Jack Chalker - Empires of Flux & Anchor

She thought about it. “Yes. Once. With Spirit after I got the power.”

Coydt laughed. “Don’t be absurd! The Soul Rider used you, cast its spell upon both of you, to bind you together, and not because it was a romantic soul either. It needed you to work the power it can command in Flux. I have dampened the spell chemically in Anchor, and now I remove it entirely. You may still love her, but you don’t need her.”

And it was true. She did love Spirit, and always would, but she did not crave her. More education. “Uh—Spirit. What have you done with her?”

“The same as with you, only more intensive. And we gave her a goal, something to strive for. We showed her a baby that looks exactly like hers. It didn’t originally, but that was no trouble. She is convinced it’s hers. She’s not really a survivor like you, you know. She actually needs other people. Her conditioning will proceed well because of the baby. It is an incentive and a threat. I cannot bring her into Flux without giving the Soul Rider opportunities, but perhaps in time I will risk even that, since she has no power. She will continue to love you, if it suits the Soul Rider, but she will love that child more. She will be a good wife to someone. Which brings us back to the big question. How did my binding spell get dissolved?”

“It didn’t,” she told him. “You’ve lost again, for all your power. Her spell is diverted to the Hellgate machine by the Guardian only if she stays in Anchor. You seem able to talk to the Guardian. Why not command it to do the same thing?”

“And be stuck in Anchor as well?” Coydt sighed. “I feared as much, I might as well tell you. All my science, all my research, all of it says that there is only one way to break a binding spell, and that’s to have someone of equal or greater power take it voluntarily in Flux. I have never found anyone my equal in power, not even those assholes that are the rest of the Seven. Perhaps I will, after all, have to teach them the machine language so we can open the Gates. If they don’t kill us, they will be able to do anything.”

She stared at him. “You know what’s behind those Hellgates, don’t you? You really do!”

“I know… some… of it. There are many gaps. I’m still not sure what the Soul Riders are, for example, or exactly how we came to be in this situation. But I know much. More than anyone else, certainly. I found it, in little bits and pieces over the centuries, from sorcerers I knew and some that I killed. Bit by bit I put the pieces together. I suspect that what I do not know, I lack the frame of reference to know.” He sighed. “But I’ve talked and dallied enough. Back to business.”

“What do you plan for me now?” she asked, terrified of the answer.

“Choices. I give you choices, that’s all. Despite all our efforts, your sainted friend is still at large in Anchor.”

She gasped. Where had they hid all this time?

“I’ve been sneaking around and eavesdropping on the empire outside,” he told her. “There were so many wizards that nobody noticed one more. The fools were bemoaning the fact that there was no way to selectively alter memory and personality in Flux. That is true, because of a little thing called the subconscious. But it is not true for those with the power. Not those who can accept the binding spell.”

She saw where he was leading. “What would be in this binding spell?”

“Very little. You would simply remember things, but differently. I stole the idea from a Soul Rider spell, in fact. You would remember Flux, and emphasize its bad points on your life. You would not remember Spirit, or the child, or how you came to be here, but you would simply never even ask that of yourself. The conditioning you underwent would be reinforced. The events leading up to it would seem irrelevant. You would be madly in love with Captain Weiz, bear and raise his children, and support him utterly. You would be a model wife.”

She thought about it. He was certainly leaving a few things out, of course. Illiteracy, perhaps, and a mathematical ability to count using fingers. Unquestioned obedience to Weiz and servility towards all other males went without saying. She tried to imagine herself compulsively worrying over lint on the carpet and the shine on her dishes and trading recipes. On the other hand, she’d have rank, thanks to Weiz’s status, she’d have a nice place to live with all the luxuries and amenities and, alluringly, a feeling of total security for the first time in her life. She began to realize that a search for security had been the most important, perhaps the only, objective in her life the past ten years or so. She’d had adventure, travel, thrills, danger—and what did she have to show for it? Still, there was that insolent playful spirit in her, too… Or was that just a mask for what she desperately wanted and never had?

“And the alternative?”

She saw the enormous, complex spell coming, but could not dodge it or deflect it. She simply didn’t know how. In an instant, it had her.

“You remember that little picture of your old self that you forgot when we accidentally met before? Well, I found it, saved it, and dreamed up several improvements on it.”

She was still her one hundred fifty centimeters in height, but her ample breasts were now blown to huge proportions, each as thick as her thigh and going out for a full meter. Additionally, she knew she again had a male organ, but this one was impossibly fat, like a banana, and went out from her an impossible thirty centimeters. She should have fallen over, but while the breasts and penis acted as if gravity was pulling them down, it was a sidewards pull. She felt an enormous, insatiable sexual urge.

“I do so love playing with what Anchor thinks of as natural laws like gravity,” Coydt told her. “Also, I’ve redesigned the bottom so that there’s not a scrotum in the way. It’s elsewhere. You have a vagina to match the rest, and that organ is virtually prehensile, moving up and out of the way if need be. You can be like that, and I’ll just leave you to wander this little area of Flux or return to Anchor with your memories. Any man who wants you, you will submit to. Any woman alone will be powerless against you. You’ll eat garbage and love it, and you’ll be so conspicuous that you’ll never get near Spirit or the temple. Once you’re in Anchor, we’ll find some drugs and burn out your mind. A pet freak, an example for Anchor.

“Which do you choose? A happy life—or this? I have little patience left. Here is the binding spell I spoke of. Take it, embrace it, and join your husband. Or refuse it, and stay that way until hunger forces you in.”

She saw the binding spell clearly in her mind, in Spirit language, but it was far too mathematically compex for her to follow. Why not take it? she asked herself. What choice do I have?

Matson and Kasdi jumped off the horses not too far from where they had gotten them and, slapping them on the rump, rolled into the brush. The pursuers, following the hoofbeats, rode right on by as fast as they could.

Matson had been forced to discard his pack, but Kasdi still had her rifle and gun belts, and Matson still had shotgun, whip, and knife. Water would be no problem, but food would.

They made their way cautiously overland to the southwest, on the lookout for more searchers. But the searchers, it seemed, had lost the trail.

“What now?” she asked him.

For a while he didn’t answer, because he didn’t know, but soon they reached a respectable stream flowing in the direction of their travel. He stopped and thought a minute. “If this thing goes all the way to the wall, it’ll either have to empty into Flux or flood. Any big lakes in Anchor Logh?”