Thresholder

Perry felt better once he was in the armor, partly because of the air filtration. It also fit him considerably better than the suit had. He left the clothes folded in a pile in the attic and unblocked the trapdoor, leaving a single gold coin on top of the clothes by way of payment for any inconvenience to the family. He still had no way to spend the gold, and hoped that Florence would be able to find him a place to sleep, but he had a lead, which was the important thing.

He’d been in the first world for two months, and the second for three months, but he hoped that by seeking the Adversary out, he might be able to spend his time in this world without constantly worrying about attack, or whatever the Adversary might be getting up to. They were, at least post-printing press, which meant there were books to read, and there were also historical records of thresholders, which was a new wrinkle that he hadn't even considered as part of the pattern. He didn't particularly like the world, at least not yet. The air was acrid and the water was suspect even when boiled, and besides that, it seemed like a violent place without any of the structure that Seraphinus had. There, at least, he’d been a knight with servants and a squire.

“I’m giving you this,” Perry had said before he’d floated up into the house. He’d placed the earbud in her hand. “It goes in your ear, we’ll be able to speak to you with it.”

“We?” asked Florence, looking at it skeptically.

“It’s complicated,” said Perry. “The armor has a voice.”

“You need to not be seen,” said Florence. “That’s the Custom.”

“I’ll be flying high,” said Perry. “Above the clouds, where I can, and if I can’t, then high enough that I can be mistaken for a large bird. There’s some fog, that will give me cover.”

She seemed skeptical, but relented, and kept a lookout to let him know when he was okay to break into the house through the attic window.

Encased in the armor once more, which was a bit of a process, Perry slipped back out the window, quietly closed it, then rose with the sword straight up into the sky.

“Can you see me?” asked Perry.

“Yes, sir,” said Marchand.

“What was that?” asked Florence.

“March, someone else has the earpiece, I’m using it to communicate to them,” said Perry. He hadn’t thought too much about how this would work. “Can you make a bridge?”

“Yes, sir,” said Marchand. “Sir, the earbud was shaped to your ear canal, might I suggest that we use the fabricator to create a new earbud for our companion?”

“Not right now,” said Perry. The fabricator was two worlds away. It wasn’t the first time that March had given a suggestion like that. To the AI, it seemed as though they might reconnect to the internet at any moment, or come back home for repairs and resupply. It simply couldn’t grasp the concept of being completely stranded, away from all the things it had been built to expect. “Flora, did you see me?”

“No,” said Flora. “You’re out of the house?”

“Five hundred feet up and rising,” said Perry with a glance at the altimeter in the corner of his vision. The suit couldn’t fly on its own, but it did give information. “March, how’s the signal?”

“Between the suit and the earbud, or the unknown signal, sir?” asked Marchand.

“Both, I guess,” said Perry.

“The earbud is still transmitting and receiving well,” said Marchand. “The radio signal has grown weaker, though I believe that might be because of the changing weather conditions.” It had been bright and sunny in the morning, at least through the haze of industry, but it was foggy now, and slightly wet.

“Track the signal, give me a bearing,” said Perry. “And go radio silent, no sense giving ourselves away. Except for the earbud, I mean.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Marchand. “I have a bearing for you, sir.”

Perry’s HUD updated, and he commanded the sword to swing him forward. It was relatively slow, by the standards of speed that Perry was used to, but fast enough to outrun a horse, which had meant that Perry was the fastest thing in the last world, even when he wasn’t using the power armor to run at a sprint with leaps and bounds that could quickly drain the stored energy from the reactor.

Perry couldn’t see anything except a blanket of clouds as he moved through the sky. The HUD gave more information, but the clouds seemed to cover everything, and it almost felt like he wasn’t moving at all, or moving across an infinite field of soft white.

“March, any signals analysis?” asked Perry.

“I have detected what I believe to be a representation of the Fibonacci sequence, sir,” said Marchand. “By the way sir, we appear to have moved out of range of the earbud.”

“That’s fine,” said Perry. He hoped Flora wouldn't mind. “And we’re outside the city?”

“In the farmland to the north, I believe,” replied Marchand. “If we’re done with radio silence, I could make a better map for you, or send the drone out once the fog lifts.”

“Not yet,” said Perry. He was peering down at the clouds. They were right over the signal, at least according to March. “This is the only radio signal in the last twenty-four hours?”

“The only radio signal of non-natural origin, sir,” replied Marchand. “There has been other noise from other sources, including the Sun.”

Perry frowned. This was, according to Flora, the start of the Century of Progress, whatever that meant. They had electrical telegraphs, and other crude electrical components. It wasn’t impossible that some inventor was monkeying around with novel radio equipment at a farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere, and that this happened to coincide with Perry showing up in this world. If that were the case, then landing with power armor and a magic sword seemed like it would be a profound violation of the Custom, which Flora seemed to take very seriously — seriously enough that she’d been on the verge of fighting him with claws out. Perry had always felt like the Prime Directive was a bit bunk, but it was a good enough rule of thumb when you didn't know what kind of civilization you'd found yourself in.

He dropped down into the fog, wishing that the armor had a stealth mode.

The manor was shrouded in fog, though once Perry was actually in it, the visibility wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. It was a large place, with extensive grounds and tall windows, taking some of the styling of a castle but with nothing defensive about it. A large door sat at the front of it, fifteen feet tall and imposing, but if someone had wanted to attack the place, they could have just broken through the windows on either side. A turret jutted up from one corner of the place, and had some electrical equipment on it beneath a propped-up parasol, but there was no one there. Instead, highlighted by Marchand, there were voices coming from the grounds behind the manor.

There was nothing hiding Perry from view aside from the fog, which wasn’t heavy enough to make him invisible. The biggest thing that would keep him from sight was that people didn’t normally look straight up, and he moved above the figures that Marchand had picked out, retreating into the fog in the hopes that he could listen in.

The conversation was halfway to being an argument, and seemed to be about some technical matter. Both men were dressed in fine suits, though with the jackets laid out on a pair of expensive chairs that must have been dragged out from inside. They had a book between them, and kept pointing at figures, sometimes flipping through the pages, but Perry couldn’t make heads or tails of what they were actually getting at. Beside them was a large contraption, which Perry guessed was either a radio transmitter or receiver, the one that March had picked up from Teaguewater.

“Yes, it should work with sound,” one of them was saying, after a discussion about electrical currents. “We’ve proven the transmission works, it’s only a matter of conduction at a distance. There’s no need for coding or transformation or what have you.”

“I just don’t think that’s right,” said the other. “But the book isn’t clear on the matter.”

“March, can you confirm that’s radio equipment down there?” asked Perry.

“No, sir,” replied Marchand. “Sorry, but archaic equipment is beyond me, at least until we reconnect to the network. There’s no signal at the moment, sir.”

Perry stifled a sigh. It was possible that these men were just scientists, working from a book that someone else had written. Both looked too finely dressed to be someone like him, assuming that the Adversary had come in at around the same time.

Perry had no idea whether that was a good assumption to make.

“It’s vibration, that’s all,” said the first man, who was older, with dark hair. His sleeves were rolled up and his finger was on the book. “There should be no need for any encoding, and indeed, if we did encode, we would be no better than telegraphy.”

“The encoding and decoding would happen on their own,” the second man insisted. He had sandy brown hair and ruddy cheeks, and had removed his tie to unbutton his shirt. He seemed less interested in the book.

“I simply don’t see how that’s possible,” said the first man. “Receiver and transmitter need to be in concert with each other, and the easiest way to perform audio transmission would be to have the sound waves stay coherent as they are. You’re talking about the deconstruction and reconstruction of complex mathematical constructs, and it seems a fool’s game to turn telegraphy, somehow, into recognizable speech.”

“It’s possible in principle,” the second man replied, stubborn. He folded his arms.

“We should break for the day,” the first man said. “We’ve made great strides. With what we’ve accomplished here, we can make a fortune, so long as we can secure a patent from the royal offices. Not a word of this to anyone.”

Perry didn’t want them to break for the day, not if one of them was the Adversary, which was seeming increasingly unlikely. If they went to go talk about other things, it seemed doubtful that they would just let something slip about other worlds, though he supposed it was possible. In fact, it seemed likely that the Adversary would keep other people in the dark. It’s what Perry had tried, though he hadn’t been successful.

He looked down at the two men, who were starting to pack up and unplug their equipment. He didn’t know whether speaking to them counted as violating the Custom, but radio technology wasn’t magic, and didn’t seem like it should count. Both men were unarmed, though he knew that could be deceiving: his own sword could be called to him on relatively short notice.

Perry was prepared to kill the Adversary. He was even prepared to make the first strike. He wasn’t prepared to kill two people who were working on radio technology on the off chance that one of them was the person he was after.

“Can you read the book?” asked Perry.

“Not at this distance,” said Marchand. “If you get closer, I could attempt to resolve the letters with some guesswork.”

Perry gripped the sword tightly and lowered himself down, hoping that neither of the two men would look up. If one of them was the Adversary, there would almost certainly be a fight, and Perry would be on the back foot. He’d approached this place thinking that it might be a trap, and he still thought that might be true.

“Here,” said Marchand once Perry was low enough. The open page of the book was put up in the HUD, rotated, unskewed, and sharpened, then with the individual letters overlaid with March’s best guess about what each of them was.

It wasn’t a book about radio technology. It was a book about the history of radio technology.

Perry frowned. That did seem to confirm it. The book had come from another world, it must have. And that meant that he’d narrowed his search considerably.

He thought about retreating, back to Flora, to the Jade Council, so he could gather strength there, and possibly allies. He had a bead on the Adversary, and the Adversary didn’t seem to have any idea where he was or what he was doing.

Then he thought about Richter. He remembered looking over at her as the dust fell down from Mordant’s third attack, the worst one. He’d seen her slumped against a wall with a growing pool of blood beneath her.

His grip on his sword tightened.

“March, is it possible to transmit to them?” asked Perry.

“I believe so, sir,” replied Marchand.

“They would be able to hear my audio?” asked Perry.

“Yes, sir,” replied Marchand. “Though we’re close enough that the suit’s speakers could be used instead.”

“Use the radio,” said Perry. “Strong enough that they can hear me. Transmit the following message.” He paused for a moment, swallowing, gathering his words. He thought of Mordant, and of Pulver. Neither of these men looked like the monsters those others had been. “Another world.”

“Is that it, sir?” asked Marchand.

“Yes,” said Perry. “See how they react.”

“Transmitting, sir,” replied Marchand.

The two men turned to their speaker as Perry’s words came out of it. The younger of the two, the one with sandy hair, seemed astonished, and moved closer to the speaker, but the older regarded it calmly.

“Intriguing,” he said.

Perry retreated up, back into the fog, in case they started to look around. They became hazy in his view, until Marchand put up an outline around them in the HUD.

“How is that possible?” asked the younger of them. He was still looking at the receiver, as though there was some trick he was missing.

“Radio waves,” replied the other, who was still stoic, staying where he was. “The receiver was always the easy part. It seems as though our transmissions were noticed.”

“Noticed?” asked the one with sandy hair. “The range was supposed to be low.”

“A few miles, perhaps,” replied the older one. “More, with the right conditions. As far as Teaguewater.”

“Wesley, are you telling me that whoever sent that is close?” asked the one with sandy hair.

“Close can be relative,” Wesley replied. He was stroking his chin. “It’s proof of the concept, at least. The clarity of the transmission was stunning.” He tapped his foot. “It would seem that scientific pursuits will need to be put on hold for a moment, and we’ll need to prepare.”

“Could they know where we are?” asked what Perry was guessing was an assistant.

“If they heard the transmission, yes,” Wesley replied. “It would take some mathematical skill, and an adjustable receiver, but I do think it possible that they would at least have a direction. Anything more would take triangulation, though I don’t suppose the problem would be beyond someone who seems to have mastered what we’re trying to achieve here. But yes, Cosme, I do think it’s time to prepare for a visitor.”

Perry dropped to the ground without another thought, putting himself between the two men and the manor. His sword was still sheathed, his hand on the grip, ready to draw it. As well as granting flight and moving through the air at a command, it was sharp enough to cut through plate armor. The two men were wearing suits made of cloth.

“I don’t think I’ll be giving you time to prepare,” said Perry. His voice was firm. He was thinking of Richter and her dying breaths. He was tense and ready.

“Intriguing,” said Wesley, whose eyebrows had gone up, but who had otherwise shown no sign of shock or alarm.

“Now hang on just a moment,” said Cosme, whose face had gone white.

“That book came from another world,” said Perry. His voice sounded more imposing, filtered through the armor, he knew. “Which one of you brought it here?”

Wesley and Cosme glanced at each other.

“Given the sword, it seems as though the question might prove deadly for someone,” said Wesley. “Though I’m curious how you know the book’s origins in the general sense but not the specific.”

“That armor,” said Cosme. He was short of breath.

Perry unsheathed the sword. He wanted to end this without violence, but he didn’t know how that was possible. The other Adversaries, if he’d disarmed them and let them live, seemed as though they’d have regrouped to go after him. Here, there was nothing to disarm, no obvious wooden arms or bulging weapons.

“Violence,” said Wesley. “I’ve never had my life threatened.” He seemed energized by the idea, rather than afraid.

“The book,” said Perry. “Where did it come from?”

“Incoming,” said Marchand, shortly before Perry suffered a blow to the back of the head. The armor had tensed up, protecting him from the worst of it, preventing a broken neck, but he was knocked to one knee.

When he bounced back to his feet, Cosme was holding a long staff in one hand.

“You,” said Perry. He tightened his grip on the sword. It hadn't hurt much, but it had been an attack, just not one that was followed by a second strike. Perry wasn't sure that was enough to start in with his sword, not when Cosme looked so pathetic.

“I’d really hoped that was going to go better,” said Cosme. He was shaking slightly. He took a steadying breath. “Look, you’re from another world, we’re in the same situation, I don’t want any trouble, there’s no reason for us to fight.”

Perry lowered his sword a fraction. “What are you doing here?”

“Uplift,” said Cosme. “Technological acceleration. Leaving the world better than I found it.”

“You’ve fought people,” said Perry, gesturing at the staff. “You tried to kill me, just then.”

“You’ve got armor and a sword,” said Cosme. “What else am I supposed to do? But as far as I know, if we both keep out of each other’s way, we get as much time on this planet as we want.”

“I don’t want time on this planet,” said Perry.

He tightened his grip on his sword and let out a deep breath. What he wanted wasn’t possible. He wanted Richter back. Maybe, if he kept going, he’d find a way, if it took a dozen universes, or a hundred. He wanted to kill the Adversaries, to wipe them from the world, and he wanted to face down Mordant again, and this time deliver the killing blow instead of hesitating.

“How many times have you lost?” asked Cosme. He was still holding the staff in front of him like it would do any good. If it had flown through the air and struck Perry, maybe it would. It looked like it had been made from a sapling, with the end of its carved roots surrounding a small piece of reddish rock. It was magic, Perry was sure, maybe from the same sort of world where Perry had gotten his sword.

“How many times have you?” asked Perry.

“Seven,” replied Cosme without hesitation. “This is my tenth world.”

Perry regarded him. Some of Cosme's fear made more sense now, not that Perry was never afraid when going into battle. Three months as a knight engaged in warfare had cured him of some of that fear, or at least a quivering response to it, but if he’d been badly beaten and left for dead, seven times no less … he wouldn’t be trying to reinvent radio technology, that was for certain.

“Give me a month,” said Cosme. “Then we can fight. Out away from people, somewhere just the two of us. You can kick my ass then, and Wesley will have invented all kinds of things, to help push this world into modernity.”

Perry did consider it, though not for long. He was being asked to leave an opponent, who was on the back foot, caught unaware, so that they could both regroup and gather strength. Cosme had the staff, but probably something else as well. If this was his tenth world, that left room to have accumulated all kinds of power. And Cosme knew more about what being a thresholder was, which would give him an advantage.

It was entirely possible that they didn’t even need to come to blows at all. Cosme had said that they got as much time on the planet as they wanted. Was that true? Could he be trusted?

“What happens when you lose?” asked Perry.

“You’ve never lost?” asked Cosme.

“No,” replied Perry.

“How many worlds?” asked Cosme.

“This is the third,” said Perry.

Cosme nodded slowly. His staff was still in front of him, held out defensively. “I’ve beaten beaten raw. I spent one world wearing a cast on my arm, not able to move it, before I got beaten again and landed in a world with healing magic.”

"What kind of healing?" asked Perry. "How strong? Resurrection?"

"No," said Cosme. "Just mending."

Perry felt himself frowning, which he knew wasn’t visible to them with his armor on. That was one of the things that he was looking for, in these other worlds, because if he could find a way to bring people back to life, then he could bring Richter back to life, if he could find a way back to her world. She was dead, but on ice, preserved by a cryonics clinic. Even without magic, she'd thought that death didn't need to be the end.

“I’m not good at this,” said Cosme. “I’m not built for fighting. Just give me some time, so I can do some good, so we’re not just having a fight.”

It felt like a lie, or a trap. To Perry, it felt like setting himself up to be killed in his sleep. Even if he did accept the arrangement, he’d spend the next month having to watch his back, trying to accumulate power. Two enemies was enough to establish a pattern, Pulver had specifically requested a fight to the death, and Cosme had framed it that way too, not in terms of encounters, but wins and losses. It was competition, obvious competition, and when you had the opponent on the back foot, when they weren’t prepared, that wasn’t the time to let up.

That had been Mordant’s lesson.

“Give me the staff,” said Perry.

Cosme’s lips tightened. “I can’t. It’s bound to me and responds to my call.”

“And if it goes missing, I’ll know you’ve betrayed me,” said Perry. “I don’t want to kill you.” He was surprised to find that was true. It had been easier when the Adversary was an abstraction, rather than a slightly short, somewhat scrawny boy. Cosme was of age, but Perry could imagine him as a kid brother.

Cosme still hesitated. “It’s a tool. It's a method of defense. You’re asking me to give up my shield to someone who’s asking at swordpoint.”

“It does seem unfair,” said Wesley, who’d been calmly regarding the exchange, standing apart from it.

“Your other option is that we have our fight here and now,” said Perry.

He had been in enough fights before that his heart was racing in anticipation. He knew what it would be like to fight, if not the specifics. The staff had appeared in Cosme’s hand, and must have flown out of the house, hitting him hard enough to bring him to his knees. Cosme was claiming weakness, saying that he was bad at fighting, and holding an item of significant magical power.

“I’m not giving you the staff,” said Cosme. He shifted his stance. “I’m asking for mercy. Time. There’s work to do here. Wherever you’re from, you could be making this world better too. You must know things. Science, medicine, —”

“The staff, now,” said Perry. “If you don’t want to fight, then —”

Cosme changed his grip on the staff, holding it in one hand, by the end. There was plenty of lead up to his swing, more than enough time to react, and Perry had his sword up to block it, feet planted to absorb the blow. He was not at all prepared for the sheer power of it though, and was knocked backward, tumbling across the grass, landing dazed, a hundred feet from where he’d been.

Cosme was moving closer, holding the staff like an overly-long club, anger written on his face. His ruddy cheeks had grown redder.

“March, shoot to kill,” said Perry.

The gun rose from where it was encased in the suit’s shoulder, was aimed with servomotors, locked into place with clamps, and fired, all as one smooth action that barely moved the suit.

The staff changed positions, moving with such speed that it should have broken the hand that was holding it. There were no sparks and barely a sound, just the conclusion that Cosme hadn’t been hit, which Perry came to only once the gun had fired again. The staff changed position again, marginally this time, in front of Cosme’s face.

“Cease fire,” said Perry. That was two bullets down, which left five remaining. He should have just shot from the moment he knew that Cosme was who he was looking for.

When Cosme came close enough, he swung again, this time overhead, and Perry slipped out of the way, then in, aiming for Cosme’s chest. The staff came up again, changing positions for a block, moving so fast that it would have been impossible to avoid the parry. It was like swinging a sword against stone, firm and unyielding, and the armor wasn’t able to stop the shock entirely. A small gouging in the staff was all there was to show for it, and Perry pulled back, sword held in front of him.

“I haven’t gotten anything from this world yet,” said Cosme. He was very visibly angry, face red. “That’s part of the deal.”

Perry looked down at Cosme’s arm, the one that was holding the staff. Beneath the white shirt, something was glowing red, right on the wrist. There was something beneath the fabric there.

“You’re weaker than you look,” said Cosme. “Two worlds, sword and armor?”

It seemed like a bad idea to answer honestly, or to say anything at all. Perry had ended up on the back foot, unclear on what he was even facing, though what he’d seen so far showed more strength than he had thought. Cosme had said that he’d lost seven times, and it made Perry wonder how. These bits of magic might have been recent aquisitions.

“One month,” said Perry. “Meet again in one month.” It sounded weak, coming out, even modulated through the armor.

“In a month you’ll be stronger,” said Cosme. He was breathing hard. “There’s power somewhere in this world, there always is. I wouldn’t have taken the deal either if I were in your position, for the record. I just thought you’d be tougher to kill.”

He moved in, taking another of his wide, powerful swings. Perry’s armor was strong, but it wasn’t built for mobility, and he barely avoided a blow that shook the ground where it landed. He swung the sword toward Cosme’s head, and the staff sprung up from the ground, blocking almost instantly again. If it could strike with that speed, Perry would have already died, which meant that it was a defensive power. There was another gouge in the wood, but it didn’t seem to have done anything but mar the staff.

“March, fire when he blocks,” said Perry, backing up again.

Cosme was still on the offensive, moving carefully, staff held in the same awkward grip. He was circling slightly, putting Perry with the manor to his back. Eventually, Perry would be against the wall, at least if he kept moving backward.

Perry lunged, and Cosme blocked, not seeming to use any energy or attention to do it, as though the staff had a mind of its own. At the same time, the gun fired from Perry’s shoulder, and when it did, the staff lept again, only barely fast enough. Cosme moved back, staff held in front of him, and with his free hand, touched his face. He was bleeding heavily from the side of his cheekbone, and his ear was red and ragged. It had been a grazing hit, deflected but not enough. He brought his hand up, so he could look at it without taking his eyes off Perry.

“I’m very tired of losing,” said Cosme.

The red glow beneath his shirtsleeve intensified, and the fabric began to burn, revealing a golden bracer beneath it, set with rubies, which were the source of the glow. The flame from the shirt sputtered out.

The next swing was faster, stronger, and impossible to dodge. Perry had his sword in front of him, but it was too much force, and he was sent backward again, this time crashing through one of the windows of the manor. His sword had struck against his armor, and March was saying something about damage, but Perry was disoriented, in the middle of a living room with mahogany floors and baroque furniture. Cosme was running, closing the gap between them, and lept through the broken window like he had practiced running hurdles.

Perry flew, letting the sword take him, and crashed through a window on the other side of the room in a rain of wood and glass. He had the sword lift him up, into the air, until he was a hundred feet above the ground, and he saw Cosme go through the broken window and look up into the sky.

Perry didn’t think that he could win. He hadn’t had a good measure of Cosme. Now that they’d fought, it seemed as though the armor wasn’t tough enough, the bullets too easily stopped, the sword not a match for the staff. He was certain that Cosme saw it too, and the aggression was more frightening, because it meant that for all the front he’d put up, Cosme had a killing instinct.

The staff began to spin in Cosme’s hand, faster and faster, and it shouldn’t have been even remotely possible, but Cosme moved the spinning staff above his head and began to fly.

Perry fled, and Cosme was faster. They were both hundreds of feet off the ground, moving into deeper fog, barely able to see each other — but the distance between them was closing, and fast.

“March, fire,” said Perry, breathing hard.

The gun fired and Cosme’s staff immediately moved to block it — which caused him to drop down into the fog, the flight interrupted. Half of Perry wanted to follow after, to try to finish it in an arena where he had an advantage, but Cosme was out of sight, and there was no better time to increase the distance. In the fog, Cosme wouldn’t be able to follow.

There was power in a world, Cosme had said, and before they met again, Perry was going to find it.