Thresholder

“Last world, there was a wizard,” said Maya. “He had a theory, that sometimes it might not be one-on-one.”

They were sitting at a short-legged table on top of what Luo Yanhua had called ‘tea pillows’. She was to one side of them, a calm look on her face, and it was pretty clear that she was playing mediator, though she’d never actually declared that to be her role. One of the first sphere people had brought them tea, and Perry had taken a sip of it. It was green and earthy, recognizably tea, though nothing like he’d ever had before. There was an undertone of spice to it.

The north-facing doors of this part of the temple had been slid aside, leaving them with a glorious view of the Great Arc. As the temple was perched on top of an upright rock, they had the elevation to see all around them, and Perry tried to keep himself from getting distracted by the world laid out in the distance.

His armor was gone, and his sword was being held by the old man who’d previously been training the acolytes. Removing his armor and giving up his sword had been conditions of this talk, and Maya had been pretty clear that she was going to murder him if he didn’t assent. Perry hadn’t been in a position to argue the point, nor to fight back, and their hosts weren’t treating this conflict as anything too out of the ordinary. He was dying to ask Luo Yanhua what she had made of the fight, but he wasn’t sure she’d actually tell him.

“A wizard,” said Perry. “He told you that you might have a teammate, and you didn’t think to mention it before the fight?”

“What he said was that the way the spell works, it might not be just one person against another,” said Maya. “Might call in three people, different sides, that kind of thing. He said that it wasn’t impossible that I’d find myself with an ally. Compositing, he called it.”

“And you think that might be me,” said Perry. A wizard. A spell. There was a significant part of him that didn’t believe any of it. He’d met a wizard of his own though, and he knew magic was real. “You think we might be allies.”

“Not particularly, no,” said Maya. “But I beat the absolute snot out of you, and there wasn’t a portal, so … I don’t know. Seems like there’s a chance.”

Perry looked at her. She had beaten him, but the bruise was forming across the side of her face, and it was an ugly thing. Her stylish streetwear hoodie had been cut up, but had slowly healed itself through some mechanism that Perry couldn’t see. He didn’t dispute that he’d lost, but he’d gotten his licks in.

“Where do we go from here?” asked Perry.

“Two options,” said Maya. She held up her fingers, just in case he couldn’t count that high. “First, I spread your brains across these flagstones like a fine jam. Easily doable, clearly.”

“No,” said Luo Yanhua. “There will be no fighting at Silver Fish Temple unless agreed to by both participants.” It was the first time she’d spoken. Her serene demeanor hadn’t changed at all. Perry wondered how long it would take before that started to bother him, and decided that it already had.

“Wait, what?” asked Maya. “No fighting in the temple? After we just fought in the temple?”

“A fight by mutual assent is a matter of honor,” said Luo Yanhua. “A fight with one person who wishes harm and one person defending themselves would require intercession.”

Maya narrowed her eyes. “So if he says that he doesn’t want to fight, he’s got your protection?”

Luo Yanhua paused, only slightly, then said, “Yes.”

From what Perry knew, it wasn’t as simple as that. Luo Yanhua was second sphere, and there were prohibitions of some kind separating the spheres. He wasn’t sure what those prohibitions were, exactly, but he wasn’t confident that defending the innocent was a part of them. He didn’t think their host was lying, necessarily, but there was some kind of wrinkle that made their protection not as solid as her ‘yes’ might imply. If that was what the small hitch had been about, it made him a bit nervous.

Maya plowed right on by that though. “What if he’d asked for mercy in the middle of the fight?” she asked, throwing up her hands. “Was I supposed to just let him go?”

“This is the eternal question of the wise master Zhuge Yuanhong,” said Luo Yanhua. “Most at the Silver Fish Temple, and indeed within Moon Gate, would counsel that an enemy who begs for mercy should be granted it.”

“Wow,” said Maya. She gave Perry a look. “You think that’s stupid too, right?”

Perry’s eyes went from Luo Yanhua to Maya. “I think you’d get a lot of people begging for mercy, if it was widely known that you’d stop attacking them if they begged for mercy.” Perry didn’t want to upset their host, but he did, in fact, think that a blanket offer of mercy was pretty stupid. He was trying to be diplomatic though.

“It is better to have enemies that beg for mercy,” said Luo Yanhua. “A merciful and compassionate end should be the goal of all combat. We hope to bring an end to suffering, where possible. The blade is not drawn lightly, and it does not fall lightly either. During your time at the temple, you will be expected to adhere to the principles of kindness and respect.”

“We might have to take a hike then,” said Maya.

“No,” said Perry. He turned to Luo Yanhua. “You had ulterior motives for letting that fight go on. You wanted to see our techniques. What did you learn?” This was a shot in the dark, but it felt right.

“It is better to conclude one business before beginning another,” said Luo Yanhua. “My understanding of your situation is that you were debating whether you should kill one another or become allies.”

“Nah,” said Maya. “The question isn’t whether we should become allies, it’s whether we are allies.”

“Whether we’re part of the same clan,” said Perry. He looked at Maya’s bruised face. “A case of … mistaken identity.”

“I see,” said Luo Yanhua. Perry wasn’t sure that she did.

“So it looks like we’re going with option two,” said Maya. “I keep a knife at your back and we work together until we find the other thresholder. I’ve never had an ally, so this is new to me. You too?”

Perry almost said yes. “Actually … there’s always been an ally. Someone who takes me in, someone who helps, someone who, at least, sees something in me that they want. That hasn’t been the case for you?”

Maya looked up at the ceiling for a bit. “Maybe,” she said. She looked back down at Perry. “I want your inventory of worlds, what happened there, what powers you have, all that kind of thing.”

“Because we’re allies now?” asked Perry.

“It was the difference of worlds that clinched it,” said Maya. “It got me thinking that maybe I was wrong, that you weren’t who I was supposed to be going after. That and the lack of a challenge.”

“Your face would argue otherwise,” said Perry.

Maya brought her hand to the swollen part of her head and winced with pain, then chuckled. “You really think you want to gloat about a bruise you gave me when that should have been your killing blow?”

“It was the armor that protected you, right?” asked Perry. “I don’t think you can brag about how awesome you are if your defense is just a matter of what items you have.”

“You never brag about your possessions?” asked Maya. “I mean, all this stuff was hard-won. That armor? I had to get it from this huge heist we ran against a dystopia orbiting the embers of a dying universe. Everything I have was something that I took, sweat of my brow style, so yeah, if that lets me beat down the likes of you, then I will crow about it.”

“Whatever,” said Perry. “You have the benefit of having more worlds under your belt.”

“Right,” said Maya. She seemed satisfied with his response. “That’s why we’ve got to stay together, because if we’re in what the wizard called a composite scenario, then the real enemy is either one person who’s been to as many words as us combined, or it’s multiple people, and alone, I don’t like my odds. You should like your odds even less.”

“How would we know?” asked Perry. “How long do we give it?”

“Three months,” said Maya, with an authority and conviction that Perry found suspicious.

“Your wizard friend told you that?” asked Perry.

Maya leaned forward. “No, Michaelous hadn’t been able to figure out why the gap was there at all, but I’ve talked to other thresholders, and I’ve been one for longer than you, and it’s never been longer than three months. Of course, it could be that the other guy is already here, and has been building up strength for the conflict with us.”

“A mortal enemy?” asked Luo Yanhua. “Someone more powerful than the two of you?”

“Yes,” said Maya. “That’s the theory, anyway.” She leaned back, seeming to have forgotten that she was sitting on a pillow rather than in a proper chair, and she had to awkwardly catch herself. “There are other theories, naturally, which is why I need to keep Perry under lock and key, at least until I know he’s not going to stab me in the back.”

“We cannot keep this man prisoner,” said Luo Yanhua. “Until there is consultation among the masters, the matter of the thresholders will remain among yourselves, but if it is a matter of the first sphere, then Moon Gate cannot be involved.”

“And if we rise to second sphere?” asked Maya.

Luo Yanhua considered this. “This is something that you endeavor to do?”

“Yes,” said Maya. “Absolutely. There’s going to be someone evil coming, if they’re not already here, and we’re the only people who can stop him.”

“Him?” asked Perry.

“Statistically, yeah, him,” said Maya. “Obviously some of us are women, but they’re few and far between.”

“You believe that this other thresholder might be of the second sphere?” asked Luo Yanhua.

“What?” asked Maya, turning back to her. “Er … yes?”

“I don’t think I really understand the spheres yet,” said Perry. “If someone like us came into this world and fell in with the wrong crowd — in this case, probably a group of bandits — would there be a way for her to very quickly gain powers like yours?” He didn’t know what those powers were, precisely, but he imagined Luo Yanhua would be formidable.

“Under normal circumstances, preparing to transition takes years,” said Luo Yanhua. “Those of the first sphere who possess a spirit root must train, exercise, and harden their bodies, preparing a foundation upon which enlightenment can occur. Without that foundation, transition can result in a total collapse of the self, spiritually as well as physically.”

“And there’s no way to rush it along?” asked Maya. “Because this other guy will absolutely do that if at all possible, and might already have done it.”

“In some cases, the physical self is already close to perfection,” said Luo Yanhua. “A body which can endure the stresses might allow a dedicated member of the first sphere to transition in a matter of days. There are alterations to the internal alchemy that can speed along the transition even further, providing it to those such as yourself, without any seeming training in the ways of wisdom and awareness. But of course, such a step would only be taken with the Moon Gate’s consultation, and after transition there is the tethering, which must not be undertaken lightly.”

Perry frowned. “You’re going to talk with the masters and see if it would be wise to transition us?” he asked. “In order to fight against the other thresholder?” He wasn’t sure he bought Maya’s talk about composites and allies, but he couldn’t see a reason for her to lie, not when she’d been within moments of killing him, had she wanted to. Maybe she’d seen how easy the fight was and decided she wanted to stick around the world for a bit longer … but that didn’t sound quite right either.

“If there is another of you, on par with the abilities you’ve shown, there is no particular worry,” said Luo Yanhua. “The personal battles of outsiders are not the concern of Moon Gate.”

“Wow,” said Maya. “We’re beneath you?”

“We have now seen both of you fight,” said Luo Yanhua. “We have the measure of your techniques. We have some measure of who you are as people, and should you transition to the second sphere, we do not suppose that you would become a threat.”

“Wow wow wow,” said Maya. She looked at Perry. “Are you going to let her diss us like that?”

“Yes,” said Perry. “I fought a second sphere man who was apparently on the weaker side, and it wasn’t what I’d call easy.”

“You’re a terrible henchman,” said Maya.

“I think technically I’d be a sidekick,” said Perry. He looked at Luo Yanhua, then out at the Great Arc. “Alright, I get it.”

“What’s to get?” asked Maya.

“Why they would be willing to put some effort into getting us to the second sphere,” said Perry.

“That wasn’t on offer,” said Maya. “Was it?”

“It will be at the discretion of the masters of Moon Gate,” said Luo Yanhua. “There are three temples, three masters. Silver Fish Temple is the smallest of them.”

“So it’s not not on offer,” said Maya. She looked at Perry. “And you have a theory as to why?”

“The spheres are separated,” said Perry. “We might be relative small frys by the standard of the second sphere, but we’re incredibly powerful for first sphere people. If we stay in the first sphere, then there are limits to what the second sphere can do with us, since they’ll run into issues of karmic balance or something, but if we’re second sphere, then we’re under their jurisdiction.” He rubbed his neck. “Sorry, let me know if anything isn’t translating.”

“Translating?” asked Maya.

“We both speak the language I know as English, but there are a bunch of things that don’t translate, cultural components, jargon, stuff like that,” said Perry.

“Ah,” said Maya. “No, I got it.”

“You are, in essence, correct,” said Luo Yanhua, directing her comment to Perry. “There are those who choose not to transition into a higher sphere even when it is within their capabilities. Many of the spheres are dominated by those who could not transition higher, or those who chose not to.”

“That applies to the second sphere too?” asked Perry.

Luo Yanhua nodded. “It is a persistent problem.”

“You said it would be dangerous to rush it,” said Maya. “But you’re offering that to us? Some way of getting a fraction of your power? Something … dangerous for us?”

“To make it safe will be a process,” said Luo Yanhua. “But you have your own strange techniques, and bodies that are not entirely like the ones that most of the first sphere have.” She lifted a hand and reached out to Maya, who didn’t move away from it. The strange, gentle woman touched the bruise on Maya’s face, which had darkened as they talked. “There is danger, but I suspect that danger will be nothing to the likes of you.” She withdrew her hand and stood up from her pillow. “The masters must convene and speak. I am not now offering you a path to the second sphere, only a place to stay, a table to eat at, our training, and our goodwill. You will be members of Moon Gate. When your rooms have been prepared, someone will show them to you.”

She left, soft footsteps fading quickly down a long corridor, and Perry was left alone with Maya.

“Weird people,” said Maya.

“Comes with the territory, doesn’t it?” asked Perry. “You hop worlds and everyone seems strange.”

“Sure does,” said Maya. She sat still for a moment. “You haven’t answered the proposal.”

“Which?” asked Perry.

“The allies thing,” said Maya. “You don’t trust me, I don’t trust you, but if this is a composite situation, if the two of us together add up to one of the enemy, then we’re going to need to work together to beat the other guy — or other guys. Seven worlds, six wins for me, three worlds, how many wins for you?”

“Three,” said Perry.

“So potentially ten wins under the enemy’s belt,” said Maya. “That doesn’t scare me, but I get the feeling maybe it should. Last world, I was already thinking that there was a lot of variety to the powers, unevenness to them. I didn’t have to pull out every trick against you, but I’ve got probably twice the power you do.”

“You should have gone for the killing blow early on then,” said Perry.

She frowned at him. “You really do think you’re hot shit. That’s going to get annoying.”

“I won’t even claim that I fought you to a standstill,” said Perry. “You beat me. But I want you to acknowledge that our footing isn’t that uneven. And I’m not at full strength right now, I got my ass kicked in the last world.”

“You think that’s an argument that you’re not weak?” asked Maya.

Perry waved a hand. “I’m not here to measure dicks with you, if that’s what you want.”

“You’re here to kill assholes?” asked Maya. “Because that’s why I’m here.”

“I’m here to gain power,” said Perry. “Enough power to go back to a world that I cared a lot about, to right a wrong.” He felt a pang of guilt when he said that. Flora had seemed to think that was all empty words, that it was just about the power for its own sake.

“Sounds noble,” said Maya. “A bit overly noble, if you ask me, which you should, because I have great opinions.”

“You’re putting your life on the line with every hop,” said Perry. “You’re doing that just because there are people out there who you think need killing?”

“Meh,” said Maya. “Either you get it or you don’t. You won three worlds, you said, did you think that they were unfortunate innocents?”

“Last world, maybe,” said Perry.

“It’s never been like that for me,” said Maya. “Never.” She sat back. “But biographies can come later. You still haven’t answered the allies question.”

“Oh,” said Perry. “Yes, we can be allies.”

“Ugh, why do you have to say it like that?” she asked. “Like a nerd.”

“Does that word, ‘nerd’, mean something different where you come from?” asked Perry. “Because where I come from, it’s an insult. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but we try not to insult allies.”

She rolled her eyes so hard that Perry was worried she was going to strain something. “Alright, fine,” she said. She took in a breath, sticking out her chest, then squared up her shoulders and held out her hand. “Maya Singh, world-hopper extraordinaire.”

There was a part of Perry that didn’t like her, that wanted to push the hand away. “Peregrin Holzmann,” he said, shaking her hand. It felt so small and delicate. The more he watched her, the more he thought she was probably in her thirties, not a teenager at all, as he’d first suspected. “Thresholder.”

“Do you wanna be allies?” asked Maya.

“Yes,” said Perry.

“Good,” said Maya. “Great. Now why don’t we start with you telling me what your suite of powers is like. We’ll need to figure out attack tactics or something.”

“I have the sword, which lets me fly,” said Perry. “It’s sharp enough to cut anything but stone or metal, or whatever your catsuit is made out of. I can call it to me with a thought, so long as it’s close enough, and send it flying where I want it to, but not with enough power to hurt anyone who’s serious about not being hurt. Good for a surprise attack, I guess, but I’ve never used it that way.”

“Wow, I expected some pushback,” said Maya. “And the armor?”

“It’s a high technology wonder, though not nearly as high tech as your shell,” said Perry. “Metal, microchips, servos, hydraulics, and an onboard AI.”

“Mmm,” said Maya. “But you said three worlds, not two.” She bit her lip. “In my experience, there’s something you get from every world. Did you run into a world without a power, or did you leave a trick up your sleeve?”

Perry looked out at the Great Arc. He really was enjoying the view, and the clean air, which was somehow even fresher up above the forest. It was such a change from the stained skies of Teaguewater. “Under the light of a full moon, I turn into a wolf.”

Maya burst out laughing. “Seriously? You’re a werewolf?”

Perry turned back to her. “Yes.”

“What happens when there are three moons?” asked Maya. Her eyes were wide. She seemed excited, though excited in that way that people sometimes got when they were hearing something extremely stupid.

“I don’t know,” said Perry.

“Are you in control?” asked Maya. “I mean, on a scale from rampaging monster to docile puppy, what are we talking?”

“Rampaging monster,” said Perry. “They can learn to control it, eventually, but I’ve got a single full moon under my belt. The armor blocks out moonlight, so that should be fine, but I don’t know how or if it works in this world, and there’s a good chance I could kill someone if I turn. I don’t think I can spend every single night in armor though.”

“Why not?” asked Maya.

“It’s uncomfortable,” said Perry. He had grown to feel like that was a sadly overlooked fact about armor, a detail that sailed straight by most modern depictions of what it was actually like to wear the stuff.

“Huh,” said Maya. “Mine breathes like fine cotton.”

“I had a cloth undersuit,” said Perry. “It’s toast though, nothing but scraps, and I don’t even have the scraps.” He looked at her carbon-black bracer, which clung to her wrist, and felt a pang of envy. “Is that stuff … smart?”

“Nah, not thinking,” said Maya. “This was a scifi dystopia type deal, the last people around in a universe that was grinding down to nothing in spite of everyone’s best efforts. They’d been through a lot. Initially they slapped the armor on me because I was labeled an entropy violator.”

“You said you got it in a heist,” said Perry.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m getting there,” said Maya. “Can’t you let a girl tell her story? Anyway, they thought that thresholders were pure gold, basically, the solution to all their problems, and they slapped me in the suit so that nothing would happen to me. Well, it turns out that there were rebels, and they helped me to escape, which shut the nanostuff down. The heist wasn’t actually to get the nanostuff, it was to get the codes that they were hoping would let them have the primo nanostuff, converting the bracer into a weapon par excellence. It didn’t really turn out that way, but it’s better than just a defensive tool now. Very little brain though.” She eyed Perry. “I don’t suppose you’re a computer programmer?”

“You’re still looking to crack it open,” said Perry. “Hoping for … what?”

“It doesn’t hook into the body,” said Maya. “And it doesn’t make more of itself.”

“You’re hoping that I can hack into it?” asked Perry.

“You know what, sure, shoot the moon, that’s what I’m hoping for,” said Maya. “Do you set goals?”

“Goals?” asked Perry. “For … the world?”

“Yeah,” said Maya. “What’s your goal?”

“Kill the other thresholder,” said Perry. If there is one.

“Right, right,” said Maya. “Me too. But there’s other stuff, a to-do list you’ve got, or at least a wishlist. For me, cracking the nanostuff would be a dream, easily triple my personal power.” Her eyes went to the temple around them. “Looks like we’re not far from a hot bath and a warm meal, which aren’t always guaranteed. And there’s some studying that I need to do. I don’t know if it’s happened to you, but I’ve accumulated some homework.”

“Top of the list is repairing my armor’s on-board AI, then the armor itself,” said Perry. “And for what it’s worth, he’s a skilled computer programmer.”

“The first tentative step toward being allies,” said Maya with a nod. “He was the one who shut down my armor?”

“Apparently so,” said Perry. “I’m not sure how, but the armor is at 0% power, the batteries are completely drained, and it’s going to take some time to recharge. He’ll be back online soon enough, but he’s handicapped.”

“And that’s why you lost, do you think?” asked Maya. She grinned at him. The bruise was worse than when the meeting started, and it was going to be ugly for days to come.

“It’s a ridiculously sharp sword that was going a tenth the speed it should have been,” said Perry. He pointed at her face. “If I can do that with a tenth my normal power, then yeah, I think that single lucky hit might have been enough to end you.”

Maya stared at him for a moment. “The reason I spared you was because of the discrepancy in the number of worlds. If you think we’re on equal footing — we’re not — then you probably also think that I was wrong to spare you.”

“I think if a portal was going to open up, it would have,” said Perry. “My goose was cooked, I know that. I knew it at the time. The last thirty seconds, I was almost completely blind, and before that, you fucked the cameras with too strong a light, so I was going off AI-generated reconstructions of sound.”

“I could tell,” said Maya. “And I could tell when the armor went kaput.”

“We can talk about it later,” said Perry. “We should talk about it later, if we’re going to be allies. We should know strengths and weaknesses. You’ll give me a rundown on the worlds that you’ve been to, and I’ll give you a rundown on mine.”

“Later,” said Maya. “Our guy is coming, which means we’ve got rooms.” The man was walking to them from the other side of the temple with slow, deliberate footsteps that Perry thought were probably a way of aping the movements of the second sphere.

“From the smell of it, food isn’t far behind,” said Perry. He wondered whether she was deflecting, if maybe she had something to hide, but she’d been upfront about being a murderer. ‘Assholes’ had been the word she’d used, though he wondered whether there had been any nuance to that.

“You’re angling for the second sphere, right?” asked Maya. “You would be, even if they weren’t going to hand it to us?”

“Yeah,” said Perry. “Yeah, I probably would.”

“And if they end up having their little conference and decide that they don’t want us running around with the dregs of their power,” said Maya.

“They have good hearing,” said Perry. “And I would never betray the trust of our hosts.”

“Sure, sure,” said Maya. “Glad to see we’re on the same page.”

The look she was giving him was a happy one, without calculation, but he hoped that they were on the same page. They had a lot to offer each other, as allies, even beyond the fact that another thresholder might be coming — or indeed, might already have shown up.

Mostly, he was hoping that her nanostuff would be able to fix March.