Hell's Foundations Quiver (Safehold, 8) - Hardcover

Weber, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765321874 ISBN 13: 9780765321879

Verlag: TOR BOOKS, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

Centuries ago, the human race fought its first great war against an alien race-and lost. A tiny population of human beings fled to distant Safehold. Centuries later, their descendants have forgotten their history; for them, life has been an eternal Middle Ages, ruled by the Church of God Awaiting, whose secret purpose is to prevent the re-emergence of industrial civilization.

But not all of Safehold's founders were on board with this plan. Those dissidents left behind their own secret legacies. One of those is Merlyn Athrawes, cybernetic avatar of one of Earth's long-dead defenders, now reawakened after a thousand years to restart human progress and reclaim our place in the universe. Merlyn has intervened in the small Safeholdian realm of Charis, seeding it with ideas and innovations and helping it to rise to challenge the hegemony of the Church.

It's been a long and bloody fight, but aided by a stream of inventions - breech-loading rifles, signal rockets, claymore mines, new approaches to manufacturing and supply-Charis and its few allies seem to have finally gained the upper hand. Now major realms have begun to consider switching sides.

To all these ends, Merlyn Athrawes has been everywhere, under multiple disguises and wielding hidden powers. The secret of who and what he is has been closely held. But a new player has arrived, one who knows many secrets-including Merlyn's own.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

DAVID WEBER is the author of the New York Times-bestselling Honor Harrington series and Safehold series. His many other novels include Mutineers' Moon, The Armageddon Inheritance, Heirs of Empire, Path of the Fury, and Wind Rider's Oath. He lives in South Carolina.

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Hell's Foundations Quiver

By David Weber

Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright © 2015 David Weber
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7653-2187-9

Contents

Title Page, 
Copyright Notice, 
Dedication, 
Map 1, 
Map 2, 
Map 3, 
Map 4, 
March Year of God 897, 
April Year of God 897, 
May Year of God 897, 
June Year of God 897, 
July Year of God 897, 
August Year of God 897, 
September Year of God 897, 
October Year of God 897, 
Characters, 
Glossary, 
The Archangels, 
The Church of God Awaiting's Hierarchy, 
About the Author, 
Tor Books by David Weber, 
Copyright, 

CHAPTER 1

Merlin Athrawes' Chamber, Charisian Embassy, Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark

The roaring, shingle-lifting bluster of snow-laden wind only made the sudden, profound silence more complete. The slight sound as a coal settled on the modest bedchamber's hearth seemed almost deafening, and Merlin Athrawes stood very still, shoulders against the door he'd just closed behind him, sapphire eyes gazing intently through the fire-flickered dimness at the slender woman in the single chair beside that hearth.

The woman who had just called him "Ahbraim."

Which, he reflected, made the question of how she'd managed to get by the alert sentinels guarding the Charisian Embassy here in the heart of Siddar City rather secondary.

The heavy, utilitarian coat hanging from his coat tree — like the boots and thick woolen stockings she'd slipped from slim, pedicured feet and set before the fire — was soaked with melting snow. The firelight cast dancing light and shadow across her brilliant, expressive eyes, gleamed on the gold and topaz encircling her aristocratic throat, and struck subdued highlights from hair that was almost as dark as Sharleyan Ahrmahk's own, and the gown she'd worn under that plain, serviceable coat was as exquisitely designed and cut as it was expensive. She was quite possibly the most beautiful woman he'd ever met and he could smell the subtle sweetness of her perfume, but none of those things were what held him so still.

"Why," he asked after a moment, in a tone which sounded considerably calmer than it should have, "did you call me 'Ahbraim,' Madam Pahrsahn?" He cocked his head, expression puzzled. "I assume it's a reference to Master Zhevons?"

"You really are very good," Aivah Pahrsahn — who'd once been known as Ahnzhelyk Phonda, among many other names — said approvingly. "Why, you could almost — almost, I say — convince me. But you can't, you know. I've been watching you for too long, and I have a very good memory for details."

"Watching me?" he repeated. "Watching me do what? I haven't made any special effort to keep my comings and goings here in Siddar City secret from you or the Lord Protector. Or from your agents, now that I think about it."

"Well," she said thoughtfully, leaning back and crossing her long legs elegantly. She propped one elbow on the chair arm and rested her chin on the palm of a perfectly manicured hand as she gazed up at him like a woman contemplating a problem to which she'd devoted much thought. "I'll concede that at least a part of what gave you away were things I could see working together with you and His Majesty here in the capital, but that wasn't really decisive. No, what finally convinced me my absurd suspicions might actually be well-founded wasn't so much the many interesting things you were doing here as it was the timing of all those occasions when you ... weren't here, shall we say."

"In what way?" The tall, broad-shouldered Imperial Guardsman folded his arms across his chest and raised one eyebrow. "And while I'm asking questions, what sort of 'suspicions' — well-founded or not — are we talking about?"

"The world went the better part of a thousand years without a single verified seijin-sighting," Madam Pahrsahn replied. "Then, all of a sudden, you surfaced ... in Charis, of all places. During the War Against the Fallen, not a single seijin — not one of them, Merlin — was ever reported in remote, backwater, unimportant little Charis. Until Charis was neither little nor unimportant ... and there you were, smack in the middle of Tellesberg."

She gave him a dimpled smile.

"Now, I realize you've always been careful to tell everyone you're not really a seijin — or to imply it as strongly as possible, at any rate — but no one's ever actually believed you. Quite reasonably, I concluded, once the reports of your activities came to my ears. Whatever you might choose to say, your accomplishments clearly established what you actually were, I'm afraid. And while the fact that a seijin had surfaced anywhere at this late date was remarkable enough, it became even more remarkable in light of the way you'd given your allegiance to the Church of Charis when everyone knew the seijins had always been Mother Church's champions. What, I wondered when I heard the first reports about your ... astonishing capabilities, was a seijin doing in the service of a clearly heretical church and empire?"

"May I assume you eventually came up with an answer to that question?" he inquired politely.

"Well, given the difference between the heretical church in question and what that pig Clyntahn and his precious Group of Four had done to Mother Church, it didn't take me long to conclude that you represented a fairly emphatic statement of divine disapproval of their actions." Her smile disappeared. "And, to be honest, I found myself wondering what had taken God so long."

He inclined his head in a silent nod, acknowledging the point of her last sentence without responding directly to it.

"I kept as close an eye on you and your activities as I could," she continued after a moment. "Distance was something of a problem, but as I'm sure you've become aware, when I decide to keep an eye on something — or someone — I'm better at it than most. So long before Seijin Ahbraim ever entered my establishment in Zion, I'd come to the conclusion that despite all your protestations to the contrary, you were as genuine a seijin as ever walked the face of this world. And whether or not you chose to proclaim any semidivine status of your own, you were clearly on the side of God."

Her voice turned softer on the last sentence, and the wind roar behind the stillness gusted momentarily louder as their eyes met. She let silence linger for a long, quiet moment, then shrugged.

"That's one reason I was prepared to listen to Seijin Ahbraim when he turned up in Zion to warn me to expedite my plans. I think he probably would have convinced me anyway, but I happen to be something of a student of the lore about seijins, and I'd already had all of that time to draw my conclusions about you. Those conclusions applied by extension to him as your fellow seijin and ... associate, and his advice turned out to have been remarkably good in the end. After all, it brought me here," she waved her free hand gracefully, as if to encompass the city beyond the bedchamber's walls, "where I was able to add my own modest efforts to those of all those people fighting openly to bring down Clyntahn and the others." She met Merlin's blue eyes very levelly. "For that privilege, that opportunity, I will be eternally grateful to ... Seijin Ahbraim."

His nod was a bit deeper this time, almost a bow, and he crossed to the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: TOR BOOKS
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0765321874
• ISBN 13: 9780765321879
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 784
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Braun; https://in.pg.com/contact-us/; ; Sulzbacher Str. 40-50; Schwalbach/Ts.; 65824; Deutschland