could be seen by each of them, and the idea of Charley in
Sam's body was, somehow, something of a turn-on.
"So, this is the great Charley Sharkin," Sam retorted.
"Bright, ambitious, liberated, and all that. The new woman,
right? So what's she do? Finds out when she's turned into a
whore and a bimbo that she loves being a whore and a bimbo,
sellin' herself and actin' cute and dumb and all that. Shit,
Chariey, I thought I was given a raw deal here, but you're
actually happy with the deal you got. You just want it im-
proved so you can go on bein' Little Miss Fuckalot until
you're big enough to become a madam and sucker in more
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WAR OF THE MAELSTROM
poor kids. Another Boday, maybe. And to think I always
looked up to you—"
"Hold on' Hold on! It's not that simple," Charley pro-
tested, then took a moment to compose herself. "Sam—it's
all I have."
Sam sighed and looked at Boolean. "Well, if we're really
twins now, and you got the power to rebuild the town and
heal the wounded overnight, couldn't you just take off the
spells that kept me fat and make her thin and pretty?"
"I could," the sorcerer admitted, "but not right off. I
don't dare mess with any of those without risking messing up
the biochemistry and .possibly harming or even killing the kid.
I'm not that good. Afterwards, if any of us survive this, and
the child's born, well—then anything is possible."
That put a different face on it for Charley. "You really
mean that? If I keep like that for another month or two, and
bear her kid, then the weight and all can be taken away? I
mean, if you fail after all this, it won't make any difference
anyway, I guess, so otherwise I pay the price of a couple of
months like that and then wind up better than I am now." She
shrugged. "Well, 1 guess we'd better do it, then, huh?"
"Jeez," Sam sighed. "This is gonna confuse the hell out
of Boday. , - ."
• 11 •
Allies, Answers, and Questions
"WHEN DO YOU want to do this?" Sam asked Boolean, a bit
nervous in spite of it all.
"Ordinarily I'd have to set up a lab," he replied. "Prepare
primer potions to ease the transfer, do a lot of provisional
spells, all that. But because you two are true twins, created in
the lab for this purpose, so to speak, I think I can do it on the
fly, right here and now. It'll save time and ease the stress.
Just lie down there, side by side, heads towards me," he
instructed. "Dorion, you assist as needed. Sam, I know it's
uncomfortable, but bear with it."
"Everything's uncomfortable at this stage," she responded,
but managed to lie down with some help from Dorion. The
magician then guided Charley to the right spot and positioned
her as well, then stepped back. He felt oddly mixed emotions
at this, but while Boolean had removed the ring from Char-
ley's nose he'd made no move to remove Dorion's. Dorion
was stuck if Charley went along, and probably even if she
didn't—Boolean's power was far greater than the simple spell
that bound the former magician.
He also couldn't avoid a little straight professional curiosity
in spite of the personal involvement. The fact was, this
wasn't one of the spells they ever taught or talked about in
magician school.
Boolean went over to them and stretched out his arms,
hands palm down, over each of their faces, and concentrated.
"Now, each of you just close your eyes and go to sleep."
he told them softly. "In a nice, deep, pleasant sleep, with no
thoughts, no worries, no cares. Just a nice, deep sleep."
They were both out, with soft smiles on their faces, and,
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WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 271
oddly, like this and so relaxed, they really did look a lot
alike.
Boolean turned towards Dorion and said, "I hope it's this
easy with twinned people and I don't require the prep. Other-
wise we could have some very hairy results." And then he
winked, and turned back to the two sleeping women. He knelt
down behind their heads and placed one hand on the face of
each of them. Neither moved or seemed to notice, their
breathing heavy and regular.,
Dorion felt suddenly uneasy about this, thanks to Boolean's
comment. Up to now he'd had so much confidence in the
man's power he hadn't doubted, but Boolean was right. Doing
this by spell and sheer force of wilt, with no intermediate
medium for the soul except himself, was damned dangerous.
He would have to draw both souls, both consciousnesses,
even memories, from the bodies into his own as the medium
and then switch them with no losses—and pretty damned fast,
too—without mixing them or letting them touch in any way,
either each other or his own.
The sorcerer took a deep breath, let it out, took a second,
let out a bit, closed his eyes tightly, and began.
His body began to tremble slightly, and gobs of sweat
broke out on his forehead; his teeth were tightly clenched
together and his face contorted into a terrible grimace.
To normal human eyes nothing else was happening, but to
Dorion's magically attuned eyes, the great juggling act was
clear.
Both women's bodies took on a sudden pale reddish glow.
It was all over, except for the different colored mass in Sam's
abdomen which had a few slender psychic tendrils to her.
The two large masses coalesced, growing smaller and smaller
and yet more intense, and the tendrils from the fetus grew
long and wispy, like a few strands of spider's web trying not
to let go in the wind.
Now came the tricky part for Boolean, as the two centers
of bright energy, now burning with an intense red-white fire,
egg-shaped and compact, were drawn into the sorcerer's two
hands, then up the arms and into Boolean's own body. He
was going to pass them very close—too close for any eye to
follow—and Dorion watched as they drew closer and closer.
jack L. Chalker
272
the thin webs from the fetus seeming too tiny and tenuous
now to possibly hold.
Now, carefully, the orb from Charley slid just atop the one
from Sam, so that Charley's gently brushed by and made ever
so gentle contact with the thin tendrils from the fetus and
continued on to the other arm.
There! The wispy links had transferred! They were now
contracting, getting a bit stronger and thicker as Charley's orb
flowed now past the shoulder and down the arms towards
Sam's body, while Sam's orb, now free of the contact, went
towards Chariey.
He'd done it! The hell with KUttichom! Dorion thought in
intense admiration and wonder. That's the greatest feat of
unaided sorcery anyone has ever seen!
Now the orbs passed through the beads, out of Boolean's
body, and began to lose their distinctive shapes and some of
their intensity, flowing into first the head and then through
the rest of the two bodies, fading, fading, until they were
finally mere auras such as everyone had.
Boolean suddenly expelled his breath, which he'd been
holding for at least the couple of minutes that seemed to have
passed, and gasped for air, then removed his hands and fell
back.
Dorion was to him in an instant. "Master Boolean! Are
you all right?"
Boolean's eyes opened. "For a brief moment, right there in
the transfer, my soul, which was still diffuse, intermixed with
Sam's," he managed, still a bit out of breath. "I am afraid,
Dorion, that I am now cursed to sexually prefer only women."
And then he grinned and sat up.
"I have just witnessed perhaps the greatest feat of mind
control in all history," Dorion growled. "Why is it, then,
that 1 still want to wring your neck at this point?"
Boolean's grin remained, and he managed to stand up, then
make his way back to the pair who still reclined there sleep-
ing. He examined his handiwork and nodded to himself. "It
was tough, a lot tougher than I figured on," he admitted.
"The transfer's complete and successful, but I don't think I
want to do that again without the full paraphernalia and a lot
of time and prep. I had some mild chest pains at the transfer
point and I almost lost my concentration wonde^.ng if I was
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 273
going to have a heart attack or a stroke. One more like that
and it'dkill me."
Dorion stared at him and saw how suddenly old and tired
he looked and realized that this wasn't a put-on. "Are you
certain that you are still up to Klittichom? Or that she is?"
"I can't ever know that until we try it, Dorion. There will
be enough time between now and when we get there for me to
do some self-repair and reconditioning, though. As to Sam—
yes, I think she is, now."
"How long are you going to keep them in the trance?"
"The longer the better so it settles in," the sorcerer re-
sponded. "Anything from Crim or Boday yet?"
"I'll check." Dorion stepped outside and looked around,
but it was still quiet. He went back in and reported, "Nothing
yet. Want me to go check?''
Boolean nodded. "Do that." He turned back to the two
sleeping forms, looked down at them, and gave a soft chuckle.
"I really feel sony for those four husbands," he muttered to
himself. "Not that she'd enjoy herself like she did, moving
back from oral to anal. I'd sure like to leave Charley here if I
could. Be good for her, too, to find not just one but many
men still wanting her no matter what her weight or condi-
tion." He sighed. "Well, can't solve everybody's problems,
I guess."
He didn't dare leave her anywhere near here or anywhere
mat anyone from the rebel camp was likely to spot her. The
four guys would just have to suffer, but be made a mental
note to make it up to them, if he could, at some point in the
future. Decisions, decisions—that's all great power ever re-
ally brought you. Decisions without irreversible consequences
or accountability.
It was fun to be a sorcerer.
Charley awoke slowly from a very erotic dream and turned
slowly to one side. Suddenly she felt a shifting down in her
abdomen and it unnerved her and she woke up. Somebody
else—Sam—was waking up next to her. She looked over and
was startled first to realize that she could see again, in the
normal, colorful way, and that excited her. What she was
seeing, though, bothered her a lot.
She had never really seen herself properly and in full color
274 )ack L. Chalker
with the chocolate brown skin and blue-black hair, and it
didn't look right. In fact, Sam was right—God! She'd been
skm and bones! Funny it hadn't felt like that. . - .
With a shock she suddenly realized that she was seeing her
own body in full living color and three dimensions, yet as a
third party. Somehow, deep down. she hadn't really believed
it was possible, and certainly not like this. Hell, it was still
tight out!
She shifted uncomfortably and ran her hands over her own
body as it now was. She remembered how fat Sam had been,
but it seemed even more gross, if anything, now.
She tried to get to her feet and found that it took something
of a balancing act to do so. Dorion came over, put out his
arms, and she took them and let herself be pulled unsteadily
to her feet. Christ! It felt like she had a goddamned bowling
ball in her stomach, and something in it shifted slowly when
she did, but not in the right ways or at the right speed. She let
go of Dorion and tried walking a few steps and it, too, felt
awkward and weird,
The weight and feel of the breasts also surprised her. They
felt like they weighed a ton of dead weight each, shifting
when she walked but complicating the balancing act required
to maintain equilibrium with the bowling ball in her belly,
and the extra padding wasn't any real help, either. Her thighs
rubbed together tightly every time she took a step, and pro-
duced motion in her ass as well. God, she was gross!
"God! This feels weird," she heard Sam say. "Jeez! I feel
so light it's like I was eleven years old again! It just don't fee!
like I'm all here no more. I guess I got more used to that
body than I thought I had. Wow! This is strange! I'm actually
inside your body, just like it was mine! Uh—how you feelin',
Charley?"
"Like a beached whale. I think these tits are more like
fifties than forty-fours. Jeez—when did you weigh yourself
last?"
"Back in Tishbaal. It was the last scale I saw. 1 could'a
done it on the mill scales here, but with bein' pregnant and all
it didn't seem worth it. Boy, that's strange, seein' yourself
like this, from a different pair of eyes or whatever it is I'm
seein' with at the moment. It's different than a mirror. It's
real and not backwards."
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"You went like this and didn't have screaming fits?"
"Aw, you get used to it pretty fast. Not the kid—you
always know that's there. But like Boolean said, you don't
get sick, and you don't get clogged. Bigger lungs carryin'
more oxygen, so you can't exactly do things fast but you can
do 'em pretty good."
"1 gain three times my weight at least and I don't even
have the fun of eating my way up to it. It's not fair!"
"Yeah, well, at least you can eat whatever you want and
all you want now," Sam noted. "Huh! These eyes are kmd'a
odd. You see like this when you was in this body?"
"Unless it was something of magic or another plane all I
saw was gray, unless I used Shadowcat," Charley told her.
"Why? What do you see?"
"Everything, but not quite. The colors are funny. Things
look sorta' fuzzy and all, and all the colors are pastels or
something, and there's a glow to most everything. Real strong
from you and your buddy, there." She stared hard at Charley.
"Hey! If I concentrate real hard I can see your insides! Wow!
X-ray vision!" She hesitated and looked at Dorion. "Would
it hurt the kid if I checked her out?"
"No," Dorion told her. "You're not really using your eyes
to see in the old pattern or old ways. You're not really seeing
just with them at all. In fact, if you concentrate hard enough,
you can see what's in back of you, too. It has a lot to say for
it, but it's also limited in vital areas. Those of us with The
Sight can't read ordinary books—takes a special kind of ink
and paper to see right—and there's a lot of color shift, and a
lot of blurring with much motion. You can see things others
can't, but there are tradeoffs. You'll learn them. The glows arc