01. Spirits of Flux and Anchor (18 page)

"It would be the ideal place for such a one to hide," Matson pointed out, "and for the very rea- son you just showed. All I can do is state the obvious- Whether or not you follow it up is up to you. I'm not going to be around these parts very long."

The colonel seemed deeply disturbed by the idea, but simply said, "It will be looked into, I promise you. At least I will bring it up in my report, and higher authority can do what it wishes."

"Fair enough," the stranger agreed. "Now, then, Montagne, one more piece of unfinished business and I'll let the colonel have you. You stole a lot of merchandise from a stringer. As the recovering stringer, I am entitled to it, but I don't like dam- aged goods."

Rory Montagne frowned. "The mules are in ex- cellent shape, and what packs we rummaged through can, I'm sure, be restored in short order."

"Them," Matson said, pointing to the cowering goat-women. "Put them back the way they were." The whip hand twitched slightly.

"Now how in hell am I supposed to remember what they looked like?" the captive retorted in a helpless tone. "They're women!"

"Can you bring back their senses? Memory? Personality?"

"Oh, sure. It was a quick mass job. All I did was push them back from the control centers of the brain. What's the point unless they know exactly what's going on but are helpless to do anything about it?"

Matson and the colonel exchanged sharp glances

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at that. Finally the stringer said, "Okay. It doesn't matter to me what they used to look like anyway, so long as they're people again. Just pick some- body in your head at random and make them all look like that, and bring back their minds. If they don't think and talk they're no good to me,"

Although some of the troopers were busy survey- ing the pocket and also repacking and readying the mules for transport, most of the others, includ- ing Cass and Dar, stood back watching the show. The latter two were enjoying every bit of it.

Montagne sighed. "I do wish you would send someone to fetch my robe. A prisoner should be allowed some dignity."

The colonel shrugged and gestured to a trooper, who went up, into the cave, and returned with it. It was then carefully searched but there were no pockets or concealed compartments within it and so they gave it to him and he put it on, looking quite pleased, then looked up at the colonel. "With your permission, sir?"

They cleared a path for him and he walked to- wards the goat-women, who seemed to relax and greet his coming with joy.

"He won't try any tricks, will he?" Matson asked worriedly.

"It would take months to find out his particular frequencies and patterns by deduction, but once he starts I'll know if he's doing it right. You can't alter a spell, only impose a different one. If he undoes it, it has to be all the way, or the math just won't add up."

The stringer nodded, understanding at least the basics as a false wizard.

Montagne was still a ham, and he still put on a nice show of mumbo-jumbo, chanting, and gestures, but finally he made a few basic gestures and the figures of the hapless women shimmered and changed.

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"Bastard! I'll kill him!" Dar screamed, and two troopers had to restrain him.

All nineteen of the surviving members of Arden's train now looked exactly like Lani. The black magi- cian turned, grinned, then shrugged. "Well, after all, you did leave her dead in my bed. Who else did you think I'd have in mind?" He turned to the colonel. "I'm ready to go now, sir. Take me away!"

Cass shouted at Matson, "You can't make him go back with the train! You just can't! It'd be like you traveling with nineteen women who looked just like Arden!"

That stung the stringer, and he softened slightly. "All right. Colonel, can we find or make some clothes for those two and let them go in with you? All in all, they've done us a pretty good service, and these will more than make up for my loss on them."

The colonel was surprised. "You mean you're giving them their freedom? A stringer gives some- thing for nothing? Now I know the gates will be opened and the end of World is nigh!"

"Cut the sarcasm. The big one will have to face a hearing when you get home to judge his actions, both good and bad. I'll leave that judgment up to your court- Cass I'm not so sure about, but she's done me enough service to buy her way out. That's as far as I'll go."

"Fair enough," the colonel agreed. "Let's see what we can do about some clothing for the two of them, then we'll commandeer two of the mules there to let them ride. You'll get them back when you reach Persellus."

"Agreed. I need a couple of troopers to help me go back and get some packs I ditched back on the route, then we'll be headed in. I have some busi- ness in Persellus."

"We'll see you there, then!" And, with that, the

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colonel went off to reorganize his troops, Montagne walking before him.

Dar was finally calm enough to be freed of restraint, but he turned his back on the now milling, chattering throng of Lanis and refused to look at them any more.

Matson came over to them, dismounted, and said, "Well, Cass. You heard me there, although I'll never live the story down. Don't disappoint me,now."

"I just wish I could buy my friends out," she told him honestly. "In a way I feel kind of guilty about this."

"Well, you're free, but you're broke, so forget it. However, I want to warn both of you about Persel- lus. You've never been in a Fluxland before."

Even Dar suddenly grew interested. "What are they like?"

"Well, each one is so different there's no telling, but this one happens to be a pretty nice place filled with pretty nice folks, overall. The first thing you have to remember," he said, his voice drop- ping to a whisper, "is that every Fluxland is the creation of a very powerful wizard, one so power- ful that they're like gods- Well, this one's wizard thinks she is a goddess. Lives up in a high tower, but really does the part. She can hear and see everything and everyone if she wants to, and she loves to. If you pray to her, your prayers might be answered if she's in the mood. If you say anything she doesn't like, or question her godhood, you'll wish you didn't. The best way to act is to steer clear of even any questions about her and for your own sakes make no even slightly nasty comments. The only way people there can get along is if they believe in her godhood, so they do. Even these troops and the colonel. Never mind what you know is true. Act in every way like she's a real deity, because, in real life, she is one. And do not ever

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accept an offer to see her, because you'll come out of it a raving religious fanatic about her. Okay?"

They both nodded, although neither was quite sure just what it all meant.

Matson left shortly afterwards to return to his train, taking a half a dozen troopers with him and his newly acquired mules, packs, and people- That last made things a little more tolerable for Dar, anyway.

The colonel proved to be a man of many abilities. When they came up with two basic trooper uni- forms, one far too small for Dar and the smallest far too large for Cass, he made a small gesture and both fit as if they were tailored for the two. A second pass turned the water and the waterfall from clear water to a brown, foul-smelling sub- stance that bubbled and hissed. Nobody was going to use this pocket for a refuge again, that was for sure. He did not otherwise destroy it, though, since      li- ne fully intended to send back a team of experts on      | void magic to study it for clues as to its origin --       ^ and originator.                                      ^

Finally, they were ready. The clothes felt odd      f after so long without any, but they had no trouble      ^ riding as they had before. A third commandeered mule held the now comatose Rory Montagne, ren- dered so by a spell from the colonel that made it highly unlikely that the evil one would awaken before they were ready for him.

Finally everything was packed, inventoried, and they were off into the void once more, but with a difference. Cass was now a free woman, but in a  --  hostile and unknown place and without resources. Dar, because of his earlier actions in the train and against Cass, was technically under arrest.

The colonel was advanced enough in the magic of Flux to find his own way in the void, although he did have to return via Matson's train route

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before he could tie in to the main trail that only a few could see or sense.

It was a slow, relaxed, deliberately paced ride, but it was still far faster than any stringer train could go, even in the speedup configuration Matson had used.

"What will you do now, Cass?" Dar wanted to know.

She shrugged. "I'm not sure. Take each thing one at a time, I guess. Maybe I'll like this place up ahead and just settle down there. Probably not, though. If I could just find some way to earn a stake, I might like to see a little more of World now that I'm out here."

"What we've seen so far isn't very encouraging," Dar noted. "It's all been pretty ugly."

"But there must be nice places, maybe even won- derful places, too," she replied. "I mean, these wizards have the powers of gods. They can't all be corrupted by it, not completely. Look at the colo- nel and these troops here. They're pretty nice, and as human as anybody in Anchor Logh. We've seen the worst the Flux has, now it's time to see the best."

They reached the borders of Persellus after a lengthy ride. It was not an abrupt transition, like the pocket, but a very gradual one, as the void slowly gave way to actual forms. First there was the feeling of solid ground beneath them, and the clattering of hooves on rock that seemed so odd here that it startled them. Then there were misty, indistinct shapes here and there, like landforms of one kind or another, and here and there a trace of grass or bushes. The sky lightened, until it turned increasingly transparent, although it was now an odd and unfamiliar pale blue above the fleecy white clouds, with no sign of the ever-present Mother of Universes in sight. The clear blue sky unnerved

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both Dar and Cass, but they soon got used to it, particularly when they didn't look up.

And, suddenly, they were completely in the land of Persellus. It was, even the gloomy Dar had' to admit, a very pretty place indeed.

In effect it was a huge, wide valley with a small meandering river cutting through it. The valley itself was, perhaps, twenty or twenty-five kilome- ters across, and flanked by low mountains with gentle green slopes that were forested all the way to their tops.

At first there seemed little sign of people or indeed any signs of life, but after traveling a while, the road, now paved and well-maintained, took them through farms quite different from those of Anchor Logh, with broad fields of grazing cows or horses and large houses and barns of an unfamil- iar design sitting back from the main road. Clearly such farms were independently managed, proba- bly by single families. They were smaller than Anchor communes, and the buildings could not possibly handle a collective. Just the idea of inde- pendently owned and operated farms was as hard for them to grasp as was the blue sky and wizards who did magic,

"Actually," a friendly trooper told them, "Per- sellus is slightly smaller than Anchor Logh and yet it produces a good deal more. We're totally self- sufficient in food here."

They marveled at this, but could not figure it out. It seemed so -- inefficient somehow.

They went through one small town, strictly two streets wide and a block long, that seemed to cater to the farming community, and nowhere did they see anything or anyone who looked odd, abnormal, or out of the ordinary. About the only complaint they both had was that the light was so bright and constant here that their eyes hurt.

Still, Cass liked what she saw. "It's peaceful and

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pretty here," she remarked to Dar. "And they're farmers, too, which is what I know best. Maybe I can get me a farm job."

/ Finally they reached the outskirts of the city --  the one and only city in the Fluxland. It spread out on both sides of the river valley and up onto the hillsides themselves. Here was the governmental and transportation center of the land, along with the places where light manufacturing went on, from harnesses to farm machinery to lumber and building supplies. It was far smaller than the capi- tal of Anchor Logh, but it was the right size to serve the place- It even had its own version of the Temple, although not right in town.

Ahead, beyond the town, they could see it -- a great white tower stretching up into the sky, its top hidden in clouds, its base not seeming to touch the ground. The home of the goddess of Persellus.

The houses, with their red roofs and stucco walls, seemed quite different from Anchor Logh, yet hauntingly reassuring. This place may have pro- blems, as Matson indicated, but it was certainly no chamber of horrors.

Government House was a flat, two-story build- ing made out of the same weathered white build- ing material as most of the structures in the land, 6ut it was a good block long and certainly just as deep. They said their farewells to the troopers with thanks, and followed the colonel into the building to report.