Threshold

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 too 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.

“Boaz –”

“Nothing is going to deflect me from Threshold now, brother! Nothing!”

He stalked inside.

Zabrze stared after him, then looked at me, his eyes pleading. Then he wheeled about and disappeared into the night.

I slowly got to my feet. “Boaz?”

“Don’t you start too, Tirzah!”

“Boaz, perhaps Zabrze is right –”

“Tirzah!”

“What building weeps blood, Boaz?” I shouted. “That is no building, that is –”

“It is Threshold, curse you!”

“It is not right,” I said softly. “I do not care what you call it and I care not for what power you think it will give you. It is not right!”

“I’ve had enough,” Boaz growled, and seized me by the wrist.

Stop! Stop! Stop! the Goblet of the Frogs cried from the cabinet. Stop! Stop! Stop!

“No,” Boaz whispered. “No, I do not think I will,” and he hauled me from the room.

Kiamet moved to join us, but Boaz rounded on him and snarled, and Kiamet, shocked, stumbled back to the verandah.

“Boaz? Where are we –”

“Threshold,” he said, and his grip tightened about my wrist until I thought he would grind the bones to useless shards.

“Boaz! You’re hurting me!”

His grip lessened, but it was still tight, and I could do nothing to free myself.

He pulled me through the compound of the Magi – feasting was still going on in some quarters, but the noise and festivities were muted – then down the streets of Gesholme to the avenue stretching towards Threshold.

“Boaz! No!”

“Yes, you stupid fool!” he said. “Look!”

Reluctantly I raised my eyes. Threshold stood bathed in the light of a full moon. Nature was surely blessing the pyramid, I thought numbly, for a full moon to shine so bright before the heat of the sun of Consecration Day.

It was beautiful. I had to admit that, but it was a cruel beauty. The blood had gone now – absorbed, perhaps – and the blue-green glass shone like a calm sea under the moon. A calm sea, but with deadly inner depths. The capstone gleamed, and I had a presentiment of how it would look when the full power of the sun struck it.

Lights, blood red, flickered underneath the glass sides.

Threshold was waking.

“Just over twelve hours,” Boaz said beside me, “and it will awaken completely.”

“Are you sure that’s what you really want, Boaz?” I asked.

He ignored the question. “Come, I will show you Threshold’s full splendour.”

He pulled me further towards the pyramid.

At its base an officer stepped forward. From his insignia I noticed he was from Zabrze’s command.

“Excellency,” he said, and bowed deeply. “How may I help?”

“Stand guard. Watch. Let no-one near who is not Magi. No-one.”

“At your command, Excellency!”

I was almost rigid with fear now, and my legs stiff, but Boaz dragged me yet further towards Threshold. I was sure he would lead me to the ramp, but at the last he turned aside and led me to the spine connecting the southern and eastern faces.

“Up,” he said, “and if you won’t climb yourself then I’ll damn well carry you.”

His voice was cold, distant, and despair swept me. This was not Boaz any more. This was the Magus rampant. Threshold had won.

Small steps were cut into the spine.

“No,” I whispered. Not the capstone. No.

Boaz hauled me up the first twenty steps, then, scared he might let go, I made an effort myself. The climb was steep, and Threshold high, and within fifty steps I was panting, a combination of effort and terror.

It took us almost half an hour to reach the top, and by then the moon had sunk towards the horizon, casting half of Threshold into deep shadow. There the blood-red lighting underneath its skin flickered even more virulent than on those faces still exposed to the moonlight.

A small ledge ran about the capstone, perhaps a pace wide. Boaz let me go, and I instantly leaned against the capstone, sinking my fingers into the gaps in the caged lacework, praying it had been fastened securely to the inner wall.

The glass screamed at me, screamed at me to rescue it, screamed to me that, if I would not rescue it, then I must kill it.

Smash us! Smash us! Smash us!

But I lacked the courage or the means even to do that, and I closed my ears and mind as best I could to the despair of the glass. I wanted to let go, but I couldn’t, for then I was sure I would fall.

Boaz stepped further along the ledge, easy and confident. To distract myself from the glass, I made the mistake of looking out. Instantly nausea swamped me.

I hastily lowered my eyes…and saw the remnants of a crushed foot at the join of the capstone and Threshold.

I whimpered, frantic, wondering what I could do to escape, and looked back to Boaz. Perhaps if I pleaded…

But Boaz was lost. He was standing at the north-west corner of the pyramid facing into the emptiness, head back, arms extended, robes flowing in the night breeze.

I had thin-soled sandals on my feet, and through them I imagined I felt a throb, then another, and then I knew I was not imagining it.

“Boaz!” It was only a whimper again, but he heard it and turned.

“Feel it?” he asked. “Feel it?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. Boaz, please may we go down now? Please?”

The throbbing grew more powerful.

“Soon,” he whispered, looking at the sky. “Not long. Be patient.”

Then, “Tirzah? Look.”

Boaz pointed to the side of the pyramid in the shadow of the moonlight, and then beyond that.

I followed his finger…my heart stalled, then raced.

Threshold’s shadow stretched for almost half a league across the plain behind it. A rectangular shadow. Rectangular.

I thought I was going to be sick.

Boaz strode back to me and seized my arm. “Down.”

I sagged in relief, and might have fallen had it not been for his grip, but I rejoiced too soon.

Boaz hauled me down the steps, and how we didn’t tumble to our deaths during that mad descent I’ll never know, then he pulled me to the ramp.

No! “Boaz!”

“I want you to understand once and for all,” he said. “Once and for all.”

I let my feet slide from underneath me as we neared the top of the ramp, hoping that it might slow Boaz down, or even stop him. But he only cursed, bent down and gathered me into his arms.

I was even more trapped than before.

Threshold winked as we passed into its mouth.

I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. I was going to my death, I was sure of it.

Threshold’s internal glass walls were now all the black, shiny substance. Thin red forks of light flickered underneath them. I remembered how the glass had been fused into the stone in this process of turning glass into black, and I understood that the red light flickered through stone as well.

Flesh now, perhaps.

Boaz climbed without pause through the main passageway. The light was eerie. Moonlight reflected down the shafts and seeped into the corridor, but it had been corrupted on its way down and was now pink-tinged and thick.

The air smelt coppery, warm.

“Almost there,” Boaz whispered.

I glanced at his face. It was the face of a man I did not know, and one I instinctively hated. I understood that Threshold would do this to all it enthralled. Not human any more, no will of their own.

I closed my eyes momentarily, wishing I could find the time to grieve, but I was too terrified.

The slope levelled out and Boaz set me down on my feet.

“Are you ready?” he said. “Ready for Threshold’s intimate delights?”

“No, please…Boaz…don’t…please…”

He seized my hand and wrenched me into the Infinity Chamber.

The first emotion I had was of relief. Here the light was soft gold, moonlight filtering through the golden capstone down the main shaft through the chamber’s own golden glass. No blood. No coppery smell.

Then I heard the glass scream.

It had never, never been this bad before. These were the screams of trapped animals, mutilated almost unto death, pleading, wanting both freedom and death, begging me to help them, screaming…screaming to me to save them…oh gods, please, please! Save us! Save us!

I screamed myself, and blocked my ears.

It did not help.

I screamed again, feeling the glass’ agony ripple through my body.

Gods, what would happen here?

“Beautiful,” Boaz murmured, and lifted his hands.

I knew what he would do next, for I had seen him do this once before. He was going to open the gates of all the shafts and flood the Infinity Chamber with light.

It would only be moonlight, but it would be bad enough.

I cried out again, almost convulsing with the horror of the glass that ran through me.

He smiled, took a deep breath, and laid his hands upon the glass.

And heard – felt – it scream.

I had screamed as he touched the glass, and when he wrenched his hands away from it with a look of absolute horror I thought it was only in reaction to me.

But then I realised not.

His face had lost all colour, and his eyes were wide, terrified. Somehow I threw myself across the chamber and grabbed his hands, slamming them back against the glass.

“Feel it, Boaz! Feel it!”

And he did. He tried to break away, and I don’t know where the strength came from, but I managed to keep his hands pinned against the glass.

Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us!

The glass was screaming…and it was screaming to Boaz. Boaz!

Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us!

“No!” he moaned.

It comes! It COMES! Save us!

He finally wrenched his hands from beneath mine. “No!”

“Boaz, please,” I whispered. “We’ve got to get out of here. Please. Please!”

“Tirzah?”

“Boaz, come on, now. Come on.” I tried to keep my voice gentle. “Please, come now.”

I grasped one of his hands between both of mine. “Come on, now.”

He was so shocked by the horror which the glass had flooded into him that he could not resist me. Very, very gradually he moved.

“Come on, now.”

We had to get out. Surely Threshold had realised what had happened? But perhaps it was concentrating so much on its own burgeoning power that it had ignored us.

I led Boaz down the corridor as fast as I could. But that was not fast enough. I wanted to run, but he was stumbling and resisting now as before I had stumbled and resisted.

“Come on, Boaz. Hurry!”

Threshold’s mouth loomed before us. I was sure that it would snap closed as we passed under it into the clear night air, but finally we stumbled out.

“Excellency?” the officer said, worried by Boaz’s face.

“The climb,” I said. “And, well, the privacy. He could not resist the chance to commune with the One. And so now he’s breathless.”

The officer winked, and let us go.