Thresholder

Perry walked down the streets of the city, which he now knew was called Teaguewater. He was wearing clothes that he’d stolen from the house he’d landed in, where his power armor and sword were still stashed in the attic. The clothes were a fashionable suit which didn’t quite fit Perry, one of five in the closet of the master bedroom, and he hoped that it wouldn’t be missed. He planned to return it, and to pay with one of the gold coins in the bottom of his bag, but with all his worldly possessions in the attic, he was hoping to simply go undetected until he could move it all out. The plan was to sell a coin, find a hotel room with a balcony, then secure a base of operations there while he looked for the Adversary.

Down on the streets of Teaguewater, the air pollution was noticeably worse, and without the armor to filter it, Perry found himself with a cough. From the people around him, that was not at all uncommon. The streets had been empty when he’d set out in the morning, but they’d filled quickly, and now they were crowded. He liked that, since it meant that he stuck out a little bit less. He was taller than anyone else by almost half a foot, in an ill-fitting suit, feet squished into shoes that didn’t fit him, and he worried that it was just a matter of time before someone pointedly asked him what he was doing in those clothes, or if he had identification. He didn’t think that identification papers were the sort of thing people had to worry about in the 1800s, but it was possible he was mistaken.

“Left here,” said Marchand in Perry’s ear. The earpiece was small, visible only as a nub inside the ear canal, but Perry worried about that too. He had no way to explain what it was. The connection was good for half a mile, though it might cut out if underground, and Marchand was decidedly less useful when he couldn’t see and feel what was going on, nor provide a HUD.

Perry had picked the destination early in the morning from the map created by a fresh firing of the drone, a pawn shop that seemed like a good place to trade one of the coins for money. Marchand’s surveillance was good enough that they’d been able to catch a few transactions on camera, paper money moving between people, and once Perry had that, he could get everything else: clothes appropriate to the world, a place to stay, and food in his stomach. He’d been tempted to steal from the house’s chiller, but while the rest of the house had emptied in the morning, a gardener had moved in to clip the bushes and water the plants, and Perry hadn’t wanted to risk it.

The cuff of the shirt didn’t come down far enough, and Perry tried to stand so that it wasn’t so obvious that the suit was a few inches too small. There was nothing he could do about the hem of the pants though, so he tried to ignore it and act as though it was perfectly natural.

“Can I help you?” asked an old man behind the pawn shop’s counter. It was a cluttered place behind the bars that separated them, with miscellanea up and down the walls, brass instruments and a collection of firearms, childrens’ toys and a selection of tradesmans’ tools.

“I’d like to know how much this is worth,” said Perry, sliding a single gold coin beneath the bars.

They spoke English in Teaguewater, as they’d spoken English in the previous two worlds, but the accent was slightly off, another thing to mark him as an outsider. He was hoping that being able to speak the language was a trend, because dealing with a language barrier on top of everything else would mean that he’d be almost completely lost when dealing with people.

The shop owner took the coin carefully and turned it over in his hands. It was a heavy coin, solid gold as far as Perry could tell, much thicker and larger than any coin Perry had seen on Earth. They’d been called dragons in the Kingdom of Seraphinus, and were minted with the face of King Odilon and a winged reptile on the reverse. Perry hadn’t actually seen a dragon while he was there, but from the coin’s depiction, they were different than he’d expected, with feathery wings.

“Gold,” said the shop owner. He rapped it against the counter. “I’d need to have it assayed.” He flipped it over, looking at the adornments and the ridges. “Where’s it come from?”

Perry didn’t have a good answer for that, and ‘none of your business’ seemed like it would be too rude. “I’d prefer to keep that to myself,” said Perry, more diplomatically.

“It’s not an idle question,” said the shop owner. “The king doesn’t like the trade of gold.” He set the coin down and reached beneath the counter, pulling up a thick book. “I’ve got to record it here, where there’s a sale. Too much theft, you understand? And if you can’t say where it comes from, then that’s not something the king’s men take kindly to.”

Perry grimaced. He knew almost nothing of this world’s history or customs, and there was no way he could make up a story that would pass the sniff test. The coin was valuable, it was just a matter of whether or not he could sell it. A lie came to Perry's lips, and he swallowed it, knowing that he didn't know enough to toss something off. “Is there a way we could avoid all that?” he asked.

The shop owner blinked, then slid the book back under the counter. “I’d be the one taking the risk, you understand.”

“I’m in dire straits,” said Perry. “Anything you could do to help out would be appreciated.” He had two more coins in the jacket pocket of his suit, weighing it down, but he’d hoped that a single coin would be enough. Back home, he was sure that the gold in the coins would have been worth thousands, without even considering their value as artifacts from another world.

The shopkeeper nodded, then held up a finger. “Wait here.”

Perry sat for a while as he waited. The coin was still there, on the counter, within reach if he moved forward. He didn’t like the feeling of being there, in the poorly-fitted suit, sticking out like a sore thumb and trying to do something illegal. He didn’t want to catch the attention of the authorities here.

When he’d arrived in the Kingdom of Seraphinus, he’d gotten a comparatively warm welcome. He’d looked like a knight to their eyes, a man in fine armor and possessing incredible strength. Almost from the moment he’d landed, he’d been embroiled in combat, saving a caravan bound for King Odilon’s castle from a group of bandits. He’d fought an Adversary in Richter’s world, but hesitated when it came time to deliver the killing blow. In Seraphinus, he’d had no choice but to kill, and on the battlefield, had commanded the suit to spit dozens of bullets at the humanoid creatures that roved the fields. The suit's aim was unerring, at least at relatively short distances.

King Odilon had been a staunch ally for the three months Perry been in Seraphinus. Perry wasn’t sure that was a part of the pattern, whether there would be an Ally in every world, the same as there was an Adversary and an Exit. If there was an Ally, as Richter and Odilon had been, he needed to find them fast, ideally even before he had a place to stay. He'd slept in Richter's guest bedroom from the first night, and had the Blue Room at Odilon's castle from the third day on.

He felt like he was waiting for too long. It should have been a simple transaction, a coin for paper money that he could spend elsewhere, and he had no idea what the shopkeeper could possibly be doing. The shopkeeper said that the gold needed to be assayed, which Perry understood to be some way of determining whether the gold was pure, but the shop wasn’t all that big, and it definitely felt like the shopkeeper had left entirely — left to go get someone, without mentioning that fact.

On impulse, Perry reached down under the bars and snatched the coin back, putting it in his pocket and then turning around to walk out the door. Something had raised the hair on the back of his neck, and since he had neither his armor nor his sword, he needed to trust his instincts. There had to be a few dozen pawn shops. He could pick another one.

He moved down the street, walking quickly, trying to put some space between himself and the pawn shop, just in case. He ducked down a side street, then another, until he found himself walking uphill in a cramped alleyway whose buildings seemed to loom over him. He got a few looks from people, none of whom were dressed in suits, ill-fitting or otherwise. He turned again at the first opportunity, back onto a more crowded main street, but he realized after a moment that he’d gotten turned around, and was back on the same street with the pawn shop.

When he looked down the street, he saw a man and woman in blue uniforms who stuck out from the rest of the crowd. The woman was coming out of the pawn shop, and the man was standing outside it, which Perry guessed was because they’d been trying to pincer him. He turned before she could lock eyes with him, cursing the fact that he was so tall compared to these people, and he walked quickly, trying to put some distance between him and them.

He didn’t want to be arrested, which felt like the direction this was going. His sword and armor were still hidden away in the attic, and the longer he was away from them, the better a chance the missing suit would be noticed. He’d barred the trapdoor to the attic before he left and then flew out the window with the sword before sending it back in, but he had no illusions that was a long-term solution.

A shrill whistle blew from behind him, and Perry picked up the pace as the people around him turned to look. It was crowded, but he was too tall to get lost in the crowd.

“To me,” he whispered, not to Marchand, but to the sword. He had a link to it, mostly mental, but at range words seemed to help make his will known. The sword could fly of its own accord, and once it got to him, he could fly out of danger. That would mean making himself known to the police, but if he could just get up onto the rooftops, maybe they would only have a vague description of him.

He could only hope that the Adversary was having just as much difficulty.

Perry ducked down another alley, hoping that it wasn’t a dead end. He heard the whistle behind him again, and a few shouts. He was athletic, had been even before training cardio with Richter and then three months of being a soldier, and he ran with an easy grace that was hindered only by the shoes that pinched his toes and the uneven cobblestones. He came out the other side of the alley and onto another street, just in time for the sword to come flying down out of the sky to land in his outstretched hand.

He caught sight of the woman in the blue uniform as he lifted into the air, any plausible deniability completely shattered as he rose. The sword was fast, taking him out of view, away over the rooftops and away from the danger of being arrested.

To his immense surprise, he turned back to see the woman rising up into the air on black wings of shadow that stretched out to either side.

Perry landed on a nearby rooftop, next to a pigeon coop. There was no one around them. He unsheathed the sword, letting it glow with power. It would have been better to have the armor, better by far, but he’d gone through quite a bit of training with the sword, and was no longer relying on brute strength with it.

The woman landed on the same rooftop Perry had landed on, at the opposite end, with a large flap of her wings. Once she had landed, the wings folded up and retracted, as though they’d never been there. She was crouched low, like a cage fighter, hands in front of her like she meant to grapple him. She had, he noted, claws on the tips of those fingers, long claws that hadn’t been there before. She was moving forward, step by careful step.

“Are you the Adversary here?” asked Perry. He didn't know whether she would understand the term, but in the last world the Adversary had announced himself as an enemy.

She paused for a moment, perplexed. “You’re new in Teaguewater.”

Perry kept his sword held in front of him. “What are you?” he asked.

“I was going to ask you the same,” she replied. Her claws were still out. He didn’t actually know if they could retract, because he hadn’t gotten a good enough look at her. It was possible she'd had claws the entire time. “Gold is a sign of the fae, but they haven’t been on these shores in half a century.”

Perry opened and then closed his mouth. “I’m just a man,” he said, though as he’d traveled through a number of worlds, he wasn’t sure that was strictly true. “All I wanted was to trade in some gold.”

He watched her. She was thinking, more confused than ready for a fight. The uniform was a pale blue, and came with a cap that had managed to stay on her head during her brief flight. It had a jacket, a thin black tie, and a skirt that came down to her thick black boots. His time in Seraphinus had been a shock to the system, magic and dragons and all kinds of things, but he’d understood it as being a context of fantasy. What this was, he couldn’t say. Black bat wings that folded away, claws … she had jet black hair, red lips, and pale skin, which conjured the term ‘vampire’ to his mind, but it was daylight, and he didn’t have any idea what a real vampire would be like.

“You don’t know the rules,” she said. “Flying during the day, when people can see you, leaving witnesses — it’s a violation.” She said the word with weight.

“Against the law,” said Perry, trying to clarify. He looked at the copper badge that was pinned to her chest, which had the emblem of a rose.

“Not this law,” she replied, looking down. Then she loosened her stance for a moment, slipped her hand into her pocket — the claws did retract — and pulled out a medallion, made of jade or something like it. “The Custom.”

“And I’m in trouble,” said Perry. “For this violation.” He rolled that around in his head, trying to find his context within this world, and what it might imply about the other worlds. He'd first experienced magic in Seraphinus, so that was no shock, but this was hidden magic, magic with rules attached to it, and its own sort of laws.

She nodded, slowly. The claws extended again, and she settled into her stance, like she meant to slip past the sword, or possibly catch it, which seemed scarily plausible.

“I don’t think anyone saw,” said Perry. “Or if they did, it happened fast, so fast they’d convince themselves that it hadn’t happened.”

She nodded, slowly. “A common defense.”

“Please,” said Perry. “I’m new here.” He tried to weigh his words. He was worried that they would have to fight each other. “Listen, I came from another world, only last night. I have no idea what your customs are here, what’s a violation and what’s not. I was only trying to trade a gold coin for some money I could use on a place to stay and some clothes that actually fit me. And there’s someone out there, someone with powers like me,” or at least different powers of his own, “who needs to be stopped.”

That brought her up short, and she stood, claws retracted.

“Oh,” she said, brow furrowed. “You’re a thresholder.”