baby in a real hospital, live in the world you grew up in?"
Charley had thought about that for a long time but had
never expected to be asked the question when it meant some-
thing. "No, Sam, I don't think so. I don't think I could just
pick up, not as somebody else, which I am now, after all this
here."
"Then remain in Masalur, Charley. Here there will be no
more war, no more slavery. Trust me on this. The rest of
Akahlar will be in foment for many years, perhaps a genera-
tion or more, but not here. And here, as the creation of
Boolean the Great, surrogate of Sam, you'll have additional
position, power, and prestige. Nor will you be alone. What
wealth you need you will find; what you do with your life and
how you spend it is your own affair, as they should be. But
you'll make your own choices from here on in; they will not
be imposed. Farewell, Charley. Remember us fondly. And if
our daughter ever asks about Sam Buell—lie."
"Sam—you should know. . . . Cromil told me. All that
hell we went through, all that shit they put us through—most
of it was deliberate. Sam! They used us!"
"We know, Charley. We have a far better understanding of
it and source of information than Cromil. Charley—just,
well, don't waste yourself as a bimbo any more. Make some
right choices for a change. Live your life and enjoy it. For
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 345
our sake—and for our daughter. Don't stay blind to every-
thing, now you can see. Farewell, Charley. We didn't ask for
this, didn't want it, but we couldn't avoid it. Live a life like
Sam still dreams of living, and know, curiously, that she
envies you."
The vision flickered again, this time worse, the white
smoky background seeming to reach out and swallow them
up.
"Sam! Wait!" But the vision had vanished, gone into the
darkness.
"Damn you, Sam!" she grumbled. "I'm still fat!"
14
Aftermaths and Beginnings
THEY WERE SCATTERED along the beach like bits of flotsam and
jetsam washed in from a storm, although the sky was sunny
with just a few fleecy clouds and had been for many days.
It was Dorion who found them, while out walking along
the shores of the lagoon and trying to decide on the meaning
of things. Charley had had a vision, or so she said; Sam had
come, sort of with Boolean, almost as ghosts, to announce
both a victory and a farewell, yet the promise of Charley's
weight loss had not been fulfilled. A dream? Perhaps, but
why had Charley, who had never been able to master the
language, awakened now speaking flawless Akhbreed? And
acquired a voice that was still her voice, but a bit higher,
softer, definitely in the feminine registers, and kind of sexy?
A dream? A new spell? Or, in fact, had things truly changed,
and, if so, how?
And what about him? Sometime yesterday, he was sud-
denly aware that the spell binding him as her slave had simply
vanished; the ring was not inert, just a piece of jewelry, and
in a very silly place for jewelry. She hadn't known, and he
hadn't told her, although their relationship remained ambiva-
lent. She was so hung up on her looks she couldn't seem to
think of anything else; so long as that was so, the fact that she
thought the ring bound him was sufficient to keep him there
and on hand, not allowing her reason to dismiss him.
Suddenly he stopped dead on the beach and stared. By the
gods—the beach was littered with bodies! He broke free of
his shock and ran to the closest one and stared down at it.
This one was familiar, although a bit different-looking;
Etanalon had never looked so radiant, and the silver robe did
346
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 347
wonders for her. He bent down, fearing she was dead, but she
stirred, frowned, then opened her eyes and saw him, and then
she smiled.
"Help me up, Dorion, if you please," she asked him
kindly, and he did so. She looked around. "The others?"
*'l see more over there. You were just the first."
She nodded. "Let us check them." She yawned, stretched,
and stamped her feel to get herself going. "Not bad for an old
ice monster," she muttered to herself, and followed him.
Next, bundled in furs and sweating like a stuck pig in them
under the tropical sun, was Crim, looking tike he needed a
bath, shave, and a very long rest. Etanalon checked him out
while Dorion went to the next figure down. Crim opened his
eyes and did an imitation of Etanalon waking up. "Huh?
What? Where . . . ?"
"Hey! There's a real pretty naked lady over there'" Dorion
shouted, and Etanalon left Crim to manage and rushed over to
the next patient. Dorion turned over the nude form and gasped;
the sight also startled Etanalon, even though she might have
expected it.
"It's Kira!" Dorion breathed, then looked back at Crim,
just making it as far as sitting up. "But—I thought—" His
head went back and forth between the pair. "How . . . ?"
"Their curse is ended, undone to the core," Etanalon told
him. "Yet she as well as he are whole, and in the prime of
their half-spent best years." She chuckled. "If you think you
are shocked, imagine what it's going to be like when they see
each other'"
They heard a familiar voice cursing and rushed to the next
figure, who was even now getting up on her own. Boday
groaned, stretched, then looked around, saw where she was
and saw the others, and grinned, then immediately began
shedding her own fur clothing and boots. "Hey! You two!
Victory is sweetness and Boday has become legend!" she
shouted exuberantly. She looked around. "Have you seen
someone who looks a lot like my darling Susama?"
Etanalon came over to her. "Uh, Boday, I'm afraid you
won't be seeing Susama any more. You see—"
"Ah! Boday knows that! She understands! The fates never
intended that her Susama should be limited to being the wife
348 ]ack L. Chalker
and love-slave of Boday' No, I said somebody who looks like
her.''
"No, I—wait a minute!"
The fancy clothing was unmistakable now, and before
either Dorion or Etanalon could reach the unconscious form,
Boday was there, turning her over, brushing the woman's hair
back and the sand from her face. She twitched, then sighed,
then opened her eyes and looked at Boday.
"I love you," sighed the girl who looked like Sam, eyeing
Boday as if the alchemical artist were a true goddess.
Boday smiled. "Boday knows you do, her little Princess!
Ah, never again will Boday have to worry about who will
cook her meals, mend her clothes, clean the place, or assist
and provide whatever Boday needs. That's all you want to do
now, isn't it, my Princess? Now and forevermore!"
"Yes, my darling," the girl who looked like Sam responded.
Both Etanalon and Dorion stood there, staring. Finally it
was Dorion who said, "That's not—is it?"
Boday looked up at them and grinned broadly. "Once, yes,
she was called the Storm Princess and filled with hate and
madness, but no more. Never more. Now she is filled only
with love and devotion for Boday!"
"But—how?" Etanalon wanted to know.
Boday shrugged. "A little taste of the whip, a bit of a
choke hold, and an entire phial of Boday's own special
ultra-powerful, quick-acting love potion, which she fixed up
in your own lab over the evening we spent there. It was not
intended for this, but there they were, face to face, my
Susama and the Princess, and then the fates placed Boday, at
just the right angle, with all the means at hand! So Boday
saved Susama and the Princess, which allowed Susama to
save Boolean, which allowed them both to save the world and
make of Klittichom some kind of ice sculpture or whatever.
Boday has claimed her own rewards; no thanks are necessary,
even if, in the end, it is Boday who saved the world!"
The alchemical artist paused, looked back at the princess,
then at them, and shrugged. "After all, what else is she good
for? Her powers are gone, and she's not well equipped to go
to work for a living. This way at least she is useful, and
happy."
Dorion was about to say something, thought better of it,
349
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM
then averted his eyes and caught sight of something, or
someone else, still further along. "Who can that be?"
There was an enormous cloak of familiar brown cloth, but
the figure filling it was almost lost within the vastness of its
folds. The cloak was familiar to them—clearly it was Yobi's—
but the woman inside was not. Although middle-aged she was
still something of a beauty, stately and statuesque, not at all
grandmotherly or matronly like Etanalon.
"Who is that?" Dorion asked. "And where's Yobi?'
"That is Yobi, dear," Etanalon replied. "That is the Yobi
who attained the Second Rank, before she paid the price of
her researches and her battles and went places and did things
that so terribly changed her. It is Yobi before she paid her
terrible price, now given a second chance at it. I believe she
will need a smaller, grander cloak of rank now."
Dorion shook his head in wonder, then got up, leaving
Yobi's recovery to Etanalon, turned, and looked back up the
beach. "I had wondered what would happen when they saw
each other in the light of day." he said, smiling. "Look."
Etanalon turned and saw, back up the beach, the figure of a
tall, handsome man in a long embrace with a young, naked
woman, each holding the other as if they were afraid to let
go.
"That's sweet," the sorceress commented. "I was so afraid
that after all this time they'd be sick of each other."
"I'll go tell Charley and the others," Dorion shouted.
starting to turn for the house halfway around the lagoon.
"Boy, we're gonna have one hell of a party!"
Yobi groaned, opened her eyes, saw Etanalon, and went
through the whole routine. The old sorceress allowed herself
to be helped up, and only then did she look at herself and
realize the change that had been wrought. "Oh, my!" she
muttered. "Oh my/"
"Yes, dear, but I'd think very seriously about playing
those demon games any more," Etanalon cautioned. "I seri-
ously doubt if anybody will give you a third crack at it."
"We still—we have our powers back?"
"About like before, it seems to me. Neither magic nor the
rest were abolished, only limited in their range and scope,
which is reasonable. Akahlar depends too much upon people
like us to wipe us out now, and I get the distinct impression
350 jack L. Chalker
that there are far fewer of us in the Second Rank than there
were yesterday. Don't you?"
"Indeed. But not everything works. The boy, Dorion—he
still had the ring in his nose but it was Just a ring. No power.
No enslavement."
"That's not permitted in Masalur, I think. We'll have to
divine the rules once again, but that's a fascinating chore.
You know, I doubted right up to the end whether or not we
weren't stupid suicidal idiots for going against all that, but it
seems to have worked out nicely that we did. Except for that
brief horrid transformation on the ice, we—you and I—came
out of this pretty well. In fact, I'd say that we are probably
right now the de facto heads of the Guild, whatever's left of
it."
"Just as well," Yobi noted. "Otherwise we'd be stuck
forever in this island paradise."
They joined Boday and her new escort, which amused
Yobi no end, and continued on up the beach towards the
house. They passed Crim and Kira, who didn't seem to be
aware that anyone else was there, and decided not to disturb
them.
Etanalon looked over at Boday and her fawning lovesick
princess and said, "You know, something's been bothering
me since I heard your version of events, Boday. Why did you
go down in my lab and spend so much time mixing your love
concoction at that point? Not for this end, surely. You can't
see the future. Might it have been in the back of your head to
secure the love of Susama once and for all?"
"Oh. no! Boday understood the special position of her
Susama. Why do you think she never slipped Susama the
potion during all that time in Tubikosa? Boday did not come
on this journey, give up everything, for her. It was to renew
herself, to fill her emptied soul, and that it has done. No, she
spent months in the company of that pair up at the house, and
hours in talking sense to that silly girl there who had no sense
of what was truly important. It was the idea that, if the
opportunity presented itself, a few drops, perhaps, in a fare-
well toast, to cement a deserving relationship, as it were. It
was concentrate, by the way. My princess here probably
swallowed enough of it to make love-slaves out of the whole
351
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM
^-^af center city Tubikosa, but that's all right. She had a lot of
'^^Itflte to smother."
•"'^-Etanalon looked at the house. "And did you manage it?"
'.i^.'*'No, there was no opportunity, which is why it was still in
<^i6cbelt." She reached down and pulled a small phial out of
.^.Illfar leather belt, held it up and looked at it. "There are still a
^'•t^w drops in there. Probably more than enough. Perhaps it
^1: wU be done yet."
^,.; "No, hold off," Yobi interrupted. "Ever since she got
'•T.'lttc people have been making most of her decisions for her.
•'yst> that the few she could make couldn't help but be a bit
s' Wrong. It will be sad if she keeps to that pattern, but it is her
, choice to make. At least she's earned that right."
. Charley shared the shock, surprises, and joy at having them
•^^•back, and did not let them alone until each of their stories was
^-J drawn out and compared. Boday was already sketching, and
;t dreaming one day of an entire panorama in oils, perhaps a
." diorama depicting the epic fight against the forces of evil that
had saved Akahlar.
During one of Charley's frequent trips to the outhouse—it
. seemed like she had to pee every ten minutes these days—
Etanalon followed her in conversation, and during the course
of it let slip that Dorion's slave spell was nullified, gone.
, Apparently, although he had to know, he had neither told her
,;, nor acted any differently.
:;!i She shook her head in wonder. "Why? Why would he do
that? Pretend to still be my slave?"
"He loves you, dear. You know that. He gave up what
little he had for you. Surely that must be obvious."