Will it be their own starship—Georyn’s people’s? Will they go out to invade some distant solar system, even as an older Empire once invaded theirs? And will the Imperials in that future time, perhaps, be the ones to wield the powers of enchantment? Where will we be then, I wonder; I mean, our descendants—mine, and Evrek’s? For of course I’ll marry Evrek someday, that hasn’t changed. Only I think it will be quite a while yet before that happens. I’ve a lot of training to catch up on, for one thing, before I go on any more world-saving expeditions. The next time I want to be better equipped.
If good came of what I did on Andrecia, I can’t really claim any credit for it. It was not by my design that things worked out; if Georyn and Jarel had been less than they were, my rashness would have brought disaster on us all. What’s more, I did not even believe in my own spells, and I came awfully close to ruining everything on that account. It’s only now that I know the magic was real, and that Georyn did what he did through a genuine faith rather than a false one. If that were not true, then nothing would be, and no people’s symbols would have any meaning at all. And that cannot be, for then we’d all still be living in caves on the planets where our ancestors evolved.
Georyn and I won’t ever forget each other. I don’t suppose I’ll be forgotten on Andrecia for some time, as a matter of fact. The legend will be handed down from one generation to the next: how the dark-haired Lady of the Forest bestowed an enchanted Stone upon the woodcutter’s son and helped him to slay the Dragon, and was never again seen by any mortal. In time, people will laugh at the story, and long before they build that first starship, they’ll be saying that magic spells and enchanted stones are only foolish tales. And none of them will ever suspect that the Enchantress was only an ordinary girl who wasn’t very good at her job and who didn’t want to be endowed with any supernatural powers in the first place.
Sooner or later, Georyn will find himself some Andrecian girl. The appropriate thing, I guess, would be for him to marry the King’s daughter; I don’t know whether the local King has a daughter, but if he doesn’t there are doubtless other fair ladies worthy of a slayer of dragons. I hope that Georyn will love her, and that that at least will bring him joy. For he will never, of course, be content with Andrecia; the door we opened is not one that he can ever close, and I doubt that he would choose to, even if it were possible. There are worse fates than to see beyond your grasp.
As for me, I am as bound to my heritage as he to his. I am not supposed to cry, and I won’t anymore. For Evrek has come to stand beside me at the viewport, and together we will watch Andrecia recede, until the time when we are swept into the black night of the stardrive; and in the morning there will be another world to think about.
AFTERWORD TO THE 2018 EDITION
Nothing in my experience has affected me more deeply than my discovery via the internet that a lot of people remembered this story from the 1970s, had often reread it, and were eager to share it with new generations of young people. The publication of a new hardcover edition in 2001 brought it new fans who will soon be giving it to children of their own, and I hope this 2018 edition will connect me with even more readers. It includes some very minor wording changes, mainly to replace generic masculine pronouns—which were the only thing that dated the book—with gender-neutral language.
To the many readers who have sent me email, I want to express my thanks. And to those who haven’t yet found me on the web, I want to extend an invitation to visit my site. It is particularly important to me that you read the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page about this book because it clears up some issues that I have found are often confusing to readers. There is also an essay that discusses these issues in detail, which I hope you will read if you are a teacher or librarian.
Enchantress from the Stars is about relationships between different peoples on different worlds that have been evolving for different lengths of time. There are many things in it that also apply to relationships among people of our own world—but also things that do not. Some readers have felt that the Service in the story is rather high-handed in declaring that certain peoples are more “mature” than others and that the mature ones should not help those less fortunate. This would certainly be true if they weren’t different species. We of Earth are all members of the same species, and our planet’s various cultures have all been evolving for the same length of time; we cannot say that some are more “advanced” than the rest. But this is not true of species on other worlds which, if there are any, must be far apart in age and stage of evolution.
There are people, including some of the scientists hoping to detect interstellar radio signals, who think that if we could make contact with older species they would tell us how to solve Earth’s problems, so that we wouldn’t need to work toward solving them ourselves. On the other hand, many people fear that if we met advanced species of aliens they would very likely be hostile and might even invade Earth. I don’t believe either of these things would happen, and I do believe that how we feel about our place in the universe is important. Whether or not we ever meet any extraterrestrials, how we picture their attitude toward us affects our feelings about our own world.
My website is at www.sylviaengdahl.com. If you would like to talk about the story, do write to me through the contact page there. I enjoy hearing from readers!
Copyright © 1970 by Sylvia Louise Engdahl
Afterword copyright © 2018 by Sylvia Louise Engdahl
Foreword copyright © 2001 by Lois Lowry
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
First published in the United States of America in 1970 by Atheneum Publishers, New York
This edition published in the United States of America in April 2018
by Bloomsbury Children’s Books
www.bloomsbury.com
Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Minor changes to text, type style, and punctuation have been made since the first printing of the original edition. This edition should be considered definitive over all previous editions.
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10018
Bloomsbury books may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at [email protected]
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Engdahl, Sylvia Louise.
Enchantress from the stars / Sylvia Louise Engdahl; foreword by Lois Lowry;
p. cm.
Summary: When young Elana unexpectedly joins the team leaving the spaceship to study the planet Andrecia, she becomes an integral part of an adventure involving three very different civilizations, each one centered on the third planet from the star in its own solar system.
ISBN: 0-8027-8764-9
[1. Space and time—Fiction. 2. Choice—Fiction. 3. Responsibility—Fiction. 4. Science fiction.]
PZ7.E6985 En 2001 [Fic]—dc21 00-065853
* * *
ISBN 978-1-68119-613-8 (paperback) • ISBN 978-1-68119-846-0 (e-book)
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