Empires of Flux & Anchor sr-2

by Jack L. Chalker

  But the old order had been losing those smaller battles and suffering more and more desertions from their sides, as the powerful and the opportunistic had perceived an eventual winner.

  Were they, then, about to risk all-out war? They certainly had the wizardry for it, if Suzl was to be believed. The power, yes—but not the men. An army of even a few thousand madmen would not be nearly enough.

  She went out to find Spirit and say good-bye, still brooding on these dark matters, then stopped. It was an odd feeling, unlike any she had ever felt before, a sense of something not quite right, something very close by.

  Suzl, now satisfied that the message had gotten across, had been following Kasdi out when she saw the robed figure suddenly stop and look around curiously, disturbed expression on her face, then abruptly begin walking, not towards Spirit, but down a walkway and towards another of the marble buildings across the field and partially masked by some tall trees. Now what the hell? Suzl wondered. It must be the power, but I’ve got the power and I don’t see anything. Now very curious, she followed the small figure along the path. Suzl did not worry about Spirit; she would know in a minute if she was wanted or needed.

  Kasdi approached the strange building, the sense of strangeness and foreboding building inside her, but she stopped at the last of the trees and stepped off the walk and into partial concealment. The building was marble, like the rest, and had a series of stone steps leading up to a high porch, the roof over the porch supported by thick marble columns. There was no door as such, just a large squared cavity leading into the white stone block, but as she watched, a figure came out of that opening and looked around, yawned, and stretched. She recognized him in a minute—as would anyone who’d ever met him. She stepped out and continued to walk to the building, then up the steps to the porch area, hurrying now.

  The figure hardly paid her any attention at first, but then looked at her again as she approached.

  Huge brown eyes that seemed to be ready to pop out of a massive, deformed head opened even wider, and he moved to step back into the building. She saw it and shouted, “Oh, no, Jomo! You stay right where you are!”

  Suzl, too, recognized that figure from their common past.

  Jomo hesitated, trying to decide what to do, then turned and waited for her. When she reached him, he broke into a grin that looked so fierce and grotesque it would scare most people half to death. “Hi, Missy Cass. Been a long, long time.”

  So great was his bulk and so slight was she that the sight reminded Suzl of a cat trying to figure out a cow.

  “Don’t give me that, Jomo!” Kasdi responded sharply. “If you were glad to see me, you wouldn’t have hidden out over here. How long have you been in Pericles?”

  The huge dugger shrugged. “Not long.”

  “You know you can’t lie to a wizard, Jomo. More like months, isn’t it? You’ve been using this as your base and your hideout.” And that, of course, meant that Mervyn knew a whole lot more about this business than he’d let her believe.

  The big man nodded. “O.K., long time, then. Mister Mervyn, he need me.”

  “Where is he, Jomo?” she said firmly, but with a dread she could not conceal.

  “He in the Map Room, last I know.”

  “Not Mervyn. You know who I mean.”

  “I’ll take you off the hook, Jomo,” said a voice from within the darkened entrance. “It’s about time we got this all out anyway.” With that the man walked out onto the porch and into the full light.

  “Matson,” she breathed.

  He had changed a little in eighteen years, but not nearly so much as she had. Age had been good to Matson, making him, if anything, more ruggedly handsome than ever. Oh, his face was lined, and his hair and long, drooping moustache, which he’d just been starting to grow back then, were now partly gray, but he was trim, weathered, and in obviously excellent shape for a man who was certainly pushing the mid-fifties—and in superior shape for a man who’d died in her arms on a battlefield more than eighteen years before. He wore the all-black stringer outfit and gun belt, but was hatless and unarmed.

  Kasdi swallowed hard, everything coming back in a rush. She started feeling dizzy and swayed a bit, and both Matson and Jomo ran over and steadied her and lay her down on the stone porch. She opened her eyes and saw his face looking down at her, and tears came to her eyes. “Take it easy, girl!” he said sharply, but with a real sense of concern in his tone. “I know I’m a shock, but I never thought this moment would come.”

  He understood what she was going through, but only slightly. Matson had taken her into slavery and then gotten her out of it. Matson had been the only man she’d ever made love to, the only man she had ever loved. And she still loved him, even after all these years, still loved him and wanted him desperately, as if all those years had never happened. Every feeling she had suppressed all those years welled up inside her so painfully she wondered if she could stand it.

  And she was a Sister of the Church, bound by vow and spell not to act on any such feelings or in any way find release.

  “You died in my arms,” she wailed, choking back the tears.

  “No, my little Cass,” he responded, brushing back her tears. “Oh, I was good as dead, that’s for sure. Nothing, no amount of magic, could have saved me in time—but you did.”

  “Me?” she sniffled.

  He sat upon his horse, directing the artillery fire, when she’d come up. He remembered talking to her, then turning back, and then there was a tremendous explosion in his chest and he felt himself falling, and that was all. There was no pain; the shock was too great for that. There was only darkness and a curious sense of fading out, although his mind was strangely clear and he knew he was dying.

  And then, suddenly, her voice had come to him in the nothingness. “No more,” it said. “No more …” And he found the moment suspended, himself commanded not to die.

  “Jomo refused to give up on me and dragged me back to one of the wizards supporting the batteries,” he told her. “I didn’t know any of it, of course, until later. Much later. They put a sustaining spell on me and dumped me in a wagon, or so I later learned. Jomo took the wagon and found a stringer he knew in the back. The stringer, whose name we never got, guided Jomo all the way to Globbus, where they again decided I was beyond saving. But I didn’t die—I couldn’t—and they finally bowed to Jomo’s persistence and worked on me. When I finally came to again, it was three weeks after the battle; I was recovering, and the bill wiped out half my assets.”

  “You could have come back. Told me.”

  “What good would that do? By that time you’d taken all your vows. I was still going to come back, if only to let you see, but Mervyn came and visited me and convinced me not to.”

  “Mervyn!” For the first time in her life she said that name with bitterness.

  “You were organizing your new church, starting your revolution, and beginning to put together the new empire. Mervyn pointed out that you’d already taken your vows and were bound to them. He said if I didn’t stay dead, it would destroy you and the whole thing would collapse. I think he was right. Look at you now—you’re shaking like a leaf.”

  She pulled herself unsteadily to a sitting position, then turned and looked not at Matson but at the beauty of Pericles. “It was a lie all along,” she whispered. “All of it has been a stinking lie!”

  She remembered the commitment she’d made so long ago in Hope, a commitment to Mervyn. At that time he’d asked her if Matson’s still being alive would change things, hinting at a possible survival, but she had been so sure of his death and still in a state of emotional shock that she’d said it wouldn’t make any difference. She realized now that the wizard was testing her out in more than a theoretical way. He had the leader of the revolution he and his colleagues had wanted so much, and he had only one threat to that leader, that symbol, on which they would build their empire.

  Such potential leaders come very rarely in human civilization, and even
more rarely are they in the position to act to change history forever. Mervyn had known that, had understood that there was no one else who could rally a revolution and keep its fires burning. And when she had assured him that she was committed, that Matson’s survival would not change her, he’d known it was a lie, even if she herself did not at the time.

  You can’t lie to a wizard…

  But a wizard can lie to a wizard.

  “Where have you been for all these years?” she asked him, still staring out at the beauty of the Fluxland.

  “I retired from the business, basically. I didn’t want to go back to it on the other side of World under some phony name and face. I didn’t really want to go back at all. I’d really survived in that game longer than most and I figured that hole in my chest was telling me that I’d used up the last of my luck. I have to admit that having a pack of powerful wizards anxious to retire me was part of it, too. I got the real strong feeling that they’d be real nice to me if I went along, but that it would be nothing at all to make me really dead if I didn’t. I went up to Strongford, a nice Fluxland up north that’s full of retired stringers and folks who were either dead or missing for one reason or another. Jomo declared me dead, then paid off the rest and came up to a dugger’s haven near Strongford. Got a job and a fat account.”

  Strongford was very exclusive, and by design. The shield, maintained by powerful retired stringers in concert, was incredibly strong and selective. It admitted everyone, with the exception that it kept out any wizards who were not members of the stringer’s guild, but you could leave only by special permission. A lot of people with a lot of ill-gotten gains took advantage of that, and the place had a lot of money and was something of a pleasant, benign pleasure palace where no questions were asked—and a rake-off of the enormous profits went to the guild. Matson described himself as “in the hotel business,” but since a place you couldn’t leave except to be thrown out to the wolves hardly needed a hotel, it was pretty obvious that the place was not the usual sort of rental hotel. He was also a deputy there, helping to keep things right and peaceful and to teach newcomers the rules.

  “Why did you come back, then?” she asked him.

  “You know why. We got word of the snatch, and it was pretty easy to put two and two together. I mean, you didn’t have time for Spirit to have been anybody else’s kid, although she was something the wizards in Globbus sort of forgot to mention in all this. She’s my daughter as much as yours, and I couldn’t stand by and let that bastard get away with this, even if I’d never seen her. Old man Stankovitch—the head stringer wizard in Strong-ford—agreed with me, and I put on the old outfit, picked up Jomo, and we headed south. I didn’t want to cross old Merv, though, so I got in touch with him, and he’s been my protection.”

  And mine, too, Kasdi thought, growing more bitter. He knew he couldn’t keep word of the reappearance of Jomo and Matson from her, so he diverted her. No wonder he was so annoyed to see her here now, when Matson was here, but because of the emergency with Spirit and Suzl, he couldn’t deny her entry. No wonder he was so anxious to get rid of her!

  And now, here he was, coming up the stairs to them, looking resigned. He stopped and faced her. “So now it’s out in the open. In a way, I’m almost glad. It’s been quite a burden for me to carry.”

  “You hypocrite!” she snapped. “You spout platitudes about the purity of the Church while you live in this echo of some pagan fantasy. You lie whenever it suits you. You don’t believe in the Church or its teachings one bit. You’re just a more subtle version of Coydt and Haldayne and the rest. You want power. You wanted more power than you could get on your own, all nine of you, so when I came along, I was your perfect patsy. And I trotted off and gave you your empire.”

  Mervyn looked genuinely stung by the remarks. “I wish things truly were as simple and as cut-and-dried as you see everything. After all this time, you still see the world through a little girl’s eyes. In one way that’s a help, because it’s allowed you to bear your burdens, but in a situation like this it serves you ill. No one is all evil or all good. That has never been the nature of the conflict with the Seven. Not Coydt, certainly—the man is truly evil by any definition. But the rest are as sincere in what they believe as we are in opposing them. But it is not necessary to be evil to be wrong. They are wrong, and you are wrong now. We had a dying civilization and a dying race. You revived it. You made it live again.”

  “You stole my life!”

  “Nobody asked you to be a saint; we wanted merely a leader. You imposed all those conditions on yourself—against my will, if you’ll remember. That little girl side of you couldn’t deal with anything other than absolutes. You looked at yourself and you saw the face of Diastephanos, the Sister General who’d gone over to the other side. You stole your life, because you were so afraid to be human.”

  “You gave me no choice, no chance to grow up! You manipulated me from the start, and you manipulated Matson, too, for that matter. I am exactly what you wanted most. I am your ultimate lie!

  “You’re worse than that. Because of all this, you stole Spirit’s life, too. She should be training for a trade, romancing the boys, facing a solid future and a normal marriage and life. Now she’s a pregnant mental cripple worshipfully married to a thirty-seven-year-old woman who’s always been a social and sexual deviate. Coydt didn’t do that because she was Cassie and Matson’s daughter. He did it because she was the daughter of a monument you created, something she didn’t even know until almost when it happened! You robbed me of her all the way along, you know. I never even was able to say one word to her without pretending to be somebody else! You took my daughter, my chance for love and a normal life, everything—and gave me what in return? A chance to wear a rag, to age fifty years in eighteen, to sleep on stone and straw, unable to even keep a lock of my daughter’s hair or ever be loved by anyone except as some kind of angel or demigod. It’s more than my life! You took mine and Spirit’s humanity!”

  Jomo looked down at her sadly, and there seemed to be a tear in one of his bulging eyes. Matson leaned back against a pillar and lit a cigar, looking a little sad. Down below, Suzl watched the thing play out, not understanding the words but totally understanding them all the same. Her first look at Matson, alive and well, had told her just what was coming. She didn’t need to know the words, for she knew the situation and she knew Cass.

  Poor Cassie, she thought sadly. All that power, all that influence, all that force—and it’s nothing. Welcome to the real world, Cass. I’m sorry you had to finally make the trip.

  “Are you finished?” Mervyn asked her.

  “I’m only starting,” she snapped. “It’s the only thing I can do and you know it. I can’t live any other way. I can’t kill myself, because I can’t violate my vows. But I’ll fight no more for you, old man. I’ll make no more pious speeches. I’m no good to you in any way anymore—no good to anybody. I’m a priestess, and I will remain one, even if my faith is weak and I feel like I’ve been raped. But I resign my sainthood. The Church and the empire sink or swim without Sister Kasdi. I’ve retired. I will do no more killing for you. Do it yourself from now on.”

  “You’ve paid a big price, Cass,” Matson said finally, “but it hasn’t been a waste. The old boy’s right in one thing. We’re moving again. Thinking again. The change I saw in the people during this business, going through those Anchors, was amazing. But I can’t really talk about this. After all, I didn’t have to pay the bill.”

  Mervyn sighed. “Well, if you will fight no more for empire, even to protect it, will you fight for personal reasons?”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “I came here not just because I received word that you two had met. I came here primarily because the three of you were here. Word has come that Coydt has made his move. He has taken Anchor Logh, and we are powerless to do anything about it.”

  “What!”

  “Somehow—I don’t know how, and won’t until I get there,
I suspect—there is a wizard’s shield of tremendous force around the entirety of Anchor Logh. No one has been able to penetrate it. And Coydt and at least fifteen hundred insane killers are inside that shield right now, doing whatever they wish.”

  11

  EXPLORATORY MISSION

  “Why Anchor Logh?” Kasdi asked them as they studied the situation in the map room. “There are twenty-eight Anchors. Why is it always Anchor Logh?”

  “It isn’t, really,” Mervyn replied. “There have been attacks on many Anchors, and our forces had to fight street-to-street taking some of them. It boils down in this case, I’m afraid, to you again. Coydt is feeling the pressure and he doesn’t like it. Obviously he planned this operation carefully with the rest of the Seven. If they can get away with it once, here, they need take not twenty-eight Anchors but only seven to access the gates from within. If they can take, and hold, a single Anchor for a matter of days, or weeks, or whatever, it will show that it can be done. Then they will only have to solve the communications problem to unlock all the gates within the requisite one minute period. Considering the other obstacles, they will solve that one,too.”

  “So this is their demonstration,” she said sourly. “To the others and to me. He knows that all the people I hold dear are there. He knows I will have to come to him.”

  Mervyn nodded. “Yes. And he’ll have you in Anchor, where his might will overwhelm your power. He wants you, too, Matson. He doesn’t know who or what you are, but you’ve cost him the heart of his own personal organization. He’ll meet you in Anchor, but on turf he totally controls.”

  “First,” the old stringer commented practically, “we have to figure out how to get the hell in.”

  It was agreed that Mervyn and Kasdi would fly to Anchor Logh and assess the situation. Others of the Nine and some of the top wizards on the side of the empire were already flocking to the border, and troops had been mobilized and were moving in. Should the shield lift, Anchor Logh would be instantly under a siege more powerful than any force seen since Balacyn.