Afternoon of the fourth Monday in January 1977; the Chateau Bronnitsy off the Serpukhov road not far out of Moscow; 2.40 P.M. middle-European time, and a telephone in the temporary Investigation Control Room ringing... ringing... ringing.　The Chateau Bronnitsy stood central on open, peaty ground in the middle of a densely wooded tract now white under drifted snow. A house or mansion of debased heritage and mixed architectural antecedents, several recent wings were of modern brick on old stone foundations, while others were cheap breeze blocks camouflaged in grey and green paint. A once-courtyard in the "U" of polyglot wings was now roofed over, its roof painted to match the surrounding ter　

　　THOMAS COVENANT is a happy and successful author until an unfelt infection leads to the amputation of two fingers. Then his doctor tells him he has leprosy. The disease is arrested at a leprosarium, but he returns home to find himself an outcast. His wife has divorced him and ignorant fear makes all his neighbors shun him. He bees a lonely, bitter pariah.　In rebellion, he goes to town. There, just after he meets a strange beggar, he stumbles in front of a police car. Disorientation overes him. He revives in a strange world where the evil voice of Lord Foul gives him a mocking message of doom to the Lords of the Land. When Foul leaves, a young girl named Lena takes him to her home. There h　

-from mentaries on the Karaethon CycleSereine dar Shamelle MotaraCounsel-Sister to aelle,High Queen of Jaramide(circa 325 AB, the Third Age)Chapter 1(Serpent and Wheel)Seeds of ShadowThe Wheel of Time turns, and Ages e and pass, leaving memories that bee legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth es again. In. one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to e, an Age long past, a wind rose on the great plain called the Caralain Grass. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.North and west the wind blew beneath early morning sun, over endless mi　

　　 HIS NAME WAS THORNE. In the ancient language of the runes, it had been longer-Thornevald. But when he became a blood drinker, his name had been changed to Thorne. And Thorne he remained now, centuries later, as he lay in his cave in the ice, dreaming.　 When he had first e to the frozen land, he had hoped he would sleep eternally. But now and then the thirst for blood awakened him and using the Cloud Gift, he rose into the air, and went in search of the Snow Hunters.　 He fed off them, careful never to take too much blood from any one so that none died on account of him. And when he needed furs anc boots he took them as well, and returned to his hiding place.　 These Snow Hunters were n　

　　　　In the Country of the Gillikins, which is at the North of the Land of Oz, lived a youth called Tip. There was more to his name than that, for old Mombi often declared that his whole name was Tippetarius; but no one was expected to say such a long word when "Tip" would do just as well.　　This boy remembered nothing of his parents, for he had been brought when quite young to be reared by the old woman known as Mombi, whose reputation, I am sorry to say, was none of the best. For the Gillikin people had reason to suspect her of indulging in magical arts, and therefore hesitated to associate with her.　　Mombi was not exactly a Witch, because the Good Witch who ruled that part of the Land of O　

　　 HIS NAME WAS THORNE. In the ancient language of the runes, it had been longer-Thornevald. But when he became a blood drinker, his name had been changed to Thorne. And Thorne he remained now, centuries later, as he lay in his cave in the ice, dreaming.　 When he had first e to the frozen land, he had hoped he would sleep eternally. But now and then the thirst for blood awakened him and using the Cloud Gift, he rose into the air, and went in search of the Snow Hunters.　 He fed off them, careful never to take too much blood from any one so that none died on account of him. And when he needed furs and boots he took them as well, and returned to his hiding place.　 These Snow Hunters were n　

　Chapter one　　He had been walking the dirty streets since twilight first began to gather. The pain streamed like liquid fire through every cell of his body - but he locked it away in a corner of his mind, ignored it, and walked.　There was little to please the eye in his surroundings, and he paid scant attention to them. He was on a small poor unimportant planet whose very name, Coranex, meant nothing to him. But around the spaceport clustered a drab, seedy town, which was a well-known stopover on the main space lanes. It attracted freightermen, traders, wandering technicians, space drifters of every sort. Those were the people he was looking for. Those were the people most likely to pick up　

　　　　　　HE SEEMED INCAPABLE of creating such chaos, but much of what he saw below could be blamed on him. And that was fine. He was ninety-one, paralyzed, strapped in a wheelchair and hooked to oxygen. His second stroke seven years ago had almost finished him off, but Abraham Rosenberg was still alive and even with tubes in his nose his legal stick was bigger than the other eight. He was the only legend remaining on the Court, and the fact that he was still breathing irritated most of the mob below.　　　　He sat in a small wheelchair in an office on the main floor of the Supreme Court Building. His feet touched the edge of the window, and he strained forward as the noise increased. He hated cops　

　Winters on Ballybran were generally mild, so the fury of the first spring storms as they howled across the land was ever unexpected. This first one of the new season swept ferociously across the Milekey Ranges, bearing before its westward course the fleeing sleds of crystal singers like so much jetsam. Those laggard singers who had tarried too long at their claims were barely able to hold their bucking sleds on course as they bolted for the safety of the Heptite Guild plex.　Inside the gigantic Hangar, its baffles raised against the mach winds, ordered confusion reigned. Crystal singers lurched from their sleds, half deafened by windscream, exhausted by their turbulent flights. The Hangar c　

　　　　I was following Derry Welfram at a prudent fifty paces when he stumbled, fell face down on the wet tarmac and lay still. I stopped, watching, as nearer hands stretched to help him up, and saw the doubt, the apprehension, the shock flower in the opening mouths of the faces around him. The word that formed in consequence in my own brain was violent, of four letters and unexpressed.　　Derry Welfram lay face down, unmoving, while the fourteen runners for the three-thirty race at York stalked closely past him, the damp jockeys looking down and back with muted curiosity, minds on the business ahead, bodies shivering in the cold near-drizzle of early October. The man was drunk. One could read t　

　　　　The Treloar Building was, and is, on Olive Street, near Sixth, on the west side. The sidewalk in front of it had been built of black and white rubber blocks. They were taking them up now to give to the government, and a hatless pale man with a face like a building superintendent was watching the work and looking as if it was breaking his heart.　　I went past him through an arcade of specialty shops into a vast black and gold lobby. The Gillerlain pany was on the seventh floor, in front, behind swinging double plate glass doors bound in platinum. Their reception room had Chinese rugs, dull silver walls, angular but elaborate furniture, sharp shiny bits of abstract sculpture on pedestals a　

　Clinch padded to the kitchen and fixed himself a pot of coffee, four eggs scrambled (with ketchup), a quarter-pound of Jimmy Dean sausage, and two slices of whole-wheat toast with grape jam. As he ate, he listened to the radio for a weather report. The temperature outside was forty-one degrees, humidity thirty-five percent, wind blowing from the northeast at seven miles per hour. According to the weatherman, thick fog lay on the highway between Harney and Lake Jesup. Robert Clinch loved to drive in the fog because it gave him a chance to use the amber fog lights on his new Blazer truck. The fog lights had been a $455 option, and his wife, Clarisse, now asleep in the bedroom, was always bit