3
KAMISH bundled us back through the garden. His relief in being left his life found outlet in his anger at us – particularly me, and by the time I clambered back into the river boat my arms were already darkening with livid bruises.
“Gesholme!” Kamish shouted at the river boat captain.
We huddled in the belly of the boat, out of the way of the oarsmen, my father’s arms wrapped protectively about me. He realised a little of what I felt, although not all, for he’d never heard the glass in the same manner I had. The other slaves regarded us silently, then Mayim, the other glassworker, reached out and gently touched my arm.
“That was wondrous,” he said. “I thought that glass was fractured beyond help, yet you still worked it into beauty. You must have magic in your fingers, Tirzah.”
I eyed him carefully, wondering at his choice of words, but then decided it was simple praise. Nothing else. I nodded, grateful, then cuddled a little closer to my father. Druse.
I thought of my new name – Tirzah. It was pretty, and rolled off the tongue with its own special music. But I would ever associate it with Boaz, and with my slavery.
One day I would cast it off.
But not now. Tonight all I wanted to do was cling as tightly as I could to my father, and close my eyes and pretend that none of this was happening.
Time passed, and I dozed.
I dimly realised we had left the confines of Setkoth, for the sounds of the city grew dim, and the smell of the river changed from rotting vegetable matter and human filth to that of the sweet cleanliness of open countryside and thick reed banks. The breeze grew cold, but my father was warm and there was a tarpaulin beneath our feet that our small group managed to wrap about us to keep out the worst of the night chills.
I wondered vaguely where this Gesholme was, and what it was, but the river was soothing, and I slipped deeper into sleep.
Hours later a shout woke me. The night was dark and still, and the boat’s crew had shipped their oars. There were shouts from the crew, and answering shouts from the bank as ropes were thrown and tied. The boat shuddered, then jerked as it bumped against its mooring. It was cold now, and I shivered in my thin cloths and wrapped my arms about myself.
“Get up!” Kamish shouted, and we struggled to our feet, straining our eyes in the darkness.
A settlement sprawled from the western river bank far to the west and south. It was tightly walled and closely gated, and guards watched atop towers and walkways.
A slave encampment, then.
To the north-west there appeared to be another compound, also walled, but with buildings too low to be seen from here.
Beyond that loomed a massive structure that ate at the darkness and the stars. I could not make out its exact shape or dimensions, but the cold deepened about me, and the bruises on my arms throbbed anew.
One of the crew leaned down to offer me his hand in alighting. He noticed the direction of my eyes, but kept his own carefully averted.
“Threshold,” he said.
A contingent of guards arrived from the compound to escort us inside the gates. Kamish gave them a small scroll, inscribed with our names and our abilities, then stepped back into the river boat.
“I wish you the best,” he cried as the crew pushed out into the current and slowly turned the boat about, yet I knew he wished us anything but, and I thought I saw a gleam of teeth as the oarsmen finally made way for Setkoth.
The walls of the compound were of sandstone and at least five paces wide and fifteen high, the gates of wood reinforced with metal bars and covered over with sun hardened mortar.
One of the guards atop the wall leaned down as we passed. “Welcome to Gesholme,” he called, and ghostly laughter followed us along the narrow street.
Regular blocks of tightly packed tenement buildings, some four or five storeys high, loomed to either side of us. An occasional light glinted behind their tightly shuttered doors and windows. Streets intersected the main way at regular intervals, and I realised that the encampment – Gesholme – was much larger than it had appeared from the river. Many thousands must live here.
The walls and close buildings let no breeze through, and the air was thick and humid. Where minutes previously I had pulled my wraps closer, now I loosened them about my neck, and slapped at the hundreds of small, biting insects that hovered about our group.
The lead guard called a halt. Another wall loomed before us, but with a smaller gate this time, and the two guards who stood by it were better uniformed than those who escorted us.
“New arrivals,” said our lead guard, and one of the men by the gate grunted, inspected us, then waved us through. Into a different world.
Here were no streets, but spacious avenues. The buildings were low, and sprawled comfortably. Pastel lights glinted, not only in windows but strung through date palms and across cool pools of water.
There were no biting insects here – none had come through the gate with us.
“The compound of the Magi,” said one of our guards. Then he smiled at the apprehension in all of our eyes. “It seems you’ve run up against them before. Well, here you’ll have to get used to their presence.”
We stopped while he went into a particularly fine building, surrounded by columned verandahs festooned with hanging, crimson- and purple-flowered vines. The sound of murmured voices came from within a dimly lit room, then the guard reappeared accompanied by two Magi.
Without prompting, the seven of us fell to our knees, while the guards bobbed their heads and saluted with their spears. “Excellencies!” they shouted.
“Excellencies!” we murmured in quick echo.
These two radiated the same power as Gayomar and Boaz had done, and were similarly dressed. Their black hair was also clubbed back into severe queues, and sharp eyes swept over us as vultures survey carrion for the most vulnerable flesh.
One dropped his eyes down to the scroll Kamish had given the guard. “From Boaz, no less,” he muttered, then grimaced and rolled his eyes as he read what followed. “Elemental? The man has been reading legends. But he sends three glassworkers, and that is good.” He raised his eyes. “Druse, Mayim and Tirzah. You will accompany me. My name is Ta’uz, and I am Master of this site. Do you understand?”
“We understand, Excellency.”
“Good. The other four,” he read out their names, “will accompany Edohm. Come.”
Rolling up the scroll with a snap he waved at my father, Mayim and myself. We scrambled to our feet and hurried after him.
I only ever caught glimpses of the other four slaves again, rare flashes of friendly faces within the walls of Threshold, and what happened to them in the end I know not.
Ta’uz led us back through the gate of the Magi’s compound, then turned sharp left, hurrying us towards a quarter in the northern part of Gesholme. Eventually he stopped outside one of the tenement buildings, and spoke to us. “Mayim, you will work in Izzali’s workshop. Druse, you and Tirzah will work in Isphet’s workshop. You may well see each other during the day, but at night men and women are quartered separately. Do you understand?”
“We understand, Excellency.”
“Good. This is Yaqob’s tenement, and this is where Druse and Mayim will live. You,” he waved at one of the guards, “wait here with the girl.”
The door of the tenement opened at a sharp knock from a guard, then Ta’uz, my father and Mayim, accompanied by five guards, disappeared inside. I wanted to wish my father goodnight – this was the first time we’d been separated in weeks – but I knew enough now to keep silent. I was content that we’d work together in the same workshop.
I glanced at the stars. By the gods! That would be in only a few short hours! I felt desperately tired, and wished more than anything else I could have a long night’s sleep in a bed that was anywhere but here.
The guard stood wary and silent, his eyes not leaving me for a moment, and I stared at the ground, shuffling uncomfortably from foot to foot. I remembered Hadone, and shivered.
Ta’uz abruptly reappeared, guards in attendance, and the door of the tenement slammed shut behind him.
“Now you,” he said, and marched off ahead.
Surrounded by guards, I felt more alone than I ever had in my life.
He led me to another tenement, almost identical to the one where he’d left my father and Mayim, and ordered the guard to knock at the door.
There was no answer, save a soft scuffling inside, and Ta’uz stepped to the door himself, and delivered it a hard blow and a shouted command.
Steps sounded and the door opened a crack, then was flung wide as the person saw who waited outside.
I gasped. Even in this flickering torchlight, the one who opened the door was the most exquisite woman I’d ever seen. She was perhaps thirty or thirty-one, with shining black hair and almond-shaped dark eyes that were intelligent and all-knowing. Her face was as astounding in its strength as it was in its beauty.
“Yes?” she said.
Ta’uz held her stare, then cursed. “Did you think I would not know, Isphet?” he asked as he shouldered past her.
She turned to follow him, but at that moment one of the guards seized my arm, intending to drag me through as well. I cried out as his fingers bit into the bruises Kamish had given me, and Isphet turned back in my direction.
“Oh gods,” she whispered, “you have the most exquisitely bad timing, girl.”
We hurried into a room filled with blood and screams, and with birth and death. A woman lay on a pallet against a wall, her face drawn and damp, her robe patched with sweat and the fluids of birth. A tiny baby sprawled across her belly, her stump of umbilical cord wobbling pathetically in the uncertain light.
Ta’uz leaned down and seized the baby; she squalled, and the mother screamed. Isphet stepped forward, her hand outstretched, but she halted as Ta’uz rounded on her, his face contorted with fury.
“Did you think to keep this hidden from me, Isphet? I knew she was breeding, and that she had not understood. Nothing here breeds save the One. Nothing. Is that understood?”
Isphet opened her mouth, her eyes fearful, but Ta’uz gave her no time to answer. In one shocking, vicious move, he swung the baby by her feet and smashed her skull against the wall.
Then he threw the broken body down on her mother’s belly.
“I will expect to see you at your post by the furnaces in the morning, Raguel,” he said to the mother, who was staring appalled at her dead infant. “And you can use this useless lump of flesh to stoke their fury.” He looked up, stared at Isphet, then shifted his gaze to me.
“Her name is Tirzah, Isphet. She works glass. She and her father, Druse, will join your workshop in the morning.” Then he strode out the door.
It slammed shut, and for a moment there was utter silence in the room.
My heart was thudding painfully, my throat dry, and I thought I would faint. I wished I could close my eyes and forget what I had just seen, but it was seared so painfully into my mind I knew it would give me nightmares for weeks.
Gods knew what nightmares the poor mother would suffer.
Why?
I felt a hard hand on my arm, and somewhere in my nightmare I wished people would stop punishing my bruises.
Isphet.
“Sit here in the corner, girl, and shut up.” And she shoved me down and left me.
That was unfair, for I had not made a sound since my arrival. But I sat silently anyway, grateful to be off my feet, and watched as Isphet and her companions tried their best to modify the horror.
Isphet was as blunt with the mother as she had been with me. “You were a fool, Raguel, and well you knew it. Ta’uz would never have let the baby live, and you can only thank the Soulenai…”
Soulenai?
“…he did not tear it from your womb while it yet grew. That would have killed you, as well.”
“But he fathered her!”
Isphet struck Raguel across the face, and the sound hid my own shocked gasp.
“Enough, Raguel! If you had listened to me in the first instance none of this would have occurred, and Ta’uz would have no reason to keep such close watch on my workshop. Now, because of your stupidity, we will have no opportunity to –”
Abruptly she remembered my presence, and she slid a careful eye my way. She hesitated, then turned back to Raguel and plucked the still body of her daughter from her hands, handing it to a woman in her mid-twenties.
“Kiath, take this and wrap it. Ta’uz was right enough when he said it would feed the flames.”
There was silence again, everyone staring at the body in Kiath’s hands.
“But not yet, I think,” Isphet finally finished. “We can make better use of this fuel on a day when the guards keep less close watch. Kiath, store the body in a tightly sealed jar. But wrap it tightly first so that its fluids will not seep through and reveal it to curious eyes. Saboa?” Isphet motioned to a girl about my own age. “Take these,” she roughly pulled several stained cloths from beneath Raguel’s hips, causing the woman to cry out in pain, “and wrap them about a loaf of bread. We shall make much cry and sadness and toss it into the furnace in the morning, and no-one shall be any the wiser. You!”
I jumped. I wanted nothing more than to huddle in my corner and remain unnoticed.
“You…Tirzah? Come here and help me make Raguel comfortable. Come on. If you’re going to share my quarters and my workshop, then you might as well dirty your hands in this little disgrace as well. And bring that bowl of water with you.”
I dared linger no longer; I had no doubts that Isphet would physically haul me over if she thought I’d not make it on my own.
A large bowl of water was warming by a small brazier in the centre of the room. I took careful hold of it and walked over.
“Good,” Isphet muttered, not looking at me, then began to wash Raguel down. As she did so she talked in a soft, gentle voice, surprising me. “You are not to blame for this disaster, Tirzah. Ta’uz would have dealt this babe death at some point, even had we managed to hide the fact of the birth from him. Perhaps it was kinder this way, before Raguel had a chance to form too close a bond with her.”
Before she bonded with her? Did not carrying a babe in your womb for nine months form a bond? Without thinking I glanced at the stain on the wall.
Isphet thrust a wet cloth into my hands. “Wash it away, Tirzah, and then help me turn Raguel over and change her bed linen.”
I did as she asked, and when Raguel was washed and lay on clean sheets, Isphet took my hand in hers. “A rough welcome for you, Tirzah.” She gazed steadily at me. “You are not of our race, girl. Where do you come from?”
“Far to the north. A place called Viland.”
Isphet shook her head dismissively. “I’ve not heard of it. But you speak our tongue well, if with a heavy accent. How is that?”
“My father and I travelled for many weeks with guards from this land, Isphet. I learned from them.”
“And your name? You bear the name of a princess of our realm. Why is that?”
My hand jerked in hers. The Magus had named me after a princess? I told her something of my encounter with the Magi Gayomar and Boaz.
Isphet’s eyes widened. Gayomar she’d only ever seen briefly about Gesholme and Boaz she did not know at all, and dismissed them as quickly as she had the land of my birth. She even forgot the mystery of my naming in her intrigue with my story of the caging of the glass. Her hands tightened about mine. They were very warm.
“You are a very interesting girl, Tirzah. You seem to become one with the glass.” She smiled as if she had made a bitter joke to herself. “We shall talk some more of it, you and I, but not now. I have asked enough questions. You must have some of your own.”
I glanced at Raguel. She had turned her head to the wall. “I don’t understand,” I said inadequately, and then wished I’d not used those exact words.
But Isphet did not mind, and knew what I meant. “Come,” she said, leaving Raguel alone to cope with her misery as best she could. She led me to a pallet on the other side of the plainly furnished room and pulled me down beside her. “How much do you know of the Magi?”
“Nothing, save their cruelty.”
“And of Threshold?”
“Even less.”
“Save its cruelty, you should have said,” Isphet remarked, but then patted my hand. “Well now, how shall I begin? With the Magi, I think, for you already have some understanding of them. The Magi are…”
“Sorcerers, my father called them. But priests, perhaps?’
“Sorcerers of a nature, certainly, but not priests, as perhaps you understand the word. The Magi are mathematicians, and once that was all they were. But they found power, cruel power, in the understanding of the properties of, and the relationships between, numbers and forms. They control the power of number and form.”
I was beginning to understand. “I saw the regular forms of field and garden.”
“Yes. If the Magi had their way, everything in Ashdod would be laid out according to the pure principles of mathematics and geometry. To some extent they have succeeded with the shape of fields and gardens, as streets and many buildings. They have a powerful influence over the monarch, Chad-Nezzar, and much of what they desire is enacted in royal edict.” She sighed. “But Ashdod is large, and it cannot all be arranged according to the dictates of mathematics. The Magi have only succeeded completely here…with Threshold.”
“I saw Threshold, although not well. It…it ate at the sky.”
Again Isphet glanced at me sharply. “Threshold is – or will be – the physical manifestation of pure mathematical formula. The Magi have been overseeing its construction for many generations, and even yet it has over a year’s work left before completion.” She smiled grimly. “Threshold is a beast of consuming need. It has literally eaten the resources of Ashdod. Everything Ashdod produces is channelled into the effort to complete Threshold, and even that is not sufficient. You are proof enough that the Magi must now scour far-flung realms to find the workers Threshold needs.”
There was a long pause. “Isphet,” I said eventually, “what did Ta’uz mean when he said that nothing breeds here save the one?”
“Ah, the Magi are mathematician-magicians, and they worship the number One. They teach that the One is the number from which all numbers spring, and into which all numbers collapse. Creation and Doom, all in one.” She shook her head at her poor joke. “All forms spring from and collapse into the One as well, for the Magi believe that geometric forms are composed only from the properties of numbers. Thus the One represents both birth and death – Infinity. Contemplation of the One and meditation upon the mysteries of number and form are how the Magi derive their power. They constantly seek complete union with the One…and that is where Raguel came undone.”
She shivered, and now it was my hands that tightened about hers. “The Magi seek union with the One through many means, Tirzah – I believe Threshold will eventually provide the ultimate means of union, although the Magi never speak of it. Until Threshold is complete, the Magi must make use of lesser means of union. Occasionally a Magus will take a woman into his bed in order to touch the One.”
Again she paused, and I realised she was recounting not only Raguel’s experience, but also her own.
“In that moment of physical release during the sexual act the Magi claim they experience a hauntingly brief union with the One…with Infinity. The woman they use to achieve this moment of union matters not.” Isphet forced a humourless grin to her face, but it faded almost as soon as it appeared. “I don’t know why they do not use goats…goats would be far less trouble. Women are not allowed to breed from this act, for to do so would be to subdivide the One, to subdivide its power. I do not know how Raguel managed to become pregnant – usually the Magi are painstakingly careful to prevent pregnancy – but that is why Ta’uz reacted so violently, and why he instantly killed the baby. The baby had violated and subdivided the One. Her life was an abomination. And so that beautiful little girl died.”
I put my arms about her, and Isphet wept.