01. Spirits of Flux and Anchor (38 page)

Jack L. Chalker

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He put it down and sighed, then looked out at the fighting not far away. They were bogged down again, this time by a very large number of v/ell dug-in troops. "Sure is a bitch, ain't it?" he Said wearily. "You better get back a little, though, Sis- ter Cass. Stray bullets are carrying back farther than this."

"I'm a whole lot more bullet proof than you," she told him, "and you don't look too worried.'"'

He turned and looked out at the battle. "Well, I -- " he began, then he was apparently hit by an invisible fist that knocked him off his horse, the canteen flying out of his hand.

"Matson!" she screamed, and jumped off her horse and ran to him. The entire front of his shirt had been ripped away by whatever it was that had hit him, and it seemed as if his chest were one huge bloody wound. He was still, his mouth open, blood trickling from it. She took his hand, squeezed it, and screamed at him, "Matson! Come on, you good- for-nothing stringer! You beat the odds! You always beat the odds! You can't do this to me! Not now!".

But there was no response. She felt a presence near her and whirled, seeing Jomo. "Jomo!" she cried desperately. "Get a healing wizard here! Hurry! He's been hit!"

The enormous tears in the huge blob of a man looked very strange, but the dugger shook his head, then knelt down and checked out Matson's body. "No use, Missy Cass," he said, voice trembling. "He gone to see Missy Arden."

"No! Oh, Holy Mother above, please! Not now! Not him! Not yet!" she sobbed. Jomo got up and tried to pry her gently away from the body. For a while he could not budge her, nor could she do anything but sob and stare at Matson's lifeless body. Suddenly she shook off the giant dugger/got up, and turned facing the battle, a strange expres- sion on her face. She seemed to radiate power, the

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kind only powerful wizards do, and the dugger stepped back nervously and just watched.

She looked out at the bodies. Everywhere there were bodies, everywhere there was blood and ter- ror and death. In that moment something snapped within her, snapped for good. Now she understood, at last, that what she had been telling Suzl was only part of the truth. She was not any victim of chance, but the one chosen. Everything that had happened said that she was the agent of divine will. She had wavered and fallen, as the church had fallen, because of human frailty and weakness, ,and because oflhis Matson had to pe taken from her. She knew that now, understood that it had to be this way. Every step she had taken, every new experience, from the point at which she'd first entered the forbidden sacristy, had been directed to this one destiny.

"No more," she muttered under her breath, look- ing at the fallen bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. "No more," she said again, louder now, the tremendous power rising within her. It was will that brought it up, but emotion that trig- gered it. She stuck out her arms, palms out, as if to stop something coming down on her, but it was something different she wanted to stop. All sounds of battle, of people yelling and guns firing, van- ished in a roar in her ears. There was only a single will now, and it was directed forward. She felt the power as she had never felt it.

And the Soul Rider provided the required math- ematics.

Far off, in the capital, a weak Gifford Haldayne was taking a drink and waiting it out, trying to regain what strength he could. He felt it at once, and knew it for what it was, and cursed himself for it. Damn their eyes! They had a fourth World class wizard in reserve!

He frowned, then staggered, suddenly, from the

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force of a psychic blow. "What the hell is this?" he asked aloud, amazed- Never in his entire life had he felt such power, such force, such single-minded direction of will. This was something totally new, and totally frightening. This was no doing of the Nine, or Seven, or any combination of Fluxlords. This was something new, and terrible, and beyond even his ancient comprehension. He had a sudden, queer thought. What have I unleashed? he wondered, but he did not dwell on it now. He knew wha,£ he had to do, and he knew he had only seconds to do it.

He released control to the new force, changed to a raven, and was out of there like a shot. He was fifty kilometers into the void before he even al- lowed himself enough time to realize just how close it had been.

On the battlefield, Mervyn awoke with a strange sensation inside him. He got up weakly and made it forward to the seat so that he could see out and ahead of him. The sight that he saw was as unprece- dented to him as it had been to Haldayne.

Cass, in lavender robes stained with Matson's blood, walked forward towards the battle. As she did, the firing stopped on both sides, and the face of the land and sky trembled and changed. All around her the darkened and blood-stained vol- canic ash changed into life itself, into fresh, green grass and flowers. It spread continuously out, touch- ing the front lines and causing soldiers on both sides to stop, turn, and stare. The sky above light- ened until it attained the dark blue of Anchor, and the landscape rippled as in Anchor as the great orb of Heaven filled the sky, sending its multicol- ored light down on the scene.

The wizard was awed by the power coming from her, and the total mastery of the Flux and its complex mathematics and physics despite her al-

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most complete lack of training. He had, indeed, set the conditions up and put it all in motion, but he had never expected anything like this. In fact, he had to admit, he hadn't in the end expected any- thing at all.

The zone of Fluxland influence now extended from horizon to horizon, the volcanos becoming green rolling hills, the river crystal clear and run- ning its normal course.

The soldiers of Flux and Anchor on both sides of the battle could not, in the main, sense any of the magic, yet it radiated from her frail form and touched them all. They threw down their weapons as she passed, and fell in behind her as she contin- ued her walk.

She drew strength from the Flux, not only for herself but for them, and she walked without stop all the way to the capital, with those of both sides following silently. From the rear and from the side others streamed in from the other two attacking forces, and their enemies.

The town itself had been transformed. No longer was there a goddess's tower or Haldayne's great black castle, but in the center was a huge Temple, the largest ever seen, radiating from its perfect surface the colors of Heaven. As she entered the city limits, the townspeople lined the routes ten deep, throwing flowers at her and at all the soldiers. All fell in as the parade passed, and moved to the central Temple area, where they filed in before the great steps and back as far as the eye could see- All stopped at the base of the Temple steps, but Cass kept walking until she was at the top. Only then did she turn and face the crowd, which was suddenly silent.

"People of Flux and Anchor, hear me," she said, and her voice somehow carried clearly throughout the boundaries of the land. "I am the Adjutant not of Anchor but of Heaven itself. Corruption has,

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strangled humanity long enough. There is the cor- ruption of the church in Anchor, and the corrup- tion of wizardry in Flux. Both have held humanity too long in their grip. You have just endured a great battle, but to what end? Hell is but the ultimate corruption of the human soul, and it flour- ishes and grows and feeds upon that corruption. Thousands of brave, good people have just died, mixed their blood with this land, and for what? To make things better? No! To keep things the same." She paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and continued.

"To keep things the same," she repeated, saying. it bitterly. "So what choice did we have? We were offered only our choice of Hells! To this I say, no more. No more. It is evil! I renounce such evil. I rebel at such a choice. The Holy Mother cries out to me, 'No more! No more!' I reclaim this land in Her name, and with Her power, and I rename it Hope. I do not bind you to my will, for then I would be as guilty as those who now run World. Instead I offer you a partnership, and hope, and no more. It will be no easy road, to reform our ways, to rebuild our corrupted church, to make for our- selves a world of free men and women who will not fear Hell because it will have no way to gain a foothold inside us. You, all of you here, can be the vanguard that will revolutionize World. We may be weak at times, we may stumble occasionally, we might even suffer failures and disappointments, but we will try."

Again she paused, allowing the message to sink in. "Now go," she told them. "Go free of mind and free of entanglements so long as you are in Hope. Let all who live in this land open up their hearts and homes to those who do not. Those who wish to join in the mission, whether wizard, soldier, slave, dugger, half-human or inhuman, may meet me in this square tomorrow, either physically or in your

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hearts. I will know, and reach you. I was ordained by the church as Sister Kasdi, so that will be my name henceforth. Hell cannot stand against me. Only you can." And she blessed them, turned, and walked into the Temple.

She walked straight back to the chapel and then to the altar, and knelt and prayed and performed the sacraments that only a priestess could, and reaffirmed her vows. Only then did she turn and see that there were others in the chapel. They were people that she knew. There was Mervyn, looking very spry and pleased with himself, and Suzl, and , Nadya, too, in robes just like her own.

Nadya smiled and came forward, then took and kissed her hand. "They ordained me as Sister Tamara. I, too, will keep that name and proudly." They embraced and kissed, and there were tears in both their eyes. Finally Nadya said, "I knew, somehow, from that very start, that we were destined for something different, something new-1 would never, however, have guessed this."

Cass smiled. "I know." She sighed. "I guess we'll have to postpone our adventurous tour of World." "Only until the next life," Nadya replied.

Cass smiled and turned to Suzl next. "And what about you?"

"I think you're a powerful wizard and a stark raving lunatic," she told them. "However, this sounds interesting. As long as you can stand some- body who's psychologically unfit for society hang- ing around, and a cynic at that, I might just stick until I see how it all comes out. If nothing else, you're gonna need somebody around with the guts to tell you what lunatics you are, just to keep from vanishing into your own little worlds. I may not be one of the faithful, but revolution kind of ap- peals to my nature. Besides that, I'm unemployed. I have to sponge off somebody and it might as well be somebody important."

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Cass and Nadya both laughed, and Cass stepped forward and took her hands. "All right, 'psycho- logically unfit.' As much as I think you might be dangerous to have around, considering the real wording of that chastity clause, I'm glad to do it." She paused a moment. "Have you seen Dar?"

Suzl's face grew serious. "He's dead, Cass. He died bravely, from what I hear, saving a couple of people's lives in the process."

She had no more tears to give to grief, but she felt it anyway. She let go of Suzl's hands and turned to Mervyn. "Now, don't tell me you planned all this or I'll make an exception of my love rule in your case."

"I primed the pump," he admitted, "but I was still surprised to find water at all, and least of all a fountain." He sighed. "What will you do with it all now?"

"What I said. if anybody returns, that is. Even if nobody returns."

"And what of the unfinished business?"

"I haven't forgotten it, but it must wait until we're organized here. I don't think anything will be tried right away. They will be far too interested in me to think about anything else."

"I agree," he responded. "I'll talk it over with Tatalane and Krupe, but I'm sure we'll all help. It must be done. It is long overdue. Otherwise we'll be stuck here like this forever and eventually Haldayne's bunch will win."

She hesitated a moment. "You know who is be- hind this, don't you?"

"I think I do, and my joy at this outcome cannot quite balance my grief. Still, humanity lives again. Empire is reborn as a concept, and, perhaps, as a reality. The Empire of Flux and Anchor. The con- cept itself is staggering."

"Come," said Sister Kasdi. "We have much to plan and work out between now and tomorrow."

19

ANSWERS

Five hundred and fourteen border troopers had ridden out from Anchor Logh, and only two hun- dred and twenty-seven had returned, although, thanks to Flux magic, their wounds were healed and they felt pretty tough and proud of themselves. They were also the objects of awe among the local population and their fellow troopers, and told their battle stories time and again to enthralled audiences. Ultimately, though, even heroes have to go back to work, and they were all returned to duty.

Because they were more than a quarter of all the • remaining guards, it was inevitable that, in many cases, long stretches of the border wall and the drains through it were guarded by these returning soldiers. Because of this, the invading army had little problem in breaching the wall along a more than two kilometer stretch halfway up, without, in fact, the rest of the guard force even knowing that such an invasion had taken place. They continued to guard the wall against attack from outside long after the enemy had a fully established force and was marching in strength on the capital.