Threshold (39 page)

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.

I
T
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.”

I hung my head and studied my hands. There was nothing I could say to that.

“Be careful, Tirzah. And come back and see me one day.”

I blinked back my tears. I leaned forward to kiss him, then thought better of it. He held out a hand, and I took it.

“Thus we began, thus we end,” he said softly.

I smiled for him now as I had then, but the tears ruined my face, and I snatched my hand from his and fled.

“How was he?” Boaz asked. “He seemed well enough when I said my farewells to him earlier.”

Ah, I thought, but he cannot score your heart with such guilt as he can mine. “He recovers well. We shall not have to fear for him.”

Boaz looked at me, then brushed a betraying tear from my cheek. “He has had his adventure, Tirzah. We still have a way to go.”

“Yes. Are we packed?”

I looked at the packs awaiting us on the bed. We would travel light, for we still had the camels and mules who had given us such good service from the Lhyl across the Lagamaal. They had fed and watered to excess during their leisurely months in the fields above the Abyss, and it would do them good to work off some of their fat in the journey north.

“Are you sure you want to take the goblet and book, Tirzah?”

I had insisted that Holdat pack them. Would I come back? I didn’t know. Even in happy times, the Abyss was a long way from anywhere else. So the goblet and book travelled with me.

“Yes. I am sure.”

“Listen…Zabrze has caused the trumpets to sound. Come on, Tirzah, there are still a few farewells yet to be said.”

We shouldered our packs and walked out into the hallway. There was Isphet, her arms wrapped about her father. It must be doubly hard on Eldonor to lose her so soon after having found her.

We touched his shoulder briefly in farewell, but he only nodded and turned back to his daughter, and we left them in peace, climbing through the stairwell to the top of the cliffs.

Everyone else who was to accompany Zabrze was already above, waiting either here or further down the gorge. There were the imperial soldiers who’d backed Zabrze in his fight against Threshold – some five hundred and forty – and another thousand composed of men from Gesholme and the Abyss. Among that thousand were not only those who could fight, but many of those strongest in the Elemental arts, such as Zeldon and Orteas. They may not be able to wield the same power as Boaz, Isphet or myself, but they would still be useful, and they were friends, and I was glad they would come with us.

We heard the distant braying of a mule; they and the camels were waiting for us further into the hills, carrying not only supplies but all the rope the Abyss could provide.

The Graces were there, Solvadale at their head, and they embraced Boaz and myself, then Isphet as she emerged from the stairwell. There were no words said.

Kiath was there also, holding Zhabroah, now a chortling happy boy some months old. Zabrze would not risk him on this mission. He could well be his only surviving child, and it would be pointless stupidity for Zabrze to insist that his son come with him. But Zabrze was a doting father, and he smiled and pinched the boy’s cheek, and charged Kiath with his care.

Zabrze turned and stood at the lip of the canyon. I held my breath, thinking it an unnecessary bravery, but the crowds lining the balconies of the Steps loved it, and I heard a great roar as Zabrze waved them farewell.

The Abyss may never have been an integral part of Ashdod before, but if Zabrze should win, then I thought it would not remain so isolated in the future.

Far below the frogs sang, even though it was well after dawn.

“Fetizza?” I asked Boaz.

“I do not know,” he said. “I looked for her this morning, but could not find her. She will choose her own way, Tirzah.”

“Yes.” I was overcome with the sadness of loss again, and was glad when Zabrze gave the command to move off.

W
E
did not march west to the Lagamaal Plains, but instead swung directly north, travelling parallel with the Abyss until it was swallowed by the rock and cliffs. The way was difficult, but even so it was a shorter route than travelling first to the plains and then north.

And we were less likely to meet stone-men this way. Our soldiers alone could not hope to manage Nzame’s ten thousand.

“I hope Iraldur has brought a goodly force,” Zabrze muttered as we made camp the first night. “Otherwise we shall be crushed.”

We travelled through the hills for two days, then moved north-east into rolling grasslands, easy on foot and eye. The vast majority of us were walking, although Zabrze and several of the officers rode fine grey horses, gifts from the people of the Abyss. Despite the foot pace, we advanced quickly. This was a military march, and Zabrze kept us moving from just after dawn until dark had fallen.

“How long do you estimate before we reach Iraldur?” I asked Zabrze one evening.

“We march directly north for another week, then swing north-west. We should reach him in two weeks.”

“Why would Nzame send his army to meet Iraldur rather than us?” Boaz said. “He knew where we were.”

“Iraldur is the more immediate threat,” Zabrze replied. “And would provide the easier feeding. How many months is it since we escaped Threshold? Four? Five?”

“And Nzame’s appetite must be increasing by the day,” I said quietly. “I wonder what incomposite number he is up to now?”

Boaz ran a hand through his hair. It was growing again, and I thought it was time I trimmed it back. Every time it grew past his neck it reminded me too much of the Magus.

“His power increases with each life he takes,” he said.

Zabrze looked at his brother carefully. “Can you best him, Boaz?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“How?”

I watched my husband carefully. Boaz would never talk to me of how he intended to defeat Nzame. Would he tell Zabrze?

“It is too complicated,” Boaz said vaguely. “It involves mathematical formulas that would leave you blinking in confusion.”

I looked away, not able to bear the lie in his eyes. Why wouldn’t Boaz tell us what he intended to do? Was it because he expected to die in the process?

“Then tell me how I can help you,” Zabrze said.

“Get me to Threshold,” Boaz answered, looking Zabrze straight in the eye. “Get me
inside
Threshold.”

“You’re going to the Infinity Chamber?” I asked. Bloodied writing swirled once more before my eyes.
The Infinity Chamber?

“Yes, Tirzah. It is the only place.”

“And will you walk
out
of the Infinity Chamber, Boaz, once you are done?”

“Of course, beloved,” he said with an easy smile, and for that night I let myself believe him.

After a week, Zabrze ordered the column to swing north-west. There the grassland gave way to shifting soil which made marching difficult.

After another day’s march the soil gave way to stone.

Flat, bare stone.

We stood in the late afternoon sun, shading our eyes as we stared. Wind whipped off the stone, hot and unforgiving, twisting our robes around our legs, and catching at the cloths about our heads.

“Nzame has wrapped my realm in tombstone,” Zabrze said.

It was both awe-inspiring and terrifying. I’d seen the stone land in the vision in the Chamber of Dreaming, but even that barely prepared me for the sight before me now.

The overwhelming impression was that the land was dead. Utterly dead. There was not a bird in the sky, nor so much as an insect crawling over the stone. The land had also been completely flattened. Even the barest of plains has undulations and dips in its surface. Not so this landscape. Small drifts of sand skimmed across its surface, as if searching for a place to rest.

I stepped to the dividing line between living land and dead and bent down. Trembling, I laid a hand on the stone.

Nothing. No life.

I glanced at Boaz. His hand was also flat on the stone. “There is no life,” he said. “None.” He sounded puzzled.

“Well?” Zabrze said, looking between Isphet, Boaz and me. “Can you transform this land as you transformed the stone-men?”

Boaz stood up. “No. The stone-men are still alive, deep within their rock. Nzame did not kill that spark of life because he wanted the stone to move, to act out his will.
But the land he has killed completely. I’m sorry, Zabrze. I don’t know what I can do about this.”

Zabrze looked at me, then Isphet, but we both shook our heads. He stared, his face hardening, then he wheeled his horse about and waved the column forward…onto the stone.

Once we were on the stone plain we found that it was not as entirely featureless as it had first appeared. There were odd cracks and fissures in its surface…and every four or five hundred paces there was a miniature Threshold.

Stone pyramids reared up, sometimes only the height of a finger, sometimes half the height of a man. But in the exact centre of every face of every pyramid was an eye. Not carved, not chiselled, but black and glassy. Moving. Watching.

None of us, not even Boaz, could bear to go near them. Whenever one of the forward scouts found one they waved our column to the left or right so that we passed at least twenty paces away from the abomination. Zabrze had to be careful that in all this meandering we kept direct north, and I think he kept closer watch on the sun, and then on the first of the evening stars, than he did on the stone about him.

We camped out of sight of any of the miniature Thresholds. It was a cold and silent camp that night. No-one felt like talking, and we rolled ourselves into our blankets early, shifting uncomfortably about on the stone.

I lay awake for hours before I slipped into sleep.

I dreamed I walked in grassy pastures filled with gold, red and blue flowers, bright sky, warmth on my face, breathing in the fragrance of the pine resin from the forests bordering the pastures. It reminded me of Viland during its brief glimpse of summer.

I walked slowly, knowing it was a dream, but welcoming the escape from the harshness about me.

There was a movement behind me, and I turned. I was not afraid.

A handsome man stood there. He was dark of feature and eye, a southerner then, trapped in my dream of Viland.

“This is a green and lovely land,” he remarked, casting his gaze about him.

“Yes. Yes, it is. This is my homeland, Viland.”

“Where you were born? But how lucky you are! Surely you must ache to return to a land as lovely as this?”

I smiled at his enthusiasm. “No. It is beautiful for only one month every year. Other months gales sweep down from the north, and ice and snow bind us into our homes. I prefer the southern lands where the sun shines most days of the year.”

“And where your lover is.”

I blushed. “Yes.”

“But the southern lands lie under the grip of stone, Tirzah.” The man lowered his eyes, sorrowing. “They are no place to stay.”

“I have hope.”

He raised his eyes, and I recoiled. They were the glassy black eyes of the stone pyramids.

I tried to back away, but my feet were rooted to the ground. I was too terrified to look down to see why.
I didn’t want to know why my feet would not move!

“Ashdod is a bad place, Tirzah. A very bad place.” He rolled the “r” in the “very”, and his voice was low like thunder. And like thunder I felt it more than heard it. “Soon all the southern lands will be stone.”

“No.”

“Yes. I shall eat them all.”

“Please…please, let me go. Please…go away!”

“Yes to the first, no to the latter. I do not want to eat
you
, dear Tirzah. Such a pretty girl. I could have taken you in Threshold, but I did not. Too pretty to waste.”

“Please…”

“Go away, Tirzah. Flee. Keep going north. Take your friends with you. I do not want to harm you. Go.”

“Please, let me go!”

“Oh, I intend to, Tirzah, but hear me out. Go north, sweet girl, and do not look back. That would be…unfortunate. But I will not touch Viland. Take your lover and Isphet and Zabrze and flee north. Listen to me, Tirzah. Do as I ask and you shall live. Is that not what you wish?”

“
Let me go!
” I tried with all the power I had to escape, but he held me tight, and I could not move.

“If you do not go, Tirzah, then I will kill Boaz, and I will kill Isphet, and I will kill every one of those you cherish, and I will do it very, very slowly.
Do you understand me?
”

“Yes! Yes! I understand you!”

“Tell Boaz to go away.”

“Yes!”

“Tell him he will not succeed.”

“Yes!”

“Then go…”

A hand grabbed at my shoulder, and I screamed.

“
Tirzah!
What’s wrong? It’s a dream, Tirzah. A dream. Shush, now. Shush. I have you now.”

Boaz wrapped me in his arms as I sobbed. He continued to soothe me, murmur to me, and I heard Isphet speak quietly to him, and then move away.

“Was it Nzame?” he asked eventually, his mouth close to my ear so no-one else could hear.

“Yes. He…”

“Shush. He cannot hurt you in dream –”

“He turned my feet to stone!”

“And are they stone now, Tirzah?”

I wriggled them, almost believing they
would
be stone, but they were warm and they moved, and I felt Boaz smile as he rocked me.

“He said he would kill you, Boaz.”

“He is afraid.”

“So am I.”

There was a long silence, then I raised my face so I could see Boaz’s in the faint moonlight. “Boaz, answer me true.
Will
you succeed against Nzame?”

He took his time in answering. “It is why he is afraid. He knows I have a good chance.”

“And
will
you walk out of the Infinity Chamber, Boaz, and back to me?”

He was silent, and I wept anew.

We drifted back to sleep eventually, but it was a light, uncomfortable sleep. Each of us feared Nzame’s intrusion, and each of us feared the future.

Just before dawn a shout roused us. It was one of the sentries, and I heard Zabrze run off even as the shout died down. Boaz and I scrambled up, pulling on our robes.

Soldiers, swords drawn, ropes wrapped about their waists, were patrolling the perimeters of the camp, and one of them held us back.

“Wait until we know it’s safe.”

We peered forward. There was movement perhaps twenty paces away; Zabrze, I thought, and several soldiers. They were bending down to something at…their knees?

Then we heard laughter. Forced laughter to be sure, but laughter nevertheless.

There was a scuffle of movement, and they walked back towards us.

“What?” Boaz said. Then, “
Shetzah!
”

At Zabrze’s feet bounded a thin, grey dog, pathetically grateful to have found something else alive in this sea of stone.

Boaz glanced at me, apprehensive, then he bent down and clicked his fingers.

The dog bounded over, whimpering and trying to lick Boaz’s face.

Boaz wouldn’t let it. He seized the dog’s head and stared into its eyes, then he sighed in relief and looked up at me.

“It
is
a dog,” he said, and the dog whimpered again and set to licking his face as thoroughly as it could.

“How could it have survived?” Zabrze asked, walking over to examine the dog. It was a half-grown bitch, probably a hunting dog, and had soft russet spots amid her grey coat.

“I don’t know,” Boaz said. “Perhaps she just wandered into the stone from the east.”

“Would
you
just wander into this wickedness?” Zabrze asked. “Anything outside would sniff at its edges then run in the opposite direction, tail between legs.”

“Well.” Isphet had joined us, and she could not keep a smile from her face at the antics of the dog. “At least we know that some things can survive. Nzame does not eat all in his path, it seems.”

She met Zabrze’s eyes.

Setkoth, I thought. Zabrze must worry constantly about his children there. Yet to ask that somehow they survived was, surely, to ask too much. Would we find them stone and salvageable? Or eaten and existing in memory only?

The dog whimpered, and darted behind Boaz’s legs.

“I don’t think she likes the look of your face –” Boaz began, grinning at Zabrze, then there was a thump.

Then another.

“Stone-men!” Zabrze shouted, and the camp burst into activity.

Zabrze had planned for this eventuality – stone-men would surely wander Nzame’s stone land – and soldiers quickly sorted themselves into groups of five, unwrapping rope from waists, their faces grim.

Others moved to the camels and mules, soothing with voice and hands, and taking firm hold of their tethers. They carried our only supplies of water and food, and to lose them here would be unthinkable.

“Come on,” Boaz said, and took Isphet and me by the hands. “It’s safer further back into camp.”

The stone-men were only forty strong, and led by yet another Magus who was now nothing but the black glassy substance. Zabrze had almost fifteen hundred men, all armed with ropes. By dawn the perimeter of the camp was littered with the impotent bodies of stone-men, and not one soldier.

The Magus was held down by ten strong men and enough rope to moor five ships. Boaz disposed of him immediately – he did not even attempt to use him to communicate with Nzame – then the three of us turned to the stone-men.

This was exhausting work, and I would not let myself think of how we would cope with more than forty or fifty. Each stone-man took concentration and both physical and emotional effort, but it was reward enough to see the stone marble into flesh, and the chest heave with breath rather than moaning, and the eyes flutter open, surprised, yet confused and frightened.

Zabrze detailed some fifteen soldiers to feed and clothe them.

“What will we do with them?” I asked.

“We’ll have to march them with us,” Zabrze answered. “I cannot leave them, and I do not want to spare the men to take them east.”