01. Spirits of Flux and Anchor (35 page)

that bastard Haldayne! Always the genius! Always the double-dealing genius! I should have known, you. . .." She shuddered and went limp, and her eyes now held a vacancy that even Daji had never known.

Police and Temple wardens came through, pull- ing them away. Cass stepped back and shook her head sadly. "It's crazy," she said, not particularly to Suzl although that was who was there. "I actu- ally feel sorry for her. I don't know how I can pity her, but I do."

Suzl shrugged. "Well, she certainly was what you said, that's for sure. Man! That was weird, seeing her change like that."

Cass nodded. At least she was vindicated in her own mind about it all- Daji had certainly been with Haldayne, and that meant the rest of it was almost certainly true as well. She looked up for Mervyn, and saw him with the authorities inspect- ing the body of the first killer. Both assassins were dead, and when the robes were opened they all saw that under those robes were two hard-looking women dressed in farm clothes.

They spent the next several hours with the police, giving statements of the events. The pass from the Sister General was absolute, and avoided many embarrassing questions about why they were there, but there were still the statements, which had to be checked, typed, and signed, and the individual interrogation of each as to the exact sequence of events. The administrative chief of the Temple showed up to clear the way for them not to have to reveal any more than they chose, and to carry back copies of everything for the Sister General, but it was still a mess- Neither killer was on the registry, nor had they any record of entering An- chor Logh. This bothered them all more than the killings themselves, as unprecedented as they were, because it meant that either there was a leak in

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the wall guard or else these two had come from the only place where the unregistered could possi- bly come from -- the Temple itself.

That was not the problem of the trio from the Flux, however. "You know this Anchor pretty well. Can we take different indirect routes back to the gate?" Mervyn asked them.

They thought about it. "There are lots of back roads, so long as you don't mind camping out in fields," Cass told him. "But there's really no place to hide from somebody who knows them as well as you and also knows what you look like."

He nodded. "I thought as much. I'm going to pull rank with the church, then, and get us a full police guard all the way back. I want no more lopsided ambushes."

They returned inside the police station and Mervyn composed a long note to the Sister General, sending it back with the admin chief. They waited a good hour or more, until a lower ranking priest- ess in admin gray returned with instructions for the police, and they had their escort and more.

There were no further attempts on them, and Mervyn wasn't surprised. "The object of the exer- cise was to kill Daji first, then me if they could. You two were totally optional."

"Thanks a lot," Suzl grumped. "But -- why Daji? Because we had her number and maybe could have learned a lot from her?"

"That, of course," the wizard agreed. "I knew we were in trouble when I saw that falcon there. It was meant to confuse, but all it did was signal that they knew something was wrong."

"It sure confused me," Cass told him- "I thought for a while that the whole thing had been a Haldayne-inspired hallucination."

"Which was exactly the intent. But when it failed, and we arranged to have Daji come with us, they knew their subtlety had not paid off and took direct

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action. They could not afford one of their chiefs in my hands. She would know vital things far beyond this immediate crisis."

"Then the plot is really foiled, huh?" Suzl put in. "I mean, their agent's dead."

"One agent. Someone saw us taking Daji out, and someone received orders to kill her. Haldayne might have started the killers, but he couldn't pos- sibly have been inside the Temple. I'm afraid that all this shows is that Anchor Logh is already as conquered as Persellus, and woefully ignorant of the fact. We shall not know it all until we have dealt with all our problems, and perhaps not even then." He turned to Cass. "First things first. We must go into Flux and prepare you."

"Huh? Prepare me for what?"

"Your ordination and conference, of course. It will be done by the Sister General herself in front of the troops at the west gate just before we march."

"My what and my what? Hey! Wait a minute!"

"It is necessary for a priestess to lead the forces of Anchor into Flux. They are terrified enough now, as you would have been not so long ago. They need what is called in scripture an Adjutant to lead and protect them -- -a high-ranking priestess who is able to stand and use the Flux and protect herself and them. Don't worry -- it's the required part of the Holy Books for all in Anchor Logh to read right now, although it's so obscure and in one of the codices that is rarely paid attention to. In short, we need a wizard-priestess. The Adjutant, when created, is second in rank only to the Sister Gen- eral herself."

"But, wait a minute! Don't / have any say in this? I mean, I'm not even sure I believe in that stuff any more, at least not the way it's taught, and I sure don't want to give up sex and the Flux power now that I've found them."

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Suzl gave a raised eyebrow at that but said nothing.

"Obviously it's too obscure for you, as well," Mervyn responded patiently. "The Adjutant is con-' sidered a somewhat supernatural figure. She comes from Flux and returns to it, although she is, of course, able to travel to Anchor. It exists for the very reason that a lot of the rest exists -- it is conve- nient when the rules have to be bent. In this case, men raised to be terrified of the Flux are being asked to go into it and do battle. Think of how you felt when you first went in. It's not so bad. You'll be a High Priestess in Anchor and a wizard yi Flux, and you'll need more training as a wizard than this job requires."

She thought it over. "How long has it been since the last -- Adjutant -- was appointed?"

He thought it over. "Three, maybe four hundred years, I think. They all run together after a while. But now there will be two, each accompanied by a Flux warrior."

"Huh?"

"A Flux warrior, it is said, is the reincarnation of one of the greatest warrior angels corrupted and exiled to World after the Rebellion. Because they were of the highest rank then, they are cursed to live their lives in Flux, and to be known because they differ from humans only in one specific attribute. That attribute is not defined, but that only makes it convenient for our candidates."

Suzl grinned. "Like me, you mean?"

He nodded. "Like you. And like Dar."

Cass gasped. "So that's why you split them up! You had this in mind all along!"

He nodded. "But your vanishing act nearly spoiled it. I was determined to take a dugger or whatever, but, fortunately, I didn't have to."

Suzl giggled. "Just think -- only weeks ago we four were stripped of it all and cast out of Anchor.

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Now two of us are gonna be High Priestesses and the other two are angels' This is crazy but I love

it!"

Cass nodded, not sharing the mirth. "Yes, lucky --  if we survive all this. Not like the rest of them marched out with us. Not like the ones in Arden's train."

"Oh, let the dead be cremated and their ashes returned to the life of the soil," Suzl quoted from the holy books. "Now is now and I am me, and I'm having a ball."

The void, which had been so terrifying before, now seemed like a welcome friend to them, offer- ing peace and quiet and relative security. Mervyn wasted no time becoming his favorite old man's character once again, but after a short session with Suzl to brief her on just what her part in this was, he sent her back to Anchor, to the apron area, with an eye to getting as much information and rumor from the resident duggers as possible. Mervyn wanted to know how the wall leaked so easily, and it was also a way to have Cass alone for a while.

"I know you're wondering about all this," he began, "and that will never stop, I'm afraid, for none of us knows the answers. We, and our forebears, however, do know much more of the history and geography of World than the church permits to be taught, simply because part of our mission was to save the books and records of the past. Not all survived, alas, particularly from the earliest days, but much did."

Humanity, he told her, had once been far greater and more numerous than now. There was once, as near as they could understand it, a great empire of humankind, which included but was not restricted to World. "This is only one world of men, perhaps the only one left now. Once, however, there was the concept of empire."

In this great time in the far past -- fully thou-

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sands of years before -- man had had a great civili- zation, an ideal community where all were free and had -- if not directly then through machines -- the powers and wonders of wizards. The forces of Hell;

rose up to attempt to destroy this civilization, and there was a great war, such as none today could even imagine. In the end, humans defeated the forces of Hell and pushed them back into a place outside our very universe. But the battle had not been without great cost, and the empire was shat- tered and destroyed and with it most of the race and most of its worlds.

"It was here on World that the final battle took;' place," he said, "and it was here, at last, that Hell was pushed out of all we know and the gates to Hell were sealed."

"Then the machines I saw at the gate were those of that lost empire," she responded, understanding it better. "They were the means by which all was sealed."

He nodded. "However, all did not go well here, either. The church, originally set up to guard against those gates being opened or tampered with, as well as to guard all the old knowledge, became corrupted, as new generations saw it as an avenue of power. Still, the system, even with what we have lost, has held for all this time. There were those who disagreed with the system, however, and sought to preserve what could be preserved. Nine people, all great men and women of their time and all great wizards, copied, begged, borrowed, or stole all that they could and moved into Flux. They did not desert the church, but rather felt the church had deserted them, become too large, political, and bureaucratic. These Nine hand-picked their successors, so that when it finally came their time there was always someone ready to step in."

"And those are the Nine Who Guard?"

He nodded. "We guard not only against the forces

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of Hell but against the follies of humanity as well. None of us are saints, but we have somehow man- aged to do our jobs and keep the faith.Besides, it's not bad being a wizard of such tremendous power here in Flux. We also keep our hands in with the church, as it were. No one can become a Sister General or higher without spending time with us in Flux, if only to totally understand the nature and threat that Flux presents, and, of course, to read and leam the literature forbidden or destroyed in Anchor."

"So that explains why you knew Sister General Diastephanos!"

Again he nodded, "Yes, she trained with me long ago. Twenty years or more, I'd say." "She sure didn't take all the moral lessons." Mervyn grinned. "Oh, it's not that terrible. The fact is, the holy books are quite a bit less strict than the rules the church now imposes. That par- ticular section, which you'll not read in the Tem- ple libraries, actually specifies that none will engage- in sins of the flesh with any man after ordination. In the early days, for example, it was rare but not unheard of for priestesses to be widows with children,, and in the early days many a 'scarlet woman' or one with family problems or pregnant with a child born out of wedlock joined to regain status and respectability. The church had such a potential to be a unifying force for World. Instead, it became the dictator of it."

This was a far different picture than the one she'd had growing up, and, indeed, the one she'd formed since leaving Anchor. She began to realize both the potential and the loss to World of its corruption, and it made her feel more than slightly angry. In a sense, the church had become to An- chor what each ruling wizard was to a Fluxland. Corrupted by power, each had inevitably exercised that power to the fullest. It was a strong vision it

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presented, of a church keeping knowledge alive, and providing a moral and cultural unity to World, while government, as a separate entity elected by Anchor, would rule subject to the voters, not'.'the

church. "And Haldayne, Daji, and the rest? What are

they?"

"Wizards, just tike the Nine and the other pow- ers of Flux. Their organization is, in a sense, a mirror image of the Nine. In their own minds they have a noble purpose in which the ends justify any means. They believe that humanity can never're- gain its former greatness but will remain in pri^ni- tive stagnancy until, believe it or not, an accom- modation with Hell is reached."

She was shocked. "An accommodation with HeU?"