01. Spirits of Flux and Anchor (28 page)

"Well said," Mervyn approved. "So he did every- thing but raise a flag to cover the sky of World saying, 'Here I Am -- Come and Get Me!' He wants a fight, that is certain. He knows who and what he'd be facing. That, too, leads to two different possibilities. Either he is certain he can win, or he wishes to lose. It is that simple."

Cass frowned. Why would anyone want to lose a battle?

"Good point," Mervyn responded, as if she'd spo- ken aloud. "Why, indeed would someone want to lose a battle? Perhaps to prove to us that we saw a danger, met it, and vanquished the evil? Then we would all go our merry ways, satisfied in a job well done, and look elsewhere for the next evil. We would overlook what Haldayne really docs not wish us to see."

"But what could that be?" Hollus asked him. "I know the crazy man said they were going to attack the gate, if there is one, but I didn't think that was possible."

"Insofar as we know, the Guardians of the Gates of Hell have never been defeated or even tricked," Mervyn assured her. "Nevertheless, the conclusion is inescapable. Remember, however, that we know the location only of four of the seven

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gates. We do not know how many the Seven might know of -- perhaps all -- nor what they might have accomplished on one or more. The conclusion is inescapable. There is a gate lying between Persellus and Anchor Logh. We must assume that, somehow, Haldayne has access to and perhaps control of that gate no matter what logic says to the contrary. That is what he wishes to hide from us."

"So what do you propose?" Matson asked him directly. He was growing impatient with the long- winded theorizing.

"We must recapture Persellus, if only to do what he expects," the wizard told them. "We must also find out what he knows that we do not."

"But it could also just be a trap for the three of us," Tatalane argued. "What if it is -- and he wins?"

Mervyn shrugged. "Then we will know at least that the gate is still secure and our successors on the Nine will know and avenge us. But if he loses, then the gate is open to Hell. Haldayne has six of the seven combinations to open the gates. Hell has most certainly worked out the seventh after all this time. If he has a way in, if he can talk to the horrors of Hell, he will have all seven and need only control of the physical gates to open them.^ My friends, this is grave. We dare not ignore it."

Mervyn thought a bit more. "Hollus, have you enough daggers able to follow strings to get to Domura, Salapaca, and Modon?"

She looked back at the reptilian dugger, who nodded.

"Brund? Can you take the alarm to Zlydof, Roarkara, and Fideleer?"

The bearded man did not consult his dugger. "No problem."

"Are you all three willing to avenge your slain comrades?"

The three stringers huddled in whispers for a moment. Finally, Matson said, "We are agreed that

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this thing can't be allowed to go on. Otherwise everybody will be doing it."

Cass smiled slightly at that. That, really, was the feared stringer, the terror of Anchor and Flux --  one who saw all World as a giant ledger sheet,,the battling storekeeper who would leave his lady's body to rot in the void but take strong action when his trade was inconvenienced. How utterly romantic.

"Matson," Mervyn continued, "your train will be the point and guard along the route from here to there. We will supply equipment, explosives, and fifty good fighters to staff your outpost, all at least minor wizards."                      ^

"Will they take orders?" he asked sourly.

"They will because we will tell them to. You three also have between you almost two hundred young people from Anchor ready for the block. We will remold them and use them."

That got the stringers upset again. "Who's going to pay for all this?" they all demanded to know.

"Who is going to buy them if we tell them not to?" Mervyn responded with a slight smirk. "How- ever, we guarantee you an equal number for the market out of conquest if we lose them. Further, we will ourselves fill any specific goods Orders intended to be picked up in the old Persellus. That should restore a tidy bit."

Mollified, the stringers sat down once more.

"Hollus, Brund, you will work with Tatalahe in getting these new troops into line. Hollus knows Haldayne, which should simplify matters a good deal, while you, Brund, are particularly gifted with explosives, their transportation and use. This will have to be done in a newly created pocket between here and Persellus. There should be no traffic in either direction between Haldayne, Matson, and you, so it should be perfect -- and private. We also have two Anchors to draw upon and I intend to do

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so. Since the four of you appear human and will pass muster at the gates, I am detaching you tem- porarily from Matson's service. I hate to break up a happy couple, but Dar and Nadya must accom- pany Krupe to Anchor Abehl, as we have no one from there here to assist. Because both Suzl and Cass have direct knowledge not only of the Anchor but the Temple of Anchor Logh, you two will come with me to Anchor Logh. There are things I must know there."

They all four looked at each other in some distress. "I think I know the Temple as good as Suzl," Nadya responded. "Why split up the teams?"

"Please do not waste time second-guessing me. We must move and move quickly. Do you not think that at this very moment Haldayne's spies aren't going mad trying to penetrate the shield on this room? However, just this once, I will explain that the rather unusual aspects of two of you are required for effect in Anchor, and both of you can- not be in the same place when the places you might be needed are three hundred kilometers apart."

Dar looked at Suzl, who shrugged and grinned, "Have fun. I know / will!"

He grinned back. "Yeah. I always wanted to see the inner sanctums of a Temple."

"This Council is now adjourned," Mervyn pro- nounced, "and will convene again in twenty-seven days at the proper points around Persellus. With divine help, perhaps we can convene once again in Persellus. Normal precautions have been taken so that details of this meeting cannot be picked from- your minds. However, it is essential that we all get to our work and out of Globbus as soon as possible, for while compromise is inevitable we need not give the demon any advantage."

The energy field retreated, flowing first back into the walls, then along them and back, it seemed,

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into Mervyn's cane. Cass and Suzl went up and approached the old wizard, as the others ap- proached and talked to their appointed leaders and guardians. The wizard's eyes, an enigma from a distance, seemed surprisingly sharp and: full of life and energy up close. "Go, get your packs, sign out at the hotel desk, and wait for me there. We will go together. I rather imagine you are looking forward to this."

"I'm not too thrilled with asking the Sister Gen- eral for help," Cass responded honestly, "but at least I'll have the chance to get word to my family that I'm all right. It'll be a shock to anyone who knows us to see us again. I don't know anyone who ever met anyone who went out in the Paring Rite and returned."

"I'm just gonna have fun," Suzl told him. "I can sure defile their holy Temple and surprise a whole lot of people."

"It is true that this is an unprecedented event for Anchor Logh, but this whole business is unprec- edented. Win or lose, I fear that our dear World is going to come in for some severe changes by the time this is all resolved," the wizard said seriously.

"Damn. And before I saw most of it the way it is now," Cass muttered.

They left him and went immediately back to their rooms. Nadya caught up with Cass as they approached their door. "Tough luck. But we'll get together again. I sure would like to get back home and rub it in their noses, though."

Cass nodded. "I know -- but I'd much rather be going back with an army than to get one. I still can't believe Anchor would ever send forces into Flux, not even on the request of the Nine Who Guard. We shall see. At least you can tell me what another Anchor is like. I've been curious to see how much they're the same and how they differ."

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"Not like Fluxlands, that's for sure. Not with the church in such control -- huh?"

Suddenly the lights in the room went out, and both felt extreme dizziness and a sense of falling. Nadya recovered in what seemed like only a few moments, and looked around. The lights were back on, the door was closed -- and Cass was nowhere to be seen.

Cass drifted in a dreamy, uncaring fog neither asleep nor awake, not dreaming, not thinking, but just so, so relaxed.. ..

After a while there were voices, distant and in- distinct at first but growing clearer with time. She heard them, a man's and a woman's voices, but it made no impression on her-

"She is well protected," said the woman clini- cally.

"She has improved her looks a good deal," the man's voice noted. "I guess she really is in love with that stringer. Ah! Unrequited love! Takes me back to my youth."

"You never had a youth, love. Still, we won't get it by spell. That leaves it in my department. Good thing a drug is a drug."

"So long as we keep it that way and there's nobody around to counteract it- It's simple and direct."

The woman seemed to be fumbling with some- thing, and there was a mild pricking sensation on her-arm. They waited a while, just chatting plea- santly. "Lucky for you I was here. Your crude methods would have killed her before she talked."

"Luck had nothing to do with it. I summoned you because I needed your help. Geniuses are few and far between, my love,"

The woman snorted. "She's under but good. Let's get that spell off her," There was a sudden tingling, and Cass felt herself being drawn back to reality.

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She was aware of everything, of every noise, feeling, sensation, more aware of such things than she had ever been.

"Wake up, Cassie! It's your mom and dad here!" the man's voice called to her, and it did sound just like her father. She opened her eyes and saw, with some surprise, that she was under a tree in the pasture just outside her old farm, and her Mom and Dad were there, looking down at her.

"I know you're only seven years old, 'but you must have had a big, bad dream," her mother told her.

"Oh, yes. Mommy! It was real scary, too."

"Did you dream about the old man with the cane that shot sparks again?" her father wanted to know.

"Uh huh."

"What happened this time after he shot sparks all over that room? You have to tell us your dream to make it go away."

And, so, she told them, repeating the entire ac- count verbatim, just as it happened. All about the terrible looking people and the talk of war and strategy, all the way to when she walked back to her room with her imaginary playmate and they woke her up. It was all there, better than she could have remembered it any other way.

"This is bad," her Mommy said. "You've been too clever for your own good, Gift. The old boy's already on to you."

"And what'll he have?" her Daddy responded. "Persellus and a vague suspicion and nothing else. Eventually they'll scratch their heads, maybe put extra guards around the Gate, and that will be that, for all the good it'll do them."

Cass frowned- Her Mommy and Daddy were talk- ing such funny stuff, the kind of stuff in her dreams, but to each other, not to her-

"What about her?" Mommy asked, pointing to

T ^

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Cassie. "So long as she has a Soul Rider she's a mortal danger to us all."

"But we can't destroy Soul Riders, whatever they are. Kill her and it just takes over somebody else whose identity we don't know. No, I prefer my enemy in plain sight."

"You just can't leave her here, though. That thing could come out and attack at any time."

He chuckled. "Not yet. If it acts too soon it might get one of us but it'll be useless later on and it won't know the facts. No, I have a better, more effective idea. An original one." He turned to her. "Cass, you cannot move, but see me now as I am." Her father dissolved into another figure, a man she also knew. Haldayne. And, beside him, the woman, too, was visible, and she knew her as well. She knew, but she couldn't believe. Sister Daji! The sexy but dumb consort to the Sister General!

Still gorgeous, still sexy, but hardly dumb. Not this one. Even the odd, ignorant tone in her voice had vanished, although she still had that very odd accent.

Haldayne grinned, and it was obvious that he liked to have his victim know who was doing it before he did whatever it was. He put out a hand on her forehead, and it was warm and wet. "All memory flies," he intoned, "all that is there is null."

Her mind literally became a complete blank. Cass no longer thought at all.

"So, genius?" Daji taunted. "That isn't going to stop a Soul Rider when it wants to take charge."

He grinned, and made a pass with his hands. Cass seemed to shrink down until she was very small, standing and looking up at giants.