At her feet sat the rat, atop the Book of the Soulenai.
A man emerged before her. He was tall with a lined face, as if he had suffered greatly, and his dark hair was slicked back into a club at the base of his neck.
"Did you read the first tale in the Book?" he said.
Ishbel opened her mouth to say "No, I had no time", but in that instant she realised she knew the first tale.
Long, long ago, a Magus named Ta"uz took as his mistress a slave from the camp that surrounded Threshold, and which housed its enslaved builders. This Magus, Ta"uz, affected great disdain for his mistress, whose name was Raguel. When she bore their child he murdered it, for Threshold, and the Way of the One, demanded its death.
No Magus was permitted to subdivide away from the One.
But Ta"uz continued his affair with Raguel, even though it took many months before she could bear to go back to his bed. Despite what had happened between them, despite the murder of their daughter, and despite the fact that Ta"uz was a Magus and Raguel a slave, they became close and eventually came to love each other.
They edged close to happiness, and Threshold was displeased.
One day it took them.
A great sheet of gla.s.s slid from its upper walls, slicing through the air, and before either Ta"uz or Raguel could move it speared them on the jagged edge of the gla.s.s and they died.
The pyramid did not like their closeness, which drew the Magus away from his devotion to the One.
"Yes," said Ishbel. "I know who you are. Ta"uz, why is the light here so thick?"
"Because it is crowded with the souls of those the pyramid has murdered over the years," Ta"uz replied.
"Why are you here?"
"Because I am going to aid you. I am going to show you the first step you must take within this intricate puzzle of a pyramid, the first stone you must unwind to open up the pyramid"s deepest vulnerabilities."
"Thank you," Ishbel said. "I must start soon, for the One is here, and searching for me. He has great hands, I fear, and he has grown them for me."
"Indeed. Ishbel, do you know the second story in the list?"
Ishbel thought.
The tale of Druse, and of how he was turned to stone and then crumbled into the river.
"Yes," she said, smiling.
Druse was Tirzah"s father, sent into slavery with her, and like her, a gla.s.s worker, although nowhere near as magical as his daughter.
Druse had also been slaughtered by the pyramid, turned to stone before Tirzah"s eyes in an effort to punish her, and then his body was taken to the river and its stone remains crumbled to lie scattered along its muddy bed.
"Why do I need to know that story?" she asked Ta"uz.
"So that you will know that not all your family died in the charnel house you once called home."
Ishbel did not know what to make of that.
"If you know these two stories," said Ta"uz, "then I can show you the stone that, if overturned, will lead to the unwinding of the entire pyramid. But, beware, Ishbel, for both the pyramid and the One will fight back. They will give no quarter. Do you dare this?"
Ishbel thought, and as she did so, the rat left his perch on the Book of the Soulenai and tugged at Ishbel"s skirts. She lifted him up, amazed by his warmth and the dark beauty of his eyes, and he scrambled onto her shoulder.
"I am ready," said Ishbel, knowing that the rat would be her courage.
"Good," said Ta"uz. "See."
He moved his hand and the light shifted, and Ishbel saw set out before her a flat piece of land shimmering under the desert sun. To one side lay a deep and winding river, encased by thick reed banks.
The River Lhyl, as it had once lived.
This piece of land was marked out with pegs and stretches of creamy cord were tied between the pegs. The cords and pegs described an intricate pattern on the ground.
Ishbel could see that this pattern described power.
Magi walked about, stepping carefully over the cords and pegs. They were dressed in long robes of blue, over white under-robes. Their movements were measured, their arms folded with their hands secreted away in the voluminous sleeves of their blue robes.
"Their movements describe a pattern," said Ta"uz. "A mathematical formula."
"An enchantment," Ishbel said.
"If you like," Ta"uz said. "A set dance to garner power, if you will. Look."
Now Ishbel saw slaves, hundreds of them, hauling with ropes many huge blocks of stone. She saw, as though many months pa.s.sed in a moment, the slaves begin to construct the foundations of what would grow to be Threshold, later called DarkGla.s.s Mountain.
Many slaves died, crushed when the blocks of stone slipped and fell.
"Do you see?" said Ta"uz. "Do you understand?"
He pointed to a single block of stone, one among hundreds now laid into courses, and apparently innocuous in its similarity to its fellows.
"Yes," Ishbel murmured. "I see. I understand."
"Unsat that stone, and the entire edifice of the pyramid, all that it is, has been or could ever be, will unwind to dust. You will need to find this stone, and you will need to unseat it. Can you do this?"
Ishbel looked into Ta"uz"s eyes, and saw increasing anxiety there.
"I can do this," she said.
"It will take great fort.i.tude and courage for I feel the One thunder close, and I feel the pyramid"s malice tighten about you like a fist about a gnat."
"I have fort.i.tude," said Ishbel, "and," she lifted a hand to touch the rat, "I have courage."
"Remember the story of Druse," said Ta"uz. Ishbel leaned close, kissed his cheek, and turned away.
She took a deep breath, then a big step forward .
. . . and stepped out of the dense light and into one of the black-gla.s.sed internal corridors of DarkGla.s.s Mountain.
She could hear the pounding of feet and knew that it was the One, coming for her.
"This way," she said to the rat and walked down the corridor without hesitation, taking the first turn on the right, and then the third on the left.
Ishbel stopped, staring about her, unable to comprehend for the moment what had happened.
The pyramid had vanished, and she was now standing in the hallway that led to the kitchen in her parents" home in Margalit.
She could hear the faint sounds of a crowd outside, cries that the house be burned to save the rest of the city from the pestilence within the Brunelle residence.
I can smell corpses, said the rat.
"I can hear the crackle of flames," Ishbel said, so horrified her voice cracked from the dryness in her throat and mouth.
Chapter 22.
The Brunelle House, Margalit.
Ishbel was eight, trapped in her parents" house in Margalit.
The bodies of her parents and aunts and cousins and all their servants lay strewn about the house, decomposing into noxious heaps of whispering blackened flesh.
She stood at the top of the staircase, both hands clutching white-knuckled at the newel posts, listening to the crowds at the front doors.
There is plague inside!
All are dead!
Burn the house! Burn the house, so that we might live!
"No!" Ishbel cried, her hands now shaking, her voice quavering in fear. "No! I am alive! I am alive!"
She raced down the stairs, tripping once and rolling four or five steps to a landing, before picking herself up, bruised and sc.r.a.ped, and racing downward again.
Watch out, Ishbel. They are lighting the f.a.ggots right now.
Ishbel fell again in her terror, cringing against a wall.
The whisper had come from the body of a servant girl who lay in a doorway. Her name was Marla and she had always been kind to Ishbel. But now she was dead, her face half rotted away, her teeth poking out all green-stained and oddly angled. What was left of her face rippled, and Ishbel saw that the movement had been caused by maggots feeding deep within the girl"s cheeks.
Watch out, Ishbel, the f.a.ggots are burning well, now.
It was not the corpse that whispered, but the silvered hoops in Marla"s ears.
Watch out, Ishbel. It is getting awfully hot.
"No," Ishbel whispered, backing away on her hands and knees, then turning so she could continue down the stairs on her bottom, too shaken to try to get to her feet, her breath jerking from her throat in terrified, tiny sobbing hiccups.
She slid down the stairs, her skirts tangling with her thighs and hips, one shoe half falling off.
Someone pounded on the front door, and Ishbel tried to call out, to let the crowd know that she was alive, that they must not set fire to the house, but as she opened her mouth she slid another turn of the staircase, and instead of words, nothing came from her mouth but a terrified squeal.
A man of gla.s.s stood four or five steps down. His flesh was formed of a pliable, and utterly beautiful, blue-green gla.s.s. Deep within the creature"s chest a golden pyramid slowly rotated and pulsed.
His head was gla.s.s-like as well, his features beautifully formed, and his eyes large round wells of darkness.
They were staring at Ishbel with dark, malicious humour.
"I am the Lord of Elcho Falling," the gla.s.s man said, "and I am come to save you."
He took a step upward, and Ishbel screamed, turning to scramble away as fast as she might.
"I am come to save you," the gla.s.s man whispered, and Ishbel felt his hand close about her ankle.
She almost blacked out in her terrified panic, but just as the darkness was closing about the edge of her vision, a new voice spoke in her mind.
Courage, Ishbel. Remember who you are, and where you have been, and what your purpose is this day.
The gla.s.s man firmed his grip about Ishbel"s ankle, and she knew that at any moment he would haul her down the stairs . . . but she tried to concentrate .
The gla.s.s man was not the Lord of Elcho Falling. He was the One.
Maximilian was the Lord of Elcho Falling.
Suddenly Ishbel was not eight, but thirty, and she rolled over onto her back and thrust her foot as hard as she could into the face of the One.
She did not manage to touch him, but he reeled back in surprise, and his grip on her ankle loosened.
Twist it, Ishbel! the rat said, scrambling for purchase on her shoulder.
"Oh, be quiet," Ishbel muttered, and jerked her ankle free of the One"s grip.
The One regained his balance and reached once more for Ishbel, still scrambling to get to her feet, but as he did so the stairs under his feet warped and curled, and he was no longer there.
What happened? said the rat.
"I unwound the staircase from beneath his feet," Ishbel said. "Now he"s above us."
Then she was on her feet and hurrying down the stairs, trying to get to the front door before the crowd outside set fire to the house.
Her terror had abated somewhat, but it was still there. The month she had spent among the rotting corpses of her family when she was eight had left an indelible scar on Ishbel"s psyche. To merely recall the memory was unbearably painful.