CHAPTER TEN
L AURIA
I wasn’t able to fall back to sleep after my trip to the borderland; I lay awake, hungry. I knew I would have to eat that day, both because I was ravenous and because it would attract attention if I tried to fast. I finally gave up on getting to the borderland again that night and rose to sit by the window. The sky was clear, and I could see the stars overhead, but only the bright ones—morning was near.
Was that battle I saw real? Were the Alashi fleeing from the Greek army even as Penelopeia slept? Or had I invented it out of my own worst fears? I stared out at the morning star, bright against the violet sky. If it’s not real now, I think it will be real soon enough.
I felt sick—from the horror, not from a relapse of my illness. I can’t afford to think about this now. I am a prisoner and my own life is in danger. But when I closed my eyes, I saw the battle again.
It was a relief when a servant brought in my morning tea.
My mother arrived soon after. “Since you liked those plums so much, I had some made into a drink,” she said cheerfully, pouring me some from a silver pitcher. It was sweet and startlingly cold, flavored with mint.
“My appetite is back today anyway,” I said with a shrug. “In fact, I feel like I could eat a horse. Rare.”
“Lovely. I’ll send for one for lunch.”
Through the window, I heard a woman’s voice, shouting; it was a long way away, far enough that I couldn’t make out any words. My mother rose and drew the gauze over the window, which did nothing to shut out the sound. She sat down again and gave me an uncomfortable smile. She folded her hands; unfolded them. Then she stood up again. “Stay here,” she said, and opened the door.
She nearly collided with Xanthe. “Stay in here today,” Xanthe said, shortly. “Both of you. You’re not to go outside.”
The day passed slowly. I could feel the drug in me, slowing me down. Were they giving me more of it? Or was I just more aware of it because I knew it was there? My mother didn’t seem to be affected. She paced back and forth in the tiny room. It made me dizzy to watch her. What was it she knew that had her wound so tight? It wasn’t like her. I should try to think, try to reason out what it is. It might be important. Trying to reason out anything at all was difficult, though. Is it the melancholia? Is that why I’m so slow, so stupid? But somewhere deep under the surface I could feel the ice-flame agitation of the cold fever. It just didn’t seem to bother me. It was like being kicked through a pile of pillows. There was an urgency somewhere, but distant, barely nudging me. I ought to be bothered by the fact that this doesn’t bother me. But nothing seems to be bothering me. So I guess…I guess I’m not.
I dozed, in the afternoon. My dreams were disturbing, splashed with wet, red blood. We cut her heart out, I heard Lydia say. We burned the body. The gate closed. The gate closed. The gate closed.
When evening came, Xanthe brought in the meal. I had little appetite, and picked at my food. Xanthe hovered in the room, watching me; she never did that. “I’m just not hungry,” I said.
“You have to drink your wine, at least,” she said.
My mother’s breath caught, and she gave Xanthe a look of open horror.
“What’s going to happen if I don’t,” I said. It should have been a question, but my voice was utterly flat.
“Other guards will come, and we’ll make you drink it, if we have to.”
“That sounds unpleasant,” I said. I picked up the wine; it felt as if my hand wasn’t really my hand, but perhaps the hand of some intimate acquaintance. I took a sip. “How much?”
“All.”
I drained the cup. My mother must have carried me to bed, and I was claimed by black, endless darkness.
Come on. Wake up.”
“It’s no use. You should know it’s no use.”
“Wake up.” I heard a loud clapping sound, and felt my cheek go numb. It took a moment for me to realize that I’d been slapped. That whoever was slapping me had been slapping me, again and again, probably for a while. I struggled to open my eyes. A wave of water caught me in the face just as I got them open a crack, and left me sputtering but only marginally clearer-headed.
“Up.” It was my mother’s voice, in my ear. “Up.”
I was sitting up; then I was standing, dripping wet. My eyes were open, but the floor seemed to be tilted. Xanthe took my other hand and slung my arm over her shoulder. “You need to walk,” she said. “Come on. There’s no time to waste.”
“I can walk,” I said. My words ran together like syrup, and I tried again. “I. Can.”
“No words. Just come.”
I thought I glimpsed a guard as we emerged into the corridor, but she hastily turned away. Was it day or night? I wasn’t sure. I expected to head down some stairs, but instead we seemed to be heading up—up a spiral stair, which made me dizzy, then through an enclosed bridge to another tower. Then out a door, and we were on a balcony built of pure marble—it was cool against my bare feet. The sky overhead was that in-between blue of dawn twilight, with the eastern sky streaked with yellow. Day, but only barely. “Hurry,” Xanthe said, and I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself, to keep up with Xanthe and my mother. We ran across the courtyard—the two of them half-dragging me—and through another door, then down a narrow back staircase that was probably mostly used by servants. The stairs were rough and uneven, and I would have fallen without help. That stair led to a windowless room, stiflingly hot.
I tried to ask where we were going, but the words blurred together again. “Where,” I said, and paused. “What—”
“Just shut up,” Xanthe said. “Trust me.”
“Does Kyros—” my mother started.
“You need to shut up, too. Come on.”
My mother fell silent, a little daunted. I took a deep breath—my legs were a little steadier—and glanced around. I had no idea where we were; I’d seen little enough of the Koryphe anyway. I didn’t know whether Xanthe was taking us toward the edge, or deeper toward the heart. Xanthe took my face in her hands and scrutinized me for a moment. I wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but tried to look back at her; I saw two Xanthes, both of them too close. “Trust me,” she said again. I nodded, once—I could manage that much. She pulled my arm over her shoulder again, to help me, and we went out the door and along a shaded walkway.
We reached a corner that was partly screened by a large pillar. “Wait here,” Xanthe said, leaving us in the shadows. The sun was up, now, and it was already growing hot. I squinted at the courtyard. I was growing steadier; I thought I could probably walk on my own now, or at least with less help.
“Where is she taking us?” I asked my mother. My voice sounded thin and strained, but at least the words came out sounding like words.
“How should I know?”
“You seemed to have an understanding,” I said.
“She said come, and you grabbed my hand and followed.”
My mother glanced after Xanthe, then toward the courtyard. “They were planning to kill you this morning. That’s why you’re so unsteady right now, they gave you enough drugs to keep you quiet.”
“…this morning?” My thoughts were still slowed by the drugs; I rubbed my forehead with the heel of my hand. “Why now? After all these weeks—the pit—bringing you here—”
“New magia,” my mother said. “She gave the order as soon as she was in power.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. What, do you think I have tea with them daily?”
I swallowed hard. “Why is Xanthe helping us? Can we trust her?” It was tempting just to follow her, without question—I saw Janiya’s face when I looked at her, and it made me feel as if we had a bond. But she was Janiya’s daughter, not Janiya.
“I don’t know why she’s helping us, but I don’t really see that we have much of a choice. Do you want to go back to your room and wait for them to come for you?”
“If you knew, why didn’t you say something yesterday?”
“They’d have taken me away from you,” she said.
“There was no point in making you…worry.”
“Making me worry? About them coming to kill me? I could have tried to escape. I could have at least drunk less of the tea—the wine—”
“Shh!”
Footsteps. We froze, silent and waiting, but it was Xanthe. “Come on,” she said.
“I think I can walk, now,” I said, but when she let go of my arm, I almost fell; my mother grabbed me again. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“Out of the Koryphe,” Xanthe said. “I know a place we can hide.”
But instead of passing out through a gate, we went back indoors and down a narrow staircase that led to a dim room full of musty-smelling wooden barrels. Xanthe led us around to the back of the room, where we crawled through a short, low tunnel that led into darkness. My head spun again as I knelt to crawl, but at least I was steadier on hands and knees than I’d been on my feet. Then my mother helped me up, and Xanthe unshielded a lantern; we were in a dark hallway built of bricks. Xanthe swung a door closed behind us and we followed her through the hallway. After a few minutes of walking, we had to duck and crawl again through a small opening. We emerged into a cellar, and Xanthe led us up and out into the streets of Penelopeia.
There should have been a guard, I thought, twisting against my mother’s steadying arm to glance back at the unremarkable house we’d emerged from. Was my escape a conspiracy, or had Xanthe managed this some other way—bribery, calling in a favor? Is Xanthe giving up her whole life, helping me like this, or is she following orders from someone? I glanced back at the high walls around the palace, already half-lost in the bustle of the crooked streets. This doesn’t seem like a good time to ask.
My feet were bare. This hadn’t been much of a problem inside the Koryphe—the floors were mostly as smooth as polished metal, silky under my feet. Now, beyond the walls, I had to watch carefully where I stepped. From my distracted perspective, Penelopeia was a city of broken paving bricks and rutted dirt roads; animal shit of a hundred different varieties, from horse to squirrel to dog; half-rotted refuse and broken shards of pottery. I smelled grilled meat and garlic as we passed a street vendor, and my mouth watered.
The gravelly voices of the men around us made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Kyros had been the only man I’d seen since arriving at the Koryphe. Every guard and servant I’d seen had been female. As had happened during my months among the Alashi with the sword sisterhood, I’d come to think of female voices as normal, female bodies as the way things are. Suddenly seeing men again was disorienting; I wanted to stop and gawk at the bearded men as if they were some sort of exotic animal.
The street we walked on changed from brick to broken stones, then to dried mud. We skidded down a steep embankment to a muddy canal and picked our way across on rocks. A stench rose off the water and clung to me after we’d finished crossing. Rather than scrambling up the bank on the other side, we followed the canal, occasionally splashing through the water, until we reached an overhanging rock. “In there,” Xanthe said, and I squeezed under and found myself in a cave.
We could sit up, but not stand. There was a heap of blankets along the back edge to serve as a bed. Xanthe had also laid in some waterskins, a tiny stove with a teakettle, and a basket of plums. Light filtered in from under the rock—enough to see by, though the cave was dim. Xanthe sat down on the blankets with a sigh.
“This should be safe, at least for a little while,” she said. “Ensiyeh came to power yesterday morning. She wanted you killed; the sooner the better.” Xanthe rubbed her forehead with her thumb and forefinger, the same way Janiya did when upset.
“Is she the one who sent me to the pit?”
“No, that was Lydia. She also wanted you killed, but…their plans differed somewhat. Lydia just wanted you dead. Ensiyeh had this idea that you had to be slain by an aeriko.” She shook her head. “Phile, the magia who just slipped, usually longs for death during her melancholia. Ensiyeh knows that, so she was going to keep you drugged and quiet, then have Phile send an aeriko to kill you. The drugs were to keep you from speaking to the aeriko; they seemed to have some idea that you had power over them if you were conscious.”
“How many magias are there?” I asked.
“Four. The fourth magia, Sophia, also wanted you alive.”
“You’re well-informed,” my mother said, dryly.
Xanthe shrugged, and let slip a hint of a smile. “I have always preferred to know what was going on. Even if I wasn’t supposed to. In a palace ruled by four separate women, nothing stays truly secret for long.”
My mother pursed her lips and looked down at the ground. I wondered if Phile or Sophia had instructed Xanthe to protect me—if that was how she’d managed to slip me out so handily. I looked at her, trying to assess how nervous she was. From what I’d seen of her so far, I couldn’t imagine her acting entirely on her own. But even in the dim cave, I could see that her hands were shaking. If she’d acted on Sophia’s orders, or Phile’s, why would she be so nervous?
I took one of the plums. I was sick of plums, after the day before yesterday, but I was also ravenous. I sat down beside Xanthe, leaned against the wall, and stretched out my legs. Then I ate the plum, sucking pulp and juice away from the pit. My mother sat down beside me and massaged her forehead with her fingertips. I stared at the wall, wondering when I’d shake loose the last of the drug. I need to keep my eyes on the target. What is the target? Escape. No! My target is the rivers. I’m going to free the rivers. Escaping is just an important step toward that goal. I couldn’t very well escape with Xanthe right here with us. She’d said she’d go out in a few hours, but I couldn’t imagine that she’d just leave me here.
Ideas for things I could do began to dart in and out of my thoughts like insects. Create a distraction. Wait till night. She can’t stay awake forever, she has no one to guard us. Don’t escape at all—win Xanthe to our side. She’s half joined us already—she kept me alive because I’m her only link to her mother. No, Xanthe is nothing but an obstacle; shed her as soon as possible. Kill her! She’s the only thing holding me here. No, I can’t kill her. She’s Janiya’s daughter. I could never face Janiya again…
My mother checked the kettle; there was water, but no tea. Just the plums. She sighed deeply and took some of the plain water. The cave was warm and stuffy, and smelled like the canal.
“Why did you save me?” I asked Xanthe.
Xanthe had been staring at the shaft of light that slipped under the edge of the cave; at the sound of the question she jumped slightly, then folded her hands and put them in her lap. She looked me over—she was back to avoiding my eyes. “Tell me about Janiya,” she said.
“What do you want to know?” I asked.
“You said…that she was mean to you,” she said.
“Well, for a while. But it was for a purpose, not just out of malice.”
“Tell me,” Xanthe said.
I hesitated a moment; my mother was listening, and she was loyal to Kyros, and Xanthe was a member of the Sisterhood Guard, even if she’d disobeyed orders and done something that might cause her to be cast out. But there seemed little enough harm in this, and besides, if I couldn’t walk—despite my hunger, despite the lingering sluggishness from the drugs, my body itched to move—I wanted to talk. My hesitation was brief, and then I started to tell her the whole story: how Kyros had sent me to infiltrate the Alashi, how Sophos had raped me and Tamar had escaped when I did, how the eldress had sent us out with a sword sisterhood, how we’d been tested to see if we’d learned yet how to be free, rather than slaves.
“For our first test, Janiya woke us early in the morning and told us that we needed to go out into the desert and hunt for a particular gemstone.” Karenite, in fact, but I decided to leave that part out. “Tamar and I went straight out and spent the morning searching. And we found some, and brought it back. And do you know what Janiya said to us?”
“That you failed,” my mother said.
“How did you know? Did you guess what we did wrong?”
“I have no idea what you did wrong,” she said. “But this Janiya—” She glanced at Xanthe, sharp-eyed, then back at me. “You think you’re smart. You think you’re capable. Janiya would’ve wanted to slap you down. So of course you failed! You’d have failed no matter what you did.”
“That’s not fair,” I said. “We failed because we didn’t take water with us, or food. We just headed out without thinking ahead to provide ourselves with what we’d need. If we’d asked for water, we would have passed the test.”
My mother shook her head stubbornly. “If you’d asked for water, you’d have failed for some other reason.”
“That wouldn’t have been fair. Janiya was fair.”
“Fair? She sent you out to find rocks and failed you for obeying orders. What’s fair about that?”
“It wasn’t a test of whether we could find rocks,” I said. “It was a test of whether we could think like free people.”
“You were a free person,” my mother retorted. “You were free for your whole life.”
“But I wasn’t thinking like a free person.”
“That’s an absurd thing to say. Some free people think the way Janiya wants them to think. But some free people don’t, obviously, since you were free and failed the test anyway.”
I looked at Xanthe—she was the one I’d been telling the story to, after all. She was studying the floor. “That’s not a fair test,” Xanthe said. “She lied to you.”
“Not exactly. I don’t think she ever said that the test was to see whether we could find the rock.”
“I would have assumed that the test was to see whether we would follow orders even when they didn’t make much sense. Whether we trusted our commander enough to obey her without insisting that she hold our hand and find us water before we went out. What kind of commander abuses that trust?”
“Among the Alashi, you need to be more self-sufficient than that. You need to take care to provision yourself, to have food and water with you. Always. Or you could die.”
Xanthe shook her head. “That still seems unfair.” She crawled over to get a plum, looked at my mother sitting on the floor, and gestured for her to take her seat on the blankets. “Go on,” she said to me, as my mother resettled herself.
I went on, telling more stories about the tests, about Janiya, about the night that Janiya had told me about her own past, working as a member of the Sisterhood Guard. I left out the details I didn’t want Xanthe or my mother to hear, like that this was all part of a ritual to repudiate the vows I’d taken to Kyros, but nonetheless, when I paused, my mother said, “You did turn against Kyros. He’s right; you did give your loyalty to the Alashi.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “Everything I did, I did because I had to. I was a spy. I had to pretend to be loyal to them, or they’d have exiled me, or worse.”
“You don’t have to lie,” my mother said. “Your secrets are safe with me.” She glanced involuntarily at Xanthe, then shrugged. “Though I suppose you might need to lie to Xanthe. Carry on, then.”
Xanthe pulled her bag open. “I need to go get some food; I’m hungry,” she said. She took out a rope. “I can’t leave you loose, and you can’t come along. If you want me to bring you food, you need to let me tie you up.”
“Can’t I just promise not to go anywhere?”
“Do you think I’m stupid? Your choices are to cooperate and let me tie you, or to go hungry.”
I grimly held out my hands. She made me put them behind my back and tied them; then she took another length of rope and tied my feet as well. She glanced at my mother. “I trust that you have the sense to stay put,” she said. My mother nodded. Xanthe took her bag and the last of the plums, and left.
“Untie me,” I said.
“Not a chance,” my mother said. “You’re safer in here.”
“I’m not going anywhere, I just want to be able to stretch my arms.”
“You’re a bad liar. And I’m leaving you bound. Xanthe will be back soon.” My mother settled beside me and stroked my hair; I flinched away from her. “So tell me, Lauria. When did you lose your loyalty to Kyros? When did you decide to truly join the bandits?”
“Never.”
“Stop lying to me.”
“I’m not lying to you.”
“Was it when Sophos raped you?”
“I still trusted Kyros, even after that happened.”
“Until he didn’t send you Sophos’s head in a bag.”
I clenched my teeth and said nothing. I realized a moment later that this was as damning as if I’d said, I trusted him for months—I told him over and over what had happened, and asked him to tell me what he’d done. When I knew that he’d sent me to Sophos knowing full well that Sophos might do this, when I realized that I was his tool and the tool of the Sisterhood of Weavers, to use and break and throw away, then I decided that he could rot in Zeus’s lost hell. I should have denied it, insisted that it wasn’t Kyros’s fault, but the cold fever was in my blood today, and when I was in its grasp, I tended to speak the truth.
“What does it matter,” I said, finally. “I’m here now. I’ll never be able to return to the Alashi.”
“This Janiya you’re talking about—is she Xanthe’s mother?”
“Yes.”
“I figured she had to be, or why would Xanthe care so much?”
“My nose itches. Can you untie my hands, please?”
“I’ll scratch your nose for you.”
“That’s the wrong spot,” I said. My nose really did itch.
“Well, tell me the right spot, then. I’m not untying your hands.”
Xanthe was back a short time later—I thought that she probably didn’t entirely trust my mother, either. She had grilled chicken and a little pot of cooked rice for us to share. She smiled a little grimly when she saw that I was still tied up and untied me. I sat up to eat dinner. I wondered if she was going to insist on tying me up to sleep. Probably. I wasn’t going to get much sleep anyway; I didn’t feel the least bit tired.
“The Sisterhood is looking for you,” Xanthe said over the meal. “I think they’ve sent out all their aerika that weren’t urgently needed elsewhere. Except they know they can’t get too close to you, so…I think you’ll be safe if you stay in here, but if you so much as poke your head out the opening, there will be guards here in minutes.”
I nodded. Xanthe narrowed her eyes, glaring at her bowl of food. “Do you really understand that?” she asked. “Do you believe me? Or do I have to tie you up for the night just to make sure you don’t try to creep off while I sleep?”
“I’ll stay here,” I said.
“You gave that promise very easily,” Xanthe said. “I don’t trust you.” When we were done eating, she tied me again, though she let me have my hands in front of me this time. She let me lie down on the makeshift bed, tied my feet as well, and gestured for my mother to lie down beside me.
It was a hot night, and I was not sleepy. I listened to my mother fall asleep, then Xanthe. The drug they’d been giving me was surely out of my body by now; if I fell asleep tonight I could go to the borderland, but I didn’t think I’d ever sleep. Maybe if I meditate. I closed my eyes and pictured beads dancing in the darkness—faceted gemstones, carved stone animals, polished wood, swirling colored glass. Karenite.
I found myself thinking of Zivar—of the beads in jars and bowls and vases in her workroom. Count them, I thought. All the glittering thousands of them. Maybe I’ll hear their singing, to lead me to the borderland.
Instead, I heard trickling water again, and followed it down into the darkness.
Where are you?”
“On the steppe,” I said, looking around me at the grasses spreading out around me. I could smell the sweet grass and gritty dust; I flung back my head to look up at the starry sky unrolled above me, stars gleaming all the way to the horizon. I could walk for a hundred years if it would bring me back here. I could walk through fire. I could go without food or water for weeks.
“No,” Kyros said, and the steppe disappeared; we were in his office. I caught my breath. Kyros leaned across his desk, his dark eyes narrow and hard. “Where are you?” When I didn’t answer immediately, his face softened, his voice became soothing. “Lauria. I know that you were taken—kidnapped?—by your guard. We found her missing, and you missing, and your mother missing. Is your mother all right?”
I wondered why he didn’t just ask her. Did she know how to avoid the borderland? Surely she would tell him where we were, if he asked. Or maybe not.
“Whatever Xanthe told you that you needed to flee from, you’ve only made things worse for yourself. I had almost convinced the magia that you could be trusted again. Now—well, if you tell me where you are, I can convince her that you were taken against your will, tricked into running. Otherwise…”
“Otherwise, she’ll have me killed the minute she gets her hands on me, won’t she?”
“Probably your mother, too. And Xanthe.”
“Well.” I leaned back in my chair and smiled at Kyros. “I guess I don’t have much to lose, then.”
“You have nothing to lose by telling me where you are. You will be caught, and soon, even if you don’t turn yourself in.”
“Actually,” I said, “that’s not what I meant.”
I’d changed the scenery around me a few times, back when I’d regularly found myself meeting Kyros in my dreams. One time I had summoned up a bouquet of roses to give to my mother. Now I pressed my hands together, imagined the hilt of my sword, and swung it at Kyros as it appeared in my hand. I’ll cut off your head, you bastard.
He was faster than I expected; the office was gone, and we stood on the steppe again, Kyros just out of reach and holding his own sword. “Well, I’m glad we have that little revelation out of the way,” Kyros said. “It makes these conversations so much easier when I don’t have to pretend that I don’t know you’re lying to me.”
I lunged, and he fended me off easily. “If you knew I’d betrayed you, then why did you spare my life?” I asked.
“Because even when you do not serve me willingly, you are useful.” He lunged toward me, and I leapt back. Getting run through with a sword in the borderland wouldn’t do anything more than wake me up. But I hadn’t found Tamar yet, and I wanted to.
“I have one question,” I said, and he held back a moment, waiting. “Did you know that Sophos would rape me? When you sent me to him?”
“You’re my daughter. Would I do that to you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I suspected that things would not go as perfectly as planned,” Kyros said. “But I had a great deal of faith in you. More, apparently, than you deserved.” He lunged toward me again; instead of leaping back, I changed his sword into a frantic cat, which clawed him and bit his hand in its desire to get away. Kyros let it go, then spread his hands wide and smiled at me. “Do as you will, Lauria. You know you can’t hurt me here.”
Let the earth swallow him up. There was shaking, under our feet, and the ground gaped open. “Go find Zeus’s lost hell,” I said, and pushed him into the hole. I’d hoped to hear him scream as he fell, but got no such satisfaction.
The night was quiet around me. “Tamar?” I called, and then took a deep breath and shouted, as loudly as I could, “Tamar!”
The answer came as a breath of wind. Not Tamar—a djinn. I could see it tonight as a shimmer of light; it wrapped itself around me and lifted me up.
Back when I had worked for Kyros, long before he’d sent me to the Alashi, I’d once found myself in danger, with a spell-chain at my disposal. I’d ordered the djinn to pick me up and carry me bodily back to Kyros. It had been a terrifying ride, but it had set me down so gently that I hadn’t even stumbled. This ride was rougher, but less terrifying. I felt a wind, but it only whistled past my ears, it didn’t sting my eyes. When I closed my eyes, I could still see the djinn, but now I saw it like a man made of fire, his arms wrapped around me as we flew over the steppe.
Below us, the ground rippled, then thrust up into hills that became mountains. We slowed, and over the roar of wind, I could hear the trickle of water. We crested a mountain peak, and we looked down, and I saw it.
I saw a lake spreading out, vast and dark, below us. I knew it was the lake—the reservoir held in place by the djinni, the bound river. The Syr Darya. Looking around, I could see the djinni that held it. I could free them, I thought, but I’d need to really come here.
I fell, suddenly. I remembered to suck in a gasp of breath before I hit the water; I splashed silently into it and found myself going down, down, down. I realized a moment later that I was still in the grip of a djinn.
There was a light ahead; through the water, I could hear the singing of beads. It’s here, I thought. The spell-chain. But the djinn didn’t take me to see it, though I knew it was close. Instead, it drew me past the glow. Look, I heard it hiss, and I looked around, again, at what seemed like a ruined temple, walls and a gate. Look.
Stone on stone, the threshold buried under layers of sand and mud, the archway opened into a tunnel. It was dim, deep under the water, even with the glow from the spell-chain and the unnatural sight that I seemed to have when I traveled like this. But the gate opened into a richer darkness than the one that surrounded me. I could have sworn, peering in, that the water disappeared; you could step through that gate and be elsewhere…
This looks familiar, I thought, and then remembered: The Passage. Now Drowned.
Passage to what?
Could I step through it and see?
Very hesitantly, I slipped my hand through. The djinn did not stop me. I put the other hand through. Then I stepped into darkness, and darkness enveloped me. I turned back to see where I had come from, and it was gone. I was shrouded in darkness.
I am still in the borderland, I reminded myself, trying not to panic. There is always a way out.
Someone seized my hands, and pulled, and I was in the steppe again, facing Tamar.
“Lauria,” she said, joyfully. “I’d almost given up looking for you. And then Janiya said…Where are you? Are you safe?”
“I’m in Penelopeia. We got away from Kyros—well, I think we did. Are you safe?”
“Yes,” she said, though somehow I was certain she was lying. “I’ve seen Zivar. She went to Penelopeia—I think she wants to help you. But she didn’t take me along. I want to see you again.” Her hands gripped my arms. “I miss you. I’ve been traveling with Janiya and Alibek…I probably shouldn’t tell you why.”
“Don’t.”
“I want to see you again.”
“You will.” I could feel hands grasping me, pulling me away from Tamar.
“Swear to me!”
We’d each cut the palms of our right hands when we’d become blood sisters, and I pressed my right palm to hers now. “I swear by our blood. I will come back to you.”
Someone was shaking me awake; my shoulders ached from my arms being tied all night. “The searchers are close,” Xanthe said. “We need to move.”
“How? As soon as we’re out, they’ll find us, won’t they?”
“It doesn’t matter. They’ll find us here soon enough. Come on!”
I stretched my aching legs and looked down at my bare feet. Xanthe tossed me a pair of sandals and a light cloak. “You should stay here,” she said to my mother. “Just tell them I made you come along and didn’t let you go for help.”
My mother turned and looked at me—then at Xanthe, then at me again. She wanted to protect me, I realized; she wanted to be there to throw her body between me and any threat, but she also knew that she would slow us down. My chances were better if my mother stayed here. Hers, of course, were vastly better—no one was looking for her. Except for Kyros. “If you go back to Kyros, and I’m still alive, he’ll take you as a hostage,” I said.
I had expected her to deny it, but instead she lifted her chin and said, “Then I won’t go back to him.”
“You can come if you want,” I said, hesitating a moment despite the urgent fear that prickled from Xanthe like sweat.
“No,” my mother said. “Xanthe is right. You go.” She reached out and took my head in her hands, and kissed my forehead; I felt her hands clench against my hair, and then unclench as she pulled herself away. “Hurry,” she said. “Go now.”
I followed Xanthe under the rock and out to the bank of the canal. Penelopeia was a huge, sprawling city, and within a few minutes I knew that I would never find my way back the way we’d come without help. Of course, if we’re caught, we’ll have plenty of help…
Tamar had said Zivar was coming to Penelopeia. She would help me—she could help all of us. Where will she go? We are the green mice in a world of owls. Surely we will find each other somehow.
Where would she go to look for me? Well, the Koryphe, to start with. She’d find out soon enough that I’d vanished, so then what? It sounded like every aerika under the power of the Sisterhood was looking for me. She could send her own out, and some of them actually knew me and would be more likely to succeed in finding me, but still. She knew me; where would she expect me to go? Out of the city and east toward the steppe. Except, that was where the Sisterhood of Weavers no doubt expected me to go as well. I’d said once that if I were a slave escaping from Kyros, I’d head away from the steppe, hide, and wait for Kyros to give up searching before heading to freedom. Zivar was smart; she might guess that this would be my strategy. Maybe. Then again, I’d outlined my strategy to Kyros, and he was helping the Sisterhood search.
What if Zivar guessed that I knew she was here? If Tamar knew, she might assume that I knew. Then where would she go? She would want me to be able to find her. But neither of us knew the city. Where would a mouse go? The mouse who nibbles daily at the foundation of her mistress’s house. Where would she go?
I caught Xanthe’s arm. “Where is the Temple of Athena? Is there a big one?”
“Of course there’s a big one. It’s back on the other side of the canal. You want to go there? Are you crazy?”
“A friend of mine is in the city. A sorceress. I think she might look for me there. If we can find each other, she’ll help us get away.”
“Why would she look for you there?” Xanthe asked.
“Can you think of a better place to look for a green mouse?”
“You are crazy!”
“Then can you think of a worse place to look?” I said.
“If you’re wrong, we’ll be right in the nest of the vipers that want to find you. Us.”
“We could split up.”
“I’d cut your damn throat before I let you go,” Xanthe said.
“Which way to the temple?”
“Follow me.”
Fortunately, this was one place that the Weavers were not expecting us to go. We ducked our heads as we passed guards, but no one stopped us. Xanthe led us through a maze of streets and alleys and out, finally, into a big open plaza of white marble. “We’re here,” Xanthe said. “I really hope you’re right.”
I took a furtive look around. The temple was huge. The façade arched up over the square, casting a shadow over most of it even in late morning. To get in, you had to pass a statue of Athena that was at least twenty times the height of a real woman, painted to be lifelike. They must have to have djinni touch up the paint and keep it clean, I thought, looking it over. Then I took a closer look and realized that two djinni were posted at its feet just to keep it from toppling over.
I could topple the statue—that would certainly get Zivar’s attention. Too bad it would get everyone else’s, too. I looked around for Zivar again. Is she here? Did I guess right? People streamed in and out of the big door, around the statue. Here and there, groups of women stood visiting with each other, some resting their offerings on their hips. Surely Zivar would not be in a group. Were any women waiting alone?
There.
She had seen me. I started toward her, Xanthe hurrying after me.
Then, from the doorway of the temple, I heard someone shout, “There she is! Lauria!”
“Pretend you don’t know me,” I hissed to Xanthe, but she was already falling back. I turned toward the voice; there was not much use running now. Who was it? I laughed bitterly. It was Myron, one of Kyros’s loyal Greek retainers. I’d last seen him in Daphnia, where he’d recognized me at an inconvenient time. Kyros must have sent for him just to help look for me. Few enough of the others would know my face if he saw it.
Myron was waving at me, the idiot. I waved back; why not? People were starting toward me; I could see them out of the corners of my eyes. I broke into a run, heading toward the temple as if I were going to meet Myron. No one stopped me; why run after me when they could just wait for me to come to them? Myron stood right in the doorway, a big smile on his face. “I knew it was all just some weird misunderstanding,” he said. “How have you been?”
“Great,” I said. “Never better.” Then I reached behind him to touch the two djinni at the base of the statue. “Return to the Silent Lands, lost ones of your kind, and trouble us no more.”
I had never freed two djinni at once before. Freeing even one was overwhelming enough, but I had done it enough times now that I knew what to expect. Two—I felt as if I’d tried to open a door a crack, and found it blasted open by a gust of wind strong enough to lift me off my feet. I had planned to run in the confusion after I freed the djinni, but I was riveted to the spot, unable to run even as I saw the statue begin to tip. The world slowed as it fell. Sound stopped, and I still couldn’t move. The djinn passing through the gate within me screamed something to me, begging permission of some kind, and I assented, though I wasn’t really sure what I was agreeing to.
My brothers, the djinn’s voice echoed back, and I realized a moment later that there were more djinni, all imprisoned within the same spell-chain, responsible for holding up the Temple of Athena. Since they were all so close, and imprisoned in a single spell-chain with the djinni that had been holding up the statue, they could all pass through me into the Silent Lands. Hurry, I whispered inwardly, thinking that the statue would crush me in a moment.
Do not fear.
There was warmth within me, then heat flaring outward, out to my fingers and down to my heels; my body rocked. Closing my eyes, I thought I could see through the gate. I’d always pictured the world of the djinni as dim and shadowy, like the borderland, but I saw a light as bright as the sun. The secret of flight, I thought, and wondered what would happen if I stepped through the gate.
Not this one, one of the djinni said. Not here.
I’m going to die, you know.
Not today.
I could hear thunder. No, not thunder. It was the temple falling. And then I felt a jerk, as someone—something?—grabbed me off my feet. “I am Zivar’s aeriko. Don’t fight me,” a voice said in my ear.
The gate had closed; I was myself again. And I had been jerked inside a palanquin. Blue and white silk fluttered around us: Zivar and Xanthe were both inside.
“What did you do?” Zivar asked.
“You are the spider,” Xanthe said. I was uncertain if her voice held respect or loathing.
I drew the silk to the side and peered out. The temple was collapsing, one section after another falling in a crash of marble and dust. Zivar had pulled me out in the midst of the confusion. I let the curtain fall shut again and sat back against the cushion.
“You’re going to tell me what’s going on,” Zivar said. “Everything.”
“Of course,” I said. “But first, can we get away from here?”
“Far, far away,” Zivar agreed.
I relaxed against the cushion for a moment, then asked, “How far?”
“The land with no night,” Zivar said. “If I’m going to have to travel by palanquin, I’m going to take it somewhere I haven’t seen a thousand times.”