Jack L. Chalker - Changewinds 3 - War of the Maelstrom

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PREFATORY NOTE

This is the climactic book in the Changewinds saga, which

began with When the Changewinds Blow (Ace, 1987) and

continued with Riders of the Winds (Ace, 1988). Unlike a

series, this is the final part of a single continuous narrative,

and is intended to be read after the first two to create a single

novel in three volumes.

In the second volume, concessions were made to provide a

measure of recap and rationale for those who came in late;

little such is provided in this volume, since it would at this

point take a very long time to explain. If you have not read

the prior volumes, buy this one now, so you'll have it, then

check where you found it and buy the other two. A good,

intelligent, businesslike bookstore or newsstand will have

them; if not, order them or change bookstores. If you found

this at a small newsstand or rack that simply can't have the

space to put everything, buy it here and then drop by the

nearest bookstore for the others, which the nice folks at Ace

have tried to insure will have them.

If you must, be aware that you're going to be thrown

full-blown into the long and involved climax of a major

plot. You might still have a good time, but you'll never

get it all reading just this one. Those of you who have

been reading right along with us will pick it up rather easily—

I've provided enough for you to get back in the groove, I

think. You've been lulled for over two hundred thousand

words into a rather small and private story of two people

caught in another world at just the wrong time, but now

that which has only been hinted at is to be fully seen, the

vii

nil Sack L. Chalker

questions fully answered, and now the Changewinds will

truly Mow. It is the time for armies and swords and sorcery

and much more, for literally anything might happen when

die Changewinds blow. ...

Jack L. Chalker

PROLOGUE

Seizing Destiny's Threads

She was a short young woman, in no more than her early

twenties but far older in the eyes, where it revealed damage to

the spirit. She was not conscious of what her eyes showed,

although it drew the attention of all others, she was dressed

in a full-length blue satin robe without belt to conceal the

chubbiness that only she thought was important.

She stood on the balcony of the castle looking not at the

vast forests and high mountains beyond, but rather at the sky,

where clouds seemed to swirl and dance in unnatural combi-

nations for her amusement, as indeed they did. They had

always done her bidding, first with her mother's help, and

then, after the Akhbreed bastards had slain her mother, fully

in command herself of the weather and storms that most

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others, even powerful wizards, found impossible to control.

Her mastery over these clouds and this weather and the

strangeness with which the sky moved terrified most who

could see it, even those who lived in the region and were now

used to her experiments, pranks, and moods, but, to her, at

least, something was very wrong.

The clouds suddenly stopped their wild movements and

began to sort themselves out into more normal patterns as the

natural conditions were allowed to reassert their influence

upon the patterns. She uttered a mild curse of frustration

under her breath, turned, and stalked back inside her rooms,

but she did not remain there. Instead, she went to the door,

where guards with beaked faces and hands resembling birdlike

travesties of her hands stood guard in crimson uniforms, pikes

at the ready.

She went down the winding stairs as rapidly as her robe,

2 jack L. Chalker

slippers, wd dignity would allow and then stalked down a

hallway that was the only unguarded one in the entire castle.

It had no need to be; he who lived and worked on this level

was one to be protected from rather than the other way

•round, and only she of any of them would dare even enter

this one level without first asking permission.

Klittichom, Horned Demon of the Snows, master sorcerer

of the Akhbreed, was in his study working as he usually did

on his magic box. No one else there understood what the box

was or what it did; it was one of those great magical things

that only the Akhbreed sorcerers had or understood, although

it looked somewhat like a mechanical device, with a lot of

little buttons all clumped together, on each of which was a

different magical symbol none but the Akhbreed could deci-

pher, but which Klittichom used with rapidity to create his

spells and do whatever else it was that sorcerers of his rank

did.

The magic was in the square, barely the thickness of a

hand, on which strange symbols like those on the buttons but

grouped almost as if they were, well, words—occasionally

with small pictures of unknowable things—would appear in

bright blue against a metallic gray background.

A tiny little alarm sounded and a small red light wept, on

just above the buttons, and Klittichom cursed and sighed, and

for perhaps the millionth time since he himself had arrived

unexpectedly on this strange world of Akahlar, he wished at

least he'd had an extra battery charger. It had taken him a

good two years after setting up here just to rig a way to adapt

the localized and unstable current used in the Akhbreed cas-

tles for basic electricity so that it would recharge the damned

thing.

The woman burst into the room at just that moment—always

the worst moment, he grumbled to himself, when he was in

the foulest mood. She alone could get away with it and know

he would check his considerable wrath, although he had fried

people with a glance or turned them into stone for less

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effrontery than this. It wasn't out of any love or respect for

the woman, or any relationship, either. She wasn't all that

bright, really, which was to his advantage, but he needed her

as he needed his magic box and all his other tools of power,

and she knew it.

WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 3

"You might try knocking," he said acidly.

"This is serious," responded the Storm Princess sourly, in

a surprisingly deep, almost mannish voice. "It has happened

again. First the dizziness, then the sudden weakening of

power and control. It was intermittent, but stronger than any

of the last times. I have not felt such a lack of control since

control passed to me upon the murder of my mother. Some-

thing is very, very wrong, wizard. Dangerously wrong at this

stage."

He tried not to betray the fact that he was as concerned

about this as she was by maintaining a calm and clinical tone.

"Yes, I have been increasingly concerned about these lapses

of yours and I have been trying to analyze what is causing

them."

"It's that girl! The one you have failed after all this time to

locate, let alone kill. She invades my sleep and creeps in

comers of my mind."

"Your twin, in fact," he responded, nodding. "1 agree

that she is at the root of this, but not in the way you think.

She has the same power as you, but it is untrained, armed

only by emotion, and would be no match for you. No, it's

something else- A new factor has been added to the equation,

and. yes, you are right, our inability to nail her hide to the

wall is the root of our problem. Somehow she, or fate, or,

more likely Boolean, has come up with something we failed

to anticipate, some new equation that is challenging the neat

and ordered set we were dealing with. Do not be too hard on

me, my dear. I have killed you in a hundred worlds a hundred

times; it was inevitable that I'd miss at least one of you. The

problem was that there were too many of you in various

worlds of the outplane; our very attempt at insurance drew

attention to what we were doing and allowed Boolean to

finally figure it out. Forget recriminations. We must now deal

with what conditions we have."

"And just what are those conditions?" she demanded to

know. "Am I losing my powers or what? And, if so, what

comes of all our planning, all our schemes, all the blood and

hopes of our vast but fragmented army and the oppressed

people all this would liberate?"

He sighed. "You aren't losing your powers, but they are

being diluted, almost as if yet another version of you was—"

4 jack L. ChaSker

He snapped his fingers. "No! Blast me for a fool! It's so

obvious that it never once occurred to me! In spite of my

precautions the worst happened anyway! Blast!"

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He was clearly angry as hel! with himself, and even she

grew a bit nervous when he was this way. He didn't like to

show that he still had a human side left to anyone. Under

normal circumstances she might have left him for a while to

coot down, but this was a unique circumstance. It was her

powers that were in question here, and her powers were all

she had.

She would never have believed that she had a near total

immunity from his true rages; at least, she would never have

believed why she did. He needed her very much, simply

because he needed someone he could talk to, rant and rave

to, just interact with, who wasn't so terrified of him that they

were clearly play-acting. The fact that she was neither smart

enough nor sophisticated enough to understand much of what

he discussed was actually a plus. Ignorance was often the

safest confidant.

"You know what is causing this?" she prompted him,

trying to divert him from his anger.

"Yes, yes! It's obvious now! And Boolean probably had

nothing at all to do with it. I have kept you too sheltered, my

dear. Had I considered this threat I could have dealt with it,

but no more. That girl out there—Boolean's Storm Bitch—

she's gone and gotten herself pregnant!"

The Storm Princess looked surprised. "That is all it takes

to cause this? that she be pregnant? Why did I not hear of

this before? Out there, on her own, it was almost inevitable

sooner or later."

He sighed. "1—I thought not. When I sucked them down

to Akahlar I had them in the Maelstrom you created for me. I

was about to shove them into the storm when Boolean ap-

peared. He took me completely by surprise—I had no idea

until that moment that even he suspected what was going on,

nor certainly that he would have the skill, let alone the guts,

to tempt the Changewind. I had to draw my attention away

from the girls in order to block him. He actually challenged

me in there, knowing that if either of us so much as touched

the walls of the Maelstrom we would be consumed by the

Changewind. It took more skill and concentration to just

WAR OF THE MAELSTROM t)

remain there than even I thought possible. I refused, but

realized that so long as he was there and the danger so real I

had no chance to make a stab at the girls, who were being

drawn down and past me. I could have removed mem, but to

take my concentration off Boolean would have given him the

opening to destroy me. Still, with Boolean in the act, I knew

that there was at least a slim chance that our quarry might

elude us in Akahlar, where they could not be so easily

located. The flow of air from the storm is always an upward

spiral, as you know. I risked a small spell, down, below all of

us, figuring that Boolean would not notice such a minor thing

directed elsewhere than at him or the girls—and he did not.

The spell caught in the spiral and came up, lost in the

overwhelming blast of power coming from the storm's walls."

"Just—what did you do?" she asked him, not quite fol-

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lowing all this.

"They looked so similar I couldn't tell which girl was

which," he replied. "Two terrified teenage girls pouring out

every emotion possible—it was confusing. As the resem-

blance struck me, though, I knew it would also strike Bool-

ean. 1 know how he thinks—now. I knew what he would do,

and I knew that one had to be in so many ways your dupli-

cate. He would inevitably make one look just like the other to

carry on the confusion, but it would be merely physical. I

knew that at their age and stage they would not be certain of

their own minds and feelings, and so I made them choose and

harden the extremes which conflicted within their natures. A

yin and a yang, as it were, so that they could be differenti-

ated. Our target would become a lover of women and gain no

pleasures from a man; the other, the false one, would tilt to

the other extreme. A simple system, and, yet, one Boolean

could do nothing about without negating the duplication as

well, and one that would make our quarry stand out in our

society and, not incidentally, would prevent the natural exper-

imentation that might have resulted in a pregnancy."

"With all that I have undergone I am yet a virgin, although

I do not know why I was not violated in those early days. I

have chosen celibacy, which she certainly has not."

"You weren't violated because it was your power that

interested everyone, and there was a great deal of fear that

virginity was a part of it. Needless, as it turns out. You are

6 Jack L. Chalker

celibate by choice because your nature makes you incapable

of desiring a man and you hide, as she did, from your

attraction to other women by denial. Yet your mother was

like that, and hers before her. It is a part of it.*'

"How could my mother have been thus?" she demanded

angrily. "She had me and her mother had her, and we were

not products of virgin births!"

"They carefully picked the fathers in elaborate rites, and

then stood for it in order to bear their heirs," he responded.

"The gift, or curse, of the Storm Princess included this

always, because one of such powers must be apart from

society, both above and different from its rules and conven-

tions, so as to never compromise that position of power. In

the absence of a Storm Prince, who does not exist, it was the

way to distance the paranormal from the normal, and as a part

of the gift itself it is an essential part of a Storm Princess's

makeup. But she had not yet fully realized or accepted her

different nature and was still experimental. I thought by

freezing it I would preclude a child."

She frowned. "Well, consider it now, because it is done.

Boolean must be laughing at you now. You can not deceive

the master deceiver."

"Boolean!" he spat. "He has a damnably charmed des-

tiny! Head to head Boolean is easy to deceive. His brilliance

may be equal to mine, but he lacks both talent and imagina-

tion. He is the brilliant thief, the master trickster, bright

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enough to comprehend what the greatest minds come up with,

and steal it and make it his own, but incapable of coming up

with it himself. Why, right now I have him convinced that

four Akhbreed sorcerers await his exit from Masalur; four

who together could crush him or keep him for me to finish.

That is what imprisons him there—that belief. It was easy

enough to fake convincingly. We sorcerers have certain pro-

cedures for checking for dangers. It was enough to show him

that danger clearly lurked in sufficient force by all the signs.

Would that I truly had four such allies!

"Still," he added, "it is a trick more in his style than my

own, which is mostly why it worked. He has preyed upon me

for a decade because of my naivetd in such things, but I am

capable of learning a lesson well."

WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 7

"And yet she is pregnant anyway, and possibly by Bool-

can's own machinations."

"Nonsense!" He spat. "The failure was mine, so easy to

see in retrospect. I, who have sent thousands to Hell, some-

how never considered rape. And by our own agents, too!

Those bestial idiots with Asterial's band were dumb enough

to probably gang rape the lot of them. Blast! And probably

the only time she was or ever will be penetrated by a man

happens to be the time she is most fertile' Destiny fights my

attempts at meddling with it!"

She shook her head in puzzlement. "Still, how can this

matter? It only incapacitates her and makes her more vulnera-

ble. Another one who can control the storms I can under-

stand, but a baby? An unborn one at that!"

He sighed and looked at her as if she were a small and not

overly bright child. "You are the only daughter of an only

daughter who herself was an only daughter, and so on, as far

back as your line goes. That is the only way to pass along the

powers of the Storm Princesses, and that is why it is such an

exclusive club. The power connects the child to the mother.

That power is not within you; it is, rather, drawn to you. You

are a magnet, a lightning rod, for it. The power is finite, and

connects you to her and her to you as well in a nebulous way.

That is why you dream sometimes of her and she must of

you. But now there is a child and it grows within her and is

physically connected to her. You are magnets, all three, but

together those two are a larger magnet and therefore a stronger

one. Whenever she draws power in, the power draws also to

the unborn child. You get less. The older the child grows, the

more power she will draw as well as the mother, and you will

be the loser. Do you understand?"

The Storm Princess felt like she wanted to sit down and

fast. "You—you mean that the mother and child together will

draw so much power to them that eventually I will get

none?"

"Well, not none—you will always attract that part that is

closer to you and far from them since you will be a stronger

relative magnet—but it is true that you are being slightly

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weakened now, on an intermittent basis, and it will get

worse- It is also true that the two of them together, even one

as a babe in arms guided by her mother, would be able to

g )ack L. Chalker

totally AM" y011 1^ y011 were v/l^lm the same sector. This is

veiy dangerous, and may just be what Boolean is counting

on. Time, which has always been on our side up to now, has

become our enemy and Boolean's friend. We can wait no

longer." He strode over to a massive and mystical red tapestry-

covered wall and pulled a bell rope.

"Then the solution is obvious," she said, steeling herself.

"No matter what, I, too, must arrange to conceive a child."

He sighed. "My dear, there can be only one heir to the

powers in all Akahlar. If we fail to eliminate her before the

child is born, there will be no other. The moment she con-

ceived, your own capacity for conception ceased. No, we

must act pragmatically now with what is possible."

The Executive General of the Annies entered in response to

the bell pull, his toadlike face and bulging eyes seeming

strangely incongruous atop the resplendent blue, gold-braided

uniform and shiny boots. He stood there and bowed slightly

to both of them.

"General, we have two problems and we must now ad-

vance our timetable to meet them," Klittichom told him.

"We must have the duplicate. It's the fat one we want, and

there is no reward too high to pay for her—dead. I no longer

need to see her. The one who kills her need only bring me

evidence of the deed and he can name his own price."

A snakelike tongue ran around the upper lip of the toad-

faced general. "Very well. Do you still want the decoy? I ask

although it appears they both lead extraordinarily charmed

lives."

"No, don't capture the pretty whore, but put people on her

and keep them with her. She and that crazy artist both. They

are the magnets that may draw our quarry out from wherever

she is. Just do not allow them to get all the way to Masalur

hub and Boolean. Take them alive if possible at that point but

not before, and hold them for me. Something in the back of

my mind keeps telling me that they are the key to locating the

duplicate but I can't put my finger on just how yet, so keep

them ready. I want to know where they are and be able to put

my hands on them if it comes to me."

The general bowed. "Very well."

"That's not all," the sorcerer added. "We have a growing

danger to all our plans the longer we wait. The duplicate

WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 9

might still continue to elude us, since we haven't been able to

find her in almost two years and we now have far less time

and Boolean might be well served to Just hide her. How long

would it take to get the word to all the armies in the field to

assemble?''

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"All of them? For the full assault? Months. There are

many hundreds of worlds that would have to be notified,

given orders, and there's assembly time, and, of course, it

must be done without alerting the Akhbreed." the officer

replied.

Klittichom did a little figuring in his head. "Let's see. . . .

Assuming it was those apes with Asterial, it would be—hmm—

six months, give or take." He thought a moment. "You have

eight weeks, General. Exactly fifty-six days and not one

more. No excuses. Those who are not ready at that time we

wilt do without. We will attack in full force starting at

precisely twelve noon, our time here, progressively around alt

of Akahtar. You must not give me any excuses or objections,

General. I tell you that if we do not attack then we may never

be able to attack. There is a new and potentially fatal element

in our game and only this timing will block it."

The general clearly didn't like it, but he made no objec-

tions to the basics. "Still, though, I am uneasy and so will

our allies be at the lack of a truly valid test. It is one thing to

create dust-devil changewinds in me deserts and high country

here and there, but an Akhbreed Loci is a totally different

matter. They will not rally, sir, in sufficient force to do the

job, unless it can be proven that a hub, an Akhbreed hub,

guarded by a great Akhbreed sorcerer and supported by thou-

sands of lesser ones, can be as easily taken out. I mean no

disrespect to you, Ma'am, or to you, sir, nor do I reflect my

own confidence in saying that. It is a practical matter."

"The masses are sheep. General! You do not need any

mystic powers to hear them hewing, nor to know that there

arc precious few wolves. We are all either predators or prey,

General. You have only to pull the right levers to get the

sheep marching to the slaughterhouse, one by one. If you can

not do that, then you are a sorry wolf indeed and perhaps not

the man to lead this great crusade."

The General was not intimidated. "Then give me that

lever. Give me something so startling that there can be no

10 Jack L. Chalker

resistance. I can move them, but distance and die need for

secrecy ties my hands. Give me something that will not

betray us but which will none the less be so loud I will not

have to raise my voice to reach the farthest colony of Akahlar. *'

The sorcerer nodded. "Very well. I have been itching to do

this ever since we managed to contain Boolean inside Masalur.

I was going to do it anyway, but you and others pressed me

not to out of fear it might tip our hand. I think we can do it so

that it will not. I think we must do it, both for the reasons you

name and to eliminate the only effective threat we have.

Without Boolean, the threat is lessened greatly. Without the

giri, it is effectively eliminated."

"Then you intend to move against Masalur as a demonstra-

tion," the general said more than asked.

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"I do. It will be an excellent test no matter what, and we

might just eliminate Boolean in the process, although I fear

he leads a life as charmed as that girl we have been chasing."

He paused a moment, then said in disgust, "Augh! He has

bested me for so long he has gotten me trained to his mind-

set. Damn him!"

He got control of himself, then added, calmly, "We al-

ready have forces in the region. They can seal it off, block

immediate word of the tragedy, and control that word when

the navigators dare approach."

The general nodded. "And when do you plan this demon-

stration to occur?"

"It must be early enough to serve as such, and build

confidence. 1 assume that you will be assembling the General

Staff for the final preparations. That will take a few weeks.

All right. Four weeks. Four weeks from today, at precisely

two in the morning Masalur time. That will mean most of

them will be asleep and there will be little time to flee or act

on a major alarm. That date and time and the object are

classified from this point. General Staff only, not even aides.

We need enough people to know that we are the ones who did

it and to be able to get that word back. Not enough to leak to

Boolean or be intercepted by spies. You understand?"

"Perfectly, sir. The timing will also be right in that it will

spur our forces onward to assemble on the ready and will also

be rather short even if the Akhbreed suspect. We will know if

they do by whether or not an assault is made upon us here."

WAR OF THE MAELSTROM

Klittichom chuckled. "Yes, and even if they do they will

find us gone, and there wilt be too little time to take proper

countermeasures. Very well, General, it is decided. In twenty-

eight days Masalur will cease to exist. And perhaps Boolean

and his fat bitch as well."

The Storm Princess stared at the sorcerer. ' 'Then I should

get in some last-minute practice with you, I should think. I

am relieved that the waiting is over and that we will finally

act. The General can take care of the military matters here.

You and I, Lord Klittichom, should leave for the Command

Center as quickly as possible."

The homed one nodded. "I agree. It is all or nothing. The

die is here irrevocably cast. Now we will seize the threads of

Destiny and play them to their ends, and, no matter what

comes of this, or what decision is ultimately reached, all the

worlds of Akahlar and perhaps all the worlds of Probability

will be transformed forever."

The Mirrors of Truth

IT HAD NOT been a good trip, and it hadn't gotten any better.

Now, at least, they were with a qualified Navigator's train

beading in the right direction, although that didn't give Sam a

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lot of comfort. The last time she'd been in such a train, it

hadn't helped at all. In fact, she was one of the few survivors.

Maybe the only one by this point. She had thought long

and hard about that and all it did was make her own personal

depression worse. The kids at least had some kind of peace

back at Pasedo's with their minds mercifully cleansed of the

ugly memories of rape and murder. Charley and Boday—who

knew if they still lived, or where, or under what conditions?

Even Boolean might not know, or might not care to know.

She was the only one that was ever really important to him.

She only thought she used to have nightmares; now she

awoke, sometimes with a scream, drenched with sweat and

shaking like a leaf. Her attempt to overcome the demonic fat

she carried was out the window as well; she no longer had

much energy, and she often felt a bit sick or strange, and she

really no longer felt like doing much of anything other than

eating and sleeping.

The worst part was that she was having trouble remembering

things clearly. She knew she had come from another world

and had spent most of her life in that other place before being

drawn here as a pawn in these sorcerers' games, but she couldn't

really remember it, sort it out, or make sense of it. She had

no clear vision of her old, pre-Akahlar self, nor any real

memories of her family, although she must have had one.

Rather, it seemed, somehow, that she'd always been this

way, had sprung as she was, as if one of Boday's fantastic

WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 13

creations, cast out into an angry world she didn't understand

as the plaything for others, the quarry in some fantastic

supernatural chase. And now she moved towards Boolean,

whether she wanted to or not, in a seemingly endless journey

divided between those who wanted to kill her and those who

didn't care about her, both companion and prisoner to the

strangest split personality she could imagine.

By day, her companion was Crim; a big, brawny, powerful

man wise in the ways of Akahlar, a mercenary who, at least,

was on her side. By night the big man vanished, replaced

with the beautiful but no less tough Kira, a mysterious woman

also from another world and place but now very much at

home here. Once they had been two, but now, cursed, they

shared an existence, the man by day, the woman by night,

each otherwise a passive observer in the other's mind, an

unimaginable marriage. It was hard enough to get to know or

understand another person; Crim and Kira remained ciphers,

friends or not.

"We're going to have to cut out of the train," Crim

commented to her as he sat on the wagon seat staring into

nothingness. "We're coming in to Covanti hub, and the heat

will really be on there. I'll want to scout it out before we risk

passage through the city-state."

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file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20Changewinds\%203%20-%20War%20of%20the%20Maelstrom.txtPREFATORYNOTEThisistheclimacticbookintheChangewindssaga,whichbeganwithWhentheChangewindsBlow(Ace,1987)andcontinuedwithRidersoftheWinds(Ace,1988).Unlikeaseries,thisisthefinalpartofasingle...

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Jack L. Chalker - Changewinds 3 - War of the Maelstrom

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