by Sharon Lee
Her gaze fell again to the bright-wrought things, eyes full of the greed of necessity. Dare she?
An odd song tickled at the back of her head, though she couldn't catch the words. Still--When she moved on she held her right hand tight to seven silver bracelets.
She turned toward the door, found she still held the silver lock in her left hand, under the twisted top of the cloth bag. Her impulse was to toss it away--
Silver! She looked at the magic symbols, shrugged her shoulders, and dropped the lock into the bag.
"Good girl!" came distant approval. "Silver travels well! Go as far as you can!"
She hobbled out as best she could then, the grief chants of the Temple covering the sound of her ungainly escape.
Across Sintia the Priestesses waited for the proper hour, and then covered the carved Temple figures of Moonhawk in green cloth, signifying her return to the Goddess, this time.
No one dares mention that the eyes in the statues continued to glow, despite the funereal announcement.
No one dares mention to the Inmost Circle that Moonhawk still lives.
So ends the 55th tale of Lute and Moonhawk.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
East Winslow, Maine November 18, 1998
OUR NOVELS Agent of Change, Conflict of Honors, and Carpe Diem haven't been on the SF best-seller list, but they have reached a very persistent group of readers, many of them on the Internet.
When we got on the 'net ourselves, our readers let themselves be known.
"When," they asked "will there be something else in the Liaden Universe?"
This year, like last, lacks a Liaden novel. Next year, in February 1999, comes our novel Plan B from Meisha Merlin. Still, our readers have asked for something for this holiday season, something Liaden. We hear you, and read our email. Hence, Fellow Travelers.
In 1995 we brought you Two Tales of Korval, stories written as we were defining the Liaden Universe. To Cut an Edge, and A Day At The Races both dealt with recent Korval family history.
The first two stories here also were part of our defining of the Liaden Universe, but these are set centuries before the core novels. These stories, Where The Goddess Sends and A Spell for the Lost deal with the role of magic in a world where technology is slowly being rediscovered. The third story--Moonphase--was originally not written for publication, but for our own understanding of Priscilla Mendoza, an active character in the later books But a story once written takes on its own life and necessity, and this story, too, is here.
Thanks to you, the Liaden Universe keeps growing.
--Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
