He was being hunted. Somehow he had become their prey, like the rilda that grazed on this plain. Except slower. So much slower.

Stam Corfej had been peddling his wares among the Fal’Borna for the better part of eight fours; more than half a lifetime. He knew as well as anyone how hard the white-haired sorcerers of the Central Plain could be. He’d bargained with them, been threatened by them, been called a cheat and a dark-eye bastard and worse. More than once he’d considered giving up on the Qirsi and returning to his native Aelea. A peddler could do well in the Mountain Nation, perhaps not inland, but along her rocky shores, in Redcliff or Yorl.

But it had never taken him long to dismiss the idea of returning to the sovereignty. Whatever gold he might make in Eandi territory he could double and then some trading among the Fal’Borna. He knew the tastes of the golden-skinned clan. He knew their ways, and he knew how to best them in a negotiation.

And while he didn’t particularly like the white-hairs, he had never felt threatened by them. At least not until now.

Normally, I would not write anything about this, but I feel obliged to let those of you awaiting the release of Godborn know that I have ended my relationship with Wizards of the Coast. As a result, I will not be writing Godborn and my contribution to the Forgotten Realms will end with The Twilight War. I sincerely apologize to those of you who were awaiting The Cycle of Night.

All that happened here is that Wizards made a decision that they thought was appropriate (and was, in fact, based on perfectly valid reasons), but that decision conflicted with what I thought was appropriate. We tried to resolve matters in good faith, but it just wasn’t to be. It’s unfortunate, but it goes that way sometimes. And that’s all I’ll have to say about it so please don’t ask for further details.

I remain grateful to Wizards for publishing my novels, and in particular have nothing but the highest of praise for my editor, Phil Athans. Honestly, my primary regret here is that I feel like I’ve let a lot of you down. So again, please accept my apologies if you were one of those awaiting Godborn.

The David Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Newcomer will “give recognition to emerging talent in the field of fantasy fiction. As David Gemmell always took a keen interest in new writers, and helped many onto the path to publication, we regard this as an appropriate category to add, and one we feel sure David would have approved.”

The David Gemmell Ravenheart Award for Best Fantasy Cover Art will “honor the best fantasy book cover art. The importance of fantasy cover art deserves admiration, as do the artists who produce it, yet there is no major UK award acknowledging this. The Ravenheart Award will fulfill that role.”

Like the Legend Award, the winners of these new awards will be decided by popular vote. The first Legend Award was decided by a remarkable 11,000 voters from around the world, and Nicholls is “confident that the Morningstar and Ravenheart awards, which are being created with the full approval of the Gemmell family, will be greeted with no less enthusiasm.

These electronic editions are being created from original page layout files, and are being updated with the latest copyedits and corrections from Robert Jordan and later, from Team Jordan. They also boast all-new covers designed by Jamie Stafford-Hill and featuring art from a variety of illustrators, including David Grove, Donato Giancola, Sam Weber, and Ketai Kotaki, all commissioned by Tor Books (and Tor.com) Art Director Irene Gallo.

Since these books are being put together basically from scratch, in many cases from new or updated files, Tor Books is putting them out at the rate of one per month. Below is a schedule of publication, for your handy reference:

October 27, 2009: The Eye of the World
November 17, 2009: The Great Hunt
December 15, 2009: The Dragon Reborn
January 19, 2010: The Shadow Rising
February 16, 2010: The Fires of Heaven
March 16, 2010: Lord of Chaos
April 20, 2010: A Crown of Swords
May 18, 2010: The Path of Daggers
June 22, 2010: Winter’s Heart
July 20, 2010: Crossroads of Twilight
August 24, 2010: Knife of Dreams
September 28, 2010: New Spring
November 2, 2010: The Gathering Storm

November 16, 2010: From Two Rivers
November 16, 2010: To The Blight
November 16, 2010: The Hunt Begins
November 16, 2010: New Threads in the Pattern

Master told us that the earth was hollow, and that we lived on the inside of it, clinging to the top of the crust. Below us was another world, a world inside the world, a glowing bright sun of a place. What Master called the summerlands. That is where the dead live, he said. That is how we can talk to them, he said. They send us signals across the air, and the mediums pick them up and drink them in.

And when the words came in, we had to speak them. We cannot deny the dead our voices–the dead would be angry if we did. And nobody wanted the angry dead to fly their zeppelins up from the sun and attack us crust dwellers.

That wouldn’t do anyone any good.

Master knew this because he is an ambassador to the land of the dead. At night he walked through the door of the dead, and it beamed his body down above us, into the summer sun inside of the earth. That is where he talked to them, worked out trade between our two peoples.

The dead have a lot to offer the living.

He came back with schematics.

Ways of building circuit boards.

Ghost technology from the sun.

Maribel ran along the top boards. The planks went from roof to roof, along the ridges, with a jumping-space to reach the peaks of the round huts. She didn’t have the skill of a danseuse, nor the grace of the best of the girls from the stone city below her, but among the woodkin, she was often accounted the most lithe and best.

The Tower Wander was ahead, with Shrike House clinging to its neck like a collar. The old wall had long since been swallowed by the spread of the stone city, gone from defense to landmark to landform in the space of a few generations. The Duke of Copper Downs had forbidden the woodkin to enter the abandoned towers, but their exteriors had never been under such a rule.

So the seven surviving towers acquired names, and superstructures, and held the long, narrow village that ran from the Broken Gate to the Tower Harbor. The towers were part of the stone city, but the houses were the woodkin’s memory of another time and place.

She slipped through the roof of Shrike House, dropping to the floor in a shower of dust and straw.

There was no one there, of course. Shrike House had been empty since Maribel’s mother’s childhood. Seven towers, seven houses, but in every generation more went down to the stone and found lives among the city. None returned.