03. Masters of Flux and Anchor (17 page)

Black-uniformed patrols had chased him, and he was exhausted by the effort of the last few days and the chase itself. Although he took on the appearance of a very old man, he was in truth biologically strong and as healthy as many of the twenty-year-olds who chased him, but he was not used to this sort of thing. He knew, though, that his worst fears had been realized. Now he was out of ammuni¬tion and on a very tired animal, but he was closing in on the outskirts of the capital itself. There was a small patrol chasing him. barely visible behind him now, but he knew he could outrun them without trouble.

Suddenly his horse shuddered and keeled over, throwing him from his saddle. He was flying through the air before he knew what happened, and then he hit the ground with a hard and painful crash. He tried to recover and run as quickly as possible, but no amount of adrenaline would enable his right leg to carry him. It was certainly broken, perhaps in more than one place, and the pain was tremendous.

He crawled as best he could to the shelter of some bushes and waited. The patrol was soon in view and closing on the body of his horse, lying in the middle of the road.

The five-man patrol drew up beside the animal, then fanned out. It took only a minute for them to find him.

The corporal leading the patrol took a clipboard from his saddlebag and flipped quickly through the pages. He stopped. nodded, and came over to the fallen wizard. "You are Mervyn the wizard?"

"What use is there denying it'?" he managed. "My leg is badly broken,"

"I have no painkillers or medical supplies. You'll have to ride in on one of our horses to the city, where there's a field hospital set up."

He nodded, but cried out in terrible pain as strong hands lifted him and put him atop a horse. It was the most horrible pain he could remember, but he knew he would survive it.

Survive it, but in the hands of the enemy. He entered the city, and even through his pain he found it ironic that they had set up their small medical facility in a clinic just across the square from the temple. So near and yet so far, he thought sourly. Although they set his leg and poured a temporary cast for it, he knew that there was no way he could make it across that way on his own. It was ironic, since there really was no strong force surround¬ing the temple at this point—they were too busy holding the important areas. The only thing he managed to do was take advantage of their painkillers to get a little sleep.

The next morning was the tenth day. Around midday, he had a visitor, one whom he recognized despite the shiny black uniform and boots with the insignia designating the man a major in the New Eden army.

"So, Zelligman, you've found the easy way out, I see? You look rather—undistinguished—without the goatee."

Zeliigman Ivan knelt down and kept his voice low. "A handy disguise. A major is too low to be questioned but high enough to get through the lines. But, in the end, old friend, I'm in almost the same fix as you. They are quite well organized, and freedom of movement is increasingly limited. I am on their list as you are, and I suspect I will not bluff my way out a gate come this evening."

Mervyn had to chuckle, although it hurt. "So at least everything is balanced. One of the Seven dies by firing squad next to one of the Nine."

"Not necessarily. This place is lightly staffed now and rank-conscious. Do you think you could stand on that cast?"

"Stand, perhaps, but not walk."

"Crutches, then. You've already used them to relieve yourself today."

"I'll manage."

"Very well. In the latrine there I have placed a straight razor and shears. Go in, while I divert others, then make yourself unrecognizable by getting rid of that hair. I will bluff you out of here. There are only a few people, mostly medical personnel."

"Yes? And then what?"

"We will go together to the temple by the back way which I know is open but guarded by your people. I rescue you, you rescue me. and we go our own ways after."

Mervyn had to grin. "Done! At least if we're shot this way it'll save a lot of embarrassment!" He hesitated a moment. "This is no trick, is it?"

"I swear to you that it is not.  Believe me,  if I had another way even this certain I would leave you here to be shot. Nothing personal, you understand." It was crazy enough to work.

The latrine was easy to reach, and the scissors worked wonders on his beard and long hair. It was messy, but it would do. Shaving with the big straight razor and just water was painful, but not as painful as the leg—or bullets flying into his midsection. When he was through, he looked disapprovingly at a face that resembled a funeral director's with a bad haircut—and looked nothing like his own. The leg he could not disguise, but they were on the ground floor. Overconfidence worked both ways.

Ivan, despite some disparaging comments about his old foe's appearance, was as smooth as ever, pulling rank and introducing Mervyn as "Colonel Damion, the commander of the glider assault force." The real Colonel Damion was, in fact, still back in Flux someplace, but his name was known more than his face to these young soldiers, and Mervyn played his own part, griping about breaking his leg in his own gadget.

Once around the corner and into the back alley, though, things became trickier. Ivan had a small two-seater pony cart there, and Mervyn managed very painfully to get in. They rode slowly and tensely down the alley towards the alley entrance to the temple, an entrance few really knew about but one common, in one form or another, to all the temples. Ivan, of course, would know the secrets of all the temples inside and out.

They were, in fact, almost to the entrance, a pair of hinged doors in back of a former grocery shop, when they were challenged by two black-clad soldiers. Ivan greeted them warmly, then shot both of them quickly with a mean-looking handgun. He fired again, this time at the lock on the hinged doors, and it shattered. He pulled up the doors and helped Mervyn through and down the stairs as the sound of running feet came behind them. He closed the doors and found a light switch. Turning it on revealed a very ordinary-looking cellar. "Quickly! How do we get in?"

"We don't. Unless somebody is watching us and knows that I'm really Mervyn. we're sunk."

One of the hinged doors was suddenly pulled open, and an object dropped in. Ivan lunged for it and tossed it back, showing extreme speed and precision.

Two more came down, and he wasn't quick enough. Both burst into foul-smelling gas and smoke, obscuring everything.

"You in there!" a voice commanded. "Come out now or we'll toss in grenades next! You have ten seconds!"

Behind them, a wall moved slightly, and two female figures emerged. "Quickly! Get in! We'll settle who you are later!"

Mervyn. coughing and wheezing, was assisted to the small opening and through it. followed by Ivan and the two priestesses. The slab closed again, but there was much foulness from the gas still in the air.

Almost immediately they heard a powerful explosion that vibrated through the tunnel and dimmed and shook the lights for a moment. They hadn't been fooling back there.

"Now—who are you?" one of the priestesses asked suspiciously, studying both men in the enemy's garb.

"I am Mervyn. Her Holiness was expecting me, al¬though probably not this way. This is a—fellow wizard— who saved me from the enemy. In spite of my shave and haircut, I can prove who I am to her, and I'll vouch for my friend. I know you can keep us under arms until it's proven, so let's go. They'll try blasting through that wall any moment now."

It took two interminable hours and much pain on Mervyn's part before they could reach the right people and he could prove his identity. He knew he'd refractured the leg. but it didn't matter. In Flux, he could even restore the beard.

He introduced Ivan as a Fluxlord from up north named Hadley, and it was sufficient. The High Priestess, though, was both relieved to see him and highly agitated.

"There are rumors that the hostages have been betrayed and transformed," she told them.

"I'm afraid it's true," Mervyn replied. "I have some information sources available to me and they have pretty much confirmed it."

"Hadley" nodded solemnly. "I, too, have confirmation of this. Who would have thought it possible? Over eight hundred thousand people transformed in a matter of days? An effective Fluxland covering thousands of square kilometers! It is staggering!"

"Yes, and without cost," Mervyn responded bitterly. "The fools just wouldn't listen! The worst part is, if we could undo it and give them a vote, a fighting death or that, the vast majority would vote to return to their New Eden state!"

"I fear so," the High Priestess sighed. "I fear for poor World. Why is the Goddess suddenly so cruel?"

"Perhaps," said Ivan slyly, "because you have been looking for Hell in the wrong places. Hell is not at the Hellgates. Hell is New Eden transforming World into its own dark vision."

She looked at the strange man and frowned, but did not reply.

"At any rate, I need to get passed through into Flux as quickly as possible," Mervyn told her. "I'm afraid I might have some internal bleeding and possibly infection. We must move, anyway. At nightfall their newly trans¬formed population will stream through the gates led by top officers. They will drive the remaining defenders here like a moving wall, or pull their men back and set up progres¬sive death rays near all opposition."

"At least they will have some problems starting up again," the High Priestess noted. "By what they did to the women they've closed off half the skilled work force."

"The other half will train the new. Don't get your hopes up. We managed some minor damage to a number of installations, but nothing that can't be fixed in a few weeks or months," the old wizard told her. "No, Tilghman's won and we've lost. Best cut and run while we can. Please—I am in terrible pain. Get me to Flux!"

A number of hefty temple wardens who'd fashioned a litter for him carried him down to the basement to where Flux fed Anchor. One spot, round and about three meters across, was the invisible connector, then one spot of Flux, the only point at which Flux intersected Anchor internally. It was from that area that power was drawn for the capital's and temple's needs.

It took only a minute for Mervyn to heal himself as he stood there, and appear again as he was, robes and all. Ivan tensed, knowing that, at this moment, Mervyn could sign his death warrant and it would be instantly carried out.

But Mervyn. as he had counted on. was not one to do such a thing, and reached out his hand. Together they traced the mental pattern that was etched somewhere on the old floor below them, and found themselves in a moment transported to the mouth of the Hellgate itself.

Zelligman Ivan looked around at the round tube-like tunnel which terminated at a great machine with a vast number of controls on it, and beyond that to the source of Flux itself, a swirling mass of pure energy.

"Don't get the urge to punch in the combination now," Mervyn said lightly. "I have no wish to survive what we just did only to be instantly vaporized."

Zelligman Ivan laughed. "Don't worry! I have no desire for that either! Not now. But consider, my old foe—consider what we barely survived by luck and guts today. New Eden is going to win. They will be so strong that nothing in the end will stop them. Tilghman will never civilize them. World will fall into a dark age from which it may never emerge. The animals are overrunning the light, Mervyn! Sooner or later the few of us who are left with our own minds may turn those seven locks in desperation alone, aided and abetted by all that is sane."

Mervyn sighed. "I pray you are wrong, but at least things have now forced themselves into clearcut positions. I prefer to always deal with the devil I know; you are so repulsed by that devil that you prefer the devil you do not know and possibly cannot comprehend. I may fail, but I would rather fight something I can at least comprehend than something I may be powerless against."

"Well, perhaps. But you created the system that created these men, and then you disrupted that system and taught them war, revolution, and empire. Now you reap your own havoc. Now you see the basic difference between us, and why we feel we are right. You have sown this horror, and yet you feel you can reverse it. You must understand that the difference between us is fundamental. The Nine are incurable optimists!"

Mervyn looked at the other wizard. "You realize, of course, that after this we are even once more?"

"That, sir, goes without saying," replied Zelligman Ivan.

It took a bit over ten days to secure the Anchor, al¬though there was scattered resistance going on for quite some time afterwards. It was still extremely easy to subdue, for it was simple to determine the "loyal" from the "disloyal" population by appearance and attitude alone.

Sorting out, classifying, and assigning the population their roles was far more complex, but it was something New Eden had had a good deal of practice doing, and they did it very efficiently. Turning the mighty industries back on would take far more time, but it could be done. New Eden had done what it had to do.

The bulk of the army, strengthened by a hundred thou¬sand of Anchor Nantzee's men whom initial interviews had determined to be "nonessential." moved immediately south to Anchor Mareh. They hoped that word of what they had done to the Nantzee population had not yet reached the lone remaining independent in the cluster, but knew it probably had, and that, in the end. it made no difference. Mareh was not an Anchor whose population had essential and irreplaceable skills. They would submit, or New Eden's forces would kill every human being they encountered. General Champion had a dislike for long campaigns.

Adam Tilghman remained behind, mostly because Cas¬sie was due at any time. He was determined to get back to his own home as quickly as possible, but he wanted no chances, even in Flux. He killed the little time remaining by tending to routine duties, one of which proved a bit more than that.

He had presided over a thousand court-martials and civil trials, but this one was unusual in that he knew the defen¬dant and had placed him in command. He felt personally betrayed, and somewhat humiliated, and was determined to handle this one forcefully himself.