The Birthgrave

The masterpiece debut from legendary author Tanith Lee!

“A big, rich, bloody swords-and-sorcery epic with a truly memorable heroine . . . A top bet for genre fans and a treat for feminists tired of wilting Gothic leading ladies.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Quite remarkable . . . an outstanding novel of strange adventure.”

—Analog

“The Birthgrave
is one of the most beautifully written pieces of fantasy I have ever read.”

—The Drexel Triangle

“Thunderously bloody and sensual in a way that would make Robert E. Howard pant. Yet it is also a deeper story of character and identity . . . This combination of gothic dark fantasy and pulp-style adventure proves intoxicating.”

—Coilhouse

“An exciting, feverish, obsession-laden sword and sorcery epic, unlike anything then current—or, arguably, since.”

—LOCUS

“Marvelously paced and beautifully written.”

—British Fantasy Society Bulletin

“A quality
tour de force
not to be missed.”

—Science Fiction Review

“It has everything one looks for in a science fiction novel . . . a marvelous and intricate work.”

—Tangent

DAW Books presents new and classic works of imaginative fiction by multiple award-winning author TANITH LEE

THE BIRTHGRAVE TRILOGY

THE BIRTHGRAVE

SHADOWFIRE

(originally published as
Vazkor, Son of Vazkor
)

HUNTING THE WHITE WITCH

(originally published as
Quest for the White Witch
)

TALES FROM THE FLAT EARTH

NIGHT'S MASTER

DEATH'S MASTER

DELUSION'S MASTER

DELIRIUM'S MISTRESS

NIGHT'S SORCERIES

EARTH'S MASTER

THE WARS OF VIS

THE STORM LORD

ANACKIRE

THE WHITE SERPENT

AND MORE:

COMPANIONS ON THE ROAD

VOLKHAVAAR

ELECTRIC FOREST

SABELLA

KILL THE DEAD

DAY BY NIGHT

LYCANTHIA

DARK CASTLE, WHITE HORSE

CYRION

SUNG IN SHADOW

TAMASTARA

THE GORGON AND OTHER BEASTLY TALES

DAYS OF GRASS

A HEROINE OF THE WORLD

REDDER THAN BLOOD

DAW is proud to be reissuing these classic books in new editions, as well as publishing new works from Tanith Lee, beginning in 2015.

Copyright © 1975 by Tanith Lee.

Introduction copyright © 1975 by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Author's Note copyright © 2015 by Tanith Lee.

All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by Bastien Lecouffe Deharme.

Cover design by G-Force Design.

DAW Book Collectors No. 154.

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

First Printing, June 1975.

First Anniversary Edition Printing, June 2015.

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Don Wollhem wrote to tell me he had just bought a long novel by an unknown Englishwoman whose only previous books had been written for children. He asked me to read it and, if I felt it was something I could honestly praise, to write an introduction.

It arrived on a morning full of annoyances. I was still recuperating after a slipped disk, so that I walked with a sort of careful crouch and winced when I hefted the thick manuscript. Still, I'd promised Wollheim and he
is
my own publisher, so I surveyed the fat mass of copy paper without enthusiasm, cautiously lowered my aching back into a kitchen chair, and spread out the manuscript on the table.

So I turned the first page and found myself in the heart of an extinct volcano, in darkness, with a woman who did not know who she was, or where she was, or why. . . .

And before long I forgot that I was reading this out of duty, or a promise to an editor, or anything else. I even forgot the kitchen chair and the bad back, although after a couple of hours (sleepwalking, still reading with the manuscript box under my arm, unable to set it aside even to hunt a really comfortable place) I
did
shift myself from kitchen table to living-room sofa. I had forgotten everything except the nameless woman and her mysterious quest.

I am a remarkably fast reader, but it was almost five hours later when I turned over the last page, read THE END, and surfaced with a start and a shudder.
Wow,
I thought.
Oh, wow!

All I thought about the task of writing an introduction was that I'd have a chance to share with the other readers something of how I felt about this terrific new discovery.

It's a strange and rather disturbing book. It's filled with adventure and beauty, rich alien names, half-sketched barbarian societies, ruined cities, decadence and wonder. A nameless woman, knowing only that she is under a curse, comes out of the heart of an extinct volcano. Everything is strange to her. Is she healer-woman, witch, goddess, as the various peoples call her? Can she choose to be courtesan, warrior, queen? She goes from tribe to tribe, city to city, with the curse of her past following her wherever she goes. She can suffer pain—but she is deathless, except by her own will; she is drawn endlessly by the quest for her identity, her forgotten name, the mysterious Jade which—she believes—holds the key to her soul; and everywhere she is pursued by the image of the Knife of Easy Dying, which alone can kill her.

Comparisons are odious, yet as I read this I thought most often of the “Dying Earth” stories of Jack Vance, under whose spell I had fallen as a girl. THE BIRTHGRAVE has something of the same color and wonder; something, too, of the strange undertone of doom and sadness.

And there was something else.

Most women in science fiction write from a man's viewpoint. In most human societies, adventures have been structured for men. Women who wish to write of adventure have had to accept, willy-nilly, this limitation. There seems an unspoken assumption in science fiction that science fiction is usually read by men, or, if it is read by women, it is read by those women who are bored with feminine concerns and wish to escape into the world of fantasy where they can change their internal viewpoint and gender and share the adventurous world of men. Maybe this was true at one time. The women's liberationists would say that we women writers, too, had been brainwashed into accepting this pervasive social trend.

By and large, most of us have accepted the unspoken dictum that this is a man's world, and if we wish to compete in it, we shall do so as men. All of us, and I include myself, have written mostly of men's doings and concerns, and all too often from a man's point of view.

So maybe this is the book we've all been waiting for.

Here is a woman writer whose protagonist is a woman—yet from the very first she takes her destiny in her own hands, neither slave nor chattel. Her adventures are her own. She is not dragged into them by the men in her life, nor served up to the victor as a sexual reward after the battle. For the first time since C. L. Moore's warrior-woman, Jirel of Joiry, we see the woman-adventurer in her own right.

But this book is not an enormous allegory of women's liberation, nor an elaborate piece of special pleading. It's just a big delightful
feast
of excitement and adventure.

It's a
long
book. You get involved, learn to know the people, get fully submerged in the colorful and fascinating world Tanith Lee presents. And I predict that when you, at last, satisfied but regretful, turn over the last page, you too will wish there were more.

As I found out when I read it through under what must be called acid-test conditions, it's what Don Wollheim calls “a good read.” But it's more than that. It has something to say to every reader, man or woman, about the eternal questions of existence and identity. And, although as I said before, it is
not
a piece of propaganda from women's liberation, it may say more for all of us, women and men too, than the whole humorless crowd of Steinems, de Beauvoirs, Friedans, and all their weighty tomes.

Now get on with it. I won't keep you any longer from the excitement of sharing with me this rich new discovery—THE BIRTHGRAVE by Tanith Lee.

This novel was written by me around the age of 22. I read it aloud to my mother, a great listener, as I went. Later she typed the manuscript—the only human being able to read my “writing-a-story” handwriting. Then or now.

But when we sent it to publishers, nobody was interested. Many didn't even reply.

It didn't stop me writing (evidently), but it stopped me hoping.

However . . .

* * *

The arrival for the idea of
The Birthgrave
was quite strange. The image of the ice-white being, trapped in the red-hot volcano. The dreams I had—as later told
in
the book—waking and not knowing
what
I was, let alone who. The dreams of flying—feeling the wing-tendons waking up in the muscles of my back—

But the other extraordinary thing which occurred is
not
mystical. It is a curious and perfect coincidence I've always treasured.

* * *

Earlier, I'd spent a year at art college. This really got me back on the rails as a person, and developed my drawing skills, such as they are.

Then the year ended. So I took various jobs: waitressing, shop work, etc.

One evening, I was meeting a friend from the college. We were meant to coincide about 5:30, and it was late April or May. As I stood waiting at the bus stop for her bus to arrive, the sky undid itself and about ten tons of
snow
descended. (Hey, it's England!)

Asking a harried bus inspector, I was told my friend
would
, probably, arrive, but would be an hour to an hour and a half late.

By then I was up to my ankles (I don't lie) in freezing snow.

I hauled myself out and staggered into W. H. Smith, the large, warm bookstore that lay just back from the bus stop.

The thing with Smith's was they had an excellent fantasy/SF section then. And an especially good selection of those smart, unique volumes produced by DAW Books of America. (I still love those early yellow covers, each one with its single bright “window.”)

I was so often finding a fascinating read among them. Warmed up, and grabbing a novel for the check-out, I felt better. When the world doesn't work, one of the best places to go is a book. Read it. Write it.

And this was the moment, and not remotely mystical, but—

No, I didn't hear voices, but it was as if something said to me: “This company doesn't do what anyone else does. Why don't you . . . try approaching them?”

And I thought: Don't be daft. Nobody wants my stuff. And look who DAW publishes—Marion Zimmer Bradley!
Famous
writers.

“Oh, go on,” said my silly, wise back-brain. “You admire them.
Trust
them.”

So I bought my book and met my friend. A few days later I tried the Approach to DAW. Expecting the normal rebuff.

To my amazement, I got a very nice reply. Sounds interesting, was the gist. Let's see a synopsis and some text.

Luckily, since I seldom know how a story of mine is going to end till it's got there, I'd written
The Birthgrave
, and so could do a direct synopsis from the established plot.

Again, quite speedily, I had a reply: “Send all.” I couldn't believe it. Then believed it. Sent all, and subsequently the two other novels I'd written,
The Storm Lord
and
Don't Bite the Sun
.

DAW took everything.

And from the outer dark beyond the hearth-fire I was liberated into the joy and light of a career as what I truly was, doing the only thing I could do well, and
loved
to do. A writer.

Donald Wollheim saved me—and I don't exaggerate—from wasting everything I had and was. He
gave
me what I was, fully, and let me run with the torch.

I'm still running with it.

My everlasting thanks to him and to his daughter, my friend Elizabeth (Betsy) Wollheim, goes beyond words.

And for a writer to find they have no words—oh joy!

Tanith Lee

January, 2015