02. Empires of Flux and Anchor (37 page)

Matson checked his packs, got on his horse, and rode slowly away into the void.

And now she had nothing at all.
That
had been Coydt's intent and his revenge upon her. He had removed the spells and the way of life that had insulated her from truth and allowed her to use them as a convenient excuse to hold on to her fantasies. He had stripped all that protection away, protection she realized now she'd put on herself to protect those fantasies. Coydt's final, cynical lesson was that power meant nothing to the wielder unless it was used on other people and at their expense.

Mervyn found her, sulking and alone, the evidence of many angry fits and many tears abounding. "They're bringing Spirit to the apron," he told her. "We're bringing Jeffron."

She did not look at him or change her facial expression. "She'll probably stay in Anchor Logh with him," she sighed. "And I might as well stick on tights and heels and go with them. I don't want to live in this ugly world any more."

"She might surprise you. She's stronger than you think, considering how much she went through with no preparation and how well she came out of it. Her idealistic world has collapsed, too, you know."

She turned and looked at him. "She's with her Mom and Dad. She can't have Suzl, although I suspect the Soul Rider has already begun readjusting her from that. It still has power in her, and it'll protect its host if it doesn't conflict with its own objectives."

Mervyn scratched his beard. "Let's see. Oh, by the way, that bronze color is a sort of skin tan from the radiation given off when the amplifier exploded. It looks good on you. Perhaps you should make it even and keep it, perhaps lightening vour hair."

She gave a dry laugh. "For whom?"

"Who knows? You're alive, you're powerful, and you're one of the very few people now who are completely free." He paused and said, gently. "It wasn't a waste, Cass. We contained a great evil, and we made a better life possible for those who can do nothing for themselves. It's not perfect, but it's better. That's an accomplishment worth some pride."

She just stared after him as he walked away.

"I've come to say goodbye, Cass," Suzl told her. "I'm going to do it."

She nodded. "I can't ever understand living in that place as it is now, but I think at least I can understand why you have no choice."

"No, you can't. I doubt if you ever will. You're strong by nature. A leader type, Coydt called it.

I've been strong by necessity. You retired, and now I'm ready to retire. Good-bye, Cass. I hope you find what you're looking for."

"I—I hope you do, too, Suzl."

The great, misshapen creature that was Suzl was helped by duggers, many as strange and grotesque as herself, into a wagon and she rode off. They rode down to the end of the perimeter and lifted her off, then drove away. She looked around the void, and there were tears in her eyes, not just for herself, but for Cass and Spirit and the others as well. None of them really understood, but, oddly, Coydt would have. She was a terrible freak with the power. If she remained this way, she could survive and even learn to use that power. Eventually she would dominate and make others like herself, and others like she wanted to be would be forced to worship her. She would be yet another child of Coydt's, and she knew it. World had too many Coydts now. Hard choices. No more hard choices. . . .

She engaged the spell. She felt momentarily dizzy and lost her balance, but her mind cleared quickly. She sat up and looked down at herself. She was normal again! If anything, a little slimmer, a little shapelier. It was odd. She didn't
feel
any different. She remembered everything clearly, the good and the bad. Mostly bad, though, she knew. A depressed, unhappy, unnatural and abnormal life that had accomplished very little. Flux had been cruel to her, and she hated it. Still, she had the power, and, interestingly, she now knew a couple of spells. She got up and gestured at the void, and a shining mirror appeared. No taller, but she
was
shapelier, sexier, better proportioned. The breasts were still big and sensual, but after what she'd been cursed with, they were just fine. Big and sexy—not deformed.

She made her hair longer, so that it came down on both sides of her face and, pushed forward, kind of hung down sexy-like over the breasts. She gave the image a sensual kiss. Big eyes and sexy lips. She liked what she saw there. The earrings with the tags had returned, but nothing else. She used the power instead. Rosy lips, shadow, eyebrows . . . everything. She created clothing by using very fine black mesh that hugged tight and hid nothing, not even the tattoo. To this she added open-toed shiny black shoes with thin eighteen-centimeter heels, very high, but they made her seem taller and gave her
such
a walk!

Lengthen and paint the fingernails and color the toenails to match; set things for no unwanted body hair—and she decided she was ready. It was, she thought, the first and only positive help the power had been.

She turned and faced the Anchor border, and something inside her whispered that, even now, she could turn around. Some ghostly link, perhaps with the Soul Rider or the Guardian, or some corner of her mind the spell had missed? She knew she could, realized that there was a certain chance here at freedom, but if she walked back into Anchor, it was for keeps.

She walked into Anchor with a strut and a wiggle that was worthy of any Main Street entertainer. There was a new temporary set of stairs there and two soldiers standing guard at it. Their eyes looked at all of her in a way she had never been looked at before, and she found she loved it. She walked up to them and waited.

"What do you wish, lady?" one of them asked.

"Sir, my husband, Captain Weiz, is somewhere in this area. I would appreciate it ever so much if you could take me to him," she said in a voice that was high, yet soft and sexy, and rather helpless-sounding.

"We've been told to expect you," one of the soldiers replied. "Allow me to help you up the walkway here."

She allowed it, even enjoyed it. She had seen other women do this and be treated this way, but she had never been. The trick, she decided, was in never letting men know what suckers they were for this sort of thing.
This is what I've always wanted,
she realized, and didn't even trouble herself about whether it was the spell or her real self thinking. Whichever, it was true, and she neither looked back at the void nor had any regrets.

Dannon and Cloise brought Spirit to the apron with them. Cass watched them come, and still she felt nothing but contempt for the pair she'd entrusted Spirit to all those years. Dannon was wearing a military-style uniform with second lieutenant's bars sewn on. Cloise walked behind him, looking just as ridiculous in her hooker's outfit as she had before, but also looking very strong-willed and confident. Behind them was Spirit, on whom the same sort of outfit looked absolutely stunning. She, however, did not look happy about the whole thing.

Cass had taken Mervyn's advice, with the advice and help of a few others. She had filled herself out a bit, trimmed off those boyish edges and flattened chest, kept the smooth bronze color on her skin, and made her hair a light brown streaked with blond. She wore a light tan pullover shirt, blue work pants, and a pair of riding boots. She had smoothed her faced and skin a bit as well, and made herself look attractive but thirtyish. She wanted to give the onlookers, particularly those on that wall, a look at a strong, independent woman who was in every way their match. It was the only blow she had left to strike.

They came up to her and stopped. "Hello, Sister Kasdi," Dannon said, clearly not happy to be there. "You look quite different now."

"Not Sister Kasdi, just Cass," she responded coolly. "I no longer represent the Church or the empire. I'm here as a concerned mother and grandmother." She paused for a moment then looked at Spirit. "No drugs or hypnos, and she's been told the truth?"

They both nodded.

"Spirit, how do you feel?" Cass asked her.

"Sick," the woman replied, and Cloise and Dannon both looked startled.

A man came out of the void behind Cass with Jeffron in his arms. That, too, had been a little rub in the noses of the onlookers. The boy wasn't crying, just sucking his thumb and looking around wide-eyed.

"Here is your son. Spirit," Cass told her, taking the baby from the man and walking up to her daughter, whose height, with the shoes, was towering in proportion. "My grandson. The
real
one."

She took the boy and held him close. Then she said, "They told me Suzl was dead. Is that the truth?"

She thought a moment. "Yes."

Spirit looked around at all of them. "What am I to do now?"

"Choose," Cass told her. "Remain here if you wish. Or we will arrange to take you through the temple and into one of the other three Anchors and get you and the boy settled in."

She stepped forward and looked at the two whom she'd loved and thought of as her parents almost all her life. "You make me sick," she told them, and they both looked shocked. "Most of the people I can understand, but not you. I
loved
you and you betrayed us! Out there in Flux I thought how nice it would be to be back in normal, loving Anchor Logh. I felt cut off, lonely, insecure. But not
nearly
as cut off, lonely, and insecure as I felt this past two weeks. There's more love out there than in all of Anchor Logh." She handed the baby back to a startled Cass, kicked off her shoes and removed the rest of her clothing. She was
still
a lot taller than Cass. "Coming, Mother?" she asked the woman with the child.

All of a sudden they all realized what she was going to do, and all for reasons of their own yelled out, "Spirit! Wait! Don't!"

Cass looked at her, feeling not a little pride and admiration for her courage, but she wasn't sure if the result was right. "You don't have to. There are three other Anchors. It'll hurt them, certainly, but it's for keeps. They'll recover. You won't."

"I've been there before," Spirit replied. "The first time I wasn't prepared for it, mentally or emotionally. I am now. Hard as I'll try, I won't be able to forget what happened this time. But, you know, maybe I'm better off not understanding what you people are saying and doing. Maybe it'd be a lot nicer if everybody saw the beauty in a butterfly's wing or the wonderful patterns in a blade of grass and if everybody spent a lot more time on love and had no more time for fear and hatred."

"I could lift that spell, you know," Cass told her. "I could take it on myself. It would be far better than what I had all those years."

"No. Jeffey's got to know both worlds. He needs a wizard's protection, and he needs experience and guidance I can't give."

"There'll be no men in that little Fluxland, you know."

"Oh, World's full of men, just as nice and just as rotten as the ones we've known so far. If we need them, either of us, I'm sure we can find them."

Cass felt everything drain away to be replaced by new and far different emotions. She wanted to hug Spirit, but couldn't because of the baby. Well, there would be plenty of time for hugging later.

Dannon and Cloise still seemed in a state of shock. They could no more conceive of Spirit's choice than she could of theirs. Cass grinned at them and looked back at Spirit. "If you ever want out, just let me know, somehow, and I'll switch with you. I owe you that."

Spirit smiled back at her. "You just want
in
," she replied, took little Jeffron and stepped into Flux.

Cass turned back to the gaping pair, stiffened, clicked her heels together and saluted. Then she turned and followed her daughter and grandson. She'd just been offered a very nice job, and this choice wasn't hard at all.

18

WITCH'S SABBAT

"He's dead," Gifford Haldayne told the other five. "The-son-of-a-bitch is truly dead."

Romua Togloss, the former Queen of Heaven, President of the Council and Haldayne's half-brother, smiled and nodded.

There were smiles and nods all around. They were all there, in a rare gathering in a small, remote Fluxland all their own. Here was Chua Babaye, the beautiful self-styled Witch of the Southern Wastes, and Ming Tokiabi, the tiny, brilliant head of the technical department, and Vrishnikar Stomsk, the lean, gaunt, goateed mathematical wizard, and Zelligman Ivan, the huge, gruff military expert. Although now only six, they were the Seven Who Come Before, the Seven Who Wait, the most powerful wizards dedicated to opening the Hellgates.

"We must add a new member and select a new President," Ivan pointed out. "As much as we are relieved to be rid of that madman, we owe him a debt of thanks. In one series of strokes he demoralized the empire, eliminated Sister Kasdi as a symbol and a threat, sowed fear in enemy Anchor, and halted the relentless military progress. The empire is in discord, each little group and area preoccupied with its own selfish interests. It is exploitable discord!"

Haldayne nodded. "Indeed it is. And as the Political Affairs Minister here, I will take full advantage of it. We must, however, continue to encourage and fund scientific research and cooperation. Coydt knew more than any of us. We must locate and unify his research teams, know what he knew but withheld from us. With a knowledge and understanding of the Guardian's language, the Gates are open to us. Taking all seven Gates will not be easy, but I feel it will come. Licking the communications problem is the major obstacle."

"You underestimate the Nine if you think taking the Gates no problem," Gabaye commented. "To take and hold one Gate, two, even four or five, perhaps. But all seven at the same time will not be easy."

"I didn't say it was easy, just attainable," Haldayne snapped back irritably. "But the amplifiers don't work well around the Gates, and the Flux damps out any wireless signals, even if we could find some way to curve them around the whole of World's surface."