Soul Rider #01: Spirits of Flux and Anchor

by Jack L. Chalker

  Cass frowned. Why would anyone want to lose a battle?

  "Good point," Mervyn responded, as if she'd spoken aloud. "Why, indeed would someone want to lose a battle? Perhaps to prove to us that we saw a danger, met it, and vanquished the evil? Then we would all go our merry ways, satisfied in a job well done, and look elsewhere for the next evil. We would overlook what Haldayne really docs not wish us to see."

  "But what could that be?" Hollus asked him. "I know the crazy man said they were going to attack the gate, if there is one, but I didn't think that was possible."

  "Insofar as we know, the Guardians of the Gates of Hell have never been defeated or even tricked," Mervyn assured her. "Nevertheless, the conclusion is inescapable. Remember, however, that we know the location only of four of the seven gates. We do not know how many the Seven might know of—perhaps all—nor what they might have accomplished on one or more. The conclusion is inescapable. There is a gate lying between Persellus and Anchor Logh. We must assume that, somehow, Haldayne has access to and perhaps control of that gate no matter what logic says to the contrary. That is what he wishes to hide from us."

  "So what do you propose?" Matson asked him directly. He was growing impatient with the long-winded theorizing.

  "We must recapture Persellus, if only to do what he expects," the wizard told them. "We must also find out what he knows that we do not."

  "But it could also just be a trap for the three of us," Tatalane argued. "What if it is—and he wins?"

  Mervyn shrugged. "Then we will know at least that the gate is still secure and our successors on the Nine will know and avenge us. But if he loses, then the gate is open to Hell. Haldayne has six of the seven combinations to open the gates. Hell has most certainly worked out the seventh after all this time. If he has a way in, if he can talk to the horrors of Hell, he will have all seven and need only control of the physical gates to open them. My friends, this is grave. We dare not ignore it."

  Mervyn thought a bit more. "Hollus, have you enough daggers able to follow strings to get to Domura, Salapaca, and Modon?"

  She looked back at the reptilian dugger, who nodded.

  "Brund? Can you take the alarm to Zlydof, Roarkara, and Fideleer?"

  The bearded man did not consult his dugger. "No problem."

  "Are you all three willing to avenge your slain comrades?"

  The three stringers huddled in whispers for a moment. Finally, Matson said, "We are agreed that this thing can't be allowed to go on. Otherwise everybody will be doing it."

  Cass smiled slightly at that. That, really, was the feared stringer, the terror of Anchor and Flux— one who saw all World as a giant ledger sheet,,the battling storekeeper who would leave his lady's body to rot in the void but take strong action when his trade was inconvenienced. How utterly romantic.

  "Matson," Mervyn continued, "your train will be the point and guard along the route from here to there. We will supply equipment, explosives, and fifty good fighters to staff your outpost, all at least minor wizards."

  "Will they take orders?" he asked sourly.

  "They will because we will tell them to. You three also have between you almost two hundred young people from Anchor ready for the block. We will remold them and use them."

  That got the stringers upset again. "Who's going to pay for all this?" they all demanded to know.

  "Who is going to buy them if we tell them not to?" Mervyn responded with a slight smirk. "However, we guarantee you an equal number for the market out of conquest if we lose them. Further, we will ourselves fill any specific goods Orders intended to be picked up in the old Persellus. That should restore a tidy bit."

  Mollified, the stringers sat down once more.

  "Hollus, Brund, you will work with Tatalahe in getting these new troops into line. Hollus knows Haldayne, which should simplify matters a good deal, while you, Brund, are particularly gifted with explosives, their transportation and use. This will have to be done in a newly created pocket between here and Persellus. There should be no traffic in either direction between Haldayne, Matson, and you, so it should be perfect—and private. We also have two Anchors to draw upon and I intend to do so. Since the four of you appear human and will pass muster at the gates, I am detaching you temporarily from Matson's service. I hate to break up a happy couple, but Dar and Nadya must accompany Krupe to Anchor Abehl, as we have no one from there here to assist. Because both Suzl and Cass have direct knowledge not only of the Anchor but the Temple of Anchor Logh, you two will come with me to Anchor Logh. There are things I must know there."

  They all four looked at each other in some distress. "I think I know the Temple as good as Suzl," Nadya responded. "Why split up the teams?"

  "Please do not waste time second-guessing me. We must move and move quickly. Do you not think that at this very moment Haldayne's spies aren't going mad trying to penetrate the shield on this room? However, just this once, I will explain that the rather unusual aspects of two of you are required for effect in Anchor, and both of you cannot be in the same place when the places you might be needed are three hundred kilometers apart."

  Dar looked at Suzl, who shrugged and grinned, "Have fun. I know _I_ will!"

  He grinned back. "Yeah. I always wanted to see the inner sanctums of a Temple."

  "This Council is now adjourned," Mervyn pronounced, "and will convene again in twenty-seven days at the proper points around Persellus. With divine help, perhaps we can convene once again in Persellus. Normal precautions have been taken so that details of this meeting cannot be picked from— your minds. However, it is essential that we all get to our work and out of Globbus as soon as possible, for while compromise is inevitable we need not give the demon any advantage."

  The energy field retreated, flowing first back into the walls, then along them and back, it seemed, into Mervyn's cane. Cass and Suzl went up and approached the old wizard, as the others approached and talked to their appointed leaders and guardians. The wizard's eyes, an enigma from a distance, seemed surprisingly sharp and: full of life and energy up close. "Go, get your packs, sign out at the hotel desk, and wait for me there. We will go together. I rather imagine you are looking forward to this."

  "I'm not too thrilled with asking the Sister General for help," Cass responded honestly, "but at least I'll have the chance to get word to my family that I'm all right. It'll be a shock to anyone who knows us to see us again. I don't know anyone who ever met anyone who went out in the Paring Rite and returned."

  "I'm just gonna have fun," Suzl told him. "I can sure defile their holy Temple and surprise a whole lot of people."

  "It is true that this is an unprecedented event for Anchor Logh, but this whole business is unprecedented. Win or lose, I fear that our dear World is going to come in for some severe changes by the time this is all resolved," the wizard said seriously.

  "Damn. And before I saw most of it the way it is now," Cass muttered.

  They left him and went immediately back to their rooms. Nadya caught up with Cass as they approached their door. "Tough luck. But we'll get together again. I sure would like to get back home and rub it in their noses, though."

  Cass nodded. "I know—but I'd much rather be going back with an army than to get one. I still can't believe Anchor would ever send forces into Flux, not even on the request of the Nine Who Guard. We shall see. At least you can tell me what another Anchor is like. I've been curious to see how much they're the same and how they differ."

  "Not like Fluxlands, that's for sure. Not with the church in such control—huh?"

  Suddenly the lights in the room went out, and both felt extreme dizziness and a sense of falling. Nadya recovered in what seemed like only a few moments, and looked around. The lights were back on, the door was closed—and Cass was nowhere to be seen.

  Cass drifted in a dreamy, uncaring fog neither asleep nor awake, not dreaming, not thinking, but just so, so relaxed…

  After a while there were voices, distant and indistinct at first but gr
owing clearer with time. She heard them, a man's and a woman's voices, but it made no impression on her-

  "She is well protected," said the woman clinically.

  "She has improved her looks a good deal," the man's voice noted. "I guess she really is in love with that stringer. Ah! Unrequited love! Takes me back to my youth."

  "You never had a youth, love. Still, we won't get it by spell. That leaves it in my department. Good thing a drug is a drug."

  "So long as we keep it that way and there's nobody around to counteract it— It's simple and direct."

  The woman seemed to be fumbling with something, and there was a mild pricking sensation on her-arm. They waited a while, just chatting pleasantly. "Lucky for you I was here. Your crude methods would have killed her before she talked."

  "Luck had nothing to do with it. I summoned you because I needed your help. Geniuses are few and far between, my love."

  The woman snorted. "She's under but good. Let's get that spell off her," There was a sudden tingling, and Cass felt herself being drawn back to reality.

  She was aware of everything, of every noise, feeling, sensation, more aware of such things than she had ever been.

  "Wake up, Cassie! It's your mom and dad here!" the man's voice called to her, and it did sound just like her father. She opened her eyes and saw, with some surprise, that she was under a tree in the pasture just outside her old farm, and her Mom and Dad were there, looking down at her.

  "I know you're only seven years old, 'but you must have had a big, bad dream," her mother told her.

  "Oh, yes. Mommy! It was real scary, too."

  "Did you dream about the old man with the cane that shot sparks again?" her father wanted to know.

  "Uh huh."

  "What happened this time after he shot sparks all over that room? You have to tell us your dream to make it go away."

  And, so, she told them, repeating the entire account verbatim, just as it happened. All about the terrible looking people and the talk of war and strategy, all the way to when she walked back to her room with her imaginary playmate and they woke her up. It was all there, better than she could have remembered it any other way.

  "This is bad," her Mommy said. "You've been too clever for your own good, Gift. The old boy's already on to you."

  "And what'll he have?" her Daddy responded. "Persellus and a vague suspicion and nothing else. Eventually they'll scratch their heads, maybe put extra guards around the Gate, and that will be that, for all the good it'll do them."

  Cass frowned— Her Mommy and Daddy were talking such funny stuff, the kind of stuff in her dreams, but to each other, not to her-

  "What about her?" Mommy asked, pointing to Cassie. "So long as she has a Soul Rider she's a mortal danger to us all."

  "But we can't destroy Soul Riders, whatever they are. Kill her and it just takes over somebody else whose identity we don't know. No, I prefer my enemy in plain sight."

  "You just can't leave her here, though. That thing could come out and attack at any time."

  He chuckled. "Not yet. If it acts too soon it might get one of us but it'll be useless later on and it won't know the facts. No, I have a better, more effective idea. An original one." He turned to her. "Cass, you cannot move, but see me now as I am." Her father dissolved into another figure, a man she also knew. Haldayne. And, beside him, the woman, too, was visible, and she knew her as well. She knew, but she couldn't believe. Sister Daji! The sexy but dumb consort to the Sister General!

  Still gorgeous, still sexy, but hardly dumb. Not this one. Even the odd, ignorant tone in her voice had vanished, although she still had that very odd accent.

  Haldayne grinned, and it was obvious that he liked to have his victim know who was doing it before he did whatever it was. He put out a hand on her forehead, and it was warm and wet. "All memory flies," he intoned, "all that is there is null."

  Her mind literally became a complete blank. Cass no longer thought at all.

  "So, genius?" Daji taunted. "That isn't going to stop a Soul Rider when it wants to take charge."

  He grinned, and made a pass with his hands. Cass seemed to shrink down until she was very small, standing and looking up at giants.

  Daji looked down, and saw a magnificent looking falcon. She nodded approvingly.

  "What will you call her?" Haldayne asked.

  Daji thought a moment. "How about Demon? It seems appropriate. But what good does this do?"

  "My dear, I said I was a genius. There is your passport back through the Guardians. They will not harm a Soul Rider and its companion. I know— I've done it once before. She is a falcon. She thinks she's a falcon, too, and will respond only to you and only to the name Demon. She is devoted to you, will obey your simple commands, and that is all— Now you just take her back to Anchor Logh, then keep her on a leg chain as a pet. Feed her mice and insects and she'll adore you forever. And, most importantly, there is no power in Anchor."

  Daji brightened. "Oho! I see! But what if it breaks away, or betrays me at the Gate?"

  "It won't. I have presented our powerful but predictable Soul Rider with a series of moral dilemmas. If it wants to leam the truth, as it must, it must accompany you all the way to Anchor. Otherwise it will never learn it, and it knows it— On the other hand, if it goes to Anchor, it is trapped, at least for the life of the bird. That should be more than enough time, I would think. Do not, however, let her off her chain. It can and might fly long distances, over walls and into Flux. That's what it plans on doing, you see, which is why it will cooperate with us. And, so long as you continue to perform that little chore, we are safe."

  She kissed him. "Giff, you really are a genius!"

  15

  HELLGATE

  They flew from Persellus as great winged creatures of— their own imaginations, out from the Fluxland now remade in his image and into the void, following first the stringer trail marks, small bands of energy seen as a criss-crossing network of lines below them, then special marks on a frequency intended for their eyes alone. Held by a small chain to the foot of one of the creatures, the falcon called Demon flew with them, having no trouble keeping up.

  Finally the small lines below split and then joined again a ways off, outlining a circular pattern between them. They descended carefully, landing at the point of the first split, and their forms shimmered as they landed and became once more human figures. Now both walked forward, leaving the trail lines, to a bright point ahead that only those trained and gifted as they were could see and understand. They were almost upon it before it took true form.

  The Hellgate was actually a saucer-shaped depression in the void, very regular, solid, and smooth, and immune to the void's energies and powers. A long ladder seemingly made out of the same stuff led down from the edge to the floor below, where, in the center, there was a dark circular area that was the true entrance.

  Daji calmed the nervous falcon and looked down, wishing she could calm her. own nerves so easily. "You're sure this will work?"

  "You got here that way, didn't you?" he soothed. "Nothing bothered you emerging from it."

  "Yeah, but I had sent a couple of those silly novices through first to make sure. What's to prevent the Guardians from letting her through arid killing me?"

  "The Soul Rider won't allow it, because then it would never know. I do admit this is a one-time thing, my dear, but I feel much better with you not gone so long from Anchor but merely a few hours."

  Never before, since she and Haldayne had intercepted the real Daji in Persellus and substituted her as an indistinguishable carbon copy, had she met with him in the Flux. Always it was Haldayne, flying over the walls in the form of a common raven, who had sought her out. He, of course, could not change back from raven shape once in Anchor, but he could talk and discuss things with her virtually within the Temple. Now he had summoned her, through the gate, for this very purpose—to trap the Soul Rider in Anchor as he would be trapped.

  "You must do it," he told her, "or th
e entire plan is lost. No one recruited you as one of the Seven—you volunteered, and you accepted my leadership freely and of your own will, without reservations. Either go back on that now, and lose it all, or trust me and go."

  She knew that what he said was true, and that if she refused it would not be merely the plan that died. Still, it was a terrifying thing to be asked to do, to enter a Hellgate from the Flux and survive. She took a deep breath. At this point she was dead either way, and only if Haldayne was correct did she have a chance. He did not risk leaving Persellus at this delicate time, even for a short while, merely to see her off. Without being able to neutralize the Soul Rider, inevitably drawn to such a scheme as this, the plan was nothing but bloody madness. She took a deep breath, let it out, then began climbing down the ladder.

  The powers of Flux still operated here in this fixed bowl, but she dared not use them, for they would inevitably attract the unknown Guardians of the Gate—unknown because none had ever seen them and survived. She reached the bottom, her bare feet providing decent traction, and walked slowly and apprehensively towards that dark center spot. The falcon made a sudden fluttering motion with its wings, as if trying to fly away, startling her and almost making her fall, but her nerve held steady and she again pulled the bird back on its chain to her and then held it against her breasts, petting it and somewhat calming both of them.

  Up close the dark hole showed a web-like grid of strong cables going completely around it and down into the darkness. She knew what to expect, and gingerly turned and started climbing down, the bird placed down on her shoulder and seeming a very heavy and unbalancing weight. It was not, however, far to the floor, where the webbing stopped and a tubular structure replaced it, going off horizontally in front of her. No horrible Guardians had yet appeared, and she began to relax a bit: She did not doubt, though, that those Guardians existed. Once, at another Hellgate, she watched while sacrificial slaves had been ordered in, saw the flashes of multicolored energies fly out of the dark central hole, and had heard the horrible screams of agony from the slaves as they had been destroyed.