through a tunnel under the mountains. Perhaps they just wanted water in Persia.”

  “Alibek,” Lauria said, “I think you should let me carry the black spell-chain.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if anyone comes after us, we can use the black chain to kill with. If you gave the order, the djinn might kill you. I think I could avoid being killed. If not, well, I’ll take my chances.”

  Alibek pulled the chain over his head and gave it to her. “Who’s the sorceress who made it?”

  “Kyros,” Lauria said.

  There was a shocked pause. I glanced at Kyros. He did not deny it. So Zivar was right.

  “Better start walking,” Zivar said, and we set out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  L AURIA

  When I closed my eyes for a moment to rest them from the glare of the sun, I could see the river. First, the vast black pitcher, shimmering under the moon; then the pitcher splitting open and water spraying out like white foam. A tall, rangy pine tree was caught by the spray and ripped out by the roots as the water boiled down the mountainside, and the torrential rush swept away everything in its path. Trees, houses, boulders, animals trying to swim, mountainsides washed away, mud…When I closed my eyes and meditated for a moment I saw it all, and then a single bright red flower bobbing to the top of the foam.

  The river unbound. Even in my grief for my mother, and despite the horror of knowing what kind of destruction I’d brought, I felt a dizzying sense of triumph. We had done it—we had freed the river. Whether the Sisterhood turned against the army or not, I thought the renewed river would likely prove to be a serious distraction. The ordinary Greek soldiers would be as shocked as the Danibeki slaves.

  But we’d exposed the gate. What if we couldn’t destroy it? That gate had been open for a long time before the Penelopeians ever came along, but before Penelope figured out how to bind djinni with spell-chains, that gate was used only by shamans, and I thought it was unlikely that the ancient djinni had been trying so desperately to get a gate of their own. Now it would be open and unguarded. They wouldn’t need a helper to push someone into the lake at precisely the right spot—with the right misleading messages, they could probably persuade someone to go to the valley and walk right on through.

  There were other people with gates inside them—at least, there had been in the past, and there could be again. It was easy enough to think of things that could have convinced me to find the gate last year and walk through it, if it hadn’t been underwater.

  I pushed the thought away. If we were unable to dest
roy the gate, the Sisterhood would still be able to do sorcery and would undoubtedly bind up the river to flood the valley again. If they had to send the entire Sisterhood Guard to shoot anyone who came near it, they would.

  Though one of the magias is on the djinni’s side, I remembered. Or she’s been deceived into serving them.

  There were four in all. They knew what was at stake, didn’t they?

  They don’t know that the djinni want to build their own gate.

  Well, we’d just need to find a way to destroy it, then.

  Kyros fell into step beside me at one point during the long afternoon. “So you really did it? You broke the bindings on the river?”

  I didn’t answer. Why would I tell you?

  “So now what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what was under the water, don’t you?” When I didn’t answer, he went on. “The source of the Weavers’ power is in that valley. If you destroy it…” He paused, and I thought that if his hands hadn’t been bound, he would have flung an arm out in a grand gesture. “No more sorcery.”

  “What’s that to you?” I said. “I thought you served the Weavers. You certainly always sounded loyal.”

  “An Empire should not be run by a quartet of madwomen,” Kyros said. “Don’t you agree?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “My wife is steadier than any of the high magias, and she’s bad enough. The purpose of seizing the steppe was to ease control away from the high magias and pass it to someone who could be served by sorceress and soldier alike. I’m sure you realized that; you’re quite intelligent. That’s why I valued you so much.”

  I turned on him, suddenly hearing my heart pounding in my ears; my head throbbed in the heat. He lowered his head in the face of my fury. “You killed my mother. Shut up, you lying bastard, or I’ll cut your intestines out and feed them to you.”