“I still can’t understand why anybody who looks like you would enter the priesthood,” Mahta said to Marigail. “Still, that’s it now, I guess. Uh—how does it feel?”
Marigail shrugged. “Not really any different. At least, I don’t notice anything different. Oh, well, maybe a little. Things I thought were real important just don’t seem that way anymore. Like this trip home. Even a couple of days ago it seemed the most important thing in my whole life. You know, going home a real priestess, seeing everyone, all that. Now—it’s just something that must be done before I can get to work. What about you? You think you’re going to come back, or is this it for you?”
“I don’t know,” Mahta responded. “I enjoyed it all, and I like the Church, but it just doesn’t seem like my whole life. Who knows? After two years in the mines I’m just going to relax and enjoy myself a bit, just like she said. Who knows? At any rate, if you’ll let me, I’ll come to your public ceremony.”
“I’d like that very much. It’ll be in Tonibar Riding, just north of the capital, the first Holy Day after I’m back. You know you’ll be welcome.”
Kasdi overheard, and smiled a bit to herself. Things would work out for both of them, she was sure. Later, she was amused to overhear a whispered conversation between them that was basically a less than totally complimentary impression of her. Marigail had described Kasdi as old and hard-looking, and seemed a bit disappointed at how ordinary the living patron saint of the Reformed Church seemed. It was far better and more charitable than Mahta’s impression of an egomaniacal old crone. She didn’t mind either impression, though. It kept her in her place and helped combat her greatest fight, the fight against her own blasphemous deification among the masses.
They pressed on through the static energy field that was the void towards Anchor Logh, following energy trails, or strings, that only stringers and wizards could see.
She was a lively, outgoing young woman. She was almost exotically pretty, a bit sexy and erotic, and she knew it. She had long, straight auburn hair almost to the waist, unusual large green eyes, a sensual mouth in an expressive face, and a trim, athletic figure that seemed put together just right. She was quite tall—one hundred eighty centimeters barefoot—but hadn’t an ounce of fat nature didn’t need or require. She was well aware of how attractive she was and liked to flaunt it in a teasing way.
She was also bright, if no genius, with good grades through school and a healthy curiosity about the world around her, but she preferred the outdoors to books and athletics to scholarship. She had always been spoiled as a child, and her beauty and athletic prowess had made her a center of attention as a teen as well. She had, ot course, lived a sheltered and pampered life, but was not really aware that it was so. If she lacked anything, it was a sense of ambition and a sense of direction. She had graduated now, and was working on the communal farm where she’d been raised, doing odd jobs here and there, but every time her future had come up, she’d changed the subject. She didn’t really like to think much of the future; she liked it too much the way it was. There were colleges she might enter, but aside from a love of the outdoors she really had no strong drive towards one field or another. Nothing she really liked excited her, and she was aware that in any given field there were far too many with better aptitude and intelligence for her to rise very far.
Still, if she did not choose more education, she would be expected to apprentice to a trade, and none of those appealed much to her either. Marriage and kids also seemed unattractive. She had lost her virginity at sixteen, a fact that would still horrify her mother and the rest of the family, but she wasn’t very experienced in that department. Three times, that was all, and while she’d found the last two at least pleasurable, they certainly weren’t worth the risk of pregnancy and were, in a way, disappointing when looked back upon. Still, she was fairly inhibited regarding herself. She liked playing, teasing, and, yes, using the lust of all the boys best. It was more of a charge knowing that you were lusted after than actually taking them up on it.
What she really wanted, she knew, was an unlimited amount of credit to go off and see all of World, doing what she wanted when she wanted, and generally having a good time. Unfortunately, real life had a way of dashing romantic fantasies. Her mom called it her “stringer blood.”
If there was one thing in her life that was empty, it was her parentage. She’d been told that her father had been a stringer killed in the Flux and that her mother had been a cast-out in the days when they used to draw lots to see which young people got sent into slavery in Flux and which got to stay and lead normal lives in Anchor. It was a sweet, romantic story—cast-out girl and stringer fall in love—but it had ended unhappily, with her father dead and her mother returning with the liberators here to Anchor Logh, only to die in an accident when she was very young. Those were mysteries, and mysteries she had found, after all these years, impossible to solve or even discuss with the few who knew anything. Nobody knew the stringer’s name, since her mother hadn’t said, or so they told her. Nobody was even positive that her father had really been a stringer, only that this was the story her mother had told.
As for the mother, there were no records and lots of names on the lists of cast-outs from those days. No pictures seemed to have been taken of her, and the one name they gave, Helaina, appeared on no official record except a formal death certificate. She had gotten the impression that nobody wanted to talk about her mother because she had not been formally married and had used her body to get out of slavery instead of her brains, but she didn’t care about that. Still, she’d always had the urge to go into Flux and at least search for somebody who might have known, might remember and be willing to talk, as unlikely as that might be. But as much as the Flux fascinated her and called to her, it also frightened her. She’d seen it more than once, from the old walls, a glittering wall of nothingness stretching out forever, and it had seemed cold and empty and lonesome.
She munched on an apple and walked out of the apartment and down the dirt road through the fields leading to the main highway. She barely glanced at the Holy Mother above, a great, amorphous light banded in yellows, blues, and oranges— the sight had always been there and would have been unnatural only if absent. It was a warm day, and she wore a pair of denim jeans low on her hips, a sleeveless white shirt that came down to her navel, and little else more, save a pair of high-heeled riding boots, which put an extra wiggle in her walk and added another five centimeters to her height, and a cream-colored ranch hat, side brims starched up.
She knew that, sooner or later, the coach from the west gate would come by, and that Sister Janise was aboard, and that was whom she was there to meet. She was never comfortable with Sister Janise—the woman was like a doting maiden aunt, only she really never understood the relationship the old girl had to her or her real mother. Janise had always been a little boring and made her feel uncomfortable, although she always thought that, if she could ever find a way, she might learn more from the Sister about her own origins.
The coaches were never on time, so she just thanked the Goddess that it was such a nice, warm day and settled down on the grass near the road to wait.
After a while Sucha Fane rode by, spotted her, and stopped and dismounted. He was a nice-looking boy her age, nothing wonderful but nice enough, and they’d shared some classes together in school. She had never felt really attracted to him, considering her other choices, and they had never dated, but that never stopped him from trying and it was a dull day.
“Hi, Spirit. What’cha doin’ sittin’ here?”
“Waiting for the damned coach. My batty priestess aunt is due in for one of her interminable visits, that’s all. You?”
“Goin’ in to the guild halls to see if my number’s come up, that’s all. You know I got a slot as apprentice electrician.”
“No! Congratulations! That’s a big new field.”
And it was. The reformation of the Church had ushered in a whole new era of scientific inquiry. Study was made of many subjects that had been forbidden or had been restricted to the Church, and hundreds of the brightest minds of World were hard at work. The whole of the capital was electrified now, and there was talk of extending the power grids eventually to every city, town, and farm in Anchor Logh. Her farm would be among the first, as it was one of the two or three closest to the capital. It was said that power would soon no longer be dependent on the supernatural gusher in the temple, but actually might be generated from the energy of Flux, or from units of compressed solid energy created in Flux that could be transported, stored, and used locally in Anchor.
The old books and records had yielded many suppressed miracles, including the transmission of speech by electrical energy, not just through wires but through the air. It seemed impossible, but they had all seen demonstrations of it in school and in the capital. The entire world was poised on the edge of a technological revolution that would match or exceed the impact of the Reformation.
The conversation turned, quite naturally, to the personal, and she had little trouble putting him off yet again. Still, she sometimes felt sorry for the Suchas of the world, and she felt tempted occasionally to give them a break or a thrill. Not now, though. Not today, particularly.
Crestfallen as usual from being shot down again, he sighed, got up, and remounted his horse. “Got to be gettin’ in before they close,” he said lamely.
“Take care and good luck,” she responded. “I mean that.” And she blew him a kiss.
That last really brightened his day, and he rode off at a happy gallop.
Almost on cue, the coach rumbled into sight in the distance, and she watched it approach, then got up as it slowed. The door opened, and out stepped old Sister Janise, looking the same as always.
“Hi, Sister Janise! It’s been a while!” Spirit opened, trying to sound as enthusiastic as she could.
“Too long,” the Sister responded, and hugged her and gave her a peck on the cheek. The coach rumbled off, and they watched it go into the distance towards the capital.
“Everybody’s waiting for you,” Spirit told her. “Mom’s been cooking all day.”
“Well, I hope they didn’t put themselves out too much for me. It will be good to see them all, but this isn’t quite the usual social visit.”
Spirit frowned at that, but let it pass. “Want to go see Mom?”
“In a minute. I think I’d just like to walk along the road and around the farm for a little bit. Not only have I been four days on those blasted coaches, but I like to . . . remember.”
They began walking back towards the distant buildings, perhaps a kilometer in. “That’s right— you did say you grew up around here, didn’t you?”
The Sister nodded. “Yes. This very farm. It’s nice to see that it’s changed so little over the years, although that’s probably going to end soon. Dramatic change is coming to Anchor Logh. I sometimes wonder, in ten years, if we—either one of us—will recognize this place and whether the magic of science here won’t overpower the magic of Flux.”
Spirit had never seen Janise in such a reflective mood. It gave her an odd sense of foreboding, particularly when coupled with the old woman’s earlier cryptic remark.
Janise slopped for a moment and pointed. “Let’s go over to that grove of trees. I want to talk for a moment.”
They went over and sat on the grass. For a little bit the Sister was silent, but finally she said, “For a long time you’ve wondered about your parents, haven’t you? Your natural ones, I mean.”
The statement jolted her, but she repressed her excitement. “Yes, that’s true.”
“You’re a beautiful, grown woman now. I think it’s time you were told the truth, although you will not be able to tell it to anyone else.”
Spirit felt a chill. “The truth?”
The Sister sighed. “Yes. The truth. But not because you are grown now. It was decided to tell you because others may learn of you, others who might wish to do you harm because of your heritage. You must know in order to guard yourself.”
“Guard myself from whom? What’s this all leading to?”
“You know the story of the Reformation. That Cass, a girl from this farm, this riding, discovered the corruption in the temple and was exiled to Flux. How she discovered in herself great power and how she fell in love with a stringer, and when that stringer died in the war against Hell, she was transformed into the most powerful wizard World had ever known.”
“I hadn’t known about the stringer part, but the rest is taught every Holy Day.”
“Well, Cass became, of course, Sister Kasdi. She beat the evil wizard Haldayne and transformed his evil kingdom into Hope, the seat of the Reformed Church. This you know.”
She nodded. “Yeah, sure. I guess everybody does.”
“And nothing so far suggests a parallel with anything you have been told?”
She shrugged. “Except that that battle killed my natural father, not particularly.”
“Sister Kasdi had a daughter in Anchor by her slain lover. The big secret they’ve always tried to hide from you and everybody else is that you are that daughter.”
Oddly, she felt no shock at the revelation. It was simply too ridiculous to be believed, let alone accepted.
“She had to choose between you and the Reformation, Spirit. She chose the Reformation for the good of everyone rather than herself, and she did everything possible to make sure that nobody would ever trace you to her. You would be the one piece of blackmail her enemies could hold on her.”
“If what you say is true, I doubt if I’d be worth much. I mean, she already took the Church over me, right?” There was a heavy trace of bitterness in her tone, and it hurt.
“There was no choice,” she responded defensively. “You could not be protected in Flux, and the old Church and its forces would have sought out and killed the infant Reformation and both you and her if she didn’t carry it off. I can say you have never been far from her thoughts in all these years.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. So what are you? Her personal watchdog? She sends you to bring me toys and attend my birthday parties and report to her when she’s got the time?”
“That’s a cruel way to put it. She has seen you, many times. But she is a powerful wizard, able to transform herself into just about anybody or anything, and she had to visit in deep disguise so that her enemies wouldn’t know and follow her.”
Spirit felt anger, not relief at all this. “So why the big story now?”
“There are rumors that her old enemies have discovered who you are. Perhaps not, but they are closing in. They suspect. No matter what you think of your mother or what you think she might do, you’d better think another way. It’s not going to be her in the hands of Hell; it’ll be you.”
That was a sobering-up statement if there ever was one. She thought about it a moment, then shook her head sadly. “This is all so … new to me. I mean, all these years I’ve wondered about my real parents, and now you can tell me all this. It’s pretty hard to take.”
“Everyone tried to spare you all this. We worked very hard to do so. Were it not for the possible dangers, it would have continued that way. I’m very . . . sorry.” It was getting more and more difficult to keep up the act, the other persona, but it had to be done. It was sadly ironic that she could not come right out and tell her daughter the truth face-to-face, but if the girl was having troubles believing the truth as it was, nothing less than that would convince her that her doddering old “aunt” was truly the monumental figure familiar to all.
“I don’t see why my mother couldn’t do this job herself,” Spirit said sourly. “She sure has a funny way of showing she cares.”
“But, dear, don’t you see? The only way for that to work would be for her to come as herself—and that would lead her enemies right to you. She can travel nowhere anonymously except in deep disguise. Surely you can understand that. The only safe place would be in Flux, and there, if they so much as suspected, you could not be defended or defend yourself against a concerted attack.”
That logic was not what Spirit wanted to hear right now, nor was it what she was feeling. She felt a lot of resentment and bitterness churning within her, and a great deal of hurt, and yet, somehow, all of it seemed like some kind of crazy dream. Certainly none of the facts had any solidity to her, any kind of personal reality. To be orphaned and fantasize about your real parents was one thing; to discover that you were not an orphan, but that your mother was an alleged saint and the most powerful person in the world—and that she chose that path over you—was something else again. And now to find that you were in mortal danger from the enemies of the mother who didn’t give a damn about you—that was just a little much to swallow right now.
* * *
It had been three days since the revelations, and Spirit was still troubled by them. She had asked her mother—her real mother in all but the biological sense—to confirm the facts, and they had in fact been confirmed, although she still had the feeling that there were things they still wished to conceal from her. She moped around and tried to sort it all out, but it was hard.
It was far easier to look up the Cass of her own riding, though, than the mythical mother they had originally given her. She was struck both by the plainness of her photographs and the tomboy image the records and some of the older farm hands indicated. Eventually she wandered down to the blacksmith’s shop. The foreman there was a familiar figure and, she’d been told, a distant relation, but now she found herself staring at the brawny, silver-haired man at the forge with different eyes.
The first thing Kasdi had done after leaving Spirit that first day was to visit her dad and tell him. He looked up at the girl just inside the wide doorways, put down his tools, wiped off his face with a rag and came over to her. “Hello, Spirit,” he greeted casually.
“Hello . . . Grandfather,” she responded, not at all sure of what tone to take.
He frowned. “Never say that again around here, much as I’d like you to. Come on—let’s go someplace private and talk for a few moments.”
They sat again under the very trees where she’d been told the truth. “I hear tell you’re not very pleased at the news,” he began.
“Well? Should I be?”
He shrugged. “I’m kind of proud of her myself, as you might understand. I can’t say I ever understood her, but we got pretty close, you know. Even more after she took over the Church. Your momma’s a little weird, but she’s got brains and the guts to use ’em.” He gave her a smirk. “She still hasn’t got me back in the Church, though. Drives her nuts.”
Spirit laughed at that, and some of the ice melted. She hadn’t known him very well before, but she liked him now, as much as she liked the irony that the father of the sainted Sister Kasdi was an unrepentant nonbeliever.
He nodded sagely. “That’s better. You know, I think it drove me more crazy than your mom not to get close to you, because I saw you most every day. Still, the danger’s pretty real, and for your sake and hers I kept apart. I still can’t come out and claim you my granddaughter, but at least we can have a talk now and then. I can tell you’re pretty troubled. Want to talk about it?”
There was something about him that inspired confidence, the same solidity that he gave to the things wrought in iron by his own hands and forge. He had a reputation for being gruff and sometimes mean and nasty, but here he seemed surprisingly gentle and compassionate. She opened up to him, and he listened attentively, never interrupting. When she had finished, he sighed and looked thoughtful.
“Your mom’s a politician and a soldier, the two jobs that make more enemies than any other ten jobs combined. Me they’re only mad at when something I make breaks or isn’t quite right. It’s never personal. Her—it’s all personal. The people you beat hate you and want revenge. The people you never touched are scared of you, and to fear somebody is to be an enemy. Nobody ever agrees with the one who runs things, and everybody thinks they can do a better job. She didn’t want the job, and she hates it now. She’s hated it, I think, since the first. She got herself trapped into it by a bunch of slick politicians themselves who wanted what she could give ’em and suckered her into doing their dirty work. Now she’s really stuck. She can’t quit. Too many folks depend on her. It’s kind of funny, really. Here she is, the most powerful woman on World, and she can’t do anything she wants to do.”
This was a different side of the image, and Spirit was fascinated. “What does she want to do, then?”
“Well, she got stuck before she knew she was pregnant. They could have told her—that slick old fellow Mervyn or whatever he’s calling himself these days—but they needed her. So they got her in the spot where she had to make a real set of decisions before she knew. She hates this fighting, hates the responsibility. I think I would, too. She once told me that what she wanted to do most in the world was just to drop it all, disguise herself, and travel all over World, to every corner of it. See everything that could be seen, learn everything she could learn. No responsibilities, no guilt as she called it, no nothing.”
Spirit had to chuckle at that. “That’s what I want to do, too!”
He nodded. “Figures. That witch-magic gave you your good looks, but the blood’s still the same. She told me not long ago that she’d love to just take you away and have the two of you get to know each other, wandering around World, poking into things, having fun.”
“Well? Why can’t we?”
He sighed. “Because she can’t. Like I said, she’s trapped. Stuck. All those vows are in her by witch-magic. You go into Flux, you get witched, and it sticks. She’s been trying to get me there. Says she can ease my tired bones, make me young again. I’ll join the Church before I go into that mess of stuff. Never know what’ll happen to you. Look at her. She’s got to be Sister Kasdi, live like a saint, look like Hell. You seen the pictures. She sure looks closer to the age my wife would be if she’d lived than my daughter. Flux sure did nothing for her.”
“But she can disguise herself from me.”
He nodded. “And only for that, she says. She’s got all that power, and she’s witched so she can’t use any of it for herself. She’s allowed to change for here only because you need it to protect you.”
“Protect me from whom? What?”
“From her enemies. She’s got a million of ’em, some right here in Anchor Logh. They’d hurt you just because they know it’d hurt her.”
It was Spirit’s turn to sigh. “So I’m as stuck as she is. More, because they can’t really touch her. I’m not powerful. They could do anything they want with me.”
He nodded. “You’re stuck, I agree, but not so bad. You don’t have to sleep in straw and eat slop. You stay here in Anchor Logh and live the rest of your life. Thought about what you’re going to do?”
She shrugged. “Thought about it, yeah—but not much more. I’m sure not ready to settle down, get married, have kids. Not now. I don’t have the smarts or the patience for university, but I don’t have the talent for a trade with any future. I’m just not ready yet.”
“Ready for what? To grow up? You already did, no matter what. Nobody ever wants to grow up, and nobody’s ever ready. In the old days you had no choice at all. You became what they told you or they threw you into slavery. You have more choice now, and slavery’s only for criminals, but it’s still the same. If you don’t pick, they’ll do the picking. What are you good at that you really like?”
She thought a moment. “Sports. Dancing. Not much else.”
“Well, think about teaching gym maybe. Or maybe dancing—no, I guess that’s out. You’d have to travel in Flux to be with dancers that make any money. The only kind of job like that here is on Main Street, and that kind of dancing is no good life.”
She grinned. “It sure would give my mother fits, though, wouldn’t it? Both of ’em.”
“You’d never get anywhere in the joints. Every time somebody made a play for you, your grandfather would be beside ’em with a shotgun.”
As much as it was irritating, the comment nonetheless warmed her. She suddenly had a real family now, and at least one who cared.
“There’s no question,” the woman agent told her boss. “In fact, once you find her, everything just falls logically into place. Even the name— Spirit. And on the same farm, in the same family! She’s not much at concealment, is she?”
The man facing her took a swallow of beer and shrugged. “No need. You’ve been too deep in cover too long. The records were well doctored, so there was no clue there. The people involved all had their minds voluntarily meddled in to back up the phony story. After that, why not put her where you can keep an eye on her and have people around you can trust? I mean, even if we suspected that our enemy’s child lived, which we always did— that kid’s stillbirth was just too convenient to believe—we still had a world to search and thousands of suspects that right age. She’s physically matched to the family she’s with and with a convincing cover. There are hundreds more with stories just like hers.”
“Yes, but—”
“Hey!” he cut her off. “Look, remember—it took us all these years. That’s pretty good. These things always look easier in hindsight. That’s no longer the problem. Tell me—how did you do it?”
“It was the Janise disguise. She was never there. Never. But when Sister Kasdi went on retreat, suddenly Janise was packing her bags to leave—and always here. It was simple to follow her from that point.”
“Well, we might be suspicious of Sister Janise, but she also could be any one of a lot of other unpleasant folks needing a cover. We just timed it perfectly, though, dropping that story that we were on the trail of Kasdi’s daughter through that sidebar stringer stopping at Globbus just before ordination. We set the trap and watched her get the news, then were ready because she had to go through ordination, so the time was known. Then she did the predictable—rushed to check on her daughter as soon as she could. The same as somebody carrying a lot of money will always check their wallets and tell a good thief exactly where the wallet’s hidden. You were one of many we had staked out all around, following every red herring. Now it’s time to plan our next move.”
“I spent two years in that hole eating shit,” the agent reminded him. “Now I expect a big payoff.”
He gave a low chuckle and drained his glass. “You have no Flux power,” he reminded her. “You were homely and pushing fifty when we offered you this job. We made you sixteen again. That’s a pretty good deal for two years you otherwise didn’t have, and they even improved your looks. What other kind of payment do you expect?”