Threshold

  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.

  41

  IT was dark by the time all the men and women had been taken to quarters within the Abyss, and I thought they would need tender care over the next months if they were to resume full and contented lives.

  Just as we approached the stairwell and Boaz laid his hand on the door, there came an urgent shout from behind us.

  One of the sentries hurried up to us. “Three men,” he gasped.

  “Stone-men?” Zabrze asked.

  “No, Mighty One. Men as you or I, but I do not know them.”

  “Where?”

  “They are not far behind me, Mighty One.”

  “You go ahead,” Zabrze said to us, but we all shook our heads. Strange men meant news.

  The three men, escorted by several more sentries and four men from the unit Zabrze had stationed to watch over the lower hills, arrived and bowed low to him.

  All three were travel-stained and weary; two of them wore insignia on their armbands that I had not seen previously.

  “Ataphet,” Zabrze said to one man. “What news?”

  “Mighty One,” Ataphet said. “I was the only one of my group to get through. I delivered my message, and –”

  “And?” Zabrze had moved forward a step. “And?”

  “And,” one of the other two men said, “we come as personal emissaries from Prince Iraldur.” He introduced himself and his companion, but their names flew over my head. Iraldur of Darsis!

  “And?” I think Zabrze barely restrained himself from clutching at the man’s tunic.

  “My Prince sends personal messages of goodwill and friendship to you and your esteemed wife…”

  I glanced at Isphet. Zabrze’s esteemed wife was not the same one Iraldur had once known.

  “…and,” the man hurried on as Zabrze gestured in irritation, “my Prince asks me to inform you that he, too, has argument with this Threshold and its appetite –”

  “Why?”

  “Mighty One, our western borderlands have been raided over past months by men of rock that neither swords nor pikes can halt. Scores of men and women have been marched into land that has been turned to stone itself.”

  “Oh, dear gods,” Zabrze murmured, and passed a hand over his eyes. “I was afraid of this.”

  “Mighty One, my Prince begs me to inform you that he will support you in whatever way you deem necessary to halt this abomination, but that he knows not what to do. He waits just inside Darsis’ border with Ashdod, an army at his back, and he waits for word from you.”

  “I thank you, my good man. This is news I have long waited to hear.”

  “Mighty One,” the man stepped forward, his face anxious. “My companions and I have journeyed long and hard to reach you here. Three nights ago we were woken by a great trampling of feet, and a moaning that tore into our souls.”

  My heart pounded, and Boaz clutched at my hand.

  “Mighty One, to the north-east of here marches a great army composed of walking rocks.”

  “It marches south…south to us?”

  “No, Mighty One. It marches north-east. North to meet Iraldur of Darsis.”

  His moaning woke me, and it terrified me, for it was the moaning of the stone-men.

  “Boaz!” I grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “Boaz!”

  He jerked into wakefulness, his eyes wide and terrified. “Tirzah.”

  “Of what did you dream, Boaz, to make such moan?”

  “Nothing, Tirzah. It was nothing. Go back to sleep.”

  “No, I will not believe that. I know you too well now not to spot a deception. Boaz, you moaned as if you were a stone-man yourself.”

  He was silent, and then decided to tell me the truth. “I dreamed of Nzame. It was almost as if he were here with me…whispering into my ear…laughing at me.”

  “And of what did he speak?”

  “Tirzah –”

  “No, tell me.”

  He sighed. “He told me to take you and flee to Viland. He said that his appetite would never stretch that far. He said our cause was hopeless.”

  Boaz rolled over to face me. “Tirzah, perhaps he made some sense. Perhaps if you did return to –”

  “No! I am needed here. Ten thousand stone-men wait to be transformed, and as yet only you, I and Isphet can help.”

  The Graces had done their best, and their best was very good, but Yaqob would remain abed for weeks if not months, and even then would walk poorly for the rest of his life. I had wondered, drifting into sleep earlier, if his injuries were not entirely accidental, and if the Soulenai had decided it were better if one of us, at least, remained in the relative safety of the Abyss.

  “No,” I said more softly. “I must come with you.”

  Zabrze had given his soldiers a day in which to prepare, and then we would begin our march north. The stone-men shuffled but slowly, and if we pushed the pace we should be able to reach Iraldur before them.

  Nevertheless, Zabrze had sent runners north this very night, not only sending word of our own imminent arrival, but advice on how these stone-men could be combated.

  I stroked Boaz’s arm. “You talked with Nzame through Kofte, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “There was nothing of Kofte left, save that dreadful nose. I touched briefly with Nzame. I wanted to know…I needed…”

  “To know what you can do to defeat him, Boaz?” My voice was hard-edged. “And did you find out?”

  “I found out what I needed, Tirzah. I will not risk that again. Not if I find a
hundred of those black, glassy men before me.”

  “Boaz, can you defeat Nzame?”

  He laughed, and gathered me into his arms so that I could not see his face. “Of course I can, beloved. I have no wish to leave you.”

  But his laughter was forced, and his body tense, and I did not believe him.

  Neither of us slept again that night.

  “Yaqob? Are you awake?”

  “Yes, Tirzah. Come in. You must be almost ready to go.”

  “Yesterday Zabrze was shouting at everyone. Today he is silent and tense. We leave in an hour.”

  I sat down by Yaqob’s bed. The sword lay close to him, and I thought he would have need of it for weeks to come. His legs were now splinted and covered with bandages, but I would never forget their terrible aspect as the stone-man was rolled away.

  His colour was good, and I’d heard that he had eaten well over the past day.

  “I wish I was coming with you, Tirzah.”

  “I am glad you are not, Yaqob.”

  We were silent, looking at each other, thinking of the love we’d shared, and of all the things that could have been and yet never would be.

  “And those that were stone? I have heard so little of them.”

  “They recover, but they will need a great deal of time to recover completely. They sit and think for hours on end with slight frowns on their faces, as if there is something they should remember, but cannot.”

  “They do not recall their time as stone?”

  “Only in dreams. I think Nzame sometimes still calls to them in their dreams.”

  He sighed and looked at the ceiling. “My legs itch damnably, Tirzah.”

  “Then they are healing. Should I ask the sword…?”

  “No. No, you have done enough – and for that I thank you.”

  We sat in silence for some minutes. Eventually I stirred. “Was that Kiath I spotted leaving as I approached, Yaqob?”

  He hesitated. “Yes.”

  “She would be good for you.”

  “Don’t you dare dictate to me, Tirzah! Not after what you have done! Kiath shall not provide a salve for your conscience.”