"It would be the ideal place for such a one to hide," Matson pointed out, "and for the very reason you just showed. All I can do is state the obvious— Whether or not you follow it up is up to you. I'm not going to be around these parts very long."
The colonel seemed deeply disturbed by the idea, but simply said, "It will be looked into, I promise you. At least I will bring it up in my report, and higher authority can do what it wishes."
"Fair enough," the stranger agreed. "Now, then, Montagne, one more piece of unfinished business and I'll let the colonel have you. You stole a lot of merchandise from a stringer. As the recovering stringer, I am entitled to it, but I don't like damaged goods."
Rory Montagne frowned. "The mules are in excellent shape, and what packs we rummaged through can, I'm sure, be restored in short order."
"Them," Matson said, pointing to the cowering goat-women. "Put them back the way they were." The whip hand twitched slightly.
"Now how in hell am I supposed to remember what they looked like?" the captive retorted in a helpless tone. "They're women!"
"Can you bring back their senses? Memory? Personality?"
"Oh, sure. It was a quick mass job. All I did was push them back from the control centers of the brain. What's the point unless they know exactly what's going on but are helpless to do anything about it?"
Matson and the colonel exchanged sharp glances at that. Finally the stringer said, "Okay. It doesn't matter to me what they used to look like anyway, so long as they're people again. Just pick somebody in your head at random and make them all look like that, and bring back their minds. If they don't think and talk they're no good to me."
Although some of the troopers were busy surveying the pocket and also repacking and readying the mules for transport, most of the others, including Cass and Dar, stood back watching the show. The latter two were enjoying every bit of it.
Montagne sighed. "I do wish you would send someone to fetch my robe. A prisoner should be allowed some dignity."
The colonel shrugged and gestured to a trooper, who went up, into the cave, and returned with it. It was then carefully searched but there were no pockets or concealed compartments within it and so they gave it to him and he put it on, looking quite pleased, then looked up at the colonel. "With your permission, sir?"
They cleared a path for him and he walked towards the goat-women, who seemed to relax and greet his coming with joy.
"He won't try any tricks, will he?" Matson asked worriedly.
"It would take months to find out his particular frequencies and patterns by deduction, but once he starts I'll know if he's doing it right. You can't alter a spell, only impose a different one. If he undoes it, it has to be all the way, or the math just won't add up."
The stringer nodded, understanding at least the basics as a false wizard.
Montagne was still a ham, and he still put on a nice show of mumbo-jumbo, chanting, and gestures, but finally he made a few basic gestures and the figures of the hapless women shimmered and changed.
"Bastard! I'll kill him!" Dar screamed, and two troopers had to restrain him.
All nineteen of the surviving members of Arden's train now looked exactly like Lani. The black magician turned, grinned, then shrugged. "Well, after all, you did leave her dead in my bed. Who else did you think I'd have in mind?" He turned to the colonel. "I'm ready to go now, sir. Take me away!"
Cass shouted at Matson, "You can't make him go back with the train! You just can't! It'd be like you traveling with nineteen women who looked just like Arden!"
That stung the stringer, and he softened slightly. "All right. Colonel, can we find or make some clothes for those two and let them go in with you? All in all, they've done us a pretty good service, and these will more than make up for my loss on them."
The colonel was surprised. "You mean you're giving them their freedom? A stringer gives something for nothing? Now I know the gates will be opened and the end of World is nigh!"
"Cut the sarcasm. The big one will have to face a hearing when you get home to judge his actions, both good and bad. I'll leave that judgment up to your court— Cass I'm not so sure about, but she's done me enough service to buy her way out. That's as far as I'll go."
"Fair enough," the colonel agreed. "Let's see what we can do about some clothing for the two of them, then we'll commandeer two of the mules there to let them ride. You'll get them back when you reach Persellus."
"Agreed. I need a couple of troopers to help me go back and get some packs I ditched back on the route, then we'll be headed in. I have some business in Persellus."
"We'll see you there, then!" And, with that, the colonel went off to reorganize his troops, Montagne walking before him.
Dar was finally calm enough to be freed of restraint, but he turned his back on the now milling, chattering throng of Lanis and refused to look at them any more.
Matson came over to them, dismounted, and said, "Well, Cass. You heard me there, although I'll never live the story down. Don't disappoint me,now."
"I just wish I could buy my friends out," she told him honestly. "In a way I feel kind of guilty about this."
"Well, you're free, but you're broke, so forget it. However, I want to warn both of you about Persellus. You've never been in a Fluxland before."
Even Dar suddenly grew interested. "What are they like?"
"Well, each one is so different there's no telling, but this one happens to be a pretty nice place filled with pretty nice folks, overall. The first thing you have to remember," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper, "is that every Fluxland is the creation of a very powerful wizard, one so powerful that they're like gods— Well, this one's wizard thinks she is a goddess. Lives up in a high tower, but really does the part. She can hear and see everything and everyone if she wants to, and she loves to. If you pray to her, your prayers might be answered if she's in the mood. If you say anything she doesn't like, or question her godhood, you'll wish you didn't. The best way to act is to steer clear of even any questions about her and for your own sakes make no even slightly nasty comments. The only way people there can get along is if they believe in her godhood, so they do. Even these troops and the colonel. Never mind what you know is true. Act in every way like she's a real deity, because, in real life, she is one. And do not ever accept an offer to see her, because you'll come out of it a raving religious fanatic about her. Okay?"
They both nodded, although neither was quite sure just what it all meant.
Matson left shortly afterwards to return to his train, taking a half a dozen troopers with him and his newly acquired mules, packs, and people— That last made things a little more tolerable for Dar, anyway.
The colonel proved to be a man of many abilities. When they came up with two basic trooper uniforms, one far too small for Dar and the smallest far too large for Cass, he made a small gesture and both fit as if they were tailored for the two. A second pass turned the water and the waterfall from clear water to a brown, foul-smelling substance that bubbled and hissed. Nobody was going to use this pocket for a refuge again, that was for sure. He did not otherwise destroy it, though, since line fully intended to send back a team of experts on void magic to study it for clues as to its origin— and originator.
Finally, they were ready. The clothes felt odd after so long without any, but they had no trouble riding as they had before. A third commandeered mule held the now comatose Rory Montagne, rendered so by a spell from the colonel that made it highly unlikely that the evil one would awaken before they were ready for him.
Finally everything was packed, inventoried, and they were off into the void once more, but with a difference. Cass was now a free woman, but in a hostile and unknown place and without resources. Dar, because of his earlier actions in the train and against Cass, was technically under arrest.
The colonel was advanced enough in the magic of Flux to find his own way in the void, although he did have to return via Matson's train route before he could tie in to the
main trail that only a few could see or sense.
It was a slow, relaxed, deliberately paced ride, but it was still far faster than any stringer train could go, even in the speedup configuration Matson had used.
"What will you do now, Cass?" Dar wanted to know.
She shrugged. "I'm not sure. Take each thing one at a time, I guess. Maybe I'll like this place up ahead and just settle down there. Probably not, though. If I could just find some way to earn a stake, I might like to see a little more of World now that I'm out here."
"What we've seen so far isn't very encouraging," Dar noted. "It's all been pretty ugly."
"But there must be nice places, maybe even wonderful places, too," she replied. "I mean, these wizards have the powers of gods. They can't all be corrupted by it, not completely. Look at the colonel and these troops here. They're pretty nice, and as human as anybody in Anchor Logh. We've seen the worst the Flux has, now it's time to see the best."
They reached the borders of Persellus after a lengthy ride. It was not an abrupt transition, like the pocket, but a very gradual one, as the void slowly gave way to actual forms. First there was the feeling of solid ground beneath them, and the clattering of hooves on rock that seemed so odd here that it startled them. Then there were misty, indistinct shapes here and there, like landforms of one kind or another, and here and there a trace of grass or bushes. The sky lightened, until it turned increasingly transparent, although it was now an odd and unfamiliar pale blue above the fleecy white clouds, with no sign of the ever-present Mother of Universes in sight. The clear blue sky unnerved both Dar and Cass, but they soon got used to it, particularly when they didn't look up.
And, suddenly, they were completely in the land of Persellus. It was, even the gloomy Dar had' to admit, a very pretty place indeed.
In effect it was a huge, wide valley with a small meandering river cutting through it. The valley itself was, perhaps, twenty or twenty-five kilometers across, and flanked by low mountains with gentle green slopes that were forested all the way to their tops.
At first there seemed little sign of people or indeed any signs of life, but after traveling a while, the road, now paved and well-maintained, took them through farms quite different from those of Anchor Logh, with broad fields of grazing cows or horses and large houses and barns of an unfamiliar design sitting back from the main road. Clearly such farms were independently managed, probably by single families. They were smaller than Anchor communes, and the buildings could not possibly handle a collective. Just the idea of independently owned and operated farms was as hard for them to grasp as was the blue sky and wizards who did magic,
"Actually," a friendly trooper told them, "Persellus is slightly smaller than Anchor Logh and yet it produces a good deal more. We're totally self-sufficient in food here."
They marveled at this, but could not figure it out. It seemed so—inefficient somehow.
They went through one small town, strictly two streets wide and a block long, that seemed to cater to the farming community, and nowhere did they see anything or anyone who looked odd, abnormal, or out of the ordinary. About the only complaint they both had was that the light was so bright and constant here that their eyes hurt.
Still, Cass liked what she saw. "It's peaceful and pretty here," she remarked to Dar. "And they're farmers, too, which is what I know best. Maybe I can get me a farm job."
Finally they reached the outskirts of the city— the one and only city in the Fluxland. It spread out on both sides of the river valley and up onto the hillsides themselves. Here was the governmental and transportation center of the land, along with the places where light manufacturing went on, from harnesses to farm machinery to lumber and building supplies. It was far smaller than the capital of Anchor Logh, but it was the right size to serve the place— It even had its own version of the Temple, although not right in town.
Ahead, beyond the town, they could see it—a great white tower stretching up into the sky, its top hidden in clouds, its base not seeming to touch the ground. The home of the goddess of Persellus.
The houses, with their red roofs and stucco walls, seemed quite different from Anchor Logh, yet hauntingly reassuring. This place may have problems, as Matson indicated, but it was certainly no chamber of horrors.
Government House was a flat, two-story building made out of the same weathered white building material as most of the structures in the land, but it was a good block long and certainly just as deep. They said their farewells to the troopers with thanks, and followed the colonel into the building to report.
The place looked like any administrative seat, except that there seemed to be equal numbers of men and women working there and that was something of a shock as well to two coming from a culture where only men were in government and administration. The Hearing Room, however, to which they were directed, was not what they expected at all.
It was a large room, somewhat resembling a courtroom, but the entire far wall was taken up with a breathtaking and somehow three dimensional floor-to-ceiling portrait of a stunningly beautiful woman wearing white flowing robes, a small gold crown, and with an unnerving solid-looking halo over her head and an equally unnatural aura surrounding her body. Her face was looking down and smiling, her hands outstretched, and the more you looked at the thing the more you swore that the entire figure was somehow alive.
The colonel regarded it as such, entering, hat removed, then kneeling and bowing to the figure and remaining that way. Cass and Dar had already decided to follow the lead of the natives, so they did the same, wondering what happened next.
"Arise, my colonel," said a deep, musical woman's voice that seemed somehow distant and echo-like, and which filled the chamber. "All of you may stand."
They did so, and faced the huge portrait. "Holy Divine One, to whom we owe everything, this humble servant begs you to hear his report," said the colonel reverently, all trace of the pragmatic, tough soldier-wizard gone. Clearly this man was in the presence of his god.
"Proceed, my faithful servant." Both of the newcomers kept looking around to find the source of the voice that seemed all around them, but it was impossible to discover—if, indeed, it was there. Cass remembered Matson's description of Fluxlands. If this woman was indeed a wizard of enormous power, then she was in fact a goddess—as far as her mind could control and stabilize an area of the Flux in the image she desired. And she could make all the rules, and change or disobey them, on a mere whim.
The colonel immediately launched into his report, suddenly becoming the crisp military man once more. He obviously had enjoyed the action, and its result, and couldn't resist reliving it with relish. Cass noticed, though, that while he told about the goat-headed giant who claimed to be one of the Seven, he did not pass on Matson's suspicion that he was a resident of Persellus. Apparently the colonel had simply rejected it as too fantastic, for it was clear he would neither lie nor hold back from his goddess deliberately. The goddess let him talk, and waited until the account was complete. Then, she thanked, blessed, and dismissed the colonel, but ordered Cass and Dar to remain. The colonel kneeled again, then backed out of the room and closed the doors behind him. The two of them waited.
Finally she said, "The evil wizard must be tried and punished according to our holy laws, and the two of you will be required as witnesses. However, in light of the colonel's account, we are inclined to dismiss the charges against you, Dar. The madness and evil you both willingly joined and aided is counterbalanced, it seems, by your later actions in unmasking and undoing that evil. However, the fact remains that you did take a life, and changed or jeopardized others, and that cannot be totally wiped clean. Therefore, we give you a choice, for some judgment must be rendered against you. First, are the facts that the colonel stated true and complete?"
Dar seemed nervous and a bit startled to be directly addressed by a disembodied voice and a painting, but he nodded. "Yes, Ma'am."
"Is there anything you wish to add to that account before our cho
ice of judgments is offered you?"
He thought a moment. "No, Ma'am."
"If you please, merciful goddess," Cass put in, trying not to stub her tongue. She was learning fast about the Flux. "May I intercede?"
"Continue."
"I have known him all my life. He was one of my few good friends, and I can assure you that he is a good man deep down. Any mere human could be driven mad after the sights we'd seen and the things we had done to us, and, being both fallible and human, he finally cracked under this pressure. Even then, what he did he did out of ignorance, not an intent to aid evil, and when he was given the chance to lead evil he refused and acted for the good. He will live with the terrible torture this evil priest put him through, and its consequences, all his life. Please be merciful with him."
"We are not unmindful of this," the goddess responded. "Nevertheless, wrongs were done and judgment must be made. You must understand that unless these factors were present he would stand trial with the evil priest and share his fate. Still, the fact remains that you, for instance, and the rest of your party, did not fall victim to madness. A judgment must be made that will serve to remind this poor one of his own inner failings so that, if ever he reaches that point again, he will know and do the right thing.
"Dar, these are your choices. You may request a trial, which in your case would be presided over by the stringer Matson and would include random citizens, both military and civilian. We must warn you that such trials, when they occur, are held under rigid rules of law, and that the best you might expect is to be remanded to a permanent slave status with the appropriate alteration in your outlook to make you a perfect one. You do understand that, don't you?"
He thought a minute, and thought of the goat-women and savages of the pocket. "Yes, Ma'am."
"Your other choice is to throw yourself right now on my mercy, and accept as final our decision, no matter what that might be."
He thought a moment. "Your worship," he said, using the form of address used for high Temple priestesses in Anchor Logh, "I'd just like to get it over with. I feel guilty as hell—beg pardon, your worship—and I'll be mad at myself forever for being so dumb. I'll take what you dish out here and now."
Soul Rider #01: Spirits of Flux and Anchor Page 13