Threshold

26

THE next evening, the evening before the ceremony to lay the capstone, Boaz entertained his family. For a royal gathering it was a relatively informal affair. Several servants helped Holdat cook and set up a table in the pool chamber. It was laid with the best platters and glassware, and golden knives and spoons glittered.

The Goblet of the Frogs was conspicuous by its absence.

The only illumination was from scores of scented candles floating in the water, and I threw waterlilies and droplets of oil in as well, to add yet more beauty and scent.

Guards ringed the house, but at a respectful and discreet distance. It was very quiet and very serene, and I surveyed the chamber one last time before Chad-Nezzar, Zabrze and Neuf were due to arrive. Then I turned to go.

Boaz stood in the entranceway, immaculate and invulnerable in his Magus robes.

“I want to keep this private,” he said. “The last thing any of us needs is a dozen servants to upset the eye with their bustling. Holdat will serve the meal, you the wine.”

And then he was gone.

My throat choked with nerves. Serve wine to a Chad of Ashdod, a Prince and his wife? But I was only a humble glassworker!

But I had Holdat to guide me, and I could not do much wrong so long as I kept myself as inconspicuous as possible and didn’t spill the wine. I was used to serving Boaz, and I did well enough with his family. Chad-Nezzar largely ignored me, initially Neuf eyed me curiously, but not overly so (Zabrze had not told her, then), and then proceeded to ignore me as well, while Zabrze regarded me with unreadable black eyes and then followed the example of his wife and uncle.

For the early part of the meal I spent most of my time sitting on a stool in a darkened corner of the chamber, slowly relaxing, and moving to fill a goblet only when needed. Holdat did all the serving, taking plates silently and efficiently, offering platters or napkins according to occasion. I admired his skill, and wondered where Boaz had found him. Perhaps in Setkoth, for I could not imagine that Gesholme would have need of such skills.

Boaz and his family ate well and enjoyed, as far as I could tell, inconsequential gossip about courtiers and happenings in Setkoth. They did not raise their voices, save to laugh at the misfortune or social blunder of a courtier, and they patently kept clear of any contentious topic. Indeed, Neuf directed most of the conversation, leaning now close to her husband, now close to Chad-Nezzar, now resting her slim hand on Boaz’s arm and smiling into his face.

I wondered uncharitably if all those nieces and nephews were of such distant blood relation to Boaz. Neuf exuded an unmistakable sensuality beneath her elegance, and I resented her every time she directed it towards Boaz.

While the conversation proceeded amicably enough through the meal, Chad-Nezzar’s metals and gems kept up a conversation all their own. As I passed to and fro about the table, I would hear them chatter about this and that, but on one occasion I was astounded to hear them whisper of their love for Chad-Nezzar himself. He was an old man, although yet vital, and they did not want him to die. I lingered over Neuf’s and then Zabrze’s goblets, trying to catch more.

Ah, they loved him, not so much for himself, but because they were afraid that when he died their happy community would be broken up. Chad-Nezzar had, apparently, been thus enmetalled and bejewelled for decades, and the metals and gems had grown fond of each other. Would the Prince Zabrze wear them when he inherited the throne?

Sadly, no, they thought, and I silently agreed with them. Long live Chad-Nezzar, if only for the elementals’ sakes.

As the evening progressed I found my services required more and more. All the men drank, if not heavily, then constantly. Voices rose and laughter sharpened.

Neuf finally rose from the table. “My husband. Tomorrow will be a long day, and I have two to sleep for now. I crave your indulgence and,” she turned to Chad-Nezzar, “the permission of the Mighty One, to retire.”

Chad-Nezzar waved his hand. I suspected he did it so often to show his jewels to their best advantage; as far as his jewels were concerned, they loved the slow, graceful rides through the air.

“You have it, my dear.”

“Neuf,” Zabrze said. “The girl can escort you back.”

His eyes drifted in my direction. “And perhaps the girl might like to give us her name. I have a curiosity to know.”

I opened my mouth, and then closed it. Should I give them my birth name? It would be far less surprising than if I said…

“Tirzah,” Boaz said. “Her name is Tirzah.”

Everyone, save Boaz, stared at me.

“Tirzah?” Chad-Nezzar said slowly. “Tirzah?”

Neuf looked at me, then at Boaz. “Well, well,” she said. “A strange name for a slave girl, Boaz. I was not aware slaves were permitted to wear the names of nobles. This site is more relaxed than I had originally thought.”

I had no idea what to do, but I decided that if Boaz had started it, then he could finish it. The choice of name was not my fault.

“She had a cumbersome name common among the northern savages,” Boaz said. “I thought to give her something prettier.”

“But the name of my sister?” said Chad-Nezzar.

“I should point out,” said Zabrze with some degree of amusement, “that I was curious about the girl’s name because she enjoys a…well, shall I say, a reasonably intimate relationship with Boaz.”

Neuf’s eyes jerked back to me. “A presumption, girl –”

“My presumption, name and relationship both!” Boaz snapped at his sister-in-law. “Leave her alone.”

“Boaz,” said Zabrze, “I like not your tone of voice.”

“My Lords and My Lady,” I hastened, “I will leave –”

“Assuredly, girl,” Neuf said, and stepped to the door. “You shall accompany me to my quarters. This moment!”

“Return when Neuf has released you,” Chad-Nezzar said. “I think we shall all want some more wine after this episode.”

Neuf shot him a black look, then stalked from the chamber, I hurrying after her.

She did not speak until we reached the residence. Then she turned to me under the swinging lights of the verandah.

“You are a very foolish girl.”

“Great Lady, I –”

“He is a Magus. He has no time for you.”

“Great Lady, I –”

Sharp fingers grasped my chin and angled my face to the light. I wondered if I was going to ever be allowed to get past the “I”.

“Perhaps it’s your northern blood. Shetzah, but he’s ignored all the other flesh paraded before him over the years. It’s the only explanation.”

More than you think, great Lady, I thought. More than you think.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and her fingers tightened. “Or are you a plant? There to destroy him? Whatever, you’re dangerous.”

I opened my mouth yet again to protest, but this time she did not let me get even one word out.

“Don’t you see what is happening, girl? Don’t you know?”

I kept silent, still.

“Boaz has remarkable talent…”

I wondered if I dared a nervous laugh.

“…and he has worked hard, studied even harder, to reach where he is today. He has dedicated his life to the One, to becoming the greatest Magus who ever lived. Now he is within a few short days of accomplishing his dream and we find out that, lo! he’s risking it all for some underfed and outspoken slave girl.”

She must have seen the anger in my eyes, for she gave my chin a rough little shake. “Many Magi plot to undo him, girl. Perhaps not those who have been at this site and who already know of you, but many of those who have come down from Setkoth would be more than happy to take advantage of this weakness. Believe me, I know. Intrigue is what I specialise in. I do not want to see Boaz lose it all because of a passing lust for a light-haired northerner. Do you understand?”

“I understand, Great Lady.”

She dropped her hand, but not her eyes. “I wish you did, girl, I wish you did.”

And then she was gone.

Shaking, I walked back to the pool chamber. There were shades and complications here that I did not understand.

On my return, Boaz gestured impatiently for me to fill the goblets, and I hurried to the table, my mind still on Neuf’s warning. Then their conversation shifted all thought of Neuf far to the back of my mind.

Chad-Nezzar and Zabrze had grouped themselves on one side of the table, facing Boaz on the other. Anger, only partly born of the amount of wine consumed, drifted between them.

They were talking of Threshold.

“I am remembering,” Chad-Nezzar drawled, “that when the Magi first approached the then Chad, Ophal…what, Zabrze, how long was it now?”

“Almost two hundred years, Mighty One,” Zabrze said, his eyes on his brother.

“Quite,” Chad-Nezzar continued, “two hundred years. The Magi promised Ashdod great riches from Threshold’s construction. And yet all that stone monstrosity has done is beggared this nation.”

“It has been a monumental construction, Mighty One,” Boaz said, and I noted the formality that had been absent earlier. “Of course it has soaked up the riches of a nation. Be assured that it will give more back.”

“I surely hope so, Magus Boaz,” Chad-Nezzar said. “I also know that the Magi promised Chad-Ophal that there would be power for the taking when Threshold was complete. Is that the case?”

“Assuredly, Mighty One,” Boaz said carefully.

“But for whom, brother?” Zabrze asked. “For whom? Is Threshold the means to power for Ashdod, or for the Magi?”

Boaz waited a long time before he answered. “Threshold promises power for all.”

“Kus, Boaz!” Zabrze leaned back in his chair and took a great swallow of his wine, watching the effect his obscenity had on Boaz. “Forgive me if I think that Threshold holds great power for the use of the Magi and the Magi only!”

Back in my corner, I thought vaguely of how uncomplicated my life had been before this night.

Chad-Nezzar watched the brothers carefully, but did not say anything. It were better, perhaps, if Zabrze had this out with Boaz.

Now Zabrze sat forward over the table. “Share its secrets with us, Boaz,” he said. “Tell us how! What we can expect.”

“Power, Zabrze. But beyond that I would find it difficult to explain. Its mathematical formulae are far too complicated for the amount of wine you have consumed.”

“Boaz,” Zabrze moderated his voice. “Forgive my suspicions. I would trust you with my life. Normally. But…”

But now the lust for power is infecting everyone, I thought. Everyone.

“…I wonder if your ultimate loyalty rests with the Magi rather than with your family. Perhaps it were best if the Chad finds someone else to conduct the Consecration Day ceremonies. I –”

He got no further. Boaz leapt to his feet, stared at Zabrze, then turned to his uncle. “Mighty One! There is no-one more qualified than I to consecrate Threshold. I demand –”

He stopped himself. “I beg you to allow me this honour. For Tirzah’s sake if not for mine.”

I realised with a start he spoke of his mother, not of me. Yet for this Tirzah’s sake, I thought, I would prefer you so far from Threshold on Consecration Day you could not even remember what shape the building is.

“Forgive Zabrze,” Chad-Nezzar said. “He is sometimes rash, and perhaps he has been too hot-tempered tonight. But, Boaz,” he said carefully, “I do share his concerns. I would not want to think that all I am going to witness two days hence is the handing over of all power within Ashdod to the Magi. Boaz, answer me this, what can we expect?”

Holdat and I had so pressed against the wall by this stage we had almost melded with it.

“What, Boaz?” Zabrze asked softly. “What?”

Boaz looked into his goblet, thinking. Then he raised his eyes. “Threshold has been built so that it can tap into the power of Creation,” he said.

There was not a sound in the room. Chad-Nezzar and Zabrze were stunned.

“All life is governed by mathematical and geometrical parameters, formulae. Three hundred years ago a group of Magi, far more learned than others, realised that Creation itself – or the power that Creation drew upon – could be reached via a bridge constructed of the appropriate mathematical formula. The Magi who first realised the possibility did not achieve the formula in their lifetimes, but over the next three generations other Magi worked hard at the problem.”

He waved a hand tiredly, an unconscious imitation of his uncle’s mannerism. “Eventually they solved it. Threshold is that formula. It will tap into the power of Creation.”

“This sounds very fine,” Zabrze said slowly. “And yet I know that many Magi argued that Threshold should not be built. There were divisions within the ranks of the Magi. Deep divisions.”

“Some were nervous, frightened,” Boaz admitted. “Then. Not now.”

“Too late, now,” Zabrze muttered, and I looked consideringly at him. Was the sharing of power the only thing he was worried about?

“Not now that we are sure Threshold will work,” Boaz said, looking into his brother’s eyes.

Zabrze had lost his patience. “Work at what? What will happen when this damned formula of yours taps into the power of Creation?”

“It will propel us into Infinity, brother. Immortality.”

No wonder Boaz would not be deflected from his purpose. Immortality was a heady prize.

But at what price? No-one thought to ask that, and I was certainly not prepared to peel myself off the wall to do so.

His words shocked Chad-Nezzar and Zabrze into a moment of profound silence.

Both men reacted very differently. Chad-Nezzar’s face flushed with excitement. He was an old man, and had thought only of enjoying whatever power Threshold offered for another five years, perhaps ten at the most.

Now, everlasting life beckoned.

The chant with which he’d been greeted on the wharf would become fact, not flattery.

Zabrze was uncertain. He saw the greed in his uncle’s eyes, he saw the need in his brother’s, and then he looked up and saw the fear in mine.

“Think of it!” Chad-Nezzar babbled. “With immortality, I could rule the world!”

“Then do not think of asking anyone else to lead the Consecration Day rites,” Boaz said softly. “Who else can you trust to pass this power over?”

“Yes, yes, the rites are yours! Zabrze! Immortality! What greater prize can there be?”

Chad-Nezzar obviously had not yet thought that an heir to a throne might not appreciate contemplating that the present incumbent enjoyed eternal life, but I think that was very far from Zabrze’s mind, too.

“Happiness,” Zabrze said. “Contentment. Love.”

He looked very, very sad.

They talked for an hour more. I served wine, but I think Boaz and Chad-Nezzar hardly knew I was there. Zabrze glanced unhappily in my direction once or twice, and he drank no more. I do not know if Boaz had ever thought about not sharing the power Threshold would grant, but now he seemed committed to the idea of sharing it with his uncle. Perhaps Boaz, as Neuf had been, was worried about the rebellious Magi, and preferred to have Chad-Nezzar’s army with him rather than against him.

Eventually, Chad-Nezzar decided he had to take his metal and jewellery to bed and stumbled off, Zabrze’s arm about him for support.

“Tirzah?” Boaz said.

“I will help Holdat clean up, Boaz. I will be with you shortly.”

“Tirzah. Holdat. I trust I have your discretion. There were words spoken here tonight…”

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.