Masters of Flux & Anchor

by Jack L. Chalker

  “You’ll not eliminate my hatred of the Brotherhood with cold logic, even of the irrefutable sort.” she told him.

  “I know,” he sighed. “That’s why people still fight wars.”

  World had changed much in only twenty years, but it was arguable whether it was for the better or worse. The way. Mervyn thought, the position on that question depended on just what you wanted.

  Cass had broken the grip of the old Church by splitting it in two, and uniting opportunistic Fluxlords and Anchors chafing at the old system to create an empire that had at its height spanned more than half of World. In the end, though, the Empire spread itself too thin. Internal jealousies and love of power cracked the empire in various places. While Mervyn and others of the most powerful wizards attempted a unified governmental authority, in the end the glue that held the Empire together and drove it onward had been the will of one woman: Cass, Sister Kasdi the warrior-saint. And so the enemies of Empire, led by Coydt van Haas, had set a trap for her, a trap she escaped—but at a great price.

  Coydt had been stronger; he had, in fact, defeated her in a test of wills, and only a shotgun blast from a cynical stringer seeking revenge had allowed her to triumph, her self-confidence shaken. But in his death throes, Coydt had achieved his aim, for he removed from her all of the spells that bound her, that made her the saintly leader, leaving her open to more human feelings, desires, and needs. Already wilting under the enormous weight of her responsibilities, she had taken her drive from the fact that she could enjoy no alternatives. With those spells removed, the choice of going back to that miserable life was impossible. She had retreated to a Fluxland with her daughter, Spirit, who had been cursed to neither speak nor understand, and to be forever forbidden all tools and artifacts.

  With them had gone her grandson, Jeffron, whom Cass and the agents of Mervyn would raise.

  And with the “death” of Sister Kasdi and the withdrawal of Cass, the Empire had quickly crumbled. The conciliatory leader of the old, original Church met with the highest priestesses of the Reformed Church, and after much argument and tribulation they hammered out a concordat which reestablished a single Church once more under a single set of doctrines that incorporated the fundamental changes of the Reformers with the basics for which the old Church had fought. None could lead the Church, or become a High Priestess of a temple, or minister directly to the people, without the Vows of Sanctity undertaken by binding spell. Those involved in other aspects of the Church, such as administration and research, were not so encumbered unless they wished to be. The Church had become far less corrupt, but had strengthened its grip, for it extended to parts of Flux as well as to Anchor.

  Hope, the Fluxland created by Kasdi as the source of the Reformed Church, had slowly dissolved without her force of will. Work on compiling all of the ancient writings and attempting to interpret them, a project called the Codex, had been moved to Holy Anchor, where a Queen of Heaven elected by the temple High Priestesses ruled as chief administrator.

  Much had been learned from the Codex, but researchers were bound by spells to reveal nothing except through the Church, which kept tight controls. Much of the work was suppressed, either as heretical or as too dangerous and disruptive. Science, however, began to be encouraged in Anchor, where understanding of the devices that maintained them was now deemed crucial. Many of the key scientific works, though, were missing from the Codex, and scientists who went off on tangents not approved by the Church found themselves stepped on rather hard. The Church was interested in the practical. Still, the last twenty years had brought revolutionary changes.

  With the understanding of Flux energy as just one form of all other energy, a form that could be modified, redirected, and controlled, many of the Anchors were in the process of being wired for full electrical power, not just the capital cities as in the old days. Wireless telecommunication based on the temple intercoms was also under development, linking all parts of an Anchor instantaneously. But no one had yet discovered a way to communicate Anchor to Anchor, for the Flux squashed and suppressed all forms of electronic broadcast signal. The standard of living for the average man and woman of Anchor had improved substantially, but these new developments put them ever more securely under the absolute control of the Church.

  The breakup of the Empire had worried the Nine Who Guard most of all, for it left the mysterious Hellgates insufficiently guarded. They coped as best they could, using the Flux power amplifiers built by Coydt van Haas to create virtual walls around the Flux entrances to the gates, walls maintained by priestess-wizards under saintly vows, and by the defenses of the Hellgates themselves. The weak point was the other entrance, the one that allowed someone in each Anchor temple to travel directly to the gate itself, bypassing the defenses. There was no real answer, for new energy weapons could dissolve concrete as easily as anything else, so the Nine had decided to be content with an incorruptible Church devoted to eternal vigilance. It was true that forces had previously defended the Gates from entry via Flux, but not only Cass and Spirit but even Coydt had managed to bypass them.

  Of course, not all Anchors were under Church control, and only a small part of Flux; but the Seven Who Wait, also known as the Seven Who Come Before, needed access to all the Hellgates at once to open them as they were determined one day to do. Control by the Nine of just one was sufficient to keep them from their work. Mervyn knew this, but had called a meeting anyway, an unprecedented one, to discuss the problems.

  All Nine were there, which was the fact without precedent. They met in a tiny Flux pocket so secure that none could even guess its presence, let alone penetrate it, and they listened intently to the old wizard’s comments.

  “We have become too complacent of late,” he chided them. “While we have sat and done little, the enemy has been actively on the march with their characteristic subtlety and with uncharacteristic precision and coordination. A new empire has been created under our very noses, one in the hands of our enemy.”

  He spread out a map of World showing the Anchors in their characteristic clusters. “This is a copy of an ancient map, but it will do for our purposes. The letters are in the ancient tongue, but mostly correlate with the names the Anchors have today.”

  Krupe, the fat, bald wizard in brown satin robes, looked down at the map and frowned. “Curious. If we use the ancient language, there’s almost the full old alphabet represented there,” he noted. “Funny I never really saw that before.” He stared again at the map.

  “The dotted line is the equator, the numbers are the Hellgates.” Mervyn explained needlessly. “As to the alphabetical list, I saw that long ago, but it is in a haphazard order and seems to mean little except to denote the first letter of the old language versions of the names. ‘HQ’ is often an ancient abbreviation for ‘headquarters,’ and is appropriate, since that is Holy Anchor today. Why Tezgroph should be designated by ‘NG’ is something we may never know, as I have found no correlation of those two letters with any standard abbreviation. Still, there is World as we know it. All the rest is Flux.”

  “So? As you say. it is common knowledge,” remarked the dark and enigmatic Serrio, one of the two of the Nine not assigned to guard a specific Gate and cluster but free-roaming, to add extra strength where needed. “I could draw it in my sleep. Why show us this?”

  “Patience. The nonstandard symbols might have been strange to some of us. However. I draw your attention to the fact that the northern, eastern, and western clusters are firmly under our, and Church, control. The center and south are not, including my own.”

  The small, exotic wizard Kyubioshi shrugged. “It is not necessary for us to control all seven, as you know. As for the rest, they are a mixture, a hodge-podge of independent Anchors, some under Church control, some under the control of odd groups and factions, as are the Fluxlands inside and between. We agreed long ago, at the breakup of the Empire, that this was to be desired.”

  “Indeed,” Mervyn agreed. “However, my agents recently have
completed a massive task that might have been impossible in earlier times. In compiling a structure of ruling Fluxlands and Anchor leaders on a cluster-by-cluster basis, we find civil control in the Anchors in the hands of just one or two individuals. As always, the government is totally subservient to the Church, but only outwardly. These governments have alliances with Fluxlords, allegedly also supportive of the Church. In tracing the relationships, an effort that has cost many lives, I might add, we came up with some startling information. Ultimate civil power in each cluster seems to reside in a centralized source one for each cluster. In most cases this central source cannot be traced, but I have traced two. both in the north. Do the names Varishnikar Stomsk and Gifford Haldayne mean nothing to you?”

  There was a collective gasp. Both were long-time members of the Seven, and their arch-enemies.

  Mervyn looked satisfied with their reaction. “Even over in the west, the former Queen of Heaven, Romua Togloss retains enormous power and loyalty. We have long suspected her of being one of the Seven, as there is some evidence in the old genealogies that she is in fact Rosa Haldayne, Gifford’s sister.” He looked at each one’s eyes in turn. “Anyone seen Gabaye or Tokiabi lately? Anyone know who took Coydt’s place in the Seven?”

  There was no answer.

  “I believe,” the old wizard said carefully, “that certainly four, if not more, of the clusters are in such a position that the existing order could be overthrown in a moment, on orders from the shadowy authority who controls them.”

  “But they couldn’t hold them. We proved that years ago,” the tall, stately Hjistoliran noted.

  “They don’t have to. Once all seven are under their influence, they need only wait until it is time and strike at once, quickly. They can hold long enough for all seven to take the temples and reach the Gates. You can see their enormous influence now. What scientific project takes precedence over all others in the eyes of Church and state?”

  They thought a moment. “Inter-Anchor communications,” the tiny, green Talanane said. “Oh, my!”

  Mervyn nodded. “And they’ll get it, too, if it is possible and it almost certainly is, or no other safeguards against the Seven are really needed.”

  “Do you believe that they already control all seven, then?” Krupe asked him.

  “No. The south is the key, in many ways. The New Eden Brotherhood is not merely a revolt by the have-nots against the Church and World, it is in every sense of the word a religious movement and an expansionist one. Within two years after the collapse of the Empire it had abrogated its treaties and made alliances with very powerful Fluxlords. Within five, it had overrun Anchor Bakha and secured the Fluxlands between. They have developed new and devastating weaponry that can be used in Anchor, and I believe Anchor Nantzee is in imminent danger of falling, giving them the factories and heavy industry to really expand their program.”

  “But where are they getting all of this knowledge, all of this new and revolutionary weaponry?” the rock-like Makapuua asked him. “From the Seven?”

  “No. If the Seven had such weaponry and knowledge it would have used it long ago. Coydt had amassed a massive amount of ancient writings over the years, and had whole teams of his people working on them. From those writings he created the Flux amplifiers, and it is from those writings that weapons such as this are springing. Small items of use to Fluxlords are being parcelled out to secure their complete cooperation, but most of it they are keeping for themselves. I daresay the Seven would like to get their hands on those books as much as we would. But, like Matson’s shotgun, science is proving more powerful than sorcery.”

  “Then they must be attacked and stopped at once,” Krupe put in. “They must be contained or eliminated.”

  Mervyn stared at him. “How? The leaders keep to Anchor, where we are powerless, and they are so paranoid and secretive that they are nearly impossible to infiltrate on a high level. What forces can stop them, when they have weapons that in an instant can return an entire army to its Flux components? They are driven and they are ruthless. Bakha was determined to resist them, and it did so to its last ounce of strength. It cost them fully ninety percent of their population. Anchor Logh, or New Eden as they call it, no longer has a population problem. Half of it now lives in Bakha. Far worse, from our point of view, is that they have the same goal as the others inter-Anchor communications. And they are unencumbered by the Church’s restrictions on research. And they barter just enough with unscrupulous Fluxlords to get what they need by magic. Above all, they are pragmatists.”

  “But at the cost of some of their best minds,” MacDonna pointed out, “considering what they do to their women.”

  “Quite so,” Mervyn agreed, “but that is far less a handicap if you have the blueprints for what you need set out in front of you, lacking only the industrial capability to create what you need, Somehow, when they’re ready, the Seven will be able to talk their way through to that Gate. Bet on it. The south is even now being handled for the Seven by Zelligman Ivan, one of the best. Like any good snake, he can manage to wiggle through the smallest of cracks. Right now he’s thinking of ways to get himself in close to the New Eden leadership. Not inside, but enough to ask a favor when needed.”

  “But this is terrible!” Talanane exclaimed. “What you are saying is that the doom we have so long fought is not only coming but is inevitable!”

  “Not inevitable. Nothing is inevitable until it is accomplished and proven so by hindsight. What I am saying is that we have been badly finessed, outmaneuvered, and outthought. The true danger is not imminent. I would say it is years away, perhaps many years. Finally, though, conditions that have always been right for us are turning right for them. It had to happen, sooner or later. In a way, it’s our fault, for the old system served us well and we helped destabilize it. Perhaps not. If indeed the former Queen of Heaven is Haldayne’s sister, they already had control of the old Church. Perhaps we made it harder, not easier.”

  There was an almost collective sigh of resignation. “Then what can we do?” Krupe asked hesitantly.

  “We can forget about the other clusters, the ones totally under control, except for what we’re doing now, and suggest to the Church that it strengthen its guard at the temples. We should concentrate our own efforts on securing the center, for if we hold just one Gate we hold them all. Pool our forces. Four of us on the western cluster—Anchors Qwantzee, Chahleh, Gorgh, and Ecksreh, four others on the eastern center—Anchors Tezgroph, Yonkeh, Abhel and Doltah. I don’t care if we have to sit, one on top of each temple entrance itself. Plan it out among you. But one must be held at all cost. They can move, but they cannot sustain a move for very long.”

  “And you?” MacDonna asked him. “Where will you be?”

  “I’ll be down there with Zelligman, watching him and everything else like a hawk. And if Anchor Logh starts talking even the most idiotic nonsense to Anchor Bakha, you all will be the second to know.” His mind was already very much focused on Zelligman Ivan, wondering just what the man was up to now… .

  3

  A LITTLE FAVOR

  They never had a name for the small Fluxland Mervyn had created for them north of Anchor Logh, but they never needed one. To Cass it was just “home,” and to Spirit—well, names wouldn’t mean much to Spirit.

  It was a pretty place, a garden with a nice stream and waterfall and plenty of flowers and fresh fruit and vegetables growing wild. Spirit wouldn’t eat cooked food, but little Jeffy had to have some, even though he stayed on his mother’s breast for a very long time.

  Spirit was a tall, beautiful, slender woman with long auburn hair and a creamy tan complexion. She lived more or less in a world of her own, unable to speak or understand anyone, unable to use or make use of any human-made tools or artifacts. While Coydt van Haas had originally used the kidnapping and spell on Spirit as a way to hurt Cass, and to divert her from his bigger plans until it was too late to stop him, the spell had been broken once, while Coydt was turning th
eir home of Anchor Logh into a male sex fantasy. But she had been so revolted by her old friends’ and family’s acquiescence to this weird new order of things that she had chosen once again and for all time to return to what she’d been in Flux.

  And the Soul Rider continued in her. The strange energy creature lived in some kind of symbiotic relationship with its host, and could only be perceived by powerful wizards like Cass and Mervyn, and then only as a doubled aura.

  Spirit was an eternal child, but she had a child. Jeffron, who early on needed his grandmother’s care. Cass felt useful and secure during that period, after forty years of stress in which she had almost, but not quite, revolutionized World. But she found her patience short and thin, and soon had to depend on those people Mervyn had sent—strange half-animal creatures of Flux and his imagination, creatures who’d once been human to handle the routine chores.

  Little Jeffy was a tiger and a delight, too, but it was clear that this Fluxland, so perfect for his mother, was not a place where he could grow and develop and learn. Ultimately, Mervyn suggested sending the boy to school in an Anchor up north, with later training part-time in Globbus. the Fluxland which trained and developed half the wizards of World. Cass had to agree. For Jeffy had the power, as his parents and grandmother had had before him. and only time would tell how strong he might become. He would be home for frequent visits, of course.

  Spirit was sad at this, but seemed to understand why it had to be, and overall took it better than her pragmatic mother. For Cass, the boy’s departure simply left her with nothing to fill the days and nights: with no purpose at all.

  She brooded. She loved Spirit more than anything, but her daughter’s condition made it impossible to get close to her, and was a constant reminder to her of her past.

  Cass had been depressed most of her life, but action and events had always served to divert her mind. Now there was nothing, and she sank into a total gloom. Although she was famous over all the world, she considered herself worse than a failure, and made a good case for that judgment. She’d failed at romance, she’d done worse than fail as a parent she’d exposed her child to the condition she was now in and her actions had cost so many lives, eventually including the life of her father, the one human being she’d loved above all others. She had led an army that had taken half the planet, something no one else had ever dreamed of doing, yet the Empire stalled and collapsed in ruins when she could no longer lead it, and the old and new Church had reconciled in a way that might have been more honest but was certainly no more progressive.