Read 03. War of the Maelstrom Online
Authors: Jack L. Chalker
ashamed of nothing not of your own doing, and cast off all
Jack L. Chalker
32
the worries over things that have no meaning and no rele-
vance and which can not be changed."
"1—I want to very much, but I'm unsure that I can! I grew
up set in one way, and even though I hated it, it was still a
part of me. That's what I've been trying to get rid of by my
memory lapses. I understand that now. But I'm back. I'm
Samantha Buell again. It's not that easy to do it all at once,
like this, now, and know that it'll stay."
"If that freedom is what you truly want," said the reflec-
tion, "then I can give it to you. I can not force it. I can not
do it for you. But if you truly wish it, if you let me in, if you
do not fight or fear or doubt, then, now, at this point, at
perhaps only this point, I can heal you."
Choices. . . .Crossroads. . . .This way or that. This is
what Etanalon meant. This is the moment of decision. Not to
be transformed into some artificial beauty as Charley was,
nor to become anything other than what I am. Rather, to ac-
cept what I am and go on from there. To be content to be just
me. ...
It wasn't an easy choice for all that, for it meant surrender-
ing forever the fantasy of changing, of giving up even the
desire for the magic wand that would make her perfect.
Instead a Sam with no illusions, and content with that. One
who would never please the public, but might well please
herself. It was a tough thing to choose. Nobody outside of
fairy tales ever really lived happily ever after, but it was
damned tough to give up the dream of it.
The reflection seemed to shimmer, and parts of it began to
fade, and Sam was suddenly afraid that she had made a
choice by not making it.
"Wait!" she called. "I—I'm ready."
The reflection solidified once more, this time becoming
very much her reflection, her perfect mirror image. She stared
into her big brown eyes and the image seemed to come
closer, floating to her rather than walking, until they were
nose to nose.
Then the image and her own body merged, and inside the
mind, throughout her whole body, there was almost an explo-
sion, a tingling, an excitement. Barriers within her mind fell
like dominoes, one after the other, until she remembered her
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WAR OF THE MAELSTROM
whole past, her whole self, right up to this point, but with a
kind of clinical clarity she had never known before.
Yeah, she'd been dumb, all right. Dumb all the way through.
All the time it was them she listened to; all the time it was
herself she'd been fighting. The barriers continued to fall.
What a mess I made for myself—back home and here, she
thought sourly. Well, I'm not going to give a shit about them
and their standards and their rules and demands anymore.
It's time to stop being afraid of living. Okay, I'm not like
them. I'm different, in a lot of ways. and they aren't really so
bad at all.
It was as if she was suddenly reborn, grown-up and wise.
She liked herself now, and she found her old self pretty
damned pitiful and repulsive. She liked the image of herself as
a survivor, as somebody with power who might be able to do
important things. No more dishonesty, not with herself, not
with other people. Anybody who didn't take her as she was,
wasn't worth knowing anyway. Let other people be embar-
rassed for her differences. She wasn't gonna be, not ever
again. Who the hell wanted to be "normal" anyway? That
was just another word for "dull."
So now what? She was sick and tired of being led around
by the nose, of running and hiding and being scared of
shadows and the future. She had power here—great power.
Maybe it was time she used it. Maybe it was time to test it
out and see if the journey was really worth the trip.
She turned, and suddenly realized that she was no longer
within the mirror but back in Etanalon's bedroom, just stand-
ing there. She turned back and looked into the mirror once
again—and there was no reflection there at all.
Etanalon came back into the room and covered the mirror
once more. Sam went to the bed and got dressed once more,
then sighed, turned, and looked at the sorceress. "I think 1
can handle it now," she said simply.
"Indeed?" Etanalon replied, sounding a bit skeptical. "Then
you believe that there is nothing that can crush you, nothing
that can stop you, even unto death. You're now ready for any
new challenge. Is that it?"
"I think so. I'm gonna try and avoid that death part as long
as I can, though. I ain't sayin' I'm not gonna fall flat on my
face, but at least it'll be my decision, up front. I'm through
34 fack L. Chalker
running. From myself, from others. I didn't pick gettin'
dropped here or what I have to do, but it's right that I do it.
That I face her down and screw her ass into a thunderstorm.
Not 'cause Boolean wants it, but because it's the right thing
to do,"
The sorceress nodded. "That's nice. dear. Come back in
and I'll hand you your first crisis of your reborn self."
Sam was suddenly wary. "Something happen while I
was—in there?"
"Oh, no. Nothing's changed. In fact, the entire process
took only a few minutes, no matter how long it seemed to
you. It's something that already was, but which has been kept
from you. Both a severe complication to your plans and,
well, a potential advantage as well. But you should be sitting
down for it."
Kira was curled up on the couch but looked up and then sat
up. "That was fast."
"I'm a lot better, Kira. Inside, anyway. I still feel like I'm
carrying a ton." Sam settled down in one of the padded
chairs.
"Not a ton, dear," Etanalon said softly, "just a baby."
Sam stiffened in shock. "What!"
"You're pregnant," Kira responded, affirming the news.
"Six months along."
"Holy shit! You knew about this? And you didn't tell
me?"
Kira shrugged. "In your mental state it was tough to know
whether or not the news wouldn't push you off the edge. But,
as the physician said last night, you weren't too far from
finding out with a vengeance."
Sam sank back down. "Jeez! Pregnant! I come out of there
ready to march into battle against the forces of evil and now
maybe I can waddle a little. I know I ain't had a period since
lord knows when, but I figured it was the potions or the shock
or the weight or something. Jeez! One of them bastards back
with the Blue Fairy in Kudaan. probably." She paused a
moment, thinking, all the memories now clear in her mind.
"Or maybe not. God,! hope not!"
"The rape was the only sexual experience with a man?"
Etanalon asked.
She thought a moment. "No, it wasn't. A day or two earlier,
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 35
really. I realized I had this—power—with that demon amulet,
and there was Charley screwin' half the train, and I just had
to know. 1 just picked a strong, nice guy and kind's be-
witched him into seducing me. It was no kick at all. I didn't
even get off." She thought a moment. "But he did. Jeez. 1
hope it's his! He was a pretty nice guy for alt that and I think
he was killed in the attack. Huh! I guess we'll never really
know, unless he or she grows up to be an ax murderer or
something."
"She," Etanalon told her. "Storm Princesses have only
girls, and generally only one child. She, too, will be a Storm
Princess, at least as long as she remains on Akahlar. More
importantly, it will preclude the native Princess from a child,
since such things are determined by the elementals. More and
more they will take you for her, dividing their support less
and less between you."
Sam was still pretty shaken by the news, but she was
thinking clearly now. "Wait a minute. Are you telling me
that because I'm havin' the kid she can't? And that once the
kid is bom she'll lose her powers?"
"That is the way we believe it works, yes," the sorceress
replied.
Kira, too, was fascinated by this. "Then we might already
have won. The only way they can retain their power and keep
to their plan is if they kill her and her unborn child. There are
a number of very pleasant, tranquil places deep in the colo-
nies where someone could hide for a year or more. We need
only take Misa there and wait until the child is bom. Then the
Storm Princess's power dies and with it Klittichom's dream
of controlling the Changewinds."
"Sam," she responded. "Misa was just another place to
hide. Susama in Akhbreed, Sam for short in any tongue. I
like the picture you're painting, but it's all wrong."
"Huh? What do you mean? Etanalon just said—"
"—what KHttichom already knows," Sam finished.
"We don't know for certain that he knows," Kira retorted.
"We don't even know that he's not chasing Charley all over
the map."
"Maybe he is, but I doubt it. For one thing, 1 tune in every
once in a while to the Storm Princess. I got to figure she
somehow tunes in on me. And I don't sell old Homy short.
36 Jack L Chalker
They got a pretty good idea of me by now. I think. We had to
fight off the hired guns back off Quodac, remember, and I
think maybe that slimy bastard Zamofir has got to know more
than he's putting out. He saw me on the train, maybe even
arranged the attack because I was there. He was there at the
rock camp, too—the only survivor from their side. Figure he
saw it all. heard everything. Then, later, he shows up at
Pasedo's and narrowly misses me."
Kira sighed. "Yes, and Pasedo's people knew you were
pregnant at that point. Crim should have drowned that little
creep. All right—so Klittichom knows. What good does that
do him if he can't find you?"
Sam sighed. "Well, suppose I was him. Six months. . . .
So I got three months to go, give or take, right? He'll figure
from the rape Zenchur would have reported to him, which is
good enough. Now, he's spent years building his armies and
making his plans. Years finding and shaping and building up
this Storm Princess until she'll do exactly what he wants her
to. He's got Boolean bottled up, everything shaping up nice
whether I'm around or not, and then he finds out he made one
tiny mistake. He kept her a virgin instead of getting her
knocked up when he had the chance."
"It would have been difficult unless the soldiers who took
her from her homeland had ravished her, and no doubt they
had strict orders on that," Etanalon noted. "This is a lengthy
plan of Klittichom *s, carried out with much patience. He
arranged everything so that she would be his willing accom-
plice, from the massacre of her people and mother onwards.
Do not doubt it. He manipulated the threads of her destiny to
create what he had. A child would have interfered with that."
"Yeah, and I guess he kept her on a tight enough leash so
she couldn't fool around on her own," Sam noted.
"Most certainly. She would have been most public, you
see, and always guarded. But remember, too, that she is in all
senses except her background you—another version of you.
On that level, she might have been no more likely to 'fool
around,' as you put it, than you would—at least not with
men. Of course, she would not admit it, even to herself, and
she would expect an arranged marriage at some point, but she
would run from such feelings in horror, as you tried to do. It
was a factor that Klittichom overlooked. Or, perhaps, one he
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WAR OF THE MAELSTROM
simply took for granted and'reinforced in you. It simply never
occurred to him that there were other ways than romance to
cause pregnancy. In his own way, he's rather conservative
and old-fashioned in his outlook. It never seems to have
occuircd to him that, in spite of all, Storm Princesses are still
bom. At any rate, it is done."
"Yes," Kira put in, "but now what can we do? All it's
done is to start the clock ticking on the end of the world."
"I don't see how, even with all his tricks, he can get her to
go along with him on this," Sam commented. "I mean, no
matter what, 1 don't think I could trust that homy bastard."
"Hatred and revenge fuel her," Etanalon told them. "She
is convinced that only as the liberator of the colonial races
and the destroyer of Akhbreed power and rule can she both
avenge and give meaning to the deaths of her mother and her
people, as well as give meaning to her own life."
Sam nodded. "Frankly, I wouldn't mind being the liberator
myself, but not at the cost of having old Homy around to pick
up the pieces. The system here is bad, but I can imagine
worse." She turned to Kira. "Don't you see? If I was old
Homy, faced with all this work and all this power goin' down
the tubes, I'd move it up. I'd go with what I had and take a
chance, ready or not. He's gonna do it, Kira. He's gonna do
it before my baby's bom. 1 don't want my baby growin' up in
his world, or even in the wreckage a defeat would leave
behind. We don't have much time, Kira. You got to contact
Boolean. You got to tell him that the whole deal's off. Tell
him either we hit them now, or it's going down and soon. We
need to get together whatever forces we can and move on
them before they move on us. No more bullshit. No more
sneaking around. We hit them first, quick and dirty, or it's all
over."
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