Threshold

21

I DID not see Boaz for several weeks, which did not surprise me. He had revealed so much, so dangerously, that he would not call me again until he felt in full control. Until the Magus felt invulnerable.

But I was alive, and continued to live, and for that I suppose I was grateful.

My injuries healed as best they could, although when I pressed with my fingers all I could feel of my womb was a hard lump instead of soft, pliant flesh. I wondered if the Soulenai were right in saying that one day I would bear children, but all I could do for now was hope.

I did not tell Isphet or anyone else of what the Soulenai had told me. To do so I would have to reveal all, and I was locked too deeply into my secrets now to let a single one go. Besides, I wanted time to think. I wanted to see Boaz again. Be sure.

I went back to work with the glass, often helping out with the mixing and firing of the blue-green plate glass, as much of the work for the Infinity Chamber had gone to Izzali’s workshop. Soon we would begin the capstone. And then Threshold would be all but finished.

The plating now spread down the eastern face. Early one morning I went with Yaqob and a worker called Fust to help with a particularly difficult section of the glass. It would be my first time on the glass face, and I was a little nervous. But I wanted to go. The kindness of those within the workshop was stifling me.

Yaqob was cautious, but I was agile enough, and not afraid of heights, and he would be there to help me. And it would be nice to have some time together. Boaz confused me, and Yaqob was so straightforward. He had no hidden depths to tug at my own soul.

It was a lovely morning. As we used the ropes hanging from the peak to pull ourselves up, I laughed at Yaqob’s jesting and at the middle-aged Fust’s panting behind me. Even Threshold’s danger seemed mute, distant. We climbed to a spot two-thirds of the way up the face, and as we finally eased ourselves into a safe position, waiting for the glass to be winched up to us, I looked out over the landscape.

It stunned me. I hadn’t realised I would be able to see so much. Neither did I realise it would be so beautiful.

To the east the great Lhyl River wound its serpentine way through the land, green reed banks lining its path, irrigated fields and gardens stretching out about half a league on either side. Beyond them stretched league after league of desert, patched here and there with a stand of date palms about a spring or well. Far distant I thought I saw a slow caravan wending its way north. I wondered if it carried slaves, or more inanimate cargo. I returned my gaze to the river. Several graceful river boats plied south along its waters. The Lhyl was a wonderful gift to give the land, I thought. No wonder the frogs had sung for the Soulenai.

“Look,” Yaqob said, and pointed north. There lay a smudge on the horizon, a distant haze. Setkoth. Closer than I’d thought, but still a good half day’s travel by river boat.

To the immediate east and south of us lay Gesholme. It looked even uglier from above than it did from within. To the south-west, hidden by Threshold at my back, lay the compound of the Magi. It made me think of Boaz, and then Yaqob nudged me.

He pointed down this time. Far below, their forms puppet-like, a group of workers fastened plate glass to the ropes that would be used to haul them upward. Beside them were several Magi, Boaz among them.

I shouldn’t have been able to distinguish him from this height, for his clothing and head of black hair were virtually identical to the other Magi about him. But his movements were so familiar, the sweep of his hand, the way he shifted his weight from hip to hip, that I knew it was him.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again.

“Boaz?” Yaqob asked softly at my side.

“Yes, to the left. See?”

“He spoils the beauty of the morning, Tirzah.”

I nodded, opened my mouth to say something, then there was a shout above us, and all thought turned to the glass that fellow slaves were now hauling upwards.

The glass climbed ever higher, and we made ready to receive it, securing our feet in their notches.

Threshold’s shadow winked.

It was so brief, but I was sure. I felt it in the pit of my stomach as well as saw it, and I knew.

“Yaqob!” I cried, terrified, and he wrapped his arms about me as tight as he could – as if that could save me had I been chosen. He, too, had seen and felt what I had.

Who?

The glass sliding upwards passed over the mouth of one of the shafts. As it did so there was a burst – an explosion – of heat and light from the mouth…and the massive plate of glass melted.

Melted into the vicious black substance I had seen coat the walls and ceiling of the corridor that had cooked the five.

Seven. But who?

Mostly the poor men who slaved below to haul the glass skyward, and one donkey-handler standing close to them.

Great gobs of molten glass poured down and spattered the men.

They took agonising minutes to die, and I think Threshold had planned it that way. The glass seared great chunks off their skin and flesh. One man had his face eaten away, another half his chest. Another yet lost the flesh off his arms, and ran screaming about the compound, waving the blackened stick-like objects about. Apologetic whiffs of smoke drifted from them.

I leaned in against Yaqob and hid my face, and he held me tight until the screams and howls had been silenced.

Only then I dared look down again.

Boaz was staring up at me.

I was shaking, and could do no work. No-one could, the day’s glass had been destroyed and more would have to be transported to the site.

By the time we got down Boaz had gone.

Yaqob saw a tall, athletic man of early middle age in the crowd of labourers milling about the compound, and he gave a slight nod of his head.

The man responded and disappeared into the throng. Yaqob, Fust and I walked silently back to the workshop.

The athletic man joined us there in the mid-afternoon when the fuss had died down.

His name was Azam, and he was the one who Yaqob now depended on to bring the labourers behind his plan for revolt. Azam was a striking man, keen eyes, aquiline face, greying hair. I thought he looked anything but a labourer, and wondered if he had been born into slavery or had been subjected to it through misfortune.

Again we met in the upper room.

“Threshold has worked in our favour this time,” Azam said.

“How so?” Yaqob asked.

“Among the labourers there grows the sense that they are just fodder for Threshold’s appetite,” Azam said. “I have spread the word about the incomposite numbers, about how they grow into Infinity itself and how all of us, eventually, will die. Yaqob, almost to a man, they are now committed to you. Even if Threshold takes me, they will still follow. They know that if we revolt many will die, but they also know that many will escape, and that is enough.”

“Azam, that is good news.”

“And I have even better, Yaqob.”

“Yes?”

“Last night one of my men discovered a site where the guards store spare weapons.”

“Azam!” Yaqob leaned forward. “Tell me!”

As Azam described the location of the weapons, I watched the faces about me. They had lost all suspicion of me since Boaz had abused me so badly, and now did not hesitate to talk before me.

And yet if only they knew what secrets I held.

I longed to tell them that Boaz had been born an Elemental Necromancer, and that he hid a kinder face behind that of the Magus, but they would have regarded me with astonishment which would have rapidly deepened into suspicion. None but I had ever seen what the deception of the Magus hid, and they would never, never, believe that he was a Necromancer. Has poor Tirzah fallen in love with her captor, they would wonder, and then say that such a thing is not unknown.

And if she has, then will she betray us to him? Then they would be silent and distrustful of me, and that was the last thing I wanted.

If Boaz could be persuaded to accept his Elemental heritage, then surely I’d be able to persuade him before Yaqob’s plans for revolt ripened into action. And then he could help us. We could all escape together, and no-one need lose their lives.

If Boaz could not be persuaded before Yaqob led his revolt, if the Magus remained in tight control, then he would be a hopeless case, and I would tell the Soulenai so. And we would flee into the night and into freedom without him.

Whatever, I wanted to know what Yaqob was up to. I wanted to know when and how he planned to launch his strike. I would never betray him or any of my friends to Boaz, never that, never. But I hated to think that they might murder Boaz when I was within days of persuading him to help us.

That would be…a shame.

“Tirzah?”

I jumped, so absorbed in my thoughts I’d lost track of the conversation. Isphet.

“Tirzah, all of us hate to ask this, you know we do, but do you think Boaz will call you back?”

Again I wondered if all they wanted me for was to collect information for them. Then I dismissed the ungracious thought. Boaz had ignored me these past weeks, and all – Isphet and Yaqob more than most – had been kind and generous to me.

“Sooner or later, yes. He said he would.” I sighed. “It’s just that I displeased him so greatly the last time I was there…”

Yaqob’s arm was about me again. “One weapons cache is not enough, and it is too well guarded at the moment for us to have a real chance at it. Tirzah, you know how desperate we are for weapons. If only you could find out where other caches are, and the number of guards that patrol them. If we had more weapons, we would have a real chance. A real chance.”

“I know, Yaqob.”

“Well.” Isphet smiled. “We mustn’t stand about here idle all day. Azam, take care that you’re not seen on your way back.”

He nodded and left quietly.

“Yaqob, Tirzah. I wonder if you could collect some more potash from Izzali’s workshop?” She smiled at us. “There is no need to rush. Take your time.”

We took our time. Yaqob led me to one of our favourite haunts, a small space used for the storage of water urns and in a relatively isolated alley. He drew the canvas across the opening, then pulled me into his arms.

“Tirzah, it has been so long.” His voice was rough with desire, and I tried to relax. It had been several months since Boaz had first called me to his quarters, and Yaqob had not made love to me in that entire time. Perhaps it was only now that he trusted me, was sure of me, perhaps that was all he needed to regain his desire.

He pressed me hard against a wall, pulling my wrap down, his hands at my breasts, my back, my buttocks, his mouth hard, demanding.

I tried to relax – had I not let him do this countless times before? But I was tense and uncomfortable, and Yaqob was not yet so consumed by his desire he could not feel it.

“Shush, love, it’s all right. I won’t hurt you. Come on now, relax, relax.”

I tried, gods know I tried, but when he pulled me down to the floor and settled his weight upon me, I cried out and tried to push him away.

“No, Tirzah, it’s too late,” he said. “I can’t stop now. Please, let me…”

But this time I was not prepared to put up with the discomfort and the indignity of the dirt any more. With the last of my strength I managed to roll away from him.

“Yaqob, I’m sorry…but it hurts…it hurts…”

He grabbed me again, rolling me back, and I thought he would force me. “You said the pain had all gone. That you were healed.”

“Yes, but I didn’t realise…until I felt you…Yaqob, please, it hurt me.”

He cursed and rolled completely away, sitting with his back to me. After a long time he spoke over his shoulder. “Tirzah, I’m sorry. But I thought –”

“It’s Boaz,” I said, “it’s what he did to me.”

Yaqob sighed and helped me up. Thinking he understood what I meant. “When he’s dead it won’t matter,” he said. “It won’t hurt then.”

That night Boaz sent for me. I was half expecting it, for Threshold had frightened everyone that day, and the Magus would surely be feeling in total control.

But it was late, and our quarters were asleep when the guard banged at the door.

“Open!” he cried as Isphet sleepily made her way to the door. “Open up!”

“Yes?”

One day, I thought, I will master that imperious “Yes?”.

I was up and halfway into my dress by the time Isphet came for me. She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “Be careful, Tirzah. Be very careful.”

I returned her kiss and paused long enough to give her a quick hug. “Thank you, Isphet,” and then I was gone.

Outside in the still night air the nerves struck. My stomach churned, and I had to clutch my arms about me to keep them from trembling.

“What’s wrong?” Kiamet asked.

“Nothing. The night air. It’s cold.”

“He’s in a bad mood. Be careful.”

I stared at him, wondering at his kindness. I also wondered how much he’d seen and heard from his silent post on the verandah.

Kiamet didn’t say anything else, and delivered me to Boaz’s residence.

Again I shivered, hesitated, then walked to the rectangle of light.

“Excellency?”

“Enter.”

I went in, bowed, then collected the pitcher and water and washed his hands and feet. He was silent, staring. I kept my eyes down, my breathing as gentle as I cold, and hoped that I would not rattle the pottery or spill the water. I sensed he was waiting for a slip – any slip.

I did not give it to him, and eventually he handed me the oil to massage in.

The fragrance was soothing, but I did not let it relax me.

He took the phial back, put it on the desk. “Get up.”

I rose.

He stared at me, so fully the Magus I could feel as well as see the power of the One radiating from him. “Have you learned your place?”

“Yes, Excellency.”

“Good. Then take off your dress and wait for me in the bed. I shall join you shortly.”

He left me lying there for close on three hours; still, tense, terrified. He sat at the desk, his stylus scratching back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

Every few minutes my eyes drooped closed, then I would open them wide, scared I would slip into sleep. That would have angered him more than anything else. It would have been a presumption.

Eventually he sat back, wiped then put away his stylus, rose, and extinguished the two lamps, leaving only faint moonlight to illuminate the room. He walked over to the bed and stood looking at me.

I didn’t know what to do. I had not covered myself, and I wondered if that was a mistake. But just as I was about to reach for the sheet he turned aside and disrobed, hanging his clothes over the back of a chair.

He sat on the side of the bed, sighed, then rubbed his eyes with his hand. When he dropped his hand I could see that his face was very weary.

“I had to do it, Tirzah,” he said, and the coldness had gone from his voice. “I had to.”

“I know, Excellency,” I whispered.

He nodded, hesitated, then lay down beside me, but not touching me, as tense as I was. “Tirzah…”

Then he sighed again, and rolled over and gathered me into his arms.

I kept very silent, and kept my responses very passive, not wanting to do anything to frighten him. Yet even so, it was good.

Again I woke to stare into the eyes of the Magus. Distant, derisory. I tensed, waiting for the pain.

But it didn’t come. He handed me my robe. “Get dressed.”

I scrambled into it, then hesitated, unsure as Holdat entered and laid out a meal of bread, oil and cheese with a pitcher of goat’s milk.

Boaz sat down, then waved to me to sit and eat.

Every move I made I thought I’d drop something, clatter something else, and how I forced some of the bread down I don’t know. The milk was easier.

“I have decided that this union with the One through the use of a woman’s body does have some merit,” he said.

In the present tension that was almost too much, and despite the danger sliding about the room I had to bite my lip to keep from giggling inanely. Some merit, indeed. Well, I suppose the Magus had to justify himself however he thought appropriate. I dropped my eyes to the plate. “Yes, Excellency,” I mumbled.

“I have decided to explore it further.”

I looked up, wondering what he was leading to. He was looking at me very carefully, and I realised that he was as unsure of himself as he was of me.

“But I cannot keep Kiamet scrambling about Gesholme every time I need to find you.”

I took a deep, unbelieving breath.

“So I have decided that you will move into these quarters. There is a small closet at the rear that you will inhabit whenever I have no use for you.”

I let my breath out slowly. “Yes, Excellency.” I doubted I would ever see the inside of this “closet”.

“Apart from the capstone, the caging work is almost complete, and the six other cagers can do that. I think I will keep you at work here. There are several other Geshardi treatises that I would like translated.”

“Yes, Excellency.” Emotion soared through me, but I kept my face bland and submissive. The Magus would never have allowed this, never. Were the Soulenai right? Did he want me to help him?

“Do you have any questions?”

“Excellency, I have some small items that I will need from my quarters, and there is something I would like to collect from Isphet’s workshop.”

“Slaves have no possessions, Tirzah.”

I dropped my eyes, unsure again.

“But you may go. Be back here by mid-morning.”

“Thank you, Excellency.” I rose, bowed, and walked outside, trying to keep my gait from springing with hope. He had shown me something of his true self again last night, had shown some regret for his actions, and yet this morning the Magus had not felt it necessary to exact retribution for my witnessing of such fragility. In fact, for a Magus, he had been quite pleasant.

And to share his quarters! No Magus ever did that with a woman!

I wondered, hoped, if the man so long denied was sliding closer and closer to the surface. If one day the Magus would dare to let him free.

As I passed Kiamet I smiled and winked, and then laughed at his shocked face.

I sat at the translation for most of the afternoon. It was an even drier treatise than previously – is any given line composed of a finite or an infinite number of dots? – but I sat happily, and the hours flew by.

Boaz spent the entire day at Threshold. Holdat brought me a light meal after noon, and I thanked him, and he looked surprised at that, but managed to return the smile before he left.

I hummed a little as I worked. All within the workshop were stunned by the news I was to move into Boaz’s quarters. My father had hugged me, and told me to be careful. Isphet had been quiet, and Yaqob’s eyes had darkened into unreadability, but both had thought this a good opportunity for them. Surely I would find out something of use.

And so here I was, and I hoped it would end well. I would live life on a dangerous blade-edge, ever careful not to provoke the Magus, but ever hopeful that he would relax more and more until I would spend most of the time with that man who had shown me his father’s book.

I thought I would like that very much.

There was a step at the door, and I turned about – careful with my movement.

Boaz. He removed his outer robe, then asked how the translation went. He felt no need for harsh words.

“Excellency, it is going well.”

“And do you find it fascinating, Tirzah?”

“Ah, Excellency, it is a truly astounding piece of work.”

“Really, Tirzah? Then I must have given you the wrong treatise to translate.”

My eyes flew to his, but they were blank, and his face was devoid of humour. I looked back at the desk.

“You may sit on the verandah, Tirzah, or stroll the gardens, until Holdat brings the meal.”

“I thank you, Excellency.”

I returned from the verandah when I saw Holdat approach with his covered tray, and this time he was the first to smile. But I noticed he wiped it from his face before he stepped inside.

The meal passed silently. Boaz served me himself, and that gave me the courage for what I had to do. There would be no good time, only a worse than usual time, and this was not one of those.

After Holdat had removed the remains of the meal, Boaz waved me to the chairs by the window. On the way I lifted a bundle from a shadowy space among the papyri rolls on the shelves that ran the length of one wall.

He saw, and tensed.

I dropped to my knees before him and bowed my head. “Excellency, forgive my forwardness.”

“You should know better, Tirzah.”

But his voice was tight rather than angry, and I looked up. “Excellency. I know that on many occasions I have angered you when you have only tried to teach me what is right, and for that, I crave your pardon. Excellency, I have learned so much from you that I find it hard to express my gratitude. I have not the words for it, but perhaps this will demonstrate something of what I feel.”

And I held the bundle out for him.

I think he accepted it only because my hands shook as I held it out, and he could see the fear burn bright in my eyes.

I was afraid, because what I gave him now presumed so much that he might well retreat into a fury that could kill me.

My heart thudded as he slowly unwrapped the cloths, then they fell free, and he turned the Goblet of the Frogs over in his hands.

His eyes were downcast, and I could not read them, so I looked back to the goblet. For me it sang, and I wondered whether Boaz could hear it, too. I could almost see the frogs move; I could almost hear the Soulenai hold their collective breath.

Boaz took its weight in one hand, then held it up so that the amber glass sparkled in the light.

He was going to dash it to the floor!

“I dropped the other one,” he said quietly.

“Yes, Excellency.”

“And I have every right to do so with this one.”

“Yes, Excellency. Slaves own nothing.”

He tormented me for a moment more, then finally lowered it, and I (as the Soulenai) let out my breath. Again he rolled it between his hands, studying it intently. “Why the frogs, Tirzah? They are ugly brutes to decorate a goblet with.”

“Their song is comforting, Excellency. It is the first sound I wake to, and the last I hear at night.”

“But now my voice will be the sound you will sleep and wake to, Tirzah!”

“Yes, Excellency. Please, I do beg your –”

“Oh, be quiet,” he said, “and take this ugly piece of glass and put it back on the shelf where it won’t irritate my sight.”

“Yes, Excellency. Thank you, Excellency.”

And so a month passed. Boaz never revealed himself to the extent he had that night he’d had me read from the Book of the Soulenai, but neither did he revert to the hateful man who’d torn me apart the following morning. I think that I had earned some measure of his trust, for he could find no way in which I’d taken advantage of that moment of abhorrent weakness I’d witnessed. But he could still remain cold and distant with me for days on end. Then I would silently continue at whatever translation he gave me, and I learned his habits so that I could anticipate his every need. Gradually he would warm back into disinterest and occasional rebuke.

As I suspected, I was never banished to the closet (in reality a small store room at the rear of his house). He let me roam about his residence as much as I liked, as in the gardens close by. The room I knew so well was the main chamber of the house. Several smaller rooms ran off it, and they contained nothing of interest. But at the back of the house lay something I had never suspected – a charming bathing house. It was verandahed like the house, and was protected by the wall, and in the evenings Boaz would ask me to bathe with him in the great, square bathing pool. It was tiled in such vivid emerald glass that the water glowed as if lit from beneath, and the water was delightful after the heat of the day. No-one else used the pool, and we had complete privacy. Often I dived down to the bottom of the pool to lay my hands and cheek against the glass, feeling its cool joy, until Boaz would dive to fetch me.

But it was at night, in the darkness and intimacy of the bed, that he let me get closest to him, in both emotional and physical senses. Sometimes he would lie and talk for hours, very quietly, telling me stories of the court. Never personal, never dangerous, but stories that showed me glimpses of the man he truly was.

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.