Threshold

42

WE did not march west to the Lagamaal Plains, but instead swung directly north, travelling parallel with the Abyss until it was swallowed by the rock and cliffs. The way was difficult, but even so it was a shorter route than travelling first to the plains and then north.

And we were less likely to meet stone-men this way. Our soldiers alone could not hope to manage Nzame’s ten thousand.

“I hope Iraldur has brought a goodly force,” Zabrze muttered as we made camp the first night. “Otherwise we shall be crushed.”

We travelled through the hills for two days, then moved north-east into rolling grasslands, easy on foot and eye. The vast majority of us were walking, although Zabrze and several of the officers rode fine grey horses, gifts from the people of the Abyss. Despite the foot pace, we advanced quickly. This was a military march, and Zabrze kept us moving from just after dawn until dark had fallen.

“How long do you estimate before we reach Iraldur?” I asked Zabrze one evening.

“We march directly north for another week, then swing north-west. We should reach him in two weeks.”

“Why would Nzame send his army to meet Iraldur rather than us?” Boaz said. “He knew where we were.”

“Iraldur is the more immediate threat,” Zabrze replied. “And would provide the easier feeding. How many months is it since we escaped Threshold? Four? Five?”

“And Nzame’s appetite must be increasing by the day,” I said quietly. “I wonder what incomposite number he is up to now?”

Boaz ran a hand through his hair. It was growing again, and I thought it was time I trimmed it back. Every time it grew past his neck it reminded me too much of the Magus.

“His power increases with each life he takes,” he said.

Zabrze looked at his brother carefully. “Can you best him, Boaz?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“How?”

I watched my husband carefully. Boaz would never talk to me of how he intended to defeat Nzame. Would he tell Zabrze?

“It is too complicated,” Boaz said vaguely. “It involves mathematical formulas that would leave you blinking in confusion.”

I looked away, not able to bear the lie in his eyes. Why wouldn’t Boaz tell us what he intended to do? Was it because he expected to die in the process?

“Then tell me how I can help you,” Zabrze said.

“Get me to Threshold,” Boaz answered, looking Zabrze straight in the eye. “Get me inside Threshold.”

“You’re going to the Infinity Chamber?” I asked. Bloodied writing swirled once more before my eyes. The Infinity Chamber?

“Yes, Tirzah. It is the only place.”

“And will you walk out of the Infinity Chamber, Boaz, once you are done?”

“Of course, beloved,” he said with an easy smile, and for that night I let myself believe him.

After a week, Zabrze ordered the column to swing north-west. There the grassland gave way to shifting soil which made marching difficult.

After another day’s march the soil gave way to stone.

Flat, bare stone.

We stood in the late afternoon sun, shading our eyes as we stared. Wind whipped off the stone, hot and unforgiving, twisting our robes around our legs, and catching at the cloths about our heads.

“Nzame has wrapped my realm in tombstone,” Zabrze said.

It was both awe-inspiring and terrifying. I’d seen the stone land in the vision in the Chamber of Dreaming, but even that barely prepared me for the sight before me now.

The overwhelming impression was that the land was dead. Utterly dead. There was not a bird in the sky, nor so much as an insect crawling over the stone. The land had also been completely flattened. Even the barest of plains has undulations and dips in its surface. Not so this landscape. Small drifts of sand skimmed across its surface, as if searching for a place to rest.

I stepped to the dividing line between living land and dead and bent down. Trembling, I laid a hand on the stone.

Nothing. No life.

I glanced at Boaz. His hand was also flat on the stone. “There is no life,” he said. “None.” He sounded puzzled.

“Well?” Zabrze said, looking between Isphet, Boaz and me. “Can you transform this land as you transformed the stone-men?”

Boaz stood up. “No. The stone-men are still alive, deep within their rock. Nzame did not kill that spark of life because he wanted the stone to move, to act out his will. But the land he has killed completely. I’m sorry, Zabrze. I don’t know what I can do about this.”

Zabrze looked at me, then Isphet, but we both shook our heads. He stared, his face hardening, then he wheeled his horse about and waved the column forward…onto the stone.

Once we were on the stone plain we found that it was not as entirely featureless as it had first appeared. There were odd cracks and fissures in its surface…and every four or five hundred paces there was a miniature Threshold.

Stone pyramids reared up, sometimes only the height of a finger, sometimes half the height of a man. But in the exact centre of every face of every pyramid was an eye. Not carved, not chiselled, but black and glassy. Moving. Watching.

None of us, not even Boaz, could bear to go near them. Whenever one of the forward scouts found one they waved our column to the left or right so that we passed at least twenty paces away from the abomination. Zabrze had to be careful that in all this meandering we kept direct north, and I think he kept closer watch on the sun, and then on the first of the evening stars, than he did on the stone about him.

We camped out of sight of any of the miniature Thresholds. It was a cold and silent camp that night. No-one felt like talking, and we rolled ourselves into our blankets early, shifting uncomfortably about on the stone.

I lay awake for hours before I slipped into sleep.

I dreamed I walked in grassy pastures filled with gold, red and blue flowers, bright sky, warmth on my face, breathing in the fragrance of the pine resin from the forests bordering the pastures. It reminded me of Viland during its brief glimpse of summer.

I walked slowly, knowing it was a dream, but welcoming the escape from the harshness about me.

There was a movement behind me, and I turned. I was not afraid.

A handsome man stood there. He was dark of feature and eye, a southerner then, trapped in my dream of Viland.

“This is a green and lovely land,” he remarked, casting his gaze about him.

“Yes. Yes, it is. This is my homeland, Viland.”

“Where you were born? But how lucky you are! Surely you must ache to return to a land as lovely as this?”

I smiled at his enthusiasm. “No. It is beautiful for only one month every year. Other months gales sweep down from the north, and ice and snow bind us into our homes. I prefer the southern lands where the sun shines most days of the year.”

“And where your lover is.”

I blushed. “Yes.”

“But the southern lands lie under the grip of stone, Tirzah.” The man lowered his eyes, sorrowing. “They are no place to stay.”

“I have hope.”

He raised his eyes, and I recoiled. They were the glassy black eyes of the stone pyramids.

I tried to back away, but my feet were rooted to the ground. I was too terrified to look down to see why. I didn’t want to know why my feet would not move!

“Ashdod is a bad place, Tirzah. A very bad place.” He rolled the “r” in the “very”, and his voice was low like thunder. And like thunder I felt it more than heard it. “Soon all the southern lands will be stone.”

“No.”

“Yes. I shall eat them all.”

“Please…please, let me go. Please…go away!”

“Yes to the first, no to the latter. I do not want to eat you, dear Tirzah. Such a pretty girl. I could have taken you in Threshold, but I did not. Too pretty to waste.”

“Please…”

“Go away, Tirzah. Flee. Keep going north. Take your friends with you. I do not want to harm you. Go.”

“Please, let me go!”

“Oh, I intend to, Tirzah, but hear me out. Go north, sweet girl, and do not look back. That would be…unfortunate. But I will not touch Viland. Take your lover and Isphet and Zabrze and flee north. Listen to me, Tirzah. Do as I ask and you shall live. Is that not what you wish?”

“Let me go!” I tried with all the power I had to escape, but he held me tight, and I could not move.

“If you do not go, Tirzah, then I will kill Boaz, and I will kill Isphet, and I will kill every one of those you cherish, and I will do it very, very slowly. Do you understand me?”

“Yes! Yes! I understand you!”

“Tell Boaz to go away.”

“Yes!”

“Tell him he will not succeed.”

“Yes!”

“Then go…”

A hand grabbed at my shoulder, and I screamed.

“Tirzah! What’s wrong? It’s a dream, Tirzah. A dream. Shush, now. Shush. I have you now.”

Boaz wrapped me in his arms as I sobbed. He continued to soothe me, murmur to me, and I heard Isphet speak quietly to him, and then move away.

“Was it Nzame?” he asked eventually, his mouth close to my ear so no-one else could hear.

“Yes. He…”

“Shush. He cannot hurt you in dream –”

“He turned my feet to stone!”

“And are they stone now, Tirzah?”

I wriggled them, almost believing they would be stone, but they were warm and they moved, and I felt Boaz smile as he rocked me.

“He said he would kill you, Boaz.”

“He is afraid.”

“So am I.”

There was a long silence, then I raised my face so I could see Boaz’s in the faint moonlight. “Boaz, answer me true. Will you succeed against Nzame?”

He took his time in answering. “It is why he is afraid. He knows I have a good chance.”

“And will you walk out of the Infinity Chamber, Boaz, and back to me?”

He was silent, and I wept anew.

We drifted back to sleep eventually, but it was a light, uncomfortable sleep. Each of us feared Nzame’s intrusion, and each of us feared the future.

Just before dawn a shout roused us. It was one of the sentries, and I heard Zabrze run off even as the shout died down. Boaz and I scrambled up, pulling on our robes.

Soldiers, swords drawn, ropes wrapped about their waists, were patrolling the perimeters of the camp, and one of them held us back.

“Wait until we know it’s safe.”

We peered forward. There was movement perhaps twenty paces away; Zabrze, I thought, and several soldiers. They were bending down to something at…their knees?

Then we heard laughter. Forced laughter to be sure, but laughter nevertheless.

There was a scuffle of movement, and they walked back towards us.

“What?” Boaz said. Then, “Shetzah!”

At Zabrze’s feet bounded a thin, grey dog, pathetically grateful to have found something else alive in this sea of stone.

Boaz glanced at me, apprehensive, then he bent down and clicked his fingers.

The dog bounded over, whimpering and trying to lick Boaz’s face.

Boaz wouldn’t let it. He seized the dog’s head and stared into its eyes, then he sighed in relief and looked up at me.

“It is a dog,” he said, and the dog whimpered again and set to licking his face as thoroughly as it could.

“How could it have survived?” Zabrze asked, walking over to examine the dog. It was a half-grown bitch, probably a hunting dog, and had soft russet spots amid her grey coat.

“I don’t know,” Boaz said. “Perhaps she just wandered into the stone from the east.”

“Would you just wander into this wickedness?” Zabrze asked. “Anything outside would sniff at its edges then run in the opposite direction, tail between legs.”

“Well.” Isphet had joined us, and she could not keep a smile from her face at the antics of the dog. “At least we know that some things can survive. Nzame does not eat all in his path, it seems.”

She met Zabrze’s eyes.

Setkoth, I thought. Zabrze must worry constantly about his children there. Yet to ask that somehow they survived was, surely, to ask too much. Would we find them stone and salvageable? Or eaten and existing in memory only?

The dog whimpered, and darted behind Boaz’s legs.

“I don’t think she likes the look of your face –” Boaz began, grinning at Zabrze, then there was a thump.

Then another.

“Stone-men!” Zabrze shouted, and the camp burst into activity.

Zabrze had planned for this eventuality – stone-men would surely wander Nzame’s stone land – and soldiers quickly sorted themselves into groups of five, unwrapping rope from waists, their faces grim.

Others moved to the camels and mules, soothing with voice and hands, and taking firm hold of their tethers. They carried our only supplies of water and food, and to lose them here would be unthinkable.

“Come on,” Boaz said, and took Isphet and me by the hands. “It’s safer further back into camp.”

The stone-men were only forty strong, and led by yet another Magus who was now nothing but the black glassy substance. Zabrze had almost fifteen hundred men, all armed with ropes. By dawn the perimeter of the camp was littered with the impotent bodies of stone-men, and not one soldier.

The Magus was held down by ten strong men and enough rope to moor five ships. Boaz disposed of him immediately – he did not even attempt to use him to communicate with Nzame – then the three of us turned to the stone-men.

This was exhausting work, and I would not let myself think of how we would cope with more than forty or fifty. Each stone-man took concentration and both physical and emotional effort, but it was reward enough to see the stone marble into flesh, and the chest heave with breath rather than moaning, and the eyes flutter open, surprised, yet confused and frightened.

Zabrze detailed some fifteen soldiers to feed and clothe them.

“What will we do with them?” I asked.

“We’ll have to march them with us,” Zabrze answered. “I cannot leave them, and I do not want to spare the men to take them east.”

I looked over to the men and women. They sat in a tight, huddled group, slightly disorientated, fearful without knowing why. Many cried softly, others looked about, watching for the danger they knew was there but could not identify. Most were well-featured, their faces and hands unlined, and I realised they must be towns people. Not slaves from Gesholme.

“What am I going to do,” Zabrze said very quietly by my side, “with a land full of people so damaged by their experience?”

He was not talking of their physical ordeal but their emotional and psychological trauma.

“It will take them time,” I said, “but they will laugh again one day, Zabrze. Have no fear.”

My words did nothing to reassure him, and he gave the order to break camp.

Isphet and I spent most of the day walking with the sad group, while Boaz strode at the front of the column, the dog leaping about his legs.

Whoever I talked to among this group said much the same thing. They did not know what had happened to them. They had been engaged in their usual chores and daily activities, and then…nothing. The stone had swept through their existence so swiftly they had not even been aware of the danger.

They said that they felt as if they’d been trapped in some dreadful, drugged sleep. Many said they felt as if they would slip back into that sleep if they closed their eyes even for an instant. All were nervous, all swept anxious eyes across the stone landscape that still held them trapped, none listened to our reassurances.

They were a sad, hopeless people and they passed so much of their sadness and hopelessness onto Isphet and myself that we were forced to leave them and walk ahead with Boaz.

That night I dreamed again.

This time Nzame dragged me into the Infinity Chamber.

“See the blood,” his voice whispered about me, for he did not bother to take form. “See the blood.”

It ran in rivulets down the golden walls. As I watched it slowed, coagulated, and formed words with its clots and strings.

Boaz will die here Tirzah, they read, here Boaz will die.

“Take him to Viland, Tirzah,” Nzame whispered to me. “You do not want to lose him, do you?”

Take him far, far away. Or lose him.

“Tirzah.”

Again Boaz’s hand and voice woke me. I had not screamed, but still he knew. “Do not listen to him, Tirzah. He will do anything, tell any lie, to make us turn aside. Do not listen to him. Do not believe him.”

I did not cry this time, but still I lay sleepless until it was time to rise.

We marched silent through a desolate landscape. The sun beat down, baking the stone which in turn burned through the soles of our sandals. The representations of Threshold grew more bizarre. Some looked as if they had been exposed to so much heat their stark lines had melted, others looked so ancient their peaks had crumbled and their sides had begun to cave in upon themselves.

Yet always an eye stared out from each face, following our progress.

In the late morning the dog began to bark at something in the cleft of a rock. Her tail wagged so enthusiastically her entire rear half waggled.

Boaz and I shared a curious glance, then walked over to have a look. Zabrze rode up beside us, and waved in several more guards.

“Be careful,” he said as we approached the now wildly excited dog.

Boaz pulled her back by the scruff of her neck, then peered into the crack. “Kus!” he whispered, totally shocked…but not scared.

Fetizza sat crouched in the cleft, squeezed so much by the rock to either side of her I thought she was in danger of exploding.

Boaz motioned to one of the soldiers to take the dog, then he lifted Fetizza out of the rock cleft.

The instant she was out she expanded to almost the size of the small dog. She gave a relieved croak, then relaxed in Boaz’s arms, happily blinking at us.

I looked at Boaz, Boaz looked at Zabrze, and Zabrze just opened and closed his mouth.

“How?” he finally managed.

Boaz shook his head, then something in the cleft caught my eye.

“Look!” I cried.

Pure, crystal water was seeping forth. It filled the crack, then ran over. It pooled until we were forced to stand back, then it found another small crack, and flowed into that.

Fetizza croaked again, utterly self-satisfied.

The water burbled out over the stone until it found successive cracks, filled them, then flowed further, seeking, exploring.

We all stepped back, watching it.

Now the water formed a narrow stream winding through the stone landscape.

“It’s heading towards that stone pyramid!” Isphet said.

Everyone now stood riveted by the sight.

The pyramid watched, too. The eyes in the two faces that could see the water stared until the pyramid literally went cross-eyed.

I grinned. I could not help it. I had the feeling that far, far away Nzame was raging helplessly at the sight of this slim stream of water trickling towards his self-image.

The dog barked excitedly, and Fetizza croaked.

The water hit the pyramid. For an instant it foamed against the stone face, then the side of the pyramid split with a loud crack, and then shattered, and the entire pyramid collapsed and disappeared beneath the spreading stream.

The water continued to spread, seeping through cracks and fissures in the rock. We stood for an hour or more, watching. About twenty paces wide, the stream spread into the distance, back the way we’d come. A shallow, shining sheet of water.

We felt more cheerful than we had for many days. Even the Released, as Isphet had named those people who we’d freed from their stone prison, smiled and talked as we went.

It had been the sight of the cross-eyed pyramid, I think, collapsing beneath the gentle stream, that had done such wonders.

Boaz wrapped Fetizza in a damp cloth and carried her in his arms until we made camp.

Then he put her down, and she immediately nestled into another cleft in the stone surface.

Almost instantly water seeped up about her, and trickled away until, in time, it would join with the stream she’d created that morning. On its way I had no doubt it would encounter the twenty-four miniature pyramids we’d passed since Fetizza had reappeared.

We all bathed in the water before we ate, and it refreshed and renewed us. I saw that the Released smiled and laughed, and I even saw a few splash water over their neighbours.

I shared a relieved look with Isphet. Fetizza’s water would do what no words on our part could.

There were no dreams that night, and when we woke, it was to the excited shout of one of the sentries.

Behind our camps stretched a massive sheet of water – Fetizza had been busy. Yet it was not so much the water that had so caught the sentry’s eye but the thin, jagged sheets of rock that speared up through it.

The stone underneath the water had splintered and shattered. Through the shallow pools of water, and between the sheets of rock that had been cast aside, we could see new earth.

“The tears of the Soulenai,” Boaz said quietly, “renewing the land.”