02. Empires of Flux and Anchor (6 page)

She munched on an apple and walked out of the apartment and down the dirt road through the fields leading to the main highway. She barely glanced at the Holy Mother above, a great, amorphous light banded in yellows, blues, and oranges— the sight had always been there and would have been unnatural only if absent. It was a warm day, and she wore a pair of denim jeans low on her hips, a sleeveless white shirt that came down to her navel, and little else more, save a pair of high-heeled riding boots, which put an extra wiggle in her walk and added another five centimeters to her height, and a cream-colored ranch hat, side brims starched up.

She knew that, sooner or later, the coach from the west gate would come by, and that Sister Janise was aboard, and that was whom she was there to meet. She was never comfortable with Sister Janise—the woman was like a doting maiden aunt, only she really never understood the relationship the old girl had to her or her real mother. Janise had always been a little boring and made her feel uncomfortable, although she always thought that, if she could ever find a way, she might learn more from the Sister about her own origins.

The coaches were never on time, so she just thanked the Goddess that it was such a nice, warm day and settled down on the grass near the road to wait.

After a while Sucha Fane rode by, spotted her, and stopped and dismounted. He was a nice-looking boy her age, nothing wonderful but nice enough, and they'd shared some classes together in school. She had never felt really attracted to him, considering her other choices, and they had never dated, but that never stopped him from trying and it
was
a dull day.

"Hi, Spirit. What'cha doin' sittin' here?"

"Waiting for the damned coach. My batty priestess aunt is due in for one of her interminable visits, that's all. You?"

"Goin' in to the guild halls to see if my number's come up, that's all. You know I got a slot as apprentice electrician."

"No! Congratulations! That's a big new field."

And it was. The reformation of the Church had ushered in a whole new era of scientific inquiry. Study was made of many subjects that had been forbidden or had been restricted to the Church, and hundreds of the brightest minds of World were hard at work. The whole of the capital was electrified now, and there was talk of extending the power grids eventually to every city, town, and farm in Anchor Logh. Her farm would be among the first, as it was one of the two or three closest to the capital. It was said that power would soon no longer be dependent on the supernatural gusher in the temple, but actually might be generated from the energy of Flux, or from units of compressed solid energy created in Flux that could be transported, stored, and used locally in Anchor.

The old books and records had yielded many suppressed miracles, including the transmission of speech by electrical energy, not just through wires but through the air. It seemed impossible, but they had all seen demonstrations of it in school and in the capital. The entire world was poised on the edge of a technological revolution that would match or exceed the impact of the Reformation.

The conversation turned, quite naturally, to the personal, and she had little trouble putting him off yet again. Still, she sometimes felt sorry for the Suchas of the world, and she felt tempted occasionally to give them a break or a thrill. Not now, though. Not today, particularly.

Crestfallen as usual from being shot down again, he sighed, got up, and remounted his horse. "Got to be gettin' in before they close," he said lamely.

"Take care and good luck," she responded. "I mean that." And she blew him a kiss.

That last really brightened his day, and he rode off at a happy gallop.

Almost on cue, the coach rumbled into sight in the distance, and she watched it approach, then got up as it slowed. The door opened, and out stepped old Sister Janise, looking the same as always.

"Hi, Sister Janise! It's been a while!" Spirit opened, trying to sound as enthusiastic as she could.

"Too long," the Sister responded, and hugged her and gave her a peck on the cheek. The coach rumbled off, and they watched it go into the distance towards the capital.

"Everybody's waiting for you," Spirit told her. "Mom's been cooking all day."

"Well, I hope they didn't put themselves out too much for me. It will be good to see them all, but this isn't quite the usual social visit."

Spirit frowned at that, but let it pass. "Want to go see Mom?"

"In a minute. I think I'd just like to walk along the road and around the farm for a little bit. Not only have I been four days on those blasted coaches, but I like to . . . remember."

They began walking back towards the distant buildings, perhaps a kilometer in. "That's right— you
did
say you grew up around here, didn't you?"

The Sister nodded. "Yes. This very farm. It's nice to see that it's changed so little over the years, although that's probably going to end soon. Dramatic change is coming to Anchor Logh. I sometimes wonder, in ten years, if we—either one of us—will recognize this place and whether the magic of science here won't overpower the magic of Flux."

Spirit had never seen Janise in such a reflective mood. It gave her an odd sense of foreboding, particularly when coupled with the old woman's earlier cryptic remark.

Janise slopped for a moment and pointed. "Let's go over to that grove of trees. I want to talk for a moment."

They went over and sat on the grass. For a little bit the Sister was silent, but finally she said, "For a long time you've wondered about your parents, haven't you? Your natural ones, I mean."

The statement jolted her, but she repressed her excitement. "Yes, that's true."

"You're a beautiful, grown woman now. I think it's time you were told the truth, although you will not be able to tell it to anyone else."

Spirit felt a chill. "The truth?"

The Sister sighed. "Yes. The truth. But not because you are grown now. It was decided to tell you because others may learn of you, others who might wish to do you harm because of your heritage. You must know in order to guard yourself."

"Guard myself from whom? What's this all leading to?"

"You know the story of the Reformation. That Cass, a girl from this farm, this riding, discovered the corruption in the temple and was exiled to Flux. How she discovered in herself great power and how she fell in love with a stringer, and when that stringer died in the war against Hell, she was transformed into the most powerful wizard World had ever known."

"I hadn't known about the stringer part, but the rest is taught every Holy Day."

"Well, Cass became, of course, Sister Kasdi. She beat the evil wizard Haldayne and transformed his evil kingdom into Hope, the seat of the Reformed Church. This you know."

She nodded. "Yeah, sure. I guess everybody does."

"And nothing so far suggests a parallel with anything you have been told?"

She shrugged. "Except that that battle killed my natural father, not particularly."

"Sister Kasdi had a daughter in Anchor by her slain lover. The big secret they've always tried to hide from you and everybody else is that you are that daughter."

Oddly, she felt no shock at the revelation. It was simply too ridiculous to be believed, let alone accepted.

"She had to choose between you and the Reformation, Spirit. She chose the Reformation for the good of everyone rather than herself, and she did everything possible to make sure that nobody would ever trace you to her. You would be the one piece of blackmail her enemies could hold on her."

"If what you say is true, I doubt if I'd be worth much. I mean, she already took the Church over me, right?" There was a heavy trace of bitterness in her tone, and it hurt.

"There was no choice," she responded defensively. "You could not be protected in Flux, and the old Church and its forces would have sought out and killed the infant Reformation and both you and her if she didn't carry it off. I
can
say you have never been far from her thoughts in all these years."

"Yeah, I'll bet. So what are you? Her personal watchdog? She sends you to bring me toys and attend my birthday parties and report to her when she's got the time?"

"That's a cruel way to put it. She
has
seen you, many times. But she is a powerful wizard, able to transform herself into just about anybody or anything, and she had to visit in deep disguise so that her enemies wouldn't know and follow her."

Spirit felt anger, not relief at all this. "So why the big story now?"

"There are rumors that her old enemies have discovered who you are. Perhaps not, but they are closing in. They suspect. No matter what you think of your mother or what you think she might do, you'd better think another way. It's not going to be
her
in the hands of Hell; it'll be
you
."

That
was a sobering-up statement if there ever was one. She thought about it a moment, then shook her head sadly. "This is all so ... new to me. I mean, all these years I've wondered about my real parents, and now you can tell me all this. It's pretty hard to take."

"Everyone tried to spare you all this. We worked very hard to do so. Were it not for the possible dangers, it would have continued that way. I'm very . . . sorry." It was getting more and more difficult to keep up the act, the other persona, but it had to be done. It was sadly ironic that she could not come right out and tell her daughter the truth face-to-face, but if the girl was having troubles believing the truth as it was, nothing less than that would convince her that her doddering old "aunt" was truly the monumental figure familiar to all.

"I don't see why my mother couldn't do this job herself," Spirit said sourly. "She sure has a funny way of showing she cares."

"But, dear, don't you see? The only way for that to work would be for her to come as herself—and that would lead her enemies right to you. She can travel nowhere anonymously except in deep disguise. Surely you can understand that. The only safe place would be in Flux, and there, if they so much as suspected, you could not be defended or defend yourself against a concerted attack."

That logic was not what Spirit wanted to hear right now, nor was it what she was feeling. She felt a lot of resentment and bitterness churning within her, and a great deal of hurt, and yet, somehow, all of it seemed like some kind of crazy dream. Certainly none of the facts had any solidity to her, any kind of personal reality. To be orphaned and fantasize about your real parents was one thing; to discover that you were not an orphan, but that your mother was an alleged saint and the most powerful person in the world—and that she chose that path over you—was something else again. And now to find that you were in mortal danger from the enemies of the mother who didn't give a damn about you—that was just a little much to swallow right now.

*   *   *

It had been three days since the revelations, and Spirit was still troubled by them. She had asked her mother—her real mother in all but the biological sense—to confirm the facts, and they had in fact been confirmed, although she still had the feeling that there were things they still wished to conceal from her. She moped around and tried to sort it all out, but it was hard.

It was far easier to look up the Cass of her own riding, though, than the mythical mother they had originally given her. She was struck both by the plainness of her photographs and the tomboy image the records and some of the older farm hands indicated. Eventually she wandered down to the blacksmith's shop. The foreman there was a familiar figure and, she'd been told, a distant relation, but now she found herself staring at the brawny, silver-haired man at the forge with different eyes.

The first thing Kasdi had done after leaving Spirit that first day was to visit her dad and tell him. He looked up at the girl just inside the wide doorways, put down his tools, wiped off his face with a rag and came over to her. "Hello, Spirit," he greeted casually.

"Hello . . . Grandfather," she responded, not at all sure of what tone to take.

He frowned. "Never say that again around here, much as I'd like you to. Come on—let's go someplace private and talk for a few moments."

They sat again under the very trees where she'd been told the truth. "I hear tell you're not very pleased at the news," he began.

"Well? Should I be?"

He shrugged. "I'm kind of proud of her myself, as you might understand. I can't say I ever understood her, but we got pretty close, you know. Even more after she took over the Church. Your momma's a little weird, but she's got brains and the guts to use 'em." He gave her a smirk. "She still hasn't got me back in the Church, though. Drives her nuts."

Spirit laughed at that, and some of the ice melted. She hadn't known him very well before, but she liked him now, as much as she liked the irony that the father of the sainted Sister Kasdi was an unrepentant nonbeliever.

He nodded sagely. "That's better. You know, I think it drove me more crazy than your mom not to get close to you, because I saw you most every day. Still, the danger's pretty real, and for your sake and hers I kept apart. I still can't come out and claim you my granddaughter, but at least we can have a talk now and then. I can tell you're pretty troubled. Want to talk about it?"

There was something about him that inspired confidence, the same solidity that he gave to the things wrought in iron by his own hands and forge. He had a reputation for being gruff and sometimes mean and nasty, but here he seemed surprisingly gentle and compassionate. She opened up to him, and he listened attentively, never interrupting. When she had finished, he sighed and looked thoughtful.

"Your mom's a politician and a soldier, the two jobs that make more enemies than any other ten jobs combined. Me they're only mad at when something I make breaks or isn't quite right. It's never personal. Her—it's all personal. The people you beat hate you and want revenge. The people you never touched are scared of you, and to fear somebody is to be an enemy. Nobody ever agrees with the one who runs things, and everybody thinks they can do a better job. She didn't want the job, and she hates it now. She's hated it, I think, since the first. She got herself trapped into it by a bunch of slick politicians themselves who wanted what she could give 'em and suckered her into doing their dirty work. Now she's really stuck. She can't quit. Too many folks depend on her. It's kind of funny, really. Here she is, the most powerful woman on World, and she can't do anything she wants to do."