Jack Chalker - Empires of Flux & Anchor

Ravi returned a bit later and she was waiting for him. “Spirit’s going off on her own,” she began.

He nodded. “I expected that sooner or later. Frankly, it will be a relief.”

“I’m going with her.”

For a moment he seemed not to hear, then he finally said, “What did you say?”

“I said I’m going with her. I resign from the company.”

His cool demeanor was betrayed by the nasty, bitter edge in his voice. “You are insane. You have no powers in Flux. She might be able to conjure food and drink, but not the kind you like so well. She can certainly offer no protection against other wizards’ spells.”

“Neither can you, for that matter. She can read strings and protect me from the usuals. Besides, I think she needs me.”

“ I need you.”

“No, you need window-dressing. A cardboard woman for your business image. She doesn’t need that. She needs someone to care about. She needs a friend.”

Ravi’s face was turning slightly purple. “If you do this, I will see that you never work for a stringer again. And in a few days or weeks, when you go mad from having no one to talk to and cannot even keep pace with that wild primitive, you will have no place left to turn. Have you considered that?”

“There’s always the dugger havens up north in the wild. I’ve made up my mind, Ravi. I’m going.”

“So you wish this, do you? You prefer her, do you? Well, let us see how well you will truly do. If you think it is so bad to pretend, then I curse you to pretend no more. If I had the knowledge, I would make you just like her, but I cannot. But this clothing business I can manage. All of your clothes are made by my magic. I withdraw that magic now.” The clothing that she wore vanished. “Know now that you have a simple spell, but one that is hard to break. Like your girlfriend, you cannot conceal, but while she has nothing to hide, you do and will no longer be able to. I take the bit of spell from her and link it to you, so that you may wear nothing that she does not. I purchased the spells that made you as you are, and those will remain, as will you. They are tied to your curse and cannot be changed even by your Sister Kasdi.”

She felt anger boiling up. “Are you finished? Or do you have a few more curses to lay on me?”

“You will not reconsider in light of this?”

“Not now. Not ever. Not after this.”

“Your resignation is accepted, then, immediately. Without the special undergarments you could not ride a horse, so I will credit your account with the price. You both have ten minutes to leave.”

He stalked off, and she went to find Spirit. Come, let us go.

Spirit was surprised that Suzl had nothing on and nothing with her, and stared a moment. She saw the spell then, linking the two of them, its stamp not Ravi’s but someone strange. She realized now the depth of the sacrifice Suzl was making, and the total trust the dugger had placed in her hands. She hugged Suzl and there were a few tears in her eyes.

Suzl gestured and said, although she knew Spirit couldn’t understand, “Come on. Let’s blow this crummy joint before I come to my senses.”

Together, with nothing, they walked off into the void.

They spent days walking in the void, following a randomly picked string. Spirit cleared all old strings from Suzl and put on her own so that, even should they get separated, she could be found anywhere in Flux. Suzl had good stamina considering her fat, but her stride was short and she could hardly keep pace with Spirit’s energy. For her part, Spirit began to experiment with just what she could do with the Flux power. Up to now, she’d taken the accepted wisdom that her powers were strictly limited, but those limitations were not that precise, as her handling of the strings showed.

Any attempt to alter or change Suzl physically was a failure, although it wasn’t clear whether it was Spirit’s curse or Suzl’s doing the blocking. She could, however, divert Flux energy from herself to Suzl by touching the dugger, such as by grasping a hand. The linkage Ravi had forged was the next experiment, and she found that she could direct the power through that linkage as easily as through a physical contact. Unknowingly, Ravi had done Suzl a favor. She found, for example, that she could alleviate the bad chafing that inevitably developed under Suzl’s breasts and in her crotch, and she made a small scar on Suzl’s arm vanish. She could, indeed, offer help and protection, something which relieved Suzl as much or more than it did Spirit. Food could be materialized when needed, and although it wasn’t fancy, it was filling and could be consumed by both.

For Suzl’s part, she had, in the first hours away, felt very much the fool, cut off and alone, but no longer. Instead, she began to feel what she had not felt in a very long time—free. The flow of energy from Spirit to her encouraged her, and interested her as well. She became convinced that some closer links were possible, and they spent hours trying things without either quite knowing what the other was doing—or what they themselves were doing, for that matter. She sensed that Spirit was attempting some sort of link and tried to go along. For quite a while, though, the thing seemed to elude them, just out of reach. The only true non-miming communication seemed to be music, with Suzl whistling tunes and clapping time and Spirit dancing to it. Still, for all its frustrations, the dugger had not felt happier or more at ease in years.

Finally they happened on somebody’s Pocket, a fairly nice little place much like a tropical garden. Whoever had made it was not at home, and it was uninhabited. Suzl suspected it was one of the Pockets developed by stringer wizards for breaks on those routes where there was far too much distance between destinations for good health, and places like this provided a break for everyone.

Because Suzl had been a dugger in Flux for so long, she did not dismiss Spirit as childlike at all. Seventeen—no, eighteen now—yes, but no child. She knew that Spirit’s endless fascination with all the little things was curiosity and wonder, and the more closely she observed, the more closely she came to believe that there was real purpose in those seeming lapses. She wished hard that she could see the wonders she suspected Spirit could.

But there was a childlike quality to their existence which neither minded and both exploited.

Life was fun and games, curiosity and answers, without worries or responsibilities. Spirit awakened in the usually cynical dugger feelings long buried and assumed lost.

Inside Spirit, the Soul Rider manipulated the probabilities through Flux, establishing the proper situation.

Suzl was aware of subtle changes in her own attitudes. Before, she had always thought of herself as female, for that was how she’d been born and raised and that was the role culture dictated. Now, though, she began to think of herself more and more as a male, as Spirit’s sexual opposite despite the rest of her body. Although she would never look any different, her sexual orientation was shifting firmly to the male side. She realized, suddenly, that for the first time in her life she was sincerely, deeply, and madly in love with somebody other than herself.

Spirit had never thought of herself as abnormal or unusual, always going for the handsome men, but Suzl filled a deep need in her new consciousness for solidity and companionship. What had seemed freakish and odd now seemed cute and endearing. As she could no longer imagine her old life, she could not now imagine life without Suzl, nor did she want Suzl to look or be any other way than the way she now was. The dugger who had sacrificed all to live with and like her now became the one and only important thing in her whole life. Passion replaced lust and need, and they both knew it and felt it in each other.