Empires of Flux & Anchor

5 BLACK MAGIC

They rode for some time in silence, Coydt deep in thought. Their pace was not fast, just deliberate, and she had no more doubts that what he had spoken about the Void was true. She had no idea how far they had come or how long they had been riding, for there were no landmarks of any kind. She was feeling nearly starved, but hesitated to mention it, fearing that it would betray some sort of weakness to these hard, strange men of Flux. She had the idea that any weakness demonstrated would lower their opinion of the one showing weakness a good deal, not to mention please them enormously. These were people who worshipped only power and liked it, no matter how small the crumb. She resolved that, no matter what, she would give them the smallest pleasure she could in that department.

There were many romantic stories and fantasies by Anchor folk of what the Flux was like, but nobody ever thought of it as unremitting boredom. Her three captors had totally relaxed upon entering Flux and getting some distance in, and now they barely paid attention to her, but she no longer felt like attempting an escape. The idea of wandering this terrible nothingness until you died of hunger or thirst, or were driven completely insane by it, was so terrifying that such an idea was unthinkable.

She had resigned herself to this captivity, at least for now. She didn’t know what they planned, but so far she’d not been harmed or even threatened, except with the consequences of escape. Some of it still had the quality of dream, as if this really couldn’t be happening to her, but she knew it was real and that these men were dangerous.

Finally they called a halt—the two adepts and she stopped and dismounted, while Coydt went on, either to check out what was ahead or to prepare something.

She looked around and saw only the nothingness. The horses looked tired and thirsty, as was she, but there were no packs, no saddlebags. Zekah, a thin young man she would have considered “cute” in another context, came over to her. “So—hungry and thirsty?”

She nodded. “No more than you or the horses.”

“Watch, then,” he told her, and turned away. He made a couple of hand signs and then pointed to a spot a few meters from them. A hole opened up—no, a cavity, perhaps four meters wide, and it filled very slowly and dramatically with clear water. He went over to it, knelt down, scooped up some in cupped hands, and drank. “Pretty good,” he decided at last. “Yorek—bring the horses over. You, too, girl. Take a drink.”

It was her first experience with Flux magic and she was impressed. She took her drink, then said, “That’s pretty impressive.” Maybe the aides could be buttered up a little, although she was being truthful.

“That’s nothing,” Zekah responded, turned back and waved his hands some more. Instantly a small table appeared with three chairs, and on the table was a veritable feast of food, hot and cold, as well as carafes of wine. She walked over to it in wonder, then hesitantly touched it. “It’s real!”

“Sure, it’s real. Come on—let’s sit down and eat before the boss comes back.”

It was the most bizarre dinner she’d ever had, a luxury feast in the middle of nothingness with two youthful kidnappers. Still, she ate with relish, not knowing from where and when the next meal would come.

Once satiated, the two adepts seemed in a good mood and she tried to pump them for some information. It was difficult to imagine these two as the brutal killers in the church, although it would never be possible to forget Coydt that morning.

“You just… wave your hand and it’s done?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Yorek responded. “Actually, it’s all math. The better you are with math in your head and the better your memory, the more you can do. Nobody can give you the Flux power—you either have it or you don’t. But if you have it, and the math skills and the memory skills, you have real power, and that’s what it’s all about out here.”

“Money means nothing—obviously,” Zekah put in. “Nothing means anything in Flux except power. The more you have and can use, the higher up you go. Now, the boss—he’s got power. More than anybody, I think. If he wants a castle with servants, he just wishes them up.”

She thought about it. “I would think that after a while being a god would get boring, too. I mean, what do you do after you have everything you want?”

“You’ve got the idea,” Yorek agreed. “That’s really the key to figuring the boss out. The only fun he gets is showing off his powers to others. We—we’re along to learn what we can from him, but he don’t think of us that way. People to the boss are just things—stick figures or cartoons drawn for his own amusement. Playthings. Even us.”

“I’d think you’d be a little nervous about that.”

“Not really. You see, we’re the one thing he needs in the whole world. We’re his audience. No use in power if you don’t have people around who can appreciate it. No, the only people he might think of as people are those with as much or more power than he’s got, and if he finds ’em, he takes ’em on. So far, nobody’s been stronger. That’s why the Flux bores him. He likes to spend most of his time in Anchor, where the power isn’t in the magic but in the head. He likes to win at anything, and he almost always does. Any time he doesn’t, he gets mean and nasty. Everybody’s scared stiff of him, even the rest of the Seven, mostly, I think, because he doesn’t believe in anything but himself.”

“He doesn’t believe in Hell, then? But I thought that’s what the Seven were about.”

Zekah smiled. “They are, and so’s he. But not like them. He says there’s nothing supernatural about Hell. It’s 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.

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?”

“I have your daughter. You have four Hellgates. I need access to them from the temples.”

“You know I can’t do that—even if I wanted to, they wouldn’t permit it.”

“A straight swap, then. You for her?”

“More tempting to me, personally. I, too, would like to try you one-on-one, Coydt. But it would be only a brief respite for my daughter, whom I could not protect, and I could not bind the Nine to any bargain I made. You know that.”

The huge image of Coydt sighed. “Well, then, what are we to do? It seems I have a commodity with no major market value. You cannot, or will not, pay the price.”

“Just let her go. I’ll arrange to meet and settle our disputes.”

“A wonderful idea, and part of my original hopes for this, but no longer possible,” he responded. “I’m afraid we’ve discovered that your daughter has a Soul Rider. Neutralizing the Soul Rider has thus become an overriding preoccupation.”

The news was a shock, but also something of a relief. Spirit must have gotten the Soul Rider from her, somehow. The creatures’ natures were totally unknown, but they certainly protected their hosts and were on the right side in a fight. She should know. Coydt, in fact, had a series of dilemmas.

“Then you can’t transform her and let her wander, because the Soul Rider would eventually make it right,” she noted. “You can’t try a really major spell on her, because it can probably unravel it. And you can’t kill her, because then you wouldn’t know where that Soul Rider was, except that it was after you.”

“We’ve learned a lot since Haldayne’s attempt on you. Very well—there is no offer you wish to make for her release?”

“The best I could do would be to drop all charges against you should she be returned unharmed. And agree to meet you at some point.”

“Oh, we will meet, I promise you that. I’m looking forward to it. But not now. Very well. Here is how we will resolve this. You can’t find the others who helped me pull the job, but everybody is being bottled up. I want everyone who wishes to leave Anchor Logh within the next full day to be allowed to do so without harm or prejudice. The borders will be open again, and everything will be back to normal. In exchange for this, if Spirit agrees, I will return her to Anchor Logh within three days. She may have some spells, but they will not harm her or anyone else. And, after all, you’re a great wizard yourself. You can take care of those. Agreed?”

She frowned. “Agreed.”

“Until we meet again, then,” he responded, and the huge face shrank more and more until it was merely a point in the void and then was gone.

She shook her head in wonder and suspicion. There was more to this than what he’d said, that was for sure. Why go through all this trouble and all that risk only to settle for the getaway of some of the more minor perpetrators?

The place was called a Pocket. In many ways it resembled a Fluxland, in that it was a very substantial and substantial-looking reality designed, built, and maintained by the mind of a wizard. It differed only in size. While a Fluxland could be larger than an Anchor, a Pocket was generally small enough that one could see the Void all around from its center.

This one had a lot of trees, a stream running through it near the house, a bright whitish-gray sky, and, in the middle, on a small knoll, a rather standard-looking six-room, two-story house. It was not terribly well hidden from those who could discover it, but no strings that any but Coydt could see led to or from it, and it was well away from any stringer routes, although less than a day’s ride from Anchor Logh. It seemed to stand out, but in the context of World it was smaller than the smallest needle in the largest haystack.

She had not been imprisoned here, and had full run of the place except for Coydt’s own two-room complex in back of the first floor and just off the small kitchen. She had her own room, had access to a very modern shower and toilet, and except for the fact that she still had only the clothes she’d had on when kidnapped, she was quite comfortable. She had not only not been mistreated or molested; she was almost completely ignored.

Now, though, Coydt, who’d been away for a while, had returned and a knock on her door by Yorek summoned her. “The boss wants to see you,” he said simply, and that was enough.

He sat in a comfortable, padded desk chair, rocking slightly and smoking a cigar. He looked over a bunch of figures on a piece of paper one last time as she entered and took a seat on a small couch two meters from him. For a moment he did not acknowledge her, but then he looked up, dismissed Yorek, sighed, and turned to her, putting the paper down.

“It’s time for us to bargain,” he said simply.

She was startled. “Bargain? What do I have to bargain with?”

“Just hold on a moment and listen to me. The boys told you what a Soul Rider was?”

She nodded. “I’m not sure I understand it, but I’ve always known it was there. Sometimes I almost think I can hear its thoughts.”

“Probably because it entered at birth. It’s so closely integrated with you that you and it are almost one being. That makes you dangerous.”

“If it’s so powerful, why am I still here?”

He chuckled. “Well, it’s not human, so it doesn’t think the way humans do. It knows there’s a big plot going on. It knows, too, that if it takes me on, it will certainly cost your life, although possibly not its own. It’s curious. That’s the way they are. It won’t act until it knows all the facts and is able to do the most damage. Short of your life, it won’t move to protect you. For example, did you notice that while we’ve been talking, you have removed every single stitch of clothing you had on and are now waiting there totally naked with your legs spread apart?”

She jumped. Until that moment, she hadn’t been the slightest bit aware of it. She looked down for the clothes, but for some reason just could not bring herself to reach down, pick them up, and put them back on.

“That’s how simple and effortless spells are,” he told her casually. “In point of fact, you don’t feel the least bit embarrassed or uncomfortable, do you? You feel natural and normal that way, even though you know you shouldn’t.”

It was true. The idea of clothing seemed somehow unnatural, even repugnant to her, yet she knew how she should feel and even knew that she felt this way because of the man’s will.

If he was trying to frighten her, he was succeeding admirably.

“I’m demonstrating power, no more,” he told her. “This is absurdly simple. Child’s play. If I so desired, I could make you fall madly, passionately in love with me, willing to do anything I wanted. I could make you my slave, my plaything, and you would love every moment of it.” Suddenly he stood up. “On your knees before me, slave!”

She was off the couch and on her knees in front of him, head bowed, before she realized what happened. “Yes, my master,” she responded. For a few minutes he put her through her paces, ordered her to do odd gymnastics and crave odd sex from him. He stopped her just short of actually performing, though, and somewhat released her. Her rationality returned, but not her control. She was a jumble of emotions, disgusted with herself, repulsed by Coydt, and terrified of his power, and yet she knew that if he ordered it, she would do it again, and more.

“That was a demonstration of the mental and emotional spells. Now, stand up. Hold out your right arm.”

She did as instructed, and was horrified to see not an arm but a slithering, pulsating sucker-covered tentacle, one of a dozen. She oozed slime and filth; reeked of garbage. She wanted to scream, but nothing came out.

And, just as suddenly, she was herself again and her arm was her arm, but she was badly shaken.

“That was no mental trick. You really were that creature. I could do that in a moment and make you love it. I can make you old, young, male, female, human, animal, or monster. I can do anything I want with you. Do you believe that?”

She nodded, trying to stop shaking.

“I can do more than that. Little is permanent here in Flux, and your Soul Rider knows it more than any. Everything in Anchor, though, is permanent, including anything you might be when entering Anchor from Flux. Your mother and the Soul Rider aren’t concerned about any spell I may cast, since they can remove it. It might take time and be a lot of trouble, but they can do it. However, I can cast a delayed spell that will make the Flux to you seem as hard and impenetrable as stone. I can cast you as I will, send you into Anchor, and you cannot get back to Flux. Without it, the spell can not be seen or analyzed, much less broken, for to take you back into Flux by force would be instant death to you. Now, how shall I send you back to your mother?”

The question was rhetorical, if terrifying, and required no response.

He sat back down in his chair and lit another cigar. “Now comes the bargain. Refuse it, and I will let my imagination run wild and then send you back—only you’ll know. You won’t be able to do anything about it, but you’ll know. Do you want that?”

She shook her head. “No—please!”

He grinned, enjoying himself. “All right, then. The alternative is to be a part of a little experiment of mine. Human beings are animals. Some animals other than humans think, I believe. Certainly, if the Soul Rider is an animal of some sort, it thinks. I have been wondering for some time what would happen if that were all somebody had to work with. No tools, no artifacts. Back to the beginning, to the first people. I have devised a rather complex spell to see. The spell is of a kind rarely used, because it’s unbreakable. The reason it is so is a Gordion knot of mathematics, but the basics are that it is a spell one takes voluntarily on oneself with a proviso that only the wielder can break it. And in the spell is a prohibition against doing just that. It is, in fact, the sort of spell your mother used to make sure she stayed a saint.”

She had a knot in the pit of her stomach. “What… will it do?”

“Neither memory nor physical appearance would be changed. The mental alterations basically consist of a translation of memory and thought from one language into another. To you, there would be no change at all, but as the language is a nonvocal one, you could neither speak, understand, read, or write, although you would, of course, hear normally. Artifacts—man-made things—would be a mystery to you, even though intellectually you would recognize and know them. The basic needs would be paramount, the social inhibitions minimal. The physical part of the spell would prevent others from circumventing the rest and would adapt your body so that you could survive the elements. Do you follow me so far?”

“You’d make me some kind of animal.”

“No. You’d have free will and your full memory and intellect. Flux power could be used in defense or in self-preservation, but only for that. You are a big, strong, powerful girl and you’ll stay that way, forever young, athletic, and beautiful. You could defend yourself in Anchor, I suspect. And—here’s the sugar. There is a way, and one way only, to break the spell. I won’t tell you how, but it cannot be done by you. If your mother, or one of the Nine, can figure that out and is willing to pay the price, you can be freed.”

“So that’s it. You expect my mother to pay this price or whatever.”

“Well, it’ll be a clear ransom, at least. Price for freedom. And no matter what, you’ll have your youth, beauty, and intellect and you will be free in Flux and Anchor to go anywhere you want. An adjunct to the spell will give you the basics—seeing strings, finding or making basic food and water—and they’ll come to you as you need them. That’s the bargain, and it’s take it or leave it. You must see, of course, that I’m taking a chance with it. I’m betting your ransom will not be paid, and therefore your Soul Rider is going to be stuck in a nearly immortal body limited to the Flux powers you can use—which are purely defensive. But if the ransom is paid, now or in the future, that’s fine, too, for the result will make the Soul Rider’s job more difficult and mine easier. Will you accept the spell, or shall I do my worst? It’s up to you.”

She sat back a moment and closed her eyes, trying to think clearly. O.K., Soul Rider or whoever you are, what do you say? But there was no answer, only a feeling of inevitability. To be stuck forever in Anchor as a creature, mental and physical, of Coydt’s warped imagination, or to take living like an animal, but free, with the possibility, however remote, of having the spell lifted. The agent of Hell had made a terrible offer, but there was no choice.

“I’ll take your ‘experiment’ or whatever you want to call it,” she told him. “I don’t see I really have a choice.”

“I kind of hoped you’d see it that way. Oh, by the way—one other little part of the spell is that you will not recognize me or my helpers if you ever see them again, unless we want you to. Forget revenge and just see what kind of life you can live. I’m real curious myself, not to mention curious to see if the Soul Rider can break a spell like this if it has to.”

“When?” she asked softly.

“Now,” he replied. “Just relax and put your head back. No coercion can be used, but I can ease it along and help you. Now, even with your eyes shut, you should see it in your mind. You don’t have to understand it, just see it. Do you?”

And she did see, an incomprehensible spider’s web of crisscrossing lines, long and short, curled and straight, in a series of knotty patterns so complex they almost, but not quite, merged into one mass.

“Now that is what you do in your own mind. It’s simple. See it? Grasp it, then make your own pattern just like it. Just think it through.”

It was a similar mass, but there were only a few strings in a very straightforward pattern. She concentrated on it, imagined a duplicate of it in her mind. The first faded out, leaving only hers.

“Now, if you wish this spell, just merge that little pattern of yours to the one you see and then just think, ‘I freely accept this spell upon myself.’ Go ahead. That’s all there is to it.”

It was as if two long, gnarled balls of string, one tiny and one huge, were merged together and their loose ends tied. I freely accept this spell upon myself, she thought, not really understanding what was happening nor fully able to grasp the reality of the situation. The two spells knotted, merged, glowed, and then seemed to flow into her. She felt suddenly terribly dizzy, as if she were falling, and she found herself confused. It was impossible to think, and she was falling…