Lost Lands of Witch World Read Online Free PDF Page A

Oxford; she was someone just like people I knew—and yet she wrote these amazing stories. And if she could, maybe so could I.
    And there are countless others who have thought the same, and have gone and done it. That is what makes these books so special, and why they hold a revered place in the hearts of plenty of writers—and with the publication of this compilation, probably will continue to do so for decades to come.
    These books are definitely masterpieces of their kind—keeping in mind that a
masterpiece
is not the culmination of a career, but a work from the hand of a master of the craft. The characters are real and seem alive in a way that should serve as an example to other writers who have expended a lot more energy and word-count but have failed to achieve the same level of creativity. The books are the sort that readers go back to time and time again, long after other books have been sent to Goodwill or the used-book store. They serve as testaments to the right to be different, and as such have given comfort to thousands of teenagers over the past four decades. They celebrated ethnicity—Andre’s heroes and heroines have been Navaho, Sioux, Chinese, Japanese, African, Apache, and races with green and blue skin color, even in the time before the Civil Rights movement. They celebrate intelligence and courage. They are groundbreaking because they not only paved the way for fantasy to be accepted in its own right, but they also paved the way for other women to be accepted in the field. I think it is safe to say that not only did the Witch World books inspire and influence (particularly female) writers who have themselves often paid tribute to that fact, but had it not been for Andre Norton and the Witch World books, writers like J. K. Rowling would have had a much tougher job in getting
their
books in print.
    The Witch World books still speak to me at fifty-three as eloquently as they spoke to me at thirteen; rereading my first editions was a joy. I believe that these books will do the same for you. Enjoy.
    Mercedes Lackey

 
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T hree A gainst
the
W itch W orld

I

    I am no song-smith to forge a blade of chant to send men roaring into battle, as the bards of the Sulcar ships do when those sea-serpents nose into enemy ports. Nor can I use words with care as men carve out stones for the building of a strong, years-standing keep wall, that those generations following may wonder at their industry and skill. Yet when a man passes through great times, or faces action such as few dream on, there awakes within him the desire to set down, even limpingly, his part in those acts so that those who come after him to warm his high seat, lift his sword, light the fire on his hearth, may better understand what he and his fellows wrought that they might do these same things after the passing of time.
    Thus do I write out the truth of the Three against Estcarp, and what chanced when they ventured to break a spell which had lain more than a thousand years on the Old Race, to darken minds and blot out the past. Three of us in the beginning, only three, Kyllan, Kemoc, and Kaththea. We were not fully of the Old Race, and in that lay both our sorrow and our salvation. From the hours of our birth we were set apart, for we were the House of Tregarth.
    Our mother was the Lady Jaelithe who had been a Woman of Power, one of the Witches, able to summon, send and use forces beyond common reckoning. But it was also true that, contrary to all former knowledge, though she lay with our father, the Lord Warder Simon, and brought forth us three in a single birth, yet she lost not that gift which cannot be measured by sight nor touch.
    And, though the Council never returned to her her Jewel, forfeited at the hour of her marriage, yet they were also forced to admit that she was still a Witch, though not one of their fellowship.
    And he who was our father was also not to be measured by any of the age-old laws and customs.