The Seven Altars of Dusarra
Page 25
And that was the whole thing as originally planned back in 1974.
Later on, as the series developed, a couple of other possibilities emerged—novels I might yet write someday, though I’m not planning to any time soon.
First, there’s A Handful of Gold. Early in The Lure of the Basilisk Garth, ignorant of how highly humans value gold, grossly overpays a stable-boy. Later on it’s mentioned that the stable-boy used that gold to buy a share in a caravan headed south. At one point I desperately wanted to tell the tale of that boy’s adventures as he makes his way to Kholis, seeking his fortune, while Garth’s actions are altering the familiar world around him. I never found the time for it, and eventually the enthusiasm faded.
And second, I have never ruled out the possibility of sequels, describing Garth’s adventures (and Frima’s—she’s a character introduced in The Seven Altars of Dûsarra) after the end of The Book of Silence. I plotted two of these, but then got busy with other projects and never wrote them, or seriously proposed them to a publisher. One would have been called Skelleth, and would have concerned control of that increasingly-important town; it would not be the same as the never-written ninth story in the original series outline.
The other sequel’s title is a spoiler for the ending of The Book of Silence, so I won’t mention it here, and it would have been about certain people seeking vengeance on Garth for events in the first four books. I could have written these two sequels in either order, since the outlines were still vague.
Every so often readers ask me if I’m planning to write any more about Garth or his world, and the answer is no, I’m not planning it, but it might happen someday.
And that’s all there is to the series.
—Lawrence Watt-Evans