Threshold

34

SOLVADALE strode ahead, keeping such a brisk pace that most of us were puffing within five minutes. I looked over my shoulder to see people and pack animals scrabbling over and about rocks.

“Solvadale!” Zabrze called, and the Grace turned about.

“I am sorry. I did not realise,” he said. “I was hurrying because…Naldi?” he called.

“Yes, Grace?”

“I would like to take these four, and Zabrze, through to the Abyss. Will you stay and guide the rest? As I pass other sentries I’ll send you help.”

“Yes, Grace.”

“Wait,” Isphet said, and as Kiath reached us she lifted Zhabroah from her arms.

“A baby?” Solvadale asked. “Whose?” His eyes flitted about our small group.

“My son,” Zabrze said. “And that of my wife, Neuf. She died in his birth some three weeks ago.”

“Ah. I thought I did not feel…”

And Solvadale strode off again without explaining.

He did not go so fast this time, and we managed to follow him easily enough. The sun crested the ridge before us, and grew hot as it strengthened.

“Soon,” Solvadale said, as he saw our sweat. “Soon.”

I glanced at Isphet. Her colour was high, but I did not think it all due to the exercise. She’d put Zhabroah into a sling made from her blanket, and now he nestled asleep at her breast. I smiled to myself. I’d never thought to see Isphet so motherly.

Solvadale led us into a narrow gully. Here even he had to slow down, for the rocks lay tumbled about as if giants had played skittle ball and not thought to pick up their toys. Fetizza was the only one among us who managed with ease, eventually even bounding ahead of Solvadale.

“Soon,” I heard Isphet whisper, then she turned to me. “Oh, Tirzah, you are not going to believe what lies ahead!”

I certainly wouldn’t have any warning, I thought. Isphet had kept remarkably silent about her hill home, this mysterious Abyss. Maybe its existence was so wrapped in secret she was not allowed to talk of it. Maybe –

Whatever I’d been about to think next died as I stumbled to a halt directly behind Solvadale and Zabrze. My mouth slowly fell open. Isphet had not said anything because she did not want to spoil our first stunned sight of her home.

About us the barren hills rolled desolately away, north, south and east.

But not east before…not before they had been cleft asunder.

Solvadale had brought us to the lip of a great…abyss.

It was clean cut, so clean cut I swear the rock lip along its entire length had the edge of a blade. The Abyss was some fifty paces wide, and stretched further north–south than I could see; at least a league.

But it was its depth – and what had been done with that depth – that so awed and inspired. It plunged for what Isphet would later tell me was twelve hundred and four paces. From the lip, the bottom was hidden in dimness and mist.

I felt Boaz slip his arm about my waist; as much to support himself as me, I think. “By all the wonders in the universe,” he said. “Look what they have done to the walls!”

The rock exposed by the cleft was a soft rose pink. It did not fall sheer, but had been carved over what must have been centuries into a myriad of balconies and levels that jutted further and further into the chasm the deeper it fell. Steps, I realised, remembering that Isphet had told the Grace she’d come from the Fortieth Step. These Steps began perhaps a hundred paces below us, then plunged down into the mist. Behind them must be homes and schools and halls, carved deep into the rock.

At intervals, arched bridges of pink rock masonry connected the walls of the Abyss, and on several I could see people moving.

“Oh!” I said. “It’s astounding!”

“The mist clears,” Solvadale said, “when the sun rises to its noon height. Soon, now,” he added, checking the sky.

Fetizza sat at the very lip, gripping tightly with her toes, her bright eyes staring down into the Abyss. Suddenly she gave a great croak…

…and jumped into the open air.

She fell like a stone.

“Fetizza!” Boaz cried, and I wrapped my arms about him; for one dreadful moment I thought he was going to leap after her.

“Be still!” Solvadale commanded. “She will come to no harm. What was she commanded to seek, Boaz?”

“Water.”

“Oh.” He winked at Isphet. “Then she has found it for you. Now, follow me.”

He led us back from the brink several paces to an outcrop of rock.

“How is it that I knew nothing of this, Solvadale?” Zabrze asked. “I am well learned, and I have studied maps of this area. Nothing I have seen or heard indicates the existence of this Abyss or your people.”

“We hide ourselves and our secrets with great care,” the Grace replied. “These hills are hidden well from casual eyes…and, casual, most eyes turn aside. Come on now, don’t stand about.”

Beneath the outcrop lay a dark cleft in the rock, head high and just wide enough for a person.

“How will we fit everyone down here?” I asked as I stepped through and found the Grace waiting at the top of a circular stairwell.

“There are other entrances, wider and more accommodating than this. But this stairwell is the most spectacular. For our small group it will do well.”

The bends were tight, and the steps narrow and steep, and I hung tight to the banister about the outer wall.

“Tirzah,” Boaz said behind me, “let me go ahead, then you’ll feel safer.”

I smiled gratefully at him as he squeezed past, and I did feel safer having his body before me. I placed my other hand on his shoulder and risked a glance behind.

Isphet followed me, but her grace and confidence told me she’d probably climbed these stairs ever since she was a toddler. Behind her came Zabrze, and I think his face was as pale as mine.

We climbed for half an hour, then we came to a small landing which opened onto a balcony, and Solvadale led us out.

I gasped with delight. We were some ten or fifteen levels below the topmost Step, and I walked to the railing and looked up. The sun shone almost directly overhead.

When I dropped my eyes, I held my breath in sheer wonder. The mist had cleared, and I could see that a great river wound through the Abyss. A narrow strip of rock bounded it on either side, but the bottom was almost completely covered with the dark emerald water.

“No-one has ever plumbed its depths,” Isphet said quietly at my side. “The Abyss continues down,” she shot a glance at Boaz, “perhaps even into Infinity.”

“It is a site of great power,” Solvadale said. “Far greater than you realise, Isphet.”

And with that he led us back to the stairs and continued the climb down.

He stopped every half an hour or so, always at a balcony, so we could catch our breath and rest weary legs. Corridors opened off all the landings. Eventually, I guessed, we would be led to quarters in one of the Steps.

The next, as it turned out.

As we stopped at the landing, I automatically moved towards the balcony.

“No,” Solvadale said sharply. “Wait. This is where I leave you. Isphet, in the morning you may show your friends about the Abyss. After your noon meal, I would have you bring Yaqob, Tirzah and Boaz to speak with me and several other Graces in the Water Hall. Do you remember it? Can you find your way there?”

“Yes, Grace.”

“Good.” He smiled. “Then greet your father, Isphet.”

She gave a small cry and whirled in the direction of Solvadale’s eyes.

A man emerged from one of the corridors. Gaunt and grey-haired, he had Isphet’s commanding eyes and presence.

“Father!” Isphet flung herself into the man’s arms, and they embraced fiercely.

Thinking to give them a moment of privacy, I looked back to where Solvadale had been standing, but he was gone. I frowned. He would have had to step past me to reach any of the doors, or even the stairwell.

“A baby, Isphet?” I heard her father ask, and I turned around.

“Ah,” Zabrze said, stepping forward. “I should explain.”

And so he did.

Isphet introduced her father, Eldonor, to the rest of us, and he clasped our hands with genuine pleasure, even though I could see he was eager to talk with Isphet.

“Solvadale asked me to show you to your chambers,” he said. “Follow me.”

Eldonor led us down several corridors, spacious and well lit, not only from windows carved into the outer wall of rock, but also from shafts like those in Threshold. I shivered, and turned my mind from the pyramid.

The rock was the same uniform pink throughout – perhaps slightly deeper in colour internally than on the outer walls of the Abyss – and glowed warmly in the light.

Eldonor stopped at the entrance to a chamber, and showed Yaqob inside. Two doors down he stopped at another door, and indicated to Boaz and me.

Eldonor was perceptive, for no-one had said anything about our relationship. Or perhaps the Graces had perceived from a distance, and had informed him of the required living arrangements.

“Refresh yourselves,” Eldonor said, waving about the spacious chamber. “At the end of this corridor is a small eating hall. Please join me as my guest once the sun goes down.”

Then he was gone.

The chamber was simply but well furnished, and opening off it was a small room where we could wash. It contained a large sunken bath, and I sighed blissfully when I saw it. In the main chamber were laid out fresh linens and robes, and flowers – pink and gold waterlilies – floated in a bowl on a low table.

Boaz and I shared the bath, scrubbing at each other’s hair, and laughing as the soap ran down into our eyes. It was good to wash three weeks of accumulated filth from our bodies.

“I cannot remember the last time I had you to myself,” he said, kissing the lather from my shoulder.

“But you mustn’t get used to it, Boaz,” I replied. “I was thinking of offering to look after Zhabroah for Zabrze and Isphet. They cannot truly want to have a crying babe to disturb their rest night and day.”

He slipped his hands about my waist. “You are a tease, Tirzah…aren’t you?”

“Absolutely not, Boaz!” I cried in mock indignation and then laughed as his hands tightened. “Well…”

“How much time do we have before dark, Tirzah?” he whispered into my wet hair.

“Enough, Boaz. Enough.”

We enjoyed a pleasant meal with Yaqob, Zabrze, Isphet and Eldonor. He was a good host, never too inquisitive, drawing information from us with the most exquisite tact, and giving as much back himself as thanks. Isphet sat close to him, her face radiant with joy at finding her father still living.

Finally, as we sat sipping goblets of sweet black wine and nibbling tart cheese, Eldonor asked his daughter to describe her life as a slave at Threshold.

He was horrified at what he heard, and he wept a little. Zabrze had not realised how bad it had been, either, and he bowed his head as Isphet, and then Yaqob, talked.

Boaz, for his part, kept his face averted.

Neither held anything back. They talked of their humiliations – Isphet’s years spent at the beck and call of Magi who wished to use her, Yaqob’s frequent beatings in his youth when he was too outspoken – but they also spoke of their joys – the friendship and support they’d found among their fellow slaves, the delight at the creation of the glass, even though it was for a darker purpose.

“I thought you dead,” Eldonor said finally, clearing his throat. “None of us heard anything from you. Years went by. And we thought that if Isphet and Banwell were still alive, then they would send word.” He took a deep breath. “Last night Grace Solvadale came to my rooms and said, ‘Isphet comes,’ and I went down on my knees and wept.

“But Banwell did die. I am sorry, Isphet. You loved him well.”

She nodded, dropping her eyes and not saying anything.

“Yet he was a rash man. He was the one to decide it would be an adventure to seek a life beyond the Abyss.”

“And I agreed, father,” Isphet said. “Do not think to blame Banwell in this.”

Eldonor held his silence as a servant refilled our goblets, then departed. How far I had come, I thought, from the belly of that filthy whaler.

“But you have found another love, I see,” Eldonor said. “And one more highly ranked than your last. One who will be – perhaps is – Chad.”

He shifted his eyes to Zabrze. “You will be a mighty man, Zabrze, ruler of one of the richest realms in the known world. Yet here you bed my daughter, a run-away slave. What do you intend to make of her? Will you enslave her once more? Or shall you make her a mistress? Or a concubine to set beside your next high-ranking wife? Or shall you just cast her off when you regain your realm from the horror that grips it?”

“I shall make her my wife,” Zabrze said quietly, holding Eldonor’s stare. “No more, no less.”

“No,” Isphet stumbled. “You can’t. I…”

“Isphet,” Zabrze said, and took her hand. “We both know what there is between us. Will you deny that?”

She was silent, staring at him with her great eyes.

“And,” Zabrze’s mouth lifted in a slight smile, “you are more the Chad’zina than all the empresses, begums, regnalias and matriarchs that it has been my misfortune to entertain over the years. I would marry for love this time, and you will ever be my only chance for that. Come, what do you say?”

Eldonor had relaxed into a slight smile, although Yaqob had a huge grin over his face. Boaz and I, like Isphet, could but stare.

She smiled eventually, but she had to make a noticeable effort at it. I think, had Zabrze not pressed, she would have sat there for hours, battling her shock.

“I say yes, Zabrze. Yes.”

His entire body relaxed. “You shall have to redecorate the court with your Elemental ideas, Isphet my love. It shall be…interesting.”

At that instant I had my first understanding of why the Soulenai had told Isphet she would have the opportunity to illume. As a Necromancer and as a Chad’zina, it would be her task to relight a nation with the mysteries of the Soulenai.

When, very much later, Boaz and I returned to our chamber, it was to find that the bed had been remade.

Boaz grinned wryly. “And what will they think of us, Tirzah, that we should tangle the sheets so early after our arrival?”

“They will think we are very much in love, Boaz,” I said as I sat down.

“Tirzah.” He sank down on the bed beside me. “Zabrze shamed me earlier with such a public protestation of his love for Isphet. He has never treated her with anything but honour, and yet I…”

“Boaz –”

“No, let me finish. I have treated you so badly, not once, but often, that I do not know what to do to compensate, or to prove to you how much I truly do love you.”

I put my fingers over his lips. “I do not need proof, Boaz.”

“Yet I must offer it. Tirzah, I swear that somewhere, somehow, I will prove to you the depth of my love, and how much I crave your forgiveness.”

“No! Boaz, that is too heavy a vow.” Loss, all I could think of was loss. “I understood you long before you understood yourself. There is no need for forgiveness –”

Now it was he who stopped my lips. “Yes, there is, Tirzah. Yaqob’s attempt to murder me showed me how deep is the need for forgiveness. Not only yours, but that of all those I’ve mistreated over so many years as Magus.”

I was almost crying now. “No, Boaz. You go too far…too far.”

“But for now,” he cupped my face in his hands, “I can only beg you, as Zabrze begged Isphet, to be my wife.”

“Yes, yes. That is enough, Boaz. It is all I want.”

But his eyes were sad as he bent to kiss me, and our lovemaking that night was more tears than laughter.

I lay still in the morning, feeling slightly ill. Had it been the wine? The bitter sadness of the night?

Then an almost forgotten cramp twisted deep in my belly, and my eyes flew open. I had not had a monthly flux since Boaz had loosed his power through me after the first night we’d bedded. Months…many months ago.

Tentatively I probed at my belly with my fingers. My womb, for so long such a hard unresponsive canker, was now soft and pliable.

The cramp struck again, worse than before. Sighing, I wriggled out of Boaz’s still-sleeping embrace to attend to myself.