Thresholder

“You made this?” asked Nima, looking at the mask that Kes had shown her. He’d come to her bedroom to show her. The makeshift workshop area had gotten more disorganized since the last time he’d been up, and there were more communal tools squirreled away. “Why is it … like that?”

“I went with my own designs,” said Kes.

“The standard designs are like that for a reason,” said Nima. She set the mask down, and Kes quickly snatched it back up. He’d worked hard on it. “There are cultural components to the masks.”

“I’m not part of the history or the culture,” said Kes. “I made it this way because it fit in with my culture and my history.”

“Explain it to me,” said Nima. She was frowning at the mask Kes had made.

“Uh,” said Kes. “I don’t know what the media of your world is like, but … superheroes are fictional people who came from another world, or were in a freak accident, or the result of some kind of supersoldier program, and they have special powers, which they use to fight other people with special powers.”

“And we’re superheroes?” asked Nima with a frown.

“Well,” said Kes. “Yes, but also no.” He held up the mask. “This was the mask of a superhero who was known for his speed. It’s just a test.”

Nima frowned at him. “And it worked?”

“Yes,” said Kes. “I thought you would want to try it for yourself, see if there are some cultural connections that you can dredge up, masks that have some kind of deep meaning to you.”

Nima frowned down at her workspace, then looked up at Kes. “You figured this out on your own?” she asked.

Kes shrugged. “I haven’t been doing a whole lot else.”

“You have,” said Nima. “There are things that I haven’t been a part of. I’ve seen you with that man, Dirk. I don’t know what you’re hiding from me, but I know it’s something.”

“Sorry,” said Kes.

“Is it because I wanted to save those people?” asked Nima. “Or because I’m not willing to push the agenda of this culture?”

“Depends on which thing we’re talking about,” said Kes. “Some of the things I haven’t looped you in on, it’s because I was told not to tell you. Other things … yes, I’m a little worried that you’re going to stab me in the back. I’d prefer to remain unstabbed.” She really seemed more like the sort to stab him in the front.

“You’re going to Thirlwell,” said Nima. She pushed her chair back from the table. “I heard they were preparing one of Mette’s devices for another airship. Am I to be on that airship?”

“It’s complicated,” said Kes.

There were all kinds of potential problems that were going to crop up with being Perry’s clone, and Kes was barrelling headlong into the biggest of them, which was that he was pretending to be Perry while not actually having the authority of the original Perry. Kes could of course decide things on his own, but Perry could override those decisions. That meant that Kes was left to second guess what the original Perry would do, which wasn’t a good feeling, and was surprisingly difficult to do.

“It’s to be the final assault on the final king?” asked Nima. “Because you’re right that I wouldn’t be a part of that. You said yourself that we’re thresholders, in the business of thresholding. But it seems to me that Mette has given the side of the antimonarchists new technology, and you’ve certainly given them material aid.”

She stood up and crossed her arms. The amulet was around her neck, which meant that she could easily wrap herself in armor at practically a moment’s notice.

“I can’t beat you in a battle,” said Nima. “I know that. But we’ve been put together for a reason, and I can only imagine that the reason is that I was meant to convince you not to go on this course of action.”

Kes wasn’t sure whether or not he could beat her in a battle. He still had some techniques learned from the Great Arc, and an enviable musculature, and he was completely out of her weight class with much better reach … but so far as he could tell, he was only human. Once that shell of metal wrapped around her, he wasn’t sure he could kill her, and all she would need to do was grab a weapon, of which there were plenty. His eyes went to the implements for gouging and carving wood. They would do a good job on flesh. He had never seen her fight, and she was an elf, from a world where that might have meant enhanced senses, reflexes, strength — anything, really.

He was afraid of Nima. Nima. She was barely even a thresholder.

“Convince me then,” said Kes. He was feeling fear, and could only hope that it didn’t show on his face. It had been so much easier being second sphere, knowing that his expression was tightly under his control.

Nima let out a breath and gathered her thoughts. Her fingers went to her amulet, and Kes tensed up, but she was just touching it, as if a nervous habit. He didn’t think she saw him flinch. “They’re robbing people of individual agency,” said Nima. “There is no room for innovation, for greatness. When I first came here, I saw something interesting in the lanterns, and presented my case, and I was told no, that it wasn’t the culture. It was a bit of metalworking, a germ of what’s inside this amulet, adapted for lanterns, and it could have changed lives for the better.”

“Maybe,” said Kes. “But if it’s a rediscovery, something that they already knew —”

“No,” said Nima. “That’s missing the point. They’re a people who reduce. That’s the backbone of their success, making sure that everyone is at the level of a commoner, rather than making sure that everyone is at the level of a king. You were in that bedroom with me. You saw the fineness of the tapestries, the woodwork, everything else. There are certain things the culture is incapable of producing, incapable of maintaining. They want every tiny thing to be local, to abolish countries and have only their symboulions running themselves, and they know that this won’t work. Perry, you’ve seen the Command Authorities, the scrip economy, all these concessions to ideals that are, at their core, nonsense. They’re trying to replace a strong king with a weak collective.”

“They’re less weak than you’d think,” said Kes. “And the contradictions … acknowledging that certain problems require global solutions by some central authority isn’t them giving up, it’s not them being hypocrites, it’s a level of pragmatism that frankly, most ideologues don’t have.”

“Was it pragmatic, to execute those people?” asked Nima. Her eyes were cold and hard.

“No,” said Kes. “No, that was driven by emotion. It was plain, cruel retribution.” He didn’t want to argue it, because they had argued it before, but it was clear that it had made an impact on her. “What do you want from me?”

“To not aid them,” said Nima. “If you want to be a neutral third party, Perry, then be that, don’t hand them weapons and tools. Don’t fight on their behalf.”

“You want strict neutrality,” said Kes. “I … can’t offer that.”

“Why not?” asked Nima.

“Because Third Fervor will have all the power of the Kingdom of Thirlwell behind her,” said Kes. “Because if we don’t get what we can from the culture, I’m not sure we’re going to be able to stand up against her. There are factors here that you don’t understand, and I know that I haven’t done a lot to engender trust, but … I’m going to try to settle this peacefully, for your sake, or at least as peaceful as it gets for thresholders. Okay?”

Nima stared into his eyes, then let go of her grip on her amulet. Maybe it had been a threat. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you.”

Kes could only hope that it wasn’t already too late.

~~~~

“He wants to meet with you,” said Third Fervor over the radio.

“Terms and conditions?” asked Perry. It was the next day. She had slept, and Perry had too, which had required finding a small island out in international waters.

“No weapons,” said Third Fervor. “It will be in a place of our choosing. He’s wary, but he believes that a talk might be productive. He will offer you his protection for the duration of the meeting.”

“It’s a bold risk,” said Perry. “He doesn’t want to talk using the marble?”

“He prefers to face things head on,” said Third Fervor. “He has a warrior’s spirit.”

Perry had listened to the conversation where they’d planned the whole thing. He didn’t think much of the Last King, and their plan sounded terrible right from the start. They weren’t planning on betraying him. It really was an attempt to pull him over to their side, in part because of Third Fervor’s belief that Perry couldn’t possibly have been the assassin who killed the other kings. She had been an incredible boon for him and his kingdom, and he was greedy enough to want a second thresholder with his own experiences and knowledge of other worlds.

The biggest thing that Perry felt toward Third Fervor was pity. She was moving between the worlds seeking something, and he was pretty sure that she wasn’t getting it. What she wanted was a strongman type to have ultimate authority over both her and the world, and what she was getting were people who didn’t love or respect her, and often showed outright incompetence, if not necessarily deep flaws.

The Last King had sniffed his own farts a bit too much. He thought he was a brilliant scientist, and delighted in his title of Last King, which he said with the opposite meaning that the rest of the world did. Third Fervor had brought a great amount of reading material with her, and had given all of it over to the king, who didn’t seem to understand most of it. Royal scientists and engineers had been hard at work under the administration of the Duke of Progress, and from reading between the lines, most of the duke’s job was to laud praise on the king for insights and understanding while diverting the king away from the actual machinery and planning.

The Last King thought himself a master manipulator, and also thought that this was a great quality to broadcast to people. In reality, he was simply king, and the fact that he got his way mostly owed itself to his obscene wealth or the fact that he could command the royal guard to do anything he wanted them to. He held the purse strings and the metaphorical executioner’s ax, and thought himself clever for using those tools.

Perry had been listening in on what happened in the throne room, and there were virtually no surprises left. Combined with the nanites he’d dropped at the library, which were transmitting back for analysis by Marchand, the picture of Thirlwellian politics was pretty well-developed. None of it painted a pretty picture.

The previous king had ennobled a number of merchants, not granting them anything so crass as land, but instead giving them royal charters to what he considered vital functions of governance. This was the reason there was such a thing as a Duke of Technology and Duke of Progress: these men were a weird mix of civil servants and nobles, tasked with carrying out a duty, but also expected to extract some wealth in the process. This hadn’t been a popular decision, and continued to remain unpopular into the reign of the current king, mostly because the Ducal Cabinet had proven extremely uneven in their competence. The Duke of Housing was widely considered to be complete scum, and had even suffered two assassination attempts, while the Duke of Health was lauded in the papers for the miracles his offices had been producing.

It wasn’t clear to Perry how Third Fervor had brought in knowledge, but it was clear that she’d had a lot of it, along with an ability to share it, and possibly some capacity to implement it. Perry knew well that it was one thing to understand the principles of radio, another thing entirely to build one, and a third thing altogether to actually make one using unfamiliar tools, standards, and materials. Gunpowder could be made using 75% nitrate, 15% charcoal, and 10% sulfur, but figuring out what the locals called those things, where they could be sourced from, and how they needed to be processed was something else entirely. A great deal of the medical advancements were almost certainly from Third Fervor, because there were stories about inoculation shots for the young and drugs given to wipe away diseases — vaccines and antibiotics.

The gunpowder weapons were new too, and there were a lot of them, supposedly getting better by the day. Those were the weapons that would be trained on Perry, and from everything that had been said about him, he was reasonably sure that the armor wouldn’t be too badly damaged by them. They weren’t hand cannons, not like the one that had forced him to become a werewolf. The damage from even the strongest of them wouldn’t be enough.

The heavy stuff was a different story, and much more of a worry. There were mortars, rockets, and other instruments of destruction, many of which had been mounted to airships. They had the capacity to strike at Berus and then simply leave. With a week’s notice, they could get to anywhere around the sea, with barely any chance at a response. They had planes, though they were relatively crude, and Perry had heard their first radio transmissions, which were being tested in a lab — after which, he double-checked that his own transmissions were as secure as Marchand could make them.

“You’ve done impressive work here,” Perry said to Third Fervor. “I can see your imprint on the kingdom.”

“No,” said Third Fervor. “I only gave them tools.”

“They have a decent chance of fighting back, if it comes to that,” said Perry.

“A war fought with weapons isn’t the kind that worries the king,” said Third Fervor. “What worries him is the people and their whims. I’ve given him tools to make their lives better, to show them what a leader can be, but it might not be enough. They might turn on him, seeking to better their own lives at the cost of their neighbors.”

“You don’t think much of the people,” said Perry.

“I have seen rebellions and uprisings,” said Third Fervor. “There have been precious few times I’ve thought there was some germ of truth. Usually it’s power-seeking or greed, dressed up in ideals that none of those at the lead actually hold.”

Perry let that pass, though the urge to argue with her was all consuming. “We have time before we’ll meet in person again. Can you tell me of one of those times? You hadn’t finished recounting your worlds.”

“If that’s your wish, I can continue,” said Third Fervor, though she didn’t seem particularly happy about it.

~~~~

I came next to the world of philosophers. They had solved every problem there was to be solved with magic more powerful than anything I had seen before. One had only to wave a hand, and a drink would appear in it. They had lavish accommodations with sprawling rooms, and I was put into one of them on first arrival, then left to my own devices. It was a land without war, without strife, without poverty or struggle.

They were thinkers, all of them, men and women obsessed with knowing things, and more to the point, arguing about them. They had reams of books, and seemed to produce new books with great regularity, even if it was often argued that everything that could be known already was known. They held debates in great open forums, which I sat in on but did not contribute much to.

I attached myself to their philosopher king. Because everyone was well cared for and no violence existed, he had no particular use for me once I had told him everything I knew. He set me to his books to learn what I could, in the hopes that I might produce a book of my own, or at least rise to the level of a skilled debater that could act in his interests. I turned out to be rather hopeless at the art of debate, and was trounced by even the lowest of those he brought in to train with me. It didn’t matter what handicaps he placed on my opponents, or how absurd the opposing position was. And I was terrible at what he called the counterfactuals, arguing for that which I didn’t believe in.

I was only given purpose when the other thresholder arrived. He was a short man with a regal bearing and long locks of hair, and he claimed to have been a king before he began traveling between the worlds. I took an instant liking to him, but of course I had already pledged myself to the philosopher king, and at any rate, my opponent wasn’t looking for any followers.

He was a warrior king, once a great leader of a nomadic people whose mounts he would wax poetic about. He’d gone through the portal because he believed it was a ruler’s duty to face the unknown for the sake of his people. There was something admirable in that, even if the result had been his isolation from those he cared for, and what amounted to abdication. Like me, he was a curiosity, but also like me, after a time people grew bored and found that there wasn’t much to extract from his presence.

Violence was functionally impossible in that world. People could not be hurt, by decree of the philosopher king. The only exception to this was with the consent of both parties, and even then, it was only allowed under certain forms of competition. I begged the philosopher king to allow us a bout, but he declined, seeing no reason to allow us to have at each other. Bodily destruction was not to be the end for us, it seemed, and for months we were stuck there as objects of interest while we learned what we could from the philosophers and their many books.

In the end, it was a power struggle that gave us an opening. The philosopher king had challengers, and one of them proposed a contest of wits and philosophical acumen: a competition of teaching. I was to be taught in the art of debate, as was the nomad king, and once the teaching was done, we would meet in one of the large agoras before a crowd of thousands.

For a month’s time, I had the philosopher king’s personal attention, and when he wasn’t tutoring me, I was being trained by others in the ways of debate. I didn’t take to it easily, but I did improve somewhat. My progress was not to the philosopher king’s desires though, and he despaired of my winning the match, even leading up to the day it was to begin.

We stood before the crowd, voices amplified, over the course of three days. Each day would have a different topic, chosen at random ahead of time, judged by a panel of experts whose impartiality was beyond repute. All this would have been fine amusement for the philosophers, but there was an added twist that made it something they had never seen before: the debate would have bloody violence involved. We could not hurt each other through conventional means, but as a special allowance, wounds would be applied in accordance with how good our points were. When we spoke, apparitions would appear in the air and hurtle toward our opponent, and to stop them, we would have to provide a refutation in time, or take the cuts.

A month hadn’t been enough time. We were amateurs fighting in front of professionals, and the crowds watching us were getting as close to jeering as they could get in that setting. The system of flying wounds was mediated by the judges, who seemed to know from the outset how solid an argument or bit of evidence was. We were children, in essence.

After the fight, my king paced back and forth in front of me, layering his critiques on top of each other, recalling every specific wording of every sentence I had uttered. He decried that I had not done what he had trained me for, that I was an imbecile, a simpleton, the bane of his existence — and the funny thing is, I had won.

The second debate I lost, and the king’s reaction was even worse. I came out of it dripping with blood, and he wouldn’t allow the automedics to heal me until he’d spent a full hour laying into me about the deficiencies of my intellect. You may think that cruel, but I agreed with it, and I promised to give it my all, to serve him as he demanded. He thought that his title as king was on the line, you see, that they might reject his rule entirely if I was not able to shepherd a simpleton to victory.

The topics of debate had been random, as I’ve said. The first was on whether or not animals felt pain, with myself being on the side of them not feeling it. The second was on whether we had moral duty to each other, and I was tasked with taking a nuanced position that I didn’t fully understand and don’t think I could explain to you now.

The third was on the necessity of kings. I was tasked with arguing in favor of them.

To this day, I don’t know whether someone put their thumb on the scale. If I had been tasked with arguing the opposite point, I would simply have lost. Instead, I was given a position that I would have voluntarily chosen to argue from — and against someone who was a king himself, in his own way, even if it was of a nomadic tribe that wouldn’t have filled a tenth of a city in my home world.

I didn’t just win, I won without a scratch on me, no argument left undeflected, no defenses against my assault. It was one of my great triumphs, seeing the enemy leave through a portal in great shame. It was a victory of words, not of raw power and who could use it better.

I was hesitant to go through the portal myself, but the philosopher king commanded it, having had more than his fill of me.

~~~~

“Did you get anything from that world?” asked Perry.

“What do you mean?” asked Third Fervor.

“Most worlds have some kind of power to them,” said Perry. “So far as I know, it’s not a constant, but it’s close to being one. I was wondering what you got from there, if that’s not prying too much.”

“I was gifted with knowledge,” said Third Fervor. “The ability to take it in, distribute it, share it. It’s what I’ve used here, to help along this kingdom. I’ve put whole books into the heads of our scientists and doctors.”

“Huh,” said Perry. “That’s … arguably worthless in a fight.”

“It is,” said Third Fervor. “But it’s helped me to integrate with the worlds I find myself in, and to help the kingdoms to understand the things they need to understand.”

Perry considered this. “You know a lot then?” he asked. “You’ve essentially read every book in the libraries of this kingdom?”

“I have,” said Third Fervor.

The question that Perry was burning to ask was ‘and you still believe this shit?’ He didn’t ask it though, couldn’t ask it. She was a true believer, and in spite of what the Last King had said, she wasn’t about to be worn down by anyone repeating something over and over. It was a level of resolve that would have been impressive if it had been directed at something else.

“I suppose it comes in handy when you need to learn everything you can about some new sort of magic,” said Perry.

“It does,” replied Third Fervor. “It’s weak in some ways, as you’ve said, but I’m fond of it. It helps me to integrate.” There was a lull in the conversation, and Perry could hear Third Fervor tapping her fingers. “Do you want me to go on recounting worlds?”

“No,” said Perry. “Eventually, I guess, but it’s been a lot. Tell me about … your family.”

“I move between worlds, and have no family,” said Third Fervor.

“You had mentioned your father raising you right,” said Perry.

There was a bit of silence. “Why do you want to know?” she asked.

“Just curious,” said Perry. “You don’t ever do getting-to-know-you type chats?” But as soon as he’d asked it, he knew the answer.

“No,” she said. There was a pause. “I was one of seven children. We were given daily lessons before lunch and dinner, moral and practical instruction, and woken early for our father’s education. He was the master of the house, and we were subordinate to him. It was that way throughout the kingdom, and I’ve seen enough worlds to know that it’s not always how it’s done, even in kingdoms where the king rules supreme. There’s something nice about it though, the idea that it all nests together. I’ve always appreciated that about monarchies. Most of them are like that, a tower of authority.”

“My mother was a cellist, a type of musician,” said Perry. “I had two sisters. Still have two sisters, I guess, since they’re out there somewhere, still living their lives with a missing brother.”

“You weren’t forced to leave, like I was?” asked Third Fervor.

“No,” said Perry. “No, I could very easily have just walked away from the portal and continued on with my life.”

“I would have never,” said Third Fervor.

“I know,” said Perry. “I understand that about you now.”

“Wouldn’t they miss you, your family?” asked Third Fervor.

“Some of them,” said Perry. “My friends too. I don’t know that anyone would have dedicated their life to closing the chapter on my missing persons report, but people would have been distressed and mourned me. Probably they would assume that I took my own life, given that I didn’t drain my bank accounts. Or … I was on a walk through the woods at the time, so they would assume I fell down or something. It would be puzzling for them that there’s no body, I guess, and not enough forest that you couldn’t have a hundred people search the whole thing.”

It was something he hadn’t given much thought to. He’d had a discussion with Richter, but that was his first world, and it seemed very far away.

“The king would like to meet sooner than planned,” said Third Fervor. “Does that work for you?”

“Yes,” said Perry. “Works. I’m eager to meet him.”

~~~~

“It’s getting to me,” said Kes.

“He’s probably dead,” said Mette. She shot him a smile.

“Not funny,” said Kes. “You know, you weren’t like this when I was him.”

“People become different animals when put in different circumstances,” said Mette. “You back someone into a corner and they’ll show their fangs, but if you treat them with kindness, they’ll unfurl for you.”

“See, I thought it was a little mean, suggesting that he’d died,” said Kes.

“Oh, I’m just voicing the unvoiced,” said Mette. “But hey, I had a thought.”

“About?” asked Kes. Anything to distract him from the radio silence. The airship was taking longer than planned, and Kes wasn’t sure what he was going to do if it got nothing back from its transmissions.

“About March,” said Mette. “It ties in, actually. From everything you said, Teaguewater was the first time that Marchand’s computation centers got seriously injured. He was hurt badly enough that there were some doubts about the integrity of his processing and what he had in storage. From everything I understand about the distributed computing architecture, when the processors in one part of the armor drop out, they’re compensated for by processing in a different part of the armor, and the end result was that you had a cobbled-together version of Marchand for … how long?”

“A few months,” said Kes. “Right up until I could start fixing him with the second sphere. And you think that explains it? Miswiring?”

“The thing you were doing in Teaguewater, the primary thing, was moving against a king,” said Mette. “At least, as you’ve described it to me.”

“I’m not sure I would say that was true,” said Kes. “The king was using Cosme, doing what I presume the Last King is doing now. If you have a bunch of soldiers, manufacturing, and maybe some superpowers, you can gain enormous power in a very short amount of time. The king of Teaguewater was going to sail across the ocean and make a great Reclamation, and if we hadn’t stopped him, it probably would have worked, given that he had vampiric supersoldiers. But as far as the fights went … I’m not sure that I would say that the king was my primary antagonist. I never met him.”

“You were injured by the king’s soldiers, yes?” asked Mette. “And you had many conversations about killing the king?”

“I guess,” said Kes.

“And Marchand, in a weakened state, was privy to those conversations,” said Mette. “My argument is that it might be like the way a child learns something when young and later, builds up a system of thought to support the thing they’ve learned.”

“Huh,” said Kes. “I don’t think the analogy works, but … maybe. He’s spent a lot of time on self-diagnosis, trying to rebuild and repair. Do you think if you had access to the code you could unwire that quirk?”

“Not in the slightest,” said Mette. “For the most part, he’s not coded. It’s a mess of mathematics, and even his designers didn’t have a full understanding of everything inside. It’s possible I could alter the superstructure to divert away from those thoughts, but would you really want to?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” asked Kes.

“I don’t know,” Mette shrugged. “He’s your loyal companion. If he changes as part of your adventures, reverting him seems … utilitarian.”

“Utilitarian in a bad way,” said Kes.

“Yes,” nodded Mette. “And with the changes that he has now, the phantom processing that might actually be coming from you, he arguably rises to the level of a person. If he’s not a person, then he’s still as close as you’ve had to a constant.”

“He’s not linked to me,” said Kes. “He’s linked to Perry.”

“Ah, right,” said Mette. “Well, I guess I’ll have to have this whole conversation over again.” She shrugged. “You think there’s merit?”

“I’d think there was more merit if I were a staunch anti-monarchist,” said Kes. “But I’m not, and neither is Perry. We’d both tear down the monarchy if it were up to us, obviously, but we’re not going to go out of our way to crusade against it.”

“You’re a lazy anti-monarchist,” said Mette. “You have lots of other priorities getting in the way.”

Kes frowned. “You think that it’s a problem?” he asked. “Marchand?”

“Impossible to say until it becomes a problem,” said Mette.

~~~~

The meeting place was away from the castle, in a park that had been closed down for the occasion. Tall trees towered over them, swaying slightly in the breeze, and Third Fervor faced down Perry. She was fully armored, spear in hand, and he was without his sword.

“You’re unarmed?” she asked.

“Yes,” nodded Perry, which was absolutely not true.

He had the ring, which would open the shelfspace, which was where his sword was. He’d been careful to land well outside the park, hopefully away from prying eyes, then strolled in. Aside from the sword, which was essentially within arm’s reach, the shoulder gun was safely tucked away but ready to fire at a moment’s notice. Perry hadn’t revealed that in the fight, which he was now thankful for. There was a good chance that it would get him out of a jam. Aside from that, he had a few other surprises prepared, just in case this was somehow a trap. Given that he’d listened in on them talking about it, he was skeptical.

“Then I’m going to bring the guards first,” said Third Fervor.

She went over to a tree with a particularly thick truck and placed her hand against it. A portal opened up, showing the stone interior of what was probably the castle, and a dozen men in armor, all of them wearing masks of one sort or another. These weren’t the masks the men on the airship had been wearing. Instead, they were integrated into the armor, making the helmets look bulky, as though the men beneath them had oversized heads. Of the dozen guards, four had spears, four had swords, and four had rifles — of much better make than the ones that Perry had been attacked with.

They filed out of the portal like they had practiced it and formed ranks in front of the tree, facing each other but not looking directly at Perry.

The portal closed, and when it opened back up, Edmunt Thorne II, the Last King stepped through.

He was surprisingly tall. From his high voice, Perry had thought he’d be a little guy, but no, the Last King was at least six and a half feet tall, and while he was lanky rather than ox-thick, there was still something intimidating about him. He had a gun of his own, a thick handgun that maybe seemed closer to a sawed-off shotgun. It was fancy, the work of a craftsman who placed a great deal of emphasis on things looking nice. Weapon aside, the king was dressed in fur-trimmed robes with hose and a doublet beneath it. He had a golden crown perched on his head, bedecked with jewels. His face held a smile.

“Peregrin Holzmann,” he said. “Traveler from another world, like our dear Third Fervor. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“And you as well, your grace,” said Perry with a deep bow.

“The inestimable Third Fervor has kept me well-appraised of your conversations. She feels confident that you aren’t the one responsible for the death of the monarchy in Berus,” said the Last King. “I hate to get right to business, but I must hear it from your lips: are you a killer?”

“I am a killer,” said Perry. “But I have killed no kings, here or elsewhere.”

Marchand’s voice came in Perry’s ear like a whisper. “I do not like the smell of this, sir.”

“Then I shall take you at your word,” said the Last King with a satisfied nod. He looked Perry up and down. “I had hoped to get the measure of you, but it will be difficult with such thick armor on. If I were a lesser man, I might feel affronted at such a covering.”

He said this with a dozen armed guards, a heavy gun, and a warrior from another world.

“I have always found it necessary to look after myself,” said Perry. “I apologize if it doesn’t rise to the level of decorum that your court demands.”

The Last King laughed. “Yet you do not offer to reveal your face?”

“No,” said Perry. “As Third Fervor might have told you, I’m a fierce warrior with or without my armor, but for the time being, I would prefer to converse like this.”

“Can you hear me, beneath such metal?” asked the Last King.

“Hearing is one of my abilities,” said Perry. “I could hear you from three times this distance with little trouble.”

“Fascinating,” said the Last King. “If I understand my darling lady knight correctly, you come from your own lineage of worlds, with their own understanding of things. You haven’t been in our kingdom, save for when you set foot here the other night?”

“No,” said Perry. “I had hoped to read from the library in an unobtrusive way. My apologies.”

“Then you’ve been with the other side, those who are arrayed against me like so many wolves howling in the woods,” said the king. He let out a sigh. “What have you told them?”

“Little,” said Perry. “Much of what I told them, they already knew. The culture rejects technology. The lessons of the lanterns were taken to heart. The nature of the many worlds was a surprise, but in terms of technology, most of what I’d said they already knew. And certain things you have here, especially medical interventions, I haven’t shared with them.”

“It’s unfortunate that I can’t use any of what Third Fervor has shared with me as a cudgel,” said the Last King. “There are weapons, to be sure, powerful ones, but nothing capable of holding off the masses. I showed them the might this kingdom wields now, and it only made them angry. I’m sure that word of our benevolence is slowly filtering out into their papers, but of course they don’t wish to be dependent on us, if they believe the claims at all, and I’m sure their many spies would simply steal the secrets no matter how hard I tried to keep them.”

“Possibly, your grace,” said Perry. “I hadn’t heard of the miracles in Berus.”

“Miracles, to your well-traveled eyes?” asked the Last King.

“No,” said Perry. “Not to my eyes. But to the other people of this world, yes. I take it that several of these programs haven’t been going long?”

“We’ve had vaccination only within the last two weeks,” said the Last King. “The fabulous weapons we’ve had for longer.” He gestured casually with the gun, sweeping it across Perry’s body. Obviously Third Fervor hadn’t imported gun safety. “There’s some debate among my men about whether the weapons will end up making the masks obsolete.” He patted the gun in his hand lovingly. “This one is powerful enough to puncture metal even under the direct gaze of a master’s mask.”

“A dangerous thing to have, and it must kick like a mule,” said Perry. He lowered his head slightly. “Marchand, analysis?”

“We’re in no great danger from the other weapons,” said Marchand. “The swords and spears are of a like design and therefore unlikely to be Implements. It’s difficult to say what the caliber of the firearms are, but I wouldn’t expect it to pierce all but the most vulnerable parts of the armor. As for the king’s weapon, I expect that if it’s as powerful as it looks, it’s also powerful enough to injure him.”

The king spoke over Marchand, oblivious to the conversation that was being had in the privacy of Perry’s helm.

“Oh, the kick is something fierce,” said the king. “Third Fervor had said that these weapons required little in the way of training, but that has proven to be less true than I would have liked. There have been injuries, accidents, and all manner of troubles. And in truth, there are some worries that a simple weapon would be a tool for rebellion.”

Third Fervor stood impassive next to him. Her armored helm gave nothing away. She didn’t so much as twitch at the criticism.

“I have heard it said,” replied Perry with a nod. “Just as the culture which is poised against you prohibits all technologies that could threaten it, so too must you be careful not to introduce anything that could have disastrous consequences.”

The Last King stroked his chin with his free hand. “You have some intellect to you. Who are you beneath that helm?”

“I’m not like her,” said Perry. “I don’t bind myself to people. I’m a student of worlds and kingdoms, of people. I’ve seen what Berus had to offer, and before that, Kerry Coast. I’d like to see this place, unvarnished, if possible.” He nodded to Third Fervor. “There’s no cause for quarrel at the moment, and I’m sure she’s informed you there’s a third of our kind that you’ll need to be protected from.”

“You want a place in my court,” said the Last King. He gave Perry an appraising look. “I must admit, I’m intrigued, though I have no illusions that I could have your loyalty.”

“No, my loyalty isn’t so easily won as a pleasant conversation,” said Perry.

The Last King looked up to the sky for a moment, then down at Perry. “I can’t say that everything you’ve said is the truth, nor can I say it’s a lie, so I must weigh the possibilities against each other, along with what might be gained and what might be lost. If I allow you access to my kingdom, you might become yet another spy, one in a kingdom that’s rife with them. But the other option, of course, is to kill you where you stand.” He leveled the gun at Perry.

“My lord,” said Third Fervor, stepping forward. “You promised him safety.”

“Silence,” said the Last King. He was staring at Perry. “You don’t move. Are you confident in the power of your armor, or unafraid that I’ll pull this trigger?”

“Sir, I must caution against taking this hit,” said Marchand.

Perry looked at the guards that were arranged on either side of the king, careful not to tilt his head or give any indication that he was sizing them up. They hadn’t moved since coming out of the portal, which spoke to their discipline, but he wasn’t sure how easy they would go down in a fight. He thought his best bet would be to simply grab the sword and fly away, maybe after running as fast as he could to get some extra speed from the armor. They wore masks, but it was hard to tell what they did beneath the metal. Perry had been trying to feel for the effects, but full metal armor would block at least some of them. He thought that there were two for hardening what they looked at, defensive masks, but he didn’t know who would coordinate them, and he didn’t know how strong they would be. Fight or flight, those were the options.

The Last King was watching Perry closely.

Third Fervor would be the deciding factor, if it came down to it. Her armor was fearsome, her portals were an enormous tactical benefit depending on some of the specifics of how they actually worked, and he had yet to see how dangerous the spear might be. If it was the one from her story, which could teleport a person, she could immediately put him into an extremely dangerous situation.

“Sir, I have developed a plan,” said Marchand.

“Alright, go,” said Perry.

The shoulder-mounted gun immediately lifted up from its housing and shot the king in the face.