Threshold (4 page)

Before she bonded with her? Did not carrying a babe in your womb for nine months form a bond? Without thinking I glanced at the stain on the wall.

Isphet thrust a wet cloth into my hands. “Wash it away, Tirzah, and then help me turn Raguel over and change her bed linen.”

I did as she asked, and when Raguel was washed and lay on clean sheets, Isphet took my hand in hers. “A rough welcome for you, Tirzah.” She gazed steadily at me. “You are not of our race, girl. Where do you come from?”

“Far to the north. A place called Viland.”

Isphet shook her head dismissively. “I’ve not heard of it. But you speak our tongue well, if with a heavy accent. How is that?”

“My father and I travelled for many weeks with guards from this land, Isphet. I learned from them.”

“And your name? You bear the name of a princess of our realm. Why is that?”

My hand jerked in hers. The Magus had named me after a princess? I told her something of my encounter with the Magi Gayomar and Boaz.

Isphet’s eyes widened. Gayomar she’d only ever seen briefly about Gesholme and Boaz she did not know at all, and dismissed them as quickly as she had the land of my birth. She even forgot the mystery of my naming in her intrigue with my story of the caging of the glass. Her hands tightened about mine. They were very warm.

“You are a very interesting girl, Tirzah. You seem to become one with the glass.” She smiled as if she had made a bitter joke to herself. “We shall talk some more of it, you and I, but not now. I have asked enough questions. You must have some of your own.”

I glanced at Raguel. She had turned her head to the wall. “I don’t understand,” I said inadequately, and then wished I’d not used those exact words.

But Isphet did not mind, and knew what I meant. “Come,” she said, leaving Raguel alone to cope with her misery as best she could. She led me to a pallet on the other side of the plainly furnished room and pulled me down beside her. “How much do you know of the Magi?”

“Nothing, save their cruelty.”

“And of Threshold?”

“Even less.”

“Save
its
cruelty, you should have said,” Isphet remarked, but then patted my hand. “Well now, how shall I begin? With the Magi, I think, for you already have some understanding of them. The Magi are…”

“Sorcerers, my father called them. But priests, perhaps?’

“Sorcerers of a nature, certainly, but not priests, as perhaps you understand the word. The Magi are mathematicians, and once that was all they were. But they found power, cruel power, in the understanding of the properties of, and the relationships between, numbers and forms. They control the power of number and form.”

I was beginning to understand. “I saw the regular forms of field and garden.”

“Yes. If the Magi had their way,
everything
in Ashdod would be laid out according to the pure principles of mathematics and geometry. To some extent they have succeeded with the shape of fields and gardens, as streets and many buildings. They have a powerful influence over the monarch, Chad-Nezzar, and much of what they desire is enacted in royal edict.” She sighed. “But Ashdod is large, and it cannot all be arranged according to the dictates of mathematics. The Magi have only succeeded completely here…with Threshold.”

“I saw Threshold, although not well. It…it ate at the sky.”

Again Isphet glanced at me sharply. “Threshold is – or will be – the physical manifestation of pure mathematical formula. The Magi have been overseeing its construction for many generations, and even yet it has over a year’s work left before completion.” She smiled grimly. “Threshold is a beast of consuming need. It has literally eaten the resources of Ashdod.
Everything
Ashdod produces is channelled into the effort to complete Threshold, and even that is not sufficient. You are proof enough that the Magi must now scour far-flung realms to find the workers Threshold needs.”

There was a long pause. “Isphet,” I said eventually, “what did Ta’uz mean when he said that nothing breeds here save the one?”

“Ah, the Magi are mathematician-magicians, and they worship the number One. They teach that the One is the
number from which all numbers spring, and into which all numbers collapse. Creation and Doom, all in one.” She shook her head at her poor joke. “All forms spring from and collapse into the One as well, for the Magi believe that geometric forms are composed only from the properties of numbers. Thus the One represents both birth and death – Infinity. Contemplation of the One and meditation upon the mysteries of number and form are how the Magi derive their power. They constantly seek complete union with the One…and that is where Raguel came undone.”

She shivered, and now it was my hands that tightened about hers. “The Magi seek union with the One through many means, Tirzah – I believe Threshold will eventually provide the ultimate means of union, although the Magi never speak of it. Until Threshold is complete, the Magi must make use of lesser means of union. Occasionally a Magus will take a woman into his bed in order to touch the One.”

Again she paused, and I realised she was recounting not only Raguel’s experience, but also her own.

“In that moment of physical release during the sexual act the Magi claim they experience a hauntingly brief union with the One…with Infinity. The woman they use to achieve this moment of union matters not.” Isphet forced a humourless grin to her face, but it faded almost as soon as it appeared. “I don’t know why they do not use goats…goats would be far less trouble. Women are not allowed to breed from this act, for to do so would be to subdivide the One, to subdivide its power. I do not know how Raguel managed to become pregnant – usually the Magi are painstakingly careful to prevent pregnancy – but that is why Ta’uz reacted so violently, and why he instantly killed the baby. The baby had violated and subdivided the One. Her life was an abomination. And so that beautiful little girl died.”

I put my arms about her, and Isphet wept.

E
VENTUALLY
we all lay down for two or three hours of restless sleep – I shared Saboa’s pallet – and rose to the dawn chorus of frogs in the reed banks lining the Lhyl River.

I helped Saboa fling wide the shuttered windows and, as the others stirred the fire and set pots to warm, I surveyed my new home. Of roughly plastered mud-brick, the square apartment was roomy but featureless. Sleeping pallets lay against the walls, and clothes, pots and urns were stacked on shelves. More urns lay embedded in the dirt floor to keep their contents cool. Besides the brazier in the centre of the floor, there were three wooden stools with woven reed seats, a low table, several scattered reed mats, and oil lamps hanging from ceiling beams. Little else. Even our small home in Viland had more cheer than this.

The two windows looked out onto an abutting alleyway. The main door led to the street, another opened into a small store room, and a third to an ablutions block in a tiny internal courtyard shared by all apartments in this building. There were no internal stairs visible, but a set in the courtyard led to the higher levels.

Isphet had helped Raguel out to the ablutions block, and now the woman struggled back inside, her face grey and
lined. She sat down at the fire and silently accepted a bowl of warm porridge, listlessly shifting her spoon to and fro.

Isphet took a long look at my travel-stained clothes, and sent me outside to wash. When I had done so, she gave me a length of pale cotton, thinly striped with green, and showed me how to wrap and knot it about myself to form a functional garment that left legs and arms bare. All the women wore similar wraps.

“You’ll not need much more in this place, Tirzah. Graceful robes belong only in your lost past. And tie your hair back, loose hair has no place in my workshop.”

No-one else spoke, and everyone tried to ignore the fact that Raguel cried silently, uselessly, into her bowl. I ate some of the warm grain, but my stomach still hadn’t recovered from the shock of the previous night’s events, and after some minutes I set the bowl aside.

As Kiath dampened the coals, and Saboa straightened the sleeping pallets, Isphet took the loaf of bread wrapped in the stained cloths and gave it to Raguel. Her voice was harsh, but her eyes were gentle. “Take it, Raguel, and cast it into the furnace when the guards a-watch. Don’t look so, ‘tis only a lump of bread.”

Maybe so, but in which of the urns was the body of the baby stuffed? And why did Isphet want to keep it? As hard as the death of her baby was, it surely would not help Raguel to know her child putrefied close to hand while she lay awake on her pallet at night.

I hoped Kiath had stoppered that urn tight.

“Work,” Isphet said.

The workshop was close by, which was just as well, because I do not think Raguel could have managed a long walk. As it was, Kiath and Saboa had to support her the last lot of steps.

Walking along the alleyways, I could sense Threshold’s presence, but I still could not see it above the close shadows of the tenement buildings.

Isphet saw me twisting and craning my neck. “You’ll see more than you’ll ever want of Threshold soon enough, Tirzah. Patience.”

And then we were at the workshop.

I stepped inside, then halted in amazement. In Viland, my father and I had worked in a tiny workshop that suited our needs, and the work places of our neighbour craftsmen had been similarly small. But Isphet commanded a workshop of immense proportions that would easily hold more than a score of workers. In a far corner three furnaces glowed, ready to be stoked for the day’s firing. Against one wall stood deep racks that held hundreds of sheets of glass. Another wall was shelved with scores of pots and urns that contained the powders and metals of our trade. Elsewhere neat racks held tools that made my father’s sack look like the insignificant plaything of a child. Around the workshop were the tables and work areas necessary for the manufacture of glass. An internal staircase led up to a level where I guessed the finer work that needed good light and tight concentration would be done. Is that where I would work?

Kiath gave me a gentle push, and I closed my mouth and stepped into the central work space. Seven or eight men were here already, my father among them, and a younger man introduced him to Isphet.

His introduction was terse, for he had caught sight of Raguel and the sad bundle she had clutched to her breast.

“By the Place Be –”

“
Careful!
” Isphet hissed. “We have newcomers among us!”

He steadied himself. “What has happened?”

Isphet briefly told him, or at least she told him that Ta’uz had discovered the child when he delivered me to Isphet’s door, and had killed her.

The man’s mouth thinned and he looked me over consideringly. He was handsome, perhaps seven or eight
years older than I, with black hair cut short and impatiently thrust back over his brow, intelligent brown eyes and a wide, sensual mouth that, as it finally relaxed, revealed a warm and friendly smile.

“My name is Yaqob, and you are Tirzah. Druse has told me how well you cage.” He took my hand briefly, and I smiled for him.

“That may be so,” Isphet said. “But, like all newcomers, she begins at the grinding tables until she learns the ways of my workshop. Yaqob, you will take the girl and her father to Yassar’s table and set them to work.”

Grinding glass? That was a task for a first-year apprentice, but I said nothing, and walked with Yaqob as he introduced me about the workshop, and explained the manner in which all worked here.

As I sat at Yassar’s table, my father on the other side, a look of utter disgust on his face at the grinding pestles before us, there was a step at the door, and the entire workshop stilled.

Ta’uz.

Several guards flanked him, and two moved to stand further inside the workshop.

Ta’uz stared across to the furnaces, and all eyes shifted that way.

Raguel stood close by the open door of one of the furnaces, the wrapped bundle in her hands. She stared at Ta’uz, and I wondered briefly at the hatred she must bear him, then she noticeably shook herself and heaved the bundle into the flames before any could inspect it too closely.

Then, her shoulders shaking wretchedly, she turned aside and would look at Magus or furnace no longer.

Without a word Ta’uz left, but the two guards stayed.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and Yaqob squatted close by my stool. “Was that the baby?” he asked quietly, his eyes still on Raguel.

I hesitated. “No.”

Yaqob looked at me now. “But the baby
is
dead?”

“Yes.”

He was silent a moment. “So Isphet has put it aside.”

“Yes.”

He nodded slightly. “Good.” His hand tightened momentarily, then he stood and lifted it from my shoulder. “You will work today and tomorrow at this table, Tirzah, but then, I think, Isphet will allow me the privilege of showing you about our small world.”

Then he walked away.

My father looked at Yaqob’s retreating back, looked at me, and grinned.

I settled in quickly. For two days my father and I ground glass to use for the manufacture of enamels, and then, as promised, Yaqob rescued us, and set us to more demanding tasks.

This was Isphet’s workshop, but she seemed content to let Yaqob keep an eye on us for the first week or two. I saw her often enough at night, anyway, when she always questioned me on my day’s work, but I think that while the guards still kept a keen watch on us she did not want to be too closely involved with my work.

Besides, like my father, Isphet’s own speciality was in the mixing and firing of glass, and she stayed by the furnaces. Not only to supervise the blending and firing, but also to make sure Raguel did not throw herself in after her sad, cloth-wrapped bundle. Raguel hardly spoke, and while she physically recovered from the birth of her daughter, her spirit sickened and died further each day.

Three days after I arrived, Yaqob took my father to the corner of the workshop where the glass was mixed and moulded, leaving him in Isphet’s hands, then he came over to me and smiled. “This way.”

He led me up to the next floor where two men sat at a table in a shaft of sunlight that fell through glass panels in
the ceiling. The area was clean and airy, and I took a deep breath, enchanted. Both men were caging.

They looked up from their work, and grinned at my delight.

“The guards rarely come here,” Yaqob said. “You will enjoy the work, and I can hardly wait to see how good you are. The tale of what you did in Setkoth has spread about most of Gesholme.”

He was surely lying, but he did it well and my smile widened. “Is it normal to have such close guard in the workshop?”

“No. Ta’uz is punishing us for trying to hide Raguel’s pregnancy from him. He will soon tire of the sport and withdraw the guards. The Magi generally keep the guards around the perimeter of Gesholme, and in and about Threshold itself – where we must sometimes be ‘encouraged’ to work. The Magi occasionally visit us, but they too prefer to linger about Threshold.”

“Yaqob…” I looked outside. An open doorway led to a balcony, and I could see a great shadow spreading over Gesholme.

I had not taken more than a glimpse at Threshold, but it dominated my dreams every night.

“Soon, Tirzah.” Yaqob’s voice had darkened with my mood. “But first, come see what Orteas and Zeldon work at.”

Neither man seemed discomforted that he would be joined by such a young woman – perhaps the story of the cage work I had done for Gayomar and Boaz
had
spread. We chatted politely for some minutes as I ran curious eyes over their work.

The men were working on flat sections that were designed to fit into a large panel. The glass shone gold – it had been beautifully mixed and fired.

“Isphet’s work,” Yaqob murmured, running his fingers over Zeldon’s glass. “No-one can match her skill at mixing
the molten glass. She has a sweetness that can cajole the most stubborn mixing.”

There was silence as Orteas and Zeldon stared at Yaqob, then dropped their eyes hastily back to their work.

Although I noted their reaction, for the moment I preferred to ignore it, more fascinated by the design itself. I moved closer to Zeldon and pointed at his work. “Yaqob, what is this?”

His face hardened. “This is part of Threshold’s wrongness, Tirzah. See? These curves form pieces of numbers, and this section here, is the lower segment of a portion of writing.”

“Why wrongness?”

Yaqob took a deep, uneasy breath. “You know of the Magi and their fascination with mathematics?’

“Yes, Isphet has explained some of it.”

“Some of it is too much of it, but you need to know. Tirzah, can you read or write?”

“I can figure a little, and write numbers. All glassworkers need to be able to do that, especially for measuring powders and metals. But alphabets and words are beyond me.”

“Then be grateful. The Magi control the power of numbers and form, but in doing so they have subverted the alphabet. For them, each letter of the alphabet is mated with a number, so that when they write, when they form words and then sentences, the writing has a double and darker significance. Do you see my meaning?”

I noticed how he had avoided the phrase, “Do you understand?”

“Yes, I think so. Each time a Magus writes words, he also writes calculations and formulae. Sorceries.”

“
Everything
about them is dangerous, Tirzah, and evil. Beware of them, and especially beware of their writing.”

He was angry now, and I nodded quickly.

“Never let one try to teach you letters, girl, for he will seek to ensorcel your soul with each word you write. Run screaming, for if you don’t run, then you will succumb to their sorceries.” He managed a small smile, although it did not quite reach his eyes. “And then you will not be the same sweet girl who stands before me now.”

“Yaqob, I
swear
that I have no intention of ever learning to write. I won’t be entrapped, nor entrap you.”

“Good.”

The promise finally satisfied him, and Yaqob continued to explain the caging. “The Magi need workers skilled in caging for two areas of Threshold. The first is the central chamber, called the Infinity Chamber, where these pieces will eventually fit. All wall and floor spaces of this chamber are to be covered in caged glass work depicting the words and incantations that the Magi require for their formula.”

“And the ceiling?”

“There is no ceiling, Tirzah. No, wait, you will see eventually. You will have to take your work in there to be fitted.”

“And the second area that needs caged work?”

He paused, and looked outside. “The capstone.”

“Capstone?”

Yaqob smiled, but it was sad, and he took my hand and pulled gently. “It is time to let Threshold see you, Tirzah. Then I can explain.”

As I was to find out, the glassworkers held high positions within the slave encampment of Gesholme, and perhaps that is why Isphet’s workshop was allowed such a roomy balcony.

Or perhaps it was so Threshold’s presence could the more easily infiltrate one of the most important workshops of its existence.

Outside it was hot and humid, but I ignored the discomfort as I stepped onto the wooden planking and stared northwards.

It was over one hundred and fifty paces away, but it reared so far into the sky I had to crick my neck back to take it all in. Its shadow cut neatly across the outside wall of the workshop.

Yaqob stood comfortingly close, his hand warm on my shoulder. “Threshold.”

It was a massive stone pyramid, yet unlike any I’d heard tales of as a child. I frowned, then pointed.

“Yaqob, what are those? Why have they not been filled in? Is that what remains to be done?”

All over the two faces of the pyramid that I could see, gaps had been left in the stone. Several score on each face, placed at regular intervals, and I guessed the two faces I could not see had similar gaps. Men swarmed over the structure, and I saw that near the base of one wall was a yawning entrance. As I watched three Magi emerged, their heads bent over a large scroll.