Solis

by Kat Ross

  “It’s done,” Rhea said, having hurried back across the street to join her.

  “How long do you think it’ll take him to pass out?” Nazafareen asked.

  Rhea wrinkled her nose. “From the smell, he’s already had a few cups this morning, and not watered. No more than an hour, I’ll wager.”

  Nazafareen felt a moment’s pity for the man. “I think working for the Weasel would drive me to drink, too.”

  Rhea snorted. “They’re two of a kind. He could work for another, but I’m sure the Weasel pays him well to keep his mouth shut.” She gave Nazafareen an appraising look. “You say there’s definitely something inside?”

  “Yes. I’ll grab it and go.”

  They waited two hours to be safe, then crossed the street and knocked on the door again. A minute passed with no response. Nazafareen glanced around. The Weasel’s home lay at the edge of the gemstone district, where skilled artisans made jewelry from the emeralds, diamonds and other precious gems imported from the Valkirin range. The Greeks might disdain magic, but they still coveted the wealth of the darklands.

  Earlier, the area bustled with people heading off to work or to shop at the agora. But now the streets had grown quiet.

  “I’ll stand watch,” Rhea said. “If someone comes, I’ll start singing.”

  Nazafareen nodded and slipped inside. She crept down a dim hallway and nearly stumbled over the manservant. He lay propped against the wall, one arm curled around the cask, the other holding a cup half full of wine. Like any practiced drunk, he managed to keep it perfectly erect, resting on his thigh, though his mouth was slack and his eyes closed.

  She stepped over him and ascended a flight of stairs to the second story. Nazafareen bypassed the first room and went straight to the next, which held two chairs, a table and a chest. Her breaking magic gnashed its teeth at the sudden burst of power as she eased the lid back. Stacks of linen, and beneath them, a silken pouch. She didn’t need to look but did anyway. It was filled with sparkling grey dust. She stared at it in fascination. The dust wasn’t uniformly fine but had gritty specks of white, like the remnants of a fire….

  Her magic reached for it.

  No!

  Nazafareen tamped it down with sheer force of will. She could sense power emanating from the dust, a jumble of all four elements but strongly fire—in a latent form.

  That must give the dust the energy to transform, she thought. But what is it? Where does it come from? Even Javid hadn’t known. She’d asked him once.

  Suddenly, she heard Rhea’s sweet, clear tenor through the window. She leapt up, heart pounding, and tucked the bag into the pocket of her dress. She took a step toward the stairs but now she heard raised voices down below. And the window was too high. She’d break an ankle. Nazafareen searched frantically for a hiding place.

  “You lout!”

  It was the Weasel. He must have discovered his manservant passed out in the hall.

  Indecipherable mumblings followed. Nazafareen heard a curse and a loud slap.

  She dove into the chest and pulled the lid down as two sets of footsteps ascended the stairs, one light, the other heavy and thudding.

  “I apologize for my worthless servant,” the Weasel said. “He’s loyal but overly fond of wine. I will see he’s punished. Be assured—”

  “I don’t care how you run your household,” a higher-pitched yet somehow infinitely more frightening voice replied. It had a raspy edge, a touch of breathiness, as though climbing the stairs was a great ordeal. “I am here to speak of other matters.” A long pause came, as if the speaker were looking around in distaste. “I wouldn’t be in this hovel if the Library weren’t crawling with allies of Herodotus. But discretion is best until the trial is over.”

  One of the chairs gave a perilous groan as the speaker settled into it.

  “The Pythia is very displeased that the witch girl slipped the net. She worked at the library. What do you know about her?”

  “Very little, Polemarch.”

  Nazafareen hardly dared to breathe. The Polemarch! She’d heard of him, but never seen him. A man who would order the most unspeakable tortures at a whim. Cyrene said the river next to his dungeons ran red from the mangled bodies dumped there.

  “If only I could have my way with the Persian boy….” He trailed off and coughed, spitting a gob of something foul on the floor. “But the Pythia insists he be presentable for the Ecclesia.” The Polemarch chuckled. “Afterwards, though. Afterwards, I shall see what he’s made of. Quite literally.”

  The Weasel gave a simpering laugh, but it came out slightly strangled. “The girl gave her name as Ashraf, though it was likely a lie,” he said. “She was a scullery sweep. I hardly noticed her. We certainly never spoke—”

  “Who did she associate with? Where did she go when she wasn’t working?”

  “No one, Polemarch. She stuck with the Persian. I already told Archon Basileus—”

  “Basileus. I don’t trust him.” The high voice quivered with anger. “He meets with the Pythia in private. Scheming and plotting against me, no doubt. Basileus is a snake. He’s always been too ambitious.”

  “As you say, Polemarch.”

  The Weasel sounded like a man caught between a landslide and an avalanche, though Nazafareen couldn’t summon any pity for him.

  “Which brings us to the real reason I’m here. I might require your services again.” He paused. “Do you still have the dust?”

  Nazafareen’s stomach tied itself into a painful knot.

  “I do, Polemarch. Would you like to see it?”

  Another pause, this one far more terrible than the last.

  “That won’t be necessary,” the Polemarch said at last. “Just be ready. You have your testimony prepared, Serpedon?”

  Nazafareen had grown so used to calling him the Weasel, she’d nearly forgotten his actual name.

  “Of course. The evidence is unimpeachable. Don’t worry, Polemarch, you will see them burn.”

  “Indeed.” A clogged-sounding chuckle. “One way or another.”

  The chair emitted another tremendous groan. Nazafareen heard the shuffling of feet and impatient curses from the Polemarch as the Weasel rushed to his aid. Finally, he gained his feet and she heard his heavy tread leave the room. The Weasel escorted him down, snapping at the manservant again to open the front door, and be quick about it!

  She feared the Weasel would return, but it seemed he had business elsewhere. When all grew quiet again, Nazafareen slipped downstairs and crept into the kitchen, where an open window beckoned.

  “You!” a slurred voice exclaimed from the hallway. “What are you doing in here?”

  Like a cat whose tail had been set afire, Nazafareen leapt through the window. She scrambled to her feet and pelted into the street. A wide-eyed Rhea waited several houses down. Laughing like maniacs, they tore off to the music of incoherent shouts behind.

  “Front stance!” Adeia barked.

  Nazafareen bent her right knee in a lunge, the back foot slightly angled, and gripped the staff with her left hand.

  “Lean forward a little,” Alcippe corrected.

  Nazafareen shifted her center of balance but kept her back straight. Sweat soaked her tunic.

  “Not bad,” Adeia muttered. “Cat stance!”

  She adjusted her weight again, putting most of it into the back leg, front toes poised lightly like a paw.

  “Let’s see a spin.”

  Nazafareen went through the forms—slowly and deliberately as a toddler taking its first steps—while the other parthenoi watched from an outdoor table at the farm where they were eating lunch. Cyrene and Charis paid close attention since they’d made a friendly wager on how long she’d last. Only the twins had offered to teach her. Nazafareen had been surprised and grateful—until she discovered that Adeia’s shyness masked a pitiless instructor. Perhaps because they were the youngest, the twins seemed to relish the chance to boss someone around. But they were both excellent fighters a
nd seemed genuinely interested in teaching her. Nazafareen had settled into the role of bumbling novice with good grace. Now even surly Megaera eyed her with grudging respect. She might not be any good, but she hadn’t quit yet.

  It had been a week since they’d returned to the farm. Javid and Herodotus’s trial would be held the following day at the Ecclesia. Nazafareen hummed with nervous energy. They all did. Only Kallisto seemed as serene as ever, though there was a tightness around her dark eyes.

  “She’s coming,” Alcippe muttered, making a small gesture with her hand that Nazafareen interpreted as put the staff down and look busy doing something else.

  The older woman approached from the farmhouse with her usual stately stride, her own staff in hand. She already had her eyes locked on Nazafareen so there was little point in trying to escape. In truth, Nazafareen had been struggling through the last few forms and she was glad for the excuse to take a break.

  “There’s work to be done,” Kallisto said briskly, gathering up the twins in a single glare. “I’m glad to see you taking Nazafareen under your wing, but the grapes won’t press themselves.”

  “Yes, Kallisto,” they said in unison, dashing off.

  “I asked them to teach me,” Nazafareen said, propping the practice staff against the barn wall. “They were just being kind.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you plan to stay here? If Herodotus is acquitted?”

  Kallisto gave a thin smile. “I wish we could. But how long before the Polemarch came for us? This farm is isolated. Men will commit acts in secret they would deny before the world. But there are other reasons to leave. Events larger than the fate of two men have been set in motion now, child. So we will accompany you to Samarqand. There are people I must find there.”

  “What people?”

  Kallisto gave her an enigmatic smile. “Friends.”

  “So why bother making the parthenoi work when you know the farm will soon be abandoned?” Nazafareen asked.

  The older woman was silent for a long moment.

  “Because we’ve tilled this earth for a long time,” she replied finally. “And we will perform our duties until the time comes to take up new ones.” She sighed. “I knew this day would come. We Maenads have a higher calling. But I will miss this place.”

  Nazafareen looked around at the neat mudbrick buildings, the henhouse and sheep pen, the kitchen garden and flowerbeds lining the path to the farmhouse.

  “What will happen to it?”

  “I’ve left instructions for our neighbors to take the animals. The Archons will likely seize the land and keep it for themselves.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “No,” Kallisto agreed, “but it’s the way of things.”

  The other Maenads finished their lunch and set off for the building where the wine was made.

  “I’ll go mad if I don’t do something,” Nazafareen grumbled, watching them leave. “What if I try to crush grapes with earth magic? Then I could make the work go faster and I’d get some practice in.”

  If it came to a fight, the Maenads didn’t need another sword or staff. Nazafareen doubted she’d ever manage to rattle the very bones of the earth the way Darius could, but air and water could be formidable weapons too.

  Kallisto’s lips quirked. “Elemental wine? Perhaps we can charge extra for that. Not here, of course. But the king of Samarqand might be intrigued. He’s always looking for new vintages.” Her eyes narrowed. “But remember, the pressing house belongs to Dionysius. It is a sacred place and the god will be watching.”

  Nazafareen started to make the sign of the flame, then abruptly remembered it was a Persian ritual and turned it into an awkward head scratch. What did the Greeks do again? Forked fingers warded off curses, but that didn’t seem appropriate.

  It’s too confusing! How do they keep it all straight?

  She settled for a pious nod and a quick glance heavenward. Then she set out for the pressing house, determined to overcome her block. Vineyards stretched away on either side, with long rows of stakes thrusting up from the rich black earth. The grapes were mostly hidden among the leaves, but she caught glimpses of red and purple, deep blue and sun-dusted yellow. Bees droned along the grassy verge of the path. Nazafareen paused to pluck a wildflower and tuck it behind her ear. It was a good place. In another life, she wouldn’t have minded staying here.

  She entered the dim coolness of the pressing house. Wicker baskets filled with grapes had been placed in a giant earthenware vat. Four of the women clung to ropes that descended from a ceiling beam and were vigorously stomping the grapes with their bare feet, which made a spectacular squelching noise. The other two scooped crushed grapes out of a second vat and poured them into clay pots where the mixture would ferment.

  “I’m here to help,” Nazafareen said brightly. “And I promised Kallisto to do it with the power.” She pushed up her sleeves and surveyed the vats.

  The parthenoi exchanged wary glances. At first they’d been impressed to learn she could work magic, but after seeing her grim-faced efforts to nudge a single olive across the kitchen table, they seemed to mainly feel sorry for her.

  “May I?”

  Nazafareen pointed to a wicker basket of grapes that sat off to the side. Charis shrugged.

  “Sure.”

  “I think I’ll try to make the juice separate from the grape without touching it.”

  She stilled her mind and tried to find the Nexus. The other women returned to their work, but she sensed them watching from the corners of their eyes. Nazafareen slowed her breathing to an even rhythm. She heard Darius’s voice in her head, offering patient instructions.

  There is no you and me. No self. The world flows around us like a river. We hear sounds but attach no special meaning to them. There is only the now and the inner stillness, where all things are one.

  A sense of profound peace stole over her. Nazafareen’s lips curved in a tiny smile. She felt the ancient weathered boards beneath her feet and the rich earth beneath that. The infinite sky above and the hot, salty blood flowing through her veins. All the same. Without straining, she let her awareness move into the basket of fruit, identifying the sweet nectar inside each grape apart from the skin and flesh that contained it.

  Darius called it sympathetic magic. Nazafareen felt her own blood surge as she gently exerted her will over the elements, mainly water in this case. Had it been earth power, she would feel the strain in muscle and bone. Air would quicken her breath.

  Separate yourself. She imagined a fine thread of liquid oozing from a single grape.

  Nothing happened for a long moment. Then the whole bunch exploded with a wet popping sound. The Maenads studiously avoided looking at each other. Rhea in particular had her jaw clenched tight, lips quivering as though she’d swallowed her own tongue.

  Nazafareen turned to them, purple juice dripping from her hair.

  “Well, that wasn’t so bad.” She licked her lips and made a smacking sound. “I do watermelons too.”

  The Maenads erupted in laughter and the tension in the room evaporated. Nazafareen kicked off her shoes and hopped into the vat. She started stomping the grapes. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, just…different. Nazafareen watched the others and noted how they used their toes to probe the mushy concoction for the grapes that needed squishing.

  Soon she got the hang of it, though she found the work to be more enjoyable when she pretended the grapes were the Pythia’s face.

  The Stork. Stomp! The Weasel. Stomp! Archon Basileus. Double-stomp!

  After supper, the Maenads donned their fawnskin dresses and sacrificed a rooster. Then they polished off a small cask of wine and began to dance in the sparring yard. They twirled and whipped their hair around, arms flung wide, to the music of pipes played by Megaera. Nazafareen watched from the sidelines, feeling awkward, until Cyrene grabbed her hand. Her round cheeks were flushed a rosy pink.

  “Dance with us,” she cried.

  Nazafareen tr
ied to beg off, but Cyrene dragged her ruthlessly to her feet. So she took a large gulp of wine and joined in. The others laughed in delight as her inhibitions ebbed and the music caught her up. Sometimes they danced with hands clasped in twos and threes, until one whirled away and joined another group. For the first time in days, Nazafareen felt a fierce, unhindered joy as she leapt and spun beneath the cloudless blue sky.

  The music of the pipes faltered, then died in the middle of a melody. She paused to catch her breath, merriment fading. The Maenads had stopped dancing and watched Kallisto with grave faces.

  The older woman stood at the center of the circle, staff in hand, staring at nothing—or something only she could see.

  “A wolf stalks the Marakai,” Kallisto said in a low, strange voice. “Seeking the scent of a girl child. She is cunning and clever, but she cannot hide from him forever. A great weight sits upon her shoulders though she doesn’t yet know it.”

  The hair on Nazafareen’s arms lifted as Kallisto’s eyes rolled back, showing only the whites.

  She blinked rapidly. “I see a small grey cat. I see a man in chains. I see bleached bones on yellow sand. I see a snake in a high tower. Those who were lost will return, but changed. I see—”

  “Someone’s coming!” Rhea hissed.

  Nazafareen turned to the road. A cloud of dust rose above it. Rhea put an arm around Kallisto’s shoulders.

  “Wake up, mother,” she said urgently. “Wake up!”

  “Is it the Polemarch’s soldiers?” Nazafareen asked Megaera.

  Megaera didn’t reply. She was already running for her staff. The rest of the Maenads formed a semicircle in front of Kallisto, faces hard and ready for battle. Nazafareen pulled her belt knife and waited, heart pounding.

  Then the dust cloud dispersed and a single rider emerged. His head was bare and he appeared unarmed.

  Rhea pressed a cup of wine to Kallisto’s lips. She drank and seemed to come back to herself, though her eyes looked haunted. Nazafareen wanted to ask her what she’d seen and what it all meant, but the rider was already slowing to a trot. When he grew near, he leapt gracefully from his horse. Kallisto drew herself up, smoothing her hair with a hand that trembled only slightly.