Dark Foundations
Authors: Chris Walley
Tags: #FICTION / Christian / Futuristic, #FICTION / Religious
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The Dark Foundations
Copyright © 2006 by Chris Walley. All rights reserved.
Cover illustration copyright © 2006 by Mel Grant. All rights reserved.
Designed by Dean H. Renninger
Edited by Linda Washington
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Walley, Chris.
The dark foundations / Chris Walley.
p. cm. â (The lamb among the stars ; bk. 2.)
Summary: As the Lord-Emperor of the Dominion prepares to attack Farholme, then the Assembly, Farholme's Commander Merral D'Avanos braces for war admid doubts about the planet's defenses and his own weaknesses, but then receives an offer of assistance from a most unexpected source.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4143-0767-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4143-0767-5 (hardcover: alk. paper)
[1. Christian lifeâFiction. 2. Science fiction.] I. Title. II. Series: Walley, Chris. Lamb among the stars ; bk. 2.
PZ7.W159315Dar 2006
[Fic]âdc22 2006009726
To my many friends in the A Rocha Trust
who seek to be the faithful stewards of
the Creator by preserving his creation.
Their faith, vision, and courage are an example.
Such music (as 'tis said)
Before was never made,
But when of old the sons of morning sung,
While the Creator great
His constellations set,
And the well-balanced world on hinges hung,
And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid the welt'ring waves their oozy channel keep.
JOHN MILTON,
ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank many people for help on what has been, in every sense, a long book. My wife, Alison, and the “next generation”âJohn (and Celia) and Markâwere continuous encouragements. As an editor, Linda Washington somehow managed to be simultaneously brave and ruthless and tactful and gentle.
The A Rocha Trust (www.arocha.org), to whom this book is dedicated and with whom I have had many dealings, is a Christian organization working to conserve nature. If places such as the Aammiq Wetland do survive into the future, their labors will have been a major factor.
Table of Contents
Prologue
I
n telling of the return of evil to the Assembly of Worlds and how Merral D'Avanos of Farholme fought against it, we have heard how the intruders came to Farholme and how their space vessel was found and destroyed at the battle of Fallambet Lake Five. Yet so far, our focus has only been on Merral and Farholme. The rest of the Assembly and the forces of the Dominion have been on only the very edges of our tale. Now though, as the field of battle opens up and the greatest of all wars looms, the scope of our tale must also broaden.
As we begin that account, we must briefly step back to just over a month before the battle at Fallambet Lake Five. For even as Merral searched for the intruder ship, his remote world was becoming the center of wider interest. At the very heart of each of the two human realmsâthe Dominion of Lord-Emperor Nezhuala and the Assembly of Worldsâminds and wills were turning rapidly toward Farholme.
With very different intentions.
Maps
1