Threshold (9 page)

I went back inside and sat down. Yaqob had been relying heavily on the fact that the usual guards within Gesholme had become complacent after years of compliance and subservience on the part of the slaves.

Now…

I took a piece of glass in my hand and drew an outline of the design on it with a wax stick. I had to rub my lines out several times before I got them right, and Zeldon glared at me.

I noticed he had been sanding the same piece of glass so long that it threatened to break under his fingers.

There was a noise downstairs, and movement. Shouts, then the sound of a large group moving about. Isphet’s voice, calm but submissive. Orteas, Zeldon and I gave up all pretence at work and stared at each other.

Motioning us to keep still, Zeldon put his glass carefully down and moved to the head of the stairs, peered carefully down for some minutes, then came back to our table.

“Well?” Orteas demanded.

Zeldon looked at us carefully. “Chad-Nezzar. And a substantial escort.”

“What!” I cried, and Zeldon grabbed my arm.

“Quiet!” he hissed.

“What are they doing here?” Orteas said.

“Isphet is showing the Chad how the furnaces work.” Zeldon’s mouth threatened to smile. “And if Chad-Nezzar gets any closer, his golden finery will melt right into his skin.”

Orteas was not to be amused. “Will they come up here?”

He was answered by voices and steps on the stairs.

“Get back to work!” Zeldon whispered.

My hands were shaking. Would Boaz be with them?

Isphet arrived first, gracious in her sweat-stained work wraps, waving her hand for Chad-Nezzar to inspect the room. Terrified, I looked back at my glass, gripping it as tightly as I dared, trying to stop my hands from shaking.

Chad-Nezzar stopped by Zeldon and idly looked over his shoulder.

“Fine work,” he said, his voice lazy and bored. Even those two words sounded a great effort.

“I thank you, Mighty One,” said Zeldon.

Others moved into the room. I dared not look up.

“This is where the caging is done for the Infinity Chamber, Mighty One,” Isphet said.

Chad-Nezzar was by the open door to the balcony now, looking out. I heard him turn around. “Only three do this work?”

“Caging is master craftwork, Mighty One,” I heard Ta’uz respond. “We scour markets for those skilled in the arts. If, perhaps, funding were improved…”

“But the girl?” Chad-Nezzar was closer now.

“The girl is unusually skilled for one so young,” a different voice said. One I remembered.

And remembered hatred seared through me.

A hand appeared over my shoulder and plucked the glass from my hand. A younger hand than that of Chad-Nezzar, and un-ringed.

The tools clattered from my fingers as Boaz lifted the glass over my shoulder and turned to his uncle now standing beside him. “See how well she works it.”

I looked up and stared ahead. Directly into Isphet’s level gaze. Have courage, her eyes pleaded, and I took a deep breath, fighting to relax my shoulders. Was Yaqob in the room?

Yes, there, to the rear of several guards and one or two other workmen. His eyes were smouldering, their anger and frustration only barely veiled. I hoped he could keep his evenness of temper. If he lost control now…I forced my gaze away from his face, and realised Chad-Nezzar had spoken to me.

“Why so skilled?”

“My father trained me from the age of five, Mighty One. I loved the glass…”

Isphet’s eyes flared in alarm, and I hurriedly tried to cover myself.

“I, ah, loved working the glass. It gave me satisfaction. I practised many hours when I could have been playing.”

“Ah,” Chad-Nezzar’s voice appeared cheered. “It is as I suspected, Boaz. The lower castes like nothing better than to be given some work to do.” His metals and gems
chattered brightly, intrigued by the caged glass they could sense in the room. I wondered how
anyone
here could fail to hear the elemental conversations going on about them.

“Threshold is as a gift to them, Uncle.”

Slowly I turned my head. Boaz was standing to my side now.

He held the glass I’d been working on loosely in his hands, his fingers lazily stroking it. His grey eyes were relentless, forcing me to remember.

He was playing with me. Would he drop it, kill it?

The glass thought it would be killed. It teetered between screaming and silence, and I thought I, too, would scream, if it did.

But Boaz put the glass on the table and looked to his uncle. “The best place to see this in its full glory is the Infinity Chamber, Uncle. Besides, it is time we saw how well, or not, the work progresses.”

To one side Ta’uz opened his mouth to speak, his face beet red, but the Chad forestalled him.

“Yes, of course. I grow weary with this workshop. Will the lovely Isphet accompany us? I feel sure I shall need some of the technical details explained.”

Isphet managed to hide her revulsion well. “Mighty One,” she acquiesced, bowing.

“And the girl, Uncle. Best to have one intimate with the caging to answer your queries in the Infinity Chamber.”

“As you wish.” Chad-Nezzar waved his hand again, somehow I rose to my feet – Isphet’s hand on my elbow – and we proceeded to Threshold.

The nightmare eased a little once outside. Isphet and I were the only ones from the workshop to accompany the party – and by now she must have been as sure as I about Boaz’s suspicions. We were relegated to the back to be watched over by a contingent of guards as the Chad, the Magi and several of the royal golden honour guard marched ahead.

The fresh air cleared my head, and Isphet’s hand calmed me. I glanced up at Threshold as we approached. The Chad’s visit had, perhaps, speeded up the work, and workmen were crawling over the outer structure of the pyramid. Its southern and western faces, those we could see on our approach, now had sections of blue-green glass attached to them. Mainly near the peak, for it was easiest to glass from the top down. As we watched, gangs of men painstakingly hauled sheets of glass skyward. Each one of those sheets had taken hours to mix and fire, and then further hours of scoring and breaking into the correct shape. Every time I saw one hauled skyward my heart leapt into my mouth, hoping that the work and craft of hours would not shatter with a loose step or knot in the rope.

There were still several piles of stones near the peak, awaiting the day when the capstone would be settled into place, and I looked away quickly, remembering the terrible death of the slave Gaio. None had died since then.

As we approached the ramp Ta’uz sent us to the top to wait with several of the guards as he, Chad-Nezzar and Boaz wandered about the perimeter of Threshold. They craned their heads skyward as Ta’uz talked and occasionally gestured, and I found myself hoping that Threshold would decide one of them would make a more worthy sacrifice than a mere slave.

I glanced up again, wondering if one of the stones was lifting lazily from its pile to plummet earthwards, then back at the Chad and the two Magi.

“No dog bites the hand that feeds it,” Isphet remarked casually, understanding the direction of my eyes, and I nodded. Threshold would not take such as these. Only the expendable.

I wondered if I was expendable, and wished I was standing anywhere else than on the ramp.

King and Magi wandered back after some time, the Chad looking hot in his metalled finery, and tugging
irritably at a heavy jewel-encrusted golden chain that ran from his left nipple to a ring in his belly. I wondered if he could unclip his chains, or if he had to sleep wrapped in them.

A guard rushed to offer goblets of water to all three, and they drank thirstily.

I prayed they were too discomposed to go further, but after several minutes the Chad’s irritation eased and his curiosity sparked anew.

“Infinity Chamber,” Boaz said, then led the way.

Ta’uz, I noticed, was openly upset about something.

Glass now covered the walls and ceiling of the passageway; the floor had been left to last – until the Infinity Chamber had been completed. The glass was composed of a peculiar blending of metals, so that no one colour could be assigned to it. As the eye roved and light shifted, so colours swirled and changed.

It should have been beautiful, and it should have spoken to Isphet and me – the Soulenai adored such ripples of colour – but the glass was silent. Dead. Nothing lived in it.

In its own way that was as disturbing as the screams I knew I would hear in the Infinity Chamber.

We reached the chamber without incident. Isphet and I moved to stand in an unobtrusive corner as Boaz and Chad-Nezzar inspected the walls. Well over a third of the interior was now covered with the golden caged glass, a full wall and part of another, and Boaz, in particular, spent what I thought was an inordinate amount of time examining the symbols and writing in detail.

Finally he nodded slightly and stood back.

“It is good work,” he said to Ta’uz. “Exact.”

Ta’uz inclined his head slightly. “Of course. I have been careful.”

“But not in any hurry,” Boaz said. “This chamber should be almost completed by now.”

Ta’uz took an angry breath. I think both Magi had forgotten there was anyone else in the chamber. “It has been your task to obtain the workers, Boaz. I need ten or twelve glassworkers who can cage. What we have done with three is extraordinary.”

“We are behind schedule!” Boaz said. “And security is incredibly lax! What have you been thinking of?”

Isphet dared a glance at me, then, as one, we looked at Chad-Nezzar. He was watching the two Magi, a half smile playing about his lips.

“I have been doing my best,” Ta’uz replied quietly but with the utmost dignity, “not strolling about arranging the gardens of Setkoth.”

“I think,” Chad-Nezzar interrupted before the tension got any worse, “that I would like to have this glass and this chamber explained to me. Ta’uz?”

“Mighty One. As you can see, eventually the entire chamber will be encased in caged glass, even the floor.”

“It is very well done,” and Chad-Nezzar turned and held out a hand for me. “Girl. It looks very delicate, how does it stay up there?”

Reluctantly I took his hand, concentrating on the murmuring of his jewellery rather than the despair of the glass, and explained as best I could. “And the panels are held in place by cunning hooks and bolts, Mighty One. I do not think even an earthquake would dislodge them.”

Boaz’s mouth twitched, but there was no humour there.

Chad-Nezzar saw and let my hand go; I quickly stepped back to join Isphet. “Boaz, I believe this glass is of your design?”

Boaz bowed. “Assuredly, Mighty One. I spent years perfecting the formula for the glass.”

I felt Isphet stir in surprise. She was responsible for the mixing and firing of this golden glass, but she did it to a formula supplied by the Magi.
Boaz
was responsible for it?

Surely it would have needed a master craftsman to produce the correct mixtures?

But no, apparently the glass was a product of a mind steeped in the power of the One.

“I had glassworkers supply me with the quantities of metals they used for glass,” he continued, noting Isphet’s surprise, “and mathematically refined them to produce this mixture. Perhaps, Uncle, a small demonstration.”

“I hardly think –” Ta’uz began with a warning glance in our direction.

“No harm can come of it, Ta’uz,” Boaz said, and stepped to the glass. “They will hardly understand. Now, tell me, the shafts running behind this wall are completed and glassed?”

Ta’uz nodded stiffly.

“And the gates in place?”

Again Ta’uz nodded.

“Well then,” Boaz said, and he slowly ran his hand over a portion of the glass, and pressed.

I frowned – what was he doing? I had seen that portion of glass put in place myself and there was nothing behind it but solid stone. I…

The glass which Boaz was touching screamed with such horror that I physically rocked. Isphet, as badly affected as I, nevertheless retained her self-control, and her fingers pinched the soft flesh of my upper arm.

It was enough and I rebuilt my composure, although I felt sure Boaz had seen my reaction.

What’s wrong? What’s wrong? What’s wrong?
I heard the Soulenai cry through Chad-Nezzar’s jewellery and metalled bands, trying to reach the glass.

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

Light flooded behind the wall, and I realised Boaz had somehow activated a mechanism which controlled the gates that, in turn, controlled the amount and direction of light through the shafts running to the outer skin of Threshold.

But what was so appalling was not that light flooded behind and thus lit the glass, it was
how
the light lit the glass that made everyone in the room cry out, whether in excitement or horror.

Somehow, Boaz had developed a formula for the glass that, while the inner wall shone a deep gold, the caged lacework transmitted light as a vivid crimson.

Instantly, all the inscriptions, the symbols, the words and the numbers that formed the lacework flared into life. They
seethed
across the wall as if alive, blood-like, seeking, and they throbbed with the power of the One.

I had a sudden, too-vivid image of what this chamber would look like when it was completed and fully lit – bloodied inscriptions crawling about the walls and floor with virulent life, the entire chamber throbbing with the power of the One that was called into being.

The chamber would not only
appear
alive, it would
he
alive!

What’s wrong? What’s wrong? What’s wrong?
the Soulenai cried and their voices rang about the chamber as the writing on the wall rippled and waved and the glass screamed, and I threw my hand across my eyes and stumbled out.

Isphet joined me immediately, and held me tight. I buried my face in her shoulder and sobbed.

“Sorcery,” she said softly.

“Yes,” I heard Boaz say behind her. “Sorcery. The power of the One.” His voice was amused. “Which you and she have manufactured between you. Be glad.”