Threshold Read Online Free PDF Page B

deeper into sleep.
    Hours later a shout woke me. The night was dark and still, and the boat’s crew had shipped their oars. There were shouts from the crew, and answering shouts from the bank as ropes were thrown and tied. The boat shuddered, then jerked as it bumped against its mooring. It was cold now, and I shivered in my thin cloths and wrapped my arms about myself.
    “Get up!” Kamish shouted, and we struggled to our feet, straining our eyes in the darkness.
    A settlement sprawled from the western river bank far to the west and south. It was tightly walled and closely gated, and guards watched atop towers and walkways.
    A slave encampment, then.
    To the north-west there appeared to be another compound, also walled, but with buildings too low to be seen from here.
    Beyond that loomed a massive structure that ate at the darkness and the stars. I could not make out its exact shape or dimensions, but the cold deepened about me, and the bruises on my arms throbbed anew.
    One of the crew leaned down to offer me his hand in alighting. He noticed the direction of my eyes, but kept his own carefully averted.
    “Threshold,” he said.
    A contingent of guards arrived from the compound to escort us inside the gates. Kamish gave them a small scroll, inscribed with our names and our abilities, then stepped back into the river boat.
    “I wish you the best,” he cried as the crew pushed out into the current and slowly turned the boat about, yet I knew he wished us anything but, and I thought I saw a gleam of teeth as the oarsmen finally made way for Setkoth.
    The walls of the compound were of sandstone and at least five paces wide and fifteen high, the gates of wood reinforced with metal bars and covered over with sun hardened mortar.
    One of the guards atop the wall leaned down as we passed. “Welcome to Gesholme,” he called, and ghostly laughter followed us along the narrow street.
    Regular blocks of tightly packed tenement buildings, some four or five storeys high, loomed to either side of us. An occasional light glinted behind their tightly shuttered doors and windows. Streets intersected the main way at regular intervals, and I realised that the encampment – Gesholme – was much larger than it had appeared from the river. Many thousands must live here.
    The walls and close buildings let no breeze through, and the air was thick and humid. Where minutes previously I had pulled my wraps closer, now I loosened them about my neck, and slapped at the hundreds of small, biting insects that hovered about our group.
    The lead guard called a halt. Another wall loomed before us, but with a smaller gate this time, and the two guards who stood by it were better uniformed than those who escorted us.
    “New arrivals,” said our lead guard, and one of the men by the gate grunted, inspected us, then waved us through. Into a different world.
    Here were no streets, but spacious avenues. The buildings were low, and sprawled comfortably. Pastel lights glinted, not only in windows but strung through date palms and across cool pools of water.
    There were no biting insects here – none had come through the gate with us.
    “The compound of the Magi,” said one of our guards. Then he smiled at the apprehension in all of our eyes. “It seems you’ve run up against them before. Well, here you’ll have to get used to their presence.”
    We stopped while he went into a particularly fine building, surrounded by columned verandahs festooned with hanging, crimson- and purple-flowered vines. The sound of murmured voices came from within a dimly lit room, then the guard reappeared accompanied by two Magi.
    Without prompting, the seven of us fell to our knees, while the guards bobbed their heads and saluted with their spears. “Excellencies!” they shouted.
    “Excellencies!” we murmured in quick echo.
    These two radiated the same power as Gayomar and Boaz had done, and were similarly dressed. Their black hair was also clubbed back into severe