03. Masters of Flux and Anchor Read Free Page A

High Priestess of a temple, or minister directly to the people, without the Vows of Sanctity undertaken by binding spell. Those involved in other aspects of the Church, such as administration and research, were not so encum¬bered unless they wished to be. The Church had become far less corrupt, but had strengthened its grip, for it ex¬tended to parts of Flux as well as to Anchor.
    Hope, the Fluxland created by Kasdi as the source of the Reformed Church, had slowly dissolved without her force of will. Work on compiling all of the ancient writings and attempting to interpret them, a project called the Codex, had been moved to Holy Anchor, where a Queen of Heaven elected by the temple High Priestesses ruled as chief administrator.
    Much had been learned from the Codex, but researchers were bound by spells to reveal nothing except through the Church, which kept tight controls. Much of the work was suppressed, either as heretical or as too dangerous and disruptive. Science, however, began to be encouraged in Anchor, where understanding of the devices that main¬tained them was now deemed crucial. Many of the key scientific works, though, were missing from the Codex, and scientists who went off on tangents not approved by the Church found themselves stepped on rather hard. The Church was interested in the practical. Still, the last twenty years had brought revolutionary changes.
    With the understanding of Flux energy as just one form of all other energy, a form that could be modified, redirected, and controlled, many of the Anchors were in the process of being wired for full electrical power, not just the capital cities as in the old days. Wireless telecommunication based on the temple intercoms was also under development, linking all parts of an Anchor instantaneously. But no one had yet discovered a way to communicate Anchor to Anchor, for the Flux squashed and suppressed all forms of elec¬tronic broadcast signal. The standard of living for the average man and woman of Anchor had improved substan¬tially, but these new developments put them ever more securely under the absolute control of the Church.
    The breakup of the Empire had worried the Nine Who Guard most of all, for it left the mysterious Hellgates insufficiently guarded. They coped as best they could, using the Flux power amplifiers built by Coydt van Haas to create virtual walls around the Flux entrances to the gates, walls maintained by priestess-wizards under saintly vows, and by the defenses of the Hellgates themselves. The weak point was the other entrance, the one that al¬lowed someone in each Anchor temple to travel directly to the gate itself, bypassing the defenses. There was no real answer, for new energy weapons could dissolve concrete as easily as anything else, so the Nine had decided to be content with an incorruptible Church devoted to eternal vigilance. It was true that forces had previously defended the Gates from entry via Flux, but not only Cass and Spirit but even Coydt had managed to bypass them.
    Of course, not all Anchors were under Church control, and only a small part of Flux; but the Seven Who Wait, also known as the Seven Who Come Before, needed ac¬cess to all the Hellgates at once to open them as they were determined one day to do. Control by the Nine of just one was sufficient to keep them from their work. Mervyn knew this, but had called a meeting anyway, an unprecedented one, to discuss the problems.
    All Nine were there, which was the fact without precedent. They met in a tiny Flux pocket so secure that none could even guess its presence, let alone penetrate it, and they listened intently to the old wizard's comments.
    "We have become too complacent of late," he chided them. "While we have sat and done little, the enemy has been actively on the march with their characteristic sub¬tlety and with uncharacteristic precision and coordination. A new empire has been created under our very noses, one in the hands of our enemy."
    He spread