Threshold

by Sara Douglass

  “What’s wrong?” Boaz said, waking more quickly than me.

  “It’s Neuf. She’s gone into labour.”

  Boaz and I sprang into instant wakefulness. “What can we do?” he asked.

  “You can do nothing, Boaz,” Isphet said. “But Tirzah will be a help.”

  “Neuf has always borne her children with ease,” Boaz said, but his voice was strained.

  “Maybe so, but in a comfortable and secluded birthing pavilion, and not after the stress she’s gone through over the past few weeks. Tirzah, will you hurry up?”

  “Call if you need me,” Boaz said, and then Isphet led me to a small stand of rocks protected by two stubby trees. Kiath was there, hanging a small lamp on a low branch. Blankets had been strung between trees and rock to give Neuf some privacy. She lay, supported by Zabrze, his face more strained and worried than that of his wife.

  “Really, Zabrze,” she said. “This is women’s business only.”

  “You are my business, Neuf,” he replied. “I’m staying.”

  And so he did.

  The labour progressed rapidly. Isphet relaxed after an hour; despite Neuf’s physical weakness she appeared to be doing well.

  Close to dawn, Zabrze helped Neuf to squat in the birthing position. Isphet rolled up her sleeves and prepared to assist as best she could. “Bear down,” she said, and Neuf glared at her.

  “I’m considerably more experienced at this than you,” she snapped, and Zabrze grinned weakly over the top of Neuf’s head at Isphet. I’m not sure if he was apologetic at her words, or relieved at her spirit.

  But bear down Neuf did, and with the ease that Boaz had promised the babe slipped clean and sweet from her womb. Isphet cleaned his face and mouth and then lifted him to Neuf’s arms.

  “A boy,” she said, and this time I knew that the look on Zabrze’s face was one of sheer relief.

  “Small, but strong,” Isphet commented.

  At that moment Neuf gave a small gasp of surprise, one of her hands fluttering to snatch at Isphet’s. “Oh!”

  “Isphet!” I said, “quick!” Blood was gushing from Neuf’s womb, and I could actually see Neuf’s face pale in the dawn light as her life ebbed from her. She collapsed back into Zabrze’s arms, and Isphet snatched the baby and handed him to Kiath before Neuf dropped him.

  “Isphet!” Zabrze yelled, and his arms tightened about his wife. “Do something!”

  We put pressure on the womb, but that was all we could do.

  Neuf, feeling herself dying, sobbed, and snatched at Isphet’s hand again. “Boaz,” she whispered.

  “Get him!” Zabrze shouted at me, and I almost tripped as I scrambled to my feet and lifted aside the curtains.

  But he was already there, having heard Zabrze shout the first time.

  “What’s wrong?” Then he saw my bloodied arms. “Oh, no…no…”

  He ducked inside the enclosure and knelt by Neuf’s side. Zabrze was huddled over his wife’s form, crooning her name over and over.

  “Boaz,” Neuf’s eyes fluttered open. “Boaz, this is not where I planned to die. Please…please…will you bury me according to the Way of the One?”

  I remembered that Zabrze had said Neuf had many friends among the Magi, but I had not realised how committed she was to the Way of the One until this moment.

  “Please, Boaz, I beg you, don’t let me die without knowing that I will have the rites I wish.”

  “Boaz…” Zabrze muttered.

  Boaz looked more than distressed. He started to shake his head, but Zabrze shouted at his brother. “Boaz, don’t deny her what she wants!”

  Boaz sighed. “I will do as you ask, Neuf. You will be farewelled according to the Way of the One.”

  “I thank you,” she whispered, and died.

  None of us knew what to say or do next. The baby whimpered, as if he realised that his mother had passed on. Zabrze bent over his wife’s bloodied form and wept, still crooning brokenly to her.

  “I tried,” Isphet said. “But…there was nothing…”

  I knelt beside her and put my arms about her, then Boaz spoke.

  “She will have to be washed, and she should be dressed in a combination of blue and white.”

  “Boaz,” I said, “surely you’re not really going to –

  I was stopped by the fierce look I received from both brothers.

  “I promised her,” Boaz said, “and I cannot go back on that promise.”

  We did the best we could. Isphet was distraught, so I sent her to sit with the baby while Zabrze, Kiath and I washed Neuf’s body and dressed her in a blue and white robe given us by one of the other women.

  But before we called Boaz back I leaned forward and snipped away a lock of her hair.

  “We can have our own rite one day, Kiath,” I said, and she nodded.

  “Alive, Neuf did not know the wonders of the Place Beyond. In death she will.”

  Boaz had shaved, and his expression was almost that of the cold Magus once more, but his eyes as he raised them to mine were full of emotion, and I knew this mask would not last.

  “Her face will need to be painted with her blood,” he said, and I felt my stomach lurch over.

  “It is the Way of the One,” he said, and I took a deep breath and did as he asked.

  That macabre face-painting was not the worst of the ceremony. We kept it behind the cover of the blankets, and only Kiath, Isphet, Zabrze, the baby and I witnessed Boaz farewell Neuf in the manner she wished.

  It left a sourness clinging to the back of all our throats.

  When it was done Zabrze said a few words; his way, I think, not only of farewelling Neuf, but of grieving for her.

  “We shared a marriage for twenty-one years,” he said. “It was not passionate, but Neuf and I were a good pairing and we made a companionable couple. She had all that I could give her, except my love…”

  That was a brutal admission, I thought.

  “…but she had all that she wanted. I wish I could have provided a better death for her. I wish I had not led her to this fate.”

  Then he turned aside, took the baby from Isphet, and went and sat under a distant tree.

  We did not move that day.

  Neuf’s death cast a pall over the entire column. She had not been well liked, certainly not well known, but any death was sad, especially that of a woman in childbirth, so many people grieved for her.

  And she had left such a tiny, helpless baby.

  No-one else among us had a baby or was even pregnant. Within hours of Neuf’s death Isphet was fretting over her pot, trying to concoct something that would be palatable and nourishing.

  To lose the baby because there was no milk to feed him would be more than a double tragedy.

  “Perhaps if I boil some grain to broth,” Isphet said, wiping sweat away from her brow. “No, no, that won’t do. Perhaps honey-sweetened water. Tirzah, do you have some honey in your pack? It will keep his stomach full, at least.”

  Uselessly so. I shook my head.

  Zabrze paced to and fro behind Isphet, cradling his son. The baby was wailing softly, and that helped no-one.

  “Isphet?” Zabrze asked. As he had pleaded with her to save Neuf’s life, now he pleaded for his son.

  “I can’t –” she began, then stopped as a shadow fell over the campfire.

  “Masters and mistresses,” said a wizened but exquisitely spotless old man, “I crave your forgiveness for this interruption. But I have heard of your problem, and –”

  “And what?” Zabrze snapped.

  “And…” the old man held a pot in his hand, and now he took the lid off. It was filled with frothy, white milk.

  Isphet squeaked and reached with both hands.

  “Where did you get that?” I asked. I think I was the only one left with a voice.

  “My Zsasa gave birth last night…as well, good lady. She has much milk. But –”

  “Zsasa?” Zabrze asked.

  “My camel, Great Lord.”r />
  “Your camel lived and my wife died?” Zabrze said incredulously. “How is it that a camel –”

  “We thank you, good cameleer,” I said hastily. “This milk will surely save the babe’s life,” and I stared Zabrze hard in the eye.

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “I thank you with my soul for this gift. Excuse my words, I…”

  “I understand, Great Lord,” the old man said, then looked at Isphet. “The milk is very rich. Too rich for a baby. Dilute it with water, half and half, and it will do.”

  Isphet was already reaching for a bowl, and within minutes she’d mixed the milk.

  Still embarrassed by his words, Zabrze asked the old man to join us, and all sat silently about the fire as Isphet took the baby from Zabrze’s arms and fed him using a moistened cloth for him to suck from. He was hungry, and eager for life, and he took all that he was given.

  “How will you name him, Zabrze?” Isphet asked eventually, wiping the boy’s mouth as he lay sleeping in her arms.

  Zabrze thought for some minutes. “I will name him Zhabroah,” he said eventually. “It means survivor.”

  That night was the first Isphet went to Zabrze’s bed, and that was good, for it was a night he should not have been alone.

  Even so, I think the love had been growing between them for a very long time, even before they had met.

  33

  WE continued. Day passed into night, and night to day, and Isphet took us from marker to marker. The country grew more arid, and yet there was no sign of Isphet’s hills on the horizon; not a smudge, not a cloud.

  “We will not see them until we are a day out from them,” Isphet said. “They are very low.”

  We proceeded at a tolerably good pace. The heat was not too fierce during the day and the nights were pleasantly cool. Our food stocks lasted – even Zsasa found sufficient scrub grass to produce the milk for both her calf and Zhabroah – and we found water each evening.

  All managed well enough on the march. There were blisters and sore tempers occasionally, but we were fit and used to hardship. Zabrze marched at the head of the column, side by side with Isphet, his robes billowing in the wind. He was quiet, grieving in his own manner for Neuf, and deeply troubled for his other children. Isphet gave him silence and comfort, and the bond they had forged between them strengthened both by day and by night.

  The baby thrived. Kiath and Isphet shared care of him, but Zabrze also spent hours with him each evening. He would sit about the fire, his son cradled in the crook of his arm, feeding him milk and water.

  Poor Neuf, I thought, not even your son misses your warmth.

  As he had promised, Boaz taught Isphet the basics in the skills of reading and writing. She learned quickly, grasping the sense easily enough, but was troubled by the stylus and the characters. Boaz was patient with her – which was far more than he had been with me. But this was a different man, and I should not have minded.

  Yaqob watched. He asked questions, and I believe he learned to read as fast as Isphet did. But he baulked at the stylus. Yaqob would read, but he would not write. I wondered if that was because he still feared the art, or feared having Boaz watch his first awkward attempts at lettering.

  We had been moving for almost three weeks, and though Isphet said nothing, I could sense her worry.

  “Isphet,” Boaz said finally one night, as we sat around before dinner. “When?”

  Zabrze, cradling his sleeping son, looked up from the campfire. “We have only three or four more days of food, Isphet. We –”

  “I know how much food we have left, Zabrze!” she said. “Has not Azam presented us with detailed reports both morning and evening?”

  “Isphet,” Zabrze said again. “I have responsibility for five thousand people here, and ultimate responsibility for many more. Another week and some of us will start to die. I want to know what’s wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong –”

  “Yes there is! I have watched you these past two days, frowning at your markers –”

  “The trails have still appeared. The soil still snakes –”

  “Oh, Isphet!” The baby stirred, and Zabrze rocked him a moment. “Isphet,” he continued more quietly, “even the mules in our column know that we are now travelling directly south. Are not your hills more to the east?”

  She chewed her lip and dropped her eyes.

  “South lies the Great Stony Desert,” Boaz said. “Isphet…”

  She lowered her head into her hand and rubbed her eyes. “I am worried,” she finally admitted. “We have been making good time, despite our numbers. I thought we would have reached the hills some three or four days ago.”

  Zabrze looked at her very steadily. “You should have said something sooner, Isphet. How long have you been leading us astray?”

  “I have been but following the markers,” she snapped, raising her eyes. “I –”

  “Hare’s done,” said Holdat. Boaz had managed to trap it that afternoon.

  “Let us eat,” I said. “In the morning…Isphet, would it help if Yaqob or I, or Boaz, listened to what the metal balls had to say? Perhaps one of us…”

  “If you must,” Isphet said. “But they respond best only to one who has been born among the Abyss.” And then she took the plate I offered her and ate sullenly and joylessly.

  Isphet stood by the pile of marker stones in the cold dawn light, the metal ball in her hands.

  “It tells me that there has been but passage of snakes and beetles in the past month or two. None of my people. No enemies. The way is clear.”

  She tossed the ball into the air, its form catching the first rays of the sun, and where it fell a line of weaving, writhing soil and stones appeared and snaked into the south. Directly south.

  Zabrze shifted irritably. “Isphet –”

  “Give the ball to Yaqob,” I said, and she handed it over.

  He rolled it between the palms of his hands, then closed his fingers about it. “Snakes, beetles, and no people,” he said finally as he looked up. “The way is safe.”

  I took the ball. It told me the same. Sighing, I passed it across to Boaz.

  He held it longer than either Yaqob or I had, but he did not appear to be concentrating very hard. His face, his entire body was relaxed, and eventually he looked up at the anxious circle of faces about him.

  “It’s lying,” he said.

  “What?” Isphet cried. “It can’t be! It wouldn’t…why? Why? No, you’re not right, Boaz. You can’t be.”

  Boaz continued to roll the ball between his fingers. “None of you could detect it, but I also have the command of another power.”

  “The power of the One,” I said. “But how could you use that to tell the ball is lying?”

  “Isphet has occasionally let us feel what the other balls along the way have to say,” Boaz explained. “They have told us of local gossip, who’s been past, weather conditions, where best to find water. They have all appealed to the Elemental in us. They were meant to be used by Elementals.”

  “Yes, but what has this got to do with –” Isphet began.

  “This ball,” he continued, “appeals to the Elemental magic. All of us felt that. But it also appeals to the power of the One. I could have read this as Elemental or as Magus. Any Magus could read this ball and thus tell the way.”

  “I don’t understand,” Zabrze said. “What are these balls doing speaking to the Magi?”

  “They are misdirecting them,” Boaz said, handing the ball back to Isphet. “This ball – and no doubt previous balls for some time – is deliberately lying to misdirect any Magus who should attempt to use it. Isphet, would your people, perhaps the Graces among them, know of the events at Threshold?”

  “Not the details,” she said slowly. “But the Graces are powerful. They would know that something was very wrong. They may well have felt Nzame cross from the Vale. They would know that it was connected with the Way of the One. And, Boaz, they may have felt the power of the One you used when
you conducted the rites to bury Neuf.”

  “Then they would think,” Yaqob said, “that whatever went wrong at Threshold was now crossing the Lagamaal, trying to reach them. They have instructed the markers to lie.”

  “Can you untangle the lies from truth?” Zabrze asked Boaz. “Can you find us the true path?”

  “No. These markers have been instructed very well. The Elemental magic used to alter them is very powerful. I cannot change it. Isphet?”

  “I could not even tell the lie. It fooled me.” Her voice cracked. “My own people have been lying to me? Trying to send me to die in the Great Stony Desert?”

  “They could not have known who we truly were,” Zabrze said gently. “They could not have known that you were on your way home after a decade of exile.”

  She nodded, and controlled her emotions. “So, what are we to do? We could head south-east by sun and stars, but that is too inaccurate, and we could easily miss the hills and die in these beetle-infested plains. What can we do?”

  “Well,” said Boaz, “the Soulenai told us I would explore, and so I shall. Isphet, I need to know something about your home. Tell me, does it contain a large body of water?”

  “Yes, it does. But –”

  “And are there any other large bodies of water between here and your home, or anywhere close to your home?”

  “No. Not for many, many leagues.”

  “So if I constructed an enchantment that searched out water, it would head straight for your home?”

  “Yes. Yes, it would.”

  “Well, then,” Boaz grinned, “easy! Tirzah, where have you stored the Goblet of the Frogs?”

  It was in a pack on one of the mules, and I sent Kiamet to fetch it. When he returned I took the bundle from him, unwrapped the goblet, and handed it to Boaz.

  “For this,” he said very quietly, “we must thank Tirzah, for without the magic of this goblet we would truly be lost and dead.”

  The goblet sparkled in the dawn light, and Boaz wrapped his hands about it as he had the ball. He did not speak, but I felt the same strange sensation run down my back as I had the night he’d changed my father’s lock from stone back to hair. The goblet sang softly; all the Elementals in our small group relaxed and smiled at its sweet song.