Threshold

by Sara Douglass

  It was Holdat who replied, and with the unconscious dignity sometimes only slaves can command. “We are yours, Excellency,” he said, “and we will not betray who you are.”

  “Well, see that you don’t,” Boaz said, and left the chamber.

  We had all but finished when I saw a movement at one of the windows.

  Zabrze.

  “The garden,” he said, and led me to a relatively clear area, but I glanced behind me. “Great Lord,” I said, “I would feel better if we…” and I pointed to a spreading, dense ipacia tree.

  “You don’t like Threshold,” Zabrze said, once we were under the branches.

  “No. I fear it. Great Lord, it has such a sense of wrongness about it that I fear very greatly what will happen.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yes, and on Consecration Day, when Threshold comes into its full power.”

  “I have heard,” he said slowly, looking out over the gardens, “that there have been accidents.”

  “Accidents are common to construction sites, Great Lord.”

  “Don’t dissemble with me,” he snapped. “Tell me!”

  “Threshold is taking lives, Great Lord. No-one is safe, whether Magus or slave.”

  I hardly knew this man, yet I trusted him without hesitation. I told him what I knew about the incomposite numbers and the manner of the deaths. “Ta’uz was concerned about Threshold. So it took him, Great Lord.”

  Zabrze was staring at me in horror. “And Boaz cannot see this?”

  “Boaz will not admit any wrong, Great Lord. You saw him this evening. He is thrilled that Threshold can so demonstrate its power.”

  “You have risked much, Tirzah,” and the name rolled strangely off his tongue, “to talk so.”

  “You are his brother, Great Lord, and I can see the bond between you. I want to help him.”

  “And you are very outspoken for a slave. Perhaps it is your northern blood. No slave bred in Ashdod would be so familiar.”

  I was silent, but not concerned. Unlike Neuf who had mouthed true threat, Zabrze was merely being curious.

  “I was not always a slave, Great Lord. In Viland, my native home, my father and I were forced into slavery through debt.”

  “Some are enslaved through debt,” Zabrze said softly, “and some through vision of power.”

  “Great Lord, your wife. Please, it would be better if she were back in Setkoth.”

  His smile died. “Why, Tirzah? What did she say to you?”

  “It is not that, Great Lord. But I fear for her. She is vulnerable at the moment…the child…”

  “Perhaps you are right. But Neuf has a mind of her own. Come now, what did she say to you?”

  “She was upset at my naming, great Lord.”

  “It was a shock, Tirzah. Go on.”

  “She fears that my presence will threaten Boaz. That I will be used as an excuse by some Magi to strip him of his power and influence.”

  “Neuf sometimes thinks too much about Boaz,” Zabrze muttered, then raised his voice. “She may be overly fearful, Tirzah. If Magi were to move against him they would do it through Chad-Nezzar. He was shocked only by your name, not by your presence. And I think Boaz enjoys his full support. Especially after what he told him tonight.”

  Zabrze paused and studied me carefully. “Neuf has good connections.”

  “She said that she specialised in intrigue.”

  He laughed. “You’d think that with all the children I’d given her she’d specialise in their welfare. But, no. Neuf will always find time for intrigue. She has as many friends among the Magi as she does among the court, and Boaz owes a great deal to her support over the years.”

  I thought it best to remain silent.

  “And thus to you, Tirzah. Are you sure the only reason you beg me to send Neuf back to Setkoth is to remove her from Threshold’s influence?”

  “Great Lord, I –”

  “Liar, Tirzah. But do not fear. I think that Boaz would find it very difficult to look past you. I know that I would.”

  I stared sharply at him, but neither his face nor his voice held any trace of seductive intent. Zabrze was only being kind.

  “So, Tirzah, a Vilander. What was your birth name?”

  I told him.

  Zabrze made a face. “Well, I can well understand why Boaz stripped you of it. I cannot think of an uglier name. It’s even worse than his father’s.”

  “I did not know at first that Tirzah was your mother’s name. It was a long time before Boaz mentioned it to me.”

  Zabrze did not speak for a while. “Does he talk to you of his father?” he asked finally.

  “A little, Great Lord.”

  “A little.” He sighed. “A ‘little’ is not good enough for Avaldamon.”

  My eyes widened at the name. Avaldamon? It was a beautiful name! “You admired him.”

  “Yes, a great deal. He was,” and Zabrze looked at me very carefully, “a most unusual man.”

  “So I have come to realise, Great Lord.”

  “He took care to talk to me at court, even well before there was any thought of a marriage between him and my mother. He had grey eyes – Boaz’s eyes – and they sparkled with humour. Especially whenever he was near Chad-Nezzar.”

  My mouth curled in a tiny smile, and I do not think Zabrze failed to notice.

  “I was a lonely boy, nine or ten then, and Avaldamon spent hours talking to me of, well, of strange things. I do not think many at court appreciated just how unusual he was.”

  I stared across the garden, listening to the chorus of the frogs.

  “My mother loved him. She thought him strange and foreign at first, but I saw her face when she and Avaldamon came out of their seven-day seclusion.” He grimaced. “I wish that one day a woman would look at me like that.”

  Poor Zabrze, I thought.

  “I was on the boat the day he died.”

  “Oh, Great Lord!”

  “I think, after all I have lived through since, that still remains the worst day of my life. Tirzah, will you understand when I tell you that at the instant the cursed great water lizard wrapped its jaws about Avaldamon…the riverbank screamed?”

  “What…?”

  “The frogs screamed, Tirzah. It was noon, and yet the frogs screamed.”

  I was close to tears. “I understand, Great Lord.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly, “I think that you do. Tell me, Tirzah,” and now he forced some jollity into his voice. “You were free once. Did you have a trade, or were you taken for your beauty only?”

  “My father – he was one of those killed by Threshold, Great Lord – and I were glassworkers. I cage.”

  “Hmm.” He nodded. “And to cage at your age requires special skills. Am I right?”

  “It requires a close affinity with the glass, Great Lord.”

  “Yes, of course.” Zabrze changed the topic, steering us into mildly less dangerous waters. “My mother was devastated by Avaldamon’s loss. She almost died then, I think, except she soon realised she was with child, and that gave her hope. She loved Boaz, but he was not enough to replace Avaldamon, and so she died anyway. I really don’t think she had any other option.

  “Poor Boaz. Orphaned by the time he was six. He was a sensitive boy, like Avaldamon, and he took our mother’s death very badly. I was sixteen or seventeen then, and I spent as much time with him as I could, but…” He shook himself, and I could see that the guilt of not being able to be there for Boaz still grieved him. “Boaz, poor child, would spend his days wrapped about his father’s only gift to him.”

  “The Book of the Soulenai,” I said without thinking.

  “I did not know its true name. But the Soulenai were the subject of many of the stories. They and the Place Beyond.”

  He saw the question in my eyes. “My mother told me. I know she told Boaz some of the tales and she told me one or two as well. If you know of it, then I presume Boaz still has it?”

  I nodded.

/>   “Well,” he continued. “Boaz missed his mother very much. Increasingly I was away, but I should have been there, I should have!”

  “Great Lord, we can never be all that we wish.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Such a wise head for a slave! Well, perhaps slavery makes for increased wisdom. I imagine that with your looks you have endured…well, that you have endured. But Boaz. The Magi got him. He was vulnerable, and more than useful to them. They offered him comfort and a place to turn to when he thought he had no-one and nowhere to go.”

  “I saw a piece he wrote when he was nine. It was…sad.”

  “Yes. He had sold his soul to the One by that age. Lost.”

  “He is a very powerful Magus, Great Lord. He has exceptional command of the power of the One.”

  “He has used his father’s talents to bad ends. He has been transformed from the boy his mother birthed. Tirzah, will you do what you can for him?”

  “What I can, Great Lord. But I fear it is already too late. I do not know what to do.”

  “Do your best, Tirzah. Do your best. For Avaldamon, for she whose name you bear, and for Boaz himself.”

  And then he was gone.

  I stood there for a very long time, wondering at the unexpected ally I had found. But what good would it do me? I felt that Zabrze had no idea what to do, either. He was almost as frightened of Threshold as I was, but was constrained by his inability to speak out or to act on his fears.

  Who, beyond a slave, would believe him?

  And, having listened to him, who beyond a slave would trust him?

  Zabrze, as I, was fighting against the greed of immortality.

  I walked slowly back to Boaz’s residence, then remembered too late that I’d seen Azam talking with one of Zabrze’s officers.

  I wheeled about, and thought about running after Zabrze, but it was too late. He would be back with Neuf by now, and she certainly would not welcome my intrusion. I wondered at her indifference to Zabrze. He was a man I could have loved very easily.

  But then I was a slave, with a slave’s tastes, and I knew not what noble women desired in a man.

  Boaz was in bed waiting for me, but waiting only to douse the last lamp. He was cold-mannered and impatient, and I could see the Magus hungering for the morning. He turned his back to me once I climbed in beside him, and thus we spent the night, Threshold crowding the bed between us.

  The next day the Beast was capped out.

  27

  IT was done with great ceremony and majesty, and I have a feeling that, of us all, Threshold enjoyed it the most.

  The capstone was massive – fully fifteen paces square at its base, rising pyramidally some fifteen, as did the Infinity Chamber. The capstone was also caged in golden glass as was the chamber, with the same inscriptions and formulae writhing across its sides.

  The capstone was the outer expression of the inner chamber.

  I turned my head aside as we passed it. I did not want to have to read a single word of its foulness.

  Most people on site had come to witness the capping out of Threshold. Two walls surrounding Threshold had been razed; it now lay open to the countryside to the north and the river to the east. Walls still surrounded the compounds of the Magi and the slaves.

  North of the pyramid spread the vast majority of the army Chad-Nezzar had brought with him; other units were ranked down the avenue leading to the wharf, while others yet complemented the usual guards and soldiers detailed to keep the slaves in order.

  The slaves were situated to the north-east, sitting cross-legged on the ground, huddled shoulder to shoulder in a mute pack. They were hemmed in by guards, walls and by Threshold itself.

  Everyone else – Magi, nobles and other guests, including me – were arranged neatly in Threshold’s forecourt. Again I was placed inconspicuously to the rear, this time standing against the wall of the Magi’s compound. Just on the other side, I knew, lay Boaz’s house.

  I was struck by the crazed thought that if things got too bad, I could just scramble over and hide deep within his house. Perhaps at the foot of the pool. Threshold would never see me there. Would it?

  Kiamet and Holdat stood with me; Kiamet ostensibly to guard, but he had become such a friend to both Holdat and myself that I think had we decided to run, Kiamet would have cleared the way for us.

  But there would be no escape. The wall was too high and smooth to scramble over, and there were too many bodies packed in front and to the sides of us.

  Thirteen.

  I wondered who.

  I could not see much of what was happening on the ground as there were hundreds of Magi and nobles in front of me. I knew that Boaz, as Master of the Site, would conduct this rite, and Chad-Nezzar, as monarch, would make a polite speech. Then everyone would sit and watch several hundred slaves sweat and strain to raise the capstone. There would be polite gasps of wonder and awe, and then the slaves would be herded back to the tenements to consider their fate. The army would engage in some spectacular parades and displays, and the nobles and Magi would repair to a capping feast within the Magi’s compound. So it was planned.

  Except that events did not go according to plan.

  I heard Boaz’s voice, distorted at this distance, but full of the power of the One. He gave an impassioned but not overly long speech about the glory that was Threshold.

  I wondered what Zabrze was thinking, and if Neuf was with him or if he’d persuaded her to sail back to Setkoth.

  I heard Chad-Nezzar make a polite speech in return.

  Both Boaz and Chad-Nezzar made remarks about the power that Threshold would bring all within Ashdod. As they spoke I could see the shivers of anticipation and greed down the backs of those Magi and nobles directly in front of me. Perhaps many were not sure of the exact nature of the power that would be on the offing, but power was power, and they all wanted great handfuls of it.

  As Chad-Nezzar finished, the slaves set to work.

  The capstone was fragile but heavy – its internal structures were built from metal struts and thick, clear plate glass. Engineers had built a ramp running up the southern face of the pyramid, and up this the capstone was to be run. The slaves were mostly assigned to long ropes that pulled the capstone skyward; as they leaned their backs into the ropes, marching down the avenue, so the golden glass slowly rose.

  I heard the foreman’s shout to the slaves to pull, then horns, drums and cymbals sounded; the capstone was to be raised to music.

  Not only music. As I saw the peak of the capstone rise above the heads of the crowd, hundreds of Magi broke into song – a slow, resounding chant that followed the beat of the music.

  So the capstone rose, inching up the ramp to Threshold’s peak, sent on its way by sweat and labour and a slow, bleak chant. The capstone glittered in the sun, the reflections almost painful, but I found it hard to look away.

  An hour passed, perhaps two. The chant continued.

  Finally I forced my eyes to Threshold’s peak, trying to break the trance that had gripped me. A group of slaves waited there to shift the capstone into place and mortar it in.

  “Oh,” I murmured, and Kiamet took my arm.

  “Tirzah? What is it?”

  “Nothing, Kiamet. It is all right.”

  He could tell from my tone that it wasn’t, but he let his hand drop and turned back to Threshold.

  The capstone was almost at the peak now, and the thirteen men prepared to secure it.

  Did Boaz realise? I wondered. Had he deliberately picked thirteen to stand atop Threshold?

  The chant stopped, and a great shout went up from among the Magi. “Hoi!”

  And then again, “Hoi!”

  The thirteen had seized the capstone and were edging it into position.

  “Hoi!”

  In a minute, perhaps less, it would slide into place.

  Then one of the slaves shouted. I could not hear him, not above the shouts of the Magi, but I saw him gesticulate wildly.

  I was t
oo far away to see, but I imagine that slave had a look of horror on his face.

  He slipped and fell, and then the slave next to him slipped, and then the slave beyond…The last three or four tried to break away, but it was too late. Threshold would not let any of them go.

  Inexorably Threshold pulled each one under the still moving capstone in the space of four or five breaths. It was a disgusting, horrific sight which stunned even the Magi into silence.

  The harsh grating as the capstone settled was clearly audible.

  Threshold had cemented its cap in place with the flesh and blood of the thirteen.

  Then the true horror began.

  Blood began to trickle down the four sides, spurting from underneath the capstone. Then great gouts of it issued forth, far more blood than the thirteen bodies could have contained. It oozed relentlessly down the blue-green glass until Threshold was covered in it.

  A pyramid of blood.

  I turned aside and gagged, and Kiamet held me close, covering my eyes.

  But I could still smell it – the warm, coppery scent of fresh, sacrificial blood.

  I finally managed to escape back to Boaz’s house. I think I was supposed to help serve at the feast, but I did not care. I could not smile and pour wine after what I had just witnessed.

  I suppose the banquet went ahead because the Magi were close to ecstatic at Threshold’s continuing exhibition of power. Now it not only ate, but manufactured blood!

  I thought of all those glass shafts and corridors within Threshold, and wondered if they now ran with blood.

  I heard voices, and sat up from the bed where I’d been lying. It was full night now; somehow I’d managed to lie unmoving for most of the afternoon and evening.

  The voices were those of Boaz and Zabrze.

  “Curse you, brother!” I head Zabrze shout. “Is your heart stone? Is your mind crazed? What was that today but evil?”

  “You have not the training,” Boaz replied. “And thus you cannot see. The power of the One moves close to awakening. Infinity beckons. Be glad.”

  They were within the lights of the verandah now, and I could see that Boaz looked as calm as Zabrze looked furious.