Thresholder

“There were five, historically, at least ones the Jade Scholars know about,” said Florence as she walked quickly through the city streets. People parted for her, or for the uniform, and Perry honestly thought that he’d have struggled to keep up with her if his legs weren’t so much longer than hers. He was almost an entire foot taller than her. He wondered how she handled herself as a cop if she wasn't allowed to use her claws in front of people who weren't a part of the Custom, but he supposed he could save that for later. “You would be the sixth.”

“These are ... other people who move between worlds?” asked Perry. He wondered whether they should be speaking about this out loud, given that she’d been ready to kill him when he used his magic sword in public.

“Powerful people,” she said with a glance back at him. “In anno 347 two thresholders destroyed the city of Karmesh with their battle. In anno 611 a fight between thresholders spilled out into the palace of the Moon King, killing hundreds and presaging the fall of the Lunar Empire. The fights are so large that they can’t be ignored.” She glanced back at him again, as though expecting him to start a fight right then and there.

“I don’t know anything about that,” said Perry, though a small part of him was thinking, ‘when someone asks you if you're a God, you say yes’. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. But if there is an Adversary, someone like me, a — thresholder?”

“We need to get you a glamour,” said Florence. “That’s the first step. You’re to wear it at all times, but especially when you’re using that sword.”

Perry glanced down at the sword, which he was carrying in its sheath. He’d had thoughts of sending it away, either back into the house he’d been squatting in or somewhere out of the way, but Florence hadn’t taken kindly to Perry being publicly weird, and in the daylight, a flying sword might stick out.

She’d had long claws, now retracted, and black wings, which had faded away to nothing. From the badge, she was a police officer of some kind, but from the piece of jade she’d pulled out, she was also something else. A double cop, though it wasn't clear whether the king knew she was moonlighting. Perry wished that he’d had his armor. She seemed to be helping him now, but he wasn’t sure how long that would last.

“Tell me about them,” said Perry. “What are the thresholders like?”

“Powerful beings wielding unknown and unknowable magic,” said Florence. “The last of them was a hundred years ago. I wasn’t around for it personally.”

“You’re long-lived?” he asked.

“I will be,” she replied. She stopped in front of an alley that Perry wouldn’t have even noticed was there. “Here.” She pushed on ahead, not taking a moment to see whether he was following.

There were people in the alley, much to Perry’s surprise, most of them hidden within tiny stalls that got only a small sliver of light from above. They had goods on display, shimmering fabrics and small carved figurines, but there was nothing personable in how they looked at him, no attempt to hawk their wares. There were, in fact, a few glares, though they seemed reserved for Florence rather than Perry himself. Some of the people there were odd-looking, eyes too large or fingers gnarled, and he had no idea whether that was because of their living conditions or because they weren’t quite human. He had no idea what to expect, and followed behind Florence, ready to bolt upwards with the sword at a moment’s notice.

“Belcher,” Florence said to a large man at one of the stalls, coming to a stop so suddenly that Perry almost ran into her.

“Flo,” he said.

“Flora, if you’re keeping it short,” she said. “I need a glamour, as strong as you have.” She couldn’t have been more than five foot two, but she was still doing a passable job of intimidation. Perry wondered whether it would be the claws or the jade that came out if she needed to press the point.

“And you’re not going to pay?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It’ll have to be gratis, yes,” said Florence. “A favor, to be repaid. It has to be now.”

“For this man?” asked Belcher, turning to look at Perry. Belcher, which was probably not his name, was a man with a large gut, an almost comically round beer belly and a slovenly appearance. “Hard to hide his oddness.”

“I’m just tall,” said Perry. “And I need clothes that fit.”

“He needs a glamour,” said Florence. “Strong enough to make someone’s eyes water.”

“What is he?” asked Belcher, still regarding Perry. His eyes were on the places that the suit most obviously didn’t fit. “No glamour at all right now?”

“It’s not the time for answering questions,” said Florence.

“It’s time for favors, is it?” asked Belcher. He gave a little laugh, then a small burp. “You tell me what he is, and I’ll grant your favor. Gossip is its own stock and trade.”

“What he is could cause a panic,” said Florence. She hesitated for a moment, weighing her words. “He’s a thresholder.”

Belcher’s eyes went wide, and he looked at Perry again. “They never said that they were giants.”

“I’m really not that tall,” said Perry. He was six foot one, which was tall, but hardly a giant. Back on Earth, he’d been aware of how tall doorways were, and someone had tried to recruit him for basketball, but he was hardly a freak. Here, with smaller people and what he thought was probably a significant amount of pollution and malnourishment, he did stick out.

“Glamour, please,” said Florence, holding out a hand. The claws hadn’t come out.

“There’s no glamour that’s going to cover this up if he starts a fight in the city,” said Belcher with a snort. He reached under his counter and rummaged around. “But I can give an eye-watering glamour to him, on your say so, with one favor in trade.” He placed an amulet on the stained wood of the counter, being gentle with it. “You try to keep him out of trouble.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” said Florence. She snatched the amulet up, showing considerably less care, and turned to Perry. “Stoop down a bit, you need to put this on.”

He bent low, and she did the clasp on the chain, tucking it inside his shirt and then looking at him. “It’ll do. Follow me.”

“What is all this?” asked Perry as he went after her.

“A glamour,” said Florence. “A strong enough one, we hope. It’ll make it so people don’t notice you as much. If they look straight at you, they’ll see you, but if you don’t do anything too odd, it’ll slip right out of their minds.” She looked back at him, surefooted through the alley as it branched. “It’s not a panacea though. Go too far beyond the norm and it won’t be able to slip out. Follow the Custom, that’s the law here, on penalty of death.”

Perry kept silent for a moment, thinking as they walked through the dingy alley, past more stalls and the occasional person slumped against the side of a wall. He wasn’t sure whether he was getting any fewer looks from people, though the well-dressed policewoman was probably what people were focusing on.

They came out into a street with large gray tiles instead of cobblestones, the back alleys apparently having led to a different part of the city. The clothes were finer here, with more suits and long dresses, and a number of elaborate hats for both the men and women. Feathers seemed to be in style, and a number of women had them on their bustles, making them look like birds with delicate plumage.

Florence turned on him. “We’re going to meet a few very important people,” she said. “Keep quiet until I tell you otherwise. There’s too much you don’t know — can’t know — and we’re trying to thread a needle.”

“Why?” asked Perry. He was still holding his sword, as there was nowhere to attach the sheath. The glamour seemed to be doing its work, because no one seemed interested in him, in spite of the weapon and his appearance.

“To save your life,” said Florence. “And to make sure that if your fight spills out into the city, we’re ready for it.”

“The Adversary,” said Perry. “I’m not the one spoiling for a fight, it’s going to be him. But I will defend myself, and I will kill him.”

He hadn’t, in the first world. The Adversary’s name had been Mordant, and he’d appeared with a bolt of lightning, slamming down into Richter’s yard with a thunderclap, oversized gun held by a hydraulic exoskeleton. They had battled, more than once, and Perry had won, but if he could have avoided the entire thing, he would have. He hadn't been able to protect Richter, hadn't realized that she would need protection until it was too late. He’d been hesitant to kill, then, and had left the Adversary broken and bloody, stripped of his weapons.

In the second world, the Adversary had called himself Pulver. They’d first met at Odilon’s court, where the Adversary had challenged Perry to a duel to the death, a duel which the king had denied. Pulver had an arm made of wood and a glowing halo around his head, but none of the stylings of a knight, not like the armor Perry had. With the duel denied, Pulver had spat at the throne and left, and returned later, on the field of battle, hobgoblins and orcs at his side, their war co-opted by him. Perry had killed Pulver, first hacking off the wooden arm, then driving his sword through the Adversary’s chest.

Perry had vowed that if there was another portal, he wouldn’t be on the back foot again. He would find the Adversary, and kill him, end the entire thing before it had begun.

“You are spoiling for a fight,” said Florence. She was watching his face. “We don’t know enough about your kind, but we do understand what happens when you people find each other.” She briefly looked down at Perry’s suit. “It would be better if you could make a good impression, but we don’t have the time.”

“Who are we going to meet?” asked Perry. “What is this?”

“I’m gendarme of the Order of the Rose,” said Florence, pointing to her copper badge that had been stamped with a rose. “I ultimately answer to King Edmund the Fourth. But I’m also a Jade Imperator, an arm of the Jade Council. They’re who you’re going to meet.”

“To decide my fate?” asked Perry.

“There are scholars,” said Florence. “People who know more than me. Historically, thresholders have been associated with ruin and bloodshed. The city can’t take that right now. The Custom can’t take it. We’re at the start of the Century of Progress. A large-scale fight across the city would drag people like those we saw in the alley out into the open, people like me, and Edmund would put them to death, to a one.” She was staring at him with hard eyes. “I’m trying to prevent a calamity.”

“You’re trying to put me in a room with people who it seems might have every reason to want me dead,” said Perry. “Stop the thresholders before they have their fight, right?”

“I’ll protect you,” Florence said. “So long as you keep your fight from exploding out into the city, so long as you make sure that civilians aren’t hurt, I’ll stand by your side.”

Perry thought about that for a moment. He looked at her pursed lips. “Swear on it?” he asked.

She hesitated. “By my pledge to King Edmund, and by the bond of my service to the Jade Council, I swear to stand by your side and protect you, so long as this city comes to no harm.”

Perry was not, in fact, one of the fae, as she’d suggested he might be. He could still see where her vow to him had holes large enough to drive a truck though. He hoped that wasn’t malicious, and was in fact a sign that she was serious about her promises — unwilling to make a promise that she couldn’t or wouldn’t keep. He was still on edge, and while the first shoe had dropped, hidden magic, the second shoe was still waiting. It would have been nice if there wasn't someone else like him in this world, if he could be free to explore it on his own terms, but the last two worlds had established a pattern. If there was an Adversary, another thresholder, Perry wasn't going to wait for them to plot an ambush against him.

“Then let’s go meet your masters,” said Perry.

They went into a bank, and were led into the back offices by a guard, and eventually down into the belly of the building, first one basement level, then a second. Perry was gripping his sword tighter. He was almost certain that his connection to Marchand couldn’t withstand that thickness of the floors above him, nor the earth around them. Florence had started preening herself as she walked, adjusting her cap, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, smoothing her clothes, picking off bits of lint from her skirt, and overall making a hurried job of looking presentable. Perry tried to do the same, but there was no way to make the suit look good on him. Walking down the street, it had been good enough to pass, but with a panel of people looking at him under a spotlight, he had no illusions that he’d look anything but goofy.

They came to a large room, one that must have extended under other buildings. There were rows of seating and a large curved desk behind which were a number of nameplates. Only two of the seven were filled, both men with pale skin, one of them balding and shrunken, definitely the older of the two, the other with gray at his temples and a stern look. The seating — pews, to Perry’s eyes — was empty.

“Imperator Kaminska,” said the one with a stern look. The nameplate labeled him Akerman. “You come to us with cause?”

“Yes, Councilor,” said Florence with a bow. “With respect, I believe this demands the attention of the full council.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” replied Akerman. “Your opinion has been taken under advisement. Proceed.” His eyes had moved to Perry.

“This is Peregrin Holzmann,” said Florence. “He’s identified himself as a thresholder.”

The older of the two councilors — his nameplate said Wilkinson — sat up a little straighter. “Thresholder?”

“It’s why I advise the full council be awakened to hear my report,” said Florence, bowing slightly. “I believe this to be of dire importance given the state of the city.”

“Awakening will take some time,” said Akerman. “Half a day, for the eldest, and with considerable expenditures of our reserves.”

“A quorum, at least,” said the elder councilor. “With Mathewson and Collingwood.”

“We cannot select our quorum,” said Akerman. He said it in a tired, beleaguered way, an argument that he felt someone needed to make.

Wilkinson let out a sigh and slumped in his chair again. “The full council then.”

“Half a day,” said Akerman, turning to Florence. “And you had better be right.”

“I must also say that I have pledged him my protection,” said Florence. “He wouldn’t have come down here without that.”

Akerman narrowed his eyes. “Very well. The council will reconvene, in full, when day has passed into night.” He got up from his seat, moving swiftly in his pressed suit, to a small door behind the desk, and the older, smaller councilor followed.

“Did that go well?” asked Perry.

“No,” said Florence. “But the full council is more conservative, more apt to deal with this in a way that keeps things contained.”

“But they’re sleeping?” asked Perry. “At lunchtime?” His stomach was growling, since the last thing he’d eaten had been roast mutton a world away.

“They’re old,” said Florence. “They slumber. The eldest of them was there, at Karmesh, twelve hundred years ago.”

“I see,” said Perry. He hoped he'd have a chance to ask the elder questions. There were more data points to be had, to get a better understanding of what a thresholder actually was.

“You’ve been to worlds like this,” said Florence, watching his face.

“I know of worlds like this, yes,” said Perry. He hesitated on the word, ‘vampire’, but that was the direction that everything had seemed to be pointing. “I need some food, I didn’t have breakfast. And I need to get my armor.”

“You can’t walk the streets wearing armor,” said Florence. “Not even wearing a powerful glamour.”

“All the same, I’m at half-strength without it,” said Perry. “And without knowing where or who the Adversary is, I need to be prepared.” He wouldn’t have admitted any of that without her assurance that he was under her protection, but it seemed as though he’d found this world’s Ally. If it was like the others, there would be a Power as well. Mordant had his lightning bolts, which Richter had been at a loss to explain, and Pulver had his halo and wooden arm, neither of which had been local. Pulver had even mentioned being to other worlds. That they were, like him, caught in the same patterns, seemed more and more obvious.

When Perry had stepped through that first portal, Richter had been there, a brilliant scientist and inventor who'd tracked his arrival using subsonic vibrations. She'd been just as surprised as he was that there was someone from another world, and had taken him in, not wanting to go to the authorities until she knew more, an opinion that he'd shared. Mordant's arrival in her front yard a week later had been a shock to both of them, and had seemed to establish that Perry's unwitting world-walking was something else. They'd had theories, lots of them, which had been blown out of the water by Mordant's appearance and the subsequent fight that had driven him off. When Perry had finally beaten Mordant to a pulp, when the whole thing was over, Perry had gone through the portal thinking that maybe it was over, that he was going back to Earth.

And then it had been a world of magic, of dragons and dungeons, and all the theories had been reduced to shambles again, only this time without Richter to help reconstruct them.

“You can move with it on at night, if you keep to the rooftops,” said Florence. “The sword allows you to leap?”

“To fly,” said Perry. He was holding onto the sword, so he rose into the air by way of demonstration. His hair, which he’d cut short for the armor’s helm, floated up as he did, untethered from gravity, and his clothes rose around him too before he dropped a few inches back to the ground.

Florence was staring at him. She had peircing eyes. “You’re not to do that where people can see,” she said. “The glamour might protect you, but it’s easier for the mind to explain a jump. People think the wings were a cloak, or the jump was a quick scramble using handholds.”

“Alright,” said Perry. He looked down at the sword in his hand. “They’ll think the sword is a cane, or something like that?”

“If they think of it at all,” said Florence, nodding. “Or their mind will make something up.”

“I need food,” said Perry, as his stomach growled again. He was starting to feel a little light-headed. “And water. Clean water.” He had seen the air pollution, and didn’t suppose that the water was much cleaner. “Boiled water.”

“Tea?” she asked.

Perry nodded.

He felt better once they were out of the bank and back on the street, especially once Marchand reconnected.

“Are you alright, sir?” asked Marchand into his ear. “You were offline for a considerable time.”

“I’m fine,” said Perry, trying to keep his voice low. The microphone in the earpiece used bone conduction, which meant he wouldn’t have to speak very loudly, especially with Richter’s engineering. “Status?”

“I have a radio signal, sir,” said Marchand. “I have yet to locate the source, and it’s stopped for now, which will stymie triangulation.”

“Native?” asked Perry.

“Who are you talking to?” asked Florence, who had been walking just ahead of him. He had thought the city streets would be noisy enough to mask his talking. He didn't know if she had enhanced senses. Vampires usually did, he thought, but he was going off Earth stories, which didn't seem like they'd be too helpful.

“I believe it might be native,” said Marchand. “It’s difficult to say. The signal contained no voice, and was too short to decode, if it was coded at all.”

“Just a voice in my head,” said Perry to Florence. “Don’t worry about it.”

They got sandwiches, which were refreshingly familiar after some of the foods that Perry had been subject to in Seraphinus. Some of the things inside the sandwich were unfamiliar, but Perry had gotten over the squeamishness at eating something whose contents and origins he was unclear on. He drank three cups of tea as Florence looked on. She’d hardly eaten her own food, though she had ordered for herself as well, which he thought meant she probably didn’t drink blood.

“You seem … normal,” she said.

“I was, where I come from,” said Perry. “I wasn’t always a thresholder.” The world was still unfamiliar to him, and he wondered whether other worlds knew of thresholders, and whether they would call them that. It wasn't a name that people seemed like they would arrive at naturally though.

“What did you do, before you were granted this power?” she asked.

It was an odd way of framing it, to him, since it didn’t feel like he’d been granted power at all. He’d been given gifts by people he knew and trusted, and moving through portals to other worlds had felt like a gift with a serious drawback, once he'd known that people would be trying to kill him. There had definitely been a honeymoon period before Mordant had shown up, with Perry's opinion of a parallel world buoyed by Richter's scientific enthusiasm.

“I was a student,” he said. “A scholar, I guess you’d say. I studied geography.”

“Places?” she asked.

“Places, features, people, how people affect their landscape, how they’re affected by them,” said Perry. “I was getting my master’s, which is a higher level of education.” His least favorite part of getting a master’s in geography was that people didn’t understand it. They thought that geography was the naming of countries, rivers, and mountains, rather than the understanding of how countries came to be, how rivers flowed and how mountains affected weather, soil, and the prosperity of a country. ‘Oh, you’re getting a master’s in geography? Name every country’. Perry could name every country, but that was because he had an affection for trivia competitions. “How did you come to be a, ah … gendarme?” A gendarme, plus whatever else she was. He wasn’t actually that clear on what a gendarme was, or how it differed from a police officer.

“My father was in the military,” said Florence. There was no trace of emotion in her voice. “He died in the Reclamation War. I grew up around the military, and the gendarmes are the only branch that take women.”

“You’re … military police,” said Perry.

Florence frowned. “The Order of the Rose is a branch of the military that police civilians. There are others who police the military itself.”

“Sir, there’s another radio signal,” said Marchand into Perry’s ear. “The same source, I believe. If you return, we can move, and I can find the source.”

“I need to grab the armor, now,” said Perry.

“Not in the daylight,” said Florence.

“Please,” said Perry. “It’s important. It’s to find the Adversary.”

“Can you take the fight somewhere else?” asked Florence, leaning forward. “The farmlands outside the city, a fight over the water, something like that? Away from people, buildings, things that would be destroyed?”

Perry wasn’t sure how to answer that. She seemed to think he was much stronger than he actually was. Even with the power armor, he thought he’d be hard pressed to destroy a building. He could probably put a hole through a wall pretty easily, or hurl a car — not that they had cars — but there was no way that a fight with someone else would level a city, not unless he was completely outclassed.

“I need to find the Adversary in order to know who they are, what they can do,” said Perry. “But yes, I can fly, I’ll take the fight somewhere else, somewhere that doesn’t involve us being seen by hundreds of people.” He saw her face. “Or even by dozens of people.”

“Keep the glamour on,” said Florence. “And I’m coming with you. I’ll try to mediate.”