One and Wonder (48 page)

Haven't written. Things so seldom, so far between I don't remember at the time, and when I think to write, by then they've lost all meaning. But write that farm now is empty as an echo. Whatever it is about this place that made Myrrha and the herders take their horses and leave, whatever it is seems to keep everybody else away as well.

Everything suffers. My bay mare Merry Widow foaled this morning after whole night of painful labor, screamed like a woman, I not much help and no one here with me but simple old Wheeler, not much help either.

Merry Widow unmotherly, refused to lick foal clean at birth. Today ignores, even shuns the poor trembly thing. Wheeler won't touch it either, says it can't live long. I don't care, going to keep it anyway. Somebody, it reminds me so of somebody, somebody I loved.

Its dear little hands are

Yes, I remembered it correctly. For those who may find it confusing, here is the summary as I see it: Myrrha was furious about the slight on her character she believed Shirley had made, and conspired for drastic revenge. She arranged the deaths of the dog and Shirley's daughter. She either seduced Tom and saved the semen to artificially impregnate the mare, or caused Tom to think he was having sex with Myrrha when it was actually with the mare. The jealous stallion then killed Tom for that offense. The result was the birthing of a man/horse crossbreed, a baby centaur. When Shirley realized what had happened, she lost her mind. What horror!

—Piers

Editor’s Note

Evan Filipek

I first encountered the magical world of Piers Anthony’s Xanth at the awkward age of twelve. At the time, I was in the desperate throes of unrequited love with a girl named Isis, and immediately came to identify with the young Prince Dolph. Xanth and her inhabitants became my constant friends, and Dolph and I matured together. As I devoured Anthony’s works, I scoured local antiquarian bookstores, libraries and antique shops for every science fiction and horror story I could find, discovering as I went the works of Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan-Doyle, H. P. Lovecraft, Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child and Neil Gaiman as well as my own knack for locating difficult-to-find items.

Many years later, I found myself working a third-shift job in a basement with no radio reception. In those long and lonely hours hunched over a copy machine, I rekindled my love for Piers Anthony’s work. Using my Xanthine talent of acquisition, I found all the Xanth titles on audiobooks on an online auction website and dove right in. As an adult, I understood the books differently. Though the stories were familiar to me, I now noticed their layered complexity; I picked up on a broader range of associations. And though my youthful associations with Dolph persisted, I also found myself relating to other, older characters. As a child, Xanth audiobooks helped me to overcome my trouble sleeping. Years later, they made those long nights in the basement bearable.

From an early age, my mother taught me to appreciate someone's hard work and talent, so it seemed only natural that I would write a letter to Piers Anthony to express my gratitude for the tremendous positive impact his writing has had on my life. To my great surprise and elation, I received a reply. Mr. Anthony was pleased by how much his stories meant to me, but also informed me that the audiobooks I had been listening to were pirated. Horrified by such news, I offered a heartfelt apology, promised to return the offending copies, and vowed to purge all evidence of piracy of his work, from the internet. Mr. Anthony insisted that I keep them, and surprised me once more by telling me he had a better idea for my talents. He explained his desire to compile an anthology of a dozen or so
stories that had most influenced him as a young author. Most were long out of print, but he suggested if I were able to track down the stories in question, I could edit the volume for publication. As I began acquiring and reading original copies of each story, Piers & I discussed his memories of each. I was particularly astonished at some of their similarities to todays gritty and cutting edge horror as well as Science Fiction blockbusters like The Matrix Trilogy and Inception. In some cases his
memory
of the stories differed from what I read and I asked that before re-reading the stories, Piers write a Note to precede each, summarizing his memory and perceptions. He did so, and after re-reading the stories he wrote the included Afternotes. I quickly tracked down all those long out-of-print volumes and set to work assembling, scanning, negotiating publishing rights for, and editing them. The book you now hold is the result.

So to all you true believers out there, I say this: When you get the chance to thank your heroes, take it! I extend my heartfelt thanks for all their support to my wife, Isis Cowling Filipek (yes,
that
Isis), Kate, Paul, and Jesse Filipek, Josh and Todd Gannon, Don Renuart, Martha Pontoni, Bud Webster, Dan and Jason Bryan, Erik Kjell Johnson, and Cameron Pierce. A special thanks to Noah Carter Sees and my children Marcus Anakin, Bodhi Rider, and Isla Florin Evangeline, to whom I want to show the worlds magic. And, of course, I offer my deepest appreciation to Piers Anthony for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

PIERS ANTHONY: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

I was born in Oxford, England, in AwGhost, 1934. My parents both graduated from the university at Oxford, but I was slow from the outset. I spent time with relatives and a nanny while my parents went to do relief work in Spain during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. They were helping to feed the children rendered hungry by the devastation of the war. When that ended, my sister and I joined them in Spain. I left my native country at the age of four—and never returned. The new government of General Franco in Spain, evidently error-prone and suspicious of foreigners doing good works, arrested my father in 1940. They refused to admit that they had done so, making him in effect a “disappeared” person, but he was able to smuggle out a note. Then rather than admit error, they let him out on condition that he leave the country. World War II was then in progress, so instead of returning to England, we went to my father’s country. In this manner I came to America at age six, on what I believe was the last ship out. Though I was too young to understand what was going on, in time I learned, and I retain an abiding hostility to dictatorships.

My parents’ marriage grew strained and finally foundered. Suffering the consequences of separation from my first country and my second country as well as the stress of a family going wrong, I showed an assortment of complications such as nervous tics of head and hands, bed-wetting, and inability to learn. It required three years and five schools to get me through first grade. I later gained intellectual ground, but lost physical ground. When I entered my ninth school in ninth grade I was at the proper level but not the proper size, being the smallest person, male or female, in my class. However, boarding school, and later college, became a better home for me than what I had, and I managed to grow almost another foot by the time I got my BA in writing at Goddard College, Vermont, in 1956. This was just as well, because I married a tall girl I met in college; I had to grow,
literally, to meet the challenge.

When I was discharged from the Army in 1959, my wife and I decided to move to Florida. We had family there, and the winters were warm. I had spent several years going to school in the cold winters in Vermont and I do not like the cold weather. I do like the mountainous scenery so we live in north-central Florida where it is hilly, rather than flat.

I had the hodgepodge of employments typical of writers. Of about fifteen types of work I tried, ranging from aide at a mental hospital to technical writer at an electronics company, only one truly appealed: the least successful. But the dream remained. Finally in 1962 my wife agreed to go to work for a year, so that I could stay home and try to write fiction full time. The agreement was that if I did not manage to sell anything, I would give up the dream and focus on supporting my family. As it happened, I sold two stories, earning $160. But such success seemed inadequate to earn a living. So I became an English teacher, didn't like that either, and in 1966 retired again to writing. This time I wrote novels instead of stories, and with them I was able to earn a living. As with the rest of my life, progress was slow, but a decade later I got into light fantasy with the first of my ongoing Xanth series of novels, A Spell for Chameleon, and that proved to be the golden ring. And I wrote two other fantasy series: the Adept novels and the Incarnations of Immortality. My sales and income soared, and I became one of the most successful writers of the genre, with twenty-one NEW YORK TIMES paperback bestsellers in the space of a decade. This enabled us to send our two daughters to college, and drove the wolf quite far from our door. We now live on a tree farm, and would love to have a wolf by our door, but do have deer and wild cat and other wildlife. I am an environmentalist.

But a writer does not live by frivolous fantasy alone. I turned back to serious writing with direct comment on sexual abuse in Firefly, and on history in novels like Tatham Mound, which relates to the fate of the American Indians, and the Geodyssey series, covering man's past three and a half million years to the present, and Volk (available via the Internet), which shows love and death in Civil War Spain and World War II Germany. So I close the circle, returning in my writing to the realm I left as a child. And I have a new, less frivolous fantasy series, ChroMagic, that begins with Key to Havoc. There has always been a serious side to my writing, even in my fantasy, and my readers respond to it. They tell me that I have taught many
to read, by showing them that reading could be fun, and that I have saved the lives of some, by addressing concerns such as suicide. I take my readers as seriously as I take my writing, a number of them have become collaborators in a series of joint novels. My autobiography to age 50, Bio of an Ogre, is now out-of-print; there is a sequel, How Precious Was That While. I have had 140 books published, with more in the pipeline.

In fact I am a workaholic, and I love my profession. I have, of course, an ongoing battle with critics, who see only the frivolous level; it is doubtful whether my work will ever in my lifetime receive much critical applause, but I believe in its validity for the longer haul. So do my readers.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

“The Equalizer” © 1947 Jack Williamson

“Breaking Point” © 1953 James Gunn

“Vengeance for Nikolai” © 1957 Walter M. Miller, Jr.

“The Girl Had Guts” © 1957 Theodore Sturgeon

“The Little Lost Robot” © 1947 Isaac Asimov

“Child's Play” © 1947 William Tenn

“Ground Leave Incident” © 1958 by Rog Phillips

“Dreams Are Sacred” © 1948 Peter Phillips

“Wherever You May Be” © 1953 James Gunn

“Myrrha” © 1962 Gary Jennings

Interior illustrations copyright © 2013 by Jim Agpalza

ISBN 978-1-4976-6279-7

Published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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