daze. She had been, she knew, at war with herself these past few days, and she now knew which side had won. She was a wizard, and, therefore, she could have him, and he was everything that mattered most.
Before Persellus could be invaded, the three top wizards had to first break what they called Haldayne’s shield. This was not a barrier in the physical sense, but more a mental zone of control.
Each Fluxland was the product of the unrestrained mind of the controlling wizard, and it was as large and as stable as that wizard’s will. To invade before that control was broken would only mean that the attackers would come under the will and control of the defender. There was not much profit in that.
However, breaking the shield was not the end of Jack L. ChaSker
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it. Haldayne had first broken the goddess’s shield, then faced her down physically, and only then was he able to impose himself on the land. With his shield broken, the land would still remain his and in his vision. To remake the land, and make it stick, the wizards would have to progress to a point within the Fluxland where their own powers and wil^s could reach the farthest corners of Persellus-That ground, which might be all the way to the capital, would have to be won the hard way.
Watches had been synchronized, and the three top wizards positioned at the three decided-upon points of entry. Like most Fluxlands, Persellus was basically circular, although with jagged edges. At the appointed time, with only a small company of carefully selected junior wizards for any direct Page 207
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protection, all three of the chief wizards stepped into the land of Persellus, and began walking forward until they met resistance. Haldayne had -to keep them out, or surrender control. Haldayne was not the type to surrender anything easily.
Behind the wizards, a good three hundred meters behind, came the leading edge of the troops.
Cass had been ordered to remain behind, but. as time wore on and things seemed stalled, she impatiently saddled her horse and rode toward Persellus, passing backed up troops, light artillery, and supply wagons. After all this, she decided she was not going to miss at least seeing what was going on.
What was going on was awesome and spectacular.
The countryside had changed so much she would not have recognized it as Persellus. Dark, rumbling mountains spitting smoke and fire were all around, and the countryside was covered with a fine gray ash. She finally determined where the river was, but it was mud and ash-swollen and choked with debris. Although the landscape was lit with an eerie glow that made it possible to see SOUL RIDER: SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR 293
great distances, the sky was black as pitch, with no stars, no Heaven, nothing to break it.
Ahead, far in the distance but so enormous that it dominated all else, was a tremendous figure illuminated in lines of energy. It had the rough shape of a man, rising up from the ground, but its head was horribly demonic. It was no projection, despite the fact that it was seen only by the outline of the blazing energy, for it moved and roared a terrible, hateful sound that went through the very ground and made it tremble. It was battling somethingthree strong, solid, straight lines of force directed at it from the ground. One struck it from behind, one from its left side, and one came from the small, wizened figure of a man seated in a folding chair in the middle of what passed for the road directly ahead of them. –
The great energy beast was strong, and it would occasionally reach out and grasp one of the energy beams as if it were a rope, fight with it, then force it away, but it could not deal effectively With three such attacks from three different directions. Each time it concentrated on one, the other two took advantage to attempt to coil themselves around its ghostly body. Still, it had been fighting this way for hours.
Cass was enthralled with .the display, and at a loss to understand why most of the soldiers in back acted bored and uncomfortable and were not watching at all. She suddenly realized that what she was watching and hearing was on a different frequency than normal, like the stringer’s strings.
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neither see nor hear it.
The great beast was clearly tiring, and the energy beams were having more and more success.
One from the side finally reached the creature’s neck and began coiling itself around that hideous face. The demon reached up to tear the beam away, 294 Jack L. Chalker
but now Mervyn shot out at the thing’s legs, while the one behindthat would be Tatalanegrasped at its arms and tried to pull them away from the neck.
Mervyn pulled, and the beast roared and rocked, then bent over, barely keeping on its “feet.” A second beam now went for its neck, and then a third. The creature screamed in agony, and there was a sudden great, blinding flare of light in the distance and, a bit later, a tremendous thunderclap rolled down the valley that all could hear.’
When Cass could see again, the far horizon was clear.
Two junior wizards helped the old wizard to walk back to a wagon. They lifted him in, gently, then took the reins. There was the sound of horns all about, echoed in the distance. The shield was down. Haldayne retained his control over what he’d had, but could no longer exercise control beyond it. If he tried, he’d send the land back to Flux, and have nothing to defend.
The troops advanced perhaps a kilometer when they met resistance. Well dug-in defenders of Persellus opened up on them with massive machine gun fire, and the air all around them went chill and was filled with terrible shapes from Hell itself.
The initial advance was cut to shreds by the fire, and frustrated by its inability to see the enemy positions past the illusory phantoms. The defender’s task now was simple-They far outnumbered the attackers, and while they had few decent wizards, neither did the attacking forces for a whue. The effort of breaking the shield was great, and it would be hours, perhaps more, before any of the three chief sorcerers could be in any condition to help.
Haldayne, too, was in much the same shape, but he would also regain strength the more time went on, perhaps enough to reestablish and extend his SOUL RIDER: SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR 295
shield. Because of their inferior numbers, the attackers had to advance well into the country before this could happen, or the scenario just played out would happen again, with Haldayne able to redeploy and even by spell resupply and reform his defenders so that the next round would be just as costly. If the attackers stalled for any great length of time, each and every time, they would be Page 209
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wiped out.
Cass watched from her original position, well back of the fighting, but she could see everything clearly. More and more troops were filing past her and marching towards those deadly gun emplacements, then dropping and trying to dig in. Artillery was set up near her, and soon the boom of cannon fire was added to the din, as the gunners attempted to line up on the machine guns. She watched the carnage with mounting horror, saw the field littered with the dead, and was revolted as she had never been in her life. Never in her most terrible nightmares could she imagine the reality of this massacre.
She glanced over and was startled to see Matson, cigar and all, sitting high on his horse and directing somecreatureswho were hauling up some very odd-looking things. They appeared to be a large number of parallel metal pipes .all lashed together. When they were in range, he gave a series of signals and smaller shapes moved up behind the tubes. In less than a minute a hundred tubes, almost at the same time, erupted with a roar and flashing smoke and fire, and ahead the gunnery positions were pounded with an entire line, perhaps three hundred meters across, of massive explosions. The roar was deafening.
The small creatures behind the tubes, whatever they were, were fast and professional and moved to Matson’s barked orders. A second salvo went off, and, after the last explosion had discharged, 296 Jack L. Chalker
there was a roar and cheer from troops up ahead.
They moved forward. Matson’s guns had pushed back or wiped out the machine gun nests, and the columns moved forward once more.
Another kilometer, and suddenly the ground opened up ahead of the advancing troops, like a giant mouth. They fell in, and it swallowed them and closed again. From behind came more withering machine gun and rifle fire, pushing the attackers back.
Less than a hundred meters from Cass’s new position, Matson frowned, barked more orders to the creatures hauling the tubes forward, and rode up to the forward command group where the junior wizards were conferring with the field commanders on how to overcome this obstacle.
The stringer shouted something at them, and they nodded, and two of the junior wizards went back with him to his launchers. She waited, as they all did, to see what was up.
To her surprise, the troops were now ordered forward, and they went slowly, nervously, to the area of the trap. All defending fire stopped suddenly.
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When enough soldiers were on the area of the trap, it opened again, swallowing them, but at the same time Matson’s tubes opened up, concentrating their rounds on the opening. This time there were no explosions, for the tubes shot not explosive rounds but huge balls of some gooey substance. The mass filled in the mouth before it could close, and as it tried it just compacted the new material, which seemed to quickly harden. Cannons opened up on the gun emplacements beyond the “mouth” at almost the same time, and again troops moved forward-The “mouth” shimmered and shook and tried to free itself, but it was hopeless. Matson had effectively filled it and paved it over.
It went like that for some time, although time became blurred into the sameness of death-Haldayne had a huge population to call upon, but he couldn’t SOUL RIDER: SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR 297
use them. His own volcanos had filled in enough of the valley to make any massive deployment of forces from behind very slow and difficult. The geographic strategy he had laid out to keep the attackers on a single, predictable line of march worked against him as well, and he had three sides to defend.
Mervyn, however, was still unconscious, and bird messengers brought news that Krupe, too, was still out, while tiny Tatalane was conscious but very, very weak. Still, there was no sign at all of any attempt to raise another shield, which told them that Haldayne was in at least as bad shape himself. k
In what turned out to be more than nine hours of continuous fighting, Mervyn’s force had gained almost fifteen kilometers,, Krupe’s twelve, and Tatalane’s sixteen, but that last was the most important. She was coming in from the side, which had a couple of nasty volcanos in the way but was also the least defended, there being no natural road in from that point. Terrain had been her biggest enemy, but now that she had somehow cleared the mountains she was on a plain heading directly for the capital.
Cass rode back to a field kitchen and got a canteen filled not with water but with beer, then headed for Matson. He was surprised to see her, but he looked very, very tired and suddenly very old, and his shirt was soaked with perspiration.
Still, he managed a smile. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be up here with the common folk,” he managed to joke-She threw him the canteen. “Here. Drink your damned religion.”
He caught it, opened it, and swallowed, then looked surprised and pleased. “I’ll be damned! It’s beer!” He said that last like it was the most wonderous and beautiful word in the language.
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He put it down and sighed, then looked out at the fighting not far away. They were bogged down again, this time by a very large number of v/ell dug-in troops. “Sure is a bitch, ain’t it?” he Said wearily. “You better get back a little, though, Sister Cass. Stray bullets are carrying back farther than this.”
“I’m a whole lot more bullet proof than you,”
she told him, “and you don’t look too worried.’”’
He turned and looked out at the battle. “Well, I” he began, then he was apparently hit by an invisible fist that knocked him off his horse, the canteen flying out of his hand.
“Matson!” she screamed, and jumped off her horse and ran to him. The entire front of his shirt had been ripped away by whatever it was that had hit him, and it seemed as if his chest were one huge bloody wound. He was still, his mouth open, blood trickling from it. She took his hand, squeezed it, and screamed at him, “Matson! Come on, you goodfor-nothing stringer! You beat the odds! You always beat the odds! You can’t do this to me! Not now!”.
But there was no response. She felt a presence near her and whirled, seeing Jomo. “Jomo!” she cried desperately. “Get a healing wizard here!
Hurry! He’s been hit!”
The enormous tears in the huge blob of a man looked very strange, but the dugger shook his head, then knelt down and checked out Matson’s body.
“No use, Missy Cass,” he said, voice trembling. “He gone to see Missy Arden.”
“No! Oh, Holy Mother above, please! Not now!
Not him! Not yet!” she sobbed. Jomo got up and tried to pry her gently away from the body. For a while he could not budge her, nor could she do anything but sob and stare at Matson’s lifeless body. Suddenly she shook off the giant dugger/got up, and turned facing the battle, a strange expression on her face. She seemed to radiate power, the SOUL RIDER: SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR 299
kind only powerful wizards do, and the dugger stepped back nervously and just watched.
She looked out at the bodies. Everywhere there were bodies, everywhere there was blood and terror and death. In that moment something snapped within her, snapped for good. Now she understood, at last, that what she had been telling Suzl was only part of the truth. She was not any victim of chance, but the one chosen. Everything that had happened said that she was the agent of divine Page 212
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will. She had wavered and fallen, as the church had fallen, because of human frailty and weakness, ,and because oflhis Matson had to pe taken from her. She knew that now, understood that it had to be this way. Every step she had taken, every new experience, from the point at which she’d first entered the forbidden sacristy, had been directed to this one destiny.
“No more,” she muttered under her breath, looking at the fallen bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. “No more,” she said again, louder now, the tremendous power rising within her. It was will that brought it up, but emotion that triggered it. She stuck out her arms, palms out, as if to stop something coming down on her, but it was something different she wanted to stop. All sounds of battle, of people yelling and guns firing, vanished in a roar in her ears. There was only a single will now, and it was directed forward. She felt the power as she had never felt it.
And the Soul Rider provided the required mathematics.
Far off, in the capital, a weak Gifford Haldayne was taking a drink and waiting it out, trying to regain what strength he could. He felt it at once, and knew it for what it was, and cursed himself for it. Damn their eyes! They had a fourth World class wizard in reserve!
He frowned, then staggered, suddenly, from the 300 Jack L. Chalker
force of a psychic blow. “What the hell is this?” he asked aloud, amazed-Never in his entire life had he felt such power, such force, such single-minded direction of will. This was something totally new, and totally frightening. This was no doing of the Nine, or Seven, or any combination of Fluxlords.
This was something new, and terrible, and beyond even his ancient comprehension. He had a sudden, queer thought. What have I unleashed? he wondered, but he did not dwell on it now. He knew wha,Ł he had to do, and he knew he had only seconds to do it.
He released control to the new force, changed to a raven, and was out of there like a shot. He was fifty kilometers into the void before he even allowed himself enough time to realize just how close it had been.
On the battlefield, Mervyn awoke with a strange sensation inside him. He got up weakly and made it forward to the seat so that he could see out and ahead of him. The sight that he saw was as unprecedented to him as it had been to Haldayne.
Cass, in lavender robes stained with Matson’s blood, walked forward towards the battle. As she did, the firing stopped on both sides, and the face Page 213
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of the land and sky trembled and changed. All around her the darkened and blood-stained volcanic ash changed into life itself, into fresh, green grass and flowers. It spread continuously out, touching the front lines and causing soldiers on both sides to stop, turn, and stare. The sky above lightened until it attained the dark blue of Anchor, and the landscape rippled as in Anchor as the great orb of Heaven filled the sky, sending its multicolored light down on the scene.
The wizard was awed by the power coming from her, and the total mastery of the Flux and its complex mathematics and physics despite her al-SOUL RIDER: SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR 301
most complete lack of training. He had, indeed, set the conditions up and put it all in motion, but he had never expected anything like this. In fact, he had to admit, he hadn’t in the end expected anything at all.
The zone of Fluxland influence now extended from horizon to horizon, the volcanos becoming green rolling hills, the river crystal clear and running its normal course.
The soldiers of Flux and Anchor on both sides of the battle could not, in the main, sense any of the magic, yet it radiated from her frail form and touched them all. They threw down their weapons as she passed, and fell in behind her as she continued her walk.
She drew strength from the Flux, not only for herself but for them, and she walked without stop all the way to the capital, with those of both sides following silently. From the rear and from the side others streamed in from the other two attacking forces, and their enemies.
The town itself had been transformed. No longer was there a goddess’s tower or Haldayne’s great black castle, but in the center was a huge Temple, the largest ever seen, radiating from its perfect surface the colors of Heaven. As she entered the city limits, the townspeople lined the routes ten deep, throwing flowers at her and at all the soldiers.
All fell in as the parade passed, and moved to the central Temple area, where they filed in before the great steps and back as far as the eye could see-All stopped at the base of the Temple steps, but Cass kept walking until she was at the top.
Only then did she turn and face the crowd, which was suddenly silent.
“People of Flux and Anchor, hear me,” she said, and her voice somehow carried clearly throughout the boundaries of the land. “I am the Adjutant not of Anchor but of Heaven itself. Corruption has, 302 Jack L. ChaUcer
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strangled humanity long enough. There is the corruption of the church in Anchor, and the corruption of wizardry in Flux. Both have held humanity too long in their grip. You have just endured a great battle, but to what end? Hell is but the ultimate corruption of the human soul, and it flourishes and grows and feeds upon that corruption.
Thousands of brave, good people have just died, mixed their blood with this land, and for what? To make things better? No! To keep things the same.”
She paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and continued.
“To keep things the same,” she repeated, saying.
it bitterly. “So what choice did we have? We were offered only our choice of Hells! To this I say, no more. No more. It is evil! I renounce such evil. I rebel at such a choice. The Holy Mother cries out to me, ‘No more! No more!’ I reclaim this land in Her name, and with Her power, and I rename it Hope. I do not bind you to my will, for then I would be as guilty as those who now run World.
Instead I offer you a partnership, and hope, and no more. It will be no easy road, to reform our ways, to rebuild our corrupted church, to make for ourselves a world of free men and women who will not fear Hell because it will have no way to gain a foothold inside us. You, all of you here, can be the vanguard that will revolutionize World. We may be weak at times, we may stumble occasionally, we might even suffer failures and disappointments, but we will try.”