Read Online Threshold by Sara Douglass - Free Book Online Page A

pyramid. A ramp led to its mouth (somehow I only ever thought of this opening as a mouth), and as we leaned into its incline, I bowed my head and tried not to let Threshold’s shadow overwhelm me again. It had caught me by surprise once, and I had let it see how afraid I was, but I was determined never to do so again.
    There was a levelling out of the incline, a chilling of the light, and we were inside.
    I looked up.
    “Come, come,” Kofte said impatiently, standing waiting for us, and he led us down the main passageway of the pyramid. It was flat for some twenty paces, then it shifted up into a gentle incline that curved about like the spiral staircases I had seen on Viland’s whaling boats. The incline became steeper, and the curves tighter, and the breath came faster in my throat as the ache grew sharper in my legs.
    Faint echoes sounded around the curved walls, but I closed my ears and heart to them. I thought if I listened too closely I would panic and run out. So I steeled myself against them, and they faded.
    Shafts and corridors opened off this main passageway, but they became fewer the higher we climbed, and the number of workers, and Magi, we met likewise declined until there was only Kofte, Yaqob and I left to climb into the heart of Threshold.
    The heart. I wondered if it beat, like a warm human heart?
    The moment that thought crossed my mind I cursed myself for a fool. What was I so scared of? This was a building like any other, was it not? Built to stand for eternity, it was hardly likely to come tumbling down the instant I stepped into its heart, was it?
    Was it?
    The echoes threatened to break my concentration, and I had to bite my lip to keep them at bay.
    Yaqob had noted my increasing disquiet, and now he spoke again, giving me the comfort of a human voice to cling to.
    “Excellency, Tirzah is curious about the light. Will you explain to her? I…I find it beyond my capacity.”
    I almost smiled, loving him at that moment for his thoughtfulness and for his amusing flattery of the Magus.Surely the man could see Yaqob’s words for what they were?
    Apparently not. Kofte took Yaqob’s statement at its face value, and spoke over his shoulder as he continued to climb.
    “I will try to make my words understandable for you,” Kofte began, and Yaqob’s eyes twinkled merrily at me. I had to fight to keep my face straight.
    I listened, fascinated, despite my amusement, for until now I had not realised that the interior of Threshold was lit with the soft radiance of the sun at dawn.
    “Threshold appears as if solid stone from the outside, but that is false. It is more space than solid, and more light than darkness. Scores, if not hundreds of shafts run through it, not only from outer wall to inner chamber, but shafts that interconnect passageways such as this, and smaller shafts yet that connect other shafts. Eventually all will be glassed and mirrored…”
    I looked at the masonry to my left as we passed. Yes, there were tiny spaces left in the mortar to hold the supports for glass.
    “…as many of the smaller shafts are already. They transport the light from the outside to the interior. See?” His hand stabbed upwards, and my gaze followed. A tiny opening above was visible not as the mouth of a shaft, but as a glow of light.
    “And there.” His hand indicated a similar glow in the upper wall to our right. Now that I knew what to look for, my eye caught several others. Their radiance was so soft that they were almost impossible to spot until pointed out.
    “Then Threshold will throb with light when it is finished, Excellency,” I said incautiously, but still intrigued by the system that provided such light.
    Kofte jerked to a halt and whipped about. “What do you mean by that?”
    “Nothing, Excellency,” I said, my heart pounding. Why hadn’t I kept silent? “I just thought…with all the space…and the glass…”
    He stared a moment longer, then reluctantly decided I had meant no harm. “We