Chapter 21
The Temple of Threshold was about as different to the Temple of Tisk as it was possible to get, thought Artair.
Aside from the monastery itself, it was the largest building he had ever seen, a vast edifice of pale grey stone cresting the top of a green hill.
Slender towers rose from each corner, and a constant stream of couples moved up the path towards it, hand in hand.
There were gentle bells ringing somewhere, and as the sun peeked out from behind the clouds the temple seemed to wink back flirtatiously—the windows, doors, and the tops of the towers were lined with gold.
‘This is never going to work,’ said Elver under her breath. ‘You’d better hold my hand. Everyone else is holding hands.’ Her cold hand slipped into his. ‘They’re never going to believe we’re a couple.’
Artair wasn’t sure he agreed. Who was to say what a couple was supposed to look like?
Just next to them on the path, pausing to admire the temple, were a pair of elderly women in their sixtieth year at least—one was tall and thin, with deep laughter lines around her mouth, and the other was short and stocky, her ginger hair lined with grey.
And a few steps ahead he saw a man and a woman in their middle age chatting amiably with a pair of young men who had their arms around each other’s waists.
The one thing they all appeared to have in common was that they were glad to be in each other’s company.
‘I think we fit in well enough,’ he said carefully. ‘Perhaps if we looked less nervous…’
She glanced up at him nervously. ‘Do you think I look nervous?’
Actually, he thought she looked beautiful.
Before they’d left the Temple of Tisk, Sunay Tiskertalia had made them wash and smarten themselves up, and had given them new clothes to wear.
Artair wore a simple cream shirt, open at the throat, a pair of dark calfskin trousers and a short, fitted coat of soft brown leather over the top; all of which were tighter fitting than the tunic and robes he was used to at the monastery, but when he’d looked in Sunay’s mirror he had been pleasantly surprised.
He’d even brushed his hair back into a short tail at the back of his head.
In the mirror he’d looked older, almost wiser: a young man who’d seen more of the world than he’d been expecting.
The mage had tried to give Elver several outfits, all of which Elver had turned down for being ‘ridiculous,’ until she had settled on a sea green doublet with tiny fish carved from pearls sewn into the collar and cuffs.
Washed and brushed, her white hair lay in soft waves against her cheek, and her yellow eyes—golden really, he thought—looked especially striking framed by Sunay’s expertly applied black pencil.
Artair cleared his throat, aware he was staring at her. ‘No.’
‘Good.’ Elver fiddled with the buttons on her doublet. ‘I hope the cub is behaving himself. I doubt that mage knows anything about looking after monsters.’
‘Look, they’re gathering people into groups at the doors.’
The priests of Threshold were difficult to miss.
They wore golden surcoats over white robes, and they buzzed around the couples like fat golden bees.
Quickly, Artair and Elver were placed into a group with two other couples; another young man and woman, about the same age as them, and the two men Artair had seen on the path.
‘Dearly beloveds.’ The priest that had been assigned to them was a huge bear of a man, with a barrel-like belly, broad shoulders, and a thick, blond beard that curled luxuriously down to the middle of his chest. ‘You have come here today to ask the Threshold to bless your unions—to fill your days with a glorious celebration of the love you already share.’ His voice was warm, and very, very loud.
Artair suspected people could hear it at the bottom of the hill.
‘What a joyous occasion. But it will not be easy, oh no.’ He looked at each of them in turn, quite seriously.
‘You must face three trials before the Threshold will grant their blessing. The trial of truth, the trial of vulnerability, and the trial of connection. My name is Sam, my friends, and as a mage dedicated to the Threshold, I’ll be guiding you through those trials today.
Now then, don’t look so worried,’ he said to the young woman clutching her skinny partner’s hand.
‘I’m sure you’ll breeze through each one.
After all,’ his voice rang with conviction, ‘are we not all here in the name of deep, abiding love and the need for connection?’
The other couples looked at each other and chuckled. Artair felt a wave of unreality rush through him: he’d never even held a girl’s hand before, and now he was at the Temple of Threshold.
‘Now then,’ continued Sam, ‘I assume you all have the appropriate tithes?’
Artair shifted the satchel on his shoulder, feeling the com forting weight of the items inside.
This was something else that Sunay had helped them with.
In order for the mages of the temple to perform their magics, the Threshold—the god of love, connection, and healing—demanded tithes of mended things.
In his satchel, Artair had three such items: a tiny sky-blue bowl with herons painted on it and a jagged golden line where it had shattered and been mended with molten gold; a fine silk shawl that had been carefully patched; and a little wooden doll whose face had been repainted several times.
When Sunay had presented them with the items, Elver had asked how much they would have to pay and the mage had replied that they were free: they were simply items that Tisk had acquired as part of his own offerings, and now they would go towards the acquiring of something much juicier.
With Sam leading the way, they filed into the temple itself.
Inside, there was a vast foyer lined with windows that looked out across the hills, and in the centre, hanging in mid-air just below the ceiling, was a giant heart of smooth grey stone, complete with chambers and tubes and other things Artair vaguely recognized from his studies.
Tiny pink lights, almost like fireflies, moved slowly over the surface.
Below that, the priests led groups of supplicants to rows of golden doors that lined the walls.
‘Here we are, my friends.’ Inside the first room, there was a horizontal hole in the wall that burned with orange flame; it reminded Artair of the ovens in the monastery kitchens.
Elver was watching everything very carefully, as though keeping an eye out for possible escape routes. ‘This is the trial of vulnerability.’
‘We don’t have to… put our hand in there or anything, do we?’ asked the skinny young man. He’d gone very pale.
Sam laughed heartily. ‘Young master, the very idea! No. The Threshold consumes their tithe through fire, reducing all the separate pieces into a single flame of connection.’
Elver made a small scornful noise that was for Artair’s ear only.
‘In the trial of vulnerability, the Threshold’s magic will grant you each a vision of your partner’s past, a piece of their lives before you were a part of it.
Can you accept what your beloved was before this connection was formed?
And can you stand to be laid bare in front of your beloved?
Only with true vulnerability can a true connection be formed. ’
The two young men were the first to complete the rite.
At Sam’s instruction, they placed their own offering in the fire—a brooch with a newly soldered pin—and then knelt facing each other on a pair of soft grey and gold pillows.
The priest told them to lean forward until their foreheads were touching and to close their eyes, and then the priest murmured a handful of words to his god.
Tiny pink lights, like those that surrounded the heart, swarmed around the couple.
For a few minutes, the rest of them stood and watched, and then the taller man, who wore an eyepatch of soft green velvet, laughed, and the other smiled, shaking his head.
The lights vanished. When they got to their feet, they seemed to Artair to be looking at each other with a new level of fondness.
Sam beamed.
‘Perfect. I assume that the memories the Threshold gifted you only deepened your connection to each other?’
‘I saw Barnard here as a wilful child,’ said the man with the eyepatch. ‘Sneaking into the kitchens to eat the pastries that had been baked for his brother’s birthday. I don’t know how his mother put up with him.’
His partner grinned. ‘The memory I was given of you was not fit for public consumption, Diamin, so watch it.’
Sam gestured to Artair and Elver.
‘Your turn, my friends.’
Elver took the small doll from the satchel and placed it in the fire.
It caught immediately, its little face melting, and Artair wished briefly that they had had a different sort of offering.
Then they knelt on the pillows, knees together.
It was curious, being this close to Elver; normally she took care to keep herself apart—afraid, no doubt, of accidentally poisoning someone.
She sat with a kind of unconscious grace, the line of her neck very white against the collar of her doublet.
‘Now then, you two,’ said Sam. ‘I want you to hold hands and look at each other. This is no place for distance.’
Artair felt his cheeks grow warm. He laid his hands on the tops of his knees, and after a moment, Elver placed her own on top of his.
Feeling like something more was needed, he folded his fingers around her hands, and she looked up at him, almost startled.
He couldn’t quite fathom the expression in her eyes.
Look at her like you are in love with her , he told himself.
That’s how they will expect you to look.
He smiled, and she frowned slightly.
‘Touch your foreheads together, and close your eyes,’ said Sam. ‘And wait for the Threshold to gift you a memory.’
Artair did as he was told. Although he couldn’t see the pink lights, he could feel them, a kind of buzzing, excitable warmth that brushed his face and his arms. And then, images began to fill his head, and more than that; smells, tastes, sounds.
He was standing on the edge of a rocky piece of coastline, the sea that he had once glimpsed from the monastery windows a vast, heaving presence in front of him, the taste of salt on his tongue as tart and delicious as any fruit.
Just below him, there was a crowd of rock pools, slick with dark green seaweed and filled with blue and white water that churned with every wave.
As he watched, a great yellow serpent rose out of the sea and between its jaws, it carried a child, which it deposited on the edge of a rock pool.
The girl, who appeared to be around twelve years old, looked bedraggled and pale, but alive.
It was Elver. Her hair was dark, save for a wide streak of white at the front, and there were livid bite marks on her face, shoulder and arm.
Her sodden clothes were heavy with blood, and she was trembling all over.
Artair was filled with the urge to go to her, to wrap her up in something warm, but he couldn’t move from the rocks where he stood.
It’s her memory , he reminded himself. This all happened a long time ago, and there’s nothing you can do now.
The girl pulled her knees up to her chest, still shaking.
Child. The Queen of Serpent’s voice was full of strange music. Your blood is now my poison, and you have left the human world behind. You are a monster spirit, one of my own blessed children. Do you understand?
Elver lifted her head.
You will live in the forest that rises behind you, and you will be its warden. Elver, poison child—you will always have my blessing and my protection. Do you understand?
This time, the girl nodded, and she seemed to have stopped shaking.
‘They killed me,’ she said. Her voice was almost lost under the hissing and seething of the surf. ‘They just threw me into the sea like I was nothing.’ Slowly, she rose to her feet, a small defiant figure against the rocks. ‘I’m never going back.’
With that, the images faded, and Artair found himself back in the room with the priest of Threshold and the other couples. Elver was blinking at him owlishly, her hands clutching his tightly. As if she realized what she was doing, she dropped them abruptly.
‘There we go.’ Sam gestured at them to stand. ‘Another connection forged.’ As they got to their feet, Artair found that Elver would not meet his eye, and a cold feeling gripped him. What had she seen? What memory had been gifted to her?
There was the worst of all memories, of course, the one that even he himself did not think about if he could possibly help it. But then, if she had seen that, then surely she would have run from the temple, putting as much distance between them as possible?
The monster cub , he reminded himself bitterly. That is who she is here for. Her loyalty to the Queen of Serpents means she can’t leave, even if she wants to.
Meanwhile, the final couple had completed their own rites and Sam was looking around at them all expectantly.
‘Shall we move along to the trial of truth?’