Soul Rider #01: Spirits of Flux and Anchor

by Jack L. Chalker

  He sighed. "Oh, very well. Stand still." He made a flinging gesture with his hand, and suddenly the robe fit very well indeed. She towered over the very short Suzl, who stood back and nodded. "Not bad. Maybe you ought to keep that."

  She desperately wanted a mirror—so desperately that the reflective surface Mervyn had used before materialized in front of her. She was stunning, very tall and perfectly proportioned to the height. Even her figure was absolutely perfect, and, unlike the experiments at Miss Rona's, it felt very comfortable, Her face, a near-perfect oval set off by very large, dark brown eyes and short hair of the same color, and her light brown skin made her almost the living model of religious pictures of the Holy Mother.

  She wished the mirror away and was startled to see not Mervyn but another woman there, this one about halfway between Suzl's height and her own, also dark and attractive but dressed in a skin-tight outfit of what looked like red leather, with high red boots and even a cape— The strange woman was helping Suzl into a black outfit—a stringer's outfit.

  "Don't be so shocked," said the strange woman in a deep, melodious voice. "We have to see a high priestess in a Temple. You didn't expect them to let me just walk in the way I was, did you?"

  She laughed, feeling that sense of recognition she could not define. This was the third guise for Mervyn, and the most confusing of all. Since Suzl refused to permit a disguise by sorcery, she was instead going in slightly different clothing. She was soon dressed as the shortest, cutest stringer in anybody's memory. Mervyn then went over their cover names and stories and rehearsed them until they got it right. Suzl would be Sati, the name of a real female stringer that would be on the guard lists, but a stringer who had not been to Anchor Logh, being relatively new in the business. Cass would be Sister Kasdi, of Anchor Bakha, an Anchor far to the southwest of Anchor Logh but still closest in that direction, and an Anchor in many ways similar to Anchor Logh. She was given a spell-reinforced history and geography lesson that made her feel like she really had lived there. Mervyn would be Mera, a professional woman.

  "Matson told me that they were anxiously looking for an electrical engineer," he told them. "I have some knowledge in that field and I think I can pass as a possible applicant for the job."

  Satisfied, they mounted, Cass taking the mule as was appropriate for priestesses, although she hated the side-saddle riding method that tradition dictated a priestess adopt exclusively. All set, they rode into Anchor.

  Suzl had taken, apparently in Globbus, to smoking and slightly chewing on thin, crooked little cigars. While it was all part of the self-image she now had, she stuck one in the side of her mouth as they rode in and it gave a very good added effect to her stringer act. She led the mule with Cass aboard by a small rope, with Mervyn bringing up the rear. Suzl's whole expression and body took on a look of arrogant tolerance of the surroundings, like a government minister forced to tour a garbage dump, and she was obviously enjoying herself to the limit. She rode right past the shantytown of tents and dugout buildings and the small semi-permanent population of duggers there and right up to the gate. A guard watched them, and when she stopped in front of the opening he called out, "Who are you and what is your business and intent?"

  "My name is Sati, stringer," she responded boldly. "I am still apprenticed, and was delegated to take these two from the Hollus train at Globbus, which is not heading here, up to Anchor Logh and the Temple."

  The guard vanished for a moment, then the outer gates closed with a dramatic rumbling. They waited there a couple of minutes, and then they opened again. There were now three soldiers, well armed and looking spiny, on horseback in the gate, and they rode towards the waiting trio. Cass recognized the officer who led them as one of the men at the gate that terrible night they'd left Anchor Logh.

  Suzl barely glanced at them, but reached down into her saddlebag and pulled out a small book, handing it to the officer. He looked it over, then looked at the three of them, and frowned. There was nothing unusual about such detached deliveries— they happened all the time—but his job was to ensure that these were legitimate. He rode out a bit further so he could see the guard atop the tower. "What do you say?" he called up.

  "Checks out, sir," the guard responded. "She's on the last list given to us by the guild, and she's apprenticed to Hollus."

  He nodded to himself and turned back to her. "And what is your cargo?"

  "Two passengers, that's all," Suzl told him. "Sister Kasdi was sent over here from Anchor Bakha for some specialized training in the Temple, and Miss Mera was traveling with another train when Matson came through with the word that you were looking for engineers. She decided to come on up and look your charming land over to see if she can save herself a longer trip to another job." Cass admired how Suzl made the words "charming land" seem like the nastiest of insults with sheer intonation.

  The officer looked at the other two. Cass looked back at him, smiled sweetly, and gave him a blessing with her hand. It unnerved him for a moment. Finally he said, "All right, will you two ladies please dismount?" They did, Cass with slight difficulty she hoped wasn't obvious. "Stringer, you come in first and file the papers for the passes. Ladies, these two troopers will remain with you until we have passed through, then take you through with them."

  Suzl, the animals trailing, rode confidently into the gate and the officer followed. It closed, there was a pause, and then it opened once more. Suzl, at least, was back in the land of her birth.

  They followed behind the troopers and into the gate, which closed behind them. One of the troopers turned and said, "Our apologies. Sister, Lady, but we must arrange for a search. Please remain in here and do not move until someone comes for you."

  Cass looked over at Mervyn, but just got a shrug. For him it was just routine, but to her this was a new experience. She wondered, though, what all the fearful and prejudiced folk of Anchor Logh would feel if they knew how silly and useless their dreaded gate and defenses really were? It was pretty obvious that people went from Flux to Anchor and back all the time, no matter what the official line was—or even if the officials quoting that line knew it.

  They waited there a few minutes, and then a priestess came into the gate. She was quite young, her robe of light yellow very plain and unadorned, saying that she was not long out of the novitiate. Clearly this was a bottom-rung job.

  She approached Cass first, who outranked her by her robe's indication, then kneeled. Cass had seen this done enough to have no problems with it. "The blessing of the Holy Mother be upon thee for eternity," she pronounced. "Be free and do your duty."

  The young priestess rose, bowed slightly, and responded, "We thank thee, Sister, for thy understanding and blessing. Humble apologies to you both, but it is required that you both disrobe completely for physical examination. You have seen out there what lurks in Flux, and while we realize that it is most unnecessary on your part we can make no exceptions."

  Cass smiled, undid, and removed her robe, letting it drop to the ground. Mervyn, dressed more complexly, had more of a problem, and was assisted by Cass in reaching the same state.

  For a groveling priestess not yet even allowed, to have a name of her own or use the personal pronoun, she was most thorough in her inspection. Clearly she did not want to be here forever, or worse, and just one slip and worse it would be.

  Finally she nodded and said, "Please put your clothing back on, and again our humblest apologies."

  "That's all right," Mervyn soothed. "If you had seen what we have seen in Flux you would know just how important your job really is."

  She smiled, not realizing how totally irrelevant that job was.

  The priestess in yellow led them to the other side, where Suzl waited, looking impatient and bored. Both of the newcomers were given a form to sign, and then issued passes good for one week maximum. Of course, should they be allowed by the Temple to stay, then they would be granted citizenship.

  The officer and a trooper assisted Cass in remounting her mule,
then they were off along the main highway to the capital. They were well along and far out of sight of the guards when Suzl finally laughed. "So much for their security. Checked you two over with a microscope, and you both phony as can be, while they just kept shoving papers at me and never even looked me in the eye."

  "I counted on that," Mervyn told her. "Remember, a bureaucrat does not believe in Heaven or Hell, Church or Government. A bureaucrat only believes in paper."

  They rode on, stopping overnight in Lawder, a small town about halfway to the capital. Cass found her disguise both annoying and fun at one and the same time. Annoying, because as a priestess she had no money and had to more or less beg for food, drink, and lodging from the locals and was really prevented from going to the bar and other public rooms. It was FUJI, though, in that she was treated deferentially by almost everyone, and it was funny to watch them try and control their language and behavior around her. She found some diversion, though, in the fact that, as an outside priestess, everybody wanted to confess to her and this became the main agent of barter. It was obvious that many sought absolution from sin but did not relish confessing to their local priestess, who would be living in the same town with them.

  Since she had been through the ritual on the supplicant end most of her life, she knew all the proper things to do and say, and it occurred to her more than once that this, more than anything else, was the most effective way in which the church had the pulse of, and control of, the entire community. They barely needed the spies and agents she had imagined when she'd seen the dossiers on that screen. All they needed was weekly updated reports from each and every parish priestess on the confessions of the faithful-

  She soon had quite an earful from the locals, too. Clearly Anchor Logh was not the calm, straight-laced community she had always imagined it being. It was one thing in Flux, but here, in a place she thought she new, she began to feel a stranger.

  They set out again the next morning, Suzl feeling a little grumpy because Mervyn had stopped her fun in the bar short of the payoff. She knew, of course, that this was not the time, and that there was much danger in exposure, but it still irritated her.

  By early afternoon they were approaching the capital, and as they passed a large farm Suzl and Cass halted and looked suddenly serious.

  "What's the problem?" the wizard asked them.

  "Over there is where both of us were born and raised," Cass told him. "Our families are still there. I'd hoped to be able to see them, tell them I was all right." She sighed. "I guess I can't, looking and sounding like this."

  He thought a moment. "If you can pull it off, not blow your cover or break down, it might be all right if you just, say, carried the news as a third party," Mervyn said. "Do you think you can act the part in front of people you know? They won'f know you, remember, for you are someone else."

  "I'd like to try—for their sakes," she responded honestly. "I think, after all, this is something I have to do."

  "All right then," he agreed. "Go and do it. We will go ahead and register at the hotel. Don't take more than one hour, then follow us in. That will give us a chance to settle and get the lay of the land, as it were. Meet us there, and we'll discuss what to do next. And if anything goes wrong here, anything, break off and come to us immediately. I want no surprises here that we don't generate."

  She nodded. "I will. The Holy Reverend Sister Kasdi will behave." She turned to Suzl. "Want me to pass on any word about you?"

  She thought a moment. "Just tell 'em I'm free and I'm happy." She had a sudden thought. "I hope nobody who knows me is in town now." She alone appeared, at least, the way she had been.

  "There is very little chance of that," Mervyn told her. "It is midweek, after all. Let's cross that bridge when we come to it."

  They left Cass there, and for a while she hesitated. Here it was—the large box she had come to check that day that now seemed so long ago, the day she had seen Matson riding in. The difference between that child and her now, although separated not really all that long in time, was an unbridgeable chasm.

  She decided, though, to walk down the road, and tied up the mule at the post box. How many times had she walked down this same road to those buildings? She looked over at the pastures and could still identify and name just about every horse and cow she could see.

  Finally she reached the familiar complex, and made the almost automatic turn that took her to the blacksmith's shop. The old sounds of iron being pounded and reshaped caused her heart to skip a beat, and she began perspiring despite the slight chill. Could she do it—or not? She sighed, and took several deep breaths to get hold of herself. As she had told Mervyn, she had to.

  She walked in the barn-like open doors of the smithy and saw her father there, dunking a horse-shoe in water, as two other smiths and three apprentices worked elsewhere. She approached her father, the tension rising within her. He looked up, frowned, stared a moment, then put down his work and came to her. "Yes, Sister? What can I do for you?"

  She repressed the urge to fling her arms around him and hug and kiss him as she so desperately wanted to do. Instead she said, "You are the father of the girl called Cass who was taken in the Paring Rite?"

  He suddenly went a bit tense and white. "Yes. What's this all about?"

  "I have news of her."

  He looked suddenly very concerned and she could see the emotions within him rising, despite his efforts to contain them. "Speak," he said hoarsely.

  "I have just come through the Flux from Anchor Bakha— During that journey I met many from this Anchor. Most are suffering as expected, but your Cass is doing well."

  He looked very interested and slightly relieved, but he wanted to know more.

  "I cannot tell you of the Flux, except that it is very strange," she continued, struggling with the words. "However, there is some opportunity there for those with special talents. Your Cass and three others from this riding have broken their bonds and now work as paid employees for a stringer, mostly tending to animals. They were healthy and seemed happy, but were anxious that I carry news back to their families."

  She could hardly believe it. Were those truly tears in her father's eyes? Never, ever, had she known her father to cry, not under any conditions, and she was so touched by it that she had to fight back tears herself.

  "Cass also wanted me to inform others that the ones called Suzl, Dar, and Nadya are also safe, well, and have jobs and careers— Alas, for the others—there is the purging. Will you see, though, that their families also get word?"

  Her father broke down at that point, dropped to his knees and took and firmly clasped her hand. It was at once both touching and embarrassing, but she knew she had done the right thing. She also knew that she'd better get out of there before she broke down completely herself.

  "I must go," she managed, voice breaking, "but I am glad I could bring you some joy. Cass said to t-tell you's-she loved you, and missed you, but that she was probably happier now than she would have been back here."

  He didn't want to let go of her, but she managed to break free and walked out, leaving him sobbing in his shop. She walked briskly back down the road, the light wind stinging the copious tears that now flowed unchecked and unstoppable.

  It was dark and she was once again in the city before she had completely cried it out.

  She went immediately to the hotel, tying up her mule, and went inside. Suzl was sitting there smoking one of her little cigars and looking through the paper, while Mervyn was checking the hotel directory. They saw her, and came over to her. Suzl saw at once what sort of experience it had been for her. Her eyes were puffy and red.

  "How'd it go?" she asked gently.

  "It went fine. The job got done with nobody the wiser, but I'm afraid it was pretty hard on me."

  "Poor kid. It must have been tough."

  She nodded. "Real tough, but worth it. I'll never regret it no matter what happens from here on in."

  Mervyn came up to her and whispered, "Let's step
outside for a moment, Sister." They followed him out into the darkened street. "All right," he went on when he was sure they were not being overheard, "we're in too late to do anything tonight. Sister, you will have to stay at the Temple, of course. Just relax, act the part, and get a good night's sleep. In the morning, go out and wait for us in the Temple Square." He paused for a moment. "I'm afraid you're going to have to go through their whole rigamarole."

  She shrugged. "I think my lessons will hold up. Don't worry about me—I've been more places in that Temple than anybody not working there, and if your spell holds they're not going to be able to make much use of hypnotic drugs to get any information."

  "It'll hold," he assured her. "Go. We have a busy, and risky, day tomorrow."

  She nodded, and led her mule down streets she knew so well towards the great, lighted Temple spires.

  "Any problems?" Mervyn asked her in the crisp, clean morning air when they met in Temple Square.

  "None that I know of," she told him— "I had to do some explaining, and a lot of praying and chanting, but that's about it. It's not bad when you've got rank. Novices to wait on you hand and foot, private rooms with all the amenities, soft feather beds. They know your covers, though—I had to tell them that."

  He nodded. "Don't worry about it. We won't need them long. Come."

  Together all three of them went up the Temple steps to those forbidding bronze doors, opened them, and stepped inside. Cass saw that Suzl was playing the memory game from her glances. In there is the chapel, down there is the gym where they marched us, over there are the Temple boarding rooms for young girls in town, over there is the library stairs… She had done much the same the night before.

  Mervyn seemed to know his way around pretty well. "They're all built pretty much the same," he told them. Standardization. They went down the library stairway but did not make the turn to go down the next flight to the library itself. Instead they stopped, and Mervyn knocked on an unmarked door opening onto the landing. It opened to reveal a puzzled warden. "Yes?" she asked.