Thresholder

It had been the dead of night when Third Fervor came, but Kes had been awake. He wasn’t actually doing anything, but Mette had offered to stay up to man the radio, and he had decided that he would be there for moral support. He thought there was a good chance that Perry would come in hot, trailing trouble, but what form that trouble would take was anyone’s guess.

The wait was very boring, and Kes was tired, but at least Mette seemed to appreciate the company. They chatted idly about the Natrix and the many worlds, and occasionally flirted.

They didn’t even see the portal Third Fervor used to get there. She simply appeared at the wide entrance to the workshop area, armored up, spear in hand.

“Whoa,” said Kes, standing and holding out a hand like she was a belligerent horse. He had his mask with him this time, strapped to his belt, not like when Nima had come, and he slipped it on just the same as he’d practiced.

“It seems I’ve caught you unawares,” said Third Fervor. “This is your lair, is it?” She spat the word.

“Hang on,” said Kes. He backed up half a step, which was exactly as far as he could go before bumping into the table.

“How quickly can you summon your sword?” asked Third Fervor as she stalked forward on her metal high heels. “How quickly can you slap that armor to your skin?” Her hand was clenched tightly around the spear.

Kes didn’t have a weapon, but he grabbed a tool from the table, which was something like a prybar. It had some heft to it, but he had no illusions about how this was going to go. All he could do was place himself between Third Fervor and Mette. He took a step over, becoming Mette’s meat shield.

“Or can’t you?” asked Third Fervor. She was in combat range now, close enough to strike with the spear if she lunged. She was holding back, waiting to see what tricks he had up his sleeve.

The mask was doing fuck all. It was slowing her down, or from his perspective, speeding him up, but the speedster mask was only the third generation, and while he was doing better with the masks than anyone had a right to expect from him, it wasn’t going to win him this fight. He was still injured from the fight with Nima, with a bandaged leg. He probably should have been in bed, to be honest, but he’d only meant to keep Mette company while she waited by the bulky radio.

Third Fervor struck out with the spear, cutting him across the shoulder. She was being slowed, and there was still nothing he could have done about it. He just wasn’t fast enough. He cried out in pain, but held his stance, prybar at the ready. He would hit her in the face, and then she would kill him, but at least it might buy Perry something, or protect Mette.

“Who are you?” asked Third Fervor.

Kes glanced back at Mette. She had turned back around and was fiddling with the radio, which was cut short by Third Fervor taking another step forward and jamming the spear straight through the crude electronics. She had moved past Kes to do it, ignoring him.

Mette sat silently, staring straight ahead at the ruined radio. She was trembling, and trying to hide it.

“I ask again,” said Third Fervor, turning to Kes. She was quite close. The lunge had put her inside his personal space. “Who are you?”

Kes struck out with the prybar. It hit her in the helmet and she didn’t move in the slightest.

“Some power,” said Third Fervor, looking Kes up and down. Her eyes went to the bleeding wound on his shoulder. “Biological, and yet, a shade of the real you? Where is he?”

The wound in his shoulder was bleeding freely and stinging, even though she hadn’t cut deep. His heart was beating wildly in his chest, and he was getting chilly from the sheen of sweat that had broken out across his skin.

“I don’t know where he is,” Kes lied.

“Mmm,” said Third Fervor.

Kes had line of sight to the wide doors of the workroom, where larger pieces were put inside or taken out. He saw Moss first, then the others. They had large-bore guns with them, thick and heavy pieces of equipment that Mette had helped with the construction of. They had been test fired only the day before, following the fight with Nima, an emergency measure that they hoped they wouldn’t have to use. The barrels weren’t rifled, and it would take some time for a proper setup that could make them effective, but in theory —

Moss raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired it. The kick wrenched his shoulder back, and with the line of fire as it was, he could easily have killed either Kes or Mette. The slug slammed into Third Fervor instead, knocking her forward and nearly making her lose the grip on her spear.

She placed a hand on the floor and opened up a portal beneath Kes’s feet, then as he fell ten feet onto hard-packed sand, she sprinted across the room.

The drop had reopened the wounds in his leg, and when he looked up, the portal was gone. He was on a beach somewhere, with the sound of waves lapping at the shore and the smell of sea air in his nose. It was a cloudy night, with only sparse moonlight coming through from above. He had the tooth in his pocket, and pulled it up, momentarily moving the blood-wet fabric of his pants and causing searing pain in his leg.

He couldn’t eat the tooth, not yet. Even as a newborn werewolf he wouldn’t be able to beat her, not with her armor on, and when he thought back to that first night, he hadn’t even undergone a full transformation, only the partial extension of claws and the healing of his physical form. He couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t kill someone nearby, though the only lights he saw were far down the shore.

If he was on the coast of Berus, he was a good twenty miles away from where he’d been. He couldn’t run with a wounded leg, and even if he could, he’d be lucky to make it back before sun up.

He placed the tooth in his mouth, wedging it up between his cheek and gums, then began limping his way along the beach. The only option was to find a place to hide. He slipped his mask off and clipped it back in place on his belt, though when Third Fervor came back, if she did, she could snatch it from him and cast it into the sea.

“Fuck,” he said to himself. He still hadn’t recovered from the fight with Nima. It was late, and he couldn’t just go without sleep for extended periods of time like he had when he was second sphere.

He didn’t get more than a hundred feet from where he’d been set down before Third Fervor returned. The rim of her portals had a glow to them, which briefly illuminated the beach, and she scanned her surroundings, looking for him. As soon as she laid her eyes on him, she jogged over to him. The light was dim, but he could see darkness on her fist and the tip of her spear, blood. Her armor was dented in two places, but not badly, just aberrations in how it gleamed. He wondered how many hits she’d taken.

“We’re going,” she said as she grabbed him by the shoulder. “Hold your breath.”

For a brief moment, Kes thought about defiance. There were thirty miles between the islands, which meant that she would be dropping him in the ocean, and if he timed it right, he could take a heavy lungful of water that might be enough to kill him, at least in his weakened state. He didn’t entertain that for long though, and took as large a lungful of air as he could, careful to keep the werewolf tooth pinched in place.

She pushed him backward through a portal, and he fell into shockingly cold water that nearly took his breath away. It was only a moment before he felt himself being swept away in a rush of water, which deposited him on a soaking wet lawn lit by lanterns, and he just barely had time to scramble to his feet again before she gave him another shove. This time his back slammed against a stone wall. He was in a small room with a table and two chairs, stone all around, lit by a lantern that was surely spewing effluence rather than simple smoke. He was wet, dripping seawater onto the thick flagstones beneath his soaked shoes. One of the two chairs had manacles, and there were more manacles on the table. There was a small window, too tiny to squeeze out of, and only dark night beyond it.

“Sit,” said Third Fervor, who had made a much more graceful entry than he had.

Kes felt for the tooth with his tongue. It was still in position. He didn’t know whether they were in the castle, but it was surely a place where he would need to be less worried about killing innocent people. The only problem was that he didn’t think he would win.

Kes sat in the chair, and Third Fervor set her spear on the table. He felt the urge to lunge for it, to see whether he could swing it around and cut right through her armor, but that would be an act of desperation that would accomplish nothing. She could scream, Perry had said, and if she screamed while standing next to him it could be loud enough to deafen him.

Once he was manacled in place, she sat down in the other chair. She held her spear across her lap, and with some difficulty, removed her helmet.

She was striking and beautiful, if not strikingly beautiful. If she’d been a Hollywood celebrity, she would have been one of those that people find weird but not off-putting, like Benedict Cumberbatch. The pronounced divot in her upper lip kept drawing his eye, and she had a feral smile that added to both the strangeness and the allure.

She moved the spear around with only a single hand on it, sweeping it across the air in front of Kestrel. She watched the way he leaned back, and the way his eyes tracked the obsidian tip. It looked unassuming, but cut far better than his sword ever had.

“You show fear,” said Third Fervor. “You’re not just a puppet then.”

“No,” said Kes.

“What are you?” asked Third Fervor. “A power of some kind, no doubt. Which?”

“I —” said Kes. He closed his mouth. “A decoy. I don’t know anything.”

Kes was pretty sure that he was going to be tortured for information. Everything he’d ever read about torture, which was a lot, said that it was pretty ineffective, even if you got past all the moral and ethical issues. He was also pretty sure that he wasn’t going to convince Third Fervor of the ineffectiveness of torture over the course of the next few minutes. And of course there was a small voice that was saying that while torture was ineffective in certain situations, there was plenty of worry that for various reasons, this situation wasn’t one of them.

Third Fervor moved the spear around, passing the tip in front of his face. He flinched away from it. “Then you’re of no use to me.”

One of the things that got taught to people expecting to undergo torture was that they should do their best to make it take as long as possible. The longer you could string your captor along, the better a chance of rescue, and the worse the information they’d be able to get out of you. It was considered inevitable that everyone would eventually break, the problem was that ‘breaking’ often meant giving bad information, especially because the pain and trauma could addle the mind.

The brave thing would probably have been to puff up his chest and say that it didn’t matter whether he lived or died. He could feel his body rebel against that, as though his autonomic nervous system considered it a base betrayal. The desire to live was strong.

“I have some of his memories,” said Kes. “Strong memories from his first world, weaker in the worlds after that. You want to know him? I can tell you things about him.”

Third Fervor moved the spear again, passing it by his face. She wasn’t toying with him, she was watching him, trying to get a gauge on what he was thinking and feeling.

“I’m not a cruel person,” she said. “I hold hate for him, and by proxy, for you, whatever you are. If I had no purpose or direction in this world, I would simply end you with a wave of this spear, a single smooth motion across your neck.” She swung the spear again, coming within an inch of his jugular. “If only the real Peregrin were so easy to kill.” She stood from the chair and swished the spear around. “Fortunately for us both, I have a duty to my queen.” There was a slight hitch as she said it, as though she had only just caught herself before saying ‘king’ instead. “I’ve never sat and questioned a man, even a normal man, not whatever you are. I’ll take my orders from the queen, but I suspect I know what she has in store for you.”

Kes nodded. “I’ll talk. As much as I’m able, as much as has been left in my mind, I’ll let you know.”

“Have you heard of Thirlwell’s spymaster?” asked Third Fervor. “He’s to credit with the defense of the realm, more than almost any other. I’ve given technology and understanding, and have struck out where and when I’ve been ordered, but he’s rooted out the perfidious elements of the culture that have tried to stab at the heart of the kingdom. He’s a man with an understanding of rooms like this, and has mastered the techniques necessary to get what he wants. I think I’ll leave you to him, unless my queen wills otherwise.”

There were lines of argument that Kes swallowed down. He’d had some thoughts about how to get to her, to shake her resolve, which was a necessary first step toward weakening her armor. Now was not the time for that. It would be better coming from Perry, and probing now might steel her resolve further.

She left the room without another look back at him, holding her helmet in one hand and spear in the other.

Kes sat at the table, manacled in place. The chains connecting his hands went through a loop on the table, while the ones around his legs went through a loop on the floor. They were thick and sturdy, with no give to them.

After ten minutes had gone by, he’d had a chance to calm down and not feel as though she was going to burst back into the room at any second. The fear was ebbing, leaving fatigue in its place. He was still dripping wet and uncomfortable in the soaked clothes, which were drying slowly. The manacles were tight, and allowed him no movement, but they weren’t cutting off the circulation. There was absolutely no way that he was going to be able to sleep, which was what he’d have done if he’d been placed in a proper prison cell.

He had no idea where he was. The room had obviously been set up for this, given that there was a foot-wide window that was open to the air, but it was high up on the wall, and he couldn’t see out of it. It could have been in the castle, or anywhere on the island. It could even have been somewhere on Berus, for all he knew, though that would have been stupid.

There was a single silver lining, which was the tooth that was still wedged between his gums and cheek.

If there were two silver linings, then the second was that Kes had a nanite bracelet on. It was thin and loose, though not so loose that it could actually be removed by anything but industrial machinery.

If Perry got close enough, the nanites would report in. That meant a rescue mission had some chance in hell of actually succeeding.

Would Perry launch a rescue mission? Kes tried to put himself in the shoes of his alternate self. It would depend on a lot of things, namely whether Perry even knew that Kes was missing.

Kes was suddenly horrified by the realization that everyone in the town might be dead. How long had he been on that beach? It hadn’t felt long, but with her strength, speed, and power, Third Fervor could have scythed her way through anyone who had come to try to deal with her. Moss had shot her with a large gun, and there was a dent in her armor, which was something. Perry hadn’t thought he’d done any damage at all to her during their fight.

Mette might be dead. The thought made his stomach churn. He wasn’t in love with her, but she was his closest friend, aside from maybe Marchand — and with Kes not in control of the armor, he was sorely missing the AI butler’s presence.

“Fuck,” said Kes.

He pulled at the manacles, trying to see whether he could get out from where he was chained up. If he could get a single hand free, then he could probably get both hands free, and if he could do that, he might be able to escape. The window was a foot across, not wide enough that he could get out of it, but there was also a door. If she’d been more clever, she might have made a jail cell that could only be accessed by portal. The window had once held bars, which were now just metal nubs, a hasty retrofit for her.

The wound in his shoulder was stinging. The wounds on his leg had stopped bleeding, but they were stinging too. In both cases, the fabric was wet with seawater, which wasn’t helping matters. He was worried about infection, given he was just sitting there with damp bandages on his leg and his shoulder wound exposed to the open air.

Time passed, and his mind began to wander. He was soggy and dog-tired. He debated eating the tooth, but that would only solve some of the very near-term problems while creating a whole host of long-term ones, some of which were long-term only in the sense that they were hours away rather than minutes.

It was somewhere between two hours and five hours later when the door to the cell opened up again. Dawn was starting to break, and it was entirely possible that Kes had actually fallen asleep in spite of it all. He badly needed to pee.

The man who entered the cell was short and tightly-wound, with skin a shade lighter than the usual for Thirlwell. He had a folder with papers in it and two mugs of tea that were gripped with the same hand. He set those on the table, then opened the folder without meeting Kes’ eyes.

The man was Dirk Gibbons.

The haircut was different, the shave was closer, and he was wearing a well-tailored black suit with brass buttons up the front of it, and it was definitely the same man that Kes had seen not more than two to five hours prior.

“I’m given to understand she threatened you,” said Dirk, still looking at his papers. “That’s not the way I do things. If I want to hurt you, I would hurt you, but in my considerable experience, hurting people doesn’t get results. You and I are going to have a talk, and if I have to do most of the talking, that’s fine.” He finally looked up at Kes’ eyes and noticed the open-mouthed confusion there.

“Wha,” said Kes.

His mind was whirling. The obvious answer was ‘clones’, but that led to obvious questions, like ‘how’ and ‘why’. A clone of Dirk Gibbons was the spymaster of Thirlwell. That meant either that Thirlwell had suffered a colossal intelligence failure that had put an agent of the culture in charge of all their intelligence gathering, or it meant that Thirlwell had infiltrated extremely deep into the heart of the culture and all their secrets.

“You’re injured,” said Dirk, looking at the bloody shoulder. “You’re probably hungry and tired. I can’t do much about that, because I have people breathing down my neck about you. They want whatever answers you can provide, and they want them six hours ago.”

“Are we being monitored?” asked Kes. He leaned forward slightly, as much as the manacles would allow. “Is there someone listening or watching?”

“No one is watching, no one is listening,” said Dirk. “No one except for me. It’s just the two of us here.”

Kes didn’t trust that at all, but there certainly wasn’t any one-way mirror, and a guard that was standing outside the door would have trouble hearing a whispered conversation. There were magic earmuffs though, and Dirk wouldn’t necessarily know whether those were being used against him. Thirlwell wasn’t supposed to have them, but Kes didn’t trust that.

“I’m going to unlock your manacle,” said Dirk. “I brought you some honeyed nettle tea. It’s not as piping hot as I tend to like it, because I’ve had people throw it in my face before. Are you fine if I unlock one of your hands?”

“Sure,” said Kes.

Dirk took a key from his pocket, got up, and undid the manacle on the right hand, giving Kes just a little bit of mobility back. The left hand was still attached to a chain, and it wouldn’t go through the loop in the thick table, but he had some reach there now too. Kes rubbed his wrist for a bit, then took the mug of tea as Dirk sat back down.

“So, we want answers, but we have time,” said Dirk. “These things don’t work without time, in my opinion. Third Fervor said that you had expressed some willingness to talk, which is good. She said that you’re, ah, a shade of Peregrin Holzmann, a traveler from another world, like she is.” He placed a hand on his chest. “I’m Thom Faulk. I work for the kingdom of Thirlwell.”

“You’re … the spymaster,” said Kes.

Dirk sighed. “It’s certainly a term that people have used for my position,” he said. “Really, all I do is talk to people, get to know them and where they’re coming from, see if we can’t see eye to eye on things. When I’m not doing that, I’m trying to get a broad overview of what’s going on in the kingdom at the street level. That’s it.”

“And you make people talk,” said Kes. He was trying to see the Dirk beneath the Thom, or whether Dirk had always been one of Thom’s masks.

“I talk to people,” said Dirk, tilting his head to the side. “It’s better not to do that with duress. Sometimes those people are accused of some very serious things. Talking can only make it better. It’s natural to want to get your side of the story out, to explain how things happened so people aren’t going to assume the worst.”

“You don’t ever use implements?” asked Kes. “Swords, hot pokers, a dirk?”

Dirk stilled. “No,” he said.

“There are some things I don’t want to talk about if someone else is listening in,” said Kes. “You said this is just between us and implied you’ll be circumspect about what you report. Rapport building, that’s the name of the game, yeah? So it would be great if you could make extra sure that no one is listening in, that no one has the capacity —”

Dirk scribbled furiously on a piece of paper using a long pencil that had been tucked in the folder. He held it up for Kes to read.

It said ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP’.

Kes nodded and stayed silent as Dirk chewed on the inside of his lip. His internal thoughts were apparent from the rapid eye movements and the working of his mouth.

“Here’s the problem,” said Dirk after a moment. “Third Fervor is from another world. She can open up portals and teleport and her armor can stop any weapon we know of. You are also from another world. You want assurances that no one is listening in? I cannot give you those assurances, because I don’t know what capabilities she has. It might be that she's listening to every word you say.” He gave Kes a very pointed stare.

“I’m willing to talk,” said Kes. “But there are people I’ve been working with, people I care about, who I don’t want to become targets.” He hesitated. “I think she killed a few of them. There was a dwarf, Moss, who shot her, and … I can’t imagine that she didn’t go after him. There was blood on her when she snatched me.”

Dirk winced. “You can keep your names to yourself, for the moment. I don’t think that’s what they aim to get out of you, unless there’s a name that would serve as a revelation, something we could actually use. Is there?” He stared at Kes and shook his head.

“No,” said Kes.

Dirk clenched his teeth, then sighed using his nose, a long and deep exhale. “Alright. How I’d normally do this is to do a gentle lead-in, lay out the basics of your life, the broad strokes of biography, but I don’t know a thing about you. Tell me about the planet you were born on.”

He started writing quickly on his paper and showed it just as Perry was trying to ineffectually sketch out some understanding of Earth. ‘AM I BLOWN?’ the paper asked. ‘NOD YES OR SHAKE HEAD FOR NO’.

Kes shook his head, pausing only momentarily while describing the three branches of the American government. He actually didn’t know for certain, but he hadn’t seen the other Dirk when everything was going to shit.

He was starting to feel some hope. If Dirk wasn’t a mastermind who had wormed his way into a position of power within the various Command Authorities, then Dirk was in very deep cover — cover that was only jeopardized by his other’s decision to set up shop on the neighboring island and the outside context problem of thresholders.

While Kes was talking about Earth and its features, Dirk was thinking. This was a problem for him for a whole host of reasons, Kes knew that, but whatever was going on in his mind was opaque.

Kes talked about the day he’d gone through the portal, and what it had been like that first day in a new world with Richter, on a world that was the same as his but also very different.

“But it wasn’t you,” said Dirk. “Third Fervor said that you were only a shade, a shallow copy of …” He stopped. Kes could practically see the gears turning in his mind and locking into place. “Oh.”

“A power that the original acquired during the course of his travels,” said Kes with a significant look.

“One that you know the details of?” asked Dirk.

Kes nodded. “No,” he said out loud.

“And why … never mind,” said Dirk. “Shit.”

“Problem?” asked Kes.

“No,” said Dirk. “Just thinking. You’re doing well, you’re talking, that’s something. But you understand that the other you killed the king, right? And we can’t actually be sure that you’re not him. I know you’re probably hurt and scared right now, and you need a doctor to see to your wounds, but … the man we’re dealing with represents a threat to the way of life in this country. He’s a criminal by the laws of Thirlwell, Berus, and everywhere else. There’s no country or Command Authority that would sanction a killing. So what we want to know is how and why it happened.”

Kes was trying to read him and failing. This obviously represented a shift of some kind, but he didn’t know what.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Kes. “I don’t know why it happened.” He hoped he was a good enough liar.

He took a drink of the honeyed tea. He didn’t really know what a nettle was, but it tasted grassy to him, in a way that the honey made pleasant. He had some faint worry that it was poisoned, but if someone wanted to kill him, he was chained in place and there wasn’t a lot he could do to stop them. He needed sleep, or at least rest, and Dirk was right, he also needed a doctor to at least change his bandages.

“Alright,” said Dirk. “You’re tired. “I’m going to see about getting you moved from here. You’ll still be under guard, we can’t lift that requirement, but we can get you a doctor, some clothes, and better living conditions. Third Fervor won’t like it, and I’m not sure that the queen will either, but I think that’s our best bet right now.”

“Okay,” said Kes. “I trust you.”

That seemed to give Dirk some pause. There obviously hadn’t been much contact between the Dirks. The rescue operation that Perry had been on, had that been coordinated between the two of them? It was impossible to say. But if one Dirk was on the inside controlling a substantial portion of the intelligence network, then he must have known where the agitators and spies were. It was the easy way to quickly rise up the ranks to become a spymaster, and a great way to make the internal political situation seem more favorable than it really was.

“Drink the rest of your tea,” said Dirk. “I need to manacle you back up. There aren’t any doctors in this place right now, but I’ll get one to see you, so long as you promise not to make a run for it.”

“Are we in a place where I could make a run for it?” asked Kes with an arched eyebrow.

“It would mean my head if I let you escape,” said Dirk.

Kes swallowed the rest of the tea, heedless of the fact that he needed to use the bathroom. He didn’t know when the next time he’d have anything to drink was, and it didn’t seem like food would be forthcoming. His muscles were going to atrophy even faster if he was being kept in a jail cell and not fed.

Dirk came around and locked Kes back up, then stood behind him. It made Kes uneasy, and he was about to ask what was happening before a piece of fabric was drawn across his mouth. It tasted like sweat, and he tried to scream, but it came out muted. With swift motions, the gag was tied tightly in place, and Dirk came around to the side. He brought the mug up and smashed it down against the table, where it broke into pieces.

Dirk picked a thick, jagged edge of broken mug and looked at it with a clinical eye, then turned on Kes.

Kes tried to move, but there was nowhere to move. He was a liability to Dirk, he’d realized that, but a staged suicide hadn’t even crossed his mind.

He used his tongue to get the tooth out of his position tucked in his cheek and swallowed it down with great effort. It scraped his throat on the way down, and with that, he had done as much as he could not to die.

Dirk stabbed him in the throat with the edge of the mug. It was a well-placed hit, and Kes couldn’t move out of the way. He started gushing blood immediately, and as soon as he was bleeding, Dirk was unlocking the manacle. He wiped his hand off with a handkerchief from his pocket, then went around and untied the gag.

Kes placed his hand against his neck, pressing down at hard as he could on the blood-slick skin. He was feeling faint, with too much blood having left his body, and as he grew weaker, he was able to apply less pressure.

Dirk only looked back for long enough to check that the scene was convincing. He eyed the wound at Kes’ neck, maybe trying to decide whether it had been enough. He hesitated, mouthed the word ‘sorry’, then hurried out of there.

Kes tried to stay conscious. It was a question of whether the tooth was going to work in time or not. He hoped that the partial transformation would be enough to get him out of the manacles, but even if it did, he’d be trapped in this room. The door was wood — would he be able to break out? There really was a lot of blood coming out of his neck. He could feel it spurting against his fingers. He tried to remember how it had been when he’d transformed at Flora’s place, when it had been his arm that was fucked.

He was getting increasingly woozy and having trouble keeping it together. If he could rip his way through the door, kill and eat a guard — where had that thought come from? — then he would need to run as fast as he could. It was daytime now, with no moon in the sky, but he didn’t know whether that would matter or not. He’d need every scrap of power he had to escape Third Fervor. Realistically, he would have to hope that she didn’t so much as hear about the escape before he was long gone. His head was swimming and his consciousness was fading.

A pulse of energy raced through him, and his hand slipped from his neck as he jerked in the chair. After a dribble of blood flowed down to add to the bloody mess that was his shirt, his hand went back to his neck, only to find that there was nothing to stop up there, only a divot where the cut had been. It had been like a hiccup of power and healing, and he was already feeling better, more clear-headed.

He was still firmly manacled in place, all except the arm that had been left free to make the suicide look convincing. He hoped he’d be able to break through. The wolf form was bigger than his human form, the mass coming from nowhere, or from the internal energy, or whatever it was. He didn’t know how much force the transformation could exert, except that it was powerful enough to destroy clothes if it had to.

The wound in his shoulder had healed. The tiny cuts that Nima’s claws had left on his thigh had also healed. He was hungrier than he’d been a few minutes ago, back before he was bleeding to death, and he could feel, at the back of his throat, the desire for meat.

The energy rippled through him again, making his hair stand up on end, and it came with a nameless rage. He slammed his fist down on the table and broke the wood there, then yanked at the manacle on his hand, which stubbornly stayed where it was. He shoved the table forward, which crashed against the wall, releasing him. He yanked at the manacles on his feet, putting the whole weight of his body into it, and the link that went through the hook in the floor began to bend. That it wasn’t breaking made him more angry, and he strained his entire body against the link, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw hurt. When it broke, he yanked his legs, trying to get the chains apart, and he howled in frustration before his breathing slowed down and he was again in his right mind.

He unthreaded the broken link. It was easy, if you weren’t a beast. His limbs were free, even if they were trailing chains. He touched his neck. There wasn’t even a divot there anymore.

He hoped that no one had heard him howling. He was going to have to make a run for it soon, and kill everyone in his way to leave no witnesses or survivors. He could feel the wolf’s thinking infecting his own, and the way the heat of his muscles seemed to compel them to action.

The guard opened the door at the worst possible time. Kes moved forward and closed the distance with two steps, chains rattling behind him, and struck with claws fully extended into the man’s face. Kes twisted his grip around, slicing through the flesh, then pushed the guard backward and sprinted out into the hallway, looking for prey and finding none.

He turned on the guard, who’d fallen to the floor and was clutching his ruined face.

When he came to, there was blood around his mouth and soaking his clothes. He should have been running, not spending time on this, and he set aside his revulsion at what he’d done to push himself to find an exit.