Freedom's Gate

by Naomi Kritzer

  “How do you know if a dream was sent by the djinn?” I asked.

  “Well . . . you can’t, always. But djinn-sent dreams are particularly vivid. I suppose your nightmares are, too,” she added with a sympathetic smile. “Those are probably not sent by the djinn, although they might be. When there’s a lot weighing on our hearts, our hearts can keep our nights pretty busy without any help.” She glanced at Tamar. “Since you’re blood sisters, you know, someday you might be able to learn to communicate with each other using dreams. They’d be kind of like djinn-dreams, very vivid. Shamans can do that when they share blood with someone.”

  “Is it just shamans who can use that sort of magic?” I asked, thinking about some of the other sorts of magic I’d heard about.

  “Well—mostly. I’ve heard stories about mothers and children . . .”

  I laughed a little. “I thought a few times growing up that my mother could hear my thoughts.”

  “It’s rare, but some people can do that with their blood kin, along with sending dreams. Some can even control thoughts, at least up to a point, but that’s pretty complicated magic. It’s not something I know how to do. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted to do.” Her face was bleak for a second, and then she laughed and added, “If you’d met any of my blood kin, you’d understand why! Anyway—” She stood up and brushed herself off. “We should be getting back. It’s going to be time for dinner soon.”

  On the way back to camp, Tamar asked her, “What will happen to us if we don’t pass all the tests?” She held out her leather thong with its blue beads. “I feel like we fail half the tests no matter what we do.”

  “You’ll pass them all,” Zhanna said.

  “But what if we don’t?”

  “You will.”

  “You’re not answering my question.”

  Zhanna glanced at me and saw that I was watching her closely, waiting for the answer as eagerly as Tamar. She sighed. Finally she said, “There are sometimes people who escape from slavery but aren’t able to unlearn how to be a slave. They’re offered a choice. Either we can sell them back into slavery—north, not back to the Greeks. Or they can kill themselves.”

  “Oh.” Tamar’s voice was almost inaudible.

  “But don’t worry. You will pass all the tests. You get a lot of chances, haven’t you noticed that yet?”

  “Have you ever seen this happen to someone?” I asked.

  “I really can’t answer that question,” Zhanna said. It was quite obvious that the answer was yes.

  “What did she choose?”

  “She chose suicide,” Zhanna said quietly. “Now stop asking me about this. I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you things that are just going to worry you.”

  “So whose slave are you?” Tamar asked. “Who tells you what you’re allowed to tell us?”

  “I wouldn’t be beaten and cast out to die in the desert, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Zhanna looked at Tamar, her eyebrow quirked. “Or bound and thrown onto a fire as a sacrifice for Prometheus, or even used to test arrow-poison, no matter what the Greeks say about us. But I understand the reasons for some of these customs. I’m not supposed to tell you things that will worry you because there is really no cause to worry. You will pass the tests.”

  In the late-afternoon sun, I finished stitching Kyros’s spell-chain on my vest, cut the thread, and slipped the vest on. Tamar had finished her torn flower and started on something else, but she wasn’t working on it; she rolled the needle back and forth between her thumb and forefinger, and stared into space. Thinking about the blossom Zhanna had talked about, no doubt; that was certainly what was on my mind.

  “Lauria!” Janiya called, her voice sharp. “Come here a minute.”

  I jumped guiltily to my feet, wondering what chore I’d neglected or task I’d forgotten. Then I saw the look on Janiya’s face and slumped back down, biting my lip.

  Beside me, Tamar leapt to her feet. “What is wrong with you?” she demanded shrilly—speaking to Janiya, not to me. “Can’t you tell that she is trying to fit in here? Trying to be a good sister when she answers you swiftly or does what you ask her to do?”

  Janiya folded her arms silently, a look of amusement on her face.

  “You aren’t being fair. You aren’t playing fair. You change the rules on both of us every time it suits you. I bet the first time she ignores you or tells you to go stuff yourself, you’re going to tell her that she failed again because this time you were testing whether she responded promptly to the leader of the sisters. And we are supposed to trust you? Maybe if we could rely on you to treat us like sisters, we’d have an easier time acting the way you expect us to act!”

  “Well, little one,” Janiya said softly, when Tamar paused for breath. “You certainly have learned that I’m not your master.” She drew out a bead and tossed it to Tamar. “Maybe you can help Lauria learn that same lesson sometime soon.” She glanced at me. “Lauria, please step into the yurt with me, if you don’t mind.”

  I stood up again and followed her reluctantly, feeling like a small child that was about to get yelled at. But instead of ripping into me she stepped behind me and traced the outline of the spell-chain I’d embroidered, with her finger. “Do you know what that is?”

  “It’s a spell-chain for binding aer—djinn.” I cleared my throat. “My old master, Kyros, is a military officer. He owns two of them; he wears them looped around his neck and his wrist, to show off his power.”

  “Did you ever see him use one?”

  “Maybe a few times,” I whispered.

  Janiya slipped her finger under her collar and pulled the spell-chain she’d taken from the bandits over her head. “See this?” she said. “We got it from the bandits.”

  “Have you used it?” I asked.

  “Yes. But I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong. The djinn is belligerent; it never does what I ask him to do.”

  “They follow orders exactly,” I said. “If they can subvert their instructions or misinterpret what you said, they will. They are not willing servants. Not like Zhanna’s friends, who come at whim rather than will, but come freely, and usually wish to be helpful.”

  “But Zhanna was visited by a bound djinn once recently.”

  “It hadn’t been bound by her.”

  “Ah.” Janiya rubbed the knuckle of her thumb against her forehead. “Well. Can you . . .” She paused, wet her lips, and considered how to phrase this, as if she were giving orders to a bound djinn. “Perhaps you can help me phrase the instructions, if you’ve seen someone do it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Right now I want to know what the Greeks are up to. We heard those rumors from the merchants, and I want to know how true they are.”

  “That’s going to be hard,” I said. “You could . . .” You could send it to Elpisia to watch Kyros. “I’ll need to think about it.”

  “I’d appreciate hearing any thoughts you come up with.” She nodded dismissal, and I went back out to have dinner.

  I mulled over her request as I ate my lentils and rice. I could dodge her request entirely by coming up with a vague request for the aeriko that would never work. I had told Janiya that I’d seen a spell-chain used a few times; that wasn’t really all that much experience. On the other hand, Janiya wasn’t stupid, and she knew that I wasn’t stupid, either. She had no reason to think I’d been anything other than a slave—but she knew I was a bright slave, someone who would have followed directions as necessary but would have found ways to subvert their intention when I could. Just like a djinn, in fact. That, along with the spell-chain embroidered on my vest, was almost certainly why she’d asked me to think about this.

  So. I had to give her an answer—something that plausibly seemed like it ought to work, but wouldn’t give her too much useful information. I could not suggest sending the djinn to watch Kyros; he might talk about me and the djinn might repeat the conversation. But there was a garrison in Elpisia; we could send the djinn there, to
count soldiers. In fact, we could have him count soldiers all over—would Janiya know what a normal complement of soldiers was? I wasn’t sure. If the Greeks were planning something, though, they’d need to be bringing up more men. And probably placing them, not only at Elpisia, but just beyond Alashi territory to the east and west, if they could.

  Tamar had added her new bead to her leather thong, and gave me an abashed smile when she saw me looking. I shrugged. At least it looked like Tamar wouldn’t be offered the choice between suicide and slavery. And if I was—well, I hoped I’d know in time to run away and head back to Kyros.

  In the light of the setting sun, Maydan examined my wound and removed the bandages. “You should probably take it easy for a bit longer,” she said. “No riding unless it’s necessary, because your ribs are going to hurt for a bit longer. But it doesn’t need a bandage anymore.” I took a deep, experimental breath; the stabbing pain in my side was really just a dull ache now. I smiled gamely at Maydan; she told me to tell her if it took a turn for the worse and left me to my own devices.

  I had to relieve myself before bed. This campsite was set up a bit differently from the last one; there was a screen of a rubby bushes a bit beyond the edge of the camp, and that’s what had been designated as the latrine, since it offered a little privacy. As I was preparing to do my business, I saw a shimmer in the air: Kyros’s aeriko.

  “Report,” the aeriko said.

  That’s all you have to say to me? I thought with some irritation. “What does Kyros want to know?”

  The shimmer bobbed slightly. “Report,” it said again.

  I felt a slow burn of anger. “Here’s my report,” I said, gripping the edge of my vest. The words came easier now. “Despite your promises, and his promises, Sophos raped me. He threw me down, and held a knife to my throat, and said that if I didn’t submit to him, he’d murder me and tell you that I got lost in the desert. He claimed that it was ‘necessary’ to convince the other slaves that I was really what I claimed to be.” With the tip of my thumb, I traced the edge of the embroidered spell-chain as it curved around the front of the vest. “The next time you send your djinn, I think I’d like to hear what you’re going to do about this. Other than that—there’s no change in my status since the last time.”

  There was a shimmer and the aeriko vanished.

  As I squatted to relieve myself, a horrible thought struck me. All it said was “Report.” What if this wasn’t Kyros’s djinn, but Janiya’s? What if she suspected that something was going on with me, and sent her djinn to try to trick me into betraying myself? She has no reason to suspect, I told myself, but how could I be so sure? If she had any doubts at all, it would be easy enough to send the djinn. Oh, Kyros, have I betrayed myself?

  I was alone right now, but carrying nothing—not a waterskin, not my sword, nothing but my clothes. My only hope was that this wasn’t a trick from Janiya, because I certainly couldn’t run. I crept slowly back to camp, scanning them from a distance to see if they might be watching for me—waiting, on Janiya’s orders, to seize me as I returned.

  “Lauria,” said Tamar as I walked past. “Maydan says you’re healed up well enough to work on your archery again.”

  “Probably,” I said. “Are you going to teach me?”

  Tamar made a face. “I think we’re still both going to be supervised by Ruan. I’ve been practicing shooting from horseback—Gulim’s been working on that with me. But tomorrow we’re both supposed to meet for target practice.”

  “That will probably be Ruan,” I said. My heart was pounding so loudly, I was surprised Tamar couldn’t hear it.

  “Lauria!” I looked up to see Janiya waiting in the doorway of the yurt. “Can you come here for a moment, please?”

  I felt a surge of fear in the base of my throat, but managed a friendly smile to Tamar before I strode into Janiya’s tent. If she thought I was a traitor, she’d have had me seized already. She doesn’t suspect. It wasn’t her aeriko.

  “Have you had time to think at all about what instructions to give the djinn?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Maybe you could send it to count the Greek soldiers in each of the garrisons on the edge of our territory? If you did that several times, over the course of a month or two you’d know if the Greeks were moving soldiers in. They’d need more soldiers to attack us. Wouldn’t they?”

  Janiya nodded. “That’s not a bad idea. I wish I could get more specific information . . .”

  “They’re really not very good for that sort of thing,” I said, the words spilling out in my relief that she didn’t seem to know about my conversation with the djinn outside of camp. “If you have them spy on someone for their conversation, they can do that, but they’ll repeat it all. If the Greeks sent a djinn here, to watch us, the djinn might hear this conversation, but it would repeat the conversation I just had with Tamar about archery as well. And everything else it heard. All jumbled together. Or, or, or—so I’ve heard.” I faltered as my sense finally caught up with my tongue.

  “You listened well,” Janiya said. “I wonder if your old master realized half the things you were picking up? It’s too bad I can’t just send you.” Her smile was guileless and teasing, and I hoped the darkness of the yurt hid my sick smile and my white face. I excused myself and went back out to the fire, thinking that even the vile kumiss would be welcome at this point to soothe my nerves.

  I was embroidering a horse on my vest; I was doing it in the middle of the night, by moonlight, but it looked absolutely perfect, not a stitch out of place.

  I looked up, and saw Kyros coming toward me. “What do you want?” I asked as he sat down at my side.

  “Nice,” he said, pointing to the horse. “Did you do that?”

  “Yeah, I did that,” I said, irritated. “Did you get my message about Sophos?”

  “Yes, of course I did.”

  “And?”

  “And I’ll deal with him. You can trust me.”

  “Deal with him?”

  “Yes, deal with him. That’s what you expect, right? That’s what you want?”

  I bit my lip, clutching the vest in my fists.

  “I can count on you, Lauria, I know I can always count on you . . .” But Kyros’s voice was lost in a swirl of sparks as the needle I’d been using to embroider went deep into my palm.

  I woke with a gasp in the darkness of the yurt. I listened carefully, but heard none of the telltale rustling that I’d have heard if I’d woken everyone else up. My palm still burned, and I rubbed it with my thumb. The pain ebbed away, and I stroked the edge of my vest, which I’d worn to sleep in that night. I smiled a little, closed my eyes, and went back to sleep.

  I went with Tamar after breakfast to set up the target. I stretched my stiff muscles, thinking resentfully of the weeks of inactivity and how much weaker I was now than before the fight with the bandits. My ribs still ached, and I knew it was going to hurt to draw the bow. I stretched my side again and then fingered the sore spot.

  Ruan strode up to us. “Right,” she said, and tossed me a bow and a thumb-ring. “String it.”

  I strung the bow, and then gave it an experimental tug. It was much too heavy—it required more strength to bend it than I had, particularly with the injured ribs. “I need a lighter bow,” I said.

  “You need a lighter bow?” Ruan asked with pointed incredulousness. “That’s a very light bow, blossom.”

  “I know. But my ribs still hurt. Surely you have even lighter bows for children learning to shoot.”

  “There are no children in a warrior camp.”

  “Well.” I unstrung the bow and handed it back to her. “If I can’t shoot, I can’t shoot. And I can’t shoot with this.”

  “I think maybe you should try a little harder.”

  “I think maybe I should talk to Maydan; she’s the one who told me to take it easy.”

  “Oh, so now you’re going to run to Maydan to whine about how I’m mistreating you?”

  “No. But since
Maydan knows my injuries better than you do, she can tell me whether I can actually draw this bow without making my injuries worse.”

  “Fine,” Ruan said, and waved back toward the camp. “Go ask Maydan, then. You—” she turned to Tamar. “You can certainly draw your own bow. I think I’d like to see how far you can get from the target and still hit it.”

  I walked slowly back to camp, feeling ridiculous and a little ashamed, like the tale-bearing child Ruan had pretty much accused me of being. Maydan was sitting in the shade of the yurt, grinding up some dried herbs with a mortar and pestle. She looked up when she saw me coming. “Do you need something, Lauria?” she asked.

  “I guess I just wanted your opinion as a healer,” I said, and held out the bow. “I’m supposed to practice target shooting today, but it hurts to draw this bow. Should I just, you know, pull through the pain?”

  “Well, how much pain?” Maydan bent the bow and released it without even stringing it. “Oh, this is much too heavy to use while you’re injured, you’re right. I’ll find you a lighter one.” She strode brusquely into the supply yurt and came out with a slender bow. “This is the lightest one we’ve got. See what you think.”

  I strung the bow and drew for a moment. “Oh. That’s not nearly as bad.”

  “Use that one, then.” She sat down and went back to crushing herbs.

  When I returned to where I’d left Ruan and Tamar, I heard their raised voices before I reached them; the argument abruptly ended before I came close enough to hear what they were saying, and I returned just in time to see Tamar picking up the last of her scattered arrows from the ground. “She pushed me,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “You need to learn to shoot despite distractions.”

  “I shot a man in battle. And I’d like to see you shoot arrows while someone shoved you off your feet.”

  “Take your spot,” Ruan said to me, and pointed. She handed me a quiver of arrows.

  I remembered to tuck my elbow under this time. The arrows went far astray, and they didn’t even all go astray in the same direction. I thought one almost nicked the target as it passed, but that was as close as I came. I collected the arrows when I was done and silently took my place beside Tamar.