Empires of Flux & Anchor sr-2

by Jack L. Chalker

  I must leave, Spirit mimed to Suzl. I can see the strings. I am strong.

  Suzl nodded understanding, and at that point something just snapped inside her. It was hard figuring out the proper way to get her reply across, but she did. I want out, too. But I can not see strings. I have no power. Out there I am helpless.

  Spirit was stunned to realize this. The idea that few could see as she saw or draw power from Flux, and nourishment, and all needs, just had not occurred to her before. It explained everything to her at once, and now she felt pity, not merely for Suzl but for all those at the mercy of the few. She looked at the dugger and suddenly realized that, for all her fascination with detail, she had never noticed that the strings on Suzl and the other duggers weren’t their own traces but variations of Ravi’s pattern. Curious, she reached out with her mind at one of the strings and touched it. It wavered and faded away.

  I have power for two, Spirit mimed. Do you want to come with me? You will be my speech with humans. For, she realized, she did not want to be alone. It was not that she really needed any interpreter, nor was it really pity, either, that caused the offer. But she would be different, forever, in this world, and with no others of her own kind she badly needed a friend. This would work out well, too, for Suzl was as much a freak in human culture as she was, and far from being confining, it would be Suzl now that would depend on her rather than the other way around.

  For Suzl’s part, it was the kind of break with all that was secure in her life that she might not ever make if she thought about it too often. Spirit’s wizardry was supposed to be restricted to self-defense only, and that wouldn’t include her. But for eighteen years she’d traveled and had some laughs and a lot of hard work, though Ravi was the best of her bosses. For much of that time, too, she’d lived a lie with uncomfortable devices hiding the fact that she was not a normal human woman but really a freakish dugger, the second race of World all of whose members were unique. Now she was thirty-six and stuck with the lie more securely than ever, riding around the same old circuit as Ravi’s respectability and window-dressing, going nowhere. And Spirit was going to leave regardless. Better she go with someone who knew her and whom her mother also knew. I will go with you, she mimed back.

  Ravi returned a bit later and she was waiting for him. “Spirit’s going off on her own,” she began.

  He nodded. “I expected that sooner or later. Frankly, it will be a relief.”

  “I’m going with her.”

  For a moment he seemed not to hear, then he finally said, “What did you say?”

  “I said I’m going with her. I resign from the company.”

  His cool demeanor was betrayed by the nasty, bitter edge in his voice. “You are insane. You have no powers in Flux. She might be able to conjure food and drink, but not the kind you like so well. She can certainly offer no protection against other wizards’ spells.”

  “Neither can you, for that matter. She can read strings and protect me from the usuals. Besides, I think she needs me.”

  “I need you.”

  “No, you need window-dressing. A cardboard woman for your business image. She doesn’t need that. She needs someone to care about. She needs a friend.”

  Ravi’s face was turning slightly purple. “If you do this, I will see that you never work for a stringer again. And in a few days or weeks, when you go mad from having no one to talk to and cannot even keep pace with that wild primitive, you will have no place left to turn. Have you considered that?”

  “There’s always the dugger havens up north in the wild. I’ve made up my mind, Ravi. I’m going.”

  “So you wish this, do you? You prefer her, do you? Well, let us see how well you will truly do. If you think it is so bad to pretend, then I curse you to pretend no more. If I had the knowledge, I would make you just like her, but I cannot. But this clothing business I can manage. All of your clothes are made by my magic. I withdraw that magic now.” The clothing that she wore vanished. “Know now that you have a simple spell, but one that is hard to break. Like your girlfriend, you cannot conceal, but while she has nothing to hide, you do and will no longer be able to. I take the bit of spell from her and link it to you, so that you may wear nothing that she does not. I purchased the spells that made you as you are, and those will remain, as will you. They are tied to your curse and cannot be changed even by your Sister Kasdi.”

  She felt anger boiling up. “Are you finished? Or do you have a few more curses to lay on me?”

  “You will not reconsider in light of this?”

  “Not now. Not ever. Not after this.”

  “Your resignation is accepted, then, immediately. Without the special undergarments you could not ride a horse, so I will credit your account with the price. You both have ten minutes to leave.”

  He stalked off, and she went to find Spirit. Come, let us go.

  Spirit was surprised that Suzl had nothing on and nothing with her, and stared a moment. She saw the spell then, linking the two of them, its stamp not Ravi’s but someone strange. She realized now the depth of the sacrifice Suzl was making, and the total trust the dugger had placed in her hands. She hugged Suzl and there were a few tears in her eyes.

  Suzl gestured and said, although she knew Spirit couldn’t understand, “Come on. Let’s blow this crummy joint before I come to my senses.”

  Together, with nothing, they walked off into the void.

  They spent days walking in the void, following a randomly picked string. Spirit cleared all old strings from Suzl and put on her own so that, even should they get separated, she could be found anywhere in Flux. Suzl had good stamina considering her fat, but her stride was short and she could hardly keep pace with Spirit’s energy. For her part, Spirit began to experiment with just what she could do with the Flux power. Up to now, she’d taken the accepted wisdom that her powers were strictly limited, but those limitations were not that precise, as her handling of the strings showed.

  Any attempt to alter or change Suzl physically was a failure, although it wasn’t clear whether it was Spirit’s curse or Suzl’s doing the blocking. She could, however, divert Flux energy from herself to Suzl by touching the dugger, such as by grasping a hand. The linkage Ravi had forged was the next experiment, and she found that she could direct the power through that linkage as easily as through a physical contact. Unknowingly, Ravi had done Suzl a favor. She found, for example, that she could alleviate the bad chafing that inevitably developed under Suzl’s breasts and in her crotch, and she made a small scar on Suzl’s arm vanish. She could, indeed, offer help and protection, something which relieved Suzl as much or more than it did Spirit. Food could be materialized when needed, and although it wasn’t fancy, it was filling and could be consumed by both.

  For Suzl’s part, she had, in the first hours away, felt very much the fool, cut off and alone, but no longer. Instead, she began to feel what she had not felt in a very long time—free. The flow of energy from Spirit to her encouraged her, and interested her as well. She became convinced that some closer links were possible, and they spent hours trying things without either quite knowing what the other was doing—or what they themselves were doing, for that matter. She sensed that Spirit was attempting some sort of link and tried to go along. For quite a while, though, the thing seemed to elude them, just out of reach. The only true non-miming communication seemed to be music, with Suzl whistling tunes and clapping time and Spirit dancing to it. Still, for all its frustrations, the dugger had not felt happier or more at ease in years.

  Finally they happened on somebody’s Pocket, a fairly nice little place much like a tropical garden. Whoever had made it was not at home, and it was uninhabited. Suzl suspected it was one of the Pockets developed by stringer wizards for breaks on those routes where there was far too much distance between destinations for good health, and places like this provided a break for everyone.

  Because Suzl had been a dugger in Flux for so long, she did not dismiss Spirit as childlike at all. Seventeen�
��no, eighteen now—yes, but no child. She knew that Spirit’s endless fascination with all the little things was curiosity and wonder, and the more closely she observed, the more closely she came to believe that there was real purpose in those seeming lapses. She wished hard that she could see the wonders she suspected Spirit could.

  But there was a childlike quality to their existence which neither minded and both exploited.

  Life was fun and games, curiosity and answers, without worries or responsibilities. Spirit awakened in the usually cynical dugger feelings long buried and assumed lost.

  Inside Spirit, the Soul Rider manipulated the probabilities through Flux, establishing the proper situation.

  Suzl was aware of subtle changes in her own attitudes. Before, she had always thought of herself as female, for that was how she’d been born and raised and that was the role culture dictated. Now, though, she began to think of herself more and more as a male, as Spirit’s sexual opposite despite the rest of her body. Although she would never look any different, her sexual orientation was shifting firmly to the male side. She realized, suddenly, that for the first time in her life she was sincerely, deeply, and madly in love with somebody other than herself.

  Spirit had never thought of herself as abnormal or unusual, always going for the handsome men, but Suzl filled a deep need in her new consciousness for solidity and companionship. What had seemed freakish and odd now seemed cute and endearing. As she could no longer imagine her old life, she could not now imagine life without Suzl, nor did she want Suzl to look or be any other way than the way she now was. The dugger who had sacrificed all to live with and like her now became the one and only important thing in her whole life. Passion replaced lust and need, and they both knew it and felt it in each other.

  And the Soul Rider’s equations continued to work themselves out.

  They were still in the Pocket, lazing on the cool grass, lying side by side, and Suzl’s hand reached out and touched Spirit’s, and they squeezed. Something flowed from within to within. The love and devotion that had built up flowed from each, met, and merged into one. It was not something that was a shock or which caused sudden realization; it simply was. But, somehow, on a basic level, each could feel what the other felt, and, in a sense, each knew what the other was thinking. Not clear thoughts, and not specific ones, but general senses of things. Not only was miming no longer necessary, it seemed terribly slow and cumbersome—primitive. Their link did not even require looking at the other. Only their language, in which they thought, separated them. Beyond that level, they could read each other as easily as Suzl could read a sign.

  Both were aware that something important, even vital, had happened that went beyond their own selves, but neither knew just what or how it applied. Somehow Suzl could now feel Spirit’s wonder, and neither was afraid anymore. And so, one day, they simply decided it was time to leave and follow another string to where it led. There was a whole world to see and explore, and an infinity of wondrous paths to take.

  The first Fluxland they encountered was called Galikin, a huge forest in which all the inhabitants seemed to live in trees. Not just in them, although some of the trunks were huge enough and hollow to make comfortable and spacious homes, but atop them as well, in often elaborate but just as often simple tree houses. The local Fluxlord was neither mean nor imaginative as some of them went, but did seem to have the idea that she was the queen of trees and forests. Everybody wore green outfits, and in fact, although they looked quite human, they all also had green skins. The difference was more than skin deep, however; they seemed to get all their nourishment from light, like the plants, and eagerly left their homes to be in the open every time it rained. They spent their days planting, pruning, trimming and all the rest, and the whole place seemed to Suzl to be a forest that had a manicure.

  It was a good place for a first test, and it served additionally to tell the dugger just where they were in relation to every place else. They knew who Spirit was, and were properly fascinated, although Suzl made Spirit seem rather less extraordinary by her own odd appearance.

  Spirit liked Galikin, although Suzl found the place rather dull. At least at night, they feared no embarrassments even in the middle of a public place.

  They left after a couple of days and made their way along a route Suzl suggested but could not follow or see. She was well aware of how terribly slow their pace was because of her, and she was determined to do something about it. They ran into a stringer train at one point, and while she found that the word had been put out not to hire her on, that did not interfere with business. She had a substantial credit account, and she could use it. The stringer drove a hard bargain, but she came off with a strong, healthy young mule, a pair of saddlebags, and an extremely worn “guest saddle,” as they were called in the trade. With a little help from the duggers rigging some leather straps, she was now able to ride sidesaddle, if not in speed at least in comfort. Although things still seemed very slow, the pace picked up considerably now, as Spirit could match the mule’s pace with an effortless jog.

  In three days they reached Anchor Kaegh, the first Anchor they had approached since going off on their own. Suzl approached it with some trepidation. Duggers, once forbidden in Anchor, were now permitted there, but permission did not mean that everybody liked or agreed with it. Duggers were feared and mistrusted, and most still believed the old teaching that their disfigurements were the curses of Heaven on blighted souls. Always before, the careful clothing had masked her as just a very fat woman. Now she could not hide her true self, and she was, naked, clearly misshapen even without the added male organ.

  They entered through the high gate that was no longer sealed, and the customs man could not hide his distaste. “Names?”

  “I am Suzl, a dugger of Flux, and this is Spirit of Anchor Logh.”

  The man softened a bit as he recognized her from the pictures and it was clear he knew the story. “Oh, yes. Fascinating.” Clearly he also found lustful rewards in the seeing. He changed back to the other, more ugly tone for Suzl. “You are traveling with her?”

  “Yes. Uh—I know her mother well. You understand.”

  The official did—sort of. At least it was true, and saved a lot of added embarrassment and questions. It was clear, however, that the official could not understand why Sister Kasdi would entrust her daughter to a dugger, particularly one with so prominent—well… “What do you wish in Anchor?”

  “I have a dugger’s account. I need a few small things from a decent market, and I would like to register the two of us at the temple to simplify things in the future.” Such registration would give her documents which would prove her citizenship and secure more firmly some legal rights. With the stringers such stuff was unnecessary, but as they were to travel, perhaps to many Anchors, they would need it.

  “Um, I know about her,” the customs man commented, “but can’t you, ah, put on something? It’ll make life easier for you.”

  “It probably would,” she agreed, “but I’ve got an involuntary spell against it. That’s one of the reasons I need the registration.”

  They passed through and spent the first night in a small park off the main road. They drew gawkers and lots of curious stares, but had no real problems until they passed through a town near the end of the second day. A crowd of young toughs cornered them and started yelling epithets, particularly at Suzl, who felt very defenseless. Spirit, however, knew what was going on and stood between Suzl and the toughs. Three of the men started discussing what they would like to do with the mute girl, then rushed her. Spirit slapped the mule and it bolted quickly down the street, then took them on. It was half a block before Suzl could bring the mule under control and look nervously back, but what she saw she hadn’t expected at all.

  She had never seen a human being that limber or with reflexes that fast. Spirit’s physical strength didn’t show except in her hard thighs, but it was enormous. She ran at the three, jumped, turned, kicked one hard in the chest, a seco
nd in the groin, and caught the third with a blow to the Adam’s apple, all seemingly in one fluid motion. This galvanized the rest to converge on her, but she gave a leap that must have been more than two meters in the air, kicked off one attacker’s back, and sprinted towards Suzl, who needed no more encouragement. She rode as fast as she could, which wasn’t fast but was good enough, while Spirit passed her on the run as if she were standing still.

  It was funny, but the mute girl seemed enormously pleased by all that, and as surprised at her strength and skill as Suzl and the attackers had been. Suzl, however, felt depressed. She cursed her body for its inability to do much of anything. She couldn’t even get on the mule without Spirit’s help, although she always had been able to mount a horse before. Maybe Ravi was right, she thought sourly. I can’t even defend myself or help the only person I care for. I’m weak as a baby, move like a rock, and my grossness draws violence. There would be many more incidents like that one, she knew, and one time even Spirit probably would need help.

  They endured a lot more insults, but no more violence, on the way to the capital. Suzl went first to the temple to attend to business, then planned to buy what she needed and get out fast. Spirit, of course, was far too claustrophobic to enter, but remained in the square chasing and playing with the birds and drawing a crowd.

  The priestess administrator, at least, seemed charitable. Suzl submitted to a full identity photo series, showing front, back, and both profiles of the whole body, and submitted to an examination. It took several hours before it was through and she received the document. She glanced down the vital statistics. Height, 144.62 cm.; weight, 108.86 kg.; sex, male. She—no, he, for now it had been made official and was in fact the way Suzl felt—stared at the weight figure gloomily, although he knew that some of that was in the special bone and muscle support supplied by Ravi’s paid-for wizardry and more was for the stomach that supported the breasts and the rear that counterbalanced it. But it was still higher than it had ever been. What particularly shocked was the height. It was 6 cms lower than it had ever been. Now that he thought of it, though, his head had originally come up to Spirit’s breast line, and now it was below. He voiced his misgivings to the priestess.