For Anne McCaffrey

This is the second and final part of a saga of the Well World. I think you’ll find it a bit different from the past ones while still keeping the same fun. The first book we called Currents of the Well of Souls, and the whole project is The Sea is Full of Stars. You’ll see the meaning of the various names as you read.

If, perchance, you missed the first one, it should be available at all reputable booksellers, stores, superstores, etc. Any intelligent, competently run bookselling operation would have it on hand when the second one comes out, so if it isn’t there, you know what to say to the proprietor. You should read them in the order they were written; otherwise it completely spoils the surprise and, because there is a minimum of recap here, you might even get confused as to who’s who. So, please, buy this one now and the first one, too, huh? People who read fiction for pleasure are a vanishing breed of high order intellectual. We need you.

—JLC

Ambassador Dukla’s almost equine face pulsed as he breathed the water of his longtime ambassadorial home. Most of those he addressed were no more likely to read his mood or expressions than they could read it on a rock’s, but there was no mistaking the tone the telepathic translator module carried through to the allied hexes.

“The Chalidang ambassador has been replaced, as you know,” Dukla began, sounding cheerful. “My suspicion is that he either did not go home or he is home for good. The Emperor and Empress there are having quite a purge.”

Those watching in both air- and water-breathing ambassadorial chambers gave their own equivalents of nods or knowing chuckles. Not only did the Chalidang rulers have vicious tempers, they were known to go into serious rages and eat the nearest person alive, slowly, limb by limb. It wasn’t just personal, it was almost traditional.