Threshold (8 page)

S
OME
eight or nine months passed. I moved from nineteen to twenty shortly after my induction into the arts of the Elementals and I left what little remained of my childhood and former life completely behind me. I grew further distant from my father. It was a distance I regretted, but as Isphet increased her teaching, and as I accepted the presence of the Soulenai more, I found my need for my father growing less. And he knew nothing of the Elemental among us. He did not know that on some days when the glass glowed bright the voices of the Soulenai reverberated about the workshop as our hands and hearts moulded and shaped to the words they spun.

I often wondered what it was like for the non-Elementals who worked with us. Wondered if they ever realised there was a depth and a joy to the workshop in which they did not, could not, participate.

Now pottery and metal pots whispered and sang to me as well, and sometimes echoed the words of the Soulenai, although never so much as the glass. Yet, with all the joy of the discovery of the Elemental arts came a tarnish. Nothing was right within Gesholme, not when the shadow of Threshold lay over us like a quiescent tumour awaiting its chance.

I continued my work beside Orteas and Zeldon, caging Isphet’s wondrous golden glass. We took pride in our work, and lost ourselves amid the conversation of the glass, but it was sad also, for our work was destined for the Infinity Chamber.

I learned to go inside that abomination and neither faint, nor let my horror disturb the tranquillity of my face. The Soulenai comforted me, even amid the screams of the glass nailed to the walls, and begged me to discover what it was that made the glass scream so…

What’s wrong? What’s wrong? What’s wrong?

I tried, and the few of us with reason to go inside the Infinity Chamber tried, but we could not discern the ‘why’ of the wrongness, only the fact and the horror of its existence.

Meanwhile, Threshold grew. Orteas, Zeldon and I caged to the Magi’s supervision and designs, and during these months our work spread over fully a third of the area of the Infinity Chamber. Whenever any of us went inside (and we tried to go in pairs, for that helped us cope) we would view the designs of the completed panels, fearing what sorceries the strange symbols, letters and numbers constructed, yet yearning to understand what was wrong so we could aid the Soulenai. There was always a Magus with us – none of the slaves were allowed inside the chamber without at least one Magus to stand watch – and we dared not look too closely, let alone ask. But at night we would talk about what we’d seen, and try to understand. Try, and fail every time.

Elsewhere work progressed almost as rapidly as in the Infinity Chamber. Many of the shafts and corridors were fully glassed now, and on some days the interior of Threshold glittered with hard light. Sometimes, whether approaching the pyramid down the main thoroughfare, or standing on the balcony outside our workshop, we could see the openings of shafts on the exterior walls flare into light, and then die down.

Threshold not only took light into itself, but cast it out, too.

As the interior neared completion, the Magi gave orders that slaves should begin to plate the exterior.

Our workshop, as all others in Gesholme, worked eighteen hours of every day, mixing and firing the sheets of blue-green glass that would eventually cover Threshold. Even so, it would take a year before it could be done, if not longer.

I was lucky, for my workload did not appreciably increase, but Isphet worked hard, as did my father and Yaqob and many, many others.

I occasionally caught glimpses of Yaqob talking quickly, surreptitiously, with Yassar and other men not connected with our workshop but who I guessed to be part of the planned revolt. Yaqob rarely talked of it, only to say that, blade by blade, enough weaponry was being stored to stick every Magus twice over. Such talk, brief as it was, made me nervous. I was scared that slaves, even moderately well-armed, could not overcome both guards and Magi. I also remembered the intuition of loss that I had the first day I’d approached Threshold, and I watched Yaqob, and wondered.

Yaqob. Yaqob and I fell inevitably into love. It was a courtship conducted for the most part under the benign eyes of the entire workshop, but the more meaningful and the sweeter for it. We had to be careful, for although relationships – even marriages – between slaves were not forbidden by the Magi, neither were they encouraged. Anything that distracted a slave from his or her duty to Threshold was discouraged, and it was safer to hide our love from the Magi than flaunt it.

Neither of us wanted to give the Magi, or Threshold, the knowledge whereby they might hurt us.

So we were circumspect, but within that circumspection, we indulged our love as much as we were able. But
that was difficult in a world where privacy between lovers was more often a raging frustration than a reality. We each shared our quarters with four or five others, and neither of us could find the courage to ask our friends to wait outside while we luxuriated in a slow exploration of love.

There were the rooftops, out of view of most and only sporadically patrolled, but there was always the shadow of Threshold, even at night, and we were as compelled to hide from it as we were from the Magi.

So as lovers, I think Yaqob and I discovered every canvas overhang, every dim storeroom, every darkened space between or underneath or above cupboards and shelves in Gesholme.

Even if we found the privacy, however cramped and uncomfortable, then we had only moments to spare between tasks, or before we had to be somewhere else, or before a Magus passed by, or a patrol, or someone came to rummage through the storeroom or cupboard for supplies. We never had the time to sate anything but the most basic and animalistic hungers – a hard and brief thrusting, desperate attempts to stifle every gasp, a sudden, insufficient release, and then we would go our separate ways, furtively rearranging wraps and promising ourselves that next time…next time…

And we were tense because Yaqob feared each time he entered me that this would be the time he’d father a child, and that was something he refused to do until we were free, until we could choose the direction of our own lives, until we’d escaped Threshold.

He groaned, then tensed, and I hid his face in my shoulder and murmured, “It’s all right, Yaqob, it’s all right.”

He took a deep breath, shuddered, then relaxed and withdrew from me, sliding his hands along my body.

“Are you sure?” He pulled my wrap down, then quickly rearranged his own more tidily about his hips.

“I have no intention of going through what Raguel did.” Omarni had told me what herbs she’d given me when I’d been in Hadone’s slavery, and most of them were available here, too. Isphet had contacts among the watercarriers, and they plucked the leaves from the river banks for me. Thus far they appeared to be working, and if not…well, there were other means to rid my body quickly and cleanly of any child that did manage to take hold. I was as determined as Yaqob not to breed more slaves for the Magi.

He kissed my cheek quickly. “Perhaps tomorrow…”

“Perhaps.” But I was not overly enthusiastic. I enjoyed these interludes with Yaqob only for the emotional closeness they brought. Physically, our brief, anxious lovemaking was generally uncomfortable, and always left me with my body aching and my nerves screaming with frustration. I envied Yaqob that he managed to find some degree of physical fulfilment in our time together.

“Shush!” He pressed his fingers against my lips, and listened intently. Steps sounded in the alley outside, then faded.

“Come on,” he said, “Ta’uz will be wondering where we have got to.”

We had been summoned back to the Infinity Chamber: I to make sure that the caged glass had been placed with the least possible stress; Yaqob to measure for more bridging panels of glass.

We could have taken our time, for Ta’uz, rather than waiting impatiently, was actually hurrying to catch us up.

He threw a furious glance at us as he passed, and we lowered our eyes, muttering “Excellency!”, and then he was in front and we matched our steps to his impatient stride. We tried not to look at each other, for to do so would be to smile; it was rare indeed that any of the Magi let themselves be caught in anything other than indolent splendour.

But Ta’uz was obviously distracted, and as we neared Threshold he actually stopped, and stared up at the peak of the pyramid.

Although the capstone was a year or more away from being placed, workmen were at the very peak of the pyramid preparing the masonry. There were five men, all tied to safety ropes, all moving slowly but surely. I did not envy them their task.

Ta’uz was fixated by the sight, and now Yaqob and I did glance at each other, all urge to smile gone.

“Ah,” Ta’uz muttered, and we tried to follow the line of his eyes.

“There,” Yaqob mouthed at me, and pointed surreptitiously. Ta’uz was staring at a small pile of stones to one side of the workmen; they were using them to build a ledge on which the capstone would rest.

The sunlight was bright, and the distance great, but what happened next I saw in such clear detail it was as if I was but three paces distant from the peak. None of the five workmen were close to the pile of stones at that moment, all absorbed by some problem in the mortaring further around the peak. But somehow…somehow the topmost rock lazily lifted itself from the pile, seemingly hovered as if indecisive – as if
choosing
– then hurtled towards the ground, impossibly fast,
too fast
, a blur, and embedded itself in the head of a slave walking out of Threshold’s mouth.

It hit with such impact that it burst the man’s face and skull in a shower of blood and brain, and still had enough force to cleave his neck apart and completely embed itself between his shoulder blades.

Threshold’s shadow winked.

For an instant, the entire site stilled, then Ta’uz gave a great cry and ran to the prone figure at the top of the ramp. Yaqob and I were only a step behind him.

Ta’uz dropped to his knees beside the headless corpse – everything within two paces had been splattered with
blood and brain – and reached out a trembling hand. He stopped himself just before he touched the man’s shoulder, the top of the rock clearly visible amid his smashed vertebrae.

I took a step backwards, sickened, but not before Ta’uz had raised his face to Threshold and whispered, “Why?”

T
A’UZ
recovered within moments of the death. He ordered the body’s disposal, then, beckoning impatiently to Yaqob and myself, he proceeded inside to inspect the Infinity Chamber.

It was bad, far more so than usual. Normally the glass screamed within the chamber, but this day it was subdued. Terrified. Whatever had possessed Threshold had also shocked the glass into almost complete silence, and when Ta’uz demanded of me why tears ran down my cheeks, I said it was because of the slave who’d died outside.

“Foolish girl,” he snapped. “Lives are for us or Threshold to dispose of as we will. Does the glass fit well enough?”

“It fits well enough, Excellency. The stresses are minimal and it sits full square.”

“Good.” He paused. “You share quarters with Raguel, do you not?”

“Yes, Excellency.”

“Then tell her to be at my quarters by star-rise. And tell her to wash first.”

“As you will, Excellency.”

With that he grunted and turned to Yaqob, telling him to hurry with his measurements.

The incident laid a pall over the entire site. Too many people had witnessed the death of the slave for any to discount the story of his lazy, deliberate execution at the will of Threshold.

No-one within our workshop had known the slave, but we heard of him quickly enough. He was a simple labourer by the name of Gaio, and he was not an Elemental. There was no reason why Threshold should have chosen to kill him, save the fact of his existence. It could have been any of us.

The body had been removed quickly, but somehow the stain of Gaio’s blood remained on the stones surrounding Threshold’s entranceway for weeks, despite the most strenuous attempts to wash it off. It wore away only with the passage of feet, and then only slowly, for most took great care to avoid it.

If the Magi were perturbed, they hid it well. They stalked the precincts of all three compounds, their faces masked, eyes vivid with power, and they gave away none of their inner thoughts or worries – if, indeed, they had any.

But Ta’uz
was
disturbed. There were moments when his doubts showed through. After a week or two, Yaqob and Isphet thought to question Raguel closely about her time with him, and she reported that he was distracted, sometimes so distracted he sent her away without using her.

“The night of Gaio’s death he told me to lie on the bed, and I did so. But then he paced to and fro, to and fro, staring out the window at Threshold. He muttered to himself, but I could not catch his words. After some time he turned and jumped, as if startled to see me. He used me, nevertheless, although I think that night he achieved no communion with the One. Since then he has called me back five times, but used me only once.”

She looked considerably relieved about that, and I did not blame her. Since we had farewelled her daughter into the Place Beyond, Raguel had recovered much of her spirit, and I had discovered her to be an amusing companion. I wondered if the only reason Ta’uz constantly sought her presence was to commune with the One.

“Will he talk, if you prod him?” Yaqob asked.

Raguel looked frightened. “You know how it is with the Magi, Yaqob. You never speak to them unless spoken to first, and then only if they ask you a direct question. I cannot think what he would do if I tried to initiate a conversation.”

“Nevertheless,” Yaqob pressed, and I gave him an irritated glance. Surely he could see how reluctant Raguel was? And how dangerous it would be for her?

“Nevertheless, if you
could
ease him into conversation about what worries him about Threshold, we might find out what is so wrong with it. And Ta’uz is the Master of the Site. The information you could glean from him could be invaluable –”

“Yaqob!” I said. “Have a thought for Raguel’s safety –”

He leaned across and seized my wrist in tight, angry fingers. “Tirzah, I have the responsibility to see that whatever uprising I lead
succeeds.
I will waste no opportunity to do so. If Raguel has access to information about patrols, weapons, stores, then I
want to know about it
!”

“I will do my best,” Raguel said quietly.

“Good,” Yaqob replied, still looking at me, then let my wrist go. I rubbed it, glaring at him, then I shifted my eyes back to Raguel.

Her face was rigid with dread.

Five weeks later I was walking back to our quarters in the cool evening air, chatting with Raguel; Isphet, Saboa and Kiath followed some steps behind muttering over a firing which had gone wrong that morning. Raguel was reasonably
cheerful even though Ta’uz had required her presence the evening before and might well do so again tonight.

“I really don’t know why he keeps asking me back. Sometimes I think he just likes to have company.”

“Does he talk to you?”

“Only rarely. I enter, he asks me to sit on a stool by the bed as if he can’t make up his mind what to do with me, then he either paces back and forth, or just stands at the window and stares at Threshold. If he does that then he always puts the lamps out first.”

I shivered. If Ta’uz was frightened of Threshold…“And he doesn’t…”

“Use me?” Raguel laughed. “Only occasionally. I thank the Soulenai that it
is
only occasionally.”

I didn’t quite know how to phrase this next question. “It isn’t enjoyable?”

Raguel pulled a face. “The Magi are brief and painful and utterly humiliating, Tirzah. Ask Isphet. She endured almost five years of use.” Her mood lightened and she pinched my arm playfully. “I wish I had your Yaqob.”

I grinned wanly. “Why the baby, Raguel?” I’d never dared ask this before, but she’d never been so open before, either.

“Because I was young and stupid,” she replied, her tone harsh, “and because –”

But whatever she was going to say was cut off by a distant shout from the river and then, stunningly, a clarion of trumpets.

We stopped, and Isphet caught us up.

“Trouble,” she muttered. “Where’s Yaqob?”

“He’s still back in the workshop,” I said, “cutting glass for tomorrow’s plating. Isphet? What is it?”

“I’m not sure –” she began, then another clarion sounded, much louder this time.

“Quick,” she said, grabbing Raguel and me by the elbows. “Back to our quarters.
Quick
!”

She gave us no chance for further questions, hurrying us down the street, then into the alley that led to our tenement. Once inside she thrust empty grain jars into Raguel’s and my hands, and grabbed one herself. Kiath and Saboa she sent to the roof to see what they could.

“Come on,” she said. “We’ve run out of grain. A visit to the grain store is needed.”

“But we’ve got plenty of –” Raguel began, then stopped at the expression in Isphet’s eyes.

“
Hurry!
” Isphet hissed.

We left the building and walked down the street at a pace that was almost a trot. As soon as we turned onto the street that led to the grain store I realised what she was doing. The store lay close to the compound of the Magi, and the street we were on intersected with the main street close to the compound’s gates. There we might have a chance of seeing who had arrived.

And, with a clarion of trumpets announcing their arrival, it surely wasn’t a new complement of slaves. Or Magi, for that matter. Since I’d been in Gesholme Magi had come and gone, but never with this much fuss.

As we approached the intersection, guards thrust us to our knees, their eyes nervous but their hands hard.

“Where are you going?”

With our foreheads pressed to the dirt, we couldn’t see a thing, but we could feel the tramp of approaching feet. Rhythmic, marching, frightening.

“We go to collect grain, master!” Isphet mumbled.

“It’s the wrong time of day to –”

Trumpets sounded again, so close they drowned out the guard’s voice, and he spun about on his heel.

I heard the other guards turn to look too, and I dared lift my head a fraction.

A contingent of armoured guards had marched up the street, then arranged themselves in ranks on either side. My eyes widened at the sight of them. They wore loin cloths of
shimmering gold and their chests and backs were armoured in bronze burnished to a mirrored finish. Metal-studded leather was wrapped about their arms and legs, and scarlet and emerald plumes crested bronze helmets, and hung in tassels from their spears.

Although they had arranged themselves in ranks down the sides of the road, forming an honour guard, I could still see between the legs of the two directly in front of me. The gate to the compound of the Magi had been thrown open, and now Ta’uz emerged, his robes and face composed and tranquil, but his fingers tapping where his hands folded in front of him.

“He’s furious,” Raguel mouthed.

Unexpected and unwanted then, I thought. But who?

I was answered almost immediately. Another clarion sounded, now so close and so piercing I screwed my eyes shut and stuck my fingers into my ears.

When I finally opened my eyes it was to see Ta’uz abasing himself in the dust before a thin man in his seventies.

I took a deep breath; never in my life had I imagined to see such riches. The man would have been unremarkable, I think, save for the accoutrements of power appended to him. Although he was elderly, he was still vital, with a plain face dominated by a curved beak of a nose and a thin mouth. His greying black hair was plaited into hundreds of tiny braids, all bound with gold wire and studded with rubies and diamonds. But his hair was not the only part of him adorned with jewels. His entire body dripped obscenely with gems and precious metals – the three of us could hear them whisper and simper about him. He had a gem-studded golden collar so thick and wide it held his chin at an unnatural angle, while his ear lobes had been pulled out of shape with the weight of the jewels that hung from them. Of clothes he wore only the briefest of loin cloths (and even that, I think, of woven silver and gold
wires). The rest of his body was banded, pierced, studded, wrapped, threaded and looped about with gold and silver and gems of every imaginable hue and size. I wondered if what the loin cloth hid had been similarly studded and pierced and banded.

He was obviously not an Elemental, for had he been, the whispering and chattering of those metals and gems would have driven him mad.

“Mighty One,” Ta’uz said, and raised himself to his knees.

“Chad-Nezzar?” I mouthed to Isphet, and she nodded slightly.

Chad-Nezzar waved a bright hand about in the air, the sun’s rays setting its gems afire.

“Ta’uz. I have grown bored in Setkoth, and I have decided to see how goes the construction. My nephew,” again the hand waved, and a Magus stepped out from behind Chad-Nezzar, “tells me that construction has slowed.”

What Ta’uz said next I do not know, for my entire attention, my entire
life
, was riveted on the man who had stepped out.

It was Boaz.

I hid my face so deep in the dirt that I
breathed
dirt. I did not look up again. There were politenesses spoken, and formalities passed, and eventually the road cleared as Chad-Nezzar and his retinue passed into the compound. I dared move only when I heard the gates slam behind them.

A booted foot landed squarely in my ribs.

“Oof!” I collapsed briefly into the dirt again before struggling to my knees.

“Forget your grain tonight,” one of the guards barked. “Get back to your quarters and stay there until morning!”

We hastily complied. No-one spoke until we were safely back and the door shut behind us.

“Well,” Isphet said, “
he
hasn’t been here for over eight years. I wonder what brings him back now?”

“Boaz?” I asked, muddled.

Isphet looked sharply at me. “Chad-Nezzar. Who is this Boaz?”

“The Magus who stepped out from behind the Chad. Isphet, I spoke to you of him. He was one of the Magi I worked the glass for in Setkoth.”

“Oh. Why are you so afraid of him?”

“I am afraid of all Magi.” But that wasn’t enough, and after a pause I reluctantly went on. “He suspected me of Elemental power.”

Isphet’s eyes narrowed. “You worked that glass too well. You should have been more careful.”

“I was trying to save my life,” I snapped, “and I had no idea of elements or Soulenai or even of Magi at that point.”

Kiath and Saboa joined us from the roof.

“Chad-Nezzar,” Isphet informed them briefly. “What did you see?”

“River boats,” Kiath said. “Some forty or fifty. Packed with armoured men, perhaps five thousand. Chad-Nezzar has come well escorted. The imperial soldiers are spreading throughout Gesholme.”

“Is he expecting trouble?” Isphet murmured. “Does he know?
Can
he know?”

My stomach churned. Had Chad-Nezzar somehow found out about our planned revolt? Had an alert guard noticed Yaqob and Yassar talking? Had someone found the cache of blades?

Whatever, there was nothing anyone could do with five thousand soldiers come to visit.

Yaqob must be furious, I thought, and wished
be
would come to visit.

But there was no way he could. Not with five thousand men spreading throughout the encampment. Even the roofs would not be safe.

No-one slept well that night.

The workshop was both subdued and alive with speculation in the morning. Word about Chad-Nezzar’s presence had spread throughout Gesholme as fast as his soldiers had; everyone had a theory about why he might be here.

With several workers within the shop not Elementals and not yet involved in the plans to revolt, none of us could openly discuss the fear that we’d been discovered.

Yaqob, his face strained with sleeplessness, snapped at everyone, including me. The first piece of glass he tried to score shattered under his hands, and he cursed and threw the pieces into a corner.

I winced, shared a look with Isphet, then hurried to my upper room to cage. At least Orteas and Zeldon would be calmer.

Calmer, but also tense. I went to the balcony and looked about. Chad-Nezzar’s imperial soldiers were everywhere. Most were arrayed in workman-like armour rather than the golden finery of the Chad’s personal guard, but they were all armed heavily, and were fit and alert.