Threshold

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  “Then tell her to be at my quarters by star-rise. And tell her to wash first.”

  “As you will, Excellency.”

  With that he grunted and turned to Yaqob, telling him to hurry with his measurements.

  The incident laid a pall over the entire site. Too many people had witnessed the death of the slave for any to discount the story of his lazy, deliberate execution at the will of Threshold.

  No-one within our workshop had known the slave, but we heard of him quickly enough. He was a simple labourer by the name of Gaio, and he was not an Elemental. There was no reason why Threshold should have chosen to kill him, save the fact of his existence. It could have been any of us.

  The body had been removed quickly, but somehow the stain of Gaio’s blood remained on the stones surrounding Threshold’s entranceway for weeks, despite the most strenuous attempts to wash it off. It wore away only with the passage of feet, and then only slowly, for most took great care to avoid it.

  If the Magi were perturbed, they hid it well. They stalked the precincts of all three compounds, their faces masked, eyes vivid with power, and they gave away none of their inner thoughts or worries – if, indeed, they had any.

  But Ta’uz was disturbed. There were moments when his doubts showed through. After a week or two, Yaqob and Isphet thought to question Raguel closely about her time with him, and she reported that he was distracted, sometimes so distracted he sent her away without using her.

  “The night of Gaio’s death he told me to lie on the bed, and I did so. But then he paced to and fro, to and fro, staring out the window at Threshold. He muttered to himself, but I could not catch his words. After some time he turned and jumped, as if startled to see me. He used me, nevertheless, although I think that night he achieved no communion with the One. Since then he has called me back five times, but used me only once.”

  She looked considerably relieved about that, and I did not blame her. Since we had farewelled her daughter into the Place Beyond, Raguel had recovered much of her spirit, and I had discovered her to be an amusing companion. I wondered if the only reason Ta’uz constantly sought her presence was to commune with the One.

  “Will he talk, if you prod him?” Yaqob asked.

  Raguel looked frightened. “You know how it is with the Magi, Yaqob. You never speak to them unless spoken to first, and then only if they ask you a direct question. I cannot think what he would do if I tried to initiate a conversation.”

  “Nevertheless,” Yaqob pressed, and I gave him an irritated glance. Surely he could see how reluctant Raguel was? And how dangerous it would be for her?

  “Nevertheless, if you could ease him into conversation about what worries him about Threshold, we might find out what is so wrong with it. And Ta’uz is the Master of the Site. The information you could glean from him could be invaluable –”

  “Yaqob!” I said. “Have a thought for Raguel’s safety –”

  He leaned across and seized my wrist in tight, angry fingers. “Tirzah, I have the responsibility to see that whatever uprising I lead succeeds. I will waste no opportunity to do so. If Raguel has access to information about patrols, weapons, stores, then I want to know about it!”

  “I will do my best,” Raguel said quietly.

  “Good,” Yaqob replied, still looking at me, then let my wrist go. I rubbed it, glaring at him, then I shifted my eyes back to Raguel.

  Her face was rigid with dread.

  Five weeks later I was walking back to our quarters in the cool evening air, chatting with Raguel; Isphet, Saboa and Kiath followed some steps behind muttering over a firing which had gone wrong that morning. Raguel was reasonably cheerful even though Ta’uz had required her presence the evening before and might well do so again tonight.

  “I really don’t know why he keeps asking me back. Sometimes I think he just likes to have company.”

  “Does he talk to you?”

  “Only rarely. I enter, he asks me to sit on a stool by the bed as if he can’t make up his mind what to do with me, then he either paces back and forth, or just stands at the window and stares at Threshold. If he does that then he always puts the lamps out first.”

  I shivered. If Ta’uz was frightened of Threshold…“And he doesn’t…”

  “Use me?” Raguel laughed. “Only occasionally. I thank the Soulenai that it is only occasionally.”

  I didn’t quite know how to phrase this next question. “It isn’t enjoyable?”

  Raguel pulled a face. “The Magi are brief and painful and utterly humiliating, Tirzah. Ask Isphet. She endured almost five years of use.” Her mood lightened and she pinched my arm playfully. “I wish I had your Yaqob.”

  I grinned wanly. “Why the baby, Raguel?” I’d never dared ask this before, but she’d never been so open before, either.

  “Because I was young and stupid,” she replied, her tone harsh, “and because –”

  But whatever she was going to say was cut off by a distant shout from the river and then, stunningly, a clarion of trumpets.

  We stopped, and Isphet caught us up.

  “Trouble,” she muttered. “Where’s Yaqob?”

  “He’s still back in the workshop,” I said, “cutting glass for tomorrow’s plating. Isphet? What is it?”

  “I’m not sure –” she began, then another clarion sounded, much louder this time.

  “Quick,” she said, grabbing Raguel and me by the elbows. “Back to our quarters. Quick!”

  She gave us no chance for further questions, hurrying us down the street, then into the alley that led to our tenement. Once inside she thrust empty grain jars into Raguel’s and my hands, and grabbed one herself. Kiath and Saboa she sent to the roof to see what they could.

  “Come on,” she said. “We’ve run out of grain. A visit to the grain store is needed.”

  “But we’ve got plenty of –” Raguel began, then stopped at the expression in Isphet’s eyes.

  “Hurry!” Isphet hissed.

  We left the building and walked down the street at a pace that was almost a trot. As soon as we turned onto the street that led to the grain store I realised what she was doing. The store lay close to the compound of the Magi, and the street we were on intersected with the main street close to the compound’s gates. There we might have a chance of seeing who had arrived.

  And, with a clarion of trumpets announcing their arrival, it surely wasn’t a new complement of slaves. Or Magi, for that matter. Since I’d been in Gesholme Magi had come and gone, but never with this much fuss.

  As we approached the intersection, guards thrust us to our knees, their eyes nervous but their hands hard.

  “Where are you going?”

  With our foreheads pressed to the dirt, we couldn’t see a thing, but we could feel the tramp of approaching feet. Rhythmic, marching, frightening.

  “We go to collect grain, master!” Isphet mumbled.

  “It’s the wrong time of day to –”

  Trumpets sounded again, so close they drowned out the guard’s voice, and he spun about on his heel.

  I heard the other guards turn to look too, and I dared lift my head a fraction.

  A contingent of armoured guards had marched up the street, then arranged themselves in ranks on either side. My eyes widened at the sight of them. They wore loin cloths of shimmering gold and their chests and backs were armoured in bronze burnished to a mirrored finish. Metal-studded leather was wrapped about their arms and legs, and scarlet and emerald plumes crested bronze helmets, and hung in tassels from their spears.

  Although they had arranged themselves in ranks down the sides of the road, forming an honour guard, I could still see between the legs of the two directly in front of me. The gate to the compound of the Magi had been thrown open, and now Ta’uz emerged, his robes and face composed and tranquil, but his fingers tapping where his hands folded in front of him.

  “He’s furious,” Raguel mouthed.

  Unexpected and
unwanted then, I thought. But who?

  I was answered almost immediately. Another clarion sounded, now so close and so piercing I screwed my eyes shut and stuck my fingers into my ears.

  When I finally opened my eyes it was to see Ta’uz abasing himself in the dust before a thin man in his seventies.

  I took a deep breath; never in my life had I imagined to see such riches. The man would have been unremarkable, I think, save for the accoutrements of power appended to him. Although he was elderly, he was still vital, with a plain face dominated by a curved beak of a nose and a thin mouth. His greying black hair was plaited into hundreds of tiny braids, all bound with gold wire and studded with rubies and diamonds. But his hair was not the only part of him adorned with jewels. His entire body dripped obscenely with gems and precious metals – the three of us could hear them whisper and simper about him. He had a gem-studded golden collar so thick and wide it held his chin at an unnatural angle, while his ear lobes had been pulled out of shape with the weight of the jewels that hung from them. Of clothes he wore only the briefest of loin cloths (and even that, I think, of woven silver and gold wires). The rest of his body was banded, pierced, studded, wrapped, threaded and looped about with gold and silver and gems of every imaginable hue and size. I wondered if what the loin cloth hid had been similarly studded and pierced and banded.

  He was obviously not an Elemental, for had he been, the whispering and chattering of those metals and gems would have driven him mad.

  “Mighty One,” Ta’uz said, and raised himself to his knees.

  “Chad-Nezzar?” I mouthed to Isphet, and she nodded slightly.

  Chad-Nezzar waved a bright hand about in the air, the sun’s rays setting its gems afire.

  “Ta’uz. I have grown bored in Setkoth, and I have decided to see how goes the construction. My nephew,” again the hand waved, and a Magus stepped out from behind Chad-Nezzar, “tells me that construction has slowed.”

  What Ta’uz said next I do not know, for my entire attention, my entire life, was riveted on the man who had stepped out.

  It was Boaz.

  I hid my face so deep in the dirt that I breathed dirt. I did not look up again. There were politenesses spoken, and formalities passed, and eventually the road cleared as Chad-Nezzar and his retinue passed into the compound. I dared move only when I heard the gates slam behind them.

  A booted foot landed squarely in my ribs.

  “Oof!” I collapsed briefly into the dirt again before struggling to my knees.

  “Forget your grain tonight,” one of the guards barked. “Get back to your quarters and stay there until morning!”

  We hastily complied. No-one spoke until we were safely back and the door shut behind us.

  “Well,” Isphet said, “he hasn’t been here for over eight years. I wonder what brings him back now?”

  “Boaz?” I asked, muddled.

  Isphet looked sharply at me. “Chad-Nezzar. Who is this Boaz?”

  “The Magus who stepped out from behind the Chad. Isphet, I spoke to you of him. He was one of the Magi I worked the glass for in Setkoth.”

  “Oh. Why are you so afraid of him?”

  “I am afraid of all Magi.” But that wasn’t enough, and after a pause I reluctantly went on. “He suspected me of Elemental power.”

  Isphet’s eyes narrowed. “You worked that glass too well. You should have been more careful.”

  “I was trying to save my life,” I snapped, “and I had no idea of elements or Soulenai or even of Magi at that point.”

  Kiath and Saboa joined us from the roof.

  “Chad-Nezzar,” Isphet informed them briefly. “What did you see?”

  “River boats,” Kiath said. “Some forty or fifty. Packed with armoured men, perhaps five thousand. Chad-Nezzar has come well escorted. The imperial soldiers are spreading throughout Gesholme.”

  “Is he expecting trouble?” Isphet murmured. “Does he know? Can he know?”

  My stomach churned. Had Chad-Nezzar somehow found out about our planned revolt? Had an alert guard noticed Yaqob and Yassar talking? Had someone found the cache of blades?

  Whatever, there was nothing anyone could do with five thousand soldiers come to visit.

  Yaqob must be furious, I thought, and wished be would come to visit.

  But there was no way he could. Not with five thousand men spreading throughout the encampment. Even the roofs would not be safe.

  No-one slept well that night.

  The workshop was both subdued and alive with speculation in the morning. Word about Chad-Nezzar’s presence had spread throughout Gesholme as fast as his soldiers had; everyone had a theory about why he might be here.

  With several workers within the shop not Elementals and not yet involved in the plans to revolt, none of us could openly discuss the fear that we’d been discovered.

  Yaqob, his face strained with sleeplessness, snapped at everyone, including me. The first piece of glass he tried to score shattered under his hands, and he cursed and threw the pieces into a corner.

  I winced, shared a look with Isphet, then hurried to my upper room to cage. At least Orteas and Zeldon would be calmer.

  Calmer, but also tense. I went to the balcony and looked about. Chad-Nezzar’s imperial soldiers were everywhere. Most were arrayed in workman-like armour rather than the golden finery of the Chad’s personal guard, but they were all armed heavily, and were fit and alert.

  I went back inside and sat down. Yaqob had been relying heavily on the fact that the usual guards within Gesholme had become complacent after years of compliance and subservience on the part of the slaves.

  Now…

  I took a piece of glass in my hand and drew an outline of the design on it with a wax stick. I had to rub my lines out several times before I got them right, and Zeldon glared at me.

  I noticed he had been sanding the same piece of glass so long that it threatened to break under his fingers.

  There was a noise downstairs, and movement. Shouts, then the sound of a large group moving about. Isphet’s voice, calm but submissive. Orteas, Zeldon and I gave up all pretence at work and stared at each other.

  Motioning us to keep still, Zeldon put his glass carefully down and moved to the head of the stairs, peered carefully down for some minutes, then came back to our table.

  “Well?” Orteas demanded.

  Zeldon looked at us carefully. “Chad-Nezzar. And a substantial escort.”

  “What!” I cried, and Zeldon grabbed my arm.

  “Quiet!” he hissed.

  “What are they doing here?” Orteas said.

  “Isphet is showing the Chad how the furnaces work.” Zeldon’s mouth threatened to smile. “And if Chad-Nezzar gets any closer, his golden finery will melt right into his skin.”

  Orteas was not to be amused. “Will they come up here?”

  He was answered by voices and steps on the stairs.

  “Get back to work!” Zeldon whispered.

  My hands were shaking. Would Boaz be with them?

  Isphet arrived first, gracious in her sweat-stained work wraps, waving her hand for Chad-Nezzar to inspect the room. Terrified, I looked back at my glass, gripping it as tightly as I dared, trying to stop my hands from shaking.

  Chad-Nezzar stopped by Zeldon and idly looked over his shoulder.

  “Fine work,” he said, his voice lazy and bored. Even those two words sounded a great effort.

  “I thank you, Mighty One,” said Zeldon.

  Others moved into the room. I dared not look up.

  “This is where the caging is done for the Infinity Chamber, Mighty One,” Isphet said.

  Chad-Nezzar was by the open door to the balcony now, looking out. I heard him turn around. “Only three do this work?”

  “Caging is master craftwork, Mighty One,” I heard Ta’uz respond. “We scour markets for those skilled in the arts. If, perhaps, funding were improved…”

  “But the girl?” Chad-Nezzar was closer now.

&n
bsp; “The girl is unusually skilled for one so young,” a different voice said. One I remembered.

  And remembered hatred seared through me.

  A hand appeared over my shoulder and plucked the glass from my hand. A younger hand than that of Chad-Nezzar, and un-ringed.

  The tools clattered from my fingers as Boaz lifted the glass over my shoulder and turned to his uncle now standing beside him. “See how well she works it.”

  I looked up and stared ahead. Directly into Isphet’s level gaze. Have courage, her eyes pleaded, and I took a deep breath, fighting to relax my shoulders. Was Yaqob in the room?

  Yes, there, to the rear of several guards and one or two other workmen. His eyes were smouldering, their anger and frustration only barely veiled. I hoped he could keep his evenness of temper. If he lost control now…I forced my gaze away from his face, and realised Chad-Nezzar had spoken to me.

  “Why so skilled?”

  “My father trained me from the age of five, Mighty One. I loved the glass…”

  Isphet’s eyes flared in alarm, and I hurriedly tried to cover myself.

  “I, ah, loved working the glass. It gave me satisfaction. I practised many hours when I could have been playing.”

  “Ah,” Chad-Nezzar’s voice appeared cheered. “It is as I suspected, Boaz. The lower castes like nothing better than to be given some work to do.” His metals and gems chattered brightly, intrigued by the caged glass they could sense in the room. I wondered how anyone here could fail to hear the elemental conversations going on about them.

  “Threshold is as a gift to them, Uncle.”

  Slowly I turned my head. Boaz was standing to my side now.

  He held the glass I’d been working on loosely in his hands, his fingers lazily stroking it. His grey eyes were relentless, forcing me to remember.

  He was playing with me. Would he drop it, kill it?

  The glass thought it would be killed. It teetered between screaming and silence, and I thought I, too, would scream, if it did.

  But Boaz put the glass on the table and looked to his uncle. “The best place to see this in its full glory is the Infinity Chamber, Uncle. Besides, it is time we saw how well, or not, the work progresses.”