7
I HARDLY slept that night. I had my own sleeping pallet by now, but I am sure that my tossing and turning must have disturbed everyone else in the room. For as far back as I could remember I’d heard the voices. As a tiny child, sitting under my father’s work table, I’d been mesmerised by the shards of glass sifting through my fingers. Not only by their colours, although they were glorious enough, but by their soft cries and their words. When I was old enough to work the glass I used what they said to make the working easier. Now I knew why I had mastered the art of caging so young: my voice shaped the glass as much as my tools did, and I listened to what the glass told me it could or could not bear.
Who were these Soulenai? Was it not so much the voice of the glass I’d heard, but the voices of these strange spirits who sometimes spoke through it?
I remembered how I’d sat before Boaz and shaped the glass, drawing on the voices to help me. He’d sat but a pace away, his hands about that glass, his fingers touching mine from time to time. Deaf to the beauty and music beneath his fingers.
Magus! I thought, and I put all the loathing Yaqob had taught me into that thought.
Thank the Soulenai the Magi here had shown no special interest in me. There had been Kofte’s brief display, but that had been only a transient sexual interest which had faded the moment I’d fainted in the Infinity Chamber. Perhaps the Magi required their women to retain control of their consciousness while they communed with the One.
My mind drifted back to the glass. Why had Isphet said I’d be frightened? Surely she wasn’t going to show me anything so horrifying as what had touched me in the Infinity Chamber?
Well, it would be good to have Yaqob there, anyway. I smiled into the darkness, and turned over, and spent the last remaining hours of the night drifting in and out of dreams of Yaqob.
My father was cheerful in the morning, and looked very bright of eye. He had slept extremely well, he said, and did not complain when Isphet sent him off with several others to help out in another workshop.
They would be gone for the rest of the day.
We continued working at our assigned tasks until almost noon, and then Yaqob came to fetch Orteas, Zeldon and me.
“Will we be safe?” Orteas asked.
“Yes. Watch is being kept along the alley and down the main thoroughfare. There are no guards and no Magi close.”
Later I would realise that when anyone in our workshop planned to practise the arts, an effective system of watch was kept by Elementals in the other workshops. But for now we followed Yaqob down the stairs.
Work had ceased. Most of the workers were silently lining the sides of the room, but in the very centre of the room stood Isphet and Raguel in front of a small table.
In its centre was a great bowl of molten glass.
“The others will watch,” Yaqob said quietly, “but in this ceremony they will not participate.”
Isphet nodded as I reached her, and I saw that she and Raguel had loosened their dark hair.
“Let yours out, too,” Isphet said, and I hastened to comply, shaking it out over my shoulders. “If we were free we would come to the Soulenai garbed in our best raiment and garlanded with flowers. That is impossible here. The loosening of our hair from the chains that binds it is the best we can do. The Soulenai know of our difficulties, and appreciate the effort.
“Tirzah. You have heard the voices in the glass, and in many of the other elements about you. Some of the voices are those of the element itself, some the voices of the Soulenai. But what we hear of their voices in our daily lives through elements like metal or glass is an echo only. Today we will touch them intimately, and let them touch us. It is a frightening experience the first time, and that is partly the reason I have asked Yaqob to stand with you. Already you trust him, and today you will learn to trust him further.”
I wondered how much she realised of my growing feelings for Yaqob – how much did Yaqob know? – then decided it didn’t matter very much.
“Tirzah, see.” And Isphet passed her hand over the wide bowl of molten glass. I looked down. The glass glowed with heat, but was otherwise colourless. I wondered what she had done to it to keep it so molten, for glass normally cooled fairly quickly, and this was far from the furnace.
“Listen to my voice, Tirzah. Do what it tells you. And follow the movements of my hand.”
Her hand passed over the bowl again, and I realised that the molten glass was spinning inside it. Around and around. I felt myself pulled into its thrall.
Again Isphet’s hand passed over the bowl, and this time she cast powders in, metals, and colour flared and swirled within the glass. Bright blue. Again her hand swept over the bowl, and now a vivid red swirled and intermixed with the blue, again, and then gold joined them.
“Watch the colours, Tirzah. Feel them. Listen to them…listen…can you feel us listening as well? Can you feel me? Can you feel Raguel? Can you feel Yaqob?”
I opened my mouth to say that, no, I could not, but my eyes were fixed on the swirling colours within the bowl of glass. Isphet’s hand passed over again, and my head swam with its movement. Green swirled there now.
“Yes,” I whispered, and indeed I could. I could feel them beside me, but I could also feel them inside me. Raguel was only a distant, pastel presence, but Isphet and Yaqob were strong and vivid, primary colours in themselves. I could feel them swirl with the rainbow in the glass. Were they in there? Was I in there?
“My friends.” The tone of Isphet’s voice was very warm, musical, like nothing I’d ever heard her use before. I sank deeper into the swirl of colour, listening to her liquid voice sound through me as about me. I understood from Yaqob’s presence that Isphet was no longer speaking to us.
“My friends. I speak to you with gladness and sadness. Gladness because today I bring to you one you have already whispered to, but who has yet to hear your full beauty. Her name is Tirzah.”
Tirzah.
I reeled, uneasy, for a voice of unimaginable power had moved through me. Not sounded, for I had not heard it as such, but I had felt it.
Tirzah.
I think a sob escaped my lips. I had never conceived of such power in my meagre existence, nor had I ever thought such beauty to exist.
Tirzah.
And I would have panicked save that I could feel Yaqob’s presence, a strength that offered warmth and comfort and reassurance, and I took all it offered.
Listen to them Tirzah. Revel in their beauty.
He let me see how he had submerged himself in their voices, and then I felt Isphet, and she showed how she had submitted herself to their power. Neither Yaqob nor Isphet were diminished by such surrender, but enriched.
Surrender, they cried, and I did.
The Soulenai enveloped me, seared through me. The colours before me swirled at an impossible rate, and I was as trapped by their frantic motion as I was by the presence of the Soulenai.
They spoke to me of impossible things, of lives and experiences beyond my comprehension. But they were so gentle. I had not expected such gentleness, such tenderness. They touched me, and explored me, and encouraged me to touch and explore them. They laughed at my first tentative efforts and I cried out, and on some distant plane I felt Yaqob physically grasp me and hold me upright.
Tirzah, you are welcome among us. Nurture us, and we shall nurture you. Serve us, and we shall serve you.
Yes, I cried, and they accepted me.
My friends. Now Isphet spoke again. Today we come to you with sadness amid our joy at Tirzah’s awakening. Our friend and your servant, Raguel…
Raguel, they whispered.
Raguel had her child snatched from her, many weeks ago. This is the first time we have dared join with you, and now we beg your assistance in seeing the child on her way into the Place Beyond.
Their sorrow pierced through me, but I was growing used to their intrusions through the spaces of my body and my mind, and I did not cry out. I felt Yaqob, as tender as the Soulenai, radiate pleasure at my acceptance of their touch.
There was a movement. Isphet’s hands again, and as they passed over the swirling glass this time they threw not metals, but fragrant gum resin and as it hit the glass it began to smoulder, and intoxicating smoke surrounded us. I breathed deeply, my hands acting of some accord not my own to waft the incense closer and closer to my face.
And through the smoke I caught glimpses of the Place Beyond.
What I saw I can hardly put into words. The Place Beyond was a land of sweeping distance, and yet enveloping warmth and security. It was infused with a peace so pervasive that anger, jealousy and war were words and concepts not only unknown, but also unimaginable. I longed to be able to step into that wondrous land.
Give us the child.
Again movement, but this time Raguel – and Yaqob, who was tightening his hands about me.
I saw as if in a dream, caught by the incense and the continuing presence of the Soulenai.
Raguel bending, lifting something from the floor.
A sad, wrapped bundle. Stained here and there with the fluids of putrefaction. A movement, quick, but unutterable sadness swept through me.
The bundle hit the molten glass, and the colours splattered about us – only the presence and benefaction of the Soulenai stopped any of the droplets hitting us.
The bundle burst into flames. In the space of a breath it was gone, lost…but then I heard, felt, the baby girl.
She was among us now, touching us as the Soulenai did, exploring, her presence a soft sense of wonderment.
I cried, and I knew that Raguel did too, and the Soulenai comforted us both, and the child laughed, and all was well.
She did not stay long. The Soulenai took her with them into the Place Beyond. As they sped away I felt a sense of loss so palpable I moaned, and closed my eyes, and let Yaqob keep me from falling to the floor.
There was a space of time in which no-one moved or spoke.
Finally I felt Isphet place her hands about my face, and I opened my eyes. She was smiling.
“Welcome among us, Tirzah. You are an Elemental born, and now you have been accepted by the Soulenai. What we did today was simple, a touching only. Over the next months I will take you deeper and deeper into Elemental magic. You will become great among us, I think, for your abilities are astounding, and if we are to right the wrong that is Threshold, then I think that you will be greatly needed among us.”