Threshold Read Online Free Page A

surely no need to so dirty your hands.”
    Boaz ignored his companion. He hauled Kamish to his feet and shook him until the man whimpered in pain.
    “How dare you even draw breath in my presence,” Boaz said, his voice flat and deadly. “ See her! No-one that young, that inexperienced –”
    “I can cage, master,” I said as deferentially as I could.
    Boaz dropped Kamish, who surreptitiously scrubbed at his nose with a spare fold of his robe. “So she has a voice to lie with,” Boaz said. “Stand up.”
    “She is of the northern races,” the older Magus observed as I stumbled to my feet, wishing I’d never spoken. “As is her father. See their hair, and the fairness of their skin.”
    “And she still smells of the whale oil, Gayomar,” Boaz said. “Her race has barely learned the art of fire-making, let alone the finer skills of craft work. Girl, why do you lie?”
    I could not bear the intensity of his eyes, and I dropped my gaze. “I can cage,” I whispered with the last of my courage.
    “Look at me.”
    I could not, and I felt my hands tremble.
    “ Look at me! ”
    Not only his voice but his power reached out, and my head was flung back so that my eyes stared into his.
    “Did you learn to lie from your father, girl? Should I have him put to death alongside Kamish and you?”
    I was saved from replying by Kamish himself. “Excellency!” He was back on hands and knees now, his face pressed so close to the tiles his voice was only just audible. “Excellency, they came with the best assurances. And I trust the slaver who sold them to me. Over the years he has provided us with some of the best –”
    “ Shetzah! ” Gayomar exclaimed. “You have not seen them work? You waste our money on word alone?”
    Kamish could only shake, and Boaz ignored him. “Caging is the provenance of master craftsmen alone,” he said. His eyes had not left mine for a moment. “It takes a lifetime of skill to perfect. You are…what? Eighteen? Nineteen?”
    “She is nineteen, My Lord.” Now my father spoke. I jumped, for I had forgotten his presence. “And she was born with the skills that usually only a lifetime of experience grants. Her delicacy of touch can free lacework from the inner walls of glass with only minimal struts. Her ear for the drill bit is phenomenal – I have never seen a piece of her work crack as she excavates.”
    Gayomar stepped up behind Boaz and put a hand on the Magus’ shoulder. “The old man speaks as one who knows glass, Boaz. Perhaps…”
    Boaz shifted his grey eyes to my father. “You have your tools with you?”
    My father nodded.
    Boaz smiled, thin and cold. “Then, Gayomar, we shall have ourselves an amusing afternoon. Kamish!” he called.
    Kamish leapt to his feet.
    “Kamish, there is a small table and a stool inside. Bring them out.”
    Kamish stumbled as he hurried to do the Magus’ bidding. When he returned, Boaz wheeled away and disappeared momentarily. He reappeared carrying a lump of murky glass, roughly rectangular, the height of a forearm and the width of two palms. It was thick, thick enough to be caged, but to my dismay I heard it groan as Boaz set it roughly down on the table, and I saw that scores of tiny fracture lines ran through it.
    It would prefer to die than be worked.
    I looked frantically at my father, but the next moment Boaz seized my arm in tight fingers and dragged me to the table. I almost overbalanced, but managed to sit down on the stool.
    “Cage!” he said and, grabbing my father’s tool sack, threw it on the table.
    I halted its slide in the instant before it shattered the glass. An unwelcome memory of the vase I had droppedsurfaced, and I managed to quell it with only the most strenuous effort.
    “It…it is bad glass, My Lord,” I murmured.
    “Bad glass or not, it is the only thing you have to work with. Cage it! ”
    I took a deep breath, clenched my fingers to stop their trembling, then stared at the glass, trying to see what I could do