Naturally, as I reviewed it, fate stepped in. My belief in the supernatural is nonexistent; I write fantasy, I don't believe it. This may be why supernatural occurrences keep pestering me. In this case, just as I was reviewing the scene
in which Xylina contemplates suicide, I received a letter from a young woman who was doing the same. Her name was Julie, and she had a cross that she wore continuously, day and night, her most precious possession. She enclosed that cross, and it sits by my computer as I type this. By that token I knew that she was near the end. Yes, I'm doing my best to persuade her to take back her cross, but the issue is undecided at the time of this writing. I researched to ascertain what type it is, and concluded that it is of the general description known as pattée: that is, widening in the arms, in the manner of paws. Pattée means paw-like. And so I added a character in honor of that cross-a character who did not die. I hope. Further research satisfied me that the cross is actually of another description, clechée, meaning like an ancient key, but I decided to let Pattée the character be. There are limits.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Piers Anthonyis the author of the Xanth series of New York Times bestsellers. He is SF's top selling author of the decade. Other books of his include the Bio of a Space Tyrantseries, Macroscope,The Adept series, the Incarnation of Immortality series, and his posthumous collaboration with Robert Kornwise, Through the Ice. Born in England the child of dedicated Quakers, Anthony is still an ardent vegetarian. He lives on a tree farm in rural Florida with his wife and one of his two daughters.
With one of the fastest growing audiences in all of fiction today, Mercedes Lackey is the author of the Heralds of Valdemar series, the SERRAted Edge series of urban fantasy collaborations, the Bardic Voices series, and many others. Her science fiction includes the national bestseller The Ship Who Searched (written with Anne McCaffrey), and Wing Commander: Freedom Flight (written with Ellen Guon). She lives outside Tulsa, Oklahoma with her husband, the artist and author Larry Dixon, and their three birds.