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call or create the conditions for a Changewind? Poke a hole someplace?
Call it. yeah, but they were powerless to control it or do anything with it.
The Akhbreed sorcerers feared Changewinds'
as much as anybody, since they were just as much helpless victims of the storm
as the average person. But they were far away, inside that domed chamber, far
from the Changewind they would call, safe from its effects.
Could the Storm Princess even command a Changewind?
The temperature seemed to be dropping, the very air thin-
ning. Deep within the darkness there were terrible rumblings that caused the
ground to vibrate. Sam stood up, turned, and looked around into the darkness.
The conditions and the vibrations were already waking up most of the women,
but they were sleepy and confused.
Let's see. . . . You could save yourself from a Changewind by covering
yourself completely with Mandan gold, the only stuff that could shield you.
But there was no Mandan here
not in hubs. They carried it on the trails and in the colonies and in Crim's
wagon, but not here, in a place like this. It would take a lot, anyway.
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She had never faced a Changewind in person, although she'd seen one in a
vision, through other eyes. These fancy places were supposed to have crypts,
big underground cham-
bers lined with Mandan, for everybody to run into! That's how it had been. But
even if the manor house had one, it wouldn't be big enough for everybody here,
and the house was like three-quarters of a mile away. Forget it. They'd panic
here and most wouldn't make it anyway.
Think. . . . Think. . . . Damn it, something in what you just thought. Think,
Sam!
If they sent a storm she was of equal power at least to the
Storm Princess, and closer.
Was the Changewind, for all its fearsome results, actually
90 )ack L. Chalker just another big storm? It had to be!
Otherwise none of
Klittichorn's shit would work!
There! Tremendous sound and lightning just off to the east, between here and
the border. Tremendous explosions, and women screaming all around her.
Far off, the sound of a siren kind of like a volunteer fire department came to
her ears, and to the others, and immedi-
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ately the large number of women began screaming in panic, "Changewind!
Changewind! Make for the house!"
Sam moved away from the panicking mob, away from the enclosures, towards the
storm. Was she enough? Was she up to this yet? Was she forgetting something,
maybe?
She realized, suddenly, that she'd picked up a long stick from the cooking
area without even thinking about it. She made to throw it away as the sounds
of panic receded behind her, then stopped as she was about to throw. A
pointer.
Something to focus on, like they had.
She pressed the stick in the dirt and with all her might began to trace a
circle, unsure in the darkness whether or not it was even taking real shape in
the ground. Then a line here, then there, then again, and again, and again, if
there was a pentagon in the middle of the star, she was within it, and it was
pointed towards the terrible lightning and thunder and explosive sounds that
now seemed so close.
She heard some people behind her and turned. "Who's there?" she called. Even
now, the wind was starting to pick up, to blow things about, but that was not
the Changewind, only the effects from its leading edge. It was coming, but it
was not here yet.
"It's Quisu and Putie!" she heard Quisu's voice call.
"Come! Get under some shelter! It might help! There's no way we gonna make it
up there in time!"
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"Stay back!" Sam shouted to them. "Don't go into the shelter! Get everybody
still there out in the open but behind me! You understand? Out in the open and
behind me! Sit on the ground' This wind's gonna be real fierce real fast'"
"You crazy!" Putie shouted. "Nobody faces down a
Changewind!"
"Maybe I am," Sam called back. "We'll know in about two minutes! Now do what I
say!"
Tremendous gusts now hit her, and the leading edge of rain
WAR OF THE MAELSTROM 91
that would become quickly intense. She heard somebody yell as they were
knocked down. and she heard the sounds of things blowing this way and that,
things that were normally too heavy to blow anywhere. Within another minute
she could hear the sound of thatched roofs coming apart, and the cracking
sounds of some of the enclosures starting to give way. There were screams as
well, but she couldn't pay attention to anything now except that coming storm,
invisible in the darkness.
Strangely, she felt remarkably calm, as if something inside her was relieved
that a climax had actually come, that action was required without nagging
questions of right and wrong.
She reached out .into that thundering that seemed marching straight for her,
not denying it, not hiding from it, almost welcoming it. She felt the
strength, the energy, flow into her and she suddenly stiffened, a look of pure
amazement on her face in the lightning's glow, as her whole body felt not the
sudden, pounding rain and wind but rather the most intense, sustained orgasmic
feeling she had ever known. The power flowing to her was enormous, beyond
belief, but all she could think was, Come on. you stupid bitch of a princess!
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