"Chalker, Jack L - Changewinds 3 - War of the Maelstrom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

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."

1

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
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

12

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