Ils Saves!
This was not at all what I intended to write as After-word; it was going to be a sort of history, with snippets from our back-and-forth letters. This is what poured out, though, the same way the Hanse stories have: at the last minute (or later, with Lynn & Bob pulling out their hair in great ghastly gobbets) in a rushing beery flow of hand-scribbled phrases during which I never think of style, that thing "teachers" talk about because they aren't writers and can't think of much else except maybe the mech-aniwockle dumbness of 7-2 or 5-3 paragraphs, whatever that are or them is. Somehow the style is always about the same, because that's the way the Hanse stories write themselves. I reckon we can live with this: call it an Afterword, which is "epilogue" or even "epilog" in a living language.
Yours relatively truly takes credit for all the gods of TW; for Kadakithis's name and his becoming a person or nearly; for the detailed map of the Inner Maze that you've never seen; for Molin Torchholder and Sly's Place; and of course for the Great Pyramid, the economic recovery, and safety pins.
"And who," the witch begged of the mirror on the wall, having nervously noticed a new line in her face, "is the fairest of them all?"
The mirror sneered again. "Is Sophia still alive, dummy?"
Yeah, you're right: the inspiration for "The Veiled Lady" is Sophia Loren, who is married to a short, homely, balding and dumpy man. Never mind the inspiration for Jodeera's name. Wonder what's going to inspire me next time?
Name of Father Ils, how I wish I'd had the idea for Thieves' World to begin with! Then I too could be rich and famous with a basement full of mailsacks and get to exert the editor's prerogative of writing the Afterword to Thieves' World # 7.
-Andrew Offutt
KY, USA
20 November 1984
(Note to Bob and Lynn: Try to get that Big Word in the last sentence spelled right.)