Threshold

37

WE doubled our efforts. Several days a week the Graces added mornings to our daily training sessions.

“Learn,” they admonished. “Control.”

It took another few weeks, but finally we grasped the skills needed not only to feel the life force within the elements, but to control it and direct it.

“Ruffle the waters using the glass sphere, Tirzah,” Xhosm said, and I did.

“Create a square of red linen using the force within this metal ball,” Caerfom told Yaqob, and he did.

Solvadale handed Boaz a slim gold chain. “Take the force within this chain and transform it to the sound of bells.”

And the Water Hall pealed with a clarion of bells.

“Isphet,” Gardar commanded, “use what this silver goblet gives you and weave a basket for me.”

And so she did.

Of us all, Boaz was the most powerful, and accomplished his tasks with the most ease, but each of us improved daily.

Whatever object we used, whether metal, gem or glass (and occasionally pottery, but the soul of pottery was dim and gave us little to work with), it was not altered by our use of its life energy.

“We do not completely understand how,” Solvadale said one afternoon. “Somehow the elements draw more energy into themselves from a primal force that we have yet to detect. They just replace what they have lost through your use.”

“We can use anything elemental?” Yaqob asked, slowly tossing the metal ball from hand to hand.

“Yes. But some things can be used for more. Again,” Solvadale turned to me, “I refer to the Goblet of the Frogs. Tirzah has a special talent to create objects of such magic within themselves that they, in turn, can be used for magic beyond, say, that ordinary ball. Even Boaz could not have conjured Fetizza out of that metal ball. A life form, let alone a magical life form is…difficult.”

We were silent, thinking of Fetizza. Each morning and evening more amber frogs slipped from her mouth. Now hundreds of her children swam and bounded up and down the entire Abyss, and their chorus echoed between the walls at dawn and dusk.

“What of stone?” Isphet asked. “Stone contains elements within it. Yet why can we not hear stone whisper?”

Gardar pulled out a small rock from under his bench. The Graces might not be wielders of magic, but I had yet to discover how they managed some of their sly manipulations.

“Feel it,” Gardar said, handing it to Isphet. “Then pass it along.”

Isphet held the rock, concentrating, then sighed and passed it to me. I rolled it between my hands, seeking, but knowing I would find nothing. I passed it to Boaz.

“Stone is dead,” Solvadale said. “Even though it contains many elements, minerals and sometimes even gems, there is something in the process whereby stone is formed that deadens whatever life it contains. You will never be able to use stone.”

“Yet Nzame uses stone,” Boaz said. “He turns land and life to stone…and his stone walks.”

“We do not know why.” Solvadale sighed. “Boaz, you have turned what Nzame created from stone back to hair. How? What did you do?”

“I am not sure. I only knew then that Tirzah needed her father’s hair to farewell him, not a stone abomination. I just held it.”

“If we knew, Boaz,” Yaqob said, but with no trace of recrimination in his voice, “then we might know how to combat Nzame’s stone-men. How to turn stone to soil and life again.”

Boaz lifted his head, nodded slightly at Yaqob, then looked at Solvadale. “You said that eventually you would tell us more of Nzame. More of the Vale. Will you do so now?”

Solvadale hesitated momentarily, sharing a glance with his fellow Graces. “Yes. Yes, we will. We can teach you no more. It will be your task to further develop what you have…and use it against Nzame.”

And the Song of the Frogs? I could almost hear Boaz thinking. Will you tell me where I can learn to understand that? How I can use it against Nzame?

“It is time for you to see, and to use, the Chamber of Dreaming,” Solvadale said.

They took us to the rear of the Water Hall, to a door that none of us had noticed previously. Behind it stretched a long corridor, carved deep into the rock of the Abyss.

We reached a series of steps, which the Graces led us down, then along another corridor, longer even than the first, then down yet more steps.

“We are very deep within the rock,” Caerfom said quietly. “Once down these next steps we will enter a chamber that Graces regard as a place of mystery, but that Necromancers regard as a place of power.”

The four of us shared glances that were at once apprehensive and excited. Solvadale beckoned, and we followed the Graces down a further series of curved, pink rock steps.

Then we entered the most incredible chamber.

It was a roughly circular natural cavern, carved out by the passage of water over millions of years. Water tumbled from a fissure high in one wall to a pool in the centre of the chamber, then flowed into a darkened tunnel in the opposite wall.

“This is where the river emerges from the rock,” Caerfom said, then pointed to the tunnel. “And there it flows to emerge into the Abyss.”

But while the water was wondrous, it was not the most remarkable thing about the chamber.

The walls were encrusted with every gem possible to imagine, and flowing down their surface were rivulets of metals, some pure, some oxidised. Their iridescence lit the chamber with a soft glow.

The energy, the power, within this cavern was astounding.

“We come here to contemplate,” Solvadale said. “But you can do more. My friends, I have brought you here for two reasons. First, so that you may experience the wonder and power of the Chamber of Dreaming, but second so that you may use the power within the chamber to understand more of the Vale and of Nzame. It is easier to show you than to explain…but a warning.”

I dragged my eyes away from the incredible walls to Solvadale. His face was composed, but his eyes were worried.

“What we are about to do here will call tremendous power into use…be careful of it. You are yet inexperienced; do not overstep the bounds of your learning.” He took a deep breath. “Use of this power will also almost certainly attract Nzame’s attention. Be wary of him.

“Now, Isphet, I want you to lead this rite as you have led so many.”

“You want me to use the water.”

“Yes. But instead of using metal powders to cast into the water, you will use the power of the elements surrounding you.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good.” Solvadale paused and looked about at us carefully. “The four of you must combine the power you have and that you draw from the walls. In this rite you must act as one. Lean on each other, draw strength from each other. Can you do that?”

Eventually we all nodded.

“Yes,” Boaz said, “we can do it.”

“Isphet,” Solvadale said, and took her hand. “Normally in any Elemental rite you would contact the Soulenai. Touch the borders of the Place Beyond. Today I do not want you to do that.”

“Then what…?”

“Today, as the waters swirl and you meld power with your three companions, I want you to touch the Vale.”

She physically recoiled from him. “But the Vale is dark…evil.”

“Touch, I said, not enter. I want you to do this – and it must be brief – because it is going to be one of the only ways you will understand Nzame. I could spend a day telling you what I know of the Vale and of Nzame, but it would be a poor thing compared to the knowledge and understanding you will gain with a momentary touching of the Vale itself.”

“It is dangerous,” Boaz said.

“Yes, it is dangerous.” Solvadale’s eyes were very direct. “But you will all face danger at some point, and I do not want to shield you here. Draw power from the elements about you in this cavern, but more importantly, draw power from your companions. Isphet, are you ready?”

She took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“And you Boaz? Tirzah? Yaqob?”

We looked at each other, sharing small smiles of support. “Yes, we are ready.”

“Then begin, Isphet.”

She was very calm, very sure. She shook her hair out, as I did mine, and locked eyes with each of us in turn. As she did, we touched power with the elemental energy about us – and, oh! it was so powerful! – and then touched each other, sharing power, supporting.

Isphet turned to the great pool, then cast out her arm.

The water trembled, then swirled, gathering speed until it roared about the pool like a great, angry animal.

Colours flared, blue, red, gold, green, and intermixed, caught by the raging waters until they were just one swirl of light.

I could feel the others, inside and about me, and we took comfort and strength from each other, and shared the strength among our fellows. Somehow, somewhere, I was aware of the Graces watching us, but they were inconsequential now.

There were only the four of us, now as one, and the swirling waters.

Isphet continued to direct, but I could feel Boaz’s power underpinning all of us, and I think Isphet responded to some wish of Boaz’s, for she did not take us immediately to the Vale.

Instead we saw Ashdod.

The land.

We saw as if from high in the sky, as if we were birds circling on a thermal, seeking a safe place to roost.

But there was no place to rest.

We wept, for Ashdod had been largely turned to rock.

Stone radiated out from Threshold like a cancerous web. It stretched almost to the borders of Ashdod, and in places fingers of stone probed into neighbouring realms. The stone had spread over land, city and palm alike, only the great serpentine of the Lhyl remaining free.

But the reed banks were stone, and the frogs silent.

Bands of stone-men shuffled to and fro, crumbling, moaning. Sometimes they shuffled with no apparent purpose, sometimes they marched bands of screaming, terrified people towards Threshold.

Nzame screamed – Feed me!

And we recoiled.

Lake Juit, I thought, and somehow that thought communicated itself to my three companions. The next instant we saw the lake, lapping gently, mournfully, at great stands of stone reed banks and marshes. Stone Juit birds lay dead on the banks and, in places, at the foot of the shallow lake.

I cried, and I felt the others cry with me.

The house, the beautiful, beautiful house where once I’d dreamed of a peaceful life with Boaz, lay sagging under a mantle of stone.

As our vision sharpened I saw a stone-man stumbling, shuffling, moaning along the stone path to the stone landing, waving his arms to and fro, his mouth hanging open in despair.

Memmon, as trapped by Nzame as every other life form in Ashdod, doomed to shuffle between river and house, house and river, looking for visitors come to disturb his peace, looking for someone come to release him from his death.

Enough! Boaz cried, and we all agreed. Enough.

The Vale, Isphet said, and so we directed our power and our vision.

The waters before us swirled black, eating all colour and light within the chamber.

Vision faded.

Cold seeped into my being, threatening to freeze the marrow in my bones. We travelled through a great…

Nothingness, Boaz said, and we agreed. This was a nothingness between worlds.

Be strong, Isphet called to each of us, for if we falter here…

We doubled our efforts, clinging to the power of the elements about us and to each other’s power, sharing, reassuring.

Then the blackness changed. It was still cold, but there was a something here, rather than a nothing.

We are at the edge of the Vale, Boaz said. Let us explore its edges first. Gain some understanding, before we enter.

We thought that a good idea, and I wondered if we need enter at all.

We must, Tirzah. Isphet. We must see.

But first the edges. This was a tightly bound space, and I remembered what Isphet had said about the Vale when we’d queried her while still in Gesholme. It was a place of darkness and despair, and here, so close, I could understand that well. She’d said that it was a place deliberately sequestered from our world, as from all worlds.

Not any more. Not now that Threshold had touched it.

Very gently, very, very carefully, we entered. It was a probe, a brief touch, nothing more, yet we reeled back in horror, retreating to the nothingness.

What we saw in the Vale was indescribable. It was all the bleakness and darkness that any could imagine, and then more. It was all the despair and misery that could be generated by living beings, and then magnified a million times.

But worst of all was that whatever was inside the Vale thought.

It lived, and it planned.

And now it had a fingerhold in Threshold. Nzame was terrible, but he was only a fraction of what the Vale contained, and what threatened to seep into our world.

And then into the Place Beyond.

It was the Soulenai, with us now, comforting, pleading.

Destroy it. Tear it apart. Boaz, help us, help us, help us, for the stone now laps at our borderlands. Listen to the frogs, learn what they have to tell you, listen, listen, listen…

HOW? Boaz screamed. Tell me HOW!

Before they could answer, there was another voice.

I see you.

The Soulenai fled, and we four milled in confusion, still somewhere within that nothingness, somewhere close to, but not quite within, the Vale.

I see you.

The waters screamed, and churned about the chamber.

I see you.

Turn your backs to him. That was Boaz, steady, calm now, bolstering Isphet’s control. Turn your backs. He sees, but he cannot –

Wrong, stupid man. Wrong. I can touch, too. Feel?

Dread trailed through our souls. Icy, malevolent, toying with us.

To me, concentrate on me. Do not listen to him. He cannot harm us.

Wrong! I can –

Something seized my mind. Boaz. Grabbing, dragging, saving. He literally dragged us back from the nothingness, back from Nzame’s touch, back into the chamber.

And yet…I could feel something racing after us…racing…

“Break it, Isphet!” Boaz screamed aloud as we blinked and reeled, our senses confused, our vision blurring, our hearts pounding.

I can tou –

“Break it!”

Isphet brought her hand down in a quick chopping motion, and the waters stilled.

All of us, even the Graces who had been watching in increasing horror, sank down to the crusty floor of the chamber.

“Thank you, Boaz,” Yaqob said. “Thank you for bringing us back.”

I put my hands to my face. I could not imagine the power – or the presence of mind – that Boaz had just demonstrated. If he hadn’t acted when he did, Nzame would surely have followed us into this chamber, stepped into this chamber with us.

“That is the Vale,” Solvadale eventually said, his colour returning to normal. “And that is Nzame. He is one of the many entities that exists within the Vale. The one who seized the opportunity that Threshold was offering. Others, as you have seen, may yet follow once Nzame clears the path for them.”

“Did you know,” Boaz asked, raising his head, “that Nzame was going to see us…touch us?”

“We suspected it,” Xhosm replied. “And we dreaded it, but this was a test for you. If you could survive this encounter, then you would have the potential to survive the ultimate battle with Nzame.”

“Do you mean,” I asked, “that you risked not only us, but everyone in this chamber and ultimately within the Abyss?”

“If you had failed,” Solvadale said quietly, “and we had been killed, then it would only have been a death that was coming for us anyway. But,” he shrugged, “you have done well. As well as we had hoped. Now, is everyone going to continue to sit on this floor?”

We returned to the Water Hall.

“Boaz,” Caerfom asked, “what were the Magi thinking of to so tap into the Vale?”

Boaz sighed and rubbed his face. “Threshold is a bridge of sorts. At one end it was supposed to touch Infinity, but the Magi believed it needed added power to do that. So the other end of the bridge was designed to touch the Vale. We did not know what the Vale truly was. We thought it a well of power, the power of Creation.”

“It is what was set aside during Creation,” Solvadale said. “It is what those supreme beings who directed Creation saw was miserable and bleak and so dammed up into the place that is the Vale. Now, the Magi have opened a door into it.”

“We just thought it a well,” Boaz repeated quietly. “A repository. Unfeeling, insensitive power. We did not realise that it thought. Or that it hungered for escape.”