"Yeah. I guess so. but . ... well. he could do a lot better
than me if he was just a little more assertive. He is kind of
cute, you know. I mean, I'm fat. and any moment now I'm
gonna be a mother to a kid by a father long dead now. Either
one would be bad enough, but both together is a hell of a
burden to stick a guy with. I mean, he's not really in love
with me; he's in love with some little slip of a courtesan who
could charm the balls off a pawnbroker's sign. That girl's
gone. The closest to her is the one Boday's got, and she's
kind'a out of circulation. You yourself examined me and told
me the spells were still there, so I'm not gonna change. Who
352 Jack L. Chalker
the hell would want a five-foot-two-inch 50-42-50 butterball,
never mind one with a kid?"
What she said was true. as far as it went, but it wasn't
because of the Omak demon's curse. Someone had undone all
that and rewoven an elegant new spell, one so fine and so
carefully tuned that it was beyond even the best of Second
Rank sorcerers. Without harming the child in any way, or
affecting her, Charley had been carefully redesigned, reengin-
eered from the inside. Nothing showed, but her bone struc-
ture, muscle tone. everything, had been finely tuned so that
her current weight and stature was her normal condition.
When not pregnant she would be exceptionally strong, unnat-
urally healthy, free of all the diseases and maladies that
plagued all but the best magicians, able to climb, lift, run,
and lots of other things—without feeling any more winded
than someone in peak condition. But she was also exception-
ally fertile, able to bear many children, if she chose to do so,
without stressing the body the way it did many women. She
was under no spells or charms; a skillful weaver of the winds
had changed her as surely as the inhabitants of Masalur hub
had been changed, yet she was still Akhbreed. Someone, who
thought Charley had learned every lesson except the most
important one, had wanted her to look that way.
And that was why, in spite of the fact that a skilled sorcerer
like Etanalon could in fact have granted Charley's wish, she
neither did so nor suggested the possibility. There was some-
thing potentially great in Charley that everyone seemed to
sense when she was being herself; Charley alone could not
see it because she was too busy looking in the mirror to look
within herself. Sam had been helped by mirrors; to Charley
they were her curse. Why begin questioning the Judgment of
the First Rank now?
"Is it realty so terrible being fat?" Etanalon asked her.
"Why do you want to be thin? Not for health, surely. That is
a good reason for some but not for you. Do you feet so
terrible this way?''
"Yes. No. Well. . . . It's the way other people see you,
react to you. Other women, guys. I mean, what kind of man
would be interested in me looking like this? And I think other
women might be worse yet. I know how I used to feel when I
353
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM
looked at some fat girl. Sure. I love not constantly dieting and
not worrying if I want some bonbons, but it's just not me."
"And you really believe that Dorion is in love with an
idealized vision of your outside, that he is not in love more
with your inside? With what he sees inside you?"
"Now, maybe, he thinks so, 'cause he's been so cloistered
and shy and all, but 1 saw the way he looked at that Kira."
"Happily married men have been looking like that at bod-
ies like Kira's since there were women and men to look at
each other," the sorceress responded. "And women like you
took at bodies like Crim's in that manner as well. Or bodies
Hke that Halagar's, never considering what's inside. But they
rarely want to settle down with one like that. They just look,
like one appreciates fine works of art or the beauties of
nature."
"You realty think I should give it a try with him, then?"
"It's your decision, and you've known him longer and more
intimately than 1. It you are that unsure, get Boday to mix
you up a love potion, but I don't think you'd want to do that
to anyone else, and I don't think you'd be happy that way.
But, if I were you, I might give it a shot. You could do
worse, with a nearly instant newbom around, you are very
quickly going to find his measure and his commitment.
"I—I'll have to think about it, that's all."
"That's all one can ask another to do in these matters,
dear," Etanalon replied with a smile.
'"I can't believe it! They're all over the place!" Dorion was
both excited and stunned beyond belief at the discovery. "I
mean, I never saw 'em before, but you just kick a rock and
there's a diamond the size of a child's rubber ball, or a ruby
fit for an idol's navel, or an emerald the size of a small
melon! The island's crawling with big gem-quality stones!"
Charley nodded and smiled. "Well. at least now I know
what she was talking about when she said we would have all
the wealth we needed." Gold and silver were common in
Akahlar—any competent alchemist could make them from
common lead—but gem-quality stones, flawless, with perfect
luster, almost ready for the cutter, were very rare indeed.
This had followed on the heels of Yobi and Etanalon's visit
to Masalur hub to check things out, their sorcery protection
354 Jack L. Chalker
against anything they might be likely to find. What they had
found, though, was far different than what they had left. The
slavery spells on the Akhbreed survivors, who numbered
more than three hundred thousand people, were all broken
and ineffective. They had then risen up collectively against
the remaining skeletal force of Hedum and the other nurbreed
conquerors, joined unexpectedly by forces from the trans-
formed millions of the inner hub who had once been their
brethren, and overcome them, only to be joined by forces
from no less than eleven colonial worlds, accompanied by
Akhbreed who lived there—the very worlds where Boolean's
experiment in self-government had been permitted and en-
couraged. More races were coming out now and, after testing
the political and social winds, were blowing the way of the
colonies, and tremendous pressure was being extended even
now on the nine unconnected Masalurian rebel worlds.
They had not waited for peace. A compact had been drawn
up by the pragmatists and those horrified by what had oc-
curred. Masalur was being reconstituted as a republic, a form
of government known in some remote areas of the colonial
worlds but never among the Akhbreed, with each race of
Masalur who signed brought on as an equal partner with equal
voice and representation in a kind of parliamentary assembly
still mostly on paper. The entrepreneurs, the Navigator's Guild
people in the region, and others were already starting to
redevelop commercial ventures, often in partnership now with
locally owned, and in a few cases hastily formed, native
corporations. A combined army, for defense of the republic
rather than for subjugating it internally, was being assembled
under former officers, and was having to be talked out of
carrying their "revolution" to other kingdoms while their
own was still being bom.
Revolution by example was being preached instead. With-
out shields and Chief Sorcerers, and with the Akhbreed's
vulnerability exposed by the .wars and revolutions, such an
arrangement could be offered as the only viable alternative to
civil war and the breakdown of services and authority. The
rebels, in the main, didn't want to revert to primitive ways
and tribalism; they wanted what the Akhbreed had, and the
smartest among them understood that the Akhbreed alone
knew how to harness the power of water for electricity and
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM
355
engineer sewage systems, running water, and the rest. Much
blood would be spilled, and centuries of hatred and oppres-
sion could not be overcome in a night by high-sounding
principles and promises, but it was a start.
It wasn't perfect, and not everybody went along right now,
t.aor was everybody satisfied, but it seemed a damn sight
-,'better to those on the island who heard about it than anything
^fStse in all Akahlar. Those without sorcery had a meeting to
tfiscuss just what they wanted to do in this new world.
• Boday pointed to Charley. "Boday still remembers the
, brillant undergarment you and Susama created which more
^than financed our journey. Surely there are other such ideas
that can be found, developed, licensed. Whole new vistas are
Opening up! Imagine, if you will, if we could just convince
'tte four-breasted Masalurians that these 'bras' were good!
And think not only of the Akhbreed and Masalurians but of
ifl the races that products can now be developed for!"
:y^'The project interested everyone. Crim, for example, was a
^i|i6mber of the Navigator's Guild, and could arrange for
^coordinated transport. Kira could wine and dine and charm
tfae pants off the most hard-hearted businessmen and politi-
cians. Dorion had no powers, not that he'd lost that much to
'.begin with, but he had his Guild membership and lots of
:f contacts there.
"But you're going at it all wrong," Charley told them.
"Sure, we might actually manage it, but then we'd become
Akahlar's greatest corporation, with an economic hold on it-
Our company would become a pseudo-empire, stronger and
possibly with less heart in the end than the old ones and more
powerful. No, what we want to do is to start with some ideas
that show the way, and provide a center, perhaps in Masalur
hub itself, in the remaining outer circle, where everyone with
creativity could come, both to share ideas, leam, and to test
and market their own new products and ideas. Making money
gets boring after a while. Becoming the intellectual and artis-
tic center of the whole world, though—that's exciting!"
Kira, Dorion, Boday, even the two Masalurians, were
fascinated by the concept but still not clear about the details
other vision.
"Isn't thai what the great University hub is for?" Boday
asked her.
356 Jack L. Chalker
"No, no! I'm no talking about education and I'm not
talking about theory, both of which that probably does fine.
I'm talking about a forum and an outlet for the ones who
graduated from there, and those who never got the chance to
go but still have great ideas."
'Can you picture it for us?" Kira asked her. "Show us,
somehow, what you mean?"
Charley smiled. "I'm not the artist you are, Boday, but
gimme that pad and I'll show you what I have in mind. And
it's only the start of it. Surely, sometime, hopefully soon,
somebody in Akahlar will invent air conditioning. ..."
The Mother of Invention was pregnant again, but she didn't
mind even if some other people thought she was overdoing it.
Misa, now eleven and in the process of turning from adorable
to sexy and dangerous, had been partly responsible for it,
teaching and giving to her mother as much or more than her
mother was giving her, and being an unexpected joy. That
had been compounded by the arrival of Jonkuk, now nine and
the spitting image of his father at that age although with a
highly extroverted personality, but, damn it, who would have
suspected that Dorion would be so phenomenal in bed?
Not that he really believed it yet; after all, if your wife's
had a tittle prior experience with, maybe, two or three hun-
dred other guys. you would tend to think you were being
flattered, but there was something to be said for the fact that
she had been absolutely faithful now for eleven years, and
why she had Joni, age six now, and Petor, age three, after-
wards, and they probably wouldn't stop with the one on the
way, either. They both loved kids, particularly theirs, and,
hell, they could afford them.
Not that it had slowed Charley down. The concept of
day-care and an equal spot for women in the policy-making
body that controlled the entity known throughout Akahlar
simply as The Mall had been laid down from the start. After
all, three of its seven-member board were females, and two
more were sort of all of the above.
Stepping into the Grand Promenade, with its large grass
and tree-lined park going down the middle between the two
long rows of multilevel shops, galleries, and boutiques, she
stopped to look into the windows of some of the fashion
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 357
galleries. They were catching on quickly to the potential
business here; the traditional chadoorlike garb of even the
most conservative kingdoms was giving way to modernity
with the collapse of the Chief Sorcerer's authority and the
failure of the old religions to keep pace with the revolutionary
new conditions present on Akahlar.
It had started with just this section, but even now it seemed
to go on and on in all directions, less a collection of shops
and stores than a small city in its own right, with its own
electric power and its own population just to staff the place
and keep it clean and perfect. Fashion and cosmetics tailored
to a thousand races, but even if you foreswore clothes al-
together where you were from, there was something here for
you. Inventors here had created a kind of escalator system
previously unheard of; others were trying different methods of
cooling and compression, even electricity from solar energy.
There were toys galore, and shops selling everything from
sports stuff to commercial fishing gear. They liked to brag
4hat there was nothing you could not buy at The Mall, and
two-thirds of it could be bought nowhere else, although the
best and cleverest products were now being copied and imitated.
There were playgrounds for the kids as well, and separate
day-care for the employees and those guests who had them.
All the staff was multiracial, and it was surprising how easy it
was for even the most hidebound old Akhbreeds to accept that
when they were here shopping for a new creation or a stun-
ning coat or the latest injeweliy creations. And going up now
were the resort hotels that would make this a true destination
community, and they were listening right now to proposals
for creating a water park and to another fellow who appeared
to have independently reinvented the amusement park.