Empires of Flux & Anchor

just another place filled with a lot of different kinds of creatures who think. A long time ago we and they fought a war over this place, and they lost, sort of. Maybe it was a tie. Anyway, the other side’s been stuck someplace, kept there by the gadgets on the Hellgates, and that someplace isn’t home. We’re in the way to where their home is. They want to go home now, but they can’t do it without coming through here. Since they invented the Flux, they know just how to work it, so there’s supposed to be a deal. Unlock the gates, let them go home, and in payment they’ll show the ones who let ’em out just how to fully use the Flux on a worldwide basis. That’s ultimate power.”

She shivered. “Even if it’s true, I don’t see why anybody should trust them. If I’d been locked away in prison for thousands of years, I sure wouldn’t be nice to the children of the ones who put me there.”

“That’s a good point,” Yorek agreed, “but you got to remember that the Seven are wizards like Coydt. They’re all tremendously old, hundreds of years, and they’re all very bored. They figure a gamble on something new is better than living forever like this. Maybe they’re right, I don’t know. As soon as it’s done, if they get the power, all of ’em will set out to wipe out the others and become sole god of World. That’s the only reason Coydt hasn’t taken them on. That and the fact that to unlock the gates you need a code, and each of ’em only has part of it.”

It was an unreal conversation, part fairy story and part nightmare. Sitting there at a sumptuous dinner in the middle of a void, the victim and her kidnappers were having friendly, casual conversation.

“What am I doing in the middle of all this?” she asked them. “I don’t know the math, and my mother’s surely not going to ransom me for anything. My opinion of her is actually closer to your boss’s.”

Zekah shrugged. “They’ve got something big cooking. Something that’s taken years to set up. Your momma is the only thing standing in their way. The boss is willing to take her on, one-on-one, but she would never be alone. It’d be ten to one, and that’s suicide. Just what the whole thing’s about we don’t know, but you’re important to it, that’s for sure. Better keep this in mind, though. He uses people, that’s all. He don’t think much of men, but he thinks even less of women. Thinks they’re kind of inferior to men. You better be ready. Best your mom would’ve had a boy.”

She thought about it, and didn’t like the implications at all.

Coydt returned just then and looked down on the scene from horseback. “Charming. I trust the boys have been keeping you amused? After all, you are our guest.”

“I’m not your guest; I’m your prisoner,” she shot back. “I don’t know what your game is, but it’s not going to work. My mother wouldn’t do anything to get me back.”

“You might be surprised. Still, it really doesn’t matter if she does or she doesn’t. Don’t overestimate your importance either. You are not the game, nor even close to it. You are merely a diversion, some useful window dressing, nothing more. In fact, your most interesting challenge was something we didn’t even suspect until we got you in Flux. Mount up. We have a short ride left to go, and then we can relax.”

The news had hit Kasdi like a shot to the heart, and it brought up all the guilt to the fore. It had also triggered a massive manhunt through Flux and Anchor. Messengers, transformed into swift creatures who could fly in Flux, took the news and the descriptions to all the other Anchors and Fluxlands and even to stringer trains within the vast area under the control of the Reformed Church. Not that it would probably do much good. Coydt’s powers in Flux were such that he could easily escape detection and get them all away to the relative safety of the old Church’s domains or the wilds as quickly as she could spread the news.

Mervyn arrived in Anchor Logh within hours of getting the word of the kidnapping. He had much information, but no news.

“Coydt grew up in Anchor, the youngest of five children,” he told her. “When his older brother was chosen in the Paring Rite, he turned on the Church and all its works with a vengeance, practically inviting expulsion himself. His parental situation is the stuff of psychology studies, but suffice it to say that he was the worst person on World to discover he had tremendous doses of Flux power and the ability to use them. He hates the Church, old or new. In fact, he hates all religious equally, and believes that there is nothing supernatural in anything. He believes that women as a group are intellectually and psychologically inferior to men and that they should be obedient, subservient, totally passive people serving men. He is worse than immoral, he is amoral in the extreme—he no more thought about killing that poor priestess than you would think about brushing aside a fly. He is, unfortunately, also coldly brilliant, as witness his plan here.”

Kasdi shuddered. “He makes Haldayne sound like a saint. And Spirit is in his hands…”

He nodded. “Indeed. But there is more afoot here than mere toying. This is the start of an organized campaign of some sort. I’m afraid we will simply have to wait and see what this first move is all about.”

She spent the next few days with Cloise, trying to comfort the foster mother who’d done so well and to take some comfort from her as well, as they waited. Messengers, as expected, brought no news, although the attack and its aftermath was the sole topic of conversation in Anchor Logh and made everyone feel insecure and suspicious. Strangers of any kind had to be restricted, and still nobody was being allowed out, but the locals were seeing every unfamiliar face as one of those people in the church.

Far from being a dark secret, Spirit’s origin and appearance were now as well-known as Kasdi’s. Her picture was everywhere, and it was certain that if anyone saw her she would be instantly identified.

Finally, word came—in a letter mailed from the capital to Cloise at the farm. It was a handwritten message with no identifying marks.

Dear Concerned Mothers:

Please rest assured that your daughter, Spirit, is safe, warm, dry, and well-fed. She is unchanged, and has not been violated or even marked. To discuss her and our future business, please come to the point at the Anchor apron marked on the enclosed map tonight one hour after dark. Do not enter Flux, but remain—on the wall, if you like. There will be no tricks on my part, no attempt at harming you in any way. I wish sometime in the future to see just how good the saintly Sister Kasdi really is in Flux, but that must be for a later time. As a result, I will take no action against her in Anchor, but she must see me from Anchor only. Tell the other wizards they are to remain at least one kilometer away in Flux from this spot. If they do not, Spirit will suffer for it and it will be on their heads. Until tonight, then, I remain,

Very sincerely yours,

Coydt van Haaz

There would be no tricks. Kasdi insisted that she alone go to meet him, although there would be a squad of cops with automatic weapons posted just in case Coydt was pulling a fast one. Mervyn and two lesser but still potent wizards would cover in Flux from the required distance, ready to move if need be.

It was a warm night, but the old rock wall was cold and damp against her bare feet. Nonetheless, she waited there, watching darkness come and the troops covering her lighting the torches not only on the wall but in the apron ground as well. The hour passed with agonizing slowness, but, right on schedule, someone shouted, and all eyes turned to the Flux, at this point less than twenty meters away.

Coydt was not only punctual; he certainly knew how to put on a show. At the appointed time the whole huge area of Flux seemed to glow, and then pulsate, and it was as if luminescent winds blew in all directions within the energy field. The winds then coalesced into a face—an enormous face, possibly a kilometer high, filling their field of vision. The voice, although loud, was certainly as much Coydt’s as the now very familiar face.

“Glad to see you’re on time,” the wizard greeted her. “We can have our little chat at this point, and you needn’t shout. I can hear you if you just use a normal tone of voice.”

“Where is my daughter?” she demanded.

“Safe. I’m sure that everybody’s got my profile by now, so you should know that I always keep my word and never lie without profit. It is rather odd, but the masses never grasp it, so that I must emphasize that point, since if someone above the law does not keep his word and play fair, he’ll never get what he wants. I keep my bargains for that reason—always.”

“What is it that you want?”