Dead Rivers - Freedom's Gate Part 22

When we finished eating, Tamar asked me to come along; I am the other blossom, after all. I shrugged and acquiesced. I found him huddled in the shadow of the yurt, his bowl sc.r.a.ped clean.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Thirteen," he said.

Even younger than Tamar, then.

"Have you been a mine slave your whole life?"

"I was sold there a year ago, I guess. Last summer." He shuddered. "Are they going to send me back there?"

"No," I said gently. "They're not going to send you anywhere. Tamar grabbed you in order to free you."

"Both of us used to be slaves of the Greeks," Tamar said. "Lauria even has a Greek name, like you do.

We escaped this spring."

"The Alashi don't usually free people. They welcome slaves to escape, but they don't take steps to help them get out. But they won't send you back or sell you. Unless you'd be happier with a new master than as a free man. It's your choice."

"Are all the Alashi women?" Zosimos asked.

Tamar giggled. "How do you think the Alashi make babies? Of course there are Alashi men. And children, and old people. We're one of the fighting sisterhoods. Each summer the childless men and women spend their time training to be warriors, stomping out bandits, and raiding Greek outposts. We're separated by s.e.x because, well, I think it's rather obvious, don't you?"

"We're heading back to a clan camp to pick up most of our livestock," I said. "I expect we'll leave you there. They'll either send you to spend the rest of the summer with a sword brotherhood, or you can just spend the summer with the children. Thirteen is kind of young for a sword brother anyway." And he seemed so young. Years younger than Tamar, who apparently had been born fighting.

"Would you like to learn how to fight?" Tamar asked.

He laughed under his breath, in an oddly unguarded moment; the first flash I thought I'd seen of who he really was. "Oh yes," he said a moment later. "I'd love to learn how to fight." A moment later the frightened slave boy was back. "Just don't send me back to the mine."

"We're not going to," I said. "No one's going to." Thinking of Ruan, I added, "And if anyone says they're going to, they're lying to upset you."

A pained smile flickered across his face, very different from the harsh laugh of a moment before.

"Was the mine very bad?" Tamar asked.

He looked away from her for a moment and his face hardened slightly. "They were about to kill me when your women attacked."

" Kill you?" Tamar shook her head. "For what?"

"I attacked one of the guards. He was..." Zosimos shrugged a little. "They think it's funny to make us dishonor Arachne. One of the guards caught a spider; he doused it in oil and told me to light it on fire.

Always before when this happened I just did it, but today..." His voice shook. "I kicked him in the nuts and knocked out one of his teeth." He showed us his hand; there was a cut on his knuckle. "I don't know why I did it. If I'd thought about it even for a moment I would have known that it wasn't worth it. Three guards were on me in moments and they hauled me outside. They were going to have the other slaves come watch while they beat me to death, to show them the price of defiance. They'd already gotten out the whip." His voice was ragged. "If you take me back there, they'll kill me."

" No one is going to take you back there," Tamar said.

"Please," he whispered. "I'll do anything you ask."

"You're not our slave," Tamar hissed. "You don't have to do what we ask. You're free. I freed you."

"He freed himself," I said softly, and Tamar lifted her chin in silent acknowledgment.

Janiya agreed with me, grumblingly, when we repeated Zosimos's story to her. She called Zosimos into the yurt as well, and when he stopped cringing, which took awhile, she presented him with a single blue bead and a leather thong to string it on. Then she shooed him out and sighed. "It's supposed to be an elder or eldress that hears out the story and accepts the runaway provisionally into the Alashi."

"There's an elder with Erdene's clan, isn't there?" I asked.

"Oh yes. But I'm afraid he'd be too frightened to tell his story there." She rubbed her forehead. "He seems like such a child. I hope they keep him in the clan camp for the summer. There will be plenty of time for the brotherhood next year."

We returned to the clan camp on the day we'd expected, and were greeted enthusiastically. Erdene was still miserable, but her lover had been allowed to join her, even though he wasn't the father. I caught a glimpse of him, briefly; he seemed entirely willing to claim her baby as his own. He also seemed quite worried, given how sick she was.

Janiya made Tamar and me come along to introduce Zosimos to the elder. I wasn't sure what I'd done to deserve that; I wondered if Janiya had guessed that I gave Tamar the idea of simply abducting a slave.

It's not like she wouldn't have thought of it on her own. The elder looked silently from Janiya to Zosimos to Tamar to me. I shuffled my feet and nudged Tamar. If we waited until Zosimos spoke up for himself, we'd be standing there all night.

"Zosimos was a slave at the mine where we attacked," Tamar said. "One of the Greek guards wanted him to dishonor Arachne, and he refused. And hit the guard. For that, they were going to kill him."

"He knew that," I said. "He chose death over slavery." That was important. Here.

"As they were taking him out to murder him, we attacked," Tamar said. "And I saw him and... grabbed him." Her voice fell slightly flat at the end. She turned to Zosimos. " Did you take the opportunity to come out to us when we attacked?" she asked, a little pleadingly.

Zosimos shook his head.

"You just stayed where the guard left you?"

He nodded.

"Well, it doesn't matter. He did take his freedom. It was luck that I grabbed him instead of the Greeks killing him."

The elder looked... thoroughly amused, I decided. But he was trying to look surly and disapproving.

"Luck indeed," he said. "Lucky that you happened to find yourself a slave who deserved the gift you thrust on him." He flicked the blue bead that rested against Zosimos's chest; the boy flinched away like a startled sparrow. "And what if you had chosen someone who preferred bondage?"

"There aren't any slaves who like being slaves," Tamar said.

"Aislan," I muttered.

"Not even her. If we showed up and offered to take her away, she'd be on the horse so fast, it would make your head spin. Anyway, a slave that preferred bondage would have run away from us. Or taken up arms against us!"

"You're thinking like an Alashi," the elder said. "A good slave obeys orders. A good slave stands where he's left. Like Zosimos did."

"A good slave would have been back in the mine," Tamar said. "He was only where he was because he was about to be punished. Killed."

"What do you have to say for yourself?" the elder asked, turning abruptly to Zosimos.

"Don't send me back there," he whispered.

"And why not? Do you think we need a fearful, cringing, voiceless boy among the Alashi?"

He cringed, of course, and the color drained from his face. His lips worked silently. Tamar opened her mouth, and I pinched her; he was going to have to speak for himself, sooner or later.

"No," he muttered finally. "I don't think you need me."

"Shall we send you back, then? Or sell you to traders who will take you east?"

He shook his head mutely. Finally he opened his mouth and croaked, "You'd have to kill me first."

"Well. Perhaps there's hope for you after all." The elder raised an eyebrow, glanced pointedly at Tamar and me, and shook his head. "You seem very young. How old are you?"

"Thirteen."

"We'll keep you here through the summer, then. You can ride with the big boys next year. Just as well; our brotherhood already has one blossom to train this summer." The elder caught Janiya's eye and jerked his head, dismissing the three of us; we withdrew from the tent and returned to the sisterhood camp.

"Is the brotherhood pretty much like the sisterhood?" I asked Janiya as we walked.

"I guess it depends on what you mean," she said. "The young, unmarried men spend their summers in camps like ours, yes. I imagine a camp of twenty men would be a little different from a camp of twenty women, though." She smiled a little ruefully. "If you're wondering whether the brotherhoods tend to be led by men who prefer their summer friends' company year-round-well, of course. The leader of this brotherhood is a man named Rishad. I like him; we spend a fair amount of time together during the winter. He escaped from the Greeks himself, quite a few years ago now. Like Tamar, he has some reservations about the whole idea that the only people who deserve freedom are the ones who take it for themselves."

"Has he ever freed someone?" I asked.

"No. But he definitely would have approved of Tamar's sense of initiative."

The elder must have arranged accommodations for Zosimos, because he didn't return to our camp to sleep. As we were packing the next morning, though, he came to find Tamar. He had new clothes, worn but clean-hand-me-downs from one of the boys who'd gone off to the sword brotherhood, no doubt.

He seemed shy today, but less fearful. "Before you left, I wanted to thank you," he muttered. "Thank you for freeing me."

Tamar beamed and clasped his hand. "You're going to do fine."

As the boy turned away, I brushed his sleeve and whispered, "You freed yourself. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

As we rode out, back to our own grazing grounds, my thoughts turned from the Greeks I'd betrayed to the slaves that I had personally found for Kyros. One was a young woman, barely older than Tamar; I had expected a flood of tears when I caught up with her, but she had held herself as rigid as a soldier and barely made a sound the whole way back to Elpisia. The crier had been one of the men-one of the house servants who had run one day for no reason I could see. He'd been the easiest to find, as he'd walked straight out into the desert. Worse than Alibek with his single waterskin, that man had taken no water with him, and had in fact just about collapsed from thirst by the time I caught up with him, but that didn't stop him from unleashing the most unearthly wail I'd ever heard when I walked up to him. If he'd wanted to die, there are less painful ways to kill yourself, I thought.

The only one who actually fought me was also one of the men. He'd made himself a makeshift knife with the broken edge of a jar. It was sharp enough to cut my arm when he lunged at me, but not deeply enough to leave a scar. I disarmed him without too much trouble and smashed his "knife" under my heel.

He'd crumpled then, and had come back as meek and silent as a frightened rabbit. In an act of spontaneous generosity, I had refrained from telling Kyros about the knife. The cut healed on its own within a few days.

They took their freedom, too. Or tried to. And I took it away from them again.

If I had warned Kyros about the raid, it was unlikely that Tamar would have had the opportunity to free Zosimos. Had I traded Thales's life for Zosimos's freedom? It seemed almost worth it, thinking about Zosimos's story. But then, as bad as I felt about Thales, he wasn't a friend. I might feel differently if it had been Nikon's life that had been traded.

I've betrayed everyone, I thought. Before I ever came here, I betrayed everything the Alashi stand for when I hunted down Kyros's slaves. And then I betrayed Kyros and the Sisterhood of Weavers when I failed to tell them about the raid. But the strangest thing of all was that I wasn't sure which I regretted more. Thales had been trying to help me; he hadn't run when I'd told him to run because he'd thought, in his confusion of recognition, that I needed help. But if I could go back and change one thing, I thought I'd go back and tell Kyros that I didn't want to hunt down his slaves.

My thoughts were disturbing, and I tried to push them out of my mind-Thales, Alibek, the crying man, all of them. But I heard the man's wail in my dreams that night. I woke up to Ruan's snarl, and knew that once again the wail had come from me.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

"Who's there?"

I stood up from my spot in the long gra.s.s, expecting to see Zhanna, but no one was there. I sat back down, dispirited, and gave the drum Zhanna had given me another halfhearted thump. She'd sent both me and Tamar out, separately, with drums and instructions to try to find our way to "openness" to the djinn. I had spent an absurdly long time tapping out rhythms, my eyes closed, but I felt no more "open" than I had the day she had us try to meditate. I did, however, feel hot; there was no shade where Zhanna had left me. I took a swig from my half-empty waterskin and glared at the drum.

Well, if it hadn't been Zhanna in the gra.s.s, there was no one to care if I was actually beating on my drum or not. I flopped back in the gra.s.s, looking up at the blue sky and the dazzling sunshine. I could hear the steady hum of insects, and a bird warbling. It wasn't so bad to simply be idle for a little while; at least I wasn't trying to shoot a bow while Ruan yelled at me.

"Any djinni here?" I said aloud. "h.e.l.lo? Anyone want to talk to me?"

I heard what I'd heard before-some sort of rustleuand suddenly I realized that I hadn't heard it with my ears. Of course not. I was playing the drum. I sat up, my skin p.r.i.c.kling despite the heat. "Is someone here?"

And it was there: shimmering in front of me like a water mirage. "h.e.l.lo, Shaman's Apprentice," it said.

This is not Kyros's djinn. Or Janiya's. Looking at it, I was certain that it was not a bound djinn; I realized, looking at it, that it was larger than the djinni I'd talked with before. Larger, and the shimmer was brighter. A rogue aeriko, part of my mind insisted on calling it. I could be possessed by this djinn.

The idea made me shiver even more.

I'd been approached by a free djinn once before, the one who'd warned me that I was being followed-but it had been gone so fast, I'd barely had time to think about what I was speaking with. I wondered if this was the same djinn, but I had a hard time believing that even a few months ago I could have mistaken this for Kyros's djinn.

Shamans spoke with unbound djinni all the time. But now that I was facing one, I had no idea what I was supposed to say to it. Or ask it. Zhanna hadn't really covered that. "h.e.l.lo," I said.

The golden shimmer swirled around me; I could almost feel something brush a tendril of my hair. "A little summoner," it murmured. "You long to bind me, to make me your servant."

"No," I said. "Of course I don't want to bind you." The Alashi don't do that.

"You think of bindings-but you never see the bindings on yourself."

"What bindings?"

"Look," it said, and it swirled again. And suddenly I saw double: one world of green steppe and blue sky, and one world of strange silver lines and black shadows. I looked at the djinn again, and I saw a face, a woman's face, strange and wild. "Look," it said again, and I looked and saw silver ropes curling around my wrists and ankles. I squinted for a better view, which didn't help at all. I tried to pull the ropes off, but of course I could touch nothing; I shook them, but that didn't work, either.

The djinn laughed; the sound went through my head like a knife, and I closed my eyes and clapped my hands to my ears. When the sound was gone, I found myself lying in the gra.s.s again; the world looked like it usually did.

What a strange vision. I didn't think I dared tell Zhanna about it. I picked up the drum and resolutely began to beat it again, but I couldn't stop thinking about the curling silver ropes, and as I pounded on the drum, the words I'd said to the Greek officer during the mine raid echoed in my head. You're half a slave yourself- a conscript. I wasn't a conscript, though; Kyros had invited me to come work for him, I hadn't been conscripted for anything. My loyalty to Kyros is all that binds me, I thought. But I chose that. I chose that. Kyros knows he can count on me.

It was a few days later that I learned how to banish a rogue djinn that had possessed an unwilling victim.

This definitely wasn't as much of a problem among the Alashi as it was among the Greeks, but that day a djinn seized hold of, of all people, Maydan. She was grinding up some dried herb with her mortar and pestle, to mix into a salve, when the pestle suddenly tumbled from her fingers and she toppled forward in a faint.

Someone ran to get Zhanna, and she sent someone else to find Tamar while she eased Maydan onto her back. "You're smiling," I said, startled. "Are you glad she was possessed?"

"Not exactly glad," Zhanna said. "But I'd been half hoping we'd see someone get possessed before the summer was over, just so I could start working with you and Tamar on what to do." She sat up, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "Maydan would ' understand. If she were training an apprentice-two apprentices-she'd be sorry if I fell off my horse and broke my leg, but at the same time, she'd be a little pleased at the opportunity to teach her apprentices how to set a broken bone."

Tamar arrived, breathless, and the three of us lifted Maydan into the shade of the yurt. "All right," Zhanna said. "To properly do this, you need to have that state of openness that we've talked about-you can drum or dance or whatever you're finding works for you."

Tamar nodded, her face serious. I averted my eyes. I'd tried meditating, drumming, and even dancing; nothing made me feel open. But Zhanna was looking at me when I looked up, so I nodded, too.

"Don't feel like you've failed if this doesn't work. I'll give each of you a chance to banish the djinn; it's possible that you won't be able to get it to respond to you at all, and if you do, you may draw it out of Maydan only to be possessed yourself. Don't worry about that, though; I have dealt with djinn possession many times and I'll take care of you."