Maze Of The Beast

The international bestselling series returns for a new generation with a fresh look and bonus content from the legends of Deltora.Deltora is a land of monsters and magic. The evil Shadow Lord has become aware that Lief, Barda, and Jasmine are searching for the seven lost gems of the magic Belt of Deltora. He knows that the Belt's power will threaten his terrifying rule if the gems can be returned to it. Five gems have already been found. The next stone lies hidden in the underwater lair of the hideous and ferocious Glus. Already pursued by the servants of the Shadow Lord, Lief, Barda, and Jasmine will need all their strength and courage to face the Maze of the Beast.

The evil Shadow Lord has become aware that Lief, Barda, and Jasmaine are searching for the seven lost gems of the magic Belt of Deltora. He knows that the Belt's power will threaten his terrifying rule if the gems can be returned to it. Lief, Barda and Jasmine will need all their strength and courage to face the Maze of the Beast and to find the sixth stone.

Three companions brave the underwater lair of the ferocious Glus to recover the sixth gem for the Belt of Deltora.

Peter Dingwall, a once successful playwright, is running a weekend course on the art of writing plays. Five - the minimum number for a course - aspiring playwrights gather with varying degrees of enthusiasm and expectation for his class in this little country town. Clare, a housewife, ambitious for social as much as artistic reason; Brian, the wisecracking dentist; Margaret, whose bout with polio twenty years ago has left her in a wheelchair; David, a secondary school teacher of English and Neil - abrasive, sure of himself and a surprising choreographer! They have all been asked to come prepared with a piece written about their fathers and to read this aloud to the rest of the group. From this exercise, and others over the weekend we learn the legacy each has struggled to live with - a theme which is central to the plot.

This is a collection of nine short stories. While The Day of the Nefilim was a meandering trip through some of the world’s great conspiracy theories and New Age tropes, Air for Fire is a collection of short tales that happen in every timeline but this one. Shameless historical revisionism, a chronic disregard for physics, all in orbit around a thoroughly judgemental and conservative core, mean there is something here for steampunks, mythpunks, clockpunks, and all indulgers in history, true or otherwise. THE STORIES Air for Fire“Cardinal Synesius,” — I have been asked more than once, in so many words — “you were close to the pagan Hypatia, one of her students — what really happened? And how is it that you have become a Cardinal?” The Princess AslaugaThere was once a girl — excuse me, a young woman, you decide — who on account of having no excuse at all for an episode of bad behaviour, bad language, and bad attitude, was sent to her room. Not straight to her room, which is to say, without dinner, because none of the behaviour, language, or attitude were irredeemably atrocious or outrageous — but the whole package, considered together, was of the type about which grown-ups eventually, and quite rightfully, come to the conclusion that they have just had enough. The TowerI have been told that we have been building this tower for thousands of years. I have no direct experience; no reason to believe this — nor to doubt it — but it is what I have heard, and I can see a little way into the waters that keep rising, lapping below our feet as we keep building, board after board, nail after nail. BerthezeneUnder a tree on a hill, from the top of which is visible everything that is about to concern us, gather two shades, both recently departed from the world. One is, or was, French, and is, or was, a Soldier of the Line, his uniform torn and dirty in a manner that leaves us little doubt as to the unenviable nature of his demise. The One a Dog Runs ToCeba has been taken. I shall describe how and by whom presently, but first, you should understand that there is one male for whom her skin is the dark musk honey scent of all women; for whom her eyes are the eyes of every goddess, every female bodhisattva, dakini, temple whore, all these things at once; her touch is the sum of everything, all become one, the universe into one experience, all from the recollection of a touch, of skin barely brushed against skin. All That the ThundererHe can just make it out. There are wisps of light forming in the sky above him. He can see the spreading clouds of doubt and confusion that the Norwegians have left in their wake overnight. RhakotisReader, there was a time when the world was covered, in all its length and breadth (and the world is flat; you can trust your senses), by a great dome of ice. The dome was not spherical; it was elliptical, or squashed, if you preference is for ungeometrical talk. Feeding the BeastOnce upon a time, there were two people. If you know anything at all about them, then that is enough for you to know the beginning, the end, and everything of our story. And if that were the case, we would just as well end this right here. The Serpent, the HorseIn Lake Tritonis there are two islands. They are Phla and Mene, and they are set like a pair of jewels on the water, exquisite and many-faceted on the pale skirt of the great wide surface of the lake. They are jewels, in a field of blue and green.