Empires of Flux & Anchor

2 DESTINY’S SAINT

It was hard being a saint, not only in being regarded as one by a large mass of people but also, quite literally, being forced to be one. It was a self-inflicted wound that had been compounded more and more over the years, but, as much as she disliked it, she believed more and more in the necessity of it.

She sat in her office in the temple of Hope. It wasn’t much of an office, really. An old wooden chair whose finish was worn creaked with her every movement, although she was small and thin. Her desk was a table in barely better repair, atop which sat a battered-looking old oil lamp, various papers, and a pen and inkwell. Other than that the place was barren and quite small, totally undecorated, its stone walls and floor more reminiscent of a monastic cell than the seat of power of one of the most powerful people on World.

Although the temple and, indeed, the entire Fluxland of Hope was her creation, she spared little of that power on herself. Although there were far less spartan offices and quarters, she disdained them, and the only sop to her comfort was a small window behind her that allowed her to look out on the temple grounds and the lands beyond.

She knew as well as anyone that all this was due less to a total act of faith than to the shock and revulsion at seeing Matson fall in the battle for this place. Emotion was the trigger to the power of the Flux, the raw motivator that multiplied a wizard’s energy exponentially as the intensity of it rose. Still, she felt, knew, that all of it had been a part of a divine plan and that she was the key player anointed to carry that plan out.

The Church had been corrupted beyond any point of redemption, that she knew. It had turned from its holy mission of salvation to one of repression, the alter-ego of the wizards of Flux. They had perverted their entire faith into a massive and effective dictatorship and had held humanity in the grip of their corrupt power for centuries, even rewriting Holy Scripture to support all their moves. That had been one of her first and most important acts—the gathering of Scripture and all other ancient and suppressed documents from the vaults of the Church and from sanctuaries in Fluxlands, and then the appointment of a board of the finest scholars and translators to sort, evaluate, and codify all of that material. It was a massive undertaking, and the Codex was still years away from completion, but not from use.

Her mentor, Mervyn of Pericles, who was more than six centuries old and one of the powerful Nine Who Guard, called what was being done a revolution, but it was true in only the most literal sense. What she was doing was less revolution than restoration, putting humanity back on the path from which it had been diverted.

To do this, she required a true and honest clergy, one immune to the sort of corruption the old Church had fostered, and this had to be accomplished by magic. Ordination was more than a commitment; it was the acceptance of spells binding one for life to those vows.

Because of this, she’d realized from the start that she had to set the example, had to be the saint, for it was she who imposed those lesser but still binding restrictions on the vows. As the highest, if she were not also the lowest, living a life that was far harsher than theirs, they could not be expected to make the sacrifices and keep to them. Her life and actions had to make their own burdens seem trivial by comparison, and it certainly did. Even Mervyn, who had taught her the one unbreakable spell that could only be imposed freely on one’s self, believed she had gone too far and that the pressures of living such a life would eventually drive her mad. She had disagreed, and over the seventeen years since those first vows she had in fact added to them whenever she perceived a loophole.

The vow of poverty, of course, did not mean that the Church was poor. Far from it. It needed the tithe to spread its word, support its temples, churches, and missions, its charity and its holy works. The priestesses who did the work owned nothing, but had unlimited use of church buildings, clothing, food, and the rest. They were not living like the rich and the wizard monarchs, of course, but they were comfortable. She did not allow herself even that.

She quite literally had no possessions of any sort. No mementos of her past, no pictures or souvenirs or keepsakes. She slept, in whatever random empty monastic cell she found, on a bed of straw or, occasionally, on the stone floor. She had no aides or assistants; she cleaned out the cell every morning, using common cleaning materials from the temple stores and scrubbing on her hands and knees. She ate only the plainest of foods from the communal kitchens, along with all the others, and she even washed her own dishes. Undergarments and shoes required a special size and fit, so she had dispensed with them. She generally borrowed a comb and brush from whoever was around, high or low, and returned them cleaned, and bathed either in the river or in the communal showers used by the acolytes, the not-yet-priestesses who studied here. Her simple robe was a worn-out cast-off of the temple which she washed each night. When it wore out, she would hunt through the trash for another that would do. Even the desk, table, and lamp in the office she had found in Anchor trash dumps and repaired herself as much as she could for use.

She allowed no one to wait on her, and she accepted no charity, although she would accept an offer of dinner or such in Anchor or Flux if it were truly offered in friendship and without expectations. She did not smoke, drink, or even swear—the spell prevented it. And her chastity was absolute, so much so that even simple self-stimulation was beyond her. This didn’t mean she didn’t feel the need for such things—she often did, particularly in the early days—but she had made it impossible for her to violate her way of life. By now, though, she hardly gave any of it a thought. It was the way it was, the way it had been for most of her adult life, and the way it would always be.

She had not just done this to create an example and remove all temptation from her, though. In a very real sense, it liberated her from all the pressures of daily life and from its temptations as well. She desired nothing she did not already have, save an end to these wars and the total reformation of the Church; she had nothing at all that anyone else might want except, perhaps, her wizard’s power, which could not be transferred in any event. She knew that, while many might covet high Church positions, none wanted her job—not with the living conditions that came with it.

She took no part in the day-to-day affairs of running the Temple or the Church as a whole. She knew she was not temperamentally suited to be the administrative type. Her jobs, her only jobs, were spreading the reformation throughout World and purifying and restoring the faith and keeping it pure.

The only time she used her powers for her own gain, other than to ward off starvation or desperate thirst, was when she went out alone across the void to Anchor. There was an inevitable tendency for people to mistake the agent for the boss; she was virtually worshipped by many as some sort of deity herself, a fact that made her uncomfortable, but which had proved impossible to stamp out completely. To go out alone, particularly on personal business, she required a disguise, and transformed herself, for that purpose only, into the guise of a low-ranking priestess of far different appearance. It allowed her a measure of temporary anonymity, although she was still bound to her lifestyle.

For she did have one thing that might be used against her if known. She had a daughter, it was true, and she had done all she could to keep that fact and her daughter’s identity a deep secret. She had once considered a vow of truthfulness to match her vow of honesty, but had rejected it. That much corruption she had to allow, for a good cause. The official story was that her child had been stillborn. She could hardly hide the signs in those early days, and although she’d used her powers to eliminate the stretchmarks and other signs, it was known she’d borne a child in Anchor.

Had the child been born in Flux, it would have been a painless and effortless birth, though also one that could hardly be a seat of deception. Ironically, the lying powers of Flux would not permit an imperfect birth to a wizard; only in Anchor could the child “die” as it had to. In fact, the child had been born perfectly in any event, and those involved had voluntarily submitted to changes in their memory to conform to the official version, those changes made by Mervyn in Flux. Only four people knew that the child lived and who she was: Kasdi, of course, and her cousin Cloise, who had taken the child and raised it as her own in Anchor Logh, as well as the wizard Mervyn and the Sister General of Logh, Tamara, her oldest and closest friend.

The child had been named Spirit—it was her one conceit, and seemed inevitable. She knew that she was adopted, of course—the records of Anchor were more likely to trip them up than hide them in their scheme if they had pretended otherwise—but believed that her parents had died in the conflicts raging back at that time. Nor did Spirit look anything like either Kasdi or Matson; that had been a part of it, too, as any enemy might well look at Kasdi’s native land and her large family there in its search for things to use against her.

Spirit had grown into a young woman now, and it was a shock to see her these days. Olive-skinned and curvaceous, well-built as Kasdi herself never was, with a beautiful face and long, black hair and huge, soft brown eyes, she was the heartthrob of every teen-age boy in Anchor Logh.

Sister Kasdi ached every time she thought of Spirit, which was all the time she wasn’t preoccupied with matters of duty. She was proud of her daughter in every way, for Spirit was also exceptionally bright and at least shared her real mother’s love for animals and nature, but there was much guilt there, too. Although Spirit had been well brought up in an atmosphere and surroundings not unlike her mother’s, the girl had been raised by others. Although she had kept close track of her daughter’s progress, she’d really had no input into anything not genetic in her only child’s upbringing. Oh, she’d visited Spirit when she could, under the guise of a priestess who was a cousin of her late mother’s, but that was about it.

She was lost in such thought when she suddenly became aware of a throat clearing and snapped out of it for a while. Sister Karla, the administrative priestess for the level, stood there looking apologetic. “Sorry I must disturb you, Sister, but the wizard Mervyn is here to see you.”

Kasdi brightened a bit. “Send him in! And don’t hesitate to disturb me. It is not good when I think too much.”

The priestess frowned a moment in puzzlement, then turned and walked back out the door. A moment later Mervyn entered, stopped, and looked around. He had the look of a very old man with flowing white hair and beard and a floor-length robe of cream-colored silk embroidered with gold trim. It was not a church robe, of course—only women could be priestesses—but one more in keeping with the image he liked to project. Only his bright, piercing eyes that seemed to look everywhere at once revealed the strength hidden in that baggy robe and those ancient features.

“Hmph! No furniture for guests yet, I see.” He made a quick pass with his hand and then sat—in a comfortable, padded chair which simply appeared behind him. He studied her face for a moment. “You look lousy,” he told her.

She chuckled. “Always the soul of tact, aren’t you?”

“After six hundred and forty-seven years I have earned the right not to have to play silly social games. You’re—what?—thirty-six, and you look half as old as I do. Your eyes and bearing look even older, and that’s going some.”

“It hasn’t been a very easy life, as you well know. That Yalah business a week ago took a lot out of me, too. I slept for three days after that, and since that time I’ve been happy just living simply and routinely here.”

He rose slightly and looked on the table at the paper in front of her. It was a map of World, a very simple map with a few notations written in by Kasdi. It was a record of progress and achievement unprecedented in history, but he suspected that this record wasn’t what she saw in that map. Instead, it represented seventeen years of hard work and sacrifice on her part. The map was her autobiography.

The map showed the seven “clusters” of Anchors, four to a group, or cluster, each equidistant from a Hellgate in the center of the square they formed. They were quite symmetrically spaced around the perimeter of the planet, a fact that only reinforced the logic of a divine plan. A full four clusters were now under the Reformed Church, more than half the planet, with the Fluxlands between, inside, or on the stringer routes through the void that connected them, all either under the control of her partisans or in truce with them. There were still many bizarre lands there, and many mad rulers like the late, unlamented Gyasiros, but all had chosen not to challenge her power but to accommodate it.

The rest had fallen through a combination of arms and sorcery, as had Gyasiros. They had been tough at the start, with much bloodshed and wizards’ contests, but there were few such these days. The word was getting around, and all save the maddest of egomaniacs found some room in their demented psyches for a compromise between the Church’s wishes and their own egos. Not that the old Church and the old order had been a pushover, but not since the Battle of Balacyn, fourteen years earlier, when armies of more than a million faced off in Flux, along with some of the most powerful living wizards known—on both sides—had they tried a major offensive. Still, the next cluster would be as well-defended as any in the past, and both sides still lost bitter and bloody battles.

In fact, although much of Flux was getting easier, the Anchors were becoming harder and harder, as the opposition had plenty of time to prepare and had learned so much about its foes. Now only stringers crossed the line between old and new, and only with difficulty and much suspicion.

“I worry about how much longer we have to go,” she told him wearily. “How many more years, how many more lives?”

“I’d worry about what happens when it’s done,” he responded.

“Huh?”

“We’re the founders of a new world here. Science once again is flowering in Anchor, and a freed people are building new institutions, new ways, that we never dreamed of. Eventually there will be greatness here again—and you will have shut yourself off from ever being a part of it. In the name of moving this world forward, you’ve pushed yourself backward to the most primitive sort of life. Have you ever thought of that?”

“No,” she answered truthfully. “There’s no way to do what must be done for this new world you speak of if I think of my own future. The next problem, the next march, the next Yalah, the next threat to what we have already built—those occupy my mind.” She sighed. “I suppose I shall retire when it’s over. Walk World from end to end, pole to pole, seeing all that there is to see. Perhaps teach or preach or both. I don’t know. It’s so far off.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“But that wasn’t what you came all this way to talk about, and I know it. Now—what’s the real reason for all this?”

“The greater evil is on the move once more. I think at least the first part of the move will be in your direction.”

Her eyebrows rose. “You mean the Seven? I thought we must have weakened them enormously; it’s been so long since they tried anything.”

He sighed. “They are not at all weakened, nor is your statement correct. They are, in most cases, very much in the background. Only rarely does one like a Haldayne draw attention to himself, and then only when it’s part of the plan. Just who do you think we’ve been fighting all these years?”

“Why, the old Church, of course!”

“And who exactly is the old Church? Doesn’t corruption on such a scale show us something right there? I have just recently come into some information that suggests that Her Perfect Highness, the Queen of Heaven, might in fact be Gifford Haldayne’s older sister.”

That startled her. “What! I have fought them a long time, I know, but I never thought—”

“Yes, indeed,” he interrupted. “Who would? This is not to say that the church is, as an entity, a direct and knowing agent of the Seven. Proof of that would be sufficient to win you the rest of World without lifting a finger. But the corruption begins at the very top. How do you suppose they finally discovered the gate entrances inside the temples, buried under the very foundations? They poked and probed and experimented until it was discovered—having access to temples.”

“But—this is monstrous!”

“Indeed. However, up to now it’s worked to our advantage. The Seven now control three of the gates through their subtle control of the church. They are very busy making certain they lose no more of those gates. Had we not discovered them shortly after they discovered the temple entrances and denied them access to at least one, they might have fulfilled their plan without us even realizing it was so until the hordes of Hell overran us. That’s what your Soul Rider was rushing to Anchor Logh to prevent, and when it did, it rushed to some other emergency. Since then, they’ve been very busy just trying to hold onto what they have, and with not much success. If you spent years fighting off an attacker and still knew you were losing, would you keep on doing the same thing?”

She considered it. “No. Of course not. I would have acted long before this, in fact.”

He nodded. “I think the Queen of Heaven is the boss—or was, anyway. She kept them in line because the church was the seat of her power, and she threw everything into trying to keep it. Now, however, my agents inform me that the others have rebelled, citing her failures, and that she has been forced to go along. There was allegedly a summit meeting of all Seven, the first such known to me. At that meeting all the restraints came off. Our friend the Queen of Heaven will continue to defend in her old ways, perhaps assisted by others, but there will now be a division of forces and a new direction. The word in Flux is that they want to tackle you first, before this grand new plan is put into operation.”

“You mean, call me out and face me down? I’d almost welcome that, even three or four to one.”

“Don’t take it lightly. They are more powerful than any other wizards known, except for yourself. It is my firm conviction that one or perhaps several of them are at least your equal. However, calling you out is simply not their way. It would bring the Nine in a flash, and they know it. They are not ready to face down all of us. They are infinitely patient, preferring to minimize risks to themselves and suffer a thousand defeats if they gain the final victory. Still, they are diabolically clever and you must be on guard.” He paused a moment. “I fear that your one soft spot in your armor may be in peril.”

She felt a shock go through her. “But—how could they know? And if they did, why haven’t they acted before now?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know if they know or not, but as to the timing—perhaps, like the Hellgate, they just found out. As I said, they are a patient lot. And that brings up a rather chilling question. What would you do if they got her and offered a trade?”

She shivered at the idea. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t.”

“You would not be permitted to do so,” he warned her. “The Nine would prevent you, no matter what. You are a symbol that, right now, we cannot do without.”

“But the Seven know that, too. Isn’t that some form of insurance?”

He shook his head sadly. “Perhaps. But they are devious in the extreme. They have failed militarily. To gain the seven gates, they must infiltrate and, if possible, corrupt the Reformed Church. To do that, they must remove—or corrupt—you.” He sighed. “We could put more of a watch on her, of course, but that alone might tip them off if they don’t yet have the exact one. Or we could bring her here, to Hope. It is the best-guarded, safest place anyone could be.”

She shook her head negatively at that. “What sort of life would it be for her here? She’s shown no inclination towards the priesthood and much for the boys. There’d be no joy for her in Hope.”

“You didn’t have much inclination for the priesthood yourself at her age, and look what happened to you. But, let that pass for now. There is always Pericles, which is also as safe as they come.”

“But just taking her there would point a finger at her. Then they would know, and, as you said, they are patient. She would be a prisoner there for as long as I was a threat to the Seven. That might be decades.”

“Then we leave things as they are,” the wizard said flatly. “I don’t like it, but there it is. At least you should do one thing for her—you should tell her her true origins and parentage.”

The idea frightened her. “Uh—no. Not yet. She would never understand. She would never forgive me!”

“If she is at risk, she must know it and know the reason why. She must be prepared to defend herself. If we do not remove her from harm’s way, then we must give her every chance. We can’t keep diverting her, nailing her into Anchor Logh. She’s inquisitive, just like her mother. She wants to see the whole of World. I think it is time. You have inflicted so much sacrifice and injury upon yourself—now it is time to do it once more, this time for the sake of another.”

She sighed. “I’ll meditate and pray on it. That’s all I’ll promise right now.”

“Don’t think or meditate or pray too long,” he warned her. “Evil is on the march once more, and the more they are set back, the more determined, devious, and dangerous they become.”

Tomorrow would be a Service of Ordination at the Temple of Hope. When she was there, Kasdi liked to preside over it herself, although there were by now many other powerful wizard-priestesses capable of administering the rites. It was something she liked to do, a sort of affirmation of the rightness of her cause and the future of World to see those bright, young faces eagerly accept the vows without coercion.

Once young women were almost forced into the priesthood when they possessed some talent or ability the church needed. They were immediately ordained so they could never quit, then underwent three years of rigid indoctrination—brainwashing, she’d heard it called. She had changed all that when she’d abolished the barbaric and terrible Paring Rite that had cast her out of Anchor into Flux. Now the Flux, at least in her areas, was not such a terrible or threatening place, and population controls were managed quite easily by voluntary shifts. Those who discovered that they had some Flux power—either false, in which all their spells were illusion, or true, in which their will could truly become reality—usually opted for training and a new life in Flux anyway.

Now, at the completion of required school, young women were shown the possibilities the priesthood offered. The parish had always been the center of social life in Anchor, and the priesthood was highly respected, even more now than under the old way. If a young woman so chose, she could come to Hope, at Church expense, and spend two years as an acolyte, living a very spartan life under strict discipline while learning the intricacies of the preisthood and the faith. They were not ordained at that time, and if the spare lifestyle, the lack of comforts and modern conveniences, was too much for them, they could ask to leave and would be returned. If they found their religious training boring and their potential occupations wrong, they could also leave, and were encouraged to do so. Those that remained, about thirty percent of the women who began, could then request ordination and go on to deeper, more complex subjects and train for their life’s work.

The high washout rate, both voluntarily and otherwise, had given those who remained an extra feeling of pride and accomplishment. The initial life and training was intended to be rough, and it was—but those who survived it felt closer to each other and the church than ever. They felt like something special and had pride in themselves and their work.

Tomorrow a group numbering more than eighty would request ordination. Most would be given it without question, but a few would not, and it was those whom she wished to see that evening. These were the few that the teachers and psychologists suggested might be wrong for the job, and they required a different evaluation. Now Sister Kasdi sat in her barren Office, Mervyn’s stuffed chair dematerialized back into energy, and waited for the first of the nine who had been sent for this final process.

The first girl entered, wearing only the white sheet-like garment that was all the acolytes were allowed. She looked very nervous, as was to be expected. She was a tall, gangly young woman, rather plain in appearance. She stood there, staring at the saint behind the table, a touch of awe in her face despite the situation.

“Child—tell me, why do you wish to become a priestess?” Kasdi asked pleasantly. All acolytes were referred to as “child” and “children” while here. “By that I mean, what made you choose to come here and undergo the training rather than something else someplace else?”

“Uh, Sister, I—I had no life in Anchor Chalee. I never had any close friends, and never any boyfriends. I wanted to do something important with my life, something that would do good and make folks look up to me. My marks were pretty good, though nothing great. This seemed like the place I had to be.”

Kasdi nodded, mostly to herself. Although she was using a spell to divine the truth, she was not compelling it. The brutal honesty of the girl was refreshing, if a bit too honest. She clearly had very low self-esteem, and that was not good. Her motives weren’t wrong in and of themselves, but they contained no dedication to the spiritual at all.

“You have been frank, so I will be, too,” Kasdi responded. “The Sisters see absolutely no devotion or dedication to the Holy Mother and the spreading of Her plan. Instead, they see someone who wishes security and a sorority. What do you say to that?”

“I’ve had the finest experience of my life here these past two years.”

“Perhaps that’s true, but might it not be because here, for the first time, you were totally socially equal to the others? Still, you have stayed the entire course and even excelled in much of it. We cannot just summarily throw you out. I propose a bit of a final test for you.”

The acolyte swallowed hard. “A test, Reverend Sister?”

“Yes. There is a stringer train due to go out of here tomorrow evening. It is not going back to Anchor Chalee, but over to Anchor Logh, but any Anchor will do for this. You will be given some money and a wardrobe, and you will depart with that train. Go into the Anchor and take a holiday. Return to the world. Relax. Do not check in with the Church or tell anyone you are an acolyte. Remain a minimum of two weeks, but stay as long as you wish. Only—keep the vows as you can. See if you can ward off temptation. See if, after that time there, you can bring yourself to return here.”

“Yes, Reverend Sister.”

Kasdi could read her thoughts in her facial expression and tone. “You think it will be easy. Don’t believe it. It would be easy under normal circumstances, but this will not be normal. I have used my powers to change you. See.”

A mirror appeared against the far wall, and the young woman turned and gasped. Kasdi had not turned her into a raving beauty, but she was rather cute and pleasant-looking, perhaps a hair above average. It was, however, more than enough for the acolyte, and she stared in wonder and admiration at the reflection until the mirror faded out.

“If you do not return here, you will continue to look like that. If you do return, you will revert to your original appearance. It is a pleasantry from the church for giving it two years of your life. It is also a test—not of faith, but of commitment to the church. If your true interest is service, you will return. No questions will be asked of your behavior, and your sins will be between you, your confessor, and the Holy Mother. If you return, you will be ordained. That is all.”

The acolyte backed out, then turned and was quickly away. Kasdi expected she would never be seen in or near Hope again, but she had occasionally been proven wrong.

The next girl was the opposite of the first in every way. Most of the young women who volunteered for the priesthood were average, some below average, in appearance, and many just saw themselves that way. The personality quirks of the first girl would hardly have disqualified her, since most had personal goals and reasons for choosing this life, but it was her total lack of any feeling at all for the spiritual mission that had caused the problem.

This one was a mystery. Even in her white sheet, she was absolutely beautiful, totally feminine, and in anybody’s book she might be called over-endowed. Her voice was as soft and as beautiful as her form. It always amazed Kasdi when somebody looking like this applied as an acolyte. Her own adolescence had been more like the first girl’s, and she would have killed at one time for this one’s looks. Still, she asked the same question.

“Child, why did you come here and why do you wish to join the priesthood?”

“It—it’s difficult to explain, Reverend Sister.”

“Try me. You’ve been asked this and answered this a thousand times before.”

The girl sighed. “Well, all those times I’ve had people just shake their heads. I’m pretty. I know it. I’ve always been what everybody calls beautiful. The trouble is, that’s all anybody ever saw. I couldn’t walk into an Anchor and open a door—men would jump to open it for me—or do much of anything for myself. I applied for a number of jobs, and passed all the tests, but when I was interviewed, all they saw was my looks. In some cases they just decided I had to be dumb or something, and rejected me. In others, they were more than eager to take me on, but I could see why and I knew what they were really hiring. But I’m smart, and I think I can do good things, if only people would take me for myself, not for my looks.”

Kasdi thought about it. Intellectually she could understand the problem, but emotionally it was pretty tough to think of brains and beauty as anybody’s curse. “But why the priesthood?”

“I got to thinking about it all after that, and walking past the temple, I suddenly got a thought. Maybe it was supposed to be this way. I can serve the Holy Mother, and serve humanity, too, by putting my brains to work. And if my beauty gives me an edge in attracting sinners and talking to them, then it becomes an asset, but not with sex and lust as its end-product. You see?”

Kasdi nodded, and thought about it. “The reason you’re here, you know, is exactly such doubts. We don’t doubt your mind, your devotion, or your reasons. I feel you would be a credit to the church. Our problem is you over the long run. The vow and binding spell of celibacy is absolute, but it does not transform you into a neuter. To do that would be to deny your womanhood and forfeit your humanity. As a result, we all still feel the same attractions, urges, and needs as all women do. Being forbidden to act on them can make the pressure inside enormous. We fear for your sanity. Have you thought about this?”

She nodded. “Yes, Reverend Mother. But if the way were easy, would it be worth traveling at all? Just because some of the others are not as pretty, do they feel those urges and physical needs any less than I do? If I cannot make that sacrifice for Her sake, and bear it, then I’m really only fit to be the brainless sex machine everybody sees. And if I have to be that, I really will go mad.”

Kasdi was touched by her sincerity and eloquence. “You are absolutely positive you wish this, then? There are no doubts whatsoever in your mind?”

“None. It will set me free to do Her will.”

Kasdi prayed for a moment for some guidance. Finally she said, “All right, then. We will not stand in your way, but embrace you as a sister. Come tomorrow with the rest. You will be ordained.”

The girl looked overjoyed at the news. “Thank you, Reverend Sister! Oh, thank you! The Holy Mother’s blessing remain with you!”

Kasdi finally excused her and went on to the next. The rest were all unique, all with their own problems, but all there with good reason. All of the acolytes actually received this sort of interview, but these were the ones passed on up the line, either by divided opinions down below or undecided ones. Now, finally, she was finished, and she got up, blew out the lamp, and walked out into the temple, then down into its depths. She neither ate nor drank, since, as the officiator, she had to fast until it was over, but that didn’t bother her.

There were many empty cells—a whole floor of them—at this stage, and she had no difficulty finding one. She went back down the hall to a janitorial room and found a bucket, washboard, and some soap, then went into the now-deserted shower room. She removed her robe and then washed it, using extra bleach, then showered. She did not dry herself, preferring to let herself dry naturally. She then spent the better part of an hour compulsively cleaning the entire shower room and lavatory. Then she showered off again and returned with her wet robe to her small cell. She then spent the bulk of the night in prayer, but only some of those prayers were for those she would ordain tomorrow. Others, despite herself, were prayers for someone to tell her what to do as wisely and as easily as she had told the others during the night.

She, who had faced down powerful madmen, routed a chief agent of Hell, and brought down a church and an oligarchy, prayed for the courage to face her own daughter.

The sacrament was a very serious and solemn one, and Sister Kasdi always took pains to see that it was a serious, personal occasion. Later, these new priestesses would return briefly to their home Anchors before assignment, and at that time, in their local parish churches, there would be a public reaffirmation and celebration for all. This, however, was the real thing.

They entered through the great doors to the inner temple in a processional, singing an old hymn in praise of heaven and its works, and filed off on either side of the center aisle, each kneeling in turn before the altar in the middle of the aisle before assuming her place. There were no witnesses, and only Kasdi would officiate.

She waited for them before the altar, standing there looking out at them resplendent in the gold-embroidered purple robe that signified her true office as the warrior priestess, the purple showing her seat of power was in Flux. The robe, her original robe of ordination, was kept in the Temple museum except on occasions like this.

The high service, said only in temples, went smoothly, although only on ordinations was it done solo. Usually such services had and often required quite a crowd of officiators and assistants, and it was impressive to the newcomers to see how majestic it all sounded even when done by one lone, small woman.

Finally she turned from the altar and looked out upon them. It was time.

“In ancient times there was rebellion in Heaven,” she told them, “and in the end the folk of Heaven were divided by the divine will of the Lady and Mistress whom we serve.” It was a familiar story, but part of the service.

“Those who turned their backs upon Her were banished to Hell,” she continued, “and the seven gates of Hell were sealed. Those who stood by Her remained in a more perfect Heaven, now purified once more. The rest were condemned as souls to World, to the place She called Forfirbasforten, which means the place of testing. Here the rest of the impure, not wholly evil but tainted by evil, were to suffer both a sample of the joys of Heaven and the torments of Hell, living life after life, as male and female, until those souls were purified to Her absolute standards or until the gates of Hell should again be unlocked and we should once again be forced to choose.”

She paused for a moment, then asked, “What is the Church?”

“The Church is the guardian of all that is good and holy,” responded the acolytes in unison.

“What is the mission of the Church?”

“To define good and evil, so that humanity may always choose their own test.”

“Who are the priestesses?”

“Those through whom the Holy Mother acts to carry out the divine plan.”

“What are the priestesses?”

“The soldiers of the Holy Mother, guardians of the Church, interpreters of the law and of divine will,” they responded.

“It is not an easy road to come as far as you have,” Kasdi told them. “Many believe themselves called, but when the testing is complete, only a very few remain. Those who do—you—are the best of the best, the very future of the Church and of humanity, whose souls will be in your care and will be your responsibility. All of you come of 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 is irrevocable. Any who even now have the slightest doubt should stand down and leave this place.”

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 your blessing, if you wish, and depart as you came with all that you have now.”

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.