Thresholder, ch 131, The Seventy-Eight Foes of Fenilor the Gilded, pt 1 (Patreon)

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Alright, looks like there's going to only be a single chapter this week, sorry. I really should have learned the lesson that I should just take a week off if I'm going to be somewhere else, but I suppose in my mind I always think about all the hours I'll have when I'll be able to get some work done. What I never think about is writing away from my home environment, the way the keyboard on my laptop feels uncomfortable, the nagging sensation of the lighting in the hotel room being different. And then I delude myself into thinking that during a four hour plane ride, I'll get four hours worth of work done, because what else is there to do? And then I spend a lot of the time being annoyed by the sensation of the woman next to me using too much of the arm rest, or the smell of recycled air, or how uncomfortable my legs are.

(I had a great time at LessOnline/Manifest, and will probably have a write up for it soonish (assuming that I do that during a break from writing). I'd definitely do it again if I had the opportunity. If I saw you there, it was great to meet you.)

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I suppose, if I am to say anything to you, it must start with the System. It was a power of that first world I went to, site of my first and only loss, something innate to all who are born there, and perhaps to all who arrive from elsewhere. It is text, simple and straightforward, blue boxes that float in the air and respond to touch, and can sometimes be spoken to. These bare facts as stated by the System give rise to tremendous power.

The people of that world agreed that the System was designed with a purpose in mind, though they argued endlessly about the nature of that purpose. I was given something called a Class, which labeled me an Assassin, a role that matched my profession in my first life. The context was much different though: where I had come from, an assassin was a vital part of the process of governance and social checks and balances, a tool of last resort for resolving disputes between peoples. Politicians behaved because the threat of assassination loomed, and those who were seen as lessers knew not to speak too loudly for fear of an assassin’s blade. I do not now endorse this way of thinking, and in fact find it cruel, but when I was in my prime, I saw myself as important, a vital member of the civil service like you might regard a firefighter. It had seemed obvious to me that every country in the world should have assassins, otherwise what recourse would there be when someone went beyond the pale?

Assassin meant something different to the people of the System. I was a sneak-thief, a dagger in the night, a mercenary rather than a force of public good. If I had been able to hide my class, it might have been different, but I could not, because there is a particular feature of the System which I have found quite useful: Observe. With this command, a person is revealed, their essence and powers laid bare. I have used it enough times now that it comes easily to me, with a thought rather than a command, but it cannot see inside men’s hearts, nor separate fact from fiction. For that, I need speech, a different skill called Perception Check, which has likewise been extremely helpful, especially when dealing with my fellow thresholders.

Observe left me an assassin with no shadows to hide in, and the culture I found myself in had no need of my services. I have always been a keen student, and I studied hard, trying to find how it all worked. What recourse was there, if a man couldn’t be assassinated? How did society stay functional if there weren’t those who trained to take out men and women at the top? I learned many lessons in that time, mostly lessons of injustice and inequality. There was no recourse. It always felt as though I had the secrets the world needed, that I could change how things would be done, if only people would listen to me. I came from a functional society, and had landed in one with manifold problems that everyone seemed to think were intractable.

I lost, in the end, as I’ve already said.

My first foe was a young human boy, deemed a Cleric by the blue boxes. He was devout, though he followed a god who was not of that world. He told me his world was pox-ridden, and his god was the god of cleansing fire, though I could have guessed at that minutes into our first match. We had come to blows because I had begun some inexpert tinkering in their society, both by proselytizing and with a few targeted killings. Our bouts lasted a month, seven, I think, until the final one where he used his flame on me in full.

I came through the portal burnt, to a world which held no easy cure for me.

It was a different place, in those days. The world was a diverse place, and fractured by that diversity. People today think of kingdoms as old, but there was a time before the era of kingdoms, when there was no one dominant mode of rulership. There were councils and senates and representative democracies, and yes, kings too, but everything was informed by long traditions, and each realm was different according to the needs of the various populations. The races didn’t mix at that time, not to any great degree.

In that time there were spirits, old things that no longer see any use. They lived in trees, as they still do today, and could be harnessed for their power. It is still technically possible, I suppose, for them to be used in this way, but there are precious few strategic reserves left, and I cannot imagine my people using them. The spirits have grown weak, and the people who manipulated them have died, with the skills lost. This is, perhaps, for the good, but there were things which spirits could do that cannot now be done, or not with any ease. It was the great and ancient spirits that were responsible for the Implements, a fact now known to only a few, the knowledge worthless without a craftsman to make one.

I healed from my wounds slowly. I was mistaken for an elf of the sort they had in this world, though I was a far cry from them in many respects. Still, they had a forest community, and took care of me as best I could while the fire-wounds healed and scarred. No one seemed to know that I was an Assassin, but I could still see the blue boxes in my vision, which let me learn these people and their ways. I would mutter ‘Observe’ to myself whenever someone new would come into my room, and know their name and abilities. I would mutter ‘Perception Check’ beneath my breath while they told me things.

After a week I was ambulatory, and after a month, I could move with some of the swiftness I’d once possessed. I bid my nurses thanks and set out to see the world and its ways.

I’ve said little about my world and why I left it, but I was at the top of my game — and that game was decidedly lacking in players. The nature of assassination, its role, was as a tool of last resort, and so assassination was rare, with many assassins going years between a required killing. People understood the threat we posed and reacted accordingly, which left me quite bored, unable to exercise my raw natural talent. I suffered through tedious training.

In this new world, like the one before, it seemed as though there was no end to acceptable targets.

Unfortunately, as an elf, I stood out. When among humans, I would get many stares, some from the scars but others simply from who I was. When I was among the orcs, I was bullied. Everywhere was different, even among cities of the same race, but I was welcome in few places, and knew that if I plied my trade, I would instantly be suspected and caught. Still, I saw evil in the world that was able to find purchase. There was shocking and overwhelming violence and sadism from people who thought themselves untouchable.

I began killing.

Assassination, in my world, was a noble profession, and as I’ve said, it wasn’t often used. It was a release valve, and its very presence bent the actions of everyone who might be a target. For that function, it worked best if assassination was not simply a hammer brought down on those who misbehaved, but instead, a hammer that was threatened, first obliquely and later directly. There were occasions where a person would understand themselves to be under the shadow of a contract that was all but signed, and thus, would do everything in their power to make things right. At other times, people would build coalitions and pool their resources, making it known that the contract would be completed if there was only a certain number of additional signatories. There was much debate about what deserved assassination and what the proper protocols were, and when to use one instead of the other.

There was no culture of assassination, not anywhere in the world. I found a single kingdom that had a practice of dueling, which I supposed to be similar enough, but as I watched from the rooftops, I saw how lacking it was. A duel was a method for honor to be regained, for an injustice to be righted, but it depended too much upon the whims and skills of those with swords, making it unavailable to the underclass. A duel was often decided on the basis of who was better rather than judgment from an outside party, and sometimes was simply about taking satisfaction, never solving the underlying issue. Duels were thrilling, and did not deter in the right way.

I decided that I would introduce the way of assassination to these people. I meant to correct them. It was my first act of manipulation, and far from my last.

An assassin works in the dark. I stayed to the shadows. I made it known that an assassination was to take place before it happened, testing my skills but also encouraging discussion, and then I would strike if my demands were not met. I had meant to rid the world of some truly awful people, but also to encourage the general public to understand that there was recourse. I meant to inspire a generation of assassins, to have a better way of life where everyone stayed in line, where the rich would fear the poor and the powerful would fear those at the bottom.

Instead, for whatever reason, the reign of fear began after I had killed a lowly duke with a penchant for mistreating his young servants.

I had set out to change the society of this kingdom, of course, but hadn’t appreciated how much of an impact a single man could make. My presence seemed to loom over the country like an enormous shadow, even in places I had never stepped foot, even for people who weren’t a part of any of my considerations. Windows were shuttered in the night, the rich began hiring guards, and the poor began assigning someone to keep watch. People looked at each other with suspicion, because they didn’t know who the killer could possibly be, and they carried weapons, in case the killer attacked in the open.

This was after only a single assassination, mind you. People had not taken my warning seriously, and had not discussed the notice I placed in the month before the assassination, but afterward it was as though they were trying to make up for lost time. The second notice, directed at an earl, sent them into a frenzy. There had already been a manhunt after the assassination, which couldn’t come close to matching my skills.

I was getting stronger over time, though that was never my primary purpose. The blue boxes offered progression of their own, quests that I could accept or deny, along with all their native power. It had its own ideas about what an Assassin was. Some of those ideas matched closely with my own, like being light of foot and swift in the shadows. Other ideas I found more troubling, those involving poisons and other ways to kill people without it being known that it was anything more than an accident. A deniable death did not seem like the assassin’s way to me. Still, I picked up the skills where I could, and grew in power over time. The earl fell, and I was stronger for it. A merchant-prince was killed in a crowded market with a crossbow, and I felt myself honed.

My opponent showed up after three months. I hadn’t known there would be an opponent, but he hadn’t know there would be one either. He was a young man, a prince, in fact, having been anointed in a ritual and prepared to step through to another world in a process that I never confirmed was connected from the Grand Spell — though I suspect not. Perhaps they had superstitions, and perhaps those superstitions were based on the Grand Spell in some capacity, or perhaps something else was supposed to happen to him when he stepped naked into the cold dark woods on his eighteenth birthday. It was, very possibly, a coincidence. I’ve learned much about the people who choose to step through these portals, and this one just happened to have thought that something was going to happen, and that it held some purpose.

He went to the king at once, announcing himself loudly as a savior from another world. He was questioned, then given one of the kingly Implements, a greatsword almost as long as he was which let him cut from a distance and launch himself across a battlefield.

I had published my understanding of assassination as a public good. I wasn’t an academic then, and didn’t understand societies or cultures and their functions, the way that ideas will mutate and circulate, the way that illiteracy compounds all problems. I would sometimes sit in taverns and listen to people ask ‘what does the assassin want?’ when it had all been clearly laid out in papers that had been posted on public boards. I respected the people who engaged with my ideas more: they had all sorts of objections that came from their own cultural context, and I found myself running into questions whose answers I didn’t know, or assumptions I hadn’t realized were in place.

You must understand, I was hopelessly naive back then. I didn’t understand the structures of societies, the principles of incompleteness, the ways in which we must hold contradictory notions in harmony against each other, or why certain notions work when others do not. Introducing assassination as a public good would never have worked for those people, and if they had taken up the practice, they would have done it in ways that would have driven them to despair.

I fought the young man with the magnificent sword. He was a simpleton, and had no way of tracking me, which meant that he had to set traps and stake out places while he waited for me. There was a striking resemblance to the other young man I’d fought in the world before, the one that I had lost to, and this time I resolved to be more circumspect — to not simply rely on my skills and my killing intent. We clashed four times before our final battle, testing each other. He didn’t realize that I was getting stronger each time, which happened quickly in those days. We spoke sometimes, monologuing at each other, and I learned his life story, such as it was. I used Observe and saw him through that lens, the things he was getting better at, if more slowly than I was.

Our fifth fight, the final one, took place as I was attempting to assassinate the king — or rather, as I was pretending to assassinate the king, as the boy had set a trap for me and thus fallen into a trap that I had set for him, in a way that was more complicated than future plans. As a general rule, an assassin does not engage in combat, we are meant to be silent, doing everything without so much as a whisper, but I had grown powerful, and obtained an Implement of my own.

I poisoned him, in the end. I wasn’t fond of having to do that, but I had been badly burned, you remember, and knew that my life was on the line. He had me in the first half of the fight, but the small bleeding wounds I’d given him grew red and puffy, and when our bout drew near its end, I knew I could take my time. I didn’t take my time, instead beheading him at the first opportunity, but I could have done whatever I pleased.

The portal opened. I stepped toward it.

Then I stopped and stared.

What was I hoping to find? Some new world where I could start fresh? Some new power? A way home that was seeming increasingly unlikely? Was I tempted to go through because of ego?

I had no real answer, and so I stayed where I was, watching the portal, thinking of what I would be leaving behind and what might await me. Perhaps there would be another young man with righteousness in his heart, another pitched battle, another strange and difficult place that didn’t have the same happy stability as my home.

In the end, it was imagining another failure that kept my feet from moving. I had more to learn from this world, more to test, to experiment with, to see.

At that point I had no idea how much there was that I had yet to learn.

You may wonder why I’m telling you all this. In truth, I’ve told many people my story over the years, some of them in confidence, some of them thresholders like us in the hours before I killed them. You might imagine that this would damage me, if it were told to the people of this world, but it would not destroy the movement, only cause them to come to grips with its foundation. They are firm and stable, as I’m sure you’ve seen, capable of handling anything that can be thrown at them, which is why I am finally — nearly — ready to go. It is better for them to have a culture and mythology not built on something real, an understanding of themselves that does not rely on founders who are long dead or at least disappeared. The past should not trap the future, and institutions should remold themselves to the needs of the present.

I had meant to write a document that would stand for all time, a grand autobiography that would explain everything I’ve done and why I’ve done it. I never got around to it, and I suppose this, or another of my oral recountings to other parties, will have to do.

The portal closed after a day. I had no idea whether or not that might be the end of it. I had taken the boy’s enormous sword, which by all rights should have been unwieldy, and claimed it for my own.

Though I had won, I set out to see more of the world, to understand in a way it was clear I hadn’t understood before. I sailed away on a ship, and when we made port, I vanished, leaving any connection to that old kingdom behind. I never spent more than a month in any place, as that seemed like enough time to wring knowledge from a collection of people. I read what books I could, though I often found them confused and muddled, the blind groping of men who knew no better than I did. I spent time with all the races of the world, talking to their people, casting myself as a writer and scholar. I kept my Implements hidden away. I made money where I could, though I never found it all that difficult to live a comfortable life, given my advantages.

Five years of study and contemplation passed before the next thresholder arrived.

She was a firebrand, of the sort that I’ve come to think of as archetypal. She had her own grand designs on the world, and had come through with the tools necessary to get a fair amount of work done. She set up shop in one of the capital cities, one ruled by a religious leader, and began to build crude lanterns. They were, so far as the sultan was concerned, marvelous things, capable of casting light without smoke, capable of starting fires from a distance, the be-all end-all of power. She was giving it freely to the sultan in exchange for the chance to build more and better lanterns.

The first time I heard the term ‘uplift’ was from her mouth. She knew who and what I was almost from the moment we first saw each other, and begged with me to give her six months of time before we would meet again and end it. She wanted the people of the world to have these lanterns, you see, to have their power and strength, and help beat back against the darkness. Who could object if families no longer needed to be miserly with their coal? Who could rebel against food for the hungry?

I had been a student of cultures for a long enough time that I could instantly raise the arguments against that way of thinking. Of course people would object, of course they would say that it was good for people to strive for and accomplish things, that a person should have goals, that people would grow weak if they were coddled, that it was the struggle of life that made life worth living, or that the sweet would be nothing without the sour.

I had no firm opinion on these matters, but I could feel the undercurrents of them in the people I listened to. The lanterns were no miracle, not in those days, they were difficult to make and finnicky. I suspect the woman had picked them up in her previous world and was learning as she went.

In the end I gave her three months, not six, and attacked her with only a week of warning, less than proper for an assassin — I was still clinging to my old ways, in spite of everything I had learned. She fought like a banshee, using an Implement she had wrangled from the sultan, a bow this time, long and powerful. She shifted with it, propelling herself backward with every arrow launched my way, rising high into the sky like a spectre with her white dress flowing around her. I confess no small amount of admiration for her, not just for her combat prowess, but the way she had ideas about how to make the world a better place. If she hadn’t positioned herself as a tool for evil men, perhaps I would have spent more time speaking with her.

That first time, she caught me in a trap. I had thought she was using the bow to flee from me, sending wild arrows my way to give her distance between us. No, she was leading me, getting me into position, moving with a care and consideration I hadn’t expected of her. When we got to her arena, a hundred lanterns lit up at once, calling to mind the burns I’d taken from the cleric who’d come before her. I was forced to flee with an arrow sticking through my chest and a red pain across my face and chest.

The second time we fought, I came at her with no warning. I had spent a month healing, which was faster by that point, and hid from even the everyday interactions with grocers and barmaids. She had more tools, and was better with the bow, but she started on the back foot and never really recovered. As it turns out, both arms are required to draw a bow to full power, and a cut along one forearm will cause incredible pain when put under stress.

I cut her down and saw the portal open just as the guards were coming to rescue her. There was some life in her yet, and she tried to crawl toward it, seeking to escape me. The life was still there, but it was frantic and clawing. She was a wounded animal seeking escape.

I’m not sure why I killed her. I didn’t know what it would mean if she reached the portal, I suppose. But no notion of fairness or admiration stayed my hand, and she was the last for a great while that I felt fondly about.

I knew, then, that there would be another, and suspected that the parade would be unending. But I no longer felt the pull of the portal, the call of the other world and broader horizons. I committed myself to the world I’d found myself in as a place where I could experiment and learn, a place where I could perfect my understanding of society.

There was something interesting about the people I had seen. The cleric of fire, the summoned hero, the woman with her lanterns … they had all been so different from each other. I think they might have fought each other, even, in certain configurations. But there was something to the portals, something to the Grand Spell that had not yet even been named, and I knew that it was important in my nascent quest to remake the world.

You have been to many worlds, and my guess is that you’re the type to have traded stories. You’re asking for my stories now, and when we first met, we did not come to blows. It’s even possible you know more than me, though I’ve been at the shallow end for so long that I have learned only half the picture.

The lanterns did not last, that first time. They were difficult to make, hard to maintain, and finicky even in the best of circumstances. I had also stolen most of the young woman’s research notes, which didn’t help matters.

It would be quite some time before the lanterns made their return, and when they did, it was because I thought they were the solution to a different problem I had helped to create: the rise of kings.