Heights of the Depths
Page 42
“No!” said Jepp defiantly. “I’m not going to run. We’re not going to run!”
“She doesn’t speak for all of us,” said Zerena.
“I’m not going to run because humans deserve more than you’re willing to give them! They deserve more belief than you’re willing to have in them! You all do!” and she turned and shouted to the Travelers. “You don’t have to stand by and allow this! You can stand up to him! Together we can accomplish anything!”
“This is your last chance, child. Run. You have until the count of three or you die right now. One—”
“I’m not afraid of you!”
“Two—”
“Humanity will live! I’ve seen it! And there’s nothing you can do to stop it—!”
“Three!”
He advanced on Jepp, his hands outstretched toward her.
There was an explosion of thunder, but it was like no thunder any of them had heard. It was short and abrupt and repeated itself several times.
The Overseer staggered and looked down at his armored body. Three holes had appeared in the chest. Blood was seeping out of them. As if he was studying with great fascination something that had happened to somebody else, he touched one of the holes with his gloved finger. “Teflon bullets. Armor piercing. Has to be. I’ll be damned.”
A figure was slowly approaching. It was a female Mandraque. She was holding something made of gleaming blue metal in front of her with both hands. Jepp recognized her immediately; she had seen her in a dream.
The Travelers were frozen in place, looking as stunned as anyone else.
“She is right. We should all be free. Oh…and you killed New Daddy. You shouldn’t have done that. So I gifted myself with this.”
“I’ll be damned,” he said again.
“That’s the plan,” she said, and fired once more.
The fourth bullet slammed home and the Overseer fell backwards like a great tree and slammed to the pavement.
All was silent for what seemed an eternity. Finally:
“You stupid bitch,” Graves said. “You’ve just destroyed the world.”
“Have I?” said Norda Kinklash. “My. How very exciting.”
# # #
Don’t miss the concluding chapter of
The Hidden Earth
Book Three
Order of the Chaos
About the Author
Peter David is a prolific author whose career, and continued popularity, spans nearly two decades. He has worked in every conceivable media: Television, film, books (fiction, non-fiction and audio), short stories, and comic books, and acquired followings in all of them.
In the literary field, Peter has had over seventy novels published, including numerous appearances on the New York Times Bestsellers List. His novels include Tigerheart, Darkness of the Light, Sir Apropos of Nothing and the sequels The Woad to Wuin and Tong Lashing, Knight Life, Howling Mad, and the Psi-Man adventure series. He is the co-creator and author of the bestselling Star Trek: New Frontier series for Pocket Books, and has also written such Trek novels as Q-Squared, The Siege, Q-in-Law, Vendetta, I, Q (with John deLancie), A Rock and a Hard Place and Imzadi. He produced the three Babylon 5 Centauri Prime novels, and has also had his short fiction published in such collections as Shock Rock, Shock Rock II, and Otherwere, as well as Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Peter’s comic book resume includes an award-winning twelve-year run on The Incredible Hulk, and he has also worked on such varied and popular titles as Supergirl, Young Justice, Soulsearchers and Company, Aquaman, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, X-Factor, Star Trek, Wolverine, The Phantom, Sachs & Violens, Fallen Angel, The Dark Tower, and many others. He has also written comic book related novels, such as The Incredible Hulk: What Savage Beast, and co-edited The Ultimate Hulk short story collection. Furthermore, his opinion column, “But I Digress . . . ,” has been running in the industry trade newspaper The Comic Buyers’s Guide for nearly a decade, and in that time has been the paper’s consistently most popular feature and was also collected into a trade paperback edition.
Peter is also the writer for two popular video games: Shadow Complex and Spider-Man: Edge of Time.
Peter is the co-creator, with popular science fiction icon Bill Mumy (of Lost in Space and Babylon 5 fame) of the Cable Ace Award-nominated science fiction series Space Cases, which ran for two seasons on Nickelodeon. He has written several scripts for the Hugo Award winning TV series Babylon 5, and the sequel series, Crusade. He has also written several films for Full Moon Entertainment and co-produced two of them, including two installments in the popular Trancers series, as well as the science fiction western spoof Oblivion, which won the Gold Award at the 1994 Houston International Film Festival for best Theatrical Feature Film, Fantasy/Horror category.
Peter’s awards and citations include: the Haxtur Award 1996 (Spain), Best Comic script; OZCon 1995 award (Australia), Favorite International Writer; Comic Buyers Guide 1995 Fan Awards, Favorite writer; Wizard Fan Award Winner 1993; Golden Duck Award for Young Adult Series (Starfleet Academy), 1994; UK Comic Art Award, 1993; Will Eisner Comic Industry Award, 1993. He lives in New York with his wife, Kathleen, and his four children, Shana, Gwen, Ariel, and Caroline.
You thought you knew about King Arthur and his knights? Guess again!
Learn here, for the first time, the down-and-dirty royal secrets that plagued Camelot as told by someone who was actually there, and adapted by acclaimed New York Times bestseller Peter David. Full of sensationalism, startling secrets and astounding revelations, The Camelot Papers is to the realm of Arthur what the Pentagon Papers is to the military: something that all those concerned would rather you didn’t see. What are you waiting for?
DuckBob Spinowitz has a problem. It isn’t the fact that he has the head of a duck—the abduction was years ago and he’s learned to live with it. But now those same aliens are back, and they claim they need his help! Can a man whose only talents are bird calls and bad jokes be expected to save the universe?
No Small Bills is the hilarious new science fiction novel from award-winning, bestselling author Aaron Rosenberg. See why the NOOK Blog called it “an absurdly brilliant romp”—buy a copy and start laughing your tail feathers off today!
At the age of thirty-eight, Zeno Aristos has quit the NYPD but can’t figure out what he wants to do with his life. Then someone close to him is kidnapped, and the search leads through a gauntlet of increasingly dark and cryptic forces. The deeper Zeno digs, the more he realizes he’s dealing not with an earthly adversary but with an entity steeped in the deepest and most malevolent of ancient mysteries.
In Fight The Gods, Friedman takes a major creative step beyond the Star Trek novels, comic books, and television scripts with which his name has become synonymous, and braves the sinister rooftops and mystical back alleys of urban fantasy. Whatever you think you know of him or of his work . . . you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Matt Fisher was a normal boy—until he found the Door. The Door that led to the House. The House whose Doors opened into places all over the world—and into worlds that had been, and would be, and even never were. But Matt wasn’t the only one who’d found his way in. Now he had something the man named Twig wanted, something that could sow the seeds to everything’s destruction. This first book in the spine-tingling Latchkeys series, written by internationally best-selling author Steven Savile, sets the stage for more adventures with Matt Fisher and the rest of the Latchkeys Kids!
London, 1593. Christopher Marlowe—playwright, spy, and renowned womanizer—is desperately working on what could be his greatest play. Inspiration eludes him, until a chance encounter with a dark temptress rekindles his passion. But something doesn’t want him finishing, and it’s not just the Queen’s Privy Council. Illness and madness rampage through the streets, causing death and mayhem. Can the incandescent playwright stop the chaos before it overwhelms the entire city?
This new oc
cult thriller from bestselling authors Aaron Rosenberg and Steven Savile combines Elizabethan theatre, ancient mythology, and ageless seduction to create a dark, gripping tale that is both as old as time itself and wholly original.
Athis, an apprentice wizard in the Crimson Keep, isn’t the brightest flame in the candelabra. So when he and another apprentice named Belid summon a demon and then panic, trouble ensues—trouble that threatens to snowball wildly out of control. Will they and their fellow student Klaria be able to deal with the consequences before their master finds out? Will the Crimson Keep still be standing when it’s all over?
Demon Circle is an original novella from Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Bob Greenberger, Glenn Hauman, Aaron Rosenberg, and Howard Weinstein, the writers behind the new author-driven publishing venture Crazy 8 Press. They wrote this story live at ShoreLeave33, and are donating all proceeds to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which protects the First Amendment rights of comic book writers, artists, retailers, and fans.
Peter David
Michael Jan Friedman
Robert Greenberger
Glenn Hauman
Aaron Rosenberg
Howard Weinstein
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from our collection of crazy-talented authors!
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Heights Of The Depths
the outskirts of feruel
the spires
the land of feend
firedraque hall, Perriz
the vastly waters
the upper reaches of suislan
the spires
the outskirts of feruel
en route to Perriz
upper reaches of suislan
the vastly waters
Perriz
the spires
off the coast of the city/state of venets
upper and lower reaches of suislan
the vastly waters
firedraque hall, Perriz
the spires
the streets of porto
the upper reaches of suislan
the sewers of Perriz
the spires
the vastly waters
the upper and lower reaches of suislan
Porto
firedraque hall, Perriz
the lower reaches of suislan
the spires
Perriz
the spires
Perriz
The Spires
About the Author
Other books