“He left us,” said Nima. Her sword was hanging down and her mouth was hanging open. She was staring at the spot where Perry had been.
“You didn’t have leverage,” said Mette. She shifted in the gross, sweaty bed. “Sorry about that.”
“I had a sword to your throat,” said Nima. “I was pretty clearly threatening to kill you.”
“Yeah, if you kill me, he has no reason to keep you alive,” said Mette. “I knew you wouldn’t.”
“If I kill you … there’s a chance a portal opens, right?” asked Nima. She looked down at Mette. To her credit, she lowered the sword even more, making it clear that what she’d said hadn’t been a threat. “I didn’t mean —”
“It’s fine,” said Mette. “You’re at least going to talk with me about it before you do it, and once I’m done talking, you’ll stop thinking it’s a good idea.” Still, she spoke quickly. “Fenilor already beat me. I was as good as dead. Perry was making plans for a world where I wasn’t around. Literally everything we know about how the portals work says that if a portal were going to open when I was defeated, it would have opened then. I’m pretty sure that I’m your ally, as funny as that might seem.”
“Hilarious,” said Nima. She paused, then put the sword down and retracted her helmet. Mette could see her softly feminine face and the delicacy of her elven features. With the armor up, she’d looked more like a machine. “Sorry.”
“It happens,” said Mette.
Nima looked at the hulking pieces of the cloning device, and not for the first time. “This is what they were hiding in that warehouse,” she said. “The thing that was inside the airship.”
“Yeah,” said Mette.
“What’s it do?” asked Nima as her eyes traced the harsh lines.
“Does the word ‘classified’ mean anything to you?” asked Mette. “I don’t have the same translation stuff that Perry has.”
“No,” said Nima, shaking her head. “Does it mean you can’t tell me?”
“Yeah,” said Mette with a sigh. “Especially since, you know …”
“I switched sides,” said Nima. She nodded. “I stand by that. I don’t like the culture. I don’t wish for them to have a chokehold on this world.”
Mette shrugged. “I don’t want to get into that. What I want is to take a shower.”
Nima looked around. “Is that … possible?”
“With engineering, all things are possible,” said Mette with a solemn nod. “Though actually, it’s just a matter of heating up water, and that’s just a matter of hooking some kind of resistor up to the battery and figuring out some kind of catch for it, along with a plan for the used water.”
“I can help with that,” said Nima.
“When Perry comes back, you can hold me hostage again,” said Mette. “Though I don’t think he’s going to go for it either way.”
“Thanks,” said Nima with a small smile. “Worth trying, I guess.”
“And of course, he might die out there,” said Mette. “In which case we’re going to have a lot of time to figure out how not to die.”
~~~~
Perry dropped down to the flashes of light below, depending on Marchand’s video analysis to make it bright enough to see by and to zoom in close enough that they didn’t just look like random blips. The battle was happening two miles away from Thirlwell, where the lights of the city were still shining. The other thresholders were battling above the cold black waves.
“You have a standing order to shoot Fenilor whenever he changes armor,” said Perry. “I don’t know how much he’s tested them, but he’s having to do different combinations to stay in the air. If we can find one that a bullet can get through, that’s got to be to our benefit. Conserve ammo if there’s some question whether it’s effective.”
“Yes, sir,” said Marchand.
The hole that Fenilor had poked in him was hurting, his insides burning with pain that was only slowly abating as he tried to pour more energy into his wounds. If he were fighting on the ground, he’d have trouble running, but he was in the air, and could remain rigid.
“Don’t shoot Third Fervor unless I say so,” said Perry. “Not that the gun has done all that much to her.”
“Very good, sir,” said Marchand. “I still have latitude?”
“Uh, yes,” said Perry. “Ask first, if at all possible. You inform me, I inform you, we’re partners.”
“Yes, sir,” said Marchand.
As they got closer, the screaming started. Third Fervor had some kind of sound power, one strong enough to get through all of Marchand’s manipulations and deadening, and she was using it above the water. Because she couldn’t fly and was keeping herself aloft with portals, the sound cut in and out, and sometimes doubled itself when she passed through a portal and the shouts aligned to reach Perry at the same time.
Fenilor had changed his armor and weapon, which must have been done in a harrowing moment in the middle of their battle, possibly more than once. The armor was made of a dark wood that was soaked and dripping. A thin tendril of water connected him to the ocean below, stretching a hundred feet to reach him, either following him or allowing him to move himself like a puppet with a strand of water for a string. His weapon was now a shard of steel wrapped with vines that hooked into his wrist, and he had a shield made of stone that seemed like it should have weighed hundreds of pounds.
Third Fervor was moving all over the place with her portals. The go-to move seemed to be dropping down into a portal that would fling her up into the air and give her either a sightline on Fenilor or bring her close enough to attack. From time to time she opened a portal whose other end must have been deep beneath the water, because it blasted water out at incredible speeds. Fenilor’s armor was giving him some control of water, and he was deflecting these water blasts to the side, which meant that Third Fervor could come in close to him with a portal and do a pincer attack with her own long-range blast.
Perry wasn’t sure what stage of the fight they were on, but it seemed as though Fenilor was losing, at least from a distance. Third Fervor was wearing him down, and seemed to have a pattern that was working for her. The speed she was using to make portals was incredible, as was her ability to stay oriented while upside down or sideways.
She blasted Fenilor with water from a distance again and portaled next to him again, forcing him to deal with one or the other in a split second. Perry had gotten close enough that the suit’s cameras could resolve damage to the wooden armor and gouges on the shield. It was possible that a single bullet could finish Fenilor off.
But this time when Third Fervor struck out with her spear, Fenilor swung his vine-wrapped blade in anticipation, using the blast of water to cloak his movements. When the sword hit her, the vines snapped forward, growing from nothing and wrapping around her, binding her tightly with the spear stuck against her side.
She let loose a scream, as though she was going to yell the vines off her, and Fenilor’s hands clutched his head. He dropped down out of her reach, into the water below, leaving the vines in place.
“Shit,” said Perry.
Third Fervor was well and truly trapped, though she still had her portals, and when she began falling, she fell through one that led her somewhere else.
Both combatants were gone, and the ocean was silent save for the waves.
“I assume you didn’t have the shot?” asked Perry, who was still descending.
The HUD zoomed out, showing their true distance from the water and where the battle had been going on.
“Ah,” said Perry.
“It would have been possible to hit Fenilor, sir,” said Marchand. “However, the odds were poor, and it would have given away our position.”
“Hmm,” said Perry. Fenilor hadn’t reappeared from the water. It seemed like maybe the bout was over. The cameras on the suit wouldn’t be able to pick up Fenilor in the water, not with only the stars and moon to illuminate it, not unless Fenilor was very close to the surface.
Perry called the sword back to him. It had tumbled away and fallen into the water, but it came back to him readily enough, and when it did, he slipped it into its sheath. It had glowed the entire time it was in flight, exposing him, but Third Fervor was dealing with the vines somewhere, and Fenilor had completely disappeared, either hiding in the water or having vanished. Perry deliberately slowed his pulse, trying to conserve battle readiness.
“Not the worst outcome,” sighed Perry. “Why did she send us up to space, do you think?”
“Not to contradict you, sir,” said Marchand, “But we were only halfway to space. I do imagine that Third Fervor was attempting to kill us, as she had attempted to kill us by bringing us to the ocean floor. One can only wonder what hostile environment she’ll send us to when next she gets the opportunity.”
“We’re her rival, not Fenilor,” said Perry. He chewed his lip. “We killed her king. She should have gone for us.”
“Indeed, sir,” said Marchand. There was a brief pause where a human might have cleared his throat. “Might I say, sir, that I appreciate that you’ve taken ownership of the king’s death?”
“Sure,” said Perry. His eyes scanned the waters as though he’d be able to spot something that Marchand hadn’t. “Hard to explain it to people.”
“You have taken ownership even when we’re alone, sir,” said Marchand.
“Partners,” said Perry, which didn’t feel like enough of a response.
Perry kept watching the waters, hoping that Fenilor would come up from below, though when that happened, he still wasn’t sure that he could win the fight. It would be negligent not to test the gun against a variety of armors though, and Perry had the spear now, which seemed like it was his to keep. Fenilor had picked this battlefield, but it seemed he had picked poorly.
Perry was going to have to go into the shelf and deal with Nima. He wasn’t looking forward to that.
Getting removed from the fight left him frustrated. He had wanted a win against one or both of them. He had wanted to test his mettle against Fenilor again. There had been too many losses, or incomplete wins, and he was hungering for victory. Capturing Nima obviously didn’t count — he had complete dominance over her pretty much any time he wanted. She was barely even an equal to Kes.
When Perry saw one of Third Fervor’s portals appear, he almost smiled, then he almost went after her. Instead, he stayed where he was, a black shape floating in the air, and watched as she flitted around, portal after portal to keep herself in the air. It wasn’t a preferred battlefield for her. If she could do the portal waterjet trick here, then in theory she could do it anywhere. With the portals, she could possibly change the battlefield, though that would take setting him up to push him through a portal. The spear made him faster, but he wasn’t practiced with it.
He was trying to weigh whether going after her would be a good idea when she spotted him.
Her attack started with a portal five feet above him. She was dropping at speed with her spear pointed straight at his head. He shifted to the side using more of his spear’s thrumming power than he meant to, and she screamed loud enough to cause him some pain as she passed. She opened a portal beneath her feet and appeared above him again, dropping faster because she’d picked up speed, and Perry dodged again.
The third time he was ready for her, and pointed his spear straight up at her, hoping that he’d be able to outmaneuver her in a vertical joust. Her spear came within inches of him, but his hit her squarely in the stomach. Her armor protected her and she twisted off the spear point as he was knocked down. Another portal appeared and whisked her away, this time sending her up to kill her momentum.
He had always known that her armor was going to be a problem. It didn’t matter how fast he was, or how perfectly he timed his strikes, if they just glanced off her, he was going to be worn down. This time there wouldn’t be a monster from the deep to save him — probably. But he knew that the armor had a weakness: it was fueled by her clarity of purpose. And that he could attack far better than trying to poke her with yet another weapon.
“Wait!” he called.
Third Fervor dropped through another portal and came up in an arc, twisting through the air to lash out sideways with the spear. He brought his own spear up to block her, and when the hafts of their spears met, she pushed backward and dropped down through another portal that took her further away.
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“Wait!” he called again. His ears were ringing from the shout she’d let out earlier, and it was only because he’d given no reaction that she hadn’t done it again.
“Deceiver!” shouted Third Fervor from high in the air, so loud that Perry saw the impact of the sound on the water below. He felt the sound in his bones.
“He’ll kill you!” shouted Perry, his own voice amplified to the limits of the suit’s speakers. “And if he does, the whole kingdom falls!”
Third Fervor was dropping, far enough away that Perry couldn’t reach her, and she opened another portal at her feet before she could hit the water. It was only because HUD flashed brightly that Perry was able to anticipate the strike, which came from the left side this time. Third Fervor sailed through the air, moving past him. Her spear spun to strike at him, and the tip of it sliced through the armor around his bicep.
“Seems like she’s still mad,” said Perry under his breath as he felt a trickle of blood down his arm. “I want to talk!” he shouted. “You fought him, you know how dangerous he is!”
Third Fervor did a complicated maneuver with the portals, and it looked like she was building up to something big before she came to a dead stop with half her body through the portal. She was twenty feet away from Perry, far enough that he couldn’t strike her with the spear or the sword, but close enough that they could talk in the midst of the dark night. They were lit only by the stars and the ring of light from the portal. Perry looked around, and couldn’t see where the other half of the portal was, but from what little he could see of it, he thought she was probably standing on the ground several miles away.
“Who is he?” asked Third Fervor. Her voice was even. Perry could see nothing behind her armored face, and didn’t suspect that she was going to drop it anytime soon. He wouldn’t have either.
“Fenilor the Gilded, one of the founders of the culture,” said Perry. “He’s been here for hundreds of years, and is very dangerous.” He would tell her everything he knew, he had to, aside from maybe the existence of the Farfinder.
“I’ve read of him in books,” said Third Fervor. “He was responsible for the culture.”
“He’s the one who’s been going through the monarchs,” said Perry. “What happened with the king of Thirlwell, it was —”
“I do not want to hear excuses,” said Third Fervor. “I’m going to kill you. I’m going to rip you apart.” There was a deep growl to her voice, and he worried she was going to start growing in size. He didn’t want to fight her as a giant.
It occurred to Perry that while she was standing there, halfway through the portal, she couldn’t open another one, at least from what he’d seen so far. The portals were her best offense, the thing that made her spear deadly. It was also an idea for stopping her later: if he could place himself inside one of the portals, he could stop her from opening another. He was fairly sure the portals couldn't slice through a person, otherwise she’d have pinched him already.
Perry took a breath and steeled himself. It was time for an argument that he’d practiced, though he hadn’t thought he’d be giving it above the ocean while held aloft with a stolen spear. The night felt preternaturally still.
“Women are weak,” said Perry. “They’re unfit for rule. You’ve debased yourself by putting yourself in service to a queen.”
“W-what?” asked Third Fervor.
“You’re the weaker sex,” said Perry, half hoping that this line of argument wouldn’t work on her. “The male of the species is endowed with the qualities necessary for governance: vigor, rationality, and an iron will. These are qualities that a queen, by her nature, cannot possess.”
“She is my queen,” said Third Fervor. She’d taken a half step back, still within the ring of the portal, which glowed softly.
“Women are followers, not leaders,” said Perry. “You know this in your heart. Think of the times you’ve succeeded and the times you’ve strayed. Your greatest triumphs have always been when following a king’s orders, and your greatest defeats have always been when you struck out on your own. There is a hierarchy in the world. Woman sits below man just as commoner sits below king.”
Third Fervor was silent, but her head moved, as though she was trying to formulate a response and working the words over before they came out.
“You don’t believe that,” she said. “You’re just … you’re saying that, it’s words.”
“It’s the truth, whether I believe it or not,” said Perry. “But it’s the accumulated wisdom of centuries and worlds. You’ve served kings, exclusively kings, they’ve been a constant of your travels and mine. Now you’re here, prostrating yourself before a weak queen. You know that it feels wrong.”
Third Fervor was silent for long enough that Perry almost started talking again too soon, which would probably have been a mistake. He needed to press her, to browbeat her, to make her doubt herself and her mission, but he also needed to let it all marinate in her mind.
“This world wasn’t lost when the king died,” said Perry. “It was lost when the king’s son died. Thirlwell won’t survive the rule of a queen. If she had children, that might be one thing, but she’s not even married.”
“I will not abandon her,” said Third Fervor. Her grip on her spear tightened. “You’re trying to confuse me. It was you that killed the king, and probably his son as well, it was you who has stolen into the kingdom time and again, pursuing your own plots.”
“I don’t care about the kingdom,” said Perry. “I never have. Fenilor cares. He wants to destroy it.”
“You killed the king,” said Third Fervor. “You murdered him in cold blood.”
“He was going to shoot me for his own enjoyment,” said Perry. “He was going to shoot me to test me. There was a real chance that it would have killed me. I reacted to a threat.” He didn’t want to be having this conversation. He wanted the conversation that would destabilize her, that would fill her with doubt and make her armor weak. He wondered whether she was diverting on purpose. “But at least he was exerting his will. We both know the queen would never have done that.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying here,” said Third Fervor. She was hesitant, waiting for him to clarify. She wanted an explanation, and that was a sign that he had probably gone far enough.
Perry let out a breath. He wished he knew where Fenilor was. If the elf was hiding beneath the water, waiting for his time to strike … that would be bad for what Perry was about to try.
“Marchand, shoot to kill,” said Perry.
The shoulder gun popped up almost before the word ‘kill’ was out of Perry’s mouth. It fired four shots in rapid succession. She fell backward onto the ground she’d been standing on, and before Perry could even move, the portal had snapped shut.
“Review footage,” said Perry.
Marchand put up the video and played it back in slow motion. The first shot had struck her in the head, glanced off the armor, and the second had penetrated near her jaw, which had jerked upward from the first hit. That one had penetrated, at least if the zoomed and upscaled image could be believed, but there was no enormous spray of blood. The third and fourth shots had been to center mass instead, and both had hit her as she’d already been moving, one against the breast and the other in her stomach, neither visibly bouncing off.
“Fuck,” said Perry. “Any identification on where she was standing?”
“I cannot narrow it down much, sir,” said Marchand. “I saw stonework, but cannot even tell you whether she was standing in Thirlwell or, for some reason, Berus.” A map appeared and showed a dome sitting over the ocean, covering chunks of both islands. That was her thirty mile range, and she could have been anywhere.
“I was hoping for a kill,” said Perry. “Fuck. Fuck. No sign of Fenilor?”
“No, sir,” said Marchand. “I have been on the lookout, and it does not appear that he has resurfaced. It is entirely possible that he never knew the fighting resumed.”
“I should have rushed the portal,” said Perry. “Finished the job.”
“I do not believe you could have moved fast enough, sir,” said Marchand.
“She might die from her wounds,” said Perry. “I’m going up high, so that if the portal appears Fenilor won’t be able to get to it.”
He started climbing, using the power of the spear, but found it lackluster for vertical movement, especially since it was draining the power he’d accumulated in it. He pulled out the sword and used that instead, which was slow but steady.
“Was there a reason you wanted her dead, sir?” asked Marchand.
“Fuck the monarchy,” said Perry, though he wasn’t really feeling it, not if fucking the monarchy came with public executions.
“Indeed, sir,” said Marchand.
“I saw her fighting,” said Perry. “She’s a nightmare. And she was holding back, that one last power, big mode. If I could finish her here and then leave after we deal with Fenilor … I don’t want to fight her at peak power, not even as the mechawolf, because I don’t think I would win.” He paused. “Where the everloving fuck is the Farfinder?”
“I do not know, sir,” said Marchand. “It is entirely possible that their prognostication has foreseen everything that’s happened.”
“If Third Fervor is injured, that makes her prey for Fenilor,” said Perry. “That doesn’t benefit us. We need to kill her and then guard the portal until it goes away, while at the same time guarding Nima and Mette. I think that’s the endgame. If I’m not going to kill her, then I need to watch her.”
They had risen high in the air while talking, high up enough that Fenilor wouldn’t be able to reach them. It seemed as though Perry really had taken the best form of flight that Fenilor had, which was a better outcome than he had been hoping for when Fenilor had approached him over the water.
The portals didn’t always appear at opportune moments, which meant that Perry would need to stay there for quite some time. He didn’t entirely want to go back into the shelf space while Third Fervor was still potentially kicking around and within range of him, but there was nothing in her powerset that said she should be able to shrug off a bullet that penetrated her armor. He would need to deal with Nima, but he was pretty sure that she could wait.
When Perry took stock of his energy levels and the damage to the suit, he found that they were refilling faster than they should have, and that quite a bit of the damage was already fixed. Second sphere stuff was difficult to trace or understand, but there was something to the sensation that was familiar.
“March, are we … is there something with the moonlight?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” said Marchand. “I believe it to be a consequence of the changes I made to our connection. The surface of the armor can capture moonlight, where before it would require your naked skin.”
“Meaning that the only thing keeping us from transformation is me?” asked Perry.
“Yes, sir,” said Marchand.
“And the repairs, have you been doing that too?” asked Perry. “Do you know how to do it?”
“Yes, sir,” said Marchand.
“Yes to which?” asked Perry.
“Both, sir,” said Marchand. “I have been prioritizing only the crucial repairs, particularly the hole that Fenilor had punctured through the torso, which introduced a structural weakness even with the nanite plug.”
Perry could still feel the wound in his guts, spilling stomach acid and inflaming muscles whose names he didn’t know. The damage had been contained and he was reversing it, but it had been a worse puncture than he’d first thought, and certain movements brought a flare of pain. The wound on his back and his shoulder had been less severe, and would be gone in another hour if he didn’t have to move too much.
“Sir, I do think it would behoove us to check on Mette and Nima,” said Marchand.
“Mmm,” said Perry. “Fair. Still no sign of the Farfinder then?”
“No, sir,” said Marchand. “Though I do suppose that they are watching and listening.”
“Alright,” said Perry. “Let’s get this done.”
He stepped into the shelf, ready to deal with a hostage situation.
~~~~
Third Fervor lay in the castle taking deep, raspy breaths. This world wasn’t one with good healing, but the doctors worked on her as best they could. They had wanted her to inhale something that would put her out, but she had refused it. When they removed the bullet from her lung, she bit down on a leather strap, trying not to use her special scream, which might have been loud enough to kill them. Her jaw had been cracked by one of the bullets, and biting down came with more pain, even after the injection they’d given her to numb the area, even though she was biting only with the good side of her mouth. They were talking about drilling holes and putting in wires, which she could not allow them to do.
The queen looked on anxiously. They had tried to send her away, but she had demanded that she stay and watch, and she was the queen, which meant they had no choice in the matter. She was in her nightgown, improperly dressed, but it wasn’t clear to Third Fervor what proper dress for an operating room was.
They had strapped Third Fervor down, given her reactions, and there was something erotic about them probing her guts, even as the pain nearly blinded her.
Perry had tried to kill her for a second time. She had known better than to let him talk. That was how he had killed her king the first time, by pretending that he cared, by speaking as a friend rather than what he was. Yet there had been that other man, Fenilor, who had endless armors and weapons. Fenilor had been testing her, she was certain of that, and while it had felt like she might win against him, it had also felt like he could simply slip away whenever he wanted to.
She cried out with a rasp in her voice, her lungs not quite working. The doctor had touched some vital part of her that was like yanking a thread looped around her brain. He had extracted a bit of metal though, and held it up to the light. If not for her jaw and the leather in her mouth, she might have thanked him. The feeling of the bright pain receding was almost akin to pleasure.
Third Fervor’s eyes found the queen’s. The royal hands were covering the royal ears, and the royal eyes were weeping royal tears. Still, there was defiance there, and the queen did not look away from the bloody horror and the work of surgeons.
Yet in her heart, Third Fervor could tell that Perry was right. A queen could be no true ruler. Perry had almost certainly not believed it, but that didn’t stop what he said from being true.
The pain yanked her away from her thoughts, and a shift of her bite on the leather strap brought part of her broken jaw down wrong, which amplified the torment.
It was temporary. She would recover.
If she needed to, she would take the queen somewhere safer, out of the way, though that would risk the entire monarchy. They would burrow until Third Fervor felt better, hide until they could meet their enemies head-on. If the queen was weak and incapable of guiding the country, they would find some way around that, some solution that would save the institution. Third Fervor owed it to Thirlwell. This was her job in this world, and once she accepted that, all the pain became easier to bear.
~~~~
Fenilor had watched everything from beneath the water. He was confident now in his ability to kill Third Fervor when the time was right. The loss of the spear stung: he’d miscalculated Perry’s sheer speed and power. Still, he was confident that he could win their next engagement, assuming he could pick a better battlefield.
There was something he was missing though, some element to Perry’s movements that wasn’t making sense. Perry shouldn’t have been able to find any of the hidden homes. He shouldn’t have been able to make contacts so swiftly either. He was being supported by members of the various Command Authorities, but by their very nature the Command Authorities should have been circumspect in their dealings and limited in their powers. It was something that Fenilor was going to have to look into.
The missing information was starting to gnaw at him. If he lost, it would be because he had found the source of the problem too late. The solution, then, was to work at a distance and uncover that which was meant to be concealed from him.
When Perry was gone, Fenilor sat in the ocean for a time, breathing through the armor, considering his options. In a sense, defeating Perry wasn’t even necessary. Thirlwell by itself would never restart the monarchy, in the same way a thorn in the side of a lion couldn’t bring it down.
Fenilor had time. And in that time, he would find out precisely what Perry was hiding.
It was time to put his skills as an assassin to the test.