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 put 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.”

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.