The Well World, associated characters and locations are the property of Jack Chalker and are used without permission.

Serge Ortega's Choice.

Gypsy is wrong.

I'm not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of living. How long since the wind touched my face? How long since the sun's rays glinted from my eyes? There was a time, nearly a millennium past but still vivid in my mind, when I reveled in the sensations of life and the thrill of living to the fullest. For nearly a thousand years I have hidden beneath the earth and directed my chessmen, unable… no… unwilling to taste the scintillating nectar of life, but no longer.

Gypsy is wrong, for tomorrow I live again. Tomorrow I face death.