She kind of liked Dorion on first impression. Tme, he
wasn't much on physique, with pot belly and thinning hair,
but there was a certain kindness and gentleness in him that
came through right from the start, and the way he doted on
Charley was more than me slave ring thing. Anybody could
see he was in love with her; anybody, that is, but Charley.
Boolean was a different sort of shock. A man of medium
height and build, with a gray-black neatly trimmed beard and
deep-set, heavily lined blue eyes, he looked so, well, ordinary.
Even Charley, who couldn't see the man as he was, had come
up with the right impression at the start. The guy looked like
a high school science teacher, and sounded much that way,
too.
At his suggestion, they went back to her place and sat
down, just the two of them, to discuss what happened next.
She offered, as host, to make him some tea or coffee, but he
263
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM
just chuckled, snapped his fingers, and they both had just
what they wanted right in front of them.
"The man who could do miracles," he chuckled. "Child's
play, really. Once you determined the rules and the math and
approached magic here as you approach any other scientific
discipline, it just all sort of comes naturally. I've never tired
of it, and it's as much fun, and just as fascinating as it was
the first time. The only thing is, the more you can do, the
more godlike your powers become, the more frustrated you
become by those things you can't do. Those dead men out
there. I could animate their corpses, but I couldn't bring them
back or restore their bodies. They're gone- It's what keeps
driving us to push the limits, and what destroys most of us in
the end."
She nodded. "But what's next for us, on the practical
level?" she asked him. "I mean, let's be realistic here. I
can't be positive here, but I think I'm in my eighth month. I
can't seem to keep my emotions in check, I haven't got the
stamina, and I can't run or fight worth a damn, and as near as
I can figure out, the only way to end this madness is to
literally walk into the lion's den and face them down. She'll
be in peak condition and totally in control, and she has
Klittichom for protection, 1 won't be able to get near enough
to lay a glove on her and you know it. On top of that, she can
sense the kid. I can't even hide out in a group, I'm willing to
do whatever is necessary, but I can't see how I can do it, all
things considered. Not until after the baby's bom."
"I understand the problem," he replied seriously. "Our
related problem is that we can't wait for the birth. He's going
to jump the gun at almost any time from right now to no more
than a week or two at best. His timetable was already upset
by the problems involved in the attack on me. His generals
are amateurs and they're now seeing the results of their
mistakes. You can train armies of specific worlds rather well,
but when you have to simulate conditions, and then mix
various races with their own tribal chiefs and loyalties you get
a mess. I think the effect on him would be to accentuate the
positive and ignore the negatives. He did destroy a hub
civilization and break the hold of a sorcerer. He's desperate
now. If the child is bom, the Storm Princess's powers may be
weakened to the point where she couldn't handle multiple
264 fack L. Chalker
Changewinds, or perhaps not put them and keep them where
they're supposed to be. He can't do it one at a time. His
power is limited, the same as mine. The next time he's got to
do it, if not simultaneously, at least continuously. Speed and
accuracy are at a premium for him right now. Everything he's
built all these years, and all his dreams, face ruin unless he
acts now."
"But how can I do anything?"
He sighed. "You've heard from Charley and Dorion what
the battle and its aftermath was like, what a mess this all is,
what horror it is bringing. I don't know whether we can stop
the process now. As soon as he feels we're after him he'll
jump the gun and do it, and we .can't wait because he could
jump the gun anyway, thanks to your own biological clock.
There is a way out of this, though. Wait a moment."
He got up and went outside and looked down at the clear-
ing. "Charley, will you come up here?" he called. "Dorion,
help her out and come up, too. I may need some assistance
here."
Charley got up and in, with Dorion's help, and was taken
to a chair. She was puzzled, but willing to listen.
Boolean took a deep breath. "Charley, you know the
problem. We have to hit them before they hit everybody and
make us irrelevant. I'm sure Klittichorn would have done it
all as soon as he got the data from Masalur, if he didn't also
have to play some politics with the Storm Princess and others.
We have to hit him and get him the first time. There will be
no second chances. And we have to do it soon."
"You know where he is?" Charley asked him.
Boolean nodded. "I know. I didn't know, exactly, until he
hit Masalur, but I was able to identify and follow his threads
back. That's what I was doing, and is the gain we got from
Masalur's suffering. It's not close, which is why, even using
the flying spells, we must leave immediately. Even with Sam
and I in the best of shape, it's a question whether we can do it
alone, or with just the forces that we have, even if we make it
in time. As it stands, we have less chance. Sam hasn't me
mobility or the control she should have, and the child is a
dead giveaway. Sam needs a way out."
She nodded. "So?" At the moment she had no idea where
he was going with this or what it had to do with her.
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 265
"I can't snap my fingers and make her into a peak
Amazonian warrior. Well, actually, I could, but not without
destroying the child. I'm just now beginning to realize why
there is such a thing as a Storm Princess, why she comes up
in other worlds as well, and why Klittichorn just didn't
preempt this threat and have his own knocked up. Too much
deduction with too much hunch, but I think I'm on the right
track. The Storm Princesses are the only true 'naturals' in
magic, and the only ones with influence over and immunity
from the Changewinds. I think, somehow, they're safety
valves—natural regulators—essential to keeping some kind of
order. How and why it evolved this way is something we may
never know, but, like gravity, it's still there. There's some
evidence to show that the death of any of the Siorm Prin-
cesses anywhere, even on the outplane, is followed by a long
period of natural disasters, cataclysms, wars, you name it—
until a new one is bom. By killing so many in the outplane,
Klittichorn has provided the evidence and pattern that this is
true—at the cost of who knows how many lives or even
civilizations. What will happen when he looses so many
Changewinds at once on a weakened outplane is something I
can't imagine, nor can he. The difference is, I care and he
doesn't."
"I'm with you so far," she told him. "I just can't see what
it has to do with me."
"Both of you think back, to that first time, in the Tubikosan
caves, when we first had a talk. When 1 transmitted, through
the icon, a blood-mixing and sealing spell that turned you,
Charley, into a physical twin of Sam's."
They both nodded. "I remember," said Sam. "It seems a
hundred years ago."
"It wasn't a mere appearance spell. I had to fool not just
someone who knew what the Storm Princess looked like, I
had to fool magicians, Sudogs, ones with the ability to see
through mere appearances. Anyone short of the highest levels
of the Second Rank, who could recognize the spell for what it
was. It did more than make you physical twins on the outside;
it made you true twins, genetically identical. You still are.
The difference in appearance between me two of you may
seem great now, but it's a difference in weight—and how
long you've been like that and adjusted to it—and experience
266 Jack L. Chalker
and, of course, in Charley's case, Boday's alchemy made a
stunning difference. But, you see, I had to guard against
spells and alchemy, so I had to make those with me power
be confused, and they see people differently than the average
person does."
"Wait a minute," Sam interrupted him. "If she's actually
me down to that level, why isn't she a Storm Princess, too?"
"Good question. There are two answers to that, both rele-
vant. The first is that no one can create a Storm Princess by
sorcery. It can not be done, or Ktittichom would have dis-
pensed with his right off and things would be a lot more
complicated. Second, there is more than the physical involved
here, there is an entire pattern. Notice how the common
peasant marriage spell removed your powers yet it didn't
change you physically one bit, Sam. It is physical, mental,
and psychic, and all must have certain elements exactly right
or the balance is destroyed and the rest is ignored. Charley is
physically you, no matter how dramatic the difference seems
sitting here, but she is nothing like you either mentally or
psychically in me areas that seem to count. One of them,
quite clearly and unexpectedly, is sexual in nature, something
I have been puzzling about since that was shown. There's got
to be a reason for that. In many ways, it seems to be part of
the key to this overall puzzle, a key that I am afraid Klittichom
has worked out ahead of me, as usual. But that's beside the
point for now. The bottom line remains that Sam's current
physiology can't be touched for fear of harming her child, yet
it places her at great risk and extreme disadvantages in any
showdown. We can't just transfer the needed elements to
Chariey, who's better suited for it, since one can not give
away magical gifts of that sort."
"Yeah, well, Sam wouldn't be much use blind, either,"
Charley noted.
"She wouldn't be blind. Her psychic self has the power.
That's why she's been exposed to much magical energy
herself and yet never suffered from the problem."
Chariey suddenly pushed back a bit from the table- "Oh,
no! 1 think I see now where you're going with this and I don't
like the route one bit."
Sam looked at Chariey, frowning, then at Boolean. "Well,
I don't," she said. "Somebody want to let me in on this?"
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 267
"From a magical viewpoint," Boolean patiently explained,
"the two of you appear identical. The differences, psychic
and mental, are, therefore, easy to factor out completely
when you two can be compared side by side like this. Were
you not physically the same, all the differences could never
be so clearly identified. Since they can in this case, I could
transfer those differences."
"Differences? What the hell do you mean?"
"He means," Chariey said softly, "that he can take your
mind and soul and whatever and put it in my body, and mine
in yours. And I get to carry the kid and keep their eyes off
you two sneaking up on them while you get in my body. Isn't
that about right?"
"I couldn't have said it better myself," the sorcerer re-
plied. "It's an ideal solution shaped by me threads of destiny.
And it's best for both of you. Sam gets the mobility and loses
a telltale marker; you get out from being a blind, dependent
woman without status whose body is good for only one thing,
Sam's body also has other attributes. Thanks to the demon of
the Jewel of Omak, wherever he now is, she doesn't get sick,
No hostile organism can live inside her. Fleas, ticks, mosqui-
toes and other parasites die when they bite her. In spite of her
weight, her blood pressure is perfect, her heart strong, her
veins and arteries cleaner than a newbom's. Wounds heal
quickly, damaged tissue regenerates."
"So that's why I was able to run like that, build those
muscles, lift those weights!" Sam exclaimed.
"Well, it didn't hurt," the sorcerer replied. "So where is
me problem, Charley? Are you afraid of the process itself?''
"No, no. Not after what you've pulled off so far. I believe
you. But—to be fat without even having had the pleasure of
eating my way up to it, and pregnant at the point where it's
all work and the fun's long past—I'm not so sure I can handle
that. Yeah, I'm frustrated here, and it seems like I always
have a cold or I'm scratching little bites, but—jeez, Sam.
What do you weigh now?"
"Last time I checked it was about two hundred and sixty
pounds," she responded. "At least I think I got that from
figurin' the halg and stuff."
"Two . . . And when you add the kid and the water
weight. . . ."
265
fack L Chalker
Sam was astonished. "Jesus, Charley—I can't believe you!
Ever since you got the way you are you been paranoid about
weight. You always were, but it got to be a mania. I got to
tell ya, Charley, you don't look real glamorous to me right
now. You look fucking anorexic! I ain't no more thrilled
about having that body of yours than you are havin' mine. I
never liked bein' fat but I kind'a got used to it. The only real
hangups I kept were about my health, and now I find out that's
no problem at all! I'd be givin' up shit, too, you know." She
grabbed her breasts. "I'm at least a forty-four D and I love
*em. Most of all, I'd be givin' up havin' the kid, and I want
this kid bad."
"Yeah, but it's your kid, not mine. And it's the only one
between us!"
"Not necessarily." Boolean cut in. "There's nothing phys-
ically wrong with Sam's system. It's Storm Princesses who
are prevented from having but the one child—related in some
way to that regulatory function I mentioned. You wouldn't be
a Storm Princess. There's no reason to believe you would not
remain fertile."
"You mean," Sam asked him, "if that spell here had stuck
and I wasn't a Storm Princess, I could'a had more kids?"
Boolean shrugged. "Who knows? If you were taken out
and stuck here, though, I doubt if it would have been a long
or happy life once KHttichorn won. Here—or in Albuquer-
que, for that matter."
"Yeah, but who would screw somebody that fat without
magic?" Charley asked acidly.
Behind her, Dorion said, too low for her to hear, "I
would." To him, die resemblance was more marked than