Threshold
been exterminated, but even so, we must be wary. If any really suspected…”
    I thought of the Magus Boaz – he still believed the Elementals existed, and suspected me of the art. I closed my eyes briefly, thankful he was in Setkoth rather than here, then wondered if I should say something. But as I opened my eyes and prepared to speak, Isphet continued.
    “Now, I want to tell you what I can about Threshold. Much of this is supposedly secret, confined to Magi circles, but we have gleaned it over many years, from indiscreet words and whispers and from what we have seen about us; the Magi are not always as inscrutable as they believe. Eight generations ago a cadre within the Magi conceived of a mathematical formula so perfect, yet so powerful in its perfection, that many among the Magi argued it should be allowed to fall into distant memory. Nevertheless, those in favour won out. The formula consisted – consists – in constructing a building that physically embodies the perfect mathematical–geometrical form.”
    “Threshold,” I said.
    “Yes, Threshold. For generations its construction has consumed Ashdod, and consumed us. Gesholme grew alongside Threshold to house the workers needed to build it. The encampment was once much larger, when tens of thousands were needed for the major construction work; what you see about you now is about a third of its previous size. Once the workers were free and paid for their labour. No more. All of us in this room, save you and I, Tirzah, were born into slavery.
    “Threshold’s purpose – the purpose of the formula – is not exactly clear to us, but some of it we can guess. The heart of Threshold is the Infinity Chamber.” Now Isphet looked carefully at me. “The One.”
    I must have looked confused, for Isphet immediately explained. “The Magi believe that the One is birth and death within itself, for it is the number from which allother numbers and forms are born and into which they will eventually collapse and die.”
    “Thus it represents Infinity,” Yaqob said very quietly to one side. “The Magi always strive for complete union with the One. With Infinity.”
    Isphet wriggled irritably at his interruption. “The fact that Threshold, as a building and as a mathematical formula, has as its heart a chamber named Infinity makes us believe that it is being built to enable the Magi to eventually achieve complete union with the One.”
    There was a very long silence.
    “We believe,” Isphet eventually said, very quietly now, “that when Threshold is complete, it will provide the Magi with the means to step into Infinity.”
    She let me think about this for a moment, then went on. “Frankly, if they want to step into Infinity and thus rid this land of their presence, then I for one care not. Indeed, there would be celebrations and laughing the night they stepped through. But there is something wrong with Threshold. All of us have felt it. Threshold’s shadow stretches across us all, even at night we can feel its weight in our dreams. Day by day the sense of wrongness grows. Anyone who has been into the Infinity Chamber knows just how deep the wrongness has spread. Tirzah, you know.”
    I nodded again, not sure I could have spoken, even had I wanted to.
    “Yes,” Isphet said, “we all know about it but none of us can tell exactly what the wrongness is. The glass screams inside the Infinity Chamber…but why ? Have the Magi miscalculated? Is the formula flawed? No-one is sure and,” her mouth quirked, “no-one dares question the Magi on the matter. Yaqob, I wish that you would now speak.”
    He stared at each of us in turn. “We are enslaved here, trapped unwilling in the wrongness that is Threshold by these loathsome dung lice who call themselves Magi.”
    My head snapped up at the bitterness in Yaqob’s voice. I knew he resented his lot, but I had never realised the depth of it.
    “It will kill us, eventually. And if Threshold does not do it, then once the

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