Threshold

  I glanced at the stars. By the gods! That would be in only a few short hours! I felt desperately tired, and wished more than anything else I could have a long night’s sleep in a bed that was anywhere but here.

  The guard stood wary and silent, his eyes not leaving me for a moment, and I stared at the ground, shuffling uncomfortably from foot to foot. I remembered Hadone, and shivered.

  Ta’uz abruptly reappeared, guards in attendance, and the door of the tenement slammed shut behind him.

  “Now you,” he said, and marched off ahead.

  Surrounded by guards, I felt more alone than I ever had in my life.

  He led me to another tenement, almost identical to the one where he’d left my father and Mayim, and ordered the guard to knock at the door.

  There was no answer, save a soft scuffling inside, and Ta’uz stepped to the door himself, and delivered it a hard blow and a shouted command.

  Steps sounded and the door opened a crack, then was flung wide as the person saw who waited outside.

  I gasped. Even in this flickering torchlight, the one who opened the door was the most exquisite woman I’d ever seen. She was perhaps thirty or thirty-one, with shining black hair and almond-shaped dark eyes that were intelligent and all-knowing. Her face was as astounding in its strength as it was in its beauty.

  “Yes?” she said.

  Ta’uz held her stare, then cursed. “Did you think I would not know, Isphet?” he asked as he shouldered past her.

  She turned to follow him, but at that moment one of the guards seized my arm, intending to drag me through as well. I cried out as his fingers bit into the bruises Kamish had given me, and Isphet turned back in my direction.

  “Oh gods,” she whispered, “you have the most exquisitely bad timing, girl.”

  We hurried into a room filled with blood and screams, and with birth and death. A woman lay on a pallet against a wall, her face drawn and damp, her robe patched with sweat and the fluids of birth. A tiny baby sprawled across her belly, her stump of umbilical cord wobbling pathetically in the uncertain light.

  Ta’uz leaned down and seized the baby; she squalled, and the mother screamed. Isphet stepped forward, her hand outstretched, but she halted as Ta’uz rounded on her, his face contorted with fury.

  “Did you think to keep this hidden from me, Isphet? I knew she was breeding, and that she had not understood. Nothing here breeds save the One. Nothing. Is that understood?”

  Isphet opened her mouth, her eyes fearful, but Ta’uz gave her no time to answer. In one shocking, vicious move, he swung the baby by her feet and smashed her skull against the wall.

  Then he threw the broken body down on her mother’s belly.

  “I will expect to see you at your post by the furnaces in the morning, Raguel,” he said to the mother, who was staring appalled at her dead infant. “And you can use this useless lump of flesh to stoke their fury.” He looked up, stared at Isphet, then shifted his gaze to me.

  “Her name is Tirzah, Isphet. She works glass. She and her father, Druse, will join your workshop in the morning.” Then he strode out the door.

  It slammed shut, and for a moment there was utter silence in the room.

  My heart was thudding painfully, my throat dry, and I thought I would faint. I wished I could close my eyes and forget what I had just seen, but it was seared so painfully into my mind I knew it would give me nightmares for weeks.

  Gods knew what nightmares the poor mother would suffer.

  Why?

  I felt a hard hand on my arm, and somewhere in my nightmare I wished people would stop punishing my bruises.

  Isphet.

  “Sit here in the corner, girl, and shut up.” And she shoved me down and left me.

  That was unfair, for I had not made a sound since my arrival. But I sat silently anyway, grateful to be off my feet, and watched as Isphet and her companions tried their best to modify the horror.

  Isphet was as blunt with the mother as she had been with me. “You were a fool, Raguel, and well you knew it. Ta’uz would never have let the baby live, and you can only thank the Soulenai…”

  Soulenai?

  “…he did not tear it from your womb while it yet grew. That would have killed you, as well.”

  “But he fathered her!”

  Isphet struck Raguel across the face, and the sound hid my own shocked gasp.

  “Enough, Raguel! If you had listened to me in the first instance none of this would have occurred, and Ta’uz would have no reason to keep such close watch on my workshop. Now, because of your stupidity, we will have no opportunity to –”

  Abruptly she remembered my presence, and she slid a careful eye my way. She hesitated, then turned back to Raguel and plucked the still body of her daughter from her hands, handing it to a woman in her mid-twenties.

  “Kiath, take this and wrap it. Ta’uz was right enough when he said it would feed the flames.”

  There was silence again, everyone staring at the body in Kiath’s hands.

  “But not yet, I think,” Isphet finally finished. “We can make better use of this fuel on a day when the guards keep less close watch. Kiath, store the body in a tightly sealed jar. But wrap it tightly first so that its fluids will not seep through and reveal it to curious eyes. Saboa?” Isphet motioned to a girl about my own age. “Take these,” she roughly pulled several stained cloths from beneath Raguel’s hips, causing the woman to cry out in pain, “and wrap them about a loaf of bread. We shall make much cry and sadness and toss it into the furnace in the morning, and no-one shall be any the wiser. You!”

  I jumped. I wanted nothing more than to huddle in my corner and remain unnoticed.

  “You…Tirzah? Come here and help me make Raguel comfortable. Come on. If you’re going to share my quarters and my workshop, then you might as well dirty your hands in this little disgrace as well. And bring that bowl of water with you.”

  I dared linger no longer; I had no doubts that Isphet would physically haul me over if she thought I’d not make it on my own.

  A large bowl of water was warming by a small brazier in the centre of the room. I took careful hold of it and walked over.

  “Good,” Isphet muttered, not looking at me, then began to wash Raguel down. As she did so she talked in a soft, gentle voice, surprising me. “You are not to blame for this disaster, Tirzah. Ta’uz would have dealt this babe death at some point, even had we managed to hide the fact of the birth from him. Perhaps it was kinder this way, before Raguel had a chance to form too close a bond with her.”

  Before she bonded with her? Did not carrying a babe in your womb for nine months form a bond? Without thinking I glanced at the stain on the wall.

  Isphet thrust a wet cloth into my hands. “Wash it away, Tirzah, and then help me turn Raguel over and change her bed linen.”

  I did as she asked, and when Raguel was washed and lay on clean sheets, Isphet took my hand in hers. “A rough welcome for you, Tirzah.” She gazed steadily at me. “You are not of our race, girl. Where do you come from?”

  “Far to the north. A place called Viland.”

  Isphet shook her head dismissively. “I’ve not heard of it. But you speak our tongue well, if with a heavy accent. How is that?”

  “My father and I travelled for many weeks with guards from this land, Isphet. I learned from them.”

  “And your name? You bear the name of a princess of our realm. Why is that?”

  My hand jerked in hers. The Magus had named me after a princess? I told her something of my encounter with the Magi Gayomar and Boaz.

  Isphet’s eyes widened. Gayomar she’d only ever seen briefly about Gesholme and Boaz she did not know at all, and dismissed them as quickly as she had the land of my birth. She even forgot the mystery of my naming in her intrigue with my story of the caging of the glass. Her hands tightened about mine. They were very warm.

  “You are a very interesting girl, Tirzah. You seem to become one with the glass.” She smiled as if she had made
a bitter joke to herself. “We shall talk some more of it, you and I, but not now. I have asked enough questions. You must have some of your own.”

  I glanced at Raguel. She had turned her head to the wall. “I don’t understand,” I said inadequately, and then wished I’d not used those exact words.

  But Isphet did not mind, and knew what I meant. “Come,” she said, leaving Raguel alone to cope with her misery as best she could. She led me to a pallet on the other side of the plainly furnished room and pulled me down beside her. “How much do you know of the Magi?”

  “Nothing, save their cruelty.”

  “And of Threshold?”

  “Even less.”

  “Save its cruelty, you should have said,” Isphet remarked, but then patted my hand. “Well now, how shall I begin? With the Magi, I think, for you already have some understanding of them. The Magi are…”

  “Sorcerers, my father called them. But priests, perhaps?’

  “Sorcerers of a nature, certainly, but not priests, as perhaps you understand the word. The Magi are mathematicians, and once that was all they were. But they found power, cruel power, in the understanding of the properties of, and the relationships between, numbers and forms. They control the power of number and form.”

  I was beginning to understand. “I saw the regular forms of field and garden.”

  “Yes. If the Magi had their way, everything in Ashdod would be laid out according to the pure principles of mathematics and geometry. To some extent they have succeeded with the shape of fields and gardens, as streets and many buildings. They have a powerful influence over the monarch, Chad-Nezzar, and much of what they desire is enacted in royal edict.” She sighed. “But Ashdod is large, and it cannot all be arranged according to the dictates of mathematics. The Magi have only succeeded completely here…with Threshold.”

  “I saw Threshold, although not well. It…it ate at the sky.”

  Again Isphet glanced at me sharply. “Threshold is – or will be – the physical manifestation of pure mathematical formula. The Magi have been overseeing its construction for many generations, and even yet it has over a year’s work left before completion.” She smiled grimly. “Threshold is a beast of consuming need. It has literally eaten the resources of Ashdod. Everything Ashdod produces is channelled into the effort to complete Threshold, and even that is not sufficient. You are proof enough that the Magi must now scour far-flung realms to find the workers Threshold needs.”

  There was a long pause. “Isphet,” I said eventually, “what did Ta’uz mean when he said that nothing breeds here save the one?”

  “Ah, the Magi are mathematician-magicians, and they worship the number One. They teach that the One is the number from which all numbers spring, and into which all numbers collapse. Creation and Doom, all in one.” She shook her head at her poor joke. “All forms spring from and collapse into the One as well, for the Magi believe that geometric forms are composed only from the properties of numbers. Thus the One represents both birth and death – Infinity. Contemplation of the One and meditation upon the mysteries of number and form are how the Magi derive their power. They constantly seek complete union with the One…and that is where Raguel came undone.”

  She shivered, and now it was my hands that tightened about hers. “The Magi seek union with the One through many means, Tirzah – I believe Threshold will eventually provide the ultimate means of union, although the Magi never speak of it. Until Threshold is complete, the Magi must make use of lesser means of union. Occasionally a Magus will take a woman into his bed in order to touch the One.”

  Again she paused, and I realised she was recounting not only Raguel’s experience, but also her own.

  “In that moment of physical release during the sexual act the Magi claim they experience a hauntingly brief union with the One…with Infinity. The woman they use to achieve this moment of union matters not.” Isphet forced a humourless grin to her face, but it faded almost as soon as it appeared. “I don’t know why they do not use goats…goats would be far less trouble. Women are not allowed to breed from this act, for to do so would be to subdivide the One, to subdivide its power. I do not know how Raguel managed to become pregnant – usually the Magi are painstakingly careful to prevent pregnancy – but that is why Ta’uz reacted so violently, and why he instantly killed the baby. The baby had violated and subdivided the One. Her life was an abomination. And so that beautiful little girl died.”

  I put my arms about her, and Isphet wept.

  4

  EVENTUALLY we all lay down for two or three hours of restless sleep – I shared Saboa’s pallet – and rose to the dawn chorus of frogs in the reed banks lining the Lhyl River.

  I helped Saboa fling wide the shuttered windows and, as the others stirred the fire and set pots to warm, I surveyed my new home. Of roughly plastered mud-brick, the square apartment was roomy but featureless. Sleeping pallets lay against the walls, and clothes, pots and urns were stacked on shelves. More urns lay embedded in the dirt floor to keep their contents cool. Besides the brazier in the centre of the floor, there were three wooden stools with woven reed seats, a low table, several scattered reed mats, and oil lamps hanging from ceiling beams. Little else. Even our small home in Viland had more cheer than this.

  The two windows looked out onto an abutting alleyway. The main door led to the street, another opened into a small store room, and a third to an ablutions block in a tiny internal courtyard shared by all apartments in this building. There were no internal stairs visible, but a set in the courtyard led to the higher levels.

  Isphet had helped Raguel out to the ablutions block, and now the woman struggled back inside, her face grey and lined. She sat down at the fire and silently accepted a bowl of warm porridge, listlessly shifting her spoon to and fro.

  Isphet took a long look at my travel-stained clothes, and sent me outside to wash. When I had done so, she gave me a length of pale cotton, thinly striped with green, and showed me how to wrap and knot it about myself to form a functional garment that left legs and arms bare. All the women wore similar wraps.

  “You’ll not need much more in this place, Tirzah. Graceful robes belong only in your lost past. And tie your hair back, loose hair has no place in my workshop.”

  No-one else spoke, and everyone tried to ignore the fact that Raguel cried silently, uselessly, into her bowl. I ate some of the warm grain, but my stomach still hadn’t recovered from the shock of the previous night’s events, and after some minutes I set the bowl aside.

  As Kiath dampened the coals, and Saboa straightened the sleeping pallets, Isphet took the loaf of bread wrapped in the stained cloths and gave it to Raguel. Her voice was harsh, but her eyes were gentle. “Take it, Raguel, and cast it into the furnace when the guards a-watch. Don’t look so, ‘tis only a lump of bread.”

  Maybe so, but in which of the urns was the body of the baby stuffed? And why did Isphet want to keep it? As hard as the death of her baby was, it surely would not help Raguel to know her child putrefied close to hand while she lay awake on her pallet at night.

  I hoped Kiath had stoppered that urn tight.

  “Work,” Isphet said.

  The workshop was close by, which was just as well, because I do not think Raguel could have managed a long walk. As it was, Kiath and Saboa had to support her the last lot of steps.

  Walking along the alleyways, I could sense Threshold’s presence, but I still could not see it above the close shadows of the tenement buildings.

  Isphet saw me twisting and craning my neck. “You’ll see more than you’ll ever want of Threshold soon enough, Tirzah. Patience.”

  And then we were at the workshop.

  I stepped inside, then halted in amazement. In Viland, my father and I had worked in a tiny workshop that suited our needs, and the work places of our neighbour craftsmen had been similarly small. But Isphet commanded a workshop of immense proportions that would easily hold more than a score of workers. In a far corner three furnaces glowed,
ready to be stoked for the day’s firing. Against one wall stood deep racks that held hundreds of sheets of glass. Another wall was shelved with scores of pots and urns that contained the powders and metals of our trade. Elsewhere neat racks held tools that made my father’s sack look like the insignificant plaything of a child. Around the workshop were the tables and work areas necessary for the manufacture of glass. An internal staircase led up to a level where I guessed the finer work that needed good light and tight concentration would be done. Is that where I would work?

  Kiath gave me a gentle push, and I closed my mouth and stepped into the central work space. Seven or eight men were here already, my father among them, and a younger man introduced him to Isphet.

  His introduction was terse, for he had caught sight of Raguel and the sad bundle she had clutched to her breast.

  “By the Place Be –”

  “Careful!” Isphet hissed. “We have newcomers among us!”

  He steadied himself. “What has happened?”

  Isphet briefly told him, or at least she told him that Ta’uz had discovered the child when he delivered me to Isphet’s door, and had killed her.

  The man’s mouth thinned and he looked me over consideringly. He was handsome, perhaps seven or eight years older than I, with black hair cut short and impatiently thrust back over his brow, intelligent brown eyes and a wide, sensual mouth that, as it finally relaxed, revealed a warm and friendly smile.

  “My name is Yaqob, and you are Tirzah. Druse has told me how well you cage.” He took my hand briefly, and I smiled for him.

  “That may be so,” Isphet said. “But, like all newcomers, she begins at the grinding tables until she learns the ways of my workshop. Yaqob, you will take the girl and her father to Yassar’s table and set them to work.”

  Grinding glass? That was a task for a first-year apprentice, but I said nothing, and walked with Yaqob as he introduced me about the workshop, and explained the manner in which all worked here.