your own free will to this place today. Even now, if any among you has the slightest doubt that this is the proper and only course for your life, you should now refuse the sacrament of ordination. It will not be held against you, nor is it irrevocable—but ordination
She paused a moment, looking. Occasionally one or two actually did refuse at this point, and they all knew that such refusal would indeed be understood by all. This time, however, nobody spoke or moved.
Sister Kasdi nodded in approval. “Very well. The life of a priestess is hard. The demands are great, the rewards often not evident and always intangible. Devotion demands sacrifice. For two years you have left the type of life in which you were raised. Now you must surrender it forever.” Even as she spoke the required words, she began the complex mathematical constructs that, when used in Flux by one of power, were binding and compelling spells. Those spells were upon all in the room from this point on. “Know that your responses now will bind you,” she warned them, “and that there will be no exceptions in this chamber regardless of response.”
In other words, it really wasn’t the responses that bound them, but Sister Kasdi’s wizard-shattering power. “Kneel, pray, and repeat what I say.
“I wish to be a priestess of the Holy Church. I desire no other calling, no other task. It is the highest position to which I can aspire, and the only one I desire now or forever more.”
She paused after each line to get the mass response.
“I have no family but the sisters of the Church. My parents are the Holy Church, now and forever, and exclusively. All priestesses are my sisters, and I belong to no other family nor recognize any other siblings. I surrender my past utterly to the Church, as I surrender all my worldly goods. I renounce pride except in my holy office, in my accomplishments for the Church, and in the Church itself. I renounce envy in all its forms.” She went through the litany of the rest of the deadly sins of humanity.
“I am the bride of the Church and can accept no other suitor. I vow absolute chastity and celibacy in all its forms for the rest of my life, so that I may never divide or betray that suitor. I renounce all worldly possessions and vow henceforth poverty, giving all I have or will have to the Church and desiring nothing material for the rest of my life, trusting in our Holy Mother to provide. All humanity are my children, my charge, and my responsibility. I vow absolute obedience to the Holy Church, its doctrines and its teachings, and obedience to those sisters whom the Holy Mother has elevated over me. My sole purpose in life is to serve humanity and the Holy Mother Church to the utmost of my talents and abilities. These things I do solemnly and freely vow, swear, and affirm in the presence of the Holy Mother and of my sisters, now and forever until death.”
It was done, and the spell was a powerful one. A first-rank wizard could break it, but nothing except the self-binding spell was unbreakable. Still, none of them now would want or try to break it, so any such thing would be against their will. It was a sufficient guard against the sort of corruption the old church bred, and had proven so.
Now, one by one, they came up the aisle and removed their white robe, putting it in a container, and then went behind the altar rail and stood, totally naked, behind Kasdi. As each approached the altar and knelt once again, Kasdi pronounced a name. There was a whole department to choose the names of priestesses so that there would be no overlaps and no confusion. Henceforth, the name she gave them would be the only name they would respond to as their own or think of as theirs.
Midway through, the extremely beautiful young woman she’d talked to the night before approached, even more stunning unclothed, and Kasdi smiled and said, “Sister Marigail.” She smiled back and took her place.
When they were all named, Kasdi turned to them. “Now see yourselves. All that you have, covet, or desire is what you have now.” She removed her own robe and stood naked before them. “Now see all I have, covet, or desire. You are always my children, but you are now all my sisters. Through me the Holy Mother ordains you priestesses of Her Holy Mother Church. She confers upon you now the power to do work in Her name, to access the altar itself, to administer the holy services and the sacraments of the Church, all of which you may not violate no matter what the circumstances. I have given my blessing to each and every one of you. Now you may give me
One by one they left, giving her the blessing as their first act of ordination and then walking naked through the door. Outside, the administrative people had undergarments, robes, and sandals for each, all in the yellow color of a novice priestess, and preliminary assignments to orders and training. They would also receive the basic kit, as it was called, out there—spare clothing, toiletries, a sacramental set so that they could perform the sacraments and say services anywhere, and a personal copy of the Basic Scriptures, as newly revised as the Codex project could make them. After this, they would be taken to the temple dining room for the best meal they’d had in two years and then given two weeks to a month’s leave, depending on where they were from. After that, it was back to work.
Sister Kasdi was alone again and sighed at the altar. Looking into their faces, thinking of her own daughter, she had made her decision. Mervyn was right, of course. He usually was. If Spirit was in mortal danger, she had a right to know it and why. She had a compromise solution to the revelation now. She was very tired and felt very, very old right now, but she could not rest. She drew what strength she could from the Flux and exited the inner temple for her own office. There was no use in putting it off and no reason to remain now. Like those novices, she had a stringer train to catch.
3
HELL’S EARS
The stringer was a man named Gorondon—that is, that was the name he used, stringers always keeping their true names hidden so that none could ever have a hold on them. He was one of the hundreds of men and women who moved people, goods, and even ideas between Fluxland and Fluxland, Anchor and Anchor, and to all points in between. The stringer guild was a tight organization; one had to be born into it to get full stringer status, and their monopoly on commerce was jealously, even violently maintained. Still, they performed a service better and more efficiently than any other could, and so everyone tolerated them, even if they didn’t quite like or trust them.
Gorondon was a huge, burly man with a full, bushy black beard, a broad, flat nose and big brown eyes. He looked much like an animated statue, chiseled from granite and given life by some magic spell.
Maintaining the train were his duggers, strange, often misshapen creatures who were once human men and women, as mad in the head as they were in form more often than not. Duggers were drawn mostly from the castoffs of conventional society; people who could not fit or were insane and had made their way into Flux, their madness made them appear like their own nightmares, but they were capable of working efficiently in the real world of the void under the direction of a stringer. They worked hard and were fiercely loyal, afraid only of being cast adrift with their madness once again in Flux. Still, they were well paid and secure as employees of the train, and they herded the animals, drove the wagons, loaded and unloaded the cargoes, and guarded against the infrequent but still present marauding bands of robbers and savages who roamed the Flux.
Only Gorondon had gone very far into Hope, to transact his business and pick up messages. There were only a few wide open Fluxlands where duggers felt comfortable, and most stayed with the train except for loading and unloading. Hope, in particular, was not a favorite stop, merely a necessary one. A matriarchal theocracy offended stringer types and made them more than a little nervous. Most saw little difference between being the slave of a mad Fluxland wizard and being a member of, much less a priestess of, the Church.
Knowing he had no less than fourteen passengers for Anchor Logh, the stringer had arranged for coaches, each of which held eight people in equal discomfort. Although the huge wheels were of wood and the facing bench seats inside barely upholstered, the void was smooth and the pace of a train was slow, so the only bumps and bounces were from the teams of eight horses pulling each, and even those bumps and bounces could be minimized by the skill of the dugger driver.
Kasdi climbed into the first coach and, because of her small size, soon found herself with three other companions across, and three more facing her. Whoever had referred to the coaches as eight-passenger vehicles had obviously been thinking of eight five-year-olds; even though all four on Kasdi’s side were small women, none could lift a hand without hitting the person sitting next to them.
She was in her usual Flux disguise as a plain-looking, studious priestess in the black robes of the judiciary
