Threshold

33

WE continued. Day passed into night, and night to day, and Isphet took us from marker to marker. The country grew more arid, and yet there was no sign of Isphet’s hills on the horizon; not a smudge, not a cloud.

“We will not see them until we are a day out from them,” Isphet said. “They are very low.”

We proceeded at a tolerably good pace. The heat was not too fierce during the day and the nights were pleasantly cool. Our food stocks lasted – even Zsasa found sufficient scrub grass to produce the milk for both her calf and Zhabroah – and we found water each evening.

All managed well enough on the march. There were blisters and sore tempers occasionally, but we were fit and used to hardship. Zabrze marched at the head of the column, side by side with Isphet, his robes billowing in the wind. He was quiet, grieving in his own manner for Neuf, and deeply troubled for his other children. Isphet gave him silence and comfort, and the bond they had forged between them strengthened both by day and by night.

The baby thrived. Kiath and Isphet shared care of him, but Zabrze also spent hours with him each evening. He would sit about the fire, his son cradled in the crook of his arm, feeding him milk and water.

Poor Neuf, I thought, not even your son misses your warmth.

As he had promised, Boaz taught Isphet the basics in the skills of reading and writing. She learned quickly, grasping the sense easily enough, but was troubled by the stylus and the characters. Boaz was patient with her – which was far more than he had been with me. But this was a different man, and I should not have minded.

Yaqob watched. He asked questions, and I believe he learned to read as fast as Isphet did. But he baulked at the stylus. Yaqob would read, but he would not write. I wondered if that was because he still feared the art, or feared having Boaz watch his first awkward attempts at lettering.

We had been moving for almost three weeks, and though Isphet said nothing, I could sense her worry.

“Isphet,” Boaz said finally one night, as we sat around before dinner. “When?”

Zabrze, cradling his sleeping son, looked up from the campfire. “We have only three or four more days of food, Isphet. We –”

“I know how much food we have left, Zabrze!” she said. “Has not Azam presented us with detailed reports both morning and evening?”

“Isphet,” Zabrze said again. “I have responsibility for five thousand people here, and ultimate responsibility for many more. Another week and some of us will start to die. I want to know what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong –”

“Yes there is! I have watched you these past two days, frowning at your markers –”

“The trails have still appeared. The soil still snakes –”

“Oh, Isphet!” The baby stirred, and Zabrze rocked him a moment. “Isphet,” he continued more quietly, “even the mules in our column know that we are now travelling directly south. Are not your hills more to the east?”

She chewed her lip and dropped her eyes.

“South lies the Great Stony Desert,” Boaz said. “Isphet…”

She lowered her head into her hand and rubbed her eyes. “I am worried,” she finally admitted. “We have been making good time, despite our numbers. I thought we would have reached the hills some three or four days ago.”

Zabrze looked at her very steadily. “You should have said something sooner, Isphet. How long have you been leading us astray?”

“I have been but following the markers,” she snapped, raising her eyes. “I –”

“Hare’s done,” said Holdat. Boaz had managed to trap it that afternoon.

“Let us eat,” I said. “In the morning…Isphet, would it help if Yaqob or I, or Boaz, listened to what the metal balls had to say? Perhaps one of us…”

“If you must,” Isphet said. “But they respond best only to one who has been born among the Abyss.” And then she took the plate I offered her and ate sullenly and joylessly.

Isphet stood by the pile of marker stones in the cold dawn light, the metal ball in her hands.

“It tells me that there has been but passage of snakes and beetles in the past month or two. None of my people. No enemies. The way is clear.”

She tossed the ball into the air, its form catching the first rays of the sun, and where it fell a line of weaving, writhing soil and stones appeared and snaked into the south. Directly south.

Zabrze shifted irritably. “Isphet –”

“Give the ball to Yaqob,” I said, and she handed it over.

He rolled it between the palms of his hands, then closed his fingers about it. “Snakes, beetles, and no people,” he said finally as he looked up. “The way is safe.”

I took the ball. It told me the same. Sighing, I passed it across to Boaz.

He held it longer than either Yaqob or I had, but he did not appear to be concentrating very hard. His face, his entire body was relaxed, and eventually he looked up at the anxious circle of faces about him.

“It’s lying,” he said.

“What?” Isphet cried. “It can’t be! It wouldn’t…why? Why? No, you’re not right, Boaz. You can’t be.”

Boaz continued to roll the ball between his fingers. “None of you could detect it, but I also have the command of another power.”

“The power of the One,” I said. “But how could you use that to tell the ball is lying?”

“Isphet has occasionally let us feel what the other balls along the way have to say,” Boaz explained. “They have told us of local gossip, who’s been past, weather conditions, where best to find water. They have all appealed to the Elemental in us. They were meant to be used by Elementals.”

“Yes, but what has this got to do with –” Isphet began.

“This ball,” he continued, “appeals to the Elemental magic. All of us felt that. But it also appeals to the power of the One. I could have read this as Elemental or as Magus. Any Magus could read this ball and thus tell the way.”

“I don’t understand,” Zabrze said. “What are these balls doing speaking to the Magi?”

“They are misdirecting them,” Boaz said, handing the ball back to Isphet. “This ball – and no doubt previous balls for some time – is deliberately lying to misdirect any Magus who should attempt to use it. Isphet, would your people, perhaps the Graces among them, know of the events at Threshold?”

“Not the details,” she said slowly. “But the Graces are powerful. They would know that something was very wrong. They may well have felt Nzame cross from the Vale. They would know that it was connected with the Way of the One. And, Boaz, they may have felt the power of the One you used when you conducted the rites to bury Neuf.”

“Then they would think,” Yaqob said, “that whatever went wrong at Threshold was now crossing the Lagamaal, trying to reach them. They have instructed the markers to lie.”

“Can you untangle the lies from truth?” Zabrze asked Boaz. “Can you find us the true path?”

“No. These markers have been instructed very well. The Elemental magic used to alter them is very powerful. I cannot change it. Isphet?”

“I could not even tell the lie. It fooled me.” Her voice cracked. “My own people have been lying to me? Trying to send me to die in the Great Stony Desert?”

“They could not have known who we truly were,” Zabrze said gently. “They could not have known that you were on your way home after a decade of exile.”

She nodded, and controlled her emotions. “So, what are we to do? We could head south-east by sun and stars, but that is too inaccurate, and we could easily miss the hills and die in these beetle-infested plains. What can we do?”

“Well,” said Boaz, “the Soulenai told us I would explore, and so I shall. Isphet, I need to know something about your home. Tell me, does it contain a large body of water?”

“Yes, it does. But –”

“And are there any other large bodies of water between here and your home, or anywhere close to your home?”

“No. Not for many, many leagues.”

“So if I constructed an enchantment that searched out water, it would head straight for your home?”

“Yes. Yes, it would.”

“Well, then,” Boaz grinned, “easy! Tirzah, where have you stored the Goblet of the Frogs?”

It was in a pack on one of the mules, and I sent Kiamet to fetch it. When he returned I took the bundle from him, unwrapped the goblet, and handed it to Boaz.

“For this,” he said very quietly, “we must thank Tirzah, for without the magic of this goblet we would truly be lost and dead.”

The goblet sparkled in the dawn light, and Boaz wrapped his hands about it as he had the ball. He did not speak, but I felt the same strange sensation run down my back as I had the night he’d changed my father’s lock from stone back to hair. The goblet sang softly; all the Elementals in our small group relaxed and smiled at its sweet song.

Boaz covered the top of the goblet with his hand, and I felt the sensation strengthen.

Then he lifted his hand, and held the goblet up so all could see.

The most incredibly ugly creature I had ever seen popped its head over the rim of the goblet. It was so covered by warts and knobs it was almost shapeless. There were narrow slits of black eyes, and a mouth so wide it stretched across about half of its skull. Small pad-like feet appeared at the rim, and then the creature heaved itself out of the goblet and hopped away to the south-south-east.

It was a frog, but I had never seen a frog that ugly before. It was also very big, and once it was out I could not understand how it had fitted into the goblet.

About ten paces away it stopped, its great tongue slipping about its lips. It looked to the sky, shuddered, then burrowed beneath a rock.

“It doesn’t like the sun,” Boaz said, “and will only travel by night. I suggest that we rest while we can, for tonight will be a long…hop.”

And he grinned at his own joke, and sat down.

We rested that day, and in the evening, as we were eating a meal, the frog emerged from its burrow and hopped to Boaz’s side, where he fed it tidbits from his plate.

“Boaz –” began Isphet.

The frog fixed her with a beady eye and burped.

I covered my mouth with my hand and giggled, and then we were all laughing.

“If ever I regain Ashdod, and I rule in regal splendour as Chad,” Zabrze eventually managed, “I will slice the head from the first person who mentions that once I led my people across a great plain by following a frog.”

Boaz dribbled some water into the frog’s gaping mouth, and it slapped its huge tongue about happily.

Isphet tried her question again. “Boaz, how did you do that? I have never seen, or heard of, this ability before.”

“I don’t know, Isphet. It just felt right.”

She shook her head. “The Graces are going to want to take you apart and examine you, Boaz. Be prepared.”

“We have to get there yet. Fetizza will show us the way.”

We all laughed again. Fetizza was an Ashdod word meaning “lovely dancer”.

Boaz looked at his brother. “If ever you get to rule in regal splendour as Chad, Zabrze, you shall have Fetizza to thank. Perhaps you can have her dance at court.”

At that moment Fetizza decided enough was enough. She gave a great shudder, angled her head to look at the moon, then bounded off.

“After her!” cried Zabrze. “Follow that frog!”

And thus we did. Five thousand people, scores of camels and mules, all following a great, ugly frog bounding through the stony landscape. Fetizza was fast, and every so often would sit on a rock and wait for us to catch up. She would give a companionable burp as the first person reached her, then off she would bound again.

Occasionally she scurried after a beetle, but generally she kept to her purpose of leading us to the nearest water supply. She was not hard to follow at night, for the moonlight glistened off her slimy skin, and Fetizza constantly croaked in a monotonous undertone, as if telling herself stories to while away the journey.

We followed her that night, and then a second. By the third night there was still no sign of the hills, and food was running low, but spirits were high. The ground had started to rise, and on the fourth night we found ourselves walking up a constant incline.

“Soon,” Isphet said, six hours into the night. “Soon.” She peered ahead, but still could not see the hills.

But by dawn we could. As the sun rose (and as Fetizza yawned sleepily) we all saw the low, rolling horizon ahead of us.

Isphet hugged Boaz. “Thank you,” she said, then smiled excitedly at the rest of us. “A further night of travel, for the hills are still distant, and by dawn tomorrow…”

Zabrze gave her a tender smile, then ordered camp set up.

Fetizza led us through the night. Isphet argued that she could find her way on her own now, but Boaz only said mildly that it had been eleven years since she left, and who knew what other traps and misdirections her people had set up to confuse whatever enemies tried to find their way through.

“Fetizza will not be misguided,” he said, “and she will find the most direct route.”

Isphet subsided, but she was at the forefront of the column the entire night.

The landscape was, if anything, becoming more barren the further we walked. We’d seen the last of the stubby trees some two nights previously, and even the grasses were thinner and more sparse as the ground rose. The incline was not steep, but our way was made troublesome by increasing outcrops of head-high rock.

Isphet restrained herself from running ahead, but I thought that if we weren’t there by morning, then she might well lose all patience and shout at Fetizza.

It made me reflect about my own homeland. I really didn’t care now if I never saw Viland again. There were no fond memories associated with that thin, cold strip of northern land…and my father was dead. There was no point in going back. Did Isphet have parents? Brothers or sisters still living? What else could drag her so impatient into a landscape that made even Viland look enticing?

“What do you think we will find?” I asked Boaz as night lightened towards morning and we tackled yet another slope littered with rocky outcrops.

“I don’t know. I hope her people can teach me what I need to learn. The mystery that is the Song of the Frogs. What it is that infests Threshold. How to destroy it before it turns life itself to stone.”

“I dread the thought of going back,” I said quietly.

“Oh, Tirzah! No. It will be my –”

“No, Boaz,” I said. “I will not remain behind. Wondering. You will tie up my future, too, when you walk back into Threshold.”

Again I had that overwhelming sense of loss that I’d once felt standing at Threshold’s mouth. Oh gods, I prayed silently. Not Boaz. Not Boaz!

We heard a shout, then a scuffle ahead. Fetizza had bounded into a narrow canyon, Isphet close behind.

A man emerged from the rocks and seized Isphet. He wrenched her about, one arm tight around her body, the other holding a gleaming blade to her throat.

Fetizza was sitting just behind them, yawning at the interruption.

“Take one more step and she dies,” the man said. “You have no place here.”

Everyone froze, and Zabrze raised a careful hand. “My friend, we mean you no harm. We seek Isphet’s people – Isphet is the woman you hold so tight in your arms. Please, let her go.”

The man stared at Zabrze. He was young, perhaps four or five years older than me, with dark hair, but light eyes. Grey eyes. He was dressed in a short tunic and trousers bound close to his legs with thongs. He wore leather shoes rather than sandals. “Who are you?”

“I am Zabrze, Prince of Ashdod…Chad now, I suppose. I lead these people,” and he waved slowly behind him, “to safety from –”

He got no further. The man looked from Zabrze to the line of people that stretched down the hill and halfway up the one behind it.

“You have been sent to destroy us!” he shouted, and his hand tightened alarmingly about the knife. “By it! We knew of your approach, we knew –”

“We have come to learn how to destroy Nzame,” Boaz said quietly, and he moved slowly to Zabrze’s side. “Your people have the skills and the teachers that we need.”

“You know its name,” the man said. “How can I tell that you are not its servants?”

“We come from Threshold,” said Zabrze. “We were there when Nzame first spoke.”

“Then how did you escape? No-one could escape that evil. The echoes of its powers have disturbed us even here. And nothing but evil could have found these hills. Nothing –”

“Nothing but Fetizza,” Boaz said and clicked his fingers. Fetizza bounded back to him.

The man’s eyes followed the frog’s movement but he said nothing.

“There are many Elementals among us,” Boaz continued. “We need training. And the woman you hold is of your people. Do you not know her? Isphet?”

“Evil could have borrowed any name to cross the Lagamaal Plains,” the man said.

Boaz sighed. “Listen to me. Take Fetizza back to your people. Let them examine her. She –”

“No!” the man shouted. “It is a trick! Begone! You do not –”

“Shetzah!” Zabrze cried. “I could overpower you now and we’d simply continue following the frog. But no. I have stood here and reasoned patiently. Well, now I have had –”

“I will slit the woman’s throat!” the man hissed. “Attack if you wish, but it will be at the price of her life!”

“Enough,” said a mild voice, and an older man stepped into view. He was in his fifties, perhaps early sixties, and had the pleasant face and manner of a master craftsman. He was not as dark as most southerners, with brown hair and beard peppering to grey. His hands and face had a craggy aspect, and his eyes were hazel.

There was nothing in his clothes or even mannerisms to set him apart, yet the man was surrounded by an immense aura of serenity.

“Let her be, Naldi. I apologise that I did not warn you of their identities, but until last night we were not aware of exactly who it was crossed the Lagamaal towards us.”

Naldi let Isphet go so hurriedly he almost dropped the knife, and as Isphet moved away from him he took the other man’s hands and kissed them.

Isphet stumbled away from Naldi, her face white, her hands to her throat. She did not look at the older man who had arrived to save her. Zabrze grabbed her and wrapped his arms about her protectively. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, leaning close against him.

Zabrze raised his eyes to the older man before him. “Who are you?”

“My name is Solvadale,” he said, and reached out a hand to Zabrze.

Isphet gasped and turned in Zabrze’s arms. She inclined her head in a deep show of respect. “Grace! My name is Isphet. I came from the Fortieth Step –”

“I know you and I know to which Step you belong, and I will speak with you momentarily, Isphet,” Solvadale said. “Zabrze?”

Zabrze took the man’s hand and gripped it firmly. “We mean you no harm.”

“I know that,” Solvadale said. “But we could not get word to Naldi, nor to the other sentries, in time. I apologise again, to both you and Naldi, for this embarrassment.”

Naldi bowed his head, obviously honoured that one like Solvadale would offer him an apology. Now he relaxed I could see that he was a pleasant looking man, of normal dark aspect for this southern land. He held out his hand for Isphet, a sheepish smile on his face. “If I’d known…”

She accepted his apology and clasped his hand, but she did not move away from Zabrze.

As Naldi stood back the Grace took Isphet’s face in one hand. “You have been a long time gone, woman. Where is Banwell, your husband?”

“Dead, Grace. Ten years, now.”

“Ah, I am saddened. He was better than a good man.”

Isphet nodded.

“And you have changed, Isphet. You have shouldered a great deal of responsibility. And…you have been sent to illume.”

Isphet’s face was as shocked as I think mine was. “How did you know?”

“The Soulenai spoke to us last night,” Solvadale said. “They told us of many things.”

He walked past Isphet to Yaqob who had joined us. “Welcome, young man. What is your name? Ah, Yaqob. A good name. Yes, we can make something of you.”

And then to me. As with Isphet he took my face in his hand. “You have come from very far away, girl. What is your name?”

“Tirzah.”

Solvadale smiled. “A beautiful name. A beautiful woman. Blessed.”

Elder Solvadale certainly wasn’t wasting any breath on explanations. He turned directly to Boaz.

“We have been waiting many, many years for you to come to us. How are you called?”

“Boaz.”

“Ah, Boaz. A noble name your mother gave you.” Solvadale’s eyes narrowed as he took Boaz’s hand. “You are a very unusual man, Boaz. You have strong Elemental magic in you, very strong but very raw. And something else…please, tell me what it is.”

Solvadale knew exactly what it was, but he wanted Boaz to say the words.

“I was a Magus, Solvadale. But that is behind me now.”

Solvadale nodded slowly, his face unreadable. “Magus. But behind you? Oh, I hope not. I hope not. And what an unusual frog that sits at your feet, Boaz. But enough of that; the frog and her mysteries we can discuss later. Now we –”

“Now,” Zabrze said with more than a touch of exasperation, “can I crave your indulgence for my five thousand. We are tired and hungry and we need to talk, you and I.”

It wasn’t until Zabrze spoke that I realised I’d never wondered how Isphet’s people would cope with such an influx.

But Solvadale did not seem too concerned. No doubt he knew the exact numbers of people, camels and mules standing behind us.

“It will take some time to get all of you into the Abyss,” he said, motioning down the canyon. “Maybe all day, for it is a slow and sometimes dangerous trip. But you are right. We need to talk, Zabrze. As we walk, perhaps we can talk about Avaldamon. You were one of the last to see him alive, were you not?”