Threshold (12 page)

Possibly he was just one who found pleasure in forcing a woman against her will.

Finally he snatched the stylus from my hand in frustration at a particularly misformed character I had made, and scrawled a word – scrawled, but his characters were flawless.

“What does it say?” he demanded.

I looked at the word. “It is my name. Tirzah.”

His mouth curled, the movement insulting, and I dropped my eyes. “And do you wonder, Tirzah,” he said very softly, “what sorceries your written name hides?”

He stared at me, then put the stylus to one side and stoppered the phial of ink.

“I will remind you this once,” he said, “that if you tell any of what occurs while you are with me then I will know. I do not think I need remind you of the consequences.” He paused. “You may go.”

“I thank you, Excellency.”

His eyes sharpened at my tone, and he searched my face carefully for any sign of mockery, but I kept my expression bland, and he waved me away.

Kiamet, still standing as straight and tall as the verandah post, escorted me back to the tenement house, where Isphet flung wide the door with anxious eyes.

“Tirzah!”

She closed the door in the guard’s face. “Well?”

“I have survived, Isphet.” But she was not satisfied.

“You have been gone so long.”

“He made me sit a long time, Isphet.” I ached to tell her that he had not touched me, that he had not wanted to bed me, but then she would have demanded to know
why
he wanted me there. How could I explain that I had broken my vow to Yaqob, that I had possibly created Magi sorceries with my stylus? And I was afraid that if I did tell her all this, then Boaz would know, and we would all die. It was safer if I kept my silence, and surely no harm would come of it. “He…I…”

“It’s all right, Tirzah, you do not have to go into details. I have endured it myself.” She pulled the gown from my shoulders, and folded it neatly away. “At least he has not bruised you. Now, clothe yourself in your wrap. Good. Sit down here and drink this as fast as you can. We shall have to go to the workshop soon.”

I sat, relieved that I had not actually lied to Isphet, and took the steaming herbal from her. I drank the bitter brew, not yet realising that to take the herbal and drink it was as blatant a lie as having spoken an untruth.

“Do you have any kohl sticks, Isphet?”

At the workshop Yaqob smiled at me awkwardly, and turned away. I stood, unsure what to say, wondering at the images that must be filling his mind. Yet better those than the truth. I did not have the chance to speak to him, for
Isphet hurried me up the stairs, told Zeldon and Orteas only that I had not been allowed to sleep, and laid me down on a pile of sacking.

“We’ll keep watch,” she said, and the two men nodded. “Sleep. There’s no point in trying to cage in your state.”

I let myself drift gratefully into oblivion, soothed by the whisper of the glass about me.

Zeldon shook me anxiously awake about midmorning. “Tirzah! Boaz is downstairs. Wake up!”

I struggled to my feet, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, although the surge of fright at Zeldon’s words woke me completely.

“Quick! He has asked for you.”

I pulled my wrap into order, blinked rapidly to try to look as if I’d been awake, then walked down into the main workshop.

The Magus was inspecting the glass plates that Yaqob had been scoring and breaking ready to be placed on the western face of Threshold. He had pulled out a measuring tape, and was engaged in careful measurement.

Yaqob stood to one side, his face expressionless – but his eyes flickered uncertainly as I walked up to them.

Boaz eventually straightened. “Yes. Good. They will do, Yaqob. Ah, Tirzah.”

He walked over to me, hesitated, then trailed his fingers down my face, my neck, then yanked my wrap aside to cup my breast in his hand.

“Ah, yes,” he said very softly, and lifted his eyes to my face. “How soon short hours make one forget. You pleased me well, Tirzah, and I achieved good union with the One through your body. You will return tonight.”

His fingers brushed over my breast one last time, his eyes unreadable, then he pulled the wrap across my nakedness and turned aside, walking out of the workshop without another word.

Every face in the shop, including Yaqob’s, was averted from me.

I had never been so utterly humiliated in all my life. My face flamed, but it was as much with anger and hate as it was with shame.

I knew why Boaz had done it. Yaqob would never believe me now if I told him that Boaz had not bedded me, or had shown no sign of wanting to bed me. Boaz’s actions just then had been those of a man intimately acquainted with a woman’s body.

I remembered how we had regarded Raguel, how we had pitied her, called her “Poor Raguel” behind her back, and my eyes filled with tears as I turned away.

A
S
demanded, I went back that night. I washed and clothed myself in the white dress, used the kohl Isphet gave me to emphasise my eyes, then walked alone to the gates of the Magi’s compound. The guards let me in without a word.

I hesitated outside the open doorway, then walked through. “Excellency?”

“Good. You are here.”

He sat back from his desk, and I fetched the water and washed his hands and feet, drying them, then rubbing in the fragrant oil. When I had finished, he indicated the chair at the side of the desk, waited until I had picked up the stylus, then resumed his lessons.

He made me redraw and explain all he had taught me the previous night. I struggled to remember. I had spent some seven hours at this desk last night, and much of what I now recalled for the Magus was vague and imprecise.

When my stylus slipped in my nervous fingers he shouted, and I cringed, half expecting him to strike me. But he only watched me, his eyes very careful, then asked me to draw some further figures that he had only touched on briefly before.

These, at least, satisfied him. “Good. You have not disappointed me.”

I blinked in amazement – and some very faint gratitude that I should have pleased him. I loathed the characters, truly I did, but I was craft-trained, and I took a professional pride in doing my best at whatever task I was set.

“Tonight,” Boaz continued, “I will instruct you in the art of constructing simple words with the characters you have already learned. See, here is your name again – do you understand how it is constructed?”

I glanced at him, and was surprised to see that his face held no scorn or animosity.

“Yes,” I hastened to reply as I saw a flicker of irritation at my hesitation. “I understand, Excellency.”

“Then draw it yourself.”

I did, and he seemed satisfied. “Now, my name. What characters would you use to construct that?”

I frowned. “Excellency?” It was a long word, and I was not sure of some of the characters.

He laughed. “Boaz!”

I almost dropped the stylus in my utter astonishment, not only at the laughter – unforced and easy – but that Boaz should be
able
to laugh. Then, completely forgetting my loathing of the man and his manipulations, my own mouth twitched. Excellency, indeed!

I drew the characters, and he nodded, his amusement fading. He took me through several other words, then had me lay down the stylus.

“Tirzah. You must not fear what I have just taught you. Yes, I can use words as sorceries, as numbers and symbols, to work my will, but I do not intend to teach you to do so. Nor will I make you write unwitting sorceries. That is not why I have asked you here. Do not fear the stylus so much.”

I relaxed still further, a dangerous thing to do, and smiled. “Thank you, Boaz.”

The change was instantaneous.

“
You will call me Excellency!
” he hissed. “If you dare presume again –”

“No, Excellency!” I stumbled, falling from the chair to the floor and my knees. “Forgive me!”

He turned back to his desk. “Very well. You may go. You are too tired to learn any more tonight.”

“Thank you, Excellency,” and I fled.

Isphet welcomed me home gladly, and gave me the herbal to drink. I lay awake for hours, trying to make sense of what had happened. He had smiled and laughed at my foolish incomprehension, and we had then sat in comfortable companionship as he taught me my first words. During that time I had not been frightened, angry or even resentful. Then…

I stared at the darkened ceiling. I understood what I had done wrong. I had presumed. I had stepped over that danger-edged invisible line of what was acceptable and what was not.

I drifted into sleep, and that night the chorus of the frogs in the reed banks rang loud through my dreams.

The next day I managed some time with Yaqob; I think the whole workshop had conspired to give us this chance. We found ourselves alone in the upper workroom as the workshop slowed down for the night.

“Tirzah.” He hesitated, then saw the expression on my face, and held me close. “Poor Tirzah,” I thought, wondering if he pitied me more than loved me.

“Tirzah, I must ask…about you and Boaz…”

Yes, I thought, yes he does. He cares.

“…if you think you will be able to glean anything from Boaz or his quarters…Raguel was so useful, and if you could find us
something
that will enable us to understand him, understand how to destroy him and escape from this place…”

I walked a few steps away. “I don’t know, Yaqob. His rooms are so bare, so barren…”

Yaqob seized me by the shoulders and turned me about. “He doesn’t say anything about weapons, or patrols?”

He saw the look on my face, and dropped his hands.

“It’s not why he requires my services, Yaqob.”

“I’m sorry.” Now it was Yaqob who walked away. He sat down on a bench, then looked up at me. “Tirzah, despite Boaz’s presence I believe we will have a chance at a successful uprising –”

“But the extra soldiers. And no patrol works to routine any more, Yaqob!”

“Listen to me, Tirzah! I think I have found another man who will serve as well as, if not better than, Ishkur – a gang-leader called Azam. He is ruthless, and determined, and he hates all Magi as much as we. The stonemasons have pledged me their support, as have the carpenters and water-carriers. Soon I will have Gesholme united behind me. Boaz will falter. He must. He will make a mistake, or become complacent.”

I shook my head. I did not think Boaz would make a mistake, and the word “complacent” did not equate with the sense of danger that hung about him.

“By the Soulenai, Tirzah! You
know
that Threshold will be the death of us all, eventually. Don’t you
want
to escape? Don’t you
want
our children to be born free?”

I burst into tears, and he held me tight again, stroking my hair, kissing my forehead. “Tirzah, we rely on you. You can deliver us Boaz. Make sure that you do it.”

A week passed, and then two. Boaz required my presence every second night, and on several occasions we worked almost until dawn.

He pushed me to learn as fast as I could, and I found it easier with each succeeding night. Soon I could write to his
dictation, and that pleased him, save when occasionally I misformed the characters, or did not get their edges as straight and as clean as he desired them. He gave me small pieces, scraps, to read, and I tried to make my voice smooth and pleasing, for he snapped whenever I stumbled over a word.

I was still very wary, but I chose to trust that he would not give me sorceries to form or to read, and I bent my entire will to learning the art of writing. In their own way, letters and characters were fascinating, and I enjoyed the challenge of learning some of their mysteries. Besides, here was a skill I could surely use to help Yaqob; perhaps one day Boaz
would
be careless enough to leave patrol rosters about, or perhaps a list of the location of weapon caches.

And perhaps not. Boaz gave me only meaningless passages to decipher. Sometimes he played with me, handing me items regarding Gesholme and Threshold to read. My eyes would brighten, skimming ahead over the text, trying to see how useful this might prove, then I would realise that he had given me nothing but absurdities, and I would look up to meet his cold eyes.

“Do you spy for Yaqob?” he asked one night.

“Excellency, what do you mean?”

“Does Yaqob question you about what happens between us?”

At least that I could answer directly. “No, Excellency. He assumes he knows…and he does not want to know the details.”

“Slaves own nothing,” he said, “not even their own lives. Yaqob should not expect to have any claim to your love or your body.”

I bowed my head and did not respond, but I was angry. Love was a gift freely given, not demanded or owned. My body might not be mine any more, but I reserved the right to bestow love as I wanted.

He didn’t laugh again in my presence. What I had seen so briefly on my second night in his room had been a momentary aberration.

“Tirzah, Orteas has work he must finish here. Will you assist me in the Infinity Chamber?”

I laid down the piece of glass I’d been caging. Zeldon and Orteas tried to shield me from the Infinity Chamber as often as they could, but they felt the horror as much as I, and it was not fair to them that they shoulder this burden.

We walked quickly along the streets to Threshold. Almost the entire southern face had been glassed now, and it shone in the sun. The glass completely covered the mouths of the shafts as they led inwards, but sometimes…sometimes in the evenings when the sun did not shine so directly I thought I saw flashes of light across the blue-green southern face, as if there was a fire within that sent light surging upwards through the shafts.

The interior of Threshold was cool, but I was not grateful for the escape from the heat. Every time I came in here the feeling increased that somehow Threshold was alive. Its shadow stretched darker day by day, and its mouth seemed to yawn wider every time I approached it.

When would it need to feed again? Five. Ta’uz had said it would be five, and I wondered at the significance of the numbers. How could he have predicted the three?

I followed Zeldon up the passageway. Colours swirled, but the glass did not speak.

“Zeldon, do you feel anything from these walls?” I whispered.

“No. There is nothing. The glass on these walls was mixed and crafted in Ymelde’s workshop, and she tells me that she put nothing into its crafting that could have killed it.”

“It is Threshold, then,” I said, and wished I hadn’t spoken. Even if there were no guards or Magi about,
Threshold itself could hear. How much did it know about my involvement in the plot to kill Boaz, or Yaqob’s part, or Zeldon’s? Had we been spared
only
because Threshold was somehow restricted to three that day?

“Yes,” Zeldon said, “it is Threshold.”

And, because we neared the Infinity Chamber, we fell silent.

Several workers were waiting with the portions of glass to be attached, and a Magus, Kofte, was standing with a dreamy expression on his face as he ran tender hands over the golden walls. He straightened as soon as he saw us, and his face assumed its normal arrogance.

“To work!” he snapped.

It was painstaking work, and Zeldon and I focused as closely as we could on the task at hand, for that way we dulled the despair of the glass already nailed to the wall.

Concentration helped, but even that wavered when, with each succeeding panel we helped attach, the panel added its horror to that of the rest of the glass. The instant a panel was laid against the stone that would hold it, its whispering screamed into fright, and then into…into something else. Something else that continually fed the glass’ despair and kept it at fever pitch. I knew that some of these panels had been here over a year, and yet their screams were as barbed as the first day, their anguish even worse.

I wished I could understand, wished I could help the Soulenai understand.

I straightened, easing my back, as the last panel was fastened in place, and looked about. Kofte was still here, but he was ignoring us, turning his attention again to the walls. My eyes trailed over the inscriptions, and then stopped. Caught. I had reached a passage I could read.

I held my breath, stunned. I had never thought that I might be able to
read
this dreadful writing! Read, but I could not understand all of it. Although I could form the words in my mind, and could have mouthed them had I
wanted to, I could not understand the meaning of the majority of them. They were foreign. Hard. Incomprehensible. But there were one or two words…a phrase…some that I
did
know.

I dropped my eyes, relieved that I had not been able to comprehend most of what I had read. What would have happened had I spoken them aloud? Would sorceries have sprung into action? Would Infinity have reached out to seize me?

I jumped as Zeldon dropped his hand on my shoulder. “We’re finished, Tirzah,” and we turned as one to bow for Kofte as he dismissed us.

The next day I approached Isphet. I needed to talk to someone about what was happening – but not her. This saddened me more than my inability to talk to Yaqob. Since my arrival, Isphet had become a good friend, a friend
she
thought I would be able to turn to with any problem. Over the past two weeks she had pressed me to talk of how I felt about Boaz, about his use of me, but to do that would deepen and complicate the lies already thriving between us.

“Talk to me,” she would say, stroking the hair from my forehead. “It will help.”

I would turn my head away so she could not see the deceit in my eyes. “I cannot, Isphet. I’m sorry.”

And so I would take her herbal brews and drink them uselessly down, for Yaqob had lost all desire for me while he thought I bedded with Boaz.

Initially I did not talk to Isphet because I feared what Boaz might do when he found out. Now I could not talk to her because I feared the suspicion that would flower in Isphet’s face when she realised what
was
going on.

Boaz had been more than cunning. I was increasingly isolated from my friends and my lover, trapped in a web of lies he had forced me to construct. There was no-one I could safely talk to. Except…

“Isphet, I would like to touch the Soulenai, and let them touch me. But I want to be alone when I touch them. Will you aid me in this?”

Since my induction into the Elemental arts, Isphet had allowed me to touch the Soulenai on a number of occasions. Each time she and several others had been with me, and I had revelled and grown in the experience. But now I needed to do this on my own.

“Why alone, Tirzah? What is it you want to say to them that cannot be said in front of myself, or any other Elemental who joins the rite?”

“I…I…”

“What is it you have to hide, Tirzah? I do not like secrets in my workshop!”