THE MIRROR OF WORLDS – snippet 16:
Sharina'd managed to sleep in the carriage during much of her return from West Sesile, but she jerked awake when the iron tires began hammering on the bricks of the Main North Road running along the front of the palace compound. She rubbed her eyes. She hadn't slept well, but any sleep at all was a luxury nowadays.
She smiled. She didn't think she'd had what she'd call a good night's sleep since the Change. There was simply too much for Princess Sharina to do.
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PYRAMID POWER – snippet 42:
There was a knot, he noticed now, just above his head. That was how come he’d managed to hold so long. Doubtless it was there for just that reason—to prolong the agony. and letting the victim cling to life for a few extra minutes. Jerry stood there absorbing the situation for a while as the cloud broke, letting him look onto a vista of distant branches and still more distant nothingness. He took a deep breath, relishing being able to do so. “Maybe,” he said to the squirrel on the branch in front of him, “You’d like to tell me who you are, and just what is going on. I owe you my life. And I gather that Loki is involved.”
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THE MIRROR OF WORLDS – snippet 15:
"Mistress?" said Karpos. His left hand twitched unconsciously, rotating the arrow back to nock. He caught himself, glowered, and snatched the arrow away with his free hand. "Mistress, do you think that's a good idea?"
"I think it's a humane idea, Master Karpos," Ilna snapped. "I don't insist that being humane is good, but it's how I prefer to act when I can. If Temple doesn't want to remain alone at the place his companions were massacred, then I can't say I blame him. When we arrive at a more suitable place, he can leave us."
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1634: THE BAVARIAN CRISIS – snippet 29:
Amberg, Upper Palatinate
The Swede’s regent of the Upper Palatinate was equally puzzled. “Why is she coming? Why not?” Duke Ernst asked. He threw up his hands. “Tell me why I should be surprised.”
In 1628, Duke Maximilian had demanded that all residents of the Upper Palatinate either become Catholic within six months or leave the country. Just in Amberg, the capital city, about ten percent of the citizens had left.
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PYRAMID POWER – snippet 41:
Chapter 25
On a limb of the great tree, an ash tree so large that its branches split the sky and its roots went down into the very bones of the earth, Jerry Lukacs was learning how you kept someone in suspense. The spear-wound in his side didn’t help either. Hanging by his hands on a rope over nothingness, Jerry wondered if it was going to be his nerve or his arms that gave way first.
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"Mistress?" said Karpos. His left hand twitched unconsciously, rotating the arrow back to nock. He caught himself, glowered, and snatched the arrow away with his free hand. "Mistress, do you think that's a good idea?"
"I think it's a humane idea, Master Karpos," Ilna snapped. "I don't insist that being humane is good, but it's how I prefer to act when I can. If Temple doesn't want to remain alone at the place his companions were massacred, then I can't say I blame him. When we arrive at a more suitable place, he can leave us."
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PYRAMID POWER – snippet 40:
“I think we have our spy,” said Liz.
Thrúd nodded. “That’s powerful magic that. What are those things?”
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THE MIRROR OF WORLDS – snippet 14:
"Big fella, isn't he?" Karpos said, straightening and backing against a pilaster. He hadn't drawn his bow, but the broad point of his arrow was pointed at the spine of the man on the floor.
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PYRAMID POWER – snippet 39:
Jötunheim lies to the north and east of Asgard. Liz thought it was probably a good place for hunting snarks. It was a place—if she remembered her Lewis Carroll correctly—entirely composed of chasms and crags. And even finding that the snark was a boojum, was easier than taking another voyage on Naglfar. The nails formed a flexible armor, very like fish-scales. But unlike fish-scales they did not have anything inside them (like a fish, for example) to stop them flexing with each and every wave. Liz was an old sailor. She didn’t mind the ship pitching or rolling. But the deck moving in parallel with the waves under her feet was too much! She understood now why Thor and Thrúd had been so unenthusiastic about the corpse-ship. It wasn’t squeamishness. It was just a liking for being able to remain standing up.
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THE MIRROR OF WORLDS – snippet 13:
"My government will deal justly with all members of the kingdom, human and Corl," Garric said when the deep-throated growling had subsided enough for him to speak over it. "We'll provide you with hogs to raise for meat, as we've done with keeps who've already accepted my authority."
Something warm was sticking to the back of Garric's wrist; he glanced down, then flicked away a gobbet of skin and hair. In a melee like that, it may not have come from Barog's body. The Coerli really are beasts.
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