kicking a guy after he was down. The figures of the losers
began to shrink, first to dog size, then cat, then mouse, until
326 jack L. Chalker
heavy psychic feet stomped on them and crushed them into
pulp. Sam could only watch, terrified, unable to move out of
the alcove, and wondering who was what.
As quickly as it had begun, it was over, and for a moment
all Sam could see was the same four figures standing there,
looking exactly the same, but unmoving. To Sam's astonish-
ment, Boday suddenly walked between Boolean and Etanalon
and right up to the enemy pair standing there. She looked at
one quizzically, then the other, shrugged, and pushed the
yellow-robed one over. He fell and shattered, like porcelain,
on the floor. The other she also pushed, and he fell and
shattered as well, only into a foul-smelling black dust.
Boolean sighed and turned to Etanalon. "Well, that wasn't
bad, was it?"
"I was out of practice," she responded. "It took more
out of me than I would have liked. Where in the world is
Yobi?"
"She comes," Boday assured them. "She had to take on
another one in the fine robes of the masters along with two
adepts. Crim. by the way, found some wonderful little bombs
on the soldiers we took out down there. You pull this thing
and throw and a few seconds later they blow up and shoot little
tiny pieces of metal all over the place. We thought they might
form a nice introduction to the room down there."
"Grenades, huh? Worth a try," Boolean said, thinking.
"Sam, you okay?"
"All but my heart. I think that's in my mouth," she said
shakily. "Are we gonna hav'ta go through more of that in
there?"
"No, it'll probably be a lot harder. Ah—here's Crim.
Boday said you found grenades—throw bombs."
He nodded. "Four of them, anyway. Say, Yobi was having
a tough time with those guys back there. If I hadn't been able
to take one of 'em out while they were all concentrating on
her she'd have had it- Why didn't you. . . ." He suddenly
saw the remains of the two sorcerers. "Oh. Never mind."
Yobi came thundering through the door, partly shattering
it, looking winded. Of the trio of sorcerers, she was the only
one who looked as bad as ever, but, of course, she could never
be accused of looking ordinary.
"You know who that slimy little twerp was?" she thun-
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 327
dered. "Bolaquar! Vice Chairman of the Guild itself! No
wonder nobody'd listen to us!"
"Well, that was Franz—Golimafar," Boolean responded,
pointing. "And that thing over there was once Hocheen—you
remember him. You sense any more big shots on our back?"
"No, but lots of adepts are about. You were right about
the soldiers—mostly headquarters types. Couldn't shoot straight
even at a target my size. Not too many folks here, unless the
rest are alt in there. I guess somebody rushed 'em into action
before they were ready."
"Yeah, well, speaking of rushed. . . . You feel up to the
rest? Yobi? Etanalon?"
They both nodded. "Let's get it over with while I'm still
sharp," said the silver-robed sorceress. She looked at the
great doors. "That's a mean set of spelts on there, though.
Could take some real effort breaking through and set off all
sorts of alarms to whoever's in there."
Boolean turned to Sam. "Well, I guess that's your job,
then, Sam. This time, don't close the damned door behind
you. Leave it open for us to come in."
"You think they're not layin' for us after all that?" she
asked him. "Damn, you two would'a woke the dead with that
fight. In fact, lookin' at the one guy, you probably did."
"No, that's insulated in there," Etanalon told her. "If they
knew. reinforcements would have come out—if there's any-
one in there to reinforce. We can't get any sense of who's in
there or what's happening, and if we can't, they can't."
"Crim, Boday—you roll in to the right and left as soon as
Sam's through," Boolean told them. "Crim. give Boday two
of those grenades. Yeah. Fresh clips. Okay, Sam, you open
that door, get behind it, and stay behind it until you hear four
explosions or we tell you to come out. That should protect
you from them, and maybe the surprise and shock will nail a
few or take a couple of sorcerers' eyes from that globe in
there back here, screwing up the system. The two of you roll
in as soon as the things explode and you blast anything
blastable. I doubt if you'll be able to nail anybody actually in
the area around the globe. They're bound to be shielded. You
just keep the slaves and military boys and whatever off our
backs, and when your ammunition runs out, head for cover
and stay there—understand?"
328 ]ack L. Chalker
They both nodded. Sam looked at the pair and shook her
head. Crim was really grim and serious about this, but Boday
was having the time of her life.
The alchemical artist looked over at Boolean and asked.
"That shield any barrier to us or just to magic types?"
"Everybody inside, as far as shooting or the like goes.
Anybody who steps outside is dead, though."
"Even the Storm Princess?" she asked.
"Hmmm. . . . No, you're right. If the Storm Princess
emerges from thai well down there, she's all yours. Sam—
stay back and unobtrusive if you can. The odds tpe once
we've joined they won't be able to tell you and the real Storm
Princess apart on the magic level, so you'll be relatively safe.
If we can break that shield, or the Storm Princess comes out,
you get in. Send those Changewinds elsewhere. Understand?"
Sam nodded, not quite certain what she could do or how
but willing to play it by ear. This was the big one, and her
major job right now was to open that damned door. She went
over to it, took a deep breath, and pushed.
It didn't open.
*'Try pulling, dear." Etanalon suggested. "That also leaves
you out here, where it's safer."
Sam felt foolish, pulled the door open full, and then stood
behind it in the hall. Boday and Crim rushed in, threw the
grenades, and came right back out again. Sam almost slammed
the door and inside she could hear four muffled reports. Then
she opened it wide again and they went back in, shooting
anything they saw.
Boolean led, then Etanalon, and finally Yobi, they strode
past the bodies of the dead sorcerers and into the great hall.
Sam, feeling suddenly alone and more vulnerable out in the
hall than in the eye of the storm, came in after.
The surprise conventional grenades and subsequent machinegun
spraying had been far more effective than they'd dreamed it
could be. Not prepared for trouble, watching the show blow
and fascinated by it, adepts, some probably quite powerful, as
well as a number of rebel officers in fully festooned uniforms,
lay dead or dying all around. No amount of armor will protect
someone who didn't put it on, as the bloody remains of
black-robed men and women attested.
The place looked like a miniature of the Roman Coliseum
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 329
with a roof on, but the main floor was untouched by any of
the carnage, any of the action above or outside. There they
stood in their pentagrams, staring at that huge globe repre-
senting Akahlar, the hubs brightly glowing against the gray,
semi-transparent skin of the rest, and something was happening.
Almost a third of the globe's hubs, from Arctic to Antarc-
tic, were blackened, their lights out, as if crossed off on
somebody's battle map, in a great and ugly crescent that was
widening even as the globe was slowly turning.
Sam watched from the top row of seats, spellbound, sick-
ened by what the sight entailed. And then she looked down
and saw them. There they were—the man in the crimson
robes with the horns on his head and her, standing there, eyes
calmly fixed on that spinning globe.
She looked back at Klittichom, feared Homed Demon of
the Snows, most powerful and evil of sorcerers, and all she
could marvel at was that, even in her visions and night-
mares, he'd looked as huge and imposing, and now—hell, he
wasn't much if any bigger than she was. A little, tiny man,
which even the horns didn't help get much bigger.
She could see, too, for the first time, the magical shield
that protected them even at this stage; clear, almost totally
transparent, but present sort of in a shimmery effect produced
by the lights and the fact that it wasn't still but in motion.
"He's got a spin on it somehow," Yobi noted. "Makes it
hard to bum a hole through."
"It's got to be going on its own momentum," Etanalon
noted. "If we can speed it up a bit rather than slow it down,
we might be able to present the same face if we can match its
revolutions per minute. What do you say. Boolean?"
"Well, if we can't brake it somehow, maybe we can get it
going so fast it'll burn a hole in the floor. Let's give it a go."
"Wait a minute'" Sam almost shouted. "Look at them!
They don't even know this all happened, or that we're here!
Just gimme one of the machine guns and I'll go down there
and blow their fucking brains out."
"They know, dear," Etanalon assured her. "They just
don't consider us relevant right now. We are about to make
ourselves relevant. Hold on."
The shield seemed to pick up speed until the reflections
were just tiny lines of light apparently suspended in the
330 Jack L. Chalker
nothingness above the floor. Beams of red-hot energy shot
from all three, converging on a single spot, and it began to
create a black streak that widened more and more.
The three sorcerers on the other side broke off their con-
centration, came out as a group, ducked under the black
streak, and lined up against the trio in the seats. This time
there was no introductory chatter, no insults, no nothing. The
battle was immediately joined, and it nearly filled a quarter of
the hall. Crim just barely got out of the way of the field of
fire, and Sam walked around the top to the opposite side,
away from them, and tried to think.
Boday crept up to her. "So, Susama, how do you think it
is going?"
"Who the hell knows?" she muttered. "At least they've
had to temporarily break off from the looks of it. Holy shit,
Boday! That means—"
At that moment the walls supporting the entire War Room
seemed to collapse in a roar, knocking her briefly forward
and tumbling Boday most of the way down to the pit. She
rolled, turned, and saw that those walls, perhaps the whole
building, no longer existed.
The Maelstrom was contracting onto them!
She rolled, concentrated, and began to push it back. Oh, no
you don't, bitch! I beat you once. I'll beat you again!
On the opposite side where the sorcerer's battle was taking
place, the strategy of the defenders was clear. They had their
backs to the stage, as it were; Yobi, Etanalon, and Boolean
all had their backs to the wall. Contract the Maelstrom down
into them while pressing them or holding them in place and
you engulfed them in a power they couldn't resist, couldn't
change, and couldn't keep from being subject to.
Sam could help them, immunize them, but that would put
them on the outside once more with her, undefended, on the
inside. And where in hell was Klittichorn?
Damn it alt, this wasn't right! Feel the storm, become the
storm, control the damned storm!
Now she was there, inside the storm, as the heart of it, but
not alone. She felt and sensed the other's presence, the only
other in this, her domain, who dared to be there, where even
Klittichorn dared not intrude.
"You can not win this time!" the Storm Princess taunted
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 331
her. "The last time it was I who was remote from the storm
attacking you at your center! Now it is you who are remote
ami the storm is here, around me, where I can squeeze your
,fawnds!"
With a shock, Sam realized that, while they certainly had
seen her, they still thought that she was back in Masalur or
someplace like that because of the child's impulses. They—
even the Storm Princess—thought she, on scene, was Charley!
She flicked her vision around to where the sorcerers were
joined. Still three to three; Klittichom seemed off to one side,
fiddling with something but not joining the fight, depending
on the Maelstrom to finish them off. What was he fiddling
with? Some kind of portable computer! He was running his
shit through to see how to keep the thing up until he could get
back to ruining the world!
Once started, he can't slop until he's done it through, the
words came to her. He didn't dare shut it down, so now—my
god, the winds were still coming, only running wild!
Still, first things first. She turned her attention back to
where her opposite number had never deviated attention from—
the wizard's war.
Yobi in particular was only inches from the slowly tighten-
ing wall. For a moment Sam wondered why she didn't just
contract quickly, but then she realized that there was only so
much you could do and keep control without overrunning
your own people. First things first; the Storm Princess was
right.
Sam reached out to the storm wall and pulled a segment
out- It seemed to her like taffy, and she made it a mentally
formed fist aimed straight across from one side of the closing
circle to the other, right through the defending sorcerers.
The Storm Princess saw it and tried to block, but so
unexpected was the action that she deflected the Changewind
segment only slightly, so that it sliced right through the
middle where the sorcerers' psychic selves were battling!
There were screams and some or most were affected in some
way, but it was impossible to tell who or how many.
"Damn it!" she screamed to the Storm Princess. "Slop it!
This is madness! Madness! They didn't kill your mother or
your people, you stupid little bitch? Ktittichorn ordered it to
get your dumbass support for this! He suckered you like he
332 }ack L. Chalker
suckered everybody else.9 Can't you see he's getting you to
slaughter your own people in order to become a god?"
The plea didn't work, but it took the Storm Princess's mind
off the attack, and somebody over there was still clearly
fighting somebody now that the Changewind element had
passed and dissipated, and now even the Storm Princess
would be hard-pressed to tell who was who—they were fight-