Empires of Flux & Anchor

absolute master was the Soul Rider. My mind’s been messed with by the wizards of Globbus, by Ravi, by Mervyn, and by the Soul Rider. I’m not even sure what’s really me anymore.”

“But that life back there—treating women as objects! Even you made fun of it! It’s repulsive!”

“Why? Because it’s only women and not both who are objects? Who are you kidding, Cass? You’re arguing ideology. A place where they oppress and degrade women is bad, but a place where they oppress and degrade both men and women, like ninety percent of the Fluxlands, is O.K. or at least acceptable. Sure, I know it’s stupid to oppress and retard half the human race, but it’s just as stupid to oppress and retard all the human race. You know what I’ve got, Cass? The same old thing I’ve had ever since they threw me out of Anchor Logh. Never mind the principles and the masses—all I’ve got is my choice of oppressors.”

“Suzl—live with it a while. There’s a beautiful and private Fluxland waiting for you that you’ve never seen, and there’s a child out there as well, one who now has no parents.”

“I’m going to be just great raising a child like this. Just look at me, Cass!” She paused for a moment. “Are you ready to prove your commitment?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Make love to me, Cass. Right here and now. I’m totally turned on, and I’m having to repress the urge to leap on you.”

Cass was suddenly taken aback. She looked at the gross breasts, the enormous male organ, the whole sexually misshapen body, and she was revolted. As much as she wanted to prove her points, she knew that there was no way she could possibly do what was asked. No way at all. No spell prevented her, nor any moral qualms—it would have been moral, in a sense, to shut her eyes and allow it for Suzl’s sake—but she just couldn’t. She just wasn’t a self-sacrificing saint anymore, and all she could do was turn, run, and cry it out.

She did not, however, cease her assault on the kind of agreement they were sealing. Finally Mervyn lost his temper and angrily snapped, “What’s all right one way is wrong the other, huh?”

She was puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Coydt recruited his men mostly from Fluxlands ruled by female Fluxlords. Crazy, nasty Fluxlords. Matriarchies, and worse. They were the objects there, fighting when told, prevented from any real authority or position, doing the heavy, dirty work. Coydt freed them and fed their lifelong resentments. His system reversed the roles and fed their egos. Some of those Fluxlands—most, in fact—are within the empire. Lands you allowed to continue.”

“If it was wrong for it to have been done to them, and it was, then it’s just as wrong the other way.”

“Human nature seldom operates like that. Even its loftiest principles tend to become excuses for doing what the powerful want to do. In Anchor, crippled and deformed male babies were put to death by the priestesses. Female counterparts were taken to Flux with the aid of stringers, made whole, and returned. They were good children, model students, and virtually all of them went into the priesthood. The argument went that those girls didn’t increase the population and they filled the need for priestesses painlessly. Most everyone knew about this and accepted it. Since the mothers of killed male children were convinced the births were stillbirths or that the causes were natural, they took it hard but accepted it. World is a rotten place, but it’s what we made it, and we can hardly judge them and not ourselves.”

Slowly, Cass was losing whatever faith she had left in human nature and whatever hope she had for the future. It seemed like blow after blow was coming down on her, and she was powerless to change it.

She went to find Matson and found him preparing to leave.

“Where are you going?”

“Home,” he answered. “It’s all done now, Cass. I beat the odds again, and that’s that.”

She felt sudden emotional turbulence. “What about me?”

He sighed. “Cass, so long as you were a priestess, it wasn’t worth the telling, but I been married more than fifteen years to the same woman, a tough ex-stringer like me. We got three kids of our own, and it looks like my oldest daughter, who’s fourteen, is leaning to both the power and to stringing.”

She felt shocked, hurt, even somehow betrayed by that. She began to tremble with anger and emotion.

He looked at her. “What’d you think? That I was sitting up there pining for you? You made your choice to go one way, and it looked permanent to both of us. You’re a good woman, Cass. You’d have made a hell of a stringer and there’s no bigger compliment I can give. But I love my wife and I love my kids and they’re probably all in a panic that I’m lyin’ dead someplace. I have to go back.”

It suddenly all burst out in a fury. “I’ll make you stay!” she screamed at him. “I’m a wizard and I can make you love me and forget all about them!”

He tensed, but kept his self-control. “Yeah, sure. You could make me your pet lover and slave. You been goin’ all over this camp telling people how lousy it is what they’re doin’ to women in Anchor Logh. How immoral it is. But it isn’t immoral if you do it to me, is it? No, because Coydt was right, and those guys in Anchor are right, aren’t they? If you have the power and you want something, you just take it and the hell with the others! I could be the star of a whole Fluxland of men worshipping you, couldn’t I? It’d be O.K. because it’d be you on top and me on the bottom, and the hell with me, right? The hell with my family, right? Go ahead—use your damn Flux spells to make me what you want. Then you’ll be just like all the rest of ’em, and you’ll have no kick coming. Do it now, ’cause if you don’t I’m gettin’ on that horse over there, picking up Jomo, and goin’ home!”

The spells needed came easily to her mind in her hurt and anger. And somewhere, off in a corner of her mind, she heard Coydt’s voice whisper, “Go on! Do it! You got the power and that’s all you need. I’m not dead. I’ll never die. Go on and take him… and I’ll be you next time around.”

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