IT BEGINS IN DARKNESS　　Effigies of the Earth King festooned the city around Castle Sylvarresta. Everywhere the effigies could be seenhanging beneath shopwindows, standing upright against the walls of the city gates, or nailed beside doorwaysstationed any place where the Earth King might find ingress into a home.　Many of the figures were crude things crafted by childrena few reeds twisted into the form of a man, often with a crown of oak leaves in its hair. But outside the doors of shops and taverns were more ornate figures of wood, the full size of a man, often elaborately painted and coifed in fine green wool traveling robes.　In those days, it was said that on Hostenfest Eve the spirit of　

　DEDICATION　　To Paty Cockrum, fan, friend, fine artist. You should see the pictures she sends me of Jean-Claud. She really is the voice of temptation.　　ACKNOWLEDGMENTS　　Ricia Mainhardt, my agent, who came up with the title.　Marion Stensgard who answered my questions.　The Wild Canid Survival and Research Center (Wolf Sanctuary) for letting me use their library.　Bonnee Pierson, who helped with a very different kind of research.　The Alternate Historians: Rett Macpherson who went above and beyond the call of duty for research, N.L. Drew who heard parts of this book over the phone, Tom Drennan, whose book is finally ready to make the rounds, Mark Sumner who says everything will be all right, eve　

　　OXFORD　　　　　　ONE　　THE DECANTER OF TOKAY　　　　　　Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen. The three great tables that ran the length of the hall were laid already, the silver and the glass catching what little light there was, and the long benches were pulled out ready for the guests. Portraits of former Masters hung high up in the gloom along the walls. Lyra reached the dais and looked back at the open kitchen door, and, seeing no one, stepped up beside the high table. The places here were laid with gold, not silver, and the fourteen seats were not oak benches but mahogany chairs with velvet cushions....　

　　THE conditions of life in New York are so different from those of London that a story of this kind calls for a little explanation. There are several million inhabitants of New York. Not all of them eke out a precarious livelihood by murdering one another, but there is a definite section of the population which murdersnot casually, on the spur of the moment, but on definitely mercial lines at so many dollars per murder. The "gangs" of New York exist in fact. I have not invented them. Most of the incidents in this story are based on actual happenings. The Rosenthal case, where four men, headed by a genial individual calling himself "Gyp the Blood" shot a fellow-citizen in cold blood in a sp　

　Acknowledgments　The authors would like to acknowledge mander Stephen Littfin, United States Naval Reserve, for his invaluable help with the naval aspects of The Ice Limit. Our deep gratitude also goes out to Michael Tusiani and Captain Emilio Fernandez Sierra, who corrected various tanker-related elements of the manuscript. We would also like to thank Tim Tiernan for his advice on metallurgy and physics, the meteorite hunter Charlie Snell of Santa Fe for information on how meteorite hunters actually operate, and Frank Ryle, senior structural engineer at Ove Arup & Partners. We also want to express our appreciation to various other anonymous engineers who shared with us confidential enginee　

　　　On August 23, the day before the hurricane struck, Max and Bonnie Lamb awoke early, made love twice and rode the shuttle bus to Disney World. That evening they returned to the Peabody Hotel, showered separately, switched on the cable news and saw that the storm was heading directly for the southeastern tip of Florida. The TV weatherman warned that it was the fiercest in many years.　　Max Lamb sat at the foot of the bed and gazed at the color radar image-a ragged flame-colored sphere, spinning counterclockwise toward the coast. He said, "Jesus, look at that."　　A hurricane, Bonnie Lamb thought, on our honeymoon! As she slipped under the sheets, she heard the rain beating on the rental cars 　

　On a ridge above Texas Flat upon a rock shaped like flame, a hand moved upon the lava. The hand moved and then was still. In all that vast beige-gray silence there was no other movement and no sound.　A buzzard swinging in lazy circles above the serrated ridge had glimpsed that moving hand. Swinging lower, he saw a man who lay among the rocks atop the ridge. He was a long-bodied man in worn boots and jeans, a man with wide shoulders and a lean tough face.　It was the face of a hunter but now of a man hunted. A man who lay with his rifle beside him and who wore a belted gun; but the man still lived and the buzzard could wait.　Below and stretching away from the very foot of the ridge to lose i　

Years and years later, I still start in the deepest part of night with his agonized face before me. And always, in these helpless dreams, I am helpless to ease his suffering.　　I will tell the tale then, in hope the last ghosts may be put to rest, if such a thing can ever happen in this place where there are more ghosts than living souls. But you will have to listen closely - this is a tale that the teller herself does not fully understand.　　I will tell you of Lord Sulis, my famous stepfather.　　I will tell you what the witch foretold to me.　　I will tell you of the love that I had and I lost.　　I will tell you of the night I saw the burning man.　　　　Tellarin gifted me with small things, but th　

　　July.　Heat.　In the city, they are synonymous, they are identical, they mean one and the same thing. In the 87th Precinct, they strut the streets with a vengeance, these twin bitches who wear their bleached blond hair and their bright-red lipstick slashes, who sway on glittering rhinestone slippers, who flaunt their saffron silk. Heat and July, they are identical twins who were born to make you suffer.　The air is tangible. You can reach out to touch it. It is sticky and clinging, you can wrap it around you like a viscous overcoat. The asphalt in the gutters has turned to gum, and your heels clutch at it when you try to navigate the streets. The pavements glow with a flat off-white brillian　

Zula Miller Crichton　We are entering a world where the old rules no longer apply.　 PHILLIP SANDERS　　Business is war.　 Japanese motto　　　LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT　CONFIDENTIAL TRANSCRIPT　OF INTERNAL RECORDS　　　　Contents: Transcript of Video InterrogationDetective Peter J. SmithMarch 13-15　　re: "Nakamoto Murder" (A8895-404)　　This transcript is the property of the Los Angeles Police Department and is for internal use only. Permission to copy, quote from, or otherwise reproduce or reveal the contents of this document is limited by law. Unauthorized use carries severe penalties.　　　Direct all inquiries to:　　manding Officer...　

THE STAR-BEARER AND RAEDERLE OF AN SAT ON the crown of the highest of the seven towers of Anuin. The white stone fell endlessly away from them, down to the summer-green slope the great house sat on. The city itself spilled away from the slope to the sea. The sky revolved above them, a bright, changeless blue, its expression broken only by the occasional spiral of a hawk. Morgon had not moved for hours. The morning sun had struck his profile on the side of the embrasure he sat in and shifted his shadow without his notice to the other side. He was aware of Raederle only as some portion of the land around him, of the light wind, and the crows sketching gleaming black lines through the green or　

　Another Disc day dawned, but very gradually, and this is why.　When light encounters a strong magical field it loses ail sense of urgency. It slows right down. And on the Discworld the magic was embarrassingly strong, which meant that the soft yellow light of dawn flowed over the sleeping landscape like the caress of a gentle lover or, as some would have it, like golden syrup. It paused to fill up valleys. It piled up against mountain ranges. When it reached Cori Celesti, the ten mile spire of grey stone and green ice that marked the hub of the Disc and was the home of its gods, it built up in heaps until it finally crashed in great lazy tsunami as silent as velvet, across the dark landscap