Empires of Flux & Anchor

“I don’t see why my mother couldn’t do this job herself,” Spirit said sourly. “She sure has a funny way of showing she cares.”

“But, dear, don’t you see? The only way for that to work would be for her to come as herself—and that would lead her enemies right to you. She can travel nowhere anonymously except in deep disguise. Surely you can understand that. The only safe place would be in Flux, and there, if they so much as suspected, you could not be defended or defend yourself against a concerted attack.”

That logic was not what Spirit wanted to hear right now, nor was it what she was feeling. She felt a lot of resentment and bitterness churning within her, and a great deal of hurt, and yet, somehow, all of it seemed like some kind of crazy dream. Certainly none of the facts had any solidity to her, any kind of personal reality. To be orphaned and fantasize about your real parents was one thing; to discover that you were not an orphan, but that your mother was an alleged saint and the most powerful person in the world—and that she chose that path over you—was something else again. And now to find that you were in mortal danger from the enemies of the mother who didn’t give a damn about you—that was just a little much to swallow right now.

* * *

It had been three days since the revelations, and Spirit was still troubled by them. She had asked her mother—her real mother in all but the biological sense—to confirm the facts, and they had in fact been confirmed, although she still had the feeling that there were things they still wished to conceal from her. She moped around and tried to sort it all out, but it was hard.

It was far easier to look up the Cass of her own riding, though, than the mythical mother they had originally given her. She was struck both by the plainness of her photographs and the tomboy image the records and some of the older farm hands indicated. Eventually she wandered down to the blacksmith’s shop. The foreman there was a familiar figure and, she’d been told, a distant relation, but now she found herself staring at the brawny, silver-haired man at the forge with different eyes.

The first thing Kasdi had done after leaving Spirit that first day was to visit her dad and tell him. He looked up at the girl just inside the wide doorways, put down his tools, wiped off his face with a rag and came over to her. “Hello, Spirit,” he greeted casually.

“Hello… Grandfather,” she responded, not at all sure of what tone to take.

He frowned. “Never say that again around here, much as I’d like you to. Come on—let’s go someplace private and talk for a few moments.”

They sat again under the very trees where she’d been told the truth. “I hear tell you’re not very pleased at the news,” he began.

“Well? Should I be?”

He shrugged. “I’m kind of proud of her myself, as you might understand. I can’t say I ever understood her, but we got pretty close, you know. Even more after she took over the Church. Your momma’s a little weird, but she’s got brains and the guts to use ’em.” He gave her a smirk. “She still hasn’t got me back in the Church, though. Drives her nuts.”

Spirit laughed at that, and some of the ice melted. She hadn’t known him very well before, but she liked him now, as much as she liked the irony that the father of the sainted Sister Kasdi was an unrepentant nonbeliever.

He nodded sagely. “That’s better. You know, I think it drove me more crazy than your mom not to get close to you, because I saw you most every day. Still, the danger’s pretty real, and for your sake and hers I kept apart. I still can’t come out and claim you my granddaughter, but at least we can have a talk now and then. I can tell you’re pretty troubled. Want to talk about it?”

There was something about him that inspired confidence, the same solidity that he gave to the things wrought in iron by his own hands and forge. He had a reputation for being gruff and sometimes mean and nasty, but here he seemed surprisingly gentle and compassionate. She opened up to him, and he listened attentively, never interrupting. When she had finished, he sighed and looked thoughtful.

“Your mom’s a politician and a soldier, the two jobs that make more enemies than any other ten jobs combined. Me they’re only mad at when something I make breaks or isn’t quite right. It’s never personal. Her—it’s all personal. The people you beat hate you and want revenge. The people you never touched are scared of you, and to fear somebody is to be an enemy. Nobody ever agrees with the one who runs things, and everybody thinks they can do a better job. She didn’t want the job, and she hates it now. She’s hated it, I think, since the first. She got herself trapped into it by a bunch of slick politicians themselves who wanted what she could give ’em and suckered her into doing their dirty work. Now she’s really stuck. She can’t quit. Too many folks depend on her. It’s kind of funny, really. Here she is, the most powerful woman on World, and she can’t do anything she wants to do.”

This was a different side of the image, and Spirit was fascinated. “What does she want to do, then?”

“Well, she got stuck before she knew she was pregnant. They could have told her —that slick old fellow Mervyn or whatever he’s calling himself these days—but they needed her. So they got her in the spot where she had to make a real set of decisions before she knew. She hates this fighting, hates the responsibility. I think I would, too. She once told me that what she wanted to do most in the world was just to drop it all, disguise herself, and travel all over World, to every corner of it. See everything that could be seen, learn everything she could learn. No responsibilities, no guilt as she called it, no nothing.”

Spirit had to chuckle at that. “That’s what I want to do, too!”

He nodded. “Figures. That witch-magic gave you your good looks, but the blood’s still the same. She told me not long ago that she’d love to just take you away and have the two of you get to know each other, wandering around World, poking into things, having fun.”

“Well? Why can’t we?”

He sighed. “Because she can’t. Like I said, she’s trapped. Stuck. All those vows are in her by witch-magic. You go into Flux, you get witched, and it sticks. She’s been trying to get me there. Says she can ease my tired bones, make me young again. I’ll join the Church before I go into that mess of stuff. Never know what’ll happen to you. Look at her. She’s got to be Sister Kasdi, live like a saint, look like Hell. You seen the pictures. She sure looks closer to the age my wife would be if she’d lived than my daughter. Flux sure did nothing for her.”

“But she can disguise herself from me.”

He nodded. “And only for that, she says. She’s got all that power, and she’s witched so she can’t use any of it for herself. She’s allowed to change for here only because you need it to protect you.”

“Protect me from whom? What?”

“From her enemies. She’s got a million of ’em, some right here in Anchor Logh. They’d hurt you just because they know it’d hurt her.”

It was Spirit’s turn to sigh. “So I’m as stuck as she is. More, because they can’t really touch her. I’m not powerful. They could do anything they want with me.”

He nodded. “You’re stuck, I agree, but not so bad. You don’t have to sleep in straw and eat slop. You stay here in Anchor Logh and live the rest of your life. Thought about what you’re going to do?”

She shrugged. “Thought about it, yeah—but not much more. I’m sure not ready to settle down, get married, have kids. Not now. I don’t have the smarts or the patience for university, but I don’t have the talent for a trade with any future. I’m just not ready yet.”

“Ready for what? To grow up? You already did, no matter what. Nobody ever wants to grow up, and nobody’s ever ready. In the old days you had no choice at all. You became what they told you or they threw you into slavery. You have more choice now, and slavery’s only for criminals, but it’s still the same. If you don’t pick, they’ll do the picking. What are you good at that you really like?”

She thought a moment. “Sports. Dancing. Not much else.”

“Well, think about teaching gym maybe. Or maybe dancing—no, I guess that’s out. You’d have to travel in Flux to be with dancers that make any money. The only kind of job like that here is on Main Street, and that kind of dancing is no good life.”

She grinned. “It sure would give my mother fits, though, wouldn’t it? Both of ’em.”

“You’d never get anywhere in the joints. Every time somebody made a play for you, your grandfather would be beside ’em with a shotgun.”