A Viking temple. A Viking ship. Both preserved in the clinging, black mud of the North Yorkshire estuary. Press and TV watch over the archaeologists'' shoulders as past and present merge. And while huge, death-cold creatures stalk and destroy through the blizzards of an eerily early winter, modern computer science and the dark night-knowledge of the old Norse gods disinter a terrible truth about a past that is sleeping, not dead.

The chronicles of THE WINTER OF THE WORLD echo down the ages in half-remembered myth and song - tales of mysterious powers of the Mastersmiths, of the forging of great weapons, of the subterranean kingdoms of the duergar, of Gods who walked abroad, and of the Powers that struggled endlessly for dominion. In the Northlands, beleaguered by the ever-encroaching Ice and the marauding Ekwesh, a young cowherd, Alv, saved from the raiders by the mysterious Mastersmith, discovers in himself an uncanny power to shape metal - but it is a power that may easily be turned to evil ends, and on a dreadful night Alv flees the Mastersmith, and embarks on the quest to find both his own destiny, and a weapon that will let him stand against the Power of the Ice.

The siege of Kerbryhaine had been raised, the Ekwesh hordes vanquished, the Mastersmith slain. But for Alv - now Elof the Smith - the war was not yet won: Kerbryhaine was still a divided city; the Ekwesh, bloodily defeated, would look for revenge; and the Ice, implacably malevolent, continued its inexorable march southward. So from divided Kerbryhaine Elof, Kermorvan and his companions mounted an expedition to the legendary lost cities of the East; if they managed to reunite the war-torn tribes, perhaps they could stand together against the menace of the Ice. But to Elof and Kermorvan the journey would also bring knowledge: of the Powers ranged for and against them; and the secrets within themselves waiting to be revealed - secrets that would play a part in the war yet to come.

In the great battle which had returned control of Morvannec, the legendary city, to mankind, Elof the Smith had saved Kara, his love, from the immortal Power which ruled her. But in the seven years since, the Smith has grown fearful that Kara, herself no mortal, will one day leave him. In his fear, Elof makes the mistake of drawing on his own uncanny powers to bind Kara closer to him; he only succeeds in driving her away. Haunted, guilt-ridden, Elof can do nothing but follow his love eastwards, across the Seas of Sunrise, towards the city of Kerys in which Kermorvan of Kerbryhaine''s people had originated. In the myth-filled lands of the East, where the Powers of the Ice contemplate the total extinction of life, Elof must face his past, his future and his destiny.

Centuries before the building of the Great Causeway, when the enveloping Ice seems to be in retreat, the lands of the North and South are on uneasy terms. War appears to be inevitable. But there is still some trade between them, particularly for the peerless weapons created by the Northern mastersmiths. In one small town, Kunrad, one young mastersmith, has carved out a reputation as a fine armourer. Helped by his two apprentices, the ox-like Olvar and the silver-tongued Gille, Kunrad has created the greatest suit of armour ever made: armour fit for a hero or a king. When that armour is stolen by a powerful Southern lord, Kunrad has only one concern - to regain it. And so begins an epic journey of discovery, filled with danger, magic - and love.

Gille Kilmarsson is a mastersmith and musician in a quiet northern town. But he yearns for something more. When he saves a Southern merchant ship from the savagery of the corsairs, he takes as his only reward an old musical instrument. And his life changes forever.For the instrument has an ancient, magical past and it soon leads Gille and his companion, Olvar, on an amazing voyage of adventure and discovery. A voyage in which they must confront not only the mysteries of the sea but also a ruthless, barbaric tribe intent on massacring an ancient people fleeing the encroachment of the restless Ice...

The Winter Chronicles record many tales of the folk who fled out of the west seeking refuge from the spreading dominion of the Ice. The savage, soulless warriors had destroyed the ancient civilisations, and all that survived was legend. Among those legends is the extraordinary story of Alya, a seer''s son. Still struggling to control the magic he has inherited from his father, Alya is cast adrift in a hostile land. With nothing left to lose, he embarks on a quest - to avenge the slaughter of his kin, and to rescue the girl he loves. It is a quest that will lead Alya through a world in turmoil - a world of magic and ice.

Sail away to a world of magic! Steve is a hollow man, both in his job and his personal life, until one night, near the docks of his home city. A night that changes his life. As a dockyard fight turns into something much more fantastic and deadly, Steve finds himself drawn into a world he neither understands nor believes - at first. His meeting with the mercurial Jyp leads to a raid on his office by beings not-quite-human, and the kidnapping of Clare, his secretary. Aware of strong feelings for the first time in years, Steve enlists the aid of Jyp and his roisterin friends to sail after Clare ad her captors...to Chase the Morning.

''East of the sun and west of the moon...''...you may find a freighter carrying ivory to Huy Braseal, mammoth tusks to Tartessos and Ashkelon, spices from Cathay to Lyonesse. Another world, of infinite strangeness and high adventure, yet never far from our own; round a corner, through a door into a harbourside inn and you may find yourself there.Steve Fisher had been there once, had sailed the cloud archipelagos on a desperate quest to Hispaniola. Or had he? The memories have faded...was it only a dream? Then, in Bangkok, as he struggles to arrange a shipment of vital supplies to the endangered paradise of Bali, Steve finds himself catapulted back into that world, through the eerie gates of the Spiral - and into terrible dangers. For our there is something that wants him stopped, at any costs.Shadows from the past, from the present - and from somewhere that is neither, where myths and legends and terrifying archetypes stalk the world. Entangles by old loves and ancient hatreds, with witches and warlocks to help him and the original Bogeyman on his trail, Steve must fight to reconcile past and present in an epic battle of wits which leads him from the sleazy sex bars of Bangkok to the mist-shrouded islands of the South Seas...

The Spiral: where past and present meet, where myth and legend infiltrate the mundane world, where Hy Brasil and Babylon are but a short voyage away - via the cloud archipelagos...You can''t always find it - but it can always find you.And when it finds Steve Fisher again, he is plucked from his lonely life into the heart of a breathtaking adventure. An apocalyptic struggle that has raged for millennia must be resolved - or Fisher may see the dawn of a new Dark Age.

Maxie''s in trouble! Again. Only, this time it''s serious. Driving a stolen Ferrari Testarossa off a motorway flyover at something approaching Mach 1, with the police in hot pursuit, is no way to make old bones. But it''s child''s play to what follows. For Maxie, small-time thief and general low-life, has crashed into the Spiral, a strange whirlpool of time and space, where, it seems, almost anything can happen, and anyone appear. The two Elizabethan alchemists, for instance, who are convinced that Maxie can help them with their magickal endeavours. And the swashbuckling band of spectral pirates who promise Maxie power and riches beyond his wildest dreams - if only he''ll join them.

Life on Earth was intolerable - and yet Man had stayed there, his dreams and potential suffocating under the dead weight of bureaucracy. The stars were attainable - thanks to the Infall Drive - but only a few heard the call of deep space. Some had already gone to colonise a new world. The second ship was ready at last. Ready to escape the Earth''s prison; ready to seek refuge in deepest space. But it wasn''t only freedom that awaited it...

Young Walter Scot is hot on the heels of cattle raiders in the service of the dark Lord of Soulis when he encounters his kinsman Michael Scot - and his life is changed for ever. Even in the turbulent Borderlands of the thirteenth-century Scotland Michael had a fearsome reputation as a magician and master of forbidden arts, trafficking with the demons of middle air. Now he has returned from years of exile with the Pope''s pardon and the favour of the Emperor, a peaceful man of God - and yet strange events still follow him.The mysterious fire that blasts the raiders. The fourth voice that laughs where only three men were seen. The luxury that suddenly appears to furnish his long-abandoned castle - the mystery about him only deepens.But still darker forces are at work behind the bloody rivalries of Border politics, black sorceries stirring within the sinister castle of Hermitage. When Walter''s father is ambushed and killed, his betrothed flung into a dungeon and his lands and his very life threatened by the necromancer-baron Soulis, Michael appears to offer the aid he desperately needs. Aid that, as Walter soon discovers, is almost as frightening as his enemies'' threats - as he is transported to another world, ensnaring, enchanting, seductive. There he finds a new life, new heroism and a new, all-consuming love. But there is a terrible price he must pay...

A Viking temple. A Viking ship. Both preserved in the clinging, black mud of the North Yorkshire estuary. Press and TV watch over the archaeologists'' shoulders as past and present merge. And while huge, death-cold creatures stalk and destroy through the blizzards of an eerily early winter, modern computer science and the dark night-knowledge of the old Norse gods disinter a terrible truth about a past that is sleeping, not dead.

The chronicles of THE WINTER OF THE WORLD echo down the ages in half-remembered myth and song - tales of mysterious powers of the Mastersmiths, of the forging of great weapons, of the subterranean kingdoms of the duergar, of Gods who walked abroad, and of the Powers that struggled endlessly for dominion. In the Northlands, beleaguered by the ever-encroaching Ice and the marauding Ekwesh, a young cowherd, Alv, saved from the raiders by the mysterious Mastersmith, discovers in himself an uncanny power to shape metal - but it is a power that may easily be turned to evil ends, and on a dreadful night Alv flees the Mastersmith, and embarks on the quest to find both his own destiny, and a weapon that will let him stand against the Power of the Ice.

The siege of Kerbryhaine had been raised, the Ekwesh hordes vanquished, the Mastersmith slain. But for Alv - now Elof the Smith - the war was not yet won: Kerbryhaine was still a divided city; the Ekwesh, bloodily defeated, would look for revenge; and the Ice, implacably malevolent, continued its inexorable march southward. So from divided Kerbryhaine Elof, Kermorvan and his companions mounted an expedition to the legendary lost cities of the East; if they managed to reunite the war-torn tribes, perhaps they could stand together against the menace of the Ice. But to Elof and Kermorvan the journey would also bring knowledge: of the Powers ranged for and against them; and the secrets within themselves waiting to be revealed - secrets that would play a part in the war yet to come.

In the great battle which had returned control of Morvannec, the legendary city, to mankind, Elof the Smith had saved Kara, his love, from the immortal Power which ruled her. But in the seven years since, the Smith has grown fearful that Kara, herself no mortal, will one day leave him. In his fear, Elof makes the mistake of drawing on his own uncanny powers to bind Kara closer to him; he only succeeds in driving her away. Haunted, guilt-ridden, Elof can do nothing but follow his love eastwards, across the Seas of Sunrise, towards the city of Kerys in which Kermorvan of Kerbryhaine''s people had originated. In the myth-filled lands of the East, where the Powers of the Ice contemplate the total extinction of life, Elof must face his past, his future and his destiny.

Centuries before the building of the Great Causeway, when the enveloping Ice seems to be in retreat, the lands of the North and South are on uneasy terms. War appears to be inevitable. But there is still some trade between them, particularly for the peerless weapons created by the Northern mastersmiths. In one small town, Kunrad, one young mastersmith, has carved out a reputation as a fine armourer. Helped by his two apprentices, the ox-like Olvar and the silver-tongued Gille, Kunrad has created the greatest suit of armour ever made: armour fit for a hero or a king. When that armour is stolen by a powerful Southern lord, Kunrad has only one concern - to regain it. And so begins an epic journey of discovery, filled with danger, magic - and love.

Gille Kilmarsson is a mastersmith and musician in a quiet northern town. But he yearns for something more. When he saves a Southern merchant ship from the savagery of the corsairs, he takes as his only reward an old musical instrument. And his life changes forever.For the instrument has an ancient, magical past and it soon leads Gille and his companion, Olvar, on an amazing voyage of adventure and discovery. A voyage in which they must confront not only the mysteries of the sea but also a ruthless, barbaric tribe intent on massacring an ancient people fleeing the encroachment of the restless Ice...

The Winter Chronicles record many tales of the folk who fled out of the west seeking refuge from the spreading dominion of the Ice. The savage, soulless warriors had destroyed the ancient civilisations, and all that survived was legend. Among those legends is the extraordinary story of Alya, a seer''s son. Still struggling to control the magic he has inherited from his father, Alya is cast adrift in a hostile land. With nothing left to lose, he embarks on a quest - to avenge the slaughter of his kin, and to rescue the girl he loves. It is a quest that will lead Alya through a world in turmoil - a world of magic and ice.

Sail away to a world of magic! Steve is a hollow man, both in his job and his personal life, until one night, near the docks of his home city. A night that changes his life. As a dockyard fight turns into something much more fantastic and deadly, Steve finds himself drawn into a world he neither understands nor believes - at first. His meeting with the mercurial Jyp leads to a raid on his office by beings not-quite-human, and the kidnapping of Clare, his secretary. Aware of strong feelings for the first time in years, Steve enlists the aid of Jyp and his roisterin friends to sail after Clare ad her captors...to Chase the Morning.

''East of the sun and west of the moon...''...you may find a freighter carrying ivory to Huy Braseal, mammoth tusks to Tartessos and Ashkelon, spices from Cathay to Lyonesse. Another world, of infinite strangeness and high adventure, yet never far from our own; round a corner, through a door into a harbourside inn and you may find yourself there.Steve Fisher had been there once, had sailed the cloud archipelagos on a desperate quest to Hispaniola. Or had he? The memories have faded...was it only a dream? Then, in Bangkok, as he struggles to arrange a shipment of vital supplies to the endangered paradise of Bali, Steve finds himself catapulted back into that world, through the eerie gates of the Spiral - and into terrible dangers. For our there is something that wants him stopped, at any costs.Shadows from the past, from the present - and from somewhere that is neither, where myths and legends and terrifying archetypes stalk the world. Entangles by old loves and ancient hatreds, with witches and warlocks to help him and the original Bogeyman on his trail, Steve must fight to reconcile past and present in an epic battle of wits which leads him from the sleazy sex bars of Bangkok to the mist-shrouded islands of the South Seas...

The Spiral: where past and present meet, where myth and legend infiltrate the mundane world, where Hy Brasil and Babylon are but a short voyage away - via the cloud archipelagos...You can''t always find it - but it can always find you.And when it finds Steve Fisher again, he is plucked from his lonely life into the heart of a breathtaking adventure. An apocalyptic struggle that has raged for millennia must be resolved - or Fisher may see the dawn of a new Dark Age.

Maxie''s in trouble! Again. Only, this time it''s serious. Driving a stolen Ferrari Testarossa off a motorway flyover at something approaching Mach 1, with the police in hot pursuit, is no way to make old bones. But it''s child''s play to what follows. For Maxie, small-time thief and general low-life, has crashed into the Spiral, a strange whirlpool of time and space, where, it seems, almost anything can happen, and anyone appear. The two Elizabethan alchemists, for instance, who are convinced that Maxie can help them with their magickal endeavours. And the swashbuckling band of spectral pirates who promise Maxie power and riches beyond his wildest dreams - if only he''ll join them.

Life on Earth was intolerable - and yet Man had stayed there, his dreams and potential suffocating under the dead weight of bureaucracy. The stars were attainable - thanks to the Infall Drive - but only a few heard the call of deep space. Some had already gone to colonise a new world. The second ship was ready at last. Ready to escape the Earth''s prison; ready to seek refuge in deepest space. But it wasn''t only freedom that awaited it...

Young Walter Scot is hot on the heels of cattle raiders in the service of the dark Lord of Soulis when he encounters his kinsman Michael Scot - and his life is changed for ever. Even in the turbulent Borderlands of the thirteenth-century Scotland Michael had a fearsome reputation as a magician and master of forbidden arts, trafficking with the demons of middle air. Now he has returned from years of exile with the Pope''s pardon and the favour of the Emperor, a peaceful man of God - and yet strange events still follow him.The mysterious fire that blasts the raiders. The fourth voice that laughs where only three men were seen. The luxury that suddenly appears to furnish his long-abandoned castle - the mystery about him only deepens.But still darker forces are at work behind the bloody rivalries of Border politics, black sorceries stirring within the sinister castle of Hermitage. When Walter''s father is ambushed and killed, his betrothed flung into a dungeon and his lands and his very life threatened by the necromancer-baron Soulis, Michael appears to offer the aid he desperately needs. Aid that, as Walter soon discovers, is almost as frightening as his enemies'' threats - as he is transported to another world, ensnaring, enchanting, seductive. There he finds a new life, new heroism and a new, all-consuming love. But there is a terrible price he must pay...