51
HOLDAT and Kiamet, stunned but with tears of joy in their eyes, stood back and let Boaz and me step onto the verandah of the house. Boaz paused, showing them our daughter.
The guards, awakened from their magical sleep, eyed me curiously.
What should they do now?
Before they could make up their minds, I stepped inside.
I know I must have looked dreadful. My robe was tattered and stained, and still wet. My hair hung lank to my hips and probably had water weed tangled through it.
And I was very obviously no longer pregnant.
Isphet stepped forward, her face strained and deeply upset. “Tirzah, what have you done?” she whispered. “Tirzah, please, don’t torture yourself like this. You can’t hide the baby forever. Give it up now.”
Behind her, Zabrze and Layla frowned, puzzled at her words.
“I have no intention of hiding my daughter, Isphet. She is far too beautiful.”
And Boaz walked through the door with our daughter cradled in his arms.
I think I shall treasure the look on Isphet’s face forever.
“Her name is Ysgrave,” Boaz said very softly, his eyes on Isphet, “and she is not what you think. Nzame is gone. This baby will harm no-one.”
Isphet put her hands to her face and burst into tears, and then Zabrze stepped past her and embraced his brother.
I slept that day through, Boaz beside me, our daughter between us, then in the evening we all sat on the verandah and watched the Juit birds return in a disordered, bright, bloodied cloud to roost in the reed banks. The baby suckled at my breast, and everything was very well in this world.
“Explain,” Isphet said softly, and Boaz did.
“Nzame had taken advantage of the bridge the Magi – we – had created from the Vale to step into Threshold. He was peculiarly tied to the power of the One and Threshold, although had he been allowed to stay and grow he would have eventually freed himself from Threshold’s restraints.”
I thought of the dreams Nzame had used to touch Boaz and me, and perhaps many others. If he had this ability while tied to Threshold then I dreaded to think what he could have accomplished free.
“He was tied by the One, and he could be trapped by its power. What I did was use the One to seize him, bind him, merge with him, and then activate the Infinity Chamber so that I could drag him through into Infinity.”
Boaz paused. He had used few words for what must have been a hideous battle, but the pallor of his face and the faint tremor in his fingers betrayed the horror of the memory.
“Infinity.” He stopped, and his eyes were very far from us.
“What was it like, brother?”
Boaz roused himself. “It was nothingness, yet it was everything. We have developed language to suit the world and the reality in which we live. It cannot hope to explain what I found there.”
“You were there for weeks,” I said. “We thought you lost.”
“Weeks? I suppose I was.” He smiled at me. “Else you have used your skills at necromancy to grow that girl very quickly. Yes, well. Weeks. I did not realise it was that long. Time has no meaning, no dimension in Infinity. I explored, examined. I wish…”
He did not have to finish. If it had not been for me, Boaz would never have come back. But what he had discovered had changed him; I could see his new-found knowledge eddying about the shadows of his eyes.
“While in Infinity I realised that the Song of the Frogs – the formula that can transport a person into the Place Beyond – had subtle nuances that I might be able to manipulate so that I journeyed only as far as the borders of the Place Beyond, no further. The borderlands are dangerous, though, and I did not know if I would be forever trapped there, or if I could eventually escape. But I thought it worth the risk. I wanted to come home.”
My eyes filled with tears at that simple statement.
“And so I sang the Song, and as I transported – almost into the Place Beyond – I had to use all my strength and skill to halt at its borders. The Soulenai did not know what was wrong, they wanted me to come through…but I thought…I thought that I still had a chance to come home.”
He paused and took a deep breath. “But I could not move, not of my own volition. The Song had done its work and dissipated. I will never be able to use it again. I could not even move completely through into the Place Beyond had I wanted to. Trapped, trapped in the borderlands.”
Boaz lifted my hand. “Trapped, waiting for you to save me. The bond between us has been forged by pain and fear, and cemented by love, trust and power. It drew us together when we were separated by vast distances of space and dimension.” He paused. “But that bond also contains something else, something I cannot quite explain.”
“The frogs,” I said.
“Yes, the frogs. I don’t think any of us yet appreciate the power and the mystery of the frogs. Tirzah and I share a bond, not only with each other, but with the frogs.”
“And in the end it was the frogs that enabled me to reach you.” I explained to the others how the frogs had sung when I’d been lost and too exhausted to go on. “I was so close to Boaz, but could not get to him. The frogs completed my journey.”
We were silent for a very long time. Ysgrave slept warm and safe by my breast, and Boaz’s hand rested on my shoulder. Isphet and Zabrze sat as close as Boaz and I, and the dog was curled at Layla’s feet. Across the table Kiamet and Holdat were sharing a jug of wine, listening and watching.
The Juit birds had settled for the night, and the frogs choralled among the reeds.
“Zabrze,” Boaz said, “you do not need me in Setkoth. Tirzah and I will stay here for some time. Rest. Think. Study. Listen to what the frogs tell us. Explore the marsh.”
“Don’t get lost,” Zabrze said sharply. “I – none of us – want to lose either of you again.”
“No,” Boaz said, and his hand tightened a little on my shoulder, “I don’t think that we will.”
“And Infinity?” Zabrze asked. “Will you ever go back there?”
“No. Whatever else you do in Setkoth, Zabrze, you must discourage any resurrection of interest in the Infinity formula. Nzame is not destroyed, merely trapped in Infinity. Who knows what he will learn there over the ages.
I want no more bridges built into Infinity, because the moment one is completed, I fear Nzame will rush straight back across it. Darker than ever before.”
“Then I shall burn the libraries of the Magi,” Zabrze said. “Remove every trace of them.”
“Good.”
Zabrze leaned forward. “Boaz. Tell me what to do with Threshold.”
“Remove the plate glass from the outside. Melt it down and sell it as bead necklets – the En-Dorians will love them. Strip the Infinity Chamber of the golden glass, and melt it. Bury it. Do the same with the capstone. Then block up every shaft and entranceway so that no-one can ever find their way inside again.”
“You do not want to pull the entire structure down?”
“No. It has taken eight generations to build, and would take two or three to pull down. More would die in the process, and I do not think I could stand that. No. Fill the shafts and corridors with stone and block up all the entrances. Then leave the sand to drift over the stone and the memories. Leave Threshold for future millennia to puzzle over – but leave them no trace of its secret.”