through spells, chased by gunmen, undergo fire and flood—
alt as a test?"
"Not a test—an endurance contest. It wasn't totally ran-
dom. either. The more you progressed, the more the destiny
threads pointed to your friend. Boolean took something of a
chance when he ordered the Demon of the Jewel of Omak to
make certain she got pregnant. He had to know it would start
a chain reaction that would lead to this point. However, there
were indications KliUichom was attempting to find the proper
mate for the Storm Princess—strictly for the one purpose, of
course, but satisfying the rebel's own sense of propriety and
quieting disturbing rumors about her having a stable of female
slave lovers, which was true but politically inconvenient—
and your friend, thanks to her weight and her unconventional
mate and lifestyle, seemed safest at the time."
"The demon . . . made her get pregnant?" Charley was
appalled.
"Well, it's not as bad as it sounds. It simply implanted in
her mind a natural curiosity about the normal way of doing
things and the fact that she could use the hypnotic powers to
do it, so, at the point when she dropped an egg, as it were, at
the exact prime moment, she did it with one of the wagon
train crew. You remember that."
In a way, it was a relief, even though it galled her to think
how Sam had been so manipulated. At least the child wasn't a
child of one of those gang-raping monsters. It was rape, of
course—by Boolean, sort of—but so long as Sam didn't know
it and thought it was her idea, Sam wouldn't think it so. That
didn't really help Charley's own feelings, that Boolean had
treated Sam as a thing, a piece of meat, the same way
Halagar had treated Charley, but facts were facts, and now
she had the kid inside her. So had she been sort of raped by
this third hand? It was too complicated an issue for a night
like this.
"But almost immediately after we were all caught in the
flood, most of the train was killed, there was the capture, the
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 289
tortures and rapes, and then we were split up in the Kudaan.
Some help Boolean was there in our survival."
"He didn't plan it that way, but who would have expected
Sam to use her powers so soon? Or that the mercenaries under
die Blue Witch would hit that particular train in their search
for Mandan gold cloaks to sell to the rebels? The mess
happened, and it took Boolean and Yobi to straighten it out,
that's all. When the two of you surfaced at Yobi's without
Sam, Crim was contacted to track her down. Until then he'd
been tracking you, thinking you were all still together,"
"Yeah, but we were only found and rescued because Dorion
happened to see us and saw my resemblance to the Storm
Princess. Lucked out is what you mean."
"Crim would have tracked you, most likely, in the end.
Luck is simply an amateur's term for the threads of destiny
that are woven at conception. It's why some people have
'miraculous' escapes and others die in freakish happenings.
The threads can be aborted by conflict with others, but Bool-
ean read Sam's and it was a long thread. He and Yobi
intervened, got Sam out of Pasedo's, got her mind mostly
back. and she'd learned a lot about herself during that period—
and so had you."
"So why didn't Boolean just order Crim to take us to Yobi
so we'd be together again and then bring us to him, or him to
us, right then?"
"Because you weren't ready. You were by now hardened
survivors, but you were not ready. Sam was still at war with
herself; she was still spending almost all of her time trying to
escape her destiny and her obligations rather than facing them
willingly. The same went for you, really, so together you
would just reinforce each other. You both had grown hard,
pragmatic, questioning, but neither of you looked at anyone
else, not even each other. You were still turned inward,
without a sense of obligation or any willingness to sacrifice
for the common cause. It took Halagar to make you see what
you'd really become, to see what others perceived you to be.
what you thought you wanted or could accept. For Sam, it
was easier. She always felt an obligation to others, to her
friends, but her lack of ego, of self-esteem, of self-acceptance.
and self-worth was driving her mad. In desperation, we had a
magician refer her here, to Etanalon. It made her accept
290 Jack L. Chalker
herself and resign herself to her duty, but no more- We
decided we had to go with what we had, but the unexpected
diversion that allowed her to feel normal, turned out to be a
blessing even though it panicked us and almost cost us the
game."
"Normal? Four husbands in a jungle house in the sticks?"
"Normal to her. It gave her something besides a lifetime
with Boday to fight for. It showed friends, people she was
closed to, dying—and for her, basically. It put her in the
position of seeing others do what was expected of her. It
broke the last barrier. She's ready now. In many ways she has
far more experience and toughness than her foe- And you
were right there, also ready, to play your own part."
Her eyebrows went up. "Me? What part? I was a decoy,
maybe, but if it wasn't for my own thinking I'd have drank
a potion back in Tubikosa and become permanently a mindless
courtesan, I practically did, anyway."
"Well, it was your body, not your mind, that was impor-
tant in the plan. You were, after all, an add-in, a bonus, there
to give Sam the body she needed when the time came, and
take on hers and keep the child from harm. We needed only
the receptacle, and with only the receptable the transfer would
have been easily done. That you remained mentally alive as
well actually complicated matters. Had we not been able to
keep an eye on you, so to speak, we might well have had to
make other arrangements."
"An eye ... Dorion, you mean?"
"Of course not. Shadowcat. Like me, your familiar existed
both in this plane and in his native one. There distance and
even duration are meaningless. He and I discussed every-
thing. We agreed that you should not betray your true self to
Halagar lest he beat or possibly kill you. You were far safer
when you appeared to have no mind and presented therefore
no threat. He truly liked you, which is rare for a familiiir-
Perhaps too much. He was not supposed to kill Halagar.
Boolean would have retrieved you upon his return from seeing
what was done to poor Masalur. It caused much consternation
that you had vanished, and we overstayed there seeing if we
could pick you up on the impulse to come to him. Because of
that, Zamofir got there first and all the bloodletting was made
necessary. Again, it worked out, as those with true destiny
291
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM
tend to do, but that was the way it was. Because we were late
Sam learned duty and sacrifice. Because you finally reached a
point where you would rather die, naked, blind, and alone, in
a foreign wood than return to being a slave and object in the
camp, you learned much, too."
"You make it sound so cold, so calculating, so callous,"
she said, shaking her head. "Like we were pieces of meat
with no rights and no say. Just dolls to make over and play
with and never mind the suffering and pain and degradation.
Our lives, our minds, really meant nothing to your master
except possible means to his end. And he got just what he
wanted, which grates on me. 1 sit here, fat and ugly and
miserable, surrogate mother to somebody else's baby. and
Sam's going smiling Into maybe worst than death. Somehow,
text really pisses me off."
"That's how wars are fought these days. Maybe they have
4 always been fought that way, with the little folks being
, ordered to charge into the enemy lines. If they don't they get
shot as traitors. If they do, they get shot by the enemy, all so
their body can be used as a shield and stepstone by the next
guy to get another couple of yards. Yours is an interesting
race, that climbed from the muck by little murders, and as
you grew in power and experience they became bigger mur-
ders. Now you have reached the point on many worlds where
you can murder your whole species in a matter of a few
- minutes and that makes you the zenith of human civilization.
Here a madman—and there are always madmen in a society
built on murders to scale—intends to install himself as master
and then as god. My race has sat back and watched, occasion-
ally intervening over the years to get a better view, in utter
fascination at this, and some of us spend eternity arguing the
a points you people raise. You object to being a tool, an object,
pushed, shoved, and manipulated by powerful forces beyond
your comprehension in the cause of stopping something horri-
ble. Yet if those powers did not do so, would we not be guilty
of allowing the greater crime to happen to the greater num-
ber? It is a fascinating point. Even your gods reflect this. You
are pawns of omnipotent beings. You pray for mercy, for
forgiveness, for victory in battle, and the death of your
enemies. You sacrifice to them, either really or symbolically,
widi blood and ritual cannibalism. You are born pawns. It is
292 Jack L. Chalker
in your nature. It is only when you notice that you are that you
object,"
She looked over at the tiny figure in the darkness. "Just
what are you, Cromil?"
"An alternative reality. One from a universe so different
that you could not even comprehend it, where the very laws
of nature are so different as to be madness to you, as yours is
to us. In the long distant past, we learned to use the weak
points created by the out-rushing Changewind, and, being
curious, we tagged along. We need form here, so we take
form here; otherwise it is all incomprehensible madness to us.
We deal with the powerful, the high priests or sorcerers or
whatever. We give some service, they give some things we
want. It's worked out pretty well over the years."
"And what do creatures like you want from us?'' she asked
it. "To satisfy curiosity? To explore? More knowledge? Blood?
What?"
Cromil's answer stunned her and stung her and she reeled
from the impact of its words.
"Amusement," it said.
For a while she said nothing more to the creature because
there was nothing more to say. Who was whose god, and who
was whose plaything? Who pushed who, and for what mo-
tives? Was anybody, even Boolean, even Klittichom, really
free, really a master of fate, really in control?
"You going to tell anybody any of this?" Cromil asked
curiously.
"Maybe. Maybe not. It's not exactly what Sam needs to
know right now, and your own feelings I suspect are pretty
well known to the sorcerers."
"Oh, yes."
"Tell me—does Klittichom have a familiar?"
"Oh, they all do. It's kind of necessary to the higher
functions of magic. We're very loyal to whichever side we
happen to be on, you see, but we tend to stay out of the
showdowns. We prefer to watch."
*TH bet." She yawned in spite of herself. "Well, you've
depressed the hell out of me, anyway. I guess, for every-
body's good, I ought to try to sleep."
"Your role in this, except for mother, is about to end," the
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 293
familiar told her. "The big show is about to begin now. We
are actively wagering on the outcome."
She picked up a rock and threw it at him, but it missed.
To Charley's surprise, they flew next to Masalur, but only
Boolean and Cromil went to me hub; me rest, under Etanalon's
powers, went east, where she and Dorion had thought of
going, and into a colony world that seemed peaceful and
virgin. They flew out over a broad, sparkling blue, tropical
ocean, landing eventually on a good-sized island, perhaps
thirty miles across and twenty miles wide, the largest of a
string of isolated volcanic islands. The place looked like those
pictures in the magazines of tropical paradise; of coconut
palms and virgin sandy beaches, with banana and mango and
other tropical fruits—or reasonable cousins thereof—growing
wild all over. It was a gorgeous place, the only inhabitants of
which appeared to be birds and insects.
There was one structure on the island; a small but comfortable-
looking beach house overlooking a picture postcard tropical
lagoon. Inside they were surprised to find two bedrooms with
big, comfortable, modem beds with spring mattresses, plus a
living room and dinette area and something of a den over-
looking the lagoon itself, all comfortably furnished if not with
me best, then with homey touches appropriate to die setting
and decor. Rattan chairs, that sort of thing- The bathroom
was an outhouse—somebody had even carved a half-moon in
the door—showers were available at a pretty tropical waterfall
about a hundred yards into the Jungle, in back of the house.
There were oil lamps, storage places, and an outdoor covered
grill. No electricity or immediate running water, but it looked
like somebody's idea of a perfect tropical hideaway.
Boolean arrived about six hours behind them; by then
they'd already round the ponds that trapped the fish at low
tide, and were feeling quite pleasant. The sorcerer, however,
was not alone.
The two creatures were both almost cartoons of extremely
erotic girts, but they were not—at least not me way Charley and
Sam and the Akhbreed thought of girls. For one thing, they
were absolutely identical twins. For another, they had incredibly
smooth pea-green skin that seemed almost to lack pores, and
glistened a bit in the light, with lips of darkest green and
294 Jack L. Chalker
emerald eyes in a sea of pale olive. What appeared to be thick
if short dark green hair had the consistency and solidity of
brambles, not hiding at all ears like delicate, tiny seashells;
and their feet each had three wide, webbed, almost birdlike
toes. They had four thin arms that seemed a bit more rigid
than human arms and ended in three long identical fingers
that closed on things almost clawlike, but were soft and as
dexterous as human fingers, and the lower set appeared to be
on ball joints, able to reach forward or back equally, and four
small but firm breasts, the top pair looking normal but hang-