Thresholder

“I was born in the Year of Sighing Trees,” said Xiyan. “My family owned a tea house, which had been in the family for nineteen generations. I was the youngest of nine children, raised into the business of brewing and serving tea. The business was good, but there was never enough to go around. My parents tried to find good futures for their children. I was sent to live with a wealthy family at the age of ten, accompanied by my elder sister for the first few months. I wept every night, out of loneliness, but in the morning I would make sure that my eyes were clear and my smile ready.” She paused. “These are the details that you wanted?”

“Yes,” said Perry. “You’re a good storyteller.”

“Do you have tea houses, in your world?” asked Xiyan.

“We do,” said Perry with some hesitation. “Not like here though, I don’t think.”

“They are places of stories,” said Xiyan. “My mother was a storyteller, and taught me the art.” She turned aside. “My life is not like the histories or the epics of the battles fought across the Great Arc. There is no great rising or falling to it, except for the fall of the Grouse Kingdom.”

“That’s fine,” said Perry. “I’m still trying to get used to speaking like this.” That was true, but it was getting easier as the minutes passed. “I’ll stop you if I have questions, but these things are interesting to me. You know I’m from another world. Even the mundane things are new to me.”

Xiyan nodded slowly. “I will endeavor to focus on the mundane,” she said, tone serious. She composed herself and got into what Perry assumed was a storyteller’s pose, spine straight and hands positioned in a precise way in her lap, fingernails of each hand in the valley of the palm of the other.

“The matriarch of the family I worked for was second sphere, but she was the only one,” said Xiyan. “She had the clear, tight skin of a young woman, but hair as white as fallen snow. Her first husband had long since died, but she had remarried several times, always one after the other. The family was less large than my own, but it was fractured, with many different half-siblings of different ages. She kept a loose house, allowing her children to run fat and free. It is not a servant’s place to speak ill of her masters, but I suffered at the hands of those children.”

She cleared her throat. “I was blamed for accidents, made to redo good work, insulted and demeaned. I could have understood it from someone of the second sphere, their immaculate perfection a matter of the Great Arc’s will. These were men and women like me though, distinguished only by their wealth. They had no noble birth, nor were they scholars or civil servants. They had meals on platters, laden with goose and ham, and picked off only small pieces of it. So that it wouldn’t go to waste, the servants would eat the scraps, but the family looked down on us for it.”

She watched Perry, her audience of one, and he kept his face neutral. If Maya was hearing something like this, she was liable to go ballistic, though she said she’d more or less learned her lesson about going up against entrenched interests with more firepower than she had. He didn’t really believe that, but it was what Maya said.

“I was in that house until I was sixteen,” said Xiyan. “A second sphere scholar of some prestige had come to visit, and I caught his eye. Though he was told that I was unfit as a servant, he saw that for the lie it was, and took me anyway. The matriarch couldn’t refuse him, you see, for he had a position at the court of the Grouse Kingdom. We made the journey across the kingdom in his litter, which moved without the touch of human hands, accompanied by at least a dozen of the scholar’s servants. He spoke with me at length, and noted a skill for storytelling. My mother’s lessons had been long in the past, but I tried my best to enthrall and entertain him, making up stories where my memories of the histories and sagas had worn thin.

“When we arrived in the capital, his interest waned, and I found myself as one servant among many. The scholar had his own army of servants, but the capital had many men like the scholar, all with servants of their own. There was a pecking order, and I was at the bottom of it. I worked as diligently as I could, but there was less work to do there, and much of my time was idle.

“The scholar’s wife didn’t like me. She didn’t want him to have another concubine, and feared that would be my fate. He had brought young girls home before, a few for the purposes of marriage. The scholar had lost interest in me after our trip back to his home, but his wife was still suspicious of me. She brought a doctor in to speak with me, using the excuse of hygiene, and he made me drink a foul black liquid that I spat back up, clear. I know now this was to make sure that I hadn’t been …” she trailed off and blushed. “That the scholar had not taken steps toward me becoming his concubine. The scholar’s wife questioned my honor and virtue, and even the doctor’s report didn’t seem to reassure her.”

This was the sort of information that was vital for Perry to know. He hadn’t intended to sleep his way through the temple, but if they had a strong purity culture, it was all entirely off the table. He would also probably not mention anything about his past and let them believe whatever they would about his past — though purity cultures didn’t often place the same restrictions on men that they did on women.

“The scholar’s wife was always trying to find a place for me away from the house,” said Xiyan. “Eventually, she pulled strings and got me moved yet again. I was two years in their service by that time, and had only barely settled in. The work was easy and infrequent, but the other servants didn’t like me, as they harbored the same suspicions that the scholar’s wife did. For a girl like me, becoming a concubine to a man of the second sphere can greatly elevate one’s position, even for a third concubine. If he had asked, I confess I might have accepted, even if I felt no love in my heart for the man.”

She was watching Perry’s face for judgment, and he made sure she found none there. She wasn’t a golddigger, or whatever they would call it here, or at least was taking pains to present herself as innocent. Marrying into money was a sweet gig, if you could get it, at least in his opinion.

“My new home was in the palace of the Grouse King,” said Xiyan. “I had even less work to do, much of it tidying rooms that were never used. I kept my head down and tried not to draw the eye of anyone important. I saw the king and queen only once or twice in three years, their sons a bit more frequently. We weren’t supposed to look at them though, so I kept my head bowed in their presence, eyes watching the floor. I wouldn’t have minded that, for a life. I wasn’t treated with the same suspicion in the royal palace, and the masters weren’t as demanding as the first home I worked in, even if they had their sins. I still longed for the tea house, hoping that I would get a letter one day saying that I could come home, but I was an adult, on my own, and the hope faded more every year.”

She sat up straighter, having sunk a little as she spoke. Her hands were still in the same position. “Some months ago, the youngest prince died.”

“How?” asked Perry.

“He was murdered in his sleep,” said Xiyan. “On the night it happened, I awoke to his mother’s screams. She had gotten out of bed late at night and had smelled blood. The castle was instantly ablaze with lights, candles and torches burning bright as they tried to find the murderer. No sign of him was ever discovered. In the following days, the castle became a porcupine, a thousand swords from a thousand guards sticking straight up. We were interrogated, all of us, by the finest minds of the kingdom, though no one really thought that someone of the first sphere could have done it. The three princes were all second sphere, after all, feather-light sleepers. To cut one apart like that …” She shook her head. “It was the beginning of the end for the Grouse Kingdom.”

“Why?” asked Perry.

“A king who cannot protect his sons has no hope of protecting his people,” said Xiyan. She frowned. “A week later, another son was murdered, and more guards, more soldiers, were pulled into the castle. No one knew how it had happened. They can do incredible things, the upper spheres, but in spite of that the king was powerless to stop it.” She shook her head. “The king ordered a manhunt. He executed more than two dozen people, guards and servants that he thought had failed him. I was lucky to be spared the blade.” She took a breath. “The castle became ever-more fortified, its defenses unbreachable. Some servants were expelled, which I thought was fortunate for them. It put them further from the king’s wrath. I wasn’t so lucky.”

“Who was doing the killing?” asked Perry. “Why?”

“It remains a mystery,” said Xiyan. “Even to this day, after the kingdom has fallen. The king thought that it was someone of a higher sphere than his own, perhaps much higher. He spoke of foul sorcery, imbalanced alchemy, all manner of things. The death of one son in his own castle might have been enough to drive him to madness, but the death of two was more than he could stomach. He was beset by paranoia, jumping at shadows, his last son clutched tightly, guards watching every move — and each other.”

“But as all this was going on, the kingdom was going into revolt,” said Perry. “The kingdom was falling while he tried to protect his last son.”

“I was in the castle,” said Xiyan. “I did not see the revolt in the fields, the way the king’s armies turned on him. I learned later, as I fled the burning castle. I saw the scars of war as the kingdom tore itself apart. I was with others, servants who I knew and trusted, and we made our way across the border, depending on the kindness of strangers and praying that we would avoid the worst of the conflict. Many had already left before us though, and the land had been stripped of food and supplies. Towns we passed through were deserted or burned down, thoroughly looted, not so much as a sack of rice left to eat. We carried on, losing many of our number, some to disease or injury, others to hunger. When we arrived in the Kingdom of Seven Valleys, there were only three of us, and the rising sun upon the land did little to give us —”

“Wait, sorry,” said Perry. “Back up a bit. Two of the king’s three sons were killed, he went a little nuts, lost the faith of his people, and faced a revolt from both first and second sphere. Okay, that’s all understandable, but what happened to him? What about his third son?”

“I apologize,” said Xiyan. She looked sorrowful. “I don’t know. The king is gone, but whether dead or deposed, I never heard. A new kingdom will be built in its place, the second sphere say. Some new king with a celestial decree will take his place, the citizens bowing down to his will. I would prostrate myself, if such a man made himself known.”

“And you came here?” asked Perry. “You were welcomed with open arms?”

She gave him a soft smile. “I was raised as a storyteller. Forgive me for telling a story that is incomplete. When we came to the Kingdom of Seven Valleys, we were not welcomed with open arms. I went from one place to another, eventually separating from those that remained of the palace staff. Eventually I came to this temple, as they had want of servants. When I heard that they needed someone to be your valet, I jumped at the chance.” Her smile grew wider, and she covered her mouth with her hand. “I had not known that I would get to be a storyteller once more.”

“Not just a storyteller,” said Perry. “You’re my insight into the culture here, less reserved than the second sphere. Trying to get answers from the likes of Luo Yanhua is like pulling teeth.” He saw her stiffen slightly. “It’s just an expression.” Perhaps he’d spoken with a bit too much venom in his voice.

“I will tell you whatever you want to know,” said Xiyan. “I can tell that you have a kind soul. I pride myself in my work, and will serve you faithfully, in whatever way I can.”

“Thank you,” said Perry. “The language practice helps.” He’d been told that it was easy, but after failing with Luo Yanhua, he’d feared the worst. Seeing the language was like seeing the meridians, easy and fluid. “For now, I need to go meditate.”

“Of course,” nodded Xiyan. “Anything that you need, I will provide.” She bowed deeply to him and then rose from beneath the tree, moving away with only a single backward glance.

Perry sat, but didn’t start meditating. He was puzzling over what she’d said, the story of the Grouse Kingdom. She was right that it was an incomplete story, but the glaring incompleteness was the lack of a culprit. More than that, there was a lack of a motive. Perry was taking this world at face value, for the most part, and if there was something like karma, it seemed as though unmotivated killings of princes while they slept must have some kind of impact. Wouldn’t someone swooping in and doing that mean that the culprit was weakening himself? And wouldn’t they be weakening themself more if they were a higher sphere? To what end?

Xiyan hadn’t given him a specific date, but the first killing had been ‘months’ ago. Based on what he knew of thresholder arrival times, there could be months between them. A mysterious rash of killings seemed like it might be the sort of thing that you’d find with thresholders. That still left the questions of culprit and motive, but the fact that it seemed out of the ordinary was certainly enough to raise his eyebrow. He would have to talk with Maya about it … but when he thought about killing people in the middle of the night, about someone who would hate aristocrats, Maya was the first and only person that came to mind.

It was entirely possible that he was grasping at straws. He would have to speak with Luo Yanhua and get her version of events, though it didn’t seem like news traveled quickly along the Great Arc.

Perry cast those thoughts aside and started his meditation, remaining beneath the tree.

~~~~

“You got it faster than me,” said Maya. They were in his room, a half hour before the temple quieted down for the night. Nothing was quite so strict at Crystal Lake Temple, which was a nice change of pace, but after the sun had set, activity virtually stopped.

“Yeah,” said Perry. “I think I have a knack for this sort of stuff.”

“You said you had stalled out on that other magic though, right?” asked Maya.

“From Seraphinus?” asked Perry.

“Maybe?” asked Maya. “The medieval one.”

“Right, Seraphinus,” said Perry. “I mean, I look at the books from time to time, but the books were written by men for whom literacy was proof enough of their intellectual achievement. I’m not convinced that they actually understood the magic. If they did, they were terrible about writing tutorials, FAQs, best practices, or anything helpful to a guy like me.”

“Shame,” said Maya. “There’s lots of stuff I’m not capped out on, I think it comes with thresholding.”

“Have you picked a tether yet?” asked Perry.

“I’m still confused by what the options are,” said Maya. “And what happens when we leave.”

“Yeah,” said Perry. “Do you tether to something abstract in the hopes of keeping it going, or do you tether to something concrete and then just leave it behind?”

“Abstract, I think,” said Maya. “But if I need a formal code of justice … fuck that.”

“You don’t like living by a code?” asked Perry.

“If I had a formal code of justice, I think I’d be obligated to do some things that resulted in me not living very long,” said Maya. “I like fighting the good fight, but I don’t like having my teeth kicked in.” She nodded. “Happened to me in the biopunk world, literally.” She opened her mouth, and Perry looked inside. The color was maybe a little bit off, but it was hard to say. “New teef,” she said, mouth still partly open.

“Luo Yanhua is tethered to what she calls the academic virtue,” said Perry. “I could do that, depending on what it entails. She’s at ‘publish or perish’, but I don’t think you need to go that hard. I could go around, investigate things, write up some papers and then distribute them to the locals … maybe.”

“Better to focus on fighting,” said Maya. “You said that’s something you’re good at.”

“I’m good at a lot of things,” said Perry.

“Don’t get cocky, it’s not a good look,” said Maya.

“I’m crushing meditation,” said Perry. “I managed to land a hit on Luo Yanhua when we were sparring, too. I mean, it wasn’t serious, but I wasn’t even using the wolf.”

“Can you feel your extra vessel?” asked Maya.

“Kind of,” said Perry. “Took some effort, but it’s here.” He pointed to his chest, just below his heart. “I do kind of wonder whether silver works against me. It would be dumb, but … werewolf myths coming from somewhere wouldn’t be absurd, right?”

“I’ll try to find a silver knife to stab you with,” said Maya.

“It’s crazy to me that it is an extra vessel,” said Perry. “These are different magic systems from different worlds, and they somehow interact with each other? I had thought it would be … I don’t know. Non-overlapping magisteria.”

“Explain that one to me, nerd,” said Maya.

“It’s this idea that science and religion are different from one another, orthogonal questions,” said Perry. “I’d kind of thought … the worlds would have their own separate systems in place that wouldn’t interact with each other.”

“Yeah,” said Maya. “But if you can integrate them, that means more power, right? Have you had any luck getting the vessel to do anything? Did you try poking it with a stick?”

“I’ve tried everything except for moonlight,” said Perry. “I’ll do that later. I figure the more I have control of everything else, the easier the transformation will be to redirect and harness. If I can hold onto a store of moonlight, then wolf out whenever I want to, or better, store moonlight and then crack the vessel for a strength boost —”

“Alright alright,” said Maya. “Don’t go getting a hard-on just yet.”

“You have your vessel?” asked Perry. “The sunlight one or whatever?”

“It’s still missing in action,” said Maya. “But I can feel the energy when I fire off a blast of sunlight, or heal myself, so … it’s gotta be a vessel somewhere, which means that I should be about to balloon it out.”

Perry nodded. “Hey, while I’ve got you here, do you know what happened to the Grouse Kingdom?”

“Fell, didn’t it?” asked Maya. “Some dumbass king taxing too much and using the funds for banquets instead of roads or community centers. Monarchy has got to be one of the stupidest systems of governance ever created.”

“The king had three sons,” said Perry. “At least two of them died by getting their throats cut in the middle of the night. Probably all three.”

Maya looked at him. “I hear the way you’re saying that.” She pursed her lips. “Throats slit?”

“I mean, technically I guess I don’t know,” said Perry. “But my first thought was of you, yeah.”

“Are you going to pin it on me every time a kingdom falls?” asked Maya.

“So … was it you?” asked Perry.

“What the fuck,” said Maya. She had stood up and backed away a bit. “You think I’m a liar? That I’ve been here for months and just rolled up on the temple having toppled a kingdom?”

“I’m asking because when you avoid giving me a straight answer, it’s a bad look,” said Perry.

Maya leaned forward. “If I were lying about all that shit, I would just lie again.”

“Maybe,” said Perry.

“Not going to apologize for the accusation, huh?” asked Maya.

“It was a question, not an accusation,” said Perry.

Maya narrowed her eyes at him.

“Look, even if you had killed those guys, I wouldn’t give a shit,” said Perry. “It’s not some high crime. They’re second sphere assholes, I’m sure.”

Maya relaxed. “Oh, these were adult sons?”

“Yeah,” said Perry.

She laughed. “Shit, I thought you meant little kids, you said ‘sons’ and that’s where my head went. I was thinking six or seven.” She sucked her teeth. “Yeah, if we’re talking proper princes, I don’t think I’d do that my first night, not even my first week, but if they were especially bad … though, nah, I’d only do it if I were putting someone better on the throne, or toppling the dictatorship entirely.”

“Alright,” said Perry. “Well, that leads into my next thought, which is that absent it having been you, it might still have been a thresholder.”

Maya thought about that for a minute. “I guess.”

“It could have definitely been a rival kingdom,” said Perry. “But the cosmic karma thing makes that a little unlikely. And it could definitely have been a rogue higher sphere guy, but unless it’s to power some technique, you’d get blowback, I would think.”

“Well I’ve been talking to my own guy,” said Maya. “And there are a ton of forbidden techniques. Some of them are pretty obvious spooky stories to tell around the campfire, but others seem like they might be legit. It’s hard to say, I guess, and March can give you the logs if you want, but what I’m looking for are things that they think are beyond the pale and which I don’t.”

“You’re doing … moral arbitrage?” asked Perry.

Maya gave him a very serious nod. “You think about the things that are important to them, then you think about the things that are important to us, and that’s your comparative advantage. You’re a disrupter, basically.”

“You really were in tech,” said Perry with a laugh. “Sound logic, it just makes me uncomfortable.”

“And obviously if there are forbidden techniques that we want to use, we need to keep it from them,” said Maya. “Stuff that they’d think is beyond the pale, but that we think is a nothingburger. I don’t know what that would be, exactly, but we’re already heavily disconnected from their culture, right? We’ll brainstorm some sins.”

“It’s getting dark,” said Perry. “I’m going to get some rest, let the meridians heal and stuff. But you know, if the fall of the Grouse Kingdom was a thresholder, then they’ve been here for three months. That’s more than enough time to get a leg up on us.”

“Not much we can do about that,” said Maya. “You’re making good progress.”

“Thanks,” said Perry. “Let’s hope so.”

When Perry had washed up and closed his shutters for the night, he cracked his shutters open, just a tiny bit, to take a single look at the moons. They were waning, their light minimal, but he could feel the vessel start to crack open. It took willpower to force it closed, but it was even easier than it had been when they tested it in the woods.

If he was going to get out of here with March, let alone take on a superpowered thresholder that had been in this world for months already, he was going to have to learn to harness it.