Threshold

40

I SPHET’S arms loosened and I tore myself free – then hesitated, wanting to rush to both men at once.

“To Yaqob, you fool!” Isphet hissed. “Boaz still stands and can look after himself.”

My hesitation gone, I scrambled across the gorge, Isphet at my side. Soldiers and stone-men still wove about between the rocks, and we had to twist away as one stone-man shuffled towards us.

For an instant I had a close look at his face, and such was the despair I saw there I cried out and would have halted had not Isphet pulled me away.

“This way, fool girl!” she cried, and dragged me between two groups of struggling stone-men and soldiers.

I stubbed my toe badly on a rock and grunted with the pain, but Isphet’s grip merely tightened more, and she hauled me hobbling to where the stone-man lay atop Yaqob.

At first I thought he was completely crushed. There was nothing save the red stain pooling beside the stone-man – still moaning and waving his arms impotently in the air.

Isphet ducked around to the other side of the stone-man. “Tirzah! Quick!”

I dropped beside her, the grasping stone fingers narrowly missing my hair.

Yaqob, ashen but still conscious, lay crushed from the thighs down by the stone weight atop him.

“Get out of here,” he grated. “There’s no point in you –”

“Shut up,” Isphet said, and rested her hand on his chest. “His heart races, but still beats strong,” she said to me. “The stone-man’s weight has stopped fatal bleeding.”

“What are we going to do?” I whispered, taking Yaqob’s hand between my own.

“Wait. Wait until some of those soldiers are free to help us.”

Isphet lifted Yaqob’s head so that it rested in her lap, and she stroked his hair and murmured to him, trying to soothe away his pain with her voice.

“If only…” I muttered, and then I saw a soldier lying dead a few paces away.

“Tirzah!” Isphet cried as I leapt to my feet, and Yaqob’s eyes fluttered open in alarm, but I did not go far. I snatched the soldier’s sword and sank back down by Yaqob’s side again.

“Isphet, come on, we can use this to do something for Yaqob.”

“What?”

I thought frantically. None of us had ever used our powers to heal, yet Boaz had managed to use his power to create life. But Boaz was stronger than any of us, and he’d had the Goblet of the Frogs to help him.

I rubbed my hand up and down the flat of the blade, feeling its agitated whispering. It mourned the soldier it had belonged to, for they had been companions many a long year, and the sword wished it had been able to avenge his death.

“Never mind,” I whispered back. “You may help, in another way, this man who lies before us now.”

As I spoke I looked for Boaz again. He was squatting some paces away from Kofte – they almost appeared to be talking – but Zabrze had sent several soldiers to guard him, and so I turned back to Yaqob.

He was resting quietly, letting Isphet’s hands soothe him. She was staring at me. What?

I watched Yaqob’s face. His eyes were closed, but the tightness of the muscles underneath his skin betrayed some of the pain he must be feeling. I remembered the pain that Boaz had caused me, the agony he had sent coursing through my body. I would have given anything then for someone to have taken my hand and absorbed that pain.

“Sword,” I whispered so that only it could hear. “Sword, you are a creation that thrives on pain. Will you accept this man’s pain so that he may concentrate the greater on living?”

The sword’s life force was strong, so strong I could see its glow about the blade. It would be easy to manipulate. I knew pain so intimately myself that I was sure I could create the enchantment that would allow the sword to absorb Yaqob’s agony.

The sword agreed to my request almost instantly. Elements did not feel pain in the same manner that breathing creatures did, and this added energy would not harm it in any way.

“Yaqob,” I said softly, “place your hand here, about the blade. Good.”

I closed my eyes, and concentrated, reaching for the life force within the blade and using it to create an enchantment that bridged between it and Yaqob.

Yaqob drew in a stunned breath. “Tirzah…Tirzah!”

There was no pain in his voice, and I opened my eyes in relief.

His own had filled with tears, and his free hand grabbed at mine. “Tirzah. Thank you…thank you.”

I smiled, and leaned down and kissed him. “We still have to get you out.”

“Easy enough,” Kiamet said behind me, and I turned. He had several men with him, and they cast ropes about the stone-man’s arms. “Get ready to pull, my friends.”

I sent a hasty message to the blade, using its now vastly increased life energy to also cauterise Yaqob’s severed arteries and veins.

“Hold tight to that blade,” I said to Yaqob, and I held hard to his other hand.

Kiamet and the men hauled, effort stringing the veins in their necks and forearms.

The stone-man wailed, and I wondered if somewhere within his new form he felt pain of his own, then he was rolling off, and Isphet and I pulled Yaqob away.

His legs were almost completely crushed. Bone splintered through muscle that was itself torn and shredded.

“Gods!” Kiamet cried, then he waved his men forward, and without further ado they rolled Yaqob into a blanket.

Isphet and I rose, intending to go with him, but Solvadale and Caerfom appeared behind Kiamet.

“We’ll take him,” Solvadale murmured. “You have done well, Tirzah. Very well, but we will take him from here.”

I nodded, numbed by the horror of Yaqob’s injuries, then I leaned down and kissed him again. “Keep that sword by your side, Yaqob. It likes you, and will do its best for you.”

He tried a grin, and I was grateful he could not see the full extent of his injuries. “I thank you, Tirzah. Pain for pain, eh?”

“You have done nothing to deserve this, Yaqob!” I said. “Now go, and pay heed to Solvadale and Caerfom.”

He kissed my hand, then let it drop as the soldiers bore him away, Solvadale and Caerfom in close attendance.

“That was impressive,” Isphet said, “but now –”

“Now, Boaz.”

Kiamet pointed with his sword, and I relaxed as I saw Boaz. He and Kofte had shifted, moving to the shade beneath a rocky overhang. Kofte was almost impossible to see in the dimness, but Boaz was clearer. He was standing now, only two paces from Kofte, and again I had the distinct impression they were talking, although their lips did not move.

I glanced about. All but two of the stone-men were now writhing helplessly on the ground, and the two left standing were hopelessly outnumbered by the soldiers closing in on them.

There was a sudden movement, and Zabrze jumped down from a ledge to stand beside us. His eyes took in the blood on the ground, and that smeared over Isphet and myself.

“Yaqob,” Isphet hurried to explain. “Tirzah and I are fine.”

Zabrze let out his breath. “Good.” There was a loud thud, followed a heartbeat later by another. “Then we have only that blackness to deal with,” he said.

We approached warily, none of us sure what it was that Boaz was doing.

“Boaz?” I asked quietly, stopping two paces behind him, Zabrze and Isphet at my side. Behind us were ranged a dozen soldiers. Kofte was trapped, but he looked dangerous.

“He is reporting back to his master,” Boaz replied.

“Nzame sees us?” Zabrze asked sharply.

“Yes. Through Kofte…or what was once Kofte. Zabrze, signal your soldiers to keep him ringed underneath this overhang. I want to speak with you well away from him.”

We moved some distance away, and stood with our backs to Kofte.

“Yaqob?” Boaz asked first.

“He will live,” Isphet said. “But he is badly injured. Boaz, what has been done to Kofte?”

“He has given himself so completely to the One – or what he thinks is the One – that he has literally been recreated in the image of the One. Or Nzame.”

“Boaz,” I asked. “What is the exact relationship between Nzame and the One? I know you said that Nzame had appropriated the concept of the One to himself, but was not actually the One.”

“I was not entirely sure myself until today,” Boaz said. “But I think that through Threshold Nzame has absorbed the power of the One to complement the vast power he has brought across from the Vale. Kofte, as I imagine many Magi would have done, has given himself – literally body and soul – to Nzame, and Nzame has refashioned Kofte in his own image.”

“Nzame looks like that?” Zabrze said.

“Not quite,” Boaz said. “I think that black stony glassiness is as close a physical representation Nzame can get to what the Vale contains. That…thing…over there is not really Kofte at all, but an extension of Nzame.”

“Yet you were talking to it,” I said.

“No,” Boaz said, too quickly and too sharply. “No, I was merely studying it.”

“Can you destroy it, brother?” Zabrze asked.

“I think so, Zabrze, it is strong, but I do not think it is too dangerous. It is more an instrument than a weapon. Can several of your men wrestle it to the ground? I need to be able to touch it.”

Zabrze signalled to some men close by, then turned back to us. “Yes. Now?”

“Now. I do not want to linger about this.”

“Be careful, Boaz,” I said.

“I have too much to live for, Tirzah. Of course I will be careful. Now, stay back. There is nothing any of you can do.”

Five of Zabrze’s men, Kiamet among them, surrounded Kofte. He wailed, then shrieked and moaned, waving his arms about, clenching and unclenching his fists.

A men feinted towards him, and Kofte swung that way. The instant he was off guard, several other men lunged and bore him to the ground.

“Quick!” Kiamet shouted as more men hurried to hold Kofte down. “He is stronger than he looks!”

Boaz stood above Kofte’s head, then he abruptly leaned down and placed his hand over the black face.

I shivered, remembering when he’d done that to me.

Power rippled across Boaz’s face – the power of the One – and it took all my courage to keep my eyes on him. It was too easy to forget that Boaz could still use the power of the One as well as his Elemental arts.

Kofte screamed, and my eyes dropped. The creature jerked violently under the hands of those who restrained him, then again, and again once more.

And then his form blurred.

Boaz shouted to the soldiers, and everyone scrambled from the creature.

Kofte was literally melting away. His face ran and smeared. His hand, as he lifted it, dripped and then fell completely off, running into a small puddle by his side.

Within minutes his entire body had dissolved into a thick liquid, and Boaz ordered that it be dispersed among the rocks. “It will evaporate eventually,” he said. “But better scattered about where it cannot reconstitute itself.”

“What did you do, Boaz?” I asked.

“Nzame had used large amounts of the power of the One to maintain a link with Kofte. I broke that link, and once that was gone, so was the force that animated what was left of Kofte.”

He looked about. Stone forms littered the gorge. “Now, to see what we can do about these animated rocks. I had thought that once the link with Nzame was gone these stone-men might dissolve too, but Nzame has used some other sorcery in their crafting.”

Boaz chose a stone-man who was so jammed in a rocky cleft that he could hardly move his arms. He squatted down, and placed a hand directly on the stone-man’s chest. He frowned, concentrated, then pulled his hand away, shocked.

“Boaz?” I was beside him almost immediately. “Boaz?”

He took a deep breath, collecting himself, then held my hand. “Isphet, come to the other side. Please. There is no harm.”

As Isphet squatted down, Boaz put my hand on the stone-man’s chest, and indicated Isphet should do the same. “Feel,” he said.

“But stone contains no life –” I began, then wrenched my hand away as quickly as Boaz had pulled his back. An instant later Isphet reacted in the same way.

“What is it?” Zabrze asked.

“Stone should contain no life force at all, Zabrze,” Boaz said.

“None of us have felt it within stone before,” Isphet added. “Metal, gems, yes, but stone…no. Stone is dead. Or should be.”

I merely sank down to the ground, staring at the stone-man. He had a burning well of life within him. The life of a man. There was still a man in there! No wonder the despair that issued from their mouths.

“Now I know how I changed that stone lock back to hair,” Boaz said quietly. “I used the life force within it to effect the change.”

Everything, even the breeze, seemed to still about me. “Do you mean that…that…”

Boaz took my hand, his eyes pleading. “Tirzah. I’m sorry…I didn’t know then…I had no idea…”

“Boaz, what did you do with my father’s stone body?”

“I had it broken into a thousand pieces, along with the other ten men, and thrown into the Lhyl.”

I bowed my head, fighting back the tears. Had my father somehow still been alive within that stone? Had all those men been salvageable?

“Tirzah…”

I squeezed his hand. “You did not know, Boaz. Please. There is nothing we can do now. And Druse has been farewelled into the Place Beyond.”

Boaz was distraught. “But if I had not broken them –”

“No, Boaz. It is done. Finished. But these we can save.” I lifted my head and tried to smile. “Zabrze will have his people back, after all.”

Boaz composed himself, but I knew he would need time to come to terms with what he’d done. Time to forgive himself.

How Nzame must have laughed, watching from the Vale.

“Boaz,” I said gently. “Show Isphet and me what to do. We must help.”

He nodded, and placed his hand back on the stone-man’s chest. He concentrated a while, then spoke softly, telling us how to use the life force to resurrect and transform.

He leaned on his hand more heavily, and the stone transformed. It marbled first, traceries of veins spreading from the central point of Boaz’s hand, then the stone darkened to flesh and muscle. The man ceased his arm waving and instead lay still, and a moan issued from his lips – save this was a moan of surprise, not of despair.

And this was no man.

Isphet and I leaned back in shock as first the breasts then the gently rounded abdomen of a woman emerged. Limbs lengthened and became smooth and sleek.

Boaz lifted his hand, and we saw her face. She was no more than eighteen or nineteen, and of attractive features. A slave, no doubt, if she had come from Gesholme, but who knew how far Nzame’s transformations had wandered.

Her eyes fluttered open, and then she gasped and burst into tears.

“Someone give me a robe, or a cloak,” Isphet snapped, and a soldier handed her a blanket.

“Where am I?” the girl stuttered, confused by her surroundings and the strange faces about her. “Who are you?”

It took Boaz, Isphet and me the rest of the day to move about the stone-men. We transformed them all, exhausting ourselves in the process, but heartened by the reawakening of those who had been so abused. Most were men, but there were eight or nine women among them. All were confused, frightened, and troubled by vague memories that made them tremble and weep.

I thought they would suffer nightmares for months to come.