Free Threshold by Sara Douglass Page A

into words. “And sometimes I hear echoes within and among buildings or while walking surfaced roadways, but they are very faint.”
    “Here?”
    “No. Here there are no echoes. Gesholme is dead.”
    He was staring at me. “And Threshold?”
    I shuddered, and wished he would put his arm about me. “I have told you how the glass in the Infinity Chamber screams, and there were echoes elsewhere within Threshold.”
    “Echoes of what ?”
    “Yaqob!” I pleaded, but he was relentless.
    “Echoes of what?”
    “Of pain and fear and entrapment.” And of loss, I also wanted to say, but did not. I wondered if it was Yaqob I would lose.
    “And Isphet’s workshop?” Now his voice was very soft.
    I began to cry. “Isphet’s workshop is alive and warm, Yaqob. I love it there. I want to go back. Please.”
    He finally put his arm about me and held me close, soothing me. I never wanted him to let go.
    “Please, Tirzah, let me ask just one or two more questions. I need to know these. What of Druse and Mayim?”
    “Mayim? No. He is not even a particularly good craftsman, and he certainly does not listen for what the glass whispers to him. My father…no, also. He does not hear the glass, or anything else, I think.”
    I felt Yaqob nod slightly against the top of my head. “Yes,” he said, almost as if to himself. “That is as we thought. Izzali says that Mayim has few skills, so I did not think he could be an…” He paused. “Druse is good, very good, but he does not feel the glass in the way,” one of his hands stroked my upper arm, “that you do.”
    I leaned back. “You hear it, too, don’t you?”
    A slow smile spread across his face, and his eyes were very gentle. “Yes. And Isphet, and Orteas and Zeldon and Raguel, poor, poor Raguel, do as well. As do numerous others within Isphet’s workshop and scattered throughout this sorry encampment.”
    “But why can I? I come from a northern land.”
    “The ability to hear the glass is not confined to race. It is only that our people developed the ability to a greater extent than others have. I think that perhaps a number of the finest craftsmen in the north have the ability – even if they do not quite realise what it is themselves.”
    “Not my father.”
    “Tirzah, can we trust your father?”
    I remembered how my father had laughed at me when I had tried to explain what I heard. I hesitated in my answer, and it was that hesitation, I think, which told Yaqob what he needed to know.
    “My father is a good man, and would not willingly betray your trust.”
    “But he has weaknesses that might. He told me one night how his gambling enslaved you.”
    It was sad to hear that put into words. “Yes. Yaqob, who are the Soulenai?”
    I felt him jump.
    “Where have you heard that name?”
    “The first night I arrived when Raguel…Well, Isphet was upset and unwary. She told Raguel she should thank the Soulenai Ta’uz did not kill her as well as her child.”
    Yaqob leaned his head back and laughed, but quietly, lest he attract attention. “Since you and your father arrived Isphet has been constantly warning us to be wary of you. Not to let slip any…well, to be wary. And now you tell me that Isphet herself revealed the name of the Soulenai to you. Well, well.”
    “Yaqob?”
    He sobered. “Tirzah. The voices you hear, the echoes, are the voices of the elements. Some of the whispers might even be of the Soulenai themselves, reaching from the Place Beyond. No, wait. This is not the place. We need quiet and many hours. Tonight, I think, if Isphet is agreeable. And now,” he let go of me and stood back, “now I think we must hurry back to the workshop lest the guards discover us and wonder if we have, perhaps, been enjoying ourselves too greatly in this secretive overhang.”
    When we reached the workshop Isphet took one look at us, and came over.
    “I heard Tirzah fainted in the Infinity Chamber,” she said, and stared hard at Yaqob. “Zeldon has gone to