Threshold (45 page)

Save for the growing mound of my belly, I grew thin and pale, losing interest in life. I lay for hours, clutching the Goblet of the Frogs to my breast.

Hold me, touch me, soothe me, love me.

But it didn’t, and I cried.

Isphet left it a month before we tried yet again. A month. Surely a month would do it.

Zeldon and Orteas joined us this time, adding their strength. Isphet was concerned for me, and she wanted more support than Layla alone could give her.

We stood about the pool, Zeldon’s arm around me, the love and support of all about me.

The colours swirled.

Tirzah! Tirzah! LOOK!

And, oh by all the gods, there he was! I cried out, and extended my arms, but he did not see me, and turned his back and walked away, his head down. He was very indistinct, fading into the background glow.

“Boaz! Boaz!”

Tirzah, Tirzah. It has been a long and hard journey for him. The Song of the Frogs almost was not strong enough. It almost failed. Even now Boaz needs to take the final step.

And Nzame? Nzame?
I did not really want to know. It was too late to scathe the babe away now. This child would have to be carried to term. Whatever it was.

Ah, Tirzah, he will not talk to us – he avoids us. He will not let us accept him. We do not know what happened. But he is worried. Worried. He frets.

Frets?

Frets for you Tirzah. He worries about the baby. There is something about the baby…something wrong…

Sickness gripped me, and I would have fallen had it not been for Zeldon’s strong arm.

…
something about the baby
…

…
something wrong
…

I
SPHET
took me to my apartment again, closed the door firmly and sat me down.

“In the Infinity Chamber you asked the glass if there was a chance that a bridge was created to anywhere or any
one
else…if there was a chance Nzame had gone somewhere other than Infinity. Tirzah,
look at me!
Did you fear that Nzame had escaped into the child you carry within you?”

I thought about lying, but I nodded.

“Tell me.” Her hands tightened about mine.

I did. I told her everything – the dream, Nzame’s threats, Boaz’s concerns, and his wish that I miscarry the baby.

“You stupid,
stupid
girl!” Isphet hissed. “Why didn’t you do it!”

“Why did Raguel carry her child to term!” I cried. “I
couldn’t
kill it, Isphet. Can you possibly understand that? I
couldn’t!
” I tore my hands from Isphet’s and rested them protectively on my belly.

“Well, it is far too late now.” She sat and looked at me, her eyes unreadable. “We will just have to wait for the birth.”

“You will not murder this child, Isphet,” I said as calmly as I could.

“I will tear its head from its body the moment I even suspect it is Nzame, Tirzah. Has Boaz’s sacrifice been for
nothing? Have all the deaths, all the sufferings been for nothing? Do you sit there protecting
Nzame
?”

“Don’t you think I don’t worry about that every minute of the day and night, Isphet? But what if the child is
not
Nzame? It is all I have left of Boaz. All. I don’t want to kill the last chance I have for some happiness.”

Three days later we tried again. We had to know. We had to speak with Boaz.

At first he did not appear. The Soulenai were there, agitated again.

We cannot understand it…we do not know…he cries and frets about the baby, and calls your name, Tirzah. He pleads, calls, cries. He disturbs the peace of the Place Beyond.

Avaldamon was among the Soulenai, but Boaz was beyond him, too.

He turns away and will not look at me, Tirzah. He refuses to be accepted among us. What is wrong? He is with us and yet not with us. He cries about the baby. What is wrong, Tirzah? What?

And then Boaz was there – yet so insubstantial. He held out his hand, pleading, crying.

I screamed his name, but he appeared not to hear me. He was there, but not there, and unable to be touched by our arts.

Tirzah,
his mouth formed.
Tirzah? Are you there? Are you there? Can you see me?

He sobbed, broken-hearted, and I could see his mouth form the word “baby”.

I was beside myself, Zeldon again holding me lest I should attempt to cast myself into the Place Beyond.

Tirzah? Tirzah? Oh Tirzah, I need you. I need you.

I cried out, and fainted.

Isphet would not try again. It was too much. I was sick, almost demented, and she confined me to my bed.

“You will rest here until the baby comes, Tirzah. And in this you will obey me.”

Older, healthier, and Chad’zina – I could not argue with her. I lay in my bed, a prisoner, trapped by the baby in my womb. I lay, my hand on my belly, feeling the baby, wondering what it was that moved about inside me.

What about the baby, Boaz?
What is it you want to tell me?

Kiamet took up guard by my door as he had watched over Boaz and myself in Threshold, and Holdat brought delicacies that he thought might tempt me. He fed me fruit wines from the Goblet of the Frogs, and left the Book of the Soulenai within easy reach. He often sat with me in the evenings, and if I refused to read from the Book, he would sit silently with it in his lap, his tanned hands gently stroking it.

Layla came often, with the dog by her side, and Kiath had arrived from the Abyss with Zhabroah. She and Layla sat and played with the baby before me, laughing and saying that soon I would have a baby of my own to play with.

I tried to smile, but too often I saw Isphet’s eyes in the dimness by the door, watching, waiting.

I knew she would take this baby from me as soon as it was born. Smother it, drown it, but kill it surely.

…something about the baby…he cries and he frets…something about the baby…something wrong…we cannot tell what…

Zabrze came many evenings. Isphet had obviously not told him her fears, for he too laughed at my growing roundness, and put his hand on my belly to feel the baby move.

“So I used to feel Boaz move within my mother’s belly, Tirzah. I swear this baby kicks more than he, or any of my children did. It is a feisty babe!”

Ashdod was recovering well. Crops were sprouting forth from land once covered in stone, and the soil proving more fertile than it had in generations.

“And the people have been altered by their experience, too, Tirzah,” Zabrze said one evening, Zhabroah crawling about the floor at his feet. “Zeldon and Orteas now lead congregations of Elementals within Setkoth, and the Elemental arts are flowering…encouraged by my fine wife.” He smiled at Isphet, and she returned it. I wished she would smile at me with such unfeigned affection.

“Isphet takes many under her care – and sends others to the Abyss to train with the Graces and Yaqob.”

Yaqob had stayed within the Abyss. His legs had healed, but he did not walk well, and he was loath to move from the peace of the chasm.

Zhabroah began to fret, and Zabrze bent down and picked him up. “I’ll take him back to his nurse, Isphet. You stay here for a while yet. But do not linger overlong.” Zabrze gave Isphet a wink, bent down to kiss my cheek, then left.

“I spoke to the Soulenai again today,” Isphet said as soon as the door was closed.

“And?”

“And much of the same. Boaz still wanders among the Soulenai in the Place Beyond…yet not with them. They cannot understand it. He does not talk to them, yet they can hear him fret and cry. ‘The baby,’ he cries, ‘the baby!’ He calls your name, too, and holds out a hand, as if to seek you.”

Tirzah? Tirzah? Are you there? Can you see me? The baby, oh! The baby!

I lowered my face into my hands and wept.

“The child must die,” Isphet said. “You know that. It is the only way Boaz will find peace.”

She sat and watched me weep, but did not move to comfort me. After a while she stood, laid a hand on my brow, and left.

“Lady Tirzah? Lady Tirzah?”

I jerked my head up. Holdat rose out of a dark corner. Gods, Isphet and I had forgotten he was here.

“There, there,” he said, and sat on the bed and held me as I wept. My sobbing increased, and I burrowed my face into the comfort of his shoulder. It was the first time that I’d allowed myself to fully grieve, for Boaz, and for the baby.

He let me weep, softly stroking my hair, whispering nonsense that I clung to and that did, indeed, soothe me.

“Lady Tirzah,” he said eventually, “I heard what the Chad’zina said. I am sorry, for I do not mean to pry.”

I sniffed and sat up.

“Why did she say the baby must die?” he asked.

Holdat had been delighted when I’d first told him of the child, and I could imagine his hurt now.

“Holdat,” I said, and sighed. Would he understand the truth if I told him? But anything less than the truth, after what he had done for Boaz and me over the months, and after what he’d just heard, would be an insult.

So I told him.

“Oh, Lady Tirzah,” he said as I drifted to a close. “Is there no way you can tell if the child has been harmed or not?”

“Isphet and I have done our best, but we cannot see behind the protective barriers of the womb.”

“Well then, there is only one thing that we
can
do.”

He went back to his dark corner, then returned with the Book of the Soulenai.

“Oh, Holdat, do you think I have not considered that? I have read it constantly these past months, and it has told me nothing.”

“Nevertheless,” he said, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Look one time for me.”

I took the book, balancing it awkwardly on my shrinking lap, and flipped through it. All the tales were as they should be. There was nothing that could aid my plight.

I sighed again, but just as I was closing the heavy leather cover, the contents page caught my eye.

“What is it?” Holdat asked.

“Uh, the tales are all familiar and unhelpful, but the contents page is different. Look.”

“Lady, you know that I cannot read.”

“Oh, sorry. Listen…”

1.
Once about Lake Juit

2.
Lake Juit and the Sun

3.
The Day the King came to Lake Juit

4.
How Lake Juit was formed

5.
Lake Juit Boating Procedures explained

6.
Picnic at Lake Juit

7.
Walks and Paths about Lake Juit

8.
How the Soulenai passed by Lake Juit

9.
Dawn on Lake Juit

10.
Through the Mists of Lake Juit

11.
The Frogs of Lake Juit

12.
Lake Juit

13.
Lake Juit

14.
Lake Juit

“And so on,” I said. “There are another fifteen titles, all simply ‘Lake Juit’.”

“And do the tales within match the titles on the contents page?”

“No, they do not. All that is different is that one page. Ah, this tells me nothing!”

“Lady, you know what it tells you.” He put the book back in its box, then he walked to the door and bowed. “I shall pack and be ready in the morning,” he said, then he was gone.

That night I dreamed.

I dreamed I was walking through the summer meadows of Viland, and I was very afraid.

The grass brushed cool and damp about my ankles, and the fragrance of flowers teased at my senses.

Tirzah! Tirzah!

I moaned, and ran, but I was encumbered even in this dream, and the child dragged at my belly and my robes tangled about my legs.

Tirzah! Tirzah!

I was running through a great wasteland where heat throbbed and snatched at my breath and life. I cried, slowing. Would I never escape?

Tirzah! Tirzah!

I stumbled on, sobs rasping in my throat, and I ran across a land all of stone where pyramids watched my passing with great black, glassy eyes that followed, followed, followed…

Tirzah! Tirzah!

I couldn’t get away. The voice would not let me go.

Tirzah! Tirzah!

“Boaz!” I sobbed. “Boaz!”

Tirzah? Are you there? Help me, Tirzah, help me!

Boaz!

The stone cooled and softened beneath my feet, and I saw I was running through earth newly turned and fresh with burgeoning life.

I thought I saw him, a hint, a shadow only, and I ran harder.

Tirzah? Can you hear me? Help me! Please, please help me!

“Oh gods, Boaz! How? How?”

River reeds tangled about me and I fell, tumbling over and over, through water, beneath water. I fought my way to the surface, screaming as I exhaled. “Boaz?
Where are you?
”

Red and pink flames roared about me – birds, millions of them, lifting into the dawn air.

Juit birds.

Tirzah…Tirzah…the baby, Tirzah. The baby? How is the baby?

I woke, surprised to find myself in my bed and not tangled in reeds.

I lay still for a very long time, my hand on my belly, a small smile on my face, peace in my heart.

Boaz had not been warning about the baby at all.
He had been asking after it!

“Isphet?”

“Hmm?” She had come in to wish me a good morning.

“Isphet, I’m hungry. Will you tell Holdat to bring a large breakfast this morning?”

She looked at me.

“And then, Isphet, we are going to pack. I think I would like to give birth at Lake Juit. Please, indulge me in this.”

S
HE
was instantly suspicious.

“Please, Isphet. I am sick of Setkoth, and the peace of the lake is what I need for my final months. Please.”

“I will come with you,” she said carefully.

“That would be nice, Isphet. Do you think Layla might like to come too? And Zabrze? It would provide peace for all of us after the confusions and sadnesses of the past few months. Besides, Lake Juit is where Boaz was born. Please, Isphet. I want to go. I would feel close to him there.”

She gave in.

We embarked three days later, me, Isphet, Layla and dog, Kiamet and Holdat and several units of soldiers.

“But I’ll be down for the birth,” Zabrze said. “I’ll not miss the arrival of my first niece or nephew.”

Isphet had the grace to look uncomfortable. I felt sorry for her. In her position I hoped I would have the strength to do the same thing. But Isphet did not understand, and if I told her of my dream then she would think it only a phantasm of a woman determined to protect her child.

Zabrze stepped back and looked at the soldiers. “They’ll provide protection,” he said, and threw a puzzled look at Isphet. “No-one has been down to the Juit estate since…since Nzame disappeared.”

“All will be well,” I said. “Memmon has sent report that the land blooms as never before.”

Memmon had woken from his entombment with everyone else when Boaz had dragged Nzame into Infinity. I wondered if the experience had improved his temper at all.

“Goodbye, Zabrze. Do not linger overlong here in Setkoth.”

The journey was uneventful. We passed Threshold that first day. The capstone had gone, and I noticed that Zabrze had ordered the entire pyramid covered with reed matting.

The Infinity Chamber must be dark and lifeless.

I turned back to the river. I did not know why I had to go to Lake Juit, but I trusted the Book of the Soulenai.

My sleep had been uneventful and dreamless, and my days peaceful. I ate well now, disturbed by how weak I’d grown in those months fretting about both Boaz and our child. The baby moved about in my womb, and I leaned back in my chair and enjoyed the warmth of the sun.

Isphet ordered a leisurely trip, and she was pleased that I so enjoyed it. The river air was sweet, and the frogs sang well into the day and still further into the night.

Ten days after leaving we arrived at Lake Juit. Kiamet helped me to my feet, and I stood and gazed, entranced. It was far more beautiful than I remembered, the lake spreading for leagues in every direction, the marshes and reeds stretching even further.

A voice broke my reverie. Memmon, standing on the landing, the house rising serene and graceful behind him.

By his feet sat Fetizza, croaking cheerfully.

I gasped, then laughed. No-one had seen the frog for months. She had disappeared with Boaz’s departure, and I had thought that perhaps her existence was somehow tied to his.

But here she was, now looking irritably at the dog barking by Layla’s side, and her presence was surely nothing but a good omen.

Isphet kept close but companionable watch on me. We spent our days wandering the riverbanks, or sitting in the shade of the verandahs, sipping iced fruit wine and gossiping.

“Do you remember…?” one of us would ask, and we would mention a moment, or a friend, or a day in the hot workshop that had somehow been memorable.

Isphet thought she was helping me grieve, helping me let go of the past.

I was simply passing time, waiting, watching for something that I did not yet recognise. And so I would talk softly and smile, and take another sip from the Goblet of the Frogs.

Kiamet and Holdat were constant companions as well, always at hand to offer sweetmeats, or iced wine, or conversation. Layla spent many evenings with me, asking about Viland, and listening to me read from the Book of the Soulenai.

The weeks passed. The sun rose and set over Lake Juit and the marshes…

…it was the marshes, I knew that now, something about the marshes…

…and the mist formed, thickened, and then dissipated with each dawn and dusk.

My belly swelled.

The soldiers patrolled and stood about my window at night.

Memmon grumbled about the accounts.

And Isphet relaxed.

She confided that she was with child herself, and I smiled, and said that she’d be hard put to beat Neuf’s total at her age.

Isphet blushed, and changed the subject. I knew she was embarrassed, not at my comment, but at the fact that she should be bearing a child which presented no threat.

Neither of us talked about my approaching confinement.

Three weeks before the baby was due, Zabrze arrived in a river boat garlanded with silks and banners.

Ashdod must truly be recovering, I thought, as I struggled from my chair.

Zabrze had brought Zhabroah with him, and Layla rushed to take her brother. We would all be here, I thought, for whatever it is we await.

Zabrze brushed my cheek with his lips, and laughed, then seized Isphet and kissed her with more abandon. “I have missed you, wife,” he said.

I looked away, but only to give them privacy rather than through any grief that Isphet should have a husband left to touch her so.

But Isphet noticed, and drew back from Zabrze’s embrace, and called us together for an afternoon of conversation on the verandah.

Memmon grumbled about the extra guests, but I noticed he talked to the household keys that hung at his belt as he walked away to the kitchens.

I turned my head and smiled.

Zabrze told of the new trading partnership he had forged with Darsis and En-Dor. “They are pleased that Threshold no longer consumes all our wealth, and that we shall have some coin to pay for their exports. I think,” and he grinned, “that Ashdod’s exports for the foreseeable future shall be nothing but rock. Darsis and En-Dor can build from our misery.”

Then the conversation turned to the Juit estate, and Memmon arrived to stand stiff and tall and give account of
the produce and the new crop of foals and calves that the previous month had brought.

“Good,” Zabrze said, and waved him away. “Life is very good.”

He looked towards the marshes. “And if I could think how to turn those reed-choked swamps into profit I would. Currently they are good for nothing but getting lost in.”

I opened my mouth to object, then saw the grin on Zabrze’s face. I smiled myself and…

…and remembered what Zabrze had said that day we’d approached Lake Juit after fleeing Threshold.

It is too easy to get lost in there. Many fishermen have gone in and never come back. Fallen over the edge of the world, I think. Or trapped with the gods in some Elysian paradise.

I remembered the day Isphet had led the rite to contact the Soulenai on Lake Juit. I remembered how close they’d felt. How vital. How vigorous.
Different.

Close.

I shuddered.

“The sun has gone, Tirzah, and you are cool.” Isphet leaned forward. “Come, we shall go inside.”

River reeds tangled about me and I fell, tumbling over and over, through water, beneath water. I fought my way to the surface, screaming as I exhaled. “Boaz? Where are you?”

I blinked. Something roared, and I thought it was the blood beating through my head. I blinked again, and saw that millions of Juit birds had launched into the yellow and orange sunset, millions and millions of them, pink and red, screeching.

“I wonder what has disturbed them?” Zabrze said.

Tirzah? Can you hear me? Help me! Please, please help me!

“Tirzah?”

I blinked again, then smiled, radiant. “Yes, Zabrze. I think I shall come inside.”

I lay in the bed, unable to sleep. The baby had shifted during the afternoon and now lay awkward and uncomfortable. My back ached, and I hoped I had the strength for what I must do.

Tirzah? Can you hear me? Help me! Please, please help me!

As the night deepened, I closed my eyes, touched the power of the Goblet of the Frogs in my hand, and worked my necromancy.

I waited two more hours, then rose, wincing as the ache flared across my back. I crossed to the door, and opened it quietly.

I’d whispered to Holdat as I’d made my way to bed, and I hoped he would not let me down.

I should have trusted. Here he was, moving swiftly and silently to my side. He nodded at the question in my eyes, put a finger to my lips, then led me slowly through the house.

Everything was quiet, still.

The front door stood ajar, and thick marsh mist seeped through. It touched the outline of everything in the room, giving all a ghostly aspect.

The door abruptly swung open, and I tensed, but it was Kiamet, and he grinned and waved me through.

The house, as everything within two hundred paces of the river, was shrouded in the mist. Guards stood posted at every window and entranceway…

…
watch for the Lady Tirzah, watch lest she try to escape and bear her child in secret…

…but Isphet had severely underestimated the Lady Tirzah, and now, no doubt, lay as heavily in enchanted sleep as these guards nodded over their spears.

Kiamet waved me forward again, impatient. Holdat took my arm and we walked down the path to the landing where Kiamet had moored a small punt.

“My Lady,” he whispered. “Let Holdat or myself come with you. You are in no condition –”

I kissed his mouth softly, stopping his words. “Dear Kiamet. Thank you, I am ever in your debt. But this I must do alone. Come now, help me into this boat.”

The flat-bottomed punt wobbled alarmingly as I settled my weight into it. I shook my hair out, then took the pole Kiamet handed me, and smiled at the two of them one last time.

“Goodbye, my friends. Watch for me as the sun burns the mist from the river.”

I dug the pole into the soft riverbed and pushed, and Kiamet gave the punt a shove from the landing.

And so I drifted into the mist.

I did not know exactly where I should go. Kiamet had placed a small lamp in the far end of the punt, and it glowed in the mist, encasing the boat in a soft puddle of light. As soon as I saw the first of the reeds on the western bank I poled in that direction.

I slid in among the reeds without a murmur, and they parted before the flat prow of the punt. It was silent in here. A different world…and that was what I was counting on. The marshes. A borderland; somewhere in here this world touched that of the Place Beyond.

And there Boaz would be waiting for me.

I think I understood what had happened now. Boaz had learned while in Infinity. He had learned how to manipulate the Song so that he was transported to the edges of the Place Beyond, but not propelled directly into it. Thus the feeling that he was there but not there. With, but not with the Soulenai. Refusing to be accepted among them. Not talking to them.

Agitated, disturbing the peace of the Place Beyond, crying out to me, to the bond between us, to find him and bring him home.

Wondering about the baby.

“Boaz?” I whispered into the mist, “where are you?”

There was nothing but the soft swish as reeds parted gently before the prow of the punt and the bobbing light.

I poled for hours, until the small of my back screamed in agony and my hands blistered on the rough wood of the rod. A breeze arose, shifting the mist but not dislodging it, and lifting my hair. It tangled with the pole, and I paused to take breath and lift my hair away and over my shoulder.

The baby shifted, and the ache in my back flared into something more urgent, more primeval.

“Boaz? Boaz?”

There was nothing.

The pain coursed through me again, and I sobbed, then muttered to myself and took grasp of the pole again. Some-where Boaz waited…waited…and this child demanded to be born. Here, where Isphet was far, far away.

I bit down the pain, and pushed the punt through the reeds.

The lamp was duller now, or was the night less dark?

I cried, for I understood that I had to find him by dawn, or lose him forever.

A frog croaked to one side, but I ignored it. Just another unwelcome reminder of how close sunrise was.

The mist thickened so much I could hardly breathe. I paused, one hand to the mound of my belly, the other on the pole. I pushed weakly, unable to use both hands now.

Another frog croaked, and then the punt rocked so violently I lost my grasp on the pole and dropped it into the water.

I cried out and lunged for it, but I was too awkward, and the punt rocking too much for me to find it. It had gone, and I was stranded.

Both hands on my belly now, I looked up.

Fetizza had climbed onto the prow of the punt; it was her weight that had rocked the vessel so alarmingly.

She stared at me with great liquid dark eyes, then slowly blinked.

Another frog, much tinier than Fetizza, leaped into the punt.

I flinched as yet another frog jumped in, over my shoulder this time.

Then I cried out as hundreds of tiny frogs rained into the punt. Some landed on my head and tangled in my hair, and I raised my hands and tried to free them, flinching again and again as frogs hit me and then bounced into the punt.

A great contraction banded my body, and I groaned, and gripped the side of the punt.

Every one of the frogs in the punt was staring at me. Motionless. Waiting.

Fetizza opened her huge mouth…and sang. The other frogs in the punt joined in, as did the millions of their brethren clinging to the reeds of the marsh.

The punt slid forwards.

I could do nothing but sit and gasp, blinking at the droplets of moisture that adhered to my eyelashes and ran down through tendrils of my hair. My robe was soaked, clinging to my ungainly body.

The frogs’ chorus surrounded me, and I lifted my hands to the sky.

“Boaz!”

Tirzah! Tirzah! Please…hurry!

“Boaz!”

My hands dropped to the sides of the punt, and then amazingly I saw the pole floating by. I seized it and pushed down with all my will.