Change storms seldom came nearer than eight miles to the Hole. They are impressive enough from that distance, when you catch only a whiff that crackles in your hair and makes your nerves go frazzled. In olden times, when we still served the Lady, I talked to veterans of Whisper’s campaigns who told me of suffering through the storms. I never wholly credited their tales.

I did so as the boundary of the storm gained on us.

One of the manias was caught. You could see through it, its bones white against sudden darkness. Then it changed.

Everything changed. Rocks and trees became protean. Small things that followed and pestered us shifted form...

There is a hypothesis which states that the strange species of the Plain have appeared as a result of change storms. It has been proposed, too, that the change storms are responsible for the Plain itself. That each gnaws a bit more off our normal world.

The whales gave up trying to outrun the storm and plunged earthward, below the curve of expanding storm, getting down where the fall would be shorter if they changed into something unable to fly. Standard procedure for anyone caught in a change storm. Stay low and don’t move.

Whisper’s veterans spoke of lizards growing to elephant size, of spiders becoming monstrous, of poisonous serpents sprouting wings, of intelligent creatures going mad and trying to murder everything about them.

I was scared.

Not too scared to observe, though. After the manta showed us its bones it resumed its normal form, but grew. As did a second when the boundary overtook it. Did that mean a common tendency toward growth on a storm’s outward pulse?

The storm caught our windwhale, which was the slowest getting down. Young it was, but conscientious about its burden. The crackle in my hair peaked. I thought my nerves would betray me completely. A glance at Tracker convinced me we were going to have a major case of panic.

Goblin or One-Eye, one, decided to be a hero and stay the storm. Might as well have ordered the sea to turn. The crash and roar of a major sorcery vanished in the rage of the storm.

There was an instant of utter stillness when the boundary reached me. Then a roar out of hell. The winds inside were ferocious. I thought of nothing but getting down and hanging on. Around me gear was flying about, changing shape as it flew. Then I spied Goblin. And nearly threw up.

Goblin indeed. His head had swelled ten times normal size. The rest of him looked inside out. Around him swarmed a horde of the parasites that live on a windwhale’s back, some as big as pigeons.

Tracker and Toadkiller Dog were worse. The mutt had become something half as big as an elephant, fanged, possessed of the most evil eyes I’ve ever seen. He looked at me with a starved lust that chilled my soul. And Tracker had become something demonic, vaguely apelike yet certainly much more. Both looked like creatures from an artist’s or sorcerer’s nightmares.

One-Eye was the least changed. He swelled, but remained One-Eye. Perhaps he is well-rooted in the world, being so damned old. Near as I can tell, he is pushing a hundred fifty.

The thing that was Toadkiller Dog crept toward me with teeth bared... The windwhale touched down. Impact sent everyone tumbling. The wind screamed around us. The strange lightning hammered earth and air. The landing area itself was in a protean mood. Rocks crawled. Trees changed shape. The animals of that part of the Plain were out and gamboling in revised forms, one-time prey turning upon predator. The horror show was illuminated by a shifting, sometimes ghastly light.

Then the vacuum at the heart of the storm enveloped us. Everything froze in the form it had at the last instant. Nothing moved. Tracker and Toadkiller Dog were down on the ground, thrown there after impact. One-Eye and Goblin faced one another, in the first phase of letting their feud go beyond its customary gamesmanship. The other windwhales lay nearby, not visibly affected. A manta plunged out of the color above, crashed.

That stasis lasted maybe three minutes. In the stillness sanity returned. Then the change storm began to collapse.

The devolution of the storm was slower than its growth. But saner, too. We suffered it for several hours. And then it was done. And our sole casualty was the one manta that had crashed. But damn, was it ever a shaking experience.

“Damn lucky,” I told the others, as we inventoried our possessions. “Lucky we weren’t all killed.”

“No luck to it, Croaker,” One-Eye replied. “The moment these monsters saw a storm coming they headed for safe ground. A place where there would be nothing that could kill us. Or them.”

Goblin nodded. They were doing a lot of agreeing lately. But we all recalled how close they had come to murder.

I asked, “What did I look like? I didn’t feel any change, except a sort of nervous turmoil. Like being drunk, drugged, and half-crazy all at the same time.”

“Looked like Croaker to me,” One-Eye said. “Only twice as ugly.”

“And dull,” Goblin added. “You made the most inspiring speech about the glories the Black Company won during the campaign against Chew.”

I laughed. “Come on.”

“Really. You were just Croaker. Maybe those amulets are good for something.”

Tracker was going over his weaponry. Toadkiller Dog was napping near his feet. I pointed. One-Eye signed, “Didn’t see.”

Goblin signed, “He grew up and got claws.”

They did not seem concerned. I decided I should not be. After all, the whale lice were the nastiest thing after the mutt.

The windwhales remained grounded, for the sun was rising. Their backs assumed the dun color of the earth, complete with sage-colored patches, and we waited for the night. The mantas nested down on the other four whales. None came near us. You get the feeling humans make them uncomfortable.

Twenty-Four

The wide world

They never tell me anything. But I should complain? Secrecy is our armor. Need to know. All that crap. In our outfit it is the iron rule of survival.

Our escort was not along just to help us break out of the Plain of Fear. They had their own mission. What I had not been told was that Whisper’s headquarters was to be attacked.

Whisper had no warning. Our companion windwhales dropped away slowly as the edge of the Plain approached. Their mantas dropped with them. They caught favorable winds and pulled ahead. We climbed higher, into the pure shivers and gasp for breaths.

The mantas struck first. In twos and threes they crossed the town at treelop level, loosing their bolts into Whisper’s quarters. Rock and timbers flew like the dust around slamping hooves. Fires broke out.

The monsters of the upper air rolled in behind as soldiers and civilians hit the streets. They unleashed bolls of their own. But the real horror was their tentacles.

The windwhales gorged upon men and animals. They ripped houses and fortifications apart. They yanked trees out by their roots. And they pounded away at Whisper with their bolls.

The mantas, meantime, rose a thousand feet and plunged again, in their pairs and threes, this time to slrike at Whisper as she responded.

Her response, though it did set a broad patch of one windwhale’s flank gruesomely aglow, pinpointed her for the mantas. They slapped her around good, though she did bring one down.

We passed over, the flash and fires illuminating our monster’s belly. If anyone in the crucible spotted us, I doubt they guessed we were going on. Goblin and One-Eye detected no interest in anything but survival.

It continued as we lost sight of the town. Goblin said they had Whisper on the run, too busy saving her own ass to help her men.

“Glad they never pulled any of this crap on us,” I said.