“Boaz –”
“Nothing is going to deflect me from Threshold now, brother! Nothing!”
He stalked inside.
Zabrze stared after him, then looked at me, his eyes pleading. Then he wheeled about and disappeared into the night.
I slowly got to my feet. “Boaz?”
“Don’t you start too, Tirzah!”
“Boaz, perhaps Zabrze is right –”
“Tirzah!”
“What building weeps blood, Boaz?” I shouted. “That is no building, that is –”
“It is Threshold, curse you!”
“It is not right,” I said softly. “I do not care what you call it and I care not for what power you think it will give you. It is not right!”
“I’ve had enough,” Boaz growled, and seized me by the wrist.
Stop! Stop! Stop! the Goblet of the Frogs cried from the cabinet. Stop! Stop! Stop!
“No,” Boaz whispered. “No, I do not think I will,” and he hauled me from the room.
Kiamet moved to join us, but Boaz rounded on him and snarled, and Kiamet, shocked, stumbled back to the verandah.
“Boaz? Where are we –”
“Threshold,” he said, and his grip tightened about my wrist until I thought he would grind the bones to useless shards.
“Boaz! You’re hurting me!”
His grip lessened, but it was still tight, and I could do nothing to free myself.
He pulled me through the compound of the Magi – feasting was still going on in some quarters, but the noise and festivities were muted – then down the streets of Gesholme to the avenue stretching towards Threshold.
“Boaz! No!”
“Yes, you stupid fool!” he said. “Look!”
Reluctantly I raised my eyes. Threshold stood bathed in the light of a full moon. Nature was surely blessing the pyramid, I thought numbly, for a full moon to shine so bright before the heat of the sun of Consecration Day.
It was beautiful. I had to admit that, but it was a cruel beauty. The blood had gone now – absorbed, perhaps – and the blue-green glass shone like a calm sea under the moon. A calm sea, but with deadly inner depths. The capstone gleamed, and I had a presentiment of how it would look when the full power of the sun struck it.
Lights, blood red, flickered underneath the glass sides.
Threshold was waking.
“Just over twelve hours,” Boaz said beside me, “and it will awaken completely.”
“Are you sure that’s what you really want, Boaz?” I asked.
He ignored the question. “Come, I will show you Threshold’s full splendour.”
He pulled me further towards the pyramid.
At its base an officer stepped forward. From his insignia I noticed he was from Zabrze’s command.
“Excellency,” he said, and bowed deeply. “How may I help?”
“Stand guard. Watch. Let no-one near who is not Magi. No-one.”
“At your command, Excellency!”
I was almost rigid with fear now, and my legs stiff, but Boaz dragged me yet further towards Threshold. I was sure he would lead me to the ramp, but at the last he turned aside and led me to the spine connecting the southern and eastern faces.
“Up,” he said, “and if you won’t climb yourself then I’ll damn well carry you.”
His voice was cold, distant, and despair swept me. This was not Boaz any more. This was the Magus rampant. Threshold had won.
Small steps were cut into the spine.
“No,” I whispered. Not the capstone. No.
Boaz hauled me up the first twenty steps, then, scared he might let go, I made an effort myself. The climb was steep, and Threshold high, and within fifty steps I was panting, a combination of effort and terror.
It took us almost half an hour to reach the top, and by then the moon had sunk towards the horizon, casting half of Threshold into deep shadow. There the blood-red lighting underneath its skin flickered even more virulent than on those faces still exposed to the moonlight.
A small ledge ran about the capstone, perhaps a pace wide. Boaz let me go, and I instantly leaned against the capstone, sinking my fingers into the gaps in the caged lacework, praying it had been fastened securely to the inner wall.
The glass screamed at me, screamed at me to rescue it, screamed to me that, if I would not rescue it, then I must kill it.
Smash us! Smash us! Smash us!
But I lacked the courage or the means even to do that, and I closed my ears and mind as best I could to the despair of the glass. I wanted to let go, but I couldn’t, for then I was sure I would fall.
Boaz stepped further along the ledge, easy and confident. To distract myself from the glass, I made the mistake of looking out. Instantly nausea swamped me.
I hastily lowered my eyes…and saw the remnants of a crushed foot at the join of the capstone and Threshold.
I whimpered, frantic, wondering what I could do to escape, and looked back to Boaz. Perhaps if I pleaded…
But Boaz was lost. He was standing at the north-west corner of the pyramid facing into the emptiness, head back, arms extended, robes flowing in the night breeze.
I had thin-soled sandals on my feet, and through them I imagined I felt a throb, then another, and then I knew I was not imagining it.
“Boaz!” It was only a whimper again, but he heard it and turned.
“Feel it?” he asked. “Feel it?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. Boaz, please may we go down now? Please?”
The throbbing grew more powerful.
“Soon,” he whispered, looking at the sky. “Not long. Be patient.”
Then, “Tirzah? Look.”
Boaz pointed to the side of the pyramid in the shadow of the moonlight, and then beyond that.
I followed his finger…my heart stalled, then raced.
Threshold’s shadow stretched for almost half a league across the plain behind it. A rectangular shadow. Rectangular.
I thought I was going to be sick.
Boaz strode back to me and seized my arm. “Down.”
I sagged in relief, and might have fallen had it not been for his grip, but I rejoiced too soon.
Boaz hauled me down the steps, and how we didn’t tumble to our deaths during that mad descent I’ll never know, then he pulled me to the ramp.
No! “Boaz!”
“I want you to understand once and for all,” he said. “Once and for all.”
I let my feet slide from underneath me as we neared the top of the ramp, hoping that it might slow Boaz down, or even stop him. But he only cursed, bent down and gathered me into his arms.
I was even more trapped than before.
Threshold winked as we passed into its mouth.
I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. I was going to my death, I was sure of it.
Threshold’s internal glass walls were now all the black, shiny substance. Thin red forks of light flickered underneath them. I remembered how the glass had been fused into the stone in this process of turning glass into black, and I understood that the red light flickered through stone as well.
Flesh now, perhaps.
Boaz climbed without pause through the main passageway. The light was eerie. Moonlight reflected down the shafts and seeped into the corridor, but it had been corrupted on its way down and was now pink-tinged and thick.
The air smelt coppery, warm.
“Almost there,” Boaz whispered.
I glanced at his face. It was the face of a man I did not know, and one I instinctively hated. I understood that Threshold would do this to all it enthralled. Not human any more, no will of their own.
I closed my eyes momentarily, wishing I could find the time to grieve, but I was too terrified.
The slope levelled out and Boaz set me down on my feet.
“Are you ready?” he said. “Ready for Threshold’s intimate delights?”
“No, please…Boaz…don’t…please…”
He seized my hand and wrenched
me into the Infinity Chamber.
The first emotion I had was of relief. Here the light was soft gold, moonlight filtering through the golden capstone down the main shaft through the chamber’s own golden glass. No blood. No coppery smell.
Then I heard the glass scream.
It had never, never been this bad before. These were the screams of trapped animals, mutilated almost unto death, pleading, wanting both freedom and death, begging me to help them, screaming…screaming to me to save them…oh gods, please, please! Save us! Save us!
I screamed myself, and blocked my ears.
It did not help.
I screamed again, feeling the glass’ agony ripple through my body.
Gods, what would happen here?
“Beautiful,” Boaz murmured, and lifted his hands.
I knew what he would do next, for I had seen him do this once before. He was going to open the gates of all the shafts and flood the Infinity Chamber with light.
It would only be moonlight, but it would be bad enough.
I cried out again, almost convulsing with the horror of the glass that ran through me.
He smiled, took a deep breath, and laid his hands upon the glass.
And heard – felt – it scream.
I had screamed as he touched the glass, and when he wrenched his hands away from it with a look of absolute horror I thought it was only in reaction to me.
But then I realised not.
His face had lost all colour, and his eyes were wide, terrified. Somehow I threw myself across the chamber and grabbed his hands, slamming them back against the glass.
“Feel it, Boaz! Feel it!”
And he did. He tried to break away, and I don’t know where the strength came from, but I managed to keep his hands pinned against the glass.
Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us!
The glass was screaming…and it was screaming to Boaz. Boaz!
Save us! Save us! Save us! Save us!
“No!” he moaned.
It comes! It COMES! Save us!
He finally wrenched his hands from beneath mine. “No!”
“Boaz, please,” I whispered. “We’ve got to get out of here. Please. Please!”
“Tirzah?”
“Boaz, come on, now. Come on.” I tried to keep my voice gentle. “Please, come now.”
I grasped one of his hands between both of mine. “Come on, now.”
He was so shocked by the horror which the glass had flooded into him that he could not resist me. Very, very gradually he moved.
“Come on, now.”
We had to get out. Surely Threshold had realised what had happened? But perhaps it was concentrating so much on its own burgeoning power that it had ignored us.
I led Boaz down the corridor as fast as I could. But that was not fast enough. I wanted to run, but he was stumbling and resisting now as before I had stumbled and resisted.
“Come on, Boaz. Hurry!”
Threshold’s mouth loomed before us. I was sure that it would snap closed as we passed under it into the clear night air, but finally we stumbled out.
“Excellency?” the officer said, worried by Boaz’s face.
“The climb,” I said. “And, well, the privacy. He could not resist the chance to commune with the One. And so now he’s breathless.”
The officer winked, and let us go.
28
I LED Boaz through the streets back to the Magi’s compound. It was very quiet now. Everyone was in bed to rest for Consecration Day.
“Let no-one in,” I said to Kiamet, and he nodded. I wondered when he ever slept, but now was not the time to ask.
I led Boaz over to the bed and sat him down. His face was expressionless, his eyes dull.
“You heard the glass,” I said.
He looked up. “What?”
“You heard the glass scream, Boaz. It wants you to save it.”
“No.”
“Yes! It was screaming to you!”
“No!” His eyes were wild now, and he stood to face me. “What you speak is –”
“Truth, Boaz. What I speak is truth.”
“No. I heard nothing. I –”
“Shetzah!” I flung my hands in the air. “How long are you going to deny that you are an Elemental, Boaz?”
He cringed at that word.
“Say it, Boaz. We’re safe enough here. Threshold can’t hear us or see us.” My voice was much, much softer. “Why else pick a residence so shielded from Threshold’s eye? Why else save to hide your Elemental leanings?”
“No! I am a Magus…a…”
“What you are, Boaz, is an Elemental Necromancer. I am Elemental, too. Don’t deny that you don’t know that.”
“No, Tirzah. Stop. You’re condemning yourself. I’ll have to kill you –”
I laughed. “Go ahead, then. Kill me.”
He cursed and turned away. “I do not believe you. I cannot be this…Necromancer.”
There was a slight step outside on the verandah, but I assumed it was Kiamet at his post.
“Oh? Thus speaks the man who kept the locks of the dead? Thus speaks the man who turned stone to hair? Thus speaks the man who keeps and treasures the Book of the Soulenai?”
“No! I do not want to hear any more.” Boaz flung himself away from me.
“She speaks truth, brother.”
Zabrze! I looked at him gratefully. Maybe Boaz would listen to him.
But he had no intention of listening to either of us. “Out! I want you both out!”
“No,” Zabrze said quietly. “I’ve had enough, and I’ve heard enough to know Tirzah has, too. Boaz, the time has come to admit who you really are.”
“Kiamet!” Boaz shouted.
“He will not come, Boaz,” Zabrze said. “Kiamet is my man.”
That stunned me as much as Boaz. Kiamet?
“Has Kiamet been spying on me for all these months?” Boaz said.
“Looking out for you, Boaz, and keeping watch. But ‘spying’? No. Kiamet owes his loyalty to me but has not reported on the activities within this residence. Although,” Zabrze glanced at me, “I wish I had asked him to do that. It might have saved me some surprises on my arrival.”
“We were in the Infinity Chamber, Great Lord,” I said. “The glass in that chamber screams with despair. It is…” I shuddered. “Tonight Boaz laid his hands on the glass and heard it. It screamed to him to save it. Great Lord, only an Elemental could have heard it.”
“Boaz,” Zabrze said, “you are an Elemental. Listen to us.”
Boaz opened his mouth to deny it yet again, and I turned away in disgust.
Boaz, Boaz, Boaz.
I twisted back. It was the Goblet of the Frogs. I looked between the two brothers. Boaz had clearly heard it, for his eyes were riveted on the glass, but Zabrze was only staring irritably at Boaz.
That answered one question. I had thought Zabrze might be Elemental, too, but that call had been so strong that even the weakest Elemental would have picked it up.
Boaz, Boaz, Boaz.
Not many voices. One.
“No!” Boaz screamed, and leaped for the glass.
It flared. Light seared through the room, and Zabrze and I both cried out.
“What?” Zabrze murmured.
“The goblet is Soulenai magic,” I said, blinking my eyes, trying to clear them, frantically searching for Boaz. What was he doing? “It calls to Boaz.”
There was a faint tinkling, and I thought that Boaz had managed to shatter the glass.
“No!” Not my voice, but Boaz’s.
He was crouched by the cabinet, his hands over his face. A man stood before him, with his hand reaching down.
Boaz.
Not a man but a spectre, woven of mist only.
“By the gods!” Zabrze cried. “Avaldamon!”
Boaz’s head jerked up, unbelieving.
Boaz. The spectre’s hand drifted closer, and Boaz, shaking, reached out his own.
Boaz. Listen
to the frogs. Learn their Song. Follow the path it shows you, for it is all that will save you. Listen, Boaz. Accept. Destroy Threshold.
And then he was gone.
I rubbed my eyes, wondering if he’d ever been there at all. I’d never heard of this – but what power Avaldamon commanded to so visit from the grave!
“Avaldamon!” Zabrze whispered, and then he stepped to his brother’s side, knelt down, and embraced him.
I think it was Zabrze’s embrace, even more than the fleeting apparition of Avaldamon, that shattered Boaz’s resistance. He broke into harsh sobs, and Zabrze rocked him back and forth.
Boaz finally blinked, as if waking from a dream. “Tirzah?”
“Boaz!” I dropped beside him, and added my arms to those of Zabrze’s.
“Boaz, listen to me now. The Soulenai say that you are the only one who can destroy Threshold.”
“Oh, no, Tirzah. I cannot –”
“You are Magus trained,” I said, repeating what the Soulenai had told me. “You understand the power of the One. You understand Threshold. And you also command such great,” I kissed his cheek, “wonderful,” now I kissed his forehead, “Elemental power, you can counteract whatever Threshold truly is. You are the key to Threshold’s destruction.”
Boaz slumped against Zabrze and myself. “My father…”
Zabrze glanced at me. “Avaldamon was an Elemental Necromancer, Boaz. He told me this. Why, I don’t know, for such a confession was more than dangerous in a world where the Magi ruled. But perhaps even then he had an intuition of his own death and knew that someone had to be told.”
Boaz raised his tear-stained face to Zabrze. “And you accepted it?”
“Avaldamon had been kind and understanding in a court where very few were, Boaz. I trusted him. And I admired him beyond any man I have met since. His powers were astounding – he demonstrated some to me – and yet his compassion was overwhelming. He was,” Zabrze’s mouth twisted cynically, “a bright contrast to the Magi at court.”
“And to what I became,” Boaz said very quietly. “How is it that you did not tell me this earlier?”
“I was gone so long from court when you were young, Boaz. When I returned it was to find that the Magi had claimed you. I…hesitated…to stand up in court and shout that you were the son of an Elemental Necromancer.”
Even Boaz had to grin weakly at that.