“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.
3
HELL’S EARS
The stringer was a man named Gorondon—that is, that was the name he used, stringers always keeping their true names hidden so that none could ever have a hold on them. He was one of the hundreds of men and women who moved people, goods, and even ideas between Fluxland and Fluxland, Anchor and Anchor, and to all points in between. The stringer guild was a tight organization; one had to be born into it to get full stringer status, and their monopoly on commerce was jealously, even violently maintained. Still, they performed a service better and more efficiently than any other could, and so everyone tolerated them, even if they didn’t quite like or trust them.
Gorondon was a huge, burly man with a full, bushy black beard, a broad, flat nose and big brown eyes. He looked much like an animated statue, chiseled from granite and given life by some magic spell.
Maintaining the train were his duggers, strange, often misshapen creatures who were once human men and women, as mad in the head as they were in form more often than not. Duggers were drawn mostly from the castoffs of conventional society; people who could not fit or were insane and had made their way into Flux, their madness made them appear like their own nightmares, but they were capable of working efficiently in the real world of the void under the direction of a stringer. They worked hard and were fiercely loyal, afraid only of being cast adrift with their madness once again in Flux. Still, they were well paid and secure as employees of the train, and they herded the animals, drove the wagons, loaded and unloaded the cargoes, and guarded against the infrequent but still present marauding bands of robbers and savages who roamed the Flux.
Only Gorondon had gone very far into Hope, to transact his business and pick up messages. There were only a few wide open Fluxlands where duggers felt comfortable, and most stayed with the train except for loading and unloading. Hope, in particular, was not a favorite stop, merely a necessary one. A matriarchal theocracy offended stringer types and made them more than a little nervous. Most saw little difference between being the slave of a mad Fluxland wizard and being a member of, much less a priestess of, the Church.
Knowing he had no less than fourteen passengers for Anchor Logh, the stringer had arranged for coaches, each of which held eight people in equal discomfort. Although the huge wheels were of wood and the facing bench seats inside barely upholstered, the void was smooth and the pace of a train was slow, so the only bumps and bounces were from the teams of eight horses pulling each, and even those bumps and bounces could be minimized by the skill of the dugger driver.
Kasdi climbed into the first coach and, because of her small size, soon found herself with three other companions across, and three more facing her. Whoever had referred to the coaches as eight-passenger vehicles had obviously been thinking of eight five-year-olds; even though all four on Kasdi’s side were small women, none could lift a hand without hitting the person sitting next to them.
She was in her usual Flux disguise as a plain-looking, studious priestess in the black robes of the judiciary order. She had made herself smaller— barely one hundred fifty centimeters, as opposed to her normal height of one hundred sixty—with shoulder-length gray-brown hair, and a long, thin, unattractive middle-aged face that may not have been hard to look at but you wouldn’t look twice. She had also smoothed out and raised her normally very deep voice. Nobody had ever penetrated the disguise, which was so complete that there were actually records on “Sister Janise” so complete that, if anyone checked, they would be certain that she was indeed a separate, real person.
Janise was a useful disguise, particularly when visiting Anchor Logh, and it was a guise known only to a precious few who would never betray it—Mervyn, Tamara, the Sister General of the Anchor Logh temple and her closest friend, her father, and her cousin Cloise, who was surrogate mother to her daughter.
Because stringers knew how uncomfortable it might be to have to ride with a bevy of priestesses, the dugger loadmaster had put the six sisters who were passengers in the same coach, and the one other had been at the school in Hope. Thus, to her amusement, even though she expected it, she found herself sharing a ride of several days with the new Sister Marigail and the girl she’d denied ordination, whose name was Mahta. Introductions and pleasantries were made, but conversation was minimal inside the coach, most of the comments being about the discomfort of the ride and the state of transportation even in this new age.
Gorondon wanted to make Anchor Logh in a bit over three days, so he worked his crew in shifts and planned stops only for water and meals and horse rotation. He was behind his schedule, planned out months ago for a half-year trip, and trying to make up as much of that time as possible. If he didn’t make his scheduled stops before another stringer, he might have business stolen out from under him.
At the meal breaks, though, there were small clusters of conversation and socializing. Mahta, in particular, seemed fascinated to talk to Sister Marigail, with whom she’d shared a dormitory these past two years. Thanks to Kasdi’s spell, Mahta was actually fairly attractive, although nothing like Marigail’s beauty.