Thresholder

The next world I visited was not far off from the world Perry comes from, what he would call modern, a place of concrete and electricity. Unlike Perry’s world, it was still a place of power and magic, beyond just nuclear weapons and firearms. And from what he’s described, his world is beset by gaudy messages from shopkeepers, but this one had beauty at every turn.

I marveled at the murals that seemed to cover every surface, the paintings as tall as trees, and the elaborate clothes that people wore. Even the laborers were sharply dressed, and of course, everyone looked at me as though I were a diseased wretch. I was still sticky from the journey through the world of candy, malnourished and wild-eyed, but the disarray helped to hide the blood I’d gotten on me in the fight.

I was taken in by their guards — police, they called them. I spoke the language, thankfully, and explained that I was simply a woman from another world who would be leaving in due course. It was the last time I tried explaining myself to anyone. They helped me clean up, but had taken my things from me, and I had a long conversation with someone whose job was to help lunatics. When I demonstrated a few of my powers for him, he left the room in a hurry, and when the door opened again, it was a pair of men from their kingdom — their government — who took me away for study.

I was docile for them until I heard them talk about dissection. They had thought I was an imbecile, rather than just tired and malnourished. The vehicle they were in was moving at incredible speeds down one of their highways, so when I attacked them, it veered off to the side and crashed. I escaped, running for my life, and stole a face at the first opportunity, which was more difficult in this world than others given that they treated death as something to be pushed out of view.

I’ve found I don’t like the modern worlds. There’s too much structure to them, and they’re not nice to those who have come from outside and don’t fit in with their systems of numbers and records. Perry admitted as much to me about his first world, the one that was a clone of his original. He said that if they’d known he was there, they might have taken him away for study, or at least ensnared him in their legal system. I was on the run, my face changed but with no way to slip into the life of the dead woman. I did what Maya Singh does: I fell in with the misfits.

The world placed such an emphasis on art, music, and fashion that I had trouble grasping it at first. Some of this was merely for practical reasons, given there were powers tied to it, but I think their obsession went beyond that. I had wondered, since hearing about the wizard’s world where everyone was an academic to the bone, whether it might be that people in different worlds are marked by those worlds at a deeper level than just their cultures, if they had something in their minds that bent them into different shapes.

The arts were everything. With enough skill, dedication, and paint, a painter could make a world that could be walked in, generally small, and with features only as they’d been painted. There were few farms outside the city, there mostly for the luxury of the real, since a painting of an apple could be eaten the same as an apple grown on a tree. Of course, people were often painting from memory, and were rushed, and those were ever more inferior, sometimes with a painting of a painting. Singing, similarly, could change the world in its own way, fortifying the singer and those who heard them. It was more temperamental, but those without means often sang for their supper. But the last and greatest of the powers was fashion, art which could be worn, and those who could draw the attention and adoration of the masses stood like gods above the rest of us.

The misfits had their talents, there could be no mistaking that, but I had no skill in painting, fashion, or sculpture, and was only passable as a singer, unable to play any of the instruments that world had to offer. Instead, I was placed into a unique position among their society: the muse.

Thresholders are outsiders by our very nature, even if we take the faces of those whose worlds we enter. I had finally understood that, and finally found a place where that was desired. I had stories to share and descriptions of the things I had seen, which set their minds alight with inspiration, and they found something compelling in my appearance, enough that they produced dozens of paintings of me.

Eventually, the moneyed class came for our small group, picking us off one by one, promising fancy apartments, all the materials of the craft, and a stable living. We were victims of success, with large showings and huge projects, and a group of people who had felt like family disintegrated over the course of months.

I had seen no sign of the other world-hopper, no special powers on display, no one making a splash in the local news, and no encounters with anyone who seemed like they might want to kill me. I had only come to the conclusion that thresholders are destined for conflict slowly, and the lesson had not yet been beaten into me. I wondered if he might be out there, the man I was destined to meet, whether he might be able to walk hand-in-hand through one of the portals.

I had been attending an exhibition thrown by one of my friends, who had done a series of provocative nudes, many of which had been based on me, attempting to capture something he’d seen in my appearance. I made a good model, he said, because I was unabashed and fearless. His standout piece, twelve feet tall, was of me wearing nothing but a mask, the image shifting as you walked around it, always seeming like you might get a peek at the face beneath, always denied no matter what angle you took.

The attack came with an explosion of glass and rock, and at once all the finery and delicacy had been turned to blood and chaos. I was one of very few people who didn’t run and scream, instead drawing my dagger, which I kept on me at all times. That made me stand out against the people screaming for their lives, and my counterpart honed in on me right away.

She was a wild creature, hair always a tangled mess, eyes glowing green, and I never once saw her at rest, nor could I imagine what she would have looked like sleeping. We only met in combat, so I suppose my view of her was skewed. Her clothes were from another world, with none of the deliberate cuts and precise accessories that marked the fashions of this one. We never had a proper conversation, and I never learned what motivated her, because friendship wasn’t something she considered important.

Her powers were entirely offensive in nature. She could degrade materials around her and crash into things with an explosion that left her unharmed, and she used both of those in concert to burst through walls. She had a two-handed polearm with an enormous ax head, and she flew on it, hands choking the shaft, thighs gripping it tightly. Those eyes, the most striking thing about her, could be charged up to spray out tiny green motes, each no larger than an ant, their consumption of the world around them indiscriminate. Yet it was her last power that was the most dangerous: she had a scream that could tear the world apart.

I had been in enough fights by that point to know when I was bested, and I fled as fast as my feet would carry me. I knew right away what she was, but not how she had found me. My face was all over the place by that point, but there was nothing to draw the conclusion that I was from another world. To this day I don’t know how she tracked me, but after that first time, she seemed to have a lot of trouble.

Klara wreaked havoc across the city.

I suppose at this point I need to tell you of the power I’d been accumulating in that world. A muse wasn’t just a source of inspiration and a font of creativity, a muse also had a connection to the works created in her likeness. I could see through the paintings my friends had done, could move their sculptures, and heard where the songs of me were sung. It made me loath to change faces. If I had done that though, I doubt that Klara would ever have been able to find me.

I watched her rampage. After the exhibition, she lost track of me, and began attacking at random, hoping to uncover me that way, I suppose. The military were sent in to stop her, with unbelievably fashionable soldiers in all their glory, and she blasted through them as though they weren’t even there. The city began to evacuate, and it seemed like Klara might tear the whole city down looking for me.

After a few attempts at talking to her through a statue, I decided there was nothing for it but to finish things. I had liked that world, and felt a great affection for it, and it did seem as though it had run its course, but I couldn’t let this woman destroy its beautiful buildings and trash its artworks.

I changed faces and approached her with sweetened words. I claimed to be a servant of the city, one tasked with helping her in her quest rather than trying to stop her. I explained that she wasn’t likely to find whoever she was looking for with the methods she was using, raw terror and destruction. I told her I had the resources necessary to help her, that there were ways that we could find someone, especially someone relatively famous, a muse.

I had thought that if I could only get close enough, I could drive a dagger into her heart and stop the whole thing. Letting me slip near her, that was going to be her mistake.

Instead, it was my mistake. She waited until I was close enough to touch, then screamed in my face, not the primal shout that I had heard from a distance before, but this time the start of a song. She hadn’t been the wild animal she first appeared: she’d picked up a lesson or two in that world.

The fight didn’t last long. I was out of practice, and had little in the way of defenses as the world roiled around me. She had a skillset of pure aggression, and I was better at hiding than anything else. Once I was down, she lost all interest in me, and once the portal opened up, she was through it like she wanted nothing more.

I was dying as I moved through my own portal. It was the first time I had been beaten. I had been to many worlds, and didn’t think there was a way to survive my wounds, but I knew that the portal was the only option.

~~~~

“I think I have had enough of the worlds for today,” said the Grandmaster. “It’s time for some questions.”

“Yes, grandmaster,” nodded Xiyan, not seeming perturbed that she’d been left on a cliffhanger. Perry couldn’t tell whether or not she’d planned to go on to the next world, but presumably she got some immediate medical attention.

“Tell me of your power,” said Grandmaster Sun Quying. “Seeing through pictures.”

“In the words of that world, I was a muse,” said Xiyan. “I can move statues, see through paintings, and less usefully, hear where songs about me are being sung. It only works if it’s my likeness, or at least heavily inspired by me, but reproduction works as well.”

Perry frowned. “It works on photographs?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Xiyan.

“And it continued to work once you had left that world?” asked the grandmaster. “Your power did not leave you?”

“It does not cross whatever threshold separates worlds, grandmaster,” said Xiyan. “But as soon as the new world had pictures of me in it, the ability continued to function just the same as it had. From what I knew, a muse gains powers as more works are created with her as the focus, but I don’t believe they had any knowledge of what would happen if all artwork of a muse was suddenly destroyed, and they certainly had no conception of the many worlds.”

“Hmmm,” said the grandmaster. He turned to Perry. “What is your opinion?”

“My opinion?” asked Perry.

“It is a curious thing, that these powers carry over,” said Grandmaster Sun Quying. He grumbled to himself. “From everything I have been told, every other world consists of first sphere peasants, some of them elevated to the position of warrior or king. Yet they learn techniques that seem fantastical, the realms of the higher spheres. They offer vessels that are used by those without spirit roots, who cannot see nor feel their vital matrix. They offer raw power. Often these powers are learned, but are not known on the Great Arc, where venerable seventh sphere masters have spent centuries scraping the last bits of meat from the hide.”

“You worry, grandmaster?” asked Xiyan.

He grunted and looked away for a moment. “‘Worry’ isn’t the right word. I think often of ascension to fourth sphere, and what it will take me. But the other worlds do not have the spheres.” He looked at Xiyan and raised an eyebrow. “Your power over paintings works here though? Even though you lost?”

“Yes, grandmaster,” nodded Xiyan. “Within the Great Arc, I can see through any image of me.”

Perry frowned inside his helmet. He wondered whether that was true for other representations, such as the video feed that was being projected to him. He wondered whether it worked on data, such as March’s hard drive, which contained the raw video files of Xiyan. He didn’t know whether it was tactically correct to ask, and there was no way to trust her answer. He would have to assume that she could see him if he could see her.

“Demonstrate,” said Grandmaster Sun Quying.

One of his attendants came in with a roll of paper, a pot of ink, and a brush. This happened wordlessly. The attendant had the same glassy-eyed appearance that Perry would have had trouble picking out a week prior. Her motions were also slightly too precise, without any spirit to them. The grandmaster’s control of the first sphere made Perry uneasy every time he noticed it.

The grandmaster stared at Xiyan for a moment, then swiftly moved his brush on the paper with an economy of motion the old man had never once suggested he possessed. The painting was minimalist, but it was done in seconds.

Xiyan didn’t move from her position, but Perry was able to see the image of her coming to life on the page, demonstrating a few of the basic Moon Gate moves.

“I cannot see a path toward accomplishing this, using the many techniques I know of,” said Grandmaster Sun Quying. His eyes were on the moving image. “It is the work of a third sphere to push their matrix out into the world, to extend their will beyond their body. Yet … what is your range?”

“There is no limit to the range,” said Xiyan. “It works across the fields of stars. It would work on the other side of the Great Arc.”

Again, Grandmaster Sun Quying frowned. He turned to Perry. “This technique is unknown to all the worlds you’ve been to? That you’ve heard of?”

“It is, grandmaster,” nodded Perry.

“And is it … learnable?” asked Grandmaster Sun Quying. “In your opinion,” he added, when Perry didn’t immediately respond.

“It’s impossible to say, grandmaster,” said Perry. He looked at Xiyan. “I haven’t had the opportunity to learn alongside another thresholder, nor to share the things I’ve learned.”

“I believe it to be impossible to learn,” said Grandmaster Sun Quying. “If it were possible, we would have learned it, being of greater academic disposition than any world you’ve been to.”

Perry kept his mouth shut. By his standards, the Great Arc was incredibly backward. They should have had satellites and phones and all that. The fact that they didn’t could mostly be chalked up to the enormous amounts of time they spent on training in martial arts, and all that really seemed to do was to contribute to brain drain and the loss of the best and brightest to higher spheres. All that wouldn’t have been so bad if the higher spheres were putting effort into public works projects, but they were decidedly not doing that. And then the whole thing with wanting to keep dangerous information out of the wrong hands (or even the right hands) compounded it.

For the grandmaster to say that the Great Arc was of greater academic disposition than any other world was betraying either astounding arrogance or a complete miscommunication.

“That is very likely true, grandmaster,” said Xiyan with a nod. “When I tell you of other worlds, you will hear of times I have tried to share what I knew.”

“There is still much to ask about what you’ve shared with us today,” said Grandmaster Sun Quying. “There is one detail I can’t help but notice. In the land of the sweets, you gained no power?”

“No, grandmaster,” said Xiyan.

“Was there a power available that you didn’t pick up?” asked the grandmaster.

“Not that I noticed,” said Xiyan. “I imagine the wizard I traveled with would have mentioned it, if there were.”

“Mmm,” said the grandmaster. “You lie.”

Xiyan said nothing in response to that.

“Do you lie because you want to keep it secret from me, or because you want to keep it secret from him?” asked the grandmaster, extending a finger in Perry’s direction.

“Both, grandmaster,” said Xiyan. “Peregrin means to kill me, for reasons that are as yet unclear to me, if it’s not my admitted deceit alone. He is a member of this sect, and you are sworn to defend him. I’ve promised to be truthful, and I have been, but there have been certain omissions. I apologize.” She bowed her head low, as though she was actually contrite.

Perry didn’t have a lot of experience with being lied to straight to his face. It just didn’t really come up a lot on Earth, and even after that, he hadn’t been around liars. He was finding it difficult to deal with, and his brain was struggling to reconcile it. He kept thinking stupid thoughts like “How does she not realize what she did?” or “Maybe I did something that made her think I was attacking her”. He knew these were stupid thoughts, he was just badly calibrated. Did he need to counter her lies at every turn? Would it just irritate the grandmaster to hear repeated defenses? Surely the grandmaster knew the score already.

It was a lot of mental wheel-spinning that wasn’t amounting to much.

“I will ask for no demonstration of the missing power,” said the grandmaster with a wave of his hand. “I only needed to know whether there was one.”

“She’s violating the deal you two made,” said Perry.

“I know what she is,” said Grandmaster Sun Quying. “When I made the deal, I understood who it was with. She has insights that she wouldn’t otherwise have any reason to share, and if there are omissions or outright lies, so what? There are many things she’d have no reason to lie about. Those are what most interest me.”

“And what’s she getting in exchange?” asked Perry.

The grandmaster cocked his head to the side, and Perry knew he’d made a mistake. Maybe it hadn’t been a mistake in what he’d said, only how he’d said it. There was plausible deniability, but that wasn’t enough.

“You know,” said Grandmaster Sun Quying, nodding to himself in satisfaction. “Ah, well, I suppose I’m ignorant of the breadth of techniques available to you. Let me bring her up.”

“Wait,” said Perry.

“No, no,” said the grandmaster, sitting up from his pillow and taking his gnarled staff that had been given to him by an attendant who hurried in from the side. “We’ll have it out then. I really do prefer for things to be in the open, it’s so much easier and cleaner that way.”

Perry waited. His eyes went to Xiyan, who was calm and poised, unafraid of being in the belly of the beast. She wasn’t even halfway through her list of worlds, and she had undoubtedly gained powers as she’d gone on. Perry didn’t think there was any way she’d be able to take on the grandmaster, but he’d been wrong before. There was no way to coerce them into fighting though, not that he could see. So far as Perry knew, aside from all the lies and deceptions, she’d mostly worked against Moon Gate.

Perry heard the chains rattling before he saw Maya. She was being marched in by two second spheres, still in the heavy stock, which she was being made to carry. Perry was mildly surprised that she hadn’t tried to fight her way out, but maybe she’d seen that as hopeless — or maybe she had tried.

“Maya Singh,” said the grandmaster. He looked over at Perry. “Had you seen her?”

“Yes, grandmaster,” said Perry.

Maya struggled against the stock, trying to get her throat clear of it so she could speak. “Eat my farts you decrepit asshole.”

“I’m impressed you got past the lock,” said the grandmaster. “It was designed to kill those who don’t know the combination.”

Perry was silent.

“Well, at any rate, it’s all in the open now,” said the grandmaster. “I’ve had Maya this whole time, and as I believe you’ve surmised, will be handing her over to Xiyan — or whatever her real name is — once I have all the information I need. What Xiyan will do with her, I don’t know, but I imagine that there will be a fight, and once that fight is concluded, I will step through the portal that the three of you have all independently said will appear.”

“Grandmaster, as a member of this sect —” began Perry.

“Bah,” said Grandmaster Sun Quying. “You wish to ask for my help? I’m not bound to assist, so I choose not to.” He frowned at Perry. “I know exactly what happened at Moth Lantern Hall. I know of your lies and duplicity.”

“I was changed, involuntarily,” said Perry. It felt like such a weak argument.

“And then you could not control yourself,” said the grandmaster. “You should consider yourself lucky that you are under my protection, for the time being.”

“Perry,” said Maya. Her voice was thick. She still looked good though, in that second sphere way, like she’d had a manicure and a hot shower before being put into the stock. “Get me out of here.”

“The three thresholders, together at last,” said the grandmaster. “But there is a wrinkle, as the stories have not had a third in them.” He looked between them. Xiyan hadn’t batted an eye at Maya’s appearance. “I suppose there are many questions left to answer, and I have no illusions that when I go to a new world I will have such an easy time of it. But I find myself itching to embark. I’ve made my preparations.”

“I can have her now then?” asked Xiyan, perking up.

“You can’t just give away a person,” said Perry.

“You’re mistaken, Peregrin. Maya is not just a person, she is a prisoner, and those are given away or traded all the time. She is guilty of crimes against Worm Gate, and as such the matter of justice is left in my hands.” The grandmaster looked at Maya. “Xiyan has not actually said what she wants you for.”

“I like thresholders,” said Xiyan. “I like to hear their stories, to see the ways they think. We’re all unique, all fascinating in our own right.” She looked over at Perry. “I enjoyed hearing about the worlds you had been to and what they were like. It’s something that I’ll always treasure about my time here, and the days I spent with you.”

“And then when she’s done, you’ll kill her?” asked Perry.

“No,” said Xiyan, shaking her head. “I don’t kill. It’s not necessary for the portals to open.”

Perry stared at her. “Who is this for? You stabbed me! The grandmaster doesn’t believe you, Maya doesn’t believe you, why even lie?”

“Perry,” said Xiyan. Her voice was gentle. “I wanted to tell you, I wanted us to be friends, to share my own experiences with you, but I knew that as soon as I admitted what I was, you would attack me, just like all the others. And in the end, that’s what happened. I shouldn’t have lied to you, but it was the only way for us to grow close.”

Maya swallowed hard, then took a short little gasp of breath, almost unnoticed.

From that point forward, Perry was buying her what time he could and hoping for the best. He wasn’t sure whether this was the right moment to pull the trigger, but he’d known that Maya would be the one to make the choice, and he’d been prepared for it since last night.

He’d given her one of his teeth, which she’d been holding in her mouth.

“I think you’ve left out all the things that would make it obvious what a psychopath you are,” said Perry. “I think you were the one to strike first basically all of those times, that you killed because you could, or because you felt like it. You like killing, I could see it in your eyes when you tried to kill me. You got recruited as an assassin because you didn’t mind the killing, because something is wrong with your head, and you’re a thresholder who will kill even the people who are trying their best to stop fighting. I think you’re lying to us not because you think we’ll believe it, but just out of habit.”

“Do you want to believe that?” asked Xiyan. “Would that make it easier for you to fight me, as you clearly want to?”

“I don’t know what the truth is,” said Perry. “But for all Maya’s faults, at least she’s got opinions on the world that go beyond just killing whoever steps in front of her. She wasn’t right to go after Moth Lantern, but she did it for reasons, instead of just wanting to kill someone for the hell of it.”

It wasn’t an argument he’d have made a few weeks ago, when he was steeped in anger and looking to kill Maya. He could imagine the other side of the argument, which was that Maya was looking for basically any reason to kill someone she considered an enemy. That was probably a lot of people, and might even include Perry under the right circumstances.

“Fine,” said Xiyan with a shrug. “You’re right.”

“What?” asked Perry.

“You’re right, I do the things I do because I enjoy them,” she said. “I killed my master’s wife after allowing the hatred to brew in me, and it washed over me like the first taste of food after weeks of starvation. But Maya would say that’s reasonable, to kill someone who doesn’t just enslave people but twists the knife with cruelty because she can.”

“Ugh,” said Maya. “I really don’t feel so good. You got a bathroom I can use?”

The grandmaster was frowning at her. “Something is wrong.”

“Yeah, I’ve got the runs,” said Maya. Her one remaining hand was shaking slightly. “Ugh. Something is really ripping up my insides.”

Grandmaster Sun Quying stood up and held his staff like a cudgel. “Do you think there’s any possible way you could beat me?” He looked over at Perry. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” said Perry.

“Are we starting then?” asked Xiyan. She drew her dagger, which seemed to come from nowhere. “I had thought we would have more time.”

Maya deformed, arms growing longer, hair momentarily sprouting from her legs and then inexplicably retracting. Her throat pressed hard against the stock, flesh pushing outward, but when the moment passed. She was left panting.

“Ah,” said Grandmaster Sun Quying. “Then you can pass on at least one of your powers.”

Xiyan had gotten into a fighting stance and was getting closer to Perry, and he was squared up against her. He still didn’t know all her powers, and the ones he did know frightened him.

“Marchand, prime,” said Perry. “Full power.”

“Priming now, sir,” said Marchand.

Maya deformed again, this time with a blast of moonlight from her intact hand, and the stock shattered around her suddenly furry neck. She landed on all fours, fully wolf, snarling before she even hit the ground, and she lunged at the grandmaster the moment she was steady, fangs wide. Perry had known that his wolf form was larger than a normal wolf, but he hadn’t quite realized the size difference until he saw it in her. She was the size of a horse, with razor sharp claws and teeth like daggers, pelt the same dark brown as her curly hair had been.

At almost the same moment, Xiyan began moving, not toward Perry as he’d been bracing for, but toward one of the doors of the large center room of the building. He moved to stop her only a moment too late, and commanded March to fire, but she had the door open just as the first shot hit her, and then living statues came spilling out.

Perry went for them. He felt like he had no other choice. A quick glance showed that Maya had been smashed against one wall and was bleeding from her head, but she was on her feet fast enough, and her missing paw was already mostly regrown. The grandmaster was still squaring off against her.

Then Perry was in among the statues, swinging his sword with the combined power of the armor and his second sphere strength. There were dozens of the statues, but they weren’t all that coordinated, and a simple push could send them to the ground, where they would shatter. He’d felt a spike of terror on seeing them, but they were going down fast, and their grip didn’t seem to be strong enough to tear at the armor, even if their punches were knocking him around. In fact, they seemed more like a distraction than anything else, and —

Perry was alerted to Xiyan moving behind him by the firing of the shoulder-mounted gun and a small pop-up in the HUD to give him the rear view. She’d had her dagger out and was moving toward him, but being struck by the bullets pushed her back. Perry turned around to face her and launched himself at her, blade forward, slicing through the air. Her whole body was engulfed in smoke in just a moment, and his blade went through her clothes as though she wasn’t even there. When she reformed a moment later, she was gasping for air, her clothes hanging off her awkwardly, but she was still ready for a counterattack and thrust her dagger at Perry’s chest, aiming straight for where the reactor had been.

It was a strong enough strike that Perry felt the force through his whole body, and the blade pierced deep, breaking the skin. The reactor was non-functional though, no longer a weak spot beneath the thick metal. Perry grabbed her arm before she could withdraw it and spun her, smashing her straight into the statues that were clawing at his back.

He was just in time to see Worm Gate’s second spheres pouring into the building.

Maya was doing better than expected, in that she’d actually landed a hit on the grandmaster, who was bleeding from his forehead. She was barely standing, the regeneration and general toughness of the wolf form being pushed to its limits. She was all rage and snarls, but dripping blood onto the ground and favoring one side over the other. For his part, the grandmaster was mostly watching her instead of pressing the attack, knocking her away with his walking stick. It was daylight out, and the wolf form wasn’t at its full power, but even under the full moons, Perry didn’t think it would be enough. Even with both of them, he didn’t think it would be enough.

“Maya, let’s go!” shouted Perry.

She snapped at the grandmaster again, either ignoring the instruction or unable to comprehend what he’d said.

The first of the second sphere dropped down next to Perry. It was Sun Baoxi, his only sort-of friend in the temple.

“You’re crossing some lines, Peregrin,” he said. His hands were up, in the Mantis Stance, ready for a punch against Perry’s hard metal armor, which seemed ill-advised.

Xiyan had squared up too, with her statues behind her in a similar stance. It was one of Moon Gate’s stances, copied sloppily. Perry wondered how much she had picked up from this world, and was hoping that it wasn’t much. Where the statues had come from, he had no idea. Maybe if he’d known more about the rest of her worlds, that would have tipped him off. Behind her, the door was still open, leading to somewhere far away from the compound.

“Maya, now!” shouted Perry.

She was still fighting the grandmaster, snarling at him and being pushed to the side. She had been half-blinded by one of his counters, and the fur was matted down with blood. The grandmaster didn’t seem to be trying to kill her, for whatever reason, but with every passing second, he was getting more information about how a wolf fought.

“I really don’t want to hurt you,” said Sun Baoxi. “You’re a member of the sect, that means something. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but —”

Perry threw his sword at Maya, as hard as he could. It caught her along the shoulder, opening a gash there, and she finally turned her attention toward him as the sword flew back through the air to his waiting hand.

She was pissed.

Perry dodged an attack by Xiyan and let himself be pulled as fast as the sword would carry him as Maya launched herself after him. He sailed over the heads of the perfect statues of Xiyan, past the bewildered second sphere disciples that really had no idea what was going on, and straight through the door that Xiyan had opened to somewhere else. Maya was hot on his heels, barreling through people and statues alike. As soon as he was through the door, Perry shot straight up into the sky, then killed the flight and landed back down in the ground just a half second after Maya was through. He cut through the door with his sword, hoping that the magic wouldn’t hold, and breathed a sigh of relief when the wood fell apart, revealing a dilapidated house and no trace of the temple.

Maya snarled at him and went in for another attack, and Perry leapt high into the air, letting the sword tug him after it. Maya leapt up impressively high, almost getting his foot, but there were no limits to how high he could go, and after a few more attempts, she was snapping at the air and circling around below him.

“March, figure out where the hell we are,” said Perry.

“Right away, sir,” said Marchand. “Shall I send out the drone.”

“Do it,” said Perry.

The drone launched, and for a moment, it seemed as though Maya was going to try to chase it, too.

Perry tried to decide how fucked they were. Mostly he thought they were lucky to get away alive. The grandmaster had held off on killing Maya, either because he wanted to study her or because he thought the portals might not open if he was the one to kill her — he’d had lines of questioning about that before. It wasn’t how they had drawn it up. Maya was without her needle and the bulk of her nanites, as well as saddled with an affliction she couldn’t control, just a few days before the full moon.

On the other side of the coin, they had left Xiyan with the grandmaster, and who knew what kind of outcome that would have. The logical thing would be for them to team up, which might be disastrous, especially if she had powers she could hand over to him — not that he needed them.

Perry didn’t know how much time they would have. If Xiyan wasn’t second sphere already, then an alliance with the grandmaster would soon propel her up a level. He looked down at Maya, who was pacing back and forth and making abortive plaintive howls at him. The wound he’d given her had closed up, and her missing paw was fully grown in. She’d juiced herself with moonlight right as the transformation was coming on. His own induction hadn’t been nearly so volatile.

“Not sure how we’re making it out of this, March,” said Perry. “I feel like it’s one enemy after another.” His heartbeat was starting to slow down. He looked at the new hole in the armor, which was right where the old one had been. He’d bled pretty badly, and could feel how wet his chest was.

“Quite, sir,” said Marchand. “I have the report from the drone back. It appears we’ve somehow come to be in what people have been referring to as the Grouse Kingdom.”

“So she probably did spend time here,” said Perry. “That wasn’t a lie.”

“Yes, sir,” said Marchand.

Perry tried to think. He was running high on adrenaline, and his mind wasn’t in the best shape. Xiyan could open doors from one place to another, with a huge range, and there might be limits, but he couldn’t assume there were. She had dozens of statues of herself, which she could move at will, and he had to assume that there were more where they came from, even if he didn’t know where that might be.

Perry swore. “Any bright ideas? Some way to kill these people?”

“Which people, sir?” asked Marchand. “Grandmaster Sun Quying and Lu Xiyan?”

Perry let out a breath. “Yeah.” He looked down at the wolf below him, who was sniffing at the ground. He hoped they weren’t near civilization. The state of the house whose door he’d cut through made it seem likely they were out of the way.

As he watched, Maya turned back into a human, collapsing down onto the ground, naked. He lowered himself until he was next to her, then took off his helmet and handed her the nanites that he’d taken the day before. She grabbed them without a word. They weren’t enough to armor her, only to give her a little bit of modesty.

“Wasn’t so bad,” she said. “The transformation, the anger, that stuff.” She was pacing back and forth.

“It’s not over,” said Perry. “You’ll feel the rage.”

“Oh, I already feel the rage,” said Maya. “We’re going to kill that bastard.” She stretched out, then looked down at herself. “Maybe get some pants first.”

Perry agreed with the sentiment, but he had no idea how they were going to accomplish it. One thing was certain: they were going to need more than just the two of them.