If I Pay Thee Not In Gold

By

Piers Anthony and Mercedes Lackey

In this delightful story, Mr. Anthony and Ms. Lackey blend together their talents and tell the story of a jealous queen and an unfortunate young lady. Xylina is the daughter of the former Captain of the Guard for the Queen Of Mazonia. In this land, women reign supremely, and men are slaves.

Xylina is given the task of locating a magic crystal for the queen. This task is bestowed on her because she is in debt to a demon and the queen is doing everything she can to prevent her from repaying the debt. Xylina is a powerful conjurer, more so than the queen. It is hoped by the queen that Xylina will either die on the quest or give in and fall in love with Ware, the demon. As they travel across the lands, Xylina does indeed fall in love with the demon, invalidating her claim to the throne. Ware discloses that he has a dual nature, changing from male to female and back again after making love for a night. He brings an old friend into the relationship to facilitate the changes back and forth. They are able to obtain the crystal and return to Mazonia. On their return the Queen and Xylina battle and the queen is killed. Xylina refuses to take the throne and arranges for all males to be freed.

this was a good book, with many plot twists in it. Mr. Anthony's humor run rampant throughout the book. Ms. Lackey does an extremely good job with the characterization of the main players in this novel. I recommend this to anyone who is a fan of either writer and I look forward to many more collaborations between them in the future.