"There is less difference between the Seven and the church than you seem to realize," Cass came back.
"You are so young," the Sister General sighed. "You may win your little revolution. It's happened before—oh, yes. But each time a better wizard comes along, or age and all those people you depend on to keep your revolution going begin to enjoy their own power, and become corrupted by it. You can't keep tabs on it all, nor can you live forever. The church, however, has had two thousand years of practice. It will entice and corrupt those it can, ultimately conquer the rest with its power to unify, and, if it cannot conquer you, it can wait you out. You can't win, but Haldayne can. When you are finally old enough and frustrated enough to realize this, you will see that the Seven is the only hope humanity has."
"You might be right," Cass admitted, "but I have seen the Seven at their worst, and there is no hope at all if you are. I choose to believe that you are not right, not so much because I deny your view of human nature, which is so well proved out in both Anchor and Flux, but because the alternatives are too terrible to bear. If, in fact, we cannot win, then maybe the human race deserves what it gets, whether it's the church, or Haldayne, or Hell itself. But if we don't try to win, then we most certainly deserve it all."
"You speak the beautiful dreams of youth, but, in the end, you will become me."
"Perhaps you need to have some of those beautiful dreams of youth restored yourself. Come up to me, and surrender yourself to my visions. We can use your vast knowledge and experience to avoid the same mistakes." She put out her hand over the top of the ladder.
Sister Diastephanos shook her head sadly. "I am too old, and it is too late, for me to join a fool's parade. But, tell me, please—how did you know?
Even poor Daji had no idea she was doing my work."
"She knew, I think, as she died. She understood the depths and layers of Haldayne's tricky mind, although the full plot only came to her when he so coldly allowed her to be sacrificed on his orders. There are no windows in the Temple. The order had to be given by intercom from inside by someone who knew exactly who and what Daji really was, fast enough for a messenger to signal out the front doors before we got there. But, clearly, nothing on the scope or scale of the excavations in the basement, the vanishing of novices, the addition of new personnel smuggled in through the drainage pipes in the waif, could have remained hidden from the wardens and the Temple at large without your knowledge. Your own spies, and the spies of the Queen of Heaven, would have betrayed it."
She sighed. "When I saw Pericles I knew that she would eventually figure it out. That was why I gave the order to hit her first, then Daji. But Haldayne was outside, and he reversed the orders. I knew there would be only one chance to get Pericles, but Daji was far more of a threat to Haldayne." She paused a moment, took a deep breath, then said, "I believe my time is past now. I could not bear to witness your childlike innocence destroyed." With that she turned and walked back to the black, gaping hole.
Cass gasped and cried, "No! Come with us! We will forgive all! This need not happen!"
The Sister General paused a moment, then shook her head sadly, and descended the mesh to the floor of the tunnel. Cass scrambled down the ladder, but had barely reached the bottom when there was a sudden flare of bright energy from the hole, and a single, agonized scream, and then silence and darkness once more.
She resisted the impulse to run to the tunnel, knowing that the Guardians would not harm her but she decided not to. There would be nothing there. Instead she turned and started back up the ladder, but as she did she began to do something that Sister General Diastephanos would never have understood.
She wept, and repeated prayers for the newly dead.
20
QUESTIONS
We are the spirits of Flux and Anchor…
"You'll have to excuse the candlelight," Cass apologized. "We're trying to get a whole network of oil lamps set up so we can at least function."
The wizard Mervyn nodded and took a chair. "Perfectly all right. Still, it's times like these when one appreciates the ease of Flux. Just snap a finger and, poof, all the light you need. I often think that our ancestors must have taken electric power for granted. Otherwise, why have such a building with no windows and no manual air ducts?" It did smell stale and musty, but maintenance personnel assured them that enough air was moving due to pressure differentials to pose no major health hazards, although they had closed down the least ventilated parts of the Temple.
"We'll have it again some day," she told him. "Already we are scouring the land for experts who can rebuild the system, and there are enough Flux wizards to duplicate the damaged parts once we have them sorted out. Some of your people have already taken a look at it and told me that it is theoretically possible to have far larger storage of this energy and even transfer it by wire to smaller storage and distribution points. If possible, I would like to one day see the whole of Anchor Loeh wired up.
"I told you that energy physics was one of my hobbies. I'll take a good look at everything before I leave and then research it in Pericles. We can copy the books well enough, if only we can find a few good trained technicians to translate them into fact. In the meantime, how's it going on your front?"
"I've never seen so many people so eager to change sides. It's amazing the level of cooperation we're getting."
"Human nature, that's all. Already the sermons are going out telling how Haldayne and the Seven had corrupted the Sister General herself, and how you are here to restore normalcy. They know you are an ordained high priestess, and things have been getting back to normal, so they'll buy it. No, I'm talking about the long run."
"Well, Sister Tamara will be installed as the new Sister General. It will be a popular choice, since she's from the Anchor, and we can count on everyone to minimize the age factor. The first thing we'll start doing is short transfers of Temple personnel in small groups from here to the Temple in Hope, where we'll sort the had, the good, and the reclaimable. Once we do the Temple, we'll do the parishes one by one."
"They won't all be easy to convert. Not deep down. Not voluntarily, anyway."
"I know that— But I and a number of others have been reading every single bit of scripture bit by bit, and there is a scholarly team compiling information. Although the whole project will take years, I've already directed them to specific areas and found some very fine and useful things. Vows for example. In order to come back to Anchor as a priestess, all will be required to undergo the sacraments of ordination and conference once again in Hope, but this time with the knowledge that a binding spell will be cast at the same time. This spell will simply render them incapable of violating their vows for any reason, nor any added vow they may be required to take in the future. I don't think it will be long before we have a purified church here, no matter what their intent."
He chuckled. "Clever, and effective. And you?"
"I am going to be quite busy working with others on the restructuring of this society. Barbarities like the Paring Rite must be replaced by more humane practices, and we must remove this deep prejudice against Flux and its people on the part of Anchor-folk. The worst offenders we can help in Flux itself; for the rest, it will be slow, but I am leaning towards a required trip by all schoolchildren of certain ages from here through the void to Hope. Rooting it out in the young is the best hope for a true breakdown of fear and prejudice. We're just beginning to set up our own training system in Hope, and we will need far more instructors of wizard caliber. Of course, any priestesses who show talent in that direction will be redirected there. I'm going to be very, very busy."
"That may be true, but the Holy Anchor isn't going to be too pleased about all this. You will get inquisitors first, then demands, and finally the whole region will be excommunicated and a holy war against it declared."
"They have to come through Flux and through areas of our control to do anything, and then they will have to break my shield. Militarily and magically I believe we are we
ll defended. The next trick will be to spread it out, bit by bit, until we are too much of a movement to stop by any thought of direct action. It will be busy, but exciting."
He nodded and grew very serious— "Cass, much of this will depend on you for a long, long time. You realize that. The rest of us can help, but you will have to carry the load or it will fall apart."
She nodded. "I understand that."
"What I must know is if you are really ready for this type of lifelong commitment. You're human, and you have all the weaknesses that brings with it. Heaven knows, I understand that. And you're a powerful wizard. Later on, when I spend much time with you in Hope, I will show you how to perfect that power, possibly the strongest on World, although that's by no means certain. It has been my experience that no matter how strong you are, eventually you find someone stronger."
"You mean, will I turn into the goddess or worse? I'm going to try hard not to. I'm no puritan, and power for its own sake doesn't interest me. I do not want to be worshipped."
"No, it's more than that. Look, let me hypothesize something. It's just for the sake of argument, no more, but it serves its purpose."
"Go ahead."
"Suppose, right now, a live and healthy Matson should walk through that door— What would you do?"
She thought of his battered and torn body there on the battlefield. "It is a meaningless question."
He paused a moment. "Suppose I were to tell you that Matson was in fact still alive?"
Her heart leaped into her throat— -"Are you serious?"
He nodded. "I'm serious."
She seemed to shrink back into her chair and become, all at once, very small and very young once more. Her emotions grew jumbled again, and she faced the problem square for a while. Finally she remembered that Mervyn still sat there, and that he expected an answer.
"I will always love him," she said sincerely. "I won't disguise or mask that. But I realize that it's too late now to do anything else but what I am doing. I feel that I was chosen for this. I have already resolved to apply all vows, without exception, to myself. In fact, if there was a way to bind myself to my own spells I would do it. I must be an example in all things."
The wizard nodded approvingly, "There is such a spell, or at least a method. We of the Nine must use it to fully become one of the trust. But it is a terrible spell, and not one to ever take lightly, for it cannot be reversed by anyone, including yourself, under any circumstances, but it will do nothing to ease the mental pain and anguish it might cause."
"Then you must show me how to do it. I cannot possibly ask anyone to obey what I myself am above, and it will provide the example and also prevent my abusing this power."
He sighed. "That is its primary purpose when we apply it to ourselves—that we may never become our enemy. But you propose a far more complex one, one that you may often regret."
"No, you don't understand. I regret this situation I find myself in. I regret the responsibility. I regret the lack of freedom. I most of all regret the self-sacrifices I must make. But I understood, finally, out there on the battlefield, that I really have no choice in the matter. It was cemented by my confrontation with the late Sister General. We are losing our best to the enemy, and we are murdering our future and our hopes. What I said to her I was really saying to myself. Only once in many generations, I think, does somebody come along with the right combination of luck and will to get into a spot where they can revolutionize things, change things for the better. When it does come about, you can turn your back on it, in which case you are guilty of the most terrible of sins, putting yourself before the future not of others but of the race. Or, you can try without total commitment, without any willingness to sacrifice yourself and what you love, and wind up like Diastephanos or Haldayne. Or you can accept it and devote your all to it. Those were my choices, and I know which one I now have to make."
She paused a moment, and then added, "You know, the more I have thought about this, the more I'm convinced that I'm not unique. In fact, I suspect that somebody has this sort of opportunity fall into their hands in some way quite often. Maybe it's just somebody on a local level who says, 'this is stupid, or cruel—let's find another way' or something like that. They just don't have the nerve to make a total commitment, and so evil prevails as usual."
"You're probably right," he agreed, "but you are unusual, you know. Very few make such a total commitment." He sighed. "Would'it help if I told you that I have no idea if Matson is dead or alive?" She gasped. "But you said—"
"I said, 'Suppose I were to tell you'."
"That's—cruel."
"I had to know. And, I think, you did, too." She sighed. "You're right, of course."
"The stringers attempted to recover all of their own. Matson's body was not among those logged with us. It's barely possible, but not likely, that he lives. I just thought you should face that fact, not only for the obvious reason but for the other."
"I know, and I thank you for it. Uh—what other reason?"
"Cass—you're pregnant."
That hit her with more of a shock than the idea that Matson somehow survived. "That's impossible!"
"You're still a virgin?"
She coughed. "Uh, no, but it was only once, with Matson, out on the trail. My first and only time. I thought the odds were against you getting pregnant anyway, and certainly not on the first try!" He shrugged. "That's a young girl's self-delusion, common as long as there has been a first time. Yes, the odds are way against it, but so long as there are odds they hit somebody. I suspect that your own power, which has a mind of its own, might have been operating there as well. Subconsciously, at least, you wanted his baby, and in Flux, for a few of us, wishes can come true."
"But—after all this? The transformations, everything… It isn't possible!"
"It is and you are and that's that. There's nothing improper about it. It was before any vows were taken."
She nodded. "But—it's impossible! How can I manage it? And how do I explain it? The new Sister General of the Reformed Church has a child."
"You should learn by now that heads of churches can sell any rationalization they want to the devout, particularly when it doesn't violate true scripture. It would be a tough thing to explain to the old church, whose general practices forbade any but virgins becoming priestesses, but we are returning to basics here."
She sank back in the chair once again. "Damn!"
"High priestesses don't curse in front of others," he cracked. "But, seriously, you will be in Flux most of the time. It is not necessary to have it."
"But it is! Don't you see—it's the only thing left of him. He wanted one, and it was supposed to be Arden's, but she was killed. No, somehow I will manage." She sighed. "I need to be alone for a little while with this. Then I have to start getting things ready for Sister Tamara's installation."
"I understand," he told her. "Don't worry. I'll be around if you need me."
The candles blew out when he closed the door on his way out, but she did not get up and relight them. For quite a while she just sat there, being, for a moment, little Cassie, alone in the peace of the darkness.
We are the spirits of Flux and Anchor, and some call us demons…
She had the spell memorized. It was incredibly complex, and she did not understand it. but she understood its meaning. Now she knelt at the altar in the Temple at Hope, completely alone, and performed the full sacramental service. In the midst of it, she paused, and without hesitation executed the spell.
"I am a priestess of the Holy Mother of Universes and an instrument of Her Holy Church and will," she said softly. "I vow that I shall always be a priestess in all things and in all ways, and that I shall never violate my sacred trust nor deviate from my cause.
"I vow that I shall devote my life-and my power to the'uplifting of humanity and the reformation of the Holy Church. I vow that I will never use that great power for selfish gain, but only to further the sacred causes and the divine will.
"I further vow that I shall never ask of another anything which I myself am not willing to do, nor be false to myself, my flock, or my faith in any way. To these things I bind myself, willingly, now and forever."
She continued with the service, but there was a new, strange light in her eyes, for she could see the future in her mind's eye.
We are the spirits of Flux and Anchor and some call us demons, ft is possible that we are such, for certainly we know not our nature or our origins…
In the great golden palace at Holy Anchor, Her Perfect Highness, The Queen of Heaven, was looking over the account books and scowling. There was a sudden fluttering in the window nearby, and she looked up, irritated, to see a large, fat raven perched there. She stared at it and frowned. "Be off, bird!" she snapped. "Shoo! I have too many headaches right now to fool with the likes of you!"
"You haven't begun to know what a headache really is," the raven squawked back. "We, my dear sister, are in deep, deep shit…"
Slowly, sparing no details, he explained the new situation. She listened attentively, nodding now and then and asking an occasional question, but otherwise letting him tell it. Finally, he was finished, and she sighed wearily.
"I suppose you have a grand new design for dealing with this?"
"Of course. But I'm willing to hear alternatives."
She thought a moment, then said, "With much patience, and a great deal of pressure, this might be yet turned to our advantage. An uprising will panic the Fluxwizards and Anchorfolk alike all over World— A holy crusade could cement our control."
"You mean to contain it, then? I thought of turning it instead."
"We will try containment first. If that doesn't work, then we will try your more devious ways. Do not worry, my brother. I know exactly what to do…"
Soul Rider #01: Spirits of Flux and Anchor Page 28