Those shields, tike all magic, arc as nothing to the Changewind,
and I am convinced that their bosses can drop one wherever
they want it. Right in the center of the capitol if need be. No
sorcerers, no shield. Or even a Changewind that simply sweeps
from inland to the border, breaking it in a wide swath. An
avenue in. I'm not certain what they plan. but I am certain
that they are confident of success."
"Nobody has ever been able to influence a Changewind,
you know that," Torgand responded. "That valley might
seem impressive but I've seen the winds do things just as
regular and just as odd. They follow their own rules but they
do follow rules. And even if there was somebody who could
do it, they'd have to do it one at a time, and it wouldn't take
much to find out who and from where and all the other
sorcerers would track them down and destroy them out of
sheer self-defense. No. it just doesn't fit the way the universe
works."
Dorion was having none of this. "Then why are you holed
up here in fortifications, shooting at yellow pennants, and
scared out of your skulls? Those poor people we saw being
abused are citizens, damn it! They have rights. And the right
of any citizen is protection and defense from his King and all
the power at the command of the Crown."
"He's got a point," Halagar noted. "Why wasn't this
nipped in the bud in the usual manner, with massive force,
even big-league sorcery? That's what the damned army's
for—keeping order and law in the colonies. Instead you
withdraw everybody to the hub and let it spread."
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WAR OF THE MAELSTROM
"I know, I know," Torgand agreed- "You think it hasn't
gotten to us, either? Complacency, mostly, I think. The Chief
Sorceress here has been cracked in the head for more years
than I can remember. Senile, batty, and mean as hell. She no
longer emerges from her quarters at all, and nobody can tell
her anything she doesn't want to hear. She ignores even the
King's commands, and she's powerful enough to zap even
some of the strong adepts who'd normally take care of this.
You know how nuts she is? She keeps calling His Majesty
King Yurumba. and Yurumba died over two hundred years
ago! She insists that this isn't happening and seems to really
believe that she was on a tour of the colonies only weeks ago.
'She's completely lost, senile, and mad, and nobody dares
cross her since she's never allowed any of the adepts to live
who came close to approaching her power or threatening her
position. She's the only one we have who can keep the shield
up, and since that's the case we had very little choice. We
can't go against them without sorcery to back us up, not on
this scale, and not with those damned illegal automatic weap-
ons that are better than anything we have- All we can do is
pull back and rely on her to at least keep up the shield."
Dorion nodded knowingly. "I thought as much when I saw
this. They're all too old or too lazy or too incompetent at this
stage to really do the job. I wonder how many centuries
we've been running on sheer reputation? How long we've
kept the colonies in line with fear of sorcerous power that in
many cases just isn't there and hasn't been for some time?
The best Second Rankers don't want to be Chief Sorcerers—
they want to experiment or specialize or pursue their art to the
bitter end. They retire and separate themselves from politics,
or they get into territory too dangerous even for them, and
they wind up malformed creatures—or they wind up sum-
moning the Changewind and vanish into the Seat of Probabil-
ity. That leaves mostly mediocrities as our defenders. Damn!
That's what the enemy saw. He wined and dined and social-
ized with them and he saw what frauds our whole way of life,
our whole world, was built upon."
"That's water under the bridge," the mercenary pointed
out. "I am far more concerned with the rebel general's
comment on the forthcoming 'fun' at Masalur. You have any
information?"
162 fack L. Chalker
Torgand shook his head. "None. We've been pretty much
pinned down here for weeks. Right now, you know as much
or more than we do about all this."
Boday caught Dorion's eye and he went over to her and
bent down and she whispered, "Ask him if he has any
knowledge of a short, fat girl about the age of our own
coming through here."
Dorion nodded and went back to the soldiers. "Any sign of
a girl, maybe twenty or so, pretty fat with a deep, almost
mannish voice, who might look like the overweight sister of
the pretty one there?"
Torgand shook his head negatively once again. "Sorry, no.
At least, if she did it was before we were set up here. You
might check with Immigration and Permits to see if she
cleared before that, but since we've been here only a few
refugees have made it across and none of them sound like
somebody like that—and I've had to interview them all.
Why? Somebody else trying to get through here that got
separated from your party?''
"You might say that." Dorion responded carefully.
"Well, think about what you went through to get here. If
she didn't make it by now, my guess is she either can't or
she's dead or she's some colonial's slave over there. You
were damned lucky. It'd take a full-blown sorcerer to get as
far as you have at this stage."
They had spent several days in Tishbaal hub, like the other
hubs a relatively compact city-state, but, unlike the others,
one that had been under siege for some time. At one time it
must have been a bustling metropolis, and exciting place to
be. As they had progressed north and west, the kingdoms had
seemed to be looser and far more liberalized than the more
conservative Mashtopol. Here the women had some fashions,
the dress and moral codes seemed loose, relaxed, sort of the
way Charley remembered things back home. Now, though, it
was looking like a fading shadow of its former self, its
factories and distribution centers closed both for lack of raw
materials and for lack of ability to deliver anywhere. Shops
were running out of many things to sell; electricity was
rationed due to the lack of coal and other fuels that kept the
plants going. Nearly half the city was unemployed and mad
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 163
as hell about it and about the government's seeming impo-
tence to deal with it.
And it was incredibly crowded and dirty, with far too many
people living in quarters barely large enough for two or three
people and many more sleeping in parks or tent cities. The
refugees and the panicked, come to the hub for protection,
and further straining its resources.
About the only thing that had kept the lid on was that the
layout of the hubs included managed truck farms that pro-
duced an adequate supply of food for the population. Still,
meat was rationed and there was a lot of hoarding. People
who were used to thinking of themselves as the height of
creation and masters of all, were now forced into decisions
between their pride and the government handouts of food and
other supplies that kept them going on a basic level. Al-
though a fair number of colonial populations had remained
loyal (or so at least was the word from a few brave folk who
made it across the null from the other, less defended, border
points), no colony was truly safe for Akhbreed or the great
wagon trains the Akhbreed had depended upon for so long.
Loyal colonists simply could not enter the hub to deliver
things themselves, for to drop that prohibition would have
invited the rebel forces in as well.
Leaving the hub, they entered what was supposed to be a
friendly colony named Qatarung, their identity stones and
Halagar's glib tongue giving them few problems in getting by
the paper-thin rebel line on the Masalur side. The rebel force
was there merely to enforce the siege; it was clearly not ever
intended as an attack force, although if Tishbaal in its desper-
ation overran them, their commander was confident that rein-
forcements sufficient to crush such an attempt were easy to
bring up. Halagar did not disbelieve him.
Qatarung was vast fields of sugar cane and palm? and other
tropical agriculture. The large, apelike natives seemed mostly
ambivalent to all that was going on around them, more than
truly loyal. It was easy to get the impression thai they would
love to join the revolt if they could believe even for a moment
that it had a chance of long-term success. In spite of their
brutish appearance, they weren't at all stupid or even naive; if
the hub could be broken that was the end of it and they would
be overjoyed, but they were as convinced as Torgand hilid
364
Jack L. Chalker
been that the hub could not be broken and overrun, and, if it
could not, eventually there would be vengeance of the most
horrible sort, no matter how batty the chief sorceress was or
how dismal the conditions were in the hub itself.
In the meantime, they were exactly what the rebel sentry
on the other side hated—the ones who, by taking no side, had
profited the most. Tens of thousands of Akhbreed colonial
families had moved into the hub for safety or, after the troops
had closed the hub because it simply could accept no more,
had moved well away from the intersection points, in many
cases thousands of miles away, where there were neither
natives in any number or rebel troops on the march.
The Qatarung, in fact, were for the first time running their
own place, pretty independently of the Akhbreed and under
their own tribal rules, and they seemed to be coping just fine.
If the hub held, their loyalty would be remembered and their
relative racial position vastly enhanced; if it did not, they
would cheer the victorious rebels. Dorion and the others
suspected that most of the colonies were really like this, with
only a few totally committed to the rebel cause. Still, those
few would outnumber the Akhbreed by a fair amount, and the
level of weapons they had made up to some extent their lack
of real training.
Not all Qatarung were playing both sides, though. The
rebellion still had a good deal of emotional appeal, particu-
larly to the young, and there were signs of looted plantation
houses and even uglier events here and there.
They were three days in when they were set upon by a gang.
It was on the quiet road going between endless tall stalks of
sugar cane, in the middle of the day, with the sun shining
brightly. Shadowcat was napping, and while he heard some-
thing rustling it was far too late to give a warning by the time
any of them, including him, realized it was danger.
They emerged from the cane with shouts, panicking the
horses, and surrounding the quartet of Akhbreed in a flash.
Their weapons were two single-shot stock rifles, a shotgun.
and three enormous machetes; a half-dozen young Qatarung
males showing solidarity with the rebels and contempt for
their clever elders.
Through Shadowcat's eyes Charley saw them—round-faced,
barrel-chested, with muscles on their muscles and thighs big-
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 165
ger than watermelons, nearly covered with brown hair, kind
of like a cross between Bigfoot and Alley Oop.
"What do you want?" Halagar demanded to know in his
best command voice, which really was impressive. "Why do
you greet us this way?"
"Get off your horses, Akhbreed—all of you!" growled
back one of the thickest, if not the tallest, of the natives and
clearly the leader of the pack. "Your days of arrogance are
past. Qatarung is ours now." He turned to his gang. "Five
seconds or you shoot both the men. And shoot the magician if
he so much as raises his hands. Shoot him in the head."
• 7 •
A Li'^Je Practical Treason
"You MISJUDGE us," Halagar told the gang. "We're not with
the kingdom; you can surely see that just by looking at us.
I'm a mercenary in the employ of Lord Klittichom's general
staff, charged to go to Masalur in advance of, well, what will
happen there, to evaluate it for them."
"Shut up and dismount!" the leader barked. "We're not as
cut off as you think- We know who you are. You match the
description perfectly. We want the woman. The rest of you
might live, if we feel like it; the woman's our only concern."
Halagar put his hand on Charley's head and jerked it around
a bit. "Her? She was wanted once, but no more. Didn't you
get the word on that?"
"Not her," the Qatarung gang leader responded. "Her."
He pointed to Boday, whose mouth dropped in sheer surprise.
"No more questions! Get down! Now! I'll count to five!
One—"
Halagar judged their position and the position of his own
party, then nodded- "Everybody do as he says," he said
calmly, eyeing the leader, who held the shotgun.
The four dismounted, Halagar helping Charley down. Clearly
not professionals, he decided at once. Otherwise they would
have realized that we were better targets and easier to cover
up there than down here, on the same level as the horses.
There was no time to alert or prompt the others; they would
just have to follow or get the hell out of the way.
"All of you up here where we can see you!" commanded
the leader.
"Yes, right away, sir," responded Halagar, taking out the
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WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 267
pocketknife he carried in his pocket and then sticking and
slapping his horse.
The horse whinnied in shock and pain and reared up; the
other two backed up. startled, and at least Boday got the itiea,
grabbed her whip, then slapped her own horse hard on the
rump and leaped into the fray.
Halagar went right for the leader, grabbing him and spin-
ning him around, so that the shotgun discharged into the
rifle-toting gang member nearest him. Dorion. knocked back
when the horses unexpectedly bolted, recovered quickly and
rushed the other man with the rifle. The gunman was twice
his size and four times his muscles, but Dorion was able to
discharge his shock spell, which also had the effect of firing
the rifle harmlessly.
A fourth was bringing his machete down on the magician
when there was a sudden crack! and it was plucked from his
hands with a whip that left a bleeding wound. Dorion was
startled for a moment as the big knife fell narrowly missing