17
HE called me back within a day, and to the workshop it appeared as if it had indeed been my monthly flux that had kept him distant. When I went to him I found only the Magus, aloof, easily pushed into rage, and very, very careful.
“You were impertinent to so flaunt your body before me, girl,” he said as I washed his hands and feet my first night back.
“I will never do so again, Excellency,” I whispered.
“And then to kiss me!” he said. “Did I not made it clear that I have not Ta’uz’s weakness?”
“I am sorry, Excellency!”
“You were repulsive, Tirzah.”
“I know, Excellency.”
Satisfied, he set me to a translation of a Geshardi treatise on the properties of the square, and then sent me away the instant I dared to yawn over the dry text.
But he called me back the next night, and then the next, until I was so tired Zeldon and Orteas had to let me sleep through the mornings.
“And what does he say?” Yaqob asked me one afternoon as we stood underneath a canvas awning. I leaned close to him, and touched his body, hoping he would make love to me, but he shifted irritably and I dropped my hands.
“He says nothing,” I said truthfully. “He is cold and distant and does not think to natter on about what patrols he will send where on the morrow.”
Yaqob did not laugh at my poor attempt at humour, and led me silently back to the workshop.
Within the week, the addition of four more glassworkers had its effect. We no longer had to work such long hours, and one afternoon I actually found myself with little to do.
I wandered down to chat with my father.
Druse was inspecting a dozen goblets one of the Magi had asked him to make. They were lovely, of rich ruby glass, and my father had done well.
He smiled as I admired them, then reached down to a shelf underneath his work table.
“Tirzah, look. This is one that did not fire as cleanly as the others. Can you do something with it?”
He placed a rough goblet into my hands. It had been blown, but not finished, and I could see why. The glass had fired into amber rather than red, and the walls of the cup were too thick for a Magus to be asked to wrap his fingers about.
“I didn’t mean it for caging,” Druse said, “but rather than throw it away…”
I kissed him on the cheek. “It would give me pleasure to work something other than that cursed glass for the Infinity Chamber, Father. Thank you.”
I took it back to the upper room. Orteas and Zeldon were supervising glass placement within Threshold. I sat cross-legged on the floor by the open doorway to the balcony, turning the cup slowly over in my hands, listening to it speak, understanding its weaknesses and strengths, wondering what I could do with it.
I found myself remembering the tenderness of Boaz’s kiss. I thought of the man hidden behind the Magus, and I smiled to myself. Then I realised that Boaz only had wooden goblets in his quarters. He would appreciate one of glass, and this amber glass was lovely – and would look beautiful in his hands.
I wondered what design he would like, and I remembered how his fingers had caressed the glass I’d caged for him in Setkoth.
Back at the work table, I reached for the wax marker, hesitated, then sketched a design on the goblet of leaping frogs among river reeds. One frog peeking out mischievously from behind the reeds; another leaping upwards as if he wanted to dive into the goblet itself; one sitting, as if in the contemplation of mysteries; and two chasing each other about the reeds, their faces stretched in friendly grins.
I imagined, as I worked, that I was surrounded by the croaking of the frogs as their song floated up from the Lhyl, but it was bright afternoon, and the frogs only sang at dawn and dusk.
Not once during that long afternoon, as I began the painstaking work on the Goblet of the Frogs, did I wonder why I should be taking so much care and expending so much effort on a gift for a Magus. Nor did I ask myself why I went to so much trouble to hide it from the curious eyes of Zeldon and Orteas, or why, on successive days when I had free time, I only worked the goblet when I was alone.
One day Boaz surprised me, and all who heard his summons, by ordering me to his quarters mid-afternoon.
Stunned, I stared at the guard who had delivered the order, then nodded and went back to the tenement building to wash and change. It felt strange to walk the streets dressed in the linen dress in the revealing light of day, and I felt the weight of eyes as I passed: there goes Tirzah, poor Tirzah.
I looked up at Threshold, avoiding the pity of the passers-by. The southern and western faces were completely glassed now – and the sight would have been supremely beautiful on any other building.
As I watched I thought I saw bright trails of light flicker underneath the plate glass, almost as lightning forks. I frowned, and looked again.
There, a flicker, and a flash further down, perhaps from the mouth of one of the shafts.
Then I heard the rough voice of a guard, and I dropped my eyes. I had reached the gate to the compound, and the guards gave me a cursory glance and let me through.
This was the first time I’d been inside the compound during the day, and I slowed my pace a little to satisfy my curiosity. The gardens were uglier now, for darkness and moonlight did much to hide their rigid geometry. Even the trees had been trimmed into precise shapes, and the pathways had been raked into crisp lines and right angles whenever a bend appeared.
Boaz’s residence also looked less pleasing by day than it did by night. I had grown so used to seeing it only in the pastel lights which softened its lines, and now I realised that it was stark and uncompromising – as uncompromising, perhaps, as the soul of the Magus.
Fifteen paces from the house I stopped, stunned. When first Boaz had summoned me I had wondered briefly that he’d not taken over Ta’uz’s residence, which was larger and much grander, and situated in the centre of the Magi’s compound. This house was stuck against one of the boundary walls, and its low verandah made it appear secretive and sly.
And safe.
That thought brought me to an abrupt halt.
This was one of the few buildings on the entire site that was protected from Threshold’s shadow! The wall of the Magi’s compound was high, and this house low. It was in constant shadow – but the shadow of the wall, not of Threshold. Adding to its security was the enveloping verandah. Raguel had said that Ta’uz spent long hours staring out the windows of his house at Threshold. Boaz could not do that here even if he wanted to; both verandah and wall hid Threshold from sight – and hid the house from Threshold.
I began to think of all the times (and they were rare) when I had seen even a hint of the man hidden within Boaz. They always occurred within this house, never outside.
Within the house, where he was safe from Threshold.
I realised I was not only staring, but shaking as well, and I forced my legs to move. Boaz might be watching my approach. Even now he could be working himself into a murderous fury at what he might well perceive as my reluctance to obey his orders.
I hurried forward, and stopped at the doorway. “Excellency?”
“Tirzah,” he stepped out from an inner room, “you are late.”
“I had to hurry back to my tenement to wash and change, Excellency.”
“Then wash my hands and feet, and sit at the desk, and do not waste any more of my time.”
“Yes, Excellency.”
He set me once again to translating the Geshardi treatise on the square, and I bent over the papyrus, trying to write with as much neatness and precision as I could. I heard Boaz sit in a chair behind me, then the rustle of papyrus as he unrolled a scroll to study.
I worked in silence for perhaps two hours, for I could see the shadows lengthening in the garden outside, and the distinctive shadow of Threshold stretch further and further across the compound.
Except that it never touched this house.
“You are not concentrating.”
He was standing directly behind me and I could not help a start of surprise. I had not heard him rise.
“I have almost finished the treatise, Excellency. See, I am on the very last passage now.”
He picked up the sheet on which I had been writing and studied it briefly. “Ah yes, I can see that. I will be glad to be finally able to read this treatise.”
“You cannot read Geshardian, Excellency?” Again he had so surprised me I asked a question without permission.
“The northern languages are coarse and unrefined, girl, and I have never wasted my time on them! Do you understand?”
“I understand, Excellency.” So this was why he’d taught me to write. Few within Ashdod would have any command of these languages. I wondered that he would even think to find a northern treatise interesting.
“You have a question, girl. Ask it.”
“Excellency, I did not know that the Geshardi worshipped the power of the One.”
“They do not,” he dropped the sheet of papyrus back on the desk. “But they have some moderately learned geometricians among them. One day, perhaps, they will come to understand the One.” He saw that I had another question. “Yes?”
“You worship the One as a god, Excellency. I had never realised that before.”
“It is the power of the One we worship, foolish girl, not the One itself. It has no personality within itself. Perhaps the lower castes see the One as a god, Tirzah, for as the number from which all numbers emanate from and then decay into the One resembles Providence. But do not believe for a moment that the One has a mind and a will of its –”
“Excellency!” The frantic shout of a guard cut Boaz off and he whirled about.
“Excellency!” The guard reached the doorway and grabbed at its supports to stop himself from falling headlong into the Magus’ apartment. “Excellency…Threshold…there’s a problem…you must –”
But Boaz was already out the door, thrusting his arms through his blue robe as he ran. The guard caught up with him, words tumbling from his mouth, and without thinking I rushed out as well.
Five.
Who?
I was not stopped as I hastened after Boaz to Threshold’s compound. All knew that he made frequent use of me, and my presence with him was not questioned.
“Where?” Boaz said, and the guard led us up the ramp and into the abomination itself.
About us workers stood still, silent and pale.
The guard took us only partly up the main passageway before he turned down one of the major corridors that branched off it.
As soon as I entered that corridor I sensed its wrongness – its increased wrongness. I could see it, too.
Boaz stopped, and we both looked at the glassed walls. I hesitated, then reached out a trembling hand, not believing what I was seeing.
“Tirzah?” Boaz saw me as if realising for the first time that I had followed him, but he did not berate me, for he, too, was now standing by the walls, running unbelieving hands over them.
What had been glass was still warm. It was also very, very dead, and at that I was not surprised.
Some kind of heat, so tremendous that I could not conceive how it could have been generated, had completely fused the glass into the stone of Threshold’s walls. The masonry was now clearly visible through this brilliant black substance that was like, and yet unlike, glass.
The entire corridor had been fused in this way. Now it was a tunnel black as night and yet still radiating light down its length.
“This way,” the guard said quietly, and led us yet further into Threshold.
The five workers had been simple labourers, sent in to see why one of the gates had apparently been blocked open. They had moved deep into this corridor, then the gates before them and behind them had slammed closed.
None of the three Magi who stood waiting for Boaz could explain why.
“We were nowhere near the controls, Boaz,” said one.
“No-one was,” confirmed another.
Their words wafted over my head. I was staring transfixed at the five bodies. Whatever heat had seared through this corridor had burned them, although not beyond recognition, for enough remained of their features for me to see that at least they were none that I knew.
And I could certainly see that they had been cooked. They were contorted into shapes of pure horror, their bodies twisted, their limbs flexed, their hands black claws. Their flesh still smouldered, and the smell was wrenching.
I turned away, unable to look any more. Four or five paces away lay the blackened remains of one of their tool bags, the tools themselves scattered about the floor.
I peered more closely, then walked over, squatting to pick up a hammer.
I gasped, not only at its feel but at its weight. It had been turned completely to stone, as had all the tools. Even wooden handles had been converted into black, glassy stone. Had the glass, melting from the walls and ceiling, dripped down onto these tools? Or had some other force been at work, something I could not understand?
“Boaz?” I said incautiously, but in such a state of horror that I did not think to address him properly, “what has happened to these?”
And I held out the hammer for him.
He cursed and struck the hammer from my hand. It hit the floor with a sweet, clear ring. “What are you doing here, girl! Get back to my residence!”
“I…Boaz…” I did not move, but overcome by what I saw about me and by the coldness of his eyes, I burst into tears.
“Curse you!” he hissed, and, seizing my arms in cruel fingers, bundled me into the care of the guard. “Get her out of here!”
The guard had no wish to linger. He took hold of me with kinder hands, and pulled me down the corridor. As we left I heard Boaz say to the other Magi. “It’s even better than I’d dreamed. Far more powerful. Far more.”
The guard escorted me back to the Magus’ residence. I sat on the chair in front of the desk, the Geshardian geometrical treatise awaiting completion before me, my eyes uselessly blurred with tears.