1.　　　　Fingers of lightning tore holes in the black skies as an angry cloudburst drenched the surrealistic landscape. It was 3 A.M. on a cold, wet morning in late November 1967. and the little houses scattered along the dirt road winding through the hills of West Virginia were all dark. Some seemed unoccupied and in the final stages of decay. Others were unpainted, neglected, forlorn. The whole setting was like the opening scene of a Grade B horror film from the 1930s.　　　　Along the road there came a stranger in a land where strangers were rare and suspect. He walked up to the door of a crumbling farmhouse and hammered. After a long moment a light blinked on somewhere in the house and a　

　　 THE girl walked past the secretary who held the door open, and surveyed the law office with eyes that showed just a trace of panic.　 The secretary gently closed the door and the girl selected an old fashioned, high-backed, black leather chair. She sat down in it, crossed her legs, pulled her skirt down over her knees, and sat facing the door. After a moment, she pulled the skirt up for an inch or two, taking some pains to get just the effect she wanted. Then she leaned back so that her spun-gold hair showed to advantage against the shiny black leather of the big chair.　 She looked pathetic and helpless as she sat in the big office, dwarfed by the huge proportions of the leath　

　"The Captive"　Chapter One　She sat by the creek, half-hidden in lush grasses. Carefully she twined purple summer flowers into her single dark brown braid, and dabbled bare feet in the rushing water. Stems and crushed blooms littered the coarse yellow gown she wore and damp earth stained the garment, but she paid it no mind. She was purpose-fully intent on her work, for if she allowed her thoughts to range freely she would be overtaken by the knowledge and the hope that he still might e.　A songbird called from the forest behind and she glanced up, smiling at the delicate melody. Then her attention was caught by an approaching rider, and she let fall the flowered braid from limp fingers....　

　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　

　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