The never-before-published final novel by the late Dave Duncan, one of Canada's most beloved authors of fantasy and science fiction
When one life ends, another begins.
After forty years as the village school teacher in the idyllic valley of Greenbottom, Agatha is looking forward to a quiet retirement. Instead, an enigmatic stranger arrives to drag her through a long-closed portal to another world.
Confronted with a completely foreign culture steeped in magic and violence, Agatha finds herself a crucial pawn being played between rival factions. The only way forward through the rigid traditions and convoluted politics of the Archons of Otopia is to remain true to herself and her Greenbottom ideals.
But will it be enough to save, not only herself, but the man to whom she is now magically bound in love?
"Dave Duncan writes rollicking adventure novels filled with subtle characterization and made bitter-sweet by an underlying darkness. Without striving for grand effects or momentous meetings between genres, he has produced one excellent book after another." - Locus Magazine
"Duncan is an exceedingly finished stylist and a master of world building and characterization." - Booklist
"Dave Duncan has long been one of the great unsung figures of Canadian fantasy and science fiction, graced with a fertile imagination, a prolific output, and keen writerly skills." - Quill & Quire
"When you're looking for a good adventure, Dave Duncan is a sure thing . . . [with] his sly and fast-paced plotting, his ability to construct intriguingly different worlds, and his knack for quick and entertaining characterization and dialogue." - Eclectic Ruckus Today was to be a Big Day in Greenbottom. Always an early riser, Agatha was up even before the midsummer sun itself. She had work to do: a special supper planned to celebrate the end of school-forever.When one life ends, another begins.That little homily had been swimming around in her thoughts for several days. It had been a favourite saying of her mother's, but it didn't come from the Wisdoms, so where had the old dear acquired such privileged information? Certainly, she had never claimed that it was a direct revelation from the Immortals, and who else would know? Agatha had found the adage comforting as her Big Day approached.She could never have guessed how apt it would prove to be.* * *Dressed in her workaday frock of faded green and white calico, she brushed out her grey-blonde hair and wound it into her usual bun. Then she peered in the mirror and sighed. Old age is not for quitters, she reminded herself. So Father Comfort said, although he admitted it wasn't written among the Wisdoms.Quietly, so as not to wake Bessie or Ian, she limped downstairs, feeling her knees being cranky, always at their worst first thing in the morning. She checked the larder box at the front door, but today's fresh bread had not yet arrived. She lit the fire and set to work making a couple of peach pies. Bessie was sure to complain that they weren't apple pies, but the apples weren't ripe yet.Leaving the pies to sit until the oven was hot enough, Agatha went outside to catch the main dish. The spring's crop of chickens was growing fast, the cockerels becoming a nuisance to one another and all the rest. There wasn't much meat on them yet; Ian would eat two by himself, plus whatever Bessie and Agatha had left of another. Waste not, want not. When one life . . . Argh!It was too early to milk Grouch, the goat. The day was clear and calm, but there had been wind in the night-she had even thought she heard thunder once-so there would be more windfall peaches and plums to collect. She must drop a hint to Ian that it was time to pick the ripe ones.She had about half an acre of yard behind the house, enough for the goat, a few chickens, some fruit trees, and a fine vegetable patch. She kept it all spanking tidy, with very little help from Ian, although he did look after
