Threshold

by Sara Douglass

  The climb to the top of the Abyss was taxing, made more so by the worry about what might await us once we got there.

  I glanced behind me to Isphet. “What does…Zabrze know?” I managed between gasps of breath.

  “Not much. Scouts…returned late last…night. They’d seen…stone-men…approaching…across the…Lagamaal.”

  “Many?”

  “Not an army, but enough.”

  “Nzame.”

  “Yes.”

  I grabbed at the balustrade, thinking that the months we’d spent in the Abyss had made a weakling of me, and then there was blessedly cold, free air, and Boaz reaching and helping me then Isphet through the door at the top of the stairwell.

  I stood taking great, gulping breaths.

  “Over there.” Boaz pointed.

  Zabrze was twenty or thirty paces away, snapping commands to his soldiers. He was dressed for battle, wearing only a brief hip wrap, sword belt, sandals and a band about his head holding his braids away from his eyes.

  There was nothing left of the man who had held such gentle conversation with me, who looked at Isphet with such love. This was the commander.

  I was vaguely surprised to see Kiamet there as well, and looking as efficient and almost as commanding as Zabrze. I realised that Kiamet, for all his unassuming manner, held important rank within Zabrze’s force.

  Zabrze talked swiftly with several of the sentries who’d been posted throughout the Abyss Hills, then he shouted a command. The units wheeled away, running down the gully towards the first of the canyons at a smart trot.

  “Come on,” Yaqob muttered, and we were off after the soldiers, lifting robes and wishing, for my part at least, that I’d thought to wear something more sensible.

  The sun had risen by now, but shadows still lay long through the gully. We had to leap and twist to avoid rocks, and more than once I heard someone curse as they failed to lift a toe high enough.

  When we’d first arrived here, it had taken us a day to walk into the hills to reach the Abyss, but fear and the downhill slope now lent us speed, and by mid-morning we reached a spot from where we could view the lower slopes and the plain stretching west.

  Zabrze hurried the four of us behind a low rocky outcrop, then waved a hand out over the plain.

  Still distant, but clearly visible as they were caught by the full force of the sun, was a contingent of stone-men shuffling across the final stretch of plain. There were some forty or forty-five of them, regularly ordered in ranks of five.

  They were led by a horror that none of us had seen before, or even imagined.

  It was clearly man-shaped, but its entire, utterly naked body was composed of that black, glassy substance with which Threshold had fused its inner walls. I could vaguely see the rocks it had just passed shadow through its body. The stone-men shuffled, their gait limited and stiff, but this blackened, fused man walked lithely and easily through the rocks, twisting his head this way and that. His eyes were as black as the rest of him, and I wondered if he saw, or just sensed.

  Yaqob, immediately to my right, gasped and pointed. “Tirzah? See his nose!”

  The horror angled his head to the right, and I saw a familiar bulbous outline.

  “Kofte!”

  Boaz froze. “Shetzah! What has Nzame done to him?”

  Zabrze had heard our whispering and now scrambled over. Yaqob pointed out the black, glassy man. “It’s Magus Kofte. From Threshold.”

  “Boaz?” Zabrze asked. “Explain.”

  “I cannot, Zabrze. This blackness, this substance, is something we’d never seen before. Threshold transformed its inner walls with this melted glass and stone. I do not know what to call it. But it is very hard. Unbreakable.”

  “Would Nzame have done this to all the Magi?”

  Boaz shrugged. “Maybe. I cannot tell. Perhaps the favoured few are thus transformed.”

  “Whatever the case,” Zabrze said, “they are getting closer. It’s not a large force.”

  “It must have been close when Nzame sensed our presence in the Chamber of Dreaming,” I said, and Zabrze nodded.

  “No doubt he has others on the move. Kiamet?” Zabrze moved off, and talked quietly with Kiamet and two other of his soldiers.

  I was struck by the change in Zabrze. Since we’d arrived at the Abyss he had been at a loss, unsure of what he should do next. Zabrze was a man who hated inactivity, especially when Ashdod was gripped by such darkness, but there had been little he could do save make sure his people had settled in and wait for news.

  Now he had a target for his frustrations. This was a Zabrze I’d not seen before, not even during the panic of the evacuation of Gesholme or the trip down the Lhyl. He had slipped easily into the role of commander, his movements economical, his decisions quick yet considered.

  Each of his men had one eye on the approaching stone-men, one eye on their commander.

  Zabrze signalled a group of some forty soldiers and they angled off to the south, moving swiftly, using the rocks as cover. Another group moved north, then Zabrze shifted the larger number of his command further down the slopes. We slipped quietly behind, as careful as the soldiers not to be seen, and knotting our robes so that our legs were relatively free.

  “I wish I had a sword,” Boaz whispered.

  “You idiot!” I whispered back, keeping my voice low only with strenuous effort – and even then a nearby soldier glanced warningly at me. “What do you think you’re going to do –”

  “What am I going to do crouched behind a rock?” Boaz hissed, then scrambled forward to Zabrze’s side, Yaqob a step behind him.

  Isphet restrained me from following them. “Wait, Tirzah. Wait and see. Zabrze isn’t going to let Boaz or Yaqob rush into action. Both would be more hindrance than help.”

  The two groups of soldiers were now inching into position, hoping to attack the stone-men in a pincer movement.

  What had once been Kofte stopped dead, catching a movement to his left. The stone-men halted behind him, although they kept rocking from side to side, their moans reaching us on the north-westerly breeze.

  Kofte opened his arms wide, tilted his head back, and wailed.

  It was one of the most dreadful sounds I have ever heard; we all stiffened, and Isphet clapped her hands to her ears. Before me Boaz spoke frantically to Zabrze.

  The two groups of soldiers attacked. They rushed the stone-men from both sides, each man running in a half-crouch, sword in one hand, the other extended for balance.

  Kofte wailed again, and waved his arms about in great cartwheels.

  Then every one of the stone-men did the same. They opened their stone mouths and issued forth great wails, even more heart-rending than their moans, and waved their arms about.

  At another wail from Kofte, the stone-men broke ranks and divided into two groups, lumbering towards the attacking soldiers.

  The stone-men’s movements were ponderous, but effective. The soldiers attacked, but their swords splintered on impact with the stone bodies. As did the soldiers’ heads. The stone-men did nothing save wail and wave their arms about, but that was enough to shatter the heads of a dozen soldiers, their blood and brains splattering across the stone bodies nearest them.

  Zabrze leapt to his feet and screamed a retreat, then turned and waved his men among the rocks back into the first of the canyons.

  Isphet and I scrambled back with them, and found ourselves huddled with Boaz, Yaqob, Zabrze and three of his senior men in a small defile.

  Another commander, who’d led the southern group against the stone-men, joined us.

  “Eighteen men lost, Chad-Zabrze,” he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “And the stone-men continue into the first of the slopes. I’m sorry we did not succeed. We –”

  “You could do nothing. Not against such sorcery,” Zabrze said, and waved the man to sit down. “Boaz?”

  Boaz looked at Yaqob, Isphet and myself, then shook his head tiredly. “I – we – need to study one c
lose, Zabrze. None of us can do anything from this distance, and with no information.”

  There was a shout from the mouth of the canyon. Kofte had appeared, his blackness seeming to absorb all the heat from the sun, and behind him lumbered the stone-men. They were back in orderly ranks, none the worse for their adventure.

  Zabrze swore. “We can do nothing save –”

  “We can push them over,” Kiamet suggested softly.

  Every head spun in his direction.

  “What?” Zabrze said.

  “We can push them over,” Kiamet repeated. “Look at those stone-men, Chad-Zabrze. They lumber and they shuffle. They do not like this rocky terrain. Their feet scarcely clear the ground. I would imagine that if one were pushed over, he would just lie there and moan and wail and wave his limbs about…and be no danger unless we came within grasping distance.”

  “We’d have to get close enough to push,” Zabrze said carefully, “and I have already lost eighteen.”

  “We could roll rocks down the walls of the canyon,” Yaqob said.

  “And stretch trip ropes across the narrow passage,” Boaz added.

  “And if men could get close enough to loop rope over their waving arms,” I said, “or even their necks, then you could just pull them down.”

  “I thought you lot were supposed to be Necromancers,” Zabrze said, “yet here you are remembering childish games to defeat our enemy.”

  But a grin took the sting out of his words, and he turned aside to pass orders to his commanders.

  “Make sure you leave at least one alive,” Boaz said hurriedly as the commanders moved off, “for I need to study them.”

  “Leave one alive, brother? I would appreciate knowing how to kill one first.”

  Then he was off.

  Runners left for the Abyss and rope, and, as the sun passed its noon crest, Zabrze eventually withdrew us all towards the final gorge before the great chasm.

  He waited impatiently for the rope, then he set men to work even as shouts warned us of the stone-men’s imminent arrival.

  Kofte was careful leading his force into the gorge, twisting his head from side to side and up and down. He reminded me of the puppet dolls I’d seen perform in Viland’s market places on fair days, only those had not had the air of such malevolence that Kofte now wore. Nor had their porcelain hands clenched into such fists of rage.

  The stone-men were very close now, and I could see that whatever features they had once worn as living men had been flattened and blurred by the transformation to stone. Their bodies were thick, their limbs stumpy, the joints at knees and elbows so stiff they were almost unworkable. No wonder they could hardly lift the blocks that had once been feet.

  Zabrze let Kofte lead the stone-men well into the gorge. He waited, tense, crouched behind a rock, then gave a hand signal and a rope leapt into the air from the dust amid the stone-men’s shuffling feet. Men at both sides of the canyon pulled it taut as it reached shin height, and an entire rank of stone-men went down, their flailing arms catching those to either side, their crashing bodies subsequently pulling down several more before them.

  Kofte shrieked and twisted about, his own arms flailing as he saw eight or nine of his command helpless on the ground.

  Kiamet had been right. The stone-men could not rise again, their weight and their rigidity keeping them down. They moaned anew, and waved their arms about, but it did them no good.

  Kofte rallied those of his stone-men still upright. As he shrieked, so they moved out of rank and shuffled in all directions, arms flailing in such great arcs that I thought if they’d been lighter they may well have launched themselves skyward.

  Zabrze signalled again, and groups of some nine or ten men moved carefully forward. Their useless swords were sheathed at their sides, but they were armed with lengths of stout rope.

  Each group stalked a stone-man, waiting until he had his back turned, then the soldiers threw loops of rope over stone arms or necks, and pulled the creature to the ground.

  Then, once the stone-man had crashed down, the group loosened the rope and set off after another.

  “I must help!” I heard Yaqob mutter beside me, and then he was off, darting between rocks to join in the fray.

  “No!” I cried, and would have rushed after him but for Isphet who wrapped tight arms about me.

  And then I realised Boaz had gone.

  I looked frantically about. I heard Kofte shriek, and I whipped my head around.

  “No!” I moaned.

  Boaz was approaching Kofte, slowly, half-crouched, with not even a sword in his hand.

  “No,” I moaned again, and at that moment Isphet shrieked. “Yaqob!”

  I looked, and then screamed myself.

  Yaqob, foolhardy Yaqob, had thought to topple a stone-man by himself. He had succeeded in that the stone-man he’d selected had toppled over…but he had fallen on Yaqob, and now Yaqob was all but invisible save for a red stain spreading out from beneath the stone-man – and I did not think that blood belonged to Nzame’s creature.

  40

  I SPHET’S arms loosened and I tore myself free – then hesitated, wanting to rush to both men at once.

  “To Yaqob, you fool!” Isphet hissed. “Boaz still stands and can look after himself.”

  My hesitation gone, I scrambled across the gorge, Isphet at my side. Soldiers and stone-men still wove about between the rocks, and we had to twist away as one stone-man shuffled towards us.

  For an instant I had a close look at his face, and such was the despair I saw there I cried out and would have halted had not Isphet pulled me away.

  “This way, fool girl!” she cried, and dragged me between two groups of struggling stone-men and soldiers.

  I stubbed my toe badly on a rock and grunted with the pain, but Isphet’s grip merely tightened more, and she hauled me hobbling to where the stone-man lay atop Yaqob.

  At first I thought he was completely crushed. There was nothing save the red stain pooling beside the stone-man – still moaning and waving his arms impotently in the air.

  Isphet ducked around to the other side of the stone-man. “Tirzah! Quick!”

  I dropped beside her, the grasping stone fingers narrowly missing my hair.

  Yaqob, ashen but still conscious, lay crushed from the thighs down by the stone weight atop him.

  “Get out of here,” he grated. “There’s no point in you –”

  “Shut up,” Isphet said, and rested her hand on his chest. “His heart races, but still beats strong,” she said to me. “The stone-man’s weight has stopped fatal bleeding.”

  “What are we going to do?” I whispered, taking Yaqob’s hand between my own.

  “Wait. Wait until some of those soldiers are free to help us.”

  Isphet lifted Yaqob’s head so that it rested in her lap, and she stroked his hair and murmured to him, trying to soothe away his pain with her voice.

  “If only…” I muttered, and then I saw a soldier lying dead a few paces away.

  “Tirzah!” Isphet cried as I leapt to my feet, and Yaqob’s eyes fluttered open in alarm, but I did not go far. I snatched the soldier’s sword and sank back down by Yaqob’s side again.

  “Isphet, come on, we can use this to do something for Yaqob.”

  “What?”

  I thought frantically. None of us had ever used our powers to heal, yet Boaz had managed to use his power to create life. But Boaz was stronger than any of us, and he’d had the Goblet of the Frogs to help him.

  I rubbed my hand up and down the flat of the blade, feeling its agitated whispering. It mourned the soldier it had belonged to, for they had been companions many a long year, and the sword wished it had been able to avenge his death.

  “Never mind,” I whispered back. “You may help, in another way, this man who lies before us now.”

  As I spoke I looked for Boaz again. He was squatting some paces away from Kofte – they almost appeared to be talking – but Zabrze had sent several soldiers
to guard him, and so I turned back to Yaqob.

  He was resting quietly, letting Isphet’s hands soothe him. She was staring at me. What?

  I watched Yaqob’s face. His eyes were closed, but the tightness of the muscles underneath his skin betrayed some of the pain he must be feeling. I remembered the pain that Boaz had caused me, the agony he had sent coursing through my body. I would have given anything then for someone to have taken my hand and absorbed that pain.

  “Sword,” I whispered so that only it could hear. “Sword, you are a creation that thrives on pain. Will you accept this man’s pain so that he may concentrate the greater on living?”

  The sword’s life force was strong, so strong I could see its glow about the blade. It would be easy to manipulate. I knew pain so intimately myself that I was sure I could create the enchantment that would allow the sword to absorb Yaqob’s agony.

  The sword agreed to my request almost instantly. Elements did not feel pain in the same manner that breathing creatures did, and this added energy would not harm it in any way.

  “Yaqob,” I said softly, “place your hand here, about the blade. Good.”

  I closed my eyes, and concentrated, reaching for the life force within the blade and using it to create an enchantment that bridged between it and Yaqob.

  Yaqob drew in a stunned breath. “Tirzah…Tirzah!”

  There was no pain in his voice, and I opened my eyes in relief.

  His own had filled with tears, and his free hand grabbed at mine. “Tirzah. Thank you…thank you.”

  I smiled, and leaned down and kissed him. “We still have to get you out.”

  “Easy enough,” Kiamet said behind me, and I turned. He had several men with him, and they cast ropes about the stone-man’s arms. “Get ready to pull, my friends.”

  I sent a hasty message to the blade, using its now vastly increased life energy to also cauterise Yaqob’s severed arteries and veins.

  “Hold tight to that blade,” I said to Yaqob, and I held hard to his other hand.

  Kiamet and the men hauled, effort stringing the veins in their necks and forearms.

  The stone-man wailed, and I wondered if somewhere within his new form he felt pain of his own, then he was rolling off, and Isphet and I pulled Yaqob away.