The whine of Troft thrusters drifted in through the window on the late-summer breezes, jarring Jonny Moreau awake. For one heart-wrenching moment he was back in the midst of the Adirondack war; but as he tipped his recliner back to vertical the abrupt stab of pain in elbows and knees snapped him back to the present. For a minute he just sat there, gazing out the window at the Capitalia skyline and trying to bring his brain and body back on-line. Then, reaching carefully to his desk, he jabbed at the inter button on his phone. "Yes, Governor?" Theron Yutu said.　Jonny leaned back in his chair　

　FOR NATALIE　　ACKNOWLEDGMENTS　　Special thanks to Natalie Freer-the most genuine and giving person I know. To Stephen Reilly, my brother and my good friend and my loyal supporter, even from thousands of miles away. To Mum for her ments on the text and to Dad for his woeful title suggestions and to both of them for their love and support. And, last, thanks to everyone at Pan and Thomas Dunne Books (in particular, my editors, Cate Paterson, Pete Wolverton, and Madonna Duffy, first, for "discovering" me and, second, for enduring all of my crazy ideas). To all of you, never underestimate the power　

　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　

　Aletheia Vaune Preston　And　Isaac Jerome Preston　　Acknowledgements　There is one person above all others who must be thanked for the existence of this novel, and that is my good friend the inestimable Forrest Fenn-collector, scholar, and publisher. I will never forget that lunch of ours, many years ago in the Dragon Room of the Pink Adobe, when you told me a curious story-and thereby gave me the idea for this novel. I hope you feel I have done the idea justice.　Having mentioned Forrest, I feel it necessary to make one thing clear: My character Maxwell Broadbent is a plete and total fictional c　

Many a blond, northern moonrise,like a muted reflection, will softlyremind me and remind me again and again.It will be my bride, my alter ego.An incentive to find myself. I myselfam the moonrise of the south.　　-Paul Klee, The Tunisian Diaries　　Prologue　　It was just past midday, not long before the third summons to prayer, that Ammar ibn Khairan passed through the Gate of the Bells and entered the palace of Al-Fontina in Silvenes to kill the last of the khalifs of Al-Rassan.　　Passing into the Court of Lions he came to the three sets of double doors and paused before those that led to the garde　

　Acknowledgments　First and foremost, to my friend and editor, Jason Kaufman, for working so hard on this project and for truly understanding what this book is all about. And to the inparable Heide Lange-tireless champion of The Da Vinci Code, agent extraordinaire, and trusted friend.　I cannot fully express my gratitude to the exceptional team at Doubleday, for their generosity, faith, and superb guidance. Thank you especially to Bill Thomas and Steve Rubin, who believed in this book from the start. My thanks also to the initial core of early in-house supporters, headed by Michael Palgon, Suza　

　(Starring Three Witches, also kings, daggers, crowns, storms, dwarfs, cats, ghosts, spectres, apes, bandits, demons, forests, heirs, jesters, tortures, trolls, turntables, general rejoicing and drivers alarums.)　　The wind howled. Lightning stabbed at the earth erratically, like an inefficient assassin. Thunder rolled back and forth across the dark, rain-lashed hills.　The night was as black as the inside of a cat. It was the kind of night, you could believe, on which gods moved men as though they were pawns on the chessboard of fate. In the middle of this elemental storm a fire gleamed among 　

　　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 doo　

　　By P. G. Wodehouse　　1　In a day in June, at the hour when London moves abroad in quest of lunch, a young man stood at the entrance of the Bandolero Restaurant looking earnestly up Shaftesbury Avenuea large young man in excellent condition, with a pleasant, good-humoured, brown, clean-cut face. He paid no attention to the stream of humanity that flowed past him. His mouth was set and his eyes wore a serious, almost a wistful expression. He was frowning slightly. One would have said that here was a man with a secret sorrow.　William FitzWilliam Delamere Chalmers, Lord Dawlish, had no secret sor　

　　　　Morning sun stripes cell.　　Five fingers feel my hard heart.　　It hurts, hurts, like hell.　　- F.J. Frenger, Jr.　　　　　　　　1　　　　Frederick J. Frenger, Jr., a blithe psychopath from California, asked the flight attendant in first class for another glass of champagne and some writing materials. She brought him a cold half-bottle, uncorked it and left it with him, and returned a few moments later with some Pan Am writing paper and a white ball point pen. For the next hour, as he sipped champagne, Freddy practiced writing the signatures of Claude L. Bytell, Ramon Mendez, and Herman T. Gotlieb....　

　Max A. Collins, Sr.- who served in the Pacific　"This week a high officer of the U.S. Army remarked that he knows of no place under the American flag safer than Hawaii-more secure from the onslaught of actual war."　Honolulu Star Bulletin, May 1941　"There is no chivalry in plete war."　 Edgar Rice Burroughs　ONE:　December 5, 1941　　ONE　Boat Day　　In less than forty-eight hours, six Japanese aircraft carriers-220 miles north of the island of Oahu-would launch 350 warplanes in an attack not preceded by any formal declaration of war. Every significant Naval and air installation would feel the brunt o　

　Douglas Preston dedicates this book to Stuart Woods.　　Acknowledgments　Lincoln Child wishes to thank Bruce Swanson, Bry Benjamin, M.D., Lee Suckno, M.D., Irene Soderlund, Mary Ellen Mix, Bob Wincott, Sergio and Mila Nepomuceno, Jim Cush, Chris Yango, Jim Jenkins, Mark Mendel, Juliette Kvernland, Hartley Clark, and Denis Kelly, for their friendship and their assistance, both technical and otherwise. Thanks also to my wife, Luchie, for her love and unstinting support. And I would especially like to acknowledge as an inspiration my grandmother Nora Kubie. Artist, novelist, archaeologist, indepen　

　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-court　

The Earliest HistoryHISTORY OF THE Six Duchies is of necessity a history of its ruling family, the Farseers. A plete telling would reach back beyond the founding of the First Duchy and, if such names were remembered, would tell us of Outislanders raiding from the sea, visiting as pirates a shore more temperate and gentler than the icy beaches of the Out Islands. But we do not know the names of these earliest forebears.And of the first real King, little more than his name and some extravagant legends remain. Taker his name was, quite simply, and perhaps with that naming began the tradit　

　　　　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 　

　　　　The wind blew hard and joggled the water of the ocean, sending ripples across its surface.Then the wind pushed the edges of the ripples until they became waves, and shoved the waves around until they became billows.The billows rolled dreadfully high: higher even than the tops of houses.Some of them, indeed, rolled as high as the tops of tall trees, and seemed like mountains; and the gulfs between the great billows were like deep valleys.　　All this mad dashing and splashing of the waters of the big ocean, which the mischievous wind caused without any good reason whatever, resulted in a ter