03. Masters of Flux and Anchor (13 page)

It was only when the void loomed in front of her that she grew suddenly fearful, and turned and clutched Adam. He put his arm around her and said, soothingly, "It's all right." They passed into Flux without hesitation, and she felt a sudden chill run through her as her defenses automatically activated. Suzl's spell faded away and she came to face reality as if waking from a soft and pleasant dream. It was this her subconscious had feared and known would happen, but now that it had she found she didn't mind it so much.

The front of their wagon resembled a coach, with plush seats and a canvas covering that could be brought up and around to seal them off from the outside world. The driver sat higher, atop the wagon and essentially out of sight, only the long reins reaching upward betraying his presence. Aft was almost a small apartment, with a bed, a food storage and preparation center, a fold-out table and a couple of fold-down chairs, even a small wardrobe cabinet, all nicely carpeted. Side casks dispensed fresh water, mixed fruit juice, and wine. It was a kind of luxury few had known on the trail.

She looked up at Adam and let out a short gasp. The unmistakable aura of Flux power was within him, some¬thing she could feel and sense rather than see.

"Yes," he told her, "I am what they call a wizard, too, and a pretty good one, I think. My father lost to a better one, and until all this came along I was right-hand man, so to speak, to my father's murderer. She was strong, and always surrounded herself with other strong women wizards."

She frowned. "Then why do you hate wizardry so?"

"Because it is a poison. It makes men into animals, where only the strongest gets to rule and make the rules. Even Coydt van Haas wasn't born bad—wizardry made him that way, and his own power corrupted him and fed his hatred until it consumed him. Uh—-do I disturb you mentioning him?"

She shook her head negatively. "No, my husband. The webs are clear from my mind, it is true, but it is no longer important. What I am now is all that is important."

He stared down at her. "And what are you now, Cassie?"

"Your wife. The mother-to-be of your children."

He had hoped something like this would happen, but nothing was ever certain and this least of all. "You're getting back into politics now, you know."

She nodded. "Suzl said I was destined to be the wife of a great leader, not a great leader myself. I feel—wanted, and needed. I hope this is so."

"Oh. it is, Cassie, it is. Things won't always be the way they are now. Men and women have different roles in life, but these extremes won't last. They can't. The scrip¬tures say nothing about dull wives, they only define roles and duties. It'll just take some patience, I'm afraid. Hatred and the memories of hurt run deep, and revenge and short-term satisfactions of our baser natures are easier for most to accept. Champion, for example, was created by a cruel, vain witch as a sexual plaything. By reversing things, he's content and continually reassured about himself. He'll oppose every change, and he'll have to be carefully handled. He's a brilliant general, but like all brilliant generals he's a terribly dangerous man who inter¬prets scripture in a rigid and deeply personal way."

The holy book used by New Eden in its churches was a fragmentary one, culled from a number of books whose whole had been lost somewhere in the past. Still, even in wildly differing texts, there had been much agreement. There was one God who was everywhere, and who had created World and the first man, whose name had been Adam. Woman had been made by God from man. to ease his loneliness and bear and rear his children. But Eve had been corrupted by Hell and had dragged man down with her, and so the woman would always require a man's judgment and must defer to him. Another fragment had told of marriage, service, and duty to husband through the story of someone named Ruth. The ancient heroes were all male; the ancient heroines were all victims or mothers of great men. It presented a concrete and logical view to the leaders of New Eden. Still, their past oppressions had been at the hands of women,  so when  in power they had overreacted.

Adam Tilghman had read concrete evidence of the all-pervasive Church's falsity in the ancient scriptural frag¬ments that had indicated an older and to him far more logical way. Yet, "I want a nation of Ruths, not zombies," he told her sincerely. "When we are secure we will move that way, and you shall be in the lead."

"Where you go, so shall I," she said, and liked it.

She looked out into the void, and saw both old friend and bitter enemy there. She tried to conjure up the simplest of spells, and found that she had forgotten how, nor could she read the few spells on those who came near. She could see the strings, and thought them pretty, but she had no idea where they might lead. Still, her binding spells, not only to Adam but those for defense as well, were in perfect working order, and she felt she had nothing to fear from the void.

New Eden had seemed to her grotesque on the surface, but particularly out here she realized that it was no worse than many Fluxlands and better than most. Adam, in particular, was different from the rest of them, who were spending the rest of their lives working out their hatreds and revenges. Adam Tilghman had been called a ruthless monster, but she knew that this simply wasn't so. There was no generalized hatred in him, only vision and purpose, a vision and purpose that required decisive and even ruth¬less action at times, for he would eventually have to impose that purpose and vision on others. She understood, vaguely, that this trip was his mission to save lives on both sides, not take them.

The journey to Nantzee was about fifteen hundred kilometers, and they made very good time despite brief stops at various Fluxlands along the way. These stops were courtesy calls, as it were—politically necessary, but accom¬plished in the shortest time possible. These stops, brief as they were, were another revelation to Cassie. She had seen hundreds, perhaps more, of these little "countries" which existed in reality by the force of will of the local Flux wizard with the most power, but, somehow, she'd never quite looked at them this critically before.

Almost invariably, the active deity, worshipped by the population, was the wizard in charge. The people there thought the way the wizard decreed, they acted the way the wizard wanted, and in many cases were caricatures of real human beings, turned into creatures to fit a dream landscape. For perhaps the first time she looked at them not as something taken for granted but from Adam's viewpoint, and they were indeed repulsive to her in that regard. Oppression, it seemed, did not exist when you were not one of the oppressed. Oh, you knew it academi¬cally, but you accepted it. New Eden, by comparison, seemed to look better and better even from her place in that society.

Adam was right, she decided. This sort of power cor¬rupted absolutely, no matter who possessed. She had run a Fluxland as a religious center, but she had been just as autocratic and just as godlike in her own way—only she had rationalized all of it at that time. Even after, she had accepted the Fluxlands as normal and the Fluxlords as equals.

It was no longer a wonder to her that the system had created the excesses of New Eden; rather, she wondered that it had created so few. One did not upset such a system easily, and not without cost, but Adam's determination that the system must be upset and his dedication to that eventual goal made him far more of a revolutionary than World had ever seen before, and she loved him for it and understood it perfectly.

Additionally, she found that her own presence was quite a shock to the Fluxlords and others they met. She smiled and was the deferential wife but she answered their questions. Yes, she was the same Cass/Kasdi who had built the empire. No, she had not been forced into this position, but had taken it voluntarily and now believed in it. They could read the spells for themselves and see their voluntary nature. She had not been transformed, she had been converted. It shook them up, the men as much as the women.

Although a fast stringer train or a military march could make eighty kilometers a day or more, the fifty that they made, considering the size of their party and all the stops, was considered nothing less than a miracle. As they went, her belly and breasts continued to swell, but her body continued to cope with whatever changing conditions it faced. As Suzl had pointed out, the Fluxgirls had been designed for baby-making.

They carried six girls from the household staff with them to help her, particularly for after the child was born, but she found she liked the way the men seemed more and more solicitous of her and how kindly and helpful they became, even the hardest of them. It had not been this way with Spirit, where much had been done to conceal her condition and the attitude had been an entirely impatient one: get it over with and get the kid away from her so she could go about her job.

As they approached Anchor Nantzee, they began to run into large masses of men in New Eden's black uniforms, many setting up large machines or practicing the various arts of war. After the peace and serenity of the trip to date, it was a sudden, shocking reminder that this journey was no diplomatic jaunt but rather a stratagem in an impending war. She had seen, and even organized, too many such massings, and she had hoped never to see another. The sheer manpower, all military professionals, coupled with the huge assortment of strange and new weaponry told her that Anchor Nantzee would indeed fall. Its only choice was whether to do so bloodily or with minimal loss of life.

Tilghman spent many hours in conference with military leaders, including the hard-to-miss General Champion, going over maps and charts and playing with little toy armies.

She did not want to know the plans; she wanted no more part in military bloodletting.

Adam was visibly tired, but rested very little, and they soon went forward, out onto the Anchor apron, and ap¬proached the ancient gates of the Anchor, the high stone walls and fortifications looking very much like those of Anchor Logh. She had been in Nantzee, but never through the front gate. Adam had told her to dress her grandest, and she had, although she was surprised when only their wagon passed through the armored double gate into Anchor, leaving the entourage behind on the apron and in Flux.

Although superficially the same, Anchor Nantzee was quite different from Anchor Logh. This was hilly, even mountainous country, with great folded mountains running as far as the eye could see, cut only occasionally by river gorges, evergreens and other hardy trees running all the way to their summits. The main highway from the gate led after a kilometer to the first of these narrow gorges and to a small town at the bottom of the pass. Above, clearly visible, complex fortifications had been carved into and out of the surrounding very high ground. Any army that got through the gate would have to get through this trap as well. It looked formidable indeed to her.

It was cooler here, too, than in the constant warmth of Flux or Anchor Logh, and there was a slight breeze, but she decided against a coat or wrap. After her Flux appear¬ances she fully understood her purpose here, and she was determined to carry it out if lives could be saved.

Large tents had been set up in a park-like area just outside the town, and they headed there. Various flags flew from the tents, although she recognized none of them. They could have represented leaders of various boroughs of the Anchor, or quite a bit more than that. She quickly learned, though, that the hammer and tongs symbol repre¬sented Nantzee itself, and she knew that the starburst represented the Church.

"Be  honest,  tell  only  the  truth,  conceal  nothing," Tilghman instructed her. "Don't think or mull over any answers, just say what you feel." Those, she decided, were the easiest instructions ever given to her.

Mervyn moved through the small crowd of people feel¬ing more like he was at a social function than at a confer¬ence of war. He nibbled idly on a sandwich and looked over the crowd, then frowned and spotted someone whose face he simply never thought he'd see in person—particularly not in a situation like this. He blinked and stared hard, then realized that the prim, aristocratic fellow with the goatee had to be who he'd first thought he was. Nobody else would look like that on purpose. Slowly, he made his way closer.

Zelligman Ivan looked over and spotted the figure of the old man in flowing satin robes coming towards him, and he stood up and smiled as the other reached his lone table. "Please! Have a seat and welcome!" Ivan said warmly. "The wine is not the best, but one takes what one can get under the circumstances."

Mervyn pulled over a folding chair and sat down, put¬ting his sandwich on the table. Ivan poured a drink from a wine bottle and handed it to him.

"So we meet at last," the old wizard said. "I must admit, Zelligman, that you are the last person I would have expected to see here."

The other nodded. "I know. Not really my territory, but, damn it, it's where the action is. Those psychotic thugs have the whole file, the top ancient technology along with the instructions. No matter what our differences, Mervyn, we have that in common. That's our common heritage over there being perverted and used like a blud¬geon by reactionary idiots."

The old man nodded. "I agree, although you certainly have been a busy little bee with them. I owe you more than one for that, Zelligman."

Ivan shrugged. "It was truly nothing personal. What are a few lives compared to what might be gained? No, don't go moralizing on me, old man! You've been responsible for more than your share of innocents yourself, and you still sleep well at night. They were paranoid about her being so close, and they were paranoid about what they perceived as your base so close to their front door. I made an offer to ease their paranoia, and they took it."

"And the price? Some advanced communications equip¬ment, perhaps?"

Zelligman Ivan sighed. "You should know that they are even less enamored of that idea than you are. I hardly expect that from them—they are primitive, animalistic thugs, but their leaders are not that stupid. No, we expect that such a device will be naturally available when they secure this cluster, as they almost certainly will. They will need a method of communications to keep their little em¬pire secure. No, the price was supposed to be a copy of Toby Haller's journal."