IThe man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what might have been parsecs in all directions. White; blinding; waterless; without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. An occasional tombstone sign pointed the way, for once the drifted track that cut its way through the thick crust of alkali had been a highway and coaches had followed it. The world had moved on since then. The world had emptied.The gunslinger walked stolidly, not hurrying, not loafing. A hide waterbag 　

　　-SHELLY, Prometheus Unbound　　　　　　Part One TERRA INCOGNITA　　　　Hell is the place of those who have denied; They find there what they planted and what dug.　　A Lake of Spaces, and a Wood of Nothing, And wander there and drift, and never cease Wailing for substance.　　-W.B. YEATS, The Hour Glass　　　　　　1　　The air was electric the day the thief crossed the city, certain that tonight, after so many weeks of frustration, he would finally locate the card-player. It was not an easy journey. Eighty-five percent of Warsaw had been leveled, either by the months of mortar bombardment that had preceded the Russian liberation of the city, or by the program of demolition the Nazis had undertaken before their　

　　　　I HAD BEEN making the rounds of the Sacrifice Poles the day we heard my brother had escaped. I already knew something was going to happen; the Factory told me.　　　　At the north end of the island, near the tumbled remains of the slip where the handle of the rusty winch still creaks in an easterly wind, I had two Poles on the far face of the last dune. One of the Poles held a rat head with two dragonflies, the other a seagull and two mice. I was just sticking one of the mouse heads back on when the birds went up into the evening air, kaw-calling and screaming, wheeling over the path through the dunes where it went near their nests. I made sure the head was secure, then clambered to the top　

　　　　Anselme, who has ever been acknowledged as the first and perhaps the greatest of all the troubadours of Arbonne, was of modest birth, the youngest son of a clerk in the castle of a baron near Cauvas. He was of middling height, dark haired, with a quiet manner in speech that was nonetheless wondrously pleasing to all who heard him. While yet tender in years, he showed great skill and interest in music and was invited to join the celebrated choir of the Cauvas sanctuary of the god. It was not long, however, before he felt the beginnings of a desire to make music very different from that acceptable in the service of the god, or indeed of the goddess Rian in her temples. And so Anselme left　

　　 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　

　dedicates this book to　Barry and Jody Turkus.　　Lincoln Child　dedicates this book to　his daughter, Veronica.　　Acknowledgments　　Lincoln Child would like to thank Bruce Swanson, Mark Mendel, Pat Allocco, Chris and Susan Yango, Jerry and Terry Hyland, Anthony Cifelli, M.D., Norman San Agustin, M.D., and Lee Suckno, M.D., for their friendship and assistance. Ongoing thanks to Special Agent Douglas Margini for his advice on New York, New Jersey, and federal law enforcement matters. Thanks to Jill Nowak for an insightful reading of the text. Bob Przybylski was very useful in nailing down some of the firearms details. Thanks also to Monsignor Bob Diacheck for reading and menting on the manuscript.　

　　　In what felt to him like the first cold morning of the world, he groped for fire.　　　It was a high place where he searched, a lifeless, wind-scoured place, a rough, forbidding shelf of black and splintered rock. Snow, driven by squalls of frigid air, streamed across the black rock in white powder, making shifting veils of white over layers of gray ancient ice that was almost as hard as the rock itself. Dawn was in the sky, but still hundreds of kilometers away, as distant as the tiny sawteeth of the horizon to the northwest. The snowfields and icefields along that far edge of the world were beginning to glow with a reflected pink.　　　Ignoring cold and wind, and mumbling to himself, the sea　

shall lie across the Pattern of the Age, and the Dark One shall once more layhis hand upon the world of man. Women shall weep and men quail as the nations ofthe earth are rent like rotting cloth. Neither shall anything stand nor abide...Yet one shall be born to face the Shadow, born once more as he was born beforeand shall be born again, time without end. The Dragon shall be Reborn, and thereshall be wailing and gnashing of teeth at his rebirth. In sackcloth and ashesshall he clothe the people, and he shall break the world again by his ing,tearing apart all ties that bind. Like the unfettered dawn shall he blind us,and burn us, yet shall the Dragon Reborn confront the Shadow at the Last Bat　

I stood in line, as patient as the other taxpayers, my filled out forms and my cash gripped body in my hand. Cash, money, the old fashioned green folding stuff. A local custom that I intended to make expensive to the local customers. I was scratching under the artificial beard, which itched abominably, when the man before me stepped out of the way and I was at the window. My finger stuck in the glue and I had a job freeing it without pulling the beard off as well."e, e, pass it over," the aging, hatchet-faced, bitter and shrewish female official said, hand extended impatiently."On the contrary," I said, letting the papers and banknotes fall away to disclose the immense .75 recoilless pistol　

　　I am a vampire. Blood does not bother me. I like blood. Even seeing my own blood does not frighten me. But what my blood can do to others-to the whole world for that matter-terrifies me. Once God made me take a vow to create no more vampires. Once I believed in God. But my belief, like my vow, has been shattered too many times in my long life. I am Alisa Perne, the now-forgotten Sita, child of a demon. I am the oldest living creature on earth.　　I awake in a living room smelling of death. I watch as my blood trickles through a thin plastic tube into the arm of Special Agent Joel Drake, FBI. He now lives as a vampire instead of the human being he was when he closed his eyes. I have broken m　

　　1　　 mander James D. Swanson of the U.S. Navy was short, plump and crowding forty. He had jet-black hair topping a pink, cherubic face, and with the deep permanent creases of laughter lines radiating from his eyes and curving around his mouth, he was a dead ringer for the cheerful, happy-golucky extrovert who is the life and soul of the party where the guests park their brains along with their hats and coats. That, anyway, was how he struck me at first glance, but on the reasonable assumption that I might very likely find some other qualities in the man picked to mand the latest and most powerful nuclear submarine afloat I took a second and closer look at him and this time I saw what I sho　

　Kona Weather　　MISS MINERVA WINTERSLIP was a Bostonian in good standing, and long past the romantic age. Yet beauty thrilled her still, even the semi-barbaric beauty of a Pacific island. As she walked slowly along the beach she felt the little catch in her throat that sometimes she had known in Symphony Hall, Boston, when her favorite orchestra rose to some new and unexpected height of loveliness.　It was the hour at which she liked Waikiki best, the hour just preceding dinner and the quick tropic darkness. The shadows cast by the tall cocoanut palms lengthened and deepened, the light of the falling sun flamed on Diamond Head and tinted with gold the rollers sweeping in from the coral reef.