Threshold (34 page)

Maybe that unity was what they’d wanted to accomplish above all else.

“Very well,” Boaz said. “Explain what we are to do and who we are to become. The Soulenai said we were Necromancers.”

“Yes. We shall talk of the Necromancers now.” It was a safer topic than that which had preceded it, and Solvadale relaxed. “Caerfom will now speak,” he said.

“There are two higher levels of the Elemental art,” Caerfom said. “That of the Grace and that of the Necromancer. Graces are sages. We think, we study, we advise. Necromancers are ‘doers’. They rarely stay among the community of the Abyss, but travel the world. They are magicians in a manner that Graces are not. Necromancers can manipulate matter, create enchantments – Boaz, you are the best example of that.” His mouth twitched. “Fetizza the frog, indeed.”

“And the stone lock of hair,” I said quietly, and explained that to the Graces.

They all looked surprised, but Caerfom nodded. “Boaz is extraordinarily talented, it is the strong blood of his father. Even without teaching, much of his talent shines through. Tirzah, you also demonstrate this talent.”

“Oh, no. I? Why –”

“The Goblet of the Frogs,” Xhosm said. “That is a magical object such as only one with Necromancer blood could make, and only one with the special talent for
creating. You can also read the Book of the Soulenai – until you were born, only Avaldamon had ever read that.”

“It is in the Geshardi tongue,” I said. “Anyone who can read Geshardi –”

“No,” Solvadale broke in. “Only Necromancers can read that book, and then only those gifted in special ways. Boaz, as Isphet and Yaqob, may never find the talent to do so. The book shall remain in your hands, Tirzah. It has picked you.”

“And Yaqob and myself?” Isphet asked.

“You both have Necromancer talent. Bred by long distant blood links to the Soulenai. It will require only very little training for both of you to demonstrate many of the necromantic skills Boaz and Tirzah have already displayed, although you may never achieve their depth and range.”

Boaz spoke next. “You said that Avaldamon was the last known Elemental Necromancer. Explain why there are no others. The four of us…are we the only ones you know of now?”

“Yes,” Solvadale said. “You are the only ones known to us. Necromancers are born, not made, and only born of the ancient blood lines of the Soulenai themselves.”

“You mean we
all
have Soulenai blood in us?” Isphet asked.

“Yes. You have yours from your father. Eldonor trained with us for some years. We thought for a while he would be a Necromancer, but his blood was too weak. In you, as in your three companions, the Soulenai influence runs thick. We do not know why it surfaces in one generation and not another.”

“Perhaps at the behest of the Soulenai themselves,” Caerfom said. “Even Avaldamon could not be entirely sure that the child he bred would have the blood. But he should have trusted to the Soulenai.”

“We have all spoken with the Soulenai over past months,” I said, “yet they have said none of this to us.”

“It was not ready to be said, Tirzah,” Gardar responded tartly. “Today you have found it hard. How would you have reacted while close to Threshold? How would
Threshold
have reacted?”

Threshold. I lowered my eyes.

“Enough,” Solvadale said. “We have wearied you. Come back tomorrow after the noon meal, and we will commence your training. We might not be Necromancers, but we do have the skills to make one.”

“Yes,” Boaz said, rising. “Good. I need to learn the Song of the Frogs. I need to understand that.”

“The Song of the Frogs?” Caerfom said. “We do not know that. Why is that important?”

Boaz and I just stared at them.

W
E
sat in the cool of the evening by the green waters at the bottom of the Abyss: Boaz, Yaqob, Isphet and I. Zabrze was off organising with Naldi how returning messengers would be able to find the hills and the Abyss safely; Zabrze hoped that over the next few weeks he would get some word from neighbouring lands, particularly from Prince Iraldur of Darsis, about help against Nzame.

“What is this Song of the Frogs, Boaz?” Yaqob asked.

I had explained something of the story and the song to Isphet, but now Boaz and I told the tale of the Song of the Frogs, explained about the goblet, and how frogs had run through Boaz’s life and through our relationship.

“The Soulenai told Tirzah that I must open myself to the Song of the Frogs, and Avaldamon told me that I must listen to the frogs, learn their song, follow the path it shows me. I had thought that when I arrived here…that the Graces…”

“But there are no frogs here,” Isphet said. “No song to listen to.”

“Not quite,” I replied. “We have the Goblet of the Frogs, the song reverberates through that. And we have Fetizza.”

We all looked at the frog. She sat at the edge of the water, apparently in a half-doze. If anything, in the past day she had doubled in size and was uglier than ever.

“Fetizza has done nothing but eat since her inception,” Boaz said. “And look at her now. If she doesn’t move in the next few minutes then I shall be convinced she’s become part of the rock.”

As if she had heard him, Fetizza slowly blinked her eyes, and hiccupped.

“Did you know what was going to come out of the goblet when you created an enchantment to lead us to water?” I asked Boaz.

“No. I really don’t know what I did – and the same applies for when I changed that stone lock of hair, Tirzah.”

Fetizza hiccupped again, her entire body rocking forward with the strength of it.

“Then we must trust the Graces,” Isphet said firmly, and prepared to rise.

Fetizza hiccupped once more, and this time so strongly she gagged, gagged again, and then almost fell over with the force of a gigantic burp.

A small amber frog crawled out of her mouth, balanced precariously in a sliver of drool on her lower lip, then plopped into the water.

Isphet sank back down, staring.

Fetizza gagged again, rolled her eyes, and spat forth another amber frog.

“
Kus!
” Yaqob swore softly under his breath.

Fetizza coughed up three more frogs, settled herself against the rock, then went back to sleep.

“Well,” Isphet said, rising to her feet. “It looks as though the frogs have come to the Abyss, Boaz.”

The five amber frogs splashed about in the water at Fetizza’s feet, then they swam out into the centre of the river and we lost sight of them.

That evening, very, very faintly, we heard a croaking arise from the waters below us, echoing through the Abyss.

In the morning, a child who’d been watching Fetizza reported that she’d coughed up several more frogs for breakfast. All amber.

“Necromancers are Elementals, but Elementals who have learned to manipulate the power contained within the elements,” Solvadale explained that afternoon as we sat in the semicircle in the Water Hall.

Gardar took over. “The elements, particularly gems and metals, can be used for magical arts because they still contain much of the energy expended at the time of Creation. That is why they whisper and chatter. They are, as much as we, alive. All of you have felt this.”

We nodded. Boaz now heard the chatter of metals, gems and glass as much as I did. He kept the Goblet of the Frogs by our bed, and last night I woke to find him lying quietly, turning it over and over in his hands, listening to its song.

“Necromancers manipulate that power,” Gardar continued, “to effect changes about them. Boaz, you manipulated the power within the Goblet of the Frogs to create Fetizza – who, it seems, is more than a little magical herself. All of you, including Boaz, must learn to recognise and control that power. That is what we will begin with today.”

Every afternoon for the next three weeks, the Graces taught us meditation exercises. Exercises to put us in touch, not only with our inner strength, but with the energy force within the elements. The exercises
sounded
simple but they cost us many an hour of effort and the occasional curse before we mastered them. I know Isphet and Yaqob, as Boaz and I, spent hours each evening practising, and many a night Boaz and I would fall into bed too exhausted for loving.

But we were learning. At the end of the three weeks we could touch our inner strength and the power of whatever
metal or glass object we held without apparent effort. Boaz remarked to me one evening that it was like seeing into the soul of the object whereas before we had only heard its whispering.

“Their souls glow with such radiance,” he said. “Rainbows of colour.”

I nodded, admiring his ability. I could see something of that, but only glimpses. Boaz
was
powerful…or perhaps each of us saw and felt something a little different.

When the Graces understood that we had mastered the exercises which put us in touch with the elements’ life forces, they then taught us to manipulate those forces.

More hours of practice, and many more curses. The meditation exercises had been simple compared to what we were asked to do now. We had to become one with the elemental object we held so that we could almost merge with its life force.

“But don’t let it go too far,” Gardar warned, “don’t merge completely, because then you risk becoming so
one
with the object that your soul and that of the object will merge…and your body will die.”

“And then we would have an object, perhaps a metal band, with the soul of a Boaz or an Isphet,” Solvadale said, “and that would do neither us nor you much good at all.”

This teaching was hard for the Graces, even nerveracking. They could not demonstrate, because they did not have the skills to do so, and they could not completely observe what we were doing or where we were going. They had to trust we would not overextend ourselves.

“Normally a Necromancer would teach a Necromancer,” Xhosm said to us one day. “But you have only us. Eventually we hope that you can take on the task of teaching others.”

“Hold this solid glass sphere,” Caerfom said to me another day, “and ruffle the waters of the pool with the force within it. This should be easy for you, Tirzah.”

Anything but. I touched the life force easily enough – I think I could have done it in my sleep – but to
direct
the power was far harder. I ruffled Caerfom’s clothes, and I tangled Isphet’s hair, but the waters remained disobligingly still.

“We will try again tomorrow,” Caerfom sighed, and dismissed us for the day.

Seven weeks after we’d arrived, Zabrze woke Boaz and me late one night.

“Damn you, Zabrze,” Boaz mumbled, “
you
may have nothing better to do here than sit about and grow lazy, but Tirzah and I have had a long and tiring day.”

“Get up, Boaz, Tirzah,” Zabrze said curtly, “and listen to what I have to say.”

Boaz sat on the side of the bed, rubbing his eyes, and I struggled into a sitting position, grasping the sheet to my breast. Were Boaz and I going to be bothered the rest of our lives by Zabrze’s midnight intrusions?

“One of my runners came in tonight,” Zabrze said.

“And?” Boaz asked.

“And bad news.”

There was a sound at the door. Isphet, cradling Zhabroah, came in and sat down next to Zabrze. “I couldn’t get back to sleep,” she said.

“Get on with it,” Boaz said to Zabrze, ignoring Isphet. “
What
news?”

“The man was one of those I’d sent to Darsis. He never got through. He’d taken a slightly different route to the others I’d sent; I can but hope
they
got through.”

“Zabrze –”

“He travelled north-north-east, rather than north-east, and so he did not move as far east as the others would have, nor as quickly…do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes, yes.
Will
you get on with it?”

“Two weeks after he left the Juit estate he heard a rumbling in the night. He leapt to his feet, but he could see nothing, and the noise had disappeared. So he went back to sleep. In the morning he rose –”

“And saw stone,” I said quietly.

“Yes,” Zabrze said, his voice weary. “About five paces away – to the west – the land and everything in it had been turned to stone. He knew what it was. He’d been at Threshold when…well, there was nothing left alive in the land to the west. Nothing. All stone. Nzame has extended his power.”

“How far from Threshold was he at this point, Zabrze?” Boaz asked.

“He would have been about three days march from it. Two weeks march from Lake Juit would have put him almost directly east from the pyramid.”

“Setkoth,” Boaz said.

“Oh gods,” I whispered.

“Yes,” said Zabrze. “Setkoth must have been turned to stone long before.”

Zabrze’s other children would doubtless have been caught in the city by expanding stone. If Nzame hadn’t rounded them up and eaten them beforehand. If they hadn’t had the foresight to escape.

Zhabroah. Survivor.

“There’s more,” Zabrze said. “The stone frightened my man so much all he could think of was to get away as fast as he could. He turned directly east and travelled night and day. Five days after Nzame expanded, he sent some of his stone-men a-foraging.

“Luckily my man saw them before they saw him. He hid as they passed, and what he saw made him believe that it was more important to get this news back to me than try to continue on into Darsis.”

Zabrze paused, collecting his courage. I glanced at Boaz, and he leaned close and put a comforting arm about me.

“It was a group of thirty-six stone-men. A regular unit. They marched – if you can call it that – in formation, shuffling and crumbling. Their features were malformed and craggy, their legs and arms thick and cumbersome. Their mouths, my man told me, were hung open as if in perpetual despair. They moaned, their heads lolling from side to side…moaning, moaning, moaning.”

If merely the telling gave Zabrze so much distress, then how badly affected had been the man who’d done the
seeing
?

“They were led,” Zabrze continued, “by a man who rode what my man could only describe as a shuffling, shapeless lump of rock, about the size of a donkey. This leader…was Chad-Nezzar.”

“
What?
” Boaz and I cried together.

“A Chad-Nezzar not turned to stone, but irreparably altered by Nzame. He was quite mad, my man said. Cackling and singing about power and the glory of Nzame. He stroked his mount of rock, as if it were alive, and called it beloved. His body was scarred where he’d torn his studs and bangles from his flesh, and dreadfully sun-burned.”

We sat for a few minutes, absorbing the news.

“You shall have to tell the Graces of this,” said Boaz eventually.

“Yes. And I shall have to think how I can combat an army of ten thousand stone-men, for Nzame must surely have that many.”

“And Chad-Nezzar,” I asked. “Has he the experience to lead an army?”

Zabrze shook his head, and opened his mouth to answer, but was forestalled by a voice from the doorway.

Solvadale.

“I heard,” he said. “And I do not believe that Chad-Nezzar is just ‘mad’. I think that now he may well be an extension of Nzame himself.”