"But how can I do anything?"
He sighed. "You've heard from Charley and Dorion what the battle and its aftermath was like, what a mess this all is, what horror it is bringing. I don't know whether we can stop the process now. As soon as he feels we're after him he'll jump the gun and do it, and we can't wait because he could jump the gun anyway, thanks to your own biological clock. There is a way out of this, though. Wait a moment."
He got up and went outside and looked down at the clearing. "Charley, will you come up here?" he called. "Dorion, help her out and come up, too. I may need some assistance here."
Charley got up and in, with Dorion's help, and was taken to a chair. She was puzzled, but willing to listen.
Boolean took a deep breath. "Charley, you know the problem. We have to hit them before they hit everybody and make us irrelevant. I'm sure Klittichorn would have done it all as soon as he got the data from Masalur, if he didn't also have to play some politics with the Storm Princess and others. We have to hit him and get him the first time. There will be no second chances. And we have to do it soon."
"You know where he is?" Charley asked him.
Boolean nodded. "I know. I didn't know, exactly, until he hit Masalur, but I was able to identify and follow his threads back. That's what I was doing, and is the gain we got from Masalur's suffering. It's not close, which is why, even using the flying spells, we must leave immediately. Even with Sam and I in the best of shape, it's a question whether we can do it alone, or with just the forces that we have, even if we make it in time. As it stands, we have less chance. Sam hasn't the mobility or the control she should have, and the child is a dead giveaway. Sam needs a way out."
She nodded. "So?" At the moment she had no idea where he was going with this or what it had to do with her.
"I can't snap my fingers and make her into a peak Amazonian warrior. Well, actually, I could, but not without destroying the child. I'm just now beginning to realize why there is such a thing as a Storm Princess, why she comes up in other worlds as well, and why Klittichorn just didn't preempt this threat and have his own knocked up. Too much deduction with too much hunch, but I think I'm on the right track. The Storm Princesses are the only true 'naturals' in magic, and the only ones with influence over and immunity from the Changewinds. I think, somehow, they're safety valves—natural regulators—essential to keeping some kind of order. How and why it evolved this way is something we may never know, but, like gravity, it's still there. There's some evidence to show that the death of any of the Storm Princesses anywhere, even on the out-plane, is followed by a long period of natural disasters, cataclysms, wars, you name it until a new one is born. By killing so many in the out-plane, Klittichorn has provided the evidence and pattern that this is true at the cost of who knows how many lives or even civilizations. What will happen when he looses so many Changewinds at once on a weakened out-plane is something I can't imagine, nor can he. The difference is, I care and he doesn't."
"I'm with you so far," she told him. "I just can't see what it has to do with me."
"Both of you think back, to that first time, in the Tubikosan caves, when we first had a talk. When I transmitted, through the icon, a blood-mixing and sealing spell that turned you, Charley, into a physical twin of Sam's."
They both nodded. "I remember," said Sam. "It seems a hundred years ago."
"It wasn't a mere appearance spell. I had to fool not just someone who knew what the Storm Princess looked like, I had to fool magicians, Sudogs, ones with the ability to see through mere appearances. Anyone short of the highest levels of the Second Rank, who could recognize the spell for what it was. It did more than make you physical twins on the outside; it made you true twins, genetically identical. You still are. The difference in appearance between the two of you may seem great now, but it's a difference in weight and how long you've been like that and adjusted to it and experience and, of course, in Charley's case, Boday's alchemy made a stunning difference. But, you see, I had to guard against spells and alchemy, so I had to make those with the power be confused, and they see people differently than the average person does."
"Wait a minute," Sam interrupted him. "If she's actually me down to that level, why isn't she a Storm Princess, too?"
"Good question. There are two answers to that, both relevant. The first is that no one can create a Storm Princess by sorcery. It can not be done, or Klittichom would have dispensed with his right off and things would be a lot more complicated. Second, there is more than the physical involved here, there is an entire pattern. Notice how the common peasant marriage spell removed your powers yet it didn't change you physically one bit, Sam. It is physical, mental, and psychic, and all must have certain elements exactly right or the balance is destroyed and the rest is ignored. Charley is physically you, no matter how dramatic the difference seems sitting here, but she is nothing like you either mentally or psychically in the areas that seem to count. One of them, quite clearly and unexpectedly, is sexual in nature, something I have been puzzling about since that was shown. There's got to be a reason for that. In many ways, it seems to be part of the key to this overall puzzle, a key that I am afraid Klittichom has worked out ahead of me, as usual. But that's beside the point for now. The bottom line remains that Sam's current physiology can't be touched for fear of harming her child, yet it places her at great risk and extreme disadvantages in any showdown. We can't just transfer the needed elements to Charley, who's better suited for it, since one can not give away magical gifts of that sort."
"Yeah, well, Sam wouldn't be much use blind, either," Charley noted.
"She wouldn't be blind. Her psychic self has the power. That's why she's been exposed to much magical energy herself and yet never suffered from the problem."
Charley suddenly pushed back a bit from the table- "Oh, no! I think I see now where you're going with this and I don't like the route one bit."
Sam looked at Charley, frowning, then at Boolean. "Well, I don't," she said. "Somebody want to let me in on this?"
"From a magical viewpoint," Boolean patiently explained, "the two of you appear identical. The differences, psychic and mental, are, therefore, easy to factor out completely when you two can be compared side by side like this. Were you not physically the same, all the differences could never be so clearly identified. Since they can in this case, I could transfer those differences."
"Differences? What the hell do you mean?"
"He means," Charley said softly, "that he can take your mind and soul and whatever and put it in my body, and mine in yours. And I get to carry the kid and keep their eyes off you two sneaking up on them while you get in my body. Isn't that about right?"
"I couldn't have said it better myself," the sorcerer replied. "It's an ideal solution shaped by me threads of destiny. And it's best for both of you. Sam gets the mobility and loses a telltale marker; you get out from being a blind, dependent woman without status whose body is good for only one thing, Sam's body also has other attributes. Thanks to the demon of the Jewel of Omak, wherever he now is, she doesn't get sick, No hostile organism can live inside her. Fleas, ticks, mosquitoes and other parasites die when they bite her. In spite of her weight, her blood pressure is perfect, her heart strong, her veins and arteries cleaner than a newborn's. Wounds heal quickly, damaged tissue regenerates."
"So that's why I was able to run like that, build those muscles, lift those weights!" Sam exclaimed.
"Well, it didn't hurt," the sorcerer replied. "So where is me problem, Charley? Are you afraid of the process itself?"
"No, no. Not after what you've pulled off so far. I believe you. But to be fat without even having had the pleasure of eating my way up to it, and pregnant at the point where it's all work and the fun's long past I'm not so sure I can handle that. Yeah, I'm frustrated here, and it seems like I always have a cold or I'm scratching little bites, but jeez, Sam. What do you weigh now?"
"Last time I checked it was about two hundred and sixty pounds," she respond
ed. "At least I think I got that from figurin' the hag and stuff."
"Two… And when you add the kid and the water weight…."
Sam was astonished. "Jesus, Charley I can't believe you! Ever since you got the way you are you been paranoid about weight. You always were, but it got to be a mania. I got to tell ya, Charley, you don't look real glamorous to me right now. You look fucking anorexic! I ain't no more thrilled about having that body of yours than you are havin' mine. I never liked bein' fat but I kind'a got used to it. The only real hangups I kept were about my health, and now I find out that's no problem at all! I'd be givin' up shit, too, you know." She grabbed her breasts. "I'm at least a forty-four D and I love 'em. Most of all, I'd be givin' up havin' the kid, and I want this kid bad."
"Yeah, but it's your kid, not mine. And it's the only one between us!"
"Not necessarily." Boolean cut in. "There's nothing physically wrong with Sam's system. It's Storm Princesses who are prevented from having but the one child related in some way to that regulatory function I mentioned. You wouldn't be a Storm Princess. There's no reason to believe you would not remain fertile."
"You mean," Sam asked him, "if that spell here had stuck and I wasn't a Storm Princess, I could'a had more kids?"
Boolean shrugged. "Who knows? If you were taken out and stuck here, though, I doubt if it would have been a long or happy life once Klittichom won. Here or in Albuquerque, for that matter."
"Yeah, but who would screw somebody that fat without magic?" Charley asked acidly.
Behind her, Dorion said, too low for her to hear, "I would." To him, die resemblance was more marked than 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, Charley, I thought I was given a raw deal here, but you're actually happy with the deal you got. You just want it improved so you can go on bein' Little Miss Fuckalot until you're big enough to become a madam and sucker in more poor kids. Another Boday, maybe. And to think I always looked up to you"
"Hold on' Hold on! It's not that simple," Charley protested, 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, I 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 Charley'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, 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. Otherwise 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 will, 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. 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 Charley.
He'd done it! The hell with Klittichom! 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 I 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 sleeping. 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 wondering if I was going to have a heart attack or a stroke. One more like that and it'd kill 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 responded. "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?"
Changewinds 03 - War of the Maelstrom Page 31