01. Spirits of Flux and Anchor (33 page)

Since she had been through the ritual on the supplicant end most of her life, she knew all the proper things to do and say, and it occurred to her more than once that this, more than anything else, was the most effective way in which the church had the pulse of, and control of, the entire community. They barely needed the spies and agents she had imagined when she'd seen the dossiers on that screen. All they needed was weekly updated re- ports from each and every parish priestess on the confessions of the faithful- She soon had quite an earful from the locals, too. Clearly Anchor Logh was not the calm, straight- laced community she had always imagined it being. It was one thing in Flux, but here, in a place she thought she new, she began to feel a stranger.

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They set out again the next morning, Suzl feel- ing a little grumpy because Mervyn had stopped her fun in the bar short of the payoff. She knew, of course, that this was not the time, and that there was much danger in exposure, but it still irritated her.

By early afternoon they were approaching the capital, and as they passed a large farm Suzl and Cass halted and looked suddenly serious.

"What's the problem?" the wizard asked them.

"Over there is where both of us were bom and raised," Cass told him. "Our families are still there. I'd hoped to be able to see them, tell them I was all right." She sighed. "I guess I can't, looking and sounding like this."

He thought a moment. "If you can pull it off, not blow your cover or break down, it might be all right if you just, say, carried the news as a third party," Mervyn said. "Do you think you can act the part in front of people you know? They won'f know you, remember, for you are someone else."

"I'd like to try -- for their sakes," she responded honestly. "I think, after all, this is something I have to do."

"All right then," he agreed. "Go and do it. We will go ahead and register at the hotel. Don't take more than one hour, then follow us in. That will give us a chance to settle and get the lay of the land, as it were. Meet us there, and we'll discuss what to do next. And if anything goes wrong here, anything, break off and come to us immediately. I want no surprises here that we don't generate."

She nodded. "I will. The Holy Reverend Sister Kasdi will behave." She turned to Suzl. "Want me to pass on any word about you?"

She thought a moment. "Just tell 'em I'm free and I'm happy." She had a sudden thought. "I hope nobody who knows me is in town now." She alone appeared, at least, the way she had^een.

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"There is very little chance of that," Mervyn told her. "It is midweek, after all. Let's cross that bridge when we come to it."

They left Cass there, and for a while she hesitated. Here it was -- the large box she- had come to check that day that now seemed so long ago, the day she had seen Matson riding in. The difference between that child and her now, although separated not really all that long in time, was an unbridgeable chasm.

Sh& decided, though, to walk down the road, and tied up the mule at the post box. How many times had she walked down this same road to those buildings? She looked over at the pastures and could still identify and name just about every horse and cow she could see.

Finally she reached the familiar complex, and made the almost automatic turn that took her to the blacksmith's shop. The old sounds of iron being pounded and reshaped caused her heart to skip a beat, and she began perspiring despite the slight chill. Could she do it -- or not? She sighed, and took several deep breaths to get hold of herself. As she had told Mervyn, she had to.

She walked in the barn-like open doors of the smithy and saw her father there, dunking a horse- shoe in water, as two other smiths and three ap- prentices worked elsewhere. She approached her father, the tension rising within her. He looked up, frowned, stared a moment, then put down his work and came to her. "Yes, Sister? What can I do for you?"

She repressed the urge to fling her arms around him and hug and kiss him as she so desperately wanted to do. Instead she said, "You are the father of the girl called Cass who was taken in the Paring Rite?"

He suddenly went a bit tense and white. "Yes. What's this all about?"

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"I have news of her."

He looked suddenly very concerned and she could see the emotions within him rising, despite his efforts to contain them. "Speak," he said hoarsely.

"I have just come through the Flux from Anchor Bakha- During that journey I met many from this Anchor. Most are suffering as expected, but your Cass is doing well."

He looked very interested and slightly relieved, but he wanted to know more.

"I cannot tell you of the Flux, except that it is very strange," she continued, struggling with the words. "However, there is some opportunity there for those with special talents. Your Cass and three others from this riding have broken their bonds and now work as paid employees for a stringer, mostly tending to animals. They were healthy and seemed happy, but were anxious that I carry news back to their families."

She could hardly believe it. Were those truly tears in her father's eyes? Never, ever, had she known her father to cry, not under any conditions, and she was so touched by it that she had to fight back tears herself.

"Cass also wanted me to inform others that the ones called Suzl, Dar, and Nadya are also safe, well, and have jobs and careers- Alas, for the others -- there is the purging. Will you see, though, that their families also get word?"

Her father broke down at that point, dropped to his knees and took and firmly clasped her hand. It was at once both touching and embarrassing, but she knew she had done the right thing. She also knew that she'd better get out of there before she broke down completely herself.

"I must go," she managed, voice breaking, "but I am glad I could bring you some joy. Cass said to t-tell you s-she loved you, and missed you, but that

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she was probably happier now than she would have been back here."

He didn't want to let go of her, but she managed to break free and walked out, leaving him sobbing in his shop. She walked briskly back down the road, the light wind stinging the copious tears that now flowed unchecked and unstoppable.

It was dark and she was once again in the city before she had completely cried it out.

She went immediately to the hotel, tying up her mule, and went inside. Suzl was sitting there smok- ing one of her little cigars and looking through the paper, while Mervyn was checking the hotel directory. They saw her, and came over to her. Suzl saw at once what sort of experience it had been for her. Her eyes were puffy and red.

"How'd it go?" she asked gently.

"It went fine. The job got done with nobody the wiser, but I'm afraid it was pretty hard on me."

"Poor kid. It must have been tough,"

She nodded. "Real tough, but worth it. I'll never regret it no matter what happens from here on in."

Mervyn came up to her and whispered, "Let's step outside for a moment, Sister." They followed him out into the darkened street. "All right," he went on when he was sure they were not being overheard, "we're in too late to do anything tonight. Sister, you will have to stay at the Temple, of course. Just relax, act the part, and get a good night's sleep. In the morning, go out and wait for us in the Temple Square." He paused for a moment. "I'm afraid you're going to have to go through their whole rigamarole."

She shrugged. "I think my lessons will hold up. Don't worry about me -- I've been more places in that Temple than anybody not working there, and if your spell holds they're not going to be able to

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make much use of hypnotic drugs to get any information."

"It'll hold," he assured her. "Go. We have a busy, and risky, day tomorrow."

She nodded, and led her mule down streets she knew so well towards the great, lighted Temple spires.

"Any problems?" Mervyn asked her in the crisp, clean morning air when they met in Temple Square.

"None that I know of," she told him- "I had to do some explaining, and a lot of praying and chanting, but that's about it. It's not bad when you've got rank. Novices to wait on you hand^and foot, private rooms with all the amenities, soft feather beds. They know your covers, though -- I had to tell them that."

He nodded. "Don't worry about it. We won't need them long. Come."

Together all three of them went up the Temple steps to those forbidding bronze doors, opened them, and stepped inside. Cass saw that Suzl was playing the memory game from her glances. In there is the chapel, down there is the gym where they marched us, over there are the Temple boarding rooms for young girls in town, over there is the library stairs. .. . She had done much the same the night before.

Mervyn seemed to know his way around pretty well. "They're all built pretty much the same," he told them. Standardization. They went down the library stairway but did not make the turn to go down the next flight to the library itself. Instead they stopped, and Mervyn knocked on an unmarked door opening onto the landing. It opened to reveal a puzzled warden. "Yes?" she asked.

"I am here to deliver a message to the Sister General. Can you take one to her from me?"

The warden looked hesitant. "I can't just disturb

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her for any old thing. You can take it up with the proper channels."

"I have no time to be put off by bureaucrats whose job it is to put me off," he responded curtly. "If you get this message to her, she will see me. If you do not, I will raise something of a stink that will be as unpleasant for you as for me. At the end of that time I will probably be hauled off to jail, but the Sister General will get my message in the report and then we will change places, or worse."

The warden did not seem moved by this, and made as if to close the door. Mervyn stuck his foot in it, then pushed the warden backwards with a shove. Clearly that woman's body he'd tailor-made for himself had a lot of nasty surprises, for the larger, tougher-looking warden flew back as if struck by a sledgehammer. Aghast, Suzl and Cass fol- lowed him into the wardens' room.

Three other wardens were in there and came on the run when they saw the problem. Mervyn reached behind to his long cape and brought out an automatic rifle. They stopped, unable to believe that anyone would commit such sacrilege.

"Sati, shut that door. You on the floor -- get up and get over with your sisters. Now! And all of you just stand there and stay away from any nice little buttons or consoles. I am a creature of Flux and I will not hesitate to shoot. If I do, the spray this thing makes in stopping one of you will kill all four of you."

Suzl reached under her shirt in the back and pulled out a small automatic pistol, reinforcing Mervyn and freeing him to move. "You four -- come into the outer room here with us. Don't touch anything or try anything funny."

They obeyed, hands high, but they glared at her. "You'll fry in Hell for a thousand lives for this," one hissed.

"I already been there, honey, and it don't scare

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me a bit," she snapped back. "Ca -- Kasdi, you watch 'em and if you see one of 'em pull anything funny, you yell and they're gone."

"You'll never get out of here alive," one of the wardens said smugly. "You know that, don't you?"

"If I don't, neither will you," came the equally tough reply. Suzl, Cass noted, was loving every minute of this, and there was genuine hatred and contempt in her expression and manner. This was no act. She ached for revenge.

Mervyn studied the control panel for a moment, checked out its switches and relays, then found the master manual and thumbed quickly through it. He found what he was looking for immediately, and tapped four numbers on the intercom pad- There was a buzzing sound, then an unfamiliar voice answered. "Sister General. What is the problem?"

"There is an urgent message here for the Sister General's ears alone," he said into the speaker. "It is urgent. Put her on at once."

There was a sigh at the other end, and the con- nection was muted for a moment. Finally a far more familiar voice said, "This is Sister General Diasteph- anos. What is the nature of this emergency?"

Mervyn looked over at Cass, who nodded. That was her, all right.

"The Seven Who Come Before have gathere'd at the gates of Anchor to release the spawn of Hell," he said carefully. "The Nine Who Guard call upon the holy church for aid."

There was a long pause, and then the Sister General asked, "Who is this?"

"Pericles," he responded.

Again there was silence. Finally she asked, "Are my wardens all right? I assume it wasn't easy to get in to use the intercom."

"They are mad and angry and vengeful," he toid

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her truthfully, "but aside from a slight bruise on one of them they are in fine shape."

"Who's watch officer?"

He looked over at the four. One of them said, sourly, "Daran."