Threshold

by Sara Douglass

  I never asked him questions. Nor did I ever call him Boaz.

  Sometimes he would ask me to tell him of life in Viland. As I spoke, he would roll closer to me and fold me in his arms, and I would lay my head on his chest and fight to keep my voice expressionless. He never asked me questions about Geshardi, but on these nights he would always make love to me with such sweetness and tenderness I would sometimes cry afterwards, and this he did not seem to mind very much at all.

  On the mornings after this sweetness and tenderness he would be terse and cold, and I had to be extremely careful. He would eventually relax, sometimes over a day, sometimes taking two or three. But relax he would.

  On occasion it was the chilling Magus who lay down beside me, but he would roll over and go straight to sleep, pretending I did not exist. He never “used” me, he never “communed” with the One through me. The Magus never laid a finger on me.

  And the Goblet of the Frogs stayed on the shelves. I never saw him handle it, or even look at it, but he did not break it – and I noticed that it collected no dust.

  He occasionally allowed me to visit Isphet. Sometimes he insisted Kiamet accompany me, sometimes he asked Holdat to go with me. Rarely was I allowed to go back to Isphet’s workshop or her quarters alone, and generally only when Boaz knew Yaqob would be busy at Threshold.

  Either he still distrusted Yaqob, or he was jealous of him. I realised that I hoped it was the latter.

  One day a week Boaz made me accompany him on his inspections of Threshold. Only the gods know what everyone thought about the Magus dragging his mistress through the site after him, but they kept their eyes downcast and their faces respectful. On these tours Boaz was always very distant, sometimes to the point of spitefulness. It hurt, until I realised that he only ever relaxed with me in the privacy and safety of his residence (his safe residence), and he was unlikely to present anything other than his Magus-face to me, or to anyone else, where Threshold could see.

  By the end of the month the plating on the northern face had begun. Isphet told me that Orteas and Zeldon were busy with the plates for the capstone, as were those workers in Izzali’s workshop. The Infinity Chamber had been completed, and now no-one was allowed in there save the Magi.

  Almost finished, Threshold was changing, and I did not know what to do about it.

  The exterior blue-green remained unchanged, and the last time anyone had seen the Infinity Chamber it had still been golden, but the rest of Threshold’s internal spaces were turning into slippery glazed black. Any tools left inside overnight were stone in the morning.

  None of the Magi seemed concerned, and Boaz always appeared delighted with the progress.

  “It’s even better than I’d dreamed,” he had said on that day he’d first seen the black corridor and the five, blackened bodies. “Far more powerful. Far more.”

  And while Boaz gradually relaxed with me, he never hid his delight in Threshold. I wondered one evening, as he and another Magus sat laughing and drinking on the verandah, if he would ever be able to let go his addiction to the power that was Threshold.

  If, finally, the lure of the threshold would be too great.

  22

  I WAS tidying the desk when first I noticed it. Several other Magi had spent some hours here the night before (I’d sat quietly in a corner, rising only to serve wine as it was needed), talking to Boaz about the final date for the completion of Threshold, and passing about several papyri rolls and bundles. Eventually Boaz had sent me to stroll the gardens for an hour or two as they discussed more private business, and when I’d returned the Magi had gone and Boaz was asleep in bed.

  It was a scrap of papyrus paper only, and I might have put it to one side had not the word “weapon” leapt out at me.

  My heart beat faster. This was no idle notation regarding mathematics or geometry.

  Almost instantly I dropped it, whipping my head up, certain I would see Boaz standing in a doorway or window, watching me.

  But I was alone. Boaz was at Threshold, Kiamet with him. Even Holdat was busy elsewhere in the compound.

  I picked the paper up again and read, my heartbeat now scudding painfully fast.

  I knew Boaz had frustrated Yaqob time and time again; first by ordering the search that had discovered the blades Yaqob and his fellow plotters had built up over many months, then by constantly moving the soldiers’ various weapon caches about the site.

  What I had here was the location of a temporary site. Over two hundred lances, five hundred swords, and a hundred pikes were being moved there today and stored for a week only before they’d be moved somewhere else.

  I put the paper down, shaking.

  It was not a particularly large cache, but that in itself was tempting. I knew Yaqob and Azam only wanted to know the sites of the caches so that on the day they rose against the Magi they could seize the weapons. It was a risky plan. Yet here was a cache of weapons that if seized now could be hidden about Gesholme. One or two swords here, a pike or a lance there. In a search many might be found, but many others would not.

  I looked at the location again. It would be so easy for them. Perhaps only one or two guards to dispose of, and two dozen men could spirit the weapons away in a few minutes.

  And, oh! They’d be so useful. It would mean the difference between an uprising doomed to failure and one that might just succeed.

  “Yaqob,” I breathed, and stumbled back to the bed.

  What should I do? This was what Yaqob had thought I might find all along. This was the information he’d wanted.

  And this was exactly how Boaz might set out to trap me. He was a careful man, so very careful. He would never leave information like this lying about.

  Yet it was only a scrap, as if it had fallen unnoticed from a sheaf of papers. And there had been a large number of papers passed about last night.

  “Yaqob,” I whispered again, and rested my head in my hands, thinking.

  Was there still enough of the Magus in Boaz to try to trap me like this? Yes. But what if it wasn’t a trap, what if I did tell Yaqob, and he succeeded in his uprising because of it? Would I betray Boaz by revealing the location of the weapons? Or would I betray Yaqob by remaining silent? I didn’t know what to do. It was like trying to outmanoeuvre a viper. Either way and it would strike.

  They had a week. I could think about it for a day or two, then tell them. Watch Boaz, see if he watched me more than usual.

  The more immediate problem was what to do with the scrap of paper itself. In the end I burned it. If Boaz didn’t know about it, then he wouldn’t miss it. If he did know it was there, then he would expect me to burn it anyway.

  “Damn you, Boaz,” I muttered as I watched it burn to untraceable ashes. “Damn you whether you planted it or lost it!”

  I disposed of the ashes, then went about my usual routine, and watched Boaz as closely as I could without raising suspicion.

  But he gave me few clues. The only one, if clue it was, came on the third day of the week when he gave me permission to visit Isphet’s workshop unescorted. I was somehow not surprised to find Yaqob there.

  “Tirzah!” He took my hand, and smiled, but made no move to kiss me. “You look, well, pampered.”

  I coloured. Boaz was growing bored with the white garment I wore each day, and so I now had several dresses, of varying degrees of richness but of the same cut and fashion as the white sheath. Today I wore a lemon-coloured affair with dark green and red patterns about the hem and breast, hanging from a red- and gold-beaded collar. My skin glowed with over a month of good eating and a comfortable bed. I had discovered a new kohl of light grey which complimented the blue of my eyes. I looked like a woman content with her lot.

  That was, I suppose, a mistake. I should have turned down the corners of my mouth and reddened my eyes before I let Yaqob see me.

  “He does not ‘hurt’ you then, I see,” he said flatly, and I winced.

  “Yaqob, please…”

  “Tirzah.” Now Is
phet stepped up and kissed my cheek. “What news?”

  “Oh, I grow bored with my –” By the Soulenai themselves, I almost said “translating”, and then thought, did they know? Holdat was a slave himself and had contacts outside the compound of the Magi; even the guard may well have gossiped. “Ah, I grow bored with my life of enforced idleness, Isphet. I long to be back here with you.”

  I hoped they would not read the lie in my face. I enjoyed their company, and I liked to visit, but I was also growing accustomed to the little luxuries of life with Boaz.

  As I was growing accustomed to Boaz himself. Even his distant Magus persona. I was, I realised, settling into life with him. If I had to, it was going to be very, very hard to let go.

  “I hope,” Isphet said rather carefully, “that you do not grow so accustomed to your life of idleness you have forgotten what it was like to live and work the life of a slave?”

  “And,” Yaqob said, fingering the fine cloth of my dress, “you have not forgotten what it is that we all strive for.”

  “Freedom,” I said in a small voice.

  He nodded. “Tell us.”

  “Oh, Yaqob, there is not much to tell. We rise every morning, Boaz goes off to Threshold, I dust and doze until he comes back, we eat, we go to bed.” I gave a shaky laugh. “I might be the wife of any boring citizen were it not for the robes and the manner of a Magus that Boaz wears.”

  Yaqob and Isphet looked at each other.

  I took refuge in anger. “He tells me nothing! He does not trust me! Would you prefer that he beat me, hurt me as he did that one morning, than leave me in relative peace? Do you think to distrust me because I seek only to please him and humour him? Do you –”

  “Hush,” Isphet said, and looked ashamed, which only made me feel worse. “I’m sorry, Tirzah. It must be hard for you.”

  “Well,” I said, “I don’t know if this is of any use or not…”

  “Yes?” Both Isphet and Yaqob leaned forward.

  “Boaz and his fellows have been discussing the date for completion of Threshold. There’s to be a Consecration Day.”

  “When?”

  “Eight weeks from last fifth-day. A big ceremony. They were very specific about the date. It’s important for some reason. I think Boaz has been so jumpy over past months because he thought Threshold might not be ready in time.”

  “Thank you, Tirzah,” Yaqob said. “That might well prove to be useful. Eight weeks. We don’t have much time. Is there anything else?”

  “No.”

  On the way back to Boaz’s, our, residence I tried to justify my silence. I was only protecting Yaqob. If it was a trap, then he would die. But even if it wasn’t, well, it would be a mission fraught with danger, and many might well lose their lives. Kiamet might be stationed there that night (although he’d not been moved from his post in months), and he had treated me with such kindness I’d not like to see him hurt. Yaqob might seize a weapon and do something foolish.

  Like try to kill Boaz. I shuddered and hurried inside.

  Five days passed.

  It was very late one evening. Boaz had been genial if not exactly friendly all day, and I had great expectations for the night.

  “Excellency, how does that feel?”

  We were on the bed, Boaz lying naked on his stomach, me, also naked, kneeling beside him. I was slowly rubbing oil into the muscles of his back and legs. I don’t know who was receiving more enjoyment from it, Boaz or me.

  He murmured contentedly.

  “Have I missed a patch, Excellency?”

  “No.” He rolled over. “Put the phial down, Tirzah.”

  I smiled and did as he asked, waiting for him to reach for me. But he didn’t.

  “Tirzah,” he said. “I have had a worrying week.”

  “Excellency?”

  “It seems I have misplaced a most important piece of papyrus.”

  My smile froze to my face.

  “It contained information that, had it reached certain slaves, would have caused great trouble.”

  “Excellency, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “No, Tirzah, I think that you do. Tell me.”

  I fought for time to think, turning a corner of linen over and over in my hands. He knew. But should I confess? Or continue to pretend ignorance?

  “Excellency,” my voice was very low, but I looked him in the eye. “I burned the paper. I realised its danger.”

  “Why didn’t you just give it back to me, Tirzah?”

  “I panicked, Excellency. I thought that if you knew I’d seen it, then you might think I might pass the information back to…”

  Oh gods, trying to watch every phrase I spoke throughout the day was a trial I could do without!

  “To who, Tirzah? To Yaqob?”

  “To any who might betray you,” I said softly.

  He seized my wrist. “I needed to know if you would betray me.”

  I was furious that he had again set out to entrap me…but at the same time I realised I had passed a crucial test. He could never have known if I owed my true loyalty to him or to Yaqob. Now I had shown my hand, and perhaps now he would trust me more.

  “Do you still lie with him, Tirzah?”

  “Not since you first summoned me to your residence, Excellency.”

  “Good,” and he pulled me down to him. “Very good.”

  And I had a feeling that I had passed two tests that night.

  23

  I WAITED as Boaz questioned the foreman in charge of the plating, then fell into step behind him as he moved slowly around Threshold, his face upturned as he scanned the pyramid. I wondered how he could see it, for the sun glinted so fiercely off the glass that it must surely have hurt his eyes.

  The wind ruffled my dress, and I smoothed it down. This was a particularly becoming dress, a deep violet with a delicate gold pattern running through it. I smiled as my fingers felt its silkiness. I wondered if I could persuade Boaz to obtain a crimson gown for me, for I thought it might suit my colouring very well.

  I looked about. Scores of workers were now engaged in laying paving and tiling about Threshold rather than working on the pyramid itself. Hundreds more laid a great avenue from the riverbank through Gesholme to Threshold; many buildings had been destroyed to make way for it, and hundreds of slaves now slept in the open, or crowded into neighbouring tenements.

  Seven weeks to Consecration Day, and the preparations proceeded apace.

  I smiled surreptitiously at a young man who was paving several paces away. He was particularly handsome, and I could see the admiration in his eyes as he looked at me.

  I sighed. This was boring. I don’t know why Boaz insisted I come with him for these inspections. Perhaps he only wanted to display me. That brought a small smile to my mouth, and I shook my hair out still further. Boaz liked my hair long and loose, and it was growing out nicely. Would it take a month to reach the small of my back? Or only three weeks?

  Several other Magi brushed past me and walked with Boaz, talking quietly. They smiled and nodded now and then; all were pleased with Threshold.

  We’d reached the southern ramp now, and Boaz led us up towards Threshold’s mouth. The skirts of my dress bunched in the stronger wind, and I frowned as I tried to make them lie smooth and becoming. Perhaps I should have picked something more serviceable to wear on this inspection.

  Then we walked inside.

  “What are you doing here?” Boaz asked sharply, and I looked up, startled, thinking he spoke to me.

  But a group of workers were standing before him, obviously about to leave after completing some task.

  “Some of the glass had broken in the main eastern shaft, Excellency,” the leader mumbled.

  I looked over at them and grinned. My father was among them, although gods knew what he was doing with this group. But workers were often assigned to secondary tasks if they were free from their main occupation, and perhaps this was the case with Druse.

  “Well,” Boaz said, “you
should have been gone an hour ago. I wanted the interior clear for this inspection. I won’t –”

  He stopped, and stared, as did I and the other Magi, the foreman, and sundry guards with us.

  Every one of the men in the group, my father included, had whimpered. Frightened. Lost.

  I frowned. What was going on? Boaz hadn’t come close to losing his temper, and…

  …and then some instinct made me count the men in that huddled, subservient group.

  Eleven. The next incomposite number after seven.

  “No,” I whispered. “Father, please, come away from there…”

  Boaz looked at me sharply, then back at the men.

  “Father!” I cried, and took a step forward.

  Boaz gestured, and Kiamet grabbed me.

  “No,” Boaz said. “No. There is nothing we can do.”

  There was nothing he wanted to do.

  The group of eleven men were trembling now, their eyes wide, terrified. Druse blinked, then stared at me. “Tirzah!” he screamed, and reached out a hand.

  I wailed, and tried to free myself from Kiamet’s hold, but he was strong, and held me easily.

  “Tirzah!” my father screamed again, then began to die.

  Threshold was enjoying itself. It had tasted death on four occasions now, and had learned that the slower and more terrifying the death, the sweeter the eating.

  I twisted and screamed, as everyone else looked on with either horror or interested curiosity while the men died.

  Gradually, sickeningly, Threshold turned them to stone.

  First their feet. They were all barefoot from walking the delicate glass of the shaft, their sandals left behind at Threshold’s stone doorstep. Thus their feet were on stone, their bare feet, and Threshold seeped into them through their soles.

  The flesh of their feet turned grey, then dull. The wrongness spread upwards in crumbling, creeping, writhing snakes of grey, up their shins, their calves, their thighs.