02. Empires of Flux and Anchor (34 page)

Still, they kept planning and putting off any real attack. For one thing, they hoped for some time that Suzl and Spirit would eventually show up, and they undertook long searches for them to no avail. When they didn't appear, and had to be assumed captive, another problem arose.

"The Guardian said we needed the Soul Rider to knock out the machine," she reminded him. "It obviously amplifies Flux power. How can we do anything without Spirit?"

"I've been thinking about that," he replied, "and I feel we have to try. I keep going over that Guardian's message again and again."

"It said we needed the Soul Rider to knock out the machine and its operator," she recalled.

"Uh-huh. I know we've been over this a hundred times, but I
knew
there was something not right about that, and when you said it, it just hit me. It didn't say the machine and its operator. It said the machine
or
its operator."

"So?"

"If we knock out that guard post, the guy in Flux won't know it right off. The sound's dampened, as you know. I looked over that machine again and again, and that open operator's cab
is
only a little over one meter into Flux."

"So?"

"If I can get my back cleared, I can take him. He's like most all the wizards; he doesn't think that anything can hurt him in Flux without being in Flux, and maybe he's right. But I got a trick I pulled over twenty years ago on the border of a Fluxland called Rakarah that might just work here."

But it would take two to work it all, and she was still undecided as to what to do. She simply did not want the specter of her homeland devastated, and she certainly didn't want it on her head. It was so nice and comfortable being here, just she and Matson, no stress, no responsibility, and nowhere to go. He was getting restless, yes, but he understood her agony and was willing to wait a while.

And then, flying over Lamoine, they'd spotted a carriage coming into town with some brown-uniformed officer and his lady driving. A close, curious inspection sparked some familiarity in that woman, and when the pair picnicked near the wall, she was able to get a closer and more positive view.

It was definitely Suzl!
Suzl, decked out like all the others, and acting just like they did, and seemingly not minding a bit. She watched as they packed up and walked up to the gate, then to the wall, then down the other side, and then saw, as they approached Flux and the big machine, another figure, casually dressed and in no uniform, come out of the small temporary guard station on the wall and descend to the apron.

She and Matson returned to their Flux base and became human. "I've decided," she said. "We have to pull her out of there. She's already half gone, maybe with drugs or something. Now they're taking her into Flux without Spirit, and she'll be lost forever."

He nodded, but said, "Are you sure about this? It seems kind of funny that they'd bring her here and parade her around and then Coydt shows up. I think they know we're around. Suzl's bait to get you out in the open for Coydt, Cass. It's a trap."

"Then it's a trap we take. You've been itching to move. Let's move now or forget it."

Their weapons had been well prepared in advance and needed no more done to them. Practice was impossible; either it worked or it didn't. Matson set the detonators; then Kasdi changed them into the great birds again and used her power to make the packs fit correctly. They could take off with them in Flux, but whether or not they would be able to handle the weight in Anchor had yet to be proven.

They flew in formation, one close behind the other, right down the roadway atop the wall. Matson gave a quick glance towards Lamoine and saw no massed troops and made the final decision. They swooped down on the emplacement and let go their loads, then quickly gained altitude and headed for Flux.

Captain Weiz had waited nervously for a bit at the emplacement, then decided he wanted to smoke. Rather than go further down the wall, he decided to go down into Anchor and see to the horse and carriage. He had barely reached the horse when suddenly the world exploded behind him. He turned and was knocked over by the blast and almost trampled by the panicked animals, but he was the only one able to see what had happened.

One set of high explosives had struck near the barrels where oil for the night torches and lamps was stored; the other fell on the other side of the small makeshift hut, near the ammunition. When the birds came in, there were only curious stares, but when they dropped loads that clanked metallically on the stone, they leaped into action, some starting to aim at the fast-fleeing birds, others jumping for what was dropped. All too late. Matson had perfect timing.

Suzl's initial estimate of their vulnerability had been right. The two containers exploded within a fraction of a second of each other, one blowing the oil barrels and sending flaming liquid everywhere; the other blew up the concentrated boxes of ammunition. The whole post was bathed in a massive fireball; then individual explosives began to go off in all directions. Weiz, on the ground below, could only keep low and try and make himself as small a target as possible. One thing was sure—the wooden stairway was also aflame, and he could not reach the top now even if he wanted to. He looked up when the explosions diminished and made a run for it away from the wall and towards Lamoine. Coydt's trap had been sprung, but in a way he hadn't expected.

Kasdi quickly restored Matson in Flux, then kissed him. "Good luck!"

"You, too," he responded softly, giving her a hug.

Both reentered Anchor east of the machine and saw the remains of their work. Kasdi quickly ran down well past the machine to where they'd seen Suzl and Coydt enter Flux; Matson gave one brief check of the wall to make sure that anybody alive wasn't going to shoot him, then stood on the apron looking directly at the machine, barely visible despite being so close.

The machine had its own protection against Flux magic, but he had no Flux magic. He had studied this problem over and over again, and he knew he'd better be right.

Carefully, he uncoiled and tested his four meter bullwhip, then walked right up to the Flux boundary and stuck his head in. He saw the wizard sitting there, relaxed in a comfortable chair, reading something. "Hey!" he shouted. "Trouble on the wall! We're under attack!"

The wizard jumped up, revealing the two small probes on his head, and looked puzzled for a moment.

The whip cracked out, wrapped around the wizard's neck, and as it did so Matson pulled and was back in Anchor, still pulling. The action was so quick and unexpected that the wizard literally flew off the machine's cab deck and landed, with a pull, in Anchor.

Matson cooly walked up to him, leveled his shotgun, and blew the wizard's head off.

He unclipped two timed explosive charges, walked into Flux and attached one to the cab area of the machine and another to a random spot on the smooth cube of the basic machine itself. Then he ran back for Anchor, unsure of just what the hell was going to happen when they and that thing blew.

Kasdi entered Flux and immediately saw Suzl, grotesquely deformed, frozen there about five meters from Coydt. The evil wizard was talking to Suzl.

"Which do you choose? A happy life—or
this?
I have little patience left. Here is the binding spell I spoke of. Take it, embrace it, and join your husband. Or refuse it, and stay that way until hunger forces you in."

That spell! Suzl was going to accept it!
"Suzl! Wait! Don't do it!" Kasdi screamed.

Coydt looked over at her, turned, and smiled. "How melodramatic," he commented softly. "Friend saved in the nick of time from a fate worse than death by the timely arrival of—Sister Kasdi, is it not?"

"I am Sister Kasdi. And you are Coydt. I have been looking forward to this for a very long time now."

He grinned. "That is certainly mutual. Would you care to step over here a bit? I wouldn't like to get out of range of our audience here, but I wouldn't like to injure her either."

16

SAINT DEVIL

"Cass! Watch out for his hate!" Suzl called to her. "He was castrated by the old Church and stuck with it in a binding spell! Power's the only thing he's got and hate's his only fuel!"

"She's right, you know," Coydt told her. "In a way, we have things in common, you and I. Both of us were abused by the system, and both of us are trapped in binding spells that leave power as the only outlet. Power for its own sake."

"Yes, we're probably a pair made for each other, but you've become so foul that it's impossible. What you have done to me and mine cannot be excused."

"Excused?" He laughed. "I don't ask to be excused! It amused me to do it. It proved out many of the theories I've read in the old books and fragments, the old records. Power needs no excuse! Power exists, and those who have it make the rules! Look what I've made them swallow in Anchor Logh! Your birthplace, the start of everything you've done—and the ending of it. The end of your empire, and the beginning of a new one, one based on reality. They were sheep under the old Church, willingly sending off their children to slavery and death! Actually
thanking
the Church for its tyranny! Then they followed
you,
built monuments to you, called you a liberator and denounced the old ways, not ever once thinking that by doing so they were denouncing themselves.

"And all they had done was changed mistresses, substituting one rule for another.
You
were the Fluxlord to whom they gladly sent their daughters, and you bound those daughters to absolute obedience, and then you sent them back to unquestionably enforce whatever rules you and your empire thought up."

"I gave them their freedom," Kasdi responded.

"
What
freedom? To happily send the best of their young off to die in distant wars for a cause
you
decided? And how did you free them, make their life better? Was it really different in any way?"

"Science is once again open to them."

"Ah! Science! And I thank you for that. As long and hard as our research teams worked to develop the amplifier machines, it wasn't until your own bright ones came up with the new transformers capable of handling an Anchor's power and the internal electronics needed to feed them that we had the answers. The scientists thought they were working on a means of inter-Anchor communication, which is what attracted us in the first place. Perhaps they
will
invent that, but mine is of more immediate practicality. Science is always a two-edged sword like that. That's why it was suppressed and feared by the old Church."

"You've killed thousands in Anchor Logh," she accused. "You killed my father."

"Oh? I hadn't known. But, no matter, it will simply add spice to your attack. And how many have
you
killed, or caused to be killed, I wonder? Ever add it up? I'll bet you've got me beaten by at least hundreds of thousands. And for what?"

"To keep scum like you from opening the Hellgates! To save World!"

"I would open the Hellgates only as a last resort. The rest are, in their own way, self-deluded fanatics like yourself. They, too, are idealists; only they will go to any length for those ideals. Me, now, I know that there's nothing mystical about it and that the chances of
your
vision of Hell on World is about even with
theirs.
If you were caught and trapped for over twenty-five hundred years in a terrible place, cut off from your own and from any life at all, would you be grateful to those who released you? Or would that hate be so refined as to destroy all human life? Perhaps, one day, I'll be bored enough or disgusted enough to find out. Right now I would rather not take the bet, and they can't do it without me. You see? I'm the best friend either Church has!"

She thought for a moment. "Suppose
I
took your binding spell? I have already, in a sense, castrated myself. Being superficially male wouldn't bother me. What would you do then?"

He chuckled. "I'd hardly reform and start praising the Goddess, but it would be worth a great deal to me. It would be worth Anchor Logh and the researches I and my teams have compiled over the centuries. It would be worth the truth about World and Hell. It doesn't really matter what I offer. Eternal slavery. Anything. You see, it can only be assumed by one of equal or greater power than myself. That's the real curse, don't you see? There
is
no one equal to me."

"You seem pretty sure of that. Want me to try?"

He shrugged. "What have I to lose?"

She reached out and found the binding spell. It was absurdly simple and direct, in no strange language and with no traps for the unwary. How it must have frustrated him, galled him, all these years to have godlike power unlike almost any other and yet not be able to break this one simple little spell! She was quite sincere in her offer, and she reached out and voluntarily seized it, took hold of it, and reached to bring it to her.

The spell remained in Coydt.

He laughed, but it was a strange laugh, half triumphant and half sad. "Not even close," he told her. "I've had it hurt. You have a great deal of power, but I have more. You have much training and experience, but I have more, for I know what it is and what it is for. I will not kill you, if it can be avoided. No, I will take you into Anchor as my bride, and you shall serve me gladly, worshipfully. Your binding spells are easily accommodated by ones I will place upon you. Sex, needless to say, I will not require. With you as my servile slave, I will own your empire."

Tremendous energy emerged from his body and lashed out at her. She quickly brought up her own personal shields and drew upon Flux to push it away. Both of their bodies and the three meters separating them crackled with raw electrical energy so clear and blinding it could have been seen and felt even by one without the power.

She strained against his massive onslaught, and perspiration broke out all over her body. She held him in check, but barely, and she could not hold his thoughts.