Foreword

This novel length story occurs in the same world and series as my much earlier story "The Not So Green Hills of Home", but it is absolutely and completely unnecessary to read that story first and in fact I would suggest that you don't. This story is technically the first (and earliest) story of the series chronologically, and it will provide a more than adequate introduction to this fantasy world.

This particular story has been sitting in my ideas folder for three or four years, but it was only after I started writing 'Green Hills' that the final pieces of the this tale came together in my head and I realized I was envisioning another but rather different story in that same world. This did simplify things, until I realized later on once I slapped the world chronology into a rough sort of order that rather than this being a 'sequel' of sorts, this story was instead a much earlier prequel ... with 'Green Hills' actually falling down into about sixth or seventh place in my revised story sequence. In other words, with my usual erratic organization, I'd nearly started to write the entire series in backwards reverse order!

Accordingly, this story that you are now reading is the proper start and probably the correct first story of the series ... until I have another weird idea late some night for yet another prequel, but I plan to restrain myself. This series is confusing enough as it is.

The story starts off, as is usual for me, fairly slowly, especially in the first couple of chapters, but the story contains quite a bit of action/adventure. There are also several chapters later on with significant sex content. When finally completed, I estimate this story will run approximately 120,000 words, or about twenty SOL chapters. This is very definitely a long novel length story, so be patient!

Attachment A has a listing of major story characters and some useful reference materials for this series. There is also nice collection of story maps located in Attachments B & C. These were made by me with a wonderful and relatively easy to use set of programs called Campaign Cartographer 3 and City Designer 3 (both available at http://www.profantasy.com). All further stories in this series will also have accompanying maps (many are already done) and when the series eventually catches up with 'Green Hills', I'll do a map for that story too when I re-edit/re-write it. The final Attachment D contains a detailed calendar for the world, should anyone care.