Threshold

30

THE expanding stone circle had caught the other side of the riverbank as well, but only for a few paces. The dividing line was unbelievable. On one side grass stood carved into stone, tangled into a grey, brittle mass. On the other it waved in the wind and sun, except for those few strands that had been caught half in, half out of the perimeter of stone. These tugged mournfully at their stone parts, as if they could somehow be dragged back into life.

The Lhyl had not been touched, flowing as cheerfully through stone banks as earthen. But the reed banks had not been so lucky. All those within the circle had been encased in their granite enchantment. I wondered whether the frogs had been caught as well. Flee, I thought, flee before Threshold – Nzame – thinks to eat yet more.

The small craft that had picked us up ferried us to none other than Chad-Nezzar’s royal barge, still wrapped in its silks and banners.

Azam leaned down from the deck to help us up, Kiath at his side.

“Boaz?” I asked as soon as I was safe on deck.

“Alive,” Kiath said, which did not reassure me greatly, and she then helped Neuf who was still spluttering and retching.

“Isphet’s got him in the main cabin,” Kiath said, an arm about Neuf’s waist; Neuf herself was too wretched to complain about this treatment. “Come inside and we’ll give you dry clothes.”

“Go on,” Zabrze said. “I’ll join you shortly.”

Kiath led us into one of the cabins, gratefully cool and dim. Isphet, forgetting her earlier anger and distrust, enveloped me in a great hug. “Tirzah! We thought you were lost!”

“I thought I was, too. Isphet, this is Neuf, Zabrze’s wife. She’s –”

“Oh!” Isphet muttered, “not another invalid!”

I left Neuf to Isphet’s tender care, wondering briefly at the sparks likely to fly between those two, and hurried over to a bed in the corner. Saboa rose as I approached, kissed my cheek briefly, and stood back. Holdat, I noticed, was huddled in dark shadows at the foot of the bed, still with his blanket-wrapped bundle.

Boaz was awake, and tried to smile for me. But pain and fever raged within his eyes.

I sat on a stool by the bed, and took his hand. “We have escaped, Boaz.”

“I thought I had lost you, Tirzah, when you dashed after Zabrze like that. Don’t leave me again.”

“I cannot imagine the nuisance you two got into as children, if this is the trouble you create now.”

He lifted his free hand and stroked my cheek. “What happened? I heard…”

I told him what I could.

“Nzame? I do not know it,” Boaz said slowly.

“Well,” Isphet’s sharp voice came from behind us, “you have summoned it, and I hope Tirzah speaks the truth when she says that you have the arts to send it back again. Tirzah, here, get out of those clothes.”

She handed me a dry robe, and I changed, wringing my hair out and towelling it dry.

“Boaz?” I asked softly.

“The next day or two will tell, Tirzah. But that is a bad wound. If the sword perforated his bowel on the way through, then he’s dead. We’ll never be able to stop the infection.” She paused. “And already you can see the fever in his eyes.”

I stared at her, terrified. I couldn’t lose him now! Damn Yaqob! Whatever I was about to say was halted by Zabrze’s entrance, Azam behind him.

“Where is this Isphet?” Zabrze asked.

“Yes?” Isphet enquired.

“Ah,” he swung to face her. “So you are she. Well, Isphet, I am told that we must head for some rag-torn community in hills to the south-east of here. A community where Elemental magic is still strong and Boaz can learn what he needs to know.”

“I don’t know that –”

“Isphet,” I said. “You planned to head there anyway. And the Soulenai say that Boaz is the only one who can destroy Threshold – we shall have to contact them so you can hear for yourself. Zabrze has already demonstrated his willingness to help us. If you still think that this is some elaborate device to –”

“No,” she said tiredly. “No. I must trust you, I suppose.”

“Many of the imperial soldiers fought for us, Isphet,” Azam put in. “And many died.”

“Yes, yes. Well, we can travel the Lhyl for a way. But most of the journey will be hard and long. The hills are far distant.”

Zabrze frowned at her. “These hills. I know only of an insignificant range beyond the Lagamaal Plains at the southeasternmost border of Ashdod and the Great Stony Desert.”

“Yes. Those are where we will go.”

“But no-one lives there, Isphet. No-one. The geographers say those hills are barren.”

“Barren? In places, yes. In other places they can be surprising. You do not know of the Abyss?”

“The Abyss?”

“You shall see when we get there. You do not know as much about your country as you think, Zabrze. Now. These hills are at least a two- or three-week trek across the Lagamaal Plains, a dry and inhospitable country. And we have…how many with us?”

Azam looked at Zabrze, as if unsure whether to defer to him or not, then answered anyway. “There are thirty or thirty-five craft with us, Isphet. Maybe four, perhaps five, thousand people. Slaves, soldiers, servants. Even one or two nobles. And,” he glanced at Boaz, “at least one Magus.”

“Magus no more,” Boaz said quietly.

“Well,” Neuf broke in. “I demand to be returned to Setkoth.”

Zabrze opened his mouth to speak, but was forestalled by a voice from the doorway.

“You’ll travel where we go, you sorry bitch, and if you don’t like it, then I’ll happily cast you overboard for the water lizards to eat.”

Yaqob. He jumped down the three or four steps and looked about the room. “You’ll all do as I say here. I led the revolt, and the vast majority of people in these boats are slaves. I will take command.”

He stared at Zabrze defiantly.

“No,” Zabrze said very softly but very dangerously. “I do not think so, Yaqob. You have no experience of command –”

“I led the revolt!” Yaqob shouted.

“No,” Zabrze replied. “You didn’t. Oh, you planned and talked about it for many a long month, but your revolt was always in the planning and never in the doing. It took me, through Azam, to give it the impetus it needed to see some life. You’re a fine man, Yaqob, and a brave man, but you are no leader.”

“How can you –”

“How can I say that? You are too hot-tempered, Yaqob, and you let emotion overwhelm your good sense. Look!” Zabrze’s finger stabbed in Boaz’s direction. “There lies the man – the only man – who can ultimately save us from Threshold, and you try to murder him in a fit of pique! Now you leap into this cabin, snap at a woman who is frightened and unsure, and demand that all bow at your every word. No! I will not have it!”

Yaqob spun to face Azam. “My friend…”

Azam looked at Zabrze, then back to Yaqob. “I am sorry,” he said, “but Zabrze is –”

“Isphet?” Yaqob all but shouted.

The cabin was very, very quiet now. She looked for a long time at Zabrze, and he at her. Something passed between them, but I could not understand what.

“Zabrze has a cool head,” she admitted finally, “and he has the ability to command. Yaqob!” She grabbed his arm as he clenched his fist. “Yaqob, our situation is desperate. We need to take advantage of everything we have. Zabrze can command this disparate force.”

“And I cannot?”

“No,” she said softly, “I believe you would have trouble, Yaqob.”

Yaqob stared at Isphet, then pulled free of her, exiting the cabin as suddenly as he had entered it.

“Damn,” Zabrze muttered. “I wish I didn’t have to do that.”

“There was no choice,” Azam said. “Besides, you are Chad now.”

Zabrze blinked. The thought had very obviously not occurred to him. “Chad-Nezzar –”

“Chad-Nezzar is either dead or running demented about Threshold’s stone temple,” Isphet said. “Chad of nothing save his own slavery to Nzame. Whatever, he’s no use. You are Chad, Zabrze, although,” her mouth twisted very slightly in a smile, “you’ll forgive me if I leave mouthing the pleasantries and flatteries for a more suitable occasion.”

Zabrze smiled at her, then turned to his wife. “Neuf? Are you well? You understand why we can’t go back to Setkoth, don’t you?”

She let him fold her in his arms. “Our children…” she whispered.

“I know, Neuf,” and his voice broke. “But it’s too dangerous to try to get back past Threshold – Nzame now controls all southern approaches to Setkoth, as well as the majority of Ashdod’s army. There’s nothing we can do.”

Isphet managed to organise food for us all as the afternoon faded. We ate sparingly, not sure what we had with us until a thorough search among the boats was done. But grain fields were sliding past us, and Zabrze did not think it would be too hard to requisition some if we needed it.

“Isphet,” Zabrze asked, “how long upon this river do we travel?”

“I do not know it well,” she said, “but I remember that after we’d travelled the great dry land we came to the Lhyl at a place where it broadened into great marshes. There was a lake…”

“Ah,” Zabrze said. “The river empties into Lake Juit, perhaps five days south of here. And from there southeast?”

“Yes. A long journey.”

“Can you find the way? How old were you when you travelled to Setkoth?”

Her eyes flashed. “I can find the way, Zabrze. I was, oh, twenty, twenty-one. My husband and I were both glassworkers, and we went to Setkoth to ply our trade.”

“How did you fall into slavery?” I asked.

“We bought passage on a small fishing boat,” she said, and her voice was hard. “The captain thought to earn extra by handing us over to slavers one night. They sold us to the Magi at Threshold. We never got to Setkoth.”

“And your husband?”

“He died the first year in Gesholme,” she said. “During the wet season fevers are common.”

Zabrze nodded, his eyes sympathetic, then he turned to his wife and quietly encouraged her to eat some of the bread.

I moved back to Boaz’s side. Isphet had brewed an analgesic herbal (one of the few things she bundled into the blanket on leaving the tenement had been her store of herbs), and we’d given it to him an hour ago. Now he was asleep, although he occasionally murmured under his breath, and his skin was ashen and sweaty.

I felt his forehead. It was hot.

“Tirzah,” Isphet said quietly behind me. “We can do no more for now. Go up on deck. Sit a while, get some air. I’ll watch him.”

I nodded, touched his forehead once more, and climbed up on deck.

The air was cool and pleasant on the river, and I relished the clean smell, and the openness. Irrigated fields stretched to either side of the banks, and water fowl moved softly among the reeds. Fish splashed, and I saw the shadowy form of one of the great water lizards slide into the river at our passing.

The evening chorus of the frogs was gentle, and puzzled…as if they missed the voices of their stone-clad comrades to the north.

Behind us, in a colourful string, came the other boats of our flotilla, disappearing into the dusk. Azam had climbed down into a smaller boat an hour or two earlier, and was now wending his slow way through the fleet, finding out exactly who we had with us, what they had, and informing them where we were going and, no doubt, who led us.

I took a deep breath. Yaqob. He must be on board here somewhere. I looked about, then asked one of the men wandering past. A slave – a free man now, I corrected myself – by the look of him. He pointed to the very prow of the boat, and I thanked him and walked forward, my steps slow, unsure.

“Yaqob?”

He sat on the small platform the musicians had occupied when Chad-Nezzar had docked at Threshold’s wharf, and he rose as I approached.

“Tirzah.” He faced back to the river.

We stood side by side, looking at the tranquil river before us. Neither of us said anything for a while, unsure of ourselves.

“Well,” I said eventually, “it seems that we are free, Yaqob. I almost never imagined that we would –”

“I never imagined that you would one day betray me like this, Tirzah,” he said, and turned to look me in the eye. “I knew a gulf was growing between us, but I thought it was only because you felt self-conscious about your role in Boaz’s bed. But I have watched you since this morning. Watched you closely.”

“I came to love him, Yaqob. I’m sorry.”

Oh gods, what a stupid, trite thing to say.

“After all he did to you? Tirzah, I cannot believe that you can stand here and say that our love is dead because of a man who has caused you such pain, who tried to kill you! I don’t understand. Boaz is –”

“Boaz is not the man he first seems. Yaqob, listen to me! Underneath that Magus exterior lay a man of such sweetness and tenderness that I could not help but love him. I wanted to free him as much as you wanted to free all of our friends in slavery. Yaqob, he is an Elemental too! He –”

Yaqob did not want to hear, and turned away.

“Yaqob! You do not deserve what I have done to you. But take your retribution out on me, not him…please!”

Yaqob spun about and seized my shoulders. “I don’t want retribution, Tirzah! I only want you!” He leaned his head close to mine, but I twisted my face away before he could kiss me.

“No. No, it’s over, Yaqob.”

“I never thought to stand here on my first day of freedom and listen to you mouth such words,” he said. “I built my life around you, Tirzah, I wove all my dreams with you as their centre. And yet here you say…it’s over.”

He dropped his hands and walked away.

I sat by Boaz’s bed during the night, and all the next morning. The fever tightened its hold, and by noon of the next day he was sweating, moaning and tossing about.

“Tirzah,” Isphet said. “There is nothing we can do. He cannot fight the infection.”

Earlier we’d sponged him down, and been appalled at the angry red streaks that had spread across his belly and down his flanks. His belly was swollen, tight and hot; internal bleeding aggravated by infection.

“Tirzah, come away.” Isphet’s hands tightened on my shoulders. Zabrze moved to take my place by Boaz’s side as Isphet led me out into the fresh air.

“Tirzah, he’s dying.”

“No!”

“Tirzah, he is dying! Accept that! There is no herbal I can give him, nothing I can do. Now you must accept it. We can try to make him comfortable, but to be honest with you I do not think we’ll be able to do that for much longer. He won’t keep anything down…”

I burst into tears, and Isphet hugged me tight. “I never knew how much he meant to you,” she whispered, stroking my hair, rocking me to and fro. “You hid it so well. So well.”

“I wish he could understand what I say to him,” I sobbed. “I want to tell him that I love him – I’ve never really told him that – but he won’t hear, he won’t hear…”

“Shush, Tirzah. He knows. I’m sure of it. Now, you must sit up here a while. Zabrze needs time to say goodbye, and I will watch with him. If Boaz worsens I’ll send for you, but for now you need to rest. Look, here is Holdat, he will take you to a shaded corner.”

She passed me into Holdat’s care. The man looked almost as woebegone as I felt, and he slid an arm about my waist and led me to the rear of the cabins so we could sit in the shade of their awnings. Kiamet was there, too, and we sat quietly for some time.

“Tirzah,” Kiamet finally said. “This is a strange request, but perhaps it will make you feel better, and I know it would surely comfort Holdat and myself. When you and Boaz sat by the windows at night, sometimes you would read tales to him from the old book. Holdat and I,” he glanced shame-facedly at his friend, “would stand just out of sight, on the other side of the wall, and listen. Tirzah, would it comfort you to read from the Book of the Soulenai again?”

“Not the Song of the Frogs,” I said.

“No, not the Song of the Frogs. But there must be many others that you’ve not touched yet.”

“All right. Holdat, do you still have the box –”

But Holdat had already retrieved the box from wherever he’d stored it, and lifted the book into my lap. I ran my hands over it, feeling its age, feeling its soft whispering, then, as I had been wont to do with Boaz, I opened it at random.

It was a story I had not yet encountered, but that was not unusual, for the book was very large and I’d not had time to read through it completely.

“Oh,” I said, “it is a sad tale, about the death of a king.”

Silence, and I could sense Kiamet and Holdat look at each other.

I took a deep breath. “But Isphet says I must accept…accept that Boaz…”

“Tirzah,” Kiamet said. “Perhaps it is best not to read –”

“No,” I said sharply, then apologised for my tone. “I think I will read it, Kiamet. Maybe it will give me some comfort.”

And so I read. I was proud of the way my voice held steady, for the tale opened with the tragic wounding of a great and good king in a battle not of his making.



And so his servants bore him home, and his people made much ado, and prepared as best they might for his death. He was wounded sore, a belly wound…

I almost faltered there.

…that stretched from navel to groin. The surgeons stitched it, but evil spirits had entered with the sword, and the king made much moan and burned with fever.

As he sank towards final death, the man who tended the frogs by the river appeared at the castle door, and begged to be allowed to see the king’s surgeons.

“I have a good powder,” he said. “One the frogs told me of.”

“Oh gods,” I whispered, and stumbled in my haste to read further.



The king’s servants were not disposed to allow so humble a man access to such eminent folk, but he prevailed, and eventually the frog keeper stood before the surgeons.

“What have you there?” asked the senior of the group.

“Powder,” said the man, “that will drive the heat and evil spirits from the king’s belly and make him whole again.”

The senior surgeon smiled derisively, but a junior stepped forward and said, “How is this powder formed, good man?”

“In the river, between the reeds, where the waters lie still and warm, can sometimes be found a thick slime that has, at best, a loathsome odour. I collect this slime, and dry it, and grind it, and thus form this powder.”

“I have heard something of this,” said the junior surgeon, and spoke quickly to his fellows. They were uncertain, but because they were desperate, they decided to try it.

“Break open his wound,” cried the frogkeeper, as the surgeons hurried away with his jar of powder, “and sprinkle some inside. Mix portions in fluid, and dribble it into his mouth! And…”

“And what?” Holdat said.

“And by that time the surgeons had hurried to the king’s bedside and saved the king’s life,” I said. I bent and kissed the cover of the book. “Thank you, thank you.”

I gave the book back to Holdat then looked to Kiamet. “Is Azam’s small craft still tied to this vessel?”

“Yes –”

“Then why do we tarry here, Kiamet? Escort me to the reed banks.”

Isphet was incredulous. “These…ashes?”

“In his wound and in his mouth, Isphet.”

“By what authority?”

“By the authority of a book, Isphet. Later I shall show it to you.”

“You can read, girl?”

I almost hissed in frustration. “That is neither here nor there, Isphet, not when Boaz lies a-dying in that bed.”

“Zabrze?” Isphet turned to him.

“The book, Tirzah?”

I nodded, and so did he. “Let her be, Isphet.”

“Bah!” But she stayed by me. “What are you doing?”

“This is powder, Isphet, not ashes, and I shall sprinkle it in his wound, then mix some in your analgesics and drip it into his mouth.”

I unwrapped his wound, then recoiled as the stench struck. It smelt even worse than the slime Holdat and I had just gathered.

Now green and yellow had added their evil colours to Boaz’s flesh. His belly was so swollen he looked five-months gone with child, and the skin was so tight and hot I thought it would split without much provocation. The wound seeped pus from underneath a thick black scab.

“Isphet, what can I use to lift this scab?”

“I’ll do it, girl. Ugh!” And we both recoiled from the bed at the foul effluent that poured out as she lifted the scab.

I took a deep breath from several paces away, then stepped forward and sprinkled the powder until the wound was covered in it. Isphet was by my side with some cloths and a fresh bandage, and we wasted no time in cleaning and rebandaging Boaz’s belly.

“Holdat?” I called softly, and he was by my side, the Goblet of the Frogs in his hand.

Isphet looked at it carefully. “Zeldon told me that you’d caged a beautiful goblet, girl. This is it?”

I gave it into her hands and watched her face as she heard the frogs whisper. “Oh Tirzah, it’s wondrous!”

As she held the Goblet of the Frogs I poured in a measure of the analgesic herbal, then slowly added pinches of the powder. I wasn’t too sure how much to add (and damn those surgeons for hurrying away before the frog-keeper had time to shout the exact measurement), but I kept adding until the brew had a slightly bitter taste. Any more and his mouth would reject it.

Then I sat down, dribbled portions between his lips every few minutes, and waited.

Time passed, but I refused to leave Boaz’s side.

It was late into the night when I began to notice the difference. His breathing eased, and he slipped into a sleep that was sound, not tormented. Isphet finally persuaded me to rest for a few hours, keeping vigil by Boaz herself, dribbling the rest of the mixture into his mouth.

I thought I would not sleep, but I did, and woke only when Isphet put her hand on my shoulder.

“Is he…?”

“Still asleep, but better. I want to rest myself, but wake me at dawn, and we’ll clean and perhaps sprinkle a little more of that powder in his wound.”

“Maybe it has helped, Isphet.”

“Maybe,” she admitted. “Now get out of that bed and let me sleep.”

I sat down by Boaz, and smiled. He was breathing deep and easy now, and the fever had broken.

I kept to my task dribbling in tiny portions of the mixture, but now my relief had let tiredness edge in, and after a while I laid the goblet to one side and rested my head on my arms. Just for a few minutes, I thought. I’ll just close my eyes for a few minutes.

I woke at the pressure of his hand on my hair.

“Boaz!”

He smiled. “Listen. Can you hear it? It is the dawn chorus of the frogs.”

Later that day, I let Isphet sit and examine the Book of the Soulenai. She was slightly nervous of it until she felt its soft murmurings, and the fact that I was able to read it she passed over without further comment. As the book sat in her lap I leaned over her shoulder and turned the pages one by one, trying to find the story of the dying king. It was no longer there.