Threshold

by Sara Douglass

  “I can’t go!”

  I felt Isphet beside us on the bench, and her hand on my hair. “Tirzah –”

  And suddenly I knew what they were all going to say. “NO!”

  “Listen to me.” Yaqob’s voice was very firm. “Listen to me, Tirzah! This will be the best chance we’ll ever have of getting inside that man’s head. Tirzah, you must go. Don’t you ever want to escape from here? Don’t you ever want to be free?”

  I couldn’t say anything.

  “Tirzah, you will give us the key to this man. Damn it, we need this chance.”

  “But I am afraid. I know he suspects me of being an Elemental. What if this is a trap? What –”

  “Then you must be careful, Tirzah. Say nothing to him. He won’t expect conversation. Endure, listen, watch. We need your eyes and your ears close to that man.”

  “Yaqob!” I leaned back and stared at him with a tearstained face. “Don’t you care? Is your plot worth more to you than me?”

  He took my face between his hands and I could see that yes, indeed, he did care, and he cared very much. “I will kill him for what he will do to you, Tirzah,” he said softly. “Believe that.”

  And I believed it.

  Isphet pushed the men from the room and talked to me for a very long time. She told me what to expect, and she gave me the courage to endure it. Later that evening I walked home with her, Kiath and Saboa silent behind us. I had been unable to look Yaqob in the eye as I said goodbye to him.

  Hadone kept springing into my thoughts. He had also used me, but had tried to be thoughtful and not to hurt me too much. From what I had seen of Boaz and from what Isphet had told me, I could not expect the same from him.

  Well, I had endured Hadone, I would endure Boaz. And perhaps I would learn the key to our freedom from a careless word.

  That evening I pushed away the food Kiath offered me, then went outside to wash. When I returned a guard was waiting inside, a bundle of white cloth in his hands.

  “For you. His Excellency does not want to receive you in your dirty wrap.”

  Isphet took it from him, then pulled me outside to change. It was a beautiful garment, a sheath dress made of pleated white linen hanging from a wide circular collar of blue beads that draped over my shoulders. It fitted perfectly, clinging to waist and hips, and hanging to the calves of my legs. A beautiful garment, but a whore’s dress. And blue and white, the colour of the Magus.

  Thus marked, I would have to walk through the streets of Gesholme to his compound.

  Isphet combed out my hair, leaving it loose about my shoulders. Then she gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Go,” she said. “I’ll wait for you.”

  I nodded, unable to speak, and followed the guard out the door.

  The streets were almost deserted. Few walked out after dusk now, save those with good reason. There were some patrols, several pairs of curious eyes watching from high windows to mark my passing, and the evening chorus of frogs from the river reeds, but little else.

  The guard did not speak. He walked slightly behind me, wary, expecting me to try to escape.

  But I had no heart for that now. There was nowhere to run.

  Finally, the compound of the Magi.

  “Halt,” the guard said, and he spoke briefly with the detail standing watch at the gate. In Ta’uz’s time that had only been two. Now there were at least six heavily armed men to decide who passed in and out.

  The guard – those at the gate had called him Kiamet – led me through the compound. I had not been in here since the night of my arrival, and I had forgotten how sweet and cool was the air, fragrant with flowers, how soft were the lights. I saw the carefully arranged gardens, but at night shadows hid most of their artfulness.

  A few Magi passed me, but I averted my head and I do not know if they smiled, or lusted, or just did not care.

  Kiamet led me past where I’d expected to go, the residence Ta’uz had used as Master of the Site. I’d remembered it from my own visit, and Raguel had described it to me often enough. Surprised, I lifted my head, and paid more attention. Perhaps I could glean something of use.

  He took me to a smaller, far less pretentious house than Ta’uz’s; one that was almost hidden underneath the wall of the compound. It was long and low, widely verandahed, and plastered in a delicate cream traced with lemon. Soft lights swung from verandah posts, showing pink and blue flowering bushes bordering the tiled walkways.

  It looked very beautiful and utterly gracious.

  “There,” Kiamet said, and he pointed to an open door. Light shone beyond. Then he took up his post under the verandah, no doubt to wait until I’d been used and dismissed.

  I think I was beyond all feeling by this time. I hesitated, then walked through the door, blinking in the light.

  The room was the width of the house, and ran deep into it. On either side, wide windows ran from ceiling to floor, all open. The room was spacious, not only because of its size, but because of the minimal amount of furniture in it. Several chairs, a small table, shelves for papyri books and rolls running the length of one wall, a desk, and two cabinets standing against the opposite wall from where I entered. On one of the cabinets stood a pitcher and a wide bowl, flanked by some cloths.

  And there a bed, wide and accommodating.

  I turned my eyes.

  Boaz sat at the desk, watching me. Papyri rolls and sheets lay scattered before him. In one hand he held a reed stylus, sharpened at one end; his fingers were stained with ink. He was dressed in a loose-fitting white robe, and I realised he had but removed his outer garment of blue.

  A lamp was burning at his elbow, and its light threw his face into shadows. He put down the stylus.

  “You are here. Good.”

  He pointed to a chair pulled to one side of the desk. “Sit down.”

  I sat, wiping my hands nervously on my dress, then clenched my fists, worried I had marked the fine material.

  “I must explain some things first. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Excellency.” Just use me, and let me leave, I pleaded silently, but apparently he had to have his say.

  “I will call you back, be assured of that.”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  “Whenever you arrive, you will bring that bowl and pitcher, and wash my hands and feet. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  “Good. Do it.”

  I did as he asked, fetching the bowl and the pitcher of water, and kneeling back by his side. I was grateful the pitcher did not shake in my hand as I poured out a measure of water, nor that my hands did not tremble as I lifted the cloth.

  He had nice hands, the hands of a craftsman, square palmed and long fingered, and paler skinned than many of his race. They were very warm.

  I dried them, then turned my attention to his feet.

  As I folded the cloth he handed me a phial of oil, and I massaged the oil into his hands and feet. It was very fragrant, redolent with the tastes and sounds of a forest, and it caused me to remember the northern lands of my home. I was grateful when I had done and could stopper the phial and hand it back.

  I returned the pitcher and bowl to their place, then, at his indication, sat down again.

  “You will not speak unless I ask it of you.”

  “I understand, Excellency.”

  “You will not ask questions.”

  “No, Excellency.”

  He paused, and glanced at my ankles. “Why are your ankles so scarred?”

  “I was chained in a whaler for six weeks, Excellency. My ankles festered and scarred.”

  “Well, they are distasteful. You will do your utmost to keep them from my sight while you are with me.”

  “Yes, Excellency.” I crossed them and tucked my feet underneath my chair. It was the best I could do.

  “In fact, you will do your utmost to look pleasing for me, Tirzah. You will ask Isphet how to apply kohl to your eyes.”

  “Yes, Excellency.”


  “You will do whatever I ask of you. Whatever. Whenever. However loathsome.”

  I took a breath. “Yes, Excellency.”

  “Good. Tirzah,” he leaned forward, “you will tell no-one of what goes on in this room. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  “If you do tell anyone,” he said, very quietly now, “I will know and I will exact retribution. Not only you, but every person you tell shall be fed alive and bleeding to the great water lizards. Do you understand me?”

  The power of the One rippled across his face, and I could see my death in his eyes. My voice trembled as I replied. “I understand you, Excellency.”

  He stared at me, then relaxed. “Good. Now, why are you here?”

  “To provide satisfaction, Excellency.”

  “Good, very good. In what way?”

  I could not help it; I blushed. “You wish to use me, Excellency.”

  He was silent, a finger tapping upon the desk. “Yes, but not in the way you think. I have no time for the type of weakness Ta’uz displayed.”

  My eyes widened.

  “I am one with the One, Tirzah,” he said. “I do not need to ‘use’ a woman to achieve that end. One will always be better than two, and two is but a sorry coupling seeking to imitate the perfection of the One. Ta’uz, as all Magi who seek to achieve union with the One through use of a woman, was a fool. No. I am going to teach you to write.”

  Now my shock was complete. I remembered what Yaqob had told me about the sorceries that would bind me if I learned how to write and I shook my head from side to side, very slowly, responding without thinking. “No!”

  I’d angered him again. “Yes!”

  “Yes, Excellency!” I’d learned my lesson well that morning.

  “Why are you afraid?”

  Yaqob’s angry face swam before me – he would prefer that Boaz bed me than teach me to write. “I…I’m needed to cage, Excellency. It takes so much time. To learn to write as well…”

  “You will continue to work in Isphet’s workshop, but you will come here three evenings a week. Four, if I request it. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  “Why else are you afraid?”

  I hesitated, thinking past Yaqob’s hatred of writing to the blood inscriptions writhing across the Infinity Chamber. “Writing is sorcery, Excellency. You pair characters and symbols with numbers, and so produce calculations and sorceries with your words.”

  He raised an eyebrow at my knowledge. “Do you think I am about to pass across my sorceries for your edification, girl? For you to take back to your friends in the glass workshop?”

  “I –”

  His mouth curled in contempt. “I will give you nothing that you can use to destroy me, Tirzah. Is that understood?”

  I hung my head. “Yes, Excellency.”

  “You have a question, Tirzah. Speak it.”

  “Why teach me to write, Excellency?”

  “You are young and quick-witted – your ability to grasp Ashdod’s native tongue is proof enough of that – and I have need of quick wits about me. As importantly, you probably know at least two of the northern tongues, and the common trading language. Am I right?”

  “Yes, Excellency.” I hesitated. “I speak my native Vilander, as well as the neighbouring tongue of Geshardian.

  Less well, but competently, I speak Alaric and Befardi. And, as you said, the common trading tongue.”

  “Then you will do well,” he said. “Now listen to me.” His tone hardened, and hate thinned his mouth. “You will tell your lover, Yaqob, that I teach you the arts of the whore, not the scholar. Do you understand?”

  He knew about Yaqob? I looked stunned, and he leaned back in his chair, satisfied. “I know it all, Tirzah. In the end it will be safer for you to lie to Yaqob, because he will never believe the truth. And will he trust you, once he knows you can write? He will think, ‘She betrayed me the moment she first picked up the stylus.’”

  He reached out a hand and seized one of mine. I tensed, but did not resist as he pulled my hand across the desk. He slowly opened my fingers, one by one.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, and a tear rolled out.

  “Open your eyes, Tirzah.”

  I forced them open.

  “Take the stylus from the desk.”

  I hesitated, and his fingers tightened about my wrist. “Did you understand me, Tirzah?”

  My fingers shaking even through his grip, I took the stylus.

  “Good.”

  I loathed him and I abhorred what he tried to teach me. I loathed that he’d so deliberately forced me to betray Yaqob. And my fear was even greater than my loathing because he’d known exactly how to make me betray my lover. Why hadn’t I fought him? Kicked and screamed? But here I sat, struggling to grip the stylus in the way he wanted, struggling to understand what he told me, and the repulsion writhed and kicked about my belly.

  The Magus kept me until the dawn light filtered through the windows. He taught me how to draw the basic characters of numbers and of words, and he made me draw them again and again until I had them approaching the precision he demanded.

  I grew frustrated and increasingly angry, both emotions sharpened by weariness and self-disgust, but I dared show neither. So I bit my lip and did my best, and tried to understand the concepts he showed me.

  It was easier for me than it might have been for Isphet or Yaqob. I was used to drawing on the glass, and to sketching the designs the Magi sent to the workshop. I discovered I had a familiarity with the figures, and that frightened me, and deepened my already raging resentment and hatred for this man.

  I wondered what he really wanted from me. It was not only to learn to write, of that I was sure. There was no reason to teach me to write and to figure, for the Magi had clerks and scribes a-plenty. I tried to find some clue in his manner or words, but found nothing save coldness and impatience.

  Possibly he was just one who found pleasure in forcing a woman against her will.

  Finally he snatched the stylus from my hand in frustration at a particularly misformed character I had made, and scrawled a word – scrawled, but his characters were flawless.

  “What does it say?” he demanded.

  I looked at the word. “It is my name. Tirzah.”

  His mouth curled, the movement insulting, and I dropped my eyes. “And do you wonder, Tirzah,” he said very softly, “what sorceries your written name hides?”

  He stared at me, then put the stylus to one side and stoppered the phial of ink.

  “I will remind you this once,” he said, “that if you tell any of what occurs while you are with me then I will know. I do not think I need remind you of the consequences.” He paused. “You may go.”

  “I thank you, Excellency.”

  His eyes sharpened at my tone, and he searched my face carefully for any sign of mockery, but I kept my expression bland, and he waved me away.

  Kiamet, still standing as straight and tall as the verandah post, escorted me back to the tenement house, where Isphet flung wide the door with anxious eyes.

  “Tirzah!”

  She closed the door in the guard’s face. “Well?”

  “I have survived, Isphet.” But she was not satisfied.

  “You have been gone so long.”

  “He made me sit a long time, Isphet.” I ached to tell her that he had not touched me, that he had not wanted to bed me, but then she would have demanded to know why he wanted me there. How could I explain that I had broken my vow to Yaqob, that I had possibly created Magi sorceries with my stylus? And I was afraid that if I did tell her all this, then Boaz would know, and we would all die. It was safer if I kept my silence, and surely no harm would come of it. “He…I…”

  “It’s all right, Tirzah, you do not have to go into details. I have endured it myself.” She pulled the gown from my shoulders, and folded it neatly away. “At least he has not bruised you. Now, clothe yourself in your wrap. Good. Sit down h
ere and drink this as fast as you can. We shall have to go to the workshop soon.”

  I sat, relieved that I had not actually lied to Isphet, and took the steaming herbal from her. I drank the bitter brew, not yet realising that to take the herbal and drink it was as blatant a lie as having spoken an untruth.

  “Do you have any kohl sticks, Isphet?”

  At the workshop Yaqob smiled at me awkwardly, and turned away. I stood, unsure what to say, wondering at the images that must be filling his mind. Yet better those than the truth. I did not have the chance to speak to him, for Isphet hurried me up the stairs, told Zeldon and Orteas only that I had not been allowed to sleep, and laid me down on a pile of sacking.

  “We’ll keep watch,” she said, and the two men nodded. “Sleep. There’s no point in trying to cage in your state.”

  I let myself drift gratefully into oblivion, soothed by the whisper of the glass about me.

  Zeldon shook me anxiously awake about midmorning. “Tirzah! Boaz is downstairs. Wake up!”

  I struggled to my feet, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, although the surge of fright at Zeldon’s words woke me completely.

  “Quick! He has asked for you.”

  I pulled my wrap into order, blinked rapidly to try to look as if I’d been awake, then walked down into the main workshop.

  The Magus was inspecting the glass plates that Yaqob had been scoring and breaking ready to be placed on the western face of Threshold. He had pulled out a measuring tape, and was engaged in careful measurement.

  Yaqob stood to one side, his face expressionless – but his eyes flickered uncertainly as I walked up to them.

  Boaz eventually straightened. “Yes. Good. They will do, Yaqob. Ah, Tirzah.”

  He walked over to me, hesitated, then trailed his fingers down my face, my neck, then yanked my wrap aside to cup my breast in his hand.

  “Ah, yes,” he said very softly, and lifted his eyes to my face. “How soon short hours make one forget. You pleased me well, Tirzah, and I achieved good union with the One through your body. You will return tonight.”

  His fingers brushed over my breast one last time, his eyes unreadable, then he pulled the wrap across my nakedness and turned aside, walking out of the workshop without another word.