Pipes of Orpheus Pipes of Orpheus
AvoNova, October 1995

Cover art by Kevin Johnson

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What happened after the Pied Piper lured away the children of Hamelin? Who, indeed, was the Pied Piper? Myth tells that Orpheus died, torn to pieces in the hands of his maenads. What really happened was different. Condemned to live on, an immortal exile, self-banished by his hatred of the forces that kept his Euridice from him, Orpheus became the Piper.

Now the children of Hamelin live in slavery, most resigned to their imprisonment. Yet, goaded by the Piper's cruelty, a handful of the remaining Children dare all Hades to find the secret that will permit them to liberate themselves from their master -- before none of them are left alive to go free.


Author's Note: The cover of this book with its bright turquoise sky and sweeping pegasus in flight is one of those examples of art that is completely accurate to a scene in the novel and yet totally misrepresentative of the story as a whole. The first part of the novel was one of my earliest efforts at a long work. The second part came to me later. It fit so perfectly that I knew the seed of the tale had been hiding in my imagination from the start.