“After you disappeared, and Nadya came screaming out of the room, there was holy Hell to pay all over Globbus, I’ll tell you,” Suzl said. “It was pretty clear after the initial search failed to find you, though, that you’d been snatched and carried off, and there was no problem guessing by who and where to. They met again after that and switched some things around, particularly the training and stakeout stuff, but otherwise they just accepted it. There wasn’t anything they could do short of attacking Persellus then and there, and they weren’t ready to do that yet, no matter how much we screamed at them.”
She thought for a moment. “How did Matson take it?”
“He was pissed. Took it as a personal insult. Wanted to ride in with a rescue right away. I think he really likes you, Cass.”
She smiled. “I wonder what he’ll think when he finds out I’m a wizard? Me—that’s still pretty hard to accept.”
Suzl shrugged. “I don’t know. There was always something funny about you, ever since we got caught up in that Paring Rite. Even when bad things happened to you they turned out O.K.”
“Does it change anything between us—as friends?”
“Not on my account, uh uh. Might be good to have a friend with some power around here. What about you, though? Everybody says when you get that kind of power you go nuts.”
“Maybe I always was nuts, so it doesn’t matter. I don’t know, Suzl. I guess I don’t really believe it yet. Back in the gym, when we all got together and swore we were coming back and take our revenge on Anchor Logh—I didn’t believe that, either. Not for a minute. And yet, here we are, heading back in, with you and me knowing that they plan to do just that. I’m really off balance, and have been all this time. I mean, just think of the others.”
“Huh?”
“The others taken in the Paring Rite, not just in Anchor Logh but all over World. Almost nobody escapes becoming somebody’s slave or somebody’s thing. And yet, here we are, right in the thick of great events like World’s never seen before. Maybe causing a lot of it. I never thought of myself as any great mover and shaker. I mean, I’m still me, Cass, off the farm at Anchor Logh.”
Suzl shrugged. “Maybe it’s because we think of those big movers and shakers all wrong. Maybe we build ‘em up after they’re dead and gone or something into saints and angels and all that. I think maybe that all those greats really went to the bathroom same as we, and maybe got stomach aches and thought of themselves as folks just off some farm. And they probably were.”
“Yeah, but why us? Why not a couple of the others? Ivon or Kral or Jodee, for example? And why now?”
“I think it’s just gotta be somebody, sometime, and we just happen to be it. I don’t think it’s planned. Look, the way I see it, this bastard
Haldayne came up with this plot and put it into operation. This brought forth your Soul Rider or whatever it is, who picked you because you were the first one it ran into who had this power or whatever. Now, whether or not it was that thing or you that went nuts and violated the Temple we’ll never know, but maybe it picked you because it knew you were the type to do just that. Who knows? This Mervyn reads minds pretty good, I think, and if he can, why not a creature of some kind? Once you were stuck with it, it used you and your power to unmask the plot. All because it was just floating along or something and you just happened to be the first one in the way. See?”
She sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Uh—this Mervyn and you have been riding along for some time. Did he do anything about your—problem?”
She laughed. “I don’t have a problem. Other people might, but I don’t. Oh, he looked at it, decided it was too complicated, and offered to turn me one hundred percent male. That he could do.”
“And you refused?”
She nodded. “I like it this way. Because you got snatched we had extra time, and I went over to one of the bars. Had a ball with it. Nope, I like it. No more periods, no more afraid of getting pregnant, none of that. But I like the way I look, and I like my tits and ass. I got the best of both worlds. There’s lots of guys who only like other guys, you know. I’m the only one you know that can have it both ways and not be a pervert.” She giggled at that.
“And Dar, of course.”
“Yeah, well, maybe. But he’s still pretty hung up on his maleness, and I don’t think he’ll ever have the kind of freedom I feel.”
“Speaking of freedom, how come the shirtless look? It’s sexy with your equipment, but hardly usual.”
“Men don’t have to wear shirts if they’re comfortable without them. Oh, don’t worry, I have a couple packed for dear old Anchor Logh. This is just kind of a turn-on. Makes me feel really free, that’s all.”
They rode along, laughing and joking like two schoolgirls. When the horses seemed thirsty, Cass found it easy to identify which of the off-trail strings led to water pockets. It was all becoming very familiar very fast now. She was beginning to enjoy this newfound sense and the power it brought, and she only hoped she had enough self-control to keep from going wild with it. That, of course, was the madness of the wizard.
Mervyn still hadn’t returned by the time they reached the border of Anchor Logh. Because traffic was being stopped in Globbus and was not likely to come via Persellus, they felt reasonably safe in remaining there, just inside the Flux. Cass did not take Mervyn’s warning lightly—Haldayne now would kill her on sight, since time was so crucial at this point that he would bet the Soul Rider would not find another suitable host in time to stop him.
“He seems so confident,” Cass said worriedly. “But Haldayne’s good, real good, and he knows more about his enemies than they do about him.”
“Sure, but if he’s on to the fact that we know about his lady love there in the Temple, he might just give it up as not worth it,” Suzl responded hopefully. “What’s the use of fighting it out if you can’t gain anything?”
Cass shrugged. “Who knows what he thinks? I wish I knew more about what this was really about.”
“Huh? Sleep through your religion classes? It’s all checking out in that department.”
“Well, maybe. But I’ve been through that gate to Hell, and I’ve seen the so-called sacred seal. The gate’s supernatural enough, but that seal is a machine, Suzl. Real strange looking all right, but a machine all the same, a very fancy kind of machine but still a relative to the ones in the capital and the Temple. It sure wasn’t put there by the ones who built that Hellgate—it just looks too different, that’s all. More like something we would build if we knew how. Now, if the Holy Mother and Her Blessed Angels forced the demons into that hole and then sealed it with the seven seals, why did they use a machine? Why not just use the Flux power, or godly powers? And don’t give me that crap about the ways of gods and demons being unknowable to humankind. Somebody knows. Haldayne, for example, knows, and maybe Mervyn does, too.”
“Yeah, but the old boy didn’t know the gate connected to the Temple until you told him. Boy! I never saw him so shook!”
Cass nodded. “The big thing is, if you can use this gate to get to the temple in Anchor Logh, then the odds are you can get to other Temples through other gates. That says to me that, for some reason, it’s the Anchors that are important in this, not really the Flux, and I’m sure old Merv’s wondering now just how many Anchors Haldayne’s side already controls. He sure knows more about those gates than Mervyn and the others.”
Conversation drifted to other things as they waited .Time hung heavy in the void if only because there was no sense of it. Finally, though, a huge, dark shape came from the direction of the trail. They watched, ready to dart into Anchor if need be, but the enormous flying shape landed, shimmered, and changed into Mervyn’s old man form, and they relaxed. Cass saw that there was a certain, indefinable something radiating from the man that marked Mervyn as Mervyn and no one else to her. Suzl, however, needed her nerves calmed, for she had none of these senses.
The wizard walked up to them carrying a small satchel. “I’ve notifie
d everyone I could find of your information—those that needed to know it, anyway,” he told them. “We want to keep your escape secret, and I’m afraid I didn’t tell them the source, so you are still officially missing, even to my fellow sorcerers. We are going to move up the attack, even though we might not have everybody, just to keep Haldayne off balance.” He put down the satchel, fumbled with the catch, then opened it and reached inside, first bringing out a cube, almost a meter square, of some undefined grayish substance. He put it in front of him, stepped back and made a gesture with his wrist. The cube shimmered, grew, and seemed to inflate as if it were some sort of balloon, until, standing there, was a full-sized living mule. “It’s so convenient when you have to to be able to compress them down to maximum survivable density,” he said, ignoring their total lack of understanding.
He reached down into the bag once more and pulled out clothing. “We are going to have to be convincing,” he told them, “and have easy access. Both of you get undressed here and now. We’re going in undercover, you might say.”
After she undressed, the wizard handed her a robe. It was the scarlet and gray robe of a parish priestess. She put it on, and it was a bit too large for her. “Well, grow into it. You’re going to have to change your appearance totally here and now anyway. We want as many basic differences between you and your original looks as possible, and height is important because it’s the first thing noticed. I want you very tall in bare feet—call it a hundred seventy-five, even a hundred and eighty centimeters. Very tall. And looking like nobody you know.”
She frowned. “That’s tough. Aside from my friends, the only women I can think of enough to concentrate on are my mother, my sisters, and those two priestesses.”
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 semipermanent 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 spiffy, 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.”
Spirits of Flux and Anchor Page 23
