This was not the question I had expected. “For a time,” I said. “First, I doused her with cold water to distract her, so she hid from me. So then I went to the borderland, and waited for her there. And I was able to force her back out.”
Murmurs, around the circle.
“I was a Shaman’s apprentice. Zhanna’s, and before that, Jaran’s.”
“Yes. Jaran.” The Eldress raised an eyebrow, and now came the challenge I had expected. “The Alashi do not free slaves.”
“I am not Alashi. I left when you exiled my blood-sister.”
Janiya, who was the one who actually had exiled Lauria, bit her lip and looked down.
“You chose to leave,” the Eldress said. “You could choose to come back.”
“Why?”
“To teach.” That was one of the clan elders, a man I didn’t know. His voice was a soft growl. “To teach the Shamans how to guard the borderland and the djinni, so that we can lay siege to the source of the Sisterhood’s power.”
“I’m still not convinced that’s a good idea.” That was a clan eldress with only one eye, and a scar that stretched from forehead to chin. “That will just prove to them that we are a terrible threat to them, that they must move against us.”
“They’re coming, whether we act or not.”
“You don’t know that.”
“They’re moving the army up! What else could it . . .”
“All right,” the Eldress said. “I’ve had enough of this. Back to your clans, all of you. I want to talk to Tamar alone. No, Janiya, you can stay. Sit down. The rest of you . . .” She gestured, and after a moment or two, they rose and went out, still arguing. The tent was very quiet with them gone.
“It’s been like this for days,” the Eldress said. “I’m sure you can imagine. Now. Tell me. Do you think you can teach other Shamans to do what you did?”
“I don’t know. I could try. But—” I raised my chin. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to be with Lauria. Are you going to keep me here by force? Or . . .” Or are you going to let her come back?
“You have a great amount of faith in your sister.”
“Lauria can free bound djinni by touching them. If they come close to her, she can send them back to the borderland. That’s really what you should have your Shamans learn to do.”
“Really? Well, the djinni must want her where she is, then, because they said nothing about trying to bring her here. But they told me to bring you. They said that you would know something that would help us.”
“I know something that will help you?” I shook my head. “Well, I can try to teach the Shamans the trick of guarding the borderland. But I have to admit, I agree with the elders. I don’t see how it would help us.
“What is it you want?” I asked. “What is it you want me to do?”
“Teach the other Shamans how to guard the borderland, if the skill can be taught,” the Eldress said. “Then . . . we can give you karenite, enough to enslave an entire army of djinni. Use it to sow discord among our enemies.”
“Alone? I’ll be robbed by bandits.”
“Of course not alone. Janiya can go with you.”
Janiya’s head snapped up; she had not expected this. “But my Sisterhood . . .”
“I will arrange for another to lead it in your absence. You walked among the Penelopeians once, Janiya. You can do it again.”
“We’ll need a third,” Janiya said. “Someone who could pass as Greek.”
“Perhaps Alibek,” the Eldress said. “I will consider it.”
“You’re forgetting something,” I said. I raised my chin. “Lauria.”
“I did not forget your sister,” the Eldress said. She rose from her seat and opened a wood chest that sat nearby; from inside, she drew out something black. She shook it out, and I realized that she’d taken out two black, embroidered vests. Mine, and Lauria’s. “I had Zhanna give these to me, some weeks ago.” She handed them to me and sat back down. “Yours is yours again, if you want it. Lauria’s can be hers again, too, if you give it to her. Her fate is yours to decide.”
“She can come back?” I asked, just to be sure.
“Yes. She can come back. As Eldress of all the clans, I grant amnesty to Lauria. She came among us as an enemy, but I believe that she had sincerely turned against her old master, and was ready to become one of us in truth and not just as a tool.” She leaned back and looked at me; her eyes were unnaturally pale, I realized, a pale blue like the sky. “You will be initiated as one of the Alashi, before you go. If you choose, Lauria can be initiated in absentia, just as Burkut was.”
That night, I held Lauria’s vest and tried to find her. I’d tried to find her at night while I was traveling with Janiya, as well, but I hadn’t been able to. Tonight, I saw her, but far away. It was like seeing a Lauria made from smoke and fog, and I kept thinking she would disappear altogether.
“Come back,” I said. She didn’t seem to hear me, so I shouted. “Come back! Come back to the Alashi, they will take you back!”
Lauria shook her head; I couldn’t hear her words, but I thought I saw her lips move to say, too late.
“I’ll help you free Thais, but come up to the steppe first,” I shouted. “You can come back, the Eldress has granted you amnesty.”
The wind whipped across the steppe; I saw Lauria stop shouting, and close her eyes in concentration. For a single heartbeat, the wind died, and I found myself standing in Sophos’s courtyard. Lauria stood before me as I had seen her the night that Sophos had raped her—shaking with cold, her torn clothes bloody. She looked into my face and her lips parted. “I love you,” she said, and vanished from the borderland like the flame of a blown-out candle.
Lauria
Tamar,” I whispered, though I had found myself in mist and shadow, and searched for Tamar in vain. Someone was nudging my ankle. Kyros.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “I thought you might like to see Penelopeia from the sky.”
I blinked and looked around. I’d nodded off against the cushions of the palanquin, sometime during the afternoon. I’d started out feigning drowsiness to avoid talking to Kyros, and I must have fallen asleep for real. I sat up and stretched. The cushions under me were damp from sweat. All the curtains were drawn; Kyros feared flying, and hated looking out of the palanquin. Well, he doesn’t have to. I drew the corner of the curtain aside and peered out.
We were still high up. Looking down, I could see golden fields. Further away, something vast and dark caught the afternoon sunlight in rippling sparkles. I caught my breath and squinted, wondering what it could be. Blowing sand? Some sort of shiny rocks?
“It’s the sea,” Kyros said, though he hadn’t looked out, only at my face. “Penelopeia is on the shores of a sea.”
“That’s all water?” I stared at the glittering expanse.
“Salt water,” Kyros said. His voice was a little amused. “You can’t drink it.”
That was even more difficult to grasp. Salt was a precious, scarce resource. “There’s salt in it? Can they get the salt out?”
“Easily enough, but the Empire gets more of its salt from the salt flats east of here.”
I looked out again. All that water.
“How much further to Penelopeia?”
“We’ll be there soon,” Kyros said. “Before sunset.”
It was difficult to believe that in less than a day, we had traveled a distance that should have taken weeks.
Kyros had his feet kicked up on a bolster. I glanced at him again, wondering if he was going to ask me questions, but he appeared to be deep in thought. I looked out the window again.
I thought I could see farms now, below us. There were houses, surrounded by fields. The dark ribbon that ran alongside the farms was not, I realized, a river, but a wide, well-kept road; there were people traveling along it, with horses, wagons, camel trains. I had been studying the ground for so long, trying to pick out details, that I was startled to see movement out of the
corner of my eye, in the air. I looked, expecting a bird, and saw something that looked like a flying barn, or a very large flying box. An aeriko caravan, I realized, shipping apples one direction and grapes the other. It was painted bright yellow with a blue design.
“Your mother would be shocked by your hair,” Kyros said.
I touched the cropped ends. “It’s grown out a lot.” I scratched an itch. “I think if my mother saw me now she’d want me scrubbed raw and picked free of lice before she let me kiss her.” I’ll certainly look the part of a bandit, if I get taken before the High Magia like this.
Kyros chuckled a little and fell silent again. I sat back against the cushions and tried to practice, in my mind, what I would say to the High Magia, but my thoughts kept skipping ahead to when she didn’t believe me. Would she have me executed? Or tortured like a captured spy? Like the captured spy I am?
What did I know? The locations of the Alashi camps, last year. But even a djinn could find that out; they didn’t need me for that. How to infiltrate the Alashi, the tests I’d had to pass. The beads. I grimaced inwardly at the memory, but I was almost certain that the precise tests varied depending on what the leader of the Sisterhood or Brotherhood thought you needed to learn. Or the Clan Elder or Eldress, if you joined the Alashi in the winter, or were too young or too old to go fight.
I knew that the Alashi had karenite, but the Sisterhood knew that already. I knew something about the karenite trade in Daphnia—the names of the two sorceresses who bought, or tried to buy, my karenite. I could turn them over, I suppose. I knew about the Servant Sisterhood and the Younger Sisters, but little beyond the bare fact of their existence. There was Zivar, of course. Zivar, who’d been born a slave and then managed to pass herself off as a Weaver’s apprentice. The green mouse. The only other green mouse in the world. They could potentially wring information about Zivar out of me, but I doubted that the Weavers cared particularly where Zivar came from. She made spell-chains on command, and handed them back over, at least for now. She was useful. Her origins were unimportant.
I could tell them about Lycurgus. Lycurgus, Kyros’s cousin, was supposedly the steward of a farm owned by the Sisterhood. Tamar and I had taken Uljas there, looking for Burkut. Lycurgus had been drunk most of the time, and I’d realized while there that he’d been skimming farm profits to help the Younger Sisters. That’s the sort of information I could give Kyros to convince him that I really was on his side all along. I didn’t really care whether I condemned Lycurgus or not; I had no fondness for the man. Solon had been kind, and far more competent. And loyal to the Sisterhood.
If I were talkative enough, could I convince them I really had stayed loyal to Kyros?
They’ll believe me. Of course they’ll believe me. I knew it was the cold fever whispering in my ear, but I embraced it because the alternative was despair. They’ll believe me because I am the one meant to free the Rivers. I can only do that if I’m alive.
“Can you see the towers yet?” Kyros asked.
“Towers?”
“Well, you’ve been to Casseia, you know the sort of thing I’m talking about. Casseia has one tower, built very tall by aerika. Penelopeia has over twenty towers like that. You should be able to see them soon.”
I leaned a little further out the window and squinted my eyes. I could see something up ahead, barely visible against the blue sky. As we got closer, I could see the towers more clearly—first two, then six, then more. They spiked up towards the sky like glittering needles, and as we grew closer I realized that some were partially clad in polished copper and brass. They must have aerika who do nothing but polish the metal. It was an appalling display of power. Zivar had told me once that she never felt that she had enough aerika, though she lost a bit more of herself every time she did a binding. I was certain that the metal-polishing aerika had not been bound by women like the High Magia, but by their apprentices and lesser sisters, acting on orders.
The sun was low in the sky. We were arcing down, now, and I thought I could see the Fortress of Penelope, the palace where the High Magia and some of the other most highly placed of the Sisterhood lived. White marble walls, partly clad, like the towers, in polished metal. A lower tower had a glowing light inside like a beacon, and I wondered if the fire was tended by a human or a djinn. An aeriko. I need to remember to use the Greek words.
The aeriko set the palanquin down gently in the courtyard. Slaves were already waiting to help each of us out. I felt a little light-headed and accepted the arm offered to me. We were in an inner courtyard of the palace, large enough to accommodate several more palanquins. A fountain splashed lightly in the center, and the walls were decorated with mosaic images of Athena.
Kyros was having a quiet conversation nearby; then he stepped over and said, “I’ve arranged for you to have a bath before you’re presented to the High Magia.”
Presented to. Like a gift. I felt a little ill, but followed the slave who led me to a room of warm water and herb-scented steam. If I had any hope of an opportunity to run later, I needed to restrain the impulse to run now. There is nowhere to run to anyway. I am in Penelopeia, in the Fortress of Penelope. I wondered what Tamar was doing now. The realization of how far away she was made me slightly dizzy. Weeks . . . months of travel. I tried to tell myself that I would see her again, but for the moment, all I could do was submit to the ministrations of the slaves as I was immersed in water, scrubbed clean, and picked free of lice.
Once I was clean and dressed, I was escorted to one of the many interior gardens and left to wait . . . and wait . . . and wait. The night sky was dark; the courtyard was lit with torches. They’d dressed me in linen, with a light wool shawl for warmth, and sandals. I realized that my last material link to Tamar had been severed. The little talisman I’d made for myself, threads from her clothing knotted around my wrist, had disappeared in the bath. We are blood-sisters. They can’t ever truly separate us. Even if I can’t find Tamar, when I go to the borderland, she is a Shaman; she will be able to find me.
My new clothes felt all wrong. Foreign. Everything was foreign. The night was warmer here than it had been back on the steppe; the breeze had a strange misty softness, rather than the brisk edge I expected. There was a salty smell in the air, along with the perfume of the orange tree that hung low over the courtyard foundation, and a warm, spicy smell that wafted from the doorway. Tea, I realized a moment later. The guard there was drinking tea.
I couldn’t sit. I paced, instead, back and forth in the courtyard. In addition to the orange tree, there were copious flowers, even this early in the year, including some blood-red blooms shaped like a candle’s flame. I forced myself to slow my step and study the flowers, as a way to calm my mind, but it did little good.
The guard in the doorway was female, I noticed. Last summer, Janiya had confided in me that she had once been free and a guard employed by the Sisterhood of Weavers in Penelopeia; they had their own elite cadre of women guards. I wondered how many of the people in the Fortress of Penelope were women. There was at least one man, Kyros, but I’d seen no others. The sorceress I’d studied with during the winter, Zivar, had permitted no men in her house, not even slaves. Surely some of the sorceresses here were married, though . . .
The guard cleared her throat. I looked up, and she beckoned; it was time to go. She stood back to allow me to go first; she followed behind, as if she thought I might flee. Maybe that means that there is somewhere to go? Or perhaps she always does this . . . . Despite her boots, her step was quiet on the marble floors. The corridor was lit with oil lamps. I wondered if they were tended by human servants, or aerika.
At the end of the corridor, we reached a closed door made from heavy wood. The guard rapped on the door, and someone inside swung it open. The room was warm, and moist with the smell of breath and sweat, as if it hadn’t been opened for days, even to let in the cool evening air. There was a long table, with chairs clustered at the other end. Kyros sat in one, and a thin older woman sat in
the other. Her hands were folded over each other on the table; her fingernails had been allowed to grow extremely long, and had been painted. They made me think of blood-stained claws. Her face was deeply lined. She was dressed in red silk that matched her claws, and had a gold bracelet that looked like a serpent coiled around her upper arm.
Looking at her, I could see the cold fever lurking, but it did not master her—not today.
“So,” she said. “You are the spy.”
I swallowed hard. “Kyros sent me . . .”
“. . . to spy, yes, of course, yet you didn’t just say yes, I am the spy. That’s very interesting. Why didn’t you?”
“Because . . . because . . . Kyros has lost his faith in me.”
“Really? He seems to have a great deal of faith in you.” She glanced at him dismissively. “More than I think is warranted. He brought you here, had you bathed and given fresh clothes, as if you were truly his spy, returning from the field, ready to report. Strange. We sent him orders to have you executed.”
“But I—”
“Do you have anything useful to report? Anything that Kyros doesn’t already know? You were out of contact for a while, but then he sent an aeriko to watch you, so I can’t imagine you have all that much.”
“Lycurgus,” I sqeaked out.
“We already know about Lycurgus. I’m done with you.” She gestured, and the guard stepped forward, laying her hand on my shoulder.
“Wait—” This was happening so fast. “I tried—it’s not my fault—” I wondered if they would use a sword, or a rope, or some more gruesome death. Let it be over with quickly, if they’re going to kill me . . .
The sorceress had started to turn away; now she turned back, and looked me straight in the eye. “Kyros clearly wants you spared, so we’ll leave your neck intact for now. Take her to the pit.” She turned away again.
“Kyros,” I said. “KYROS!” I caught a glimpse of his face, his eyes wide and worried, and then other guards came, and I was swept away with them like a twig in the tide.
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