Thresholder

Perry gripped Nima tightly. She had gone very still. Perry’s sword was held out in front of him, allowing both of them to hover. The city was still perilously close to them, its lights well in view, and Fenilor was close enough that he didn’t have to raise his voice all that much.

“Now, I can think of two reasons you’d have snatched her,” Fenilor mused. “The first is to protect her from me, while the second is to kill her yourself — though you could easily do that at any moment, from the looks of it.”

“I’d prefer not to fight you now,” said Perry. “As you can imagine, I have other things on my mind.”

“You listened to my stories, I suppose?” asked Fenilor. His feet dangled below him. If not for the enhancements of the video system, he would have been difficult to see in the dim light of the stars and moon.

“I did,” said Perry. “Look, I’ll drop her if I have to. She hits the water, she dies, and it’s likely the portal opens. Is that where we’re at? Are you pushing to leave this place?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” said Fenilor. After having listened to the recordings for so long, Perry could hear the faint smile much easier. “There’s a monarchy to destroy, after all, and I had rather hoped to get to the end of my story. You were going to release it, weren’t you? The people have a right to know. I think it will be good for them, and for the culture.”

“Then we’ll be on our way,” said Perry.

“No, no,” said Fenilor. “I’ll take her and keep her, to exit this world on my own terms.”

“I’m not going to be kept by anyone,” said Nima, struggling against Perry’s arm, which seemed more for emphasis than because she thought she could escape. Escape meant dropping a mile to the dark water below.

“You have told me you aim to prevent me from taking a portal out,” said Fenilor. “You claim it’s the end of the universe.”

“No, just the planet, probably,” said Perry. He tried to control his voice as much as possible. Fenilor could hear lies with at least a little accuracy. “That stands. I believe it.”

“Mmm,” said Fenilor. “You believe it less than you say that you do. And you seem to have decided on my death, if you can manage it, which I’m skeptical you can. You see her as a way out for me, and assume that I would take that door before my work is done. You think I fear you.”

“You ran,” said Perry. “You ran when you could have killed me.”

“I ran for a better battlefield,” said Fenilor. The hand that wasn’t holding the spear stretched wide, sweeping over the sea. “And here you are, unable to assume your wolf form in the air, without your companion, constrained by the need to carry your precious cargo. It does seem as though this battlefield suits me.”

The armor was the same that Fenilor had been wearing before, the one that pulled off like it was fabric. The spear was the same too, with the puff of red beneath its point. Perry wasn’t sure which one of those provided flight, but in theory Fenilor wouldn’t have access to his entire inventory while in the air. That wasn’t nothing. Perry had access to the shelf space, which he could dump Nima in if he absolutely had to — though Mette was there, along with several things he really didn’t want to be destroyed. The shelf space made a terrible prison if you didn’t latch someone in place. Worse, if the alarm had been raised, Third Fervor might sense the shelf space opening and closing, depending on how good her magical senses were. In theory, there was still time.

“You’re contemplating it,” said Fenilor. Again, there was a soft smile in his voice, not a manic villainous grin, but the knowing smile of someone who’s seen enough battles to judge his enemies.

“Wolf form?” asked Nima. She was breathing quickly, going back into panic mode again. The air was thinner this high up, which probably didn’t help.

“Ah, she knows little,” said Fenilor. “But weren’t the two of you allies, for a time?”

“He didn’t tell me anything,” said Nima. “He doesn’t care if I live or die.”

“No,” said Fenilor, shaking his head. “I suppose he doesn’t. But you are a tool to him, one that still has at least one use left.” He raised his hand to point at her. “Tell me, is that armor bound to you? Or would it confer its power on anyone else?”

“It’s bound,” said Nima. “Tightly.”

“Ah, a shame,” said Fenilor, apparently taking her at her word. She must have passed his power’s sniff test. “Perry, I never asked, is yours bound?”

“Yes,” said Perry.

“Ah, lies,” said Fenilor. “I have come to expect them of you, when it comes to sensitive matters. Technology, I have found, is unreliable, too much the work of an entire civilization.”

“I would love to debate the structure of societies,” said Perry. “Unfortunately, I have to get going.”

“Would you really enjoy it?” asked Fenilor, tilting his head to the side. “Talking about the structure of societies?”

“You can tell when people are lying,” said Perry. “But sure. I didn’t get enough of your thoughts on this project from your stories. I can give you something that will let us talk to each other at a distance, if trading stories the other way doesn’t work for you.”

“I’m still eagerly waiting to hear how I am supposed to destroy the world,” said Fenilor. “A confluence of dread physics, with mathematics to back it up. Though of course I don’t believe it, and you must realize that if it were a problem, it would be one that I would deal with in that slow, grinding way that’s sometimes necessary.”

“Then there’s no need to fight here,” said Perry. “I’m just taking a piece off the board.”

Nima kicked at him, which caused a scraping of metal against metal.

“Or I could take her out entirely,” said Fenilor. “You’re worried about the end of this world, but if she died, you could simply leave through the portal.” He paused, and Perry felt some expectation that he should weigh that option. “I don’t intend to leave now. I can easily wait another five years.”

“I wouldn’t take a way out, not like that, not when it left people at risk,” said Perry. He hesitated. He didn’t want to reveal the Farfinder, not if they didn’t already know. But that was probably a way that might get around universe implosion. “I might have a method that would get you out of here without the risk.”

“Oh?” asked Fenilor. “Not entirely a lie, that one.”

“No,” said Perry. “But not without its costs, its risks. I can tell you more, under better circumstances.” He could feel the battle coming. He was certain they could all feel it. “You should also know that every minute we stay here, Third Fervor gets closer to waking up, and a four-way fight isn’t what anyone wants, not even Nima.”

“I would take my chances,” said Nima. Her voice had gone cold. Perry squeezed her tighter.

“I think I’ll kill her then, if it’s all the same to you,” said Fenilor. “Or you could do the honors. The portal will open, I have no intention to go through, and we can avoid a fight over this trifle of a woman.”

“Hey,” said Nima, though with Perry’s grip on her she was having trouble drawing breath.

“I don’t trust you,” said Perry. “And Nima doesn’t need to die, she can just be beaten. I know you make a habit of killing, but the only thing she did wrong was trying to kill me.”

The three of them floated in the dark air for a bit. Clouds moved to obscure the moon. Perry wasn’t sure why he was making a plea for Nima’s life. He owed her nothing. But she hadn’t come at Kes with full force, not at first, and there was something pathetic about her. She didn’t seem suited to the thresholding life. The next world wasn’t liable to change that, but still, her death wouldn’t actually accomplish anything. He really would rather have just kept her away from Fenilor.

“Sir, time is limited,” said Marchand. “I would suggest we attempt to disengage.”

“Third Fervor?” asked Perry.

“Yes, sir,” said Marchand. “I am having difficulty with tracking, given how little nanomaterial we have scattered, but she will be woken up soon. If we wish to have an aerial encounter —”

“We don’t,” said Perry.

“You speak with your technology,” said Fenilor. “What does it tell you, I wonder?”

“He says it’s time to get going,” said Perry. “So if you’re going to attack, you had better do it now.”

Fenilor shifted his grip on the spear, drew it back, then launched it at full force.

As soon as Fenilor had cocked it back, Perry had released the power of the sword, causing them to start plummeting far faster than the sword could move them. Fenilor tracked them, but the spear went sailing over their heads. Perry’s whole body had been tense and waiting for the attack, even if that tension wouldn’t help him in the air.

“Nice try, loser,” said Perry, still clutching Nima tight. He began moving them away at what felt like a plodding speed when compared to how fast gravity could pull them.

Fenilor had started to drop the moment the spear had left his hand, then disappeared, captured an instant later by the HUD’s picture-in-picture, having teleported to the spear, which had sailed through the air. He flew up, angled his spear for another throw, and again Perry dropped down to avoid it. The spear came close this time, and it was only because of Marchand’s tracking that Perry had been able to see it coming straight for his back.

“Shit,” said Perry as the spear continued on through the night.

In an aerial battle, Perry wasn’t sure he could win, but he definitely couldn’t win while holding onto Nima. There were only so many times Perry could drop to avoid the spear, and Fenilor’s aim would improve. Once they hit the ocean, Perry would be down to the relatively sedate movement of the sword, and that would leave him dead in the water.

Perry opened the shelf space, threw Nima into it, then sealed it shut again before she could get out. Mette was just going to have to deal with that problem on her own while Perry handled the battle.

~~~~

Mette woke up with a start. She was in bed and feeling gross. The sweat on her chest had dried into sticky residue, but there was a fresh layer beneath the sheets, making them damp and disgusting. The computer, a “laptop”, was on her stomach and not helping matters, as much as the struggling fan was making an effort. She checked the machine over and then set it to the side, making sure that the cord was still plugged in and the thing wasn’t tangled. It had an enormous amount of computing power unless compared to Marchand or the central computer of the Natrix, and even then, it wasn’t that far off.

It was only once she had set the laptop to the side that she realized that Nima was standing at the “entrance” to the shelf space. That must have been what woke her up.

“Oh,” said Mette. “Shit.”

Nima was in her full armor, which looked beautiful on her, and had grabbed one of the spare weapons that sat next to the entrance to the shelf space. She didn’t look like she knew how to use a sword very well, but Mette didn’t know how to use a sword either.

“He snatched me up,” said Nima. “Then threw me in here.”

“Shit,” said Mette. “Are you … okay?”

“They’re fighting out there,” said Nima. She looked around, though she’d been here before. “There’s no way out of here?”

“No,” said Mette.

“If he dies, we’re dead?” asked Nima. She was asking for confirmation, not because she didn’t know the answer.

“Unless someone else finds the ring before we run out of, uh,” Mette paused. “We have lanterns here, and I think all the fuels necessary to keep us alive for a very long time: air, water, food. So we would run into problems with either imbalances that I might not be able to detect, or effluence.” She paused again. “Are you going to kill me?”

“No,” said Nima. She looked at the sword she was holding, then back at Mette. “Perry didn’t want to put me in here with you. The only reason he did is because he knew that I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“He didn’t know,” said Mette. She swallowed. “Not for certain.”

“No,” said Nima. “I suppose not.” The armor covering her face pulled back, but the rest stayed in place. Her skin was pale. She seemed sad. “I … might have to take you hostage.”

“Ah,” said Mette. She shifted beneath her blanket. There were no weapons nearby. Kes had beaten her, or almost beaten her, and that was without being a werewolf. Mette stood a chance, she thought. She didn’t want to fight though. “I was poisoned. I’m still in recovery.”

She had very little in the way of defenses. If she could get her hands on a lantern, she could turn it into a weapon, but Nima knew lanterns too, and trying to pull a fast one probably wouldn’t work, even if Nima gave Mette the chance. And again, the idea of fighting felt wrong.

“Poisoned by who?” asked Nima.

“Fenilor,” said Mette. “That’s who Perry is fighting outside?”

“Yes,” said Nima. Her lips went tight. “You don’t want to be in this any more than I do.”

“I want pieces of it,” said Mette. “I want the magic, the new worlds, the power.” She folded her hands in her lap. In spite of what she’d said about the poison, and the sweat that coated her body, she was feeling better. It would be better to play sick though. Mette was unfortunately not very good at lying, especially not to someone she’d considered a friend.

“You admit to wanting power?” asked Nima.

“I had power,” said Mette. “I was, arguably, the second most powerful person on my planet, at least before the thresholders showed up. I don’t think it’s bad to want power, if you want it for a reason, if it’s not just power for the sake of power.”

“Mmm,” said Nima. “Why do you want power then?”

“Power is possibility,” said Mette. “It’s a way of escaping constraints, having options. It’s the reason I was always after power, even back on Esperide. With what I know now … you know the world I came from.”

“I know what you’ve told me,” said Nima. She stepped closer, holding the sword casually, no longer like a weapon. Her eyes flickered to the cloning machine, which was in pieces behind Mette, shoved rudely into place, but she didn’t ask about it. She had been inside the shelf, and would know that the machine was new.

“We were hanging in there,” said Mette. “Being worn down more with every passing year, but maybe we could have made it to the inflection point, where there were enough of us that we could rebuild what we had lost. Maybe we were even past the inflection point, with all the young people on board. But the many worlds … it’s something else.”

“You abandoned your people,” said Nima. “I’ve always tried to be polite about that, but I don’t understand it.” Her hand gripped her sword, tensing for a moment before releasing. “I don’t respect it.”

“You defected against Perry,” said Mette. She had almost called him Kes. “I know you disagreed with him, with them, the … executioners. When you went to Thirlwell and threw yourself at Third Fervor’s feet, did that clarify anything?”

“No,” said Nima. “I don’t think she has the right of it. We’ve spoken at length, and … she’s a lackey. I think I would prefer a zealot. But Perry doesn’t care.”

“He does,” said Mette. “He comes from a different world, one where they thought it was fine for many different people to have different cultures and customs.”

“The people here want a single culture,” said Nima. “They want to wipe everything away.”

“It’s complicated,” said Mette. “They want everything local for a reason. I’m not sure it’s workable in the long run, but the idea is that everyone adapts the culture to their own needs. The food is different the world over, the clothes are — well, the clothes come from the lanterns, so they’re somewhat the same — but they’re not a monoculture.”

“You saw what they did,” said Nima. “They’re murderers.”

“They’re not a monoculture,” said Mette. “Killing people like that isn’t something that the rest of the world endorses.”

“But they don’t move to stop it,” said Nima.

“They don’t think they have the right,” said Mette. “The airship we came on, the people that came to help, they believe that a group of people need to have the right to determine their own fate. And Nima, that’s what I believe too. It’s one of the reasons that I helped to replace the leadership on the Natrix. Sometimes that’s necessary, if the people at the top aren’t doing what they should be doing.”

Nima shook her head. “I liked you better when you didn’t argue with me.”

“Sorry,” said Mette, and she really did mean it. Sometimes talking about the big scary things like who should govern and how seemed to turn people against each other. It had been like that on the Natrix too. People got quite heated. Mette had always liked focusing on technical and logistical problems better.

Nima looked back at the entryway to the shelf space, which had no particular features to set itself apart aside from how the shelving was arranged. “Do we just … wait?” asked Nima.

“I think so,” said Mette. “I was sleeping before you got in here. There’s a cot somewhere, if you wanted to nap.”

Nima laughed. “I still might need to take you hostage.” She said it with a bit of embarrassment.

“Perry doesn’t want to kill you,” said Mette. “He really doesn’t. Even after what you tried to pull, he would rather just … send you off to another world, I guess, to find your place among the thresholders.”

“More killing,” said Nima. “More death. I don’t want that for myself.”

“What happens next depends on whether Perry wins against Fenilor,” said Mette. “Perry is open to talking with you, to working things out, just remember that.”

“Do you think he’ll win?” asked Nima.

Mette shrugged. “I’ve learned to always bet on Perry.”

~~~~

Even with Nima gone, Perry was losing the fight.

They were descending together, and when Perry tried to go in for an attack, Fenilor would move away. Fenilor hadn’t changed weapons or armor yet, which was a sign he thought that he was winning. Still, the spear hadn’t made contact yet, which was at least something. Perry had blocked it directly with the sword twice, which let out a clarion ring when it happened, but it seemed as though Fenilor was stepping it up. For all Perry knew, he was literally getting better with every throw.

They had descended almost a half mile, leaving the ocean much closer beneath them than it had been before. Perry wasn’t sure what he was going to do when they hit the water, which they surely would if he had to keep dodging by dropping. Every time Fenilor released the spear, he dropped too, but he could teleport to the spear and recover it that way, flying up once he’d grabbed it if need be.

Fenilor drew the spear back again, and Perry held his sword out in front of him to block. His plan was different this time, and also considerably stupider.

When the spear came in at terrifying speeds, he let go of his sword and caught the spear with both hands, like clapping a mosquito out of the air.

Perry was shocked that it had actually worked. He hadn’t thought too far ahead with the whole “catch the spear” plan, and had really thought that the end result might be him gripping the shaft of the spear while it pierced him through. In spite of the sword falling away, Perry was simply hovering in the air. The HUD was tracking Fenilor, who was falling to the water below with no signs of stopping.

“It can’t be that easy,” said Perry as he spun the spear around and commanded his sword back up to him.

He could feel the energy of the spear, and with a pulse of his will, he began flying with it. He was faster than with the sword, but there was an ebb and flow to it which hadn’t been there with the sword, a sense that he was draining some internal supply and would be left swooping up and down.

Fenilor appeared in front of Perry, gripping the other end of the spear. He tried to yank it away, but the power armor had enormous grip strength. Fenilor thrust a hand out and summoned a dagger dripping with black ichor from among the ghostly array of weapons, clearly intending to fight while both held onto the weapon. Perry was close enough to strike out though, and landed a haymaker that sent Fenilor tumbling away.

It should have killed him, or at least broken ribs. The power armor was just that strong, and whatever ability Fenilor’s ski-mask armor had, the shoulder gun was at least partially effective against it.

Perry cocked back his elbow, and when Fenilor appeared again, Perry’s fist snapped forward with a modified armor-augmented Super Moon Punch.

The poisoned blade went spinning away as Fenilor fell, and the body went limp, rag-dolling through the air, arms and legs flapping in the wind. Perry almost went after him, trying to finish the fight then and there, because if the portal opened at the wrong moment, and Fenilor wasn’t dead, he could slip through just as easily. Perry had just begun to drop down using the unfamiliar power of the spear when Fenilor gained control of his limbs. Ghostly implements spread out from him in both directions, then his armor changed around him to something gleaming and chrome. A giant sword with angry angles appeared in his hand. Perry was worried that the spear would disappear, but it stayed in his hands, apparently his for as long as he could keep a grip on it.

Fenilor moved up like he’d been launched, a rapid change in motion that set the power armor’s warnings off. Fenilor lost speed as he drew closer, but he swung the sword around, twisting his body and aiming for a hard slice through Perry’s midsection. Perry brought the spear up to block, hoping that it would be sturdy enough to survive the hit, and locked his body in place. The sword hit the shaft and bounced off it, sending the two of them apart, and Fenilor started falling back down to the ocean again.

Perry tested the spear once, then used its full power. It was much faster than the sword, faster than he’d ever seen Fenilor go with it, but the flight wasn’t agnostic to his elevation, it was faster when he was descending, like a paper airplane picking up speed as it went into a dive.

Fenilor was again launched through the air by some unseen force or magic, and Perry turned around to hold the spear out again. They were far enough away that there was a full second, enough time for Perry to get the spear into position and attempt to anticipate the incoming strike. This time, there was no big swing, and they ended up crashing into each other, with the spear and sword both slipping against armor before they tumbled away from each other.

Perry righted himself just in time to get hit again, harder this time but with little damage to speak of, at least judging by the reports that Marchand was generating.

With the new set of equipment, Fenilor could attack Perry from anywhere in the open space, though he didn’t seem to have any control over his movements aside from the one trick of increasing movement on a line directly toward where Perry was. He was still faster, but he’d lost almost all control, and it seemed like they would be crashing into each other over and over again if that was what Fenilor wanted.

With the next hit, Perry was caught in the side by the sword, and even a strong hit to a weakly defended area didn’t penetrate. Whatever it was that Fenilor was trying, it wasn’t working, but if one piece of equipment was letting him hurl himself through the air, then the other one surely had some kind of power too.

Perry was going to have to figure it out and neutralize it, but he was getting very tired of Fenilor’s bag of stolen tricks.

“Third Fervor on approach,” said Marchand. In combat, his voice was stripped of sardonic eloquence, becoming tight and controlled, communicating with the minimum of frills.

Perry used the spear to dive as Fenilor flew toward him again, and actually managed to miss a collision this time. He gained speed as he went down and felt the spear thrumming with energy, and he used it to jet off sideways.

“How’d she find us?” asked Perry. He hadn’t used the shelf space, not since sticking Mette in there. There was no response from Marchand.

Fenilor needed to launch himself twice, like he was bouncing off the air, snapping his velocity in the direction of Perry, but they crashed again, and if Perry hadn’t had an iron grip on the spear, he would have lost it. The sword had scored a hit across his back, and he’d heard the groaning of metal, but it wasn’t enough. Whatever the sword was supposed to do, it was a bust.

The ghostly inventory spread out away from Fenilor as he fell again, and almost as soon as it had appeared it was gone again, with the giant angular sword replaced with something long and thin, a pinprick of a rapier. He launched again, the movement sudden, arm with the rapier thrust straight forward and the rapier just a point.

Perry attempted to parry it away, but the movement was too fast, and the point of the rapier too small. They crashed together again, but it came with a sharp pain in through Perry’s chest, and when they came apart in the air, it was with a trail of blood. The nanite undersuit wove itself back together at Marchand’s instruction, but there was a hole clean through both sides of the armor, and more serious warnings were flashing.

Third Fervor was visible from the glowing rings of her portals, which illuminated her in the night sky brighter than anything else around them. She was homing in, and Perry realized what had brought her to them: he hadn’t been using subspace, but Fenilor had, and the change in weapons and armor must have been like a stone thrown against a still pond.

Perry went as swiftly as the spear would let him, another deep dive bringing him close to the water. He’d burned altitude but was going at least a hundred miles an hour, dark against the waters, feeling the drag.

A portal opened up three feet away from him and Third Fervor dropped out from it as Perry slipped past. Two seconds later, a portal opened overhead, and she dropped out again, then the portal opened directly in front of him so fast that he couldn’t stop himself from going through. Third Fervor came down from above with a spear of her own, and it gouged a deep line along Perry’s back before she, too, was falling behind him.

“Damage report!” shouted Perry as they zipped above the black waves.

“Holding steady,” Marchand replied. “Repeated damage to the same area —”

A portal opened again, and this time there were two successive portals, with one opening directly in front of him and the second opening just as soon as the other had snapped shut. Third Fervor very nearly crashed into him as he passed through, but when he was through the second portal he was high up in the air, suddenly so high up that he could trace the curvature of the planet and see the outlines of the island by their towns and cities.

They were high enough up that if Perry wasn’t encased in armor, he’d be at risk of death from a lack of oxygen.

Perry coughed up blood and then, because his helmet was on, swallowed it back down again, leaving the taste of blood in his mouth and the smell of it in his nostrils. The armor had been battered, and the rapier strike had gotten him good, piercing organs that were only slowly mending back together. Before becoming second sphere, he hadn’t had much sense where his organs were, but he could feel them now, and it was his stomach that had a hole poked in it. There was acid and blood leaking through his body, and he tried his best to reverse the damage. Now that he was focused on it, the pain was almost blinding.

Third Fervor was still down there somewhere. She had cast him high into the sky. Had Fenilor gotten to her? Perry realized with a start that Fenilor could kill her and open up a portal, or at least wound her. He had to be near the edge of her range, and if she’d been hoping that the high altitude would end him, she was sorely mistaken.

He dove with the spear, using its power to push him up to terminal velocity. The spear was charging up, brimming with power, and he’d be able to use it to scream through the air when he needed to. But Third Fervor was down there somewhere, and if she was next to the ocean, all she’d need to do was to open a portal in his path. She needed one end to be next to her, but the other could be far away, and if she opened up one that slammed him into the water at terminal velocity, he was pretty sure he would just die.

He slowed himself, not liking the feeling of it. Going slow enough that she couldn’t smash him against the water would mean ten minutes, maybe more, of just dropping through the air.

With Marchand’s enhancements, he could see the fight below. The figures were impossible to make out, but Fenilor was using a new weapon, one that glowed, and the portals that Third Fervor was making were splashes of light above the waves. How they could see each other was a mystery. Perry didn’t want to intervene, but he felt like he had to.

He opened up the shelf and stepped inside, half-expecting Third Fervor to divert up to him as soon as she felt the shelf open. Instead, he closed the shelf back up and stood there looking at Nima and Mette. Nima had one of the spare swords and was holding it to Mette’s throat.

“Perry, calm down,” said Mette.

“I’m calm,” said Perry. “Hostage situation?”

“You need to let me out of here,” said Nima. “I never wanted any of this, and —”

“Just checking that the two of you are getting along,” said Perry. “The fight is still going on, Third Fervor against Fenilor, I need to make sure that Fenilor doesn’t kill her. You two sit tight.”

Perry opened the shelf back up, slipped out, and let it close behind him before they could say anything. He had bigger problems to attend to.