Copyright 1990 by Tad Williams.

All Rights Reserved.

Jacket Art and Frontispiece by Michael Whelan-

Maps by Tad Williams-

For color prints of Michael Whelan paintings,

please contact:

Glass Onion Graphics

P.O. Box 88

Brookdeld, CT 06804

DAW Book Collectors No. 824.

This scries is dedicated to my mother, Barbara Jean Evans, who

taught to me a deep affection for Toad Hall, the Hundred Aker

Woods, the Shire, and many other hidden places and countries

beyond the fields we know. She also induced in me a lifelong desire

to make my own discoveries, and to share them with others. I wish

to share these books with her.

Book designed by Julian Hamer.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

Any resemblance to persons living or dead

is strictly coincidental.

Printed in the U.S.A.

Quality Printing and Binding by:

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company

1009 Sloan Street

Crawfordsville, IN 47933 U.S.A.

Autfw^s Note

. . . Of all the many changing things

In dreary dancing past us whirled,

To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,

Words alone are certain good.

Where are now the waning kings.

Word be-mockers?By the Rood,

Where are now the warring kings?

An idle word is now their glory,

By the stammering schoolboy said,

Reading some entangled story:

The kings of the old time are dead;

The wandering earth herself may be

Only a sudden flaming word,

In clanging space a moment heard,

Troubling the endless reverie.

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

(from The Song of the Happy Shepherd)

I am indebted to Eva Cummmg, Nancy Deming-Wilhams. Paul Hudspeth,

Peter Stampfei, and Doug Werner, who all had a hand in the cultivation of

this book. Their insightful comments and suggestions have taken rootin

some instances, putting forth rather surprising blossoms Also, and as

usual, special thanks go to my brave editors, Betsy Wollheim and Sheila

Gilbert, who have labored mightily through both storm and drought.

(By the way, all [he above mentioned arejust the kind of folk I want at

my side if I'm ever ambushed by Norns. This might be construed as a

somewhat dubious honor, but 'tis mine own to bestow.)

NOTE: There is a cast of characters, a glossary of terms, and a guide to

pronunciation at the back of this volume.

Synopsis of

The Dragon6one Chair

For eons the Hayholc belonged to the immortal Sithi, but they had fled

the great castle before the onslaught of Mankind. Men have long ruled this

greatest of strongholds, and the rest of Osten Ard as "well. Presfer John,

High King of all the nations of men, is its most recent master; after an

early life of triumph and glory, he has presided over decades of peace from

his skeletal throne, the Oragonbone Chair.

Simon, an awkward fourteen year old, is one of the Hayholt's scullions.

His parents are dead, his only real family the chamber maids and their

stern mistress, Rachel the Dragon. When Simon can escape his kitchen-work

he steals away to the cluttered chambers of Doctor Morgenes, the castle's

eccentric scholar. When the old man invites Simon to be his apprentice,

the youth is overjoyeduntil he discovers that Morgenes prefers teaching

reading and writing to magic.

Soon ancient King John will die, so Elias, the older of his two sons,

prepares to take the throne. Josua, Elias' somber brother, nicknamed

Lackhand because of a disfiguring wound, argues harshly with the king-

to-be about Prymtes, the ill-reputed priest who is one of Elias' closest

advisers. The brothers' feud is a cloud of foreboding over castle and

country.

Elias' reign as king starts well. but a drought comes and plague strikes

several of the nations of Osten Ard. Soon outlaws roam the roads and

people begin to vanish from isolated villages. The order of things is

breaking down, and the king's subjects are losing confidence in his rule,

but nothing seems to bother the monarch or his friends. As rumblings of

discontent begin to be heard throughout the kingdom, Elias' brother Josua

disappearsto plot rebellion, some say.

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Tad Williams

Ellas' misrule upsets many, including Duke Isyimnur of Rimmersgard

and Count Eolair, an emissary from the western country of Hernystir.

Even King Elias' own daughter Miriamele is uneasy, especially about the

scarlet-robed Pryratcs, her father's trusted adviser.

Meanwhile Simon is muddling along as Morgcncs' helper. The two

become fast friends despite Simon's mooncalf nature and the doctor's

refusal to teach him anything resembling magic. During one of his mean-

dcrings through the secret byways of the labyrinthine Hayholt, Simon

discovers a secret passage and is almost captured there by Pryratcs. Elud-

ing the priest, he enters a hidden underground chamber and finds Josua,

who is being held captive for use in some terrible ritual planned by

Pryrates. Simon fetches Doctor Morgcnes and the two of them free Josua

and take him to the doctor's chambers, where Josua is sent to freedom

down a tunnel that leads beneath the ancient castle. Then, as Morgenes is

sending off messenger birds bearing news of what has happened to myste-

rious friends, Pryrates and the king's guard come to arrest the doctor and

Simon. Morgenes is killed fighting Pryrates, but his sacrifice allows

Simon to escape into the tunnel.

Half-maddened, Simon makes his way through the midnight corridors

beneath the castle, which contain the ruins of the old Sithi palace. He

surfaces in the graveyard beyond the town wall, then is lured by the light

of a bonfire. He witnesses a weird scene: Pryrates and King Elias engaged

in a ritual with black-robed, white-faced creatures. The pale things give

Elias a strange gray sword of disturbing power, named Sorrou'. Simon

flees.

Life in the wilderness on the edge of the great forest Aldheorte is

miserable, and weeks later Simon is nearly dead from hunger and exhaus-

tion, but still far away from his destination, Josua's northern keep at

Naglimund. Going to a forest cot to beg, he finds a strange being caught

in a trapone of the Sithi, a race thought to be mythical, or at least long-

vanished. The cotsman returns, but before he can kill the helpless Sitha,

Simon strikes him down. The Sitha, once freed, stops only long enough

to fire a white arrow at Simon, then disappears. A new voice tells Simon

to take the white arrow, Chat it is a Sithi gift.

The dwarfish newcomer is a troll named Binabik, who rides a great gray

wolf. He tells Simon he was only passing by, but now he will accompany

the boy to Naglimund. Simon and Binabik endure many adventures and

strange events on the way to Naglimund: they come to realize that they

have fallen afoul of a threat greater than merely a king and his counselor

deprived of their prisoner. At last, when they find themselves pursued by

unearthly white hounds who wear the brand ofStormspike, a mountain of

evil reputation in the far north, they are forced to head for the shelter of

Geloe's forest house, taking with them a pair of travelers they have rescued

from the hounds. Geloe, a blunt-spoken forest woman with a reputation

STONE OFFAREWELL

Xlll

as a witch, confers with them and agrees that somehow the ancient Norns,

embittered relatives of the Sithi, have become embroiled in the fate of

Prcster John's kingdom.

Pursuers human and otherwise threaten them on their journey to

Naglimund. After Binabik is shot with an arrow, Simon and one of the

rescued travelers, a servant girl, must struggle on through the forest. They

are attacked by a shaggy giant and saved only by the appearance of Josua's

hunting party.

The prince brings them to Naglimund, where Binabik's wounds are

cared for, and where it is confirmed that Simon has stumbled into a

terrifying swirl of events. Elias is coming soon to besiege Josua's castle.

Simon's serving-girl companion was Princess Miriamele traveling in dis-

guise, fleeing her father, whom she fears has gone mad under Pryrates'

influence. From all over the north and elsewhere, frightened people are

flocking to Naglimund and Josua, their last protection against a mad king.

Then, as the prince and others discuss the coming battle, a strange old

Rimmersman named jamauga appears in the council's meeting hall. He is

a member of the League of the Scroll, a circle of scholars and initiates of

which Morgenes and Binabik's master were both part, and he brings more

grim news. Their enemy, he says, is not just Elias: the king is receiving

aid from Ineluki the Storm King, who had once been a prince of the

Sithibut who has been dead for five centuries, and whose bodiless

spirit now rules the Noms of Stormspike Mountain, pale relatives of the

banished Sithi.

It was the terrible magic of the gray sword Sorrow that caused Ineluki's

deaththat, and mankind's attack on the Sithi. The League of the Scroll

believes that Sorrow has been given to Elias as the first step in some

incomprehensible plan of revenge, a plan that will bring the earth beneath

the heel of the undcad Storm King. The only hope comes from a pro-

phetic poem that seems to suggest that "three swords" might help turn

back Ineluki's powerful magic.

One of the swords is the Storm King's Sorrow, already in (he hands of

their enemy. King Elias. Another is the Rimmersgard blade Minneyar,

which was also once at the Hayholt, but whose whereabouts are now

unknown. The third is Thorn, black sword of King John's greatest knight,

Sir Camaris. Jamauga and others think they have traced it to a location in

the frozen north. On this slim hope, Josua sends Binabik, Simon, and

several soldiers off" in search of Thorn, even as Naglimund prepares for

siege.

Others are affected by the growing crisis. Princess Miriamele, frustrated

by her uncle Josua's attempts to protect her, escapes Naglimund in

disguise, accompanied by the mysterious monk Cadrach. She hopes to make

her way to southern Nabban and plead with her relatives there to aid

Josua. Old Duke Isgrimnur, at Josua's urging, disguises his own very

XIV

Tad Williams

recognizable features and follows after to rescue her. Tiamak, a swamp-

dwelling Wrannaman scholar, receives a strange message from his old

mentor Morgcncs that tells of bad times coming and hints thatTiamak has

a part to play. Mae^win, daughter of the king of Hernystir, watches

helplessly as her own family and country are drawn into a whirlpool of

war by the treachery of High King Elias.

Simon and Binabik and their company are ambushed by In^en je^er,

huntsman of Stormspikc, and his servants. They are saved only by the

reappearance of the SithaJt'nfel, whom Simon had saved from the cotsman's

trap. When he learns of their quest, Jiriki decides to accompany them to

Urmsheim mountain, legendary abode of one of the great dragons, in

search of Thorn.

By the time Simon and the others reach the mountain. King Elias has

brought his besieging army to Josua's castle at Naglimund, and though

the first attacks arc repulsed, the defenders suffer great losses. At last Ellas'

forces seem to retreat and give up the siege, but before the stronghold's

inhabitants can celebrate, a weird storm appears on the northern horizon,

bearing down on Naglimund. The storm is the cloak under which Ineluki's

own horrifying army ofNorns and giants travels, and when the Red Hand.

the Storm King's chief servants, throw down Naglimund's gates, a terri-

ble slaughter begins. Josua and a few others manage to flee the ruin of the

castle. Before escaping into the great forest. Prince Josua curses Elias for his

conscienceless bargain with the Storm King and swears that he will take

their father's crown back.

Simon and his companions climb Urmsheim. coming through great

dangers to discover the Uduntree, a titanic frozen waterfall. There they

find Thorn in a tomblike cave. Before they can take the sword and make

their escape, Ingen Jeggcr appears once more and attacks with his troop

of soldiers. The battle awakens I^jarjuk, the white dragon, who has been

slumbering for years beneath the ice. Many on both sides are killed.

Simon alone is left standing, trapped on the edge of a cliff; as the ice*

worm bears down upon him, he lifts Thorn and swings it. The dragon's

scalding black blood spurts over him as he is struck senseless.

Simon awakens in a cave on the troll mountain of Yiqanuc. jiriki and

Haestan, an Erkynlandish soldier, nurse him to health. Thorn has been

rescued from Urmsheim, but Binabik is being held prisoner by his own

people, along with Studio the Rimmersman, under sentence of death.

Simon himself has been scarred by the dragon's blood and a wide swath

of his hair has turned white. Jiriki names him "Snowlock" and tells Simon

that, for good or for evil, he has been irrevocably marked.

Foreword'

J. He ^VlTlU- sawed across the empty battlements, yowling like a

thousand condemned souls crying for mercy. Brother Hengfisk, despite

the bitter cold that had sucked the air from his once-strong lungs and

withered and peeled the skin of his face and hands, took a certain grim

pleasure in the sound.

Yes, that is what they will all sound like, all the sinjul multitude who scoffed at

the message of Mother Churchincluding, unfortunately, the less rigorous of

his Hoderundian brothers. How [hey will cry out before God's just wrath,

begging for mercy, when it is far, far too fate. . . .

He caught his knee a wicked blow on a stone lying tumbled from a

wall, and pitched forward into the snow with a crack-lipped squeal. The

monk sat whimpering for a moment, but the painful bite of tears freezing

on his cheek forced him back onto his feet. He hobbled forward once

more.

The main road that climbed through Naglimund-town Coward the castle

was full of drifting snow. The houses and shops on either side had nearly

disappeared beneath a smothering blanket of deadly white, but even those

buildings not yet covered were as deserted as the shells of long-dead

animals. There was nothing on the road but Hengfisk and the snow.

As the wind changed direction, the whistling of the fluted battlements at

the top of the hill rose in pitch- The monk squinted his bulging eyes up at

the walls, then lowered his head. He trudged on through the gray after-

noon, the crunch of his footsteps a near-silent drumbeat accompanying the

skirling wind.

/(i"5 no wonder the townspeople have fled to the keep, he thought, shivering.

All around him gaped the black idiot-mouths of roofs and walls staved in

XVI

Tad Williams

by the weight of snow. But inside the castle, under the protection of stone

and great timbers, there they must be safe. Fires would be burning, and

red, cheerful facessinners' faces, he reminded himself scornfully: damned,

heedless sinners' faceswould gather around him and marvel that he

had walked all this way through the freakish storm.

It is Yuven-month, is it not? Had his memory suffered so, that he could

not remember the month?

But of course it was. Two full moons ago it had been springa little

cold, perhaps, but that was nothing to a Rimmersman like Hengfisk,

reared in the chill of the north. No, that was the freakish thing, of course,

that it should be so deadly cold, the ice and snow flying, in Yuventhe

first month of summer.

Hadn't Brother Langrian refused to leave the abbey, and after all Hengfisk

had done to nurse him back to health? "It's more than foul weather, Brother,"

Langrian had said. "It's a curse on God's entire creation. It's the Day of

Weighing-Out come in our lifetimes."

Ah, that was well enough for Langrian. If he wanted to stay in the burned

wrack of Saint Hoderund's abbey, eating berries and such from the forest

and how much fruit would there be anyway, in such unseasonable cold?

then he could do as he pleased. Brother Hengfisk was no fool. Naglimund

was the place to go. Old Bishop Anodis would welcome Hengfisk. The

bishop would admire the monk's clever eye for what he had seen, the

stories that Hengfisk could tell of what had happened at the abbey, the

unseasonable weather. The Naglimunders would welcome him in, feed

him, ask him questions, let him sit before their warm fire. . . .

But they must know about the cold, mustn't they? Hengfisk thought dully as

he pulled his ice-crackling robe closer about him. He was in the very

shadow of the wall now. The white world he had known for so many

days and weeks seemed to have come to an ending, a precipice that

vanished into stony nothingness. That is, they must know about the snow and

all. That's why they^ve all left the town and moved into the keep. It's the

damnable, demon-cursed weather that's keeping the sentries off the walls, isn't it?

Isn't it!?

He stood and surveyed with mad interest the pile of snow-mantled

rubbish that had been Naglimund's greater gate. The huge pillars and

massive stones were charred black beneath the drifts. The hole in the

sagging wall stood large enough to hold twenty Hengfisks standing abreast,

shoulder to bony, trembling shoulder.

Look how they've let things go. Oh, they'll shriek when their judgment comes,

shriek and shriek with never a chance to make amends. Everything has been let

gothe gate, the town, the weather.

Somebody must be scourged for such negligence. Doubtless Bishop

Anodis had his hands full crying to keep such an unruly flock in line.

Hengfisk would be only too happy to help that fine old man minister to

STONE OFFAREWELL

XV11

such slackers- First, a fire and some warm food. Then. a little monasterial

discipline. Things would soon be brought to rights. . . .

Hengfisk stepped carefully through the splintered posts and white-

covered stones.

The thing of it was, the monk slowly realized, in a way it was quite . . .

beautiful. Beyond the gate, all things were covered in a delicate tracery of

ice, like lacy veils of spidcrweb. The sinking sun embellished the frosted

towers and ice-crusted walls and courtyards with rivulets of pale fire.

The crv of the wind was somewhat less here within the battlements.

Hengfisk stood for a long while, abashed by the unexpected quiet. As the

weak sun slid behind the walls, the ice darkened. Deep violet shadows

welled up in the comers of the courtyard, stretching laterally across the

faces of the ruined towers. The wind softened to a feline hiss, and the

pop-eyed monk lowered his head in numb recognition.

Deserted. Naglimund was empty, with not a single soul left behind to

greet a snow-bewildered wanderer. He had walked leagues through the

storm-ridden white waste to reach a place that was as dead and dumb as

stone.

But, he wondered suddenly, if that is so . . . then what are those blue lights

that flicker in the windows of the towers?

And what were these figures who approached him across the shambles

of the courtyard, moving as gracefully over the icy stones as blowing

thistledown?

His heart raced. At first, as he saw their beautiful, cold faces and pale

hair, Hengfisk thought them angels. Then, as he saw the fell light in their

black eyes, and their smiles, he turned, stumbling, and tried to run.

The Norns caught him effortlessly, then carried him back with them

into the depths of the desolated castle, beneath the shadowed, ice-mantled

towers and the ceaselessly flickering lights. And when Naglimund's new

masters whispered to him in their secretive, musical voices, his screams

for a while overtopped even the howling wind.

PART ONE

Stormy Eye

The Music of High Places

-L^Vtm in the cave, where the crackling fire sent gray ringers of

smoke up to the hole in the stony roof, and red light played across the wall

carvings of twining serpents and tusked, staring-eyed beasts, the cold still

gnawed at Simon's bones. As he floated in and out of fevered sleep,

through curtained daylight and chill night, he felt as though gray ice grew

inside him, stiffening his limbs and filling him with frost. He wondered if

he would ever be warm again.

Fleeing the chill Yiqanuc cave and his sickened body, he wandered the

Road of Dreams, slipping helplessly from one fantasy to the next. Many

times he thought he had returned to the Hayholt, to his castle home as it

once had been, but would never be again: a place of sun-warmed lawns, of

shadowed nooks and hiding-holesthe greatest house of all, full of bustle

and color and music. He walked again in the Hedge Garden, and the wind

that sang outside the cave in which he slept sang in his dreams as well,

blowing gently through the leaves and shaking the delicate hedges.

In one strange dream he seemed to travel back to Doctor Morgenes'

chamber. The doctor's study was now at the top of a tall tower, with

clouds swimming past the high-arched windows. The old man hovered

fretfully over a large, open book. There was something frightening about

the doctor's single-mmdedness and silence. Simon did not seem to exist

at all for Morgenes; instead, the old man stared intently at the crude

drawing of three swords that stretched across the splayed pages.

Simon moved to the windowsill. The wind sighed, though he could feel

no breeze. He looked down to the courtyard below. Staring up at him

with wide, solemn eyes was a child, a small, dark-haired girl. She lifted a

hand in the air, as ifm greeting, then suddenly was gone.

The tower and Morgenes' cluttered chamber began to melt away be-

neath Simon's feet like a receding tide. Last to vanish was the old man

himself. Even as he slowly faded, like a shadow m growing light, Morgenes

still did not lift his eyes to Simon's; instead, his gnarled hands busily

4Tad Williams

traced the pages of his book, as though restlessly looking for answers.

Simon called out to him, but all the world had turned gray and cold, full of

swirling mists and the tatters of other dreams. . . .

He awakened, as he had so many times since Urmsheim, to find the

cave night-darkened, and to see Haestan and Jiriki bedded down near the

rune-scrawled stone wall. The Erkynlander was curled sleeping in his

cloak, beard on breastbone. The Sitha stared at something cupped in the

palm of his long-fingered hand. Jiriki seemed deeply absorbed. His eyes

gleamed faintly, as though whatever he held reflected the last embers of

the fire. Simon tried to say somethinghe was hungry for warmth and

voicesbut sleep was tugging at him again.

The wind is 50 loud . . .

It moaned in the mountain passes outside, as it did around the tower

tops of the Hayholt ... as it had across the battlements ofNaglimund-

So sad . . . the wind is sad . . .

Soon he was asleep once more. The cave was quiet but for faint

breathing and the lonely music of high places.

It was only a hole, but it made a very sufficient prison. It plunged

twenty cubits down into the stone heart of Mintahoq Mountain, as wide as

two men or four trolls lying head to foot. The sides were polished like the

finest sculptor's marble, so that even a spider would have been hard-pressed

to find a foothold. The bottom was as dark and cold and damp as any dungeon.

Though the moon ranged above the snowy spires ofMintahoq's neigh-

bors, only a fine spray of moonlight reached down to the bottom of the

pit, where it touched but did not illuminate two unmoving shapes. For

a long while since moonrise it had been this way: the pale moon-disk

Sedda, as the trolls called herthe only moving thing in all the night

world, crossing slowly through the black fields of the sky.

Now something stirred at the mouth of the pit. A small figure leaned

over, squinting down into the thick shadows.

"Binabik ..." the crouching shape called at last in the guttural tongue of

the troll folk. "Binabik, do you hear me?"

If one of the shadows at the bottom moved, it made no sound in doing

so. At last the figure at the top of the stone well spoke again.

"Nine times nine days, Binabik, your spear stood before my cave, and I waited

for you."

The words were spoken in a ritual chant, but the voice wavered un-

steadily, pausing for a moment before continuing. "/ waited and f called

out your name in the Place of Echoes. Nothing came back to me but my own voice-

Why did you not return and take up your spear a^ain?"

STONE OF FAREWELL5

Still there was no reply.

"Binabik? Why do you not answer? Surely you owe me that, do you not?"

The larger of the two shapes at the bottom of the pit stirred. Pale blue

eyes caught a thin stripe ofmoongleam.

"What is that trollish yammering? It's bad enough you throw a man

down a hole who's never done you harm, but must you come shouting

your nonsense-talk at him when he's trying to sleep?"

The crouching shape froze for a moment like a startled deer splashed

by lantern-glare, then disappeared into the night.

"Good." The Rimmersman Sludig curled himself up once more in his

damp cloak. "I do not know what that troll was saying to you, Binabik,

but I do not think much of your people, that they come to mock at

youand me, too. although I am not surprised that they hate my kind."

The troll beside him said nothing, only stared at the Rimmersman with

dark, troubled eyes. After a while, Sludig rolled over again, shivering, and

tried to sleep.

ff

"But Jiriki, you can't go!" Simon was perched at the edge of his pallet,

wrapped in his blanket against the insinuating chill. He gritted his teeth

against a wave of light-headedness; he had not been oft' his back often in

the five days since he had awakened.

"I must," the Sitha said, eyes downcast as though he could not meet

Simon's imploring stare. "I have already sent Sijandi and Ki'ushapo ahead,

but it is my own presence that is demanded. I shall not leave for a day or

two, Seoman, but that is the utmost length I can put off my duty."

"You have to help me free Binabik!" Simon lifted his feet off the cold

stone floor back onto the bed. "You said the trolls trust you. Make them

set Binabik free. Then we'll all go together."

Jiriki let out a chin whistle of air between his lips. "It is not so simple,

young Seoman," he said, almost impatiently. "I have no right or power to

make the Qanuc do anything. Also, I have other responsibilities and duties

you cannot understand. I only stayed as long as I have because I wanted to

see you on your feet once more. My uncle Khendraja'aro has long since

returned to Jao e-Tinukai'i, and my duties to my house and my kin

compel me to follow."

"Compel you? But you're a prince!"

The Sitha shook his head. "That word is not the same in our speech as

in yours, Seoman. I am of the reigning house, but I order no one and rule

no one. Neither am I ruled, fortunatelyexcept in certain things and at

certain times. My parents have declared that this is such a time." Simon

thought he could almost detect a touch of anger in Jinki's voice- "Never

6Tad Williams

fear, though. You and Haestan are not prisoners. The Qanuc honor you.

They will let you leave when you wish."

"But I won't leave without Binabik." Simon twisted his cloak between

his fists. "And Sludig, too."

A small dark figure appeared in the doorway and coughed politely.

Jiriki looked over his shoulder, then nodded his head. The old Qanuc

woman stepped forward and set a steaming pot down at Jiriki's feet, then

quickly pulled three bowls out of her tentlike sheepskin coat, arranging

them in a semicircle. Though her diminutive fingers worked nimbly, and

her seamed, round-cheeked face was expressionless, Simon saw a glimmer

of fear in her eyes as they rose briefly to meet his. When she had finished,

she backed quickly out of the cave, disappearing under the door flap as

silently as she had appeared.

What is she afraid of? Simon wondered. Jiriki? But Binabik said the Qanuc

and Sithi have always gotten alongmore or less.

He suddenly thought of himself: twice as tall as a troll, red-haired,

hairy-faced with his first man's beardskinny as a switch, too, but since

he was wrapped in blankets the old Qanuc woman couldn't know that.

What difference could the people of Yiqanuc see between himself and a

hated Rimmersman? Hadn't Sludig's people warred on the troll folk for

centuries?

"Will you have some, Seoman?" Jiriki asked, pouring out steaming

liquid from the pot. "They have provided you with a bowl."

Simon reached out a hand. "Is it more soup?"

"It is aka, as the Qanuc call itor as you would say, tea."

"Tea!" He took the bowl eagerly. Judith, Kitchen Mistress of the

Hayholt, had been very fond of tea. She would sit down at the end of

a long day's work to nurse a great hot mug full of the stuff, the kitchen

filling with the vapors of steeped southern island herbs. When she was in a

good mood, she would let Simon have some, too. Usires, how he missed

his home'

"I never thought. . ."he began, and took a great long swallow, only to

spit it out a moment later in a fit of coughing. "What is it?" he choked.

"That's not tea!"

Jiriki might have been smiling, but since he had his bowl up to his

mouth, sipping slowly, it was impossible to tell. "Certainly it is," the

Sitha replied. "The Qanuc people use different herbs than you Sudhoda'ya,

of course. How could it be otherwise, when they have so little trade with

your kind?"

Simon wiped his mouth, grimacing. "But it's salty!" He took a sniff of

the bowl and made another face.

The Sitha nodded and sipped again. "They put salt in it, yesand

butter as well."

"Butter!"

STONE OFFAREWELL7

"Marvelous are the ways of all Mezumiiru's grandchildren," Jiriki in-

Eoned solemnly, ". . . endless is their variety."

Simon set the bowl down in disgust. "Butter. Usires help me, what a

miserable adventure."

Jiriki calmly finished his tea. The mention of Mezumiiru reminded

Simon again of his troll friend, who one night in the forest had sung a

song about the Moon-woman. His mood turned sour once more.

"But what are we going to do for Binabik?" Simon asked. "Anything?"

Jiriki lifted calm, catlike eyes. "We will have a chance to speak on his

behalf tomorrow. I have not yet discovered his crime. Few Qanuc speak

any language but their ownyour companion is a rare troll indeedand I

am not very accomplished in theirs. Neither do they like to share their

thoughts with outsiders."

"What's happening tomorrow?" Simon asked, sinking back into his bed

again. His head was pounding. Why should he still fee! so weak?

"There is a ... court, I suppose. Where the Qanuc rulers hear and

decide."

"And we are going to speak for Binabik?"

"No, Seoman, not as such," Jiriki said gently. For a moment a strange

look flitted across his spare features. "We are going because you met the

Dragon of the Mountain . . . and lived. The lords of the Qanuc wish to

see you. I do not doubt that your friend's crimes will also be addressed,

there before the whole of his people. Now take rest, for you will have

need of it."

Jiriki stood and stretched his slender limbs, moving his head in his

disconcertingly alien way, amber eyes fixed on nothing. Simon felt a

shudder travel the length of his own body, followed by a powerful weariness.

The dragon! he thought groggily, halfway between wonderment and

horror. He had seen a dragon! He, Simon the scullion, despised muckabout

and mooncalf, had swung a sword at a dragon and livedeven after its

scalding blood had splashed him! Like in a story!

He looked at blackly gleaming Thorn, which lay partly covered against

the wall, wailing like a beautiful, deadly serpent. Even Jiriki seemed

unwilling to handle it, or even discuss it; the Sitha had calmly deflected

all of Simon's questions as to what magic might run like blood through

Camaris' strange sword. Simon's chilled fingers crept up his jaw to the still-

painful scar running down his face. How had a mere scullion like himself

ever dared to lift such a potent thing?

Closing his eyes, he felt the huge and uncaring world spin ever so

slowly beneath him. He heard Jiriki pad across the cave toward the

doorway, and a faint swish as the Sitha slid past the flap and out, then sleep

tugged him down.

J.

y

8Tad Williams

Simon dreamed. The face of the small, dark-haired girl swam before

him once more. It was a child's face, but the solemn eyes were old and

deep as a well in a deserted churchyard. She seemed to want to tell him

something. Her mouth worked soundlessly, but as she slipped away

through the murky waters of sleep, he thought for a moment he heard her

voice.

He awoke the next morning to find Haestan standing over him. The

guardsman's teeth were bared in a grim smile and his beard sparkled with

melting snow.

"Time y'were up, Simon-lad. Many doin's this day, many doin's."

It took some time, but even though he felt quite feeble, he managed to

dress himself. Haestan helped him with his boots, which he had not worn

since waking up in Yiqanuc. They seemed stiff as wood on his feet, and

the fabric of his garments scraped against his strangely sensitive skin, but

he felt better for being up and dressed. He walked gingerly across the

length of the cave a few times, beginning to feel like a two-legged animal

once more.

"Where's Jinki?" Simon asked as he pulled his cloak around his shoulders.

"That one's gone ahead. But ha* no worry 'bout goin' t' meetin'. I

could carry ye, stickly thing that y'are."

"I was carried here," Simon said, and heard an unexpected coldness

creeping into his voice, "but that doesn't mean I'll have to be carried always."

The husky Erkynlander chortled, taking no offense. "I'm as happy if

y'walk, lad. These trolls make paths narrow enough, I've no great wish

t'carry anyone."

Simon had to wait a moment just inside the cave-mouth to adjust to the

glare leaking through the raised door-flap. When he stepped outside, the

reflective brilliance of the snow, even on an overcast morning, was almost

too much for him.

They stood on a wide stone porch that extended almost twenty cubits

out from the cave. It stretched away to the right and left on either side,

running along the face of the mountain. Simon could see the smoking

mouths of other caves all along its length, until it bent back out of sight

around the curve of Mintahoq's belly. There were similar wide trackways

on the slope above, row upon row up the mountain's face. Ladders

dangled down from higher caves, and where the irregularities of the slope

made the joining of the paths impossible, many of the different porches

were connected across empty space by swaying bridges that seemed made

of little more than leather thongs. Even as Simon stared, he saw the tiny,

fur-coated shapes of Qanuc children skittering across these slender spans,

gamboling blithely as squirrels, though a fall would mean certain death. It

made Simon's stomach churn to watch them, so he swung around to face

outward once more.

STONE OFFAREWELL9

Before him lay the great valley of Yiqanuc; beyond, Mintahoq's stony

neighbors loomed out of the misted depths, towering up into the gray,

snow-ftecked sky. Tiny black holes dotted the far peaks; minuscule shapes,

barely discernible across the dark valley, bustled along the twining paths

between them.

Three trolls, slouching in wrought-hide saddles, came riding down the

track on their shaggy rams. Simon stepped forward out of their way,

moving slowly across the porch until he was within a few feet of the edge.

Looking down, he felt a momentary surge of the vertigo he had felt on

Urmsheim. The mountain's base, bewhiskered here and there by twisted

evergreens, fell away below, crisscrossed by more ladder-hung porches

like the one on which he stood. He noticed a sudden silence and turned to

look for Haestan.

The three ram-riders had stopped in the middle of [he wide pathway,

gazing at Simon in slack-mouthed wonderment. The guardsman, nearly

hidden in the shadow of the cave-mouth on their far side, gave him a

mocking salute over the heads of the trolls.

Two of the riders had sparse beards on their chins. All wore necklaces

of thick ivory beads over their heavy coats and carried ornately carved

spears with hooked bottoms, like shepherd's crooks, which they used to

guide their spiral-homed steeds. They were all largef than Binabik: Si-

mon's few days in Yiqanuc had taught him that Binabik was one of the

smallest adults of his people. These trolls also seemed more primitive and

dangerous than his friend, well-armed and fierce-faced, threatening despite

their small stature.

Simon stared at the trolls. The trolls stared ac Simon.

"They've alt heard of ye, Simon," Haestan boomed; the three riders

looked up, startled by his loud voice, "but no one's hardly seen ye yet."

The trolls looked the tall guardsman up and down in alarm, then

ducked at their mounts and rode on hurriedly, disappearing around the

mountain face. "Gave them some gossip," Haestan chuckled.

"Binabik told me about his home," Simon said, "but it was hard to

understand what he was saying. Things are never quite what you think

they're going to be, are they?"

"Only th' good Lord Usires knows all answers," Haestan nodded.

"Now, if y'would see y'r small friend, we'd best move on. Walk careful

nowand not so close t'edge, there."

They made their way slowly down the looping path, which alternately

narrowed and widened as it traversed the mountainside. The sun was high

overhead, but hidden in a nest of soot-colored clouds, and a biting wind

swooped along Mintahoq's face. The mountaintop above was white-

blanketed in ice, like the high peaks across the valley, but at this lower

height the snow had fallen more patently. Some wide drifts lay across the

10

Tad Williams

path, and others nestled among the cave mouths, but dry rock and

exposed soil were also all around. Simon had no idea if such snow was

normal for the first days of Tiyagar-momh in Yiqanuc, but he did know

that he was mightily sick of sleet and cold. Every flake that swooped into

his eye felt like an insult; the scarred flesh of his cheek and jaw ached

terribly-

Now that they had left what seemed like the populous section of the

mountain, there were not many troll folk to be seen. Dark shapes peered

out of the smoke of some of the cave-mouths, and two more groups of

riders passed by heading in the same direction, slowing to stare, then

bustling along as hastily as had the first troop.

The pair passed a gaggle of children playing in a snowdrift. The young

trolls, barely taller than Simon's knee, were bundled up in heavy fur

jackets and leggings; they looked like little round hedgehogs. Their eyes

grew wide as Simon and Haestan trudged past, and their high-pitched

chatter was stilled, but they did not run or show any sign of fear. Simon

liked that. He smiled gently, mindful of his pained cheek, and waved to

them.

When a loop of the path led them far out toward the northward side of

the mountain, they found themselves in an area where the noise of

Mintahoq's inhabitants disappeared entirely and they were alone with the

voice of wind and fluttering snow.

"Don't like this bit m'self," Haesten said.

"What's that?" Simon pointed up the slope. On a stone porch far above

stood a strange egg-shaped structure made of carefully ordered blocks of

snow. It gleamed faintly, pink-tinged by the slanting sun. A row of silent

trolls stood before it, spears clutched in their mittened hands, their faces

harsh in their hoods.

"Don't point, lad," Haestan said, gently pulling at Simon's arm. Had a

few of the guards shifted their gazes downward? "It be somethin' impor-

tant, y'r friend Jiriki said. Called 'Ice House.' Th' little folk be all worked

up over it right this moment. Don't know whydon't want t'know,

either."

"Ice House?" Simon stared. "Does someone live there?"

Haestan shook his head. "Jiriki didna say."

Simon looked to Haestan speculatively. "Have you talked with Jiriki much

since you've been here? I mean, since I wasn't around for you to talk to?"

"Oh, aye," Haestan said, then paused. "Not much, in truth. Always

seems like . . . like he's thinkin' on something' grand, d'ye see? Some-

thin' important. But he's nice enough, in's way. Not like a person, quite,

but not a bad'un." Haestan thought a bit more. "He's not like I thought

magic-fellow 'd be. Talks plain, Jiriki does." Haestan smiled. "Does think

well on ye, he does. Way he talks, un'd think he owed ye money." He

chuckled in his beard.

STONE OFFAREWELL

11

It was a long, wearying walk for someone as weak as Simon: first up,

then down, back and forth over the face of the mountain. Although

Haestan put a steadying hand under his elbow each time he sagged, Simon

had begun to wonder if he could go any farther when they trudged around

an outcropping that pushed out into the path like a stone in a river and

found themselves standing before the wide entranceway of the great

cavern of Yiqanuc.

The vast hole, at least fifty paces from edge to edge, gaped in the face of

Mintahoq like a mouth poised to pronounce a solemn judgment. Just

inside stood a row of huge, weathered statues: round-bellied, humanlike

figures, gray and yellow as rotted teeth, stoop-shouldered beneath the

burden of the entranceway roof. Their smooth heads were crowned with

ram's horns, and greac tusks pushed out between their lips. So worn were

they by centuries of harsh weather that their faces were all but featureless.

This gave them, to Simon's startled eye, not a look of antiquity, but rather

of unformed newnessas if they were even now creating themselves out

of the primordial stone.

"Chidsik Uh Lingit, "a voice said beside him, "the House of the Ancestor."

Simon jumped a little and turned in surprise, but it was not Haestan

who had spoken. Jiriki stood beside him, staring up at the blind stone

faces.

"How long have you been standing there?" Simon was shamed to have

been so startled. He turned his head back to the entranceway. Who could

guess that the tiny trolls would carve such giant door-wardens?

"I came out to meet you," Jiriki said. "Greetings, Haestan."

The guardsman grunted and nodded his head. Simon wondered again

what had passed between the Erkynlander and the Sitha during the long

days of his illness. There were times when Simon found it very hard to

converse with veiled and roundabout Prince Jiriki. How might it be for a

straightforward soldier like Haestan, who had not been trained, as Simon

had, on the maddening circularities of Doctor Morgenes?

"Is this where the'king of the trolls lives?" he asked aloud.

"And the queen of the trolls, as well, "Jiriki nodded. "Although they

are not really called a king and queen in the Qanuc language. It would be

closer to say the Herder and Huntress.'*

"Kings, queens, princes, and none of them are what they are called,"

Simon grumbled. He was tired and sore and cold. "Why is the cave so

big?"

The Sitha laughed quietly. His pale lavender hair fluttered in the sharp

wind. "Because if the cave were smaller, young Seoman, they would

doubtless have found another place to be their House of the Ancestor

instead. Now we should go insideand not only so that you can escape

the cold."

Jiriki led them between two of the centermost statues, toward flickering

12

Tad Williams

yellow light. As they passed between pillarlike legs, Simon looked up to

the eyeless faces beyond the polished bulges of the statues' great stone

bellies. He was reminded again of the philosophies of Doctor Morgenes.

The Doctor used to say that no one ever knows what will come to them"don't

build on expectation," he said that all the time. Who would ever have though!

someday I would see such things as this, have such adventures? No one knows

what will come to them. . . .

He felt a twinge of pain along his face, then a needle of cold in his gut.

The Doctor, as was so often the case, had spoken nothing but the truth.

Inside, the great cavern was full of trolls and dense with the sweetly

sour odors of oil and fat. A thousand yellow lights blazed.

All around the craggy, high-ceilinged stone room, in wall-niches and in

the very floor, pools of oil bloomed with fire. Hundreds of such lamps,

each with its floating wick like a slender white worm, gave the cavern a

light that far outshone the gray day outside. Hide-jacketed Qanuc filled

the room, an ocean of black-haired heads. Small children sat pickaback,

like seagulls floating placidly atop the waves.

At the room's center an island of rock protruded above the sea of troll

folk. There, on a raised stone platform hewn from the very stuff of the

cavern floor, two smallish figures sat in a pool of fire.

It was not exactly a pool of pure flame, Simon saw a moment later, but

a slender moat cut into the gray rock all the way around, filled with the

same burning oil that fueled the lamps. The two figures at the center of

the ring of flames reclined side by side in a sort of hammock of ornately-

figured hide bounded by thongs to a frame of ivory. The pair nested

unmoving in the mound of white and reddish furs. Their eyes were bright

in their round, placid faces.

"She is Nunuuika and he is Uammannaq," Jiriki said quietly, "they

are the masters of the Qanuc . . ."

Even as he spoke, one of the two small figures gestured briefly with a

hooked staff. The vast, packed horde of troll folk drew back to either side,

pressing themselves even closer together, forming an aisle that stretched

from the stone platform to the place where Simon and his companions

stood. Several hundred small, expectant faces turned coward them. There

was much whispering. Simon stared down the open length of cavern

floor, abashed.

"Seems clear enough," Haestan growled, giving him a soft shove. "Go

on, then, lad."

"All of us," Jiriki said. He made one of his oddly-articulated gestures to

indicate that Simon should lead the way.

Both the echoing whispers and the scent of cured hides seemed to

increase as Simon made his way toward the king and queen . . .

Or the Herdsman and Huntress, he reminded himself. Or whatever.

STONE OF FAREWELL

13

The air in the cavern suddenly seemed stiflingly thick. As he struggled

t0 get a deep breath he stumbled and would have fallen had not Haestan

caught at the back of his cloak. When he reached the dais he stood for a

moment staring at the floor, struggling with dizziness, before looking up

t0 the figures on the platform. The lamplight glared into his eyes. He felt

angry, although he didn't know at whom. Hadn't he more or less just

gotten out of bed today for the first time? What did they expect? That he

would leap right out and slay some dragons?

The startling thing about Uammannaq and Nunuuika, he decided, was

that they looked so much alike, as though they were twins. Not chat it

wasn't instantly obvious which was which: Uammannaq, on Simon's left,

had a chin beard mac hung from his chin, knotted with red and blue

thongs into a long braid. His hair was braided as well, held in intricate

loops upon his head with combs of black, shiny stone. As he worried at

his beard gently with small, thick fingers, his other hand held his staff of

office, a thick, heavily carved ram-rider's spear with a crook at one end.

His wifeifchac was che way things worked in Yiqanucheld a straight

spear, a slender, deadly wand with a stone point sharpened to translucency.

She wore her long black hair high on her head, held in place with many

combs of carved ivory. Her eyes, gleaming behind slanting lids in a plump

face, were flat and bright as polished stone. Simon- had never had a

woman look at him in quite that cold and arrogant way. He remembered

that she was called Huntress, and felt out of his depth. By contrast.

Uammannaq seemed far less threatening. The Herder's heavy face seemed

to sag in loose lines of drowsiness, but there was still a canny edge to his

glance.

After the brief moment of mutual inspection, Uammannaq's face creased

in a wide yellow grin, his eyes nearly disappearing in a cheerful squint. He

lifted his two palms toward the companions, then pressed his small hands

together and said something in guttural Qanuc.

"He says you are welcome to Chidsik Ub Lingit and to Yiqanuc, the

mountains of the trolls," Jiriki translated. Before he could say more,

Nunuuika spoke up. Her words seemed more measured than Uammannaq's,

but were no more intelligible to Simon. Jiriki listened to her carefully-

"The Huntress also extends her greetings. She says you are quite tall,

but unless she is very mistaken in her knowledge of the Utku people, you

seem young for a dragon-slayer, despite the white in your hair. Utku is the

troll word for lowlanders," he added quietly.

Simon looked at the two royal personages for a moment. "Tell them

that I'm pleased to have their welcome, or whatever should be said. And

please tell them that I didn't slay the dragonlikely only wounded itand

that I did it to protect my friends, just as Binabik of Yiqanuc did for me

many other times.*'

When he finished the long sentence he was momentarily out of breath,

14

Tad Williams

bringing a rush of dizziness. The Herder and Huntress, who had been

watching curiously as he spokeboth had frowned slightly at the mention

of Binabik's namenow turned expectantly to Jiriki-

The Sitha paused for a moment, considering, then rattled off a long

stream of thick trollish speech. Uammannaq nodded his head in a puzzled

way. Nunuuika listened impassively. WhenJiriki had finished, she glanced

briefly at her consort, then spoke again.

Judging by her translated reply, she might not have heard Binabik's

name at all. She complimented Simon on his bravery, saying that the

Qanuc had long held the mountain UrmsheimYijarjuk, she called itas

a place to be avoided at all costs. Now, she said, perhaps it was time to

explore the western mountains again, since the dragon, even if it had

survived, had most likely disappeared into the lower depths to nurse its

wounds.

Uammannaq seemed impatient with Nunuuika's speech. As soon as

Jiriki finished relaying her words the Herder responded with some of his

own, saying that now was hardly the time for such adventures, after the

terrible winter just passed, and with the evil Croohokuqthe Rimmers-

menso malevolently active. He hastened to add that of course Simon

and his companions, the other lowlander and the esteemed Jiriki, should

stay as long as they wished, as honored guests, and that if there was

anything he or Nunuuika could grant them to ease their stay, they had

only to ask.

Even before Jiriki finished converting these works to the Westerling

speech, Simon was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, anxious

to respond.

"Yes," he told Jiriki, "there is something they can do. They can free

Binabik and Sludig, our companions. Free our friends, if you would do us

a favor!" he said loudly, turning to the fur-swaddled pair before him, who

regarded him with incomprehension. His raised voice caused some of the

trolls crowded around the stone platform to murmur uneasily. Simon

dizzily wondered if he had gone too far, but for the moment was beyond

caring.

"Seoman," Jiriki said, "I promised myself that I would not mistranslate

or interfere in your speech with the lords ofYiqanuc, but I ask you now as

a favor to me, do not ask this of them. Please."

"Why not?"

"Please. As a favor. I will explain later; I ask you to trust me."

Simon's angry words spilled out before he could control them. "You

want me to desert my friend as a favor to you? Haven't I already saved

your life? Didn't I get the White Arrow from you? Who owes the favors

here?"

Even as he said it he was sorry, fearing that an unbreachable barrier had

suddenly grown between himself and the Sitha prince. Jiriki's eyes burned

STONE OF FAREWELL

15

into his. The audience began to fidget nervously and mutter among

themselves, sensing something amiss.

The Sitha dropped his gaze. "I am ashamed, Seoman. I ask too much of

you."

Now Simon felt himself sinking like a stone into a muddy pool. Too

fast! It was too much to think about. All he wanted was to lie down and

not know anything.

"No, Jiriki," he blurted out, "I'm ashamed- I'm ashamed of what I said.

I'm an idiot. Ask the two of them if I can speak to them tomorrow. I feel

sick." Suddenly the dizziness was horribly real; he felt the whole cavern

tilt. The light of the oil lamps wavered as though in a stiff wind. Simon's

knees buckled and Haestan caught his arms, holding him up.

Jiriki turned quickly to Uammannaq and Nunuuika. A rumble of fasci-

nated consternation ran through the trollish throng. Was the red-crested,

storklike lowlander dead? Perhaps such long thin legs were not capable of

bearing weight for long, as some had suggested. But then, why were the

other two lowlanders still standing upright? Many heads were shaken in

puzzlement, many whispered guesses exchanged.

"Nunuuika, keenest of eye, and Uammannaq, surest of rein: the boy is still sick

and very weak. "Jiriki spoke quietly. The multitude, cheated,by his soft speech,

leaned forward. "I ask a boon, on the primeval friendship of our people."

The Huntress inclined her head, smiling slightly. "Speak, Elder Brother,"

she said.

"/ have no right to interfere in your justice, and will not. I do ask that the

judgment of Binabik ofMintahoq not go forward until his companionsincluding

the boy Seomanhave a chance to speak in his behalf. And that the same be

granted also for the Rimmersman, Sludig. This I ask of you in the name of the

Moon-woman, our shared roof. "Jiriki bowed slightly, using only his upper

body. There was no suggestion of subservience.

Uammannaq tapped the shaft of his spear with his fingers. He looked to

the Huntress, his expression troubled. At last he nodded. "We cannot refuse

this, Elder Brother. So shall it be. Two days, then, when the boy is strongerbut

even if this strange young man had brought us Igjarjuk's toothy head in a

saddlebag, that would not change what must be. Binabik, apprentice of the Singing

Man, has committed a terrible crime."

"So I hare been told," Jiriki replied. "But the brave hearts of the Qanuc were

not the only thing that gained them the esteem of the Sithi. We loved the kindness

of trolls as well."

Nunuuika touched the combs in her hair, her gaze hard. "Kind hearts

must never overthrow just law, Prince Jiriki, or all Sedda's spawnSithi as well

as mortalswill return naked to the snows. Binabik shall have his judgment."

Prince Jiriki nodded and made another brief bow before turning away.

Haestan half-carried the stumbling Simon as they walked back across the

cavern, down the gauntlet of curious trolls, back out into the cold wind.

2

Masks and Shadows

J. rU^ J~l-re popped and spat as snowflakes drifted down into the

flames to boil away in an instant. The surrounding trees were still striped

with orange, but the campfire had burned down almost to embers- Beyond

this fragile barrier of firelight, mist and cold and dark waited patiently.

Deomoth held his hands closer to the embers and tried to ignore the

vast living presence of Aldheorte Forest all around, the twining branches

that blotted the stars overhead, the fog-shrouded trunks swaying somberly

in the cold, steady wind. Josua sat across from him, facing away from the

flames toward the unfriendly darkness; the prince's angled face, red-

washed by rippling firelight, was contorted in a silent grimace. Deomoth's

heart went out to his prince, but it was too difficult to look at him just

now. He turned his eyes away, kneading his chilled fingers as though he

could rub away all sufferinghis, his master's, and that of the rest of their

pitiful, lamed flock.

Someone moaned nearby, but Deomoth did not look up. Many in their

party were suffering, and somethe little handmaiden with the terrible

throat wound, and Helmfest, one of the Lord Constable's men, gut-bitten

by those unholy creatureshe doubted would live through the night.

Their troubles had not ended when they had escaped the destruction of

Josua's castle at Naglimund. Even as the prince's party had staggered

down the last broken steps of the Stile, they had been set on. Mere yards

from the outer stand of Aldheorte, the ground had erupted around them

and the false, storm-carried night had rung with chirping cries.

There had been diggers everywhereBukken, as young Isom called

them, shouting the name hysterically as he lay about him with his sword.

Even in his fear the duke's son had killed many, but Isorn had also taken a

dozen shallow wounds from the diggers' sharp teeth and crude, jagged

knives. That was something else to worry about: in the forest, even small

wounds were likely to fester.

18

Tad Williams

Deornoth shifted uneasily. Those small shapes had clung to his own

arm like rats. In his choking fear, he had almost cut his hand loose from

his body to get the chittering things off. Even now, the thought made

him squirm. He rubbed at his fingers, remembering.

Josua's beleaguered company .had finally escaped, hacking free long

enough to make a dash for the forest. Strangely, the forbidding trees

seemed to provide a sort of sanctuary. The swarming diggers, far too

numerous to have been defeated, did not follow.

Is there some power in the forest that prevented them? Deornoth wondered.

Or more likely, does something live here more fearsome even than they are?

Fleeing, they had left behind five torn things that had once been human

beings. The prince's troop of survivors now numbered perhaps a dozen

and judging by the tortuous, gasping breaths of the soldier Helmfest, who

lay wrapped in his cloak near the fire, they would be fewer than that soon.

Lady Vorzheva was dabbing the blood away from Helmfest's ghost-pale

cheek. She had the distant, distracted look of a madman Deornoth had once

seen, who had sat in the Naglimund-town square pouring water from one

bowl to another for hours at a time, back and forth, never spilling a drop.

Tending this living dead man was just as useless a thing to do, Deornoth

felt sure, and it showed in Vorzheva's dark eyes.

Prince Josua had been paying no greater heed to Vorzheva than to

anyone else in the battered company. Despite the terror and weariness she

shared with the rest of the survivors, it was obvious that she was also

furiously angry about his inattention. Deornoth had long been a witness Co

Josua and Vorzheva's stormy relationship, but was never quite sure how

he felt about it. Sometimes he resented the Thrithings-woman as a distrac-

tion, a hindrance to his prince's duties; at other moments he found himself

pitying Vorzheva, whose sincere passions often outstripped her patience.

Josua could be maddeningly careful and deliberate, and even at the best of

times tended toward melancholy. Deornoth guessed that the prince would

be a very difficult man for a woman to love and live with.

The old jester Towser and Sangfugol the harper were talking dispirit-

edly nearby. The jester's wine sack lay empty and flattened on the ground

beside them; it was the only wine any of the survivors would see for a

while. Towser had drained it dry himself in just a few gulps, occasioning

more than a few sharp words from his fellows. His rheumy eye had

blinked angrily as he drank, like an old rooster warning away a henyard

interloper.

The only ones engaged in useful activity at this moment were the

Duchess Gutrun, Isgrimnur's wife, and Father Strangyeard, the archivist

of Naglimund. Gutrun had slit the front and back of her heavy brocade

skirt and was now sewing the open pieces together, making something

like a pair of breeches for herself, the better to travel through Aldheorte's

clinging brush. Strangyeard, recognizing the good sense of this idea, was

STONE OF FAREWELL

19

sawing away at the front of his own gray robe with Dcornoth's dulled

knife.

The brooding Rimmersman Einskaldir sat near Father Strangyeard;

between them lay a quiet shape, a dark bump below the wash of firelight.

That was the little handmaiden whose name Deornorh could not remem-

ber. She had fled with them from the residence, and had cried quietly all

the long way up and down the Stile.

Cried, that is, until the diggers had reached her. They had clung to her

throat like terriers to a boar, even after their bodies had been sheared loose

by the blades other would-be rescuers. Now she cried no longer. She was

very, very still, holding precariously to life.

Deornoth felt a shudder of trapped horror surge up within him. Merci-

ful Usircs, what had they done to deserve such dreadful retribution? Of

what abominable sin were they guilty, to be punished by the harrowing of

Naglimund?

He fought down the panic that he knew showed plainly on his face, then

looked around. No one was watching him, thank Usires: no one had seen

his shameful fear. Such conduct was not fitting, after all. Deornoth was a

knight. He was proud that he had felt his prince's gauntlet upon his head,

had heard the pronouncement of service. He only wished for the clean

terror of battle with human enemiesnot tiny, squealing diggers, or the

stone-faced, fish-white Noms who had destroyed Josua's castle. How

could you battle creatures out of childhood bogey-tales?

It must be the Day of Weighing-Out come at last. That was the only

explanation. These might be living things they foughtthey bled and

died, and could demons be said to do so?but they were forces of

Darkness, nevertheless. The final days had come in truth.

Oddly, the idea made Deornoth feel a little stronger. Was this not, after

all, a knight's true calling, to defend his lord and land against enemies

spiritual as well as corporeal? Hadn't the priest said so before Deomoth's

vigil of investiture? He forced his fearful thoughts back into their proper

track. He had long prided himself on his calm face, his slow and measured

anger; for just that reason, he had always felt very comfortable with the

reserved manners of his prince. How could Josua lead, except by the

mastery of his own person?

Thinking of Josua, Deornoth stole another look at him and felt worry

come surging back. It seemed that the prince's armor of patience was at

last breaking apart, wracked by forces no man should bear. As his liege

man watched, Josua stared out into the windy darkness, lips working as he

spoke soundlessly to himself, brow wrinkled in pained concentration.

The watching became too difficult. "Prince Josua," Deornoth called

softly. The prince finished his silent speech, but did not turn his eyes to

the young knight. Deornoth tried again. "Josua?"

"Yes, Deornoth?" he replied at last.

20

Tad Williams

"My lord," the knight began, then realized he had nothing to say. "My

lord, my good lord ..."

As Deornoth bit at his lower lip, hoping inspiration might strike his

weary thoughts, Josua suddenly sat forward, eyes fixed where moments

before they had aimlessly roved, staring at the dark beyond the fire-

reddened breakfront of the forest.

"What is it?" Deornoth asked, alarmed. Isorn, who had been slumber-

ing behind him, roused with an incoherent cry at the sound of his friend's

voice. Deornoth fumbled for his sword, pulling it free from the scabbard,

half-standing as he did so.

"Be silent." Josua raised his arm.

A thrill of dread swept through the camp. For stretching seconds there

was nothing, then the rest heard it, too: something breaking clumsily

through the undergrowth just beyond the ring of light.

"Those creatures!" Vorzheva's voice rose up out of a whisper into a

wavering cry. Josua turned and grasped her arm tightly. He gave her a

single harsh shake.

"Quiet, for the love of God!"

The sound of branches breaking came nearer. Now Isom and the

soldiers were on their feet, too, hands clutching fearfully at sword-hilts.

Some of the rest of the company were quietly weeping and praying.

Josua hissed: "No forest dweller would go so noisily . . ." His anxious-

ness was poorly hidden. He pulled Naidel out of the sheath. "It walks

two-legged ..."

"Help me . . ." called a voice out of the dark. The night seemed to grow

deeper still, as though the blackness might roll over them and obliterate

their feeble campfire.

A moment later something pushed through into the ring of trees. It

flung its arms up before its eyes as the firelight beat upon it.

"God save us, God save us!" Towser cried hoarsely.

"Look, it is a man," Isorn gasped. "Aedon, he is covered in blood!"

The wounded man lurched another two steps toward the fire, then slid

jerkily to his knees, pushing forward a face nearly black with dried blood,

but for the eyes that stared unseeingly toward the circle of startled people.

"Help me," he moaned again. His voice was slow and thick, almost

unrecognizable as a man speaking the Westerling tongue.

"What is this madness, Lady?" Towser groaned. The old jester was

tugging at Duchess Gutrun's sleeve as might a child. "Tell me, what is

this curse that has been put on us?"

"1 think 1 know this man!" Deornoth gasped, and a moment later felt

the freezing fear drop away; he sprang forward to grab the trembling

man's elbow and ease him closer to the fire. The newcomer was draped in

tattered rags. A fringe of twisted rings, all that remained of a mail shirt,

hung about his neck on a collar of blackened leather. "It is the pikeman

STONE OF FAREWELL

21

who came with us as a guard," Deornoth told Josua. "When you met

your brother in the tent before the walls."

The prince nodded slowly. His gaze was intent, his expression momen-

tarily unfathomable. "Ostrael . . ."Josua murmured. "Was that not his

name?" The prince stared at the blood-spattered young pikeman for a long

instant, then his eyes brimmed with tears and he turned away.

"Here, you poor, wretched fellow, here ..." Father Strangyeard reached

forward with a skin of water. They had scarcely more of that than they

had of wine, but no one said a word. The water filled Ostrael's open

mouth and overflowed, streaming down his chin. He could not seem to

swallow.

"The . . . diggers had him," Deornoth said. "I am sure I saw him

caught by them, back at Naglimund." He felt the pikeman's shoulder

quiver beneath his touch, heard the man's breath whistling in and out.

"Aedon, how he must have suffered."

Ostrael's eyes turned up to his, yellow and glazed even in the dim light.

The mouth opened again in the dark-crusted face. "Help . . ." The voice

was painfully slow, as chough each heavy word were being hoisted up his

throat to his mouth before tumbling out into the air- "It . . . hurts me,"

he wheezed. "Hollow."

"God's Tree, what can possibly be done for him?" Isorn groaned. "We

are all hurting."

Ostrael's mouth gaped. He stared up with blind eyes.

"We can bandage his wounds." Isorn*s mother Gutrun was recovering

her considerable poise. "We can get him a cloak. If he lives until the

morning, we can do more then."

Josua had turned back to look at the young pikeman again. "The

duchess is right, as usual. Father Strangyeard, see if you can find a cloak.

Perhaps one of the less injured can spare theirs ..."

"No!" inskaldir growled. "I do not like this!"

A confused silence fell on the gathering.

"Surely you do not begrudge ..." Deornoth began, then gasped as

Einskaldir leaped past him and seized the panting Ostrael by the shoulders,

throwing him roughly to the ground. Einskaldir squatted on the young

pikeman's chest. The bearded Rimmersman's long knife appeared from

nowhere to lie against Ostrael's blood-smeared neck like a glinting smile.

" Einskaldir! "]osw's face was pale. "What is this madness?"

The Rimmersman looked over his shoulder, a strange grin slashing his

bearded face. "This is no true man! I do not care where you think you

have seen him before!"

Deornoth reached a hand toward Einskaldir, but drew it back quickly

when the Rimmersman's knife whickered past his outstretched fingers.

"Fools! Look!" Einskaldir pointed with his hilt toward the fire.

Oscrael's bare foot lay among the embers aC the edge of the firepit. The

22

Tad Williams

flesh was being consumed, blackening and smoking, yet the pikeman

himself lay almost placidly beneath Einskaldir, his lungs fluting as he

forced breath in and out.

There was a moment of silence. A smothering, bone-chilling fog seemed

to settle over the clearing. The moment had become as horribly strange yet

inalterable as a nightmare. Fleeing the ruin of Naglimund, they might

have wandered into the trackless lands of madness.

"Perhaps his wounds . . ." Isom began-

"Idiot! He feels no fire," Einskaldir snarled. "And he has a slash in his

throat that would kill any man. Look! See.'" He forced back Ostrael's head

until those gathered around could see the ragged, fluttering edges of the

wound, which stretched from one angle of his jaw to the other. Father

Strangyeard, who had been leaning close, made a choking noise and

turned away.

"Tell me he is not some ghost . . ." the Rimmersman continued, then

was almost thrown to the ground as the body of the pikeman began to

thrash beneath him. "Hold him down!" Einskaldir shouted, Crying to keep

his face away from Ostrael's head, which whipped from side to side, the

teeth snapping shut on empty air.

Deornoth dove forward and clutched at one of the slender arms; it was

cold and hard as stone, but still horribly flexible. Isorn, Strangyeard, and

Josua were also struggling to find handholds on the wriggling, lunging

form. The half-darkness was rich with panicky curses. When Sangfugol

came forward and wrapped himself around the last unprisoned foot,

hanging on with both arms, the body became quiescent for a moment.

Deornoth could still feel the muscles moving beneath the skin, tightening

and relaxing, mustering strength for another try. Air hissed in and out of

the pikeman's distended, idiot-mouth.

Ostrael's head craned out on his uplifted neck, his blackened face swing-

ing to look at each of them in turn. Then, with terrifying suddenness, the

staring eyes seemed to blacken and fall inward. A moment later, wavering

crimson fire blossomed in the empty pits and the labored breathing stopped.

Somebody shrieked, a thin cry that quickly fell away into choking silence.

Like the clammy, crushing grip of a titan hand, loathing and raw dread

reached out and enfolded the entire camp as the prisoner spoke.

"So/' it said. Nothing human was left in its tones, only the dreadful, icy

inflection of empty spaces; the voice droned and blew like a black, un-

fenced wind. "This would have been much the easier way . . . but a swift death

that comes in sleep is denied to you, now."

Deornoth felt his own heart speeding like a snared rabbit's, speeding

until he thought it might leap from his breast. He felt the strength flowing

out of his fingers, even as they clutched at the body that had once been

Ostrael Firsfram's son. Through the tattered shirt he could feel flesh chill

as a headstone but nevertheless trembling with awful vitality.

STONE OF FAREWELL

23

"What are you!?" Josua said, struggling to keep his voice even. "And

what have you done to this poor man?"

The thing chuckled, almost pleasantly, but for the awful emptiness of its

voice. "/ did nothing so this creature. It was already dead, of course, or nearly

soit was noi hard to find dead mortals in the ruins of your freehold, prince of

rubble."

Somebody's fingernails were cutting into the skin of Deomoth's arm,

but the ruined face gripped his gaze like a candle gleaming at the end of

a long, black tunnel.

"Who are you?" Josua demanded.

"/ am one of the masters of your castle . . . and of your ultimate death," the

thing replied with poisonous gravity. "I owe no mortal answers. If not for the

bearded one's keen eye, your throats would have all been quietly slit tonight,

saving us much time and trouble. When your fleeing spirits go sauealing at last into

the endless Between jrom which we ourselves escaped, it will be by our doing. We

are the Red Hand, knights of the Storm Kingand He is the master of all!"

With a hiss from the ruptured throat, the body abruptly doubled over

like a hinge, struggling with the horrifying strength of a scorched snake.

Deornoth felt his hold slipping away. As the fire was kicked up into

fluttering sparks, he heard Vorzheva sobbing somewhere nearby. Others

were filling the night with frightened cries. He was sliding off; Isom's

weight was being pushed down on top of him. Deornoth heard the terrified

shouts of his fellows intertwine with his own hysterical prayer for strength . . .

Suddenly the thrashing became weaker. The body beneath him contin-

ued to flail from side to side for long moments, like a dying eel, then

finally stopped.

"What. . . ?" he was able to force out at last.

Einskaldir, gasping for breath, pointed to the ground with his elbow,

still maintaining a tight grip on the unmoving body. Severed by Einskaldir's

sharp knife, Ostrael's head had rolled an arm's length away, almost out of

the firelight. Even as the company stared, the dead lips pulled back in a

snarl. The crimson light was extinguished; the sockets were only empty

wells. A thin whisper of sound passed the broken mouth, forced out on a

last puff of breath.

". . . No escape . . . Noms will find ... No ..." It fell silent.

"By the Archangel ..." Hoarse with terror, Towser the jester broke

the stillness.

Josua rook a shaky breath. "We must give the demon's victim an

Aedonite burial." The prince's voice was firm, but it clearly took a heroic

effort of will to make it so. He turned to look at Vorzheva, who was

wide-eyed and slack-mouthed with shock. "And then we must flee. They

are indeed pursuing us." Josua turned and caught Deomoth's eye, staring.

"An Aedonite burial," he repeated.

24

Tad Williams

"First," Einskaldir panted, blood welling in a long scratch on his face,

"I cut the arms and legs off, too." He bent to the task, lifting his hand axe.

The others turned away.

The forest night crept in closer still.

^

Old Gealsgiath walked slowly along the wet, pitching deck of his ship

toward the two hooded and cloaked figures huddling at the starboard rail.

They turned as he approached, but did not remove their hands from the

ratlin g-

"Be-damned-to-Hell stinking weather!" the captain shouted above the

moaning of the wind. The hooded figures said nothing. "Men are going

down to sleep in kilpa-beds on the Great Green tonight," Old Gealsgiath

added in a conversational roar. His thick Hemystiri burr carried even

above the flapping and creaking of the sails. "This be drowning weather,

sure enough."

The heavier of the two figures pushed back his hood, eyes squinting in

his pink face as the rain lashed at him.

"Are we in danger?" Brother Cadrach shouted.

Gealsgiath laughed, his brown face wrinkling. The sound of his mirth

was sucked away by the wind. "Only if you plan to go in for swimming.

We're already near the shelter ofAnsis Pelippe and harbor-mouth."

Cadrach turned to stare out into the swirling twilight, which was dense

with rain and fog. "We're almost there?" he shouted, turning back.

The captain lifted a hooked finger to gesture at a deeper smear of

darkness off the starboard bow. "The big black spot there, that's Perdruin's

mountain'Streawe's Steeple,' as some do call it. We'll be slipping past

the harbor-gate before full dark. Unless the winds play tricksy. Brynioch-

curscd strange weather for Yuven-month."

Cadrach's small companion snuck a look at the shadow of Perdruin in

the gray mist, then lowered his head again.

"Anyhap, Father," Gealsgiath shouted above the elements, "we dock

tonight, and remain two days. I take it you'll be leaving us, since y'paid

fare only this far. P'raps you'd like to come down dockside and join me

for a drink of somethingunless your faith forbids it." The captain

smirked. Anyone who spent time in taverns knew that Aedonite monks

were no strangers to the pleasures of strong drink.

Brother Cadrach stared for a moment at the heaving sails, then turned

his odd, somewhat cold gaze onto the seafarer. A smile creased his round

face. "Thank you, captain, but no. The boy and I will remain on board for

a bit after we dock. He's not feeling well and I'm in no hurry to rush him

out. We'll have far to walk before we reach the abbey, much of it uphill."

The small figure reached up and tugged meaningfully at Cadrach's elbow,

but the monk paid him no attention.

STONE OF FAREWELL

25

Gealsgiath shrugged and pulled his shapeless cloth hat farther down on

his head. "You know best, Father. You paid your way and did your work

aboardalthough I would say your lad did the heartiest share of it. You

can leave anytime aforc we hoist sail for Crannhyr." He turned with a

wave of his knob-knuckled hand and started back along the slippery

boards, calling: "but if the lad ain't feeling well, I'd get him below

soon!"

"We were just taking some air!" Cadrach bellowed after him. "We'll go

ashore tomorrow morning, most likely! Thanks to you, good captain!"

As Old Gealsgiath stumped away, fading into the rain and mist, Cadrach's

companion turned and confronted the monk.

"Why are we going to stay on board?" Miriamele demanded, anger

plainly displayed on her pretty, sharp-featured face. "I want to get off this

ship! Every hour is important!" The rain had soaked even through her

thick hood, plastering her black-dyed hair across her forehead in sodden

spikes.

"Hush, milady, hush." This time Brother Cadrach's smile seemed a

touch more genuine. "Of course we're going offnearly as soon as we've

touched the dock, don't you worry."

Miriamele was angry. "Then why did you tell him. . . ?"

"Because sailors talk, and I'll wager none of them talk louder or longer

than our captain. There was no way for keeping him quiet, Saint Muirfath

knows. If we'd given him money to keep silent, he'd just get drunk faster

and be talking sooner. This way, if anyone's listening for news of us,

they'll at least think we're aboard the ship srill. Maybe they'll sit and

watch for us to come off until it sets out again, back to Hernystir.

Meanwhile, we'll be quietly ashore in Ansis Pelippe." Cadrach clucked his

tongue in satisfaction.

"Oh." Miriamele considered silently for a moment. She had underesti-

mated the monk again. Cadrach had been sober since they had boarded

Gealsgiath's ship in Abaingeat. Small wonder, since the voyage had made

him violently ill several times- But there was a shrewd brain behind that

plump face. She wondered againand not for the last time, she felt

surewhat Cadrach was really thinking.

"I'm sorry," she said at last. "That was a good idea. Do you really

think somebody is looking for us?"

"We would be fools to suppose otherwise, my lady." The monk took

her elbow and headed back coward the limited shelter of the lower deck.

When at last she saw Perdruin, it was as if a great ship had risen out of

the unquiet ocean, coming suddenly upon their small, frail craft. One

moment it was a deeper blackness off the bow; in the next, as though a

final curtain of obscuring mist had been drawn away, it loomed overhead

like the prow of a mighty vessel.

26

Tad Williams

A thousand lights gleamed through the fog, small as fireflies, making

the great rock sparkle in the night. As Gcalsgiath's cargo-hauler glided in

through the harbor passages, the island continued to rise above them. its

mountainous back a wedge of darkness pushing ever upward, blocking

out even the mist-cloaked sky.

Cadrach had chosen to remain below decks. Miriamele was quite satis-

fied with the arrangement. She stood at the railing, listening to the sailors

shouting and laughing in the lantem-prickcd darkness as they furled the

sails. Voices rose in ragged song, only to end abruptly in curses and more

laughter.

The wind was gentler here, in the lee of the harborside buildings.

Miriamele felt a strange warmth climb up her back and into her neck, and

knew without thinking what it signified: she was happy. She was free and

going where she chose to go; that had not been true for as long as she

could remember.

She had not set foot on Pcrdruin since she had been a small girl, but she

still felt, in a way, as if she were returning home. Her mother Hylissa had

brought her here when Miriamele had been very young, as part of a visit

to Hylissa's sister, the Duchess Nessalanta in Nabban. They had stopped

in Ansis Pelippe to pay a courtesy call on Count Strcawe. Miriamele

remembered little of the visitshe had been very youngexcept a kind

old man who had given her a tangerine, and a high-walled garden with a

tiled walkway. Miriamele had chased a long-tailed, beautiful bird while

her mother drank wine and laughed and talked with other grown people.

The kind old man must have been the count, she decided. It was

certainly a wealthy man's garden they had visited, a carefully-tended

paradise hidden in a castle courtyard. There had been flowering trees and

beautiful silver and golden fish floating in a pond set right into the

path. . . -

The harbor wind gained strength, tugging at her cloak. The railing was

cold beneath her fingers, so she tucked her hands under her arms.

It had been not long after the visit to Ansis Pelippe that her mother had

gone on another journey, this time without Miriamele. Uncle Josua had

taken Hylissa to join Miriamele's father Elias, who was in the field with

his army. That had been the journey which had crippled Josua, and from

which Hylissa had never returned. Elias, almost mute with grief, too full

of anger to speak of death, would only tell his little daughter chat her

mother could never come back. In her child's mind, Miriamele had

pictured her mother captive in a walled garden somewhere, a lovely

garden like the one they had visited on Perdruin, a beautiful place that

Hylissa could never leave, even to visit the daughter who missed her

so....

That daughter lay awake many nights, long after her handmaidens had

tucked her into bed, staring up into the darkness and plotting to rescue her

STONE OF FAREWELL

27

lost mother from a flowering prison threaded by endless, tiled paths. . . .

Nothing had been right since then. It was as though her father had

drunk of some slow poison when her mother had died, some terrible

venom that had festered within, turning him into stone.

Where was he? What was High King Elias doing at this moment?

Miriamele looked up at the shadowy, mountainous island and felt her

moment of joy swept away as the wind might snatch a kerchief from her

hand. Even now, her father was laying siege to Naglimund, venting his

terrible rage on [he walls ofJosua's keep. Isgrimnur, old Towser, all of

them were fighting for their lives even as she floated in past the harbor

lights, riding che ocean's dark, smooth back.

And the kitchen boy Simon, with his red hair and his awkward, well-

meaning ways, his unconcealed concerns and confusionsshe felt a pang

of sorrow as she thought of him. He and the little troll had gone into the

trackless north, perhaps gone forever.

She straightened up. Thinking other former companions had reminded

her of her duty. She was posing as a monk's acolyteand a sick one at

that. She should be below decks. The ship would be docking soon.

Miriamele smiled bitterly. So many impostures. She was free now of

her father's court, but she was still posing. As a sad child in Nabban and

Meremund, she had often pretended happiness. The lie had been better

than answering the well-meaning but unanswerable questions. As her

father had retreated from her she had pretended not to care, even though

she had felt that she was being eaten away from within.

Where was God, the younger Miriamele had wondered; where was He

when love was slowly hardening into indifference and care becoming

duty? Where was God when her father Elias begged Heaven for answers,

his daughter listening breathlessly in the shadows outside his chamber?

Perhaps He believed my lies, she thought bitterly as she walked down the

rain-slicked wooden steps onto the lower deck. Perhaps He wanted to believe

them, so He could get on with more important things.

The city on the hillside was bright-lit and the rainy night was full of

masked revelers. It was Midsummer Festival in Ansis Pelippe: despite the

unseasonable weather, the narrow, winding streets were riotous with

merrymakers.

Miriamele stepped back as a half-dozen men dressed as chained apes were

led past, clanking and staggering. Seeing her standing in the shadowy

doorway of one of the shuttered houses, a drunken actor turned, his false

fur matted with rainwater, and paused as if to say something to her.

Instead, the ape-man belched, smiled apologetically through the mouth

hole of his skewed mask, then returned his sorrowful gaze to the uneven

cobblestones before him.

As the apes tumbled away, Cadrach reappeared suddenly at her side.

28

Tad Williams

"Where have you been?" she demanded. "You have been gone nearly

an hour."

"Not so long, lady, surely." Cadrach shook his head. "I have been

finding our certain things that will be useful. Very useful." He looked

around. "Ah, but it's a riotous night, is it not?"

Miriamele tugged Cadrach out into the street once more. "You'd never

know there was war in the north and people dying," she said disapprov-

ingly. "You wouldn't know that Nabban may soon be at war, too, and

Nabban'sjust across the bay."

"Of course not, my lady," Cadrach huffed, matching his shorter strides

to hers as best he could. "It is the way of the Perdruinese not to know such

things. That is how they remain so cheerfully uninvolved in most con-

flicts, managing to arm and supply both the eventual victor and the

eventual vanquishedand turn a neat profit." He grinned and wiped

water from his eyes. "Now there's something your Perdruin-folk would

be going to war about; protecting their profit."

"Well, I'm surprised no one's invaded this place." The princess wasn't

sure why the heedlessness of Ansis Pelippe's citizens should nettle her so,

but she was nevertheless feeling exceedingly nettlesome.

"Invade? And muddy the waterhole from which all drink?" Cadrach

seemed astonished. "My dear Miriamele . . . your pardon, my dear

MalachiasI must remember, since we will soon be moving in circles

where your true name is not unfamiliarmy dear Malachias, you have

much to learn about the world." He paused for a moment as another gang

of costumed folk swirled by, engaged in a loud, drunken argument about

the words to some song. "There," the monk said, gesturing after them,

"there is an example of why that which you say will never come to pass.

Were you hearing that little debate?"

Miriamele pulled her hood lower against the slanting rain. "Some of

it," she replied. "What does it matter?"

"It is not the subject of the argument that matters, but the method.

They were all Perdruinese, unless my ear for accents has gone wrong from

all that ocean roaryet they were arguing in the Westerling tongue."

"So?"

"Ah," Cadrach squinted his eyes as if looking for something down the

crowded, lantern-lit street, but continued speaking all the while. "You and

I are speaking Westerling, but except for your Erkynlandish fellow-

countrymenand not even all of themno one else speaks it among their

own people. Rimmersmen in Elvritshalla use Rimmerspakk; we Hernystiri

speak our own tongue when in Crannhyr or Hernysadharc. Only the

Perdruinese have adopted your grandfather King John's universal lan-

guage, and to them it is now truly their first language."

Miriamele stopped in the middle of the slickened roadway, letting the

press of celebrants eddy around her. A thousand oil lamps raised a false

STONE OFFAREWELL

29

dawn above the housetops. "I'm tired and hungry. Brother Cadrach, and I

don't understand what you are getting at."

"Simply this. The Perdruinese are what they are because they strive to

pleaseor, put more clearly, they know which way the wind is blowing

and they run that direction, so the wind is always at their backs. If we

Hern ystir-folk were a conquering people, the merchants and sailors of

Perdruin would be practicing their Hernystiri. 'If a king wants apples,' as

the Nabbanai say, 'Perdruin plants orchards.' Any other nation would be

foolish to attack such a compliant friend and helpful ally."

"Then you are saying that the souls of these Perdruin-folk are for sale?"

Miriamele demanded. "That they have no loyalty to any but the strong?"

Cadrach smiled. "That has the ring of disdain, my lady, but it seems an

accurate summing up, yes."

"Then they're no better than" she looked around carefully, fighting

down anger, "no better than whores!"

The monk's weathered face took on a cool, distant cast; his smile was

now a mere formality. "Not everyone can stand up and be a hero,

Princess," he said quietly. "Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and

salve their consciences with the gift of survival."

Miriamele thought about the obvious truth of what Cadrach had said as

they walked on, but could not understand why it made her so unutterably

sad.

The cobbled paths of Ansis Pelippe not only wound tortuously, in

many places they climbed in gouged stone steps up the very face of the

hill, then spiraled back down, doubling and redoubling, crossing each

other at odd angles like a basket of serpents. On either side the houses

stood shoulder to shoulder, most with windows shadowed like the closed

eyes of sleepers, some ablaze with light and music. The foundations of the

houses tilted upward from the streets, each structure clinging precariously

to the hillside so that their upper stories seemed to lean over the con-

stricted roads. As- her hunger and fatigue began to make her giddy,

Miriamele felt at times that she was back beneath the close-stooping trees

ofAldheorte Forest.

Perdruin was a cluster of hills surrounding Sta Mirore, the central

mountain. Their lumpy backs rose up almost directly from the island's

rocky verges, looking over the Bay ofEmettin- Perdruin's silhouette thus

resembled a mother pig and her feeding young. There was little flat land

anywhere, except in the saddles where high hills shouldered together, so

the villages and towns of Perdruin clung to the faces of these hills like

gulls' nests. Even Ansis Pellipe, the great seaport and the seat of Count

Streawe's house, was built on the steep slopes of a promontory that the

residents called Harborstone. In many places the citizens of Ansis Pellipe

could stand on one of the capital's hill-hugging streets and wave to their

neighbors on the thoroughfare below.

30

Tad Williams

"1 must eat something," Miriamele said at last, breathing heavily. They

stood at a turnout of one of the looping streets, a place where they could

look down between two buildings to the lights of the foggy harbor below.

The dull moon hung in the clouded sky like a chip of bone.

"I am also ready to stop, Malachias," panted Cadrach.

"How far is this abbey?"

"There is no abbey, or at least we are not going to such a place."

"But you told the captain . . - oh." Miriamele shook her head, feeling

the damp heaviness of her hood and cloak, "Of course. So, then, where

are we going?"

Cadrach stared at the moon and laughed quietly. "Wherever we wish,

my friend. 1 do think there is a tavern of some repute at the top of this

street: I must confess I was leading us in that general direction. Certainly

not because I enjoy climbing these goirach hills."

"A tavern? Why not a hostel, so we can find a bed after we eat?"

"Because, begging your pardon, it is not eating that I am thinking

about. I have been aboard that abominable ship longer than I care to think.

I will take my rest after I have indulged my thirst." Cadrach wiped his

hand across his mouth and grinned. Miriamele did not much like the look

in his eyes.

"But there was a tavern every cubit down below ..." she began.

"Exactly. Taverns full of drunken tale-passers and minders of others'

business. I cannot be taking my well-deserved rest in such a place." He

turned his back on the moon and began stumping away up the road.

"Come, Malachias. It is only a little farther, I am sure."

It seemed that during Midsummer Festival there was no such thing as an

uncrowded tavern, but at least the drinkers in The Red Dolphin were not

cheek to cheeky as they were in the dockside inns, only elbow to elbow.

Miriamele gratefully slid down onto a bench set against the far wall and let

the wash of conversation and song flow over her. Cadrach, after putting

down his sack and walking stick, moved off to find himself a mug of

Traveler's Reward. He returned after only a moment.

"Good Malachias, I had forgotten how nearly beggared I am from

paying our sea passage. Do you have a cintis-piece or two 1 might employ

in the removal of thirst?"

Miriamele dug in her purse and produced a palm full of coppers. "Get

me some bread and cheese," she said, pouring the coins into the monk's

outstretched hand.

As she sat wishing she could take off her wet cloak to celebrate being

out of the rain, another group of costumed celebrants banged in through

the door, shaking water from their finery and calling for beer. One of the

loudest wore a mask shaped like a red-tongued hound. As he thumped his

STONE OFFAREWELL

31

fist on a table, his right eye lit on Miriamele for a moment and seemed to

pause. She felt a rush of fear, suddenly remembering another hound mask,

and flaming arrows slashing through the forest shadows. But this dog

quickly turned back to his fellows, making a jest and throwing his head

back in laughter, his cloth ears swinging.

Miriamele pushed her hand against her chest as if to slow down her

speeding heart.

/ must keep this hood on, she Cold herself. It's a festival night, so who will

look twice? Better that than someone recognizing my facehowever unlikely that

might seem.

Cadrach was gone a surprisingly long time. Miriamele was just starting

to feel restive, wondering if she should go and look for him, when he

returned with ajar of ale in each hand. A half-loaf of bread and an end of

cheese were prisoned between the jars.

"A man could die of thirst a-waiting for beer, tonight," the monk said.

Miriamele ate greedily, then took a long swallow of the ale, which was

bitter and dark in her mouth. The rest of the jar she left for Cadrach, who

did not protest.

When the last crumbs were licked from her fingers and she was ponder-

ing whether she was hungry enough to eat a pigeon pie, a shadow fell

across the bench she and the monk shared.

The raw-boned face of Death stared down at them from a black cowl.

Miriamele gasped and Cadrach sputtered ale on his gray robe, but the

stranger in the skull mask did not move.

"A very pretty joke, friend," Cadrach said angrily, "and merry mid-

summer to you, too." He swiped at the front of his garments.

The mouth did not move. The flat, unexcited voice issued from behind

the bared teeth. "You come with me."

Miriamele felt the skin on the back of her neck crawl. Her recently-

consumed meal felt very heavy in her stomach.

Cadrach squinted. She could see tension in his neck and fingers. "And

who might you be, mummer? Were you truly Brother Death, I would

expect you clad in finer clothing." The monk pointed a slightly trembling

finger at the tattered black cloak the figure wore.

"Stand up and come with me," the apparition said. "I have a knife. If you

shout, things will be very bad for you."

Brother Cadrach looked at Miriamele and grimaced. They rose, the

princess on wobbly knees. Death gestured for them to walk ahead, through

the press of tavern guests.

Miriamele was entertaining disconnected thoughts of making a bolt for

freedom when two other figures slipped discreetly out of the crowd near

the doorway. One wore a blue mask and the stylized garb of a sailor; the

other was dressed as a rustic peasant in an oversized hat. The somber eyes

of the newcomers belied their gaudy costumes.

32

Tad Williams

With the sailor and peasant on either side, Cadrach and Miriamcle

followed black-cloaked Death out into the street. Before they had gone

three dozen paces, the little caravan turned into an alley and down a flight

of stairs to the next street below. Miriamcle slipped for a moment on one

of the rainwashed stone steps and felt a thrill of horror as her skull-faced

captor reached out a hand to steady her. The touch was fleeting and she

could not draw away without falling down, so she suffered it silently. A

moment later they were off the stairway, then quickly into another alley-

way, up a ramp, and around a corner.

Even with the faint moon overhead and the cries of late revelers echoing

from the tavern above and the harbor district below, Miriamcle quickly

lost any sense of where she was. They traveled down tiny back streets like

a string of skulking cats, ducking in and out of hidden courtyards and

vine-shrouded walkways. From time to time they heard the murmur of

voices from a darkened house, and once the sound of a woman crying-

At last they reached an arched gateway in a tall stone wall. Death

produced a key from his pocket and opened the lock. They stepped

through into an overgrown courtyard roofed with leaning willow trees,

from whose trailing branches rainwater dripped patiently onto the cracked

stone cobbles. The leader turned to the others, gestured briefly with his

key, then indicated that Miriamele and Cadrach should walk ahead of him

toward a shadowed doorway.

"We have come with you so far, man," the monk said, whispering as if

he, too, were a conspirator. "But there is no benefit to us in walking into

an ambush. Why should we not fight you here and die beneath open sky,

if we must be dying?"

Death leaned forward without a word. Cadrach started back, but the

skull-masked man only leaned past him and knocked on the door with

black-gloved knuckles, then pushed it inward. It swung open silently on

oiled hinges.

A dim, warm light burned inside the portal. Miriamele stepped past the

monk and through the doorway. Cadrach followed a moment later,

muttering to himself. Skull-face came last of all and pushed the door shut

behind him.

It was a small sitting room, lit only by a fire in the grate and one candle

burning in a dish beside a decanter of wine on the table top. The walls

were covered with heavy velvet tapestries, their designs distinguishable in

the firelight only as swirls of color. Behind the table, in a high backed

chair, sat a figure fully as strange as any of their escorts: a tall man in a

russet-brown cloak, wearing the sharp-featured mask of a fox.

The fox leaned forward, indicating two chairs with a graceful sweep of

his velvet-gloved fingers.

"Sit down." His voice was thin but melodious, "Sit down. Princess

Miriamele- I would rise, but my crippled legs do not permit it."

STONE OF FAREWELL

33

"This is madness," Cadrach blustered, but kept an eye on the skull-

faced specter at his shoulder. "You have made a mistake, sirthis is a boy

you address, my acolyte ..."

"Please." The fox gestured amiably for silence. "It is time to doff our

masks. Is that not how Midsummer Night always ends?"

He lifted the fox face away, revealing a shock of white hair and a face

seamed with age. As his unmasked eyes glittered in the fireglow, a smile

quirked his wrinkled lips.

"Now that you know who 1 am . . ." he began, but Cadrach inter-

rupted him.

"We do not know you, sir, and you have mistaken us!"

The old man laughed dryly. "Oh, come. You and I may not have met

before, my dear fellow, but the princess and I are old friends. As a matter

of fact, she was my guest, oncelong, long ago."

"You are ... Count Streawe?" Miriamele breathed.

"Indeed," the count nodded. His shadow loomed on the wall behind

him. He leaned forward, clasping her wet hand in his velvet-sheathed

claw. "Perdruin's master- And, beginning the moment you two touched

foot on the rock over which I rule, your master as well."

Oath-Breaker

iJCI/CCr in the day of his meeting with the Herder and Huntress, when

the sun was high in the sky, Simon felt strong enough to go outside and

sit on the rocky porch before his cave. He wrapped a corner of his blanket

about his shoulders and tucked the remainder of the heavy wool beneath

him as a cushion against the mountain's stony skin. But for the royal

couch in Chidsik ub Lingit, there seemed to be nothing like a chair in all

of Yiqanuc.

The herders had long since led their sheep out of the protected valleys

where they slept, taking them down-mountain in search of fodder. Jiriki

had told him that the spring shoots on which the animals usually fed had

been all but destroyed by the clinging winter. Simon watched one of the

flocks milling on a slope far below him, tiny as ants. A faint clacking

sound wafted up to him, the rams butting horns as they contested for

mastery of the herd.

The troll women, their black-haired babies strapped to their backs in

pouches of finely stitched hide, had taken up slender spears and gone

out hunting, stalking marmots and other animals whose meat could help

to eke out the mutton. Binabik had often said that the sheep were the

Qanuc people's true wealth, that they ate only such members of their

flocks as were good for nothing else, the old and the barren.

Marmots, coneys, and other such small game were not the only reason

the troll women carried spears. One of the furs ostentatiously wrapped

around Nunuuika had been that of a snow leopard, dagger-sharp claws

still gleaming. Remembering the Huntress' fierce eyes, Simon had little

doubt that Nunuuika had brought down that prize herself.

The women were not alone in facing danger; the task of the herdsmen

was just as perilous, since there were many large predators that had to be

kept from the precious sheep. Binabik had once told him that the wolves

and leopards, although a threat, were scarcely comparable to the huge

snow bears, the biggest of them heavy as two dozen trolls. Many a Qanuc

STONE OF FAREWELL

35

herdcr, Binabik had said, met a swift and unpleasant end beneath the claws

and teeth of a white bear.

Simon repressed a reflexive tremor of unease at this thought. Hadn't he

stood before the dragon Igjarjuk, grander and deadlier by far than any

ordinary animal?

He sat as late morning passed into afternoon, watching the life of

Mintahoq as it lay spread before him, as simultaneously hectic yet organ-

ized as a beehive. The elders, their years of hunting and herding past,

gossiped from porch to porch or crouched in the sun, carving bone and

horn, cutting and sewing cured hide into all manner of things. Children

too big to be carried off to the hunt by their mothers played games up and

down the mountain under the old folks' bemused supervision, shinnying

up the slender ladders or swinging and tumbling on the swaying thong

bridges, heedless of the fatal distances that stretched beneath them. Simon

found it more than a little difficult to watch these dangerous amusements,

but through all the long afternoon not a single troll child came to harm.

Though the details were alien and unfamiliar, he could sense the order

here. The measured beat of life seemed as strong and stable as the moun-

tain itself.

That night Simon dreamed once more of the great wheel.

This time, as in a cruel parody of the passion ofUsires the Son of God,

Simon was bound helplessly to the wheel, a limb at each quarter of the

heavy rim. It turned him not only topside-down, as Lord Usires had

suffered upon the Tree, but spun him around and around in an earthless

void of black sky. The stars' bleak radiance blurred before him like the

tails of comets. Something elsesome shadowy, icy thing whose laugh was

the empty buzzing of fliesdanced just beyond his sight, mocking him.

He called out, as he often did in such terrible dreams, but no sound

came forth. He struggled, but his limbs were without strength. Where

was God, who the priests said saw every act? Why should He leave Simon

in the grasp of such dreadful darknesses?

Something seemed to form slowly out of the pale, attenuated stars; his

heart filled with awful anticipation. But what emerged from the spinning

void was not the expected red-eyed horror, but a small, solemn face: the

little dark-haired girl he had seen in other dreams.

She opened her mouth. The madly revolving sky seemed to slow.

She spoke his name.

It came to him as down a long corridor, and he realized he had seen her

somewhere. He knew that facebut who . . . where. . . ?

"Simon," she said again, somehow clearer now. Her voice was filled

with urgency. But something else was reaching out for him, toosomething

closer to hand. Something quite near . . .

He awoke.

36

Tad Williams

Someone was looking for him. Simon sat up on his pallet, breathless,

alert for any sound. But for the endless sighing of the mountain winds and

the faint snoring of Haestan, wrapped in his heavy cloak near the coats of

the evening's fire, the cavern was still.

Jiriki was absent. Could the Sitha have called to him from outside the

cave? Or was it only the residue of dream? Simon shivered and considered

pulling the fur coverlet back over his head once more. His breath was a

dim cloud in the ember-light.

No, somebody was waiting outside. He did not know how he knew,

but he was sure: he felt tuned like a harp string, trembling. The night

seemed tight-stretched.

What if someone did wait for him? Perhaps it was someonesome

thingfrom which it would be better to hide?

Such thoughts made little difference. He had gotten it into his head that

he must go out. Now the need tugged at him, impossible to ignore.

My cheek aches terribly, anyway, he told himself. I won't be able to fall

asleep for a lon^ while.

He snaked his breeches out from under the sleeping-cloak where they

stayed warm in the bitter Yiqanuc night, wrestling them on as silently as

he could, then pulled his boots onto his cold feet. He briefly debated

putting on his mail shirt, but the thought of its chilly rings, rather than

any surety of safety, decided him against it. He furled the cloak around

him, suiting quietly past sleeping Haestan and out under the door-skin into

the cold.

The stars over high Mintahoq were mercilessly clear. As Simon stared

up, amazed, he felt their distance, the impossible vastness of the night sky.

The moon, not quite full, hovered low over distant peaks. Bathed in its

diffident light, the snow on the heights gleamed, but all else lay sunken in

shadow.

Even as he turned his eyes down and took a few steps to the right, away

from the cave-mouth, he was stopped short by a low growl. A strange

silhouette loomed on the pathway before him, moonbrushed at the edges,

black at the core. The deep rumble came again. Eyes flared green as they

caught the moonlight.

Simon's breath snagged in his throat for a moment, until he remembered.

"Qantaqa?" he said quietly.

The growl changed into a curious whine. The wolf tipped its head.

"Qantaqa? Is it you?" He tried to think of some of Binabik's troll

speech, but could summon nothing. "Are you hurt?" He silently cursed

himself. He had not once thought of the wolf since he had been brought

down from the dragon's mountain, although she had been a companion

and, in a way, a friend.

Selfish! he chided himself.

STONE OF FAREWELL37

With Binabik imprisoned, who knew what Qantaqa had done? Her

friend and master had been taken from her, just as Doctor Morgenes had

been taken from Simon. The night seemed suddenly colder and emptier,

full of the world's heedless cruelty.

"Qantaqa? Are you hungry?" He took a step coward her and the wolf

shied back. She growled again, but it sounded more like excitement than

anger. She took a few prancing steps, the shimmer other gray coat almost

invisible, then growled again before bounding away. Simon followed her.

It occurred to him as he went, stepping carefully on the wet stone

pathways, that he was doing a foolish thing. The twisting roadways of

high Mintahoq were no place for a midnight walk, especially without a

torch. Even the native trolls knew better: the cave-mouths were lightless

and silent, the paths empty. It was as if he had wakened from one dream

to enter another, this shadowy pilgrimage beneath the distant and uncar-

ing moon.

Qantaqa seemed to know where she was going. When Simon lagged

too far behind she trotted back, stopping just out of reach until he caught

up, her hot breath pluming the air. As soon as he drew within an arm's

length she was off again. Thus, like a spirit of the aftcrworld, she led him

away from the fires of his own kind.

It was only when they had walked for some time, traveling well around

the curve of the mountain from the sleeping-cave, that Qantaqa bounded

all the way back to Simon. She did not pull up short this time. Her great

frame struck him so suddenly that even though she had merely bumped

against him, he fell back onto his seat. She stood over him for a moment,

her face buried in his neck, cold nose rooting ticklingly near his ear.

Simon reached up to scratch her ears and felt her tremble even through

her thick fur. A moment later, as if her need for comfort had been

satisfied, she leaped away again and stood whining quietly until he rose,

rubbing his tailbone, and followed.

It seemed that Qantaqa had led him halfway around Mintahoq. She

stood now at the edge of a great blackness, yipping in excitement. Simon

walked forward cautiously, feeling the raw stone face of the mountain

with his right hand as he went. Qantaqa paced in seeming impatience.

The wolf was standing at the rim of a great pit, which burrowed away

from the side of the path into the very mountain. The moon, sailing

low in the sky like an overloaded carrack, could only silver the stone

around the hole's mouth. Qantaqa barked again with barely contained

enthusiasm.

To Simon's staggering surprise, a voice echoed thinly from below.

"Go away, wolf! Even sleep is taken from me, Aedon curse it!"

Simon threw himself to the cold gravel and crawled forward on elbows

and knees, stopping at last with his head hanging over blind nothingness.

38

Tad Williams

"Who's there?" he cried. His words reverberated as though they jour-

neyed a great distance. "Sludig?"

There was a pause.

"Simon? Is that you who calls?"

"Yes! Yes, it's me' Qantaqa brought me' Is Bmabik with you? Binabik!

It's me. Simon!"

A silent moment passed, then Sludig spoke again. Now Simon could

hear the strain in the Rimmersman's voice. "The troll will not speak. He is

here, but he will not speak to me, CoJiriki when he came, to anyone."

"Is he sick? Binabik, it's Simon! Why don't you answer me?"

"He is sick in his heart, I think," Sludig said. "He looks as he always

didthinner, perhaps, but so I am, toobut he acts like one already

dead." There was a scraping noise as Sludig, or someone, moved in the

depths, "jiriki says they will kill us," the Rimmcrsman said a moment

later, his voice flat with resignation. "The Sitha spoke for usnot with

heat or anger, as far as I could tell, but he spoke for us all the same. He

said the troll people did not agree with his arguments and were deter-

mined to have their justice." He laughed bitterly. "Some justice, to kill a

man who never did them harm, and kill one of their own as well, both of

whom have suffered much for the good of all folkeven the trolls.

Einskaldir was right. But for this silent fellow beside me, they are all

hell-wights."

Simon sat up, holding his head in his hands. The wind blew uncaringly

about the heights. Helplessness spread through him.

"Binabik!" he cried, leaning over once more. "Qantaqa waits for you!

Sludig suffers at your side! No one can help if you don't help yourself

Why won't you speak to me?!"

Only Sludig answered. "It's no good, I tell you. His eyes are closed. He

does not hear you, will not speak at all."

Simon slapped his hand against the rock and cursed. He felt tears start in

his eyes.

"I will help you, Sludig," he said at last. "I do not know how, but I

will." He sat up. Qantaqa nosed him and whimpered. "Can I bring you

something? Food? Water?"

Sludig laughed dully. "No. They feed us, although not to bursting. I

would ask for wine. but I do not know when they come for me. I will not

go with my head foggy from drink. Only pray for me, please- And for the

troll, too."

"I will do more than that, Sludig, I swear." He stood up.

"You were very brave on the mountain, Simon," Sludig called quietly.

"I am glad that I knew you."

The stars glittered coldly above the pit as Simon walked away, fighting

to stand straight and cry no more.

***

STONE OFFAREWELL

39

He walked a while beneath the moon, lost in the swirl of his distracted

thoughts, before he realized that he was again following Qantaqa. The

wolf, who had paced anxiously beside the edge of the pit while Simon

talked to Sludig, now trotted purposefully along the path before him. She

did not allow him a chance to catch up as she had on their outward

journey, and he was hard pressed to keep to her pace.

The moonlight was just bright enough for Simon to see where he was

going, the trail just wide enough to allow for recovery from the occasional

misstep. Still, he was feeling decidedly weak. He wondered more than once

whether he should just sit down and wait until dawn came, when some-

one would find him and return him safely to his cave, but Qantaqa trotted

on, full of lupine determination. Feeling that he owed her a sort of loyalty,

Simon did his best to follow.

He soon noted with more than a little alarm that they seemed to be

climbing above the main trail, angling up Mintahoq's face along a steeper,

narrower pathway. As the wolf led him ever upward, and as they cut

across more than a few horizontal paths, the air began to seem thinner.

Simon knew he had not climbed so far, that the sensation was due instead

to his own flagging wind, but he nevertheless felt himself to be passing

out of the realms of safety into the upper heights. The stars seemed very

close.

He wondered for a moment if chose cold stars might somehow be the

airless peaks of other, incredibly distant mountains, vast bodies lost in

darkness, snow-capped heads gleaming with reflected moonlight. But no,

that was foolishness. Where could they be standing, that they would not

be visible in daylight beneath the bright sun?

In truth, the air might have been no scarcer, but the cold was certainly

growing, undeniable and intrusive despite his heavy cloak. Shivering, he

decided he should turn around and make his way back down to the main

roadway, no matter what moonlight pastime Qantaqa found so enticing.

A moment later, he was surprised to find himself stepping up off the path

and following the wolf onto a narrow shelf in the mountainside.

The rocky porch, dotted with patches of dimly gleaming snow, stood

before a large, black crevice. Qantaqa jogged forward and stopped before

it, sniffing. She turned to regard Simon, her shaggy head tipped at an

angle, then barked once inquiringly and slipped into blackness. Simon

decided there must be a cave hidden in the shadows. He was wondering

whether he should follow herletting a wolf lead him on a foolish hike

along the mountainside was one thing, but letting her lead him into a

lightlcss cavern in the middle of the night was another thing entirely

when a trio of small dark shapes appeared out of the blackness of the cliff

face before him, startling Simon so badly that he almost stepped backward

off the stone porch.

Differs! he thought wildly, scrabbling on the barren ground for some

40

Tad Williams

weapon. One of the shapes stepped forward, raising a slender spear

toward him as if in warning. It was a troll, of coursethey were quite a

bit larger than the subterranean Bukken, when calmly examinedbut still

he was frightened. These Qanuc were small but well-armed; Simon was a

stranger wandering about at night, perhaps in some sacred place.

The nearest troll pushed back a fur-ringed hood. Pallid moonlight shone

on the face of a young woman. Simon could see little of her features but

the whites of her eyes, but he was sure her expression was fierce and

dangerous. Her two companions moved up beside her, muttering in what

seemed like angry voices. He took a step backward down the pathway,

feeling carefully for a safe foothold.

"I'm sorry. I'm just going," he said, realizing even as he spoke that they

could not understand him. Simon cursed himself for not having Binabik

or Jiriki teach him some words of troll speech. Always regretting, always

too late! Would he be a mooncalf forever? He was tired of the position.

Let someone else take it on.

"I'm just going," he repeated. "I was following the wolf. Following

... the ... wolf." He spoke slowly, trying to make his voice sound

friendly despite his tightened throat. One misunderstanding and he might

be plucking one of those wicked-looking spears out of his midsection.

The troll woman watched him. She said something to one of her

companions. The one addressed took a few steps toward the shadowed

cave-mouth. Qantaqa growled menacingly from somewhere within the

echoing depths and the troll quickly scuttled away again.

Simon took another step back down the path. The trolls watched him in

silence, their small dark forms poised and watchful, but they made no

move to hinder him. He turned his back on them slowly and helped

himself down the trail, picking his way among the silvered rocks. After a

moment the three trolls, Qantaqa, and the mysterious cave were all out of

sight behind him.

He made his way downslope alone in dreaming moonlight. Halfway

back to the main trail he had to stop and sit, elbows on trembling knees.

He knew that his exhaustion and even his fear would eventually recede,

but he could imagine no cure for such loneliness.

^

"I am truly sorry, Seoman, but there is nothing to be done. Last night

Reniku, the star we call Summer-Lantern, appeared above the horizon at

sundown. 1 have stayed too long. I can remain no longer."

Jiriki sat cross-legged atop a rock on the cave's vast porch, staring down

into the mist-carpeted valley. Unlike Simon and Haestan, he wore no

heavy clothing. The wind plucked at the sleeves of his glossy shirt.

"But what will we do about Binabik and Sludig?" Simon flung a stone

STONE OF FAREWELL41

into the depths, half-hoping it would wound some fog-hidden troll below.

"They'll be killed if you don't do something!"

"There is nothing I could do, in any circumstance," Jiriki said quietly.

"The Qanuc have a right to their justice. I cannot honorably interfere."

"Honor? Hang honor, Binabik won't even speak! How can he defend

himself?"

The Sitha sighed, but his hawkish face remained impassive. "Perhaps

there is no defense. Perhaps Binabik knows he has wronged his people."

Haestan snorted his disgust. "We dunna even know ch' little man's

crime."

"Oath-breaking, I am told," Jiriki said mildly. He turned to Simon. "I

must go, Seoman. The news of the Norn Queen's Huntsman attacking the

Zida'ya has upset my people very much. They wish me home. There is

much to discuss." Jiriki brushed a strand of hair from his eye. "Also,

when my kinsman An'nai died and was buried on Urmsheim, a responsi-

bility fell upon me. His name must now be entered with full ceremony in

the Book of Year-Dancing. I, of all my people, can least shirk that

responsibility. It was, after all, Jiriki i-Sa'onserei and no other who brought

him to the place of his deathand it was much to do with me and my

willfulness that he went." The Sitha's voice hardened as he clenched his

brown fingers into a fist. "Do you not see? I cannot turn my back on

An'nai's sacrifice."

Simon was desperate. "I don't know anything about your Dancing

Bookbut you said that we would be allowed to speak for Binabik! They

told you so!"

Jiriki cocked his head. "Yes. The Herder and Huntress so agreed."

"Well, how will we be able to do that if you are gone? We can't speak

the troll-tongue and they can't understand ours."

Simon thought he saw a look of bewilderment flit briefly across the

Sitha's imperturbable face, but it passed so swiftly he was not sure. Jiriki's

flake-gold eyes caught and held his gaze. They scared at each other for

long moments.

"You are right, Seoman," Jiriki said slowly. "Honor and heritage have

pincered me before, but never quite so neatly." He dropped his head

down and stared at his hands, then slowly lifted his eyes to the gray sky.

"An'nai and my family must forgive me. J'asu pra-peroihin! The Book of

Year-Dancing must then record my disgrace." He took a deep breath. "I

will stay while Binabik ofYiqanuc has his day at court."

Simon should have exulted, but instead felt only hollowness. Even to a

mortal, the Sitha prince's unhappiness was profoundly apparent; Jiriki was

making some terrible sacrifice that Simon could not understand. But what

else could be done? They were all caught here on this high rock beyond

the known world, all prisonersat least of circumstance. They were

ignorant heroes, friends to oath-breakers . . .

42

Tad Williams

A chill dashed up Simon's backbone. "Jiriki!" he gasped, waving his

hands as if to clear a way for the sudden inspiration.

Would it work? Even if it did, would it help?

"Jiriki," he said again, more quietly this time, "I believe I have thought

of something that will let you do what you need to and help Binabik and

Sludig, too."

Haestan, hearing the tightness in Simon's voice, put down the stick he

had been carving and leaned forward. Jiriki raised an expectant eyebrow.

"You will only need to do one thing," Simon said. "You must go with

me to see the king and queenthe Herder and the Huntress."

After they had spoken to Nunuuika and Uammanaq, gaining the pair's

grudging acceptance of their proposal, Simon and Jiriki walked back in

mountain twilight from the House of the Ancestor. The Sitha wore a faint

smile.

"You continue to surprise me, young Seoman. This is a bold stroke. I

have no idea if it will help your friend, but it is a beginning, nevertheless."

"They would never have agreed if you hadn't asked, Jiriki- Thank

you."

The Sitha made a complicated gesture with his long fingers. "There is

still a brittle respect between the Zida'ya and some of the Sunset Children

chiefly the Hernystiri and the Qanuc. Five desolate centuries cannot so

easily overwhelm the millennia of grace. Still, things have changed. You

mortalsLingit's children, as the trolls sayare in ascendancy. It is not

my people's world any longer." His hand reached out, touching lightly on

Simon's arm as they walked. "There is also a bond between you and me,

Seoman. I have not forgotten that."

Simon, trudging along at the side of an immortal, could think of no

reply.

"I ask only that you understand this: my kin and I are now very few. I

owe you my lifetwice, in fact, to my great distressbut my obliga-

tions to my people greatly outweigh even the value of my own continued

existence. There are some things that cannot be wished away, young

mortal. I hope for Binabik's and Sludig's survival, of course . . . but I am

Zida'ya. 1 must take back the story of what happened on the dragon-

mountain: the treachery ofUtuk'ku's minions and the passing ofAn'nai."

He stopped suddenly and turned to face Simon. In the violet-tinged

evening shadows, with his hair blowing, he seemed a spirit of the wild

mountains. For a moment, Simon perceived Jiriki's immense age in his

eyes, and felt he could almost grasp that great ungraspable; the vast

duration of the prince's race, the years of their history like grains of sand

on a beach.

"Things are not so easily ended, Seoman," Jiriki said slowly, "even by

my leaving. It is a very unmagical wisdom that tells me we shall meet

STONE OF FAREWELL

43

again. The debts of the Zida'ya run deep and dark. They carry with them

the stuff of myth. I owe you such a debt."Jiriki again flexed his fingers in

a peculiar sign, then reached into his thin shirt and produced a flat, circular

object.

"You have seen this before, Seoman," he said- "It is my mirrora scale

of the Greater Worm, as its legend has it."

Simon took it from the Sitha's outstretched palm, marveling at its

surprising lightness. The carved frame was cool beneath his fingers. Once

this mirror had shown him an image ofMiriamele; another time, Jiriki had

produced the forest-city of Enki-e-Shao'saye from its depths. Now, only

Simon's own somber reflection stared back. murky in the half-light.

"I give it to you. It is has been a talisman of my family's since Jenjiyana

of the Nightingales tended fragrant gardens in the shade of Seni Anzi'in.

Away from me, it will no longer be anything but a looking glass." Jiriki

raised his hand. "No, that is not quite true. If you must speak with me, or

have need of metrue needCell the mirror. I will hear and know." Jiriki

pointed a stern finger at the speechless Simon. "But do not think to

summon me in a puff of smoke, as in one of your folk's goblin stories. I

have no such magical powers. I cannot even promise you I will be able to

come. But if I hear of your need, I will do what is in my power to help.

The Zida'ya are not totally without friends, even in this bold young world

of mortals."

Simon's mouth worked for a moment. "Thank you," he said at last.

The small gray glass suddenly seemed a thing of great weight indeed.

"Thank you."

Jiriki smiled, showing a stripe of white teeth. Again he seemed what he

was among his own folka youth. "And you have your ring, as well."

He gestured at Simon's other hand, to the thin gold band with its fish-

shaped sign. "Talk of goblin stories, Seoman! The White Arrow, the black

sword, a golden ring, and a Sithi seeing-glassyou are so weighted down

with significant booty that you will clank when you walk!" The prince

laughed, a trill of hissing music.

Simon stared at the ring, saved for him from the wrack of the doctor's

chambers, sent on to Binabik as one of Morgenes' final acts. Grimy with

the oil of the gloves Simon had been wearing, it sat unfiatteringly on a

dirt-blackened finger.

"I still don't know what the writing inside means," he said. On a

whim, he twisted it off and handed it to the Sitha. "Binabik couldn't read

it cither, except for something about dragons and death." He had a sudden

thought. "Does it help the person wearing it to slay dragons?" It was an

oddly depressing idea, especially since he didn't think he'd actually man-

aged to slay the ice-worm. Had it only been a magical spell after all? As he

recovered his strength, he found himself more and more proud of his

bravery in the face of the terrible Igjarjuk.

44

Tad Williams

"Whatever happened on Urmsheim was between you and ancient

Hidohebhi's child, Seoman. There was no magic." jiriki's smile had

disappeared. He shook his head solemnly, passing the ring back. "But I

cannot tell you more about the ring. If the wise man Morgenes did not

provide for your understanding when he sent it to you, then I will not

presume to tell. I have perhaps already burdened you unfairly during our

short acquaintance. Even the bravest mortals grow sick with too much

truth."

"You can read what it says?"

"Yes. It is written in one of the languages of the Zida'yaalthough,

interestingly for a mortal trinket, one of the more obscure. I will tell you

this, however. If I understand its meaning, it does not concern you now in

any direct fashion, and knowing what it said would not help you in any

palpable way."

"And chat's all you'll tell me?"

"For now. Perhaps if we meet again, I will have more understanding of

why it was given to you." The Sitha's face was troubled. "Good fortune

to you, Seoman. You are an odd boyeven for a mortal, ..."

At that moment they heard Haestan's shout and saw the Erkynlander

striding up the path toward them, waving something. He had caught a

snow hare. The fire, he called happily, was ready for cooking.

Even with a stomach comfortably full of broiled meat and herbs, it took

Simon a long time to fall asleep that night. As he lay on his pallet looking

up at the flickering red shadows on the cave ceiling, his mind tumbled

with all that had happened, the maddening tale in which he had been

caught up.

I'm in a sort of story, just likejiriki said. A story like Shem used to tellor is

it History, like Doctor Morgenes used to teach me. . . ? But no one ever explained

how terrible it is to be in the middle of a tale and not to know the ending. . . .

He slipped away at last, awakening with a start some time later. Haestan,

as always, was snorting and sighing in his beard, deep in slumber. There

was no sign of Jiriki. Somehow, the cavern's curious emptiness told

Simon that the Sitha was truly gone, headed down the mountain to return

to his home.

Stung by loneliness, even with the guardsman grumbling stuporously

away nearby, he found himself crying. He did so quietly, ashamed at this

failure of manhood, but he could no more stop the flow of tears than lift

great Mintahoq on his back.

Simon and Haestan came to Chidsik ub Lingit at the time Jiriki had told

theman hour after dawn. The cold had worsened. The ladders and

STONE OFFAREWELL

45

thong bridges swayed in the cold wind, unused. Mintahoq's stone byways

had become even more treacherous than usual, covered in many places by

a thin skin of ice.

As the two outsiders pressed their way in through a horde of chattering

trolls, Simon leaned heavily on Haestan's fur-cloaked elbow. He had not

slept well after the Sitha had gone. his dreams shot through with the

shadows of swords and the compelling but inexplicable presence of the

small, dark-eyed girl.

The troll folk around them were done up as if for a festival, many in

shiny necklaces of carved tusk and bone, the women with their black hair

bound up in combs made from the skulls of birds and fish. Men and

women both passed skins of some highland liquor back and forth, laugh-

ing and gesturing as they drank. Haestan watched this procedure gloomily -

"I talked one of 'em into givin* me sip o' that," the guardsman said.

"Tasted like horse piss, did. What I wouldna give for drop o' red Perdruin."

At the center of the room, just within the moat of unlit oil, Simon and

Haescan found four intricately-worked bone stools with seats of stretched

hide, which stood facing the empty dais. Since the milling trolls had made

themselves comfortable all around, but had left the seats empty, the

interlopers guessed that two of the stools were theirs. No sooner had they

seated themselves than the Yiqanuc folk gathered around them stood up.

A strange noise rose, echoing from the cavern wallsa sonorous, hum-

ming chant. Incomprehensible Qanuc words, like castoff spars floating on

an uneasy sea, bobbed to the surface and then slipped back beneath the

steady moaning. It was a strange and disturbing sound.

For a moment Simon thought the chanting had something to do with

his and Haestan's entrance, but the dark eyes of the assembled trolls were

focused on a door in the far cavern wall.

Through this door at last came not the masters of Yiqanuc, as Simon

had expected, but a figure even more exotic than the folk who surrounded

him. The newcomer was a troll, or at least of troll size. His small,

muscular body was oiled so that it gleamed in the lamplight. He wore a

fringed skirt of hide and his face was hidden behind a mask made from a

ram's skull which had been decoratively carved and gouged until the bone

was scarcely more than a filigree, a white basket around the black eye

holes. Two enormous, curving horns that had been hollowed to near

transparency stood out over his shoulders. A mantel of white and yellow

feathers and a necklace of curved black claws swung beneath the bony

mask.

Simon could not tell if this man was a priest, a dancer, or simply a

herald for the royal couple. When he stamped his gleaming foot the crowd

roared happily. When he touched the tips of his horns, then raised his

palms to the sky, the troll folk gasped and quickly resumed their chanting.

For long moments the man capered across the raised dais, as intent on his

46

Tad Williams

work as any solemn craftsman. At last he paused as though listening. The

murmuring of the crowd stopped. Four more figures appeared in the

doorwaythree of troll size, one towering over the rest.

Binabik and Sludig were brought forward. One troll guard stood on

each side, the heads of their sharp spears remaining at all times near the

prisoners' backbones. Simon wanted to stand and shout, but Haestan's

broad hand fell on his arm, holding him down on his stool.

"Quiet, lad. They be comin' this way. Wait for 'cm t'get here. We

make no show for this rabble."

Both the troll and the fair-haired Rimmersman were considerably thin-

ner than when Simon had last seen them. Sludig's bushy-bearded face

was pink and peeling, as though he had been too much in the sun. Binabik

was paler than he had been, his once-brown skin now the color of

porridge; his eyes seemed sunken, surrounded by shadows.

The pair walked slowly, the troll head down, Sludig looking defiantly

around the room until he saw Simon and Haestan, to whom he offered a

grim smile. As they stepped over the moat into the inner circle, the

Rimmersman reached out and patted Simon's shoulder, then grunted in

pain as one of the guards following close behind pricked his arm with a

spear point.

"Had I but a sword," Sludig murmured, stepping forward and gingerly

seating himself on one of the stools. Binabik took the seat at the far end.

He had not yet raised his eyes to meet those of his companions.

"Take more than swords, friend," Haestan whispered. "They be small,

but sternan' look at th'Usires-cursed numbers of 'em'"

"Binabik!" said Simon urgently, leaning across Sludig. "Binabik1 We've

come to speak for you!"

The troll looked up. For a moment it seemed he might say something,

but his dark eyes were distant. He gave the slightest, gentlest shake of his

head, then returned his gaze to the cavern floor- Simon felt rage burning

inside him. Binabik must fight for his life! He was sitting like old Rim the

plow-horse, waiting for the killing blow to fall.

The growing buzz of excited voices was abruptly stilled. Another trio of

figures appeared in the doorway, moving slowly forward: Nunuuika the

Huntress and Uammannaq the Herder, in full ceremonial trappings of fur

and ivory and polished stones. Another troll followed them on silent,

soft-booted feeta young woman, her large eyes expressionless, her

mouth set in a firm line. Her shuttered stare flicked across the line of

stools, then away. The man with the ram horns danced before the three-

some until they reached the dais and ascended to their divan of hides and

fur robes. The unfamiliar troll woman sat just before the royal pair, one

step below the top. The capering heraldor whatever he was: Simon still

could not decidethrust a taper into one of the wall lamps, then touched

it to the ring of oil, which caught with a blazing huff. Flames raced around

STONE OF FAREWELL

47

the circle, trailing black smoke. A moment later the smoke dissipated

upward into the shadowy reaches of the cavern ceiling. Simon and the

others were surrounded by a ring of fire.

The Hcrder leaned forward, lifting his crooked spear, and waved it at

Binabik and Sludig. As he spoke the crowd chanted again, just a few

words before they fell silent, but Uammannaq kept speaking. His wife and

the young female looked on. The Huntress' eyes seemed to Simon pierc-

ingly unsympathetic. The attitude of the other was harder Co discern.

The speech went on for some time. Simon was just beginning to

wonder if the lords ofYiqanuc had broken their promise toJiriki when the

Herder broke off, waving his spear at Binabik, then gesturing angrily to

Binabik's companions. Simon looked at Haestan, who raised his eyebrow

as if to say: wait and see.

"This is a strange thing, Simon."

It was Binabik who spoke, his eyes still fixed on the ground before him.

His voice seemed to Simon as fine a thing to hear as birdsong or rain upon

the roof. Simon knew he was beaming like a fool, but for the moment he

did not care.

"It seems," Binabik continued, his voice scratchy from disuse, "that

you and Haestan are guests of my masters, and that I must render these

proceedings into a speech you can understand, since' no one else here

speaks both tongues."

"We canna' speak for you ifcanna' be understood," Haestan said softly.

"We'll help you, Binabik," Simon said emphatically, "but your silence

will help nobody."

"This, as I said, is a strangeness," Binabik rasped. "I am condemned for

dishonor, yet for honor's sake I must translate my wrongs for outsiders,

since they are honored guests." A hint of a grim smile played at the

corners of his mouth. "Esteemed guest, dragon-slayer, meddler in other

people's affairssomehow I am sensing your hand in this, Simon." He

squinted for a moment, then extended a stubby finger as if to touch

Simon's face. "You wear a brave scar, friend."

"What have you done, Binabik? Or what do they think you've done?"

The little man's smile evaporated. "I have broken my oath."

Nunuuika said something sharp. Binabik looked up and nodded. "The

Huntress says I have had time enough to explain. Now my crimes must be

dragged out into the light for inspecting."

With Binabik rendering the proceedings into the Westerling tongue,

everything seemed to happen much more quickly. Sometimes it seemed

he repeated what was spoken word for word, other times long speeches

would be dispatched in a quick summation. Although Binabik seemed to

regain a little of his familiar energy as he went about the business of

translating, there was no mistaking the perilousness of his situation.

48

Tad Williams

"Binabik, apprentice to the Singing Man, great Ookequk, you are held

as an oath-breaker." Uammannaq the Herder leaned forward, twisting his

thin beard fretfully, as though he found the proceedings upsetting- "Do

you deny this?"

There was a long silence after Binabik finished translating the Herder's

question. After a moment, he turned from his friends to face the lords of

Yiqanuc. "I have no denial." he said at last. "I will offer the full truth,

though, if you will be hearing it, Sharpest of Eye and Surest of Rein."

Nunuuika leaned back on her cushions. "There will be time for that."

She turned to her husband. "He does not deny it."

"So," Uammannaq responded heavily, "Binabik is charged. You,

Croofiofe," he swiveled his round head toward Sludig, "are accused of

being of an outlaw race who have attacked and injured our people since

time out of mind. That you are a Rimmersman no one can deny, so your

charge remains as spoken."

As the Herder's words were translated, Sludig began an angry retort,

but Binabik raised a hand to silence him. Surprisingly, Sludig complied.

"There can be no real justice between old enemies, it seems," the

northerner murmured to Simon. His fierce glare became an unhappy

frown. "Still, there are trollkind who have had less chance at the hands of

my kinsmen than I have here."

"Let those who have reason to accuse now speak," Uammannaq said.

A certain expectant stillness filled the cavern. The herald stepped for-

ward, his necklaces rattling and shivering. From the eyes of his ram skull

he looked at Binabik with undisguised contempt, then lifted his hand and

spoke in a thick, harsh voice.

"Qangolik the Spirit Caller says that the Singing Man Ookekuq did not

appear at the Ice House on the Winter Lastday, as has been the law of our

people since Sedda gave us these mountains," Binabik translated. His own

voice had taken on some of the unpleasant tone of his accuser's. "Qangolik

says that Binabik, the Singing Man's apprentice, also did not come to the Ice

House."

Simon could almost feel the hatred flowing between his friend and the

masked troll. There seemed little doubt that there was some rivalry or

dispute of long standing between the two.

The Spirit Caller continued. "Since Ookequk's apprentice did not come

to his dutyto sing the Rite of Quickeningthe Ice House still has not

melted. Because the Ice House is unmelted, Winter will not leave Yiqanuc.

Through his treachery, Binabik has doomed his people to a bitter season.

The summer will not come and many will die.

"Qangolik calls him oath-breaker."

There was a rush of angry talk through the cavern. The Spirit Caller

had already squatted down once more before Binabik finished putting his

words into Westerling.

STONE OF FAREWELL

49

Nunuuika looked about with ritual deliberateness. "Does anyone else

here accuse Binbinaqegabenik?"

The unknown young woman, whom Simon had nearly forgotten in the

furor of Qangolik's words, got up slowly from her seat on the topmost

step. Her eyes were demurely lowered and her voice was quiet. She spoke

for only a few brief moments.

Binabik did not immediately explain her words, though they set off a

great rustle of whispering among the gathered trolls. He wore an expres-

sion Simon had never seen before on his friend's face: complete and utter

unhappiness. Binabik stared at the young woman with grim fixedness, as

though he watched some terrible event that it was nevertheless his duty to

remember and later report in detail.

Just when Simon thought Binabik had been silenced again, this time

perhaps forever, the troll spokeflatly, chronicling the receipt of an old

and now insignificant wound.

"Sisqinanamook, youngest daughter of Nunuuika the Huntress and

Uammannaq the Herder, also accuses Binabik of Mintahoq. Though he

placed his spear before her door, when nine times nine days had passed

and the appointed day of marriage came, he was gone. Neither did he send

any word or explanation. When he returned to our mountains, he came

not to the home of his people, but traveled with Croohok and Utku to the

shunned peak Yijarjuk. He has brought shame on the House of the

Ancestor and on his once-betrothed.

"Sisqinanamook calls him oath-breaker."

Thunderstruck, Simon stared at Binabik's dejected face as the troll

droned his translation. Marriage! All the while Simon and the little man

had been fighting their way to Naglimund and making their way across

the White Waste, Binabik's people had been waiting for him to fulfill his

marriage oath. And he had been betrothed to a child of the Herder and

Huntress! He had never given the slightest hint!

Simon looked more closely at Binabik's accuser. Sisqinanamook, al-

though as small to Simon's eye as all of her folk, seemed actually a little

taller than Binabik. Her glossy black hair was plaited on either side other

face, the two braids joining beneath her chin into one wide plait interlaced

with a sky-blue ribbon. She wore little jewelry, especially when compared

with her formidable mother, the Huntress. A single deep blue gem spar-

kled on her forehead, held in place by a slender black leather thong.

She had a flush of color in her brown cheeks. Although her gaze was

clouded as though by anger or fright, Simon thought he sensed a strong-

willed, defiant tilt to her jaw, a sharpness to her eyenot her mother

Nunuuika's blade-edged glance, but the look of someone who made up

her own mind. For a moment, Simon felt he could see her as one of her

own wouldnot a gentle, pliant beauty, but a comely and clever young

woman whose admiration would not be easy to win.

50

Tad Williams

He abruptly realized that this was the one who had stood before Qantaqa's

cave last nightthe one who had menaced him with her spear! Something

indefinable in the angle of her face told him so. Remembering, he knew

she was a huntress after all. just like her mother.

Poor Binabik! Her admiration might not be easy to gain, but Simon's

friend had won her over, or so it seemed. However, the wit and determi-

nation that Binabik must have so admired was now bent against him.

"I have no disagreement with Sisqinanamook, daughter of the Line of

the Moon," Binabik finally replied. "That she ever accepted the spear of

so unworthy a one as the Singing Man's apprentice was to me astonishing."

Sisqinanamook curled a lip at this speech, as if in disgust, but Simon did

not think her contempt seemed altogether convincing.

"Great is my shame," Binabik continued. "Nine times nine nights, in

truth, my spear stood before her door. I did not come to be married when

those nights were through. There is no word I can speak that will be

mending the hurt, or be making less of my fault. A choice there was to be

made, as is the way of things once the Walk of Manhood or Womanhood

has been walked. I was in a strange land and my master was dead. I made

my choosing; had I the same to decide once more, I say with regret, I

would make this same choosing again."

The crowd was still buzzing with shock and perturbation as Binabik

Finished interpreting what he had said for his companions. As he finished,

he turned back to the young woman standing before him and said some-

thing to her, quietly and rapidly, calling her "Sisqi" instead of her full

name. She swung her face away quickly, as if she could not stand to look

at him. He did not translate his last speech, but sadly turned back to her

mother and father.

"And what," Nunuuika asked scornfully, "might you have had to

decide about? What choice could have turned you into an oath-breaker

you, who had already climbed far beyond the snows to which you were

accustomed, whose betrothal-spear had been chosen by one high above

you?"

"My master Ookequk made a promise to Doctor Morgenes of the

Hayholt, a very wise man of Erkynland. With my master dead, I felt it

was my place to keep his promise."

Uammannaq leaned forward, his beard wagging with surprise and

anger. "You thought a promise to a lowlander more important than

wedding a child of the House of the Ancestoror the bringing of sum-

mer? Truly, Binabik, those who said you had learned madness at fat

Ookequk's knee were right! You turned your back on your people for ...

for Utfeu?"

Binabik shook his head helplessly. "It was more than that, Uammannaq.

Herder of the Qanuc. My master had fears of grave danger, not just to

Yiqanuc but to all the world below the mountains as well. Ookequk

STONE OF FAREWELL

51

feared a winter coming far worse than any we have experienced, one that

would leave the Ice House hard-frozen for a thousand black years. And it

was far more than only evil weather that Ookequk foresaw. Morgenes,

the old man in Erkynland, shared his fears. It was because of these dangers

that the promise seemed important. Because of this, toobecause I believe

my master's worries are justifiedI would again break my oath if I had no

other choice."

Sisqinanamook had returned her gaze to Binabik once more. Simon

hoped to see a softening of her expression, but her mouth was still

clenched in a firm, bitter line. Her mother Nunuuika slapped a palm on the

butt other spear.

"This is no argument at all!" the Huntress exclaimed. "Not at all. If I

feared loose snow in the upper passes, should I then never leave my cave,

letting my children starve? This is as much as saying that your people and

the mountain home that gave you nurture mean nothing to you. You are

worse than a drunkard, who at least says 'I should not drink,* but falls

again into bad ways by weakness. You stand before us, bold as a robber of

others' saddlebags, and say: 'I will do it again. My oath means noth-

ing.' " She shook her spear in rage. The gathered assembly hissed its

agreement. "You should be put to death immediately. If your madness

infects others, the wind will howl in our empty caves before a generation

passes."

Even as Binabik finished his dull rendering of this last, Simon stood up,

shaking with anger. His face ached where the scar had been burned across

his cheek, and every throb brought back the memory of Binabik clinging

to the frost-worm's back, shouting for Simon to run, to save himself

while the troll fought on alone.

"No!" Simon cried furiously, surprising even Haestan and Sludig, who

had been listening dumbfoundedly to every strange detail of the exchange.

"No!" Simon steadied himself with his stool. His head was whirling-

Binabik, dutifully, turned to his masters and his betrothed and began

explaining the red-haired lowlander's words.

"You don'c understand what is happening," Simon began, "or what

Binabik has done. Here in these mountains, the world is far awaybut

there is danger that can reach you. In the castle where I lived once, it

seemed to me that evi] was only something talked about by the priests,

and that even they did not truly believe in it. Now I know better- There

are dangers all around us and they are growing stronger every day! Don't

you see? Binabik and I have been chased, chased by this evil all through

the great forest and across the snows below these mountains. It followed

us even to the dragon-mountain!"

Simon stopped for a moment, dizzied, breathing swiftly. He felt as

though he held some squirming thing that was wriggling out of his grip.

What can I say? I must sound like a madman. Look, Binabik tells them what

52

Tad Williams

I've said and they stare at me as though I'm barking like a dog! I wilt get Binabik

killed for certain!

Simon groaned quietly and began again, trying to marshal his nearly

unmanageable thoughts. "We are all in danger. A terrible power is in the

northI mean, no, we're in the north now ..." He hung his head and

tried to think for a moment. "To the north, but also to the west of here.

There's a huge mountain of ice. The Storm King lives therebut he's not

alive. Ineluki is his name. Have you heard of him? Ineluki? He is terrible!"

He leaned forward, his balance abruptly uncertain, and goggled at the

alarmed faces ofHerder and Huntress and their daughter Sisqinanamook.

"He is terrible . . ."he said again, staring straight into the troll maiden's

dark eyes.

Binabik called her Sisqi, he thought disjointedly. He must have loved her . . .

Something seemed to grab his mind and shake it, as a hound shakes a

rat. Suddenly he was tumbling forward, down a long, spinning shaft. The

dark eyes of Sisqinanamook deepened and grew, then changed. A moment

later, the troll woman was gone, her parents, Simon's friends, and all of

Chidsik ub Lingit vanished with her. But the eyes remained, transmuted

now into another grave stare that slowly filled his field of vision. These

brown eyes belonged to one of his own kindthe child who had haunted

his dreams ... a child he finally recognized.

Leieth, he thought. The little girl we left in the house in the forest, because her

wounds were so awJul. The girl we left with . . .

"Simon," she said, her voice reverberating oddly in his head, "this is my

last opportunity. My house will soon fall and I will jlee into the forestbut first

there is something I must tell you."

Simon had never heard the girl Leieth speak. The reedy tones seemed

fitting for a child her agebut something about the voice was wrong: it

was too solemn, too articulate and heavy with self-knowledge. The pace

and the phrasing sounded like a grown woman's, like . . .

"Geloe?" he said. Although he did not think he actually spoke, he heard

his voice echo out through some empty place-

"Yes. I have no time left. I could not have reached you, hut the child Leieth has

abilities . . . she is like a burning-glass through which I can narrow my will. She

is a strange child, Simon." Indeed, the nearly expressionless child's face that

spoke the words did seem somehow different than that of any other

mortal child. There was something in the eyes that saw through him,

beyond him, as though he himself were insubstantial as mist.

"Where are you?"

"In my house, but not long. My fences have been thrown down and my lake is

jull of dark things. The powers at my door are too strong. Rather than stand

against such gale winds, I will jlee to fight another day.

"What I have to tell you is this: Naglimund is fallen. Elias has won the

daybut the real victor is He of whom we both know, the dark one in the north.

Josua, however, is alive."

STONE OF FAREWELL

53

Simon felt a chilly twist of fear in his stomach. "And Miriamele?"

"She who was Maryaand also Malachias? I know only that she is gone from

Naglimund: more than that, friendly eyes and ears cannot tell me. Now I must say

something else: you must remember it and think of it, since Binabik ofYiqanuc has

closed himself to me. You must go to the Stone of Farewell. That is the only place

of safety from the growing stormsafety for a little while, anyway. Go to the

Stone of Farewell."

"What? Where is this stone?" Naglimund fallen? Simon felt despair settle

into his heart. Then all was truly lost. "Where is the stone, Geloe?"

Without warning a black wave crashed through him, sudden as a blow

from a giant hand. The little girl's face disappeared, leaving only a gray

void. Geloe's parting words floated in his head.

"It is the only place of safety . . . Flee! . . . the storm is coming ..."

The gray slid away, like waves receding down a beach.

He found himself staring into the shimmering, transparent yellow light

of a pool of blazing oil. He was on his knees in the cavern of Chidsik ub

Lingit. Haestan's fearful face was bent close to his.

"What devils ye, lad?'* the guardsman asked, supporting Simon's heavy

head with a shoulder as he helped him up onto a stool. Simon felt as

though his body were made of rags and green twigs.

"Geloe said ... she said a storm . . . and the Stone of Farewell. We

must go to the Stone of Fare ..." Simon trailed off, looking up to see

Binabik kneeling before the dais. "What's Binabik doing?" he asked.

"Waitin' th' word," Haestan said gruffly. "When y'fell swoonin', he

said would fight no longer. Spoke t'king an' queen some while, now he be

waitin'."

"But that's not right!" Simon tried to rise, but his legs buckled beneath

him. His head hummed like an iron pot struck by a hammer. "Not . . .

right."

" 'Tis th' will o' God," Haestan murmured unhappily.

Uammannaq turned from a whispered colloquy with his wife to stare at

the kneeling Binabik. He said something in the guttural Qanuc-rongue

that sent a windy moan through the spectators. The Herder lifted his

hands to his face, slowly covering his eyes in a stylized gesture. The

Huntress solemnly repeated the gesture. Simon felt a chill descend,

heavier and bleaker even than winter's cold. He knew beyond doubt that

his friend had been given a judgment of death.

4

ABowC

of Cotomint Tea

Sf*/" J_

UTU-U-jri-C filtered through the swollen clouds, falling mutedly on a

great panyof horses and armored men riding up Main Row toward the

Hayholt. The light of their bright banners was dulled by uneven shadow,

and the click of the horse's hooves died in the muddy road, as though the

brave army rode silently along the bottom of the ocean. Many of the

soldiers held their eyes downcast. Others peered out from the shadow of

their helms like men who feared to be recognized.

Not all appeared so dismayed. Earl Fengbald, soon to be a duke, rode at

the head of the king's party beneath Ellas' green and sable dragon-banner

and his own silver falcon. Fengbald's long black hair spilled down his

back, held only by a scarlet band knotted around his temples. He smiled

and waved a gauntleted fist in the air, eliciting cheers from the several

hundred spectators lining the roadway.

Riding close behind, Guthwulf of Utanyeat restrained a scowl. He, too,

held an earl's titleand supposedly the king's favorbut he knew beyond

doubt that the siege ofNaghmund had changed everything.

He had always envisioned the day when his old comrade Elias would

reign as king and Guthwulf would stand at his side. Well, Elias was king

now, but somehow the rest of the story had gone wrong. Only a fat-

headed young idiot like Fengbald could be either too ignorant to notice

... or too ambitious to let it bother him.

Guthwulf had shorn his graying hair close to his head before the siege

had started. Now his helmet fit loosely. Even chough he was a strong man

still in the prime of his health, he felt almost as though he were shrinking

away inside of his armor, becoming smaller and smaller.

Was he the only one uneasy, he wondered? Perhaps he had grown soft

and womanish in his too many years away from the field of battle.

But that could not be true. It was true that during the siege a fortnight

ago his heart had beaten very swiftly, but that had been the racing pulse of

exhilaration, not of fear. He had laughed as his enemies had swept down

STONE OFFAREWELL

55

upon him. He had broken a man's back with a single blow of his longsword,

and taken blows in turn without losing his scat, handling his mount as

well as he had twenty years agobetter, if anything. No, he had not

grown soft. Not that way.

He also knew that he was not the only soul who felt a gnawing

disquietude. Though crowds stood by cheering, most of them were young

bravos and drunkards from the town. A goodly number of the windows

facing Erchester's Main Row were shuttered; more than a few others

showed only a stripe of darkness, out of which peered those citizens who

did not care to come down and cheer the king.

Guthwulf turned his head to look for Elias, then experienced an unset-

tling chill when he discovered the king was already staring at hima rapt,

green stare. Almost against his will. Guthwulf nodded his head. The king

stiffly returned the gesture, then looked sourly out on the welcoming folk

ofErchester. Elias, feeling the pains of some undisclosed but minor illness,

had only left his tented wagon to climb atop his black charger a furlong or

so before their arrival at the city gate. Nevertheless, he was riding well.

concealing any discomfort he might feel. The king was thinner than he

had been in some years; the firm line of his jaw could be seen quite

plainly. Except for his pale skinnot as obvious in the blotchy afternoon

light as it sometimes wasand the distracted glare -of his eyes, Elias

looked slender and strong, as befitted a warrior king returning in triumph

from a successful siege.

Guthwulf stole a worried glance at the double-guarded gray sword

bumping in its scabbard against the king's hip. Cursed thing! How he

wished that Elias would throw the damned blade down a well. There was

something wrong about it, Guthwulf knew that beyond question. Some

among the crowd obviously felt the uneasiness the blade engendered as

well, but only Guthwulf had been in Sorrow's presence often enough to

recognize the true source of their distress.

And the sword was not the only thing troubling the people ofErchester.

Just as the mounted king of the afternoon had been a sick man in a wagon

at mid-moming, so also had the breaking of Naglimund been something

less than a glorious victory over a usurping brother. Guthwulf knew that

even far from the scene, the citizens of Erchcster and the Hayholt had

come to hear something about the odd, terrible fate ofJosua's castle and

people. Even if they had not, the faintly sickened expressions and bowed

posture of what should be an exulting, victorious army proclaimed that all

was not as it should be.

It was more than shame, Guthwulf thought, and it was more than just

feeling unmannedfor him as well as for the soldiers. It was fear they felt

and could not quite hide. Was the king mad? Had he brought evil down

on them all? God did not fear a fight, the earl knew, or a little bloodin

such ink were His intentions written, a philosopher had once said. But.

Usires curse it, this was different, was it not?

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Tad Williams

He sneaked another look at the king, his stomach churning. Elias was

listening closely to his counselor, red-robed Pryrates. The priest's hairless

head bobbed near the king's car like a skin-covered egg.

Guthwulf had considered killing Pryrates, but had decided it might

only make things worse, like killing the houndkceper when the dogs

waited at one's throat. Pryrates might be the only one left who could

control the kingunless, as the Earl of Utanyeat sometimes felt sure, it

was the meddling priest himself who was leading Elias down the road to

perdition. Who could know, God damn them all? Who could know?

Perhaps in response to something Pryrates said, Elias bared his teeth in a

smile as he looked over the sparseness of the cheering throng. It was not,

Guthwulf saw, the expression of a happy man.

"I am very angry. My patience is strained by this ingratitude."

The king had taken to his throne, his father John's great Dragonbone

Chair.

"Your monarch returns from war, bringing news of a great victory, and

all that greets him is a paltry rabble." Elias curled his lip, staring at

Father Helfcene, a slightly-built priest who was also the chancellor of the

mighty Hayholt. Helfcene kneeled at the king's feet, the top of his bald

head facing the throne like a pitifully inadequate shield. "Why was there

no welcome for me?"

"But there was, my Lord, there was," the chancellor stuttered. "Did I

not meet you at the Nearulagh Gate with all your household who re-

mained at the Hayholt? We are thrilled to have Your Majesty back in good

health, awed by your triumph in the north!"

"My cringing bondsmen of Erchester did not appear to be either very

thrilled or awed." Elias reached for his cup. Ever-vigilant Pryrates handed

it to him, careful not to slosh the dark liquid over the rim. The king took

a long draught and made a face at its bitterness. "Guthwulf, did you feel

that the king's subjects showed him proper fealty?"

The earl took a deep breath before speaking slowly. "Perhaps they were

. . . perhaps they had heard rumors . . ."

"Rumors? Of what? Did we or did we not throw down my treacherous

brother's keep at Naglimund?"

"Of course, my king," Guthwulf felt himself far out on a slender

branch. Elias' sea-green eyes stared at him, as insanely curious as an owl's.

"Of course," the earl repeated, "but our . . . allies . . . were bound to

cause rumor."

Elias turned to Pryrates. The king's pale brow was furrowed, as though

he were genuinely puzzled. "We have acquired mighty friends, have we

not, Pryrates?"

The priest nodded silkily. "Mighty friends, Majesty."

"And yet they have served our will, have they not? They have done

what we wished done?"

STONE OF FAREWELL

57

"To the exact length of your intent, King Elias." Pryrates snuck a glance

at Guthwulf "They have done your will."

"Well, then." Elias turned, satisfied, and regarded Father Helfcene once

more. "Your king has gone away to war and has destroyed his enemies,

returning with the allegiance of a kingdom older even than the long-gone

Imperium of Nabban." His voice wavered dangerously. "Why do my

subjects skulk like whipped dogs?"

"They are ignorant peasants, sire," Helfcene said. A drop of sweat hung

on his nose.

"I think that someone here has been stirring up trouble in my absence,"

Elias said with frightful deliberation. "I would like to know who has been

spreading tales. Do you hear me, Helfcene? I must find out who thinks

they know the good of Osten Ard better than does her High King. Go

now, and when I see you next, have something to tell me." He pulled at

the skin of his face, angrily. "Some of these be-damned, stay-at-home

nobles need to see the shadow of the gibbet, I think. That may remind

them who rules this land."

The bead of sweat finally fell free ofHelfcene's nose, spattering on the tile

floor. The chancellor nodded briskly and several other drops, strangely

numerous on a cool afternoon, leaped from his face.

"Of course, my Lord. It is good, so good, to have you back once

more." He rose to a half crouch, bowed again, then turned and walked

quickly from the throne room.

The thump of the great door closing echoed up amidst the the ceiling

beams and serried banners. Elias leaned back against the vast spreading

cage of yellowed bones, rubbing at his eye sockets with the backs of his

powerful hands.

"Guthwulf, come here," he said, voice muffled. The Earl of Utanyeat

stepped forward, feeling a strange but compelling urge to flee the room.

Pryrates hovered at Elias' elbow, his face smooth and emotionless as marble.

Even as Guthwulf reached the Dragonbone Chair, Elias dropped his

hands to his lap. The blue circles beneath his eyes made it seem as though

the king's gaze had pulled back farther into his head. For a moment it

almost seemed to the earl that the king was peering out of some dark hole,

some trap into which he had fallen.

"You must protect me from treachery, Guthwulf." A ragged fringe of

desperation sounded in Elias' words. "I am vulnerable now, but there are

great things coming. This land will see a Golden Age such as the philoso-

phers and priests have only dreamed ofbut I must survive. I must

survive, or all will be ruined. All will be ashes." Elias leaned forward,

grasping Guthwulf s callused hand with fingers cold as fish tails.

"You must help me, Guthwulf." A powerful note ran through his

straining voice. For a moment, the earl heard his companion of many

battles and many taverns the way he remembered him, which only made

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Tad Williams

the king's words all the more painful. "Fengbald and Godwig and the

rest are fools," Elias said. "Helfcene is a frightened rabbit. You are the

only one in all the world I can trustbesides Pryrates here, that is. You

are the only ones whose loyalty to me is complete."

The king slumped back and covered his eyes again, clenching his teeth

as though in pain. He waved Guthwulfs dismissal. The earl looked up to

Pryrates, but the red priest only shook his head and turned to refill Ellas'

goblet.

As he pushed open the door of the chamber and walked out into the

lamplit hallway, Guthwulf felt a heavy stone of fear settle in his gut.

Slowly, he began to consider the unthinkable.

^

Miriamele pulled away, freeing her hand from Count Streawe's grasp.

She took a sudden step backward and fell into a chair that the man in the

skull mask had slid up behind her. For a moment she only sat, crapped.

"How did you know it was me?" she asked at last. "That I was coming

here?"

The count chuckled, extending a crabbed finger to tap the fox mask he

had discarded. "The strong rely on strength," he said. "The not-so-strong

must be clever and quick."

"You haven't answered my question."

Streiwe raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" He turned to his skull-faced helper.

"You may go. Lend. Wait with your men outside."

"It's raining," Lend said mournfully, bone-white face bobbing, eyes

peering from the black sockets.

"Then wait upstairs, fool!" the count said testily. "I will ring the bell

when I need you."

Lend sketched a bow, then darted a glance at Miriamele and went out.

"Ah, that one," Streawe sighed, "he is like a child somedmes. But still,

he does what he is told. That is more than I can say for many of those

who serve me." The count pushed the decanter of wine toward Brother

Cadrach, who sniffed at it suspiciously, obviously torn. "Oh, drink it,"

the count snapped. "Do you think I would go to all this trouble to drag

you across Ansis Pelippe and then poison you in one of my own resi-

dences? If I had wished you dead, you would have been facedown in the

harbor before you reached the end of the gangplank."

"That doesn't make me any easier," Miriamele said, beginning to feel

like herself againand more than a little angry. "If your intentions are

honorable. Count, then why were we brought here by the threat of knives?"

"Did Lend tell you he had a knife?" Streawe asked.

"He certainly did," Miriamele responded tartly- "Do you mean that he

doesn't?"

STONE OF FAREWELL

59

The old man chortled. "Blessed Elysia, of course he does' Dozens of

the things, all shapes, all lengths, some sharpened on both sides, some

forked into a double bladeLend has more knives than you have teeth."

Streawe chuckled again. "No, it's just that I keep telling him not to

announce it constantly. All around the town they call him Lend 'Avi Stetto.' "

Streawe stopped laughing for a moment, wheezing slightly.

Miriamele turned to Cadrach for explanation, but the monk was ab-

sorbed in a goblet of the count's wine, which he had apparently decided

was safe.

"What does . . . 'Avi Stetto' . . . mean?" she finally asked.

"It's Perdruinese for 'I have a knife.' " Streawe shook his head fondly.

"He does know how to use his toys, chough, that one does. ..."

"How did you know about us, sir?" Cadrach asked, wiping his lips with

the back of his hand.

"And what are you going to do to us?" Miriamele demanded.

"As to the first," Streawe said, "as I told you, the weak must have their

ways. My Perdruin is not a country whose might makes others tremble,

so we must instead have very good spies. Every port in Osten Ard is an

open market of knowledge, and all of the best brokers belong to me. 1

knew you had left Naglimund before you reached the River Greenwade; I

have had people taking note of your progress ever since." He picked a

reddish fruit out of a bowl on the table top and began peeling it with

trembling fingers. "As to the second," he said, "well, that is a pretty

question."

He was struggling with the fruit's tough rind. Miriamele, feeling a

sudden and unexpected sympathy for the old count, reached out and

gently took it from him.

"Let me do it," she said.

Streawe raised an eyebrow, surprised. "Thank you, my dear. Very

kind. So, then, the question of what I should do with you. Well, now, I

must admit that when I first got word of your . . . temporarily detached

state . . . ic occurred to me chat there might be more than a few who

would pay for word of your whereabouts. Then, later, when it became

clear you would be changing ship here in Ansis Pelippe, I realized chat

those who would find value in mere tidings might be willing to pay even

more for an actual princess. Your father or uncle, for instance."

Furious, Miriamele dropped the fruit into the bowl, half-peeled. "You

would sell me to my enemies!?"

"Now, now, my dear," the count said soothingly, "whoever said

anything about that? And who are you calling an enemy, in any case?

Your father the king? Your fond uncle Josua? We are not talking of

handing you over to Nascadu slave-merchants for a few coppers. Be-

sides," he hastily added, "that alternative is now closed in any case."

"What do you mean?"

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Tad Williams

"I mean I am not going to sell you to anyone," Streawe said. "Please,

do not worry about that."

Miriamele picked up the fruit again. Now her hand was tremblmg-

"What is going to happen to us?"

"Perhaps the count will be forced to go locking us up in his deep, dark

wine cellars, for our own protection," Cadrach said, gazing with fondness

at the near-empty decanter. He seemed utterly and splendid drunk. "Ah,

now wouldn't that be a terrible fate!"

She turned away from him in disgust. "So?" she asked Streawe.

The old man took the slippery fruit from her hand and bit it carefully -

"Tell me one thing," he said. "Do you go to Nabban?"

Miriamele hesitated, wrestling with her thoughts. "Yes," she answered

at last. "Yes, I do."

"Why?"

"And why should I tell you? You have not harmed us, but you have not

yet proved yourself a friend, either."

Streawe stared at her. A smile slowly spread across the lower part of his

face. His eyes, red-rimmed, retained their hard edge. "Ah, I like a young

woman who knows what she knows," he said. "Osten Ard is full to brim

with sentiment and imprecise understandingit is not sin, you know, but

foolish sentiment that sets the angels to moaning in despair. But you,

Miriamele, even when you were a small child you had the look of

someone who would do something in this world." He pulled the decanter

away from Cadrach and refilled his own goblet. The monk looked after it

comically, like a dog whose bone had been stolen.

"I said no one would sell you," Count Streawe said at last. "Well, that

is not quite trueno, do not glare so, mistress! Wait until you have heard

all I have to say. I have a ... friend, I suppose you would say, although

we are not personally close. He is a religious man, but he moves in other

circles as wellthe best kind of friend I could ask for, since his knowledge

is wide and his influence great. The only problem is, he is a man of rather

irritating moral rectitude. Still, he has given help to Perdruin and to me

many times, andto put it simplyI owe him more than a few favors.

"Now, I am not the only one who knew of your departure from

Naglimund. This man, also, the religious fellow, had it through his own

private sources . . ."

"He, too?" Miriamele demanded. She turned to Cadrach in anger-

"What, did you send out a crier to trumpet the news?!"

"Not a word passed my lips, m'lady," the monk said slurringly. Did

she fancy chat he was not as drunk as he pretended to be?

"Please, Princess." Streawe raised a shaking hand. "As I said, this friend

is an influential man. Even those around him do not guess the breadth of

his influence. His network of information, although smaller than mine, is

of a depth and scope that often makes me shake my head in amazement.

STONE OF FAREWELL

61

"What I have been saying, though, is this. When my friend sent word

to mewe each have a little flock of trained birds who carry our letters

back and forthhe told me about you. This was a thing 1 already knew.

He. however, did not know of my plans for youthose plans I spoke of

earlier."

"Selling me, you mean."

Streawe coughed apologetically. For a moment it became a real cough.

When he had regained his breath, he continued. "And, as I have said, I

owe this man several favors. So when he asked me to prevent you going

on to Nabban, I really had no choice ..."

"He asked you what?" Miriamele could not believe her ears- Would she

never escape the meddling and interference of others?

"He does not want you to go to Nabban. It is not the right time."

"Not the right time? Who is this 'he,' and what right. . . ?"

"He? He is a good manone of the few of whom the term can be used.

I do not have much respect for the type, myself. The 'right,' he says, is the

saving of your life. Or at least your freedom."

The princess felt her hair sticking to her forehead. The room was warm

and humid, and the baffling, irritating old man across the table was

smiling again, happy as a child who has learned a new trick.

"You are going to keep me here?" she said slowly. -"You are going to

imprison me and so protect my freedom?"

Count Streawe reached a hand to his side and tugged at a dark rope that

hung nearly invisible before a rumpled wall hanging. Somewhere in the

building above a bell tolled faintly. "I am afraid chat is true, my dear," he

said. "I must hold you until my friend sends to say ocherwise. A debt is a

debt and a favor must be repaid." There was a sound of booted feet on the

doorstep outside. "It truly is to your advantage. Princess, although you

may not know it yet."

"I'll be the judge of that," Miriamele snarled. "How could you? Don't

you know that there is a war brewing? That I am carrying important news

to Duke Leobardis?" She had to reach the duke, to convince him to join

with Josua. Otherwise, her father would destroy Naglimund and his

madness would never cease.

The count cackled. "Ah, but my child, horses travel so much more

slowly than do birdseven birds who carry the weight of heavy tidings.

You see, Leobardis and his army left for the north nearly a month ago. If

you had not passed so swiftly, skulkingly, and secretively through the

towns of Hemystir, had you but spoken with a few people, you would

have known."

As Miriamele slumped in her chair, dumbstruck, the count rapped his

knuckles loudly on the table. The door swung open and Lenti and his

two henchmen, still wearing their costumes, came into the room. Lenti

had taken off his Death mask; his sullen eyes peered out of a face that

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was pinker, but not a great deal livelier, than the one he had doffed.

"Make them comfortable, Lenti," Streawe said. "Then, lock the door

behind you and come back to help me into my litter."

As the nodding Cadrach was rousted from his chair, Miriamcle turned

on the count. "How could you do this?" she sputtered. "I had always

remembered you fondlyyou and your treacherous garden!"

"Ah, the garden," Streawe said. "Yes, you would like to see that again.

wouldn't you? Don't be angry, Princess. We will talk moreI have much

to tell you. I am charmed to see you again. To think that pale, shy Hylissa

should have birthed such a fierce child!"

As Lenti and the others hustled them out into the rain, Miriamele

caught a last glimpse of Streawe. The count was staring at the gate. his

white-haired head nodding slowly up and down.

They brought her to a tall house full of dusty hangings and ancient,

creaking chairs. Streawe's castle, perched on a spur of Sta Mirore, was

empty but for a handful of silent servants and a few nervous-looking

messengers who crept in and out like stoats through a fence hole.

Miriamcle had her own room. It might have been pretty once, longi

long ago- Now the faded tapestries showed only dim ghosts of people and

places, and the straw other mattress was so old and brittle and dry that it

whispered in her ears all night.

She dressed every morning with the help of a heavy-faced woman who

smiled tightly and spoke very little. Cadrach was being kept somewhere

else, so she had no one to talk with during the long days and little to do

except read an old Book of the Aedon whose illuminations had faded until

the cavorting animals were mere outlines, as though carved in crystal.

From the moment she was brought to Streawe's house, Miriamele

schemed, dreaming of ways she might get free, but for all its air of stuffy

disuse, the count's decaying palace was harder to escape than the Hayholt's

deepest, dankest cells. The front hallway door of the wing in which she

was housed was kept firmly locked. The rooms along the passageway

were similarly barred. The woman who dressed her and the other servants

were brought in and out by a broad-boned and serious-looking warder.

Of all the potential routes of escape, only the door at the other end of the

long hallway was ever left open. Beyond this door lay Streawe's walled

garden, and that was where Miriamele spent most of her days.

The garden was smaller than she remembered, but that was not surpris-

ing: she had been very young when she had seen it last. It seemed

older, too, as if the bright flowers and greenery had grown a bit weary.

Banks of red and yellow roses lined the garden, but they were being

gradually supplanted by exuberantly snaking vines whose beautiful bell-

shaped flowers shone the color of blood, and whose cloying scent mingled

with a myriad of other sweet, sad odors. Columbine clung to the walls

STONE OF FAREWELL63

and door-frames, its spurred blossoms dotting the twilight like softly-

glowing stars. Here and there streaks of even wilder colors flashed among

the tree branches and flowering shrubsthe tails of shrill-voiced, onyx-

eyed birds from the Southern Islands.

The top of the high-walled garden was open to the sky. Her first

morning in the garden Miriamele tried to climb the wall, but quickly

discovered that the stone was too smooth for fingerholds, the vines too

flimsy to offer support. As if to remind her of the proximity of freedom,

tiny hill birds frequently spiraled down through this sky-window, hop-

ping from branch to branch until something startled them and they leaped

away into the air once more. Occasionally a gull, swept far in from the

sea, flapped down to pace and preen before the more colorful denizens of

the garden, keeping an urchin's eye open all the while for scraps from

Miriamele's meals. But even with the unfenced sky churning with clouds

just a short distance away, the brilliantly-plumed island birds stayed where

they were, squawking resentfully in the green shadows.

Some evenings Streawe joined her in the garden, carried in by sullen

Lenti and propped in a high-backed chair, the count's useless, withered

legs covered with a figured lap robe. Unhappy in her captivity, Miriamele

deliberately made little response when he tried to amuse her with funny

stories or sailors' gossip and rumors from the port. Still, she found she

could not truly hate the old man, either.

As the futility of trying to escape became clear to her, and as the passing

days wore away the edge of her bitterness, she came to find an unexpected

comfort in sitting in the garden while late afternoon turned to evening. At

the end of each day, as the sky overhead turned slowly from blue to

pewter to black and the candles burned down in their sconces, Miriamele

mended garments she had torn on her journey south. While the night

birds sang their first hesitant notes, she drank calamint tea and pretended

not to listen to the old count's stories. When the sun had gone down, she

put on her riding cloak. It had been an uncommonly cold Yuven-month,

and even in the sheltered garden the nights were brisk.

When Miriamele had been prisoned for nearly a week in Streawe's

castle, he came to her sadly and told her of the death of her uncle Duke

Leobardis in combat before the walls ofNaglimund. The duke's eldest son

Benigarisa cousin that she had never much cared forhad returned to

rule Nabban from the throne of the Sancellan Mahistrevis. With help,

Miriamele presumed, from his mother Nessalanta, another relative who

had never been one of Miriamele's favorites. The news upset her: Leobardis

has been a kind man. Also, his death meant Nabban had quit the field,

leaving Josua without allies.

Three days later, as the evening of the first day ofTiyagar-month came

on, Streawe poured her a bowl of tea with his own trembling hand and

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told her that Naglimund had fallen. Rumor said there had been great

slaughter, that few had survived.

He held her awkwardly in his dry-stick arms as she sobbed.

^

The light was waning. The patches of sky that showed through the dark

embroidery of leaves were the unwholesome blue of bruised flesh.

Deomoth stumbled on an unseen root and Sangfugol and Isom crashed

to the ground beside him, Isorn losing his grip on the harper's arm as he

fell. Sangfugol rolled to a halt and lay groaning. The bandage around his

calf, strips of thin cloth from one of the ladies' underskirts, reddened with

fresh blood.

"Oh, the poor man," Vorzheva said, limping forward. She squatted,

spreading out the skirt other tattered dress, then took Sangfugol's hand.

The harper's eyes were fixed in an agonized stare on the tree limbs

overhead.

"My lord, we must stop," Deomoth said. "It is growing too dark to

see."

Josua turned slowly. The prince's thin hair was disarranged, his face

distracted. "We should walk until full dark, Deomoth. Every moment of

remaining light is precious."

Deomoth swallowed. It made him feel almost ill to contradict his liege

lord. "We must make a secure place for the night, my prince. It will be

hard to do that after dark. And the wounded are even more at risk if we

continue to travel."

Josua looked down at Sangfugol, his expression distant. Deomoth did

not like the change he was seeing in his prince. Josua had always been

quiet, and many thought him strange, but still he had been a decisive

leadereven in the last terrible weeks before Naglimund fell. Now he

appeared unwilling to do anything, in small matters as well as large.

"Very well," the prince said at last. "If you think so, Deomoth."

"I beg pardon, but might we not move just a little farther up this . . .

this defile?" Father Strangyeard asked. "It is only another few steps, and it

seems safer than making camp in the bottom of a gulleydoesn't it?" He

looked expectantly at Josua, but the prince only grunted. After a moment,

the archivist turned to Deomoth. "Do you think?"

Deornom looked around at the ragged party, at the white, frightened

eyes in the dirt-streaked faces. "That is a good idea. Father," he said. "We

shall do that."

They made a tiny fire in a hastily-dug pit surrounded with stones, more

for light than anything else. Heat would have been most welcomewith

nightfall, the forest air was turning bitterly coldbut they could not risk

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65

so much of a display. There was nothing to eat, in any case. Their pace

had been far too hurried for any hunting.

Together, Father Strangyeard and Duchess Gutrun were cleaning

Sangfugol's wound and rewinding the bandage. The white and black

feathered arrow, which had knocked the harper down late yesterday

afternoon, seemed to have struck the bone. Despite the care taken with its

removal, not all the arrowhead had come out. When Sangfugol could talk,

he complained that the feeling in his leg was nearly gone; at the moment,

he was in shallow, uneasy sleep. Vorzheva stood nearby, looking on

sorrowfully. She had been pointedly shunning Josua, who did not seem

much bothered.

Deomoth silently cursed his thin cloak. If I had only known we would be

tramping the open woods, he lamented, / would have brought my jur-hooded

riding cloak. He smiled grimly at his own thoughts and suddenly laughed

aloud, a short bark of amusement that caught the attention of Einskaldir,

squatting nearby.

"What's funny?" the Rimmersman asked, frowning as he worked his

hand-axe up and down a small whetstone. He held it up, testing the blade

with his callused thumb, then laid it back against the stone once more.

"Nothing, really. I was just thinking about how stupid we've been

how unprepared."

"Waste of time, crying," Einskaldir growled, his eyes never leaving the

blade as he lifted it to the red firelight- "Fight and live, fight and die, God

waits for all."

"It's not chat." Deomoth stopped for a moment and considered. What

had begun as an idle thought had grown into something more; suddenly,

he was afraid to lose his grip on it. "We have been pushed and pulled," he

said slowly, "driven and drawn. We have been chased for three days since

we escaped Naglimund, with barely a moment free from fear."

"What is to fear?" Einskaldir said gruffly, tugging at his dark beard. "If

they catch us, they will kill us. There are worse things than to die."

"But that's just it!" Deomoth said. His heart was pounding. "That's

just the point!" He leaned over, realizing that he had raised his voice

almost to a shout. Einskaldir had stopped scraping his axe-blade to stare.

"That is what I wonder," Deornoth said more quietly. "Why haven't they

killed us?"

Einskaldir looked at him, then grunted. "They tried."

"No." Deomoth was suddenly sure. "The diggers . . . the Bukken as

your people call them . . . they tried. The Noms haven't."

"You are mad, Erkynlander," Einskaldir said in disgust. Deomoth bit

back a retort and crawled around the fire pit toward Josua.

"My prince, I need to speak with you."

Josua did not answer, again in one of his faraway moods. He sat, staring

at Towser. The old jester slept with his back against a tree, bald head

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bobbing on his chest. Deornoth did not see anything particularly interest-

ing about the old man's slumber, so he interposed himself between the

prince and the object of his attention. Josua's face was almost invisible, but

enough of a glow escaped the fire pit that Deornoth thought he saw

Josua's eyebrow lift in mild surprise.

"Yes, Deornoth?"

"My prince, your people need you. Why are you so strange?"

"My people are very few now, aren't they?"

"They are your people stilland they need you all the more, since our

danger is so great."

Deornoth heard Josua take a breath, as if in surprise or in preparation

for some angry remark. Instead, when the prince spoke, his voice was

calm. "We are in bad times, Deornoth. Everyone faces them in their own

way. Was this what you wished to discuss with me?"

"Not all, my lord." Deornoth crept a little closer, until he sat within

arm's reach of the prince. "What do the Noms want, Prince Josua?"

Josua chuckled ruefully. "I should think that was obvious enough. To

kill us."

"Then why have they not done so?"

There was a moment of silence. "What do you mean?"

"Just what I asked. Why have they not killed us? They have had many

opportunities."

"We have been fleeing them for . . ."

Deornoth impetuously grasped Josua's arm. The prince was very thin.

"My lord, do you believe chat the Nornsthe Storm King's minions who

destroyed Naglimundcould not catch a dozen hungry and wounded

men and women?"

He felt Josua's arm grown taut. "And that signifies. . . ?"

"I don't know!" Deornoth let go of the prince and picked up a stick

from the ground, nervously plucking at the bark with his fingernails. "But

I can't believe they couldn't have brought us to bay if they had wanted

to."

"Usires on the Tree," Josua breathed. "I am ashamed you have had to

take the responsibility that is rightfully mine, Deornoth. You are right. It

makes no sense."

"Perhaps there is something more important than our deaths," Deornoth

said, thinking. "If they want us dead, why did they not surround us? If a

walking corpse could be upon us almost before we knew, why not the

Norns?"

Josua pondered for a moment. "Perhaps they fear MS." Again the prince

was silent. "Call the others," he said finally. "This is Coo grave to keep

between the two of us."

When the rest were gathered, huddling around the small fire, Deornoth

looked over their numbers and shook his head. Josua, himself, Einskaldir

STONE OF FAREWELL

67

and Isorn, Towsergroggy from sleepand Duchess Gutrun; with

Strangyeard now finding a place, and Vorzheva tending Sangfugol, they

were all accounted for. Only nine leftcould that be? They had buried

Hclmfest and the young handmaiden two days ago. Gamwold. an older

guardsman with a gray mustache, had died from a long fall in the attack

that felled Sangfugol. They had not been able to retrieve Gamwold's

body, let alone bury him. Unwillingly, they had left him lying on a ledge

of the open ridge, surrendered to the attentions of wind and rain.

Nine left, he thought, Josua is rightit is a small kingdom, indeed.

The prince had finished explaining. Strangyeard spoke up hesitantly.

"I hate even to say this," he began, "but. . . but perhaps they are only

toying with us, as ... as does a cat with a rat it has cornered."

"What a horrible thought!" Gutrun said. "But they are heathen, so

anything is possible."

"They are more than heathen. Duchess," Josua said. "they are immor-

tal. They have lived, many of them, since before Usires Aedon walked the

hills ofNabban."

"They can die," Einskaldir said. "I know."

"But they are terrible," Isorn said. His wide frame shuddered. "Now I

know that they are the ones who came out of the north when we were

held captive in Elvritshalla. Their very shadows are-coldlike a wind

from Huelheim, the land of death."

"Just a moment," Josua said. "You have reminded me of something.

Isorn, you said once that when you were captive, some of your fellows

were tortured."

"Yes. I will never forget."

"Who did it?"

"The Black Rimmersmen, the ones who live in the shadow of Stonnspike.

They were Skaii of Kaldskryke's alliesalthough, as I think I told you,

Prince Josua, I don't believe Skali's men got what they bargained for- In

the end, they were almost as terrified as we prisoners."

"But it was the Black Rimmersmen who tortured you. What about the

Noms?"

Isorn thought for a moment, his broad face pensive. "No . . ."he said

slowly, "I don't believe the Norns had anything to do with it. They were

just black shadows in hooded cloaks, passing back and forth to Elvritshalla.

They seemed to take little notice of anythingalthough we did not see

them much, for which I was very grateful."

"So," said Josua, "it does not seem that the Norns are interested in

torture."

"It does not seem to bother them much," Einskaldir growled. "And

Naglimund showed that they do not love us-"

"Still, I somehow do not think they would follow us all the way

through Aldheorte Forest just for enjoyment." The prince frowned, think-

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ing. "I find it hard to think of why they might fear us, straggling lot that

we are. What else could they want?"

"To put us in cages," Towscr said grumpily, rubbing his sore legs. The

long day's walking had been harder on him than on anyone else except

Sangfugol. 'To make us dance for them."

"Quiet, old man," Einskaldir snarled.

"Do not order him," Isorn said, giving fcmskaldir a purposeful looka

difficult thing to do in near-darkness.

"I think Towser is right," Strangyeard said in his quiet, apologetic way.

"What do you mean?"josua asked.

The archive-master cleared his throat. "It seems to make sense," he

began, "not that they want us to dance, I mean." He tried to smile.

"But the putting us in cages. They may want to capture us."

Deornoth was excited. "I think Strangyeard has it! They did not kill us

when they might have. They must want us taken alive."

"Or want some of us alive," Josua said carefully. "Perhaps that is why

they used the corpse of that poor young pikcmanto get safely among us

and then spirit one or more of us away."

"No," Deornoth's excitement suddenly dissipated, "for why didn't they

surround us then, when they had the chance? 1 asked myself that earlier

and I still cannot answer."

"If they wanted to ... to capture one of our number," Strangyeard

offered, "perhaps they were afraid that one would be killed in a struggle."

"If so," Duchess Outrun said, "it is surely not me they are after. I am

scarcely of any use, even to myself. They are after Prince Josua." She

made the sign of the Tree over her breast.

"Of course," Isorn said, putting his big arm around his mother's shoul-

der. "Ehas sent them to capture Josua. He wants you alive, my lord."

Josua looked uncomfortable. "Perhaps. But why are they shooting

arrows at us now?" He pointed to where Sangfugol lay, Vorzheva holding

the harper's head as she gave him a drink of water. "It seems that there is

even greater danger of accidentally killing their target, now that we are on

the move."

No one could answer this. They sat uncomfortably for some long

while, listening to the sounds of the damp night.

"Hold a moment," Deornoth said. "We are confusing ourselves, I

think. When have we been attacked by them?"

"Early in the morning after the night that . . . that the young pikeman

came to our fire," Isorn said.

"And was anyone hurt?"

"No," Isorn said, thinking back. "But we were lucky to escape. Many

of the arrows missed by very little."

"One of 'em took my hat off" Towser said querulously. "My best hat!

Lost!"

STONE OF FAREWELL

69

"Pity it wasn't your best head," Einskaidir snapped.

"But the Norns are very good archers," Deornoth continued, ignoring

the Rimmersman and the old jester. "And when has anyone else been

shot?"

"Yesterday!" Isom said, shaking his head. "You should know. Gamwold

dead, Sangfugol badly wounded."

"But Gamwold wasn't shot."

Everyone turned to look at Josua. There was a sudden power in the

prince's voice that sent a thrill up Deomoth's back.

"Gamwold fell," the prince said. "All of our party who've been killed

except for Gamwold died from our battles with the diggers. Deornoth has

it aright! The Norns have been chasing us for three daysthree full days

and have fired upon us many times. Sangfugol is the only one who has

been hit."

The prince stood up, his face disappearing from the fireglow. The

others could hear him pacing. "But why? Why did they risk an arrow

then? We were doing something that frightened them. Doing something"

He stopped. "Or going somewhere . . ."

"What do you mean. Prince Josua?" Isorn asked.

"We were turning eastCoward the heart of the forest."

"That's true!" Deornoth said, thinking back. "We had been going south

since we came down the Stile from Naglimund. That was the first time

we cried to turn east, in toward the deeper part of the forest. Then, when

the harper was shot and Gamwold fell, we retreated back down the hill

and kept walking south along Aldheorte's outskirts thereafter."

"We are being herded," Josua said slowly. "Like ignorant animals."

"But that is because we tried to do something that worried them,"

Deornoth pointed out. "They are trying to keep us from going east."

"And we still do not really know what for," Isorn said. "Herded

toward capture?"

"More likely to slaughter," Einskaldir said. "They just want to do the

killing at home. Have a feast. Invite guests."

Josua actually smiled as he sat down, the fire catching a quick gleam of

teeth.

"I have decided," he said, "to decline their invitation."

An hour or two before dawn, Father Strangyeard came and tapped

Deornoth on the shoulder. Deornoth had heard the archive-master crawl-

ing about in the darkness, but the touch of a hand on his shoulder still

made him start.

"Only me, Sir Deornoth," Strangyeard said hastily. "It is my cum to

take watch."

"That's not necessary. I don't think I will sleep, anyway."

"Well, then, perhaps we can . . . can share the watch. If my talk will

not irritate you."

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Deornoth smiled to himself. "Not at all, Father. And you need not call

me 'Sir.' It is nice to have a calm hour or sowe have had precious little

calm lately."

"It is just as well, I suppose, that I am not left to stand guard alone."

Strangyeard said. "My sight is not good, you knowand that is in my

one remaining eye." He chuckled apologetically. "There is nothing more

frightening than to see the words in my beloved books growing fainter

every day."

"Nothing more frightening?" Deomoth asked gently.

"Nothing." Strangyeard was firm. "Oh, not that 1 do not fear other

things, but death, just for examplewell, my Lord will take me when He

knows it is time. But to spend my last years in darkness, unable to see the

writings that are my work on this earth ..." The archivist broke off,

embarrassed. "I am sorry, Deomoth, I am babbling of trivialities. It is this

hour of the night. At home in Naglimund. I often wake at this time, just

before the sun comes up . . ." The priest paused again. Both men thought

silently of what had happened to the place where they had lived.

"When we are safe, Strangyeard," Deomoth began suddenly, "if you

cannot read, I will come and read to you. My eyes are not as quick as

yours, nor my mind, but I am stubborn as an unfed horse. I will grow

better with practice. I will read to you."

The archivist sighed, then was quiet. "That is too kind," he said a

moment later. "But you will have more important things to do when we

are safe again and Josua sits the high throne of Osten Ardmatters far

graver than reading to an old book-shifter."

"No. No, I do not think so."

They sat for a long while and listened to the wind.

"So we will . . . will strike out toward the east today?" Strangyeard

asked.

"Yes. And I think the Norns will not be happy about such a plan. I fear

that more of us will be wounded or killed. But we must seize our destiny

with both hands. Prince Josua recognizes that, thank the Good God."

Strangyeard sighed. "Do you know, I have been thinking. I feel quite

. . . quite ridiculous saying it, but . . ."He trailed into silence.

"What?"

"Perhaps it is not Josua they seek to capture- Perhaps it is ... me."

"Father Strangyeard!" Deornoth was quite surprised. "Why would that

be?"

The priest bobbed his head, ashamed. "I know it seems foolish, but 1

must mention it. You see, I am the one who had studied Morgenes'

manuscript telling of the Three Great Swordsand I am the one carrying it

now." He tapped the pocket of his voluminous robe. "With Jarnauga, I

searched and studied, trying to divine the whereabouts of Fingil's sword

Minneyar. Now that he is deadwell, I hate to sound as if I were

STONE OF FAREWELL

71

shouting my own importance, but. . ."He held out something small that

swung from a chain, just visible in the growing light. "He gave me his

Scroll, the badge of his League. Perhaps that has made me dangerous to

the rest of the party. Maybe if I surrendered, they would let the rest of

you go?"

Deornoth laughed. "If it is you they wish kept alive, Father, then we are

lucky to have you among us, else we would have already been flushed and

slaughtered like doves. Don't go anywhere."

Strangyeard seemed uncertain. "If you say so, Deornoth ..."

"I do. Not to mention that we need your wits more than anything else

we haveexcept for the prince himself."

The archivist smiled shyly. "That is very kind."

"Of course," Deornoth said, and felt his mood souring, "if we are to

survive the coming day, we will need more than wits. It will take a great

deal of luck as well."

After sitting with the archivist for a while longer, Deornoth decided to

find himself a more comfortable spot to snatch an hour of sleep before

dawn came. He nudged Strangyeard, whose head had sunk to his chest.

"I'll let you finish out, Father."

"Mmmm. . . ? Oh! Yes, Sir Deomoth." The priest nodded vigorously,

demonstrating his alertness. "Certainly. You go and sleep."

"The sun will be up soon. Father."

"Just so." Strangyeard smiled.

Deornoth went only a few dozen paces before settling on a level patch

of ground in the lee of a fallen tree. A bitter wind ranged across the forest

floor as though hunting for warm bodies. Deornoth wrapped his cloak

tightly around himself and tried to find a comfortable position. After a

long, chilly interval, he decided that there was scant chance he would ever

fall asleep. Grumbling quietly, so as not to wake the others who were

sleeping nearby, he rose to his feet and rebuckled his sword belt, then

headed back toward Father Strangyeard's sentry post.

"It's me. Father," he said quietly, as he stepped out of the trees into the

small clearing. He stopped, astonished. A startlingly white face looked

up, black eyes narrowing. Strangyeard was slumped in the arms of this

dark-clad attacker, sleeping or senseless. A knife blade like the thorn of a

great ebony rose lay against the priest's exposed neck.

Even as Deornoth threw himself forward, he saw two more pallid,

slit-eyed faces in the night-shadows and called them by their old name.

"While Foxes!" he shouted. "The Noms! We are attacked!"

Bellowing, he struck the pale-skinned thing and grappled it with his

arms. They toppled, the archivist tangled with them, so that for a moment

Deornoth was lost in a welter of flailing limbs. He felt the thing reach out

for him, its thin limbs full of slithery strength. Hands grasped at his face

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and pushed back his chin to expose his neck. Deomoth flung out his fist,

which landed on something hard as bone. He was rewarded by a hissing

cry of pain. Now he could hear crashing and shouting in the trees all

around. He wondered dimly whether it meant more foes, or that his

friends were awake at last.

Sword! he thought. Where's my sword?

But it was caught in the scabbard, twisted around on his belt. The

moonlight seemed to burst into brilliance. The white face rose before him

once more, lips skinned back, teeth bared like a drowning cur. The eyes

that locked with his were as coldly inhuman as sea-stones. Deomoth

fumbled for his dagger. The Nom grasped at his throat with one hand; its

other hand, a pale blur, lifted free.

He has a knife! Curiously, Deomoth felt as though he were floating on a

wide river, carried forward on a slow and generous current, but at the

same moment panicky thoughts flew around his head like grassflies. Damn

me, I forgot his knife!

He stared for another endless instant at the Nom before him, at the thin,

otherworldly features, the white spiderweb hair matted across the brow,

the faint lips drawn right against the red gums. Then Deomoth swung his

head forward, smashing his forehead into the cadaverous face. Before he

had even felt the first shock, he threw himself forward again into yet

another red impact. A great shadow mushroomed inside him. The shrieks

and night wind faded to a muted and diminishing hum and the moon was

drenched with clinging darkness.

When he could think again, he looked up to see Einskaldir, who

seemed to be swimming toward him, arms windmilling, his war-axe a

shimmering smear. The Rimmersman's mouth was open as though he

shouted, but Deomoth heard no sound. Josua came just behind. Deomoth's

two companions flung themselves against another pair of shadowy fig-

ures. Blades whirled and glinted, slicing the darkness with stripes of

reflected moonlight. Deomoth wanted to stand and help them, but a

weight lay upon him, some amorphous, unshakable burden. He strug-

gled, wondering where his strength had gone, until the burden fell away

at last and left him exposed to the rasping wind.

josua and Einskaldir were still moving before him, their faces weird

masks in the blue night. Other two-legged shapes were beginning to

appear from the forest shadows, but Deomoth could not tell if they were

friends or foes. His sight seemed to be obscuredsomething was in his

eyes, something that stung. He moved his hands questingly over his face.

It was wet and sticky. His fingers, when he held them up to catch the

light, were black with blood.

STONE OF FAREWELL

73

A long, damp tunnel led down through the hillside. A narrow, torchlit

staircase ran through it, half a thousand mossy, centuried steps that snaked

down through the very heart of Sta Mirore, from Count Streawe's great

house to a small, hidden dock. Miriamele guessed that the tunnel had been

the salvation of many an earlier nobleman, forced to flee his stately

quarters by night when the peasantry became unexpectedly frisky or

turned disputatious about the rights of the privileged.

After the end of a foot-wearying journey under the watchful eyes of

Lenti and another of the count's closed-faced servants, Miriamele and

Cadrach found themselves standing on a stone landing beneath an over-

hanging arch of cliff, the slate-colored harbor waters spread before them

like a disheveled carpet, just below, a small rowboat bobbed at the end of

its painter.

A few moments later Streawe himself arrived by another path, carried

down the winding cliff roads in his carved and becurtained litter by four

brawny men wearing sailors' garb. The old count wore a heavy cloak and

muffler against the night fog. Miriamele thought that the sallow light of

dawn made him look ancient.

"So," he said, waving for his bearers to lower him to the stone plat-

form, "our rime together is at an end." He smiled ruefully. "I feel a deep

regret at letting you gonot least because the Victor ofNaglimund, your

beloved father Elias, would pay much for your safe return." He shook his

head and coughed. "Still, I am a honorable man, and an obligation unpaid

is a ghost unshriven, as we say here in Perdruin. Say hello to my friend

when you meet him. Extend my regards."

"You haven't told us who this 'friend' is," Miriamele said tightly. "The

one to whom we are being given."

Streawe waved his hand dismissively. "If he wishes you to know his

true name, he will tell you himself."

"And you will be setting us across to Nabban on the open sea in this

tiny little isgbahta," Cadrach growled, "this fishing boat?"

"It is scarcely a stone's throw," the count said. "And you will have

Lend and Alespo along to protect you from kilpa and such." He indicated

the two servants with a wave of his trembling hand. Lenti was chewing

sullenly at something. "You don't think I would let you go alone, do

you?" Streawe smiled. "How could I ever be sure you would reach my

friend and resolve my debt?"

He waved for his servants to lift the litter. Miriamele and Cadrach were

herded into the pitching boat, squeezed side by side into the tiny bow.

"Do not think unkindly of me, Miriamele and Padreic, I beg you,"

Streawe called as his servants wrestled him back up the slippery stairs.

"My little island must maintain a delicate balance, a very delicate balance.

Sometimes the adjustments seem cruel." He pulled the curtain closed

before him.

74

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The one whom Streawe had called Alcspo untied the rope and Lenti

reached out with his oar to push the little wooden boat away from the

dock. As they drifted slowly away from the light of the docksidc lanterns,

Miriamele felt her heart sinking. They were going to Nabban, a place that

now held little hope for her. Cadrach, her only ally, had been sullenly

quiet since they had been reunitedand what name had Streawe called

him? Where had she heard that before? Now she herself was being sent to

some unknown friend of Count Streawe's. a pawn in some sort of strange

business arrangement. And everyone, from the local nobles to the hum-

blest peasant, seemed to know her affairs better than she did herself. What

else could go wrong?

Miriamele let out a sigh of grief and frustration.

Lenti, seated across from her, stiffened. "Don't try anything, now," he

growled. "I have a knife."

5

Singing Mon^s House

OlTTmn slapped a hand against the cold stone wall of the cave and felt

a strange satisfaction at the pain. "Bleeding Usires!" he swore. "Bleeding

Usires, Usires bleeding on the Tree!" He raised an arm to strike the wall

again, but instead dropped it to his side and dug furiously at his breeches-

leg with his fingernails.

"Calm y'rself, boy," Haestan said. "Was naught we c'do."

"I won't let them kill him!" He turned to Haestan imploringly. "And

Geloe said we must go to the Stone of Farewell. I don't even know where

that is!"

Haestan shook his head unhappily. "Whatever this stone may be. I've

not understood ye right since fell down and struck y'r head this afternoon.

Y've been talkin' moon-mad. But about th' troll an* Rimmersmanwhat

can we do?"

"I don't know!" Simon barked. He put out his aching hand to lean

against the wall. The night wind keened beyond the door-flap. "Free

them," he said at last. "Free them bothBinabik and Sludig." The tears he

had felt himself holding back were gone. He suddenly felt cold-minded

and full of strength.

Haestan started to reply, then checked himself. He looked at the youth's

trembling fists and the livid scar striping his cheek. "How, then?" he

asked quietly. "Two 'gainst a mountain?"

Simon stared furiously. "There must be a way!"

"Th'only rope trolls took with Binabik's pack. Down a deep hole they

are, lad. With guards 'round."

After a long moment, Simon turned and slid down to sit on the cave

floor, pushing away the sheepskin rug to bring himself as close as possible

to the unforgiving rock.

"We can't just let them die, Haestan. We can't. Binabik said his people

would throw them from the cliffs. How can they be such . . . such

demons!?"

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Haestan squatted and poked the coals with his knife. "I've no under-

standing of heathens and suchlike," the bearded guardsman said. "They be

tricksy folk. Why should they prison them and give us freedoman' leave

our weapons besides?"

"Because we've got no rope," Simon said bitterly, and shivered. He

was finally beginning to feel the cold. "Besides, even if we killed the

guards, what good would it do us? They'd throw us down the mountain

as well, and no one would ever take Thorn back to Josua." He thought.

"Perhaps we could steal some rope?"

Haestan looked doubtful. "In darkness, in a strange place? Like as not

we'd just rouse guards an' get spear-stabbed."

"Damnation and sin! We must do something, Haestan! Are we cowards?

We can't just stand by." A sharp wind stabbed in past the door curtain. He

hugged his arms tight around his chest. "At the very least, I'm going to

have that Herder's rotten little head off. Then they can kill me, too, and I

won't care."

The guardsman smiled sadly. "Ah, boy, y'r talkin' stupid. Said y'rself

someone must take that black sword t'Prince Josua." He indicated cloth-

wrapped Thorn lying beside the cavern wall. "If the sword be not taken

t'prince, Ethelbearn and Grimmric died for naught. That'd be cruel shame.

Too many hopes, slender 'uns though may be, rest on yon blade."

Haestan chuckled. " 'Sides, lad, d'ye think they'd spare one if th' other

killed their king? Y'r bound t'get me killed, too." Haestan poked at the fire

again. "No, no, ye be green yet an' don't understand th' world. Ye've not

been in war, lad, like menot seen what I have. Didn't I see two of my

fellows die just since we left Naglimund? The Good God saves his justice

and such for th' Day ofWeighin' Out. 'Til then, we have t'look t'ourselves."

He leaned forward as he began to warm to the topic. "Each 'un must do

his best, but things can't always be made right, Simon ..."

He stopped abruptly, staring at the doorway. Seeing the look of surprise

on the soldier's round face, Simon turned swiftly. A figure had stepped

past the flap of hide.

"Th' troll girl," Haestan breathed softly, as though she might startle

and bolt like a fawn. Sisqinanamook's eyes were wide with apprehension,

but Simon also saw determination in the set of her jaw. He thought she

looked readier to fight than to flee.

"Do you come to gloat?" he asked angrily.

Sisqinanamook steadfastly returned his stare. "Help me," she said at

last.

"Elysia, Mother of God," Haestan gasped, "she can talk!"

The troll maiden shied back at the guardsman's outburst, but held her

ground. Simon clambered up onto his knees before her. Kneeling, he was

still taller than Binabik's once-betrothed.

"Can you speak our tongue?"

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STONE OFFAREWELL

She looked at him for a moment as if puzzled, then made a sign with

crossed fingers. "Little," she said. "Little talk. Binabik teach."

"I should have guessed," Simon said. "Binabik has been trying to

pound things into my head as long as I've known him."

Haestan snorted. Simon gestured for Sisqinanamook to enter- She slithered

away from the door-flap, crouching near the cave's entrance with her back

against the wall. A snow serpent carved in relief upon the stone coiled

about her head like a saint's halo-

"Why should we help you?" Simon said. "And help you do what?"

She stared at him uncomprehendingly. He repeated himself more slowly.

"Help Binbinaqegabenik," she replied at last. "Help me, help Binabik."

"Help Binabik?" Haestan hissed in surprise. "Why, y'r what's got him

in trouble!"

"How?" Simon asked. "Help Binabik how?"

"Go away," Sisqinanamook replied. "Binabik go away Mintahoq." She

reached under her thick hide jacket. For a moment Simon feared some

kind of trickhad she understood enough of what they had been saying to

know they were discussing a rescue?but when her small hand appeared

again it bore a coil of slender gray rope. "Help Binabik," she repeated.

"You help, I help."

"Merciful Aedon," said Simon.

They quickly gathered up all their belongings, throwing them into two

packs with little concern for order. When they were finished and had

donned their fur-lined cloaks, Simon went to the comer of the room

where the black sword Thorn laythe object, as Haestan had said, of

many hopes, fruitless or otherwise. In the dim firelight it was only a

sword-shaped hole in the furs that cradled it. Simon pressed its cold

surface with his fingers, remembering how it had felt when he raised it

before the onrushing Igjarjuk. For a moment it seemed to grow warm

beneath his hand.

Someone touched him on the shoulder.

"No, no kill," Sisqinanamook said. She pointed frowningly at the

sword, then tugged gently at his arm. Simon wrapped his hand around

Thorn's cord-wrapped hilt and hefted: it was too heavy to lift without

using both arms. As he struggled upright, he turned to the troll maiden.

"I'm not bringing it to kill anybody. This is the reason we went to the

dragon-mountain. No kill."

She stared at him, then nodded.

"Let me carry it, lad," Haestan said. "I'm rested."

Simon bit back a sullen retort and let him take the sword. It seemed no

lighter in the burly guardsman's hands, but no heavier either. Haestan

reached over his head and carefully eased Thorn's black length down

through a pair of thick loops on the back of his pack.

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It's not my sword, Simon reminded himself. I knew that already. And

Haestan's right to take itI'm too weak. He felt his thoughts wandering. /(

doesn't belong lo anyone. It belonged to Sir Camaris once, but he's dead. Seems

almost to have a spirit of its own . .

Well, if Thorn wanted to leave this God-cursed mountain, it would

have to go down with them.

They extinguished the fire and went silently out past the door-flap. The

chill night air made Simon's head throb. He stopped in the doorway.

"Haestan," he whispered, "you must promise me something."

"What's that, lad?"

"I don't feel very . - . strong. It's going to be a long walk to wherever

we're going. In the snow, too. So if anything happens to me . - ." he

hesitated for a moment, "if anything happens to me, please bury me

someplace warm." He shivered. "I'm tired of being cold."

For a moment Simon had the embarrassing idea that Haestan might cry.

The guardsman's bearded face screwed up in a strange grimace as he

leaned in to look closely at Simon. A moment later he grinned, although

the smile seemed a bit forced, and wrapped one of his bearlike arms

around Simon's quaking shoulders. "Here now, lad, no way t'talk," he

whispered. "It'll be long march, an' cold, too, that's surebut not as bad

as y'think. We'll all make it through." Haestan snuck a look at Sisqinan-

amook, who was staring impatiently at them from the porch outside the

cavern. "Jiriki left us horses," he hissed into Simon's ear, "at mountain-

bottom, stabled in cave. Told me where. So dunna fear, lad, dunna fear. If

we but knew where 'tis we gowhy, we'd be halfway there!"

They pushed out onto the stone track, squinting their eyes against a

fierce wind that scraped the face of Mintahoq like a razor. The mists had

blown away. A cat's-eye sliver of yellow moon glared down on the

mountain and shadow-blanketed valley. Staggering under their heavy

loads, they turned to follow the one small shadow that was Sisqinanamook.

It was a long, silent trek around the edge of Mintahoq, stumbling

through the buffeting wind. After a few hundred paces Simon already felt

his steps slowing. How would he ever climb all the way down the

mountain? And why couldn't he shake off this cursed weakness?

At last the troll maiden gestured them to a halt, then directed them into

a crevice, off the pathway and back into the shadows. It was a tight

squeeze because of their bulky packs, but with the help of Sisqinanamook's

small hands they managed to slide in. A moment later she was gone. They

stood, pinioned, and watched their breath fill the mouth of the crevice,

glittering in the moonlight.

"What d'ye think she's about?" Haestan whispered at last.

"I don't know." Simon was happy just to lean against the stone. Out of

the wind, he suddenly felt flushed and dizzy. The White Arrow given to

him by Jiriki was digging at his spine through the heavy cloth of his pack.

STONE OFFAREWELL

79

"We be coney-catched, an' no mistake ..." Haestan began, but the

sound of voices on the path silenced him. As the voices grew louder,

Simon caught his breath and held it.

A triumvirate of trolls stumped down the trail past the crevice, dragging

the butts of their sharp spears carelessly along the stone, talking in their

low, grumbling tongue- All three carried shields of stretched hide. One

had a ram's horn dangling from his belt; Simon had no doubt that a call

from that instrument would bring well-armed trolls tumbling out of the

caves all around like ants from a shaken nest.

The horn-bearer said something and the group paused just before the

hiding spot- Simon struggled to hold his breath and felt his head whirl. A

moment later the trolls burst into a fizz of quiet laughter as the story was

completed, then continued their march back around the face of the moun-

tain. In a few moments their quiet chatter had dwindled away.

Simon and Haestan waited a long while before peering out of the

opening in the rock. The moon-painted path stretched on cither side,

untenanted. Haestan wriggled out of the narrow entrance, then helped

Simon to emerge.

4-

The moon had slipped past the mouth of the pit, plunging the prisoners

back into near-complete darkness. Sludig was breathing quietly but not

sleeping. Binabik lay on his back, short legs outstretched, staring up at the

wheeling stars as the wind gusted noisily across the opening of their

prison.

A head appeared at the rim of the pit. A moment later, a coil of rope

hissed down from above to smack onto the stone. Binabik stiffened but

did not stir, staring intently at the shadowy silhouette above.

"What?" Sludig growled in the darkness. "Do they not even wait until

dawn in this barbaric place? Must they kill us at midnight to hide their

deed from the sun? Still God will know." He reached out and gave the

rope a tug. "Why should we climb? Let us sit here. Maybe they will send

a few guards down to get us." The Rimmersman chuckled unpleasantly.

"Then I will break some necks. At the least, they will have to spear us in

our hole like bears."

"Qinkipa's Eyes!" a voice hissed in the troll language. Binabik sat

upright. "Grab the rope, you fool!"

"Sisqi?" Binabik gasped. "What are you doing?"

"Something I will never forgive myself foras I also would not forgive myself

iff left it undone. Now be silent and climb!"

Binabik pulled gingerly at the rope. "But how can you hold it? There is

nothing to tie it to and the edge is slippery."

"Who are you talking to?" Sludig asked, disconcerted by the Qanuc speech.

80 Tad Williams

"I have brought allies/' Sisqmanamook called softly. "Climb! The guards

will return when Sedda touches on Sikkihoq's peak!"

Binabik, after explaining swiftly, sent Sludig up the line. The Rim-

mersman, weakened by imprisonment, made his slow way to the top and

disappeared over the rim into darkness, but Binabik did not follow-

Sisqi appeared once more at the rim. "Hurry, before I regret my stupidity!

Climb!"

"I cannot. I will not run from the justice of my people." Binabik sat down.

"Are you mad? What do you mean? The guards will be back very soon!" Sisqi

could not keep the fear from her voice. "You will get your lowlander jriends

killed with this foolish trick."

"No, Sisqi, take them. Help them get away. You will have my gratitude. You

already do."

She bounced up and down, shiveringly anxious. "Ah, Binahik, you are a

curse to me! First you humiliate me before our people, now you talk madness jrom

the bottom of a hole! Come out! Come out!"

"I will not break another oath."

Sisqinanamook stared up at the moon. "Qinkipa Snow Maiden save me.

Binbinaqegabenik, why are you so stubborn! Would you die to prove that you are

right!?"

Astonishingly Binabik began to laugh. "Would you save my life just to

prove me wrong?"

Two more heads appeared at the edge of the hole. "Damnation, troll,"

Sludig growled, "why do you wait? Are you hurt?" The Rimmersman

dropped to his knees as though to scramble back down the rope.

"No!" Binabik cried in the Westerling tongue. "Do not be waiting for

me. Sisqinanamook can take you to a place of safeness where you can

begin your trip down-mountain. You can be beyond the Yiqanuc bound-

aries by sunrise."

"What is keeping you here?" Sludig asked, amazed.

"I am condemned by my people," Binabik said. "I broke my oath. I

will not break it for a second time."

Sludig muttered in confusion and anger.

The dark figure beside him leaned out. "Binabik," he said. "It's me,

Simon. We have to go. We have to find the Stone of Farewell. Geloe said

so. We have to take Thom there."

The troll laughed again, but hollowly. "And without me, no going, no

Stone of Farewell?"

"Yes!" Simon's desperation was clear. Time was running short. "We

don't know where it is! Geloe said you must take us there! Naglimund has

fallen- We may beJosua's only hopeand your people's only hope!"

Binabik sat in silence at the bottom of the pit, thinking. At last he

reached out to grasp the dangling rope and began to make his way up the

sheer wall. When he reached the top, he stumbled over into Simon's fierce

STONE OF FAREWELL

81

embrace. Sludig thumped the little man on the shoulder, a comradely

blow that nearly toppled Binabik back into the pit. Haestan stood by,

breath steaming in his beard, thick hands now hurriedly coiling the rope

up from below.

Binabik pulled away from Simon. "You are not looking very well,

friend. Your wounds are troubling you." He sighed. "Ah, this is cruel. I

cannot be leaving you to the mercies of my folk, but I have no wishes to

break another oath. I do not know what I should do." He turned toward

the fourth figure. "So," he said in troll speech, "you have rescued meor at

least my companions. Why have you changed your mind?"

Sisqinanamook eyed him, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. "/

am not certain I have," she replied. "/ heard what this strange one with the

while streak said," she indicated Simon, watching in bewildered silence. "It

had the ring of truththat is, I believed there truly was something you thought

more important even than our pledge." She glowered. "I am not a lovesick fool

who will forgive you anything, but neither am 1 a vengeful demon. You are free.

Now go."

Binabik moved uneasily. "This thing that kept me jrom you," he said, "it is

not only important to me, but to everybody. A terrible danger is coming. There is

only slim hope of resistance, but even that hope must be nurtured." He lowered

his eyes for a moment, then raised them and boldly met her gaze. "My

love for you is as strong as the mountain's rocky bones. It has been so since I first

saw you on your Walk of Womanhood, lovely and graceful as a snow otter

beneath the stars ofChugik Mountain. But even for that love I could not stand by

and see the whole world blighted by unending black winter." He took her

jacketed arm. "Now tell me this: what will you do, Sisqi? You sent the guards

away, then the prisoners escaped. You might just as well mark your name-rune in

the snow."

"That will be between me and my father and mother," she said angrily,

pulling free of his grasp- "/ have done what you wanted. You are free. Why do

you waste that jreedom trying to convince me of your innocence? Why do you

throw Chugik up to me? Go!"

Sludig did not speak the language, but he understood Sisqi's gestures.

"If she wants us to leave, Binabik, then she speaks rightly! Aedon! We

must be swift."

Binabik waved a hand. "Go, I soon will catch you." His friends did not

move as he turned again to face his once-intended. "/ will stay," he said.

"Sludig is innocent, and it is a great kindness that you have helped him, but I will

stay and honor my people's will. I have done a good share already in the struggle

against the Storm King . . ."he glanced toward the west, where the moon

had entered a murk of inky clouds, "- . . and others can now carry my load.

Come, let you and I go lead the guards a chase so my friends can make their

escape."

A look of fear animated Sisqi's round face. "Curse you, Binbinaqegabenik,

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will you go now?! I do not wish to see you killed!" Angry tears stood in her

eyes. "There, are you pleased!? I still feel for you, although you have torn my

heart into pieces!"

Binabik stepped toward her and caught at her arms again, pulling her .

close. "Then come with me!" he said, his voice suddenly full of wild

possibility. "I will not be separated jrom you again. Run away and come with

me, and my oath be broken and damned! You can see the worldeven in these

dark days, there are things beyond our mountains that would fill you with

wonder!"

Sisqi pulled away, turning her back. She seemed to be weeping.

After a long moment, Binabik turned to the others. "Whatever will be

happening," he said in Westerling speech, his face lit with a strange,

unstable smile, "stay or go, flee or fightit is first to my master's cave

we must go."

"Why?" asked Simon.

"We have not my casting-bones or other things. They have likely been

thrown into the cave that I shared with Ookequk my master, since my

people would not dare to go destroying things that were the Singing

Man's. But even more of importance, unless I am looking into the scrolls,

little chance there will be that I can find your Stone of Farewell."

"Then move, troll," Haestan growled. "I dunna know how y'r tady-

friend lured guards away, but no doubt they'll be back."

"You are correct." Binabik beckoned to Simon. "Come, Simon-friend,

we must be running again. Such, it is seeming, is the nature of our

companionship." He gestured to the troll maiden. She came without a

word, leading the way up the path.

They followed the main trail back, but after only a few dozen ells Sisqi

suddenly stepped off the track, taking them onto a trail so narrow that it

would have been hard to see even in daylight, a slender defile that

traversed the broad side of Mintahoq at a sharp upward angle. It was little

more than a gouge running between the rocks, and though there were

handholds aplenty, progress was cruelly slow in the near-total darkness.

Simon's booted shin struck painfully on many stones.

The track led upward, cutting across the grain of two more spirals of

the main track, then angled sharply back, still climbing. Pale Sedda was

sliding across the sky toward the dark bulk of one of Mintahoq's neigh-

bors, making Simon wonder how they would see at all when the moon

had vanished for good. He slipped, waving his arms until he regained his

balance, and promptly remembered that they were all clambering up a

narrow track on the face of a very dark mountain. Clutching at a hand-

hold, Simon stood in place and closed his eyes, bringing an instant of true

blackness as he listened to Haestan's laboring breath behind him. He still

felt the weakness that had troubled him all through Yiqanuc. It would be

83

STONE OFFAREWELL

sweet to He down and sleep, but it was a fruitless hope. After a moment he

made the sign of the Tree and started forward again.

At last they reached level ground, a flat porch before a small cave that

was set back in a deep crevice in the mountainside; Simon thought that

there was something familiar to the moonlight and the shapes of the

stones. Just as he realized that Qantaqa had once led him through the

darkness to this very place, a gray-white shape leaped from the mouth of

the cave-

"Sosa, Qantaqa!" Binabik called quietly; a second later he was bowled

over by an avalanche of fur. His companions stood by awkwardly for a

moment as he was laved by the wolfs steaming tongue. "Muqang, friend,"

the troll gasped at last, "that's enough! I am sure that you have been

bravely guarding Ookequk's house." He struggled to his feet as Qantaqa

backed away, her entire body aquiver with delight. "I am more in danger

from the greetings of friends than the spears of enemies," Binabik grinned.

"We must hurry to the cave. Sedda is hastening west."

He went in standing up, Sisqi after him. Simon and the others had to

stoop through the low doorway. Qantaqa, determined not to be left

outside, made a jarring rush past Simon's and Haestan's legs, nearly

tripping them.

They stood for a moment in a darkness thick with Qaritaqa's musky scent

and a host of other, stranger odors. Binabik struck sparks from a flint

until a small flower of yellow fire appeared and was quickly set to

growing on the end of an oil-soaked torch.

The Singing Man's cave was a quite singular place. In contrast to the

low door, the curving roof stretched high overhead, up into shadows the

torch could not dispel- Like a beehive, the walls were riddled with a

thousand alcoves that seemed to have been gouged into the very rock of

the cavem. Each niche held something. One contained only the dried

remains of a single small flower, others were crammed with sticks and

bones and covered pots. But most were filled with rolled skins, more than

a few stuffed so full that some of the rolls dangled halfway from the niche,

like the imploring hands of beggars.

Qantaqa's week-long residence had left its mark. In the middle of the

floor, close to the wide fire pit, were the remains of what once had been a

complex circular picture made entirely from small colored stones. The

wolf had apparently used this for scratching her back, since the design

bore the distinct marks of having been rolled upon. All that remained was

part of the rune-wrapped border and an edge of some white thing beneath

a sky filled with twirling red stars.

Numerous other objects showed traces of Qantaqa's attention as well.

She had pulled a great pile of robes into the cave's far corner and poked

the garments into a suitable wolf-nest. Beside this bed lay several much-

chewed articles, including the remains of a few of the rolled skinsthe

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fragments crawling with writing unfamiliar to Simonand Binabik's walk-

ing stick.

"I could have wished you were finding something else for chewing,

Qantaqa," the troll said, frowning as he picked it up. The wolf tipped her

head to one side and whined uneasily, then padded over to Sisqi, who was

looking into some of the alcoves, and who distractedly pushed the wolfs

large head away. Qantaqa flopped down on the floor and began disconso-

lately scratching herself. Binabik held his stick up to the torch's light. The

tooth marks were not deep.

"Chewing more for comfort of Binabik-smcll than any other thing,"

the troll smiled. "Fortunately."

"What is it you seek?" Sludig said urgently. "We must be going while

darkness holds."

"Yes, you speak correctly," Binabik said, sliding his stick in beneath his

belt. "Come, Simon, help me as we make a quick searching."

With Haestan and Sludig joining in, Simon pulled down scrolls from

the niches that Binabik himself could not reach. They were made of

thin-pounded hide, so thoroughly greased that they were slimy to the

couch; the runes that covered them were burned directly into the hide, as

though with a hot poker. Simon handed one after another to Binabik,

who perused each quickly before tossing it onto one of several growing

piles.

Looking around at the great rocky honeycomb and all the scrolls,

Simon marveled at what an arduous job it must have been to create such a

libraryand it was just that, he realized, as much as Father Strangyeard's

archive at Naglimund or Morgenes' workshop full of heavy volumes, even

though these books were furls of hide, scribed with fire instead of ink.

At last Binabik had a pile of a dozen or so that seemed to interest him.

These he spread flat and rolled together into one heavy bundle, then

dropped the whole mass into his sack, which he had found near the cave's

entrance.

"Now we can go?" Sludig asked. Haestan was rubbing his hands

together, trying to keep them warm. He had taken off his clumsy gloves

to help with the scrolls.

"As soon as we are putting these back into the holes." The troll

indicated the large pile of discarded skins.

"Are ye mad?" Haestan said heatedly. "Why waste precious time doin'

such?"

"Because these are rare, precious things," Binabik said calmly, "and if

we are leaving them here on cold ground, they will be soon ruined. 'He

who is not bringing in his flock at night gives away free mutton'that is

what we Qanuc say. It will be taking a moment, only."

"S'Bloody Tree," Haestan swore. "Lend me help, Simon-lad," he grunted,

stooping to the pile, "else we'll be here 'til dawn-time."

STONE OFFAREWELL

85

Binabik directed Simon in the filling of some of the empty upper niches.

Sludig watched impatiently for a moment before joining the effort. Sisqi

had been quietly rummaging through the alcoves until she had amassed

her own pile of rolled skins, which she had then rolled up and slipped

under her hide jacket, but now she suddenly turned and called in rapid

Qanuc. Binabik pushed past a wad of tangled furs to stand at her side.

She held out a scroll tied shut with a black leather thong. The cord was

wrapped not only around the middle of the roll of skin, but around both

ends as well. Binabik. took it from her, touching two fingers to his

forehead in a gesture of seeming reverence.

"This is Ookekuq's knot," he said quietly to Simon. "There is no

doubting of that."

"This is Ookekuq's cave, too, isn't it?" Simon said, puzzled. "Why is a

knot surprising?"

"Because this knot tells it is something of importance." Binabik ex-

plained. "It is also something I have not seen beforesomething that was

hidden from me, or that my master was making just before we left on the

journey where he died. And this knot, I am thinking, was only used for

things of great power, messages and spells chat were for certain eyes

only." He again ran his fingers over the knot, his brow wrinkled in

thought. Sisqi stared at the scroll, her eyes bright.

"Well, that's last of th'damnable things," Haestan said. "If that be some-

thin' y'want, little man, bring it with. We've no more time for wastin'."

Binabik hesitated for a moment, caressing the knot gently while he

looked once more around the cavern, then slipped the knotted scroll into

his sleeve. "Time it is," he agreed. He gestured the others to the cavern

doorway ahead of him, extinguishing the torch in a depression in the stone

floor as he followed them out.

The rest of the troll's companions had stopped, huddled before the cave

like a herd of wind-rattled sheep. Sedda, the moon, had at last vanished

in the west behind Sikkihoq, but the night was suddenly full of light.

A large troop of trolls was moving toward them. Faces grim in their

hoods, spears and firebrands in their hands, they had fanned out around

Ookequk's cave and now held the path on both sides. Even in force, the

trolls were so quiet that Simon could hear the burning hiss of their torches

before the sound of a single footfall reached him.

"Chukku's Stones," Binabik said bleakly. Sisqi dropped back to take his

arm, her eyes wide in the torchlight, her mouth set in a grim line.

Uammannaq the Herder and Nunuuika the Huntress guided their rams

forward. They both wore belted robes and boots. Their black hair flowed

loose, as though they had dressed hurriedly. As Binabik stepped forward

to meet them, armed trolls moved in behind him, hemming his compan-

ions in a thicket of spears. Sisqinanamook stepped out of the encirclement

86

Tad Williams

to join him, standing at his side with her chin lifted defiantly. Uammannaq

avoided his daughter's eyes, staring down instead at Binabik.

"So, Binbinaqegabenik," he said. "you will not stand and face the justice of

your people? I had thought mare of you than that, however low your birth."

"My friends are innocent." Binabik replied. "I held your daughter as hostage

until the Rimmersman Studio had made it to safety with the others."

Nunuuika rode forward until her mount stood shoulder to shoulder

with her husband's. "Please credit us with some wisdom, Binabik, even though

we are not either of us as clever as your master was. Who sent the guards away?"

She peered down at Sisqi. The Huntress' face was cold, but showed a trace

of harsh pride. "Daughter, I thought you were a fool when you determined to

marry this wizardling. Nowwell, I will say at least thai you are a loyal fool,"

She turned to Binabik. "Because you have recharmed my daughter, do not think

you will escape your sentence. The Ice House is unmelted. Winter has killed the

Spring. The Rite of Quickening went unperformedand instead you return to us

with childish tales. Now you are back hatching devil-tricks in your master's cave

that your pet wolf has guarded for you." Nunuuika was in the grip of a rising

fury. "You have been judged, oath-breaker. You will go to the ice cliffs of

Ogohak Chasm and you will he thrown over!"

"Daughter, go back to our home," Uammannaq growled. "You have done

great wrong."

"No!" Sisqi's cry caused a stir among the watching trolls. "/ have

listened to my heart, yes, but listened to what wisdom I have gained as well. The

wolf has kept us jrom Ookequk's housebut that has not been to Binbiniqegabenik's

benefit." She pulled the thong-tied scroll from Binabik's sleeves and thrust

it forward. "This I found there. None of us thought to see what Ookequk had

left behind."

"Only a fool hurries to rummage in the effects of a Singing Man," Uammannaq

said, but his expression had subtly changed.

"But Sisqi," Binabik said, nonplussed, "we do not know what the scroll

contains! It could be a spell of great peril, or . . ."

"I have a good idea," Sisqi said grimly. "Do you see whose knot this is?"

she asked, handing the scroll to her mother.

The Huntress looked at it briefly and made a dismissive gesture as she

handed it to her husband. "It is Ookequk's knot, yes ..."

"And you know what kind of knot as well, Mother," Sisqi turned to her

father. "Has it been opened?"

Uammannaq frowned. "No - . ."

"Good. Father, open it and read it, please."

"Now?"

"If not now, when? After the one to whom I am pledged has been executed?"

Sisqi's breath hung in the air after her angry rejoinder. Uammannaq

carefully picked the knot and removed the black thong, then slowly unrolled

the sheet of hide, beckoning for one of the torch-bearers to move nearer.

STONE OF FAREWELL

87

"Binabik," Simon shouted from behind a circle of spear-heads, "what is

happening?"

"Stay, all of you, and do nothing for a moment," Binabik called to him

in Westcrling. "I will tell you all when I can."

"Know this," Uammannaq read.

". . . That I am Ookequk, Singing Man of Mintahoq, of Chugik, Tutusik.

Rinsenatuq, Sikkihoq and Namyet, and all other mountains of Yiqanuc."

The Herder read slowly, with long, squint-eyed pauses as he puzzled

out the sense of the blackened runes.

"I go on a long journey, and in such times that I cannot know I will come

hack. So, I lay my death-song on this hide, thai it can he my voice when I

am gone."

"Clever, clever, Sisqi," Binabik said quietly as her father's voice droned,

"it is you who should have been Ookequk's student, not me! How could you know!?"

She waved a hand to quiet him. '7 am a daughter of Chidsik ub Lingit,

where all the petitions for judgment come jrom all the mountajns. Do you think I

would not recognize the knot used on a death testament?"

"I must warn those who remain after me,"

Uammannaq continued with Ookequk's words,

". . . That I have seen the coming of a great cold darkness, the like of which

my people haw never seen. If is a dreadjul winter that will come jrom the

shadow of Vihyuyaq, the mountain of the immortal Cloud Children. It will

blast the lands of Yiqanuc like a black wind jrom the Lands of the Dead,

cracking the very stone of our mountains in cruel fingers ..."

As the Herder read these words, several of the listening trolls cried out,

hoarse voices echoing down the night-shrouded mountainside. Others

swayed, so that the torchlight flickered.

"My student, Binbinaqegahenik, I will bring with me on my journey. In the

time that remains I will instruct him in the small things and long stories that

may help our people in this foul time. There are other ones beyond Yiqanuc

who have prepared lamps against this coming darkness. I go to add my light

to theirs, small as it may shine against the storm that threatens. If I cannot

return, young Binbinaqegabenik will come in my stead. I ask you to honor

him as you would me, for he is eager in his learning. One day he may grow

to be a greater Singing Man than I.

88Tad Williams

"Now I end my death song. I give my farewell to mountain and sky. It

has been good to he alire. It has been ^ood to he one of the Children of

Lingit, and to live my life on the beautiful mountain Mintahoq."

Uammannaq lowered the scroll, blinking. A low wail bubbled up

among the watchers in response to the Singing Man Ookekuq's final song.

"He did not have enough time." Binabik murmured. Tears welled in his

eyes. "He was taken away too quickly and told me nothingor at least not

enough. Oh, Ookequk, how we will miss you! How could you have left your

people with no wall between them and the Storm King but an untrained weanling

like Binabik!" He dropped to his knees and touched his forehead to the

snow.

An awkward silence fell, pierced only by the lamenting wind.

"Bring the lowlanders," Nunuuika said to the spearmen, then turned a

stiff, painful glance on her daughter. "We will all go to the House of the

Ancestor. There is much to think about."

Simon awakened slowly, and stared at the inconstant shadows on the

craggy ceiling of Chidsik ub Lingit for a long time while he cried to

remember where he was. He felt a little better now, more clearheaded, but

the scar on his cheek stung like fire.

He sat up. Sludig and Haestan were leaning against the wall a short

distance away, sharing a skin of some drink and a muttered conversation.

Simon untangled himself from his cloak and looked around for Binabik.

His friend was near the center of the room, squatting before the Herder

and Huntress as if in supplication. For a moment Simon was fearful, but

others squatted there too, Sisqinanamook among them. As he listened to

the rise and fall of guttural voices, he decided it seemed more a council

than a judgment. Other small groups of trolls were discernible here and

there in the deep shadows, crouched in little circles throughout the vast

stone room. A few scattered lamps burned like bright stars in a sky full of

thunderheads.

Simon curled up again, wriggling to find a smooth place on the floor.

How terribly strange, to be in this place! Would he ever have a home

again, a place where he would wake up every morning in the same bed,

unsurprised to find himself there?

He drifted slowly back into half-sleep, into a dream of cold mountain

passes and red eyes.

"Simon-friend!" It was Binabik, gently shaking him. The troll looked

drawn, the circles under his eyes visible even in the half-light, but he was

smiling. "It is time for waking."

STONE OF FAREWELL

89

"Binabik," Simon said groggily, "what is happening?"

"I have brought for you a bowl of tea and some tidings. It appears I am

no longer bound for an unfortunate plunging," the troll grinned. "No

longer are Sludig and myself to be thrown into Ogohak Chasm."

"But that's wonderful!" Simon gasped. He felt his heart ache inside

him, a fierce wrench of released tension. He leaped to embrace the small

man and his sudden lunge toppled the troll. The tea puddled on the stone.

"You have been too long in the company ofQantaqa," Binabik laughed,

extricating himself. He looked pleased. "You have gained her liking for

the giving of exuberant greetings."

Other heads in the room turned to watch this strange spectacle. Many

Qanuc tongues muttered in amazement at the mad and lanky lowlander

who hugged trolls as if he were a clansman. Simon saw the stares and

ducked his head in embarrassment. "What have they said?" he asked. "Can

we go?"

"Put with simpleness: yes, we can go." Binabik sat down beside him.

He was carrying his bone walking stick, recovered from Ookequk's cave.

He proceeded to examine it as he spoke, frowning at the numerous

toothmarks Qantaqa had added. "But much there is to be decided.

Ookequk's scroll has convinced the Herder and Huntress on the truth of

my tellings."

"But what is there to decide?"

"Many things. If I go with you to take Thorn back to Josua, then my

people are again without a Singing Man. But I am thinking I must accom-

pany you. IfNaglimund has fallen truly, then we should be following the

words of Geloe. She may be the last one of great wisdom that remains.

Besides, it is seeming more certain that our only hope is in the getting of

the other two swords, Minneyar and Sorrow. Not for nothing should

your gallantry on the dragon-mountain be."

Binabik gestured at Thorn, which stood against the wall near where

Haestan and Sludig sat. "If the Storm King's rising is unchecked," he said,

"then no use there will be my staying on Mintahoq, since none of the craft

Ookequk taught me will keep away the winter we fear." The little man

made a broad gesture. "So, 'when the snowslide cakes your house,' as we

troll folk say, 'do not stay to hunt for potshards.' I have told my people

they should be moving down-mountain, to the spring hunting grounds

even though there will be no spring there, and small hunting."

He stood, tugging down the hem of his thick jacket. "I wanted you to

know that there was no danger now to Sludig and myself." He smirked.

"A bad joke. We are all, it is obvious, in terrible danger. But the danger is

not from my own people any longer." He laid a small hand on Simon's

shoulder. "Sleep again, if you can. We will likely leave at dawn. I will go

and speak to Haestan and Sludig, then there is much planning still ahead

this night." He turned and walked across the cave. Simon watched his

small form pass in and out of the shadows.

90

Tad Williams

A great deal of planning has been done already, he thought grumpily, and I

have not been invited to much of it. Someone always has a plan, and I always

wind up walking along while someone else decides where to go. I feel like a

wagonan old, faliing-apart wagon at that. When do I get to decide things for

myself?

He thought about this as he waited for sleep.

As it turned out, the sun had risen high in the gray sky before the final

arrangements were finisheda span of time Simon was more than happy

to spend sleeping.

Simon, his companions, and a large number of trolls trooped out onto

the byways of Mintahoq, following the Herder and Huntress in the

strangest parade Simon had ever seen. As they wound in and out through

Mintahoq's most populous sections, hundreds of trolls stopped on the

swinging bridges or came dashing out of their caves to watch the com-

pany pass, standing amazed beneath the swirling smokes of their cooking

fires. Many clambered down the thong ladders and joined the procession.

Much of the journey was uphill, and the vast crowd strung out along

the narrow track made the going slow. It seemed quite a long while before

they made their way around to the northern face. As they trudged on,

Simon found himself slipping into a kind of numbed dreaminess. Snow

flurried in the gray void beyond the pathway; Yiqanuc's other peaks stood

up along the valley's far side like teeth.

The march stopped at last on a long stone porch atop a promontory that

stood out above the northern part of Yiqanuc's valley. Another path

hugged the mountainside below them, then the rock walls of Mintahoq

fell sharply away, down into white obscurity touched with patches of

bright sunsplash. Staring down, Simon was stuck by a memory of dream,

of a dim white tower lapped by flames. He turned away from the unset-

tling view to find the rocky ledge on which he stood dominated by the

tall, egg-shaped snow-building he had seen his first day out of the cave.

Closer this time, he could clearly see the marvelous care with which the

triangular blocks of snow had been cut and fitted together, the bold

carvings that seemed to slice down into the blocks themselves, so that the

Ice House was as multifaceted as a cut diamond, its walls alive with hidden

interior angles, prisms that reflected cyan and pink.

The row of armed trolls who guarded the Ice House stood respectfully

to one side as Nunuuika and Uammanaq moved past them to stand

between the pillars of tight-packed snow that framed the door. Simon

could see nothing of the Ice House's interior but a blue-gray hole beypnd

the doorway. Bmabik and Sisqi took places on the icy step below, mittened

hands clasped. Qangolik the Spirit Caller clambered up beside them.

STONE OFFAREWELL

91

Though Qangolik's face was hidden by his ram-skull mask, Simon thought

the muscular troll seemed rather subdued. The Spirit Caller, who had

pranced like a courting bird before the judgment in Chidsik ub Lingit. now

stumped like a weary harvest hand.

As the Herder lifted his crook-spear and spoke, Binabik translated for

his lowlander companions.

'Strange days arc upon us." Uammannaq's eyes were deep-shadowed.

"We have known that something was wrong. We live too closely with the

mountain, which is of the bones of the earth, not to sense the unease in the

lands around us. The Ice House is still here. It has not melted." The wind

rose, whistling, as if to underscore his words. "Winter will not leave. At

first we blamed Binabik. The Singing Man or his apprentice has always

sung the Rite of Quickening; Summer has always come- But now we are

told that it is not failure to perform the Rite that keeps Summer hidden.

Strange days- Things are different-" He shook his head heavily, his beard

wagging.

"We must break with tradition," Nunuuika the Huntress added. "The

word of the wise should be law to those of less wisdom. Ookequk has

spoken as if he were here among us. Now we know more of the thing that

we feared, but could not name. My husband speaks truly: strange days are

upon us. Tradition served us, but now it shackles us. Thus, Huntress and

Herder declare that Binbinaqegabenik is free from his punishment. We

would be fools to kill one who has been striving to protect us from the

storm of which Ookequk spoke. We would be worse than fools, it is now

clear, to kill the only one who knew Ookequk's heart."

Nunuuika paused, waiting for Binabik to complete his reinterp relation,

then continued, passing her hand across her forehead in some ritual ges-

ture. "The Rimmersman Sludig is an even stranger problem. He is no

Qanuc, so he was not guilty of oath-breaking, as we declared Binabik.

But he is of an enemy people, and if the tales of our farthest-ranging

hunters are true, Rimmersmen in the east have grown even more savage

than before. However, Binabik assures us that this Sludig is different, that

he fights the same fight as Ookequk. We are not sure, but in these days of

madness we cannot say it is not so. Thus, Sludig is also declared freed

from punishment and may leave Yiqanuc as he wishesthe first Croohok

so pardoned since the Battle ofHuhinka Valley in my great-grandmother's

day, when the snows ran red with blood. We call on the spirits of high

places, pale Sedda and Qinkipa of the Snows, Morag Eyeless, bold Chukku,

and all the rest, to protect the people if our judgment is faulty."

When the Huntress had finished, Uammannaq stood beside her and

made a broad gesture, as though to break something in two and cast it

away. The watching trolls chanted one sharp syllable, then lapsed into

excited whispering-

Simon turned and clasped Sludig's hand. The northerner smiled tightly,

92

Tad Williams

jaw set behind his yellow beard. "The little people speak rightly," he said-

"Strangc times indeed."

U-immannaq raised his hand to still the murmur of conversation. "The

lowlanders shall now leave. Binbinaqegabenik, who if he returns will be

our next Singing Man, may go with them to take this strange, magical

object" he pointed to Thorn, which Haestan held propped on the

ground before him, "to the lowlanders, who he says can use it to

frighten away the winter.

"We shall send with them a party of hunters, led by our daughter

Sisqinanamook, who shall be their escort until they leave the lands of the

Qanuc. The hunters will then go to the spring city by Blue Mud Lake and

prepare for the coming of the rest of our clans." Uammannaq made a

gesture and one of the other trolls stepped forward with a skin bag that

had been covered nearly completely in delicate tracings of colored embroi-

dery. "We have gifts we wish to give you."

Binabik brought his friends forward. The Huntress presented Simon

with a sheath of supple hide, the leather subtly tooled and studded with

stone beads the color of a spring moon. The Herder then gave him a knife

to put in it, a beautiful pale blade made from a single piece of bone. The

handle was wrought with smoothed carvings of birds.

"A magical lowlander sword is very good for fighting snow-worms,"

Nunuuika told him, "but a humble Qanuc knife is easier to hide and easier

to use in close quarters."

Simon thanked them politely and stepped aside. Haestan was given a

capacious drinking skin decorated with ribbons and stitchcry, filled to the

stopper with Qanuc liquor. The guardsman, who had drunk enough of

the sour stuff during the previous evening to finally develop a bit of taste

for it, bowed, mumbled some words of gratitude, then withdrew.

Sludig, who had come to Yiqanuc as a prisoner but was now leaving

more or less as a guest, received a spear with a viciously sharp head hewn

from shiny black stone. The haft was uncarved, since it had been hurriedly

constructedthe trolls did not use spears of a length that would have been

appropriatebut it was nicely balanced and could double as a walking

stave.

"We hope you also appreciate the gift of your life," Uammannaq said,

"and will remember that the justice of the Qanuc is stern but not cruel."

Sludig amazed them by dropping quickly to a knee. "I will remember,"

was all he said-

"Binbinaqcgabenik," Nunuuika began, "you have already received the

greatest gift it is in our capacity to bestow. If she will still have you,

we renew our permission for you to marry our youngest daughter.

When the Rite of Quickening can be performed next year, you will, be

joined."

Binabik and Sisqi clasped hands and bowed on the step before the

STONE OFFAREWELL

93

Hcrder and Huntress as words of blessing were said. The ram-faced Spirit

Caller came forward. He chanted and sang as he daubed their foreheads

with oil, but with what Simon thought was a very dissatisfied air. When

Qangotik finished and stalked grumpily back down the steps of the Ice

House, the betrothal had been reinstated.

The Huntress and Herder said a brief personal farewell to the company,

Binabik interpreting. Though she smiled and touched his hand with her

small, strong fingers, Nunuiika still seemed cold and hard as stone to

Simon, sharp and dangerous as her own spearhead. He had to force

himself to smile back and retreat slowly when she had finished.

Qantaqa was waiting for them, curled in a nest of snow outside of

Chidsik ub Lingit. The noon sun had disappeared behind a spreading fog;

the wind set Simon's teeth to chattering.

"Down the mountain we must now go, friend," Binabik said to him. "I

am wishing you and Haestan and Sludig were not so large, but there are

no rams strong enough for your riding. It will make our going slower

than I would wish."

"But where are we going?" Simon asked. "Where is this Stone of

Farewell?"

"All things in their season," the troll replied. "I will look at my scrolls

when we stop tonight, but we should leave now as soon as we can. The

mountain passes will be treacherous. I smell more snow upon the wind."

"More snow," Simon repeated, shouldering his pack. More snow.

6

Tfte Nameless DeocC

". So Drukhi found her,"

Maegwin sang,

"Beloved Nenais'u, wind-footed dancer,

Stretched on the green grass, as silent as stone

Her dark eya sky-watching,

Only her shining blood gave him answer,

Her head lay uncradled, her black hair undone."

Maegwin drew her hand over her eyes, shielding them from the sting-

ing wind, then leaned forward to rearrange the flowers on her father's

cairn. Already the wind had scattered the violets across the stones; only a

few dried petals remained on Gwythinn's grave nearby. Where had the

treacherous summer gone^ And when would the flowers bloom again, so

she could tend her loved ones' resting places as they deserved5

As the wind rattled the skeletal birch trees, she sang again.

"Lone tune he held her,

Through gray-shadowed evening, beneath shamefaced night,

Matching the hours she had lain there alone.

His bright eyes unblinking,

Drukhi sang songs of the East's timeless light.

He whispered to her they would wait for the sun

"Dawn, golden-handed,

Caressed hut could not warm the nightingale's child

Nenais'u's swift spin! had fled unhomed

Close Drukhi clutched her,

His voice echoed out through woods and through wild

Where two hearts had sounded now beat only one .

STONE OF FAREWELL95

She broke off, wondering absently if she had once known the rest of the

words She remembered her nurse singing it to her when she was young,

a sad song about the Sithi-folk"The Peaceful Ones," as her ancestors

had named them Maegwin did not know the legend behind it. She

doubted her old nurse had known, either. It was only that, a sad song

from happier times, from her childhood in the Taig . . . before her father

and brother died.

She stood, brushing the dirt from the knees of her black skirt, and

scattered a few last withered flowers among the slender spears of grass

pushing up from Gwythinn's cairn. As she turned back up the path,

clasping her cloak tight against the gnawing wind, she wondered once

more why she should not join her brother and father Lluth here in peace

on the mountainside. What did life hold for her?

She knew what Eolair would say The Count of Nad Mullach would

tell her that her people had no one else but Maegwin to inspire and guide

them. "Hope," Eolair often said, in that quiet but fox-clever way of his,

"is like the belly-strap on a king's saddlea slender thing, but if it snaps

the world turns topside-down."

Thinking of the count, she felt a rare flash of anger. What could he

knowwhat could anyone know about death who was as alive as Eolair,

to whom life seemed a gift from the gods? How could" he understand the

dreadful weight of waking up each day, knowing that the ones she loved

most were gone, that her people were uprooted and friendless, doomed to

a slow, humiliating extinction5 What gift of the gods was worth the gray

burden of pain, the unceasing rut of bleak thoughts3

Eolair of Nad Mullach came to her often these days, speaking to her as

he would to a child. Once, long ago, Maegwin had fallen in love with

him, but she had never been so foolish as to believe he might feel for her

in turn Tall as a man, clumsy and blunt in her words, far more like a

farmer's daughter than a princesswho could ever love Maegwin? But

now that she and her bewildered young stepmother Inahwen were all that

remained of Lluth ubh-Llythmn's house, now Eolair was concerned.

Not out of any base motives, though. She laughed out loud and did not

like the sound of it. Oh, gods, base motives? Not honorable Count Eolair.

That was the thing she hated in him more than anything else. his unrelent-

ing kindness and honor She was sick to death of pity.

Besides, even ifimpossiblyhe could have thought of profiting at such

a time, how would joining his fate to hers benefit him in any case7 Maegwin

was the last daughter of a broken house, the ruler of a shattered nation

The Hernystin had become wild creatures living in the woodlands of the

Gnanspog Mountains, driven back to their primeval caves by the whirl-

wind of destruction brought down on them by High King Elias and his

Rimmcrsman tool, Skali of Kaldskryke

So perhaps Eolair was right. Perhaps she did owe her life to her people.

She was the last ofLluth's blooda thin tie to a happier past, but the only

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such link that the survivors of Hernysadharc retained. She would live,

thenbut whoever would have thought that merely living could become

a burdensome duty!

As Maegwin made her way along the steep trail, something wet touched

her face. She looked up. A hose of tiny spots swarmed against the leaden

sky. Another bit ofwetncss flecked her.

Snow. The realization made her cold heart even colder. Snow in mid-

summer, in Tiyagar-month. Brynioch of the Skies and all the other gods have

truly turned their backs on the Hernystiri.

A single sentry, a boy of perhaps ten summers with a red and dripping

nose, greeted her as she entered the camp. A few fur-wrapped children

played on the mossy rocks before the cavern, trying to catch the now

fast-falling snowflakes on their tongues. They scrambled back, wide-eyed,

as she walked past with her black skirts swirling in the wind.

They know the princess is mad, she thought sourly. Anyone would. The

princess talks to herself, but to no one else/or days at a time. The princess speaks

of nothing but death. Of course the princess is mad.

She thought it might be good to smile for the fearful-looking children,

but as she looked down at their dirty faces and their tattered rags of

clothing, she decided that such an effort might frighten them further.

Instead, Maegwin hurried past into the cave.

Am / mad? she wondered suddenly. Is this crushing weight what madness

feels like? These heavy thoughts that make my head feel like the arms of a

drowning swimmer, struggling, failing. . . ?

The wide cavern was largely empty- Old Craobhan, recovering slowly

from wounds received in the futile defense of Hernysadharc, lay by the

banked fire talking quietly to Arnoran, who had been one of her father

Uuth's favorite harpers. They looked up as she approached. She could see

them both studying her, crying to divine her mood. As Arnoran began to

rise, she waved him back down.

"It's snowing," she said.

Craobhan shrugged. The andent knight was nearly bald but for a few wisps

of white hair, his scalp a puzzle of delicate blue veins. "Not good, Lady.

That's not good. We've little livestock, but we're close-quartered in these

few caves as it is, and chat's with most of us outside during the day."

"More crowding." Arnoran shook his head. He was not nearly as old as

Craobhan, but was even more frail. "More angry folk."

"Do you know 'The Leavetaking Stone'?" Maegwin asked the harper

suddenly. "It's an old song about the Sithi, about someone named Nenais'u

dying."

"I think I knew it once, long ago," Arnoran said, squinting his eyes as he

stared into the fire and tried to think. "It is a very old songvery, very old."

"You don't have to sing the words," Maegwin said- She settled cross-

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97

legged beside him, her skirt tight as a drumhead between her knees. "Just

play the melody for me."

Arnoran scrabbled for his harp, then played a few tentative notes. "I'm

not sure I remember how to . . ."

"It doesn't matter. Try." She wished she could think of something to

say that would bring a smile to their faces, even for a moment. Did her

people deserve to see her always in mourning? "It will be good," she said at

last, "to think of other times."

Amoran nodded and plucked briefly at his strings, eyes closed, his quarry

easiest sought in darkness. He finally began a delicate air, full of strange

notes that quavered just on the edge of dissonance without ever crossing

over. As he played, Maegwin, too, shut her eyes. She could once again

hear the voice other nurse from long ago, telling her the story ofDrukhi

and Nenais'uwhat strange names they had in old ballads'telling of

their love and tragic deaths, their warring families.

The music went on for a long while. Maegwin's thought swirled with

images of the distant and not-so-distant past. She could see pallid Drukhi

bent in grief, swearing vengeancebut he wore her brother Gwythinn's

anguished face. And Nenais'u, sprawled lifeless on the greensward: was

that not Maegwin herself?

Amoran had stopped. Maegwin opened her eyes, -not knowing how

long the music had been silent.

"When Drukhi died avenging his wife," she said as if continuing an earlier

conversation, "his family could not live with Nenais'u's family anymore."

Amoran and Craobhan exchanged glances. She ignored them and went on.

"I remember the story now. My nurse used to sing the song to me.

Drukhi's family fled away from their enemies, went far away to live

apart." After a pause, she turned to look at Craobhan. "When will Eolair

and the others return from their expedition?"

The old man counted on his fingers. "They should be back by the new

moon, in a little less than a fortnight."

Maegwin stood up. "Some of these caverns run deep into the moun-

tain's heart," she said. "Is that not true?"

"There were always deep places in the Grianspog," Craobhan nodded

slowly, trying to understand her. "And some were delved even deeper,

for mining."

"Then we will start exploring tomorrow at dawn. By the time the

count and his men come back, we will be ready to move."

"Move?" Craobhan squinted, surprised. "Move where. Lady Maegwin?"

"Farther into the mountains," she said. "It came to me as Arnoran sang.

We Hernystiri are like Drukhi's family in the song: we cannot live here

anymore." She rubbed her hands together, trying to ward off the chill of

the cavern. "King Elias has destroyed his brother Josua. Now there is

nothing and no one left to drive Skali away."

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"But my lady!" Amoran said, startled into interrupting her. "Still there is

Eolair, and with him many other brave Hernystirmen remaining ..."

"There is no one to drive Skali away," she continued harshly, "and

the Thane of Kaldskryke will doubtless find Hernystir's meadows a more

hospitable home in this freezing summer than his own lands in Rimmersgard.

If we stay here, we shall be trapped eventually, slaughtered before our caves

like rabbits." Her voice grew stronger. "But if we go deeper, they will

never find us. Then Hernystir will survive, far away from the madness of

Elias and Skali and the rest!"

Old Craobhan looked up at her worriedly. She knew he was wondering

what everyone else wondered: had Maegwin been unbalanced by her

lossesby all their losses?

Perhaps I have, she thought, hut not in this. In this, I am sure I am ri^ht.

"But, Lady Maegwin," the old counselor said, "how will we eat? What

will we do for cloth, for grain. . . ?"

"You said it yourself," she responded, "The mountains are shot through

with tunnels. If we learn and explore them, we can live deep in stone and

be safe from Skali. yet come out wherever we wishto hunt, to gather

stores, even to raid Kaldskryke's own camps if we choose!"

"But . . . but . . ." The old man turned to Arnoran, but the harper

could offer no support. "But what will your mother Inahwen think of

such a plan?" he said at last.

Maegwin snorted in contempt. "My stepmother spends her days sitting

with the other women, complaining about how hungry she is. Inahwen is

less use than a child."

"Then what will Eolair think? What of the brave count?"

Maegwin stared at Craobhan's shaking hands, his rheumy old eyes. For

a moment she felt sorry for him, but that did not quell her anger. "What

the Count of Nad Mullach thinks, he may tell usbut remember,

Craobhan: he does not command me. He has taken the oath to my father's

house. Eolair will do what / say!"

She walked away, leaving the two men whispering beside the fire. The

biting chill outside the cave could not cool her heated face, even though

she stood in the snowy wind for a long time.

Earl Guthwulf of Utanyeat awakened to hear the Hayholt's midnight

bell, high above in Green Angel Tower, shuddering into silence.

Guthwulf closed his eyes, waiting for sleep to return, but slumber was

elusive. Picture after picture appeared before his shuttered gaze, images

of battles and tournaments, the dry repetitions of court etiquette, the

chaos of the hunt. Foremost in every scene was King Elias' facethe flash

of panicky relief, quickly hidden, that had greeted Guthwulf as he broke

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99

through a ring of attackers to rescue his friend during the Thrithings wars;

the blank, black stare with which Elias received confirmation of his wife

Hylissa's death; and most disturbing of all, the secretive, gleeful, yet at the

same moment shamefaced stare that the king now wore whenever he and

Guthwulf met.

The earl sat up, cursing. Sleep had fled and would not return soon.

He did not light the lamp, but dressed in darkness, relying on the

sprinkle of starlight from the narrow window to help him step over his

manservant, who lay dozing on the floor at the foot of Guthwulf s bed.

He pulled a cloak over his nightshirt and donned a pair of slippers, then

made his way out into the corridor. Addled with such foolish, troubled

thoughts, he decided he might as well walk for an hour.

The halls of the Hayholt were empty, with not a guard or servant in

sight. Here and there torches burned fitfully in their wall sconces, con-

sumed almost to the socket. The halls were untenanted, but still faint

murmurs swept through the darkened passagewaysvoice of sentries on

the walls, the earl decided, rendered bodiless and spectral by distance.

Guthwulf shivered. What I need is a woman, he thought. A warm body in

the bed, a prattling voice to silence when I wish and to fill the quiet when I let. This

monkish living would unman anyone.

He turned and strode down the hall, heading for the servant's quarters.

There was a saucy, curly-headed chambermaid who wouldn't say nohadn't

she told him her intended had died at Bullback Hill, that she was all alone?

If that one is in mourninghah! Then I will become a monk9.

The great door to the servant's quarters was locked. Guthwulf snarled

and tugged, but the bolt was shot on the inner side. He contemplated

banging on the heavy oak with his fist until someone came to open

itsomeone who would swiftly feel Utanyeat's wrathbut decided against

it. Something about Hayholt's silent corridors made him unwilling to

attract attention. Besides, he told himself, the curly-haired wench was not

worth the beating down of doors.

He stepped away, rubbing his bristled chin, and saw something pale

moving at the turning of the hall, near the edge of his vision. He whirled,

startled, but found nothing there. He walked a few steps and leaned

around the corner. The hall beyond was also empty. A breathless whisper

drifted along the passagewaya woman's low voice, muttering as if in

pain. Guthwulf turned on his heel and stalked back toward his chamber.

Niffht tricks, he grumbled to himself. Doors locked, corridors emptythe

whole damnable, Bleeding Usires castle might as well be deserted!

He stopped, suddenly, looking around. What hallway was this? He did

not recognize the polished tiles, the oddly-shaped banners hanging shad-

owed on the dark wall. Unless he had made a wrong turning and lost his

way. this should be the chapel's walking-hall. He retraced his way back to

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the forking of the hall and turned, taking the other route. Now, although

this new corridor was featureless but for a few window-slits, he was sure

he had found his way once more.

He grabbed at the base of one of the windows and pulled himself up,

hanging by his strong arms. Outside would be either the front or side of

the chapel courtyard. . . .

Startled, Guthwulflet go and slid the short distance back to the ground.

His knees buckled, dropping him to the floor. He rolled quickly to his feet,

heart pounding, and reached for the window slit to haul himself up again.

It was the chapel courtyard, sunk in deep night, just as it should be.

But what then had he seen the first time? There had been white walls

and the forest of looming spires that he had first taken for trees, then

recognized in an instant later as towersa forest of slim minarets, ivory

needles that caught the moonlight and glowed as if full-charged with it!

The Hayholt had no such towers!

But there! Again the evidence of his eyes confirmed that all was

right and usual. There was the courtyard, the chapel door and awning, the

shrubs standing beside the pathways like drowsy sheep. Beyond, he could

just make out the moonbathed silhouette of Green Angel Towera soli-

tary sky-pointing finger where a moment before he had seen a dozen

hands raised in supplication.

He dropped to his feet and leaned against the cold stone. Then what had

he seen that first time? Night tricks? No, this was more! This was

sickness, or madness ... or witchcraft!

After a moment he collected himself. Steady, you fool. He stood up,

shaking his head. These aren't the ftuits of madness, but of too much pondering, too

much womanish worry. My sire used to sit up at night staring wide-eyed at thejire

and claimed he saw ghosts there. StiSI, he wasjit enough in his head when he died,

and lived a full seventy summers. No, it is all this thought about the king that is

preying on me. Black witchcraft may be all around usCod knows, I'm last to

argue against it after what I've seen this cursed yearbut not here in the Hayholt.

Guthwulf knew the castle had belonged to the Fair Folk once, many

hundreds of years ago, but now it was so wound about with spells and

charms against them that surely there was no other spot on earth in which

they were less welcome.

No, he thought, it is the way the king has changed that fills my mind with

strange thoughts: how Ellas shifts jrom moment to moment, from lunatic anger to

childish worry.

He walked to the door at the end of the hallway and out into the

courtyard. Everything was as he had last seen it. A solitary light burned in

one of the windows across the garden, in the king's private rooms.

Ellas is awake. He pondered this for a moment. He has not slept well since

Josua first began plotting against him.

Guthwulf strode across the courtyard toward the king's residence, the

STONE OFFAREWELL

101

unseasonable breeze frisking about his bare ankles. He would talk to his

old friend Elias, here in the empty hours of night when men told the

truth. He would demand to know about Pryrates and about the horrible

army Elias has summoned, the host that had come down on Naglimund

like a plague of white locusts. Guthwulf and the king had been comrades

in arms too long for the earl to allow their friendship to fall apart like

msting armor. Tonight they would talk. Guthwulf would find out just

what dire troubles caused his old comrade to act so strangely. It would be

their first chance in a year to speak without Pryrates hovering close by,

watching with those black ferret's eyes, listening to every word.

The courtyard doorway was locked, but the great key Elias had given

him on his succession to the throne still hung on a cord around Guthwulf s

neck. His soldier's practicality had not allowed him to cake it off, even

though it had been many months since Elias had called on him to under-

take a secret mission.

The locks had not been changed. The heavy door swung inward without

a sound; Guthwulf was grateful for that, although he did not know why.

As he mounted the stairs toward the king's residence, he was astonished to

find not even a single guard in place before the inner door. Was Elias so

sure of his power that he did not even fear assassination? Surely that did

not accord with his behavior since he had returned from the siege of

Naglimund?

At the top of the stairs Guthwulf heard muffled voices. Suddenly full of

misgivings, he leaned forward, placing his ear near the keyhole.

He frowned. / should've known, he thought sourly. / would recognize

Pryrates' jackal-barking anywhere. Curse the unnatural bastard, can he give the

king no peace?

As he debated whether he should knock, he heard the king's low

murmur. A third voice froze Guthwulfs hand in midair, knuckle"

poised before the doorframe.

This last voice was high-pitched and sweet, but there was something

alien in its tone, something inhuman in its music. It acted on his senses like

a plunge in cold water, bringing up the hair on the back of his arms and

setting a shiver into his breath. He thought he recognized the words

"sword" and "mountains" before the numbing fear overcame him. He

stepped back from the door so quickly he almost tumbled down the stairs.

Have those hell-things come here? he wondered. He wiped his sweating

palms on his nightshirt and retreated a step down from the landing. What

devil's work is this? Has Elias lost his mind? His soul?

The voices rose in volume, then the door squeaked as someone lifted the

inside bolt. All thought of confronting Elias gone, the Earl of Utanyeat

knew only that he did not want to be found listening at the keyholedid

not want to meet the thing that spoke so strangely. He looked around

distractedly for a place to hide, but the staircase was narrow- He vaulted

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down the steps in a rush, but had only just reached the outer door when

he heard footsteps on the landing above. Guthwulf ducked into the alcove

beneath the stairway, pushing himself back into the shadows as the steps

creaked. Two figures, one more distinct than the other, paused in the

doorway.

"The king is pleased with this news," Pryrates was saying. The darker

shape beside him said nothing. A smear of white face gleamed in the

depths of its dark hood. Pryrates stepped through the door, his scarlet

garments showing deep violet-blue in the moonlight as he pivoted his bald

head this way and that, looking carefully. A shadow followed him out

into the garden.

Anger suddenly rose inside Guthwulf, overwhelming even his unrea-

soning fear. That the master of Utanyeat should cower under stairsand

from something that the cursed priest treated as companionably as a

country uncle!

"Pryrates!" Guthwulf cried, stepping out from beneath the stairway.

"I would have a word with you ..."

The earl's slippered feet crunched to a halt on the gravel. The priest

stood before him, alone in the middle of the path. The wind sighed in the

hedges, but there was no other sound, no other movement but the faint

rippling of leaves.

"Earl Guthwulf," Pryrates said, wrinkling his hairless brow in apparent

surprise, "what are you doing out here? And at such an hour." He looked

Guthwulfs costume up and down. "Have you had trouble sleeping?"

"Yes ... no ... damn you, priest, that's not important! I was just on

my way to see the king!"

Pryrates nodded. "Ah. Well, I've just left His Majesty. He's just taken

his sleeping draught, so whatever you desire to speak of should wait until

morning."

Guthwulf looked up at the mocking moon, then around the courtyard.

It was empty but for the two of them. He felt dizzy, betrayed by his own

senses. "You were alone with the king?" he asked at last.

The priest stared at him for a moment. "But for his new cupbearer,

yes. And a few body-servants in the outer rooms. Why?"

The earl felt the last bit of ground sliding from beneath his feet.

"Cupbearer? That is, I just wanted to know ... I thought..." Guthwulf

struggled to regain his poise. "There's no guard posted on that door." He

pointed.

"With such a doughty warrior as yourself stalking the gardens," Pryrates

smiled, "there is scarce need for onebut you are correct. I will speak to

the chief constable about it. Now, if you'll excuse me, my lord, I must go

to my narrow bed. 1 have had a long, wearying day of statecraft. Good night."

With a swirl of his robe, the priest turned and walked away, vanishing

in a cluster of shadows at the far side of the courtyard.

STONE OF FAREWELL

^

103

The traveler's spirit came back to him as he rode through the endless

snows, but his name did not. He could not remember how he came to be

riding the horse, or if the beast was his. Neither did he know where he

had been, or what had happened to cause the dreadful pain that ran

through his body, twisting and crippling his limbs. He knew only that he

must ride on toward a spot behind the horizon, following a curved seam

of stars that burned in the northwestern skies at night. He could not

remember what place he would find there.

He stopped only seldom for sleep: the ride itself was a kind of waking

dream, a long white tunnel of wind and ice that seemed never-ending.

Ghosts attended him, a vast crowd of homeless dead walking at his

stirrups. Some of these were of his own makingor so it seemed from the

reproach written on their pale facesothers were the importuning spirits

for whom he had killed. But none of them held any power over him now.

Without his name, he was as much a phantom as were they.

So they traveled together, the unnamed man and the nameless dead; a

lone rider and a whispering, insubstantial horde that accompanied him like

foam carried on before an ocean wave.

Each time the sun died and the star-crescent bloomed in the shimmering

northwest sky, he made a slash with his knife in the leather of his saddle.

Sometimes when the sun vanished, the wind filled the dark sky with sleet

and the stars did not appear. Still, he marked his saddle. Seeing the pale

weals in the oil-darkened leather reassured him, proved that something

could change in this eternal sameness of mountains and stones and snowy

plain, and suggested that he was not merely crawling in a pointless circle

like a blind insect on the rim of a cup. The only other measure of time's

passage was his hunger, which now shouted above even the most terrible

of his other pains. And that, too, was a queer comfort. To starve was to

live. Dead, he might find himself condemned to join the throng of

whispering shades that surrounded him, doomed to flitter and sigh in this

lifeless waste forever. While he lived, there was at least a faint, cold

hopealthough what it was that he might hope for he could not quite recall.

There were eleven slashes on the saddle when his horse died. One

moment they were striding forward, breasting a drift of new snow; the

next moment his mount sank slowly to its knees, quivering, then toppled

over, a silent spray of white thrown up all around. After a while he pulled

himself free, his pain a voice as distant as the stars he followed. He

clambered to his feet and began, unsteadily, to walk.

Two more suns rose and fell as he trudged on. Even his ghosts disap-

peared at last, scrubbed away by the howling snows. He thought the

weather might be getting colder, but could not remember for certain what

cold was.

104 Tad Williams

When the next sun climbed, it was into a freezing, slate-gray sky. The

wind had subsided and the swirling snows had dropped back down into

feathery drifts. Before him, looming jagged and severe as a shark's tooth

against the horizon, stood the mountain. A grim crown of iron-gray

clouds hung about its shadowed peak, fed by smokes and steam that

issued from cracks along its icy flanks. Seeing it, he fell forward onto his

knees and uttered a silent prayer of thanks- He still did not know his

name, but he knew that this was what he sought.

When another darkness and light had passed, he found himself nearing

the mountain's shadow, walking in a land of icy hills and dark dales.

Mortal men and women lived here, pale-haired, suspicious-eyed, huddling

in clan-houses made of muddied stone and heavy black beams- He did not

pass through their bleak villages, though he thought them dimly familiar.

When the inhabitants hailed him and approached, coming no closer than

superstition allowed, he ignored them and stumbled on.

Another day of painful trudging carried him beyond the dwellings of

the pale-haired folk. Here the mountain blocked the sky so that even the

sun seemed small and remote, and a kind of perpetual evening covered the

land. Sometimes staggering, sometimes crawling, he climbed the steps of

the old, old road through the hills at the mountain's foot, through the

silvery, frost-veiled ruins of a long-dead city. Pillars like broken bones

pushed up through the snowy crust. Arches like the long-vacant eyes of

skulls loomed against the mountain's shadowed ridges.

His strength was fading at last, so near to his goal. The crumbling, icy

road ended at a great gate in the face of the mountain, a gate taller than a

tower, made of chalcedony quartz, shining alabaster, and witchwood,

hung on hinges of black granite and graven with strange shapes and

stranger runes. It was before this gate that he stopped, the last dregs of life

leaking from his tortured frame. As the final blackness began to descend

on him, the mighty gate opened. A flock of white figures came forth,

beautiful as ice in the sun, terrible as winter. They had watched him come.

They had witnessed his every failing step across the white wilderness.

Now, their unfathomable curiosity somehow satisfied, they brought him

at last into the fastness of the mountain.

The nameless traveler awakened in a great pillared chamber within

the mountain's blue-lit heart. Smoke and vapor from the titan well at the

chamber's center rose to mix with the snow that flurried beneath the

impossibly high ceiling. For a long while he could only lie staring up at

the swirling clouds. When he could move his eyes further, he saw before

him a great throne of black rock, covered all over with a patina of frost.

Upon this seat was a white-robed figure whose silver mask glowed like an

azure flame, reflecting the light that spilled from the great well. He was

suddenly filled with exaltation, but also with horrible, horrible shame.

STONE OFFAREWELL

105

"Mistress," he cried as remembrance came flooding back, "destroy me,

mistress! Destroy me, for I have failed you!"

The silver mask tilted toward him. A wordless chant arose in the

shadows of the chamber, where eyes glittered down at him from a crowd

of watchers, as if the ghosts that had accompanied him through the waste

had come now to judge him and witness his undoing.

"Be silent," said Utuk'ku. Her terrible voice seized him with invis-

ible hands, laying a spell of chill that reached down into his very heart,

making him stone. "/ willjind out what I wish to know."

After his dreadful wounds and his hideous journey across the snows, his

pain had become so general that he had forgotten there was any other kind

of sensation. He had worn his torment as unheedingly as he had his

namelessness, but that had been pain only of the body. Now he was

remindedas were most who visited Stormspikethat there were agonies

that far outstripped any corporeal injuries, and suffering that was unmiti-

gated by the possibility of death's release.

Utuk'ku, the mountain's mistress, was old beyond comprehension and

had learned many things. She could, perhaps, have gained the knowledge

she sought from him without inflicting terrible torture. If such mercy was

possible, she chose not to exercise it.

He screamed and screamed. The great chamber echoed.

The icy thoughts of the Queen of the Noms crept through him, wrenching

at his very being with cold, heedless claws. It was an agony beyond

anything, beyond fear, or imagination. She emptied him, and he was a

helpless witness. All that had happened, all his experiences, leaped from

him, his inmost thoughts and private self ripped out and exhibited; it felt

as though she had slit him open like a fish and pulled free his struggling soul.

He saw again the pursuit up Urmsheim Mountain, his quarry's discov-

ery of the sword they had sought, his own battle with the mortals and

Sithi. He witnessed once more the coming of the snow-dragon and his

own terrible wounding, how he had been crushed and bloodied, buried

beneath blocks of centuried ice. Then, as if he observed a stranger, he

watched a dying creature struggling across the snows toward Stormspike,

a nameless wretch who had lost his quarry, lost his company, and had

even lost the hound-helm that marked him as the first mortal ever to be

Queen's Huntsman. At last, the spectacle of his shame faded.

Utuk'ku nodded again, her silver mask seeming to stare into the tumult

of fogs above the Well of the Breathing Harp. "It is not for you to say

whether or not you have failed me, mortal," she said at last. "But know this: I

am not unpleased. I have learned many useful things today. The world still spins,

but it spins toward us."

She raised a hand. The chant swelled in the shadows of the chamber.

Something vast seemed to move in the depths of the Well, setting the

vapors to dancing. "I give you hack your name, IngenJegger," Utuk'ku said.

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"You are still the Queen's Hunter." From her lap she lifted a new helm of

gleaming white shaped like the head of a questing hound, eyes and lolling

tongued worked in some scarlet gem, the serried teeth daggers of ivory in

the gaping jaw. "And this time I will give to you a quarry such as no mortal has

ever hunted!"

A billow of radiance leaped in the Well of the Harp, splashing the high

pillars; a roar as of thunder rang through the chamber, so deep it seemed

to set the underpinnings of the mountain itself to shaking. Ingen Jegger

felt his spirit surge. He made a thousand silent promises to his wonderful

mistress.

"Butjirst you must sleep deeply and be healed," the silver mask said, "for

you have crossed farther into the realms of death than mortals may usually go and

yet return. You will be made stronger, for your coming task will be a hard one."

The light abruptly vanished, as though a dark cloud had rolled over

him.

^

The forest was still deep in night. After the shouting, the silence seemed

to ring in Deomoth's ears as burly Einskaldir helped him to his feet.

"Usires on the Tree, look there," the Rimmersman said, panting. Still

stunned, Deomoth looked around, wondering what he had done that

would make Einskaldir stare so strangely.

"Josua," the Rimmersman called, "come here!"

The prince slid Naidel back into its sheath and stepped forward. Deomoth

could see the other members of the company pressing in.

"For once they have not just struck and melted away." Josua said

gnmiy. "Deomoth, are you well?"

The knight shook his head, still confused. "My head hurts," he said.

What were they all looking at?

"It... it had a knife to my throat," Father Strangyeard said, wondenngly.

"Sir Deomoth saved me."

Josua bent toward Deomoth, but surprised him by continuing down-

ward until he crouched on one knee. "Aedon save us," the prince said

softly.

Deornoth looked down at last. On the ground by his feet was the

crumpled, black-garbed form of the Nom with whom he had struggled.

The moonlight played over the corpselike face, spatters of blood in dark

relief against the white skin. A wickedly slender knife was still clutched in

the Norn's pallid hand.

"My God!" Deornoth said, and swayed.

Josua leaned nearer to the body. "You struck a strong blow, old friend,"

he said, then his eyes widened and he sprang up. Naidel whicked out of its

scabbard once more.

STONE OF FAREWELL107

"He moved," Josua said, striving to keep his voice level. "The Nom is

alive."

"Not long," Einskaldir said, raising his axe. Josua's hand shot out, so

that Naidel lay between the Rimmersman and his intended victim.

"No." Josua motioned the others back. "It would be foolish to kill him."

"It tried to kill us!" Isorn hissed. The duke's son had just returned,

bearing a torch he had lit with his flint-stone. "Think of what they did to

Naglimund."

"I do not speak of mercy, "Josua said, dropping the tip of his sword to rest

on the Norn's pale throat. "I speak of the chance to question a prisoner."

As if from the pricking of his flesh, the Nom stirred. Several in the

company gasped.

"You are too close, Josua!" Vorzheva cried. "Step away!"

The prince turned a cold look on her but did not move. He lowered

Naidel's point a little, pushing it against the prisoner's breastbone. The

Norn's eyes fluttered open as he sucked a great rasp of breath past his

blooded lips.

"Ai, Nakkiga," the Norn said hoarsely, flexing his spidery fingers,

"o'do 'tke stazho. . . ."

"But he's heathen, Prince Josua," Isom said. "He can't speak a human

tongue."

Josua said nothing, but prodded again. The Norn's eyes caught the

torchlight, throwing back a strange violet reflection. The slitted gaze slid

up the blade of the sword balanced on his slender chest until it settled at

last on the prince.

"I speak," the Norn said slowly. "I speak your tongue." His voice was

high and cold, brittle as a glass flute. "Soon it will be spoken only by the

dead." The creature sat up and swiveled his head, looking carefully all

around him. The prince's sword followed each movement. The Nom

seemed jointed in strange places, his motions fluid where a mortal's would

be awkward, but elsewhere full of unexpected hitches. Several of those

watching started away, frightened that the stranger was strong enough to

move without show of pain, despite the bleeding ruin that had been his

nose and the marks he bore of numerous other wounds.

"Gutmn, Vorzheva . . ."Josua spoke without looking away from the

prisoner. Beneath the web of drying blood, the Norn's face seemed to

glow like a moon. "You, too, Strangyeard," the prince said. "The harper

and Towser are alone. Go see to them and start a fire. Then make ready to

depart. There is no use in our trying to hide now."

"There never was, mortal man," said the thing on the ground.'

Vorzheva visibly bit back a response to Josua's command. The two

women turned away. Father Strangyeard followed after them, making the

sign of the Tree and clucking worriedly.

"Now, hell-wight, speak. Why do you follow us?" Though his tone

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was harsh, Deomoth thought he saw a sort of fascination on the prince's

face.

"[ will tell you nothing." The thin lips parted in a smirk. "Pitiful,

short-lived things. Are you not yet used to dying with your questions

unanswered?"

Infuriated, Deomoth stepped forward and kicked at the thing's side

with his booted foot. The Norm grimaced, but showed no other sign of

pain. "You are a devil-spawn, and devils are masters of lies," Deomoth

snarled. His head hurt fiercely, and the sight of this grinning, bony creature

was almost too much to bear. He remembered them swarming through

Naglimund like maggots and felt his gorge rising.

"Deomoth . . ."Josua said warningly, then addressed the prisoner once

more. "If you are so mighty, why do your fellows not slay us and be done

with it? Why waste your time on ones so much lower than you?"

"We will not wait much longer, never fear." The Norn's taunting voice

took on a note of satisfaction. "You have caught me, but my fellows discov-

ered all that we need to know. You may as well offer up your death-

prayers to that little man-on-a-stick that you worship, for nothing will

stop us now."

Now it was Einskaldir who moved with a growl toward the Norn.

"Dog! Blaspheming dog!"

"Silence," Josua snapped. "He does it purposefully." Deomoth laid a

cautious hand on Einskaldir's muscled arm. One did not grab heedlessly at

the Rimmersman, who had a cold but swift temper. "Now," Josua said,

"what do you mean, 'discovered what you need to know'? What might

that be? Speak, or I shall let Einskaldir have you."

The Norn laughed, the sound of wind in dry leaves, but Deomoth

thought he had seen a change in the purple eyes when Josua spoke. It seemed

the prince had struck close to some delicate spot. "Kill me, thenswiftly

or slowly," the prisoner taunted. "1 will say no more. Your timethe

time of all mortals, shifty and annoying as insectsis nearly over. Kill me.

The Lightless Ones will sing of me in the lowest halls of Nakkiga. My

children will remember my name with pride."

"Children?" Isorn's surprise was clear in his voice. The prisoner turned

a look of icy contempt onto the blond northerner, but did not speak.

"But why?" Josua demanded. "Why should you ally yourself with

mortals? And what threat are we to you, far up in your northern home?

What does your Storm King gain from this madness?"

The Nom only stared.

"Speak, damn your pale soul to hell'"

Nothing.

Josua sighed. "Then what do we do with him?" he murmured, almost

to himself.

"This!" Einskaldir stepped away from Deornoth's restraining arm and

lifted his axe. The Norn stared up at him for a silent heartbeat, angled face

STONE OF FAREWELL109

like a blood-smeared mask of ivory, before the Rimmersman brought the

hand-axe around, shearing through the skull and smashing the prisoner

back against the earth. The Norn's thin frame began to writhe, doubling

over, straightening, then snapping forward once more as though he were

hinged in the middle. A fine mist of blood sprayed from his head. The

death-throes were as horribly monotonous as the contortions of a smashed

cricket. After several moments, Deomoth had to turn away.

"Curse you, Einskaldir," Josua said at last, voice ragged with rage. "How

dare you? I did not tell you to do that!"

"And if I didn't, then what?" Einskaldir said. "Take him with us? Wake

up with that grinning corpse-face over yours some night?" He seemed a

little less sure than he sounded, but his words were stiff with anger.

"By the Good God, Rimmersman, can you never wait before you

strike? If you have no respect for me, what of your Master Isgrimnur,

who bade you obey me?" The prince leaned forward until his agonized

face was only a hand's breadth from Einskaldir's bristling dark beard- The

prince held Einskaldir's eye, as though trying to see something hidden.

Neither man spoke.

Staring at his prince's profile, at Josua's moon-painted face so full of

fierceness and sorrow, Deomoth was reminded of a painting of Sir Camaris

riding to the first Battle of the Thrichings. KingJohn's-greatest knight had

worn just such a look, proud and desperate as a starving hawk. Deomoth

shook his head, trying to clear the shadows away. What a night of

madness this had become!

Einskaldir turned aside first. "It was a monster," he grumbled. "Now it

is dead. Two of its fellows are wounded and driven away. I will go clean

the fairy blood from my sword."

"First you will bury the body," Josua said, "Isorn, help Einskaldir.

Search the Norn's clothing for anything that might tell us more. God help

us, we know so "little."

"Bury it?" Isorn was respectful but dubious.

"Let us not give away anything that might save usincluding informa-

tion. "Josua sounded tired of talking. "If the Norn's fellows do not find

the body, they may not know he is dead. They may wonder what he is

telling us."

Isom nodded without much conviction and bent to the unpleasant task.

Josua turned and took Deomoth by the arm.

"Come," the prince said. "We must talk."

They walked a little way from the clearing, staying within hearing of

the campsite. The shards of night sky visible through the thick trees had

gone dark blue, beginning to warm to dawn. A solitary bird whistled.

"Einskaldir means well. Prince Josua," Deomoth said, breaking the

stillness between the two men. "He is fiery, impatientbut not a traitor."

Josua turned to him in surprise. "Heaven save us, Deomoth, do you

110 Tad Williams

think I do not know5 Why do you think I said so little111 But Emskaldir

acted rashlyI would have wished to hear more from the Norn, though

the end would have to have been the same I hate cold-blooded killing, but

what would we have done with the murderous creature3 Still. Emskaldir

considers me too much a thinker to be a good warrior " His laugh was

melancholy "He is probably correct " The prince raised his hand Co still

Ueomoth's response "But that is not why I wanted to speak alone Emskaldir

is my affair No, I wanted to hear your thoughts on the Norn's words "

"Which, Highness5"

Josua sighed "He said that his fellows had found what they wanted Or

learned what they wished to know What could that mean3"

Dcornoth shrugged "My skull is still rattling. Prince Josua "

"But you said yourself that there must be a reason that they haven't

killed us " The prince sat down on the mossy trunk of a toppled tree,

motioning the knight to join him The bowl of sky was turning lavender

overhead "They send a walking dead man to come among us, they shoot

arrows but don't kill us, to prevent us from turning eastand now they

send a few of their creatures to sneak into our camp like thieves What do

they want3"

No answer would come, no matter how hard Deornoth thought He

could not shake his memory free from the Norn's mocking smile But there

had been another look, too, that momentary glimmer of unease

"They fear" Deornoth said, feeling the idea very close, "they

fear"

"The swords," Josua hissed "Of course' What else would they fear5"

"But we have no magical sword," Deornoth said

"Perhaps they do not know that," Josua said "Perhaps that is one of the

virtues of Thorn and Mmneyarthat they are invisible to the Norns'

magic " He slapped at his thigh "Of course' They must be, or the Storm

King would have found them and destroyed them' How else could weap-

ons deadly to him still exist'5"

"But why have they tried to prevent our going east7"

The prince shrugged "Who can say5 We must think on this more, but I

believe it is the answer They fear we already have one or both of the

swords and they are afraid to come against us until they know "

Deornoth felt his heart sinking "But you heard what the creature said

They know now "

josua's smile faded "True Or at least they must be fairly sure Still, it

is a piece of knowledge that might still work in our favor, somehow

Somehow " He stood "But they are no longer afraid to approach us We

must travel even more swiftly Come "

Wondering how a company so injured and dispirited could make any

greater haste, Deornoth followed the prince back through the dawn light

to camp

Spreading Fires

Hi/ OeUUUUS wheeling in the gray morning sky hatefully echoed

the creaking ofThe oarlocks The rhythmic squeak, squeak, squeak of the

oars was like an insistent finger digging at her side Minamele felt her

anger building At last, she turned on Cadrach m a fury

"Youyou traitor'" she spat

The monk goggled at her, his round face growing pale with alarm

"What5" Cadrach looked as though he would have liked to move away,

and quickly, but they were cramped together m the rowboat's narrow

stern Lenti, Streawe's sullen servitor, watched them m irritation from the

rowing bench where he and the other servant pulled languidly at the

handles "My lady" Cadrach began, "I don't

His feeble denials only made her angrier "Do you think I'm a fool5"

she snarled "I am slow to realize, but if I think long enough, I get there.

The count called you Padreicand he's not the first to call you by chat

name'

"A confusion, lady The other was a dying man, if you remember

maddened by pain, his life leaking out on the Inmscnch . "

"You swine' And I suppose it's a coincidence that Streawe knew I had

left the castlepractically before I knew I was going myself You have

had a fine time, haven't you5 Pulling both ends of the rope, that's what

you've been doing, isn't it5 First you took Vorzheva's gold to escort me.

then you've taken mine while we were on the road, borrowing for ajug of

wine here, cadging a meal there

"I am only a poor man of God, my lady," tried Cadrach gamely

"Be quiet, youyou treacherous drunkard' And you took gold from

Count Streawe, too, didn't you5 You let him know I was comingI

wondered why you kept sneaking away when we were first in Ansis

Pellipe And while I was prisoner, where were you5 Run of che castle5

Suppers with the count5" She was so upset she could hardly speak "And

and you probably also passed the word on to whoever it is I'm being

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sent to now, didn't you? Didn't you! How can you wear religious robes?

Why doesn't God just . . . just kill you for your blasphemy? Why don't

you just burst into flames on the spot?" She stopped, choking on angry

tears, and tried to catch her breath.

"Here now," Lenti said ominously, his single eyebrow creasing down-

ward toward his nose, "stop all this shouting. And don't you try any

tricks!"

"Shut your mouth!" Miriamele told him.

Cadrach thought he saw his chance. "That's right, sirrah, don't you get

to insulting the lady. By Saint Muirfath, 1 can't believe ..."

The monk never got to finish his sentence. With an inarticulate shout of

rage, Miriamele leaned into him and pushed hard. Cadrach huffed out a

surprised breath, waved his arms briefly trying to keep his balance, then

toppled into the Bay ofEmettin's green waves.

"Are -you mad?" Lend roared, dropping his oar and leaping upright.

Cadrach disappeared under a wash of jade water.

Miriamele stood to shout after him. The boat rocked, dropping Lenti

back down into his seat; one of his blades slipped from his hands, diving

into the bay like a silvery fish. "You faithless rogue!" she screamed at the

monk, who was not currently in view. "Damn you to hell!"

Cadrach broke the surface, spewing a great plume of salty water. "I'll

drown!" he gurgled. "Drown! Help me!" He slid back under.

"5o drown, you traitor!" Miriamele shouted, then shrieked as Lenti grabbed

her arm and dragged her down onto her seat, twisting it cruelly in the

process.

"Mad bitch!" he shouted.

"Let him die," she panted, struggling to pull free. "What do you care?"

He reached out and slapped her on the side of the head, bringing fresh

tears to her eyes- "Master said carry two to Nabban-side, you mad bitch.

Show up with one, that's the end of me."

Meanwhile, Cadrach had bobbed up spluttering once more, thrashing

and making noises that indeed sounded as though they came from a

drowning man. Streawe's other servant, wide-eyed, had continued to pull

at his oar, so that by lucky accident the little boat was now coming about,

turning toward where Cadrach splashed and shouted.

The monk saw them coming, panic in his bulging eyes. He began to

strain coward them, but his untutored movements dipped him forward so

that his head sank beneath the waves once more. A moment later-he was

up again, the look of panic on his face even more raw.

"Help!" he screeched breathlessly, flinging his arms about in a parox-

ysm of horror. "Something's, . . ! Something's in here. . . f"

"Aedon and the saints!" Lend snarled, leaning over the side, fighting to

keep his own balance. "What now, sharks?"

Miriamele huddled sobbing in the bow, uncaring. Lenti snatched up the

STONE OF FAREWELL

113

tie-rope and flung it toward the monk. Cadrach did not see it at first as he

beat wildly against the water, but in a few moments his arm had become

tangled in one of the coils.

"Grab it, you fool!" Lenti shouted. "Grab hold!"

At last the monk did, grasping the rope with both hands. He was

hauled through the water toward the boat, legs kicking like a frog's. When

Lenti had pulled him close enough, the other servant let go of his oar and

leaned forward to help. After a couple of failed attempts and a great deal

of cursing they managed to heave his sodden weight up over the wale.

The rowboat pitched. Cadrach lay in the bottom, choking and vomiting

bay water.

"Take your cloak and dry him off," Lend told Miriamele as the monk

subsided at last into hoarse breathing. "If he goes and dies, I'll have you

swimming all the way to shore."

She grudgingly complied.

The brown and sable hills of Nabban's northeastern coast rose steadily

before them. The sun was climbing toward noon, burnishing the surface

of the bay with a fierce, coppery glare. The two men rowed, the boat

rocked back and forth, and the oarlocks creaked and creaked and creaked-

Miriamele was still furious, but it had become a flat, hopeless anger.

The eruption was over, the fires burning down to ashen coals.

How could I have been so foolish? she wondered. / trusted himworse, I was

even beginning to like him! I enjoyed his company, half-drunken though it usually

was.

Only a few moments before, as she had shifted position on the bench,

she had heard something clinking in the pocket of Cadrach's robe. When

removed, this proved to be a purse embossed with the seal of Count

Streawe, half full of silver quints-pieces and a pair of gold Imperators. This

indisputable proof of the monk's treachery momentarily brought back her

rage. She considered pushing him back overboard, suffering Lend's pun-

ishment if necessary, but after a little deliberation she decided that she was

no longer angry enough to kill him. In fact, Miriamele was a little

surprised that her earlier fury had burned as hotly as it had.

She looked down at the monk, who lay curled in exhausted, fitful sleep,

his head propped on the bench beside her. Cadrach's mouth was open, his

breath coming in little gasps as though even in his dreams he battled for

air. His pink face was becoming even pinker. Miriamele lifted her hand

and peered upward at the sun through shielding fingers. It had been a cold

summer, but here in the middle of the water the sun beat down mercilessly.

Without thinking about it too much, she took her threadbare cloak and

draped it over Cadrach's forehead, shading his face. Lend, watching

silently from the rowing bench, scowled and shook his head. In the bay

beyond his shoulder, Miriamele saw something smooth break the water,

then slip sinuously back into the deeps.

114

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For a while she watched the gulls and pelicans whirling through the air,

returning to the coastal rocks to land with a great back-flapping of wings.

The gulls' cold cries reminded her of Meremund, her childhood home on

the coast of Erkynland.

I could stand on the southern wall there and watch the rivermen pushing up and

down the Gleniwent. From the western wall I could see the ocean. I was a

princess, trapped by my position, yet I had every thing I wanted. Now look at me.

She snorted in disgust, occasioning another unpleasant stare from Lenti.

Now I'mft'ee to adventure, she thought, and I'm more a prisoner than ever. I

go about in disguise, yet thanks to this traitorous monk, I am better-announced than

I ever was at court. People I hardly know deliver me ftom hand to hand like a

favorite trinket. And Meremund is lost to me forever, unless . . .

The wind ruffled her shorn hair. She felt quite hollow.

Unless what? Unless my father changes? He will never change. He has

destroyed Uncle Josuakilled Josua! Why should he ever turn back? Nothing

will ever he as it was. The only hope of things getting better died with Naglimund.

All their plans, the old Rimmersman Jamauga's legends, the talk of magical

swords . . . and all the people who lived there-gone. So what is left? Unless

Father changes or dies, I will be a jugitive forever.

But he will never change. And if he dieswhat is left of me, I'll die, too.

Staring out at the Bay of Emettin's metallic sheen, she thought about

her father as he once had been, remembering the time when she had been

three years of age and he had first lifted her onto a horse. Miriamele could

picture that moment as clearly as if it had been only days ago instead of

her whole life. Elias had grinned with pride as she clung, terrified, to what

seemed a monster's back. She had not fallen, and she had stopped crying

as soon as he swung her back down.

How can one person, even a king, let such ugliness loose on the land as my

father has? He loved me, once. Perhaps he still doesbut he has poisoned my life.

Now he seeks to poison all the world.

The waves slapped as the rocks drew nearer, gold-capped by the late

morning sun.

Lend and the other servitor unshipped the oars, using them to guide the

boat between the craggy rocks that thrust up on every side. As they came

close to the shore and the water became more translucent, Miriamele again

saw something break the surface close by. There was a brief shimmer of

glossy gray before it vanished with a splash, then reappeared a moment

later on the far side of the boat, a long stone's throw away.

Lenti saw her staring and turned to look over his shoulder. What he saw

brought a look of fear to his stolid face. After a muttered exchange, he and

his companion redoubled their efforts, hurrying the boat in toward shore.

"What is it," the princess asked, "a shark?"

Lenti did not look up. "Kilpa," he snapped, rowing hard.

STONE OF FAREWELL

115

Miriamele stared, but now saw only low waves breaking into spray

against the rocks. "Kilpa in the Bay ofEmettin?" she said incredulously.

"Kilpa never come in so far' They are deep-sea dwellers."

"Not nowadays," Lenti growled. "Been deviling ships all along the

coast. Any fool knows so- Now be quiet!" He panted, pulling at the oars.

Disquieted, Miriamele continued to stare- Nothing else disturbed the bay's

placid surface.

When the keel rasped on sand, Lenti and the other rower leaped out and

quickly dragged the boat up onto the beach. Together they lifted Cadrach

out and dumped him unceremoniously onto the ground, where he lay,

quietly moaning. Miriamele was left to shift for herself. She waded the

half-dozen steps with her monk's robe held high.

A man in a priest's black cassock was picking his way down to the

beach by the steep cliff path. He reached the bottom and came striding

across the sand toward them.

"I suppose this is the slave trader I am to be delivered to?" Miriamele

said in her frostiest tone as she squinted at the approaching figure. Lenti

and his companion, staring nervously at the bay, did not reply.

"Ho, there!" the black-robed man called. His voice was loud and cheerful

above the sea's somnolent roar.

Miriamele looked at him, then looked again, astonished. She took a

couple of steps toward the newcomer. "Father Dinivan?" she asked halt-

ingly. "Could it be you?"

"Princess Miriamele!" he said happily. "Here you are. I am so glad."

His wide, homely smile made him look like a young boy, but the curly

hair around his shaven scalp was touched with gray. He dropped briefly to

a knee before rising to look her over carefully. "I wouldn't have known

you from much farther away than this. I was told you were traveling as a

boyquite effective. And you've turned your hair black."

Miriameie's mind was awhirl, but a great burden seemed abruptly lifted

from her spirit. Of all those who had visited her father's households in

Meremund and the Hayholt, Dinivan had been one of the few who had

been a real friend, giving her truth where others offered only flattery,

bringing her both outland gossip and good advice. Father Dinivan was

chief secretary to Lector Ranessin, the master of Mother Church, but he

had always been so humble and forthcoming that Miriamele often had to

remind herself of the exalted position he held.

"But . . . what arc you doing here?" she said at last. "Have you come

to ... to what? To save me from the slave traders?"

Dinivan laughed. "I am the slave trader, my lady." He tried to compose

a more serious expression, but had little luck. " 'Slave traders'Blessed

Usires, what did old Streawe tell you? Well, time for that later." He

turned to Miriamele's captors. "You two. Here is your master's seal." He

held up a parchment with an "S" mark in red wax at the bottom- "You

may go back and give the count my thanks."

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Lenti inspected the seal in a cursory way. He looked worried.

"Well?" said the priest impatiently. "Is anything wrong?"

"There's kilpa out there," Lenti declared mournfully.

"There are kilpa everywhere in these evil times," Dmivan said, then

smiled charitably. "But it is midday, and you are two strong men. I think

you have little to fear. Are you armed?"

Streawe's servant drew himself up to his full height and stared imperi-

ously at the priest. "I have a knife," he said sternly.

"Ohe, vo stetto," his companion echoed in Perdrumese-

"Well, I'm sure you'll have no problems," Dmivan said reassuringly.

"The protection of the Aedon be on you." He made a desultory sign of

the Tree in their general direction before turning his back on them to

address Minamele once more. "Let us go. We shall stay here tonight, but

then we must hurry. It is a good two days journey or more to the

Sanccllan Aedomtis, where Lector Ranessin is anxious to hear your news."

"The lector?" she said, astonished. "What does he have to do with

this?"

Dmivan waved a placating hand, looking down on Cadrach, who lay on

his side, face shrouded in his sodden hood. "We will talk about this and

many other things soon. It appears that Streawe told you even less than I

told himnot that I am surprised. He is a clever old jackal." The priest's

eyes narrowed. "What's wrong with your companionhe is your com-

panion, am I right? Streawe said there was a monk traveling with you."

"He almost drowned," Minamele said flatly. "I pushed him overboard."

One of Dmivan's thick eyebrows shot up. "You did? The poor man!

Well, then your Aedonite duty is to help get him on his feetunless you

fellows would like to lend a hand?" He turned back to the two servants,

who were wading gingerly back to the boat.

"Can't," was Lenti's sullen reply. "Got to get back before night. Before

dark."

"I thought as much. Oh, well, Usires gives us burdens out of His

love." Dmivan bent, catching Cadrach under the armpits. Dinivan's robe

tightened across his broad, muscular back as he wrestled the monk into a

sitting position. "Come now. Princess," he said, then stopped as the

monk groaned- The priest stared at Cadrach's face. An unrecognizable

expression crept onto Dmivan's thick features.

"It's . . . it's Padrcic," he said quietly.

"You, too7!" Minamele exploded. "What has this idiot been doing? Did

he send a crier to every town between Nascadu and Warinsten?"

Dmivan was still staring, as if quite dumbfounded. "What?"

"Streawe knew him alsoit was Cadrach here who sold me out to the

count! So he told you of my leaving Naglimund as well?"

"No, princess, no." The priest shook his head. "This is the first I knew

about him being with you. I haven't seen him for years." Reflectively,

STONE OF FAREWELL137

he made the sign of the Tree. "Truth to tell, I thought he was dead."

"Usires in His suffering!" Minamele swore. "Will someone tell me what

this is all about?'"

'"We must get to shelterand privacy. The beacon tower on the

cliff top is ours tonight." He pointed to a stone spire on the headland west

of where they stood. "But it will be no festival game getting him there if

he cannot walk."

"I'll make him walk," Miriamele promised grimly. Together they bent

to hoist mumbling Cadrach onto his feet.

The tower was smaller than it looked from the beach, a squat pile of

masonry with a wooden hoarding cobbled around the uppermost story.

The door was tight-swollen by the ocean air, but Dinivan wrenched it

open and they entered, supporting the monk between them. The circular

room was empty but for a rough-hewn table and chair and a ragged carpet

that had been rolled and tied, then left to lie at the base of the stone

staircase. Sea air swirled through the unshuttered window. Cadrach, who

had not spoken during the walk up the cliff path, staggered a few paces

away from the door and sank down onto the wooden floor, laying his

head on the carpet and falling quickly back into sleep.

"He is exhausted, poor man," Dinivan said. He took a lamp from the

table and lit it from another already burning, then stopped to look care-

fully at the monk. "He has changed, but perhaps some of it is the result of

his mishap."

"He was in the water a long rime," Miriamele said, a little guiltily.

"Ah, well, then." Dinivan stood up. "We shall leave him to sleep and

go upstairs. There is much to talk about. Have you eaten?"

"Not since last night." Minamele was suddenly ravenous. "I need

water, too."

"All shall be yours," Dinivan smiled. "Go on up. I am going to get

your companion out of these wet clothes, then I will join you."

The room upstairs was better furnished, with a cot, two chairs, and a

large chest chat stood against the wall. A door, swinging gently, led out

onto the hoarding. On top of the chest sat a plate covered with a kerchief.

Miriamele lifted the cloth to reveal cheese, fruit, and three round loaves of

brown bread.

"The grapes grown over the hill in Teligure are really splendid," the

priest said from the doorway. "Help yourself."

Minamele fell to without having to be invited again. She took a whole

loaf and a lump of cheese, then pulled loose a large bunch of grapes and

retired to one of the chairs. Pleased, Dinivan watched her eat for a

moment, then disappeared down the stairs. He returned shortly with a

sloshing pitcher.

"The well is nearly empty, but the water is good," he said. "Well,

118

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where should we begin? You have heard about Naglimund by now,

haven't you?"

Miriamele nodded, her mouth full.

"Something you may not know. Josua and some others escaped."

In her excitement she choked on a crust of bread. Dnuvan helped hold

the pitcher so she could drink.

"Who went with him?" she asked when she could speak. "Duke

Isgnmnur? Vorzheva?"

Dinivan shook his head. "I do not know. There was terrible destruction

and few survived. All the north is thick-shot with rumors. It is hard to sift

truth from them, butJosua's escape is certain."

"How did you find out?"

"I'm afraid there are some things I may not saynot yet, anyway,

Princess. Please believe that it is for the best. The Lector Ranessm com-

mands me, and 1 am sworn to himbut there are some things I don't even

tell His Sacredness." He grinned. "Which is as it should be. A great man's

secretary must exercise discretion everywhere, even with the great man

himself."

"But why did you have Count Streawe send me to you?"

"I did not know how informed you were. I heard that you were bound

for the Sancellan Mahistrevis to speak to your uncle, Duke Leobardis. I

could not let you go there. You know that Leobardis is dead?"

"Streawe told me." She got up and took a peach from the plate. After a

moment's consideration, she broke off another hunk of cheese.

"But did you know Leobardis died by treachery? By the hand of his

own son?"

"Benigaris?" She was astonished. "But has he not taken the duke's

place? Haven't the nobles resisted?"

"His treachery is nor common knowledge, but there are whispers of it

everywhere. And his mother Nessalanta is his strongest supporteralthough

I am sure that she at least suspects what her son did."

"But if you know, why don't you do something!? Why hasn't the lector

done anything?"

Dinivan bowed his head, a look of pain on his face. "Because that is one

of the things I haven't told him. I am sure he has heard the rumors,

however."

Miriamele put her plate on the bed. "Elysia, Mother of God! Why

haven't you told him, Dinivan?"

"Because I cannot prove it, nor can I reveal the source of my informa-

tion. And there is nothing he could do without proof, my lady, except to

upset an already strained situation. There are other grave problems in

Nabban, Princess."

"Please." She waved her hand impatiently. "Here I sit in a monk's robe,

wearing my hair like a boy, and everyone is my enemy but youor so it

STONE OF FAREWELL119

seems, Call me Miriamele. And tell me what is happening in Nabban."

"I will tell you a little, but most should wait. I have not entirely ignored

my secretarial duties: my master the lector would like you to come to see

him in the Sancellan Aedomtis and we will have plenty of time to talk as

we ride." He shook his head. "It is enough to say that people are un-

happy, that the doom-criers who once were scorned in the streets of

Nabban are suddenly the subject of great attention. Mother Church is

under siege." He bent forward, staring at his large hands as he searched

for words. "The people feel a shadow over them. Although they cannot

name it, still it darkens their world. Leobardis' deathand your uncle was

much-beloved, Miriamelehas shaken his subjects, but it is rumor that

truly frightens them: rumor of things worse than war in the north, worse

than any contending of princes."

Dinivan stood and pulled the door all the way open to let in the breeze.

The sea below was flat and glossy. "The doom-shouters say that a force is

arising to cast down Holy Usires Aedon and the kings of men. In the

public squares they cry that all must prepare to bow to a new sovereign,

the rightful master ofOsten Ard."

He came back and stood over Miriamele. Now she could see the signs of

deep worry on his face. "In some dark places a name is even being

whisperedthe name of this coming scourge. They whisper of the Storm

King."

Miriamele let out her breath in a great sigh. Even the staring sun of

noon could not disperse the shadows that seemed to come crowding into

the tower room.

"They spoke of these things at Naglimund," Miriamele said later, as

they stood outside on the walkway looking out over the water. "The old

man at Naglimund, Jarnauga, seemed to think the end of the world was

coming, too. But I did not hear everything." She turned to look at

Dinivan, fierce grief upon her slender face. "They kept things from me

because I'm a girl. That's not rightI'm smarter than most of the men I

know!"

Dinivan did not smile. "I've no doubt of that, Miriamele. In fact, I

think you should seek a greater challenge than merely being wiser than

men."

"But I left Naglimund to do something," she continued unhappily.

"Hah! That was smart, wasn't it5 I thought I'd bring Leobardis m on my

uncle's side, but he already was And then he was killed, so what good did

it do Josua anyway?" She trooped a little way around the tower until she

looked out on the spine of the cliff and the backslope that fell away into a

green valley. Rolling hills stretched beyond, brushed with rippling light as

the wind moved among the grasses. She tried to imagine the end of the

world and could not do so. "How do you know Cadrach?" she asked at last.

120

Tad Williams

"Cadrach is a name I never heard until you mentioned it," he replied. "1

knew him as Padreic, long years ago."

"How many years ago could that be?" Minamele smiled. "You're not

that old."

The priest shook his head. "I have a young face, I suppose, but actually

I am nearing forty yearsnot much younger than your Uncle Josua."

She scowled. "All right, many years ago. Where did you know him?"

"Here and elsewhere. We were members of the same . . . order, I

suppose you would say. But something happened to Padreic. He fell away

from us, and when I later heard tell of him the stories were not good. It

seemed that he had descended into very bad ways."

"I'll say." Minamele made a face.

Dinivan looked at her curiously. "And how did you happen to give him

this unexpectedand no doubt undesiredbath?"

She told him about their trip together, about Cadrach's suspected small

treacheries and her confirmation of his larger one. When she had finished,

Dinivan led her inside again, where Miriamele found her hunger had

returned.

"He has not done right by you, Miriamele, but has not, I think, done

entirely wrong either. There may be hope for himand not merely the

ultimate hope of salvation, which we all share. I mean that he may move

away from his criminal and drunkard ways." Dinivan walked a few steps

down from the top of the staircase, leaning over to look at Cadrach. Now

wrapped in a coarse blanket, the monk still slept, arms flung out as though

he had only this moment been dragged from the perilous waves. His wet

clothes were hanging in the low rafters.

Dinivan returned to the room. "If he were beyond hope, why would

he have remained with you after he had received his silver from Streawe?"

"So he could sell me to someone else," she responded bitterly. "My

father, my aunt, Naraxi child-merchantswho knows?"

"Perhaps," said the lector's secretary, "but I do not think so. I think he

has conceived a feeling of responsibility to youalthough that responsi-

bility does not prevent him from profiting where he thinks you will be

unharmed, as with the master ofPerdruin. But unless the Padreic 1 know

is totally gone, vanished beyond any retrieval, I think he would not harm

you, nor would he willingly let harm come to you."

"Small chance," Miriamele said grimly. "I will trust him again when

stars shine at noontime, but no sooner."

Dinivan looked at her closely, then sketched the sign of the Tree in the

air. "We must be careful of such pronouncements in these strange days,

my lady." A grin came back to his face. "However, this talk of shining

stars reminds mewe have a job to do. When 1 arranged to use this

place to meet you, I promised the tower-keeper that we would light the

beacon tonight. The mariners who ply the coastline expect it to be there,

STONE OF FAREWELL121

warning them away from the rocks so they can go cast to the harbor at

Bacea-sa-Repra. i should do it now, before it starts to get dark. Do you

want to come along?" He clattered down the stairs and returned with the

lamp.

Miriamele nodded, following him out onto the hoarding. "I was at

Wentmouth once when they lit the Haycfur there," she said. "It was

huge!"

"Far bigger than our modest candle," Dinivan agreed. "Be careful as

you climb here. This is an old ladder."

The tower's topmost room was little more than a place to hold the

beacon, a very large oil lamp squatting in the middle of the floor. There

was a smoke-hole overhead in the tower's roof and a fence of metal

screens around the wick to slow the wind. A large curved metal shield

hung on the inside wall behind the lamp, facing out toward the sea.

"What does this do?" she asked, running a finger over the shield's

highly polished surface.

"Helps the light travel farther," Dinivan said. "You see how it is curved

away from the flame, like a cup? That collects the lamplight and flings it

out through the windowmore or less. Padreic could explain it better."

"You mean Cadrach?" Miriamele asked, puzzled.

"Well, once he could have, anyway. He was very clever about mechani-

cal things when 1 knew himpulleys and levers and such. He studied a

great deal about Natural Philosophy, before he ... changed." Dinivan

lifted the hand lamp to the large wick and held it there. "The Aedon only

knows how much oil this great thing must burn," he said. After some

moments it caught and the flame rose. The shield on the wall did make it

brighter, even though failing sunlight still streamed in through the wide

windows.

"There are snuffers hanging on the wall," Dinivan said, pointing at a

pair of long staves, each with a metal cup on one end. "We must remem-

ber to put it out in the morning."

When they had returned to the second floor, Dinivan suggested they

look in on Cadrach. Trailing after, Miriamele turned and went back for

the pitcher of water and some grapes. There was really no sense starving

him to death.

The monk was up, sitting on the lone chair, staring out through the

window at the twilit, slate-blue bay. He was withdrawn, and at first did

not respond to Miriamele's offer of food, but at last took a drink of water.

After a moment he accepted the grapes as well.

"Padreic," Dinivan said, leaning close, "do you not remember me? i am

Dinivan. We were friends once."

"I recognize you, Dinivan," Cadrach said at last. His hoarse voice

echoed strangely in the small round room. "But Padreic ec-Crannhyr is

long dead. There is only Cadrach now." The monk avoided Miriamele's eyes.

122

Tad Williams

Dmivan watched him intently "Have you no wish to speak'" he asked

"There is nothing vou can have done that would make me think badiv of

you "

Cadrach looked up. a smirk on his round face, his gray eves full of pain

"Oh, is that true3 Nothing so foul I might have done that Mother Church

andand our other friendswould not take me back'" He laughed

bitterlv and waved his hand in disgust "You lie, brother Dmivan There

are crimes beyond forgiveness, and a special place prepared for their

perpetrators " Angr\, he turned awav and would not speak any more

Outside the waves murmured as thev struck the rocky coast and fell

back, hushed voices that seemed to welcome the settling night

^

Tiamak watched Older Mogahib, Roahog the Potter, and the other

elders climb into the rocking flatboat Their faces were grave, as befitted

the ceremonial occasion The ritual feather necklaces drooped in the damp

heat

Mogahib stood uneasily in the stern of the boat and turned to look back

"Do not fail us, Tiamak son ofTugumak," he croaked The ancient one

frowned and impatiently brushed the leaves of his headdress out of his

eyes "Tell the drylanders that the Wrannamen arc not their slaves Your

people have given you their greatest trust " Older Mogahib was helped to

sit down by one of his great-nephews The overloaded boat wallowed

away down the watercourse

Tiamak made a sour face and looked down at the Summoning Stick

they had given him. its surface knobby with carvings The Wrannamen

were upset because Benigans. the new master of Nabban, had demanded

greater tithes of gram and jewels, as well as young sons from the houses of

the Wran to come and serve on the holdings of Nabbanai nobles The

elders wanted Tiamak to go and speak for them, to protest this further

meddling by the drylanders in the lives of the Wrannamen

So yet another responsibility was now laid on Tiamak's slender shoul-

ders Had any of his people ever said one respectful word to him about his

learning^ No. they treated him as little more than a madman, someone

who had turned his back on the Wran and his people to follow the ways of

the drylandersuntil they needed someone to write or speak to the

Nabbanai or Perdrumesc in their own tongue Then, it was "Tiamak, do

your dutv "

He spat from the porch of his house and watched the green water ripple

below He pulled up his ladder and left it lying in a heap instead of neatly

rolled as was usual He was feeling very bitter

***

123

STONE OF FAREWELL

One good thing would come of this, he decided later while waiting for

his water pot to boil If he went to Nabban. as his tribesmen insisted, he

would be able to visit his wise friend who lived there and find out if

anything more could be discovered about Doctor Morgenes' strange

note He had been fretting over it for weeks, yet felt no closer to a

solution His messenger birds to fat Ookequk in Yiqanuc had returned,

their messages unopened That was troubling The birds he had sent to

Doctor Morgenes had returned as well, but that, although disappointing,

was less worrisome than Ookequk's silence, since Morgenes had said m

his last note that he might not be able to communicate for some while

Neither had his messages been answered by the witch woman who lived

m Aldheorte Forest, or bv his friend in Nabban Tiamak had only sent

those last birds out a few weeks ago, however, so they still might reply

But if I am traveling to Nabban, he realized, / will not see any replies for two

months or more

In fact, now that he thought of it, what would he do with his birds3 He

didn't have nearly enough seed to keep them penned for the entire time

he would be gone, and he certainly couldn't take them all with him He

would have to turn them loose to fend for themselves, hoping that they

would stay close to his little house in the banyan tree so he could

recapture them when he returned And if they flew away and did not

come back, what would he do3 He would have to cram more, that was all

Tiamak's sigh was subsumed in the hiss of steam escaping from beneath

the pot lid As he dropped m the yellowroot to steep, the little scholar

tried to remember the prayer for a safe journey that one should make to

He Who Always Steps on Sand, but could only think of the Showmg-the-

Hiding-Places-of-Fish prayer, which was not really appropriate He sighed

again Even though he didn't quite believe in his people's gods anymore, it

never hurt CO praybut one really ought to say the right prayer

As long as he was pondermg such things, what would he do with that

damnable parchment Morgenes talked about in his letteror seemed to

talk about, for how could the old doctor know that Tiamak had it3 Should

he take it with him and risk losing it7 But he had to, if he was going to

show it to his friend in Nabban and ask his advice

So many problems They seemed to be crowding his head like black-

flies, buzzing and buzzing He had to think it all through clearlyespecially

if he was to leave in the morning for Nabban He had to look at each piece

of this puzzle

First Morgenes' message, which he had read and reread dozens of times

in the four moons or so since he had received it He took it from the top

of the wooden chest and smoothed it, leaving smudges with his yellowroot-

stamed hands He knew the contents by heart

Doctor Morgenes wrote of his fears that ". the time of the Conqueror

Star" was surely upon themwhatever that might meanand that Tiamak's

124

Tad Williams

help would be needed ". . . if certain dreadful things whichit is saidare

hinted at in the infamous lost hook of the priest Nisses..." were to be avoided.

But what things? "The infamous lost hook . . ."that was Nisses' DM

Svardenvyrd, as any scholar knew.

Tiamak reached down into the chest and removed a leaf-wrapped bun-

dle, unrolling it to remove his prized parchment, which he spread on the

floor beside Morgenes' letter. This parchment page, which Tiamak had

stumbled on by luck at the market in Kwanitupul, was of much higher

quality than anything he himself could afford. The rusty brown ink

formed the northern runes of Rimmersgard, but the language itself was

the archaic Nabbanai of five centuries gone.

". . . Bringe jrom Nuanni's Rocke Garden

The Man who tho' Blinded canne See

Discover the Blayde that delivers The Rose

At the foote of the Rimmer's greate Tree

Find the Call whose lowde Claime

Speakes the Call-bearer's name

In a Shippe on the Shallowest Sea

Wizen Blayde, Call, and Man

Come to Prince's right Hande

Then the Prisoned shall once more go Free ..."

Below this incomprehensible poem was printed the name "NISSES."

So what was Tiamak to think? Morgenes could not know that Tiamak

had discovered a page of the near-mythical bookthe Wrannaman hadn't

told a soulyet still the doctor had said that Tiamak would have impor-

tant work to do, something to do with Du Svardenvyrd\

His inquiries to Morgenes and the others had gone unanswered. Now

he must go to Nabban to plead his people's cause to the drylanders, yet he

still did not know what it could all mean.

Tiamak poured the tea out of the pan into his third-favorite bowlhe

had dropped and broken his second-favorite bowl that morning, when

Older Mogahib and the others had started braying beneath his window.

He cupped the warm bowl in his slender fingers and blew across the top.

"Hot day, hot tea," his mother had always said. Today was certainly hot.

The air was so still and oppressive that he almost felt he could leap off his

porch and swim through it. Hot weather alone did not make him un-

happy, since he was always less hungry when the heat was fierce, but

nevertheless there was something disconcerting about the air today, as

though the Wran were a smoldering bar of tin on the world-anvil, with a

great hammer trembling above it, ready to smash down and change

everything.

That morning Roahog the Potter, taking a moment to gossip while

STONE OF FAREWELL

125

Older Mogahib was helped up the ladder, had said that a colony ofghants

was building a new nest just a couple of furlongs down the watercourse

from Village Grove. Ghants had never come so close to a human settle-

ment before, and although Roahog had chuckled about how the Wrannamen

would soon put the nest to fire, the story nevertheless left Tiamak unset-

tled, as if some undefined but recognized law had been violated.

As the slow, sweltering afternoon wore on toward evening, Tiamak

kept trying to think about the demands of the Duke of Nabban, and about

Morgenes' letter, but visions of the nest-building ghants pushed intheir

brownish-gray jaws clicking industriously, their mad little black eyes

glitteringand try as he might, he could not rid himself of the ridiculous

notion that somehow all these things were related.

It is the heat, he told himself. If only I had a cool jug of fern heer, these wild

ideas would disappear.

But he did not even have enough yellowroot to make another cup of

tea, let alone any fem beer. His heart was troubled and there was nothing

in the wide, hot Wran that would give him peace.

Tiamak rose with the first light of dawn. By the time he had cooked

and eaten a rice-flour biscuit and drunk a little water, the swamp was

already becoming unpleasantly warm. He grimaced as he began his pack-

ing- This was a day to go splashing and swimming in one of the safe

ponds, not set out on a journey.

There was actually little to pack. He selected a spare breechclout and a

robe and pair of sandals to wear in Nabbanthere was no reason to

reinforce the unfortunate opinion of his people's backwardness held by

most Nabbanai. He had no use on this trip, however, for his stretched-

bark writing board, his wooden chest, or most of his other meager lot of

possessions- His precious books and scrolls he dared not take, since there

was a better than average chance he would wind up in the water a few

times before he reached the cities of the drylanders.

He had decided he must take the Nisses parchment, so he wrapped it in

a second layer of leaves and bundled the whole into an oiled skin bag

given to him by Doctor Morgencs when Tiamak had lived in Perdruin.

He put the bag, the Summoning Stick, and his clothes into his flat-

bottomed boat, along with his third-best bow], a handful of cooking

implements, and a throwing-sling with a folded leaf full of round stones.

He hung his knife and his coin-pouch on his belt. Then, having stalled as

long as he couid. he climbed up the banyan tree to the top of the house to

set his birds free.

As he climbed across the thatched roof he could hear the drowsy, muffled

speech of the birds within their small cottage. He had put the remaining

seed in his fourth-bestand lastbowl, setting it out on the windowsill

below. They would at least stay near the house for a while after his departure.

126 Tad Williams

He poked his hand into the little bark-roofed box and delicately re-

moved one of his pigeons, a pretty white-and-gray named So-fast, then

tossed her up into the air She fanned her wings briskly, settling at last on

a hmb above his head Unsettled by this unusual behavior, she hooted

quietly, questioningly Tiamak knew the gnefofa father whose daughter

must be sent to strangers But he had to remove the birds, and the door to

their house, which only opened inward, had to be fastened shut Other-

wise, these birds or their absent kindred would enter and be trapped With

no Tiamak to rescue them, they would soon starve

Feeling very unhappy, he carefully removed Red-eye, Crab-foot, and

Honey-lover Soon there was a disapproving chorus perched above him

Alerted that something unusual was happening, the birds still inside had

fled skittishly to the back of the little house, so that Tiamak had to strain

to reach them As he tried to grasp one of these last recalcitrants, his hands

brushed against a small, cold bundle of feathers that layjust out of sight in

the shadows at the far end

Suddenly full of worry, he closed his hand around the object and lifted

it out It was one of his birds, he saw immediately, and it was dead Eyes

wide, he examined it closely It was Ink-daub, one of the pigeons he had

dispatched to Nabban several days ago Ink-daub had apparently been

injured by some animal, many of his feathers were missing and he was

spotted with dried blood Tiamak was sure the bird hadn't been there

yesterday, so he must have arrived during the night, flying with his last

strength despite his wounds, reaching his home only to die

Tiamak found the world swimming before his eyes as the tears came

Poor Ink-daub He was a fine bird, one of the fastest fliers He had been

very brave, too Everywhere on the bird's body that Tiamak looked,

blood showed beneath the tattered feathers Poor, brave Ink-daub

A slender strip of parchment was curled around the pigeon's twighke

ankle. Tiamak placed the silent bundle aside for a moment and coaxed out

the last two birds, then wedged the small door closed with a notched

stick With Ink-daub's body curled in a gentle hand, Tiamak climbed

down to the window and into the house He set down the pigeon's body

and carefully removed the parchment spreading it out on the floor be-

tween his fingertips, squinting at the tiny characters The message was

from his wise friend in Nabban, whose hand Tiamak recognized even m

bird-writing, but was inexplicably unsigned

The time has come,

it read,

and you are sorely needed Morgenes cannot ask you, but I ask for him Go

to Kivamtupul, stay at the inn we have spoken of, and wait there until I can

STONE OF FAREWELL127

tell you more Go there immediately and do not stray More than lives may

depend on you

At the bottom was scribbled a drawing of a feather in a circlethe

symbol of the League of the Scroll

Tiamak sat dumbstruck, staring at the message He read it two more

times, hoping it would miraculously say something different, but the

words remained unchanged Go to Kwamtupul' But the elders had or-

dered him to Nabban1 There was no one else in his tribe who could speak

the drylandcr languages well enough to serve as an emissary And what

would he tell his tribesmenthat some drylander they didn't know had

told him to go wait for instructions at Kwanitupul, that this was reason

enough to turn his back on his people's wishes5 What did the League of

the Scroll mean to Wrannamen3 A circle of drylander scholars who Calked

of old books and older events7 His people would never understand

But how could he ignore the gravity of the summons7 His friend in

Nabban had been explicithad even said that this was what Morgcnes

wanted him to do Without Morgenes, Tiamak would never have sur-

vived his year m Perdrum, let alone gained the wonderful fellowship to

which the doctor had introduced him How could he not do this one

thingthis, the only favor Morgenes had ever asked of him5

The hot air was pushing in at the windows like a hungry beast Tiamak

folded the note and slipped it into his sheath He must attend to Ink-daub

Then he would think Perhaps it would be cooler as evening drew closer Surely

he could wait one more day before leaving, wherever he was to go3 Surely7

Tiamak wrapped the bird's small body in oil palm leaves, then wound it

in a length of thin cord He stilted through the shallows to a sandbar

behind his house, where he set the bundle of leaves on a rock and

surrounded it with bark and precious strips of old parchment After

uttering a prayer for Ink-daub's spirit to She Who Waits to Take All Back,

he used his flint and steel to set the tiny pyre aflame

As the smoke coiled upward, Tiamak reflected that there was something

to be said for the old ways after all If nothing else, they provided

something to do at a time when the mind was weary and hurting For a

moment, he was even able to push aside the troubling thoughts of duty,

feeling instead a strange sort of peace as he watched Ink-daub's smoke take

flight, rising slowly into the feverish gray sky

Soon, chough, the smoke was gone and the ashes were scattered across

the green water

^

When Minamele and her two companions came down off the hill path

onto the North Coast Road, Cadrach jogged his mount ahead, putting

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Tad Williams

several lengths between himself and Dmivan and the princess. The morn-

ing sun was at their backs The horse;) Dmivan had brought trotted along

with heads waving, nostrils wide to catch the scents on the early breeze

"Ho, Padrcic'" Dmivan shouted, but the monk did not reply His round

shoulders bounced up and down His hood was lowered as if he hung his

head m thought "Very well, thenCadrach^ the priest called, "why do

you not ride with us5"

Cadrach, a graceful horseman despite his bulk and short legs, rcmed up.

When the other two had nearly caught him, he turned

"It is a problem with names, brother," he said, showing his teeth in an

angry smile "You call me by one that belongs to a dead man. The

princess, well now, she's given me a new one"traitor"and baptized

me with it in Emettm Bay to seal the bargain So you see, don't you, it

would be all too confusing, thisone might saymultiplicity of names."

With an ironic bow of the head, he dug his heels into his horse's ribs and

forged ahead, slowing again to match their pace when he had extended his

lead to a dozen ells or so.

"He is very bitter," Dmivan said as he watched Cadrach's hunched

shoulders.

"What docs he have to be bitter about'" Minamele demanded.

The priest shook his head. "God knows."

Coming from a priest, she decided, it was hard to tell exactly what that

phrase might signify-

Nabban's North Coast Road meandered along between the ridge of hills

and Emettm Bay, sometimes jogging inland so that the hills' tan flanks

rose on the right, blocking all view of the water. Farther on, the hills fell

away again for a short time and the rocky coastline appeared once more.

As the tno approached Teligure, the road began to fill with other traffic:

farm wains shedding streams of loose hay, foot peddlers carrying their

wares hung on poles, small troops of local guardsmen marching offi-

ciously from one place to another. Many travelers, seeing the golden Tree

that hung on Dmivan's black-robed chest and the monkish robes of his

companions, bowed their heads or made the Tree-sign across their breasts.

Beggars ran alongside the priest's horse, crying. "Father, Father! Aedon's

mercy. Father'" If they seemed truly crippled in some way, Dmivan

reached into his robes and produced a cmtis-piece, which he tossed down

to them. Minamele noticed that few of the beggars, no matter how

hobbled or deformed, ever let the coin strike the ground.

They stopped at midday in Teligure itself, a sprawling market town set

in the lap of the hills, where they refreshed themselves with fruit and hard

bread bought from stalls in the town square Here, in the crush of

commerce, three religious travelers drew little notice.

***

STONE OF FAREWELL129

Minamele was basking in the bright sun, hood pushed back so that she

could feel the warmth on her forehead. All around her echoed the cries of

the hawkers and the outraged shrieks of swindled buyers Cadrach and

Dinivan stood nearby, the priest bargaining with a seller of boiled eggs

while his sullen companion eyed a wine-merchant's booth next door

Minamele realized with some surprise that she felt happy.

Just like that7 she chided herself, but the sun felt too nice for self-

vilification. She had been fed, had ridden all morning free as the wind, and

nobody around was paying the slightest attention to her. At the same

time, she felt strangely protected.

She thought suddenly of the kitchen boy Simon and her contented

mood expanded to touch the memory of him as well. He had a nice smile,

Simon hadnot practiced, like one other father's courtiers. Father Dmivan

had a good smile, too, but it never looked surprised at itself, as Simon's

almost always did.

In a strange way, she realized, the days spent traveling to Naglimund

with Simon and Bmabik the troll had been some of the best other life. She

laughed at herself, at such a ridiculous notion, and stretched as luxuriously

as a cat on a windowsill. They had faced terror and death, had been chased

by the terrible hunter Ingen and his hounds, and had nearly been killed by

a Hune, a murderous, shaggy giant. But still she had felt very free.

Pretending to be a servant, she had felt more herself than ever before.

Simon and Bmabik talked to hernot to her title, not to her father's

power or their own hopes for reward or advancement.

She missed them both. She felt a sharp and sudden pang thinking of the

little troll and poor, gawky, red-thatched Simon wandering in the snowy

wilderness. In the frustration of her imprisonment in Perdrum she had

almost forgotten themwhere were they7 Were they in danger? Were

they even alive5

A shadow fell across her face. She flinched, startled

"I don't think I can keep our friend out of the wine-stalls much longer,"

Umivan said. "Nor am I sure I have a right to. We should take to the road

again. Were you sleeping?"

"No." Minamele pulled her hood forward and stood up. "Just thinking "

^

Duke Isgnmnur sat wheezing before the fire, thinking seriously about

breaking something or hitting someone. His feet hurt, his face had itched

like sin ever since he had shaved off his beardand what kind of

be-damned madman was he to have agreed to that?'and he was not one

whit closer to finding Pnncess Minamele than he had been when he left

Naglimund. All that was bad enough, but now things had gotten even

worse.

130 Tad Williams

Isgrimnur had felt sure he was narrowing the gap. When he had fol-

lowed Miriamele's trail to Perdmin, and confirmed with the old tosspot

Gealsgiath that the captain had left her and the criminal monk Cadrach

here in Ansis Pellipe, the duke had been certain it was only a matter of

time. Even hobbled by his monk's disguise, Isgrimnur knew Ansis Pellipe

well, and could find his way through most of its seedier neighborhoods.

Soon, he had felt sure, he would have her in hand and could take her back

to her uncle Josua at Naglimund, where she would be safe from her father

Ellas' doubtful charities.

Then the twin blows had fallen. The first had been slower in effect, the

culmination of many fruitless hours and a small fortune in pointless bribes:

it had gradually become clear to Isgrimnur that Miriamele and her escort

had disappeared from Ansis Pelippe, as completely as if they had sprouted

wings and flown away. Not a single smuggler, cutpurse, or tavern harlot

had seen them since Midsummer's Eve. She and Cadrach were a hard pair

to misstwo monks traveling together, one fat, one young and slender

but they had vanished. Not a single boatman had seen them carried away,

or even heard of them inquiring after passage at the docks. Gone!

The second blow, falling on top of his personal failure, struck Isgrimnur

like a great stone. He had not been on Perdruin a fortnight before the

wharfside taverns were alive with stories of the fall of Naglimund. The

sailors repeated the rumors cheerfully, talking of the slaughter Elias*

mysterious second army had wreaked on the castle's inhabitants as if

reveling in the twists and turns of an old fireside tale.

Oh, my Outrun, Isgrimnur had prayed, his innards knotted with fear and

rage, Usires protect youjrom harm. Let you come out safe again, wife, and I will

build a cathedral to Him with my bare hands. And Isom, my brave son, andjosua

and all the rest . . .

He had cried that first night, in a dark alley by himself, where no one

would see the huge monk sobbing, where for at least a little while he need

not falsify- He was frightened in a way he had never quite been before.

How could it have happened so swiftly? he wondered. That damnable castle

was built to last out a ten-year sie^e! Was it treachery jrom within?

And how, even if his family had been saved by some miracle and he

could find them again, how would he ever get back his lands that Skali

Sharp-nose had stolen with the High King's help? With Josua broken,

with Leobardis and Lluth dead, there was none who could stand in Elias'

way.

Still, he must find Miriamele. He could at least discover her, rescue her

from the traitor Cadrach and take her somewhere safe. That one piece of

misery still remained which he could prevent Elias from accomplishing.

So, defeated, he had come at last to The Hat and Plover, an inn of the

lowest sort, which was just what his aching spirit craved. His sixth jug of

sour beer sat at his side, as yet untouched. Isgrimnur brooded.

STONE OF FAREWELL

131

He might have dozed, for he had been walking the long waterfront all

day and was very tired. The man who stood before him might have been

there for some time. Isgrimnur did not like his look.

"What are you staring at?" he growled.

The stranger's eyebrows came together over his eyes. His lantern jaw

was set in a contemptuous smirk. He was tall and dressed in black, but the

Duke of Elvritshalla did not find him nearly as impressive as the stranger

obviously felt himself to be.

"Are you the monk who has been asking questions all over the city?"

the stranger demanded.

"Go away," Isgrimnur replied. He reached to take a draught of beer. It

made him feel a little more alert, so he took another swallow.

"Are you the one who has been asking about the other monks?" the

stranger began again. "About the Call and short ones?"

"I might be. Who are you, and what business do you have with me?"

Isgrimnur grunted, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. His

head hurt.

"My name is Lenti," the stranger said. "My master wishes to speak

with you."

"And who is your master?"

"Never mind. Come. We will go now."

Isgrimnur belched. "I do not wish to go meet any nameless masters. He

can come to me if he wishes. Now go away."

Lenti bent forward, his eyes keenly fixed on Isgrimnur's. There were

pimples on his chin.

"You will come now, fat old man, if you don't want to be hurt," he

whispered fiercely. "/ have a knife."

Isgrimnur's hamhock fist struck him right where his eyebrows met.

Lenti pitched backward and dropped bonelessly, as though he had been

struck with a slaughtering-hammer. A few of the other tavern-goers

laughed before turning back to their various unpleasant conversations.

After a while the duke leaned forward, pouring a stream of beer onto

his black-clad victim's face. "Get up, man, get up. I have decided I will go

with you and meet your master." Isgrimnur grinned wickedly as Lenti

spluttered foam. "I was feeling poorly before, but by Aedon's Holy Hand,

I suddenly feel a great deal better!"

Teligure disappeared behind the three riders. They continued west on the

Coast Road, following its winding course through a handful of compact

towns. The work of bringing in the hay was going forward at full speed

on the hillsides and in the valley below, haycocks rising all over the fields

132

Tad Williams

like the heads of wakened sleepers. Miriamele listened to the chanting

voices of the field-masters and the joking cries of the women as they

waded out into the tawny pastures with bottles and wallets containing the

workers' mid-afternoon meals. It seemed a happy, simple life, and she said

as much to Dinivan.

"If you think working each day from before sunup to dark, breaking

your back in the fields is happy and simple work, then you are right," he

answered, narrowing his eyes against the sun. "But there is little rest, and

when the year is bad, little food. And," he said, smiling wickedly, "most

of your crop goes out as tithes to the baron. But that seems to be what

God intended. Certainly, honest labor is better than a life of beggary or

theftin the eyes of Mother Church, anyway, if not in the eyes of some

beggars and most thieves."

"Father Dinivan!" exclaimed Miriamele, a little shocked. "That sounds

... I don't know . . . heretical, I suppose."

The priest laughed. "God the Highest gifted me with a heretical nature,

my lady, so if He regrets his gift, he will soon gather me back to His

bosom again and make all right. But my old teachers would agree with

you. I was frequently told that my questions were the devil's tongue

speaking in my head. Lector Ranessin, when he offered me the position of

his secretary, Cold my teachers: Better the devil's tongue to argue and

question than a silent tongue and an empty head.' Some of the Church's

more proper priests find Ranessin a difficult master." Here Dinivan frowned.

"But they know nothing. He is the best man on earth."

During the long afternoon Cadrach allowed the distance between him-

self and his companions to diminish gradually, until at last they were

riding nearly side-by-side once more. This concession did not loosen his

lips, however; although he seemed to be listening to Miriamele's questions

and Dinivan's stories of the land through which they passed, he did not in

any way join the conversation.

The cloud-strewn sky had turned orange and the sun was streaming into

their eyes as they approached the walled town of Grants Sacrana, the spot

Dinivan had chosen for them to spend the night. The town sat on a bluff

overlooking the Coast Road. The hills all around, sunset brushed, were

tangled with grape vines.

To the travelers' surprise, a squad of guardsmen sat mounted at the

broad gate questioning those who sought entrance. They were not local-

levied troops, but armored men wearing the gold kingfisher of the royal

Benidrivine House. When Dinivan gave their nameschoosing Cadrach's

by default and offering "Malachias" on the princess' behalfthey were

told that they must ride on and harbor elsewhere that night.

"And why should such a thing be?" Dinivan demanded.

The sheepish guardsman could only stubbornly repeat his order.

STONE OF FAREWELL133

"Then let me speak to your sergeant."

The sergeant, when produced, echoed his subordinate's words-

"But why, man?" the priest asked hotly. "By whose orders? Is there

plague here, or something like?"

"Something like indeed," the sergeant said, scratching his long nose in a

worried manner. "It's by the orders of Duke Benigaris himself, or so I

Cake it to be. I have his seal on it."

"And I bear the seal of the Lector Ranessin," Dinivan said, producing a

ring from his pocket and waggling its blood-red ruby beneath the startled

sergeant's nose. "Know chat we are on the holy business of the Sancellan

Aedonitis. Is there plague, or what? If there is no dangerous air or diseased

water, we will stay here tonight."

The croop-sergeanc took off his helmet and squinted at Dinivan's signet

ring. When he looked up, his thick face was still troubled.

"As I said, Your Bminence," he begun unhappily, "it's like a plague.

It's those madmen, those Fire Dancers."

"What are Fire Dancers?" Miriamele asked, remembering to imitate a

boy's gruff tones.

"Doom-criers," Dinivan said grimly-

"Ifchat were all," the sergeant said, spreading his hands helplessly. He

was a large man, broad-shouldered and thick-legged, but he looked quite

undone. "They're mad, the lot of them. Duke Benigaris has commanded

that we ... well, keep a watch over them. We are not to interfere, but I

thought that at least we could keep more strangers from coming in ..."

He trailed off, looking uneasily at Dinivan's ring.

"We are not strangers, and as the lector's secretary I am in little danger

of falling under the sway of these people's exhortations," Dinivan said

sternly. "So let us in, that we may find shelter for the night. We have

ridden long. We are tired."

"Very well, Your Eminence," the sergeant said, waving for his troops

Co unblock the gates. "But I take no responsibility ..."

"We all take responsibility in this life, every one of us," the priest

responded seriously, then softened his expression. "But our Lord Usires

understands about difficult burdens." He made the sign of the Tree as they

rode in past the sergeant's jostling men-at-arms.

"That soldier seemed very upset," Miriamele said as they clattered up

the central row. Many houses were shuttered, but pale faces peeped from

doorways, watching the travelers. For a town the size ofGranis Sacrana,

the streets were surprisingly empty. Small groups of soldiers rode back

and forth from the gates, but only a few other folk hurried along the dusty

street, darting uneasy glances at Miriamele and her companions before

dropping their eyes and hustling on.

"The troop-sergeant is not the only one," Dinivan answered as they

rode along in the shadows of the tall houses and shops. "Fear sweeps

through all Nabban like a plague these days."

134

Tad Williams

"Fear goes where it is invited," Cadrach said quietly, but turned away

from their questioning looks.

When they reached the marketplace in the center of town they discov-

ered why Grants Sacrana's streets were so pretcrnaturally empty. A crowd

stood half a dozen deep around the town square, whispering and laughing.

Although the final glimmers of afternoon still warmed the horizon, the

torches had been lit in their sconces all around the square, throwing

quivering shadows into the dark places between houses and illuminating

the white robes of the Fire Dancers, who swayed and shouted in the

middle of the commons.

"There must be a hundred of them or more!" Miriamele said in sur-

prise- Dinivan wore a scowling, worried face. Some in the watching

crowd were shouting derisively or throwing stones and refuse at the

capering dancers, but others stared intently, even fearfully, as if at some

animal upon which they feared to turn their backs.

"Too late for repentance'" one of the robed ones screeched, bounding

away from his fellows to bob up and down like a jumping jack before the

front row of spectators. The crowd eddied away from him as if fearful of

some contagion. Too late," he shouted. His face, that of a young man

with his first beard, split in a grin of glee. "Too late! The dreams told us!

The master's coming!"

Another of the white-clad figures climbed onto a stone in the center of

the commons, waving to silence fellow dancers. The watchers murmured

as this one threw back a capacious hood, revealing the yellow-haired head

of a woman. She would have been very pretty, but for her staring eyes,

white-rimmed in the torchlight, and her huge, ghastly smile.

"The fire is coming!" she cried. The other dancers capered and shouted,

then quieted. A few in the surrounding crowd called out insults, but

quickly fell silent as she turned her burning eyes upon them. "Do not fear

you will be left out," she said, and in the sudden quiet her voice carried

clearly. "The fires are coming for everyonethe fires and the ice that will

bring the Great Change. The master will spare no one who has not

prepared for him."

"You blaspheme against our true Ransomer, demon-lover!" Dinivan

abruptly shouted, standing in his stirrups. His voice was powerful. "You

tell these people lies!"

A few in the crowd repeated his words and their murmuring began to

grow. The woman in white turned and made a sign to some of the robed

ones near her. Several had been kneeling at the stone below her feet, as if

in prayer; one of them now rose and walked across the courtyard as she

stood staring imperiously outward, her mad eyes fixed on the lowering

twilit sky. He returned a moment later with a torch from one of the

sconces, which she took and raised above her head.

"What is Usires Aedon," she screamed, "but a little wooden man on a

STONE OF FAREWELL

135

little wooden tree? What are any of the kings and queens of men but apes

raised far above their station? The master will throw down all that stands

before him and his majesty shall rise above all the oceans and lands of

Osten Ard! The Storm King comes! He brings with him ice to freeze the

heart, deafening thunderand cleansing fire!"

She threw the brand down at her feet. A fierce sheet of flame leaped up

around the rock. Some of the other dancers shrieked as their robes caught

fire. The crowd pushed back with a shout of surprise as a wall of heat

pushed out at them.

"Elysia, Mother of God!" Dinivan's voice was full of horror.

"So it shall be!" the woman shouted, even as the flames ran up her robe

into her hair, crowning her with fire and smoke. She was still smiling, a

lost, damned smile. "He speaks in dreams! Doom is coming!" The blaze

mounted, obscuring her, bur her last words rang out over and over. "The

master is coming! The master is coming. . . !"

Miriamele leaned over her horse's neck, fighting to keep from being

sick. Dinivan rode forward a short way before dismounting to try and

help some of chose who had been knocked down and trampled in the

crowd's retreat. The princess straightened up, gasping for breath.

Blind to her presence, Cadrach stared at the chamel scene before them.

His face, scarlet in the leaping light, was suffused with an unhappy but

hungering lookas chough an important, terrible thing had come Co pass,

a thing feared for so long that the waiting had become even worse than the

fear.

8

On Sikkiho^s Back

Vrll-C/Tc- are we going, Binabik?" Simon leaned in, moving his

reddened hands nearer the fire. His gloves steamed on a fir trunk nearby.

Binabik looked up from the scroll he and Sisqi were studying "For

now, it is down the mountains. After that, we will be needing guidance.

Now let me continue to look for such guidance, please."

Simon resisted the unmanly urge to stick out his tongue, but the troll's

rebuff did not really bother him very much. He was m a good mood.

Simon's strength was returning He had felt a little more fit each of the

two days ofhardJOumeymg that had brought them down across Mintahoq,

chief mountain of the Trollfells. Now they had left Mintahoq altogether

and had crossed over to the flank other sister-peak Sikkihoq. Tonight, for

the first time, Simon had not wanted simply to fall asleep when the party

had stopped to make camp Instead, he had helped find a scanty supply of

deadwood to build the fire, then dug snow out of the shallow cave where

they would spend the night. It was good to feel himself again. The scar on

his cheek pained him, but it was a quiet ache More than anything else, it

helped him to remember.

The dragon's blood had changed him, he realized. Not m a magical

way, like m one of Shem Horsegroom's old stoneshe couldn't under-

stand the speech of animals, or see a hundred leagues. Well, that was not

quite true. When the snow had stopped for a moment today, the white

valleys of the Waste had leaped into clarity, seeming as near as the folds m

a blanket, but stretching all the way to the dark blur of faraway Aldheorte

Forest. For a moment, standing quiet as a statue despite the wind biting

his neck and face, he had felt as though he did possess magical vision. As m

the days when he climbed Green Angel Tower to see all Erkynland spread

below him like a carpet, he had felt as if he could reach out a hand and so

change the world

But moments like that were not what the dragon had brought him.

Pondering as he waited for his damp gloves to dry, he looked to Binabik

STONE OF FAREWELL137

and Sisqi, saw the way they touched even when they did not touch, the

long conversations that passed between the two of them in the shortest of

glances Simon realized that he felt and saw things differently than he had

before Urmsheim People and events seemed more clearly connected, each

part of a much larger puzzle-JUSC as Binabik and Sisqi were They cared

deeply for each other, but at the same time their world of two interlocked

with many other worlds- with Simon's own, with their people's, with

Prince Josua's, and Geloe's ... It was really quite startling, Simon thought,

how everything was part of something else! But chough the world was

vast beyond comprehension, still every mote of life in it fought for its

own continued existence. And each mote mattered.

That was what the dragon's blood had taught him, in some way. He

was not great; he was, in fact, very small. At the same moment, though,

he was important, just as any point of light in a dark sky might be the star

that led a mariner to safety, or the star watched by a lonely child during a

sleepless night-

Simon shook his head, then blew on his chill hands. His ideas were

getting away from him, cavorting like mice m an unlocked pantry. He felt

the gloves again, but they were not yet dried. He tucked his hands into his

armpits and inched a little nearer the fire.

"Are you of great sureness that Geloe said 'Stone of Farewell,' Si-

mon^' Binabik asked "I have been reading Ookequk's scrolls for two

nights and no luck am I having "

"'I told you everything she said." Simon looked out beyond the lip of

the cavern, where the tethered rams huddled, bumping together like an

ambulatory snowdnft. "I could not forget She spoke through the little

girl we saved, Leieth, and she said: 'Go to the Stone of Farewell. That is the

only place of safety jrom the growing stormsafety for a little white, anyway.' "

Binabik pursed his lips, frustrated. He spoke a few quick words of

Qanuc to Sisqi, who nodded solemnly. "I have no doubt of you, Simon.

We have seen too much together And 1 cannot be doubting Geloe, who is

the wisest one I know. It is a problem of my poor understanding " He

waved a small hand at the flattened hide before him. "Perhaps I did not

bring the correct works."

"You think too much, little man," Sludig called from the other side of

the cavern. "Haestan and I are showing your friends how to play 'Con-

queror.' It works nearly as well with your troll throwmg-stones as with

real dice. Come, play, take your mind off these things for a while."

Binabik looked up and smiled, giving Sludig a wave of his hand. "Why

do you notjoin them in this play, Simon?" he asked. "Surely it would be

more interesting than watching my confusion."

"I'm thinking, too," Simon said. "I've been thinking about Urmsheim-

About Igjarjuk and what happened."

"It was not as you were when young imagining it to be, hmmm?"

138

Tad Williams

Binabik said, absorbed in the perusal of his scroll once more. "Things are

not always as old songs tell them to beespecially when it is concerning

dragons. But you, Simon, acted as bravely as any Sir Camaris or Tallistro."

Simon felt a pleasant flush. "I don't know. It didn't seem like bravery. I

mean, what else could I have done? But that isn't what I was thinking

about. I was thinking about the dragon's blood. It did more than this to

me." He indicated his cheek and the white stripe that now ran through his

hair. Binabik did not look up to see his gesture, but Sisqi did. She smiled

shyly, her dark, upturned eyes fixed on him as though on a friendly but

possibly dangerous animal; a moment later, the troll maiden rose and

walked away. "It made me think differently about things," Simon contin-

ued, watching her go. "The whole time you were in that hole, a prisoner,

I was thinking and dreaming."

"And what did you think?" Binabik asked.

"It's hard to say. About the world and how old it is. About how small I

am. Even the Storm King is small, in a way."

Binabik inspected Simon's face. The troll's brown eyes were serious.

"Yes, he is perhaps smalt beneath the stars, Simonas a mountain is small

in comparing to the whole world. But a mountain is bigger than we, and

if it falls on us, we will still be very dead in a very big hole."

Simon fluttered his hand impatiently. "I know, I know. I'm not saying

that I'm not afraid. It's just . , . it's hard to say." He struggled for the

proper words. "It's like the dragon's blood taught me another language,

another way to see things when I think. How can you explain another

language to someone?"

Binabik started to reply, then stopped, staring just over Simon's shoul-

der. Alarmed, Simon turned, but nothing was there but the oblique stone

of the cavern and a patch of gray, white-flecked sky.

"What's wrong? Are you ill, Binabik?

"I have it," the troll said simply. "I knew there was something of

familiarity in it. But it was a confusion of language. They are translating

differently, you see." He bounced up onto his feet and trotted over to his

bag. A few of his fellow trolls looked up. One started to say something,

but broke off, deterred by Binabik's fixed expression. A few moments

later the little man returned with an armful of new scrolls.

"What's going on?" Simon asked.

"It was languagethe difference between tongues. You said: Stone of

Farewell."

"That's what Geloe told me," he answered defensively.

"Of course. But Ookequk's scrolls are not in the language you and I are

now speaking. Some are copied from original Nabbanai, some are in

Qanuc-tongue, and some few in the original speech of the Sithi. I was

looking for 'Stone of Farewell,' but in Sithi language, it would be named

'Leavetaking Stone'a small difference, but one that makes much differ-

entness in the finding of it. Now wait."

STONE OF FAREWELL

139

He began to read swiftly through the scrolls, his lips moving as he

followed the movement of his stubby finger from one line to another.

Sisqi returned, bearing two bowls of soup. One she sat beside Binabik,

who was too preoccupied to do more than nod his thanks. The other bowl

she offered to Simon- Not knowing what else to do, he bowed his head as

he took it.

"Thank you," he said, wondering if he should call her by name.

Sisqinanamook started to say something in reply, then stopped as if she

could not remember the appropriate words. For a moment she and Simon

stared at each other, an inclination toward friendship hindered by their

inability to converse- At last. Sisqi bowed in return, then snuggled in next

to Binabik, asking him a quiet question.

"Chash," he replied, "that is correct," then went silent again, searching.

"Ho ho!" he cried at last, thumping his palm on his hide-suited leg. "This

is the answer. We have found it!"

"What?" Simon leaned in- The scroll was covered with strange marks,

little drawings like the feet of birds and the tracks of snails. Binabik was

pointing at one symbol, a square with rounded corners, full of dots and

slashes.

"Sesuud'ra," the little man breathed, stretching the word out as if exam-

ining fine cloth. "Sesuad'raLeavetaking Stone. Or, as Geloe spoke it, the

Stone of Farewell. A Sithi thing it is, as I guessed."

"But what is it?" Simon stared at the runes, but could not imagine

getting meaning from it as he could from Westerling script.

Binabik squinted at the scroll. "It is the place, this is saying, where

covenant was broken when the Zida'ya and Hikeda'yathe Sithi and the

Nornssplit asunder to be going their separate ways. It is a place of

power and of great sorrow."

"But where is it? How can we go there if we don't know where it is?"

"It was once being part of Enki-e-Shao'saye, the Summer-City of the

Sithi."

"Jiriki told me about that," Simon said, suddenly excited. "He showed

it to me in the mirror. The mirror he gave me. Maybe we could find it

there!" He fumbled in his pack, searching forjiriki's gift.

"No need, Simon, no need!" Binabik laughed. "A fool I would truly

beand the poorest apprentice Ookequk could ever be havingif I did

not know of Enki-e-Shao'saye. It was one of the Nine Cities, great in

beauty and lore."

"Then you know where the Stone of Farewell is?"

"Enki-e-Shao'saye was at the southeast edge of the great forest Aldheorte."

Binabik frowned. "So it is not near, obviously. Many weeks of journey-

ing we will have. Where the city was standing is on the far side of the

forest from us, above the flat lands of the High Thrithings." His expression

brightened. "But we are knowing now our destination. That is good.

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Sesuad'ra." He savored the word again reflectively. "I have never seen it,

but words of Ookequk come to me. It is a strange and grim place, as

legend speaks."

"I wonder why Geloe chose it?" Simon said.

"Perhaps there was no other choosing she could make." Binabik turned

his attention to his cold soup.

^

The rams, understandably enough, did not like to walk with Qantaqa

behind them. Even after several days, the smell of the wolf still troubled

them deeply, so Binabik continued to ride ahead. Qantaqa picked her way

deftly along the steep, narrow trails, the ram-riders following after, calking

or singing quietly among themselves, keeping their voices low so as not to

wake Makuhkuya, the avalanche goddess. Simon, Haestan, and Sludig

trooped along at the rear, trying to stay out of the hoof-ruts and thereby

keep the snow from creeping in over the tops of their well-oiled boots.

Where Mintahoq was rounded like an old man bent by years, Sikkihoq

was all angles and steep sides. The troll-paths clung to the mountain's

back, winding far out to swing around icy columns of rock, then passing

out of the sunlight in the mountain's own shadow, following the inside

line of a vertical crevice that dropped away beyond the path into mist and

snow.

Trudging down the narrow trails hour after hour, constantly wiping the

fluttering snow from his eyes, Simon found himself praying they would

reach the bottom soon. Returning strength or no, he was not meant for

mountain life. The thin air hurt his lungs and made his legs feel heavy and

weak as sodden loaves of bread. When he cried to sleep at the end of the

day, his muscles were so painfully tight they almost seemed to hum-

The very heights in which they traveled also disturbed him. He had

always thought of himself as a fearless climber, but that had been before

he left Hayholt for the wide world. Now, Simon found it much easier to

keep his eyes fastened to the back of Sludig's brown boots as they lifted

and fell than to look elsewhere. When his gaze swung away to the leaning

masses of stone above them or the empty depths below, he found it

difficult to remember level ground. Somewhere, he reminded himself,

there were places where a person could turn and walk in any direction

without risking a death-fall. He had lived in such a place, so they must still

exist. Somewhere mile after flat mile lay like a deep carpet, waiting for

Simon's feet.

They had stopped at a wider place to rest. Simon helped Haestan Cake

off his pack, then watched as the guardsman slumped down onto a

snow-dampened stone, breathing so heavily that he soon surrounded

STONE OF FAREWELL

141

himself with a fog of vapors. Haestan slipped his hood off for a moment,

then shivered as the high wind struck him. He quickly pulled it back on.

Ice crystals glimmered in his dark beard.

"S'cold, lad," he said. "Bitter." He suddenly looked old.

"Do you have a family, Haestan?" Simon asked.

The guardsman paused for a moment as if taken aback, then laughed.

"Of sorts. I've a woman, a wife, but no little'uns. First baby died, we've

gotten none since. I've not seen her since 'fore winter." He shook his

head. "She be safe, though. Gone t'live with folk in Hewenshire

Naglimund be too dangerous, told her. War comin'." He shook his head.

"Now ify'r witch woman speaks true, war's over an' Prince Josua lost."

"But Geloe said he escaped," Simon put in hurriedly.

"Aye, that be somethin'."

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the wind among the rocks.

Simon looked down at the sword Thorn lying atop Haestan's pack,

gleaming blackly, dotted with melting snowftakes. "Is the sword too

heavy for you? I could carry it for a while."

Haestan considered him for a moment before grinning. "Y'r welcome

to it, Simon-lad- Y'should have sword, what with that first manly beard

an' all. Thing is, hard t'say if it be any good as a sword, if y'take my

meaning."

"I know. I know how it changes." He remembered Thorn in his own

hands. At first it had been cold and heavy as an anvil. Then, as he stood

poised, balanced on the clifFs edge staring into the dragon's milky blue

eyes, it had become light as a birch-staff. The glossy blade had seemed

inspirited, as though it breathed. "It's almost like it's alive. Like an animal

or something. Is it heavy for you now?"

Haestan shook his head, looking up at the flurrying snow- "No, lad.

Seems it wants t'go where we're goin'. Trunks it be goin' home, mayhap."

Simon smiled to hear them both Calking about a sword as though it

were a dog or a horse. Still, there was an undeniable tension to the thing,

like a spider still in a web, or a fish hanging suspended in the cold darkness

of a river bottom. He looked at it again. The sword, if it was alive, was a

wild thing. The blackness of it devoured light, leaving only a thin residue

of reflection, sparkling crumbs in a miser's beard. A wild thing, a dark

thing.

"It's going where we're going," Simon said, then considered for a

moment. "But that's not going to be home. Not my home."

As he lay chat night in a narrow cavern which was little more than a

nick in Sikkihoq's muscular stone back, Simon dreamed of a tapestry. It

was a moving tapestry, hanging on a wall of absolute blackness. In it, as in

the religious pictures of the- Hayholt's chapel, a great tree stood, arms

rising to heaven. This tree was white and smooth as Harcha marble.

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Prince Josua hung upon it head down, like Usires Aedon Himself in His

suffering.

A shadowy figure stood before Josua, driving nails into him with a

great, gray hammer. Josua did not speak or cry out, but his followers all

around were moaning. The prince's eyes were wide with patient suffering,

like the carved face of Usires that had hung on the wall of Simon's

boyhood home in the servant's quarters.

Simon could not bear to see any more. He thrust himself through into

the tapestry itself and ran at the shadow-figure. As he ran, he felt a

weighty something dangling in his hand. He lifted his arm to swing it, but

the murky thing reached up and caught his hand, pulling Simon's weapon

away. He had been holding a black hammer. But for its color, it was the

twin of the gray.

"Better," the thing said. It hefted the ebony mallet in its other shadowy

hand and began once more to drive nails. This time Josua screamed with

each blow, screamed and screamed . - .

. - . Simon awakened to find himself shivering in darkness, the raspy

breathing of his traveling companions all around him, vying with the

wind that moaned as it searched the mountain passes outside the cavern.

He wanted to waken Binabik, or Haestan. or Sludiganybody who

could speak to him in his own tonguebut could not find any of them in

the dark, and knew even in his fear that he should not startle the others

awake.

He lay down once more, listening to the crooning wind. He was afraid to

go back to sleep, afraid he would hear those awful screams once more. He

strained to see in the darkness so he would know his eyes were open, but

there was nothing.

Some time before light returned, exhaustion overmatched his fretting

mind and he at last fell asleep. If more dreams troubled him, he did not

remember them on awakening.

^

They were three more days on heart-freezingly narrow trails before they

made their way down out of Sikkihoq's heights. On the mountain's

shoulders they no longer had to travel single file, so as they came down

onto a broad shelf of snow-dotted granite the company stopped to cele-

brate. It was a rare hour of afternoon sunlight. The light had broken

through the cobweb of clouds and the wind for once seemed playful

instead of predatory.

Binabik rode Qantaqa ahead to scout the terrain, then turned the wolf

loose to hunt. She was gone into a tumble of white-mantled boulders in an

instant. Binabik walked back to the rest of the party, a broad smile on his

face.

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STONE OF FAREWELL

"It is good to be off the cliffs for a time," he said, sitting next to Simon,

who had removed his boots and was rubbing blood back into his white

toes. "There is little time for thinking of anything else but balancing when

one rides on such narrow and endangering trails."

"Or walks on them," Simon said, looking critically at his toes.

"Or walks," Binabik agreed. "I will be returning in a moment." The

little man got up and walked across the gently curving stone to where most

of the trolls sat in a circle on the ground, passing around a drinking skin.

Several of them had taken off their jackets to sit bare-chested in the thin

sunlight, brown skins acrawl with tattoos of birds, bears, and sinuous

fish. The rams had been unsaddled and turned loose to graze on such

scanty fodder as they might find, moss and clumps of scruffy brush that

had taken root in rocky crevices. One of the troll men watched over them

as shepherd, although his heart did not seem to be in the job. He poked

the ground disconsolately with his crook-spear as he watched the skin go

around the circle. One of his fellows, pointing and laughing at his misery,

at last stumped over and shared the bag with him.

Binabik approached Sisqi, who was sitting with some of the hunting

maidens. He bent to say something, then rubbed her face with his own.

She laughed, pushing him away, but her cheeks reddened. Watching,

Simon felt a faint tremor of jealously at his friend's happiness, but swal-

lowed it down. Someday maybe he, too, would find someone. He thought

sadly of Princess Miriamele, who stood far above any scullion. Nonethe-

less, she was only a girl, like those with whom Simon had bumblingly

conversed in the Hayholt in what seemed far-gone days of old. When he

and Miriamele had stood side by side at the bridge in Da'ai Chikiza, or

before the giant, there had been no difference between them. They had

been friends, facing danger together and equally.

But I didn't know then that she was above me. Now I do, and that is the

difference. But why? Am I different? Is she? Not truly. And she kissed me! And

that was after she was the princess again!

He felt a curious mixture of elation and frustration. Who was to say

what was right, anyway? The order of the world seemed to be changing,

and where was the law written that a heroic kitchen boy could not stand

proudly before a princesswho was at war with her father the king, after

all?

A moment of grand daydreaming followed, Simon envisioned himself

entering a great city as a hero, riding on the back of a proud horse, the

sword Thorn held before him as in a picture of Sir Camaris he had once seen.

Somewhere, he knew, Miriamele was watching and admiring. The day-

dream foundered as he suddenly wondered what city he might enter

heroically into. Naglimund, by Geloe's word, had fallen. The Hayholt,

Simon's only home, was banned to him utterly. The sword Thorn was no

more his than Simon himself was Sir Camaris, the blade's most famous

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ownerand what was most important, he realized as he stared at his

blistered heels, he had no horse at all.

"Here, friend Simon." Binabik said, rousing him out of this doleful

reverie, "I have secured you a draught of hunt-wine." He held out a skin

bag, smaller than the one being passed around the circle nearby.

"I already drank some," Simon asked, sniffing suspiciously. "It tasted

well, Haestan said it tasted like horse piss and I think he's right."

"Ah. It is seeming that Haestan has changed his mind about kangkang."

Binabik chuckled, tilting his head in the direction of the drinking-circle.

The Erkynlander and Sludig had joined the trolls; Haestan was even now

taking a healthy swallow from the bag. "But this is not kangkang,"

Binabik said. pressing the bag into Simon's hand. "It is hunt-wine. The

men of my folk are not allowed to drink itexcept for those, like myself,

who are using it sometimes for the purposes of medicine. Our huntresses

drink when they must be awake all the night away from our caves. It is

good especially for tired and hurting limbs and such."

"I feel fine," Simon said, looking doubtfully at the drinking skin.

"That is not being the point of my giving." Binabik was becoming

exasperated. "Be understanding that it is rare for anyone to get this

hunt-wine. We sit here now celebrating luck in having come a difficult

journey with no losses or woundings. We are celebrating a little sun and

hoping for some small luck on the rest of our journey. Also, it is a sort of

gift, Simon. Sisqinanamook wished you to have it."

Simon looked up to the troll maiden, who sat in laughing conversation

with her fellow huntresses. She smiled and hoisted her spear as if in salute.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't understand." He lifted the bag and took a

swig. The sweet, oily fluid slid down his throat. He coughed, but a

moment later felt its soothing warmth in his stomach. He took another

swallow, then held some in his mouth, trying to decide what the taste

reminded him of.

"What's it made from?" he asked.

"Berries from the high meadows of Blue Mud Lake, where my tribesmen

will be going. Berries and teeth."

Simon wasn't sure he had heard correctly. "Berries and what?"

"Teeth." Binabik grinned, showing his own yellow ones. "Teeth of the

snow bear. Made into a powder, of course. That is for strongness and

quietness on the hunt."

"Teeth ..." Simon, remembering that this was a gift, thought for a

moment before saying anything more. There wasn't really anything wrong

with teethhe had a mouthful himself. The hunt-wine did not taste bad at

all, and made for a comforting tingle in his belly. He carefully lifted the

skin and took a final swallow. "-Berries and teeth," he said, handing the

bag back. "Very good. How do you say thank you in Qanuc?"

Binabik told him.

STONE OF FAREWELL

145

"Guyop!" Simon called to Sisqi, who smiled and nodded her head as her

companions burst into high-pitched laughter once more, hiding their faces

in the fur of their hoods.

For a while Simon and Binabik sat quietly side by side, enjoying the

warmth. Simon felt the hunt-wine creeping pleasantly through his veins,

so that even the daunting lower slopes ofSikkihoq that still awaited them

began to look friendly. The mountain fell away below into a rumpled

quilt of snow-covered hills, leveling out at the bottom into the tree-spiked

monotony of the Waste,

As he turned to survey the terrain, Simon's attention was caught by

Namyet, one of Sikkihoq's sister mountains, which in the momentary

clarity of the bright afternoon seemed to loom only a stone's throw away

on his left side. Namyet's skirts were creased with long blue vertical

shadows. Her white crown sparkled in the sun.

"Do trolls live there, too?" he asked.

Binabik looked up and nodded. "Namyet is also one of the Yiqanuc

mountains. Mintahoq, Chugik, Tutusik, Rinsenatuq, Sikkihoq and Namyet,

Yamok, and the Huudikathe Gray Sistersthose are the troll-country.

Yamok, which means Little Nose, is the place where my parents died.

That is her, out beyond Namyet, do you see?" He pointed at a dim

angular shape limned by the sun.

"How did they die?"

"In dragon snow, as we call it on the Roof of the Worldsnow that

freezes on its top, then breaks through without warning, jaws closing

swiftly. Like a dragon's jaws are closing. As you know."

Simon scuffed at the ground with a stone, then looked up, squinting at

the faint outline of Yamok in the cast. "Did you cry?"

"With certaintybut in my own secret place. And you . . . but no, you

were not knowing your parents, were you?"

"No. Doctor Morgenes told me about them. A little. My father was a

fisherman and my mother was a chambermaid."

Binabik smiled. "Poor yet honorable forebears. Who could ask for more,

as a place from which to make a starting? Who would be born into the

tight restricting of royal blood? Who could think to be finding their true

selves when all around are bowing and kneeling?"

Simon thought of Miriamele, and even Binabik's betrothed, Sisqinana-

mook, but said nothing.

After a while, the troll stretched and pulled his pack closer. He rum-

maged in it for a few moments, at last producing a clinking leather bag.

"My knuckle bones," he said as he spilled them gently out onto the stone.

"We will be seeing if they are now a more truthful guide than at the

last questioning." He began humming quietly to himself as he scooped

them up in his palms. For long moments he held the handful of bones

before him, eyes closed in concentration while he muttered a song. At

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last he dropped them to the ground. Simon could see no discernible

pattern in the jumble.

"Circle of Stones," Binabik said, as calmly as though it were written on

the bones' yellowed smoothness- "That is where we are standing, so to

speak- It means. I am thinking, a council meeting. We are searching for

wisdom, for help in our journeying."

"The bones you ask for help tell you that you're looking for help?"

Simon grunted. "That's not much of a trick."

"Silence, foolish lowlandcr," Binabik said mock-sevcrely. "There is

more to the bones than you understand. The reading of them is not so

simple," He hummed and cast again. "Torch at the Cave-Mouth," he said,

but cast again without pause for explanation. He frowned and sucked his

lip as he surveyed the scatter. "The Black Crevice. That is the second time

only I have ever seen that patterning, and both have been in the time we

have been together- It is an ominous throw."

"Explain, please." Simon said. He pulled his boots back on, resting his

toes by wiggling.

"The second throwing. Torch at the Cave-Mouth, means we must look

for an advantage in the place we goSesuad'ra, I make that, Geloe's

Stone of Farewell. That is not proving we will find luck there, but it is our

chance for advantage. The Black Crevice, the last throwing, I have told you

of before. The third throw is that which should be feared, or that which

we need being aware of. The Black Crevice is a strange, rare pattern that

could mean treachery, or could mean something coming from else-

where . . ."He broke off, staring absently at the littered bones, then swept

them back into his bag.

"So what docs it all mean?"

"Ah, Simon-friend," the troll sighed, "the bones are not simply an-

swering questions, even at the best of times- At a troubled hour like the

one we are living, the understanding becomes more difficult still. I must

think long about these throws. I must perhaps sing a song of slight

differentness, then cast again. This is the first throwing in a long while

that I have not seen The Shadowed Pathbut I cannot be thinking that our

path is any less shadowy. There, you see, is the danger of trying to take

simple answers from the bones."

Simon stood up. "I don't understand much of what you're saying, but I

wish we did have a few simple answers. It would make things much easier."

Binabik smiled as one of his folk approached. "Simple answers to life's

questioning. That would be a magic beyond any I have ever been seeing."

The new troll, a stocky, tuft-bearded herder Binabik introduced as

Snenneq, threw a distrustful look up at Simon, as though his very height

was an affront to civilized behavior. He conversed excitedly with Binabik

in Qanuc for a short time, then trudged away. Binabik sprang up and

whistled for Qantaqa.

147

STONE OF FAREWELL

"Snenneq says the rams are acting skittishly," Binabik explained. "He

wanted to know where Qantaqa was, if she had been at stalking their

mounts." A moment later the wolfs gray form appeared on a crag half a

furlong away, head tilted questioningly. "She is down the wind from us,"

the little man said, shaking his head. "If the rams are restless, it is not

Qantaqa's scent that is so making them."

Qantaqa sprang down from the rocky outcropping. A few moments

later she was at her master's side, butting his ribs with her large, broad

head-

"She herself seems disturbed," Binabik said. He kneeled to scratch the

wolfs belly, his arms disappearing into her thick fur up to the shoulder.

Qantaqa did indeed seem distracted, standing still only a moment before

lifting her snout to the breeze. Her ears flicked like the wings of an

alighting bird. She made a low rumbling noise before butting Binabik

with her head again. "Ah," he said, "a snow bear, perhaps. This must be

a season of hungering for them. We should move to a lower placewe

may be in less danger when we are leaving Sikkihoq's heights." He called

to Snenneq and the rest of his fellows. They began striking the makeshift

camp, resaddling their rams and stowing the drinking skins and food bags.

Sludig and Haestan approached. "Ho, lad," Haestan said to Simon,

"back to our boot leather again. Now you know what's like t'be soldier.

March, march, march, 'til feet freeze and lungs go limp."

"I never did want to be a foot soldier," Simon said, shouldering his

pack.

The friendly weather did not hold. By the time they made camp that

night near the edge of the long flat shelf, the stars had disappeared. The

company's cookfires were the only light beneath a wild and snow-spread

sky.

Dawn lightened the dark horizon to a stony gray that oddly mirrored

the granite below their feet. The traveling party made their way carefully

down from the shelf and onto another series of narrow trails that wound

back and forth across the mountain face in steep switchbacks. By midday

they had come to another relatively level place, a long, down-sloping talus

hill, a vast refuse heap of boulders and smaller stones left by the passage of

some ancient glacier. The footing was treacherous: even the rams had to

pick their way carefully, sometimes choosing to leap from one large stone

to another rather than walk across the loose rubble. Simon, Haestan, and

Sludig followed behind. Their trudging footsteps occasionally freed a

fist-sized stone to bound down the slope, eliciting bleats and annoyed

stares from the saddled rams. Such terrain was also hard on the knees and

ankles. Before they had gone far down the slope, Simon and his compan-

ions stopped to wind rags about their boots for support.

Snow fluttered all around, not a heavy fall, but enough to dust the tops

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of the larger stones with pale powder and fill the crevices between the

smaller rocks like mortar. As Simon looked back up the long disordered

slope, the upper reaches of Sikkihoq loomed through the mist and squall

like a dark shadow in a doorway. He was amazed by how far they had

come, but on turning found himself disheartened in equal measure by the

length of descent chat still remained before they would reach the doubtful

comforts of the Waste below.

Haestan saw his expression and offered Simon the beribboned wineskin

that had been the trolls' gift to the guardsman. "Two more days t'flat

ground, lad," he said, smiling sourly. "Have some."

Simon warmed himself with a swallow of kangkang before passing it

along to Sludig. A toothy smile showed briefly in the Rimmersman's

yellow beard as he lifted the skin to his mouth. "Good," he said. "It is

not the mead I know, or even southern wine, but it is certainly better than

nothing."

"God's curse if that don't be truth," Haestan said. He took the skin

back, savoring a long swallow before letting the bag drop to his belt once

more. Simon thought the guardsman's voice a little furry, and realized

that Haestan had been drinking all day. Still, what else did they have to

combat the pain in their legs and the monotonous, flurrying snow? Better a

little drunkenness to take off the chill than hours of misery.

Simon squinted against the sleet flying into his face. He could see the

bobbing shapes of the trolls riding just before them, but beyond he could

discern only misty shapes. Somewhere past even the foremost, Binabik

and Qantaqa were searching for the best route off the talus slope. The

guttural exclamations of the ram-riders ahead drifted back to Simon on the

wind, incomprehensible but oddly reassuring.

A stone bounced past his foot and rolled to a halt a few cubits ahead, the

sound of its passage obliterated by the song of the wind. Simon wondered

what would happen if a truly large stone ever began rolling downhill

toward them. Would they even hear it above the clamor of the elements?

Or would it be upon them suddenly, like a hand dropping down to crush

a fly sunning on a windowsill? He turned anxiously to look back, seeing in

his mind's eye a vast, round shape growing larger, a great stone that

would crush all in its path.

There was no great stone, but there were shapes moving on the slope

above. Caught staring open-mouthed, Simon knew a moment's unsureness

as he wondered if some strange snow blindness caused him to see things

that could not be real, huge shadows flailing in the uncertain light.

Following Simon's backward glance, Sludig opened his eyes wide.

"Hunen!" the Rimmersman shouted. " Vaer Hunen! There are giants up

the slope behind us!" Downslope, invisible in the drifting snows, one of

the trolls echoed Sludig's alarm with a harsh cry.

Dim, elongated figures were loping down the rock-strewn hill. Dis-

STONE OF FAREWELL

149

lodged stones rolled before them, bounding past Simon and his compan-

ions as the shouting trolls tried to pull their rams about to face this sudden

danger. The advantage of surprise lost, the charging giants bellowed out

wordless challenges in voices that seemed deep enough to shake down the

very mountain. Several huge figures plunged through the mist, brandish-

ing broad clubs like gnarled tree limbs. The black faces, snarling-mouthed,

seemed to float bodilessly in the flurrying snow, but Simon knew the

strength in those shaggy white forms. He recognized Death's face in the

leathery masks and Death's inescapable clutch in the broad sinews and

lashing arms twice as long as any man's.

"Binabik!" Simon screamed. "Giants are coming!"

One of the Hunen snatched up a boulder and heaved it down the slope.

It struck and spun end over end, bounding downhill like a runaway

wagon. Even as a flurry of troll-spears sliced back through the air toward

the attackers, the great stone crunched past Simon and smashed into the

nearest ranks of the trolls. The shrill, terrified bleating of rams and the

howls of their broken and dying riders echoed across the foggy slope.

Simon found himself gaping in stunned immobility as a towering shape

rose before him, club backflung like the straining arm of a catapult. As the

black bar of shadow whistled down, Simon heard someone call his name,

then something struck him aside and he was flung on his face among

stones and snow.

A moment later he was on his feet, stumbling back through the mist

toward the roaring, contorted shapes of conflict. Hunen loomed and then

disappeared, huge, grasping shadows that at some moments were almost

invisible in the flurrying snow.

Inside Simon's mind a hysterical, terrified voice shouted for him to run

away, to hide, but the voice was muffled, as though his head were stuffed

with cushioning down. There was blood on his hands, but he did not

know whose. He wiped it absently on his shirt front before reaching down

to pull his Qanuc knife from its sheath. The roaring was all around now.

A group of trolls had couched their spears and were spurring their rams

up the slope. Their bellowing target flailed with a shaggy arm broad as a

tree trunk and swept the foremost trolls from their saddles. Men and

mounts together soared back down the rise in a bloody tangle, tumbling

to a boneless halt at flight's end, but their trailing fellows drove home half

a dozen spears, raising a coughing, sputtering roar from the beleaguered

giant.

Simon saw Binabik downslope. The troll dismounted Qantaqa, who

charged off into the swirling shadows of another skirmish. Binabik was

pushing darts into the hollow section of his walking stickdarts with

poison-blacked tips, Simon knewbut before Simon could take even a

step toward his friend another shape pushed hard against him, then fell to

the ground at his feet.

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Tad Williams

It was Haestan, lying facedown among the stones, the sword Thorn still

hanging from his pack. As Simon stared, something howled so loudly it

cut through the fuzziness in his ears and mind; he whirled to see Sludig

backing toward him down the unstable slope, his long troll-spear jabbing

before him as he retreated from a giant whose angry screams rattled the

sky. The giant's white belly and arms were dotted with crimson blood-

flowers, but Sludig, too, was bloodied; his left arm looked as though ic

had been dipped into a bowl of red paint.

Simon bent and grasped Haestan's cloak, shaking him, but the guardsman

was limp. Grabbing at Thorn's black hilt, Simon pulled it slowly back

through the loop on Haestan's pack. It was cold as frost and heavy as a

suit of horse-armor. Cursing with anger and terror, he tried with all his

strength to lift it, but could not bring the point off the ground. Despite

his ever more panicky exertions, he could not even lift the hilt above his

waist.

"Usires, where are You'?" he railed, letting the blade fall heavily to the

ground like a block of tumbled masonry. "Help me! What use is this

damnable sword!?" He tried again, praying for God's help, but Thorn lay

flat on the ground, beyond his strength.

"Simon!'* Sludig shouted breathlessly. "Flee! I ... cannot. . . !" The

giant's shaggy white arm swung out and the Rimmersman stumbled back,

just out of reach. He opened his mouth to call to Simon once more, but

had Co throw himself to one side to avoid a clawing backswipe. Blood

flecked the northerner's pale beard and matted his yellow hair. His helmet

was gone.

Simon looked around wildly, then spotted a troll-spear lying among the

rocks. He caught it up and circled around the giant, whose reddened eyes

and wide-flaring nostrils were fixed only on Sludig. The creature's shaggy

back loomed before him like a white wall. A moment later, before he

even had time to be surprised at himself, Simon was leaping forward over

the slippery stones, thrusting the spear as hard as he could into the matted

fur. The shock of impact leaped up his arms, rattling his teeth, and for a

moment he slumped strengthlessly against the giant's broad back. The

Hune threw its head up in a howl, weaving from side to side as Sludig

drove in from the front with his spear. Simon saw the Rimmersman

disappear, then saw the beast bend, shuddering, and knock Sludig to the

ground.

Coughing blood, the giant stood over Sludig, feeling for its club with

one arm, clutching at its red-dripping stomach with the other. With a

shout of anger, mad with fury that this horrible thing should strike at his

friends even while its own life leaked out, Simon snatched a handful of its

pelt in one hand and the wagging spear butt protruding from the giant's

back in the other, then dragged himself up onto its back.

Reeking of wet fur and musk and rotting meat, the great, quivering

STONE OF FAREWELL

151

body straightened beneath him. Huge talon-nailed hands came up, smack-

ing sightlessly in search of the insect that had lighted upon it, even as

Simon drove his Qanuc dagger to the hilt in the giant's neck, just below

the contorted jaw. A moment later he felt himself caught up and flung

loose by wrist-wide fingers.

There was a moment of weightlessness; the sky was a cracked swirl of

gray and white and dimmest blue. Then Simon struck down.

He was staring at a round stone, just a hand's breadth beyond his nose.

He could not feel his extremities, his body limp as boned fish, nor could

he hear any sounds but a faint roaring in his ears and thin squeals that

might be voices. The stone lay before him, spherical and solid, unmoving.

It was a chunk of gray granite, banded with white, which might have lain

in this place since Time itself was young. There was nothing special about

it. It was only a piece of the earth's bones, rough comers smoothed by

eons of wind and water.

Simon could not move, but he could see the immobile, magnificently

unimportant stone. He lay staring at it for a long time, feeling nothing but

emptiness where his body had been, until the stone itself began to gleam,

throwing back the faintest pink sheen of sunset.

They came for him at last when Sedda the moon appeared, her pale face

peering down through the mist and twilight. Small, gentle hands lifted

him and laid him on a blanket. He swayed gently as they carried him

downslope and set him down near a roaring fire. Simon stared up at the

moon as she mounted higher in the sky. Binabik came to him and said

many soothing things in a quiet voice, but the words seemed nonsense. As

others helped bind his wounds and laid cool, water-soaked rags on his

head, Binabik crooned strange, circular songs, then gave him a bowl of

something warm to drink, holding up Simon's limp head as the sour

draught trickled down his throat.

/ must be dying, Simon thought. He felt a certain peace in the idea. It

seemed as though his soul had left his body already, for he felt very little

connection with his own flesh. I would have liked to have gotten out of the

snows, jirst. I would have liked to have gone home. . . .

He thought of another stillness such as he now felt: the moment when

he had stood before Igjarjuk, the silence that had seemed to envelop the

whole world, the timeless time before he had brought the sword down,

before the black blood had fountained up.

But this time the sword didn't help me . . . Had he lost some kind of

worthiness since he had left Urmsheim? Or was Thorn merely as incon-

stant as the wind and weather?

Simon remembered a warm summer afternoon back in the Hayholt, when

the sunlight had angled down through the high windows of Doctor Morgenes'

chambers, making the lazily floating dust gleam like drifting sparks.

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Tad Williams

"Never make your home in a place," the old man had told him that day.

"Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll fmd what you need to

jumish itmemory, ^friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things.

That way it wiil go with you wherever you journey . . ."

Is that what dying is? Simon wondered. Is it going home? That's not so bad.

Binabik was singing again, a drowsy sound like rushing water. Simon

let go and drifted.

When he awakened late the next day, he was not immediately certain

that he was still alive. The survivors had moved during the morning and

Simon had been carried, along with the other wounded, to a cave beneath

a leaning rock. On waking, he saw before him only an open hole into the

gray sky. It was the ragged black birds gliding past the cave-mouth that

taught him at last that he was still in the worldthe birds, and the pain in

all his limbs.

He lay for a while testing his hurts, bending his joints one by one. He

ached, but movement had come back with the pain- He was sore but

whole.

After a while Binabik came to him again with another drink of his

healing beverage. The troll himself had not escaped without harm, as long

runnels down his cheek and neck attested. Binabik's look was solemn, but

he seemed to give Simon's wounds only a cursory inspection.

"We have received grievous damaging," the troll said. "I wished I had

not to say this, but . . . Haestan is dead."

"Haestan?!" Simon sat up, forgetting his aching muscles for a moment.

"Haestan?" His stomach seemed to sink away inside him.

Binabik nodded his head. "And of my twice-dozen companions, nine

were killed and six more are being badly wounded."

"What happened to Haestan?" He felt a sickening sense of unreality.

How could Haestan be dead? Had they not spoken only a few moments

before . . . before. . . ?" What about Sludig?"

"Sludig was hurt, but not badly. He is out with my tribesmen, cutting

up wood for building of fires. It is important for healing the injured, do

you see? And Haestan . . ." Binabik thumped his chest with the heel of his

handa gesture the Qanuc used, Simon had learned, to ward evil. The

troll looked profoundly unhappy. "Haestan was struck to the head by one

of the giant's clubs. I am told that he pushed you away from danger and

was shortly after himself killed."

"Oh, Haestan," Simon groaned. He expected tears to come, but they

did not. His face felt strangely numb, his sorrow somehow weak. He put

his head in his hands. The big guardsman had been so alive, so hearty. It

was wrong that a life could be taken just that swiftly. Doctor Morgenes,

Grimmric and Ethelbearn, An'nai, now Haestanall dead, all struck down

because they tried to do what was right. Where were chose powers that

should protect such innocents?

STONE OF FAREWELL153

"And Sisqi?" Simon asked, suddenly remembering the troll maiden. He

scanned Binabik's face anxiously, but the troll showed only a distracted

smile.

"She has survived, and with only small wounding."

"Can we take Haestan down off the mountain? He wouldn't want to be

left here."

Binabik reluctantly shook his head. "We cannot carry his body, Simon.

Not on our rams. He was a man of largeness, too much for our mounts.

And we still have a dangerous way to go before we are on flat land. He

must stay here, but his bones will he in honor with the bones of my

people. He will be with other good and brave warriors. That is, I think, as

he would be wishing. Now, you should sleep againbut first there are

two who would speak with you."

Binabik stepped back, Sisqi and the herder Snenneq were there, waiting

at the cave-mouth. They came forward to stand beside Simon. Binabik's

intended spoke to Simon in troll speech. Her dark eyes were grave. Beside

her, Snenneq seemed uncomfortable, shuffling from foot to foot.

"Sisqinanamook says she is sorrowful for you in the losing of your

friend- She also says you showed rare bravery. Now all have seen the

courage that you showed also on the dragon-mountain."

Simon nodded, embarrassed. Snenneq made a throat-clearing noise and

began a speech of his own. Simon waited patiently until Binabik could

explain.

"Snenneq, herd-chief of Lower Chugik, says he, too, is sorry. Many

good lives were lost yesterday. He also wishes to give you something back

which you lost."

The herder produced Simon's bone-handled knife, passing it to him

with a show of reverence.

"It was taken from the neck of a dead giant," Binabik said quietly. "The

gift of the Qanuc has been blooded in defense of Qanuc lives. This means

much to my people."

Simon accepted the knife, sliding it back into the decorated sheath on

his belt. "Guyop," he said. "Please tell them I am glad to have it back. I'm

not quite sure what 'defense of Qanuc lives' meanswe all fought the

same enemy. But I don't want to think about killing just now."

"Of course." Binabik turned to Sisqi and the herder, speaking briefly.

They nodded. Sisqi leaned forward to touch Simon's arm in wordless

commiseration, then turned and led awkward Snenneq from the cave.

"Sisqi is leading the others in building the caims of stone," Binabik

said. "And as for you, Simon-friend, there is nothing more to be done by

you this day. Sleep."

After tucking the cloak carefully around Simon's shoulders, Binabik

disappeared out through the opening of the cavern, stepping carefully

around the sleeping forms of the other wounded. Simon watched him go,

154 Tad Williams

thinking of Haestan and the rest of the dead. Were they even now

traveling the road toward the complete stillness that Simon had glimpsed?

As he fell asleep, he thought he saw his Erkynlandish friend's broad

back vanishing down a corridor into white silence- Haestan, Simon thought,

did not seem to walk like a man who bore regretsbut then, it was only

a dream.

^

Next day the noon sun pierced the mists, splashing light on Sikkihoq's

proud slopes. Simon's pain was less than he had thought it would be.

With Sludig's help, he was able to limp down from the cave to the flat shelf

of rock where the cairns were being finished. There were ten, nine small

and one large, the rocks carefully piled so that no wind or weather would

shift them.

Simon saw Haestan's pale face, blood-striped, before Sludig and his troll

helpers finished winding the guardsman's cloak about him. Haestan's eyes

were shut, but his wounds were such that Simon could not maintain any

illusion that his long-time companion only slept. He had been killed by the

Storm King's brutal minions, and that was something to be remembered.

Haestan had been a simple man. He would appreciate the notion of

vengeance.

After Haestan had been laid away and the stones fitted atop his caim.

Binabik's nine tribesmen and tribeswomen were lowered into their own

graves, each with some article particular to him or heror so Binabik

explained it to Simon. When this was done and the nine caims were

sealed, Binabik stepped forward. He raised his hand. The other trolls

began to chant. There were tears in many eyes, both male and female; one

glimmered on Binabik's own cheek. After some time had passed, the

chanting came to a halt. Sisqi stepped forward, handing Binabik a torch

and a small bag. Binabik sprinkled something from the bag on each

grave, then touched the flame to it. A thin coil of smoke rose from each

caim in his wake, quickly shredded by the mountain wind. When he had

finished the last, he handed the torch to Sisqi and began to sing a long

string ofQanuc words. The melody was like the voice of the wind itself,

rising and falling, rising and falling.

Binabik's wind-song came to an end. He took torch and sack and raised

a plume of smoke on Haestan's barrow as well.

"Sedda told her children,"

he sang in the Westerling speech,

STONE OF FAREWELL155

"Lingit and Yana,

Told them to choose their way

Bird's way or moon's way

'Choose now,' she said.

"Bird's way is egg's way

Death is a door then

Egg-children stay behind

Fathers and mothers go beyond

Do you choose this?

"Moon's way is no-death

Live always under stars

Go through no shadowed doors

Find no new land beyond

Do you choose this?

"Swift-blooded Yana

Pale-haired and laughing-eyed

Said: 'I choose moon's way.

I seek no other doors.

This world is my home.'

"Lingit her brother

Slow-footed, dark-eyed,

Said: 'I'll take bird's way.

Walk under unknown skies

Leave world to my young.'

"We children of Lingit all

Share his gift equally

Pass through the lands of stone

Just once, then we are gone,

Out through the door

"We go to walk beyond

Search for stars in the sky

Hunt the caves past the night

Strange lands and different lights

But do not return."

When he had finished singing, Binabik bowed to Haestan's cairn. "Fare-

well, brave man. The trolls will remember your name. We will sing of

you in Mintahoq a hundred springs from now!" He turned to Simon and

156

Tad Williams

Sludig, who stood by solemnly. "Would you like to be saying something?"

Simon shook his head uncomfortably. "Only . . . God bless you, Haestan.

They will sing of you in Erkynland, too, if I have my way."

Sludig stepped forward. "I should say an Acdonitc prayer," he said.

"Your song was very good, Binabik of Mintahoq, but Haestan was an

Aedonite man and must be properly shriven."

"Please," Binabik said. "You have listened to ours."

The Rimmersman took his wooden Tree from beneath his shirt and

stood at the head of Haestan's caim. The smoke continued to waver

upward.

"Our Lord protect you,"

Sludig began,

"And Usires His only Son lift you up.

May you be carried to the green valleys

Of His domains.

Where the souls of the good and righteous singjrom the hilltops,

And angels are in the trees,

Speaking joy with God's own voice.

"May the Ransomer protect you

From all evil,

And may your soul jind peace everlasting,

And heart's ease beyond compare."

Sludig laid his Tree atop the stones, then walked back to stand by

Simon.

"One last thing let me say," Binabik called out. raising his voice. He

spoke the same words in Qanuc and his people listened attentively. "This

is the first day in a thousand years chat Qanuc and Utkutroll and

lowlanderhave been fighting at each other's side, have been blooded

together and have fallen together. It is the hate and the hating of our

enemy that has been bringing this upon us, but if our peoples can stand

together for the battle that is cominga greatest, but perhaps also last,

battlethe deaths of all our friends will be even better given than they

now are." He turned and repeated the words for his tribesmen. Many of

them nodded their heads, pounding their spear butts on the ground. From

somewhere up the slope, Qantaqa howled. Her mournful voice echoed all

over the mountain.

"Let us not forget them, Simon," Binabik said as the rest of his fellows

mounted up. "These, or" any of the others who have already died. Let us

STONE OF FAREWELL

157

be taking strength from the gifting of their livesbecause if we fail, they

will perhaps be seeming the lucky ones. Are you able to walk?"

"For a while," Simon replied. "Sludig will walk with me."

"We will not ride long today, for the afternoon has far advanced," the

troll said, squinting up at the white spot of sun. "But all speed is necessary.

Half our company, nearly, we have lost in killing five giants. The Storm

King's mountains to the west are full of such creatures, and we cannot

be knowing there are not more nearby."

"How long before your fellow trolls turn their own way," Sludig

asked, "to go to this Blue Mud Lake your master and mistress spoke of?"

"That is another thing for concern," Binabik agreed grimly. "Another

day or two days, then we will be three travelers only in the Waste." He

turned as a large gray shape appeared at his elbow, panting hugely.

Qancaqa nudged him impatiently with her broad nose. "Four travelers, if I

may be pardoned," he amended, but did not smile.

Simon felt himself empty as they started down Sikkihoq's last reaches,

hollowed out, so that if he stood just right the wind might whistle

through him. Another friend was gone, and home was only a word.

9

CoCcC oncC Curses

J. riC (iJtCTTlOOTI- was failing Prince Josua's tattered minions

were tumbled all together beneath a tangle of willows and cypresses in a

moss-carpeted gulley that had once been a riverbed A slender, muddy

trickle ran along in the middle, all that remained of the watercourse

Above them rose a hilly slope whose heights were hidden behind close-

crowding trees

They had hoped to be atop the rise when the sun went down, a

defensive position superior to anything they could hope to find in this

thick-shrouded valley, but twilight was now imminent and the company's

progress had slowed to a crawl

Either they had guessed correctly, Deomoth reflected, and the Noms

were indeed trying to herd them rather than kill them, or else they had

been very lucky Arrows had flown in biting swarms throughout the day

Several had found targets, but none of the wounds had been mortal

Emskaldir had been struck on his helmet, causing a gash above his eye that

wept blood all the long afternoon The back of Isom's neck had been

slashed by another arrow, and Lady Vorzheva had received a long, bloody

weal on her forearm

Surprisingly. Vorzheva had seemed almost unaffected by her injury,

binding it with a strip of her tattered skirt and plodding on without a

word of complaint Deornoth had been impressed by this show of cour-

age, but had also wondered if it might not be an indication of dangerous

and despairing unconcern She and PnnceJosua were pointedly not speaking

with each other Vorzheva's face turned gnm whenever the pnnce was near

Josua, Father Strangyeard, and Duchess Gutrun had so far escaped

damage Ever since their fleeing troop had reached the gulley and had

taken advantage of its scanty protection to fall down exhausted, they had

all been busily engaged in binding of wounds At the moment, the priest

was tending to Towser, who had fallen sick during the march, the other

pair were looking after Sangfugol's injuries

STONE OF FAREWELL159

Even if the Norns do not mean to kill us, they obviously intend to stop us,

Deornoth thought, rubbing his aching leg Perhaps they no longer care

whether we have one of the Great Swords, or perhaps their spies told them we do

not But why don't they simply kill us, then7 Do they wish to capture josua?

Trying to understand the Norns was dizzying What should we do, in any

case7 Is it better to be shot to pieces and then captured, or to turn and fight to the

death'

But did they even have a choice3 The Noms were mere shadows in the

forest As long as they had arrows to shoot, the white-faced pursuers

could do as they wished What could Josua's folk do to force them to

fight^

Fog was forming rapidly on the damp ground, turning the trees and

stones indistinct, as though Josua's people were trapped in some becween-

world that straddled life and death An owl flitted silently overhead like a

gray ghost

Deomoth struggled to his feet and went to help Strangyeard The pnnce

came to join them, watching as the priest swabbed Towser's feverish

brow with his kerchief

"It is a pity ." Strangyeard said without looking up "A pity, I mean,

that the fog is everywhere, but we still have so little clean water Even the

ground is wet, but it does us no good "

"If tonight is as damp and cold as the last," Deomoth said, grasping

Towser's hand as the old man fretfully clutched at the kerchief, "we will

be able to wring out our clothes and fill the Kynslagh "

"We must not spend the night here," Josua said "We must get to high

ground "

Deornoth looked at him carefully The prince was showing no signs of

his earlier lassitudein fact, Josua's eyes were bright. He seemed to be

coming back to life just as all around him were dying "But how, my

prince^' Deomoth asked "How can we hope to drag our bleeding bodies

up that hill3 We do not even know how high it is."

Josua nodded, but said "Nevertheless, we must climb it before dark

What little ability to resist that we retain will be useless if they can come

down on us from above "

His fierce face daubed with dried blood, Emskaldir came and crouched

beside them "If only they would come within reach " He dandled his axe

and laughed sourly "If we show ourselves, they pick us to pieces They

see better in dark than us "

"We must go up the slope all in a herd," the pnnce said, "huddled up

like frightened cattle Those on the outside will wrap their legs and arms

in whatever thick clothing we have That way, if they fear to make a fatal

shot, they will be perhaps less likely to let fly into a crowd, where the

missed wounding in the front may take a life in the rear "

Einskaldir grunted "So we make us an unmissable targetcannot shoot

one without shooting more Madness'"

160 Tad Williams

Josua turned on him sharply. "You are not answerable for the lives of

this company, Einskaldir. I am! If you would fight your own way, then

go! If you would remain with us, then be silent and do as I say."

Several among the company who had been talking fell silent, waiting.

The Rimmersman stared at Josua for a moment, his eyes blank, his

bearded jaw twitching. Then he smiled in grim admiration.

"Ho/ayes. Prince Josua," was all Einskaldir said.

The prince put a hand on Deornoth's shoulder. "We can do nothing

else, even when hope is gone, but struggle on . . ."

"There is still hope, if you will hear it."

Deornoth turned, expecting to find Duchess Gutrun standing byfor it

had seemed an older's woman's voice, deep and a little hoarsebut

Gutrun was tending the harper Sangfugol and was too far away to have

been the source.

"Who speaks?" Josua said, staring away from his companions, out into

the forest. He drew his slender sword from its scabbard. Those around

him fell silent, sensing his alarm. "I said, who speaks?"

*7 do," the voice replied in a matter-of-fact way. The accent was that of

one not native to the Westerling speech. "I did not want to catch you

unaware. There is hope, i said. I come as ajriend."

"Norn tricks!" Einskaldir snarled, hefting his axe as he tilted his head to

locate the source of the voice.

Josua raised his hand to hold him back and called: "If you are a friend,

then why do you not come forward?"

"Because I have not finished changing and I do not want tojrighten you. Your

jriends are my friendsMorgenes of the Hayholt, Binabik o/Yiqanuc."

Deornoth felt the hair stirring on his neck at the invisible being's words.

To hear those names here, in the middle of unknown Aldheorte! "Who are

you?" he cried.

There was a rustling in the shadowed undergrowth. A strangely-shaped

figure stepped toward them through the rising fog. No, Deomoth real-

ized, there were two figures, one large and one small.

"In this part of the world," the taller one said, with what sounded like a

touch of amusement in her harsh voice, "I am known as Geloe."

"Valada Geloe!" Josua breathed. "The wise woman. Binabik spoke of

you."

"Some say wise, some say witch," she answered. "Binabik is small but

polite. Such things we may talk about later, however. Now it grows

dark."

She was not tall or particularly large, but there was something in her

posture that spoke of strength. Her short-cropped hair was mostly gray, her

nose prominent and sharp, with a downward curve. Geloe's most arrest-

ing feature was her eyes: wide and heavy-lidded, they caught the dying

sun with a peculiar yellow gleam, reminding Deornoth of nothing so

STONE OF FAREWELL

161

much as a hawk or owl. So striking were they that it was some time

before he noticed the young girl whose hand she held.

This one was small, perhaps eight or nine years, and pale of face. Her

eyes, although an unexceptional shade of dark brown, had much of the

curious intensity of the older woman's. But where Geloe's gaze seized

attention like an arrow quivering on a drawn string, the little girl looked

starkly into nothingness, her stare as objectless as a blind beggar's.

"Leieth and I are here to join you," Geloe said, "and to lead you if we

may, at least for a short while. If you try to climb that hill, some of you

will die. None of you will reach the summit."

"What do you know about it?" Isom demanded. He looked confused.

He was not the only one.

"This. The Norns are reluctant to slay youthis is obvious, or a party

like yours on foot would not have gotten a tenth this far into the forest.

But if you cross that hill, you will have crossed over into territory

through which the Hikeda'ya cannot follow. If there are any of you they

do not need aliveand surely not all of you are valuable to them, if that is

even the reason the Noms have let you get so farthey will take the risk

of trying to kill the dispensable ones to frighten the rest off the slopes."

"So what are you telling us, then?" Josua askedr stepping forward.

Their eyes locked. "Over this hill safety lies, but we dare not go there?

What, should we lay down and die?'

"No," Geloe responded calmly. "I only said you should not climb the

hill. There are other ways."

"Fly?" Einskaldir snarled.

"Some do." She smiled as at a quiet joke. "But all you need do is follow

us." Taking the girl's hand again, she started off along the edge of the

gulley.

"Where are you going?" Deornoth cried, and felt a pang of fear at being

left behind as the pair began to fade into the twilit shadows.

"Follow," Geloe called back over her shoulder. "Darkness is growing."

Deornoth turned to stare at the prince, but Josua was already helping

Duchess Gutrun onto her feet. As the rest hurried to pick up their meager

belongings, Josua walked briskly to where Vorzheva sat and extended his

hand. She ignored him and got to her feet, then strode down into the

gulley with head held high, like a queen in procession. The others fol-

lowed limping after her, whispering wearily among themselves.

Geloe stopped to wait for the farthest-trailing stragglers. At her side

Leieth disconcertingly stared off into the forest, as if she expected someone.

"Where are we going?" Deomoth asked as he and Isorn rested, scraping

the slimy mud of the strcambed from their boots. The harper Sangfugol,

who could not walk without someone at either shoulder, was sitting on

his own for a moment, breathing heavily.

162

Tad Williams

"We are not leaving the forest," the witch woman said, inspecting the

bit of purple sky that could be seen through the willow branches "But we

will pass beneath the hill into a part of the old woods once known as

Shisae'ron As I said, the Hikeda'ya are not likely to follow us there "

"Pass under the hilP What can that mean5" Isorn demanded

"We walk in the bed of Re Sun'em, an ancient river," Geloe said

"When I first came here. the forest was a lively country, not the dark

tangle it has become This nver was one of many that spanned the great

woods, carrying all manner of things and all manner of folk from Da'ai

Chikiza to high Asu'a "

"Asu'a7" Deomoth wondered "Was that not the Sithi name for the

Hayholt?"

"Asu'a was more than the Hayholt ever will be," Geloe said sternly, her

eyes searching for the last of the wandering line "Sometimes you men

are like lizards, sunning on the stones of a crumbled house, thinking

'what a nice basking-spot someone built for me ' You stand in the sad

mud of what was a wide, beautiful river, where the boats of the Old Ones

skimmed and flowers grew "

"This was a fairy nver7" horn's attention had been wandering Now,

startlement on his broad face, he peered around as though the streambed

itself might exhibit signs of treachery

"Idiot'" Geloe said scornfully "Yes, it was a *fairy nver ' This entire

land wasas you would put ita fairy country What sort of creatures do

you think pursue you5"

"II knew that," Isom muttered, abashed "But I had not thought

of it that way Their arrows and swords were real, that was all I could

think of "

"As were the arrows and swords of your ancestors, Rimmersmanne,

which accounts for some of the bad blood between your folk and theirs

The difference is, chough King Fingil's reavers killed many Sithi with their

blades of black iron, Fmgil and your other ancestors at last aged and died

The Children of the East do not dieat least, not in such a time as you

can understandand neither do they forget old wrongs If they are old,

they are all the more patient for it " She stood up, looking about for

Leieth, who had wandered off "Let us go," she called sharply "Time to

nurse wounds when we have passed through "

"Passed through where3" Deornoth asked "How7 You never told us "

"Nor need I waste my breath now," she said "We will be there soon "

The light was fading fast and the footing was treacherous, but Geloe

was an unflagging guide She had increased the pace, waiting only long

enough for the first stragglers to catch up before pushing on again

The sky had taken on night's earliest hues when the riverbed bent again

A darker shape suddenly loomed before them, a shadow tall as the trees

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and blacker than the surrounding obscurity The walkers stumbled to a

halt, those who could summon the breath moaning in weanness

Geloe took an unlit brand from her bag, handing it to Einskaldir His

sour remark died in his throat as she narrowed her yellow eyes "Take this

and put flint and steel to it," she said "We will at least need some light

where we are going "

A furlong or less from where they stood, the streambed vanished into

darkness as it entered a vast hole in the hillside, an arched mouth whose

dressed stones had been almost completely engulfed by a clinging blanket

of moss

Einskaldir sf-ruck with his axe head, a flint spark jumped, igniting the torch

Its growing yellow light brought forward other stones that shone pale

beneath the overgrown frontage Trees of great size and age had thrust out

from the hillside above the arch, pushing aside the facing in their reach

toward the sun

"A tunnel all the way through the hill7" Deomoth gasped

"The Old Ones were mighty builders," Geloe said, "but never better

than when they built around the things earth had already grown, so that

city lived together with forest or mountain "

Sangfugol coughed "It looksan abode of ghosts," he whispered

Geloe snorted "Even if so, they are not the dead that you should

fear " She seemed about to say something else when there was a hiss and a

smack Suddenly an arrow was shivering in the trunk of a cypress near

Einskaldir's head

"You who would jlee," a cold voice called, echoing so that it was

impossible to discern its source, "you must surrender now We have spared

you thus far, but we may not allow you to cross through We will destroy you

all"

"Aedon preserve us'" Duchess Gutrun wept, her great courage finally

weakening "Save us. Lord'" She sagged down onto the wet turf

"It is the torch'" Josua said, coming up quickly "Put out the torch,

Einskaldir "

"No," Geloe said, "you will never find your way in the dark " She

raised her voice "Hikeda'yei/' she cned, "do you know who I am7"

"Yes, we know you, old woman," the voice said "But whatever respect you

might deserve was lost the moment you threw in your lot with these mortals The

world could have spun on, leaving you undisturbed in your solitary housebut

you would not let well enough alone Now you also are unbowed, and must go

naked like a crab with no shell You too can die, old woman "

"Douse the torch, Einskaldir," Josua snapped, "we can light another

when we have reached shelter "

The Rimmersman stared at the prince for a moment Darkness had

arrived but for the torch's rippling flame, Josua would never have seen

him smile

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"Don't wait too long to follow me," was all Einskaldir said. A moment

later he had dashed away down the riverbed toward the great arch, the

flame held high over his head. Arrow hissed past his companions as the

Rimmersman, now only a leaping spot of light, swerved and dodged.

"Go! Up and run!"Josua cried. "Help the one nearest you. Run!'''

Someone was shouting in an alien tongueindeed, the whole forest

seemed suddenly alive with noise. Deomoth reached down and caught at

Sanfugol's arm, dragging the wounded harper to his feet, and together

they plunged through the overhanging greenery after the dwindling spark

of Emskaldir's torch.

Branches slapped at their faces and snatched at their eyes with cruel

talons. Another shout of pain rang out before them and the shrill cries

redoubled. Deornoth turned to look briefly over his shoulder. A swarm of

pale shapes were sweeping forward over the misty ground, faces whose

pitchy eyes filled him with despair, even from afar.

Something struck the side ofDeomoth's head violently, staggering him.

He could hear Sangfugol sobbing in pain as the harper tugged at his

elbow. For a long moment it seemed to the knight that it would be easier

just to lie on the ground.

"Merciful Aedon, give me rest," he heard himself praying, "in Your arms

will I sleep, upon Thy bosom I will take my peace ..." but Sangfugol would

not stop pulling at him. Dazed, irritated, he stumbled to his feet once

more and saw a scatter of stars gleaming through the treetops.

Not enough light to see under the hill, he thought, then noticed he was

running again. But running or not, Deornoth thought, he and Sangfugol

were moving very slowly: the dark smear on the hillside didn't seem to be

getting any closer. He put his head down and watched his feet, dim,

shadowy shapes slipping on the muddy streambed.

My head. I've hurt my head again . . .

The next thing Deomoth knew, he had plunged into darkness as abruptly

as if someone had thrown a sack over him. He felt more hands take his

elbows and help him forward. His head felt curiously light and empty.

"There's the torch, ahead," someone said nearby.

That sounds likejosua's voice, Deornoth decided. Is he under the sack, too?

He staggered on a few steps and saw a light glowing. He looked down,

trying to make sense of it all. Einskaldir sat on the ground, leaning against

a stone wall that rose and curved overhead. The Rimmersman held a torch

in his hand. There was blood in his beard.

"Take this," Einskaldir said to no one in particular. "I've got. . . arrow

in ... back. Can't . . . breathe . . ." He sagged slowly forward against

Josua's leg. It looked so odd that Deornoth tried to laugh, but couldn't.

The empty feeling was spreading. He bent forward to help Einskaldir, but

instead found himself down a deep black hole.

"Usires save us, look at Deomoth's head. . . !" someone cried. He

STONE OF FAREWELL165

didn't recognize the voice, and wondered who it was they were so upset

about . . . Then the darkness had returned and it was hard to think. The

hole that he had fallen into seemed very deep indeed.

^

Rachel the Dragon, the Hayholt's Mistress of Chambermaids, lifted her

bundle of wet linens higher on her shoulders. Crying to find the balance

least trying to her aching back. It was useless, of course: there would be

no ending to the pain until God the Father gathered her up to Heaven.

Rachel was feeling distinctly un-Dragonlike. The chambermaids who

had given her the name long ago, when the force of Rachel's will had been all

that stood between the age-old Hayholt and the tides of decay, would

have been surprised to see her as she was nowa bent, complaining old

woman. She was surprised herself. A chance reflection in a silver serving

tray one recent morning had shown her a gaunt-faced harridan with

dark-circled eyes. It had been many a long year since she had thought

much about her looks, but still, this seemed a shocking transformation.

Had it been only four months since Simon died? It felt like years. That

had been the day when she felt things beginning to slip away from her.

She had always lorded over the Hayholt's vast household like a tyrant

river-captain, but despite her young charges' whispered complaints, the

work had always gotten done. Mutinous talk had never bothered Rachel

much, in any case: she knew that life was but a long struggle against

disorder, and that disorder was the inevitable winner. Rather than leading

her to accept the futility of her role, however, this knowledge instead had

whipped Rachel on to greater resistance. Her parents' fierce northern

Aedonite faith had taught her that the more hopeless the struggle, the

more crucial it was to struggle valiantly. But some of the life had leaked

out of her when Simon died in the smoking inferno that had been Doctor

Morgenes' chambers.

Not that he had been a well-behaved boyno, far from it. Simon had

been willful and disobedient, a woolgatherer and a mooncalf. He had,

however, brought a certain irritating liveliness to Rachel's life. She would

have even welcomed the sputtering rages into which he provoked herif

only he were still here.

In fact, it was still hard to believe he was dead. Nothing could have

survived the firing of the Doctor's quarterscaused when some of Morgenes'

devilish potions had caught flame, or so members of the king's Erkynguards

had informed her. The fused wreckage and shattered beams made it

impossible to suppose anyone in the room could have lived for more than

a few moments. But she could not feel chat he was really dead. She had

been almost a mother to the boy, had she not? Raised himwith the help

other chambermaids, of coursesince his first hour, when his mother had

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died in childbirth despite all Doctor Morgenes' attempts to save her So

shouldn't Rachel know if he was truly gone5 Shouldn't she feel the final

severing of the cord that had bound her to that stupid, addle-pated, gawky

boy1'

Oh, merciful Rhiap, she thought, are you crying again, old woman7 Your

brains have gone soft as sweetmeats

Rachel knew of other domestics who had lost actual birth-children and

still talked about them as if they were alive, so why should she feel any

differently about Simon5 It didn't change anything The boy was undeni-

ably dead, killed by his love for hanging about with that mad alchemist

Morgenes, and that was that

But things had certainly seemed to go wrong since then A cloud had

descended on her beloved Hayholt, a fog of discomfort that crept into

every corner The battle against untidiness and dirt had swung against her,

becoming lately a thoroughgoing rout All this, despite the fact chat the

castle seemed emptier than it had any time she could rememberat least at

night In daylight, when the clouded sun shone through the high windows

and lit the gardens and commons, the Hayholt was still a not of activity

In fact, with the Thnthmgs mercenaries and South Islanders now flooding

in to replace the soldiers Ehas had lost at Naghmund, the castle's environs

were noisier than ever Several of her girls, frightened by the scarred,

tattooed Thnthings-men and their rough manners, had left the Hayholt

entirely to live with country relatives To Rachel's disgust and increasing

dismay, despite the hordes of hungry mendicants roaming Erchester and

camped around the walls of the Hayholt itself, it was almost impossible to

replace the departing chambermaids

But Rachel knew that it was not JUSC the castle's wild new inhabitants

that made it hard to find new girls Crowded with brawling soldiers and

disdainful nobles as it was during the light of day, by night the Hayholt

seemed as uninhabited as the hch-yard beyond Erchester's walls Echoes

and strange voices floated through the corridors Footfalls sounded where

no one walked Rachel and her remaining wards now locked themselves in

at night Rachel told them it was to keep out the drunken soldiery, but she

and her chambermaids both knew that the carefully-checked door bolt and

shared prayers before retiring did not come from fear of anything as easy

to name as a besotted Thnthmgs-man

Even strangeralthough she would never, never admit it to her Blessed-

Rhiap-preserve-them chargesRachel had found herself lost a few times

in recent weeks, wandering in corridors she did not recognize Rachel

herself She who had bestrode this castle as confidently as any ruler for

decades, now lost in her own home This was either madness or the folly

of ageor some demon's curse

Rachel thumped down the sack of wet sheets and leaned against a wall

A trio of older priests eddied around her in their passage, talking heatedly

167

STONE OF FAREWELL

in Nabbanai They gave her no more of a glance than they would a dog

dead m the road She stared after them as she fought to catch her breath

To think that at her age, after all her years of service, she should be

carrying around sodden bed linens like the lowliest downstairs maid' But

it had to be done Someone had to carry on the fight

Yes, things had been going wrong ever since the day Simon died, and

did not look to get better soon She frowned and hoisted her burden once

more

Rachel had finished hanging out the wet bedding Watching the linen

flap m the late-afternoon breeze, she marveled at such cool weather

Tiyagar-month, the middle of summer, and still the days were as cold as

early spring It was certainly better than the deadly drought that had ended

last year, but even so, she felt herself longing for the hot days and warm

nights that were the yearly summer's-due Herjoints hurt and chill mornings

only made the hurting worse The dampness seemed to slip stealthily into

her very bones

She crossed back across the commons, wondering where her helpers

had gotten to Having a sit-down and a giggling conversation, no doubt,

while the Mistress of Chambermaids labored like a yeoman Rachel was

sore, but there was enough strength still in her good right arm to sting a

few girls into service'

It was too bad, she reflected as she made her way slowly around the

Outer Bailey, that there wasn't somebody who could take a strong hand

to this castle Elias had seemed like the type after blessed old King John

had died, but Rachel had been sorely disappointed The apple, she

thought, had fallen quite a bit farther from the tree than anyone could

have guessed But that was no surprise, really It was just men, was what

it was Swaggering, bragging menexactly like little boys, when you got

down to it, even the grown ones acting no smarter than young mooncalf

Simon had been They didn't know how to deal with things, men didn't,

and King Elias was no exception

Take this madness with his brother Now, Rachel had never much liked

Prince Josua He was a sight too clever and solemn for her, obviously one

who thought himself pretty blessed smart But to think that he was a

traitorwell, that was just foolishness and anyone could tell it' Josua had

been too bookish and high-minded for such nonsense, but what had his

brother Elias done5 Gone dashing off to the north with an army, and

through some trick pulled down Josua's castle at Naglimund and slaugh-

tered and burned And why5 Some damned man's pnde on King Elias'

part Now a lot of Erkynlandish women were widows, the harvest was

going badly, and all the Hayholt and its inhabitants wereLord Usires

pardon for her'thmking it, but it was only the truthgoing straight to

Hell

168 Tad Williams

The back of the Nearulagh Gate loomed before her, its long shadow

painting the walls on either side with darkness Quarreling birds, kites and

ravens, fought over the few remaining scraps of the ten skeletal heads

fixed on pikes atop the gate

Rachel shuddered despite herself as she made the sign of the Tree This

was something else that had changed Never in all the long years she had

kept house for King John had there been such a show of cruelty as Ellas

had made of these traitors They had all been beaten and quartered in

Battle Square down in Erchester, before a restive and uneasy crowd Not

that any of the executed nobles had been particularly popularBaron

Godwig, especially, was much hated for his ill-rule of Cellodshirebut

everyone had sensed the wispmess of the king's accusations Godwig and

the rest had gone to their deaths like men astounded, shaking their heads

and protesting their innocence until the cudgels of the Erkynguards had

smashed the life out of them Now their heads had stood above the

Nearulagh Gate for a full [wo weeks while the carrion birds, like clever

little sculptors, slowly brought the skulls to the surface Few of those who

passed beneath them stared for long Most who looked up turned away

quickly, as if they had glimpsed something forbidden instead of the abject

public lesson the king desired

Traitors, the king called them, and as traitors they had died Rachel

thought they would be little missed, but still their deaths brought the fog

of despair down a bit closer

As Rachel hurried past with eyes averted, she was almost knocked

down by a young squire sloshing through the muddy road leading a

horse After she had scrambled to a position of safety against the outer

wall, Rachel turned to see the riders pass

They were all soldiersall but one Where the armored men wore the

green tunics of the king's Erkynguard, the other wore a robe of flaming

scarlet, a black traveling cloak, and tall black boots

Pryrates' Rachel stiffened Where was that devil going with his honor

guard of soldiers7

The priest seemed to float above his companions As the soldiers laughed

and talked, Pryrates looked neither right or left, his hairless head rigid as a

spearpomt, his black eyes fixed on the gate before him

Things had truly begun to go wrong when the red priest arrivedas if

Pryrates himself had put an evil spell on the Hayholt Rachel had even

wondered for a while if Pryrates, whom she knew had not liked Morgencs.

might have burned down the doctor's rooms Could a man of Mother

Church do such a thing3 Could he kill innocent peoplelike her Simon

for a grudge7 But the rumors did say that the priest's father was a demon,

his mother a witch Rachel made the sign of the Tree again, watching his

proud back as the party ambled past

Could one man bring evil down on everyone, she wondered3 And why5

STONE OF FAREWELL169

Just to be doing the devil's work3 She looked around carefully, embar-

rassed, then spat in the mud to ward evil What did it matter3 There was

nothing an old woman like her could do, was there3

She watched Pryratcs and the company ofsoidicrs ride out through the

Nearulagh Gate, then turned and began trudging toward the residences,

thinking about curses and cold weather

^

The late afternoon sun slanted m through the trees, making the thin

leaves glow The forest mist had finally burned away A few birds trilled

in the treetops Deornoth, fetlmg the pam in his head diminishing, stood

up

The wise woman Geloe had nursed Einskaldir's terrible wounds all

morning before leaving him at last to the ministrations of Duchess Gutrun

and Isorn The Rimmersman, feverish and raving while Geloe had applied

poultices to the arrow-spites in his back and side, now lay quietly She

could not say if he would live

Geloe had labored the rest of the afternoon on the other members of the

company, treating Sangfugol's festering leg wound and the many injuries

the rest of the party had suffered as well Her knowledge of healing herbs

was wide and her pockets were well-stuffed with useful things She

seemed certain that all except for the Rimmersman would be quickly

improved

The forest on this side of the hill-tunnel was not much different from

that which they had Just left, Deomoth thoughtat least in looks The

oaks and elders grew close here, too, and the ground was powdery with

the remains of long-dead trees, but there was something different in the

heart of it, some faint grace or inner liveliness, as if the air were lighter or

the sun shone more warmly Of course, Deornoth realized, it might only

be that he and the others in Prince Josua's party had lived another day

longer than they had expected

Geloe was sitting on a log with Prince Josua Deornoth started to

approach, then hesitated, unsure of his welcome Josua smiled wearily and

waved him over

"Come, Deornoth, sit down How is your head3"

"Sore, Highness "

"It was a cruel blow," Josua said, nodding

Geloe looked up and briefly surveyed Deornoth Earlier she had scanned

the bloody wound in Deornoth's scalp where the tree limb had struck

him, then pronounced it "not serious "

"Deornoth is my right hand,' Josua told her ' It is good that he should

hear all this, against the chance anything should happen to me "

Geloe shrugged "Nothing I will speak of is a secret At least, not the

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kind we should keep from each other." She turned for a moment to watch

Leieth. The child sat quietly in Vorzhcva's lap. but her eyes were fixed on

nothing visible, and no words or caresses from Vorzhcva could arouse her

attention.

"Where do you think to go. Prince Josua?" Geloe said at last. "You

have escaped the vengeance of the Norns, at least for a while. Where will

you go?"

The prince frowned. "I have not thought of anything but winning our

way to safety. I suppose if this" he waved his hand at the forest clearing,

"is a place of refuge against the demons, as you say it is, we should stay

here."

The witch woman shook her head. "Of course, we must stay until all

are well enough to walk. But then?"

"I have no idea yct."Josua looked at Deomoth, as if hoping for some

suggestion. "My brother stands victorious over all the lands of the High

King's Ward. I cannot think of who would hide me under peril of Elias'

anger." He slapped his left hand against the stump of his right. "All our

chances seem to have come to nothing. It was a poor game."

"I did not ask the question innocently," Geloe said, rearranging her seat

upon the log. She wore boots as a man did, Deornoth saw, and well-

traveled boots at that. "Let me tell you of some important things and you

will be better able to see the possibilities. First of all, before Naglimund

fell, you sent out a party in search of something, did you not?"

Josua narrowed his eyes. "How could you know?"

Geloe shook her head impatiently. "I told you when we met that I knew

both Morgenes and Binabik ofYiqanuc. I also knewJarnauga ofTungoldyr.

We were in communication while he was at your castle and he told me

much."

"Poor Jamauga," Josua said. "He died bravely."

"Many of the wise have died; there are few left," she answered him.

"And bravery is by no means the province only of soldiers and nobles.

But since the circle of the wise is growing smaller with each such death, it

has become more than ever important that we share knowledge among

ourselves and with others. So it was thatJarnauga passed on to me all that

he did after reaching Naglimund from his home in the north. Ahl" She sat

up. "I am reminded of something." She raised her voice. "Father

Strangyeard!"

The priest looked up at her call, uncertain. She gestured for him to

come and he rose from the harper Sangfugol's side and approached.

"Jamauga thought highly of you," Geloe said. A smile crossed her

weathered features. "Did he give you anything before he left you?"

Strangyeard nodded. He produced a glittering pendant from beneath his

cassock. "This," he said quietly.

"I thought so. Well, you and I shall speak of it later, but as a member of

STONE OF FAREWELL

171

the League of the Scroll, you should certainly be part of our councils."

"A member ..." Strangyeard seemed astonished. "Me? Of the

League. . . ?"

Geloe smiled again. "Certainly. Knowing Jarnauga. I'm sure it was a

careful choice. But as I said, we shall talk more of this later, you and I."

She turned back to the prince and Deomoth. "You see, I know about the

search for the Great Swords. I do not know if Binabik and the others have

succeeded in their search for Camaris' blade Thorn, but I can tell you that

as of a day or so ago, the troll and the boy Simon were both still alive."

"Aedon be praised," Josua breathed, "that is good news! Good news in

a rime that has been short of it. My heart has been heavy for them ever

since they set out. Where are they?"

"I believe they are in Yiqanuc among the trolls. It is hard to explain

quickly, so I will say only this: my contact with young Simon was brief

and did not allow much discussion. Also, I had a message to give to them

that was most important."

"And what was that?" Deornoth asked. As pleased as he had been at the

witch woman's arrival, he now found himself a little resentful at how she

had stolen the initiative away from Prince Josua. It was a foolish and

presumptuous worry, but he wanted very much to see the prince leading

in the way that Deornoth knew he could.

"The message I gave Simon I will also give to you," Geloe responded,

"but there are other things we must speak of first." She turned to

Strangyeard. "What have you found of the other two swords?"

The priest cleared his throat. "Well," he began, "we ... we know

altogether too well the whereabouts of Sorrow. King Elias wears ita gift

from the Storm King, if stories we heard are trueand it goes with him

everywhere. Thorn, we think, is somewhere in the north; if the troll and

the others still live, I suppose there is hope they may find it. The last one,

Minneyar, once King Fingil's swordbut dear me, you must have known

that, of coursewell, Minneyar seems never to have left the Hayholt. So

two . . . two ..."

"Two of the swords are in my brother's hands," Josua finished, "and

the third is being sought in the trackless north by a troll and a young

boy." He smiled worriedly, shaking his head. "As I said before, it is a

poor game."

Geloe fixed him with her fierce yellow eyes and spoke sharply. "But a

game, Prince Josua, in which surrender is not an alternative, a game which

we must play with the pieces we have drawn. The stakes are very large

indeed."

The prince sat up straighter, raising his hand to silence Deomoth's

angry response. "Your words are well-spoken, Valada Geloe. This is the

only game we can play. We dare not lose. So, is there more you would tell

us?"

172 Tad Williams

"Much you know already, or can guess. Hernystir in the west is fallen,

King Lluth dead and his people taken to the hilts. By treachery, Nabban is

now the dukedom of Ehas' ally Benigans. Skali of Kaldskryke rules

Rimmersgard in Isgnmnur'-i stead. Now Naglimund is cast down and the

Norns haunt it like ghosts." As she spoke she took her walking stick and

drew a map in the dirt before them, marking each place as she spoke of it.

"Aldheorte Forest is free, but it is not a place for men to come together in

resistance, except perhaps in the last hope, when all else is denied them."

"And what is this, if not the last hope?" Josua said. "This is my

kingdom, Geloe, as you see it, all gathered here within a stone's throw.

We may hide, but how could we challenge Elias with so few, let alone his

ally the Storm King?"

"Ah, now we come to what I said should be saved for later," Geloe

answered, "and also where we speak of matters stranger than human

wars." Her gnarled brown hands moved quickly, sketching once more on

the ground beside her boots. "Why are we safe in this part of the forest?

Because it is under the ward of the Sithi, and the Noms dare not attack

them. A fragile peace has stood for countless years between the two

families. Even the soulless Storm King, I should think, is in no hurry to

rouse the remaining Sithi to action."

"They are families?" Deornoth asked. Geloe turned her fierce stare upon

him.

"Did you not listen to what Jamauga told you at Naglimund?" she

demanded- "What use is there m the wise giving up their lives if those for

whom they sacrifice do not listen?"

"Jamauga told us that Inelukithe Storm Kingwas once a prince of

the Sithi," Strangyeard said hurriedly, flapping his hands as if to fan away

strife. "That we knew."

"The Norns and Sithi were for eons one people," Geloe said. "When

they went their separate ways, they divided Osten Ard between them and

promised they would not cross over into each other's fields without

warrant."

"And what use is this knowledge to we poor mortals?" Deomoth asked.

Geloe waved her hand. "We are safe here because the Norns tread

carefully along the borders of the Sithi lands. Also, even in these dimin-

ished days there is a power in such places that would make them hesitate

in any case." She looked fixedly at Deomoth. "You have felt it, have you

not? But the problem is that we ten or eleven are not enough to fight

back. We must find some place safe from the Noms, but also a place

where the others who resent your brother Elias' misrule can find us. If

King Elias tightens his control over Osten Ard, if the Hayholt becomes an

unbreachable stronghold, then we will never pry loose the Great Sword

we know he has, or the other that he may have. We do not fight sorcery

only, but also a war of position and placement."

STONE OF FAREWELL173

"What are you saying?" Josua asked, his eyes intent on the witch

woman's face.

Geloe pointed at the map with her walking stick. "Out here, beyond the

forest to the east, run the meadows of the High Thnthings. There, near

the site upon which the ancient city ofEnki-e-Shao'saye once stood, along

the border between woods and grassland, is the place where Norns and

Sithi parted ways forever. It is called Sesuad'rathe Stone of Farewell."

"And . . . and we would be safe there?" Strangyeard asked, excited.

"For a time," Gcloc responded. "It is a place of power, so its heritage

may keep us safe from the Storm King's minions for a short while. But

that is good enough, for time is what we need mosttime to gather those

who would fight back against Elias, time to bring our scattered allies

together. But most importantly, we need time to solve the mystery of the

three Great Swords and find a way to fight the menace of the Storm

King."

Josua sat and stared at the line-scratched dirt. "It is a beginning," he said

at last. "Against all despair, it is a small flame of hope."

"That is why I came to you," the witch woman said. "And that is why

I told the boy Simon to come there when he could, bringing any who

were with him."

Father Strangyeard coughed apologetically. "I'm afraid I do not under-

stand, Goodwoman Geloe. How did you speak to the boy? If he is in the

distant north, you would nut have been able to get here in time. Did you

use messenger birds, as Jamauga often did?"

She shook her head. "No. I spoke to him through the girl, Leieth. It is

hard Co explain, but she helped make me stronger so I could reach out all

the way Eo Yiqanuc and tell Simon of the Stone of Farewell." She began

scratching away her map with the toe other boot. "Not smart to leave a

message showing where we're bound," she said and chuckled hoarsely.

"But could you reach out to speak with anyone this way?" Josua asked

keenly.

Geloe shook her head "I have met Simon and touched him. He was in

my house. I do not think I could find and converse with someone I did not

already know."

"But my niece Miriamele was at your house, or so I was told," the

prince said eagerly. "I have been deeply worried about her. Could you

find her for me, speak to her?"

"I have already tried." The witch woman got up, looking again to

Leieth. The little girl was walking aimlessly along the rim of the clearing,

pale lips moving as though in silent song. "There is something or some-

one close to Miriamele that prevented my reaching hera wail of some

kind. I had very little strength and my time was short, so I did not try

twice."

"Will you try again?" Josua asked.

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"Perhaps," she said, turning to look at him once more. "But I must use

my strength carefully. There is a long struggle before us." She turned to

Father Strangyeard. "Now, priest, come with me- There are things we

must speak about. You have been given a responsibility that may prove a

heavy burden."

"I know," Strangyeard answered quietly. The two of them moved

away, leaving josua deep in thought. Deornoth watched his prince for

some long moments, then wandered back to his cloak.

Towser, lying nearby, was tossing and babbling in the throes of a

nightmare. "White faces . . . hands reaching for me, hands ..." The old

man's clawed fingers raked at the air, and for a moment the noise of

birdsong was stilled.

". . . So," Josua finished, "there is a gleam of hope. If Valada Geloe

thinks we can find sanctuary in this place ..."

"And strike a blow at the king," Isom growled, his pink face scowling.

". . . Yes, and prepare to resume the struggle," josua continued, "then

we must do so. There is nowhere else for us to go, in any case. When all

can walk, we will leave the forest and cross the High Thrithings, heading

east to the Stone of Farewell."

Vorzheva, pale with anger, opened her mouth as if to say something,

but Duchess Gutrun spoke up instead. "Why leave the forest at all, Prince

Josua? Why should we go a longer way just to expose ourselves on the plains?"

Geloe, sitting beside the prince, nodded. "You ask a good question.

One reason is that we can move twice as quickly across open land and

time is precious. Also, we must leave the forest because the same ban that

keeps the Norns at a distance serves for us as well. These are Sithi lands.

We have come here because we have been driven here in peril of our lives,

but to stay long would be to invite their notice. The Sithi do not love

mortals."

"But won't the Norns pursue us?"

"I know ways through the forest that will keep us safe until we reach

the meadowlands beyond," the witch woman responded. "As to the High

Thrithings, I doubt the Norns are already so cocksure that they will cross

over in light of day to open country. They are deadly, but still far, far

fewer than humans. The Storm King has waited centuries; I think he is

patient enough to keep his full power hidden from mortals a little longer.

No, it is likely Elias' armies and the Thri things-men we need to worry

about." She turned to Josua. "You know better than I, perhaps. Do the

Thrithings-dwellers now serve Elias?"

The prince shook his head. "They are never predictable. Many clans live

there and their allegiance even to their own March-thanes is loose. Be-

sides, if we do not venture far from the forest's edge, we may never see

another soul. The Thrithings are vast."

STONE OF FAREWELL175

As he finished speaking, Vorzheva rose and stalked away, disappearing

from the clearing into a stand of birches. Josua watched her go, then a

moment later stood, leaving Geloe to answer the questions of those who

had not heard her earlier explanation ofSesuad'ra.

Vorzheva was leaning against a birch trunk, angrily peeling away strips

of papery bark. Josua paused for a long moment, watching her. Her gown

was a tattered rag, torn away to just above her knees. Her underslip had

also been shredded for bandages. Like everyone else she was dirty, her

thick black hair full of twigs and tangles, her arms and legs crisscrossed

with scratches. The arrow-wound on her forearm was wrapped in a soiled

and bloody rag.

"Why are you angry?" he asked. His voice was soft.

Vorzheva whirled, eyes wide. "Why am I angry? Why? You are a fool!"

"You have avoided me since we were cast out of Naglimund," Josua

said, caking a step nearer. "When I lie down beside you, you stiffen like a

priest with the stench of sin in his nostrils. Is this the way a lover acts?"

Vorzheva raised her hand as chough to slap at him, but he was too far

away. "Love?" she choked, her accent changing the word into something

heavy and painful. "Who are you, saying love to me? I have lost all for

you and you say this?" She rubbed at her face with her hand, leaving a

dark smear.

"The lives of all are in my hands," the prince said slowly. "And on my

soul. Men, women, children, hundreds dead in the ruins of Naglimund.

Perhaps I have been distant since the castle fell, but it was because of the

darkness of my thoughts, the ghosts who haunt me."

"Since the castle fell, you say," she hissed. "Since the castle fell, you

have treated me like a whore. You do not speak to me, you speak to all

others but me, then at night you come to touch me and hold me! Do you

think you bought me at market like a horse? I came away with you to be

free of the plains-lands . . . and to love you. You never treated me well.

Now you will drag me backdrag me back and show my shame to

everyone!" She burst into angry tears and quickly moved to the other side

of the tree, so that the prince could not see her face.

Josua looked puzzled. "What do you mean? Show your shame to

whom?"

"To my people, you fool!" Vorzheva cried. Her voice echoed dully

through the copse. "To my people!"

"To the Thrithings-people . . ."Josua said slowly. "Of course."

She came around the tree like an angry spirit, eyes bright. "I will not

go. You take your little kingdom and walk where you will, but I will not

return to my homeland in shame, like - . . like this!" She gestured furi-

ously at her raggedness.

Josua smiled sourly. "This is foolish. Look at me, the son of High King

176 Tad Williams

PresterJohn! I am a scarecrow! What does it matter? I doubt we shall see

any of your people, but even if we did, what docs it matter? Arc you so

stiff-necked that you would rather die in the forest than have a few of your

wagon-folk see you in tatters?"

"Yes!" she shouted. "Yes! You think I am a fool' You are right! I left

my home for you and fled my father's lands. Should I come back to them

like a whipped dog? 1 would die a thousand times before that! Everything

else has been taken from me, would you see me crawl, too?" She dropped

to the ground, her white knees sinking into the loam. "Then I will beg

you. Do not go to the High Thnthings. Or if you do, leave me enough

food to live for a while and I will walk to this place through the forest."

"This is madness of the worst sort,"Josua growled. "Did you not hear

what Geloc said^ If the Sithi do not kill you as a trespasser, the Norns will

catch you and do worse."

"Then kill me." She reached up to snatch at Naidel, sheathed onjosua's

belt. "I will die before I go back to the Thnthings."

Josua grabbed her wrist and pulled her upright. She squirmed in his

grip, kicking at his shins with feet clad m muddy, threadbare shppers-

"You are a child," he said angrily, then leaned away as her free hand

struck at his face. "A child with claws." He pulled her around so her back

was to him, then pushed her stumbling ahead of him until they reached a

fallen tree- He sat, pulling her down with him so that she was caught m

his lap, his arms wrapped around hers, pinioning them at her side.

"If you will act like a willful girl, I will treat you like one," he said

through clenched teeth. He swayed backward, avoiding the flailing sweep

other head as she struggled.

"I hate you!" she panted.

"At this moment, I hate you, too," he said, squeezing harder, "but

that may pass."

At last her writhing slowed until she sagged in his arms, exhausted.

"You are stronger," she moaned, "but you must sleep sometime. Then I

will kill you and kill myself."

Josua, too, was breathing heavily. Vorzheva was not a weak woman

and the prince having but one hand did not make the struggle any easier

for him. "There arc too few of us left for any killing," he muttered. "But

I will sit here and hold you until it is time to walk again, if necessary. We

will go to this Sesuad'ra, and we will all reach there alive if I have any

power to make it so "

Vorzheva again tried to pull free, but gave up quickly when it became

obvious Josua had not relaxed his grip She sat quietly for some time, her

breathing gradually slowing, the trembling other limbs abating.

The shadows grew longer. A lone cricket, anticipating the evening,

began its creaking recitation. "If you only loved me," she said at last,

staring out at the darkening forest, "I would not need to kill anyone."

"I am tired of talking. Lady," the prince said.

STONE OF FAREWELL

^

177

Princess Minamele and her pair of religious companions left the Coast

Road in late morning, riding down into the Commeis Valley, the gateway

to the city of Nabban. As they followed the steep switchbacks down the

face of the hill, Minamele found it hard to watch the road beneath her

horse's hooves. It had been a long time since she had seen the real face of

Nabban, her mother's homeland, and the temptation to gawk was very

strong. Here the farmlands began to give way to the sprawl of the

once-imperial city. The valley floor was crowded with settlements and

towns; even the steep Commeian hills were encrusted with houses of

whitewashed stone that jutted from the hillsides like teeth.

The smoke of countless fires rose up from the valley floor, a grayish

cloud hanging overhead like an awning. Most days, Miriamele knew,

the winds from the sea swept the blue sky clear, but today the breezes

were absent.

"So many people," she marveled. "And more in the city itself."

"But in some ways," Father Dinivan remarked, "that means little.

Erchester is less than a fifth this size, but the Hayholt there is the capital of

the known world. Nabban's glory is only a memoryexcept for Mother

Church, of course. Nabban is her city now."

"Is it not interesting, then, how those who slew our Lord Usires now

clasp Him to their bosom?" Cadrach said, a little farther down the trail.

"One always makes more friends after one is dead."

"I do not understand your meaning, Cadrach," Dinivan said, his homely

face solemn, "but it sounds like bitterness rather than insight."

"Does it?" said Cadrach. "I speak of the usefulness of heroes who are

not present to speak for themselves." He scowled. "Lord love me, I wish I

had some wine." He turned away from Dimvan's questioning glance,

offering no further remarks.

The plumes of smoke reminded Miriamele of something. "How many

of those Fire Dancers we saw in Tehgure are there? Are they in every

town?"

Dinivan shook his head. "There are some few that come from every

town, I would guess, but they join together and travel from place to place,

preaching their vile message. It is not their numbers that should frighten

you, but the despair they carry with them like a plague. For every one

who joins and follows them to the next town, there are a dozen more who

take the message into their secret hearts, losing faith in God."

"People believe in what they see," Cadrach said, eyes suddenly intent

on Dimvan. "They hear the Storm King's message and see what the

Storm King's hand can inspire. They wait for God to strike down the

heretics. But God does nothing."

"That is a he, Padreic," Dinivan said hotly. "Or Cadrach, or whatever

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name you now choose. For choosing is what matters. God allows each

man or woman to choose. He does not compel love."

The monk snorted as if in disgust, but continued to stare at the priest.

"That He certainly does not."

In a strange way, Miriamele thought, Cadrach seemed to be pleading

with Oinivan, as though Crying to show the lector's secretary something

that Dinivan would not recognize.

"God wishes . . ." the priest began.

"But if God does not cajole, and does not force, and does not respond

to challenges from the Storm King or anyone else." Cadrach interrupted,

his voice hoarse with suppressed emotion, "why, why do you find it

surprising that people think there is no God, or that He is helpless?"

Dinivan stared for a moment, then shook his head angrily. "That is

why Mother Church exists. To give out God's word, so that people may

decide."

"People believe what they see," Cadrach replied sadly, then dropped

back into silent thought as they plodded slowly down toward the valley

floor.

At midday they reached the crowded Anitullean Road. Streams of

people moved in each direction, eddying around wagons going to and

from market. Miriamele and her companions attracted little attention. By

sundown they had covered a great distance up the valley.

They stopped for the evening in Bellidan, one of the score of towns that

had grown together along the road until it was nearly impossible to tell

where one left off and the next began. They slept at the local priory,

where Dinivan's lectoral signet ring and exalted status made them the

center of a great deal of interest. Miriamele slipped off early to the small

cell provided for her, not wanting to take the chance of her disguise being

compromised. Dinivan explained to the monks that his companion was ill,

then brought her a satisfying meal of barley soup and bread. When she

blew out the candle to sleep, the image of the Fire Dancer was again

before her eyes, the white-robed woman bursting into flame, but here

behind the priory's thick walls it did not seem quite so frightening. It had

been just another unsettling occurrence in an unsettling world.

By late afternoon of the following day they had reached the spot where

the Anitullean Road began to climb upward through the hill passes that

led to Nabban proper. They passed dozens of pilgrims and merchants who

sat exhausted by the roadside, fanning themselves with wide-brimmed

hats. Some had merely stopped to rest and drink water, but several others

were frustrated peddlers whose donkeys had proved reluctant to pull

overloaded wagons up the steep road.

"If we stop before dark," Dinivan said, "we can stay the night in one of

STONE OF FAREWELL179

the hill towns. Then it would be a short ride into the city in the morning.

For some reason, though, I am reluctant to take any longer than necessary.

If we ride past nightfall, we can reach the Sancellan Aedonitis before

midnight."

Miriamele looked back down the road. then ahead, where it wound out

of sight among the dry golden hills. "I wouldn't mind stopping," she said.

"I'm more than a little sore."

Dinivan looked worried. "I understand. I am less used to riding than

you are. Princess, and my rump is smarting, too." He blushed and

laughed. "Your pardon. Lady. But I feel that the sooner we reach the

lector, the better."

Miriamele looked to Cadrach to see if he had something to add, but the

monk was deep in his own private thoughts, swaying from side to side as

his horse plodded uphill. "If you think there is any advantage in it at all,"

she said at last, "then let us ride the night through if necessary. Truthfully,

though, I can't think what I might tell the lectoror that he might Cell

methat would be spoiled if it waits another day."

"There are many things changing, Miriamele," Dinivan replied, lower-

ing his voice, though the road in this spot was empty but for a farm-

wagon creaking along half a furlong up the road. "In times like these,

when all is uncertain and many dangers are still not completely known, a

chance for speed not taken is often regretted later. This much wisdom I

have. With your permission, I will trust in it."

They rode all through the darkening evening and did not stop when the

stars began to appear above the hills. The road wound through the passes

and then down, past more towns and settlements, until at last they reached

the outskirts of the great city, lit with so many lamps that it outshone the

sky.

The streets of Nabban were crowded, even as midnight approached.

Torches burned on every corner. Jugglers and dancers performed in pools

of flickering light, hoping for a coin or two from drunken passersby. The

taverns, their window shutters up on a cool summer night, spilled lantern

light and noise out into the cobbled streets.

Miriamele was nodding with weariness as they left the Anitullean Road

and followed the track of the Way of the Fountains up the Sancelline Hill.

The Sancellan Aedonitis loomed before them. Its famous spire was only a

slender thread of gold in the lamplight, but a hundred windows glowed

with warm light.

"Someone is always awake in God's house," Dinivan said quietly.

As they climbed through the narrow streets, heading for the great

square, Miriamele could see the pale, curving shapes of the Sancellan

Mahistrevis' towers just beyond the Sancellan Aedonitis to the west. The

ducal castle sat on the rocky promontory at Nabban's outermost point,

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Tad Williams

commanding the sea view as Nabban itself had once commanded the lands

of men-

The two Sancellans, Miriamele thought, one built to rule the body, the other

to rule the soul. Well, the Sancellan Mahistrevis has fallen already to that

father-murderer Benigaris, but the lector is a godly mana good one, too, Dinivan

says, and Dinivan is no fool. At least there is hope there.

A seagull keened somewhere in the darkness above. She felt a pang of

regret. If her mother had never married Elias, then Miriamele could have

grown up and lived here, above the ocean. This would have been her.

home. She would be coming back to a place she belonged.

But if my mother had never married my father, she thought sleepily. I

wouldn't be me anyway. Stupid girl.

Their arrival at the doors of the lectoral palace was a confusing blur for

Miriamele, who was finding it difficult to stay awake. Several people

greeted Dinivan warmlyhe seemed to have many friendsand the next

thing she knew, she was being shown to a room with a warm, soft bed.

She did not bother to take off anything but her boots, crawling beneath

the blanket while still wrapped in her hooded cloak. Hushed voices spoke

in the corridor outside her room, then a little later she heard the Clavean

bell tolling far above her, striking more times than she could count.

She fell asleep to the sound of distant singing.

Father Dinivan woke her in the morning with berries and milk and

bread. She ate sitting up in bed while the priest lit the candles and paced

back and forth across the windownless room.

"His Sacredness was up early this morning. He was gone before I got to

his chambers, out walking somewhere. He often does that when he has

something to think about, just takes to the corridors in his night robe. He

doesn't take anyone with himexcept me, if I'm around." Dinivan flashed

a boyish smile. "This place is nearly as big as the Hayholt. He could be

anywhere."

Miriamele dabbed milk from her chin with a flapping sleeve. "Will he

see us?"

"Of course. As soon as he comes back, I'm sure. I wonder what he

thinks about. Ranessin is a deep man, deep as the sea, and like the sea, it is

often difficult to tell what hides beneath a placid surface."

Miriamele shuddered, thinking of the kilpa in the Bay of Emcttin. She

put her bowl down. "Shall 1 wear men's clothes?" she asked.

"What?" Dinivan stopped, surprised by her question. "Oh. To meet the

lector, you mean. I don't think anyone should know yet that you arc here.

I would like to say that I trust my fellow priests with my life, and I

suppose I do, but I have lived and worked here too long to trust tongues

not to wag. I did bring you some cleaner robes." He gestured to a bundle

of garments lying on a stool, beside a basin of water chat steamed faintly.

181

STONE OFFAREWELL

"So if you are ready and have finished breaking your fast, let us be off."

He stood, waiting expectantly.

Miriamele stared at the clothes for a moment, then back at Father

Dinivan, whose face wore a distracted half-frown. "Could you turn

around," she asked at last, "so I can change?"

Father Dinivan gaped for a moment, then blushed furiously, much to

Miriamele's secret amusement. "Princess, forgive me! How could I be so

discourteous? Forgive me, I will leave at once. I will be back for you soon.

My apologies. I am thinking of so many other things this morning." He

backed out of the room, closing the door carefully behind him.

When he was gone, Miriamele laughed and rose from bed. She shucked

the old robes over her head and washed herself, shivering, noting with

more interest than dismay how sun-browned her hands and wrists had

become. They were like a barge-man's hands, she thought with some

satisfaction. How her ladies-in-waiting would wince if they could see her!

The water was warm, but the chamber itself was cold, so when she

finished she hurriedly pulled on the clean clothes. Running her hands

through her short-cropped hair, she considered washing it, too, but de-

cided against it, thinking of the drafty corridors. The cold reminded her of

young Simon, walking somewhere in the chilly north. In an impulsive

moment she had given him her favorite blue scarf, "a favor that now

seemed pitifully inadequate. Still, she had meant it well. It was too thin to

keep him warm, but perhaps it would help him remember the frightening

journey they had survived together. Perhaps he would take heart.

She found Dinivan in the hall outside, trying his best to look patient.

Back in his familiar home, the priest seemed like a war-horse awaiting

battle, full of trembling need to go, to do. He took her elbow and led her

gently down the corridor.

"Where is Cadrach?" she asked. "Is he going with us to see the lector?"

Dinivan shook his head. "I am not sure of him anymore. I said that 1

think there is no great harm in him, but I also think he is a man who has

given in to many weaknesses. That is sad, because the man he once was

would have been valuable counsel indeed. Still, I thought it best to expose

him to no temptations. He is having a pleasant meal with some of my

brother priests. He will be quietly and discreetly watched."

"What was Cadrach?" she asked, craning her head to stare at the ceiling-

high tapestries that lined the corridor, scenes of Aedon's Elevation, the

Renunciation of Saint Vilderivis, the chastising of Imperator Crexis. She

thought of these frozen figures, eyes wide and white-rimmed, and of all

the centuries they had hung here while the world spun on. Would her

uncle and father someday be the subjects of murals and tapestries, long

after she and all she knew were dust?

"Cadrach? He was a holy man, once, and not just in dress." Dinivan

appeared to consider for a moment before speaking again. "We will speak

182 Tad Williams

of your companion another time. Princess, if you will pardon my rude-

ness Now you might be thinking of what things you would tell the

lector "

"What does he want to know7"

"Everything " Dimvan smiled, the harried edge to his voice softening

"The lector wishes to know everything about everything He says it is

because the weight and responsibility of Mother Church are upon his

shoulders and his decisions must be informed onesbut I think that he is .

also a vcrv curious fellow " He laughed "He knows more about book-

keeping than most of the Writing-Priests in the Sanccllan chancelry, and I

have heard him talk for hours about milking with a Lakelands farmer "

Dmivan's expression became more serious "But these are truly grave

times As I said before, some of my sources of knowledge cannot be

revealed even to the lector, so your words and the witness of your own

eyes will be of great help in telling him things he must know. You need

fear to tell him nothing Ranessm is a wise man He knows more of what

spins the world than anyone else I know "

To Mmamelc. the walk though the dark corridors of the Sanccllan

Acdonids seemed to take an hour But for the tapestries and the occasional

flock of priests hurrying by, each corridor seemed identical to the last, so

that before long she was hopelessly lost The great stone hallways were

also damp and poorly-lit When they at last reached a large wooden door,

delicately carved with a spreading Tree, she was grateful that their journey

had ended

Dimvan, about to push the door open, stopped "We should continue to

exercise caution," he said. leading her to a smaller door a few ells down

the corridor He pushed this open and they went through into a small

chamber hung with velvet cloth A fire burned in a brazier against the

wall. The wide table that filled much of the room was scattered with

parchments and heavy books. The priest left Minamele to warm her hands

before the flames

"I will return in a moment," he said, pushing aside a curtain in the wall

beside the table When the curtain fell back, he was gone

When her fingers were tingling satisfactorily, she left the brazier to

examine some of the parchments lying unrolled on the table They seemed

quite uninteresting, full of numbers and descriptions of property bound-

aries The books were uniformly religious, except for one strange volume

full of woodcuts of strange creatures and unfathomable ceremonies that

lay open atop the rest As she flipped carefully through the pages, she

found one that had been marked with a ribbon of cloth It was a crude

illustration of an antlcred man with staring eyes and black hands Terrified

people huddled at the horned one's feet, above his head, a single dazzling

star hung in a black sky The eyes seemed to stare out of the page and

directly into her own

STONE OFFAREWELL

183

Sa Asdndan Condiqmiles, she read from the caption below the picture.

The Conqueror Star

A fit of shivering came over her The picture chilled her in a way that

the Sancellan's dank corridors never could. It seemed something she had

seen in a nightmare, or a story told her m childhood whose evil she only

now recognized Minamele hastily restored the book to its original posi-

tion and moved away, rubbing her fingers up and down her cloak as

though she had touched something unclean.

Soft voices were coming from behind the arras through which Dimvan

had disappeared She moved closer, straining to make out the words, but

they were too faint. She cautiously pulled the hanging aside to expose a

silver of light from the room beyond

It seemed to be the lector's audience room, for it was ornate beyond

anything she had seen since the entry chamber which she had sleepily

traversed the night before The ceilings were high, painted with hundreds

of scenes from the Book of the Aedon. The windows were slices from the

gray morning sky. Behind a chair at the room's center hung a great azure

banner embroidered with the Pillar and Tree of Mother Church.

Lector Ranessm, a slender man in a tall hat, was sitting on the chair

listening to a fat man who wore the tenthke golden robes of an escntor.

Dimvan stood to one side, scuffing his foot back and forth impatiently m

the deep carpet

". . But that is the point, Your Sacredness," the fat one said, his face

shiny, his tone beautifully measured. "Of all times to avoid offending the

High King . . . well, he is not in the most receptive mood just now. We

must think carefully of our lofty position, as well as the welfare of all who

look to Mother Church for moderation and good influence." He pulled a

small box from his sleeve and popped something into his mouth His

round cheeks flattened briefly as he sucked at it.

"I understand, Velligis," the lector responded, raising his hand with a

gentle smile "Your counsel is always good I am eternally grateful that

God brought us together "

Velligis tilted his round head in a bow of acknowledgment.

"Now, if you will be so good," Ranessm continued, "I really should

give some time to poor Dimvan here. He has been riding for days and I

am anxious for his news."

The escntor dropped to his kneesnot an easy feat for a man his

sizeand kissed the hem of the lector's blue robe "If you need me for

anything. Your Sacredness, I will be in the chancelry until afternoon " He

rose and left the room in a graceful waddle, prying another sugar-sweet

from his box

"Are you truly grateful God brought you together?" Dimvan asked

with a smile

The lector nodded "Indeed Velligis is a living reminder to me of why

184 Tad Williams

men should not take themselves seriously. He means well, but he is so

blessedly pompous."

Dimvan shook his head. "I am willing to believe he means well, but his

advice is criminal. If there is ever a time when Mother Church must show

herself a living force for good, this is the time."

"I know your feelings, Dinivan," the lector said gently. "But this is not

a time in which decisions may be hastily made, lest they be repented later

at tragic length. Did you bring the princess?"

Ranessm's secretary nodded. "I'll fetch her. I left her in my work-

room." He turned and headed across the Audience Chamber. Miriamele

hurriedly dropped the hanging back into place; when Dimvan came through,

she was standing before tlie brazier once more.

"Come with me," he said. "The lector is free now."

When she reached the chair, Minamele curtseyed, then kissed Ranessin's

hem. The old man reached down a surprisingly strong hand and helped

her to her feet.

"Please, sit beside me." he said as he gestured for Dimvan to bring her a

chair. "On second thought," he told his secretary, "fetch one for yourself

as well."

While Dinivan was getting the chairs, Miriamele had her first chance

Eo look at the lector. She had not seen him for over a year, but he seemed

little different. His thm gray hair hung down beside his pale, handsome

face. His eyes were as alert as a child's, with an air almost of hidden

mischief. Miriamele could not help comparing him to Count Streawe, the

lord of Perdruin. Streawe's lined face had been suffused with cunning.

Ranessin looked much more innocent, but Miriamele did not need Dinivan's

assurances to believe that a great deal went on behind the lector's gentle

exterior.

"Well, my dear princess," Ranessin said when they had seated them-

selves, "I have not seen you since your grandfather's funeral. My, you

have grownbut what odd clothes you wear, my lady." He smiled.

"Welcome to God's house. Do you lack for anything?"

"Not in the way of food or drink, Your Sacredness."

Ranessin frowned. "I am not a lover of titles, and mine is particularly

awkward upon the tongue. When I was a young man in Stanshire, I never

dreamed I would end out my life in far Nabban, being called 'Sacred* and

'Exalted' and never hearing my birth name again."

"Isn't Ranessin your real name?" Miriamele asked.

The lector laughed. "Oh, no. I was born an Erkynlander, hight Oswine.

But since Erkynlanders are seldom elevated to such heights, it seemed

politic to take a Nabbanai name." He reached out to pat softly at her hand.

"Now, speaking of assumed names, Dinivan tells me you have traveled

far and seen much since you left your father's house. Will you tell me

something of your Journeys?"

STONE OF FAREWELL185

Dinivan nodded encouragingly, so Miriamele took a deep breath and

began to talk.

As the lector listened attentively, she spoke of her father's growing

madness and how it had at last driven her from the Hayholt, of the evil

counsels of Pryrates, and of the imprisoning ofJosua. Brighter sunlight

began to creep in through the windows high overhead. Dinivan got up

to have someone bring them some food, as the noon hour was fast

approaching.

"This is fascinating," the lector said as they waited for his secretary to

return. "It confirms many rumors that I have heard." He rubbed his finger

along the side of his thin nose. "Lord Usires grant us wisdom. Why can

men not be content with what they have?"

Dinivan soon returned, followed by a priest with a heaping salver of

cheese and fruit, as well as a posset of mulled wine. Miriamele began

again. As she talked and ate, and as Ranessin plied her with gentle yet

shrewd questions, she began to feel almost as though she spoke with some

kindly old grandfather. She told him of the Nom hounds that had pursued

her and the maidservant Leieth, then of their rescue by Simon and Binabik.

As she told of the revelations in the house of the witch woman Geloe, and

related Jamauga's dire warnings at Naglimund, Dinivan and the lector

exchanged glances.

When she had finished, the lector pushed his tall hat back into placei

had slipped down several times during the course of the audienceand sac

back in his chair with a sigh. His bright eyes were sad.

"So much to think about, so many dreadful questions unanswered. Oh,

God, You have seen fit to test Your children sternly. I have a premonition

of dire evil coming." He turned to Miriamele. "Thank you for your news,

Princess. It is none of it happy, but only a fool desires cheerful ignorance

and I try not to be a fool. That is my heaviest burden." He pursed his lips

in thought. "Well, Dimvan," he said at last, "this lends an even more

ominous air to the news I received yesterday."

"What news is that, Sacredness?" Dinivan asked. "We have had little

chance to talk since I returned."

The lector took a sip of wine. "Elias is sending Pryrates to see me. His

ship arrives tomorrow from the Hayholt. His mission, the message said, is

an important one from the High King."

"Pryrates is coming?" Miriamele asked, alarmed. "Does my father

know I'm here?"

"No, no, do not fear," the lector said soothingly. He patted her hand

again. "It is Mother Church with whom he would trade words. No one

knows you are here but Dinivan and myself."

"He's a devil," she said harshly. "Do not trust him."

Ranessin nodded gravely. "Your warning is well taken, Princess

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Tad Williams

Minamele, but sometimes it is my duty to speak with devils." He lowered

his eves to stare at his hands, as if hoping to find clutched therein a

solution to all problems When Dmivan took Minamele out, the lector bid

her good-bye courteously, but he seemed wrapped in melancholy.

10

The Mirror

OTTlUJTl' found himself in the grip of a stubborn anger that would not

go away As he and Sludig followed the mounted trolls away down the

mountain, away from the solemn piles of stone lying nakedly beneath the

sky, he felt a rage seeping through him that muddled all his thoughts, so

that he could scarcely think of anything for more than a moment at a time

He walked stiffly, his body still bruised and sore, his stomach churning

with anger As he walked, he brooded Haestan was dead Another friend

was dead There was nothing he could do about it He couldn't change it

He couldn't even cry over it That was the most infuriating thing he

could do nothing Nothing

Sludig, pale-faced and shadow-eyed, did not seem anxious to break the

silence The two lowlanders trudged along side by side down broad, flat

sheets of weathered granite and waded through drifts of snow churned

into a white froth by rams' hooves

The foothills seemed to be growing up to meet them At each bend in

the trail the snowy-shouldered hills emerged once more into the travelers'

view, each time larger than before Sikkihoq, in turn, seemed Co be

stretching away into the sky behind them as they steadily descended, ever

taller, as though the mountain had finished its business with these mortals

and now returned to the loftier and more congenial company of the sky

and clouds

I won't forget you, Simon warned Sikkihoq as he looked back up the

great dagger of scone He fought the urge to shout it aloud If he squinted,

he thought he could still see the spot where the cairns stood I won't forget

that my jriend is buried on your slopes I'll never forget

Afternoon passed swiftly They made faster time as the mountain broad-

ened and the paths began to level out, with longer stretches between

switchbacks Simon noticed signs of the mountain's life that he had not

seen higher up a family of white and brown rabbits grazing between

188

Tad Williams

patches of snow, jays and squirrels bickering in the stunted, wind-curled

trees. This evidence of life on what had seemed a barren and heartless rock

should have made him feel better; instead, it served only to fuel his

directionless anger. What right to exist did all these small and insignificant

things have, when others were dying? He wondered why they should

bother, when anv moment a hawk or snake or hunter's arrow might snuff

out their lives- The thought of life scrabbling pointlessly beneath the

shadow of death filled him with an oddly exhilarating disgust.

When evening came, the company chose a gently sloping expanse of

stone and brush in which to make camp, sheltered by Sikkihoq's body

from the worst of the snow-laden wind. Simon shed his pack and began

picking up dcadwood for the fire, but stopped to watch the sun slip down

behind the mountains to the westone of which, he knew, was Urmsheim,

the dragon-mountain. The horizon was streaked with light, as richly

colored as any rose grown in the Hayholt's gardens.

An'nai, jiriki's Sithi kinsman, who had been killed while fighting for the

lives of his companions, was buried there on Urmsheim; the soldier

Grimmric, a wiry, quiet man, had been interred beside him. Simon

remembered Grimmric whistling as they rode north from Naglimund, a

thin trill of sound alternately annoying and reassuring. Now he would be

eternally silent. He and An'nai would never see a sunset like the one that

painted the sky before Simon, beautiful and meaningless.

Where were they? Heaven? How could Sithi go to heaven when they

didn't believe in itand where did they think they went when they died?

They were pagans, Simon supposed, which meant they were different

but An'nai had been loyal and brave. More than that, he had been kind to

Simon, very kind in his strange Sithi way. How could An'nai not go to

heaven? How could heaven be such a stupid place?

The anger, which had abated for a moment, returned. Simon flung one

of the sticks he had gathered as hard as he could. It whirled through the

air, then struck and cartwheeled down the long stony hill, disappearing at

last into the underbrush below.

"Come, Simon," Sludig called from behind him. "We need your wood

for the fire. Aren't you hungry now?"

Simon ignored him, staring out at the reddening sky as he ground his

teeth in frustration. He felt a hand on his arm and angrily shrugged it off.

'Tieasc, come," the Rimmersman said kindly. "Supper will be ready

soon."

"Where is Haestan?" Simon asked through tight lips.

"What do you mean?" Sludig cocked his head. "You know where we

left him, Simon."

"No, I mean where is Haestan? The real Haestan."

"Ah." Sludig smiled. His beard had grown very thick. "His soul is in

heaven, with Usircs and the Lord God."

STONE OF FAREWELL189

"No." Simon turned to look at the sky again, darkening now with the

first mortal blues of night.

"What? Why do you say that?"

"He's not in heaven. There is no heaven. How can there be a heaven,

when everyone thinks it's different?"

"You are being foolish." Sludig stared at him for a moment, trying to

sense Simon's thought. "Perhaps everyone goes to their own heaven," the

soldier said, then placed his hand again on Simon's shoulder. "God knows

what He knows. Come and sit down."

"How could God let people die for no reason?" Simon demanded,

hugging himself as though trying to keep something inside. "If God can

do that, then He is cruel. If He isn't cruel, well . . . well, then. He just

can't do anything. Like an old man who sits at the window, but can't go

out. He's old and stupid."

"Do not talk against God the Father," Sludig said, his voice chilly.

"God will not be mocked by an ungrateful boy. He has given you all the

gifts of life ..."

"It's a lie!" Simon shouted. The soldier's eyes widened in surprise.

Heads turned from the campfire, looking to the sudden noise. "It's a lie, a

lie! What gifts? To crawl around like a bug, here and there, trying to find

something to eat, somewhere to sleepand then without warning some-

thing smashes you? What kind of gift is that!? To do the right thing, and

. . . and fight against evil, like the Book of the Aedon saysif you do that

you get killed! Just like Haestan! just like Morgenes! The bad ones live

onlive on and grow rich and laugh at the good ones! It's a stupid lie!"

"That is terrible, Simon!" Sludig said, his voice also rising. "You speak

from madness and grief. . ."

"It's a lieand you are an idiot to believe it!" Simon yelled, throwing

his wood down at Sludig's feet. He turned and ran down the mountain

path with a great, grieving pain in his middle that almost took his breath

away, following the twisting course until the camp had disappeared from

view. Qantaqa's bark wafted after him, faint and percussive as someone

clapping in another room.

At last he sank down on a stone beside the path, rubbing his hands back

and forth over the worn cloth of his breeches. There was moss growing

on the stone, burnt brown by frost and wind, but still somehow vital and

alive. He stared at it, wondering why he could not cry and whether he

even wanted to.

After some time he heard a clicking noise and looked up to see Qantaqa

pacing toward him over the sloping rocks above the path. The wolfs nose

hovered low, sniffing close to the stone. She hopped down onto the path,

and regarded him quizzically for a moment with her head cocked to one

side, then walked past, brushing against his leg. Simon trailed his fingers

along the thick pelt of her flank as she went by. Qantaqa continued on

down the path, a dim gray shape in the growing darkness.

190

Tad Williams

"Simon-friend." Binabik appeared around the bend in the track. "Qantaqa

is off to hunt," he said, watching her disappearing form. "It is hard for a

wolf to be walking all day where I ask her. She is a good companion to

make such sacrifice for my sake."

When Simon did not respond, the troll came forward and squatted at his

side, his walking stick balanced on his knees.

"You are much upset," he said.

Simon took a deep breath, then let it out. "Everything is a lie," he

sighed.

Binabik raised an eyebrow. "What is 'everything'? And what is making

it a lie?"

"I don't think we can do anything at all. Anything to make things

better. We're going to die."

"At some time," the troll nodded.

"We're going to die fighting the Storm King. It's a lie if we say we're

not. God's not going to save us, or even help us." Simon picked up a

loose stone and flung it across the path, where it went rattling into

darkness- "Binabik, I couldn't even pick up Thorn. What good is the

sword going to be if we can't even use it? How is a swordeven three

Great Swords or whatever they're calledgoing to kill an enemy like

him? Kill someone who's already dead?"

"These are questions that need answering," the little man replied. "I do

not know. How do you know that the sword is for killing? And if it is for

that, what makes you think any of us is to be the killer?"

Simon chose another rock and threw it. "I don't know anything, either.

I'm just a kitchen boy, Binabik." He felt immensely sorry for himself. "I

just want to go home." The word caught in his throat.

The troll stood, brushing off his seat. "You are not a boy, Simon. You

are a man in all the ways for measuring. A young man, true, but a

manor with great nearness."

Simon shook his head. "It doesn't matter, anyway. I thought ... I

don't know. I thought that it would be like a story. That we would find

the sword and it would be a powerful weapon, that we would destroy our

enemies and things would be right again. 1 didn't think any more people

would die! How could there be a God who would let good people die, no

matter what they do?"

"Another question I cannot be answering." Binabik smiled, but gently,

mindful of Simon's pain. "And I cannot be telling you what is right for

belief. The truths that became our stories of gods are far away in the past.

Even the Sithi, who live for eons, do not know how the world began or

what began itat least not for certain, I am chinking. But / can tell you

something important ..."

The troll leaned forward, touching Simon's arm, waiting until his

young friend had raised his eyes from the moss once more. "Gods in the

191

STONE OF FAREWELL

heaven or in the stone are distant, and we can guess only at what they

intend." He squeezed Simon's forearm. "But you and I, we are living in a

time when a god walks the earth once more. He is not a god who intends

kindness. Men may fight and die, they may build walls and break stone,

but Ineluki has died and come back; that is something no one else has ever

been doing, not even your LJsires Aedon. Forgive me, because I am not

meaning blasphemy, but is not what Ineluki has done a thing like a god

can do?" Binabik gave Simon a little shake, staring into his eyes. "He is

jealous and terrible, and the world he can make will be a terrible place. We

are having a task of great fear and very great difficulty, Simonit may

even be that there is no possibility of succeedingbut it is not a task we

can be fleeing."

Simon tore his gaze from Binabik's. "That's what I said. How do you

fight a god? We'll be crushed like ants." Another stone went flying out

into darkness.

"Perhaps. But if we are not trying, then there is no chance of anything

but this antlike crushing, so we must try. There is always something

beyond even the worst of bad times. We may die, but the dying of some

may mean living for others. That is not much to cling to, but it is a true

thing in any case."

The troll moved a little way down the path and took a seat on another

stone. The sky was darkening swiftly. "Also," Binabik said gravely, "it

may or may not be foolishness to pray to the gods, but there is certainly

being no wisdom in cursing them."

Simon said nothing. They passed some time in silence- At last Binabik

twisted loose the knife end of his walking stick, allowing the bone flute

inside the hollow stick to slide free. He blew a few experimental notes, then

began to play a slow, melancholy air. The dissonant music, echoing down

the mountainside in darkness, seemed to sing with the voice of Simon's

own loneliness. He shivered, feeling the wind through his tattered cloak.

His dragon-scar stung fiercely.

"Are you still my friend, Binabik?" he said at last.

The troll took the flute from his lips. "To death and beyond, Simon-

friend." He began to play once more.

When the flutesong was finished, Binabik whistled for Qantaqa and

walked back up the path toward camp. Simon followed him.

The fire had burned low and the wineskin was making the last of many

trips around the circle when Simon finally worked up the courage to

approach Sludig. The Rimmersman was sharpening the head of his Qanuc

spear with a whetstone; he continued for some while as Simon stood

before him. At last he looked up.

"Yes?" His voice was gruff.

"I'm sorry, Sludig. I should not have said what I did. You were only

being kind."

192

Tad Williams

The Rimmersman stared at him for a moment, a certain cold look in his

eyes. At last his expression softened. "You may think as you like, Simon,

but do not speak such blasphemy of the One God before me."

"I'm sorry. I'm only a kitchen boy."

"Kitchen boy!" Sludig's laugh was harsh. He looked searchingly into

Simon's eyes, then laughed again with better humor. "You really think

so, don't you! You're a fool, Simon." He stood up, chuckling and shaking

his head. "A kitchen boy! A kitchen boy who swords dragons and slays

giants. Look at you! You arc taller than I am, and Sludig is not small!"

Simon stared at the Rimmersman, surprised. It was true, of course: he

stood half a hand taller than Sludig. "But you're strong!" Simon pro-

tested. "You're a grown man."

"As you are fast becoming- And you are stronger than you know. You

must see the truth, Simon. You are a boy no more. You cannot act as

though you are one still." The Rimmersman contemplated him for a long

moment. "As a matter of fact, it is dangerous not to train you better. You

have been lucky to survive several bad fights, but luck is fickle. You need

sword and spear teaching; I will give them to you. Haestan would have

wanted it, and it will give us something to work at on our long trip to

your Stone of Farewell."

"Then you forgive me?" Simon was embarrassed by this talk of manhood.

"If I must." The Rimmersman sat down again. "Now go and sleep. We

have a long walk again tomorrow, then you and I will drill for some time

after we make camp."

Simon felt more than a little resentful about being sent to bed, but did

not want to risk another argument. As it was, it had been difficult for him

to come back to the campfire and eat with the others. He knew they had

all been watching him, wondering if he would have another outburst.

He retreated to the bed he had made of springy branches and leaves and

wrapped himself tightly in his cloak. He would be happy to be in a cave,

or down off the mountain entirely, where they would not be exposed so

nakedly to the wind.

The bright, cold stars seemed to quiver in the sky overhead. Simon

stared up at them through unfathomable distances, letting thoughts chase

themselves through his head until sleep came at last.

The sound of the trolls singing to their rams woke Simon from a

dream. He dimly remembered a little gray cat and a feeling of being

trapped by someone or something, but the dream was fading fast. He

opened his eyes to the thin morning light, then closed them quickly. He

did not want to get up and face .the day.

The singing went on, accompanied by the clinking of harnesses. He had

seen this ritual so many times since leaving Mintahoq that he could picture

it in his head as vividly as if he was watching. The trolls were cinching

193

STONE OFFAREWELL

up the straps and filling the saddlebags, guttural yet high-pitched voices

busy with their seemingly endless chant. From time to time they would

pause, stroking their mounts, currying the rams' thick fleeces, leaning in

close to sing softly and intimately while the sheep blinked their yellow,

slotted eyes. Soon it would be time for salty tea and dried meat and quiet,

laughing conversation.

Except, of course, there would not be as much laughter today, the third

morning since the hillside battle with the giants. Binabik's folk were a

cheerful people, but a little bit of the frost lodged in Simon's heart seemed

to have touched them, too. A folk that laughed at cold and at dizzying,

breakneck falls at every turning of every trail had been chilled by a shadow

they could not understandnot that Simon understood much himself.

He had spoken truly to Binabik: somehow, he had thought things

would get better once they found the great sword Thorn. The blade's

power and strangcness was so palpable it seemed impossible that it would

not make a change in the struggle against King Elias and his dark ally. But

perhaps the sword by itself was not enough. Perhaps whatever the rhyme

had spoken of would not happen until all three swords had been brought

together.

Simon groaned. Even worse, perhaps the queer rhyme from Nisses'

book meant nothing at all. Didn't people say Nisses was a madman? Even

Morgenes had not known what the rhyme truly meant.

Whenjrost doth grow on Cloves' hell

And Shadows walk upon the road

When water blackens in the Well

Three Swords must come again

When Bukken from the Earth do creep

And Hunen jrom the heights descend

When Nightmare throttles peaceful Sleep

Three Swords must come again

To turn the stride of treading Fate

To clear the fogging Mists of Time

If Early shall resist Too Late

Three Swords must come again . . .

Well, Bukken had certainly crept from the earth, but the memory of the

squealing diggers was not one he wanted to pursue. Ever since the night

of their attack on Isgrimnur's camp near St. Hoderund's, Simon had never

felt the same way about the solid earth beneath his feet. That was the only

advantage he could think of to traveling over Sikkihoq's unforgiving

stone.

194 Tad Williams

As for the rhyme's mention of giants, with Hacstan's death so fresh in

his mind that seemed like a cruel joke The monsters hadn't even needed

to descend from the heights, because Simon and his friends had been

foolish enough to venture into their mountain territory But the Huncn

had left their high refuges which Simon knew as well as anybody He and

Minamctcthe thought other brought a sudden yearninghad faced one

in Aldheorte Forest, only a week's ride from the very gates of Erchester

The rest did not make much sense to him, but none of it seemed

impossible Simon did not know who Oaves was, or where his bell might

be, but it seemed that soon there would he frost everywhere Even so

what could the three swords do3

/ wielded Thorn, he thought For a moment he felt the power of it once

more In that instant. I uw a ^real km^hlwasn'f P

But had it been Thorn, or had it only been that he had stood up and put

fear aside3 If he had done the same with a less mighty sword, would he

have been any less brave3 He would have been dead, of coursejust

like Hacstan, just like An nai, Morgcncs Gnmmricbut did that

matter3 Didn't great heroes die3 Hadn't Camans, Thorn's true master,

died m the angry seas3

Simon's thoughts were wandering He felt himself sliding back toward

sleep He almost let it happen, but he knew it would only be a short while

before Binabik or Sludig would be shaking him awake Last night they

had both said he was a man or nearly so Just for once he didn't want to

be awakened last, a child allowed to sleep while the grown-ups talked

He opened his eyes, letting the light in, and groaned again Uncurling

himself from the cloak he picked loose twigs and clusters of pine needles

from his clothing, then shook the cloak out before quickly wrapping it

around himself once more Suddenly unwilling to be parted even for a

short while from his few miserable possessions, he picked up his pack,

which had pillowed his head, and took it with him

The morning was chilly, a light scatter of snow in the air Stretching the

kinks out of his muscles, he walked slowly to the fire, where Binabik sat

talking to Sisqi The pair were seated side by side before the low, translu-

cent Harries, their hands clasped Thorn lay propped on a tree stump beside

them, a dull black bar that reflected no light From behind, the two trolls

looked like children talking earnestly about a game they might play or an

interesting hole they might explore, and Simon felt a strong protective

urge toward them A moment later, as he realized they were probably

discussing how to keep Binabik's people alive if the winter did not abate,

or what they should do if more giants found them, the illusion shredded

and blew awav Thcv were not children, and if not for their bravery he

would be dead

Binabik turned and saw him staring The little man smiled a greeting as

he listened intently to Sisql's rapid Qanuc words Simon grunted, bending

STONE OF FAREWELL195

to take the lump of cheese and heel of bread that Binabik pointed out, set

on a stone near the fire He took his meal and went to sit by himself

The sun, still hidden from view behind Sikkihoq, was not visible The

mountain's shadow lay over the campsite but the tops of the mountains in

the west glowed with the sun's rising light The White Waste below was

sunk in gray dawn-shadow Simon took a bite of dry bread and chewed as

he stared out across the Waste at the distant line of forest which lay on the

horizon like dark cream in a milk pail

Qantaqa, who had been lying at Binabik's side, got up, stretched, and

padded silently toward Simon Her muzzle was red-flecked with the

hfeblood of whatever poor animal had surrendered itself for her morning

feeding, but the last traces were even now being scoured away by her long

pink tongue She approached Simon briskly, ears up, as if on some

clearly-defined errand, but when she arrived she only stood for a moment

to Ice him scratch her, then curled up beside him, exchanging one napping

spot for another Her bulk was such that when it pushed against his leg he

was almost forced off his stone seat

He finished his meal and opened the flap of his pack, rooting for his

water bottle A bright tangle of blue came up with it, wound on the

carrying cord

It was the scarf Minamele had given him, the one he had worn around

his neck on the way up the dragon-mountain Jinki had removed it while

nursing him back to health, but had thoughtfully stowed it with the rest of

Simon's meager belongings Now it lay in his hands like a stripe of sky,

the sight brought the sting of almost-tears to his eyes Where in the great

world was Minamele3 Geloe, in their brief moment of contact, had not

known Where in Osten Ard was the princess wandering3 Did she ever

think of Simon3 And if she did, what did she think3

Probably Why did I yve my nice scar/to a dirty kitchen boy^ He enjoyed a

brief twinge of self-pity Well, he was not just any scullion As Sludig

said, he was a kitchen boy who sworded dragons and slew giants Just at

this moment, however, he would rather be a kitchen boy in a nice warm

kitchen in the Hayholt and nothing more

Simon tied Minamelc's scarf about his neck, tucking the ends under the

collar of his tattered shirt He took a swallow of water, then rummaged in

the pack again, but could not find what he was looking for He remem-

bered after a moment that he had put it in his cloak pocket and felt a

moment of panic When would he learn to be more careful3 It could have

easily fallen out a hundred times He was happily reassured to feel its

outline through the cloth After some digging, he lifted it out into the

morning light

Jinki's mirror was icy cold He buffed it on his sleeve, then held it up,

stanng at his reflection His beard had come in more thickly since he had

last surveyed himself The reddish hairs, almost brown in the dim light,

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were beginning to obscure the line of his jawbut the same old nose

poked out above the beard, and the same blue eyes stared back at him.

Becoming a man, it seemed, would not mean becoming anything other

than a slightly different type of Simon, which was a faintly saddening

thought.

The beard did hide most of his spots, so there was something for whith

to be grateful. But for a blemish or two on his forehead, he thought he

looked like a reasonable approximation of a young man. He tilted the

glass, staring at the white streak burned into his reddish locks by the

dragon's blood. Did it make him look older? More manly? It was hard to

tell. His hair was curling on his shoulders, though. He should ask Sludig

or someone to cut it shorter, as many of the king's knights had worn

theirs- But why bother? They would probably all be dead at the hands of

giants before it grew long enough to get in his way.

He lowered the mirror to his lap, staring down into ic as chough it were

a pool of water. The frame was finally beginning to warm beneath his

fingers. What was it jiriki had told him? That the mirror would be no

more than a mere looking glass unless Simon needed him? That was it.

Jiriki had said that Simon could talk to him . . . with the mirror? In the

mirror? Through the mirror? It had not been clear at all, but for a moment

Simon very much wanted to call for Jiriki's help. The thought crept over

him unbidden, but its claws were not easily dislodged. He would call Jiriki

and tell him that they needed help. The Storm King was an enemy chat

mortals alone could not defeat.

But the Storm King is not here, Simon thought, and Jiriki knows everything

about the situation that he needs to. What would I tell him? That he should come

running back to the mountains because a kitchen boy is scared and wants to go

home?

Simon stared into the mirror, remembering when it had shown him

Miriamele. The princess had been on a ship, scaring out over the railing at

cloudy skies, gray and cloudy skies . . .

As he watched his own face in the upturned mirror, it suddenly

seemed that he could again see that misty sky, tatters of cloud floating

across the mirror's surface obscuring his features. A fog seemed to

be drifting past him, and he could no longer separate himself from

the image in the looking glass. He wavered dizzily, as though he were

falling into the reflection. The noises of the camp diminished and then

disappeared as the mist became a solid and featureless curtain of gray. It

was all around him, shutting away the light . . .

The gray mist slowly dissolved, like steam escaping from beneath a pot

lid, but as it cleared he saw that the face before him was no longer his

own. Staring back at him through narrowed eyes was a womana beauti-

ful woman who was both old and young at the same time. The lines of

her face were shifting, as though she gazed up through rippling water. Her

STONE OF FAREWELL197

hair was white beneath a circlet of gemlike flowers; her stare burned like

molten gold, the eyes bright and reflective as a cat's. She was old, he

somehow knew, very old, but there was little about her face that spoke of

age. only a tightness in the line of her jaw and mouth, a brittleness to her

features as though the skin was stretched close against [he bone. Her eyes

were glorious with ancient knowledge and imprisoned memory. Her high

cheekbones and smooth forehead made her look like a statue . . .

A statue. . . ? His thoughts were a jumble, but Simon knew he had seen

a statue that looked like this woman ... he had seen such a face . . . seen

it in ... in ...

"Please answer me," she said. "7 come to you a second time. Do not ignore me

again! Please forget your ancient grievances, however justified. Ill will has stood

too long between our house and that of Ruyan Ve. Now we have a common

enemy. I need your help!"

Her voice was faint in his head, as though it echoed down a long

corridor, but even so, she wielded a commanding powerlike Valada

Geloe's, but in some way deeper, smoother, with none of the witch

Woman's rough but reassuring edges. This one was as different from

Geloe as the forest-woman herself was from Simon.

"I do not hare the strength I once wielded," the woman pleaded. "And what

little I have may be needed against the Shadow in the Northand you must know

of that shadow. Tinukeda'yei! Children of the Garden, please answer!" The

woman's voice faded on an imploring note. There was a long moment of

silence, but if reply was made, Simon did not hear it. Suddenly, the

flake-gold eyes seemed to see him for the first time. The musical voice

abruptly took on a note of suspicion and concern. "Who is this? A mortal

child?"

Frozen in alarm, Simon said nothing. The face in the mirror stared, then

Simon could feel something reaching out to him through the mist, a force

as diffuse but powerful as the sun hidden behind clouds.

"Tell me. Who are you?"

Simon tried to answer, not because he wanted to, but because it was

impossible not to try with such compelling words echoing in his head.

Something prevented him.

"You are traveling in places not mean! for you," the voice said. "You do not

belong here. Who are you?"

He struggled, but found that something was throttling his responses as

surely as fingers on his throat would choke off words. The face before him

rippled as a pallid blue light began to shine through it, fraying the image

of the beautiful old woman. A wave of cold passed through him that it

seemed might turn his very innards to black ice.

A new voice spoke, harsh, chilling.

"Who is he? He is a meddler, Amerasu."

The first face was now entirely gone. A gleam of silver swam upward

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through the mirror's gray depths. A face appeared, all gleaming metal,

expressionless and immobile. He had seen that face on the Dream Road

and had felt the same sick dread. He knew the name: Utuk'ku, Queen of

the Norns. Try as he might to look away, he could not. He was held in an

unshakable grip. Utuk'ku's eyes were invisible in the mask's black depths,

but he felt their stare on his face like freezing breath.

"The manchild is a meddler." Each word came sharp and cold as an icicle.

"As are you, granddaughter. And meddlers will not prosper when the Storm King

comes . . ."

The thing in the silver mask laughed. Simon felt hammerblows of frost

against his heart. A poisonous cold began climbing inexorably upward,

from fingers to hand to arm- Soon it would reach his face, like a deadly

kiss from silvery, frost-glittering lips . . .

Simon dropped the mirror, tumbling after it. The ground seemed a

league away, the fall endless. Somebody was screaming. He was screaming.

Sludig helped Simon to his feet, where he swayed, panting. After a

moment he shook off the Rimmersman's hands. He felt wobbly, but

wanted to stand on his own. The trolls had gathered around and were

muttering among themselves, clearly confused.

"What has happened, Simon?" Binabik asked, pushing his way through

to his side. "Are you hurt by something?" Sisqi, still holding Binabik's

hand, stared up at the strange lowlander as though trying to read his

malady in his eyes.

"I saw faces in Jiriki's mirror," Simon said, shivering uncontrollably.

Sisqi held up his cloak, which he took gratefully. "One of them was the

Norn Queen. She could see me, too, I think."

Binabik spoke to the other ram-riders, gesturing with his hands. They

turned and wandered back to the fire. Stocky Snenneq waved his spear at

the sky as though taunting an enemy.

Binabik fixed Simon with his brows. "Tell it to me."

Simon related all that had happened from the moment he first lifted the

mirror. As he described the first face Binabik frowned in concentration,

but when the recitation was finished the troll only shook his head.

"The Norn Queen we are knowing all too well," Binabik growled. "It

was her hunters who arrowed me at Da'ai Chikiza and I have not been

forgetting that gift. But thinking of who the other might be, I have

unsureness. You say that Utuk'ku called her 'granddaughter'?"

"I think so. And the Norn Queen called her something else, too. A

namebut I can't remember it." Some of the details, once spoken aloud,

were not so sure in his mind as they had been moments before.

"Then it is someone of one of the ruling houses, Sithi or Norn. IfJiriki

were now with us, he would be knowing in an instant who it was and

what her words meant. You say she seemed to be at pleading with someone?"

STONE OF FAREWELL199

"I think so. But Binabik, Jiriki told me that the mirror was nothing but

a mirror now! He said the magic was gone, unless I wanted to call

himand I didn't try to call him! I truly didn't!"

"Calm, Simon, is how you must be. I am having no doubts of what

you say. Jinki himself may have misunderstood the nature of the mirror's

powersor, it is being possible, many things may be changing just since

Jiriki has gone from us. In either way, I think it best you arc leaving the

mirror, or at the least not using it more. That is a suggestion, onlyit is

your gift to do as you like. Remember, please, it may bring danger for

all."

Simon looked at the mirror, which lay facedown on the rock- He picked

it up and brushed dust from its surface without looking at it, then slid it

into his cloak pocket. "I won't leave it," he said, "because it was a gift.

Also, we may need Jiriki someday." He patted it. The frame was still

warm. "But I won't use it until then."

Binabik shrugged. "The deciding is yours. Come back to the fire and

make yourself warm. Tomorrow we are riding with dawn's appearance."

After an early start, the ragged troop reached Blue Mud Lake in the late

afternoon of the following day. Nestled among the foothills of Sikkihoq,

the lake was a dark blue mirror, flat as the glass in Simon's pocket, fed by

two cataracts that spilled from the icy heights. The noise of their falling

was deep and sonorous as the breathing of gods.

As the party crossed through the last pass above the lake and the quiet

rumble of the water rose, the trolls reined up their mounts. The wind had

abated. The steaming breath of rams and riders hung in the air. Simon

could see fear written in every trollish face-

"What's wrong?" he asked nervously, expecting at any moment to hear

the bellowing voices of giants.

"I think they had hoped Binabik was wrong," Sludig said. "Perhaps

they were hoping to find springtime hidden here."

Simon saw little that was unusual. The sheltering hills were thatched

with snow and many of the trees that surrounded the lake were bare of

leaf. The evergreens were mantled in white, like cottonwool spears.

Many of the trolls brought the heels of their hands to their chests, as if

what they saw spoke more eloquently of trouble than any words of

Binabik or his master Ookequk. As they spurred their mounts along the

narrow trail, Simon and Sludig trudged forward once more, following the

tracks of the rams into the lake valley. Another flurry of snow came

sifting down from Sikkihoq.

They made camp at a great cavern on the lake's northwestern banks.

The cave was surrounded by well-worn pathways- The massive stone fire

pit, nearly brimful with frozen ash, testified to the generations of trolls

who had camped there- Soon a huge fire, the biggest they had made since

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leaving Mmtahoq, was burning by the lakeside. As darkness fell and the

stars began to kindle, the flames threw wild shadows on the rocky faces of

the hills.

Simon was sitting near the fire oiling his boots when Bmabik found

him. At the troll's bidding, he put the boots back on and took a burning

brand from the blaze, then followed Bmabik away into the darkness. They

walked along the edge of the hillside for a furlong, circling around the

lakeshorc until they reached another cave, its high cntranceway almost

hidden behind a stand of spruces. A strange whistling noise came from

within. Simon knitted his brows in apprehension, but Bmabik only smiled

and waved at him to follow, pushing back a low-hanging branch with his

walking stick so taller Simon could enter without catching his torch in the

trees.

The cavern was thick with the smell of animals, but it was a familiar

smell. Simon lifted the brand so the light splashed the farthest depths of

the cavern. Six horses looked back, whinnying nervously. The cavern

floor was piled high with dried grass.

"Good that is," Bmabik said, coming up beside him. "I had been

fearing they might have run away, or the food might not have been of

sufficiency."

"Are they ours?" Simon asked, approaching slowly. The nearest horse

fluttered its lips and danced back a step; Simon held out his hand for it to

smell. "I think they are."

"Of course," Bmabik chuckled. "We Qanuc are not horse-murderers.

My folk put them here for safety when we were all taken up-mountain.

We also keep this place for our rams when they are birthing and the

weather is cold. From now on, Simon-fnend, you need be walking no

more."

After stroking the nearest horse, which submitted grudgingly but did

not pull away, Simon saw the gray and black spotted mare he had ridden

from Naglimund. He moved toward her, wishing he had something to

give her.

"Simon," Binabik called, "catch!"

He turned in time to receive something small and hard, which crumbled

slightly as he clutched it in his palm.

"Salt," Bmabik said. "I brought it from Mintahoq- I have brought one

lump for each. The rams have a great fondness for salt and I am guessing

your horses will, too."

Simon offered it to the gray-and-black. She took it, her mouth tickling

his hand. He stroked her powerful neck, feeling it tremble beneath his

fingers. "I don't remember her name," he whispered sadly. "Haestan told

me, but I forgot."

Bmabik shrugged and began distributing the salt among the other

horses.

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"It's good to see you again," Simon told the mare. "I'll give you

a new name. How about 'Homefinder'?"

Names did not seem to be very important to her. She flicked her tail

and nosed Simon's pockets for more salt.

When Simon and Binabik got back to the fire the kangkang was flowing

vigorously and the trolls were singing, rocking back and forth before the

flames. As they approached, Sisql detached herself from the group and

came to take Binabik's hand, silently laying her hooded head upon his

shoulder. From a distance the trolls sounded as though they were having a

hilarious time of it, but as Simon drew nearer the expressions on their

faces told differently.

"Why do they look so sad, Binabik?"

"We are having a saying on Mintahoq," the little man explained,

"'Mourning is for home.' When we are losing one of our folk on the

trail we bury them in that place, but we save our [ears until we are safe in

our caves once more. Nine of our folk died on Sikkihoq."

"But you said 'mourn at home.' These people are not home yet."

Binabik shook his head, then answered a quiet question from Sisqi

before returning his attention to Simon. "These hunters and herders are

making ready for the coming of the rest of Yiqanuc's folk. The word is

even now flying from one mountain to another: the highlands are not a

place of safety and spring is not coming." The little man smiled wearily.

"They are home, Simon-friend."

Binabik patted Simon's hand, then he and Sisqi veered off toward the

fire to join the chorus. The blaze was fed and the flames leaped higher, so

that all the lake valley seemed to glow with orange light. The mourning

songs of the Qanuc echoed out across the still waters, carrying even above

the bitter voice of the wind and the rush of the falls.

Simon went off in search ofSludig. He found the Rimmersman bundled

in his cloak a short distance from the fire, sitting on a rock with a skin full

of kangkang between his knees. Simon sat down beside him and took a

long swallow from the offered wineskin, sucking cold air afterward. He

wiped his mouth with his sleeve and handed it back.

"Have I told you of the Skipphavven, Simon?" Sludig asked, staring at

the fire and the swaying trolls. "You have not seen beauty until you have

seen the maidens who gather mistletoe from the mast of Sotfengsel,

Elvnt's buried ship." He took a drink and passed it to Simon. "Ah, sweet

God, I hope Skali ofKaldskryke at least has enough Rimmersman pride to

tend to the graves of the longships at the Skipphavven. May he rot in

hell."

Simon took two more long pulls on the wineskin, hiding the faces he

made from Sludig. The kangkang tasted awful, but it warmed him. "Skali

is the one who took Duke Isgnmnur's land?" he asked.

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Sludig looked over, a little blearily. He had been working at the skin for

some time. "He is. Black-hearted, treacherous son of a wolf-bitch and a

carrion crow- May he rot in Hell. It is blood feud now." The Rimmersman

pulled meditatively at his beard and turned his gaze upward to the stars

"It is blood feud all over the world, these days."

Simon looked up with him and saw an advancing line of dark clouds

out of the northwest obscuring the stars along the horizon. For a moment

he thought he could see the Storm King's dark hand reaching out, blotting

light and warmth- He trembled, pulling his cloak tighter, but the cold did

not go away. He reached for the skin again. Sludig was still staring

upward.

"We are very small," Simon said between swallows. The kangkang

seemed to be flowing in his veins like blood.

"So are the stars, kunde-manne," Sludig murmured. "But they each one

bum as bright as they can. Have another drink."

Laterin truth, Simon was not sure exactly how much time had passed,

or what had become of Sludighe found himself seated on a log beside

the fire, Sisql on one side of him, the bearded herder Snenneq on the

Other. They were all holding hands. Simon reminded himself to be gentle

with the small, rough palms folded in his own. All around him the trolls

swayed and he swayed with them. They sang, and although he did not

understand the words of their song, he added his voice to theirs, listening

to the brave roar they all made beneath the night sky, feeling his heart

beating in his chest like a drum.

^

"Do we really have to go today?" Simon asked, struggling to hold the

saddle in place while Sludig tightened the belly-strap. The single torch did

not throw much light in the darkened cave that served as a stable. Beyond

the wall of spruces dawn was unfolding.

"It is seeming a good thought to me," Binabik said, voice muffled, his

head hidden by a leather flap as he inspected the saddlebags. "Chukku's

Stones! Why am I not waiting until we are outside in the light? Like

hunting white weasels in deep snow, this is."

"I would have liked a day to rest," Simon said. In fact, he was not

feeling too badly, considering all the Qanuc liquor he had drunk the mght

before; but for a faint hammering m his temples and a certain weakness in

his joints, he was doing fairly well.

"As would I. As also, no doubt, would Sludig ..." the troll replied.

"Ah! Kikkaksut! There is something sharp in here!"

"Hold that damned thing!" Sludig growled as the saddle jerked free of

Simon's grasp. The horse nickered in irritation and jogged a step to the

side before Simon grasped the saddle again.

STONE OF FAREWELL203

"But, you are seeing," Binabik continued, "we have no knowledge

how long it will take to cross the Waste. If winter is spreading, the sooner

this is done will make the better for us. There are others, too, who may be

carrying word of us to ears that are not friendly. We are not knowing who

survived Urmshcim from the huntsman's troop. They saw Thorn, I am

thinking." He patted the sword, which was now wrapped in hides and

strapped to the back of Simon's saddle.

The mention of Ingcn Jegger made Simon's stomachalready uneasy

after a morning meal of dried fishtwist. He did not like to think of the

terrible Queen's Huntsman in his snarlmg-muzzled helm, who had pur-

sued them like an avenging ghost.

Please, God, Simon thought, let him be dead on the dragon-mountain. We

don't need any more enemies, especially one like him.

"I suppose you're right," he said heavily. "But I don't like it."

"What was it that Haestan used to say?" Sludig asked, straightening up.

" 'Now you know what it is like to be a soldier'?"

"That's what he used to say." Simon smiled sadly.

Sisqinanamook and her folk gathered around as Simon and his compan-

ions brought out their saddled mounts. The Qanuc men and women

seemed torn between the ceremonies of leavetakmg and the fascination

inspired by the horses, whose legs were longer than the herders and

huntresses were tall. The horses shuffled nervously at first as the little

people stroked and patted them, but the trolls seemed to have learned

more than a little in their generations of sheepherding; the horses soon

gentled, pluming the frosty air with their breath as the Qanuc admired

them.

At last Sisql waved for order, then spoke rapidly to Simon and Sludig m

the language of the Trollfells. Binabik smiled and said: "Sisqinanamook

bids you farewell on behalf of the Mmtahoq Qanuc and our Herder and

Huntress. She says that the Qanuc people have seen many new things in

late days, and though the world is changing for worse, not all the changes

are being for bad." He nodded to Sisql and she spoke again, now fixing

her eyes on Sludig.

"Good-bye, Rimmersman," Binabik translated- "You are the kindest

Croohok she has ever heard about, and none of the folk who stand here

are now afraid of you any more. Tell your Herder and Huntress" he

grinned, perhaps imagining Duke Isgnmnur answering to either title,

"that the Qanuc arc being a brave folk, too, but also ajust folk who do

not like pointless fighting."

Sludig nodded "I will "

Sisqi turned her attention to Simon. "And you, Snowlock, do not be

afraid. She will tell any of the Qanuc back on Mmtahoq who wonder at

the story of your dragon-lashing about the bravery she has been able to

204 Tad Williams

witness. Any others here will be doing the same." He listened carefully for

a moment, then grinned. "She also urges you for being careful of her

intendedwho is meand for using your bravery to keep him safe. This

she is asking in the name of new friendship."

Simon was touched. "Tell her," he said slowly, "that I will protect her

intendedwho is also my friendto death and beyond."

As Binabik relayed his words, Sisqi stared at Simon, her eyes intent and

serious. When the troll had finished, Sisqi bowed her head toward them,

stiff and pndcful. Simon and Sludig did the same. The other Qanuc

pressed forward, touching those who were about to leave as though to

send something with them- Simon found himself surrounded by small,

black-haired heads, and again had to remind himself that the trolls were

not children, but mortal men and women who loved and fought and died

just as bravely and seriously as any knight of Erkynland. Calluscd fingers

squeezed his hand and many things that sounded kind were said to him in

words he could not understand.

Sisqi and Binabik had wandered off from the others, back toward the

sleeping cave. When they got there, Sisqi ducked m, emerging a moment

later with a long spear in her hands, its shaft busy with carvings.

"Here," she said. "You will need this where you are going, beloved, and it

will be longer than nine times nine days before you return. Take it. I know we

will be together once moreif the gods are kind."

"Even if they are not." Binabik tried to smile, but could not. He took the

spear from her and rested it against the facing of the cave. "When we meet

again, may it be granted that it is beneath no shadow. I will hold you m my heart,

Sisqi."

"Hold me against you now," she said quietly, and they stepped forward

into each other's arms. "Blue Mud Lake is cold this year "

"I will be back ..." Binabik began.

"No more talk. Our time is short."

Their faces came together, vanishing as their hoods touched each other,

and they stood chat way for a long time. They were both trembling.

PART TWO

Storm's Hand

11

Bones of tfte Eortft-

J-l/ was often said that of all the lands of men in Osten Ard, secrets ran

deepest in Hernystir. Not that the land itself was hidden, like the fabled

Trollfells lurking beyond the icy fence of the White Waste, or the land of

the Wrannamen, shrouded in treacherous swamps. The secrets Hernystir

kept were hidden in the hearts of its people, or below its sunny meadows,

deep in the earth.

Of all mortal men, the Hernystiri once had known and loved the Sithi

best. They learned much from themalthough the things they had learned

were now mentioned only in old ballads. They had also traded with the

Sithi, bringing back to their own grassy country articles of workmanship

beyond anything the finest smiths and craftsmen of Imperial Nabban

could produce. In return, the Hernystirmen offered their immortal allies

the fruits of the earthnightblack malachite, ilenite and bright opal,

sapphire, cinnabar, and soft, shiny goldall painstakingly mined from the

thousand tunnels of the Grianspog Mountains.

The Sithi were gone now, vanished absolutely from the earth as far as

most men knew or cared. Some of the Hernystiri knew better. It had been

centuries since the Fair Ones had fled their castle Asu'a, deserting the last

of the Nine Cities accessible to mortal man- Most mortals had forgotten

the Sithi entirely, or saw them only through the distorting veil of old

stories. But among the Hernystiri, an open-hearted and yet secretive folk,

there were still a few who looked at the dark holes that pitted the

Grianspog and remembered.

^

Eolair was not particularly fond of caves. His childhood had been spent

upon the grasslands in the meadows of western Hernystir, at the conjoin-

ing of the Inniscrich and the Cuimnhe rivers. As Count of Nad Mullach,

he had ruled over that territory; later, in service to his king, Lluth ubh-

208 Tad Williams

Llythmn, he had traveled to all the great cities and courts of Osten Ard,

carrying out Hernystir's wishes beneath the lights of countless lamps and

the skies of every nation.

Thus, although his bravery was questioned by no one, and chough his

oath to King Lluth meant he would follow Lluth's daughter Maegwin to

the fires of perdition if that were his duty, he was not altogether pleased to

find himself and his people living deep in the rock of the mighty Grianspog.

"Bagba bite me!" Eolair cursed. A drop of burning pitch had fallen on

his sleeve, scorching his arm through the thm cloth in the time it took him

to put it out. The torch was guttering and would not last much longer. He

considered lighting the second, but that would mean it was time to turn

back; he was not ready to do that. He briefly weighed the risks of finding

himself stuck without light in an unfamiliar tunnel deep in the bowels of

the earth, then cursed again, quietly. If he had not been such a hasty idiot,

he might have remembered to bring his flints with him. Eolair did not like

making that sort of mistake. Too many errors of such an obvious sort and

one's luck would at last run out.

His sleeve extinguished, he turned his attention back to the forking of

the tunnel, squinting at the floor in the vain hope of seeing something that

would help him decide which way to go. Seeing nothing, he hissed in

exasperation.

"Maegwm!" he called, and heard his voice go rolling out into darkness,

echoing down the tunnels. "My lady, are you there?"

The echoes died. Eolair stood in silence with a dying torch and won-

dered what to do.

It was painfully evident chat Maegwin knew her way about this under-

ground maze far better than he did, so perhaps his concern was misplaced.

Surely there were no bears or other animals dwelling this far m the depths,

or they would have made themselves apparent by now- The tattered

remainder of Hernysadharc's citizens had already spent a fortnight in the

mountain deeps, building a new home for an unhomed people among the

bones of the earth. But there were other things to fear down here beside

wild beasts; Eolair could not so lightly dismiss danger. Strange creatures

walked in the heights of the mountains, and there had been mysterious

deaths and disappearances all across the face of the land long before Skali

of Kaldskryke's army came at King Elias' bidding to put down the

rebellious Hernystirmen.

Other, more prosaic dangers might await as well: Maegwin could fall

and break a leg, or tumble into an underground river or lake. Or she

might overestimate her own knowledge of the caverns and wander lost

and lightless until she died from starvation.

There was nothing to do but go on. He would walk a short way farther,

but turn to go back before his torch was half-consumed. That way, by the

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STONE OF FAREWELL

time darkness overcame him he should be within hailing distance of the

caverns that now housed the greatest remnant of the Hemyscin nation-in-

exile.

Eolair lit his second torch with the smoldering remains of the first, then

used the smoking butt of the expired brand to mark the wall at the forking

of the tunnels with the signature runes of Nad Mullach. After a moment's

consideration he chose the wider of the two ways and started forward.

This tunnel, like the one he had just left, had once been part of the

mines that crisscrossed the Grianspog. At this depth within the mountains

it knifed through solid rock. A moment's thought brought home the

unimaginable labor that must have gone into its making. The cross-

timbers that braced it up were broad as the trunks of the greatest trees!

Eolair could not help admiring the careful but heroic work of the vanished

workmenhis and Maegwin's ancestorswho had burrowed their way

through the very stuff of the world to bring beautiful things back to the

light.

The old tunnel slanted downward. The bobbing torch shone on strange,

dim marks scratched into the walls. These tunnels were long-deserted, but

still there seemed an expectant air to them, as though they waited for

some imminent return. The sound of Eolair's boots on the stone seemed

loud as a god's heartbeat, so that the Count of Nad Mullach could not

help but think of Black Cuamh, the master of deep places. The earth-god

suddenly seemed very real and very near, here in a darkness the sun had

never touched since Time's beginning.

Slowing to look more closely at the shallow carvings, Eolair suddenly

realized that many of the curious shapes scratched on the walls were crude

pictures of hounds. He nodded as understanding came. Old Criobhan had

once told him that the miners of elder days called Black Cuamh "Earthdog,"

and left him offerings in the farthest tunnels so that he would grant his

protection against falling rocks or bad air. These carvings were pictures of

Cuamh surrounded by the runes of miner's names, tokens that begged the

god's favor. Other offerings implored the help of Cuamh's servants, the

deep-delving dwarrows, supernatural beings presumed to grant favors and

wealthy ore-veins to lucky miners.

Eolair took the snuffed torch and made his initials again beneath a

round-eyed hound.

Master Cuamh, he thought, if you still watch these tunnels, bring Maegwin

and our people through to safety. We are sorely, sorely pressed.

Maegwin. Now there was a distressing thought. Had she no feeling for

her responsibilities? Her father and brother were dead. The late king's wife

Inahwen was little older than Maegwin herself and far less capable. Lluth's

heritage was in the princess' handsand what was she doing with it?

Eolair had not objected so much to the idea of moving deeper into the

210

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caverns: summer had brought no respite from the cold or from Skali's

armies, and the slopes of the Grianspog Mountains were not the kind of

place to last out a siege of either sort. The Hernysciri who had survived

the war were scattered throughout the farthest wildernesses of Hernystir

and the Frostmarch, but a large and important part was here with the

shreds of the king's household. This was indeed where the kingdom

would endure or fail: it was time to make it a more permanent and

defensible home.

What had worried Eolair, though, was Maegwin's wild fascination with

the depths of the earth, with moving ever deeper into the mountain's

heart. For days now, long after the shifting of the camps was finished,

Maegwin had been wandering away on unspecified errands, disappearing

into remote and unexplored caverns for hours at a stretch, returning at

sleeping-time with her face and hands dirty and her eyes full of a preoccu-

pation that looked much like madness. Old Criobhan and the others asked

her not to go, but Maegwin only drew herself up and coldly declaimed

that they had no right to question Lluth's daughter. If she was needed to

lead the people in defense of their new home, she said, or to tend the

wounded, or to make decisions of policy, she would be there. The rest of

the time was her own. She would use it as she saw fit.

Concerned with her safety, Eolair also asked her where she went,

suggesting that she should not go wandering in the depths again without him

or some other companions. Maegwin, unmoved, would only speak mys-

teriously of "help from the gods," and the "tunnels that led back into the

days of the Peaceful Ones"as much as saying that small-minded idiots

like the Count of Nad Mullach should not concern themselves with things

they could not understand.

Eolair thought she was going mad. He was frightened for Maegwin and

her peopleand also for himself. The count had watched her long slide.

Lluth's mortal injury and the treacherous slaying other brother Gwythinn

had wounded something inside her, but the wound was in a place Eolair

could not reach and all his best efforts seemed only to make things worse.

He did not know why his attempts to help her in her sorrow should

distress her so, but he understood that the king's daughter feared being

pitied more than she feared death.

Unable to ease her pain, or his own hurt at the sight other suffering, he

could at least help keep her alive. But how could he do even that when the

king's daughter did not want to be saved?

Today had been the worst yet. Maegwin had risen before the first gleam

of dawn bled through the chink in the cavern root, then had taken torches

and ropes and a collection of other ominous things before vanishing into

the tunnels. She had not returned by the end of the afternoon. After

supper, Eolairtired himself from a day's patrolling through the Circoille

Woodshad set out after her. If he did not find her soon, he would return

and raise a search party.

STONE OF FAREWELL211

For the better part of an hour he followed the meandering tunnels

downward, marking his progress on the walls, watching his torch dwin-

dle. He had gone beyond the point where he could pretend to himself he

would be able to walk all the way back in light. He was unwilling to give

up, but if he waited much longer there would be two lost in the cata-

combs, and what benefit was that to anybody?

He stopped at last in a place where the way opened out into a rough-

hewn chamber, with black tunnel mouths leading away in three more

directions. He swore, realizing that the time had come to stop fooling

himself. Maegwin could be anywhere; he might even have passed her. He

would return to the jibes of the others, the princess back safely an hour

before. Eolair smiled grimly and bound up his horsetail of black hair,

which had come unbraided as he walked. Jokes would not be so bad.

Better to suffer a little humiliation than . . .

A thin voice whispered into the rock chamber, a trace of melody faint as

an old memory.

". . . His voice echoed out through woods and through wild.

Where two hearts had sounded now beat only one ..."

Eolair's heart sped. He walked into the chamber's center and cupped his

hands around his mouth.

"Maegwin!" he cried. "Where are you. Lady? Maegwin!"

The walls boomed with echoes. When they had died he listened care-

fully, but there was no answering cry.

"Maegwin, it is Eolair!" he called. Again he waited for the chorus of

shouting voices to quiet. This time the stillness was broken by another

tenuous strand of song.

". . - Her dark eyes sky-watching,

Only her shining blood gave him answer,

Her head lay uncradled, her black hair undone . ."

He moved his head from side to side, determining at last that the

singing seemed loudest from the left-hand opening. He ducked his head

through and shouted in surprise as he almost tumbled into blackness. He

pushed outward at the craggy walls to steady himself, then bent to pick up

the torch he had dropped, but even as he reached down, the flame sizzled and

vanished. His hand felt water by the torch's haft and empty space beyond.

Dancing before his blinded eyes was the last thing he had seen before the

light went out, a crude but discernible image painted on black nothing. He

was standing at the top of a rough stone staircase that fell away down the

steep tunnel, a parade of steps that seemed to lead to the center of the world.

212 Tad Williams

Blackness. Trapped in absolute darkness. Eclair felt a spasm of fear

beginning and choked it off. It had been Macgwm's voice he had heard, he

was nearly certain Of course it had been! Who else would be singing old

Hernystin songs m the deeps of creation!

A quiet, childish fear of something that might hide in the dark and

summon its prey with familiar voices struggled inside him. Bagba's Herd,

what kind of man was he?

He touched the walls on cither side. They were damp. The step below

him, when he kneeled to inspect it with his fingers, was sunken in the

middle; water had pooled there. At a reasonable distance below it lay

another step. His probing foot found another lying a similar length below

the second.

"Maegwm?" he called again, but no one was singing.

Stepping down cautiously, keeping his hands above his shoulders so he

could grab at the walls, Eolair began to make his way down the coarse-

hewn stairway. The last flash of light and the picture it had painted had

vanished from his eyes. He strained, but could see only darkness. The

noise of dripping water, running steadily from the walls on all sides, was

the only sound beside his own scuffling feet.

After many cautiously negotiated steps and a drift of time that could

have been hours, the stairway ended. As far as he inched his foot ahead,

the ground stayed level. Eolair took a few cautious steps forward, cursing

himself once more for not bringing his flints. Who would ever have

guessed that this short search for a wandering princess would have turned

into a struggle for life? And where was the one who had sung, whether

Maegwm or some less friendly cavern-dweller?

The tunnel seemed level. He pushed on slowly, following the pathway's

twists with one hand dragging on the wall and the other held before him,

probing in blackness. After he had gone a few hundred paces the tunnel

turned once more. To his immense relief, he found that here he could

actually see something: a faint glow outlined the tunnel's interior, brighter

at its turning a dozen ells ahead.

As he came around the corner, he was splashed with a strong light

welling up from an opening in the tunnel wall. The stone corridor itself

continued on until it bent to the right and he could see no farther, but the

hole in the wall now drew all his attention. Apprehension speeding his

heart more than a little, Eolair got down on his knees and stared through,

starting up again with such surprise that he grazed his head on the stone.

A moment later he had dangled his legs through the opening, letting

himself slide off the floor of the tunnel down into the hole. He landed,

bending his knees to keep from falling over, then slowly stood upright.

He was in a wide cavern whose fluted ceilings, ornate with hanging

spikes of stone, seemed to waver m the light from a pair of flickering oil

lamps. At the far end of the cavern stood a great door, twice as tall as a

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STONE OF FAREWELL

man, flush with the very face of the rock. The door joined the stone lintel

as closely as if it had grown there, its mighty hinges bolted directly to the

wall of the cavern. Sitting against the door in a clutter of ropes and Cools

was .

"Maegwin!" he cried, running forward, tripping on the uneven ground.

The princess' head rested upon on her knees, unmoving. "Maegwin, are

you.. . ?"

She raised her head as he approached. Something in her eyes caught him

up short. "Princess. . . ?"

'T was sleeping." She shook her head slowly and ran her hands through

her sorrel hair. "Sleeping, and dreaming . . ." Maegwin paused and stared

at him. Her face was almost black with dirt; her eyes gleamed eerily.

"Who. . . ?" she began, ther shook her head again. "Eolair! I was having

the oddest dream . . . you were calling me ..."

He sprang forward, squatting at her side. She seemed to have suffered

no injury. He quickly ran his hands through her hair, feeling her head for

the mark of a fall.

"What are you doing?" she asked, but did not seem overly concerned.

"And what are you doing here?"

He leaned away so he could look at her face. "I must ask you that

question, Lady. What are you doing here? Your people are sick with

worry."

She smiled lazily. "I knew I would find it," she said. "1 knew it."

"What are you Calking about?" Eolair said angrily. "Come, we must go

back. Thanks to the gods that you have lamps, otherwise we would be

trapped here forever!"

"Do you mean you didn't bring a torch? Foolish Eolair! I have brought

many things with me, since it is such a long way back to the upper

caverns." She gestured at her scattered tools. "I have some bread, I think.

Are you hungry?"

Eolair sat back on his heels, baffled. Was this what happened when

someone went irretrievably mad? The princess seemed quite happy, here

in a hole far beneath the earth. What had happened to her?

"I ask you again," he said as calmly as he could. "What are you doing

here?"

Maegwin laughed. "Exploring. At least at first. It is our only hope, you

know. To go deeper, that is. We must always keep going deeper, or our

enemies will find us."

Eolair let out a hiss of exasperation. "We have done as you wish

already. Princess. The people have taken to the caves, as you directed.

Now they wonder where the king's daughter has gone."

"But I also knew I would find this," she said, continuing as if Eolair had

not spoken. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "The gods have not deserted

us," she said, looking around as though she feared eavesdroppers, "for

214 Tad Williams

they have spoken to me in dreams. They have not deserted us." She

pointed at the great door behind them. "And neither have our old allies

the Sithifor that is what we need, do we not. Eolair? Allies?" Her eyes

were fearfully bright. "I have thought about this until my head is splitting

and I know I am right! Hernystir needs help in this terrible hourand

what better allies than the Sithi, who stood with us once before?! Every-

one thinks the Peaceful Ones have disappeared from the earth. But they

haven't! 1 am sure they have only^one deeper."

"This is more than I can stand," Eolair said, taking her arm. "This is

madness, Lady, and it tears my heart in my chest to see you so. Come. Let

us go back."

Maegwin pulled away, eyes bright with anger. "You are the one who

speaks madness, Count! Go back?! I have spent more hours than I can

count cutting the bolt. I had to sleep for a little when I had finished, but

I have done it! It is done, and I am going to go through the door! Do not

speak to me of going back!"

Eolair looked up to see that the princess spoke truthfully. The bolt, big

as a man's wrist, had been chipped through. A hammer and dented chisel

lay nearby.

"What is this door?" he asked suspiciously. "It is part of the old mines,

surely."

"I told you," she responded coldly. "It is the door to the pastthe door

that leads to the Peaceful Ones. To the Sithi." As she faced him, her iron

gaze seemed to soften and melt. Another emotion pushed its way to the

surface, bringing confusion and longing to Maegwin's face; the Count of

Nad Mullach felt a deep, helpless pang of sorrow. "Oh, Eolair," she said,

pleading now, "don't you see? We can be safe! Come, help me! Please,

Eolair, I know you think I am a fool, a plainfaced horse of a woman, but

you loved my father! Please, help me open the door!"

Eolair could not meet her gaze. He turned away to stare up at the great

door, tears welling in his eyes. Wretched girl! What could have tormented

her so? The death of a father and brother? The loss of a kingdom?

Tragedies, allbut others who had suffered the same did not fall into such

pitiable notions. The Sithi had been real once, certainlyreal as rain and

stone. But five long centuries had passed since even a rumor of the Fair

Folk had made its way to Hemystir. And the idea that the gods were

leading Maegwin to these long-vanished Sithi . . . even Eolair, with his

respect for the unknown, could still see that this was clearly the madness

other loss speaking.

He wiped his face with his sleeve. The stone facing around the door was

covered with strange, intricate symbols and minutely detailed carvings of

faces and figures, mostly worn down by dripping water. It was true that

they were constructions of exquisite subtlety, seemingly far above even

the most ambitious work ofHemystiri miners. What could this place have

215

STONE OF FAREWELL

been? Some ancient temple, from the earliest days? Had strange rituals

been performed here for Black Cuamh, away from the simple shrines of

other gods that dotted the face of the land above?

Eolair took a breath and wondered if he was making a foolish decision.

"I do not wish to hear you malign yourself untruthfully any longer,

Princess, and I do not want to carry you back by force. If I help you open

the door," he said slowly, not daring to see the painful look of hope on

her face, "will you return with me afterward?"

"Oh, yes, whatever you want'" She was childlike in her eagerness. "I

will let you decide, because I know when you see the land where the Sithi

still live, you will not want to hurry back to any sooty cavern. Yes!"

"Very well, then. I have your word, Maegwin." He stood up and

grasped the handle of the door, giving it a sharp tug. There was no

movement at all.

"Eolair," Maegwin said quietly.

He pulled again, harder, until he could feel the cords of his neck

standing out, but the door did not budge.

"Count Eolair," Maegwin said.

He gave the door another futile pull, then turned. "What?"

She gestured at the door with a broken-nailed finger. "1 sawed the bolt

through, but the pieces are still there. Shouldn't we take them out?"

"That would make no difference ..." he began, then looked more

closely. Part of the severed bolt had fallen into the door loop, effectively

preventing the door's opening. Eolair hissed, then pushed the pieces out.

They fell clinking to the damp stone.

This time, as Eolair pulled, the hinges creaked protestingly. Maegwin

came forward, curling her hands around the door handle beside the count's,

adding her strength to his. The hinges spoke louder. As he kept up the

pressure, he distractedly watched the muscles in her forearms. She was

strong, this young womanbut then, she never had been a weak or

retiring type. Except around him, where he had often noticed her sharp

tongue suddenly blunted.

Straining, Eolair sucked in a chestful of air and could not help noticing

Maegwin's scent. Sweaty and covered with dirt, the princess did not smell

like a perfumed lady from the court in Nabban, but there was something

raw and warm and lively about her that was not unpleasant at all. Eolair

shook his head at such musings and redoubled his effort, watching

Maegwin's determined face as the noise of the hinges rose to a shriek. The

door began to grate openan inch, then a few inches more, then a foot,

protesting loudly all the way. When a cubit of blackness was exposed they

stopped, leaning against the heavy timbers to catch their breath.

Maegwin bent and picked up a lamp, then slipped through the opening

while Eolair was still gasping.

"Princess!" he called breathlessly, then edged through after her. "Wait!

216

Tad Williams

The air may be bad'" Even as he spoke he realized that the air was fine, if

a little heavy "Just . ." he began, then stopped short at Maegwin's

shoulder The lamp she held threw light all around

"I told you'" Her voice was full of satisfied awe "This is where our

friends live'"

"Brynioch of the Skies'" Eolair murmured, stunned

A great city lay before them, stretched along the bottom of a wide

canyon As they stood at the canyon's edge, gazing down, the vast

expanse of buildings seemed to be hewed directly from the mountain's

heart, as though the entire city were one seamless, incalculably immense

piece of living stone. Every window and door had been cut into solid

rock, every tower carved out of pillars of pre-existing stone, pillars that

stretched up Coward the cavern's ceiling far overhead But for all its size,

the city also looked to be surprisingly close, as though it were in truth

only a miniature, made to trick the eye From where they stood on the top

steps of a broad staircase that wound down into the canyon, it seemed

they could almost reach out and touch the domed roofs

"The city of the Peaceful Ones . . " Maegwin said happily.

If it was a Sithi city, Eolair thought, then its immortal inhabitants must

have decided their declining years would be better spent on the sunny

surface, for this spread of delicately hewn and shaded stone was emptyor

so it certainly seemed. Shaken by the discovery of such an uncanny place,

the count found himself fervently hoping that it was indeed as deserted as

it looked.

-s.-

The small cell was cold. Duke Isgnmnur snorted miserably, rubbing his

hands together.

Mother Church would do better to fake a few of those damned offerings and use

them to heat her greatest house, he thought. The tapestries and gold candlesticks

are all well and goodbut how can anyone admire them when he's freezing to

death7

He had stayed long in the common room the night before, sitting

quietly before the great fireplace as he listened to the stories of other

traveling monks, most of whom had come to the Sanceilan Aedonitis on

some sort of business with the lectoral establishment When friendly

questions were directed toward him, Isgnmnur had replied tersely and

infrequently, knowing that hereamong others of the same guild, so to

speakthe danger of his masquerade being detected was greatest.

Now, as he sat listening to the Clavean bell tolling for morning prayer,

he felt himself strongly inclined to go back to the common room again

The risk of exposure was great, but how else could be help to uncover the

news he so urgently sought?

S rONE OF FAREWELL217

If only that damnable Count Streawe spoke straig fitly Why should he bring me

all the way across Ansis Pelippe just to tell me Minamele was at the Sanceilan

Aedomtis7 How could he know that7 And why should he telt me, about whom he

knew only that I was asking questions about two monks, an old one and a young7

Isgnmnur considered briefly the possibility that Streawe had known

who he was, and worse, that the count had set him to some kind of wild

chase on purpose, when Mmamele was in reality nowhere near the lector's

palace. But if that was the case, why should Perdrum's master speak to

him personally^ They had sat there, the count and monkishly-disguised

Isgnmnur, drinking wine in the count's own sitting room Did Streawe

know who he was^ What did the man have to gain by sending Isgnmnur

to the Sanceilan Aedonitis7

Trying to puzzle out Count Streawe's game made Isgnmnur's head

ache What choice did he have, anyway, but to take the count's word at its

face value^ He had been at a complete dead end, combing the alleyways of

Perdrum's greatest city for word of the princess and the monk Cadrach

with little result So here he was, a mendicant monk taking a little charity

in Mother Church's bosom, hoping to find out if Streawe was correct.

He stamped his feet. The soles of his boots were worn thin and the chill

seemed to crawl up through the dank stone floors right into the bottoms

of his feet This was foolishness, this hiding in his ceH, it would not help

him in his quest He must get out and mix with the Sancellan's swarming

throngs Besides, when he sat too long by himself, the faces of his wife

Gutrun and his children came to him, filling him with despair and helpless

rage He remembered the joy when Isorn had come back to him out of

captivity, the bursting pride, the exhilaration of fear defeated. Would he

live to have another such reunion with them alP God grant that he would.

It was his fondest hope, but one that seemed so tenuous that, like a spider

web, to handle it unnecessarily might spell its ruin.

But in any case, hope alone was not a fit diet for a knighteven an old

one like the duke, with his best days behind him. There was also duty.

Now that Naglimund was fallen and Isgnmnur's folk were all scattered

God knew where, the only duty he had left was to Minamele, and to

Prince Josua who had sent him after her. Indeed, he was grateful there was

something left for him to do.

Isgnmnur stood in the hallway stroking his chin. Praise Usires, the

beard stubble was not too pronounced. He had not been able to force

himself to shave this morning The bowl of water had been nearly frozen,

and even after several weeks of traveling as a monk he was still not

reconciled to running a sharp blade over his face every day He had worn a

beard since his first year as a man He mourned it now the way he would

have a missing hand or foot.

The duke was trying to decide which direction might lead him back

218 Tad Williams

toward the common roomand toward its blazing firewhen he felt a

hand on his arm He turned quickly, startled and found himself sur-

rounded by a trio of priests The one who had touched him. an old man

with a harelip, smiled

"Did 1 not see \ou in the room last night, brother5" he asked He spoke

the Wcsterling tongue carefully, hampered by a strong Nabbanai accent

"You have just come from the north, no5 Come and Join us for the

morning meal Are vou hungrv3"

Isgnmnur shrugged and nodded

"Good " The old man patted his arm "I am Brother Septcs These are

Rovallcs and Ncylm, two others ofmv order," He indicated the younger

monks "You willjoin us. yes7"

"Thank you " Isgnmnur smiled uncertainly, wondering if there was

some monkish etiquette known only to initiates "God bless you," he

added

"And you," Septcs said, taking Isgnmnur's large arm with his thin

fingers, leading him up the corridor The other two monks fell in behind,

talking quietly

"Have you seen the Elysia Chapel yet5" the old man asked

Isgnmnur shook his head "I only arrived last night "

"It is beautiful Beautiful Our abbev is near Lake Myrme, to the east,

but I try to come here once a year I always bring a few of the younger

ones with me, to show them the glory that God has built for us here "

Isgnmnur nodded piously They walked on in silence for a while, their

path joining that of other monks and priests who converged from criss-

crossing hallways onto the main thoroughfare, blending together like

shoals of drab fish, being drawn as though by a current toward the dining

hall

The mass migration slowed at the hall's wide doors As Isgnmnur and

his new companions joined the pressing throng, Septes asked the duke a

question Isgnmnur could not hear above the clamor of voices, so the old

man stood on tiptoe to speak into his ear

"I said, how are things in the north5" Septcs almost shouted "We have

heard terrible stones Famine, wolves, deadiv blizzards "

Isgnmnur nodded, frowning "Things arc very bad," he called back As

he spoke, he and the others were propelled through the door like a stopper

from the neck of a bottle, and found themselves milling inside the dining

hall entrance The roar of conversation seemed enough to shake the

roofbeams

"I thought it was custom to have silence at mealtimes'" Isgnmnur

shouted Septes' young followers, like the duke, stared goggle-eyed at the

scores of tables that stretched end to end across the wide room There

were some dozen or so rows, and each table in each row was crowded

with the hunched backs of cassocked men, their tonsured heads a profu-

STONE OF FAREWELL219

sion of pink spots, like the fingernails of some hundred-handed ogre Each

man seemed to be engaged in loud conversation with his neighbors, some

waving their spoons for attention The sound was as vast as the ocean that

surrounded Nabban

Septes laughed, the sound subsumed in the greater roaring He stood on

tiptoe again "It is silent in our abbey at home and in many othersas no

doubt it is in your Rimmersgard monasteries, yes7 But here at the Sancellan

Aedonitis are those who are doing God's business they must speak and

listen just like merchants "

"Speculating on the price of souls3" Isgnmnur gnnned sourly, but the

old man did not hear him

"If you prefer silence," Septes shouted, "you should go down to the

archives The priests there are silent as the tomb and a whisper sounds like

a thunderclap Come' Bread and soup can be got over there, where that

door is, then you will tell me more about what happens in the north,

yes7"

Isgnmnur tried not to watch the old man eat, but it was difficult

Because of his harelip, Septes dnbbled soup constantly, and soon had a

little river of it running down the front of his robe

"I am sorry," the old man said at last, mumbling at a crust of bread, he

did not seem to have many teeth, either "I have not asked your name

What are you called3"

"Isbeom," the duke said It was his father's name and fairly common

"Ah, Isbeorn Well, I am Septesbut I told you that, no7 Tell us

more of what happens in the north That is another reason I come to

Nabbanfor news we do not get in the Lakelands "

Isgnmnur told him something of what had happened north of the

Frostmarch, of the killing storms and evil times Choking down his

bitterness, he told ofSkali ofKaldskryke's usurpation of his own power in

Elvntshalla and the devastation and kmslaymg that had resulted

"We had heard that Duke Isgnmnur was proved a traitor to the High

King," Septes said, mopping the last of the soup from his bowl with a

nnd of bread "Travelers told us that Elias found out the duke was in

league with the king's brother josua to take the throne "

"That's a lie'" Isgnmnur said angrily, smacking his hand on the table so

that young Neylm's bowl almost overtipped Heads turned on all sides

Septes raised an eyebrow "Forgive us," he said, "for we only speak of

rumors we have heard Perhaps we have touched on a painful subject Was

Isgnmnur a patron of your order3"

"Duke Isgnmnur is an honest man," the duke said, cursing himself for

letting his temper get the best of him "I hate to hear him slandered "

"Of course," Septes spoke as soothingly as he could while still being

heard above the ruckus "But we have heard other stones from the north

220 Tad Williams

as well, very frightening, yes3 Rovalles, tell him what the traveler told to

you "

Young Rovalles started to speak, but broke into a fit of coughing as he

choked on a crust Neylm the other acolyte, pounded him on the back

until he got his breath, then continued pounding, perhaps a little overexcited

at being in Nabban for the first time

"A man we meet when we are coming here," Rovalles said when

Neyhn had been restrained, "he is from Hewenshire, or some place up

in Erkynland " The young monk did not speak Westerling as well as

Septes, he had to stop and chink carefully before choosing words "He say

that when Lhas' siege cannot throw down Josua's castle, the High King

raise up white demons from the earth, and by magic they kill everyone m

the keep He swear it is so, that he sees it himself "

Scptcs, who had been dabbing at the front of his robe while Rovalles

spoke, now leaned forward "Like me, Isbeorn, you know how full of

superstition people can be, yes7 If only this man told the story, I would

call him madman and have done But many are speaking quietly here in

the Sancellan, many who say Elias has trafficked with demons and evil

spirits " He touched Isgnmnur's hand with his bent fingers, the duke

fought an urge to recoil "You must have heard of the siege, even though

you say you kft the north before it ended What is the truth behind these

stones7"

Isgnmnur stared at the old monk for a moment, wondering if there was

more to this question than met the eye At last he sighed This was a

kindly old man with a harelip, nothing more These were frightening

timeswhy should Septes not try to cadge information from someone

who had come from the heartland of rumor7

"I have heard little more than you," he said at last, "but I can tell you

chat evil things are afootthings that godly men would rather not know

about, but damn me if that makes them go away " Septes' eyebrow

twitched upward again at Isgnmnur's language, but he did not interrupt

Isgnmnur, warming to the subject, spoke on "Sides are forming, you

could say, and some that look prettier are really the fouler I can't say

more than that Don't believe everything you hear, but don't be too quick

to cry 'superstition,' either" He broke off, realizing that he was

entering dangerous territory There was little more he could say without

attracting attention as a source of substantiation for the gossip that was

doubtless flying through the Sancellan Aedomtis He could not afford to

be the subject of attention until he had learned if Princess Minamele was

indeed here

The bits and pieces he had doled out, however, seemed to satisfy Septes

The old man leaned back, still scratching idly at the drying soup stain on

his breast "Ah," he nodded His voice just carried above the tabletalk

"Weliaday, we have heard enough fearsome stones to take what you say

STONE OF FAREWELL22]

senously, yes7 Very seriously " He gestured for the nearest acolyte to help

him up "Thank you for sharing our meal, Isbeorn," he said "God keep

you I hope we can speak more in the common room tonight How long

do you stay7"

"I'm not sure yet," Isgnmnur replied "My thanks to you, too "

The old man and his two companions disappeared into the crush of

retreating monks, leaving Isgnmnur to sort out his thoughts After a

moment he gave up and rose from the table

I can't even hear myself think in here He shook his head grimly, pushing

toward the doorway His large size helped him make rapid progress and

he reached the main hallway swiftly Now I've gone and spouted my own

piece, but I'm not a whit closer to finding poor Minamele, he thought sourly

And how can I find out her whereabouts, anyway7 just ask someone if E{ias1

missing daughter if anywhere in the place7 Oh, and she's traveling as a boy,

besides That'f even better Perhaps HI just ask around, jind out if any young

monks have shown up at the Sancellan Aedomtis lately

He gave a bitter snort as he watched the river of habited forms swirl

past

Elysia, Mother of God, I wish Eolair was with me That damned Hemystirman

hves this kind of nonsense He'd track her down quick enough, with his smooth

ways What am I doing here7

The Duke ofElvntshalla rubbed his fingers along his unnaturally smooth

jaw Then, startling even himself, he began to laugh at his own hopeless

foolishness

Passing priests eddied nervously around the big-bellied northern monk,

who was evidently caught up in some kind of religious fit Isgnmnur

roared and bellowed with laughter until the tears coursed down his chafed

pink cheeks

^

Thunderstorm weather lay on the swamp like a blanket, damp and

oppressively hot Tiamak could feel the storm's yearning hunger to exist,

its prickly breath made the hair stand up on his arms What he would not

give for the storm to break and a little cool ram to fall' The thought of

raindrops splashing on his face and bending the leaves of the mangroves

seemed like a dream of the most benevolent magic

Tiamak sighed as he lifted his pole from the water and laid it across the

thwarts of his flatboat He stretched, trying without success to unkmk the

muscles of his back He had been poling for three days and had suffered

two near-sleepless nights filled with worry about what he should do If he

went to Kwanitupul and stayed there, would he be betraying his tnbesmen7

Could they ever understand a debt he owed to drylandersor owed to a

few drylanders, anyway7

222

Tad Williams

Of course they wouldn't understand. Tiamak frowned and reached for

his waterskm, sloshing a generous mouthful around before swallowing it.

He had always been thought of as strange. If he did not go to Nabban to

plead his people's case with Duke Benigans, he would simply be a strange

traitor. That would be the end of it as far as the elders of Village Grove

were concerned.

He took his kerchief from his head and dipped it over the side of the

boat into the water, then arranged it atop his hair once more. Blessedly

cool water dribbled down his face and neck. The bright, long-tailed birds

perched in the branches overhead stopped screeching for a moment as a

dim rumble rolled across the swamp. Tiamak felt his heart beat faster.

He Who Always Steps on Sand, let the storm come soon!

His boat had begun to slow when he had stopped poling. Now the stem

began to swing gradually out to the middle of the watercourse, turning

him sideways so that he faced the bankor rather, what would have been

the bank if this were a dryland river. Here in the Wran it was only a tangle

of clustered mangroves whose roots held in just enough sand for the

colony of trees to grow and prosper. Tiamak made a resigned noise and

pushed his pole back into the water once more, straightening the boat

and prodding it forward through a thick clump of lilies which clutched at

his passing hull like the fingers of drowning swimmers. It was several

more days to Kwanitupul, and that was if the storm he was praying for

did not bring heavy winds in its train, winds which might uproot trees

and make this part of the Wran an unpassable snarl of roots and trunks and

broken branches.

He Who Always Steps on Sand, he amended his prayer, let a cooling hut

gentle storm come soon!

His heart felt unutterably heavy. How could he choose between two

such awful possibilities? He could go as far as Kwanitupul before choosing

whether to stay there in accordance with Morgenes' wishes or to go on to

Nabban as Older Mogahib and the rest had ordered. He tned to soothe

himself with that idea, but wondered if such thinking was not m fact just

like allowing a wound to fester, when instead he should gnt his teeth and

clean it out so the healing could start?

Tiamak thought of his mother, who had spent most of her life on her

knees, tending the cookfire, grinding grain in the pestle, working every

day from the darkness before dawn until it was time to crawl into the

hammock at night- He had little respect for the village elders, but now he

felt a sudden fear that his mother's spirit might be watching him. She

would never understand her son turning his back on his people for the

sake of strangers. She would want him to go to Nabban. Serve his own

folk first, then take care of his personal honor, that was what his mother

would say.

Thinking of her made it seem very clear. He was a Wrannaman first:

223

STONE OF FAREWELL

nothing would change that. He must go to Nabban. Morgenes, that kind

old man, would understand his reasons. Afterward, after he had finished

his duties to his people, he would go back to Kwanitupul as his drylander

friends had asked.

The decision lifted part of the load of worry from Tiamak's shoulders.

He decided he might as well stop soon and scare up something for a noon

meal. He reached down and tested his fishing line, tied to the back of the

flatboat. It seemed light; as he pulled it up he saw to his disgust that the

bait had been eaten again, but whatever had dined at his expense had not

waited around to pay respects. At least the hook was still there. Metal

hooks were painfully expensive itemshe had paid for this one with an

entire day of work as an interpreter in the market at Kwanitupul. The next

month at market he had found the parchment with Nisses' name on it, and

had paid a full day's wages for that as well. Two expensive purchases, but

the fishook had indeed proved much sturdier than the ones he whittled of

bone, which usually broke on the first snag. The Nisses parchmenthe

patted protectively at the oilskin bag lying at his feetif he was correct

about its origins, was a gem beyond price. Not bad work for two days'

marketing.

Tiamak hauled m the line, wrapping it gently, then steered the boat over

closer to the bank of mangroves. He poled along slowly, waiting until the

mangrove roots gave way for a while to a short stretch of soggy dirt

cluttered with waving reeds. Bringing the boat as close to the edge of the

watercourse as he could, he pulled his knife from his belt and dug in the

wet soil, at last turning up some spitfly roe. He wrapped the shiny things

in his kerchief, saving one only to bait the hook. This done, he tossed the

line back into the water to trail behind the boat. As he poled out into the

middle of the stream once more, thunder grumbled in the distance. It

seemed to be farther away than last time. He shook his head sadly. The

storm was in no hurry.

It was late afternoon when he passed out of the overhanging thicket

of mangroves and emerged into unshadowed sunlight once more. Here

the waterway grew wider and deeper. A sea of reeds rolled out toward the

horizon, all but motionless in the oppressive heat, crisscrossed with

the shining tracks of other watercourses. The sky was gray with threatening

clouds, but the sun burned brightly behind them. and Tiamak could not

help but feel more lighthearted. An ibis rose, white wings flapping slowly,

then settled down into the reeds a short distance away. To the south, past

miles of marsh and swamp forest, he could see the dark line of the

Nascadu Mountains. To the west, invisible beyond an endless prairie of

cattails and mangroves, lay the sea.

Tiamak poled distractedly, momentarily caught up in a correction he

had decided to make in his great work of scholarship, a revision of The

224

Tad Williams

Sovran Remedies of the Wranna Healers. He had suddenly realized that the

shape of the cattait itself might have something to do with its use among

the men of the Meadow Thnthmgs as a marital potion, and was planning

the wording of a footnote that would delicately suggest this connection

without seeming too clever, when he felt a strange vibration against his

back. He turned, startled, and saw that his fishing line was pulled taut,

humming like the plucked string of a lute-

For a moment he was sure it must be a snagthe pull was so strong

that it had imparted some of its tension to the stern of the boatbut as he

leaned over he saw some silver-gray thing rise briefly toward the surface,

wriggling, then dive down into the brackish water again. A fish! As long

as Tiamak's arm! He gave a small cry of delight and began to pull on the

line. The silver thing seemed to leap up at him. For a split instant one pale,

shiny fin appeared above the water, then it vanished beneath the boat,

stretching the line tight. Tiamak heaved and it gave a little, but not much.

It was a strong fish. A sudden image of the line snapping and his next two

days' worth of meals swimming away filled Tiamak's heart with sick

horror. He lessened the tension on the fishing line. He would let the fish

tire itself, then he could reel it in at his leisure. In the meantime, he would

keep an eye open for a dry patch where he could build a fire. He could

wrap the fish in minog leaves, and surely there would be wild quickweed

growing somewhere nearby ... In his thoughts he could already taste it.

The heat, the recalcitrant thunderstorm, his betrayal of Morgcnes (as

he still saw it) and all else receded in the warm glow of the contem-

plated meal. He tested the line again, rejoicing at the firm, steady pull. He

had not had fresh fish in weeks'

A splash impinged on his reverie. Tiamak looked up to see a rainbow of

ripples spreading beside the shoreline, a couple of long stone-throws

away. There was something else as well: a moment later he picked out a

row of low bumps like tiny islands moving smoothly through the water

toward his boat.

Crocodile! Tiamak's heart quailed. His wonderful dinner! He tugged

hard at the line, but the fish was still beneath the flatboat and resisting

fiercely; the line burned his palms as he struggled unsuccessfully to wrestle

the fish to the surface- The crocodile was a dark blur just below the

surface, the motion of its powerful tail sending eddies across the still

water. Its craggy back breached forjust a moment, a hundred cubits from

where Tiamak sat, then it was gonediving toward his fish!

There was no time to think, no time at all. His dinner, his fishing hook,

his line, all would be lost if he waited a moment longer. Tiamak felt a

black rage flare into life in his empty stomach and a band of pain tighten

itself around his temples. His mother, had she lived to see him at this

moment, would hardly have recognized her shy, clumsy son. If she had

seen what he did next, she would have stumbled to the shrine of She Who

STONE OF FAREWELL225

Birthed Mankind at the back wall of the family hut, then fainted dead

away.

Tiamak looped the cord tied to his kmfe-hilt around his wrist, then

flung himself over the stern of the boat. Mumbling inarticulately with

anger and despair, he barely sucked in a hasty breath and closed his mouth

before the green, cloudy water closed over his head.

Flailing, he opened his eyes. The sunlight filtered down through the

watercourse, passing through plumes of drifting silt as through clouds. He

darted a glance up at the rectangular darkness that was the bottom of his

boat and saw a glittering shape hanging there. Despite his wild, heart-

thumping panic, he felt a moment of satisfaction at the size of the fish

lying torpid at the end of his line. Even his father Tugumak would have

had to admit it was a splendid catch!

As he stroked upward, reaching toward his prize, the shimmering thing

darted along the boat-bottom and slipped out of sight along the craft's far

side, rising up out of Tiamak's view. The line pulled taut against the

wooden hull. The Wrannaman snatched at it wildly, but it now hugged

the boat so tightly that his fingers could find no purchase- He gave a little

cough of dread, sending bubbles dancing outward. Hurry, he must hurry!

The crocodile would be upon him in a moment!

His heartbeat boomed in the watery silence of his ears. His scrabbling

fingers could not grip the line. The fish remained out of sight and out of

reach, as if perversely determined that it should not suffer alone, and panic

was making Tiamak clumsy. He finally gave up and pushed himself away

from the bottom of the boat, kicking to bring himself upright. The fish

was lost. He had to save himself.

Too late!

A dark shape slid past him and angled upward, slipping in and out of

the shadow of his boat. The crocodile was not the largest he had ever seen,

but it was certainly the largest he had ever been beneath. Its white belly

passed over him, the tail a diminishing stnpe buffeting him with its wake.

His breath was pressing on his lungs, burning to escape and fill the

murky water with bubbles. He kicked and turned, his eyes feeling as

though they would push from his head, and saw the blunt arrow-shape of

the crocodile skimming toward him. Its jaws parted. There was a glimpse

of red-shadowed darkness and an infinity of teeth. He whirled, swinging

his arm, and watched the horrifyingly slow movement of the knife as he

pushed it against the wall of water. The reptile thumped against his ribs,

rasping him with its horny hide as he struggled out of its way. His knife

bit shallowly into its flank, dragging along the armored skin for a moment

before bouncing off. A thin brown-black cloud trailed the crocodile as it

swam on, circling the boat once more.

Tiamak's lungs felt as though they had grown impossibly large within

his chest, straining at his ribs until spots of blackness began to appear

226 Tad Williams

before his eyes. Why had he been such a fool? He didn't want to die like

this, drowned and eaten!

Even as he tried to struggle upward toward the surface, he felt a

crushing pressure enfold his leg; m the next instant, he was jerked down-

ward. His knife spilled loose from his hand, and his arms and free leg

kicked wildly as he was pulled toward the darkness of the river bottom. A

belch of bubbles escaped his lips. The faces of the elders of his tribe,

Mogahib and Roahog the Potter and others, seemed to press down on his

dimming sight, their expressions full of weary disgust at his idiocy.

His knife-cord still looped his wrist; as he whirled down into river-

darkness he struggled to find the hilt. His hands coiled against it and he

summoned his strength, then leaned forward against the bottomward pull,

finding the hard, rough jaws that clutched his leg. Clinging with one hand

so chat he could feel the crooked teeth beneath his fingers, he set the

knifepoint against the leathery eyelid and pushed. The head jerked beneath

his hands as the crocodile convulsed and bit down harder, which sent a

bolt of scalding pain up his leg and into his heart. Another clutch of

precious bubbles sprang from Tiamak's mouth. He pushed the blade m as

hard as he could, his thoughts a swirling black blur of faces and nonsensi-

cal words. As he twisted at the handle in mad agony, the crocodile

loosened its jaws. He pulled at its upper jaw with desperate strength,

forcing it up just far enough to jerk his leg free before it snapped shut

again. The water was clouding with blood. Tiamak could feel nothing

beneath his knee at all, nothing above it but the fiery pain of his bursting

lungs. Somewhere below him the crocodile was tying itself in dark knots

on the river bottom, swimming in ever-narrowing circles. Tiamak tried to

claw upward toward the remembered sun, even as he felt the spark within

him dying.

He passed through many darknesses, coming at last into the light.

The daystar was in the gray sky; the cattails stood windless and silent

along the edge of the water. He gasped in a lifetime's worth of hot marsh

air, opening his entire body to it, then almost sank beneath the water again

as it rushed into his lungs like a river shattering its dam and spilling down

into a parched valley. Light of every hue gleamed before his eyes, until he

felt as though he had discovered some ultimate secret. A moment later, as

he saw his boat bobbing on the unsettled water a short distance away, the

sense of revelation evaporated. He felt a sick, debilitating blackness again

come crawling up his spine into his skull. He struggled toward the boat,

his body curiously painless, as though he were nothing but a head floating

upon the watercourse. He reached the side of the flatboat and clung,

breathing deeply as he summoned his strength. By sheer will he pulled

himself over into safety, scraping his cheek raw on the thwart, not

caring in the least. The blackness overcame him at last. He stopped

struggling and sank beneath its surface.

227

STONE OF FAREWELL

He awakened to a sky red as blood. A hot wind swept across the

marshland. The blazing sky seemed inside his head as well, for he burned

like a fired pot fresh from the kiln With fingers chat felt awkward as

pieces of wood, he scrabbled his spare breechclout from the bottom of the

boat and tied it tightly around the red ruin of his lower leg, unable to

think much about the bleeding runnels that had been gouged from knee to

heel. Struggling against the oblivion that was reaching out for him, he

wondered absently if he would be able to walk again, then dragged

himself to the edge of the boat and pulled at the fishing line which still

hung over the side, trailing into green depths. With his failing strength he

managed to wrestle the silver fish over the stern, letting it slide wriggling

down next to him in the boat's shallow belly. The fish's eye was open; its

mouth, too, as though it were trying to ask Death a question.

He rolled onto his back, staring up into the violet sky. There was a

resounding crack and rumble from above. A flurry of raindrops danced on

his fevered skin. Tiamak smiled as he once more fell away into darkness.

4-

Isgnmnur got up from the bench and strode to the fireplace, turning to

present his rump to the blaze. He would be off to bed in a short while, so

he might as well soak up all the warmth he could before he had to return

Co thaC be-damned, arse-freezing cell.

He listened to the muted sounds of conversation that filled the common

room, marveling at the diversity of accents and languages. The Sancellan

Aedomtis was like a little world of its own, even more so than the

Hayholt, but varied as the talk had been all evening, he was not an inch

closer to solving any of his problems.

The duke had paced the near-endless halls all morning and afternoon,

keeping an eye open for a suspicious pair of monks or anything else that

might ease his predicament. His search had been fruitless, except to

remind him of the size and power of Mother Church. He had become so

frustrated by his inability to discover whether Mirnmele was here or not

that as the afternoon waned he had left the Sancellan Aedomtis entirely.

He took his supper in an inn partway down the Sancelhne Hill, then

walked quietly in the Hall of Fountains, something he had not done for

many years He and Gutrun had visited the fountains shortly before their

marriage, when they had come to Nabban on a nuptial pilgrimage tradi-

tional in Isgnmnur's family. The glistening play of water and its continual

music had filled him with a kind of pleasant melancholy; although his

longing and worry for his wife were great, for the first time in weeks he

had been able to think of her without being overwhelmed by pain. She

must be safeand horn, too. He would just believe it, for what else could

228 Tad Williams

he do? The rest of the family, his other son and two daughters, were in the

capable hands of old Thane Tonnrud in Skoggey. Sometimes, when all

was uncertain, a man just had to crust in the goodness of God.

After his walk, Isgrimnur had returned to the Sancellan, his mind

calmed and ready to turn to his task once more. His companions from the

morning meal had come in for a while but had left early, old Septes

explaining that they kept "country hours." The duke had sat and listened

long to the talk of others, but to no avail.

Much of the gossip, although couched in careful terms, seemed to be

about whether Lector Ranessin would legitimize Benigaris' succession to

Nabban's ducal seat. Not that anything Lector Ranessin might say would

actually lift Benigaris' hind end from the throne, but the Benidrivine

House and Mother Church had long ago reached a delicate balance con-

cerning Nabban's governance. There was much worry that the lector

would do something rash, like denounce Benigaris on the basis of the

rumors that the new duke had betrayed his father, or had not defended

him properly in the battle before Naglimund, but most of the Nabbanai

prieststhe Sancellan's home-grown menwere quick to assure their

foreign brethren that Ranessin was an honorable and diplomatic man. The

lector, they promised, would certainly do the right thing.

Duke Isgrimnur flapped the hem of his cassock, trying to force a little

warm air up beneath the garment. If only the lector's honor and diplo-

macy could solve everybody's problems . . .

Of course! That's it! Damn my ignorant eyes/or not seeing it before! Isgrimnur

smacked a broad hand on his thigh and chuckled fruitily. I'll talk to the

lector. Whatever he thinks, my secret will be safe with him. I'm sure Miriamele's

will, too. If anyone has the authority to jind her here without raising a fuss, it's

His Sacredness.

The duke felt much better after this solution had presented itself. He

turned and rubbed his hands before the flames a few more times, then set

out across the polished wooden floor of the common room.

A small crowd at one of the arched doorways caught his attention.

Several monks were standing in the open door; several others stood on the

balcony outside, cold air bleeding in past them. Many of the common

room's Other inhabitants were protesting, or had already given up and

moved nearer the fire. Isgrimnur wandered over, his hands tucked up in

his voluminous sleeves as he peered over the shoulder of the hindmost monk.

"What is it?" he asked. He could see a couple of dozen men milling in

the courtyard below, half of them on horseback. It seemed nothing un-

usual: the figures moved calmly and unhurriedly, those on foot apparently

the Sancellan's guards, greeting new arrivals.

"It's the High King's counselor," the monk standing before him said.

"That Pryrates fellow. He used to be here oncein the Sancellan Aedonitis,

I mean. They say he's a clever one."

STONE OF FAREWELL229

Isgrimnur clenched his teeth, choking down a shout of anger and

surprise. He felt a hot breath of fury moving within him and stood up on

his toes to see. There indeed was the priest's tiny, hairless head bobbing

atop a scarlet cloak that looked orange in the gateyard torchlight. The

duke found himself wondering how he could get close enough to stick a

knife into the sneaking traitor. Ah, sweet God, but that would be satisfying!

But what good would it do,foof, besides the admittedgood of removing Pryrates

from this earth? It would not fmd Miriamele, and I would never escape to search

for her after the deed was done. Not to mention what would happen if Pryrates did

not diep'raps he has some sorcerous shield.

No. it would not do. But if he could get in to see the lector, he would

give Ranessin an earful about that devil's bastard of a red priest and his

hellish counseling of the High King. But what was Pryrates doing here of

all places?

Isgrimnur tramped off to bed, thoughts of mayhem denied swim-

ming through his mind.

Twenty cubits below, Pryrates looked up to the common room balcony

as though he had heard someone calling his name, his black eyes glitter-

ingly intent, his pale head gleaming like a toadstool in the shadows of the

gateyard. The spectators in the common room, separated by distance and

darkness, could not see the smile that curled across the priest's gaunt face,

but they could feel the sudden draught of chill air that swept down on the

Sancellan Aedonitis, setting the guards' cloaks to billowing. Goosefleshed,

the monks on the balcony quickly made their way inside, pushing the

door shut behind them before hastening back to the fire.

12

OlTTlOTI- and his companions left Binabik's people behind and rode

southeast along the base of the Trollfells, dinging to the foothills like a

nervous child unwilling to wade into deeper water On their right, the

white emptiness of the Waste stretched away into the distance

In the middle of the gray afternoon, as they walked their horses across a

thin trail of stones that made an uncertain crossing over one of Blue Mud

Lake's inlet streams, a wedge of cranes flew overhead, gabbling and

honking until it seemed they would rattle the sky The birds swerved

above the riders' heads, wings thrusting, then banked as one and flew

into the south

"Three months it is before they should be making that journey,"

Binabik said ruefully "It is wrong, very wrong Spring and summer have

been retreated like a beaten army "

"It doesn't seem much colder than it did when we were on our way to

Urmsheim," Simon offered, clutching at Homefinder's reins

"That was in late spring," Sludig grunted, working to keep his footing

on the water-slicked stones "Now we are in midsummer "

Simon thought about that "Oh," he said

They stopped on the stream's far bank to share a few of the provisions

that Binabik's folk had sent with them The sun was gray and remote

Simon wondered where he would be when another summer cameif

another summer came

"Can the Storm King make it winter forever7" he asked

Binabik shrugged "That is not in my knowledge He has been making

winter very well during these Yuven- and Tiyagar-months Let us not

think of it, Simon It will not be making our task any easier to worry over

such things Either the Master of Storms will triumph or he will not

There is nothing else for doing with what we have been given "

Simon swung himself clumsily into his saddle He envied Sludig's

practiced grace "I'm not talking about stopping it," he said testily "ljust

wondered what he was going to do "

STONE OF FAREWELL231

"If I could know," Binabik sighed, "I would not be cursing myself for

an unfit student of my good master " He whistled for Qantaqa

They stopped again that afternoon while some daylight still remained

to scavenge for firewood and give Sludig some time to instruct Simon

The Rimmcrsman found a long tree limb beneath the snow and broke it in

half, binding a strip of rag around one end of each piece for an easier grip

"Can't we use real swords3" Simon asked "I'm not going to be fight-

ing anyone with wood "

Sludig raised a skeptical eyebrow "So5 You would prefer slipping and

sliding on wet ground while fighting a trained swordsman with real

blades3 Using this black sword, perhaps, that you cannot lift half the

time3" He indicated Thorn with a jerk of his head "I know it is cold and

dreary on this journey, Simon, but are you really so anxious to die3"

Simon stared hard "I'm not so clumsy You told me so yourself And

Haestan taught me some things "

"In a fortnight3" Sludig's look turned to amusement "You are brave,

Simon, and lucky, tooa trait not to be overlookedbut I am trying to

make you a better fighter The next thing you fight against may not be a

brutish Hune but an armored man Now, take your new sword and hit

me.

He kicked the branch to Simon and lifted his own weapon Simon held

the tree limb before him and circled slowly The Rimmersman was right

the snowy ground was treacherous Before he could even take a swing at

his instructor, his feet went out from under him and he toppled heavily

onto his rump He remained there, scowling furiously

"Don't be embarrassed," Sludig said, taking a step forward and laying

the end of his cudgel against Simon's chest "When you fall downand

men do trip and stumble in battlemake sure and keep your blade up or

you may not live to resume the fight "

Seeing the sense in this, Simon grunted and shoved the Rimmersman's

branch away with his hand before getting onto his knees He then rose to

his feet once more and resumed his crablike circling

"Why are you doing that7" Sludig said "Why do you not swing at

me'

"Because you're faster than I am "

"Good You are right " As he finished speaking, Sludig snapped his

cudgel out, landing a smarting blow below Simon's ribs "But you must

stay balanced at all times I caught you with your feet crossed one over the

other " He aimed another blow, but this time Simon was able to twist his

body out of the way, then return a swing of his own which Sludig

deflected toward the ground

"Now you are learning, Warnor Simon'" Binabik called He sat beside

the young fire, scratching Qantaqa's neck as he watched the cudgel-play

It was hard to tell whether it was due to the scratching or to the spectacle

232

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of Simon being thrashed, but the wolf seemed to be enjoying herself

immensely: her tongue hung from her grinning mouth and her brushy tail

twitched in pleasure.

Simon and the Rimmcrsman worked for about an hour. Simon did not

land a single blow, but received quite a few in return. When he at last

flopped down to rest on a flat stone by the fire-circle, he was more than

willing to cake a swallow ofkangkang from Binabik's bag. He was willing

to take a second swallow as well, and would have taken a third, but

Binabik retrieved the skin bag.

"I would be doing no friendliness if I let you drink yourself drunken,

Simon," the troll said firmly.

"It's just because my ribs ache."

"You have youth and will be fast healing," Binabik replied. "I am, in a

way, in responsibility for your care."

Simon made a face but did not argue- It was nice that someone cared

about him, he supposed, even if he did not entirely agree with the form

that caring took.

Two more days of cold riding along the skirts of the Trollfellsas well

as two more evenings of what the recipient began to think of as "scullion

smacking"did not do much to brighten Simon's view of the world.

Many times during his instruction, as he sat on the soggy ground feeling

some new pan of his body throb into painful prominence, he considered

telling Sludig he was no longer interested, but the memory of Haestan's

pale face inside his winding cloth forced him onto his feet once more. The

guardsman had wanted Simon to learn these things, to be able to defend

himself and also to help defend others. Haestan had never been able to

quite explain the way he feltthe Erkynlander had not been a man given

to aimless talkingbut he had often said that "strong folk a-bullyin'

th'weak" was not right.

Simon thought back on Fengbald, Elias' ally. He had taken a troop of

armored men and burned down a district of his own earldom, slaughter-

ing with a free hand because the guild of weavers had flouted his will. It

made Simon feet a little sick to remember how he had admired Fengbald

and his handsome armor. Bullies, that was the proper name for the Earl of

Falshire and his likePryrates, too, although the red priest was a bully of

a subtler and more frightening sort. Simon sensed that Pryrates did not so

much revel in his ability to crush those who opposed him, as Duke

Fengbald and others like him did; rather, the priest used his strength with

a kind of thoughtless cruelty, heeding no obstacles between himself and

his unknown goals. But whichever was true, it was bullying all the same.

On more than one occasion the memory of the hairless priest was

enough to bring Simon back up from the ground, swinging fiercely.

Sludig would back off, eyes narrowed in concentration, until he could

STONE OF FAREWELL233

control Simon's fury in -a way that would force the youth back into the

lesson once more. The thought of Pryrates reminded Simon of why he must

learn to fightnot chat sword skill would be of use against the alchemist,

but it might keep him alive long enough to get at Pryrates once more.

The priest had many crimes to answer for, but the death of Doctor Morgenes

and Simon's banishment from his own home were reasons enough

to keep Pryrates' face before Simon's eyes, even as he crossed staves

with Sludig in the snows of the White Waste.

Shortly after the dawning of the fourth day since they had left Blue

Mud Lake, Simon awakened shivering beneath the flimsy shelter oflashed-

together branches in which the foursome had spent the night. Qantaqa,

who had been lying across his legs, had gone out to rejoin Binabik. The

loss other furry warmth was enough to bring Simon out into the crystal-

line morning light, teeth chattering as he brushed pine needles from his

hair.

Sludig was nowhere in sight, but Binabik sat on a snowy stone beside

the remains of the previous night's fire, staring into the eastern sky as

though contemplating the direct light of the sun. Simon turned to

follow the line of Binabik's gaze, but could see nothing but the pale sun

itself crawling up past the last peaks of the Trollfells.

Qantaqa, lying at the troll's feet, raised her head briefly as Simon

approached crunchingly through the snow, then lay her shaggy head back

down on her paws once more.

"Binabik? Are you well?" Simon asked.

The troll seemed not to hear him for a moment, then turned slowly, a

slight smile creasing his face. '*A good morning to you, Simon-friend," he

said. "I am feeling completely well."

"Oh. I just . . . you were staring."

"Look." Binabik extended a stubby finger from the sleeve of his jacket,

pointing into the east.

Simon turned to look once more, shading his eyes. "I don't see anything."

"Be looking more closely. Look to the last peak, standing on your right

hand. There." He indicated an icy slope, thrown into shadow by the sun

behind it.

Simon stared for some time, unwilling to admit failure. A moment

before he gave up in despair, he at last saw something: dark lines running

beneath the glassy face of the mountain like facets in a gcmstone. He

squinted, trying to make out the details.

"Do you mean chose shadows?" he asked at last. Binabik nodded, a rape

expression on his face. "Well," Simon demanded, "what are they?"

"More than shadows," Binabik said quietly. "What you are there seeing

are the towers of lost Tumet'ai."

"Towers inside the mountain? And what's 'Tooma-de'?"

234 Tad Williams

Bmabik frowned mockingly "Simon You have been hearing its name

several times What kind of student did Doctor Morgenes take on' Are

you remembering when I spoke with Jmki of the 'Ua'kiza rumet'ai

nei-R'i'ams'^'

"Sort of," Simon said uncomfortably "What is it5"

"The song of the fall of the city of Tumet'ai, one of the great Nine

Cities of the Sithi That song is Celling the tale of Tumet'ai's abandon-

ment Those shadows you see are its towers, imprisoned in many thou-

sand years of ice "

"Truly5" Simon stared at the dark vertical blurs that ran like stains

beneath the milky ice He tried to see them as towers, but could not

"Why did they abandon it5" he asked

Bmabik ran his hand along the fur of Qantaqa's back "A number of

reasons there are, Simon If you like, I will tell you part of its story later,

when we are riding It will be a help for passing the time "

"Why did they build their city on an icy mountain in the first place5"

Simon asked "That seems stupid "

Bmabik looked up peevishly "You are speaking, Simon, to one raised

in the mountains, as you are no doubt able to recall Part of manhood, I

am thinking, is to ponder one's words before opening one's mouth "

"I'm sorry " Simon tried to suppress a mischievous smile "I didn't

realize that trolls actually liked living where they do "

"Simon," Bmabik said sternly, "I think it would be a good thing if you

went to gather up the horses "

"So, Bmabik," Simon said at last, "what are the Nine Cities'"

They had been riding for an hour, tilting away at last from the base of

the mountains and out onto the vast white sea of the Waste, following the

line of what Bmabik called the Old Tumet'ai Road, a broad causeway that

had once linked the ice-bound city with its sisters to the south There was

little to see of any road now, only a few large stones still standing on

either side of the trail and an occasional patch of cobbles still in place

beneath the covering snow

Simon had not asked the question out of any real eagerness to learn

more historyhis head was already crammed so full of strange names and

places he could scarcely hold a thoughtbut the featureless terrain, the

endless field of snow dotted with forlorn stands of trees, made him

hungry for a story

Binabik, who had ridden slightly ahead, whispered something to Qantaqa

Leaking plumes of vaporous breath, the wolf stopped in her wide tracks

until Simon had caught up Simon's mare shied and pranced away As

Qantaqa crunched inoffensively alongside, Simon patted the horse's neck,

speaking low words of encouragement After a few head-swinging paces,

she was able to continue her progress with nothing more than an occa-

STONE OF FAREWELL235

sional nervous snort For her part, the wolf paid no attention to the horse

at all, her head held low as she sniffed at the snow

"Good, Homefindcr, good " Simon ran his hand down her shoulder,

feeling the tremendous muscles moving beneath his fingers He had named

her and now she obeyed him' He felt himself filled with quietjoy She was

his horse now

Binabik smiled at Simon's pndeful expression "You show her respect

That is a good thing," he said "Too often it is that men think those who

serve are doing it from infenomess or weakness " He chuckled "Folk

who have chose beliefs should ride a mount like Qantaqa, who could eat

them if she chose They would then be learning humbleness " He scratched

the ridge of fur between Qantaqa's shoulders, the wolf stopped pacing for

a moment to appreciate the attention, then dug forward through the snow

once more

Sludig, riding JUSC ahead, turned to look back "Hah' You will be a

horseman as well as a fighter, is that right' Our friend Snowlock is the

boldest kitchen boy in the world'"

Simon scowled, embarrassed, and felt his skin wrinkling around his

cheek-scar "That's not my name "

Sludig laughed at his discomfiture "And what is wrong with 'Simon

Snowlock' for a name5 It is a true name, honorably won "

"If it is displeasing, Simon-fnend," Binabik said kindly, "we will call

you some other thing But Sludig speaks rightly your name was gamed

with honor, given to you byJinki of the highest Sichi house The Sithi are

seemg more clearly than mortalsat least in some ways Like any of their

other gifts, a name is not to be discarded with easiness Do you remember

when you held the White Arrow above the river3"

Simon did not have to think hard The moment when he had fallen into

the turbulent Aelfwent, despite all the strange adventures he had suffered

since, remained a black spot in his memory It had been his idiot pnde, of

coursethe other side of his mooncalf naturethat had sent him down

into the swirling depths He had been trying to show Minamele how

lightly he regarded even the gifts of the Sithi The very thought of his

foolishness made him feel ill What an ass he was' How could he ever hope

Minamele could care about him5

"I remember," was all he said, but the joy of his moment was gone

Anyone could ride a horse, even a mooncalf Why should he grow so

large in his own estimation just because he had kept an already battle-

hardened mare from balking5 "You were going to tell me about the Nine

Cities, Binabik," he said heavily

The troll lifted an eyebrow at Simon's despainng tone, but did not

pursue the subject Instead, he brought Qantaqa to a halt

"Turn for a moment and be looking back," the troll said, gesturing to

236

Tad Williams

both Simon and Sludig The Rimmersman made an impatient noise, but

did as Binabik asked

The sun had pulled free from the mountain's embrace Its slanting rays

now blazed along the face of the easternmost peak, laying fire along its icy

cheek and throwing deep shadows in the crevices The imprisoned towers,

dark streaks at dawn, now seemed to glow with warm reddish light, like

blood running through the mountain's cold arteries

"Look will," Binabik said "We may none of us be ever seeing that

sight again Tumet'ai was a place of highest magic, as were all the great

cities of the Sithi Their like will never again come to the light " The troll

took a deep breath, then suddenly and startlmgly burst out into song

"T'senei mezu y'eru,

Iku'do saju-rha,

0 do'mi he-hum

Tumet'at' Zi'mu asuna1

Shemisayu, nun'ai temuy'a"

Bmabik's voice carried out through the windless morning, disappearing

with no answering echo "That is the beginning of the song ofTumet'ai's

fall," he said solemnly "A very old song, and one of which I am knowing

only a few verses That one 1 have sung means this

"Towers of scarlet and silver,

The daystar's herald,

You have dipped wto cold shadows

Tumet'ai1 Hall ofDawn1

First mourned and last forgotten"

The troll shook his head "It is so much difficulty for me to make things

of Sithi craft into proper wordsespecially in a tongue not of my birth-

place You can be forgiving, I hope " He grinned sourly "In any case,

most Sithi songs have as their root thoughts of loss and long memory, so

how is a person of my short years to make their words sing5"

Simon was staring at the almost invisible towers, fading streaks m the

prisoning ice

"Where did the Sithi go who lived there5" he asked The mournful

words of Bmabik's songs echoed m his thoughts You have slipped into cold

shadows He could feel those shadows tightening around his heart like

bands of ice You have slipped mto cold shadows His face throbbed where the

dragon s blood had marked him

"Wln-rc the Sithi always go," the troll replied "Away To lesser places

They die or pass into shade, or live and become less than they were " He

stopped, eyeb downcast as he strove to find the proper words "They were

STONE OF FAREWELL237

bringing much that had beauty into the world, Simon, and much that was

beautiful in the world was admired by them It has been many times said

that the world grows less fair because of their diminishing I do not

have the knowledge to tell if that is so " He thrust his hands into

Qantaqa's thick pelt and urged her about once more, cantering away from

the mountains "I wanted you to remember that place, Simon . but do

not grieve Still there is being much of beauty m this world "

Sludig made the sign of the Tree above his cloaked breast "I cannot say

I share your love of these magical places, troll " He snapped his reins,

urging his horse into a walk "The good Lord Usires came to free us from

paganism It is no accident that the heathen demons who threaten our

world are cousins to these Sithi you mourn for "

Simon felt a surge of anger. "That's stupid, Sludig What about Jinki5 Is

he a demon5"

The Rimmersman turned to him, an unhappy smile flashing m his

blond beard. "No, youngling, but neither is he a magical playmate and

protector, as you seem to think him. Jinki is older and deeper than any of

us can know Like many such things, he is also more dangerous than

mortals can know God knew what He did when he aided mankind to

scourge the Sithi from this land Jinki has been fair, but his people and

ours can never live together We are too different "

Simon choked back a furious response, turning his eyes to the snowy

path before them Sometimes he did not like Sludig very much at all

They rode on for a while, silent but for the chuffing of breath and the

scraping of their horses' hooves, before Binabik spoke again

"You have been having luck of great rarity, Simon," he said.

"Being chased by demons, you mean1'" Simon growled "Or seeing my

friends killed?"

"Please." The troll raised his small hand in a calming gesture "I do not

refer to luckiness of that sort. Clearly, it has been a terrible road we have

walked No, I meant only that you have seen three of the nine great cities

Few if any mortals can be making such a statement with truthfulness "

"Which three?"

"Tumet'ai, of which you havejust seen all that is left to see, now chat

ice has buried her " The troll spread his fingers, counting "Da'ai Chikiza,

in Aldheorte Forest, where I received my unfortunate arrowing And

Asu'a itself, whose bones are the underpinnings of the Hayholt where you

had your birth "

"The Sithi built Green Angel Tower there, and it's still standing,"

Simon said, remembering its pale sweep, like a white finger pointing at

the sky "1 used to climb in it all the time." He thought for a moment.

"Was that other placethe one called Enki. Enki

?"

"Enki-e-Shao'saye5" Binabik prompted

"Yes Was Enki-e-Shao'saye one of" the great cities5"

238

Tad Williams

"It was And we shall see its rums, too, one dayif any remainfor it

is near to where we will be finding the Stone of Farewell " He leaned low

as Qantaqa leaped up and over a small nse

"I've seen it already," Simon said "Jinki showed it to me m the mirror

It was beautifulall green and gold He called it the Summer City "

Bmabik smiled "Then you have seen four, Simon Few of even the

wisest ones can say as much after a whole length of life "

Simon considered this Who would ever have dreamed that Morgenes'

history lessons would be so important7 Old cities and old stories were

now part of his very life It was strange how the future seemed tied

inseparably to the past, so that both revolved through the present, like a

great wheel

The wheel The shadoiv of the wheel

An image from a dream rose before him, a great black circle pushing

relentlessly downward, a huge wheel that drove everything before it

Somehow the past was forcing its way nght into this very moment.

casting a long shadow across the what-would-be

Something was there in his mind, but just beyond reach, some occult

shape chat he could feel but not recognize It was something about his

dreams, something about Past and Future

"I think I need to know more, Binabik," he said at last "But there are

so many things to understand, I'll never remember them all What were

the other cities^' He was momentarily distracted by a movement in the

sky before him, a scatter of dark, moving shapes like breeze-blown leaves

He squinted, but saw that it was only a Oock of high-soaring birds

"About the past is a good thing to know, Simon," said the little man,

"but it is deciding which things are important chat separates a wise one

from others Still, although it is my guessing that the names of the Nine

Cities will be little use, it is good to know of them Once their names

were known to every child in its cradle

"Asu'a, Da'ai Chikiza, Enki-e-Shao'saye, and Tumet'ai you are knowing

Jhmd T'senei lies drowned beneath the southern seas The rums ofKementan

stand somewhere on Wannsten Island, birth-home of your king Prester

John, but no one, I think, has seen them for years and years Also long

unseen are Mezutu'a and Hikehikayo, both lost beneath Osten Ard's

northwestern mountains The last, Nakkiga, now that my thought is upon

it, you have already seen as wellor you have in a way . ."

"What does that mean5"

"Nakkiga was the city the Noms built long ago in the shadow of

Stormspike, before they were retreating into the great ice mountain itself

On the dream-road with Geloe and myself you visited it, but doubtless

you overlooked its crumbling remains beside the mountain's immensity

So m a way, then, you have visited Nakkiga also "

Simon shuddered, remembering a vision of the endless icy halls within

STONE OF FAREWELL239

Stormspike, of the ghost-white faces and burning eyes that shone in its

depths "That was as close as I ever want to be," he said He squinted his

eyes, staring at the sky The birds still circled lazily overhead "Are those

ravens5" he asked Binabik, pointing "They've been staying just above

our heads for some time "

The troll looked upward "Ravens, yes, and large ones they are as

well " He grinned wickedly "Perhaps they are waiting for us to fall down

very dead, and so aid them in their searching for sustenance A pity it is to

disappoint them, is it not7"

Simon grunted "Maybe they can tell I'm starvingthat 1 won't last

much longer "

Binabik nodded solemnly "How thoughtless I am being Of course,

Simon, it is indeed true that you have had no food since breaking your

fast, andChukku's Stones' You poor fellow' That has been an hour ago'

You must be fast approaching the awful moment of fmalness " Finished

with this bit of sarcasm, he began to rummage in his pack, steadying

himself against Qantaqa's back with his other hand "Perhaps I can dis-

cover for you some dried fish "

"Thank you " Simon tried to sound enthusiasticafter all, any food

was better than no food

As Binabik performed his laborious search, Simon looked up at the sky

once more The swarm of black birds still hovered silently, wind-tossed

beneath the somber clouds like tattered rags

The raven strutted on the wmdowsill, feathers fluffed against the chill

air Others of his kind, grown fat and insolent on gibbet-leavings, crowed

raucously in the leafless branches beyond the window No other sounds

drifted up from the silent, deserted courtyard

Even as it preened its shiny black feathers, the raven kept a bright

yellow eye cocked, when the goblet came flying toward it like a sling-

stone, it had more than enough time to drop from the sill with a harsh

cry, spreading its wings to flutter up andjom its kin m the barren treetop

The dented goblet rolled in an uneven circle on the stone floor before

lurching to a halt A thin wisp of steam rose from the dark liquor that had

splattered beneath the wmdowsill

"I hate their eyes," King Elias said He reached for a fresh goblet, but

used this one for its proper and intended purpose "Those damned sneak-

ing yellow eyes " He wiped his lip "I think they're spying on me "

"Spying, Majesty3" Guthwulf said slowly He did not want to send

Elias into one of his thunderstorm rages "Why would birds spy5"

The high king fixed him with a green stare, then a grin split his pale

face "Oh, Guthwulf you are so innocent, so undefiled'" He chuckled

240 Tad Williams

harshly "Come. pull that chair closer. It is good to speak with an honest

man once more "

The Earl ofUtanycat did as his king bade him, sliding forward until less

than an ell separated his stool from the yellowing mass of the Dragonbonc

Chair. He kept his eyes averted from the black-scabbarded sword that

hung at the High King's side.

"I do not know what you mean by 'innocent,' Elias," he said, inwardly

cursing the stiffness he heard in his own voice. "God knows, we have

both of us labored mightily in the Chapel of Sin in our time However, if

you mean innocent of any treachery toward my king and friend, then I

accept the name gladly." He hoped he sounded more certain than he felt.

The very word "treachery" made his heart gallop these days, and the

rotting fruit hanging from the distant gibbet was only one reason.

Elias seemed to sense none of Guthwulfs misgivings "No, old friend,

no I meant the word kindly." He took another swig of the dark liquid.

"There are so few I can Crust these days. I have a thousand, thousand

enemies." The king's face took on a brooding cast which only accentuated

his pallor, the lines of weariness and strain. "Pryrates is gone to Nabban,

as you know," he said at last. "You may speak freely."

Guthwulf felt a sudden spark of hope. "Do you suspect Pryrates of

treachery, sire?"

The spark was quickly extinguished.

"No, Guthwulf, you misunderstand me. I meant that I know you are

not comfortable around the priest That is not surprising; I once found his

company difficult as well But I am a different man, now. A different

man." The king laughed oddly, then raised his voice to a shout. "Hangfish!

Bring me moreand be swift, damn you!"

The king's new cupbearer appeared from the next room, a sloshing

ewer in his pink hands. Guthwulf watched him sourly. Not only was he

positive that this pop-eyed Brother Hengfisk was a spy for Pryrates, but

there was something else gravely wrong with him as well. The monk's

face seemed forever fixed in an idiot grin, as though he were burning up

inside with some splendid joke he could not share. The Earl of Utanycat

had tried to speak to him once in the hallway, but Hengfisk had only

stared at him unspeaking, his smile so wide it seemed his face might split

m half. With any other servitor but the king's cupbearer, Guthwulf would

have struck him for such insolence, but he was uneasy about what Elias

might take offense at these days. Also, there was an unpleasant look to the

half-witted monk, his skin slightly raw, as though the upper layer had

burned and peeled away. Guthwulf was m no hurry to touch him.

As Hengfisk poured the dark liquid into the king's goblet, a few

smoking drops spattered onto the monk's hands, but the cupbearer did not

flinch. A moment later he scuttled out, still wearing his lunatic grin.

Guthwulf restrained a shudder. Insanity! What had the kingdom come to?

^TONE OF FAREWELL241

Elias had ignored the whole episode, his eyes fixed on something

beyond the window "Pryrates does have . .secrets," he said at last,

slowly, as though carefully considering each word

The ear! forced himself to pay attention.

"But he has none from me," the king continued, "whether he realizes

it or not. One thing he thinks I do not know is that my brother Josua

survived the fall of Naglimund." He raised a hand to still Guthwulfs

exclamation of surprise. "Another secret-that-is-no-secret he plans to do

away with you."

"Me7" Guthwulf was caught by surprise "Pryrates plans to kill me?"

The anger that welled within him had a core of sudden fear.

The king smiled, lips pulling back from his teeth like the grin of a

cornered dog "I do not know if he plans to kill you, Wolf, but he wishes

you out of the way Pryrates thinks I place too much trust in you when he

deserves all my attention." He laughed, a harsh bark.

"But ... but Elias ." Guthwulf was caught offstnde. "What will

you do7"

"Me7" The king's gaze was unnervingly calm. "I will do nothing. And

neither will you "

"What!7"

Elias leaned back into his throne, so that for a moment his face vanished

m the shadow beneath the great dragon's skull. "You may protect your-

self, of course," he said cheerfully. "I merely mean I cannot allow you to

kill Pryratesassuming you could, which isn't something I'm too certain

of- Quite frankly, old friend, at this moment he is more important to me

than you are "

The king's words hung in the air, seeming so much the stuff of madness

that for a moment Guthwulf felt sure he was dreaming. As moments

passed and the chill room did not waver into some other shape, he had to

force himself to speak once more

"I don't understand."

"Nor should you. Not yet." Elias leaned forward, his eyes bright as

lamps burning behind thin green glass. "But someday you will, Guthwulf

I hope you live to understand everything. At this time, though, I cannot

let you interfere with Pryrates, so if you feel you must leave the castle, I

will understand You are the only friend I have left. Your life is important

to me "

The Earl of Utanyeat wanted to laugh at such a bizarre statement, but

the sense of sick unreality would not leave him. "But not as important to

you as Pryrates5"

The king's hand leaped out like a striking serpent, fastening on Guthwulfs

sleeve. "Don't be a fool!" he rasped. "Pryrates is nothing' It is what

Pryrates is helping me to do that matters. I told you that there were great

things coming! But there will be a time first when things are ... changing."

242 Tad Williams

Guthwulf stared at the king's feverish face and felt something die within

him "I have sensed some of the changes, Elias." he said grimly "I have

seen others "

His old friend looked back at him, then smiled oddly "Ah The castle.

you mean Yes some of the changes arc happening right here But you

still do not understand "

Guthwulf was not practiced in patience He fought to hold down his

rage "Help me to understand Tell me what you do'"

The king shook his head "You could not possibly make sense of

itnot now, not this way " He sat back again, his face sliding into

shadow once more, so that it almost seemed as though the great tanged

and black-socketed head was his own A stretching silence followed

Guthwulf listened to the bleak voices of ravens in the courtyard

"Come here, old friend " Elias said at last, voice slow and measured As

Guthwulf looked up, the king slid his double-hiked sword part way from

its scabbard The metal gleamed darkly, black and crawling gray like the

mottled belly of some ancient reptile The ravens abruptly fell silent

"Come here," the king repeated

The Earl ofUtanyeat could not tear his eyes from the sword The rest of

the room became gray and insubstantial, the sword itself seemed to glow

without hght, to make the very air heavy as stone "Will you kill me now,

Elias5" Guthwulf felt his words grow weighty, each one an effort to use

"Will you save Pryrates his trouble5"

"Touch the sword, Gutbwulf," Elias said His eyes seemed to shine

more brightly as the room darkened "Come and touch the sword Then

you will understand "

"No," Guthwulf said weakly, but watched with horror as his arm

moved forward as if by its own will "I don't want to touch the damned

thing" Now his hand hovered just above the ugly, slow-shinimenng

blade

"Damned thing7" Elias laughed, his voice seeming far away He reached

out and took his friend's hand, gentle as a lover "You can't begin to

guess Do you know what its name is5"

Guthwulf watched his fingers slowly flatten against the bruised surface

of the sword A deadening chill crept up his arm, countless icy needles

pricking his flesh Close behind the cold came a fiery blackness Elias'

voice seemed to be falling away into the distance

jingizu is its name" the king called "Its name is Sorrow

And in the midst of the dreadful fog that enwrapped his heart, through the

blanket of frost that covered and then entered his eyes and ears and mouth,

Guthwulf felt the sword's dreadful song of triumph It hummed right through him,

softly at first hut growing ever stronger, a terrible, potent music that matched and

then devoured hfs rhythms, that drowned out his weak and artless notes, until

243

STONE OF FAREWELL

it had absorbed the entire song of his sou! into its darkly triumphant tune

Sorrow sang inside him, filling him He heard it cry out with his voice, as

though he had become the ^word, or the sword had somehow become Cuthwulf

Sorrow was alive and looking for something Guthwulf was looking, too he had

now been subwmed in the alien melody He and the blade were one

Sorrow reached for its brothers

He found them.

Two shining forms were there, just beyond his reach Guthwulf longed to be

wsth them, to join his proud melody to theirs, so that together they would make a

music greater still He yearned, a bloodless, warmthless desire, like a cracked bell

ftraining to toll, like a lodestone aching for true north They were three of a kind,

he and these other two, three songs unlike any the world had heardbut each was

incomplete without its fellows He stretched toward his brothers as though to touch

them, but they were too far away Mere distance still separated them No matter

how he strained, Guthwulf could not bring them closer, could not join with them

At last the delicate balance collapsed, sending him plunging down into an

infinite nothingness, falling, falling, falling

Slowly he came to himself againGuthwulf, a man born of womanbut still

he fell through blackness He was terrified

Time sped He felt graveworms eating his flesh, felt himself coming apart deep

within the black earth, rendered into innumerable particles that ached to scream

without voices to do so, at the same moment, like a rushing wind, he flew laughing

past the stars and into the endless places between life and death For a moment the

very door of Mystery swung open and a dark shadow stood beckoning in the

doorway

Long after Elias had sheathed the sword, Guthwulf still lay choking on

the steps before the Dragonbone Chair, his eyes burning with tears, his

fingers helplessly flexing

"Now can you understand7" The king said, beaming with pleasure as

though he had just given his friend a taste of a singularly splendid wine

"Do you understand why I must not fail5"

The Earl of Utanyeat got slowly to his feet His clothes were soiled and

spattered He turned wordlessly from his liege lord and staggered across

the throne room floor, pushing through the door and into the hallway

without looking back

"Do you see5" Elias shouted after him

A trio of ravens fluttered down to the wmdowsill They stood close

together, their yellow eyes intent

"GuthwulP" Elias was no longer shouting, but still his voice carried

through the silent room like a tolling bell "Come back, old friend "

^

244 Tad Williams

"Look, Binabik!" Simon cried. "What are those birds doing?!"

The troll followed Simon's pointing finger. The ravens were wheeling

madly about the sky overhead, flying in long, looping circles.

"They are upset, perhaps," Binabik shrugged. "I do not have much

knowledge of the ways of such things ..."

"No, they're looking for something!" Simon said, excited. "They're

looking for something! I know it! Just look at them!"

"But they arc not leaving the air above us." Binabik raised his voice as

the ravens began to call back and forth, their croaking voices sharp as

blades in the still air.

Sludig had reined up his horse, too, and was staring up at the strange

exhibition. He narrowed his eyes. "If this is not some deviltry," he said,

"then I am not an Aedonite. The raven was Old One-Eye's bird, back in

the dark days . . ." He trailed off as he saw something new. "There!" he

said, pointing. "Is that not some other bird they are chasing?"

Now Simon could see it too: a smaller gray shape that flitted among the

black ones, darting wildly, now this way, now that. At every turn it

seemed to find one of the larger birds already there. It was tiring, Simon

could see plainly, its loops becoming ever more ragged, its escapes narrower.

"It's a sparrow!" Simon cried. "Like the ones Morgenes had! They're

going to kill it!"

Even as he spoke, the swooping circle of ravens seemed to sense that the

quarry was nearing its limits. The whirling funnel contracted and the

croaking voices rose as if in triumph. Then, just when it seemed the hunt

was over, the sparrow found an open space and burst free of the black

ring, darting unevenly toward a stand of fir trees half a furlong away. The

ravens, shrieking, whirled in pursuit.

"I do not think it chance that such a bird should be here," Binabik

said, unscrewing his walking stick to shake free his pouch of darts. "Or

that the ravens would be waiting with such patientness just where we

are." He grabbed Qantaqa's hackles. "Chok, Qantaqa!" he cried. "Ummu

chok!"

The wolf sprang away, churning the snow beneath her broad paws.

Sludig dug in his heels and his mount leaped after her. Simon, cursing

beneath his breath, wrestled for a moment with Homefinder's reins. By

the time he had them sorted out, she had decided to follow Sludig's horse

anyway. Simon clung to her neck as they pounded over the uneven snow,

hoof-churned sleet burning his eyes.

The ravens were circling the copse like a swarm of black bees. Binabik,

in the lead, vanished among the close-standing trunks. Sludig went just

after, his spear now in his hand. Simon had a moment to wonder how the

Rimmersman would kill birds with a heavy spear, then the line of trees

was looming before him as well. He pulled up on the reins, slowing his

horse. He ducked his head beneath a low-hanging branch, but was not fast

STONE OF FAREWELL

245

enough to avoid a clump of snow falling into the loose hood of his cloak

and slithering down his neck.

Binabik stood beside Qantaqa at the center of the copse, the hollow tube

to his mouth. The troll's cheeks puffed; a moment later a large black

bundle fell down through the branches overhead, flapping in a slow circle

on the white ground before it died.

"There!" Binabik said, gesturing. Sludig poked upward with his spear,

rattling its point among the tree limbs as Qantaqa gave vent to a sharp,

excited bark.

A black wing skimmed by Simon's face. The raven struck at the back of

Sludig's head, its claws scrabbling impotently against the metal of his

helm. Another one swooped down from above, squawking, whirling

about the Rimmersman's arms as he plied the spear.

Why aren't I wearing a helmet? Simon thought disgustedly as he raised his

hand before his suddenly vulnerable eyes.

The little copse raged with the angry voices of birds. Qantaqa had her

front paws up on a tree trunk, shaking her head from side to side as if she

had already caught one of them.

Something small and still as a tiny snowball dropped from the tree

overhead. Binabik fell to his knees at the Rimmersman's feet and cupped it

in his hands.

"I have it!" he cried. "Let us be going into the open! Sosa, QantaqaF' He

clambered onto the wolfs back, his hand now lucked inside his jacket. He

had to duck beneath the onslaught of one of the ravens; the haft ofSludig's

spear whistled through the space his head had just vacated, smacking the

bird like a club, shattering it into a puff of dark feathers. A moment later

the wolf had earned Binabik out from beneath the trees. Simon and Sludig

quickly followed.

Despite the angry voices of the birds behind them, the open ground

outside seemed remarkably still to Simon. He turned to look back. Hard

yellow eyes stared from the uppermost branches, but the ravens did not

follow.

"You saved the bird?" he asked.

"Let us be nding farther away," Binabik said. "Then we will look to

what we have."

When they stopped, the troll took his hand from beneath his skin jacket.

He opened it slowly, as though not sure what he might find there. The

bird nestled inside was dead, or nearly so. It lay on its side unstirnng, its

ragged wounds striped with blood. There was a shred of parchment about

its leg.

"I was thinking this could be," Binabik said, looking over his shoulder.

The dark silhouettes of a dozen ravens sat like hunch-shouldered inquisi-

tors in the nearest tree. "I am afraid that we arc more late than we should

have been."

246 Tad Williams

His small finger unfurled the parchment It had been chewed or torn

until but a part of it remained "A fragment, only," Binabik said sadly

Simon looked at the tiny runes dotting the ragged strip. "We could go

back to the trees and look for the rest," he said, disliking the idea mightily

even as he said it

The troll shook his head "I have a sureness that the rest has found its

way down a raven gulletas would this scrap, too, and the messenger, if

we had been later still " He squinted at it "Few words am I making out,

but I feel no doubt it was meant for us See7" He pointed at a minute

squiggle "The circle and feather of the League of the Scroll It was sent by

a Scrollbearer "

"Who5" Simon asked

"Patience, Simon-fnend Perhaps the remaining message will tell " He

held the curling strip as flat as he could "Two bits only can I read,"

he said "This, saying 'ry of false messengers,' and this 'Make haste The

Storm is spr' Then it is signed below with the League's mark "

"False messenger," Simon breathed, dread creeping through him "That

was the dream I had in Geloe's house. Doctor Morgenes told me to

beware the false messenger " He tried to push away the memory of that

dream In it the doctor had been a charred corpse

" 'Be wary of false messengers' is then what it is likely meaning,"

Bmabik said, nodding his head. " 'Make haste. The Storm is spr

Spreading, I am supposing "

The great fear Simon had kept suppressed for several days came crawl-

ing back. "False messenger," he repeated helplessly "What can it mean7

Who wrote it, Bmabik7"

The troll shook his head He tucked the silver of parchment in his bag

and then kneeled, scraping a hole in the snow. "It is a Scrollbearer, and

there are not many now alive It might beJarnauga, if he still lives There

is also Dmivan in Nabban " He laid the little gray bird in the hole and

tenderly covered it over

"Dinivan7" Simon asked

"He is the helper of the Lector Ranessin, the head of your Mother

Church," Bmabik said "A very good man "

Sludig, who had stood silent, suddenly spoke "The lector is part of

your heathen circle7" he said wondenngly "With trolls and such7"

Bmabik smiled a tiny smile "Not the lector Father Dmivan, his helper.

And it is not a 'heathen circle,' Sludig, bur a band of those who wished the

preserving of important knowledgeforjust such times as these are " He

frowned "I am thinking of who else it might be who was writing this

message to usor to me, rather, for it is my master's arts that likely drew

the bird here to me If not one of the two 1 mentioned, then I cannot be

saying, for Morgenes and my master Ookequk are dead There are no

other Scrollbearers I know of, unless new ones have been chosen "

STONE OF FAREWELL247

"Could it be Geloc7" Simon asked

Bmabik thought for a moment, then shook his head "She is one of the

wisest of the wise, but she has never been a true Scrotfbcarcr, and I am

doubting she would use the League's rune in place of her own " He

mounted up onto Qantaqa's back "We will think of the meaning of this

warning as we ride There are many messengers who have led us to this

place, and many others we will doubtlessly be meeting in days and weeks

to come Which are false7 It is a puzzle of great difficulty "

"Look, the ravens arc flying'" Sludig cried Simon and Bmabik turned

to see the birds swarm up from the stand of trees like smoke, swirline in

'CT

the gray sky before wheeling away into the northwest, their disdainful

voices echoing

"They have done what they were sent for doing," Bmabik said "Now

they are headed back to Stormspikc, do you suppose7"

Simon's cold fear deepened "You meanthe Storm King sent them

after us7"

"I have little doubt that they were meant to keep chat message from our

eyes," Binabik said. leaning forward to pick his walking stick from the

ground

Simon turned to follow the flight of the vanishing ravens He almost

expected to see a dark figure looming on the northern horizon, a burning

red gaze in a faceless black head

"Those storm clouds on the horizon look very dark," Simon said "A

lot darker than they did before "

"The lad's right " Sludig glowered "That's an ugly storm gathering "

Binabik sighed His round face was grim, too "The last part of the

message we all of us understand The storm is spreading, in more than one

way only We have a long journeying ahead over open and unprotected

country We will need to go with all the speed that we can be making "

Qantaqa started ahead Simon and Sludig spurred their horses forward

Prompted by something he did not understand, Simon looked back once

more, although he knew what he would see

The ravens, now little more than black specks on the wind, were fading

from sight into the dark swell of the gathering storm

13

The StoCfion Clan

JL iTC prUTCC S company came out at last onto the plains after

nearly a month m the vast, ancient forest As they broke through the last

line of trees the grasslands opened before them, a floor of uneven turf

shrouded by morning mist, merging seamlessly with the gray horizon

Father Strangyeard sped his pace to catch up with Geloe The witch

woman was striding purposefully out onto the flatland, wet stems falling

before her approach

"Valada Geloe," Strangyeard said breathlessly, "ah, this is a marvelous

book Morgenes has written. Marvelous1 Valada Geloe, have you read this

passage3" He tried to juggle the loose pages, stumbled over a tussock, and

only barely retained his balance "I think there is something here of

importance Ah, how silly of me, how foolishthere are many things of

importance What a marvelous book!"

Geloe put her hand on Leieth's shoulder, bringing the child to a halt.

The little girl did not look up, but stood where she had stopped, staring

out into the mists

"Strangyeard, you will do yourself an injury," Geloe said brusquely

She looked at him expectantly. "WelP"

"Oh, dear," the archivist said He tugged at his eyepatch self-consciously,

almost losing his armful of pages in the process. "I didn't want you to

stop walking I can read and still keep up "

"I repeat you will do yourself an injury Read"

Before Strangyeard could do so, they were interrupted by new arrivals

"Praise God," Isorn cried He and Deomoth struggled out of the trees

upslope "We are out of the cursed forest and on open ground!" The pair

carefully set down the litter they had been dragging, glad to rest Sangfugol's

weight for a moment Under the witch woman's ministrations, the harper

was healing well and swiftly from what should have been a fatal corruption

of his blood, but he still could not walk more than a few hours at a time

Geloe turned to look back "Praise God all you wish," she warned, "but

we may regret the loss of those sheltering trees before long "

STONE OF FAREWELL249

The rest of the party limped down out of the woods Prince Josua was

helping Towser, who walked dazed and unspeakmg, the old man's eyes

were rolled up, as chough he contemplated a distant heaven hidden behind

the fog-blanketed sky Vorzheva and Duchess Gutrun walked a little way

behind them.

"It has been many years since I have seen the Thnthmgs," Josua said,

"even this tamer part. I had almost forgotten its beauty " He closed his

eyes in thought for a moment, then opened them once more to gaze out

toward the indistinct horizon. "It is like no other land in all of Osten

Ardsome call it 'God's tabletop.' "

"If this is indeed God's tabletop," Sangfugol said with a weak smile,

"my prince. He uses us for dice. Aedon save me, I am meant to sing of

Jack Mundwode and his naughty bandits, not ape their forest-traipsing "

He struggled out of the litter. "I need to get out of this thumping,

bouncing torture device and sit downno, the grass is fine for me. I fear

my sore leg more than the wet "

"Some gratitude," Isorn said, smiling. "I think I shall show you what

thumping really is, harper."

"Very well," Josua said. "We shall rest No one stray far, and if you go

more than a scone's throw, take someone with you."

"So we have escaped the forest," Deornoth sighed. "If only Emskaldir

could have seen it." He thought of the Rimmersman's grave in one of the

quiet glades of Shisae'ron, a simple mound marked only by his helmet and

Strangyeard's wooden Tree. Even Geloe's healing skills had not been

enough to save him from the terrible wounds he had received leading their

escape from the Norns Now, fierce Emskaldir would he forever in a place

of timeless calm. "He was a stem bastard, bless him." Deornoth shook his

head. "He never gave up, eitherbut I don't think he believed we would

ever get away "

"We wouldn't have, if not for him," Isorn said- "He's another mark on

the list "

"List?"

"The list of what is owed to our enemiesto Skah and Elias and all the

rest." Isorn's broad face was grim. "We owe them a blood feud. Some-

day, they will pay for what they did. And when it happens, Emskaldir

will be watching in heaven And laughing."

Deornoth could think of nothing to say. If Einskaldir could watch

battles from heaven, he would be laughing For all his piety, it seemed a

shame that Einskaldir had missed the old pagan days ofRunmersgard, and

would instead be forced to spend his eternity m the quieter environs of

Aedon's paradise.

As the others milled about, Vorzheva said a quiet word to Duchess

Gutrun, then walked down the short slope and onto the damp meadow.

250

Tad Williams

She moved as if in a kind of dream, her eyes fixed on nothing, her track

aimless and elliptical as she made her way through the damp grasses

"Vorzheva," Josua called, his voice sharper than usual, "do not go

alone The mist is very thick and you would soon be out of sight "

"She would have to go very far before she would be out of earshot,

Prince Josua," said Duchess Outrun, leading Towser with a gentle hand

on his elbow

"That may be," Josua said, "but I would prefer we were not stumbling

through the fog, shouting our presence to any listening ears Surely you

have not so soon forgotten our escort from Naghmund "

Gutrun shook her head in dismay, conceding the point Vorzheva.

seemingly oblivious to the discussion, was now only a dim upright shape

slipping through the mists like a ghost

"Damn her frowardness," Josua said grimly, staring after her

"I will go with her " Geloe turned to Gutrun "Keep the child close to

you, please " She pointed Leieth in the general direction of the duchess,

then strode off after the fast-fading Vorzheva

Josua watched her go, then laughed unhappily "If this is the way I

command a kingdom of nine or ten," he told Deornoth, "then my brother

can rest easily on the Dragonbone Chair People used to beg to do my

father John's bidding "

Even his queen^ Deornoth wondered, but he did not say it He watched

the dark shape of Geloe catch up to the wraith that was Vorzheva If you

have a proud and headstrong woman, you would be better off not to judge your

success by her obedience

"Please, my lord," he said instead, "do not speak ill of yourself You

are hungry and tired and cold Let me build a fire "

"No, Deornoth "Josua rubbed the stump of his wnst as though it hurt

"We will not stay so long " He turned to look back at the forest fringe and

the gaping shadows that lined it "We must move farther before we do

more than pause to rest We will stop somewhere that puts us in open

ground on all sides At least then, even though we are exposed, anything

that stalks us will be exposed as well "

"A happy thought," grunted Sangfugol from his seat on the turf

"S'truth, but we are a merry band of pilgrims "

"Pilgrims on the road through hell cannot afford too much merriment,"

Josua said He strode a little way out onto the greensward to stand by

himself in thought

"Then why don't you tell him7" There was exasperation in Geloe's

voice, but her hawk-yellow eyes betrayed little emotion. "By bough and

branch, Vorzheva, you are not a young girl, you are a woman Why do

you carry on so5"

Vorzheva's eyes were moist "I do not know I cannot understand him "

STONE OF FAREWELL251

Geloe shook her head "I cannot understand any of you I have spent

little of my life with human folk, and it is because of this ridiculous

uncertainty'I want this, I do not want that' The animals are more

sensible, it seems to me They do what they must and do not fret over

what cannot be changed " The witch woman laid a callused hand on

Vorzheva's arm "Why do you worry so about things that do not matter7

Prince Josua obviously cares for you Why do you not tell him the truth3"

Her companion sighed "He thinks me a foolish wagon-girl It makes

him cold to me If I tell him, it will only be worseI am sorry " She

angrily wiped at her face with her tattered sleeve "It was seeing the

Fetuwelt againthat is what my people call this place, where the meadow

runs in the forest's shadow It brought many memories to my mind, and

made me unhappy

"Valada Geloe7" It was Father Strangyeard's voice, sourceless in the

mist, but quite near "Are you there3 Valada Geloe3"

A little frustration showed itself on Geloe's stem face "Here, Strangyeard

Is anything wrong3"

The archivist appeared, a lanky, flapping shape materializing from gray

obscurity "No, no, ljust wanted to." He stopped, staring at Vorzheva's

tear-stained face "Oh Oh, I'm so terribly sorry How rude of me I will

leave you " He turned to lurch off into the mist once more

"Don't go'" Strangely, it was Vorzheva who spoke "Do not leave us,

Father Walk with us "

Strangyeard looked at her, then to Geloe "I do not wish to intrude,

Lady I fear I was thinking only of something I found in Morgenes'

book " Eyepatch askew, thin fringe of reddish hair curling in the damp,

he looked like a startled woodpecker He seemed about to bolt once more,

but the witch woman raised a calming hand

"Walk with us, Strangyeard, as Vorzheva said Perhaps your need is one

for which my talents are better suited " The priest looked at her ner-

vously "Come We will walk back toward the others as we calk "

Strangyeard was still carrying the loose sheaves of Morgenes' book in

his hand, after a few silent paces he began to leaf through them "I'm

afraid I've lost the section," he said, shuffling the parchments "I thought

it might be significantit was a bit about magicThe Art, chat's what

Morgenes called it I'm amazed by the things he knew, quite amazed . I

would never have dreamt" A triumphant smile came to his face

"Here it is " He squinted "Wonderful way with words

They walked several more paces in silence "Will you read3" Geloe

asked at last

"Oh' Of course " Strangyeard cleared his throat

"In (ruth, articles usejul to The Art seem to fall into two broad

categories,"

252

the pnest began,

Tad Williams

"those whose worth is bound in themselves, and those whose worth is bound

in their derivation In contradiction to popular superstition, an herb gathered

in a graveyard is not generally usejul because it came jrom such a place, but

rather because of the herb itself Since a graveyard may be the only place that

herb is found, the connection becomes established and is then almost impossi-

ble to disentangle

"The other category of useful objects are usually 'made' objects, and their

virtue is in their shaping or their raw beginnings The Silhi, who have long

possessed secrets of crafting hidden jrom mortals, made many things whose

creation itself was a practice of The Artalthough the Sithi would not

exactly term it so Thus, the virtue of these objects is in their making The

famous arrows of Vindaomeyo are an example carved from common wood

and jletched with the feathers of ordinary birds, yet each one is a talisman of

great worth

"Other objects take their power jrom the stuff of their making The great

swords alluded to in Nisses' lost book are examples here All feem to derive

their worth jrom their materials, although the crafting of each was a mighty

task Minneyar, King Fmgil's sword, was made of the iron keel of his boat,

iron brought to Osten Ard by the Rimmersman sea-raiders out of the lost

west Thorn, most recently the sword of Prester John's noblest knight, Sir

Camans, was forged jrom the glowing metals of a fallen starlike Minneyat 's

iron, something foreign to Osten Ard And Sorrow, the sword that Nisses

claims Ineluks of the Sithi used to slay his own father the Eri-king, was

made of Sithi witchwood and iron, two elements long thought to be

antithetical and unmixable Thus, such objects derive their strength primar-

ily, it would seem, jrom the unearthly origins of their substance Stories tell,

however, that powerful Spells of Making were also wound in the forging of

all these three blades, so the power of the Great Swords may come jrom both

their substance and their making

"Ti-tuno, the hunting horn crafted in fabled Mezu'tuajrom the tooth of

the dragon Hidohehbi, is another clear example of how sometimes an object

of power may be made by both the crafting and the materials crafted"

Strangyeard broke off "It goes on to talk of other things It is all

fascinating, of coursewhat a scholar that man was'but I thought the

section on the swords might be interesting "

Geloe nodded her head slowly "It is I wondered about these three

swords chat have become the object of our hopes Morgenes seems to

make a good argument as to the reason for their value Perhaps they will

indeed be useful against Ineluki It is good that you found that, Strangyeard "

The priest's pink cheeks went a deeper red "Too kind You're too kind "

Geloe cocked her head "I hear the others Are you composed, Vorzheva5"

STONE OF FAREWELL253

Vorzheva nodded her head "I am not such a fool as you think me," she

said quietly

The witch woman laughed "I do not think you a fool, particularly 1

think most people are foolishand I count myself as well, for here I am

without a roof, wandering over the grasslands like a stray heifer Some-

times obvious foolishness is the only answer to grave problems "

"Hmmm," said Strangyeard, baffled "Hmmm "

The ragged band continued out onto the fog-ridden meadowlands,

heading south Coward the river Ymstrecca, which meandered along the

breadth of the High Thnthmgs. They made camp on the open plain,

shivering in the rain-sodden wind, huddling close to their small fire Geloe

made a soup of herbs and roots she had gathered It was filling and

warmed the stomach, but Deomoth mourned the absence of something

more toothsome

"Tomorrow let me go farther afield, my lord," he implored Josua as

they sat by the fire All the others but Geloe had wrapped themselves in

their cloaks to sleep, bundled close together like a family of sleeping

kittens The witch woman had gone a-wandenng "1 know I could find a

hare or two, and the underbrush must be full of grouse, even m this cold

summer We have had no meat for several days'"

Josua permitted himself a chilly smile "I wish I could say yes, faithful

fnend, but I need your strong arms and good wit close by These people

can scarcely walk another stepthose who can still walk, that is No, a

brace of hares would be tasty indeed, but I must keep you here. Besides,

Valada Geloe tells me that one can live years without tasting meat "

Deornoth grimaced "But who would want Co5" He studied his prince

carefully Josua's already slender frame had grown even thinner, the play

of his bones was plain beneath the skin With what little fat he had worn

long gone, the prince's high forehead and pale eyes made him seem a

statue of some ancient philosopher-monk, his gaze fixed always upon the

infinite while the busy world spun on before him, ignored

The fire hissed, working away at the damp wood "One other question,

then, my lord," Deornoth said softly "Are we so sure of this Stone of

Farewell that we should drag these sick, wounded people across the

Thnthings in search of it5 I speak no ill of Geloe, who is plainly a

good-hearted soul, but to go so far5 The edge of Erkynland is only a few

leagues to the west Surely we could find a loyal heart in one of the towns

of the Hasu Valeeven if they were too frightened of your brother the

king to give us shelter, we could find food and drink and warmer clothing

for our wounded, surely "

Josua sighed and rubbed his eyes "Perhaps, Deornoth, perhaps Believe

me, the thought has occurred to me " He stretched his long legs before

him, nudging at the edge of the coals with his boot heel "But we cannot

254 Tad Williams

risk it, nor can we spare the time. Every hour we walk in the open means

more time for one of Ellas' patrols to find us, or something worse to catch

us unprotected. No. the only place that it seems we can go is Gcloc's

Stone of Farewell, so the sooner we do, the better. Erkynland is lost to

usat least for now, perhaps forever."

The prince shook his head and fell into thought once more. Deornoth

sighed and poked at the fire.

They reached the banks of the Ymstrecca in the morning of their third day

on the grasslands, The wide river shone faintly beneath the gray sky, a

dim streak of silver passing like a dream through the dark, damp mead-

ows. The water's voice was as muted as its sheen, a famt murmur like

distant conversation.

Josua's people were content to pause and rest a while on the nverbanks,

enjoying the sound and sight of the first swiftly-moving waters they had

seen since deep in Aldheorte Forest. When Gutrun and Vorzheva made

known their plan to follow the river downstream a short distance to where

they could bathe their limbs in privacy, Josua was quick to object, worried

for their safety. When Geloe offered to go with them, the prince reluc-

tantly consented. It was difficult to think of a situation beyond the witch

woman's enormous competence.

"Ah, it is somehow as if I never left," Vorzheva said, dangling her feet in

the current. They had chosen a sandy bank where a stand of birch trees in

midstream widened the nvercourse, shielding them from the view of their

distant fellow travelers. Her voice was careless, though her face belied her.

"It is like when I was a little girl." She frowned as she splashed water on

the numerous scratches covering her legs. "But it is so cold!"

Duchess Gutrun had loosened the neck other garment. She stood a little

way out from the bank, the river eddying around her plump calves as she

splashed water on her throat and scrubbed at her face. "It is not so bad,"

she laughed. "The river Gratuvask that runs by our home in Elvritshalla

now that is cold water! Every year at spring the maidens of the town go

down to the river to batheI did when I was young." She straightened

up, staring at nothing. "The men must stay inside all morning, on penalty

of a beating, so the maidens can splash in the Gratuvask. And cold! The

river is born from the snows of the northern mountains! You have not

heard shrieking until you hear a hundred young girls plunge into a chilly

river on an Avrel morning!" She laughed again. "There is a story, you

know, about one young man who was determined to see the Gratuvask

maidensit is a famous tale in Rimmersland, perhaps you have heard

it. . . ?" She broke off, water sluicing from her cupped hands. "Vorzheva?

Are you ill?"

The Thnthings-woman was bent over, her face pale as milk. "Just a

pain," she said harshly, straightening up. "It will go away soon. See, I am

better now. Tell your story."

255

STONE OF FAREWELL

Gutrun looked at her suspiciously. Before the duchess could say any-

thing, Geloe spoke up from her seat on the bank nearby, where she had

been tidying Leieth's hair with a comb made from fishbone.

"The story must wait." The witch woman's tone was sharp. "Seewe

are not alone."

Vorzheva and the duchess turned to follow Geloe's pointing finger.

Across the meadows, some three or four furlongs away to the south, a

mounted rider stood poised on a hillock. He was much too far away for

his face to be discernible, but there was little doubt he was looking in their

direction. All the women stared back, even Leieth, her strange eyes wide.

After several silent moments in which it seemed that no hearts beat, the

solitary figure turned his horse and rode down the hillock, vanishing from

sight.

"How . . . how frightening," the duchess said, clutching the neck of

her dress closed with a damp hand. "Who is it? Those horrible Morns?"

"I cannot say," Geloe rasped. "But we should return to tell the others,

in case Josua did not see. We must be concerned with any strangers now,

be they friend or foe."

Vorzheva shuddered. Her face was still pale. "There are no friendly

strangers on these grasslands," she said.

The women's news was enough to convince Josua chat they could dally

no longer. Unhappily, the company shouldered their few possessions and

set off again, following the course of the Ymstrecca east alongside the

border of the now-distant forest, a thin dark strip on the misty northern

horizon.

They saw no one else all afternoon.

"These seem like fertile lands," Deornoth said as they searched for a

spot to camp. "Isn't it strange that we have seen no people beside that lone

nder?"

"One rider is enough." Josua was grim.

"My people have never liked it here, so near to the old forest," Vorzheva

said, and shivered. "There are spirits of the dead beneath the trees."

Josua sighed. "These are things I would have laughed at a year ago.

Now I have seen them, or things even worse. God save me, what a world

this has become!"

Geloe looked up from where she was making a bed of grass for young

Leieth. "It has always been the same world, Prince Josua," she said. "It is

only that in these troubled hours things are seen more clearly. The lamps

of cities blur many shadows that are plain beneath the moon."

Deornoth awoke in the deeps of night, his heart beating swiftly. He had

been dreaming. King Elias had become a spindly thing of grasping claws

and red eyes clinging to Pnnce Josua's back. Josua could not see him and

did not even seem to know that his brother was there. In the dream

256 Tad Williams

Deornoth tried to tell him, but Josua did not listen, only smiled as he

walked through the streets ofErchester with the terrible Ellas-thing riding

his back like a deformed baby. Every time Josua bent to pat the head of a

child or give a coin to a beggar, Elias reached out to undo the good work

when Josua had passed, snatching the coin back or scratching the child's

face with dirty nails. Soon an angry crowd followed behind Josua, shouting

for his punishment, but the prince went blithely on, unknowing, even as

Deomoth screamed and pointed at the evil thing riding the prince's shoulders.

Awake on the benighted grasslands, Deomoth shook his head, trying to

pull free from the clinging sense of disquiet. Elias' dream-face, wizened

and spiteful, would not leave his mind- He sat up and looked around. All

the camp was sleeping but for Valada Geloe, who sat dreaming or ponder-

ing over the last coals of the dying fire.

He lay back and tried to sleep, but could not for fear the dream would

return. At last disgusted by his own weak-heartedness, he got up and

quietly shook out his cloak, then walked to the fire and sat down near Geloe.

The witch woman did not look up at his approach. Her face was

red-splashed by firelight, eyes staring unblinkingly into the embers as

chough nothing else existed. Her lips were moving but no sound came

forth; Deornoth felt a chill creep up the back of his neck. What was she

doing? Should he wake her?

Geloe's mouth continued to work. Her voice rose to a whisper.

". . . Amerasu, where are you? Your spirit is dim . . . and I am weak ..."

Deornoth's hand stopped an inch from the witch woman's rough sleeve.

". . . If ever you share, let it he now ..." Geloe's voice hissed like the

wind. "Oh, please . . ."A tear, scarlet-shot, trickled down her weathered

cheek.

Her despairing whisper drove Deornoth back to his makeshift bed. He

did not fall back into sleep for some time, but lay staring up at the

blue-white stars.

He was awakened once more before dawnthis time by Josua. The

prince shook Deornoth's arm, then lifted his handless right wrist to his

lips, gesturing for silence. The knight looked up to see a clot of darkness

to the west, thicker even than the general obscurity of night, approaching

along the line of the river. The muffled sound ofhoofbeats rolled toward

them over the grass. Deornoth's heart raced. He felt on the ground for his

scabbard, and was soothed only a little by the feeling of his sword hilt

beneath his fingers. Josua crawled away to wake the others.

"Where is the witch woman?" Deornoth whispered urgently, but the

prince was too far away to hear, so he crawled over to where Strangyeard

lay. The older man, sleeping lightly, was awake in a moment.

"Be still," the knight murmured. "There are riders coming."

"Who?" Strangyeard asked. Deornoth shook his head.

STONE OF FAREWELL

257

The oncoming riders, still little more than shadows, split almost noise-

lessly into several groups, sweeping wide around the encampment. Deomoth

had to marvel at their silent horsemanship even as he cursed his party's

lack of bows and arrows. A folly, to fight with swords against mounted

menif men they were. He thought he could count count two dozen

attackers, although any estimate was dubious in this half-light.

Deornoth got to his feet, even as a few shadowy figures around him did

the same. Josua, nearby, drew Naidel from its sheath; the sudden hiss of

metal against leather seemed as loud as a shout. The surrounding figures

reined up, and for a moment utter silence fell once more. Someone passing

a scone's throw away would never have suspected the presence of a single

soul, let alone two forces at battle-ready.

A voice broke the stillness.

"Trespassers! You walk on the land of Clan Mehrdon! Lay down your

arms.

Flint rang on steel, then a torch blossomed behind the nearest figures,

throwing long shadows across the campsite. Mounted men, hooded and

cloaked, surrounded Josua's band with a ring of spears.

"Lay down your weapons!" the voice said again in thickly-accented

Westerling. "You are prisoners of the randwarders. We will kill you if you

resist." Several more torches flared alight. The night was suddenly full of

armed shadows.

"Merciful Aedon!" Duchess Gutrun said from somewhere nearby. "Sweet

Elysia, what now?"

A large shape pushed toward herIsom, going to comfort his mother.

"Do not move!" the disembodied voice barked out; a moment later one

of the riders walked his horse forward, his spear point lowering, catching

a glint of torchlight. "I hear women," the rider said. "Do nothing foolish

and they will be spared. We are not beasts."

"And what about the rest?" Josua said, stepping forward into the light.

"We have many here wounded and sick. What will you do with us?"

The rider leaned down to stare at Josua, momentarily exposing his

hooded features. He had a rough face, with a shaggy, braided beard and

scarred cheeks. Heavy bracelets clinked on his wrists. Deomoth felt his

tension ease somewhat. At least their enemies were mortal men.

The rider spat into the dark grass. "You are prisoners. You ask no

questions. The March-thane will decide." He turned to his fellows.

"Ozhbern! Kunret! Round them in a circle to march!" He wheeled his

horse to supervise as Josua, Deomoth, and the others were herded at

spearpoint into the ring of torchlight.

"Your March-thane will be unhappy if you mistreat us," Josua said.

The leader laughed. "He will be more unhappy with me if you are not

at the wagons by sun-high." He turned to one of the other riders. "All?"

"All, Hotvig. Six men, two women, one child. Only one cannot walk."

He indicated Sangfugol with the butt of his spear.

258 Tad Williams

"Put him on a horse," Hotvig said. "Over the saddle, no matter. We

must ride fast."

Even as they were prodded into movement, Deornoth sidled closer to

Josua. "It could be worse," he whispered to the prince. "It could have

been the Norns who caught us instead of Thrithings-men."

The prince did not reply. Deornoth touched his arm, feeling the muscles

tense as barrel staves beneath his fingers. "What's wrong, Prince Josua?

Have the Thrithings-men thrown in with Elias? My lord?"

One of the riders looked down, mouth set in a humorless, gap-toothed

grin. "Quiet, stone-dwellers," he snarled. "Save your breath for walking."

Josua turned a haunted face toward Deornoth. "Didn't you hear him?"

the prince whispered. "Didn't you hear him?"

Deornoth was alarmed. "What?"

"Six men, two women, and a child," Josua hissed, looking from side to

side. "Two women! Where is Vorzheva?"

The rider slapped a spear butt against his shoulder and the prince lapsed

into anguished silence. They trudged on between the horsemen as dawn

began to smolder in the eastern sky.

^

As she lay on her hard bed in the darkened servant's quarters, Rachel the

Dragon imagined she could hear the gibbet creaking, even above the

howling wind that skirled through the battlements. Nine more bodies, the

chancellor Helfcene's among them, were swaying above the Nearulagh

Gate tonight, dancing helplessly to the wind's fierce music.

Nearer at hand, somebody was crying.

"Sarrah? Is that you?" Rachel hissed. "Sarrah?"

The moaning of the gale died down. "Y-yes, mistress," came the

muffled reply.

"Blessed Rhiap, what are you sobbing about? You'll wake the others!"

Beside Sarrah and Rachel, there were only three other women now sleep-

ing in the maid's quarters, but all five cots were huddled together to

conserve heat in the large, chilly room.

Sarrah seemed to struggle to compose herself, but when she answered

her voice was still shaken by sobs. "I'm . . . I'm afraid, M-mistress

Rachel."

"Of what, fool girl, the wind?" Rachel sat up, holding the thin blanket

closely around her- "It's blowing up a storm, but you've heard wind

before." Torchlight bleeding beneath the doorway revealed the faint shape

ofSarrah's pale face.

"It's . . . my gammer used to say ..." The maid coughed wetly.

"Gammer said that nights like this ... are when dead spirits walk. That

you . . . you can hear the voices m the w-wmd."

STONE OF FAREWELL259

Rachel was grateful for the darkness that hid her own discomforted

shiver. If there ever would be such a night, tonight seemed a likely choice.

The wind had been raging like a wounded animal since sundown, wailing

among the Hayholt's chimneys and scratching at the doors and windows

with insistent, twiggy fingers.

She made her voice firm. "The dead don't walk in my castle, idiot girl.

Now go back to sleep before you give the others nightmares." Rachel

lowered herself back down onto her pallet, trying to find a position that

would ease her knotted back. "Go to sleep. Sarrah," she said. "The wind

can't hurt you, and there'll be work in plenty tomorrow, the Good Lord

knows, just a-pickmg up what the wind's blown down."

"I'm sorry." The pale face sank. After a few sniffling minutes, Sarrah

was silent once more. Rachel stared upward into the blackness and listened

to the night's restless voices.

She might have sleptit was hard to tell when all was in darknessbut

Rachel knew that she had been listening to a sound beneath the windsong

for some time. It was a quiet, stealthy scratching, a dry sound like bird

claws on a slate roof.

Something was at the door.

She might have been sleeping, but now, suddenly, she was terribly

awake. When she turned her head to the side she could see a shadow

slipping along the strip of light below the door. The scratching became

louder, and with it came the sound of someone crying.

"Sarrah?" Rachel whispered, thinking that the noise had awakened the

maid. but there was no response. As she listened wide-eyed in the dark she

knew that the strange, thin sound was coming from the hallwayfrom

whatever stood outside her locked door.

"Please," someone whispered there, "please ..."

Blood pounding in her head, Rachel sat up, then silently placed her bare

feet on the cold stone floor. Could she be dreaming? She seemed so very

wide awake, but it sounded like a boy's voice, like . . .

The scratching took on an impatient quality which quickly began to

sound like tearfulnesswhatever it was, she thought, it must be fright-

ened, to scratch so ... A wandering spirit, a homeless thing walking lone

and lorn on this blustery night, looking for its long-vanished bed?

Rachel crept closer to the door, silent as snow. Her heart labored. The

wind in the battlements stilled. She was alone in the dark with the

breathing of the slumbering maids and the pitiful scraping of what stood

beyond the door.

"Please," the voice said again, softly, weakly. "I'm scared , - -"

She traced the sign of the Tree on her breast, then grasped the bolt and

drew it back. Though the moment of choosing was past, she drew the door

open slowly: even with the choice made, she feared what she would see.

260 Tad Williams

The solitary torch against the far corridor outlined the faint figure, its

thatch of hair, its scarecrow-thin limbs. The face that turned to her,

startled eyes showing their whites, was blackened as though burnt.

"Help me," it said, staggering through the doorway into her arms.

"Simon'" Rachel cried, and beyond all sense felt her heart overflowing

He had come back, through fire, through death . . .

"Si . . . Simon?" the boy said, his eyes sagging closed from exhaustion

and pain "Simon's dead. He ... he died . . . m the fire. Pryrates killed

him. ..."

He went limp m her arms Head whirling, she pulled his sagging form

through the doorway, letting him slide to the floor, then shot the bolt

firmly home and went looking for a candle. The wind cned mockingly; if

other voices cried within it, there were none that Rachel recognized.

"It's Jeremias, the chandler's boy," Sarrah said wondermgly as Rachel

washed the dried blood from his face. In the candlelight, Jeremias' dark-

socketed eyes and scratched cheeks made him seem almost a wizened old man

"But he was a chubby thing," Rachel said. Her mind was boiling with

the boy's words, but things must be done one at a time. What would these

useless girls think if she let herself go all to pieces? "What's happened to

him5" she growled. "He's thin as a stave.'*

The maids had all gathered around, blankets wrapped as cloaks around

their nightdresses. Jael, no longer as stout as she had once been, owing to

the greater burden of work all the remaining girls shared, stared at the

senseless youth.

"I thought someone said Jeremias ran away7" she said, frowning. "Why

did he come back5"

"Don't be foolish," Rachel said, trying to tug Jeremias' tattered shirt

over his head without waking him. "If he had run away, how would he

have gotten back into Hayholt at the middle of night? Flown?"

"Then tell us where he has been," one of the other girls said. It was a

measure of Rachel's shock at Jeremias' entrance that this near-impertinence

went completely unremarked-upon by the Mistress of Chambermaids.

"Help me turn him over," she said, working the shirt free. "We'll put

him to sleep in ... Oh! Elysia, Mother of God!" She fell into astonished

silence Sarrah burst into tears beside her.

The youth's back was crisscrossed with deep, bloody weals.

"I feelI feel sick!" Jael mumbled, then lurched away.

"Don't be a fool," Rachel said, regaining her composure once more

"Splash some water on your face, then bring me the rest of the basin. This

wet cloth alone won't do And take that sheet from the bed Hepizibah

used to sleep in and tear strips for bandages. Rhiap's Pain, do I have to do

everything myselP"

It took the whole sheet and part of another one. His legs had been

scourged, too.

STONE OF FAREWELL261

Jeremias awoke JUSC before dawn. His eyes at first roamed the room

without seeing anything, but after a time he seemed to regain his wits

Sarrah, sadness and pity shining through her homely face as though it

were glass, gave him some water to drink.

"Where am I?" he asked at last.

"You're in the servant's quarters, boy," Rachel said briskly. "As you

should know. Now, what sort of mischief have you been up to?"

He stared at her groggily for a moment, "You're Rachel the Dragon,"

he said at last. Despite their weariness and fnght, and the lateness of the

hour, the chambermaids were hard put to suppress their smiles. Rachel,

strangely, did not seem angered in the slightest.

"I'm Rachel," she agreed. "Now, where have you been, boy? We heard

that you ran away."

"You thought I was Simon, "Jeremias said, wondenngly, staring around

the chamber. "He was my friendbut he's dead, isn't he5 Am I dead?"

"You're not dead. What happened to you?" Rachel leaned forward to

brush Jeremias' tangled hair out of his eyes; her hand lingered for an

instant on his cheek. "You*re safe now. Talk to us."

He seemed about to slide back into sleep, but after a moment he opened

his eyes again. When he spoke it was more plainly than before. "I did try

to run away," he said. "When the king's soldiers beat my master Jakob and

drove him out the gate. I tried to run away that night, but the guards

caught me. They gave me to Inch."

Rachel frowned. "That animal."

Jeremias' eyes widened. "He's worse than any animal. He's a devil. He

said I would be his apprentice, down in the furnaces ... in the forges. He

thinks he's a king down there ..." The boy's face screwed up, and he

suddenly burst into tears. "He says he's . . . he's Doctor Inch, now. He

beat me and ... he used me."

Rachel leaned forward to blot his cheeks with her kerchief. The girls

made the sign of the Tree.

Jeremias' sobbing diminished. "It's worse than anything . . . down

there "

"You said something, boy," Rachel said briskly. "Something about the

king's counselor. About Simon. Say it again."

The boy opened his brimming eyes wide. "Pryrates killed him. Simon

and Morgenes. The priest went there with troops. Morgenes fought with

him, but the chamber burned down and Simon and the doctor died."

"And how could you know that?" she snapped, a little harshly. "How

could such as you know that?"

"Pryrates said so himself! He comes down to see Inch. Sometimes he

just brags, like about killing Morgenes Other times he helps Inch . . .

h-hurt people "Jeremias was having trouble. "Sometimes . . . sometimes

262 Tad Williams

the pnest takes people away with him . . . takes them when he goes. They

don't come b-back." He fought to catch his breath. "And there's . . .

other things. Other things down there. Terrible things. Oh, God, please

don't send me back." He grasped Rachel's wrist with his hand. "Please

hide me!"

Rachel tried to mask her shock. She deliberately closed off her thoughts

about Simon and this new revelation until she could consider it all in

privacy. But despite her firm self-control, Rachel felt a cold hatred run-

ning through her, a hatred unlike anything she had ever felt.

"We won't let them have you," she said. Her straightforward tone

made it clear that any gainsaying other will would bring great risk to the

gamsayer. "We'll . . . we'll ..." She broke off for a moment, non-

plussed. What would they do? They could not hide the boy for long here in

the servant's quarters, especially if he had run away from the king's forges

below the Hayholt.

"What 'other things' were there?" Jael asked. Her brown, calfhke eyes

were puzzled.

"Hush, now," Rachel said sharply, butJeremias was already answering.

"I d-don't know," he said. "There are ... shadows that move. Shadows

without people. And things that are thereand then they aren't., And

voices ..." he shivered, and his eyes stared past the candleflame to the

darkness in the room's comer. "Voices that cry, and sing, and - . .

and . . ." Tears formed in his eyes once more.

"That's enough," Rachel said sternly, displeased with herself for letting

the boy talk so long. Her charges darted glances among themselves,

nervous as startled sheep.

Elysia! she thought, that's all I needto have the last of my girls frightened

out of the castle.

"Too much talking," she said aloud. "The boy needs rest. He's so worn

and beaten he has the vapors. Let him sleep."

Jeremias shook his head weakly. "I'm telling the truth," he said. "Don't

let them have me!"

"We won't," Rachel said. "Go to sleep. If we can't hide you, we'll

think of some way to get you out of the Hayholt. You can go to your kin,

wherever they may be. We'll keep you away from that one-eyed devil

Inch."

". . . And Pryrates," Jeremias said slurredly, succumbing to drowsi-

ness. "He . . . talks ... to the Voices . . ."

A moment later the boy was slumbering. A little of the fear seemed to lift

from his hunger-thinned features. Rachel looked down at him and felt her

heart grown hard as a stone in her breast. That devil-priest, Pryrates! That

murderer! What kind of plague had he brought down on their house, what

foulness to her beloved Hayholt?

And what had he done to her Simon?

STONE OF FAREWELL263

She turned to look sternly at her wide-eyed maids. "You had all better

get what sleep you can," she growled. "A little excitement doesn't mean

the floors won't need scrubbing when the sun is up."

As they crawled into their beds, Rachel snuffed the candle, then lay

down with her cold thoughts. Outside, the wind was still searching for a

way in.

The morning sun rose above the gray blanket of clouds. It brought a

diffuse light to the rolling grasslands of the High Thrithings, but could not

lift the damp from the endless leagues of prairie grass and heather. Deornoth

was soaked to the thighs and tired of marching.

The Thnthings-men did not stop for a meal, instead eating dried meat

and fruits from their saddlebags as they rode. The prisoners were not

offered any food, and were only allowed to pause for a short rest at

mid-morning, during which time Deomoth and Josua quietly questioned

the rest of their party about Vorzheva's whereabouts. No one had seen her

leave, although Geloe said she had awakened Vorzheva at the first sound

of the approaching riders.

"She was born on this land," the witch woman'told the prince. "I

would not worry for her too much." Geloe's own face, however, showed

more than a trace of concern.

Hotvig and his men roused Josua's band after a too-short rest and the

march began anew. A wind sprang up from the northwest, soft at first,

then blowing stronger, until the ribbons on the Thnthings-men's saddles

whipped like tournament pennants and the long grasses bent double. The

prisoners labored on, shivering in their wet clothing.

Soon they began to see signs of habitation: small herds of cattle grazing

on the low hills, watched over by solitary horsemen. As the sun rose

closer to its noon apogee, the cattle herds they passed grew larger and

closer together, until at last the prisoners found themselves following the

snaking course of one of the Ymstrecca's tributaries through the very

midst of an immense throng of animals. The vast herd seemed to run from

horizon to horizon and contained mostly cattle of the ordinary sort, but

shaggy bison and bulls with long, curving horns also grazed among them,

lifting their heads to stare bleanly at the passing prisoners, mouths sol-

emnly chewing.

"It is obvious that these folk do not follow Geloe's advice on vegetable-

eating," Ueornoth said. "There is enough meat on the hoof here to feed

all Osten Ard." He looked hopefully to his prince, but Josua's smile was a

weary one.

"Many of them are sickly," Gutrun pronounced. In her husband's

frequent absences, she ran the duke's household at Elvritshalla with a firm

264 Tad Williams

hand, and rightly considered herself a good judge of livestock "See, and

there are not many calves for such a huge herd "

One of the riders who had been listening made a noise of disgust, as if

to show his disdain for the opinions of prisoners, but one of his mounted

companions nodded his head and said "It is a bad year Many cows die

birthing Others eat but do not grow fat " The Thnthings-man's beard

fluttered in the wind "It is a bad year," he repeated

Here and there among the great herd were circles of wagons, each circle

surrounded with fences of hastily-driven posts The wagons themselves

were all wooden, with large, high wheels, but otherwise were quite

different from each other Some were tall as two or three men, wheeled

cottages with wooden roofs and shuttered windows Others were little

more than a wagon-bed topped with a cloth-covered shelter, the fabric

npphng and snapping in the stiff breeze Children played in many of the

enclosures or darted in and out among the milling, amiable cattle Horses

grazed in some of the paddlocksand not just dray horses and wagon-

pullers Many were slender-limbed and wild-maned, with something

light and strong as forged steel to be seen in their step even from a

distance

"Ah, God, if only we had a few beasts like those," Deomoth said

wistfully "But we have nothing to trade I am mightily tired of walking "

Josua looked at him with a trace of sour humor "We will be lucky if we

walk away from here with our lives, Deomoth. and you are hoping for a

brace of battle steeds3 I would rather I had your optimism than their

horses "

As the prisoners and their captors continued south, the sprawl of sepa-

rate wagon-camps began to come together, clumped like mushrooms after

an autumn rain Other groups of mounted men rode in and out among the

settlements, Josua's escorts exchanged shouted remarks with some of

them Soon the wagons stood so near each other that it began to seem that

the prisoners traversed a city without roads

At last they reached a large stockade, its fence posts hung with orna-

ments of bright metal and polished wood that clattered in the wind Most

of the nders sheared off, but Hotvig the leader and six or seven others

ushered the prince's party through a swinging gate There were several

compounds within the stockade, one of them containing a score of fine

horses, another a half-dozen fat and glossy heifers In an enclosure by

himself stood a huge stallion, his shaggy mane twined with red and gold

nbbons The great horse nosed the ground as they passed and did not look

uphe was a monarch more used to being stared at than staring The men

escorting Josua's party touched their hands to their eyes reverently as they

passed

"It is their clan beast," Geloe said to no one m particular

At the far end of the encampment stood a great wagon with wide,

STONE OF FAREWELL265

heavy-spoked wheels and a banner bearing a golden horse billowing from

the roof-peak Before it were two figures, a large man and a young girl

The girl was knotting the man's long beard into two thick braids that

hung down onto his chest Despite his agehe looked to have passed

some sixty summers on the grasslandshis black hair was only faintly

striped with silver and his wide frame was still knotted with muscle He

held a bowl upon his lap in his huge bennged and braceleted hands

The riders stopped and dismounted Hotvig strode forward to stand

before him

"We have captured several trespassers who walked the Feluwelt without

your leave, March-thane six men, two women, and a child "

The March-thane stared the prisoners up and down His face split m a

wide, crooked-toothed grin "Prince Josua Lackhand," he said, without

the least trace of surprise m his voice "Now that your stone house is

fallen, have you come to live beneath the sky like men do7" He took a

long swallow from his bowl, draining it dry, then handed it to the girl and

waved her away

"Fikolmy," Josua said, bleakly amused "So you are March-thane now "

"When the Choosing came, of all the chieftains there was only Blehmunt

who would stand against me I broke his head like an egg " Fikolmij

laughed, patting at his new-braided beard, then stopped, lowering his

eyebrows like a nettled bull "Where is my daughter7"

"If that young one was yours, youjust sent her away," Josua said

Fikolmij clenched a fist in anger, then laughed again "Stupid tncks,

Josua You know who I mean Where is she7"

"I will tell you the truth," Josua said "I do not know where Vorzheva is "

The March-thane looked him over speculatively "So," he said at last

"You are not so high in the world today, stone-dweller You are a

trespasser in the Free Thnthmgs now, as well as a daughter-stealer Per-

haps you will seem better to me with your other hand cut off, too I will

think on it " He lifted his hairy paw and gestured carelessly Co Hotvig

"Put them in one of the bull runs until I decide which ones to cut up and

which to keep "

"Merciful Aedon preserve us," Father Strangyard murmured

The March-thane chuckled, flicking a wind-blown curl of hair from his

eye "And give these city-rats a blanket or two and some food, Hotvig

Otherwise, the night air may kill them and rob my sport "

As Josua and the others were led away at spearpomt, Fikolmij turned

and shouted for the girl to bring him more wine

14

A Crown of Fire

J.t was a dream, Simon knew even as he dreamed it. It started in an

ordinary enough fashion: he was lying in the Hayholt's great loft, hidden

in tickling hay. watching the familiar figures of Shem Horsegroom and

castle smith Ruben the Bear talking quietly below. Ruben, his broad arms

glimmering with sweat, was hammering clankmgly away at a scarlet-hot

horseshoe-

Suddenly the dream took on a strange cast. Ruben's and Shem's voices

changed, until they sounded nothing like their real selves- Simon could

now hear the conversation perfectly well, but the smith's hammer was

silent as it struck the gleaming iron.

". . . But I have done all you asked for," Shem abruptly said in a queer,

rasping tone. "/ brought King Elias to you."

"You presume too much," Ruben replied. His voice was like nothing

Simon had ever heard, cold and remote as the wind in a high mountain

pass. "You know nothing of what we want. . . of what He wants." There was

more wrong with the blacksmith than just his voice: a feeling of wrong-

ness emanated from him, a black and bottomless lake hidden beneath a

crust of thin ice. How could Ruben seem so evil, even m a dreamkind,

slow-talking Ruben?

Shem's lined face smiled cheerfully, but his words sounded strained. "/

do not care. I will do anything He wishes. I ask little in return."

"You ask a great deal more than any other mortal would," Reuben replied.

"No( only do you dare to call on the Red Hand, you have the temerity to demand

favors." He was chill and uncaring as graveyard dirt. "You do not even know

what you ask You are a child, priest, and you grasp at gleaming things because

they seem pretty You may cut yourself on something jagged and find that you

bleed to death."

"I don't care." Shem spoke with a lunatic firmness. "I don't care. Teach me the

Words of Changing. The Dark One owes me ... he is obligated ..."

Ruben threw back his head in wild laughter. A crown of flames seemed to

STONE OF FAREWELL267

blaze about his head. "Obligated?" he gasped- The sound of his amuse-

ment was terrifying. "Our master? To you?" He laughed again, and sud-

denly the blacksmith's skin began blistering. Little gouts of smoke jetted

into the air as Ruben's flesh burned away, peeling back to reveal a shifting

kernel of flame beneath, pulsating with reddish light like a coal fanned by

wind. "You will live to see His final triumph. That is more reward than most

mortals can expect!"

"Please!" Even as Ruben flared, Shem had begun to shrink, becoming

small and gray as a charred parchment. His tiny arm waved, crumbling.

"Please, undying one, please." His voice was oddly light, fraught with a

kind ofslyness. "I will ask nothing furtherI will not speak of the Dark One

again. Forgive a mortal fool. Teach me the Word!"

Where Ruben had stood, a living flame glowed. "Very well, priest. There

is, perhaps, little risk in giving you this dangerous hut final toy. The Lord of All

will be taking this world back soon enoughthere is nothing you can do that He

cannot make undone. Very welt. I will teach you the Word, but the pain will be

great. No Change is without some cost." Laughter bubbled again in the

unearthly voice. "You will scream ..."

"/ don't care!" Shem said, his ashy form swirling away now into dark-

ness, as did the shadowed smithy and then the hayloft itself. "/ don't care! I

must know. . . !" Finally, even the glowing thing that had been Ruben

became only a bright point in the blackness ... a star. . . .

Simon awakened, breathless as a drowning man, his heart thudding in

his chest. There was a single star overhead, peeping through the hole in the

top of their sleeping shelter like a blue-white eye. He gasped.

Binabik lifted his head from Qantaqa's shaggy neck. The troll was

half-asleep, but struggling toward full wakefulness. "What is wrong,

Simon?" he asked. "Were you having a dream that frightened?"

Simon shook his head. The tide of fear was ebbing a little, but he was

sure it had been more than just a night fantasy. It had seemed that an

actual conversation was taking place nearby, a conversation that his sleep-

ing mind had woven neatly into the stuff of his dreama mundane

happening that he had experienced many times. What was strange and

frightening was that there were no other speakers anywhere about: Sludig

was snoring, Binabik obviously new-wakened.

"It's nothing," Simon said, struggling to speak evenly. He crawled to

the front of their lean-to, mindful of the bruises from the evening's

stave-practice, and pushed his head out to look around. The first star he

had seen had a great deal of companya spatter of tiny white lights across

the night sky. The clouds had been driven away by the brisk wind, the

night was clear and cold, and the unrelieved monotony of the White Waste

stretched away on every side. There was not another living thing to be

seen anywhere beneath the ivory moon.

268 Tad Williams

So it had only been a dream, a dream of how old Shem Horsegroom

might speak with Pryrates' croaking tongue, and how Ruben the Bear

might speak with the sepulchral tones of nothing on God's living earth. . . .

"Simon?" Binabik asked sleepily. "Are you. . . ?"

He was frightened, but if he was to be a man he could not run to cry on

someone's shoulder every time he had a bad dream. "It's nothing." He

crawled shivering back to his cloak. "I'm well."

But it seemed so real. The branches of their flimsy shelter creaked,

wind-handled. So real. Like they were talking in my head . . .

Taking the silver sparrow's fragmentary message to heart, they rode

from first light to last every day, trying to outpace the coming storm.

Simon's mock-combats with Sludig now took place by firelight, so that he

had scarcely a moment to spend alone from the moment he rose until he

tumbled into exhausted sleep at the end of each day. The days of riding

passed in a procession of sameness: the endless, humped fields of white, the

dark tangles of stunted trees, the numbing insistence of the wind. Simon

was grateful for his thickening beard: without it, he often thought, the

relentless wind might rub away his face, down to the very bones.

It seemed that the wind had already worn away the face of the land,

leaving behind little that was remarkable or distinct. Had it not been for

the widening line of forest on the horizon, he could have supposed that

every morning found them back at the same cold, bleak starting place.

Thinking morosely about his own warm bed in the Hayholt, he decided

that even if the Storm King himself were to move into the castle, his

minions numerous as snowflakes, Simon could still live happily in the

servant's quarters. He wanted a home desperately. He was close to the

point where he would take a mattress in Hell if the Devil would lend him

a pillow.

As days wore by, the storm continued to grow behind them, a black

pillar rising ominously in the northwestern sky. Great cloudy arms clutched

at the firmament like the branches of a heaven-spanning tree. Lightning

flickered between them.

"It's not moving very fast," Simon said one day as they ate a sparse

noontime meal. There was more nervousness in his voice than he would

have liked.

Binabik nodded. "It grows, but its spreading is slow. That is something

for being thankful about." He wore an unusually dispirited expression.

"The slower it is moving, the longer we are not beneath itfor I am

thinking that when it comes, it will bring a darkness with ic that will not

be passing away, as with storms of the ordinary type."

"What do you mean?" Now the tremor was plain to hear.

"It is not a storm with just snow and rain," Binabik said carefully. "My

thought is that it is exactly meant to bring fear where it goes. It rises from

STONE OF FAREWELL269

Stormspike. It has the look of something full ofunnaturalness." He raised

his palms apologetically. "It is spreading, but as you said, not with great

swiftness."

I do not know about such things," Sludig said, "but I must admit I'm

happy we will be off the Waste soon. I wouldn't want to get caught in the

open in any storm, and that one looks truly nasty." He turned toward the

south and squinted. "Two days until we reach Aldheorte," he said.

"That will be some protection."

Binabik sighed. "I hope you are right, but I am fearing that there will be

no protection against this stormor that the protection must be some-

thing other than forest trees or roofs."

"Do you mean the swords?" Simon asked quietly.

The little man shrugged. "Perhaps. If we are finding all three, perhaps

winter can be kept at spear-lengthor even pushed back. But first we

must go to where Geloe tells us. Otherwise, it is only worrying about

things we cannot be changing; that is foolishness." He mustered a smile.

" 'When your teeth are gone,' we Qanuc say, 'leam to like mush.' "

The next morning, their seventh on the Waste, came laden with foul

weather. Although the storm in the north was still only an inky blotch

defacing the far horizon, steely gray clouds had gathered overhead, their

edges stripped into sooty tatters by the rising wind. By noon, when the

sun had vanished from view entirely behind the dismal pall, the snow

began to fly.

"This is terrible," Simon shouted, eyes narrowed against the stinging

sleet. Despite his heavy leather gloves, his fingers were swiftly growing

numb. "We're blinded! Shouldn't we stop and make shelter?"

Binabik, a small, snow-covered shadow atop Qantaqa's back, turned

and called back to him: "If we go a little farther, we will reach the

crossroads!"

"Crossroads!" Sludig bellowed. "In this wilderness?!"

"Ride nearer," Binabik cried. "I will be explaining."

Simon and the Rimmersman brought their mounts closer to the striding

wolf. Binabik lifted his hand to his mouth, but still the wind's roar

threatened to carry off his words. "Not far beyond here, I am thinking,

this Old Tumet'ai Road meets the White Way, that is running along the

northern edge of the forest. At the crossroad may be shelter, or at least the

trees should be of more thickness there, closer to the woods. Let us go

nding on a while longer. If there is nothing in chat spot, we will make our

camp there despite it."

"As long as we stop well before dark, troll," Sludig bellowed. "You are

clever, but your cleverness may not be enough to make a decent camp in

darkness in this blizzard. Having lived through all the madness I have

seen, I do not want to die in the snow like a lost cow!"

270

Tad Williams

Simon said nothing, saving his strength so he could more fully appreci-

ate his misery. Aedon, it was cold! Would there never be an end to snow?

They rode on through the bleak, icy afternoon. Simon's mare plodded

slowly, ankling through the new drifts. Simon leaned his head close to her

mane, trying to stay out of the wind. The world seemed as formless and

white as the inside of a flour cask, and only slightly more habitable.

The sun was quite invisible, but a dimming of the already scarce light

,ested that the afternoon was fading fast. Binabik, however, did not

su

seem inclined to stop. As they passed yet one more unprepossessing stand

of evergreens, Simon could stand it no longer-

"I'm freezing, Binabik!" he shouted angrily above the wind. "And it's

getting dark! There's another bunch of trees gone and we're still riding.

Well, it's almost night! By God's bloody Tree, I'm not going to go any

farther!"

"Simon ..." Binabik began, striving to assume a placating tone while

yelling at the top of his lungs.

"There's something in the road!" Sludig cried hoarsely. "Vaer! Some-

thing ahead! A troll!"

Binabik squinted. "It is being no such thing," he shouted indignantly.

"No Qanuc would be foolish enough to go wandering alone in such

weather!"

Simon stared into the swirling gray dimness before them. "I don't see

anything."

"As neither do I." Binabik brushed snow from his hood lining.

"I saw something," Sludig growled. "I may be snow-blinded, but I am

not mad."

"An animal, that is most likely," the troll said. "Or, if we are unlucky,

one of the diggers as a scout. Perhaps it is time to make shelter and fire, as

you said, Simon. There is a stand of trees that looks to make better

sheltering just ahead. There, over the rise."

The companions chose the most protected spot they could find. Simon

and Sludig wove branches among the tree trunks for a windbreak while

Binabik, with the help of his yellow fire-powder, set flame to damp wood

and began to boil water for broth. The weather was so unremittingly foul

and cold that after sharing the thin soup, they all curled up in their cloaks

and lay shivering. The wind was Coo loud for any but shouted conversa-

tion. Despite the proximity of his friends, Simon was alone with his

cheerless thoughts until sleep came.

Simon woke with Qantaqa's steaming breath on his face. The wolf

whined and nudged him with her great head, rolling him halfway over.

He sat up, blinking in the weak rays of morning sun filtering into the

copse. Snow drifts had piled against the woven branches, making a wall

that kept the wind at bay, so the smoke from Binabik's campfire rose

almost undisturbed.

STONE OF FAREWELL

271

"Good morning, Simon-friend," Binabik said. "We have survived through

the storm."

Simon gently pushed Qantaqa's head out of his side. She made a noise

of frustration, then backed away. Her muzzle was red-daubed.

"She has been unsettled all the morning," Binabik laughed. "I am

thinking that the many frozen squirrels and birds and such who have

tumbled from the trees have fed her well, however."

"Where's Sludig?"

"He is seeing to the horses." Binabik poked at the fire. "I convinced

him to take them downslope in the open, so the horses would not be

stepping on my morning meal or your face." He lifted a bowl. "This is

the last of the broth. Since our dried meat is now almost finished, I

suggest you enjoy it- Meals may be scarce if our own hunting must be

relied on."

Simon shivered as he wiped a handful of snow on his face. "But won't

we reach the forest soon?"

Binabik patiently offered the bow] again. "Just so, but we will be

traveling along it rather than through. It is a route more circuitous but less

time-consuming, since we will not be cutting through undcrbrush. Also,

in this frozen summer there may be few animals who are not sleeping in

their dens and nests. Thus, if you are not soon taking this soup from my

hands, I will drink it myself. I am no more interested in starving than you,

as well as a great deal more sensible."

"Sorry. Thank you." Simon hunched over the bowl, enjoying a deep

breath of the rising scent before he drank.

"You may be washing the bowl when you have finished," the troll

sniffed. "A nice bowl is a luxurious thing to have on a journey of such

dangerousness."

Simon smiled. "You sound like Rachel the Dragon."

"I have not met this Dragon-Rachel," Binabik said as he stood up,

brushing snow from his breeches, "but if she was given charge of you, she

must have been a person of great patientness and kindness."

Simon chortled.

They reached the crossroads in late morning. The meeting of the two

roads was marked only by a gaunt finger of stone set upright in the frozen

ground. Gray-green lichen, seemingly impervious to frost, clung to it grimly.

"The Old Tumet'ai Road runs through the forest." Binabik gestured to

the barely distinguishable path of the south road, which coiled away

through a stand of firs. "Since I am thinking it is nevermore used and

likely quite overgrown, we should instead follow the White Way. Perhaps

we will find some deserted habitations where we may be finding supplies."

The White Way proved a slightly newer road than the one leading

from the ancient sice of Tumet'ai. There were a few marks of recent

272 Tad Williams

human visitationa rusted and broken iron wheel-rim dangling from a

roadside branch, where it had doubtless been thrown by an irate wagon

owner, a sharpened spoke perhaps used as a tent-spike, discarded by the

shoulder, a circle of charred stones half-covered in snow.

"Who lives out here^' Simon asked "Why is there a road at all?"

"There were once several small settlements east of St. Skendi's monas-

tery," Sludig said "You remember Skendi'sthe snow-buned place we

passed on our way to the dragon-mountain. There were even a few towns

hereSovebek, Gnnsaby, some others, as I remember 1 think also that a

century or so ago, people traveled this way around the great forest when

they came north from the Thnthings, so there may have been a few mns.'1

"In days more than a century gone," Bmabik intoned, "this part of the

world was being much traveled We Qanucsome of us, that is to

saytraveled farther south in summer, sometimes to the edges of the

lowlander countries. Also, the Sithi themselves were everywhere in their

wandering It is only in these late and sad days that all this land has

become empty of voices."

"It does seem empty now," Simon said "It seems like no one could live

here anymore."

They followed the winding course of the road through the short after-

noon. The trees were gradually becoming thicker here at the forest's edge,

in spots growing so closely about the road that it seemed as if the

companions had already entered Aldheorte, whether they wished Co or

not. At last they came to another standing stone, this one leaning for-

lornly by the roadside, with no crossing or other possible landmark m

sight Sludig dismounted to take a closer look.

"There are runes on it, but faint and weathered " He peeled back some

of the fiozcn moss "I think they say that Gnnsaby is nearby." He looked

up, smiling in his frosty beard. "Someplace with a roof or two, perhaps,

even if nothing else. That would be a nice change." His step a little

springier, the Rimmersman vaulted back into his saddle. Simon, too, was

heartened- Even a deserted town would be a vast improvement over the

comfortless waste

The words of Bmabik's song came back to him You have slipped into

cold shadows ... He felt a moment's pang of loneliness. Perhaps the town

would not be deserted, after all. Maybe there would be an inn with a fire,

and food . . .

As Simon yearned for the comforts of civilization, the sun vanished for

good behind the forest. The wind rose and the early northern twilight

came down upon them.

There was still light in the sky, but the snowy landscape had turned blue

and gray, soaking up shadow like a rag dipped m ink. Simon and his

companions were nearly ready to stop and make camp, and were discuss-

273

STONE OF FAREWELL

ing the subject in loud voices over the monotonous wind when they came

upon the first outbuildings of Gnnsaby.

As if to disappoint even Sludig's modest hopes, the roofs of these

abandoned cottages had collapsed under the weight of snow. The pad-

docks and gardens were also long untended, knee-deep in swirling white.

Simon had seen so many emptied towns m his northern sojourn that it

was hard to believe that the Frostmarch and the Waste had once been

inhabited, that people had led their lives herejust as they did in the green

fields of Erkynland. He ached for his own home, for familiar places and

familiar weather. Or had winter already crawled over the entire land?

They rode on. Soon Gnnsaby's deserted houses began to appear m

greater profusion on either side of the road Bmabik had named the White

Way. Some still bore traces of their once-residentsa rusted axe with a

rotted handle standing in a chopping block before a snow-buned front

door; an upright broom sticking out of the roadside drifts like a flag or

the tail of a frozen animalbut most of the dwellings were as empty and

desolate as skulls.

"Where do we stop?" Sludig called. "I think we may not find a roof after

all."

"We may not, so let us be looking for good walls," Bmabik replied. He

was about to say more when Simon tugged at his arm.

"Look! It u a troll! Sludig was right!" Simon pointed off to the side of

the road, where a short figure stood motionless but for its wmd-flung

cloak- The last rays of sunlight had found a thin spot m the forest fringe

behind Gnnsaby, throwing the stranger into relief.

"Be looking yourself," Bmabik said grumpily, but his eyes were fixed

warily on the stranger. "It is no troll.*' The figure beside the road was

very small, weanng a thin hooded cloak. Bare, bluish skin showed where

the breeches-legs failed to meet the top of his boots.

"It's a little boy." After amending his earlier identification, Simon

steered Homefinder toward the edge of the road. His two companions

followed. "He must be freezing to death!"

As they rode toward him, the child looked up, snow flecking his dark

brows and lashes. He stared at the approaching trio, then turned and

began to run.

"Stop," Simon called, "we won't hurt you!"

"Hatad, kunde!" Sludig shouted. The retreating form stopped and turned,

staring. Sludig rode a few ells closer, then climbed down from his horse

and walked forward slowly. "Vjer sommen marroven, kunde," he said,

extending a hand. The boy stared at him suspiciously, but made no further

move toward flight. The child seemed to be no more than seven or eight

years old and thin as the handle of a butter churn, judging by the bits of

him showing. His hands were full of acorns.

"I'm cold," the boy said in fair Westerling.

274 Tad Williams

Sludig looked surprised, but smiled and nodded "Come on, then, lad "

He gently took the acorns and poured them into his cloak pocket, then

gathered up the unresisting child in his strong arms "It's all right, then

We'll help you " The Rimmersman placed the dark-haired stranger on the

front of his saddle, wrapping his cloak around him so that the boy's head

seemed to grow from Sludig's now-broad belly "Can we find a place to

make camp now, troll3" he growled

Binabik nodded. "Of course "

He urged Qantaqa ahead The boy watched the wolf with wide but

unworned eyes as Simon and Sludig spurred after Snow was rapidly

filling in the hollow where the boy had stood

As they rode on through the empty town, Sludig brought out his skin of

kangkang and let the newcomer have a short drink The boy coughed, but

otherwise seemed unsurprised by the bitter Qanuc liquor Simon decided

he might be older than first appearance made him seem there was a

precision to his movements that made him seem less like a child Some of

his apparent youth, Simon guessed, might be due to his large eyes and

slender frame

"What's your name, lad5" Sludig asked at last

The boy looked him over calmly "Vren," he said at last, the word

fluidly and oddly accented He tugged at the drinking skin, but Sludig

shook his head and put it back in his saddle bag

" 'Fnend'3" Simon asked, puzzled

" 'Vren,' I am thinking he said," Bmabik replied "It is 3 Hyrkaman

name, and I am thinking he might be a Hyrka "

"Look at that black hair," Sludig said "The color of his skin, too He is

a Hyrka, or I am no Rimmersman But what is he doing alone in the snow3"

The Hyrkas, Simon knew, were a footloose people accounted good

with horses and skilled in games at which other people lost money He

had seen many at the great market in Erchester "Do the Hyrkas live out

here, in the White Waste7"

Sludig frowned "I've never heard of suchbut I have seen many things

of late I would have have believed in Elvntshalla I thought they lived

mainly in the cities and on the grasslands with the Thnthings-folk "

Bmabik reached up and patted the boy with a small hand "So have I

been taught, although there are some who also are living beyond the

Waste, in the empty steppe-lands to the east "

After they had ridden farther, Sludig dismounted again to search for

signs of habitation He returned, shaking his head, and went to Vren The

child's brown eyes gazed unflinchingly back at him "Where do you live3"

the Rimmersman asked

"With Skodi," was the reply

"Is that near5" Binabik asked The boy shrugged "Where are your

parents5" The gesture was repeated.

275

STONE OFFAREWELL

The troll turned to his companions "Perhaps Skodi is the name of his

mother Or it might be a name of some other town name near to

Gnnsaby-village It is also being possible he has strayed from a caravan of

wagonsalthough these roads, I have sureness, are not much used at the

best of times How could he survive long in fearful winter days like

these;" He shrugged a movement oddly similar to the child's

"Will he stay with us5 ' Simon asked Sludig made an exasperated noise

but said nothing Simon turned on the Rimmersman angrily "We can't

leave him here to die'"

Bmabik waved a placating finger "No, do not fear that we would In

any case, I suspect that there must be more people than Vren who are

living here "

Sludig stood up "The troll is right there must be folk here Anyway,

the idea of taking a child with us is foolish "

"That is what some were saying of Simon," Binabik responded quietly

"But I am having agreement with your first statement Let us find his home "

"He can ride with me for a while," Simon said The Rimmersman made

a wry face, but handed over the unresisting child Simon wrapped the boy

in his cloak as Sludig had done

"Sleep now, Vren," he whispered The wind moaned through the

ruined houses "You're with friends, now We'll take you home "

The boy stared back at him, solemn as a petty cleric at a public

ceremony A small hand snaked out from beneath the jacket to pat

Homefmder's back With Vren's slender form resting against his chest,

Simon took his reins in one hand so he could drape an arm around the

boy's midsection He felt very old and very responsible

Will I ever be a father7 he wondered as they cramped on through the

gathering dark Have sons7 He thought about it for a moment Daughters1'

All the people he knew, it seemed, had lost their fathersBmabik's in a

snowslide. Prince Josua's to old age Jeremias the chandler's boy, Simon

remembered, had lost his to the chest-fever. Princess Minamele's sire

might as well be dead He thought about his own father, drowned before

he was born Were fathers just that way, like cats and dogs, making

children and then going away3

"Siudigi" he called, "do you have a father3"

The Rimmersman turned, an irritated expression on his face "What do

you mean by that, boy3"

"I mean is he alive3"

"For all I know," the Rimmersman snorted "And little I care, either

The old devil could be in Hell and it would not bother me " He turned

back to the snow-shrouded road

I will not be a father tike that, Simon decided clutching the child a little

closer Vren moved uneasily beneath Simon's cloak /'// stay with my son

We'll have a home, and I won't go away

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Tad Williams

But who would be the mother? A series of confusing images, random as

snowflakes, flurried before his mind's eye Minamele distanc on her tower

balcony at the Hayholc, the maid Hepzibah, cross old Rachel, and angry-

eyed Lady Vorzheva And where would his home be7 He looked around

at the vast whiteness of the Waste and the approaching shadow ofAldheorte

How could anyone hope to stay m one place in this mad world5 To

promise that to a child would be a he. Home3 He would be lucky to find a

place to get out of the wind for a night

His unhappy laugh set Vren to squirming, Simon pulled the cloak

tighter around them both.

As they approached the eastern outskirts ofGnnsaby they still had not

seen a living soul. Neither had there been any evidence of recent habita-

tion They had questioned Vren closely, but had been unable to elicit any

information other than the name "Skodi "

"Is Skodi your father7" Simon asked

"It is a woman's name," Sludig offered. "A Rimmerswoman's name "

Simon tried again. "Is Skodi your mother7"

The boy shook his head. "I live with Skodi," he said, his words so clear

despite the accent that Simon wondered again if the boy was not older

than they had guessed.

There were still a few desolate settlements perched among the low hills

along the White Way, but they were appearing more and more infre-

quently. Night had come on, filling the spaces between trees with inky

shadows. The company had ridden too longand too far past eating-time

by Simon's reckoning Darkness now made their search impractical Bmabik

was just setting a pitchy pine limb alight to use as a torch when Simon

saw a gleam of light through the forest, some distance from the road.

"Look there'" he cried. "I think it's a fire'" The distant white-blanketed

trees seemed to glow redly.

"Skodi's house! Skodi's house'" the boy said, bouncing so that Simon

had to restrain him. "She'll be happy!"

The company sac for a moment, eyeing the flickering light.

"We go carefully," Sludig said, flexing the fingers that clutched his

Qanuc spear. "It is a damned odd place to live We have no assurance

these folks will be friendly."

Simon felt a sudden inner chill at Sludig's words If only Thorn were

reliable enough for him to carry at his side! He felt his bone knife in its

scabbard and was reassured.

"I will ride ahead," Binabik said. "I am smaller and Qantaqa is more

quiet We will go to have a look." He murmured a word, the wolf slid off

the road through the long shadows, her tail waving like a puff of smoke

A few minutes passed. Simon and Sludig rode slowly along the snowy

downs, not talking Staring at the warm light that shimmered in the

STONE OF FAREWELL277

trcctops, Simon had fallen into a sort of shallow dream when he was

startled by the troll's abrupt reappearance Qantaqa grinned hugely, her red

tongue hanging from her mouth

"It is an old abbey, I am thinking," Binabik said, his face almost hidden

in the darkness of his hood. "There is a bonfire in the dooryard and

several people who are around it, but they look to be children. I was

seeing no horses, no sign of anyone waiting to ambush "

They rode quietly forward to the crest of a low hill The fire burned

before them at the bottom of a tree-lined clearing, surrounded by small,

dancing silhouettes Behind them loomed the red-tinted stone walls and

cracked mortar of the abbey It was an old building that had suffered

beneath the weather's rough handling, the long roof had collapsed in

several places, the holes gaping at the stars like mouths Many of the

surrounding trees also seemed to have pushed their limbs right through

the small windows, as chough trying to escape the cold

As they sat looking, Vren slithered free beneath Simon's arm and

hopped down from the saddle, tumbling into the show He stood, shaking

like a dog, then pelted down the hill toward the bonfire. Some of the

small shapes turned at his approach with glad cries Vren stood among

them for a moment, waving his arms excitedly, then pushed through the

abbey's front door and disappeared into the warm glow.

When long moments had passed and no one came back out again,

Simon looked inquiringly at Binabik and Sludig-

"It is certainly seeming to be his home," Binabik said.

"Should we go on our way7" Simon asked, hoping [hey would say no

Sludig looked him over, then grunted in exasperation.

"It would be foolish to pass the chance of a warm night." the

Rimmersman said grudgingly. "And we are ready to make camp. But no

word of who we are or what we do We are soldiers run away from the

garrison at Skoggey, should any ask."

Binabik smiled. "I approve of your logic, although I am doubting I can

be mistaken for a Rimmserman warrior Let us go and see Vren's home "

They cantered down into the dell The small figures, perhaps half a

dozen m all, had resumed their dancing game, but as Simon and the others

approached they paused and fell silent. They were only raggedly-dressed

children, as Binabik had suggested

All eyes now turned to the new arrivals Simon felt himself subjected to

a thorough scrutiny. The children seemed Co range in age from three or

four up to Vren's age or a little older, and seemed to be of no one type

There was a little girl who shared Vren's black hair and dark eyes, but also

two or three others so fair they could be nothing but Rimmersgarders. All

wore expressions of wide-eyed caution As Simon and his friends dis-

mounted, heads turned almost m unison to watch. No one spoke.

"Hello," Simon said. The boy nearest him stared sullenly, his face lapped

m firelight. "Is your mother here7" The boy continued to stare

278 Tad Williams

"The child we brought went inside," Sludig said "That is undoubtedly

where the grown folk are " He hcfted his spear thoughtfully and a half-

dozen pairs of eyes warily followed his movement The Rimmcrsn-ian

took the spear with him toward the abbey door which Vren had swung

shut behind him, then propped it against the pitted mortar of the wall

He gave his silent audience a meaningful look "No one may touch

this " he said "Understood' Gjal es, kunden'"' He patted his scabbarded

sword, then lifted a fist and thumped on the door Simon looked back at

Thorn, a hide-wrapped bundle on one of the packhorses He wondered

whether he should bring it with him, but decided that would draw more

attention than was best Still, it rankled So many sacrifices to get the black

sword, just to leave it strapped to the saddle like an old broomstick

"Binabik." he said quietly, pointing at the concealed sword "Do you

think5"

The troll shook his head "Little need for concern, I am certain," the

troll whispered "In any case, even if these children were to steal it, I am

guessing they would have a difficult time carrying it away "

The heavy door swung slowly open Little Vren stood in the doorwav

"Come in, you men Skodi says come in "

Bmabik dismounted Qantaqa sniffed the air for a moment, then bounded

away in the direction they had come The children by the fire watched her

departure raptly

"Let her hunt," Bmabik said "She is not happy walking inside a

people-house Come, Simon, we have been offered some hospitality " He

stepped past Sludig and followed Vren inside

A fire nearly as large as the bonfire in the dooryard was roaring and

crackling in the grate, throwing wild, flickering shadows on the cob-

webbed plaster Simon's first impression of the room was of some kind of

animal nest Great piles of clothes and straw and other more unusual

articles were piled haphazardly on every dirty surface

"Welcome, strangers," someone said "I'm Skodi Do you have any

food5 The children are very hungry "

She was sitting in a chair close to the fire, with several children younger

than those in the yard clambering over her lap or sitting at her feet

Simon's first thought was that she was another child herselfalbeit a very

large onebut after a moment's inspection he could see that she was his

own age or even a little older Her white-blonde hair, colorless as spider

silk. framed a round face that might have been quite pretty, despite a few

blemishes, if she had not been so fat Her pale blue eyes stared avidly at

the new arrivals

Sludig looked at her suspiciously, uncomfortable in such close sur-

roundings "Food7 We have little, mistress ." he considered for a

moment, "but you are welcome to share "

She waved her hand airily Her chubby pink arm nearly dislodged a

STONE OF FAREWELL279

sleeping toddler "It's not important We always get by " As Sludig had

predicted, she spoke Westerhng with a heavy Rimmcrsgard accent "Sit

down and tell me the news of the world " She frowned, pursing her red

lips "There may be some beer somewhere You men like beer, don't

you7 Vren, go find some beer And where are those oak-nuts I sent you

for'"

Sludig looked up suddenly "Oh " Sheepishly, he produced Vren's acorns

from his cloak pocket

"Good," Skodi said "Now beer "

"Yes, Skodi " Vren scuttled off down an aisle of stacked stools, vanish-

ing into the shadows

"How is it, if we may be asking, that you can live out here5" Bmabik

said "It seems a place of great isolation "

Skodi had been staring at him avidly Now her eyebrows lifted in

surprise "I thought you were a child'" She sounded disappointed. "But

you are a little man "

"Qanuc, my lady " Bmabik sketched a bow "What your people call

'[rolls ' "

"A troll'" She clapped her hands in excitement This time, one of the

children did slither off her rounded lap into the blankets coiled at her feet

The little one did not wake, and another quickly crawled up to take the

spot the first had vacated "So wonderful! We have never had a troll here'"

She turned and called into the darkness. "Vren1 Where is the beer for these

men3"

"Where did all these children come from5" Simon asked wondenngly.

"Are they all yours5"

A defensive look came to the girl's face "Yes They are now Their

parents did not want them, so Skodi keeps them instead "

"Well." Simon was nonplussed "Well, that's very kind of you But

how do you feed them3 You said they were hungry "

"Yes, it 15 kind," Skodi said, smiling now "It is kind of me, but that is

how I was caught Lord Usires said to shelter the children "

"Aye," Siudig grumbled 'That's so "

Vren came back into the firelight balancing a Jar of beer and several

cracked bowls The pile swayed dangerously, but with help he was able to

set them down and pour beer for all three travelers The wind had risen,

making the flames billow m the grate

"This is a very good fire," Sludig said as he wiped froth from his

mustache "You must have had a difficult time finding dry wood in

yesterday's storm "

'Oh, Vren chopped for me early in the spring " She reached out and

patted the boy's head with her plump hand "He butchers and cooks, too.

He is my good boy, Vren is "

"Is there no one here who is older5" Bmabik asked "I am meaning

280

Tad Williams

nothing discourteous, but you seem young to raise these children m

solitude."

Skodi looked at him carefully before answering. "I told you. Their

mothers and fathers have gone away. There is no one here but us. But we

do very well, don't we, Vren?"

"Yes, Skodi." The little boy's eyes were growing heavy. He snuggled

himself against her leg, basking in the warmth of the fire.

"So," she said at last, "you said that you had some food. Why do you

not get it, then we can share. We can find the makings of a meal

somewhere here. Wake up, Vren, you lazy thing!" She cuffed him lightly

on the side of the head. "Wake up! It's time to make supper!"

"Don't wake him," Simon said, feeling sorry for the little black-haired

boy. "We'll take care of the meal."

"Nonsense," Skodi said. She gave the protesting Vren a gentle shake.

"He loves to make supper. You go and get what you have. You will stay

the night, yes? Then you should stable your horses. 1 think the stable is

around the side of the courtyard. Vren, get up, you lazy lump! Where is

the stable?"

The forest had grown close around the back of the abbey where the stables

were located. The old trees, dusted with snow, swayed mournfully as

Simon and his companions threw dry straw onto the floor of one of the

stalls and dumped snow into the trough to melt. The stable seemed to

have been used occasionallythere were blackened torches in the cres-

sets, and the crumbling walls had been haphazardly patchedbut it was

hard to guess when the most recent occasion might have been.

"Shall we bring all our things inside?" Simon asked.

"I am chinking so," Binabik replied, loosening the belly-strap on one of

the packhorses. "I doubt the children would steal anything that was not

food, but who can say what might become mislaid?"

The smell of wet horses was strong. Simon rubbed Homefinder's hard

flank. "Don't you chink it's strange that no one lives here but children?"

Sludig laughed shortly. "The young woman is older than you,

Snowlockand quite a lot of woman at that. Girls her age often have

children of their own."

Simon blushed, but his irritated reply was forestalled by Binabik. "I am

thinking," the troll said, "that Simon speaks with good sense. There are

things unclear about this place. It will do no harm to ask more questions

of our hostess."

Simon wrapped Thorn in his cloak before carrying it back through the

snow to the abbey. The changeable sword was at this moment quite light.

It also seemed to throb slightly, although Simon knew that might be no more

than his chilled, trembling hands. When little Vren let them back inside,

Simon placed Thorn near the hearth where they would sleep and piled

STONE OF FAREWELL281

several of their saddlebags atop it, as though to immobilize a sleeping

beast that might wake and flail about.

Supper was an odd mixture of unusual food and strange conversation.

Beside the remains of dried fruit and meat provided by the three travelers,

Skodi and her young charges put out bowls of bitter acoms and sour

berries. Scavenging, Vren found a molding but edible cheese somewhere in

the abbey's ruined larder, along with several more jars of musky Rimmersgard

beer. With this they managed to make a meal that served the whole

company, albeit meagerly: the children all assembled numbered a dozen or

more.

Binabik found little time to ask questions during the meal. Those of

Skodi's charges who were old enough to go outside stood up to relate

fanciful stories of various adventures they had encountered that day,

stories so exaggerated as to be obviously untrue. One little girl told of

flying to the top of a mighty pine tree to steal a feather from a magical

jaybird. Another, one of the older boys, swore that he had found a chest

of ogre's gold in a cave in the forest. Vren, when his turn came, calmly

informed his listeners that while gathering acoms he had been pursued by

an icy demon with glinting blue eyes, and that Simon and his two

companions had saved him from the frosty menace's .clutches, smiting it

with their swords until it shattered into icicles.

Skodi held the smaller children on her lap as she ate, each in its rum,

and listened to each story with an expression of envious fascination. She

rewarded those she enjoyed most by giving the teller an extra morsel of

food, which was eagerly acceptedindeed, Simon decided, the reward

was probably the main reason for the fabulous nature of the stories.

There was something about Skodi's face that Simon found captivating.

Despite her great size, there was a delicacy to her girlish features and a

brightness to her eyes and smile that transfixed him. At certain moments,

as she laughed breathlessly at one of the children's inventions, or turned so

that the firelight played glinting in her flaxen hair, she seemed quite

beautiful; at others, when she greedily snatched a handful of berries from

one of the smaller the children and stuffed her wide mouth, or when her

spellbound appreciation of the story-telling for a moment resembled mere

idiocy, he found her repellent.

A few times she caught Simon staring. The glances she returned to him

frightened him a little, even as they made him blush. Skodi, for all her

bulk, wore a hungering look chat would not have been out of place on a

starveling beggar.

"So," she said when Vren had finished his wild tale, "you are even

braver men than I guessed." She smiled hugely at Simon. "We will sleep

well tonight, knowing you are under our roof. You do not chink Vren's

ice-demon has brothers, do you?"

'I am thinking it is not likely," Binabik said with a gentle smile. "You

282 Tad Williams

need not be fearing any such demon while we are staying here in your

home. In return, we have much gratitude for a roof and a hearth for

warming."

"Oh, no," Skodi said, her eyes wide, "it is me who is grateful. We do

not get many visitors. Vren, help clear a place for the men to sleep. Vren,

do you hear me?"

Vren was staring intently at Simon, an unfathomable expression in his

dark eyes.

"Your mentioning of guests, my lady," Binabik began, "it brings to

my mind a question 1 had meant to be asking you. How is it that you and

these children have come to be in such a place of isolation. . . ?"

"The storms came. Others ran away. We had nowhere else to go." Her

brisk words poorly concealed her wounded tone. "None of us were

wantednone of the children, nor Skodi either." The subject discussed,

her voice warmed again. "Now it is time for the little ones to sleep.

Come, alt of you, help me up." Several of her wards scurried to assist

Skodi in levering her large body up out of the chair. As she moved slowly

toward the door at the back of the room, a pair of sleeping children

clinging to her like baby bats, she called: "Vren will help you find your

way. Bring the candle when you come, Vren." She disappeared into the

shadows.

Simon awakened from an uneasy sleep in the depths of night, filled with

confused panic by the red-touched and starless darkness, and also by a

faint thread of sound that wove itself in and out of the muted tapestry of

windsong. It took some moments to remember that they slept near the

hearth of the old abbey, warmed by dreaming coals and sheltered from the

elements by the roof and decaying walls. The noise was Qantaqa's lonely

howl, floating distantly. Simon's fear faded a little, but did not disappear.

Was that a dream I had last night? Shem and Ruben and the voices? Was it truly

just a mad fancy, or was it as real as it seemed . . . as it sounded?

Ever since the night of his escape from the Hayholt, he had not felt a

master of his own destiny. That same Stoning Night, when he had

somehow felt Pryrates' repellent thoughts and had unwillingly shared in

the ritual as Elias received the terrible gift of the sword Sorrow, Simon

had wondered if he was even a master of his own mind. His dreams had

become vivid far beyond the realms of mere night-wandering. The

dream at Geloe's house, in which a cadaverous Morgenes had warned

him of a false messenger, and the repeated visitations of the great, all-

crushing wheel and of the tree-that-was-a-tower, white among the stars

these seemed too insistent, too powerful to be just unsettled sleep. And

now, in his dreams the night before, he heard heard Pryrates talking to

some unearthly thing as clearly as if Simon listened at a keyhole. These

were not anything like the dreams of his life before this last terrible year.

283

STONE OF FAREWELL

When Binabik and Geloe had taken him on the Road of Dreams, the

vision he experienced there had felt much like these otherslike dream-

ing, but with a wild and indescribable potency of vision. Perhaps some-

how, because of Pryrates on the hilltop or something else, a door had

opened in him that sometimes led to the dream-road. That seemed like

madness, but what did not in this topsy-turvy age? The dreams must be

importantwhen he awoke, it was with the sense of something infinitely

crucial slipping awaybut terrifyingly, he had no idea what they might

mean-

Qantaqa's mournful cry sounded again through the storm that blew

beyond the abbey's walls. Simon wondered that the troll did to get up to

soothe his mount, but the sound ofBinabik's and Sludig's snoring contin-

ued unabated. Simon tried to rise, determined to at least offer her the

chance to come inshe sounded so lone and lom, and it was so very cold

outsidebut found that a heavy languor clutched his limbs, so that he

could not force himself up. He struggled, but to no avail. His limbs were

no more responsive than if they had been carved of ash-wood.

Simon suddenly felt terribly sleepy. He fought his drowsiness, but it

pulled him relentlessly downward; Qantaqa's distant howl faded and he

went sliding as though down a long slope, back coward unknowingness. . . .

When he woke again, the last coals had burned black and the abbey was

in utter darkness. A cold hand was touching his face. He gasped with

horror, but air barely rilled his lungs. His body still felt heavy as stone,

without the power of movement.

"Pretty," Skodi whispered, a deeper shadow, sensed rather than seen,

looming tall and wide above him. She stroked his cheek. "Just got your

beard, too- You are a pretty one. I will keep you."

Simon strove helplessly to wriggle from beneath her touch.

"They don't want you, cither, do they?" Skodi said, crooning as chough

to a baby. "I can feel it. Skodi knows. Cast out, you were- I can hear it in

your head. But that is not why I had Vren bring you."

She settled down beside him in the dark, folding into a crouch like a

tent pulling loose from its stakes. "Skodi knows what you have. I heard it

singing in my ears, saw it in my dreams. Lady Silver Mask wants it. Her

Lord Red Eyes does, too. They want the sword, the black sword, and

when I give it to them they will be nice to me. They will love Skodi and

give her presents." She caught a lock of his hair between her plump fingers

and gave it a sharp pull. The twinge of pain seemed far away. A moment

later, as if in recompense, she ran her hand carefully over Simon's head

and face.

"Pretty," she said at last. "A friend for mea friend my age. That is

what I have waited for. I will take away those dreams that are bothering

you. I will take away all your dreams- I can do that, you know." She

lowered her whispering voice even further, and Simon realized for the first

284 Tad Williams

time that the heavy breathing of his two friends had ceased. He wondered

if they were lying silent in the darkness, waiting to save him. If that was

so, he prayed they would act soon His heart seemed as nerveless as his

leaden limbs, but fear beat through him, aching like a secret pulse "They

drove me out of Haethstad," Skodi muttered "My own family and

neighbors. Said I was a witch Said I put curses on people. Drove me

out " Horribly, she began to snuffle. When she spoke again, her words

were garbled by tears "I sh-sh-showed them When Father was drunk

and hteepmg, I stabbed Mother with his knife and then put it back in his

hand He killed himself." Her laugh was bitter but remorseless. "I could

always sec things others could not, think of things they would not Then,

when the deep winter came and would not go away, I began to be able to

do things Now I can do things no one else can do." Her voice rose

triumphantly "i am growing stronger all the time Stronger and stronger.

When 1 give Lady Silver Mask and Lord Red Eyes the sword they're

looking for, the singing black sword I heard in my dreams, then I'll be like

they arc Then the children and I will make everyone sorry."

As she spoke, she absently slid her cold hand from Simon's forehead

down into his shirt, letting it play over his naked chest as if she petted a

dog The wind had stilled, and in the dreadful silence of its abatement he

suddenly knew that his friends had been taken away. There was no one in

the lightless room but Skodi and Simon.

"But I will keep you," she said. "I will keep you for myself."

15

Within God's Watts

Jnl-UU/l Dmivan toyed with his food, staring into his bowl as though

some helpful message might be written there in olive pits and breadcrumbs.

Candles burned fiercely the length of the table Pryrates' voice was loud

and harsh as a brazen gong.

".So you see. Your Sacredness, all that King Ehas wishes is your

acceptance of one fact Mother Church's provenance may be men's souls,

but she has no right to interfere m the disposition of men's corporeal

forms by their legitimate monarch." The hairless priest grinned in self-

satisfaction Dimvan's heart sank to see the lector smile dully m return.

Surely Ranessin must know that Ehas was as much as declaring that

God's shepherd on earth had less right to power than an earthly king?

Why did he sit and say nothing?

The lector slowly nodded his head. He looked across the table Co

Pryrates, then briefly to Duke Bemgans, new master of Nabban, who

appeared a trifle nervous beneath the lector's scrutiny, hurriedly wiping

grease from his chin with the back of a brocaded sleeve This Feast of

Hiafmansa Eve was usually only a religious and ceremonial occasion.

Although Dimvan knew him to be utterly the creature of Pryrates' master

Ehas, at this moment the duke seemed to be wishing for more ceremony

and less confrontation

"The High King and his emissary Pryrates wish only the best for Mother

Church, Sacredness," Bemgans said gruffly, unable to hold Ranessm's

gaze, as though he saw his rumored murder of his father mirrored there.

"We should listen to what Pryrates says." He addressed his trencher once

more, wherein he found more convivial company.

"We are considering all that Pryrates has to say," the lector responded

mildly Silence fell upon the table once more. Fat Velhgis and the other

escntors present returned to their own meals, obviously pleased that the

long-feared confrontation seemed to have been averted

Dimvan lowered his eyes to the remains of his supper. A young priest

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who hovered at his elbow refilled Dinivan's goblet with waterit had

seemed a good night to avoid wineand reached forward to take his

bowl, but Dinivan waved him back. It was better to have something to

concentrate on, if only to avoid looking at viperous Pryrates, who was not

bothering to hide his immense pleasure at discomfiting the church hierarchy.

Absently pushing breadcrumbs with his knife, Dinivan marveled at how

inseparably the great and the mundane were linked. This ultimatum from

King Elias and the lector's response might one day seem an event of

unforgettable magnitude, like that day long ago when the third Larexes

had declared Lord Sulis heretic and apostate, sending that magnificent and

troubled man into exile. But even during that momentous event, Dinivan

reflected, there had probably been priests who scratched their noses, or

stared at the ceiling, or silently bemoaned their aching joints as they sat

within the very crucible of historyeven as Dinivan now poked at his

own supper-leavings and Duke Benigaris belched and loosened his belt. So

men always would be, ape and angel mixed, their animal nature chafing at

the restraints of civilization even as they reached for Heaven or for Hell. It

was amusing, really ... or should have been.

As Escritor Velligis tried to initiate a more soothing supper-table con-

versation, Dinivan suddenly felt an odd trembling in his fingers: the table

was shuddering gently beneath his hands. Earthquake was his first thought,

but then the olive pits in his bowl began to slide together slowly, forming

themselves into runes before his astonished eyes. He looked up, startled,

but no one else at the banquet table appeared to notice anything amiss.

Velligis droned on, his chubby face gleaming with sweat; the other guests

watched him, politely feigning interest.

Creeping like insects, the leavings in Dinivan's bowl had merged to

form two sneering words: "SCROLL PIG." Sickened, he looked up to

meet Pryrates' shark-black eyes. The alchemist wore a look of vast amuse-

ment. One of his white fingers was waving above the tablecloth, as if

sketching upon the insubstantial air. Then, as Dinivan watched, Pryrates

waggled all his digits at once. The crumbs and olive stones in Dinivan's

bowl abruptly tumbled apart, whatever forces that had bound them now

dispersed.

Dinivan's hand rose defensively to grasp the chain that lay beneath his

cassock, feeling for the hidden scroll; Pryrates' grin widened in almost

childish glee. Dinivan found his usual optimism melting before the red

priest's unmistakable confidence. He suddenly realized what a thin and

breakable reed his own life actually was.

". . . They are not, I suppose, truly dangerous - - ." Velligis was

blathering, "but it is a dreadful blow to the dignity of Mother Church,

these barbarians settling themselves afire in public squares, a dreadful

blowas much as danng the church to stop them! It is a kind of contagious

madness, I am told, carried by bad airs. I no longer go out without a

kerchief to wear over my nose and mouth ..."

STONE OFFAREWELL

287

"But perhaps the Fire Dancers are not mad," Pryrates said lightly.

"Perhaps their dreams are more . . . real . . . than you would like to

believe."

"That is ... that is . . ." Velligis spluttered, but Pryrates ignored him,

his obscenely empty eyes still fixed on Dinivan.

He fears no excess now, Dinivan thought. The realization seemed an

unbearable burden. Nothing binds him any longer. His terrible curiosity has

become a heedless and insatiable hunger.

Had that been when the world had begun to go wrong? When Dinivan

and his fellow Scrollbearers had brought Pryrates into their secret coun-

cils? They had opened their hearts and treasured archives to the young

priest, respecting the honed sharpness of Pryrates' mind for a long time

before the rot at the center of him could no longer be mistaken. They had

driven him from their midst, thenbut too late, it seemed. Far, far too

late. Like Dinivan, the priest sat at the tables of the mighty, but Pryrates'

red star was now ascending, while Dinivan's track seemed murky and

obscured.

Was there anything more he could do? He had sent messages to the two

Scrollbearers still living, Jarnauga and Ookequk's apprentice, chough he

had heard from neither in some time. He had also sent suggestions or

instructions to others of good faith, like the forest-woman Geloe and little

Tiamak in the marshy Wran. He had brought Princess Miriamele safely to

the Sancellan Aedonitis and made her tell her story to the lector. He had

tended all the trees as Morgenes would have wished: all he could do now

was wait and see what fruit might come- . . .

Slipping Pryrates' troubling gaze, Dinivan looked around the lector's

dining hall, crying to take note of details. If this was to be a momentous

night, for good or ill, he might as well try to remember all he could.

Perhaps in some futurea brighter one than he could now envisionhe

would be an old man standing at the shoulder of some young artisan,

offering corrections: "No, it wasn't like that at all! I was there . . ." He

smiled, forgetting his worries for a moment. What a happy thoughtto

survive the cares of these dark days, to live with no greater responsibility

than being an annoyance to some poor artist laboring to complete a

commission!

His moment of reverie ended abruptly, arrested by the sight of a

familiar face in the arched doorway that led to the kitchens. What was

Cadrach doing here? He had been in the Sancellan Aedonitis scarcely a

week and would have no business that could bring him near the lector's

private quarters, so he could only be spying on the lector's supper guests.

Was it only curiosity, or was Cadrach . . . Padreic . . . feeling the tug of

old loyalties? Of conflicting loyalties?

Even as these thoughts flashed through Dinivan's head, the monk's face

fell back into the shadows of the door and was gone from sight. A

288 Tad Williams

moment later a server marched through with a wide salver, making it

obvious that Cadrach had vanished from the archway entirely.

Now, as if in counterpoint to Dinivan's confusion, the lector rose

suddenly from his tall chair at the head of the table Ranessin's kind face

was somber, the shadows thrown by the bright candlelight made him

seem ancient and bowed with troubles.

He silenced prattling Velligis with a single wave of his hand. "We have

thought," the lector said slowly His white-haired head seemed remote as

a snow-capped mountain. "The world as you speak of it, Pryrates, makes

a certain kind of sense. There is weight to its logic. We have heard similar

things from Duke Bemgans and his frequent envoy, Count Aspitis "

"Earl Aspitis," Bemgans said abruptly, his heavy face flushed. He had

drunk a great deal of the lector's wine. "Earl," he continued heedlessly.

"King Elias made him an earl at my request As a gesture of his friendship

to Nabban."

Ranessin's slender features curled in a poorly-concealed look of disgust.

"We know you and the High King are close, Bemgans. And we know that

you yourself rule Nabban. But you are at our table now, m God's

housemy tableand we bid you to remain silent until Mother Church's

highest pnest finishes speaking."

Dimvan was shocked by the lector's angry toneRanessm was ordi-

narily the mildest of menbut found himself heartened by such unex-

pected strength Bemgans' mustache quivered angrily, but he reached for

his wine-cup with the clumsiness of an embarrassed child.

Ranessin's blue eyes were now fixed on Pryrates He continued in the

stately manner he so seldom used, but which seemed so natural when he

did. "As we said, the world which you and Elias and Bemgans preach

makes a certain kind of sense It is a world where alchemists and monarchs

decide the fate not only of men's corporeal forms, but of their souls as

well, and where the king's minions encourage deluded souls to burn

themselves for the glory of false idols if it suits their purposes. A world

where the uncertainty of an invisible God is replaced by the certainty of a

black, burning spint who dwells on this earth, in the heart of a mountain

of ice."

Pryrates' hairless brows shot up at this; Dimvan felt a moment of cold

joy. Good. So the creature could still be surpnsed

"Hear me1" Ranessin's voice gained force, so chat for a moment it

seemed that not only the room had fallen silent, but the whole world with

it, as though in that instant the candlelit cable rode the very cusp of

Creation- "This worldyour world, the world you preach to us with your

sly wordsis not the world of Mother Church. We have long known of a

dark angel who stndes the earth, whose bleak hand reaches out to trouble

all the hearts ofOsten Ardbut our scourge is the Arch-fiend himself, the

implacable foe of God's light. Whether your ally is truly our Enemy of

STONE OF FAREWELL289

countless millennia or just another vicious minion of darkness. Mother

Church has always stood against his like . . . and always shall "

Everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath for an endless

moment.

"You do not know what you say, old man " Pryrates' voice was a

sulfurous hiss. "You grow feeble and your mind wanders . . ."

Shockingly, not one of the escritors raised their voices in protest or

dissent They stared, wide-eyed, as Ranessin leaned across the table and

calmly engaged the priest's angry stare Light seemed to quail and almost

die throughout the banquet hall, leaving only the two illuminated, one

scarlet, one white, their shadows stretching, stretching . . .

"Lies, hatred, and greed," the lector said softly. "They are familiar,

age-old enemies It matters not beneath whose banner they march." He

stood up, a slim, pale shape, and lifted a hand. Dinivan felt again the

fierce, uncontrollable love that had driven him to bend his back in suppli-

cation before the mystery of Man's divine purpose, to bind his life over

into the service of this humble and wonderful man, and to the church that

lived in his person.

With cold deliberation, Ranessin drew the sign of the Tree m the air

before him. The table seemed to shudder again beneath Dinivan's hand;

this time he could not believe it the alchemist's doing '"YOU have opened

doors that should have remained closed for all time, Pryrates," the lector

proclaimed. "In your pride and folly, you and the High King have

brought a ponderous evil into a world which already groaned beneath a

mighty burden of suffering. Our churchmy churchwill fight you for

every soul, until the very Day of Weighing-Out dawns. I declare you

excommunicate, and King Elias with you, and also banish from the arms of

Mother Church any who follow you into darkness and error." His arm

swept down, once, twice. "DMOS Onenpodensis, Feala Vorum Lexeran. Duos

Onenpodensis, Feata Vorum Lexeran!"

No clap of thunder ofhom of judgment followed the Lector's booming

words, only the distant peal of the Clavean bell tolling the hour. Pryrates

stood slowly, his face pale as wax, his mouth twisted in a trembling

grimace

"You have made a horrible mistake," he rasped. "You are a foolish old

man and your great Mother Church is a child's toy made of parchment

and glue " He was quivenng with surprised fury. "We shall put a torch to

it ere long. The howling will be great when it bums You have made a mistake "

He turned and stalked from the dining hall, his bootheels clocking on

the tiled floor, his robes billowing like flame Dinivan thought he heard a

terrible intimation of holocaust in the priest's departing footsteps, of a

great and final conflagration, a black scorching of the pages of history.

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Minamcle was sewing a wooden button onto her cloak when someone

rapped on the door Startled, she slid off the cot and padded to answer,

her bare feet chill against the cold floor

"Who is it'"

"Open the door. PnnMalachias Please open the door "

She drew the bolt Cadrach stood in the poorly lit hall-way, his sweaty

face gleaming in the candlelight He pushed past her into the small cell and

elbowed the door shut so abruptly that Minainele felt a breeze as it swept

by her nose

"Arc you mad7" she demanded "You cannot just push in like this'"

"Please. Princess"

"Get out' Now'"

"Lady" Astonishingly, Cadrach fell to his knees His normally

ruddy face was quite pale "We must flee the Sancellan Aedomtis Tonight

She stared down "You have gone mad " Her tone was imperious

"What are you talking about7 Have you stolen something3 1 don't know if

I should protect you any longer, and I certainly will not go charging out

of"

He cut her off m mid-speech "No It is nothing I have doneat least,

nothing I have done tonightand the danger is not to me so much as

to you But that danger is very great We must flee'"

For several moments Minamele could not think of a thing to say

Cadrach indeed looked very frightened, a change from his usual veiled

expression

He broke the silence at last "Please, my lady, I know I have been a

faithless companion, but I have done some good, as well Please trust me

this once You are in terrible danger'"

"Danger from what3"

"Pry rates is here "

She felt a wave of relief wash over her Cadrach's wild words had

frightened her after all "Idiot I know that I spoke to the lector yester-

day I know all about Pryrates "

The stocky monk rose to his feet His jaw was set in a very determined

way "That is one of the most foolish things you have ever said, Princess

You know very little about him, and you should be grateful for that

Grateful'" He reached out and seized her arm

"Stop that' How dare you'" She tried to slap at his face, but Cadrach

leaned away from the blow, maintaining his grip He was surprisingly

strong

"Saint Mmrfath's Bones'" he hissed "Don't be such a fool, Minamele'"

He leaned toward her, holding her gaze with his own wide eyes There

was, she fleetingly noticed, no smell of wine about him "If I must treat

you like a child, I will," the monk growled He pushed her backward until

she toppled onto the cot, then stood over her, angry yet fearful "The

STONE OP FAREWELL291

lector has declared Pryrates and your father excommunicate Do you

know what that means7"

"Yes'" she said, her voice almost a shout "I'm glad'"

"But Pryrates is not glad and something bad will happen It will happen

very soon You should not be here when it does "

"Bad7 What do you mean7 Pryrates is alone in the Sancellan He came

with half a dozen of my father's guardsmen What can he do7"

"And you claim to know all about him " Cadrach shook his head in

disgust, then turned and began scooping Minamele's loose clothing and

few possessions into her traveling bag "I, for one," he said, "do not want

to see whatever he will be getting up to "

She watched him for a moment, dumbfounded Who was this person

who looked like Cadrach, but shouted and ordered and grabbed her arm

like a nver-barge bravo7 "1 will not go anywhere until I talk to Father

Dimvan," she said at last Some of the edge had disappeared from her

voice

"Splendid," Cadrach said "Whatever you wish Just prepare yourself to

go I'm sure that Dmivan will agree with meif we can find him at all "

Reluctantly, she bent to help him "Just tell me this," she said "Do you

swear that we're in danger7 And that it's not something you did7"

He stopped For the first time since he had entered the room, Cadrach's

odd half-smile appeared, but this one twisted his face into a mask of

terrible sorrow "We have all done things that we regret, Minamele I

have made mistakes that set God the Highest to weeping on His great

throne " He shook his head, angry at wasting time with talk "But this

danger is real and immediate, and there is nothing we can either of us do

to make it less Thus, we shall flee Cowards always survive "

Seeing his face, Minamele suddenly did not ever want to know what

Cadrach had done to make him hate himself so much She shuddered and

turned away, looking for her boots

The Sancellan Aedomtis seemed strangely deserted, even for the late

evening hour A few priests had gathered in the various common rooms

where they sat gossiping in hushed tones, a handful more strode the

comdors with lighted candles, on errands of one sort or another Except

for these few, the halls were empty The torches burned fitfully in their

sockets, as though troubled by restless breezes

Minamele and Cadrach were in a deserted upstairs gallery, passing from

the chambers where visiting churchmen stayed and into the administrative

and ceremonial heart of God's House, when the monk pulled Minamele

over to a shadowed window alcove

"Put the candle down and come look," he said quietly She wedged the

taper m a crevice between two tiles and leaned forward The cold air

struck her face like a slap

292

Tad Williams

"What should I look at?"

"There, below. Do you see all those men with torches?" He tried to

point within the confines of the narrow window. Miriamele could see at

least a score of men in the courtyard below, amored and cloaked, bearing

spears on their shoulders.

"Yes," she said slowly. The soldiers did not appear to be doing much

more than warming their hands at the courtyard fire-cairns. "So?"

"Those are from Duke Benigaris' household guard," Cadrach said grimly.

"Someone is expecting trouble tonight, and expecting it to be here."

"But I thought soldiers were never allowed to bear arms in the Sancellan

Aedonitis." The spearpoinis caught the torchlight like tongues of flame.

"Ah, but Duke Benigaris himself is a guest here tonight, since he

attended the lector's banquet."

"Why didn't he go back to the Sancellan Mahistrevis?" She stepped

away from the drafty window. "It's not very far."

"An excellent question," Cadrach replied, a sour smile playing over his

shadow-striped face. "Why indeed?"

Duke Isgrimnur tested Kvalnir's keen edge with his thumb and nod-

ded with satisfaction. He slipped his whetstone and jar of oil back into his

bag. There was something very calming about sharpening his sword. A

pity he had to leave it behind. He sighed and wrapped it in rags once

more, then pushed it underneath his pallet.

It wouldn't do to go see the lector carrying a sword, he thought, no matter how

much better it'd make me feel. I doubt his guards would take kindly to it.

Not that Isgrimnur was going to see the lector directly. It was very

unlikely that a strange monk would be allowed into the Shepherd of

Mother Church's bedchamber, but Dinivan's chambers were close by.

The lector's secretary had no guards. Also, Dinivan knew Isgrimnur and

thought highly of him. When the priest realized who his late-night visitor

really was, he would listen carefully to what the duke had to say.

Still, Isgrimnur felt his stomach fluttering, as it had before countless

battles. That had been the reason he'd brought out his sword: Kvalnir

hadn't been unsheathed more than twice since he'd left Naglimund, and

certainly hadn't seen any duty that would have dulled her Dverning-

forged blade, but honing his sword gave a man something to do when the

waiting became difficult. There was something in the air tonight, a queasy

expectancy that reminded Isgrimnur of the shores of Clodu during the

Battle of the Lakelands.

Even King John, blooded war-hawk that he was, had been nervous that

night, knowing that ten thousand Thrithings-men waited somewhere in the

darkness beyond the sentry fires, and knowing also that the plains-dwellers

STONE OFFAREWELL

293

were no adherents of orderly dawn starting-times for battles or any other

such conventions of civilized warfare.

Prester John had come to the fire that night, joining his young

Rimmersman friendIsgrimnur had not yet inherited his father's dukedom

for a jug of wine and a bit of conversation. As they talked, the king had

taken stone and polishing rag to fabled Bright-Nail. They spent the night

yarning away. a little self-consciously at first, with many a pause to listen

for unusual noises, then with increasing ease as dawn approached and it

became obvious the Thrithings-men planned no nighttime raids.

John told Isgrimnur tales of his youth on Warinstenwhich he de-

scribed as an island of backward and superstition-plagued bumpkins

and of his early travels on the mainland of Oscen Ard. Isgrimnur was

fascinated by these unexpected glimpses of the king's early life: PresterJohn

was already nearly fifty years old as they sat by the fire at Lake Clodu, and

to the young Rimmersman might as well have been king since the begin-

ning of time- But when asked about his legendary destruction of the red

worm Shurakai, John had waved the question away like an irritating fly.

He proved no more willing to discuss how he had received Bright-Nail,

saying that those stories were overtold and tiresome.

Now, forty years later, in a monk's cell at the Sancellan Aedonitis,

Isgrimnur remembered and smiled. John's nervous whetting of Bright-

Nail was the closest the duke had ever seen his lord come to anything

approaching fearfear about combat, at least.

The duke snorted. Now, with that good old man two years in his

grave, here sat his friend Isgrimnur, moping about when there were tasks

to be done for the good of John's kingdom.

Lord willing, Dinivan will he my herald. He's a clever man. He'll put Lector

Ranessin on my side and we'll track Miriamele down.

He pulled his hood low on his head, then opened the doorway, letting

the torchlight spill in from the corridor. He recrossed the room to put

out the candle. It wouldn't do to have it fall over on his pallet and catch

the place on fire.

Cadrach was becoming increasingly agitated. They had been waiting

inside Dinivan's study for some time; high above, the Clavean bell had

just sounded the eleventh hour.

"He is not returning, Princess, and I do not know where his private

chambers are. We must go."

Miriamele was peering into the lector's great audience hall through the

curtain at the back of the secretary's work room. Lit by only a single

torch, the painted figures on the high ceiling seemed to swim in muddy

water. "Knowing Dinivan, his private chambers are probably close to

294 Tad Williams

where he works," she said. The monk's worried tone made her feel a little

superior once more. "He'll come back here. He left all his candles bum-

ing, didn't he5 Why are you so worried?"

Cadrach looked up from Dimvan's papers, which he had been surrepti-

tiously examining. "/ was at the banquet tonight. 1 saw Pryrates' face He

is a man not accustomed to being balked."

"How do you know that^ And what were you doing at the banquet?"

"Doing what was necessary. Keeping an eye open."

Mmamele let the drapery slide back into place "You are full of hidden

talents, aren't you? Where did you leam to open a door without a key, like

you did to this room?"

Cadrach looked stung. "You said you wanted to see him, my lady. You

insisted on coming here. I thought it was better we came inside than stand

around in the halls waiting for the lector's guards to go by, or one of the

other priests who might want to know what we were doing in this part of

the Sancellan."

"Lock-pick, spy, kidnapperunusual talents for a monk."

"You may make fun if you wish, Princess." He seemed almost ashamed.

"1 have not had the life of my choice, or rather, I suppose, my choices

have not been good ones. But spare me your nasty jibes until we are out

of here and safe."

She slid into Dimvan's chair and rubbed her cold hands together, fixing

the monk with her best level gaze. "Where do you come from, Cadrach?"

He shook his head. "I do not wish to talk of such things. I grow

increasingly doubtful that Dmivan will return. We must go."

"No. And if you don't stop saying that, I will scream. Then we'll see

how that will go down with the lector's guards, won't we?"

Cadrach peeked out into the hallway, then quickly closed the door again.

For all the chill, his tonsured hair hung on the side of his head m sweaty

strands "My lady, I beg you, I am beseeching you, for your own life and

safety, please let us leave noy It is approaching midnight and the danger

is increasing every moment. Just . . . believe me!" Now he sounded truly

desperate. "We cannot wait any longer ..."

"You're wrong." Mmamele was enjoying the way that things had

shifted back in her direction. She put her booted feet up on Dimvan's

cluttered table. "I can wait all night if need be." She tried to fix Cadrach

with a stern eye once more, but he was pacing behind her, out of sight.

"And we are not going to go fleeing into the night like idiots without

talking to Dmivan first. I trust him a great deal more than I trust you."

"As you should, I suppose," Cadrach sighed. He sketched the sign of

the Tree in the air, then lifted one of Dimvan's heavy books and smashed

it down on top of her head, tumbling her senseless to the carpeted floor.

Cursing himself, he bent to lift her, then stopped as he heard voices in the

corridor.

STONE OF FAREWELL

^

295

"You really must go," the lector said sleepily He was propped up in his

wide bed, a copy of En Semblis Aedonitis open on his lap "I shall read for a

short while You really must get some rest yourself. Dmivan It has been a

very trying day for all "

His secretary turned from his inspection of the painted panels on the

wall "Very well, but don't read long, Sacredness "

"I won't My eyes tire very quickly by candlelight."

Dinivan stared at the old man for a moment, then impulsively knelt and

took the lector's right hand, kissing the ilenite ring he wore "Bless you,

Your Sacredness "

Ranessm looked at him with worried fondness "You must indeed be

overtired, dear friend. Your behavior is quite unusual "

Dinivan stood "You havejust excommunicated the High King, Sacred-

ness That makes for a somewhat unusual day, does it not^"

The lector waved his hand dismissively "Not chat it will do anything.

The king and Pryrates will do as they please. The people will wait to see

what happens. Ellas is not the first ruler to suffer Mother Church's

censure "

"Then why do it5 Why pit ourselves against him?"

Ranessin stared at him shrewdly. "You speak as though this excom-

munication was not your own fondest hope You of all people know why,

Dimvan- we must speak out when evil shows itself, whether there is any

hope of changing it or not." He closed the book before him. "I really am

too tired even to read. Tell the truth, Dmivan Is there much hope^'

The priest looked at him, surprised. "Why do you ask me, Sacredness^"

"Again you are ingenuous, my son I know that there are many things

with which you do not trouble a weary old man I also know that there

are good reasons for your secrecy. But tell me, from your own know-

ledgeis there hope?"

"There is always hope, Sacredness. You taught me that."

"Ah." Ranessin's smile was oddly satisfied He settled down into his

cushions.

Dinivan turned to the young acolyte who slept at the foot of the lector's

bed. "Make sure you bolt the door behind me when I go." The youth,

who had been dozing, nodded his head. "And do not let anyone into your

master's chamber this night."

"No, Father, I won't."

"Good." Dinivan stepped to the heavy door. "Good night, Sacredness

God be with you."

"And you," Ranessin said, muffled in his pillows. As Dinivan stepped

out into the hallway the acolyte shuffled over to push the door closed.

The hall was even more poorly lit than the lector's bedchamber. Dmivan

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Tad Williams

squinted anxiously until he spotted the lector's four guards standing at

attention against the shadowed wall, swords scabbarded at their sides,

pikes m their mailed fists He let out his breath in relief, then walked

toward them down the long, high-arched corridor Perhaps he should ask

for another two pairs to join these He wouldn't be sure of the lector's

safety until Pryrates had gone back to the Hayholt and treacherous Benigans

had returned to the ducal palace

He rubbed his eyes as he approached the guards He did indeed feel very

tired, wrung out and hung up to dry He would just stop and get some

things from his workroom, then go to bed. Morning services were only a

few hours away

"Ho, Captain," he said to the one whose helmet bore the white plume,

"I think it might be best if you called . . . called ..." He broke off,

staring The guard's eyes gleamed like pinpoints in the depth of his helm,

but they were fixed on some point beyond Dmivan, as were the eyes of

his companions They were all as motionless as statues "Captain5" He

touched the man's arm, which was rigid as stone. "In the name of Usires

Aedon," he muttered, "what has happened here?"

"They do not see or hear you "

It was a familiar rasping voice Dmivan whirled to see a glint of red at

the far end of the hallway

"Devil' What have you done171"

"They are sleeping," Pryrates laughed "In the morning, they will

remember nothing How the villains got past them to kill the lector will

be a mystery Perhaps it will be viewed by somethe Fire Dancers, for

instanceas a kind of... black miracle "

Poisonous fear crawled up from Dmivan's stomach, mixing with his

anger. "You will not harm the lector "

"And who will stop me? You3" Pryrates' laugh turned scornful "You

can try anything you wish, little man Scream if you likeno one will

hear anything that happens in this hallway until I leave."

"Then I will prevent you myself" Dmivan reached into his robe and

pulled forth the Tree that hung around his neck ^

"Oh, Dmivan, you have missed your calling " The alchemist stepped

forward, the torch light burnishing the arc of his hairless head "Instead of

lector's secretary, you should have sought a position as God's own fool

You cannot stop me You have no idea of the wisdom I have discovered,

the powers I command "

Dmivan stood his ground as Pryrates advanced, bootheels echoing through

the corridor "If selling your immortal soul on the cheap is wisdom, 1 am

happy to have none of it " His fear mounting, he fought to keep his voice

steady.

Pryrates' reptilian smile widened "That is your mistakeyou and all

those timid fools who call themselves Scrollbearers The League of the

STONE OF FAREWELL297

Scroll' A gossip society for whimpering, quibbling, would-be scholars.

And you, Dmivan, are the worst of all You have sold your own soul for

superstitions and reassurances Instead of opening your eyes to the myster-

ies of the infinite, you have hidden yourself among the callus-kneed

nng-kissers of the church "

Rage flooded through Dmivan's frame, momentarily reversing the tide

of terror. "Stand hack'" he shouted, lifting his Tree before him. It seemed

to glow, as though the wood itself smoldered "You will go no farther,

servant of evil masters, unless you kill me first."

Pryrates eyes widened in mock-astonishment "Ah So the little priest

has teeth! Well, then, we shall play the game your way . . . and I will

show you some teeth of my own." He lifted his hands over his head. The

alchemist's scarlet robes billowed as though a wild wind gusted through

the hallway. The torches rippled in their sockets, then blew out.

"And remember this ..." Pryrates hissed in darkness. "I command the

Words of Changing now! / am no one's servant!"

The Tree m Dmivan's hand flared more brightly, but Pryrates remained

sunken in shadow. The alchemist's voice rose, chanting in a language

whose very sound made Dmivan's ears ache and wrapped a band of

agony about his throat.

"In the name of God the Highest..." Dmivan shouted, but as Pryrates'

chant mounted toward a triumphant climax it seemed to tear the words of

prayer from his mouth almost before they were spoken. Dmivan choked.

"In the name of. . ." His voice fell silent. In the shadows before him,

Pryrates' spell had become a grunting, gasping parody of speech as the

alchemist suffered through some agonizing transformation

Where Pryrates had stood a roiling, unrecognizable shadow now flailed,

writhing in knotted loops that grew larger and larger until even the starlight

was blotted out and the hallway sank into unbreachable blackness. Pon-

derous lungs wheezed like a blacksmith's bellows. A deadening, ancient

cold filled the corridor with unseen frost.

Dmivan flung himself forward with a shout of terrified rage, trying to

strike the invisible thing with his Holy Tree, but instead found himself

caught up like a doll by some massive yet horribly insubstantial appendage.

They struggled, lost in the freezing darkness. Dmivan gasped as he felt

something pushing its way into his terrified thoughts, scraping inside his

head with burning fingers, trying to pry open his very mind like a jam jar.

He fought back with all his strength, struggling to hold the image of Holy

Aedon in his flickering thoughts, he thought he heard the thing that held

him gasp in pain

But the shadow only seemed to grow more substantial. Its grip tight-

ened around him, a horrible bone-cracking fist of jelly and lead Sour, cold

breath fluttered against his cheek like the kiss of nightmare.

"In the name of God . . . and the League . . " Dmivan groaned. The

298 Tad Williams

animal noises and terrible labored breathing began to fade away Angels

of painful, burning light filled his head, dancing to welcome the darkness,

deafening him with their silent song

Cadrach dragged Minamele's limp form out into the hallway, swearing

panicky oaths to various saints, gods, and demons The only light was the

thin blue of starlight bleeding in through the windows high overhead, but

it was difficult not to see the huddled figure of the pnest laying like a

discarded puppet in the center of the corridor a few steps away It was

equally impossible to ignore the ghastly cries and shrieks coming from the

lector's chamber at the end of the hall, where the thick wooden door lay

splintered across the floor

The noises ceased abruptly, ending on a drawn-out wail of despair that

dwindled at last to a gurgling hiss Cadrach's face filled with horror He

bent and swept up the princess, heaving her over his shoulder, then

crouched awkwardly to pick up their bag of possessions He straightened

and staggered away from the destruction at the far end of the hall, fighting

to stay on his feet

Around the corner the passageway widened, but there also the torches

had been extinguished He thought he could see the shadowy forms of

armored men standing sentry, but they were motionless as relics The

unhurried echo of booted feet sounded in the arched hall behind him

Cadrach hurried forward, cursing the slippery tiles

The passage turned once more, opening into the great entrance cham-

ber, but as he scurried through the arch he struck something solid as a wall

of adamant, although he had seen nothing in the doorway but air Stunned,

he tripped and tumbled backward Minamele slid from his shoulder to

the hard floor

The sound of approaching bootheels grew louder Cadrach reached

forward m a fit of panic, encountering an unnatural wall, an invisible but

unyielding something More transparent than crystal, it showed clearly

every detail of the torchht chamber beyond

"Ah, please, don't let him have her," the monk murmured, clawing

with desperate fingers, searching for some flaw in the invisible barrier

"Please'"

His questing was in vain The wall was seamless

Cadrach kneeled before the doorway, head slowly sinking to his chest as

the approaching footfalls grew louder The unmovmg monk might have

been a prisoner waiting at the executioner's block Suddenly, he looked

up

"Wait'" he hissed "Think, idiot man, think'" He shook his head and

took a deep breath, then released it and took one more He held his palm

STONE OF FAREWELL299

before the archway and spoke a single quiet word A wash of cold air blew

past him, ruffling the tapestries in the entrance chamber The barrier was

gone

He dragged Minamele through, pulling her across the floor and into

one of the archways opening off the grand chamber They disappeared

from sight JUSE as Pryrates' red-robed figure appeared m the doorway

where the unseen impediment had been Dim sounds of alarm were

beginning to filter through the halls

The red pnest paused as though surprised to find his barrier gone

Nevertheless, he turned and sketched a gesture in the direction from

which he had come, as though to sweep away whatever traces of his

handiwork might remain

His voice boomed, reverberating down the corridors in all directions

"Murder'" he cried "Murderers are in God's house'" As the echoes died

away he smiled briefly and set off toward the chambers where he stayed as

the lector's guest

Struck by a thought, Pryrates stopped suddenly in the archway and

turned to survey the chamber He lifted his hand once more, fingers

flexing One of the torches gouted sparks, then spat out a tongue of flame

which leaped across to a row of tapestries lining the wall The ancient

weavings blazed, fire licking upward at the great ceiling beams and spread-

ing rapidly from wail to wall In the hallway beyond, other fires were also

blooming

The alchemist grinned "One must give omens their due," he said to no

one present, then departed chuckling All around, the babble of confused

and frightened voices began to fill the byways of the Sancellan Aedonitis

Duke Isgnmnur congratulated himself for bringing a candle The hall-

way was black as tar Where were the sentries? Why weren't the torches

lit?

Whatever the problem was, the Sancellan was awakening all around

him He heard someone shout boldly of murder, which set his heart

swiftly beating, this was followed by other, more distant cries For a few

moments he considered returning to his tiny room, but decided that

perhaps the confusion was for the best Whatever the cause of the alarm

really \\asand he doubted it was murderit might mean he would be

able to find the lector's secretary without having to answer wearisome

questions from the lector's guards

The candle in its \\ooden holder threw Isgnmnur's shadow high against

the walls of the great entrance hall As the sounds of approaching discov-

ery grew, he wracked his brain for the proper exit from the chamber He

chose the archway that seemed likeliest

300 Tad Williams

A short distance past the second turning of the hallway, he found

himself in a wide gallery. A robed figure lay sprawled on the floor amid a

tangle of draperies, beneath the unperturbed stare of several armed guards

Are they statues, then7 he wondered. But, damn me, statuary never looked

like that See, that one there is leaning as though he were whispering to the other.

He stared up at the unseeing eyes that gleamed within the helms and felt

his skin crawling. Aedon save us. Black sorcery, that's what tt is

To his despair, he recognized the body on the floor the moment he

turned it over Dmivan's face seemed bluish, even by the dim candlelight.

Thin stripes of blood had run forward from his ears, drying on his cheek

like red tears- His body felt like a sack of broken twigs

"Elysia, Mother of God, what's happened here?" the duke groaned

aloud.

Dimvan's eyes fluttered open, startling Isgimnur so that he almost let

the priest's head fall back against the tiles Dimvan's gaze wandered for a

moment before fixing on him. It might have been the candle Isgnmnur

awkwardly held, but the priest's eyes seemed to burn with a strange spark.

Whatever the case, Isgnmnur knew it was a spark that would not last long

"Lector ..." Dimvan breathed. Isgnmnur leaned closer. "Look ... to

. . . lector."

"Dmivan, it's me," he said. "Duke Isgnmnur. I've come looking for

Minamele."

"Lector," the pnest said stubbornly, his bloodied lips struggling to form

the word. Isgnmnur sat up.

"Very well." He looked helplessly for something to cushion the priest's

wounded head, but could find nothing. He let Dimvan down, then rose

and walked to the end of the hallway. There was little doubt which room

was the lector'sthe door lay in great shards, and even the marble around

the door-frame was scorched and crumbled. There was even less doubt

about Lector Ranessm's fate. Isgnmnur took one look around the ruined

chamber, then turned and retreated hurriedly into the corridor. Blood, had

been smeared across the walls as if by a huge brush. The mangled forms of

Mother Church's leader and his young servant were barely recognizable as

human: their corpses had been spared no indignities. Even Isgnmnur's old

soldier's heart quailed at the sight of so much blood.

Flames were fhckenng in the far archway when the duke returned, but

he steeled himself to ignore them for a moment. Time for thought of

escape later. He took Dimvan's cold hand.

"The lector is dead. Can you help me find Princess Minamele?"

The priest breathed raggedly for a moment. The light in his eyes was

fading. "She's . . . here," he said slowly. "Called . . Malachias. Ask

room-warden." He gasped for air. "Take her ... to ... Kwamtupul . .

to Pelippa's Boivl Tiamak is ... there."

Isgnmnur's eyes filled with tears. This man should be dead. There could

SrONE OF FAREWELL

301

be nothing keeping him alive but sheer will "I'll find her," he said. "I'll

keep her safe."

Dimvan suddenly seemed to recognize him "Tell Josua," he panted

"I fear . . . false me^sen^ers "

"What does that mean?" Isgnmnur asked, but Dimvan was silent, his free

hand crawling across his chest like a dying spider, fumbling hopelessly at

the neck of his robe. Isgnmnur gently pulled out Dmivan's Holy Tree and

laid it on his chest, but the pnest shook his head feebly, trying once more

to reach inside his robe. Isgnmnur lifted out a golden scroll and quill

pendant on a chain The catch broke as he held it, the chain spilled out into

the damp hair at Dimvan's neck like a tiny, gleaming snake.

"Give . . . Tiamak," Dimvan rasped Isgnmnur could barely hear him

over the clamor of approaching voices and the crackle of flames in the

corridor beyond. The duke slipped it into the pocket of his monk's robe,

then looked up, startled by a sudden movement nearby. One of the

immobile guards, illuminated by pulsing fireglow, was swaying in place

A moment later he fell forward with a crash, his helmet skittering across

the tiles The toppled soldier groaned.

When Isgnmnur looked down again, the light had fled Dimvan's eyes

16

The Unhomed

-'

J. nC CUtTRyiCSS in the abbey was complete, the silence marred

only by Simon's ragged breath Then Skodi spoke again, her voice no

longer whispcnngly sweet

"Stand up "

Some force seemed to tug at him, a pressure delicate as a cobweb but

strong as iron His muscles flexed against his will. but he resisted A short

time before he had struggled to risenow, he strained to lie still

"Why do you fight me7" Skodi asked petulantly Her chilly hand

brushed across his chest and down onto the quivering skin of his stomach

He flinched, and control of his limbs slipped away as the girl's will closed

on him like a fist A forceful but intangible pull brought him to his feet

He swayed in the darkness, unable to find his balance "We will give them

the sword,' Skodi crooned, "the black swordoh, we will get such

lovely presents

"Wherearemy friends7" Simon croaked

"Hush, silly Go out to the yard "

He stumbled helplessly through the darkened room, barking his thins

on hidden obstacles, lurching like a clumsily manipulated puppet

"Here,' Skodi said The abbey's front door swung open on grating

hinges, filling the room with baleful reddish light She stood in the

doorway, pate hair fluttering in the swirling wind "Come, now, Simon

What a night this is' A wild night "

The bonfire in the dooryard blazed even higher than it had when the

travelers arrived, a beacon ot flame that reached the height of the sloping

roof and threw the abbey's cracked walls into red relief Skodi's children,

the young and old alike, were feeding all manner of strange objects into

the fire broken chairs and other bits of ruined furniture, and dcadwood

from the surrounding forest that burned with a ceaseless hiss of steam In

fact, the bonfire's eager wardens seemed to be throwing everything they

could find into the blaze, without regard for suitabilityrocks and animal

303

STONfc OF FAREWELL

bones, cracked pottery, and shards of colored glass from the abbey's

decaying windows As the flames roared and leaped in the surging wind,

the children's eyes caught the light, glowing like the yellow orbs of foxes

Simon tottered out onto the snowy courtyard with Skodi following

close behind A keening howl lanced through the night, a wretched,

lonely sound Slow as a sunning tortoise, Simon swiveled his head toward

the green-eyed shape crouched atop the hill that overlooked the clearing

Simon felt an instant of hope as it lifted its muzzle and moaned again

"Qantaqa'" he cried, the name fell strangely from his stiffjaws and slack

ups The wolf came no closer than the hill-crest She howled once more, a

cry of fear and frustration as clear as if it had been spoken with a human

tongue

"Nasty animal," Skodi said with distaste "Child-eater Moon-shouter

It won't come near Skodi's house It won't break my charm " She stared

hard at the green eyes and Qantaqa's baying became a whimper of pain A

moment later the wolf turned and vanished from the nse Simon cursed

inwardly and struggled again to break free, but he was still as helpless as a

kitten dangled by the scruff Only his head seemed his own, and every

movement was painfully difficult He turned slowly, looking for Binabik

and Sludig, then stopped, eyes widening

Two crumpled shapes, one small, one large, lay on the frosty ground

against the abbey's rotted plaster front Simon's tears froze into stinging

ice on his cheek as something tugged his head back around and drew him

another unwilling step toward the fire

"Wait," Skodi said Her voluminous white mghtdress flapped in the

wind Her feet were bare "I do not want you too close You might be

burned and that would spoil you Stand there " She pointed a plump arm

at a spot a couple of paces away As if he were an extension other hand,

Simon found himself trudging unsteadily across the thawing mud to the

spot she had indicated

"Vren1" Skodi cried She seemed gripped by maniacal good cheer

"Where is that rope3 Where are you7"

The dark-haired boy appeared in the abbey's front doorway "Here,

Skodi"

"Tie his pretty wrists "

Vren shot forward, skittering over the icy ground He grasped Simon's

limp hands and pulled them behind his back, then deftly bound him with a

length of rope

"Why are you doing this, Vren3" Simon gasped "We were kind to

you "

The Hyrka boy ignored him, pulling the knots tight When he had

finished, he put his small hands on Simon's hips and pushed him toward

where Binabik and Sludig lay huddled

Like Simon, both had their hands trussed behind their backs Binabik's

304 Tad Williams

eyes rolled to meet Simon's, the whites gleaming in the fire-shadowed

yard. Sludig was breathing but insensible, a strand of spittle frozen on his

blond beard.

"Simon-friend," the troll rasped, each word a labor. The little man

drew breath as if to say more, but instead fell back into silence.

Across the yard, Skodi had bent to draw a circle in the melting snow,

trickling a handful of reddish powder from her fist. When that was

finished, she began to scrape runes into the muddy ground, her tongue

clenched between her teeth like a studious child. Vren stood a short

distance away, swiveling his head from Skodi to Simon and back again,

face empty of all emotion but a sort of animal watchfulness.

Finished stoking the fire, the children were huddled near the wall of the

abbey. One of the youngest girls sat on the ground in her thin shift,

sobbing quietly; an older boy patted her head in a perfunctory way that

seemed meant to comfort her. They all watched Skodi's movements with

fascinated attention. The wind had blown the fire into a rippling pillar,

which painted their sober little faces with vermillion light.

"Now, where is Honsa?" Skodi called, clutching her nightdress closer

to her body as she straightened up. "Honsa!?"

"I'll get her, Skodi," Vren said. He slipped into the shadows at the

comer of the abbey, vanishing from sight, then reappeared a few moments

later with a black-haired Hyrka girl a year or two older than himself. A

heavy basket swung between them, bumping and jostling across the

uneven ground until they set it down by Skodi's swollen feet and scam-

pered back to the crowd of watching children. Once there, Vren squatted

in front of the little group and pulled a knife from his belt, then began to

nervously shred the end of his remaining hank of rope. Simon could feel

the boy's tension from across the yard. He wondered dully what the cause

might be.

Skodi reached into the basket and lifted out a skull whose mandible

clung by only a few knots of dried flesh, so that the eyeless face seemed to

gape in surprise. The bulging basket, Simon now saw, was full of skulls.

He suddenly felt sure he knew what had happened to the parents of all

these children. His numbed body shivered reflexively, but he perceived

the movement only dimly, as though it happened to someone else who

was some distance away. Nearby, dark-eyed Vren picked at the end of

rope with his gleaming blade, his features set in a brooding scowl. Simon

remembered with a sinking heart how Skodi had said that beside his other

chores, Vren butchered and cooked for her.

Skodi held the skull before her, her oddly pretty face utterly absorbeda

scholar studying a table of high mathematical formulae. She swayed from

side to side like a boat in high wind, nightdress flapping, and began to

sing in her high-pitched, childish voice.

STONE OF FAREWELL305

"In a hole, in a hole."

Skodi piped,

". . . in the ground, in a hole, where the wet-nosed mole

sings a song of cold stone, and of mud and gray bone,

a quiet, small song all (he chill, dark night long

as he digs in the deep, where the white worms creep,

and the dead all sleep, with their eyes jull of earth

where the beetles give birth, laying little white eggs,

and their brittle black legs go scrape, scrape, scrape,

and the dark, like a cape, covers all just the same,

darkness hiding their shame as it covered their names,

the names of the dead, all gone, all fled,

empty winds, empty heads,

Above grass grows on stone, fields lie fallow, unsown

all is gone that they've known

so they wail in the deep, crying out in their sleep,

without eyes, still they weep, calling out for what's lost,

in the darkness they toss, under pitweed and moss

in the deeps of the grave, neither master or slave,

has now feature or fame, needs knowledge or name,

but they long to come back, and they stare through the cracks

at the dim sun above, and they curse cruel love,

and the peace lost in life, think of worry and strife,

ruined child or wife,

all the troubles that burned, dreadjul lessons unlearned,

still they long to return, to return, to return,

they long to return.

Return!

In a hole, in the ground, under old harrow-mound,

where skin, bone, and blood turn to jelly-soft mud,

and the rotting world sings . . .

Skodi's song went on and on, circling downward like a black whirlpool

in a weed-strewn and unfrequented pond. Simon felt himself sinking with

it, tugged by its insistent rhythms until the flames and the naked stars and

the gleaming eyes of children blurred together into streaks of light, and his

heart spiraled down into darkness. His mind could feel no connection with

his shackled body, or with the actions of chose around him. A bleak hiss

of idiot noise filled his thoughts. Bleak shapes moved across the snowy

courtyard, unimportant as ants.

306

Tad Williams

Now one of the shapes took the round, pale object in its hand and

tossed it into the fire, throwing a fistful of powder in after it. A plume of

scarlet smoke belched forth, trailing off into the sky and obscuring Si-

mon's view. When it cleared, the fire was burning as brightly as before,

but a heavier darkness seemed to have settled over the courtyard. The red

light that splashed the buildings had become subdued, old as sunset on a

dying world. The wind had failed, but a deeper cold crept through the

abbey's grounds. Though his body was no longer fully his own, still

Simon could feel the intense chill crawling right into his bones.

"Come to me, Lady Silver Mask!" the largest of the figures cried.

"Speak with me. Lord Red Eyes! I want to trade with you! I have a pretty

thing you will like!"

The wind had not returned, but the bonfire began to waver from side to

side, bulging and shuddering like some great animal struggling inside a

sack. The cold intensified. The stars dimmed. A shadowy mouth and two

empty black eye-smudges formed in the flames.

"I have a present for you!" the large one shouted gleefully. Simon,

drifting, remembered that her name was Skodi. Several of the children

were crying, voices muffled despite the curious stillness.

The face in the fire contorted. A low, grumbling roar spilled from the

yawning black mouth, slow and deep as the creaking of a mountain's

roots. If words were part of that drone, they were indistinguishable. A

moment later, the features began to shimmer and fade.

"Stay!" Skodi cried. "Why do you go away?" She looked around

wildly, flapping her large arms; her exhilarated expression was gone. "The

sword!" she shrieked at the covey of children. "Stop crying, you stupid

oxes! Where is the sword? Vren!"

"Inside, Skodi," the little boy said. He was holding one of the smaller

children on his lap. Despite the curious sense of dislocationor perhaps

because of itSimon could not help noticing that Vren's arms were bare

and thin beneath his ragged coat.>

"Then get it, you fool!" she cried, hopping up and down in a leviathan

jig of rage. The face in the flames was now barely distinguishable. "Get

it!"

Vren stood up quickly, letting the child in his lap slide to the ground,

where it joined its wails to the general cacophony. Vren sped into the

house and Skodi turned to the billowing flames once more. "Come back,

come back," she coaxed the diminishing face, "I have a present for my

Lord and Lady."

Skodi's grip on him seemed to diminish somewhat. Simon felt himself

slipping back into his body once morea curious feeling, like donning a

cloak of softly tickling feathers.

Vren appeared in the doorway, pale face solemn. "Too heavy," he

called. "Honsa, Ende, you others, come here! Come and help!" Several of

STONE OF FAREWELL

307

the children came creeping across the snow toward the abbey at his call,

looking over their shoulders at the groaning bonfire and their gesticulating

caretaker. They followed Vren into the shadowed interior like a string of

nervous goslings.

Skodi turned again, her round cheeks flushed, her rosy lips trembling.

"Vren! Bring me the sword, you lazy thing! Hurry!"

He stuck his head out of the doorway. "Heavy, Skodi, it's heavy like a

stone!"

Skodi abruptly turned her mad eyes on Simon. "It's your sword, isn't

it?" The face had vanished from the flames, but the stars, pale as balls of

ice, still barely smoldered in the night sky; the bonfire still rippled and

danced, untouched by any wind. "You know how to move it, don't

you?" Her gaze was almost intolerable.

Simon said nothing, fighting inwardly with all his might to prevent

himself from babbling like a drunkard, from spilling to those compelling

eyes every thought he'd ever had.

"I must give it to them," she hissed. "They are searching for it, I know!

My dreams told me that they are. The Lord and Lady will make me ... a

power." She began to laugh, a girlish trill that frightened him as much as

anything that had happened since the sun had set. "Oh, pretty Simon,"

she giggled, "what a wild night! Go and bring me your black sword." She

turned and shouted at the empty doorway. "Vren! Come untie his hands!"

Vren popped out into the open, glaring furiously. "No!" he screamed.

"He's bad! He'll get away! He'll hurt you!"

Skodi's face froze into an unpleasant mask. "Do what I say, Vren. Untie

him."

The boy loped forward, stiff with rage, tears standing in his eyes. He

roughly pulled Simon's hands out behind and thrust the knife blade

between the cords. Vren's breath came in constricted gasps as he sawed

the ropes away; when Simon's hands fell free, the Hyrka hoy turned and

sped back to the abbey.

Simon stood, rubbing his wrists slowly, and thought about simply

running away. Skodi had turned her back on him and was crooning

imploringly to the bonfire. He looked out of the corner of his eye to

Bmabik and Sludig. The Rimmersman still lay without movement, but

the troll was struggling against his bonds.

"Take . . . take the sword and run, friend Simon!" Bmabik whispered.

"We will be escaping . . . somehow . . ."

Skodi's voice cut through the darkness. "The sword!" Simon felt him-

self turning helplessly from his friend, compelled beyond any possibility

of resistance. He marched toward the abbey as though prodded by an

invisible hand.

Inside, the children were crouched in the darkened hearth-comer, still

tugging without success at Thorn. Vren glared as Simon entered, but

308

Tad Williams

stepped out of his way. Simon kneeled before the sword, a hard, angular

bundle shrouded m rags and hides. He unwrapped it with hands that felt

curiously blunted.

As he grasped the corded hilt, the firelight spilling through the doorway

painted a stripe of glowing red along Thorn's black length. The sword

shuddered beneath his fingers in a way he had not felt before, a tremble

almost of hunger or anticipation. For the first time Simon felt Thorn to

be something unutterably and loathsomely alien, but he could no more

drop it from his hands than he could run away. He lifted it. The blade did

not feel painfully heavy, as it sometimes did, but it still had a strange

weightincss, as though he dragged it up from the muck at the bottom of a

pond.

He found himself compelled toward the doorway. Somehow, even

though she could not see him, Skodi could still move him like a straw

doll. He let himself be tugged back out to the red-lit courtyard.

"Come here, Simon," she said as he emerged, spreading her arms like a

loving mother. "Come stand in the circle with me."

"He has a sword!" Vren shocked from the doorway. "He'll hurt you!"

Skodi laughed dismissively. "He will not. Skodi is too strong. Besides,

he is my new pet- He likes me, don't you?" She reached out her hand

toward Simon. Thorn seemed to be swollen full with some awful, slug-

gish life. "Don't break the circle," she said lightly, as though they played a

game. Skodi clasped his arm and pulled him to her, helping him to lift his

clumsy foot over the circle of reddish dust. "Now they will be able to see

the sword!" She glowed with her triumph. One other warm pink hands

clasped his atop Thorn's hilt, the other coiled around his neck, pulling him

against her pulpy breasts and stomach. The heat of the fire softened him

like wax; the push of Skodi's body against his was like a smothering

fever-dream. He stood half-a-head taller, but had no more power to resist

her than if he had been an infant. What sort of witch was this girl?

Skodi began to shout in piercing Rimmerspakk as she swayed against

him. The lines of a face began to reform in the bonfire. Through tears that

the heat forced from his eyes, Simon saw the unstable black mouth

opening and closing like a shark's. A cold and dreadful presence came

down upon themquesting, questing, sniffing for them with predatory

patience.

The voice roared at them. This time Simon could hear speech in the

jumble of sound, unrecognizable words that made his very teeth ache.

Skodi gasped in excitement. "It is one of Lord Red Eye's highest

servants, just as I hoped! Look, sir, look! The present you want!" She

forced Simon to lift Thorn, then stared eagerly at the shadowy thing

moving in the blaze as it spoke again. Her exhilarated grin soured. "It

does not understand me," she whispered against Simon's neck with the

easy familiarity of a lover. "It cannot find the right road. I feared this. My

STONE OF FAREWELL

309

charm alone is not strong enough. Skodi has to do something she did not

want to do." She turned her head outward. "Vren! We must have blood!

Get the bowl and bring me some of the tall one's blood."

Simon tried to cry out, but could not. The heat within the circle was

lifting Skodi's fine hair like wisps of pale smoke. Her eyes seemed flat and

inhuman as potshards. "Blood, Vren!"

The boy stood over Sludig, an earthenware bowl in one hand, the

blade of the knifehuge in Vren's small fingerslying against the

Rimmersman's neck. Vren turned to look back at Skodi, ignoring Binabik

as the troll struggled on the ground nearby.

"That is right, the big one!" Skodi cried. "I want to keep the little one!

Hurry, Vren, you stupid squirrel, 1 need blood for the fire now! The

messenger will go away!"

Vren lifted his knife.

"And bring it carefully!" Skodi cried. "Don't spill any inside the circle.

You know how the little ones swarm when charms are spoken, how

hungry they are."

The Hyrka boy suddenly whirled and came stalking toward Skodi and

Simon, his face suffused with anger and fear. "No!" he screamed. For a

moment Simon felt a rush of hope, chinking that the boy meant to strike

Skodi down. "No!" Vren shrieked again, waving the knife in the air as

tears coursed down his cheeks. "Why are you keeping them? Why are you

keeping him!?" He jabbed his blade in Simon's direction. "He's too old,

Skodi! He's bad! Not like me!"

"What are you doing, Vren?" Skodi narrowed her eyes in alarm as the

boy leaped forward toward the circle. The blade swept up, red-gleaming.

Simon's muscles burned as he strove to throw himself out of the boy's

path, but he was clenched in a hand of stone. Sweat sluiced into his eyes.

"You can't like him!" Vren screeched. With a croaking shriek, Simon

managed to squirm just enough for the blade aimed at his ribs to miss and

tear along his back instead, leaving a track of cold silvery pain. Something

m the fire bellowed like a bull, then the darkness fell in on cop of Simon,

blotting out the faded stars.

Eolair had left her alone for a moment while he went back through the

great doorway to fetch another lamp.

As she waited for the Count of Nad Mullach's return, Maegwin gazed

happily down at the vast stone city in the cavern below. A great burden

had been lifted from her. Here was the city of the Sithi, of Hernystir's

allies of old. She had found it' For a while, Maegwin had begun to believe

herself as mad as Eolair and the others thought, but here it stood.

It had come to her at first as a certain disorder in her dreamstroubled

310 Tad Williams

dreams that were already dark and chaotic, full of the suffering faces other

beloved dead Then other images began to seep through. These new

dreams showed her a beautiful city rippling with banners, a city of flowers

and captivating music, hidden from war and bloodshed But these visions

that appeared in the last, fleeting moments of sleep, although preferable to

her nightmares, had not helped to calm her. Rather, in their richness and

exotic wonder, they had inflamed Maegwin with fear for her own trou-

bled mind. Soon, in her wanderings through Gnanspog's tunnels, she had

also begun to hear whispering in the earth's depths, chanting voices unlike

anything she had ever experienced.

The idea of the ancient city had grown and flowered until it became far

more important than anything happening within reach of sunlight. Sun-

light brought evil: the daystar was a beacon for disaster, a lamp that the

enemies of Hernystir could use to seek out and destroy her people. Only

in the deeps did safety lie, down among the roots of the earth where the

heroes and gods of elder days still lived, where the cruel winter could not

Now, as she stood above this fantastic stone cityher citya vast sense

of satisfaction spread over her. For the first time since her father King

Lluth had gone away to battle Skah Sharp-nose, she felt peace. True, the

stone towers and domes spread across the rock canyon below did not

much resemble the airy summer-city of her dreams, but there seemed

small doubt that this was a place Grafted by inhuman hands, and it stood in

a place where no Hemystin had walked since time out of mind If it was

not the dwelling place of the deathless Sithi, then what was it? Of course it

was their city, that seemed laughably obvious.

"Maegwin?" Eolair called, slipping through the half-open door. "Where

are you?" The worry in his voice brought a tmy smile to her face, but she

hid it from him.

"I am here, of course. Count. Where you bade me stay."

He came and stood at her shoulder, gazing down. "Gods of stocft and

stone," he said, shaking his head, "it is miraculous."

Maegwin's smile came back "What else would you expect of such a

place7 Let's go down and find those who live here. Our people are in great

need, you know."

Eolair looked at her carefully. "Princess, I doubt very much that anyone

is living there. Do you see anything moving7 And no lights are burning

but our own."

"What makes you think that the Peaceful Ones cannot see in darkness3"

she said, laughing at the foolishness of men m general and clever ones like

the count in particular. Her heart was racing so that the laugh threatened

to get away from her Safety! It was a breathtaking thought How could

anything harm them in the lap of Hernyscir's ancient protectors?

"Very well, my lady," Eolair said slowly. "We will go down a short

311

STONE OF FAREWELL

way, if these stairs are to be trusted. But your people are worrying about

you," he grimaced, "and me, too, before long. We must return quickly

We can always come back again later, with more folk "

"Certainly " She fluttered her hand to show how little such concerns

affected her. They would return with all her people, of course This was

the place they would live forever, out of reach of Skah and Ehas and the

rest of the blood-soaked madmen above ground.

Eolair grasped her elbow, guiding her with almost laughable caution.

She herself felt the urge to skip down the rough-hewn stairs. What could

hurt them here7

They descended like two small stars falling into a great abyss, the flames

of their lamps reflecting from the pale stone roofs below. Their footsteps

echoed out through the great cavern and rebounded from the invisible

ceiling to be repeated m countless reverberations, returning to them as a

rush of pattering sound like the velvet wings of a million bats.

For all its completeness, the city nevertheless seemed skeletal. Its inter-

connected buildings were tiled in a thousand colors of pale stone, ranging

from the white of a first snow through endless wan shades of sand and

pearl and sooty gray. The round windows stared like unseeing eyes. The

polished stone streets gleamed like the tracks of wandering snails.

They were halfway down the stairs when Eolair pulled up short, clasp-

ing Maegwin's arm close against his side. In the lamplight his worried face

seemed almost translucent; she fancied suddenly that she could see every-

thing that was in his mind.

"We have gone far enough. Lady," he said. "Your people will be

hunting for us "

"My people7" she asked, pulling away. "Are they not your people, too3

Or are you now far above a mere tribe of cringing cave-dwellers, Count?"

"That is not what I mean, Maegwin, and you know it," he said harshly.

That looks like pain in your eyes, Eolair, she thought. Does it hurt you so to

be yoked to a madwoman7 How could I have been fool enough to love you when

I coulcf never hope for more than polite forbearance in return7

Aloud, she said: "You are free to go whenever you wish. Count. You

doubted me. Now perhaps you are frightened chat you might have to face

those whose existence you denied. 1, however, am not going anywhere

but down to the city "

Eolair's fine features wrinkled in frustration. As he unknowingly wiped

a smear of lampblack onto his chin, Maegwin wondered suddenly what

she looked like. The long, obsessive hours of searching and digging and

chipping away at the bolt that secured the great door floated in her mind

like a poorly-remembered dream How long had she been down here in

the depths7 She stared at her dirt-caked hands with a growing sense of

horrorshe must indeed look the part of madwomanthen pushed the

thought away in disgust What did such things matter at an hour like this?

312 Tad Williams

"I cannot let you lose yourself in this place, Lady," Eolair said at last.

"Then come with me or bully me all the way back to your wretched

camp, noble count." She suddenly did not like the way she sounded, but

it was said and she would not take it back.

Eolair did not show the anger she expected; instead, a weary resignation

crept over his features. The pain she had seen before did not go away, but

rather seemed to sink deeper, spreading into the very lines of his face.

"You made a promise to me, Maegwin. Before I opened the door, you

said you would heed my decision. I did not believe you an oath-breaker. I

know your father never was."

Maegwin pulled back, stung. "Do not throw my father up to me!"

Eolair shook his head. "Still, my lady, you promised me."

Maegwin stared at him. Something in his careful, clever face took hold

other so that she did not hurry away down the stairs as she had intended.

An inner voice mocked her stupidity, but she faced him squarely.

"You are only partly correct, Count Eolair," she said slowly. "You

could not open it yourself, if you remember. I had to help you."

He looked at her closely. "So, then?"

"So, then, a compromise. I know you think me headstrong or worse,

but I do still want your friendship, Eolair. You have been good to my

father's house."

"A bargain. Maegwin?" he asked expressionlessly.

"If you will let us walk down to the bottom of the stairsjust until we

can set foot on the tiles of the cityI will turn around and go back with

you . . . if that is what you wish. I promise."

A weary smile touched Eolair's lips. "You promise, do you?"

"I swear by Bagba's Herd." She touched her soiled hand to her breast.

"Better you should swear by Black Cuamh, down here." He grimaced

in frustration. His long tail of hair had shed its ribbon and lay black across

his shoulders. "Very well- I don't like the idea of trying to carry you back

up these stairs against your will."

"You couldn't," Maegwin said, pleased. "I am too strong. Come, let's

go faster. As you said, people are waiting for us."

They passed down the steps in silence, Maegwin reveling in the safety

of shadows and stone mountains, Eolair lost in his own unvoiced thoughts.

They watched their feet, fearful of a misstep despite the stairway's great

width. The stairs were pitted, crazed with cracks as though the earth had

shifted in uneasy sleep, but the stonecraft was beautiful and subtle. The

lamplight revealed traces of intricate designs that coiled across the steps

and onto the wall above the staircase, scribings delicate as the fronds of

young ferns or the shingled feathers of hummingbirds. Maegwin could

not help turning to Eolair with a smile of satisfaction.

"Do you see!?" She held her lamp up to the wall. "How could this be

work of any mere mortals?"

STONE OF FAREWELL313

"I see it. Lady," Eolair responded somberly. "But there is no such wall

on the other side of the stairs." He indicated the drop-off to the canyon

below. Despite the distance they had already traveled downward, it was

still far enough to kill someone handily. "Please don't look at the carvings

so closely that you stumble over the edge."

Maegwin curtseyed. "I will be careful. Count." wr

Eolair frowned, perhaps at her frivolity, but only ncTdded.

The great stairway opened out at the bottom a like fan, spreading onto

the canyon floor. Away from the overhanging cavern wall, the glow of

their lamps seemed to dimmish, the light not strong enough to dispel the

deep and overwhelming dark. Buildings which had seemed cunning as

carved toys from the height of the canyon rim now loomed above them, a

fantastic array of shadowed domes and spiraling towers that tapered up

into the blackness like impossible stalagmites. Bridges of living stone

stretched from the cavern walls to the towers, winding in and about the

spires like ribbons. Its various parts tied together with narrow integu-

ments of stone, the city seemed more like a single, breathingly vital thing

than an artifact of lifeless rockbut it was surely empty.

"The Sithi are long gone, Lady, if they ever lived here." Eolair was

solemn, but Maegwin thought she heard a certain satisfaction in his tone.

"It is time to return."

Maegwin gave him a look of disgust. Had the man no curiosity at all?

"Then what is that?" she asked, pointing to a faint glow near the center of

of the shadowed city. "If that is not lamplight, then I am a Rimmersman."

The count stared. "It does look like it," he said cautiously. "But it

might be something else. Light leaking down from above."

"I have been in the tunnels a long while," Maegwin said. "Surely it is

well past sunset aboveground." She turned and touched his arm. "Come,

Eolair, please! Don't be such an old man! How could you leave this place

without knowing?"

The Count of Nad Mullach frowned, but she could see other emotions

struggling beneath the surface. He did wish to know, that was plain. It

was just this transparency chat had captured her heart. How could he be an

envoy to all the courts of Osten Ard and yet sometimes be as uncloudedly

obvious as a child?

"Please?" she said.

He checked the oil in the lamps before answering. "Very well. But only

to set your mind at ease, I do not doubt that you have found a place that

once belonged to the Sithi, or to men of old who had skills we have lost,

but they are long vanished. They cannot save us from our fate."

"Whatever you say. Count. Hurry now!"

She tugged him forward, into the city.

Despite her confident words, the stone byways did indeed seem long-

deserted- Dust sifted beneath their feet, eddying listlessly. After they had

314

Tad Williams

walked awhile, Maegwin found her enthusiasm begin to diminish, h&r

thoughts turning melancholy as the lamplight threw the jutting towers

and swooping spans into grotesque relief. She was again reminded of

bones, as though they wandered through the time-scoured rib cage of

some impossible beast Following the twisting streets through the aban-

doned citv. she began to feel herself swallowed up For the first time the

utterncss of these depths, the sheer furlongs of stone between herself and

the sun, seemed oppressive

They passed innumerable empty holes in the carved stone facades, holes

whose smooth edges had once been tight-filled by doors Maegwin imag-

ined eyes staring out at her from the darkened entrancesnot malicious

eyes, but sad ones. eyes that gazed at the trespassers with more regret

than anger.

Surrounded by proud ruins, Lluth's daughter felt herself weighted down

by all that her people had not become, all that they could never be. Given

the entirety of the world's sunlit fields in which to run, the Hernystin

tribes had let themselves be driven into caves in the mountain Even their

gods had deserted them At least these Sithi had left their memorial in

magnificently crafted stone Maegwm's people built of wood, and even

the bones of Hemystir's warriors now bleaching on the Inmscnch would

disappear with the passing of years. Soon there would be nothing left of

her people at all.

Unless someone saved them. But surely none but the Sithi could do

thatand where had they gone5 Was Eolair right5 Were they indeed dead?

She had been sure they had gone deep into the earth, but perhaps they had

passed on to some other place

She stole a glance at Eolair The count was walking silently beside her,

staring up at the city's splendid towers like a farmer from the Circoille

fringes on his first visit to Hernysadharc Watching his thin-nosed face, his

bedraggled tail of black hair. she suddenly felt her love for him cyme

surging up from the place where she had thought it prisoned, a helpless

love as painful and undeniable as grief. Maegwin's memory went flying

back almost a score of years to the first day she had seen him.

She had been only a girl, but already tall as a grown woman, she

recalled with disgust. She had been standing behind her father's chair in

the Taig's great hall when the new Count of Nad Mullach arrived for his

ritual pledge of loyalty Eolair had seemed so young that day, slender and

bnght-eyed as a fox, nervous, but almost giddy with pride. Seemed young7

He had been young scarcely more than twenty-two years old, full of the

suppressed laughter of anxious youth. He had caught Maegwin's eye as

she peered cunouslv around the high back of Lluth's chair. She had

blushed scarlet as a berry Eolair had smiled then, showing her those

bright, small, sharp teeth, and it had felt as though he took a gentle bite of

her heart.

STONE OF FAREWELL315

It had meant nothing to him, of course. Maegwin knew that. She was

only a girl then, but already fated to become the king's gawky spinster

daughter, a woman who lavished her attention on pigs and horses and

birds with broken wings, and knocked things off tablctops because she

could never remember to walk and sit and carry herself delicately, as a

lady should. No, he had meant nothing more than a fretful smile at a

wide-eyed young girl, but with that unwitting smile Eolair had caught hec

forever in an unbreakable net. . . ->)s]

Her thoughts were interrupted as the walled road they had chosen ended

before a broad, squat tower whose surface crawled with ornate stone vines

and translucent stone flowers. A wide doorway gaped darkly like a tooth-

less mouth. Eolair looked at the shadowed entrance suspiciously before

stepping forward to peer inside.

The interior of the tower seemed oddly spacious, despite the close-

hovermg shadows. A stairway choked with rubble curled away up one

inner wall, and a descending stairway passed around the circumference of

the tower in the opposite direction When they drew their lamps back

outside the door, a glimmer of lightonly the faintest of sheensseemed

to brighten the air where this downward passage disappeared from view

Maegwin took a deep breath. Astonishingly, she felt no fear at being m

such a mad place. "We will turn back whenever you say."

"That staircase is far too treacherous," Eolair replied. "We should go

back now." He hesitated, torn between curiosity and responsibility. There

was indeed an unarguable gleam of light from the downtrack. Maegwin

stared at it, but said nothing. The count sighed. "We will just go a little

way on the other path, instead "

They followed the downward path, spiralmg for what seemed a furlong

into the depths until they leveled out at last in a broad, low-ceilmged

passageway. The walls and roof were carved with tangled vines and

grasses and flowers, a panorama of vegetation that could only grow far

above, beneath sun and sky. The interwoven strands of stem and vine

ran endlessly along the wall beside them in a tapestry of stone- Despite the

immensity of the panels, no part of the wall seemed carved with exactly

the same design as any other The great carvings themselves were com-

posed of many kinds of rock, of an almost infinite variety of hues and

textures, but the panels were no mosaic of individual tiles as was the

patterned floor. Rather, the very stone itself seemed to have grown in

exact and pleasing shapes, as a hedge coaxed and pruned by gardeners

might mimic the form of an animal or bird-

"By the gods of Earth and Sky," she breathed.

"We must turn back, Maegwin." There was little conviction m Eolair's

voice. Here in the deeps, time seemed to have slowed almost to a stop

They walked on, examining the fantastic carvings in silence. Ac last, the

lamplight was supplemented by a more diffuse glow from the tunnel's far

316 Tad Williams

end Maegwin and the count stepped out of the passageway and into the

open, where the shadowed ceiling of the huge cavern once more arched

distantly overhead

They stood on a broad fan of tiles above a great and shallow bowl of

stone

The arena, three stone-throws across, was lined all about with benches

of pale, crumbling chert, as though the deserted bowl had been the site of

worship or vast spectacle A misty white light glowed in the open space of

the bowl's center, like an invalid sun

"Cuamh and Brynioch'" -Eolair swore quietly There was a distant and

anxious edge to his voice "What is it5"

A great, angular crystal stood on an altar of dull granite in the middle of

the arena, shimmering like a corpse-candle The stone was milky white,

smooth-faced but rough-edged as ajagged chunk of quartz Its strange and

subtle light slowly brightened, then died, then brightened again, so that

the ancient benches standing nearest seemed almost to flicker m and out of

existence with every scintillation

Pale light washed over them as they approached the strange object, the

chill air began to seem distinctly warmer Maegwin felt a moment of

breathlessness at the queer splendor of the thing For long moments she

and Eolair stood looking into the snowy glare, watching subtle colors

chase each other through the stone's depths, mangold and coral and shy

lavender, shifting like quicksilver

"It's beautiful," she said at last

"Aye "

They lingered, transfixed At last, with obvious reluctance, the Count of

Nad Mullach turned away "But there is nothing else here, Lady Nothing "

Before Maegwin could speak, the white stone suddenly blazed, radiance

swelling and blossoming like the birth of a heaven-star, until the blinding

glare seemed to fill the cavern Maegwin battled to orient herself in tha^sea

of terrifying brilliance She reached out for the Count of Nad Mullach

Blasted by light, Eolair's face had blurred until his features were almost

indistinguishable His far side had vanished into absolute shadow so that

he seemed but half a man.

"What is happening7'" she cried "Is the stone burning up31"

"Lady'" Eolair snatched at her, trying to pull her back from the glare

"Are you hurt7"

"Ruyan's Children'"

Maegwin reeled back in shock, stumbling unaware into Eolair's protec-

tive grasp The stone had spoken with the voice of a woman, a voice that

surrounded them as though mouths spoke from every side

"Why do you not answer me'7 Three times now have I called to you I no

longer have the strength' I will not be able to try again'"

The words were spoken in a tongue Maegwin had never heard, but still

STONE OF FAREWELL317

their meaning was somehow as clear as if spoken in her own Hernystin, as

powerful as if the woman's voice were inside her head Was this the

madness she had feared3 But Eolair, too, had clapped his hands over his

ears, beset by the same unnatural voice

"Ruym's Folk' I beg you, forget our old strife, the wrongs that were done'

A greater enemy now threatens u< both'"

The voice spoke as though with a great effort Weariness and sorrow

was m it, but something also of immense power, a strength that set

Maegwin's skin to tingling She held her hands splay-fingered before her

eyes and squinted into the heart of the glare, but could see nothing The

light that beat out at her seemed almost to push like a strong wind Could

some person be standing in the midst of that staggering incandescence3 Or

could it somehow be the stone itself that spoke3 She found herself sorrow-

ing for whoever or whatever should call out so desperately, even as she

fought against the lunatic idea of a shouting stone

"Who arc you3'" Maegwin cried "Why are you in the stone'3 Get out

of my ears'"

"What? Someone if there at last7 Praise to the Garden'" Unexpected hope

flared in the voice, supplanting weariness for a moment "Oh, ancient

kindred, black evil threatens our adopted land' I crave answers to my questions

questions that might save us all'"

"Lady'"

Maegwin at last noticed that Eolair was holding tightly to her waist "It

will not hurt me'" she told him She moved a little closer to the stone,

pulling against his strong arms "What questions3" she shouted "We are

Hernystin I am the daughter of King Lluth-ubh-Llythinn' Who are you3

are you in the stone3 Are you here in the city3"

The light from the stone dimmed and began to flicker There was a

pause before the voice came back, more muted than before "Are you

Tmukeda'ya7 I hear you only faintly," the woman said "It is too late' You are

fading away If you can still hear me, and would give aid against a shared enemy,

come to us m Jao e-Tinukai'i Some among you must know where it is " Her

voice grew softer still, until it was barely a whisper, tickling the insides of

Maegwin's ears The stone had lapsed back into fitful gleaming "Many are

searching for the three Great Swords Listen' This might he the salvation of us all,

or the destruction " The stone pulsed "This is all the Year-Dancmg Grove

could tell me, all the leaves would sing" Despair welled up in her dying

voice "I have failed I have grown too weak First Grandmother has failedI

can see only darkness coming"

The soft words at last were gone The speaking stone dimmed to a

smear of pale light before Maegwin's eyes "I could not help her, Eolair "

She felt quite empty "We did nothing And she was so sad'"

Eolair gently released her from his grasp "We do not understand enough

to help anyone, Lady," he said softly "We are m need of help ourselves "

318

Tad Williams

Maegwin stepped away from him, fighting back angry tears. Hadn't he

felt the woman's goodness, her sorrow? Maegwin felt as though she had

watched a wonderful bird thrashing in a trap just beyond her reach.

Turning to Eclair, she was startled to see moving sparks in the darkness

beyond. She blinked, but it was no phantasm of her dazzled eyes. A

procession of dim lights was moving toward them, wending its way

down the aisles of the shadowed arena.

Eolair followed her stare. "Murhagh's Shield!" he swore, "I knew I was

right to mistrust this place!" He fumbled for his sword hilt. "Behind me,

Maegwin!"

"Hide from those who will save us?" She darted around his restraining

hand as the bobbing lights approached. "It is the Sithi at last!" The

lights, pink and white, wavered like fireflies as she took a step forward.

"Peaceful Ones!" she cried. "Your old allies need you!"

The words that whispered out of the shadows came from no mortal

throat. Maegwin was filled with wild excitement, certain now that her

dreams had spoken truly. The new voice spoke an antique Hernystiri that

had not been heard beneath the sunlight for centuries. Oddly, there

seemed also a touch of fear in its words.

"Our allies are gone to bones and dust, now, as with most of our folk.

What kind of creatures be you, that fear not the Shard?"

The speaker and his fellows slowly came forward into the light. Maegwin,

who had thought herself ready for anything, felt as though the bedrock

swayed beneath her. She clutched at Eolair's sword arm as the Count of

Nad Mullach hissed in surprise.

It was their eyes that seemed so strange at first, great round eyes with

no whites. Blinking in the lampglare, the four newcomers seemed fright-

ened creatures of the forest night. Man-tall but achingly slender, they

clutched shining rods of some translucent gemstone in their long, spidery

fingers. Fine, pale hair hung down around their bony faces; their features

were delicate, but they wore rough clothes of fur and dusty leather,

knobbed at knees and elbows.

Eolair's sword rasped out of the scabbard, gleaming pinkly in the light of

the crystal rods. "Stand back! What are you?"

The being nearest took a step backward, then drew up, its thin face

evidencing nervous surprise. "But it is you who be trespassers here. Ah,

you do be Children of Hern, as we did suspect. Mortals." He turned and

said something to his fellows in a language like a murmur of song. They

nodded gravely, then all four pairs of saucer eyes turned to Maegwin and

Eolair once more. "No, we have spoken on this, and only meet it is that

you make shift to name yourselves."

Marveling at how the dream had turned, Maegwin steadied herself on

Eolair's arm and spoke. "We ... we are ... I am Maegwin, daughter of

King Lluth. This is Eolair, Count of Nad Mullach."

STONE OF FAREWELL319

The strange creatures' heads hobbled on their slender necks; they spoke

melodically among themselves once more. Maegwin and the count shared

a look of stunned disbelief, then turned as the one who had spoken before

made a discreet noise in his throat.

"You speak with good grace. So, be you gentlefolk among your kind,

in truth? And promise you mean no harm? Sadly, it has been long since

we have had dealings with Hern's Folk, and we are sore ignorant of their

doings. We were affrighted when you spoke to the Shard."

Eolair swallowed. "Who are you? And what is this place?"

The leader stared at him for a long moment, the reflection of the

lamp-flame bright in his great eyes. "Yis-fidri am I. My companions hight

Sho-vennae, Imai-an, and Yis-hadra, who is my good wife." They bowed

their heads in turn as he named them. "This city is called Mezutu'a."

Maegwin was fascinated by Yis-fidri and his friends, but a nagging

doubt was making itself felt at the back other mind. They were certainly

strange, but they were not what she had expected. . . .

"You cannot be the Sithi." she said. "Where are they? Are you their

servants?"

The strangers looked at her with alarm on their wide-eyed faces, then

took a few pattering steps backward and joined briefly in chiming collo-

quy. After a moment, Yis-fidri turned and spoke a little more harshly than

he had before.

"We served others once, but that was long ages agone. Have they sent

you for us? We will not go back." For all his defiant tone, there was

something tremendously pathetic in Yis-fidri's wagging head and huge,

mournful eyes. ^What did the Shard tell you?"

Eolair shook his head, confused. "Forgive us if we are rude, but we

have never seen any like you. We were not sent to look for you. We did

not even know you existed."

"The Shard? Do you mean the stone?" Maegwin asked. "It said many

things. I will try to remember them. But who are you then, if you are not

the Sithi?"

Yis-fidri did not answer, but slowly lifted his crystal, extending his

spindly hand until the rod's rosy light burned heatlessly beside Maegwin's

face. "By your aspect. Hern's people stand not so much changed since we

Tinukeda'ya of the mountains last knew them," he said wistfully. "How

is it we are forgotten alreadyhave so many generations of mortals come

and gone? Surely it was only a few turnings of the earth since your

northern tribesmen, the bearded ones, did know us?" His thin face grew

distant. "The northerners called us Dvernings, and brought us gifts so we

would craft for them."

Eolair stepped forward. "You are the ones our ancestors called Domhainif

But we thought they were legend only, or at least were long dead. You

are ... the dwarrows?"

320

Tad Williams

Yis-fidri showed a mild frown. "Legend? You do be of Hern's folk, be

you not? Who was it, think you, that taught your ancestors to mine these

mountains in days agone? We did. As to names, what matter? Dwarrow

to some mortals, Dverning or Domhaini to others." He waved his long

fingers, slowly, sadly. "Only words. We are Tinukeda'ya. We came from

the Garden and we can never return."

Eolair sheathed his sword with a clang that echoed through the cavern.

"You sought for the Peaceful Ones, Princess! This is as strange or stranger!

A city in the mountain's heart! The dwarrows out of our oldest legends!

Has the world below gone as mad as the world above?"

Maegwin was scarcely less astonished than Eolair, but found herself

with little to say. As she stared at the dwarrows, she mourned; the black

cloud that had lifted for a while seemed to roll back over her mind.

"But you are not the Sithi," she said at last, voice flat. "They are not

here. They will not help us."

Yis-fidri's companions moved up, so that they formed a semicircle

around the huddled pair. Watching Maegwin and Eolair worriedly, the

wide-eyed dwarrows seemed poised to bolt.

"If you came searching for the Zida'yathose who you name Sithi,"

Yis-fidri said carefully, "then that is of deep interest to us indeed, since we

brought us here to hide from them." He nodded slowly. "Long ago did

we refuse to bend any longer to their will, to their overweening injustice,

and so we escaped- We thought they had forgotten us, but they have not.

Now that we are weary and few, they seek to capture us once more." A

dim fire was kindled in Yis-fidri's eyes. "They even call to us through the

Shard, the Witness which has been silent for many long years. They mock

us with their tricks, trying to lure us back."

"You are hiding from the Sithi?" Eolair asked, confused. "But why?"

"We did serve them once, Hern's Child. We fled. Now they would

cozen us into coming back. They speak of swords to lure usfor they

know that such Grafting was always our delight, and the Great Swords

some of our highest works. They ask us of mortals we have never met nor

heard ofand what would we have to do with mortals now? You are the

first we have seen in a long age."

The Count of Nad Mullach waited for Yis-Fidri to continue. When it

appeared he would not, Eolair asked: "Mortals? Like us? What mortals do

they name to you?"

"The Zida'ya womanFirst Grandmother, as she is calledspoke sev-

eral times of. . ." the dwarrow conferred briefly with his fellows, ". . . of

HandlessJosua.' "

"Handless. . . ! Gods of earth and stream, do you meanjosua Lackhand?r

Eolair stared, astounded. "Oh, heaven, this is madness!" He sat down

heavily on one of the decaying benches.

Maegwin slumped beside him. Her mind was already reeling beneath

321

STONE OF FAREWELL

such weariness and disappointment that she had no strength left to be

surprised, but when she at last turned away from the mild, wide eyes of

the puzzled dwarrows to look to Eolair, the count's face was that of a man

struck by lightning in his own house.

4-

Simon awakened from a flight through black spaces and screaming

winds. The howling continued, but a red light bloomed before his eyes as

the darkness receded.

"Vren, you little fool!" someone was shrieking close by. "There is

blood in the circle!"

When he tried to take a breath, Simon felt something pushing down on

him, so that his lungs had to strain for air. He wondered briefly if a roof

had fallen on him. Fire? The red light danced and billowed. Was the

Hayholt on fire?

He could see a vast shape now, dressed in flapping white. The figure

seemed to have grown tall as the trees, looming far into the sky. It took

long moments before he realized he was lying on the icy ground, that

Skodi was standing over him, screaming at someone. How long. . . ?

The little boy Vren flailed on the ground a few cubits away, his hands

holding his throat, eyes bulging in his dark face. Untouched and unap-

proached, he was kicking his feet wildly, heels drumming on the frozen

mud. Somewhere nearby, Qantaqa was mournfully howling.

"You are bad!" Skodi screamed, her face gone pinkish-purple with rage.

"Bad Vren! Spilled blood! They will swarm! Bad!" She gasped in a great

breath and bellowed. "Punishment!" The little boy writhed like a smashed

snake.

Beyond Skodi, a shadowy face watched from the center of the rippling

fire, its unstable mouth moving in laughter. A moment later the bottom-

less black eyes settled on Simon, their sudden touch like an icy tongue

pressed against his face. He tried to scream, but some great weight was

pushing on his back.

Little fly, a voice whispered in his head, heavy and dark as mud. It was a

voice that had haunted many dreams, a voice of red eyes and burning

darkness. We meet you in the strangest places . . and you have that sword, as

well. We must tell the master about you. He will he very interested. There was a

pause; the thing in the fire seemed to grow larger, the eyes cold black pits

in the heart of an inferno. Why, look at you, manchild, it purred, you are

bleeding. . . .

Simon drew his shaking hand out from beneath his body, wondering

why it seemed strange that it should respond to his will. When he

disentangled it from Thorn's hilt, he saw that the trembling fingers were

indeed covered with slick red blood.

322

Tad Williams

"Punished!" Skodi was shrieking, her childlike voice cracking. "Every-

one will be punished! We were to give presents to the Lord and Lady!"

The wolf howled again, closer.

Vren had gone limp, facedown in the mud at Skodi's feet. As Simon

stared distractedly, the ground seemed to bulge, obscuring his view of the

boy's pale, crumpled form. A moment later another bulge appeared close

by, quivering; the half-thawed earth parted with a crunching, sucking

sound. A thin dark arm and long-nailed hand lifted from the agitated soil,

reaching toward the dim stars with fingers spread like the petals of a black

flower. Another hand snaked up beside it, followed by a pale-eyed head

scarcely bigger than an apple. A needle-toothed grin split the wizened

face, twitching the scraggly black whiskers.

Simon squirmed, unable to cry out. A dozen bulges blistered the earth

of the courtyard, then a dozen more. In a moment the diggers were

seething up from below like maggots from a burst carcass.

"Bukken!" Skodi shrilled in alarm. "Bukken! Vren, you little fool, I

told you not to spill blood in the charm-circle!" She waved her fat arms at

the diggers, who swarmed over the shrieking children like a plague of

cluttering rats. "I punished him!" she screamed, pointing at the unmoving

child. "Go away!" She turned to the bonfire. "Make them go away, Sir!

Make them go away!"

The fire fluttered in the chill wind, but the face only watched.

"Help! Simon!" Binabik's voice was hoarse with fear. "Help us! We are

still tied!"

Simon rolled over painfully, trying to pull his knees beneath him. His

back was clenched in an immovable knot, as though he had been kicked

by a horse. The air before his eyes seemed full of shining snowflakes.

"Binabik!" he groaned. A wave of squealing black shapes split off from

the main cluster, flowing away from the children and toward the abbey

wall where Sludig and the troll lay.

"Scop! I will make you!" Skodi had clamped her hands over her ears, as

though to shield herself from the children's pitiful screams. A small foot,

pallid as a mushroom, emerged briefly from the knot of diggers, then was

swallowed up again. "Slop!"

The ground suddenly erupted all about her, gouts of gelatinous mud

spattering her nightdress. A flurry of spidery arms wrapped around her

broad calves, then a swarm of diggers were climbing her legs as though

they were tree trunks. Her nightdress bulged as they swarmed up beneath

it in ever-increasing numbers, until at last the thin fabric split like an

overstuffed bag, revealing a squirming mass of eyes and scrawny legs and

taloned hands that almost completely obscured her doughy flesh. Skodi's

mouth pulled wide to scream and a serpentine arm pushed into it, disap-

pearing to the shoulder. The girl's pale eyes bulged.

Simon had finally dragged himself into a half-crouch when a gray shape

STONE OFFAREWELL

323

flashed past him, bowling into the slithering, squeaking mass that had

been Skodi and tumbling it to the ground. The diggers' mewing cries rose

in pitch, quickly becoming trills of fear as Qantaqa snapped necks and

crushed skulls, throwing small bodies in the air with gleeful abandon. A

moment later she was through and racing toward the throng of creatures

that had descended on Binabik and Sludig.

The fire had flared up to a great height. The unformed thing within it

laughed. Simon's could feel its terrible amusement sapping him, sucking

the life from him.

This is amusing, little jly, is it not? Why don't you come closer and we will

watch together.

Simon tried to ignore the pull of the voice, the insistent power of its

words. He clambered agonizingly to his feet and staggered away from the

fire and the thing that lurked within it. He used Thorn as a crutch,

propping himself, though the hilt slid treacherously beneath his blood-

damped hand. The slash Vren had made across his back was a cold ache, a

numbness that was still somehow painful.

The thing Skodi had summoned continued to taunt him, its voice

echoing inside his head, playing with him like a cruel child with a captured

insect.

Little jly, where are you going? Come here. The master will want to meet

you. . . .

It was a terrible struggle to keep walking in the other direction; life

seemed to be running out of him like sand. The diggers' squeals and

Qantaqa's wet, joyful growl had become no more than a faint roaring in

his ears.

For a long moment he did not even notice the talons grasping at his

legs; when at last he looked down into the spider-egg eyes of the Bukken,

it was as though he stared through a window into some other world, a

horrible place that was fortuitously separated from his own. It was not

until the scrabbling claws began to shred the legs of his breeches and score

the flesh beneath that the dreamlike state fell away. With a shout of

horror, he smashed the wrinkled face with a balled fist. More were

climbing his legs. He kicked them away with moans of disgust, but they

seemed as numberless as termites.

Thorn shivered again in his hands. Without chinking, Simon lifted it

and sent the black blade whistling into a clump of prancing creatures. He

felt it hum, as though it sang silently. Grown marvelously light, Thorn

sheared heads and arms like grass stems until dark ichor ran down the

bladed in streams. Every swing sent fiery pain lancing through Simon's

back, but at the same time he felt mad exhilaration course though him.

Long moments after all the diggers around him had died or fled, he was

still hacking at the tangled corpses.

My, you are a fierce jly, aren't you? Come to us. The voice seemed to reach

324 Tad Williams

into his head as into an open wound, and he squirmed in disgust. Tonight

is a great night, a wild night.

"Simon!" Binabik's muffled cry at last cut through his frenzy of hatred.

"Simon! Unbind us!"

You know we will win, little jly. Even at this instant, far away in the south,

one of your greatest allies falls . . . despairs . . . dies . . .

Simon turned and staggered toward the troll. Qantaqa, her muzzle

blood-washed to the ears, was keeping a hopping, shrilling throng of

diggers at bay. Simon lifted Thorn once more and began to cut his way

through the Bukken, smashing them down in bunches until at last they

scattered from his path. The voice in his head seemed to be crooning

almost wordlessly. The fire-washed courtyard shimmered before his eyes.

He bent to cut the troll's bonds and a great wave of dizziness almost

toppled him to the ground. Binabik rubbed the rope against Thorn's

cutting edge for a moment until the pieces fell aside. The little man tried

briefly to rub life back into his wrists, then turned to Sludig. After picking

at the knot for a moment, he turned to Simon.

"Here, lend your sword to this cutting," he began, then stared. "Chukku's

Stones! Simon, you are all of blood on your back'"

Blood will open the doorway, manchild. Come to us!

Simon tried to speak to Binabik but could not. Instead, he thrust

Thorn forward, clumsily pinking Sludig's back with the point. The

Rimmersman, coming slowly back to wakefulness, groaned.

"While he slept they struck his head with a stone," Binabik said

mournfully. "Because of his bigness, I am thinking. Me they only tied."

He sawed Sludig's bonds against Thorn until they, too, fell slithering to the

snowy ground. "We must be reaching the horses," the troll said to Simon.

"Have you sufficent strength?"

He nodded. His head felt far too heavy for his neck and the roaring in

his thoughts was giving way to a frightening emptiness. For the second

time that night he felt his inner self beginning to float free from its

confining shell, but this time he feared there would be no returning. He

forced himself to remain standing as Binabik coaxed the bleary Rimmersman

to his feet.

The master is waiting in the Chamber of the Well. . . .

"All we may do is run for the stables," Binabik shouted over the wolfs

menacing snarl. She had forced the diggers back, so that several yards of

open ground stood between the ring of Bukken and Simon's friends.

"With Qantaqa leading, we can perhaps be getting there, but we must

not slow or hesitate."

Simon swayed. "Get the saddlebags," he said. "In the abbey."

The little man stared at him incredulously. "Foolishness!"

"No." Simon shook his head drunkenly. "I won't go ... without . . -

White Arrow. She . . . they . . . won't take that." He stared out across the

STONE OF FAREWELL325

dooryard at the heaving mass of diggers gathered where Skodi had stood.

You will stand before the Singing Harp, you will hear His sweet voice. . . .

"Simon," Binabik began, then briefly swung his hand in the Qanuc

ward against madmen. "You arc barely able for standing," he grunted. "I

will go."

Before Simon could respond, the troll had vanished through the door

into the abbey's lightless interior. Long moments later he returned, drag-

ging the saddlebags behind him.

"We will hang most on Sludig." Binabik said, eyeing the waiting

diggers apprehensively. "He is too full ofsleepiness to fight, so he will be

our pack-ram."

Come to us!

As the troll draped the bags over the bemused Rimmersman, Simon

looked out at the circle of pale, naked eyes. The waiting diggers clicked

and chittered quietly as though talking among themselves. Many wore

tatters of crude clothing; some had rough, jagged-bladed knives clutched

in their spindly fists. They stared back at him, swaying like rows of black

poppies.

"Are you now ready, Simon?" Binabik whispered. Simon nodded,

lifting Thorn before him. The blade had been light as a switch, but now it

suddenly seemed heavy as stone. It was all he could do to hold it before

him.

"Nihut, Qantaqa!" the troll shouted. The wolf sprang forward, jaws

wide. Diggers piped in fear as Qantaqa plowed a furrow through flailing

arms and gnashing teeth. Simon followed, swinging Thorn heavily from

side to side to side to side.

Come. There are endless cold halls below Nakkiga. The Lightless Ones are

singing, waiting to welcome you. Come to us!

Time seemed to fold in on itself. The world closed down into a tunnel

of red light and white eyes. The throb of pain in his back seemed to grow

as rhythmic as his heartbeat, and the aperture of his vision alternately

spread and shut as he stumbled forward. A roar of voices as continuous as

the sea washed over him, voices both within and without- He swung the

sword, felt it bite, then shook it free and swung again. Things reached for

him as he passed. Some caught and tore at his skin.

The tunnel narrowed to black for a while, then opened up for a few

moments sometime later. Sludig, who was saying words too quiet for

Simon to hear, was helping him up onto Homefmder's back, pushing

Thorn through the saddle-loops. They were surrounded by stone walls,

but as Simon drove his heels into his horse's ribs, the walls were suddenly

gone and he was beneath the tree-slashed night sky, the stars glimmering

overhead.

Now is the time, manchild. The door is opened by blood! Come, join us in our

celebrations!

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Tad Williams

"No!" Simon heard his own voice shouting. "Leave me alone'"

He spurred ahead, leaping out into the forest. Binabik and Sludig, not

yet mounted, shouted after him. but their words were lost in the din

inside his head.

The door is open! Come to us!

The stars were speaking to him, telling him to sleep, that when he

awoke he would be far away from . . . eyes in the fire . . . from . . .

Skodi . . . from . . . clawing fingers . . . from ... he would be far away

from . . .

The door is open! Come to us!

He rode heedlessly through the snowy woods trying to outrun the

terrible voice. Branches tore at his face. Stars peered coldly down through

the trees. Time passed, perhaps hours, but still he rode wildly onward.

Homefindcr seemed to feel his frenzy. Her hooves flung clouds of snow as

they pounded through the darkness. Simon was alone, his friends far

behind, but still the fire-thing spoke gleefully inside his thoughts.

Come, manchifd! Come, dragon-bumed! It is a wild night! We await you

beneath the ice-mountain. . . .

The words in Simon's head were a swarm of fiery bees. He writhed in

the saddle, striking at himself, slapping at his ears and face as he tried to

drive the voice away. Even as he flailed, something loomed abruptly

before hima patch of blackness deeper than the night. In a split instant

he felt his heart falter, but it was only a tree. A tree!

His headlong flight was too madly swift to avoid the obstacle. He was

struck as though by a giant hand and thrown from Homefinder's saddle,

tumbling through nothingness. He was falling. The stars were fading.

Black night came down and covered all.

17

A Wager of Littfc Vatue

JL rU^ U^U^TTlOUTl'had worn away. The wind-scoured sky stretched

above the grasslands like a purple awning. The first stars were coming

out. Dcornoth, wrapped in a coarse blanket against the chill, stared up at

the faint points of light and wondered if God had finally turned away His

face.

Josua's people were huddled together in a bull run, a long, narrow pen

of wooden palings driven deep into the earth and lashed together with

rope. For all their seeming flimsinessin many places there were gaps so

wide that Ueornoth could slip through his entire arm and most of his

shoulderthe walls were strong as mortared stone.

As he looked around at his fellow prisoners, Deornoth's gaze stopped

on Geloe. The witch woman held Leieth in her lap, singing quietly into

the child's ear as they both stared up at the darkening sky.

"It seems madness that we should escape from Norns and diggers to

end here." Ueornoth could not keep an aggrieved Cone from his voice.

"Geloe, you know charms and spells. Could you not have magicked our

captors somehowput them to sleep, or turned yourself into a ravening

beast and attacked them?"

"Deornoth," Josua said warningly, but the forest woman needed no

defending.

"You understand little. Sir Deornoth, of how The Art works," Geloe

replied sharply. "First of all, what you call 'magic' has its cost. If it could

be easily used to defeat a dozen armed men, the armies of princes would

be full of hired wizards. Secondly, we have not been harmed yet. I am no

Pryrates: I do not waste my strength in puppet plays for the bored and

curious. I have a greater enemy to occupy my thoughts, more dangerous

by far than anyone in this encampment."

As if giving such a long answer exasperated herand indeed, Geloe

seldom said so much at onceshe fell silent, turning away to stare at the

firmament once more.

328 Tad Williams

Frustrated with himself, Deornoth shrugged off his blanket and stood.

Had it come to this? What sort of knight was he, that berated an old

woman for not saving him from danger? A shiver of anger and disgust

traveled through him; he clenched and unclenched his fists helplessly.

What could he do? What strength did any of this ragged band have left to

do anything?

Isorn was comforting his mother. Duchess Gutrun's remarkable courage

had held though any number of horrors, but she seemed to have reached

her limit. Sangfugol was crippled. Towser had virtually given in to

madness. The old man lay curled on the ground, his eyes fixed witlessly

on nothing, seamed lips trembling as Father Strangyeard cried to help him

drink from a bowl of water. Deornoth felt another wave of despair nse

and break within him as he walked slowly to the muddy log on which

Prince Josua sat, chin on hand.

The manacle that had once prisoned him in Elias' dungeon sdll dangled

on the prince's slender wrist. Josua's thin face was painted with deep

shadows, but the whites of his eyes gleamed as he watched Deornoth

slump down beside him. For a long while the two did not speak. The

sounds of lowing cattle and the shout and clatter of horsemen could be

heard all around as the Thrithings-men brought in their herds for the

night.

"Welladay, friend," the prince said at last. "I said it was a poor game at

best, did I not?"

"We have done what we could. Highness. No one could have done

more than you."

"Someone has." For a moment, Josua seemed to regain his dry humor.

"He is sitting his skeletal throne in the Hayholt, drinking and eating

before a roaring fire, while we sit waiting in the slaughter pen."

"He has made a foul bargain, Prince. The king will regret his choice."

"But we, I fear, will not be around when the reckoning comes." Josua

sighed. "I am almost sorriest for you, Deornoth. You have been the most

faithful of knights. If you had only found a better lord to be faithful to . . ."

"Please, Highness." In his present mood, such words brought Deornoth

real pain. "There is no one I would rather serve outside the Kingdom of

Heaven."

Josua looked at him from the sides of his eyes, but did not reply. A

party of horsemen rode past the stockade, the palings rippling as the

horses thundered by.

"We are far from that kingdom, Deornoth," the prince said at last, "but

at the same time only a few breaths away." His face was now hidden in

darkness. "But death frightens me little. It is the hopes I have crushed that

weigh down my soul."

"Josua," Deornoth began, but the prince's hand on his arm stilled him.

"Say nothing. It is no more than the truth. I have been a lodestar for

STONE OF FAREWELL329

disaster since the moment I drew breath. My mother died birthing me,

and my father's greatest friend Camans died soon after. My brother's wife

died in my care. Her only child has escaped my guardianship to suffer

Aedon only knows what fate. Naglimund, a keep built to hold siege for

years, fell beneath me in weeks; countless innocents died horribly."

"I cannot listen to this, my pnnce. Would you take all the world's

betrayals on your own back? You did everything that you could!"

"Did I?" Josua asked seriously, as though he debated a point of theology

with the Usirean brothers. "I wonder. If things are fated, then perhaps I

am merely a sorry strand in God the Highest's tapestry. But some say that

one chooses everything, even the bad."

"Foolishness."

"Perhaps. But there is no doubting that an evil star has hung over all I

have undertaken. Hah' How the angels and devils both must have laughed

when I swore I would take back the Dragonbone Chair! Me, with my

ragtag army of priests and jugglers and women!" The prince laughed

bitterly.

Deornoth felt anger boiling inside him once more, but this time it was

his liege lord who was the cause. It was almost breathtaking. He had never

thought he could feel like this.

"My prince," he said between clenched teeth, "you have become a fool,

a damnable fool. Priests, jugglers, and women! An army of mounted

knights could scarcely have done more than your women and jugglers

and certainly could not have been braver!" Shaking with fury, he rose and

stalked away across the muddy compound. The stars seemed almost to tile

in the sky.

A hand closed on his shoulder, pulling him around with surprising

strength. Josua stood stiffly as he held Deornoth at arm's length. The

pnnce jutted his head forward on his long neck, a bird of prey preparing

to stoop.

"And what have I done to you, Deornoth, that you speak so to me?"

His voice was tight.

At any other moment Deornoth would have fallen to his knees, ashamed

at his own disrespectfulness. Now, he stilled his trembling muscles and

took a breath before he spoke. "I can love you, Joshua, yet hate what you

say."

The prince stared at him, his expression indecipherable in the evening

dark. "I spoke badly of our companions. That was wrong. But I said

nothing ill of you, Sir Deornoth . . ."

"Elysia, Mother of God, Josua!" Deornoth almost sobbed, "I care noth-

ing for myselfl And as for the others, that was only a careless remark that

you made out of weariness. I know you meant nothing by it. No, it is you

who are the victim of your own crudest treatment! That is why you are a

fool!"

330

Tad Williams

Josua stiffened. "What?"

Deornoth threw his arms up in the air, rilled with the sort of giddy

madness felt on Midsummer's Eve, when all wore masks and told the

truth. But here in the bull run there were no masks. "You are a better

enemy to yourself than Elias can ever be," he shouted, not caring anymore

who heard. "Your blame, your guilt, your failed duty! If Usires Aedon

were to return to Nabban today, and again be hung on the Tree in the

temple garden, you would find a way to blame it on yourselfl No matter

who is speaking the evil, I will listen to a fine man slandered no longer!"

Josua stared as if stunned. The terrible silence was broken by the creak

of the wooden gate. Half a dozen men with spears pushed into the

stockade, led by the one named Hotvig who had captured them on the

Ymstrecca's banks. He strode forward, peering around the shadowed pen.

"Josua? Come here."

"What do you want?" the prince asked quietly.

"The March-thane has called for you. Now." Two of Hotvig's men

moved up, lowering their spear points. Deornoth tried to catch Josua's

eye, but the prince turned away and walked out slowly between the two

Thrithings-men. Hotvig pulled the high gate shut behind them. The wooden

bolt creaked back into place.

"You don't think that. . . that they will harm him, do you, Deornoth?"

Strangyeard asked. "They wouldn't hurt the prince, would they?"

Deornoth sank down onto the muddy ground, tears rolling down his

cheeks.

The interior ofFikolmij's wagon smelled of grease and smoke and oiled

leather. The March-thane looked up from his joint of beef to nod Hotvig

back out the door, then returned his attention to his meal, leaving Josua to

stand and wait. They were not alone. The man standing beside Fikolmij

was half a head taller than Josua and only slightly less muscled than the

broad March-thane himself. His face, clean-shaven but for long mus-

taches, was covered with scars too regular to be accidental. He returned

the prince's stare with undisguised contempt. One hand, clatteringly laden

with bracelets, dropped to caress the hilt of his long curved sword.

Josua held this one's narrowed eyes for a moment, then casually allowed

his glance to slide away, taking in the vast array of harnesses and saddles

hanging from the wagon's walls and ceiling, their myriad silver buckles

glittering in the firelight.

"You have discovered some of the virtues of comfort, Fikolmij," Josua

said, eyeing the rugs and stitched cushions scattered over the floor boards.

The March-thane looked up, then spat into the fire-trough. "Pfah. I

sleep beneath stars, as I always have. But I need someplace safe from

STONE OF FAREWELL331

listening ears." He bit at the joint and chewed vigorously. "I am no

stone-dweller, who wears a shell like a soft-skinned snail." A piece of

clanking bone rattled into the trough.

"It has been some time since I have slept behind walls or in a bed

myself, Fikolmij. You can see that. Did you bring me here to call me soft?

If so, have done and let me go back to my people. Or did you bring me

here to kill me? The fellow beside you has somewhat the look of a

head-chopper."

Fikolmij dropped the denuded bone into the fire and grinned hugely, his

eyes red as a boar's. "You don't know him? He knows you. Don't you,

Utvart?"

"I know him." He had a deep voice.

The March-thane now leaned forward, peering at the prince intently.

"By the Four-Footed," he laughed, "Prince Josua has more gray hairs

than old Fikolmij! Living in your stone houses makes a man old fast."

Josua smiled thinly. "I have had a difficult spring."

"You have! You have!" Fikolmij was enjoying himself immensely. He

picked up a bowl and tilted it to his mouth-

"What do you want of me, Fikolmij?"

"It is not me chat wants, Josua, despite your sin against me. It is Utvart

here." He nodded at his glowering companion. "We spoke of age. Utvart

has only a few years less than you, but he does not wear a man's beard.

Do you know why?"

Utvart stirred, rubbing his fingers on his pommel. "I have no wife," he

rumbled.

Josua looked from man to man, but said nothing.

"You are a clever man. Prince Josua," Fikolmij said slowly, then took

another long draught. "You see the problem. Utvart's bride was stolen.

He has sworn never to marry until the one who stole her is dead."

"Dead," Utvart echoed.

Josua's lip curled. "I stole no one's bride. Vorzheva came to me after I

had left your camp. She begged to go away with me."

Fikolmij slammed the bowl down, splashing dark beer into the fire

trough, which hissed as if startled. "Curse you, did your father have no

male children!? What true man hides behind a woman, or allows one to

have her way? Her bride-price was set! All was agreed!"

"Vorzheva had not agreed."

The March-thane rose from his stool, staring at Josua as though the

prince were a poisonous serpent. Fikolmij's corded arms trembled. "You

stone-dwellers are a pestilence. One day the men of the Free Thrithings will

drive you into the sea and burn away your rotting cities with clean fire."

Josua eyed him evenly. "The men of the Thrithings have tried that

before. It is how we met, you and I. Or have you forgotten the uncomfort-

able fact of our alliancean alliance against your own people?"

332 Tad Williams

Fikolmij spat again, and this time did not bother to aim for the trough

"It was a chance to increase my strength It worked I stand today

unquestioned lord of the High Thnchmgs " He stared atJosua as if daring

him to argue "Besides, that treaty was with your father For a stone-

dweller, he was a mighty man You are a thin shadow of him "

Josua's face was empty "I am tired of talking Kill me if you wish, but

do not bore me "

FikolmiJ leaped forward His broad fist crashed against the side of

Josua's head and the prince crumpled to his knees "Proud talk, worm' I

should kill you with my own hands'" The March-thane stood overjosua,

his barrel chest heaving "Where is my daughter17"

"I don't know "

FikolmiJ grabbed Joshua's tattered shirt and pulled the pnnce onto his

feet Watching, Utvart swayed gently from side to side, his eyes dreamy

"And you don't care, either, do you3 By the Grass Thunderer, I have

dreamed of smashing youdreamed of it' Tell me of my Vorzheva,

child-stealer Did you at least marry her^'

A bleeding welt showed at Josua's temple He stared back "We did not

wish to marry

Another blow rocked the prince's head Blood started from his upper hp

and nose "How you laughed at old FikolmiJ when you sat in your stone

house, eh3" the March-thane hissed "Stole his daughter and made her your

whore, then did not have to pay a single horse for her' You laughed, didn't

you3" He slapped hard at the prince's face, pearls of blood flew through the

air "You thought you could cut off my stones and run away " The

March-thane struck again, but though fresh blood seeped from Josua's

nose, this blow was softer, dealt with a kind of savage affection "You are

clever, backhand Clever But FikolmiJ is no gelding "

"Vorzhevaisnowhore "

FikolmiJ propelled him back against the wagon's door The pnnce left

his arms dangling, making no attempt to defend himself as he was struck

twice more "You stole what was mine," FikolmiJ snarled, his face so

close to Josua's that his braided beard rubbed on the prince's bloody

shirtfront "What would you call her, then5 What did you use her for3"

Josua's red-smeared face, despite his injuries, had been full of a terrible

calmness Now, it seemed to break apart, dissolving into grief

"Iused her badly" He hung his head

Utvart strode forv.ard drawing his sword from its tooled and beaded

scabbard The tip clicked against a ceiling beam "Let me kill him," he

breathed "Slow "

Fikolmij looked up, eyes squinting fiercely Sweat dripped from his

face as he looked from Utvart to Josua, then lifted his thick-knuckled fist

over the prmce s head

"Let me,'" Utvart pleaded

333

STONE OFFAREWELL

The March-thane hammered three times against the wall The harnesses

swayed, tinkling "Hotvig'" he roared

The wagon door opened Hotvig entered pushing a slender figure

before him The pair stopped Just within the doorway

"You heard all'" FikolmiJ bellowed "You betrayed your clan and me

for this'" He gave Josua's shoulder a push The pnnce fell back against

the wall and slid to the floor

Vorzheva burst into tears Hotvig's restraining hand held her back as

she leaned forward to touch the pnnce Josua slowly lifted his head,

staring at her distractedly from eyes that were beginning to swell shut

"You are alive," was all he said.

She tried to pull away from her captor, but Hotvig grasped her close,

ignoring the nails that raked at his arm, leaning his head away when she

tried to reach his eyes

"Randwarders caught her in the outer grazing march," Fikolmy growled

He slapped at her lightly, angered by her struggling "Be still, you

faithless bitch' I should have drowned you m the Umstrejha at birth You

are worse than your mother, and she was the evilest cow I have ever

known Why do you waste your tears on this piece of dung5" He prodded

Josua with his foot

The prince's absorbed look had returned He regarded the March-chane

with dispassionate interest for a moment before turning to Vorzheva "I

am glad you are safe "

"Safe'" Vorzheva laughed shrilly "I love a man who does not want me

The man who does want me would use me like a brood mare and beat me

if I ever left my knees'" She struggled in Hotvig's grasp, turning to face

Utvart, who had lowered his sword to the floor "Oh, I remember you,

Utvart' Why did I run away, except to get away from you, you raper of

childrenand of young sheep when you cannot get a child' You, who

love your scars more than you ever could a woman I would rather be

dead than your bride!"

Grim-faced Utvart said nothing, but FikolmiJ snorted in dour amuse-

ment "By the Four-Footed, 1 had almost forgotten that Jagged knife

you have for a tongue, daughter Maybe Josua here is happy to feel the

blows of fists for a change, eh5 As for what you prefer, kill yourself the

moment the marriage ride is over if you wish I only want my bride-price

and the honor of the Stallion Clan made good "

"There are better ways to do that than slaughtering helpless prisoners,"

a new voice said

All heads turnedeven Josua's, [hough he moved carefully Geloe stood

m the doorway, arms spread to the lintel, cloak rippling in the wind

"They have escaped from the bull run'" FikolmiJ shouted wrathfully

"Don't move, woman' Hotvig, saddle and bring the rest back Someone

will howl for this'"

334 Tad Williams

Geloe stepped into the wagon, which was rapidly becoming crowded

With a muffled curse, Hotvig pushed past her and out into the darkness

The witch woman calmly pulled the door closed behind him "He will

find them still penned " she said "Only I can come and go as I please "

Utvart lifted his broad blade and held it near her neck Geloe's hooded

yellow eyes touched his and the tall Thnthmgs-man stepped back a pace,

brandishing the sword as though he were menaced

Fikolmij looked her up and down with puzzlement and guarded anger

"What is your business, old woman5"

Released from Hotvig's grip, Vorzheva had dropped to her knees and

crawled past her father to dab at Josua's face with her tattered cloak The

prince gently caught her hand, holding it away as Geloe spoke

"I said, I come and go as I please For now, I choose to be here "

"You are in my wagon, old woman " The March-thane wiped sweat

from his forehead with a hairy arm

"You thought to hold Geloe your prisoner, Fikolmij That was foolish

Still, 1 have come to give you advice, in hopes that you have more sense

than you have shown so far this day.*'

He seemed to fight an urge to strike out once more Seeing his struggle,

his strained look, Geloe nodded her head and smiled grimly

"You have heard of me "

"I have heard of a devil-woman with your name, one who lurks in the

forest and steals the souls of men," Fikolmij grunted. Utvart stood close

behind him, mouth sec in a tight line, but the tall man's eyes were wide,

and shifted as though he made certain of where the doors and windows

were.

"You have heard many false rumors, I am sure," Geloe said, "but there

is some truth behind them, however twisted it may have become That

truth is in the tales that say I make a bad enemy, Fikolmy " She blinked

slowly, as an owl blinks when it catches sight of something small and

helpless "A bad enemy "

The March-thane pulled his beard "I do not fear you, woman, but I do

not trifle with demons needlessly You are no use to me Go away, then,

and I will not trouble you, but do not meddle in what does not concern

you "

"Fool of a horse-lord'" Geloe flung up her arm, cloak trailing like a

black wing The door burst open behind her The wind that swept in

extinguished the lamps and plunged the wagon into near-darkness, leaving

only the fire glowing scarlet in its trough like a door into Hell Somebody

cursed fearfully, barely audible above the moaning inrush "I told you,"

Geloe cried, "I go where I please'" The door swung shut again, although

the witch woman had not moved The wind was gone She leaned

forward so that her yellow eyes reflected restless flames "What happens

to these people does concern meand concerns you as well, although you

STONE OF FAREWELL335

are too ignorant to know it Our enemy is your enemy, and he is greater

than you can understand, Fikolmij When he comes, he will sweep across

your fields like a grassfire "

' Hah'" The March-thanc smirked, but tlic nervous edge was not gone

from his voice "Do not preach to me I know all about your enemy, King

Elias He is no more a man than Josua here The Thnthmgs-men do not

fear him "

Before Geloe could respond there was a rap at the door, which swung

open to reveal Hotvig, bearing his spear and a puzzled expression He was

only a young man. despite his heavy beard, and he regarded the witch

woman with undisguised dismay as he spoke to his chieftain

"The prisoners are still in the bull run None of the men outside saw

this one leave The gate is locked, and there are no holes in the fence "

Fikolmij grunted and waved his hand "I know " The March-thane's

gaze shifted to Geloe for a brooding moment, then he smiled slowly

"Come here," he ordered Hotvig, then whispered into the rider's ear

"It will be done," Hotvig said, darting a nervous glance at Geloe before

going out again

"So," Fikolmij said, and smiled broadly, showing most of his crooked

teeth "You think I should set this dog free to run away " He shoved

Josua with his foot, earning a swift glare of hatred from his daughter

"What if I do not5" he asked cheerfully

Geloe narrowed her eyes "As I told you, March-thane ! make a bad

enemy "

Fikomi] chortled "And what shall you do to me, when I have told my

men to kill the remaining prisoners unless I come to them myself before

the next watch of the night to say otherwise^" He patted his hands on his

belly in contentment "I do not doubt you have charms and spells that can

harm me, but now our blades are at each other's throats, are they not5" In

the corner of the wagon Utvart growled, as if excited by the image

invoked

"Oh, horse-lord, may the world be preserved from such as you," Geloe

said disgustedly "I hoped to convince you to help us, which would be for

your good as much as ours " She shook her head "Now, as you say, our

knives are out Who knows if they may be put away without causing

many deaths5"

"I do not fear your threats," Fikolmy growled

Geloe stared at him for a moment, then looked at Josua, who was still

seated on the floor watching all that transpired with odd placidity Lastly,

she turned her gaze on Utvart The tall man scowled fiercely, not at all

comfortable under her scrutiny "I think there is still one favor I can do for

you, March-thane Fikolmij "

"I need no"

"Quiet'" Geloe shouted The March-thane fell silent, balling his fists, his

336 Tad Williams

reddened eyes bulging. "You are about to break your own laws," she

said. "The laws of the High Thnthmgs. I will help you avoid that."

"What madness are you speaking, devil-woman?!" he raged. "I am the

lord of the clans!"

"The clan councils honor no man as March-thane who breaks their old

laws," she replied. "I know this. I know many things."

With a sweep of his arm, Fikolmij sent a bowl flying from atop his

stool to clatter against the wagon's far wall. "What law? Tell me what law

or I will throttle you even though you burn me to ashes'"

"The laws of bride-price and betrothal." Geloe pointed atJosua- "You

would kill this man, but he is her betrothed. If another" she indicated

brooding Utvart, "wishes to have her, he must fight for her. Is that not

true. Thane?"

Fikolmi) smiled, a great rancid gnn that spread across his face like a

stain. "You have outsmarted yourself, meddler. They are not betrothed.

Josua admitted that from his own lips. I would break no law to kill him.

Utvart stands ready to pay the bride-price."

Geloe looked at him intently. "They are not married and Josua has not

asked her. This is true- But have you forgotten your own customs,

Fikolmy of the Stallion-Clan? There are other forms of betrothal."

He spat. "None but fathering . . ."he broke off, forehead wrinkling m a

sudden thought. "A child?"

Geloe said nothing.

Vorzheva did not look up. Her face was hidden by her dark hair, but

her hand, which had stroked the prince's bloodied cheek, froze like a

snake-startled rabbit.

"It is true," she said finally.

Josua's face was a complicated puzzle of emotions, made even harder to

read by the elaborate tracing of bruises and weals. "You. . . ? How long

have you known. . . ? You said nothing ..."

"I have known since just before Naglimund fell," Vorzheva said. "I

feared to tell you."

Josua watched the tears cutting new tracks along her dusty cheeks. He

lifted his hand to touch her arm briefly before allowing it to drop back

into his lap, then looked from Vorzheva up to Geloe. The witch woman

held his eye for a long moment; some communicated thought seemed to

pass between them.

"By the Four-Footed," Fikolmij growled at last, bemused. "A child-

betrothal, is it? If it's even his, that is."

"It is his, you pig!" Vorzheva said fiercely. "It could be no one else's."

Utvart stepped forward, boot buckles chinking. His swordpoint thumped

down into the floor boards, sinking half an inch into the wood. "A

challenge, then," he said. "To the death we fight." He looked to Geloe

.and his expression became cautious. "Vorzheva, the March-thane's daugh-

STONE OF FAREWELL337

ter, she is spoils." Turning back to the prince, he tugged his sword free.

The great curved glade came loose as lightly as a feather. "A challenge."

Josua's eyes were hard as he spoke through torn lips. "God hears."

T-

Deornoth stared down at his prince's battered features. "In the morn-

ing!?" he cried, loud enough to draw a scowl from one of the guards. The

Thnthmgs-men, bundled in heavy woolen cloaks against the chill, did not

look pleased with their assignment in the windy bull run. "Why do they

notjust kill you cleanly?"

"It is a chance," Joshua said, then surrendered to a fit of coughing

"What chance?" Deornoth said bitterly. "That a one-handed man who

has been beaten bloody can get up in the morning and outfight a giant?

Merciful Aedon, if I could only get my hands on that snake Fikolmi] . . ."

Josua's only reply was to spit bloodily into the mud.

"The prince is correct," Geloe said. "It is a chance. Anything is better

than nothing."

The witch woman had returned to the bull run to tend the prince. The

guards had stepped back quickly to let her pass: something of her nature

had traveled through the camp in swift whispers. Fikolmy's daughter had

not come with her. Vorzheva had been locked in her father's wagon, tears

of sorrow and anger still damp on her face.

"But you had him at a disadvantage," Deornoth said to the witchwoman.

"Why did you not strike then? Why did you let him send guards?"

Geloe's yellow eyes glittered in the torchlight. "I had no advantage at

all. I told you once. Sir Deornoth, I cannot make warlike magic. I escaped

this stockade, yes, but other than that it was all bluff. Now, if you will be

silent about what you do not know, I will put my true skills to their

proper use." She returned her attention to the pnnce-

How did she escape the stockade? Deornoth could not help wondering.

One moment Geloe had been wandering in the shadows at the far end of

the bull run, the next she had been gone.

He shook his head. It was useless to argue, and he had been little else

but useless of late. He touched Josua's thin arm. "If I may be of any help,

my prince, only ask." He dropped to his knees, then looked briefly to the

witch woman. "I apologize for my unthinking words, Valada Geloe."

She grunted an acknowledgment. Deornoth rose and walked away.

The rest of the starveling band was seated by the other fire. The

Thrithings-men, being not entirely without mercy, had given them brush

and twigs with which to build it. They were not merciless, Deornoth

thought, but not stupid, either: such poor fuel would provide heatbarely

but could not be used as a weapon, as could a flaming brand. The thought

338

Tad Williams

of weapons set him to musing as he seated himself between Sangfugol and

Father Strangycard.

"This is a foul way to end things," he said. "You have heard what has

happened to Josua3"

Strangyeard swung his slender hands. "They are untutored barbarians,

these grasslandcrs. Mother Elysia, I know all men arc equal in God's eyes.

but this is atrocious! I mean to say, even ignorance is not an excuse for

such . . ."He trailed off fretfully.

Sangfugol sat up. wincing at the pain in his leg. Anyone who knew him

would have been astonished: the harper, previously meticulous in groom-

ing and dress almost to the point of comedy, was as ragged, soiled, and

burr-covered as a haystack vagabond. "And ifjosua dies?" he said quietly.

"He is my master and I love him, I suppose, but if he dieswhat happens

to i?"

"If we are lucky, we will be little better than slaves," Deomoth said,

hearing his own words as if from another's lips. He felt quite hollow.

How had things come to such a point? A year earlier the world had been

as regular as supper bread. "If we are unlucky ." he continued, but did

not finish his thoughtnor did he need to.

"It will be worse on the women," Sangfugol whispered, looking over

to Duchess Outrun, who held sleeping Lcleth on her lap. "These men are

ungodly brutes Have you seen the scars they give themselves5"

"Isorn," Deornoth called suddenly. "Come here, if you please."

Duke Isgnmnur's son crawled around the meager fire to sit near them

"I think," Deomoth said, "that we must prepare ourselves to do some-

thing tomorrow whenJosua is made to fight."

Strangycard looked up, worried. "But we are so few . . . half a dozen in

the midst of thousands "

Isorn nodded, a grim little smile showing on his wide face. "At least we

can choose the way we die. 1 will not let them have my mother." The

smile vanished. "By Usires, I swear I would kill her first."

Sangfugol looked around as if hoping they would reveal their joke.

"But we have no weapons'" he whispered urgently."Are you mad7 Per-

haps we might live if we do nothing, but if we make trouble we will

certainly die."

Deornoth shook his head. "No, harper. If we do not fight, we will

certainly be less than men, whether they kill us or not We will be less

than dogs, who at least np the bear's guts as he kills them." His gaze

traveled from face to face. "Sangfugol." he said at last, "we must plan.

Why don't you sing a song against the chance of any of these cow-herders

wondering why we are gathered or what we speak of."

"A song^ What do you mean?"

"A song. A long, boring song about the virtues of quiet surrender. If it

comes to an end and we are still talking, begin again."

STONE OF FAREWELL339

The harper was plainly agitated. "I know no tune like that!"

"Then make one up. Song-bird," Isorn laughed. "We have been too

long without music, anyway. If we die tomorrow, we should live tonight "

"Make it a part of your plans, if you will," Sangfugol said, "that I

would prefer not to die at all." He sat up straighter and began to hum

tunelessly, searching for words. "I am frightened," he said at last.

"So arc we," Deornoth replied. "Sing."

^

Fikolmij swaggered into the bull run soon after dawn touched the gray

sky. The March-thane of the High Thnthmgs wore a heavy embroidered

wool cloak and a rugged gold stallion on a chain around his neck. He

seemed to be m an expansive mood.

"So the reckoning comes," he laughed, then spat upon the ground. His

wnsts were weighty with metal bracelets. "Do you feel fit, Josua Lackhand?"

"I have felt fitter," josua said, tugging on his boot. "Do you have my

sword?"

Fikolmij waved; Hotvig stepped forward bearing Naidel in its sheath.

The young Thrithings-man watched the prince curiously as Josua drew

the sword belt around his hips, managing adroitly despite his missing

hand. When it was buckled, Josua drew Naidel out, holding the slender

blade up to catch the morning light. Hotvig stepped back respectfully. "May

I have a whetstone?" Josua asked. "The edge is dull."

The March-thane chuckled and produced his own kit from a pouch on

his wide belt. "Sharpen it, stone-dweller, sharpen it. We want the only the

best sport, as you have at your city tournaments. But this will not be quite

the same as your castle-games, will it?"

Josua shrugged, smearing a thin film of oil along Naidel's cutting

surface. "I have never cared much for those, either."

Fikolmij's eyes narrowed. "You seem very fit indeed, after the lesson I

gave you last night. Has this witch cast some spell on you? That would be

dishonorable."

Joshua shrugged again to show how little he cared about Fikolmij's

ideas of honor, but Geloe stepped forward. "There have been no charms,

no spells."

Fikolmij eyed her distrustfully for a moment, then turned back to Josua.

"Very well. My men will bring you when you are ready. I am glad to see

you up. It will make for a better fight." The March-thane strutted out of

the paddock, followed closely by three of his guard.

Deornoth, who had watched the whole exchange, cursed quietly. He

knew what effort it had taken his prince to act so unconcerned. He and

Isorn had helped Josua climb to his feet in the hour just before first light.

Even after the healing draught Geloe had given himan unmagical con-

340

Tad Williams

coction to bolster Josua's strength; Geloe had bitterly regretted the lack of

a sprig of mockfoil to make it truly efficaciousthe prince had still found

it difficult to dress himself. The beating Fikolmij had given him had taken

a terrible toll on his undernourished frame. Deornoth secretly doubted

that Josua would even be able to stand after swinging a blade for a short

while.

Father Strangyeard approached the prince- "Your Highness, is there

truly no other way? 1 know the Thrithings-men are barbaric, but God

despises none of His creations. He has put the spark of mercy in every

breast. Perhaps ..."

"It is not the Thrithings-men who wish this," Josua told the one-eyed

priest kindly, "it is Fikolmij. He bears an old hatred for me and my house,

one that even he will not fully admit."

"But I thought the Stallion Clan fought for your father in the Thrithings

War," Isorn said. "Why should he hate you?"

"Because it was with my father's help that he became war-thane of the

High Thrithings. He cannot forgive the fact that it was the stone-dwellers,

as he calls us, who gave him the power his own people would not. Then

his daughter ran from him and I took her with me, losing him a bride-

price of horses. To our friend the March-thane, that is a terrible dishonor.

No, there are no words, priestly or otherwise, that will make Fikolmij

forget."

Josua took a last look at Naidel's keen blade, then slid it back into its

sheath. He gazed around at his assembled people. "Heads high," he said.

The prince seemed strangely clear-eyed and cheerful. "Death is no enemy.

God has prepared a place for us all, I am sure." He walked to the gate in

the fence. Fikolmij's guards opened it, then formed a spear-bristling escort

as Josua walked across the wagon-city.

A swift, cool breeze was blowing across the grasslands, an invisible

hand that ruffled the meadows and thrummed in the tentlines. The low

hills were dotted with grazing cattle. Scores of grimy children who had

been dodging in and out among the wagons left their games to follow

Josua and his makeshift court as they trudged toward the March-thane's

paddock.

Deornoth looked at the faces of children and their parents as they came

to join the swelling procession. Where he expected to see hatred or

bloodlust, he found only eager expectancythe same eagerness he had

seen as a child on his brothers' and sisters' faces when the High King's

Guard or a painted peddler's wagon had passed their Hewenshire freeholding.

These people hoped only for some excitement. It was unfortunate that it

would take somebody's death, most likely that of his beloved prince, to

provide it.

Golden ribbons flapped on the fenceposts of Fikolmij's enclosure, as if

this were a festival day. The March-thane sat on a stool before his wagon

STONE OF FAREWELL341

door. Several more bejewcled Thrithings-menother clan leaders, Deornoth

guessedwere seated on the ground beside him. Several women of vari-

ous ages stood nearby, and one of them was Vorzheva. The March-thane's

daughter no longer wore the rags other court dress. She had been dressed

in a more traditional clan costume, a hooded wool dress with a heavy belt

studded with colorful stones and a band across her forehead that tied at

the back other hood. Unlike the other women, whose bands were of dark

hues, Vorzheva wore a white ribbonno doubt indicating, Deornoth

reflected sourly, a bride for sale.

As Josua and his followers stepped through the gate, the prince and

Vorzheva caught each others' eyes. Josua deliberately made the sign of the

Tree on his chest, then kissed his hand and touched it to that spot.

Vorzheva turned away as if to hide tears.

Fikolmij stood and began to speak to the assembled crowd, slipping

back and forth between Westcrling and the harsh Thrithings dialect as he

held forth to the seated dignitaries and the other clanfolk gathered around

the paddock fences. As the March-thane roared on, Deornoth slipped

forward between the half-dozen spearmen who had followed Josua into

the enclosure and moved to his prince's side.

"Highness," he said quietly, laying a hand on his shoulder. The prince

started, as if woken from a dream.

"Ah- It's you."

"I wanted to beg your forgiveness, my prince, before . . . before what-

ever happens. You are the kindest lord a man could want. I had no right

to speak to you as I did yesterday."

Josua smiled sadly. "You had every right. I only wish I had more time

to think about the things you said. I have indeed been far too self-absorbed

of late. It was the act of a friend to point that out."

Deornoth fell to a knee, pulling Josua's hand to his lips. "The Lord bless

you, Josua," he said quickly. "Bless you. And do not close too swiftly

with that brute."

The prince thoughtfully watched Deornoth rise. "I may have to. I fear I

have not the strength to wait long. If I see any chance at all, I must take

it."

Deornoth tried to speak again, but his throat was too tight. He clasped

Josua's hand, then retreated.

A ragged volley of shouts and cheers rose from the crowd as Utvart

climbed over the paddock fence and took his place before Fikolmij. Josua's

adversary stripped off his cowhide vest and displayed his muscular torso,

which had been rubbed with fat until it glistened. Seeing this, Deornoth

frowned: Utvart would be able to move quickly, and the fat would

help him keep warm.

The Thrithing-man's curved sword had been thrust scabbardless through

his broad belt, his long hair pulled into a knot at the back of his head.

342

Tad Williams

Utvart wore a bracelet on each arm, and several earrings dangled against

his jaw. He had daubed his scars with red and black paint, making himself

seem a kind of demon.

Now he pulled his sword from his belt and lifted it over his head,

engendering another chorus of shouts. "Come, Lackhand," he boomed.

"Utvart is waiting."

Father Strangyeard was praying aloud as Josua walked forward across

the enclosure. Deornoth found that rather than soothing or reassuring

him, the priest's words rubbed on his nerves until he had to step away;

after a moment s consideration, he moved to a spot along the fence just to

the side of one of the guards- He looked up and saw Isorn staring.

Deornoth shifted his chin in a virtually undetecrible nod; Isom eased over

toward the wall also, until he stood a few yards from Deornoth.

Josua had left his cloak with Duchess Gutrun, who cradled it like a

child. Beside her stood Leieth, dirty fist clutching the duchess' tattered

skirt. Geloe was a short distance away, her yellow stare hooded.

As Deornoth surveyed the group, other eyes met his and slid away, as if

fearing to maintain too lengthy a contact. Sangfugol quietly began to sing.

"So, son ofPresterjohn, you come before the Free Folk of the Thrithings

a little less great than you once were," Fikolmij grinned. His clansmen

laughed and whispered.

"Only in my possessions," Josua said calmly. "As a matter of fact, I

would like to propose a wager, Fikolmijbetween the two of us, you and

me."

The March-thane laughed, surprised. "Brave words, Josua, proud words

coming from a man who knows he will soon die." Fikolmij looked him

over calculatingly. "What kind of wager?"

The prince slapped his scabbard. "I propose to bet on this and my good

left hand."

"Good, since it is your only hand," Fikolmij smirked. His clansmen

roared.

"That is as may be. If Utvart defeats me, he gets Vorzheva and you get

her bride-price, is that not true?"

"Thirteen horses." The March-thane was smug. "What of it?"

"Simply this. Vorzheva is already mine. We are betrothed. If I survive, I

gain nothing new." His eyes met Vorzheva's across the crowd of watch-

ers, then moved back to her father with cold regard.

"You gain your life!" Fikolmij spluttered. "In any case, it is foolish to

talk. You will not survive."

Utvart, waiting impatiently, allowed himself a thin smile at his thane's

words.

STONE OF FAREWELL343

"That is why I wish to make a wager with you," Josua said. "With you.

Fikolmij. Between men." Some of the clansmen chuckled at this; Fikolmij

looked around angrily until they fell silent.

"Speak on."

"It will be a wager of little value, Fikolmij, the kind that bold-willed

men make without hesitation in the cities of my people. If / win, you will

give me the same price you are asking from Utvart." Josua smiled. "I will

choose thirteen horses from you."

There was an undertone of anger in Fikolmij's hoarse voice. "Why

should I wager with you at all? A wager is only a wager if both sides risk

something. What could you possibly have that I want?" His expression

turned cunning. "And what do you have that I cannot simply take from

your people when you arc dead?"

"Honor."

Fikolmij drew back in surprise. The whispers around him intensified.

"By the Four-Footed, what does that mean?! I care little for your soft-

hearted, stone-dweller's honor."

"Ah," Josua said with a ghost of a smile, "but your own?"

The prince turned suddenly to face the crowd of Thrithings-folk who

hung over the fences of Fikolmij's great paddock. A ripple of quiet

talk ran through the throng. "Free men and women of the High

Thrithings!" he cried. "You have come to see me killed." A bray of

laughter greeted this statement. A clod of dirt hurtled toward Josua,

missing him by only a few cubits and rolling past Fikolmij's clansmen,

who glared out at the assembly. "I have offered your March-thanc a

wager. I swear that the Aedon, god of the stone-dwellers, will save

meand that I will beat Utvart."

"That would be something to see!" one of the crowd bellowed in

heavily-accented Westerling. There was more laughter. Fikolmij stood and

moved toward Josua as if to silence him, but after looking around at the

shouting spectators seemed to think better of it. Instead, he crossed his

arms over his broad chest and watched sullenly. "What do you wager,

little man?" one of the clansmen near the front shouted.

"All that remains to me: my honor and the honor of my people." Josua

drew Naidcl from its sheath and lifted it high. His shirt sleeve fell back;

Elias' rusted manacle, which he still wore around his left wrist, caught the

faint morning light like a band of blood. "I am the son ofPresterJohn, the

High King who you remember well. Fikolmij knew him best of all of you."

The crowd murmured- The March-thane growled his discontent at this show.

"Here is my wager," Josua shouted. "If I fall to Utvart, I swear it will

prove that our god Usires Aedon is weak. and that Fikolmij speaks true

when he says that he is stronger than the stone-dwellers. You will know

that your March-thane's Stallion is mightier than the Dragon and Tree of

John's house, which is the greatest house in all the city-lands ofOsten Ard."

344 Tad Williams

A chorus of shouting voices rose. josua calmly surveyed the crowd.

"What does Fikolmi) wager?" someone cried at last. Utvart, standing only

a few ells away, was glowering at josua, obviously furious at how his

thunder had been stolen, butjust as obviously unsure as to whether Josua's

wager could somehow increase his own glory when he slaughtered this

cnppled city-dweller.

"As many horses as Vorzheva's bride-price. And my people and I to go

free and unhmdercd," Josua said. "Not much when matched against the

honor of a prince of Erkynland."

"A prince with no house!" someone catcalled, but a host of other voices

drowned out the heckler, exhorting Fikolmij to take the wager, crying

that he would be a fool to let this stone-dweller show him up. The

March-thane, features twisted in poorly-hidden rage, let the crowd's urg-

ings wash over him like rain. He looked quite ready to grasp Josua's neck

in his hands and throttle the prince himself.

"So. It is done," he snarled at last, lifting his arm in a gesture

of acceptance. The watchers cheered. "By the Grass Thunderer, you

have heard him. The wager is set. My horses against his empty words.

Now, let this foolishness come to a swift end." Much of the March-

thane's enjoyment seemed to have evaporated. He leaned forward,

speaking low so that only Josua could hear. "When you are dead, I

will kill your women and children with my own hands. Slowly. No man

makes me butt of a joke before my clans and steals my rightful horses."

Fikolmij turned and stalked back to his stool, frowning at the jests from

his randwarders.

As Josua unbuckled and cast away his sword belt, Utvart stepped

forward, corded arms gleaming as he lifted his heavy blade.

"You talk and talk and talk, little man," the grasslander snarled. "You

talk too much."

A moment later he bounded across the intervening space in three long

strides, his sword swinging in a great arc. Naidel flashed up, deflecting the

blow with a dull chime, but before Josua could bring his slim blade up for

a cut of his own, Utvart had whirled and begun another powerful,

two-handed sweep. Josua again managed to sidestep Utvart's attack, but

this time the curved sword rang hard against the prince's guard and Naidel

almost flew from his hand- He staggered back a few steps across the

muddy turf before he could regain his balance. Utvart grinned fiercely and

began circling, forcing Josua to turn quickly so the prince could keep his

left shoulder facing the Thnthings-man. Utvart feinted, then lunged. Josua's

boot heel slid on the hoof-trampled ground, forcing him to drop to one

knee. He managed to turn Utvart's thrust, but as the big man pulled his

blade free it sawed back across Josua's sword arm, freeing a ribbon of

blood.

STONE OF FAREWELL345

The prince rose carefully. Utvart showed his teeth and continued cir-

cling. A trickle of red dripped from the back of Josua's hand. The prince

wiped it on the leg of his breeches, then raised it again quickly as Utvart

feigned another thrust. Moments later the blood was again dribbling

down Josua's wnst and onto his hilt.

Deornoth thought he understood the strange business of the wager

Josua was hoping to make Fikolmij and Utvart angry in the hope it would

lead to some sort of mistakebut the prince's idea had all too obviously

not succeeded. The March-thane was indeed furious, but Josua was not

battling Fikolmy, and Utvart did not seem as hot-headed as the prince had

probably hoped. Instead, the Thrithings-man was proving himself a canny

fighter. Rather than relying blindly on his superior strength and reach, he

was wearing Josua down with heavy blows, then springing away before

the prince could counter.

As he watched the one-sided combat, Deornoth felt his heart falling like

a stone. It had been foolish to think anything else could happen. Josua was

a fine swordsman, but he would have had trouble with one like Utvart at

the best of times. Today, the prince was injured and poorly-rested, weak

as a stripling. It was only a matter of time. - . -

Deornoth turned to Isom. The young Rimmersman shook his head

grimly: he, too, understood chat Josua was fighting a defensive action,

putting off the inevitable as long as possible. Isom lifted his eyebrow

inquiringly. Now?

Father Strangyeard's murmured prayers were a counterpoint to the

shouting throng. The guards around them were staring raptly, eyes wide,

spears held only loosely. Deornoth lifted his hand. Wait . . .

Blood was rilling from two more wounds, a slash on Josua's left wrist

and a broad gouge in his leg. The prince wiped sweat from his forehead

and left a broad scarlet smear across his face, as though he sought to match

Utvart's painted scars.

Josua stumbled back, ducking awkwardly beneath another of Utvart's

swinging attacks, then censed and lunged forward. His thrust ended harm-

lessly, well short of Utvart's oiled stomach. The Thrithings-man, silent to

this point, laughed harshly and cut again. Josua blocked, then attacked.

Utvart's eyes widened, and for a moment the paddock echoed with the

percussive sound of steel on steel. Most of the throng were up and

shouting. Slender Naidel and Utvart's long sword spun in and out through

an intricate dance of silver light, ringing their own accompaniment.

The Thnthings-man's mouth stretched in a grimace of wild glee, but

Josua's face was ashen, his bloodless lips pursed and his gray eyes burning

with some last reserve of strength. Two of the Thnthings-man's powerful

swings were clangmgly rebuffed, then Josua's swift lunge drew a bright

346 Tad Williams

red line along Utvart's ribs Some in the watching crowd shouted and

clapped at this evidence that the fight was not yet over, but Utvart

narrowed his eyes in anger and surged forward, raining blows like a

blacksmith hammering at an anvil Staggered, Josua could only retreat,

trying to keep Naidel up before him, the thin strip of steel his only shield

The prince's weak attempt at a counter-thrust was carelessly knocked aside,

then one of Utvart's bludgeoning swipes banged off the prince's guard and

struck his head Josua lurched backward for several loose-jointed steps

before slumping to his knees, blood coursing from a spot just above his

ear He lifted Naidel before him as though to ward off more blows, but

his eyes were bleary and the sword wavered like a willow limb

The noise of the throng rose to a howl Fikolmy was on his feet, beard

blowing in the sharp wind, clenched fist in the air like an angry god

calling down the thunder of the heavens Utvart approached Josua slowly,

still surprisingly cautious, as though he expected some stone-dweller trick,

but the prince was clearly beaten, struggling to rise from his knees, the

stump of his right wrist slipping in the mud

A different kind of noise suddenly arose from the far side of the

paddock The crowd's attention grudgingly turned Coward the source

There was an eddying of bodies near where the prisoners stood, and spears

flailing like grass-stems A woman's shriek of amazement was followed

immediately by a man's cry of pain A moment later a pair of bodies

broke free from the press Deornoth held one of the Thnthmgs guards, his

elbow around the man's throat The knight's other hand clasped the

guard's spear just below the head, its sharp point pushed snug against the

man's belly

"Tell your other riders to stand back, horse-lord, or these men will

die " Deornoth prodded at his captive's belly The man grunted but did

not cry out A spot of blood appeared on his dun-colored shirt

Fikolmij stepped forward, flushed with wrath, his braided beard quiver-

ing on his jaws "Are you mad? Are you madmen5 By The Four-Footed, I

will crush you all'"

"Then your clansmen will die as well We do not like to kill in cold

blood, but we will not stand by and see our prince murdered after you

beat him until he could not fight "

The crowd murmured unhappily, but Fikolmy, seeching with rage, paid

no attention He raised his braceleted arm to call for his warriors, but a

voice lanced out.

"No'" It was Josua, climbing cottenngly to his feet "Let them go,

Deornoth "

The knight stared in amazement "But, Highness

"Let them go " He paused to find breath "I will fight my own battle If

you love me, release them " Josua rubbed blood from his eyes, blinking

Deornoth turned to Isom and Sangfugol, who held spears on three

STONE OF FAREWELL347

more guards They returned his astonished stare. "Release them," he said at

last "The prince bids us release them "

Isorn and Sangfugol lowered their spears, allowing the Thnthmgs-men

to step away They promptly did, scrambling out of reach of the spear

points before they remembered their original roles as captors and stopped,

muttering angrily Isom ignored them Beside him, the harper was trembling

like a wounded bird Geloe, who had not moved through all the furor,

shifted her yellow eyes back to Josua

"Come, Utvart," the prince said haltingly, his smile a bitter slash of

white across a bloody mask "Forget them We are not finished "

Fikolmij, who stood close by, champing with his open mouth as though

at a bit, started to say something He never had the chance

Utvart leaped forward, battering atJosua's guard The moment's respite

had not returned Josua's strength he fell backward unsteadily before the

Thrith ings-man's attack, fending off the curved blade only by the slim-

mest of margins At last a swinging blow slid past, nicking Josua's chest,

then the following attack landed the flat of Utvart's blade on Josua's

elbow, springing Naidel from his grasp The prince scuttled after it, but as

his fingers closed on the bloody hilt his feet slipped from beneath him and

he sprawled on the trampled turf

Seeing his advantage, Utvart lunged forward Josua was able to lift his

sword and turn the stroke downward, but his awkward position as he rose

from the ground allowed Utvart to grapple him in a hugely-muscled arm

and begin to pull the prince in toward the cutting edge of the curved

sword Josua brought up his knee and right arm to try to hold his attacker

at bay, then managed to raise his other arm, keeping his blade locked

against Utvart s guard, but the stronger Thnthmgs-man pushed his sword

up slowly against the prince's stiffened wrist, forcing Naidel back as the

crescent blade rose toward Josua's throat The prince's lips skinned back m

a grimace of ultimate exertion and smews knotted along his slender arm

For a moment, his supreme effort halted the rising blade The two men

stood grappling chest to chest Sensing the prince's flagging strength,

Utvart tightened his grip around his smaller foe and smiled, drawing Josua

toward him in a movement almost ntually slow Despite the agonized

play of the prince's muscles, the long edge of the curved blade continued

inexorably upward, coming lovingly to rest against the side of Josua's throat

The crowd stopped shouting Somewhere overhead a crane threw out

its clattering call, then silence swept back over the field

"Now, ' the Thnthmgs-man exulted, breaking his long silence, "Utvart

kills you "

Josua suddenly ceased resisting and flung himself forward into his

enemy's grasp, snapping his head to one side The curved blade slid along

the outside of his neck, slicing the flesh deeply, but in that fractional

instant of freedom the prince drove a knee into Utvart's groin

348Tad Williams

As Utvart grunted in painful surprise, Josua hooked a foot around the

Thnthings-man's calf and pushed against him Utvart could not find his

balance and tumbled backward Josua fell with him, the Thnthmgs-man's

blade flailing past his shoulder. When Utvart struck the ground with a hiss

of released breath, Naidel snaked free. A moment later its point slid

beneath the Thnthings-man's chin and was hammered upward a hand's-

width or more, through the Jaw and into the braincase.

Josua rolled himself free of Utvart's spastic clutch and struggled to his

feet, dripping scarlet. He stood for a moment, legs shaking, arms dangling

limp and helpless, and stared at the body on the ground before him

"Tall man," he gasped, "it is ... you . . . who talks too much "

A moment later his eyes rolled up beneath his lids and he fell heavily

across the Thnthings-man's chest. They lay together, their blood com-

mingling, and across the entire grasslands it seemed that nothing spoke or

moved for a long time. Then the shouting began.

PART THREE

Stormy Heart

18

The Lost Garden

A

-/iJ l/C-T a long sojourn in soundless velvet emptiness, Simon returned

at last to the dim borderlands between sleep and waking He came to

awareness in darkness, on the edge of dream, and realized that once again

a voice was speaking within his thoughts, as on the nightmarish flight out

of Skodi's abbey Some door had been opened inside him now it seemed

that anything might enter

But this uninvited guest was not the taunting flame-thing, the Storm

King's minion The new voice was as different from that ghastly other as

the quick from the dead The new voice did not mock or threatenin

fact, it did not even seem to be speaking to Simon at all

It was a womanly voice, musical yet strong, shining in Simon's lightless

dream like a beacon Though its words were sorrowful, it brought him a

strange sense of comfort Even though Simon knew that he slept, and was

sure that it would only be the work of an instant to wake into the real

world, the voice captivated him so that he did not wish to awaken just

yet Remembering the wise, beautiful face he had seen in Jinki's mirror,

he was content to hover on the edge ofwakefulness and listen, for this was

the same voice, the same person Somehow, when that door into Simon

had been opened, it was the mirror-woman who had come through

Simon was infinitely thankful for that He remembered a little of what the

Red Hand had promised him, and even in the shelter of sleep he felt frost

upon his heart

"Beloved Hakatn, my beautiful son," the woman's voice said, "how I miss

you I know you are beyond hearing or beyond replying, but I cannot help

speaking as though you were before me Too many times have the People danced

the year's end smce you went into the West Hearts grow cold, and the world

grows colder still "

Simon realized that even though the voice sang through his dream,

these words were not meant for his ears He felt like a beggar child spying

on a rich and powerful family through a crack in a wall But just as the

352 Tad Williams

wealthy family might have sorrows a beggar could not understandmiseries

unrelated to hunger or cold or physical painso the voice in Simon's

dream, for all its majesty, seemed weighted with quiet anguish

"In some ways, it seems only the turning of a handful of moon-faces since the

Two Families left Venyha Do'sae, the land of our birth across the Great Sea Ah,

Hakatn, if only you could have seen our boats as they swept across the fierce waves'

Ofsilverwood they were crafted, with sails of bright cloth, brave and beautiful as

flying fish As a child I rode in the bow as the waves parted, and I was surrounded

by a cloud ofscmtillant, sparkling seafoam1 Then, when our boats touched the soil

of this land, we cried We had escaped the shadow ofUnbeing and won our way to

freedom

"But instead, Hakatn, we found that we had not truly escaped shadow at all,

but only replaced one sort with anotherand this shadow was growing inside us

' Of course, it was long before we realized it The new shadow grew slowly,

first in our hearts, then in our eyes and hands, but now the evil it caused has

become greater than anyone could have suspected It is stretching across all this land

that we loved, the land to which we hastened long ago as to the arms of a loveror

as a son to the arms of his mother

"Our new land has become as shadowed as the old one, Hakatn, and that is our

fault But now your brother, who was ruined by that shadow, has himself become

an even more terrible darkness He casts a pall over all he once loved

"Oh, by the Garden that is Vanished, it is hard to lose your sons'"

Something else was now competing for his attention, but Simon could

only lie helplessly, unwilling or unable to awaken It seemed that some-

where outside of this dream-that-was-not-a-dream, his name was being

called Did he have friends or family who searched for him5 It did not

matter He could not break away from the woman Her terrible sadness

twisted within him like a sharpened stick or a bit of broken pot it would

be cruel to leave her alone with her sorrow. At last the voices that faintly

called for him vanished

The woman's presence remained It seemed that she wept Simon did

not know her, and could not guess to whom she spoke, but he wept with

her

^

Guthwulf was feeling confused and irritated As he sat polishing his

shield he tried to listen to the report of his castellain, who hadjust ridden

down from Guthwulf s hold in Utanyeat He was not having much luck

with either chore

The earl spat citnl juice into the floor rushes "Say it again, man, you

are making no serse at all "

The castellain, a round-bellied, ferret-eyed fellow, firmly repressed a

sigh of wearinessGuthwulf was not the kind of master before whom one

S1ONE OF FAREWELL353

displayed imperfect patienceand started in again on his explanation

"It is simply this, Lord your holdings in Utanyeat are nearly empty

Wulfholt is deserted but for a few servants Almost all the peasants have

left There will be no one to bring in the oats or barley, and harvest can

wait little more than a fortnight "

"My serfs have left'" Guthwulf stared distractedly at the boar and silver

spears that sparkled on his black shield, the spearheads picked out in

mother-of-pearl He had loved that coat of arms, once, loved it as he

would a child "How do they dare leave5 Who but me has fed the ugly

louts all these years5 Well, hire others for harvest, but do not let those

who fled come back again Not ever "

Now the castellain did make the smallest noise of despair "My lord,

Earl Guthwulf, I fear you have not been listening to me There are not

enough free folk left in Utanyeat to hire The barons, your liege men,

have their own problems and few workers to spare Fields everywhere in

eastern and northern Erkynland are going to seed unharvested Skali of

Kaldskryke's army across the river in Hernystir has cut a swath through

all the border towns near Utanyeat, and will probably cross the nver

soon, having exhausted Lluth's country "

"Lluth is dead, I am told," Guthwulf said slowly. He himself had been

in King Lluth's house, the Taig His blood had flowed hot in his veins as

he insulted the shcep-herder king in the midst of Lluth's own court That

had been a few scant months ago Why did he feel so terrible now, so

unmanned3 "Why are all these villains running away from their rightful

homes3"

The castellain looked at him queerly, as though Guthwulf had suddenly

asked which direction was up "Why5 Because of the wars and looting on

their border, the chaos of the Frostmarch And the White Foxes, of

course "

"The White Foxes5"

"Surely you know of the White Foxes, Lord " The castellain was almost

openly skeptical "Surely, since they came to the aid of the army you

commanded at Naghmund "

Guthwulf looked up, pawing reflectively at his upper lip "The Norns,

you mean5"

"Yes, Lord White Foxes is the name the common people give them,

because of their corpse-pale skin and foxy eyes *' He suppressed a shudder

"White Foxes "

"But what of them, man5" the earl demanded When there was no

immediate answer, his voice began to rise "What do they have to do with

my harvest, Aedon shake your soul3"

"Why, they are coming south. Earl Guthwulf," the castellain said,

surprised "They are leaving their nest in Naglimund's ruins People who

must sleep in the open have seen them walking the hills by darkness, like

354

Tad Williams

ghosts. They travel at night, a few at a time, and always moving

southwardheading for the Hayholt." He looked around nervously, as if

only now realizing what he had said. "Coming here."

After the castellam left, Guthwulfsat a long time drinking from a stoup

of wine. He picked up his helm to polish it, staring at the ivory tusks that

lifted from the crest, then put it back down, untouched. His heart was not

in the task, even though the king expected him to lead the Erkynguard

into the field a few days hence and his armor had not been thoroughly

looked-to since the siege of Naglimund. Things had not gone right at all

since the siege. The castle seemed ghost-ridden, and chat damnable gray

sword and its two blade-brothers haunted his dreams until he almost

feared to go to bed, to fall asleep. . - -

He set the wine down and stared at the flickering candle, then felt his

melancholy spirits lift a little. At least he had not been imagining things.

The countless odd night-sounds, the untethered shadows in the halls and

commons, Ellas' vanishing midnight visitors, all these and more had

begun to make the Earl of Utanyeat doubt his own good mind. When the

king had forced him to touch that cursed sword, Guthwulf had become

sure that, whether by sorcery or no, some crack in his thoughts had let

madness in to destroy him. But it was no whim, no fancythe castellain

had confirmed it. The Norns were coming to the Hayholt. The White

Foxes were coming.

Guthwulf pulled his knife from his sheath and sent it whickering end

over end into the door. It stuck, quivering in the heavy oak. He shuffled

across the chamber and pulled it loose, then threw again, fetching it out

with a swift jerk of his hand. The wind shrilled in the trees outside.

Guthwulf bared his teeth. The knife thumped into the wood once more.

T-

Simon lay suspended in a sleep that was not sleep, and the voice in his

head spoke on.

". . . You see, Hakatri, my quietest son, perhaps that was where our troubles

began. I spoke a moment ago of the Two Families, as though we twain were the

only survivors of Venyha Do'sae, but it was the boats of the Tinukeda'ya that

brought us across the Great Sea. Neither we Zida'ya nor our brethren the

Hikeda'-ya would have lived to reach this land had it not been for Ruyan the

Navigator and his peoplebut to our shame, we treated the Ocean Children as

badly here as we had in the garden-lands beyond the sea. When most ofRuyan's

folk at last departed, going forth into this new land on their own, that, I think,

was when the shadow first began to grow. Oh, Hakatri, we were mad to bring

those old injustices to this new place, wrongs that should have died with our home

in the Uttermost East. ..."

STONE OF FAREWELL

^

355

The clown mask bobbed before Tiamak's eyes, gleaming with firelight,

covered with strange plumes and horns. For a moment he felt confused.

How had the Wind Festival come so soon? Surely the annual celebration of

He Who Bends the Trees was months away? But here was one of the

wind-clowns bowing and dancing before himand what other explana-

tion could there be for the way Tiamak's head ached but an excessive

intake of fern beer, a sure sign that Festival Days were here?

The wind-clown made a soft clicking noise as it tugged at something in

Tiamak's hand. What could the clown be doing? Then he remembered. It

wanted his coin, of course: everyone was expected to carry beads or pieces

of money for He Who Bends the Trees. The clowns gathered these glitter-

ing tributes in clay jars to shake at the sky, making a rattling, roaring

noise that was the chief music of the Festivala noise that brought the

good will of the Tree-Bender, so chat he would keep harmful winds and

floods at bay.

Tiamak knew he should let the clown have his coinwasn't that what

he had brought it for?but still, there was something about the insinuat-

ing way the wind-clown pawed at him that made Tiamak uncomfortable.

The clown's mask winked and leered; Tiamak, fighting a growing sense of

unease, clutched the metal more tightly. What was wrong. . . ?

As his vision suddenly cleared, his eyes widened in horror. The bobbing

clown mask became the chitmous face of a ghant, hanging only a scant

cubit above his boat, suspended by a vine from a branch that overhung the

nver. The ghant was prodding gently with its insectile claw, patiently

trying to poke Tiamak's knife loose from his sleep-sweaty grasp.

The little man shouted with disgust and threw himself back toward the

stern of his flatboat. The ghant rasped and clicked its mouth-feelers,

waving a plated foreleg as chough trying to reassure him that it had all

been a mistake. A moment later Tiamak swept up his steering pole,

swinging it broadside so that he caught the ghant before it could scurry

back up the vine. There was a loud clack and the ghant flew out across the

river, legs curled like a singed spider. It made only a small splash as it

disappeared into the green water.

Tiamak shuddered in repugnance as he waited for it to bob back to the

surface. A chorus of dry clacking came from above his head and he looked

up quickly to see half a dozen more ghants, each the size of a large

monkey, staring down at him from the safety of the upper branches. Their

expressionless black eyes glittered. Tiamak had little doubt that if they

guessed he could not stand, they would be upon him in a moment; still, it

seemed strange for ghants to attack any full-grown human, even an

injured one. Strange or not, he could only hope they didn't realize how

356

Tad Williams

weak he really was, or what sort of injuries the bloody bandage on his leg

signified.

"That's right, you ugly bugs!" he shouted, brandishing his steering pole

and knife. Hi'i own cry made his head hurt. Wincing, he prayed silently

that he didn't faint from the exertion; if he did, he felt sure he would never

wake up. "Come on down and I'll give you the same lesson I did your

friend!"

The ghants chittercd at him with offhanded malice, as much as to say

that there was no hurry; if they didn't get him today, some other ghants

would soon enough. Crusty, lichen-dotted carapaces scraped against the

willow branches as the ghants dragged themselves higher up into the tree.

Resisting a fit of shivers, Tiamak calmly but deliberately poled his flatboat

toward the center of the watercourse, out from beneath the low-hanging

limbs.

The sun, which had been only midway up the morning sky when he

noticed it last, had moved shockingly far past the meridian. He must have

fallen asleep sitting up, despite the early hour. His fever had taken a great

deal out of him. It seemed to have abated, at least for the present, but he

was still dreadfully weak, and his injured leg throbbed as if it were aflame.

Tiamak's sudden laugh was raw and unpleasant. To think that two days

ago he had been making grand decisions about where he would go, about

which of the mighty folk clamoring for his services would be lucky

enough to get him and which would have to wait! He remembered that he

had decided to go to Nabban as his tribal elders had requested, and to let

Kwanitupul go for now, a decision that had caused him many hours of

worrying deliberation. Now his careful choice had been reversed in a

freakish instant. He would be lucky if he even made it to Kwanitupul

alive: the long Journey to Nabban was simply inconceivable. He had lost

blood and was sick with wound-spite. None of the proper herbs to treat

such an injury grew in this part of the Wran. Also, just to insure his

continuing misery, a nest of ghants had now spotted him and made him

out as soon-to-be easy pickings!

His heart raced. A gray cloud of weakness was descending on him. He

reached a slender hand down into the nvercourse, then splashed cold

water onto his face. That filthy thing had actually been touching him, sly

as a pickpocket, trying to dislodge his knife so its brethren might drop on

him unresisted. How could anyone think that ghants were only animals?

Some of his tribesmen claimed that they were nothing but the overgrown

bugs or crabs they much resembled, but Tiamak had seen the terrible

intelligence lurking behind those remorseless jet eyes. The ghants might

be products of They Who Breathe Darkness rather than She Who Birthed

Mankindas Older Mogahib so often proclaimedbut that did not make

them stupid.

He swiftly surveyed the contents of his boat to make sure nothing had

STONE OF FAREWELL357

been taken by the ghants before he had awakened. All his meager lota

few rags of formal clothing, the Summoning Stick from the tribal elders, a

few cooking things, his throwing-shng, and his Nisses scroll in its oilskin

baglay scattered in the bottom of the flatboat. Everything seemed as it

should be.

Lying in the hull nearby were the skeletal remains of the fish whose

capture had begun these latest troubles. Some time during the last two

days of chills and madness he must have eaten most of it, unless birds had

picked the bones naked while he slept. Tiamak tried to remember how the

fever-time had passed, but all he could summon were visions of poling

endlessly down the watercourse while the sky and water bted color like

glaze running from a poorly-fired pot. Had he remembered to make a fire

and boil the marsh-water before washing out his wound? He seemed to

have a vague recollection of crying to lay a spark to some tinder piled in

his clay cooking-bowl, but had no idea whether a fire had ever caught

there.

Trying to remember made Tiamak's head swim. It was useless to fret

over what had or had not happened, he told himself. He was obviously

still sick; his only chance was to make his way to Kwanitupul before the

fever returned. With a regretful head shake he dropped the fish carcass

overboardthe size of the skeleton confirmed that ii: had indeed been a

splendid fishthen donned his shirt as another bout of shivers ran through

him. He slumped back against the stern of the boat, then reached for the

hat he had woven from sand-palm fronds during his journey's first day.

He pulled it down low in an effort to keep the harsh midday sun out of his

smarting eyes. After dabbing a little more water on his eyelids, he began

to push with the pole, laboriously forcing the flatboat along the wide

channel while his aching muscles protested with every stroke.

The fever did return sometime during the night. When Tiamak escaped

its clutches once more, it was to find himself floating in lazy circles, his

flatboat becalmed in a marshy backwater- His leg, although swollen and

tremendously painful, did not seem markedly worse. With luck, if he

could get to Kwamtupul soon he would not lose it.

Shaking loose the cobwebs of sleep, he offered yet another prayer to He

Who Always Steps on Sandwhose existence, despite Tiamak's generally

skeptical nature, had come to seem a great deal more conceivable since the

misadventure with the crocodile. Whether this weakening of his disbelief

was due to the mind-dizzying fever, or to a resurgence of true faith

brought on by the nearness of death, Tiamak did not much care. Neither

did he scrutinize his feelings about the matter very deeply. The fact was,

he did not want to be a one-legged scholaror worse, a dead scholar. If

the gods did not help him, then there was no resource available to him in

this treacherous marsh other than his own fast-failing resolve. Faced with

those simple alternatives, Tiamak prayed.

358 Tad Williams

He poled himself out of this latest backwater, at last reaching a place

where several waterways came together. It was hard to tell exactly how he

had wandered to this point, but using the newly-kindled stars as a reference

especially the Loon and the shimng-pawed Otterhe was able to orient

himself toward Kwanitupul and the sea. He kept his barge-pole moving

until dawn, when he could no longer ignore his weary mind and wounded

body crying out for rest. Fighting to keep his eyes open, he floated down

the watercourse a little farther, poking m the muddy bank until at last he

located a large stone which he levered free This he secured to his fishing

line and dumped it over the side to act as an anchor so he could remain

moored in an uncovered section of the waterway as he took his desperately-

needed sleep, safely away from tree-clinging ghants and other unwanted

company.

Now able to preserve the gains made by his poling, Tiamak made better

time. He lost half of the next afternoon (his eighth or ninth since leaving

home, he guessed) to another resurgence of fever, but was able to push on

a bit during the evening, and even continue after dark in order to make up

some of his lost time. He discovered that there were far fewer biting and

stinging insects once the sun had vanished into the western swamp, this

and the oddly pleasant blue glow of twilight made such a nice change

from his sun-battered afternoons that he celebrated by finally eating the

rather forlorn-looking nver-apple he had found on a branch overhanging

the watercourse. River-apples were usually gone by this late in the year,

those which had escaped the birds falling free at last to drift on the

eddying water, bobbing like fisherman's floats until their seeds wound up

at last in some mud-dam or root-tangled clump of soil. Tiamak had

considered the find a good omen. He had put it aside after many expres-

sions of thanks to beneficent deities, knowing he would enjoy it more if he

savored the thought of it for a while.

The first bite through the rind of the nver-apple was sour, but the pale

flesh nearer the middle was wonderfully sweet. Tiamak, who had been

surviving for days on waterbugs and edible grasses and leaves, was so

overcome by the taste of the fruit that he nearly fell into a swoon He had

to put most of it aside for later.

Kwanitupul could have been said to occupy the northern shore of the

upper prong of the Bay ofFirannos, except that there was no real shore in

that location: Kwanitupul lay on the Wran's northernmost fringe, but it

was still very much a part of the greater marsh.

What had once been a minor trading village made up of a few score

tree-houses and stilted huts had grown vast when the merchants ofNabban

and Perdrum and the Southern Islands discovered the array of valuable

things that came from the Wran's unreachable interiorunreachable by

STONE OF FAREWELL359

any except the Wrannamen, of course. Exotic feathers for ladies' gowns,

dried mud for dyes, apothecancal powders and minerals of unequaled

rarity and potency, all these things and many more kept the bazaars of

Kwanitupui thriving with merchants and traders from up and down the

coast Since there was no land worthy of the name, pilings were driven

deep into the mud instead, and shallow-drafted boats were laden with

powdered stone and mortar and allowed to sink along the banks of the

swampy waterways Across these foundations countless huts and walk-

ways had sprung up.

As Kwamtupul grew, Nabbanai and Perdrumese drifted in to share its

dilapidated precincts with the native Wrannamen, until the trading city

had spread its way over many miles of canals and swaying bridges,

growing across and clogging the outer byways of the swamp like water-

hyacinth Its ramshackle eminence now dominated the Bay ofFirannos as

its older and larger sister Ansis Pelippe did the Bay ofEmettm and Osten

Ard's north-central coast.

Still dizzy with fever, Tiamak found himself at last drifting up out of

the swamp's wild interior into the increasingly crowded arterial water-

ways of Kwanitupul. At first, only a few other flatboats shared the green

water with him, and these were almost entirely poled by other Wrannamen,

many wearing feathery tribal finery in honor of their first visit to the

grandest marsh-village of all. Farther into Kwamtupul the canals were

choked with a host of other craftsnot only small boats like Tiamak's,

but ships of all size and design, from the beautifully carved and canopied

barks of rich merchants to huge grain ships and barges carrying cut stone

that slid along the waterways like imperious whales, forcing smaller boats

to scatter or risk being swamped in their rolling wake.

Tiamak normally enjoyed the sights of Kwanitupul enormously

although, unlike his tribesmen, he had seen Ansis Pelippe and the other

port cities of Perdruin, beside which Kwamtupul was only a slightly

shabby copy. Now, however, his fever was upon him once more. The

lapping of water and the shouts of Kwamtupulis seemed curiously distant;

the waterways he had traveled many times before were forbiddingly

unfamiliar

He wracked his wandering mind for the name of the mn to which he

had been directed to go In his letter, the one whose delivery had martyred

Tiamak's gallant pigeon Ink-daub, Father Dinivan had told him . . . told

him .

You are sorely needed Yes, he remembered that part. The fever made it

so hard to think .Co to Kwamtupul, Dinivan had written, stay at the mn

we have spoken of, and wait there until I can tell you more And what else had

the priest said^ More than tires may depend on you

But what inn had they spoken of? Tiamak, startled by a smear of color

360 Tad Williams

before his unfocused gaze, looked up in time to prevent his boat sliding in

front of a larger vessel with two flaring eyes painted on its hull This

boat's owner jumped up and down in the bow, waving a fist at Tiamak as

he drifted past The man's mouth was moving, but Tiamak heard only a

dull roaring in his ears as he poled out of the wake What inn7

"Pclippa's BowV" The name struck him like lightning out of the sky He

did not realize he had shouted it aloud, but such was the din of the

waterway that his indiscretion mattered little

Petippa's Bowl an inn Dmivan had mentioned in a letter, because it was

run by a woman who had once been a nun of Saint Pelippa's order

Tiamak could not summon the woman's nameand who still liked to talk

theology and philosophy Morgenes had stayed there whenever he trav-

eled in the Wran, because the old man liked the proprietress and her

irreverent but thoughtful mind

As these memories came back to him, Tiamak felt his weary spirits

lifted Perhaps Dinivan would join him at the inn' Or, even better,

perhaps Morgenes himself was staying there, which would explain why

Tiamak's latest messages to the old man's home at the Hayholt in Erkynland

had gone unanswered Whatever the case, with the names of his Scrollbcarer

friends to offer as currency, he was certain that he would find a bed and a

sympathetic ear at Pelippa's Bow/'

Still fever-addled, but with a more hopeful heart, Tiamak bent his

aching back to the pole once more His frail boat skimmed along

Kwamtupul's greasy green waterways

^

The strange presence in Simon's head spoke on The spell of the wom-

an's voice held him gently prisoned, enwrapped in a charm that seemed to

have no seam or flaw He was m perfect darkness, as in the moment just

before the final tumble into sleep, but his thoughts were as janghngly

active as those of a man who only pretends to slumber while his enemies

scheme across the room He did not awaken, but neither did he pass into

forgetfulness Instead, the voice spoke on, and the words summoned

images of beauty and horror

"And although you have gone away, Hakatnto death or the Ultimate

West, I know not whichI shall say these things to you, for in truth, no one

knows the way time jlows on the Road of Dreams, or where it is that thoughts

may wander that have been cast out on the scales of the Greater Worm or on the

other Witnesses It could be that somewhereor somewhenyou will hear

these words and know of your family and your people

"Also, I have need just to speak with you, my beloved son, though you have

been long absent

"You know that your brother blamed himself for your terrible wounding When

STONE OF FAREWELL361

you went away at last into the West in search ofheart's-ease, he became cold and

discontented

"I will not tell you all the ftory of the maraudings of the ship-men, tho^e fierce

mortals from across the sea Some hint of their coming you had before you went

away, and some would say that it was these Rimmersmen who struck the greatest

blow against us, for they threw down Asu'a, our great house, and thow of us who

survived were driven into exile Some would say that the Rimmersmen were our

greatest foes, yet others might say that our most terrible wound came when your

brother Ineluki raised his hand again'.l your father, lyn'imi^atoyour father, my

husbandand slew him there in the great hall of Asu'a

"Still others would say our shadow first grew in the deeps of time, in Venyha

Do'sae, the Lost Garden, and that we brought it with us in our hearts They

would say that even those born here in our new landlike you, my soncame

into the world with that shadow already staining your innermost selves, so that

there has been no innocence anywhere since the world was young

"And that is the problem with shadows, Hakatn At first consideration they

seem to be quite simplea matter only of something that stands before the light

But that which is shadowed jrom one side may jrom another angle show as a

brilliant reflection What is covered by shadow one day may die in harsh sunlight

another day, and the world will be lessened by its passing Not everything that

thrives in -shadow is bad, my son"

^

Pelippa's BowlPelippa's Bowl

Tiamak was finding it difficult to think He repeated the name distractedly

a few more times, having momentarily forgotten what it meant, then

realized he was looking at a swinging signboard that bore the painted

image of a golden bowl He squinted at it woozily for a few moments,

unable to remember exactly how he had wound up in this spot, then

began looking around for a place to tie his boat

The sign of the Bowl hung over the door of a large but rather

undistinguished-looking mn in a backwater section of the warehouse dis-

trict The rickety structure seemed to sag between two larger buildings,

like a drunk with a crony at each elbow An armada of small and medium-

sized flatboats bobbed in the waterway below, tied at the building's crude

wharf or lashed directly to the pilings that held the building and its

slovenly fellows above water The inn was surprisingly quiet, as if both

the guests and ostlers were sleeping

Tiamak's fever had returned strongly and his exertions had left him very

little strength He balefully regarded the rope ladder that depended from

the landing It was badly tangled even reaching up with the steering pole

he came short of the lowest rung by a good cubit He considered jumping

to make up the last bit of distance, but even in his diminished state Tiamak

362 Tad Williams

realized that when one was too weak to swim, there would be few things

more foolish than jumping up and down in a small boat At last, stymied,

he called hoarsely for assistance

If this was one of Morgenes' favorite hostclnes, he thought muzzily

some time later then the doctor had a high tolerance for slackness He

renewed his braying crv, marveling at the pained quality of his own voice

as it echoed through this unfrequented area of Kwanitupul At last, a

white-haired head appeared in the doorway above and remained there for

long moments, regarding Tiamak as though he were some interesting but

unsolvable puzzle At last the head's owner left the safety of the doorway

and came forward It was an old Perdruinese or Nabbanai man, tall and

well-built, whose handsome pink face wore the simple expression of a

young child He stopped and squatted at the edge of the landing, looking

down at Tiamak with a pleasant smile

"The ladder " Tiamak waved his steering pole "I can't reach the

ladder "

The old man looked kindly from Tiamak to the ladder, then seemed for

some time to reflect gravely on the whole question At last he nodded, his

smile widening Tiamak, despite extreme weariness and the pain of his

throbbing leg, found himself smiling back at this strange old bird After

this exchange of unspoken good cheer had gone on for some little while,

the man abruptly turned and disappeared back into the doorway

Tiamak howled despairingly, but the old man reappeared a few mo-

ments later with a boat-hook clutched in his long-fingered hand which he

used to Jiggle the ladder free, it uncoiled the rest of the way and the

bottom splashed into the green water Tiamak, after a moment of mud-

died deliberation, took a few things from the boat and began to climb

The Wrannaman found he had to stop twice during the short three-fathom

trip to rest His crocodile-bitten leg was burning with a pain like fire

By the time he reached the top his head was reeling worse than it had all

day The old man had gone, but when Tiamak dragged the heavy door

open and hobbled through he found him again, now sitting in the corner

of an enclosed courtyard on a pile of blankets that looked as chough they

served as his bed, surrounded by skeins of rope and various other tools

Most of the space in the damp courtyard was taken by a pair of upturned

boat-hulls One had been badly slashed, as though by a sharp rock The

other was half-painted

As Tiamak made his way around the jars of white paint that cluttered

the path across the courtyard the old man smiled foolishly at him once

more, then settled back into his blankets as though to fall asleep

The door at the far side of the courtyard led into the inn itself This

bottom floor seemed to contain only a dowdy common room with a hand-

ful of stools and a few long tables A sour-faced Perdruinese woman, heavy-

armed and with grav-shot hair, stood pouring beer from onejug to another

STONE OF FAREWELL363

"What do you want5" she said

Tiamak paused in the doorway "Are you" he at last remembered

the former nun's name, "Xorastra'"

The woman made a face "Dead three years She was my aunt Mad as a

mudlark Who are you' You're a swamp man, aren't you7 We don't take

beads or feathers here for payment "

"I need a place to stay My leg is injured I am a friend of Father

Dimvan and of Doctor Morgenes Ercestres "

"Never heard of them Blessed Elysia, but you do speak decent

Perdruinese for a savage, don't you' We have no rooms available You can

sleep with old Cealho out there He's simple-minded but he does no harm

Six cintis a night, nine if you want food." She turned away, gesturing

absently at the courtyard beyond

As she finished speaking a tno of children thundered down the stairs,

smacking at each other with switches, laughing and shrieking They

almost knocked Tiamak down as thev pushed past him and went through

into the courtyard

"I must have help with my leg " Tiamak swayed as dizziness washed

over him "Here " He reached into his belt-pouch and pulled out the two

gold Imperators he had been saving for years He had brought them with

him forjust such an emergency, and what good would money be to him if

he died5 "Please, I have gold "

Xorastra's mece turned Her eyes bulged "Rhiappa and her large Pi-

rates!" she swore "Look at that, now'"

"Please, good lady I can bring you back many more of these " He

couldn't, but there was a much better chance this woman would help keep

him alive if she thought he could "just get a barber or a healer to see to

my leg, and give me food and a place to sleep "

Her mouth, still gaping in surprise at the appearance of the glittering

golden coins, widened even further as Tiamak pitched over at her feet,

senseless as a stone

4-

"But although not everything that thrives in shadow is bad, Hakatn, still

much that hides in darkness does so to keep its evil hidden jrom all eyes "

Simon was beginning to lose himself in this strange dream, to feel as

though it were to him that the patient, pained voice spoke he felt bad for

having been so long absent, for bringing further suffering to such a high

yet afflicted soul

"Your brother has lon^ hidden his plans beneath a cloak of shadow The

year-end was danced countless times after Asu'a's fall before we had even a hint

that he still livedif his spectral existence can be called life Long he plotted in

darkness, hundreds of years of black-minded deliberation before the first steps were

364 Tad Williams

taken Now, with his plan marching forward, there is so much still hidden in

shadow I think and I watch, I wonder and I guess, but the subtlety of his design

eludes my old eyes I have seen many things since first I saw leaves fall in Osten

Ard, but I cannot make wnse of this What does he plan^ What does your brother

Ineluki mean to do?"

-T

The stars seemed very naked over Stormspike, gleaming white as pol-

ished bone, cold as knobs of ice IngenJegger thought them very beautiful,

He stood beside his horse on the road before the mountain The bitter

wind whistled through the ivory muzzle of his snarling, dog-faced helm

Even his Norn-stalhon, bred in the world's blackest, coldest stables, was

doing its best to duck the brutal sleet that the wind flung like arrowsbut

IngenJegger was exalted The shrill of the wind was a lullabye, the sting

of freezing sleet a caress. Ingen's mistress had set mm a great task.

"No other Queen's Hunter has ever been granted such a responsibility,"

she had told him as the indigo light of the Well filled the Chamber of the

Harp As she spoke, the groans of the Singing Harpa great, translucent

and ever-changing thing cloaked by the mists of the Wellhad made the

very stones of Stormspike shudder "We have brought you back from the

outlands of Death's Country " Utuk'ku's glittering mask threw back the

Well's blue radiance so fiercely that her face was obscured, as though a

flame burned between shoulders and crown "We have also given you

weapons and wisdom no other Queen's Hunter has ever had. Now we

offer you a task of terrible difficulty, a task like no one, mortal or

immortal, has ever faced "

"1 will do it, Lady," he had said, and his heart had throbbed within him

as though it would burst from joy-

Standing now on the royal roadway, IngenJegger looked at the rums of

the old city that lay all about him, skeletal htter on the lower slopes of the

great ice-mountain When the huntsman's progenitors were scarcely more

than savages, he thought, ancient Nakkiga had stood beneath the night

sky in her full beauty, a needle-forest of alabaster and white witchwood, a

chalcedony necklace around the mountain's throat Before the huntsman's

people had known fire, the Hikeda'ya had built pillared chambers within

the very mountain itself, each chamber blazing with a million crystalline

facets of glittering lamplight, a galaxy of stars burning m the darkness of

the earth

And now he, Ingen Jegger, was their chosen instrument' He wore the

mantle no mortal had ever borne' Even to one of his training, of his

horrifying discipline, it was a maddening thought.

365

STONEOFFAREWELL

The wind gentled His steed made a noise of impatience, a large pale

shape beside him in the flurrying snow He stroked the horse with his

gloved hand. letting his touch rest on its powerful neck, feeling the quick

pulse of life He put a boot into the stirrup and lifted himself into the

saddle, then whistled for Niku'a A few moments later the great white

hound appeared on a rise nearby Nearly as large as the huntsman's horse,

Niku'a filled the night with his steaming breath, the dog's short fur was

pearled with mist so that it glowed like moonlit marble

"Come," Ingen Jegger hissed "Great deeds he before us'" The road

stretched before him, leading down from the heights and into the unsus-

pecting lands of sleeping men "Death is behind us "

He spurred his horse forward The hooves fell on the icy road like

hammers

^

". And so in a way I am blinded to your brother's machinations " The

voice in Simon's head was growing more and more faint now, withering

hke a rose lingered past its season "I have been forced to my own stratagems

and poor, weak games they seem when placed against the swarms of Nakkiga and

the enduring, deathless hatred of the Red Hand Worst of all, I do not know what

I am fighting, although I believe I am now discerning the first faint shapes If I

have even a glimmer of the truth, it is horrible Horrible

"Ineluki's game has begun He was the child of my loins, I cannot shirk my

responsibility Two sons I had, Hakatn Two sons I have lost "

The woman's voice was only a whisper, the merest breath, but still

Simon could fee! its bitterness "The eldest are always the loneliest, my quiet

one, but no one should be left behind for so long by those whom they had

loved

And then she was gone.

Simon awakened slowly out of the extended darkness that had held

him His ears seemed to echo strangely, as though the absence of the voice

to which he had listened so long left a greater emptiness When he opened

his eyes, light flowed in, dazzling him, when he closed them, rings of

bright color spun before his shuttered lids He assayed a more careful view

of the world and found that he was in a tiny forest dell blanketed m

new-fallen snow Pale morning light streamed down through the over-

hanging trees, silvering the naked branches and speckling the forest floor

He was very cold He was also completely alone

"Binabik'" he cned "Qantaqa'" A moment later he added "Sludig'" as

an afterthought There was no reply

Simon untangled himself from his cloak and clambered unsteadily to his

feet He shook off a coating of powdery snow, then stood for a moment

366 Tad Williams

rubbing his head to clear the shadows. The dingle mounted up steeply on

either side of him; judging by the array of torn branches piercing his shirt

and breeches, he had tumbled down from above. He felt himself gingerly,

but other than the long, healing wound on his back and some ugly

toothmarks on his leg, he seemed only bruised and scraped and very, very

stiff. He grabbed a protruding root in his hand and clambered painfully up

the side of the dell. His legs were trembling as he scrambled over the edge

and stood up. A monotonous profusion of snow-robed trees stretched

away in all directions. There was no sign of his friends or his horse; in

fact, there was no sign of anything but endless white forest.

Simon tried to remember how he had come to this place, but drew only

a shuddering memory of the last mad hours in Skodi's abbey, of a hateful,

icy voice that had plagued him, and of riding into blackness. Afterward

there had been a gentler, sadder voice that had spoken long in his dreams.

He looked around, hoping at least to find a saddlebag, but with no luck.

His empty scabbard was tied to his leg; after some searching, he finally

spotted the bone knife from Yiqanuc lying at the bottom of the dingle-

With many a self-pitying curse, Simon climbed back down to retrieve it.

He felt a little better to have something sharp close to hand, but it was a

very tiny consolation. When he reached the top once more and looked

around at the inhospitable expanse of wintery woods, a sense of desertion

and fear crept over him that had been absent for a long while. He had lost

everythingeverything! The sword Thorn, the White Arrow, the things

that he had won, all were gone! And his friends were gone, too.

"Binabik!" he screamed. Echoes fled and vanished. "Binabik! Sludig!

Help me!" Why had they deserted him? Why?

He shouted for his friends again, over and over as he stumbled back and

forth across the forest clearing.

His voice hoarse, his many cries unanswered, Simon slumped down on

a rock at last and fought back tears. Men shouldn't cry just because they

were lost. Men didn't do that sort of thing. The world seemed to shimmer

a little, but it was only the fierce cold that made his eyes sting so. Men

shouldn't cry, no matter how terrible things had gotten, . . -

He put his hands in his cloak pocket to ease the chill and felt the rough

carvings ofjinki's mirror beneath his fingers. He lifted it out. Gray sky

was reflected there, as though the looking glass were full of clouds.

He held the scale of the Greater Worm before him. "Jiriki," he mur-

mured, breathing on the shiny surface as though his own warmth might

lend the thing a kind of life. "I need help! Help me!" The only face that

looked back was his own, wearing a pale scar and a sparse red beard.

"Help me."

Snow began to fall once more.

19

Children of the Navigator

4s-

iVLlTlUTrU^U/ awakened slowly and unpleasantly. The pounding in

her head was not helped at all by the side-co-side swaying of the floor, and

she was unhappily reminded of a particular Aedonmansa supper at the

palace in Meremund when she was nine years of age. An indulgent servant

had allowed her to drink three goblets of wine; the wine had been

watered, but Minamele had still become very ill. throwing up all over her

new Aedontide frock and spoiling it beyond reclamation.

That tong-ago bout of stomach-sickness had been preceded byjust such

a sway as she was now feeling, as though she were aboard a boat rocking

up and down in the midst of the ocean. The morning following her

drunken adventure she had remained in bed with a horrific headachea

pain almost as bad as the one she was experiencing now. What grotesque

indulgence had led her to this dreadful pass?

She opened her eyes. The room was fairly dark, the roofbeams over-

head heavy and crudely cut. The mattress on which she was lying was

impossibly uncomfortable, and the room would not stop its terrible tilt-

ing. Had she been so drunk that she had fallen and struck her head badly?

Perhaps she had split her crown and was even now dying. . . ?

Cadrach.

The thought came to her suddenly. In fact, she remembered, she hadn't

been drinking or doing anything of the sort. She had been waiting m

Father Dmivan's workroom, and . . . and . . .

And Cadrach had struck her. He had said they could not wait any

longer. She had said they would. Then he had said something else and hit

her on the head with something heavy. Her poor head! And to think that

for a foolish moment she had regretted trying to drown him!

Minamele struggled to her feet, holding her head between her hands as

though to keep the pieces together. It was Just as well she was bent

double: the ceiling was so low that she could not have stood up. But the

swaying! Elysia, Mother of God, it was worse than being drunk! It

368 Tad WiShams

seemed mad that being cuffed on the head could make things veer and

wobble so. It was indeed just like being on a ship. . . .

She was on a ship. and a ship under sail at that The realization came

suddenly from a subtle amalgam of clues: the movement of the floor, the

faint but definite creaking of timbers, the thin, saltier-than-usual scent of

the air- How had this happened?

It was hard to make out anything m the near-blackness, but as far as

Minameic could tell she was surrounded by casks and barrels. She was m

the hold of a ship, that was certain. As she squinted into the darkness,

another sound began to make itself heard, something that had been there

all along, but was only now becoming clear.

Someone was snoring.

Minamele was immediately filled with a mixture of rage and fear. If it

was Cadrach, she would find him and strangle him. If it was no! Cadrach

Merciful Aedon, who could say how she had wound up on this boat, or

what the mad monk might have done that had made them both fugitives?

If she revealed herself, it might be to a stowaway's death sentence. But if it

was Cadrachoh, she so wanted to catch hold of his flabby neck. . . !

She hunkercd down between a pair of casks; the sudden movement sent

a stabbing pain down the back other neck. Slowly and quietly, she began

to crawl toward the source of the rasping noise. Whoever was burring and

mumbling so did not seem apt to be sleeping lightly, but there was no

sense taking unnecessary risks.

A sudden thumping from overhead set her cowering both from possible

discovery and the painful noise itself. When nothing followed but softer

repetitions, Minamele decided it was only the normal business of the ship

going on above. She continued to stalk her snoring prey through the rows

of close-stacked barrels.

By the time she was a few cubits away from the snorer, she no longer

felt even the slightest doubtshe had heard that sodden, drunken rumble

too many nights to mistake it.

At last she crouched over him. Feeling with her hand, she located the

empty jug curled in the crook of his arm with which he'd besotted

himself. Above that, she felt Cadrach's unmistakable round face, the

wme-sour breath piping wetly in and out of his open mouth as he snored

and muttered. The feel of him filled her with fury. It would be so easy just

to crack his sodden skull with the plundered jar, or topple one of the

leaning barrel towers to crush him like a bug. Hadn't he plagued her since

she had met him? He had stolen from her and sold her to her enemies like

a slave, and now he had struck her and dragged her by force out of God's

house. Whatever else she was, whatever her father had become, she was

still a princess of the blood of King PresterJohn and Queen Ebekah. No

drunkard of a monk had a right to lay hands on her! No man! No

one.

STONE OF FAREWELL369

Her anger, which had been curling and spiraling higher within her like

the flames of a wind-tortured fire, blazed up and then abruptly vanished.

Tears choked her; sobs thudded painfully in her chest-

Cadrach stopped snoring. His slurred, querulous voice rose from the

darkness before her. "My lady?"

For a moment she did not move; then, sucking m a fierce gasp of

breath, she struck out at the invisible monk. She made only the most

incidental contact, but it was enough to locate him in the darkness. Her

next blow landed stingmgly on something. "You whoreson rogue!" she

hissed, then struck again.

Cadrach let out a muffled cry of pain, scrambling away from her so

that her fingers struck nothing but the hold's damp floorboards. "Why

. . . why do you. . . ?" he muttered. "Lady, I saved your life!"

"Liar!" she spat, and burst into tears once more.

"No, Princess, it is surely the truth. I'm sorry I hit you, but I had no

choice."

"Damnable liar!"

"No!" His voice was surprisingly firm. "And keep quiet. We dare not

be discovered. We must stay down here until we can sneak off at nightfall."

She sniffled angrily and wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve.

"Dullard!" she said. "Fool! Sneak where? We're at sea!"

There was a moment of silence. "We can't be ..." the monk said

weakly. "We can't be. ..."

"Can't you feel that up-and-down dipping? You never did know any-

thing about boats, you treacherous little man. That's no rocking at anchor

in the harbor. That's sea-swell." Her anger was ebbing, leaving her empty

and stupefied. She fought its going. "Now, if you don't tell me how we

wound up on this boat and how we're going to get off, I'm going to make

you wish you had never left Crannhyror wherever you truly came

from."

"Oh, gods of my people," Cadrach groaned, "I have been a fool. They

must have cast off while we were asleep. ..."

"While you were asleep, drunkenly asleep. / had been beaten senseless!"

"Ah, you speak the truth, my lady. I wish you didn't. I did drink

myself into forgetfulness, princess, but there was much to forget."

"If you mean hitting me, 1 won't let you forget."

There was another silence in the darkness of the hold. The monk's

voice, when it came at last, was strangely wistful. "Please, Minamele.

Princess. I have done wrong many times, but in this I did only what I

thought best."

She was indignant. "What you thought best! Of all the arrogance. . . !"

"Father Dinivan is dead, Lady." His words spilled out swiftly. "So is

Ranessin, Lector of Mother Church. Pryrates killed them both in the very

heart of the Sancellan Aedomtis."

370 Tad Williams

She tried to speak, but something seemed stuck in her throat

"They're3"

"Dead, Princess By tomorrow morning the news will be traveling like

wildfire all across the face ofOsten Ard "

It was hard to think about, hard to understand Sweet, homely Father

Dmivan, who had blushed like a boy' And the lector, who was going to

make everything right, somehow Now, nothing would be right Noth-

ing ever again

"Are you telling the truth3" she asked at last

"I wish I were not, Lady I wish this were only another of my long

index of falsehoods, but it is not Pryrates rules Mother Church, or as

good as Your only true friends in Nabban are dead, and that is why we

are hiding in the hold of a ship that was floating at anchor in the docks

below the Sancellan"

The monk found it hard to finish, but the odd catch in his voice finally

convinced her beyond any doubting The darkness m the ship's belly

seemed to grow In the immeasurable time that followed, when it seemed

that all the tears she had held back since leaving home came welling up at

once, Minamele felt as though that black shroud of despair had grown to

enfold all the world

"So where are we3" she asked at last Clasping her knees, she rocked

slowly back and forth in countermotion to the swaying of the ship

Cadrach's mournful voice whispered out of the darkness "I do not

know, my lady As I told you, I brought us to a boat that was anchored

beneath the Sancellan It was dark "

Minamele strove to compose herself, grateful that no one could see her

tear-reddened face "Yes, but whose ship5 What did it look like5 Whose

mark was on the sail7"

"I know little of boats, Pnncess, you know that It is a boat, a large

one The sails were furled I think there was a bird of prey painted on the

bow, but the lamps burned very low "

"What bird3" she asked urgently

"A fish hawk, I think, or some such Black and gold "

"An osprey " Minamele sat up straight, drumming her fingers agitat-

edly against her leg "That is the Prevan House I wish I knew how they

stood, but it has been so long since I lived here' Perhaps they are support-

ers of my late uncle and would take us to safety " She smiled wrylyfor

her own benefit only, since the darkness hid her from the monk "But

where would that be3"

"Believe me, Lady," Cadrach said fervently "At this moment, the

coldest, darkest, inner chambers of Stormspike would be safer for us than

the Sancellan Aedonitis I told you, Lector Ranessm has been thrown

down and murdered' Can you imagine how Pryrates* power must have

grown that he would slay the lector right m God's own house3"

STONE OF FAREWELL371

Minamele's fingers suddenly stopped drumming "That was an odd

thing to sav What do you know of Stormspike and its inner chambers,

Cadrach3"

The uneasy truce that shock and horror had built seemed suddenly very

foolish Minamele's quick-flarmg anger masked a sudden fear Who was

this monk, who knew so much and acted so oddly3 And here she was

once more, trusting him, trapped in a dark place into which he himself

had led her "I asked you a question "

"My lady," Cadrach said, hesitant as he searched for words "There are

many things"

He broke off suddenly A wrenching noise echoed through the hold,

bnght torchlight stabbed down as the hatch door rose Blinking, the

pnncess and Cadrach threw themselves among the piled casks, squirming

for shelter like earthworms in a shovel-turn of soil Minamele caught a

brief glimpse of a cloaked figure climbing backward down the ladder She

curled herself back against the inner wall of the hold and drew her legs up

before her, hiding her face beneath her down-dropping hood

The one who had entered the hold made very little noise, picking

carefully between the stacks of provisions Minamele's speeding heart

seemed to jump in her breast as the footsteps came to a sudden haltjust a

few cubits away She held her breath in her straining lungs until it seemed

she would burst The sound of the surf was as loud in her ears as che

bellowing of a bull, but a strange musical humming floated beneath it like

the drowsy murmur of bees Then the drone abruptly stopped

"Why do you hide here3" a voice asked, a dry finger touched her face

Minamele's pent-up breath flew out explosively and her eyes snapped

open The voice exclaimed "Ah, but you are only a child'"

The one who bent over her had pale golden skin and large, wide-sec

dark eyes that peered from beneath a fnnge of white hair She seemed

aged and frail her hooded robe could not hide the shghtness of her frame

"A Niskie'" Minamele gasped, then lifted her hand to her mouth

"Why should that surprise you3" the other said, thin brows arching

Her skin was netted with fine wnnkles, but her movements were precise

"Where better to find a Niskie than on a deep-water ship3 No, the

question, stranger-girl, is why are you here3" She turned coward the

shadows where the monk still hid "And chat question also goes for you,

man Why are you skulking in the hold3"

When there was no immediate answer from either stowaway, she shook

her head "Then I suppose I must call for the ship's master

"No, please," Minamele said "Cadrach, come out Niskies have sharp

ears " She smiled in what she hoped was a conciliatory manner "If we

had known it was you we would not have bothered It is foolish Co Cry Co

hide from a Niskie "

"Yes " Their discoverer nodded, pleased "Now tell me who are you3"

372 Tad Williams

"Malachias . ." Minamele stopped, realizing that her gender had al-

ready been identified. "Marya, that is That's me Cadrach is my compan-

ion " The monk, crawling out from a bulky fold of sailcloth, grunted.

"Good " The Niskie smiled in tight-lipped satisfaction "My name is

Gan Itai. Eadne Cloud is my ship. I sing the kilpa down "

Cadrach was stanng. "Sing the kilpa down3 What does that mean5"

"You said you were well-traveled," Minamele broke in "Everyone

knows that you can't take a boat out to deep sea without a Niskie to sing

the songs that keep the kilpa away. You know what kilpa are, don't you5"

"I have heard of them, yes," Cadrach said shortly He turned his

cunous gaze back to Gan Itai, who rocked back and forth, listening "You

are of the Tinukeda'ya, are you not?"

The Niskie's mouth widened in a toothless grin. "We are Navigator's

Children, yes. Long ago we came back to the sea, and by the sea we

stayed. Now, tell Gan Itai what you do on this ship."

Minamele looked at Cadrach, but the monk seemed absorbed in thought.

The torchlight showed his pale face beaded with sweat. Whether from the

shock of discovery or something else, the fog of his drunkenness seemed

to have burned away. His small eyes were troubled but clear. "We

cannot tell all," the princess answered. "We have done no wrong, but our

lives are in danger, so we are hiding."

Gan Itai narrowed her long eyes and pursed her lips meditatively "I

must tell the ship's master you are here," she said at last. "If that is wrong,

I am sorry, but 1 owe first allegiance to Eadne Cloud. Stowaways are

always reported No harm must come to my ship."

"We wouldn't hurt the ship," Minamele said desperately, but the Niskie

was moving swiftly toward the ladder, her nimbleness belying her appar-

ent frailty.

"I regret, but I do what I must. Ruyan's Folk have laws that cannot be

overthrown." She shook her head and disappeared through the hatchway.

A splash of dawn-lit sky showed briefly before the hatch door thumped

down once more.

Minamele slumped back against a barrel. "Elysia save us. What will we

do? What if this boat belongs to enemies5"

"As far as I am concerned, it is boats themselves which are the ene-

mies." Cadrach shrugged fatalistically. "My hiding us on one was foolish-

ness beyond understanding. As to discovery ..." he waved his plump

hand dismissively. "It was inevitable once the boat actually put to sea, but

anything is better than staying in the Sancellan Aedomtis " He wiped

sweat from his face. "Ah, me, my stomach feels dreadful. As a wise man

stated, 'There are three kinds of peoplethe living, the dead, and chose at

sea.' " His expression of disgust changed to one of contemplation. "But

Niskies! I have met the living Tinukeda'ya1 Bones of Anaxos, but the

world is full of odd tales!"

STONE OF FAREWELL

373

Before Minamele could ask him what that meant, they heard the sound

of heavy boots on the deck overhead. Deep voices spoke, then the hatch

door creaked up and the opening was abruptly filled with torchlight and

long shadows.

^

Maegwm sat in a crumbling ancient arena, in the midst of a mysterious

stone city hidden deep in the heart of a mountain, face to face with four

creatures out of the legends of ancient days Before her stood a great,

shining stone that had spoken to her as though it were a person. Still, she

was unutterably disappointed.

"The Sithi," she murmured quietly- "I thought the Sithi would be

here."

Eolair looked at her with seeming dispassion, then turned back to the

saucer-eyed dwarrows once more. "This is very strange. How do you

know the name ofjosua Lackhand5"

Yis-fidn seemed uncomfortable The earth-dweller's bony face bobbed

at the end of his slender neck like a sunflower on its stem. "Why do you

seek the Sithi? What do you want with our old masters?"

Maegwm let out a sigh.

"It was only a thin hope," Eolair said quickly. "The Lady Maegwm

thought they might help us, as they aided our people in days past

Hernystir has been invaded."

"And this Handless Josua of whom the Sithi spokeis he the invader,

or is he one of Hem's children, like you5" Yis-fidn and his fellows leaned

forward solemnly.

"Josua Lackhand is no Hemystirman, but neither is he an invader He is

one of the chiefs in the great war that rages on the surface." Eolair spoke

carefully. "Our people have been invaded by josua's enemies. Thus, it

could be said Josua fights for usif he still lives."

"Josua is dead," Maegwm said dully. The weight of earth and stone

around her pressed down, squeezing out her breath What was the point in

all this blather? These spindly creatures were not the Sithi. This was not the

aty of banners and sweet music she had seen in her dreams Her plans had

come to nothing.

"That may not be so, my lady," Eolair said quietly. "When I was last

afield, I heard rumors that he still lived, rumors chat had more than a

slight sound of truth to them." He turned back to the patient dwarrows.

"Please tell us where you heard Josua's name. We are not your enemies "

Yis-fidn was not so easily swayed. "And does this Handless Josua fight

for our old masters the Sithi, or against them?"

Eolair pondered before speaking. "We mortals know nothing of the

Sithi and their battles Josua is probably as ignorant as we."

374

Tad Williams

Yis-fidn pointed to the gleaming, shimmering chunk of stone at the

center of the arena "But it was the First Grandmother of the Zida'yathe

Sithiwho spoke to you through the Shard'" He sounded perversely

pleased as though he had caught Eoiair m a pointless fib

"We did not know whose voice it was We are strangers here, and we are

strangers to youryour Shard "

"Ah " Yis-iidn and the others huddled and spoke in their own tongue,

the words flying back and forth like rippling chimes At last they

straightened

"We will trust you We believe that you be honorable folk," Yis-fidn

said "Even if we did not, you have seen now where the last dwarrows

live Unless we make an end to you, we can only hope you will not reveal

us to our former masters " He laughed sadly, his dark gaze nervously

roaming the shadows "And we arc not folk who can compel others by

force We are weak, old" The dwarrow struggled to compose him-

self "No more is saved by holding knowledge back So, all our people

can now return to this place the Site of Witness "

Yis-hadra, the one Yis-fidn had named as his wife, lifted her hand

She beckoned into the darkness at the top of the great bowl, then called

out in the musical dwarrow-tongue.

Lights appeared and came drifting silently down the aisles of the arena,

perhaps three dozen m all, each a gleaming rose crystal clutched m the

hands of a dwarrow Their large heads and wide, solemn eyes made them

seem distorted children, grotesque but not frightening

Unlike Yis-fidn's foursome, these new dwarrows seemed afraid to

approach Maegwm and Eoiair too closely Instead, they passed slowly

down the stone pathways and seated themselves here and there among the

hundreds upon hundreds of benches, faces turned toward the gleaming

Shard, thin fingers clutching their crystals Like a dying galaxy, the vast,

gloomy bowl was pricked with dim stars

"They were cold," Yis-fidn whispered "They are happy to come back

to the warmth "

Macgwin jumped, startled after the long quiet The realization came to

her abruptly that here beneath the world's crust there were no birds

singing, no rustling of wind-tossed trees, the city seemed almost con-

structed of silence

Eoiair looked around at the nng of solemn eyes before turning back to

Yis-fidn "But you and your people seemed afraid of this place "

The dwarrow looked embarrassed "The voices of our old masters

frighten us, yes But the Shard is warm and great Mezutu'a's halls and

streets are cold "

The Count of Nad Mullach took a deep breath "Please, then If you

believe we mean you no harm, explain to us how you know Josua's

name

STONE OF FAREWELL375

"Our Witnessthe Shard. As we told you. The Sithi have called to us

here at the Site of Witness, asking ofthisJosua, and of the Great Swords

The Shard was long silent, but lately it has begun speaking to us again, for

the first time in recent memory "

"Speaking5" Eoiair asked "As it spoke to us5 What 15 the Shard5"

"Old, it is One of the oldest of all the Witnesses " Yis-fidn's worried

tone returned His cohorts wagged their heads, narrow faces uneasy "Long

has it been silent None did speak to us "

"What do you mean5" The count looked at Maegwm to see if she

shared his puzzlement She avoided his eyes The Shard pulsed with

gentle, milky light as Eoiair tned again "I am afraid I cannot understand

you What is a Witness5"

The dwarrow considered carefully, looking for words to explain some-

thing that had never before needed explaining

"In days long past," he finally said, "we and others of the Gardenbom

did speak through the particular objects that could act as Witnesses Stones

and Scales, Pools and Pyres Through these thingsand through some

others, like Nakkiga's great Harpthe world of the Gardenbom was tied

together with strands of thought and speech But we Tmukeda'ya had

forgotten much even before mighty Asu'a fell, and had grown far apart

from those who lived therethose who we had once served "

"Asu'a7" Eoiair said "I have heard that name before

Maegwin, only half-listening, watched the coruscating colors of the

Shard dart like bright fish below the crystal's surface On the benches all

around, the dwarrows watched, too, their faces gnm, as though their

hunger for its radiance shamed them

"When Asu'a fell," Yis-fidn continued, "the seldom-speaking became

silence The Speakfire in Hikehikayo and the Shard here in Mezutu'a were

voiceless Do you see, we dwarrows had lost the Art of their using Thus,

when the Zida'ya spoke to us no more, we Tmukeda'ya could no longer

master the Witnesses, even to speak among ourselves "

Eoiair pondered "How did you forget the art of using these things3" he

asked at last "How could it be lost among even such few as there are of

you7" He gestured to the silent ones sitting around the stone bowl "You

are immortal, are you not5"

Yis-fidn's wife Yis-hadra threw back her head and moaned, startling

both Maegwm and the count Sho-vennae and Imai-an, Yis-fidn's other

two companions, joined her Their lament turned into a kind of eerie,

sorrowful song that rose to the cavern ceiling and echoed in the darkness

above The other dwarrows turned to watch, heads slowly swaying like a

field of gray and white dandelions

Yis-fidn lowered his heavy lids and cupped his chin in trembling fin-

gers When the moaning had died away, he looked up

"No, Hern's Child," he said slowly, "we are not immortal It is true we

376

Tad Williams

are far longer-lived than you mortals be, unless your race has much

changed But unlike Zida'ya and Hikeda'yaour old overlords, Sithi and

Nornwe do not live on and on, eternal as the mountains Nay, Death

comes for us as for your folk, like a thief and a reaver." Anger touched his

face "Mayhap our once-masters were of somewhat different blood since

back m the Garden of our old stories, whence came all the Firstborn;

mayhap then we arejust of shorter-lived stock. Either that, or there was in

truth some secret kept from us, who were after all deemed only their

servers and vassals " He turned to his wife and gently touched her cheek

Yis-hadra hid her face against his shoulder, her long neck graceful as a

swan's "Some of us died, some left, and The Art of the Witnesses has

escaped us."

Eolair shook his head, confused "I am listening carefully, Yis-fidn, but

I fear I still do not understand all the riddles in what you say The voice

that spoke to us from the stonethe one you called the grandmother of

the Sithisaid that Great Swords are being sought. What does Prince

Josua have to do with any of this5"

Yis-fidn raised his hand. "Come with us to a better place for speaking. I

fear that your presence has bewildered some of our folk It has been

beyond the lives of most of us since Sudhoda'ya were among us." He

stood up with a creak of leather, unfolding his spindly limbs like a locust

climbing a stalk of wheat. "We will continue m the Pattern Hall." His

expression became apologetic "Also, Hern's Folk, I am tired and hun-

gry." He shook his head "I have not calked so much in a long age."

Imai-an and Sho-vennae stayed behind, perhaps to explain to their shy

fellows what sort of creatures the mortals were. Maegwm saw them

gather the other dwarrows together in a solemn group at the center of the

giant bowl, huddling near the inconstant light of the Shard Only an hour

before she had been brimming with anticipation and excitement, but now

Maegwin was glad to see the arena disappearing behind them. Wonder

had turned to unease. A structure like the Site of Witness should stretch

beneath an open sky filled with stars, as did the circuses of Nabban or the

great theater of Erchester, not crouch beneath a firmament of dead black

basalt Anyway, there was no help for the Hernystin here.

Yis-fidn and Yis-hadra led them through Mezutu'a's deserted byways,

crystal rods glowing in the murk like swamp-ghosts as they wound

through the narrow streets, across broad, echoing squares and over icicle-

slender bridges with only shadowed emptiness below.

The lamps that Maegwin and Eolair had brought down to the subterra-

nean city had guttered and gone out. The soft, roseate glow of the

dwarrow's batons cast the only light Mezutu'a's lines seemed softer now

than they had by lamplight, the city's edges gentler, rounded as though by

wind and ram. But Maegwin knew that here in the deeps of the earth no

such weather had troubled the ancient walls

STONE OF FAREWELL

377

She found her thoughts straying even from such wonderfully strange

sights as these, returning instead to the trick chat had been played upon

her The Sithi were not here In fact, if the remaining Peaceful Ones were

calling for the help of a diminished tribe like the dwarrows, they were

probably in worse straits than Maegwin's own folk

So here was the end of her hope of assistanceat least of earthly aid.

There would be no rescue for her people, unless she herself could think of

some way Why had the gods sent Maegwin such dreams, only to dash

them to pieces5 Had Brymoch, Mircha, Rhynn and the rest truly turned

their back on the Hernystin5 Many of her people, crouched in the cave

above, already thought it dangerous even to fight back against Skali's

invading armyas though the gods' will was so clearly against Lluth's

tribe that to resist would be to insult the minions of heaven. Was that the

lesson, both of her dreams about the lost Sithi and the actuality of

Yis-fidn's frightened folk5 Had the gods brought her here only to show

her that the Hernystin, too, would soon diminish and fade, as the proud

Sithi and crafty dwarrows had themselves been brought low5

Maegwin straightened her shoulders. She could not let such qualms

frighten her She was Lluth's daughter . . the king's daughter She would

think of something The error was in relying on the fallible creatures of

earth, men or Sithi The gods would send to her. They wouldthey

mustgive her some further sign, some plan, even in the midst of her

despair.

Her sigh drew a curious glance from Eolair "Lady5 Are you sick5"

She waved away his concerns.

"Once all this city was full-lit," Yis-fidn announced suddenly, waving

an elongated hand. "The mountain-heart all besparkled, yes "

"Who lived here, Yis-fidn5" the count asked.

"Our people Tmukeda'ya But most of our kind are long gone- A few

are here, and some few lived in Hikehikayo in the northern mountains, a

smaller city than this " His face twisted "Until they were made to leave "

"Made to leave5 By what5"

Yis-fidn shook his head, palpating his long chin with his fingers. "That

would be a great wrong to say Unkind it would be to bring our evil on

Hern's innocent children Fear not. Our few remaining folk there fled,

leaving the evil behind them."

His wife Yis-hadra said something m the fluttering dwarrow tongue

"True, that is true," Yis-fidn said regretfully. He blinked his vast eyes

"Our people have left those mountains behind. We hope that they have left

the evil behind as well."

Eolair looked at Maegwin in a way she supposed was somehow signifi-

cant The talk had mostly slipped past her, immersed as she was m the

greater problems of her unhomed people. She smiled sadly, letting the

Count of Nad Mullach know that his laboring after such fruitless details

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did not go unnoticed or unappreciated, then lapsed back into silent con-

templation once more.

Count Eolair shifted his disconcerted glance from Lluth's daughter back

to the dwarrows. "Can you tell me of this evil?"

Yis-fidri looked at him speculatively. "No," he said at last. "I have not

the right to share so much, for all you be noble persons among your kind.

Mayhap when I have had a greater while to think, you will hear more.

Content yourself." He would say nothing further concerning the subject.

Silent now but for the quiet noise of footsteps, the odd procession crept

on through the ancient city, lights bobbing like fireflies.

The Pattern Hall was a dome only slightly smaller in circumference than

the Site of Witness, set low in the midst of a forest of towers, surrounded

by a moat of rock sculpted to resemble the waves of a crashing sea. The

dome itself was fluted like a sea shell, constructed of some fair stone that

did not shine like the rose-crystal rods, but nevertheless seemed faintly

radiant.

"The Ocean Indefinite and Eternal," said Yis-fidri with a gesture at the

spiky stone waves. "Our birth-home was an island in the sea that sur-

rounds all. We Tinukeda'ya built those craft that took all the Gardenbom

across that water. Ruyan Ve, the greatest of our folk, steered the ships and

brought us here to this land, safe out of destruction." A light came to the

dwarrow's saucerlike eyes, a note of triumph to his voice. He wagged his

head firmly, as though to emphasize the importance of what he said.

"Without us, no ships would have been. All, both masters and servants,

would have passed into Unbeing." After a moment he blinked and looked

around, the fire abruptly gone. "Come, Hern-folk," he said. "Hie we

down to the Banipha-sha-zethe Pattern Hall."

His wife Yis-hadra beckoned, then led Maegwin and the count around

the frozen gray ocean to the back of the dome, which sat off-center in the

moat like the yoke of an egg. A ramp curled down into the shadowed

depths.

"This is where my husband and I dwell," Yis-hadra said. She spoke

Hernystiri more haltingly than her husband, "We are keepers of this

place."

The inside of the Pattern Hall was dark, but as Yis-hadra entered before

them, she drew her hands along the walls. Where her long fingers touched,

stones began to glow with a pale light, yellower than that given off by the

rods.

Maegwin saw Eolair's sharp profile hovering beside her, spectral and

dreamlike. She was beginning to feel the burden of her long, strenuous

day; her knees were growing weak, her thoughts furry. How had Eolair

ever let her do such a foolish thing, she wondered? He should have . . .

have . . . have what? Knocked her senseless? Carried her kicking and

STONE OF FAREWELL

379

screeching back to the surface? She would have hated him if he had.

Maegwin ran her hands through her matted hair. If only none of these

terrible things had ever happened, if only life at the Taig had gone on its

small, foolish way, with her father and Gwythinn alive, with winter in its

proper place. - - ,

"Maegwin'" The count took her elbow. "You almost hit your head

against the doorway."

She shook off his hand and bent to pass through. "I saw it."

The room beyond slowly revealed itself as Yis-hadra touched more

stones into radiant life. It was circular, the walls peeked every few paces

by a low doorway. The doors themselves were carved of dressed stone

and hinged with tarnished bronze. Their surfaces were covered with runic

letters unlike anything Maegwin had seen, different even than the great

gates that had led her to Mezutu'a in the first place.

"Seat yourself, if you please," Yis-fidri said, gesturing to a row of

granite stools, solid upcroppings that rose like mushrooms beside a low

stone cable. "We will prepare food. Will you dine with us?"

Eolair looked at her, but Maegwin pretended to be looking in the other

direction. She was desperately tired and confused, full of regret. The Sithi

were not here. These bent, flawed creatures could be no help against the

likes of Skali and King Elias. There was no earthly help coming.

"You are very kind, Yis-fidri," the count said. "We will be pleased to

share your table."

A great show was made of lighting a tiny bed of coals in a trough set

into the stone floor. Yis-fidri's anxious care with them suggested that such

fuel was hard to find, and used only for very special occasions.

Maegwin could not help noticing the strangely graceful way that the

dwarrows moved as they fetched the ingredients of their meal. Despite

their awkward, stifl-limbed gaits, they stepped in and out of the two

doors at the room's opposite end and slid around obstacles with an odd,

dancing fluidity, and seemed almost to caress each other in passing with

their tuneful, pattering speech. She knew she watched a pair of ancient

lovers, both enfeebled, but so accustomed to each other that they had

become two limbs of the same body. Now that the strangeness of the

dwarrows' owl-eyed appearance had worn away, Maegwin observed their

quiet interactions and felt certain that they were just what they seemeda

couple who might have seen terror and sorrow, but whose happiness with

each other spanned centuries-

"Come now." Yis-fidri said at last, pouring something from a stone

ewer into bowls for Maegwin and the count. "Drink."

"What is it?" Maegwin asked quietly. She sniffed the liquid, but could

discern nothing unusual in its smell.

"Water, Hem-child," Yis-fidri said, puzzlement plain his voice. "Do

your folk no longer drink water?"

380 Tad Williams

"We do," Maegwin smiled, lifting the bowl to her lips. She had forgot-

ten how long it had been since she had last sipped from her water skin, but

it must have been hours The water ran down her throat in gulps, cold and

sweet as iced honey It had a Caste she could not identify, something stony

but clean If it were a color, she decided, it would have been the blue of

new evening

"Wonderful'" She let Yis-fidn pour her another bowl.

The dwarrows next produced a dish piled high with pieces of white,

faintly luminous fungus, and other bowls with things m them that Maegwm

was smkmgly sure were some kind of many-legged bugs These had been

wrapped in leaves and roasted over the coals. The spell cast by the draught

of delicious water abruptly vanished and Maegwm found herself tottering

once more on the edge of a terrible homesickness.

Eolair manfully took a few bites of fungusit was not by chance that he

was deemed the best court envoy in Osten Ardand ostentatiously chewed

and swallowed one of the leggy morsels, then settled down to rearranging

his supper in a way that resembled eating. If Maegwm had needed any

additional proof, the expression on his chewing face was enough to keep

the contents other own bowl far from her mouth.

"So, Yis-fidn, why is your house called the Pattern Hall?" the Count of

Nad Mullach asked. He quietly let a few blackened grubs fall from his

fingertips and down into the hem of his cloak.

"We shall show that to you when eating is finished," Yis-hadra said

proudly.

"Then, if it is not impolite, may I ask you of some other things? Our

time here is growing short." Eolair shrugged. "I must return this lady to

our people in the caverns above."

Maegwin bit back a sneering remark. Return this lady, indeed!

"Ask, Hem's child."

"You spoke of a mortal, one we know as Josua Lackhand. And the

voice from the stone said something about Great Swords. What are these

swords, and what do they have to do with Josua?"

Yis-fidn scraped with his spoon-shaped fingers at a fragment of fungus

on his chin "I must begin before the beginning, as we say." He looked

from Eolair to Maegwm and back. "In days agone, our folk made for a

king of the northern men a sword. That king betrayed his bargain. When

the time came to pay, the mortal king instead argued, then slew the leader

of our folk That king hight Elvnt, first master of Rimmersgard. The

sword dwarrow-forged for him, he named Minneyar."

"I have heard this legend," Eolair said.

Yis-fidn held up a spidery hand "You have not heard all. Count Eolair,

if I have recalled your name aright Bitter was our curse on that blade, and

closely did we watch it, though it was far from us. Such is dwarrow-

work, that nothing we have forged is ever far from our hearts or our

381

STONE OF FAREWELL

sight. Minneyar brought much sadness to Fmgil and his tribe, for all it

was a mighty weapon "

He took a swallow of water to clear his throat Yis-hadra tenderly

watched his face, her hand atop his. "We told to you that our Witnesses

have stood unused for centuries of silence. Then, little more than one year

ago, the Shard spoke to usor rather, something spoke to us through the

Shard, as m the elder days-

"That which spoke was someone or something who we knew not,

something that used the Speakfire in the old dwarrow-home ofHikehikayo,

something that talked to us in gentle and persuasive words. Strange

enough was it to hear Shard and Speakfire talking as of old, but we also

remembered the evil that had driven our fellows from their homean evil

of which you mortals need not hear, for it would throw you into great

fearso we trusted this stranger not. Also, as long as it had been since we

had last used the Witnesses, still some for us remembered the elder days

and what it felt like when the Ziday*a did speak to us then.

"This was not the same. Whatever stood before the Speakfire in the north

seemed more like a cold breath of Unbemg than a living creature, for all

its kindly words."

Yis-hadra moaned softly beside him. Maegwm, caught up in the

dwarrow's story despite herself, felt a chill travel through her-

"That which spoke," Yis-fidn continued, "wished to know of the

sword Minneyar. It knew we had been the blade's makers and it knew

that we dwarrows are bound to our work even after it has gone from us,

as one who has lost a hand often feels it still at the end of his arm. The

thing that spoke to us from Witness to Witness asked if the northern king

Fmgil had indeed taken the sword Minneyar into Asu'a when he con-

quered that great place, and was it there still."

"Asu'a," Eolair breathed. "Of coursethe Hayholt."

"That is its mortal name," Yis-fidn nodded. "We were frightened by

this strange and fearful voice. You must understand, we have been as

castaways for more years than your people can dream. It was obvious chat

some new power had arisen in the world, but one that nevertheless did

command the old Arts. But we do not wish any of our old masters to find

us and take us back, so at first we made no answer."

The dwarrow leaned forward on his padded elbows. "Then, a short

Cime agoa few of the Moon-woman's changes, as you would reckon it

beneath the skythe Shard spoke again. This time it did speak with the

voice of the eldest of the Sithi, Che voice you heard. She also asked us of

Minneyar. Wich her, also, we were silenc."

"Because you fear they will make you their servants again."

"Yes, Hern's man. Unless you have ever fled from bondage, you will

not understand that terror. Our masters are ageless. We are not. They

recam the old lore. We dimmish." Yis-fidn rocked back and forth on his

382 Tad Williams

stool, the ancient leather of his garments rubbing and squeaking like

crickets

"But we knew something neither of our questioners did," he said

finally, there was a gleam m his round eye unlike anything the surface

dwellers had yet seen "Do you see, our masters think the sword Mmneyar

never left Asu'a, and that is true But the one who found the sword there

beneath the castle, the one you call King John Prester, had it reforged and

made new Under the name of Bnght-Nail, he carried it all across the

world and back "

The Count of Nad Mullach whistled, a low, surprised mil "So Bnght-

Nail was the old Scourge of the North, Fmgil's Mmneyar Strange' What

other secrets did Prester John take to his grave above the Kynslagh, I

wonder7" He paused "But, Yis-fidn, still we do not understand

"Patience " The dwarrow showed a wintry smile "You could never

tend and harvest balky stone as we do, you quick-blooded Children

Patience " He took a breath "The mistress of the Zida'ya told us that this

sword, one of the Great Swords, was somehow much concerned with

events now transpiring, and with the fate of the mortal prince named

Handless Josua"

"Josua Lackhand "

"Yes But we think that is trickery, for she also said that this sword

might be somehow vital against that same evil that had driven our tnbesfolk

out of Hikehikayo, and that the same evil soon might threaten all that

walked above or below ground How could the fate of any mortal man

affect the squabbhngs of immortals3" The dwarrow's voice quavered "It

is another trap, to play on our fear She wishes us to seek her help, so we

will fall into their clutch once more Did you not hear her5 'Come to us at

Jao e-Tinukai'i ' Was ever a trap more cold-bloodedly baited before the

victim's eyes5"

"So," the count said at last, "somehow Josua's survival is tied to this

blade5"

Yis-fidn shot him a worried glance "So she claimed But how could

she say his fate is tied to that of Mmneyar when she did not even know it

had been reforged5 She said that none but us did know this thing, and that

possibly many fatesperhaps the threads of alt fatewere tied to three

great swords, of which Minneyar was one "

Yis-fidn stood, a haunted look upon his face "And I will tell you a

terrible, terrible thing," he said miserably "Even though we cannot trust

our once-masters, we fear that they may be telling the truth Mayhap a

great doom has come into the world If so, we dwarrows may have

brought it on "

Eolair looked around, struggling to make sense of what he had heard

"But why, Yis-fidn5 Bnght-Nail's history might be a deep and dark

secret, but you dwarrows did not tell it to anyone When the Shard spoke

383

STONE OF FAREWELL

to us, we said nothing of it, because we did not know the tale No secrets

have been told What doom have you brought on5"

The dwarrow was deeply pained "Idid not tell you all One last

time before your arrival, the Shard called to us It was the fearsome

stranger from Hikehikayo asking again of the sword Minneyarthat

cursed sword " He slumped bonelessly back onto the stool "This time

there was only one of us at the Site of Witnessyoung Sho-vennae, who

you have met He was alone and the voice laid a great fear upon him It

threatened, then it promised, then threatened again " Yis-fidn slapped his

wide palm on the table "You must understand, he was afraid' We are all

afraid' We are not what we were " He lowered his eyes as if shamed, then

looked up to find his wife's gaze He seemed to gain courage "At last,

Sho-vennae's terror did overwhelm him He told the stranger the tale of

Minneyar, of how it was reforged and became Bnght-Nail " Yis-fidn's

shook his great head "Poor Sho-vennae We should never have let him

stand watch at the Shard alone May the Garden forgive us Do you see,

you Hern's folk, our former masters may have lied to us, but still we fear

that no good can come out of the darkness in Hikehikayo If the First

Grandmother of the Sithi has told the truth, who knows what power we

have given to evil5"

Maegwin hardly heard him She was losing the thread of Yis-fidn's

speech, dully registering bits and pieces while her weary mind swirled

with thoughts of her own failure She had misunderstood the gods' will

She needed to be free, to have time to herself, time to think

Count Eolair sat thinking for a long while, the room was full of

brooding silence At last, Yis-fidn stood

"You have shared our table," he said "Let us show you our prizes,

then you may go back to the bright, airy surface "

Eolair and Maegwin, still silent, let themselves be led across the round

room and through one of the doors They followed the dwarrows down a

long, sloping hallway before coming at last to a deeper chamber whose

outer walls were as complicated as a maze, angling in and out so that

everywhere Maegwin looked there were surfaces covered with carved

stone

"In this chamber and others below it are the Patterns," Yis-fidn said

"Long the dwarrows have delved, and widely Every tunnel, every deep

place we dug is there This is the history of our folk, and we two are the

keepers of it " He waved his hand proudly "Maps of bright Kementan,

the labyrinth of Jhma-T'senei, the tunnels beneath the mountains Rim-

mersmen call Vesdvegg, and those that honeycomb the mountains above

our headsall here The catacombs of Zae-y'miritha are long-buried and

silentbut here they live'"

Eolair turned slowly, looking from surface to surface The interior of

the great chamber was as intricate as a many-faceted stone, each facet,

384

Tad Williams

every angle and niche, was covered with delicate maps carved into the

living stone. "And you said that you have maps of the tunnels that run

here, throughout the Gnanspog?" he asked slowly.

"With certainty. Count Eolair," Yis-fidn said. Being among the Pat-

terns seemed to have restored life to his sagging frame. "Those and

more.

"If we could have those, it would be a great help to us in our own

struggle."

Maegwin turned on the count, irritation finally bubbling to the surface.

"What, shall we carry a thousandweight of stone up to our caves? Or

climb down here to this lost place every time we must choose a fork in the

path?"

"No," said Eolair, "but like the Aedomte monks, we could copy them

onto parchment, and so have them where we need them." His eyes shone.

"There must be tunnels we never dreamed of! Our raids on Skah's camps

will truly seem like magic! See, Maegwin. you have brought great assis-

tance to your people after alla help greater than swords and spears!" He

turned to Yis-fidri. "Would you allow us to do such a thing?"

Worried, the dwarrow turned to his wife. As the sound of their conver-

sation chimed back and forth, Maegwin watched the count. Eolair was

walking from wall to wall, squinting up at the angled walls and their

beetle-busy carvings- She fought a nsing tide of anger. Did he think he

was doing her a kindness when he complimented her on this "discovery?"

She had been looking for help from the shining, legendary Sithi, not a

gaggle of scarecrows with their dusty tunnel-maps. Tunnels! Maegwin

had been the one who had rediscovered the tunnels in the first place! How

dare he try and placate her?

As she felt herself caught between fury and loneliness and loss, a sudden

realization cut through her confused thoughts like a knife.

Eolair must go away.

She could have no peace, she could never understand what the gods

meant her to do, as long as he was around. His presence turned her into a

child, a whining, moody thing unfit to lead her people out of these

dangerous straits.

Yis-fidri turned at last. "My wife and I must speak with our people

before anything can be decided. This would be a new thing, and could not

be done lightly."

"Of course," said Eolair. His voice was calm, but Maegwin could hear

the suppressed excitement. "Of course, whatever may be best for your

people. We will go away now and come back to you in a day or two, or

whenever you say. But tell them that it will perhaps save Hern's folk.

whom the dwarrows often helped before. The Hernystiri have never

thought anything but good of you."

Maegwin had another thought. "Are there tunnels near the Hayholt?"

STONE OF FAREWELL385

Yis-hadra nodded. "Yes. Asu'a, as we call it, was delved deep as well as

built high. Now its bones lie beneath the castle of mortal kings, but the

earth underneath that castle is still alive with our diggings."

"And are those maps here, too?"

"Of course," the dwarrow replied proudly.

With a satisfied nod, Maegwin turned on the Count of Nad Mullach.

"There," she said. "That is the final answer I sought. A course lies open

before us: we would be traitors to our own folk not to take it." She lapsed

into grave silence.

Eolair rose to the bait. "What do you mean, Princess?"

"You must fmdjosua, Count Eolair," she said abruptly. She was pleased

at the calm authority in her voice. "You heard what Yis-fidn said at the

table. This matter of the sword is of utmost importance. I was already

thinking that Prince Josua must be informed, in case there is a chance this

knowledge can be used to defeat Elias. You and I know chat as long as the

High King prospers, Skali Sharp-nose will remain at our necks like a

knife. Go find Josua and tell him the secret of the sword. That will be the

deed that saves our people."

In truth, Maegwin did not quite remember all the details of the dwarrow's

taleshe had been occupied with her own dire thoughtsbut she remem-

bered that it had something to do with Josua and his father's sword.

Eolair was astonished. "Go to Josua?! What do you say, Lady? We have

no idea where he is, or if he even lives. Do you ask me to leave our people

in their need to go rabbiting off on such a fool's mission?"

"You claimed you heard that he was alive," she responded coldly.

"Only a short while ago you were lecturing me on the chance of his

survival. Can we afford to assume he is dead?"

It was hard Co tell from his practiced expression what he was thinking.

Maegwin took a breath before beginning again. "In any case. Count

Eolair, you fail to see the full importance of what these folk have told us.

Maps of our tunnels are important, yesbut we can now send to Josua

maps of Ellas' stronghold, and of the secret entrances that could be the

High King's undoing." Listening to herself, it did suddenly seem like a

good plan. "You know that Skali will never loosen his grip on our land as

long as Elias rules at his back in the Hayholt."

Eolair shook his head. "To many questions, my lady, too many ques-

tions. There is merit in what you say, certainly. Let us think about it. It

will take us days to make semblances of all these maps. Surely it will be

better if we consider it carefully, if we talk with Criobhan and the other

knights."

Maegwin wanted to set the hook now, while Eolair was hesitating. She

feared that more time would mean time for the count to think of another

solution, and for her to sink back into her mclarity of purpose. Being near

him made her heart heavy as stone. She needed him to go awayshe felt

386 Tad Williams

it now as a deep longing She wanted him gone, so the pain and confusion

would stop How was it he could cloud her wits this way5

She made her face cold "I do not like your resistance. Count In fact.

vou seem to be doing precious little here, if you have time to follow me

down holes in the ground You might be better employed on a task that

has some chance of saving us from our current situation " Maegwin

smiled, purposefully mocking She was proud of how well she hid her

true feelings, but this cruelty, however necessary, filled her with horror

What kind of creature am I becoming she wondered even as she carefully

watched Eolair's reaction If this vtatecraft5 She felt a moment of panic Am

I being a fooP No, if is better he goes awayhut if this is how kings and queens

must see their wills accomplished, Bagha's Herd, what a terrible thing'

Aloud, she added, "Besides, Count, you are pledged to my father's

housejust in case you had forgotten If you wish to flaunt the first

request Lluth's daughter has made of you, I cannot prevent you, but the

gods will know andjudgc " Eolair started to speak Maegwin lifted a hand

to stop hima very dirty hand, she could not help noticing "I will not

argue with vou. Count Eolair Do as you are told, or do not That is all "

Eolair's eyes narrowed, as though he saw her truly for the first time and

did not like what he now saw His contemptuous expression leaned

against her heart like an impossibly heavy stone, but there was no turning

back

The count waited a long time before answering "Very well, Lady," he

said quietly, "I will do as vou command I do not know where this sudden

fancyfancy' It seems a kind of madness'has come from If vou had

asked my counsel in this thing and treated me as your family's friend

instead of a vassal. I would have heeded your wish happily Instead you will

have my obedience, but there will be little love with it You thought to act

the queen, but instead you have proved yourself only a callow child after

all"

"Be silent," she said hoarsely

The dwarrows stared at Eolair and Maegwin curiously, as if they

performed a quaint but inscrutable pantomime The lights of the Pattern

Hall dimmed for a moment, and shadows grew monstrously tall among

the labyrinthine walls of stone A moment later the pale light flared once

more, illuminating the darker comers, but a certain shadow had taken up

residence in Maegwm's heart and would not be dismissed

^

The Eadnc Cloud's crew did not handle Minamele and Cadrach gently

as they routed the pair from the hold, but neither were they especially

brutal The sailors seemed more than a little amused by such an unexpected

couple of stowaways As the captives appeared beneath the lightening sky,

STONE OF FAREWELL387

the crewmen jeered mockingly, speculating on the vices of monks who

took young women as companions, and on the virtue of young women

who allowed themselves to be so taken

Minamele stared back defiantly, undaunted by their rough manners

Despite the well-known sailor's custom of going bearded, many of the

Cloud's crew were smooth-cheeked, not yet old enough to grow whiskers

she herself had seen more in a year, she felt sure, than these youths had

seen in their whole lives

Still, it was clear the Eadne Cloud was no plodding merchantman, no

carrack bobbing like a washing tub as it carefully hugged the coastline, but

a lithe ocean-rider A child of river-fronted and sea-wrapped Meremund,

Minamele could tell the ship's quality just by the spntely way the deck

rolled beneath her feet and by the sound of the white sails crackling overhead

as they drank deeply of the daybreak wind

An hour earlier, Minamele had despaired Now she found herself taking

great breaths, her heart rising once more Even a whipping from the

captain would be bearable She was alive and upon the open sea The sun

was rising into the morning sky, a beacon of continuing hope

A glance at the standard snapping on the mainmast confirmed that

Cadrach had been correct The Prevan osprey flew there, ocher and black

If only she had found more time to talk to Dimvan, to find out more news

of the Nabbanai court and where the Prevan house and others stood

She turned to whisper a warning to Cadrach about the need for secrecy,

but was brought up sharply before a wooden stairway by the sailor at her

side, who even in the stiff breeze smelled excessively of salt-pork

The man on the quarterdeck turned to look down upon them Minamele,

startled, sucked in a sharply audible breath of air His was not a face she

knew, nor did he seem to recognize her He was, however, very, rery

handsome Dressed in black breeches, jacket, and boots, each minutely

wrought with gilt piping, with a brilliant cloth-of-gold cape swirling

around him and the wind blowing his golden-blond hair, this strange

nobleman seemed a sun god out of ancient legends

"Kneel down, you louts," one of the sailors hissed Cadrach dropped

immediately Minamele, nonplussed, complied more slowly She was un-

able to take her eyes off the golden man's face

"These are they. Lord," the sailor said "The ones the Niskie found As

you see, one's a girl "

"As I see," the man replied dryly "You two remain kneeling," he

directed Minamele and Cadrach "You men, go We need more sail if we

are to make Grenamman tonight "

"Yes, Lord "

As the sailors moved off hurriedly, the one they called lord turned to

finish his conversation with a burly, bearded man that Minamele guessed

was the captain The nobleman glanced at the prisoners once more before

388

Tad Wilbams

making his leonine way off the quarterdeck Minamele thought his eyes

might have lingered on her longer than curiosity alone would dictate, and

felt an unfamiliar tmgle run through herhalf fear, half excitementas

she turned to watch him go A pair of manservants scurried after him,

trying to keep his wind-whipped cloak from snagging on anything. Then,

for a brief instant, the golden-haired man looked back. Catching her eye,

he smiled.

The burly captain stared down at Cadrach and Minamele with poorly

hidden disgust "Earl says he'll decide what to do with you after his

morning meal," he growled, then spat expertly with the wind. "Women

and monkswhat could be worse luck, and especially m these times? I'd

throw you over if the master didn't happen to be aboard."

"Who . . . who is the master of this ship5" Minamele asked quietly.

"You don't recognize the crest, doxy? You didn't recognize milord

when he was standing in front of you? Aspitis Preves, Earl of Drina and

Eadne is master of this shipand you'd better hope he takes a liking to

you or you'll find yourself sleeping in kilpa beds." He spat more gray

citnl juice

Cadrach, already pale, looked ill at the captain's words, but Minamele

barely heard. She was thinking of Aspitis' golden hair and bold eyes, and

wondering how in the midst of such danger she could suddenly feel so

unexpectedly fascinated.

20

A Thousand Steps

J. m/it^* Now you have witnessed for yourself." Binabik gestured

at Qantaqa with helpless disgust. The wolf sat on her haunches, ears

flattened and hackles raised, her gray pelt starred with snowflakes "Qinkipa's

Eyes!" the troll swore, "if I could be making her do it, have assurance that

I would. She will walk back toward the abbey, but only to stay at my side

and no more." He turned to his mount again. "Qantaqa! Simon mosoq'

Ummu!" He shook his head. "She will not "

"What's wrong with her5" Sludig kicked at the ground, lifting a cloud

of snow into the biting wind. "Every hour we do not find him the trail

grows fainter. And if the boy is hurt, every hour leaves him nearer to

death."

"Daughter of the Mountains, Rimmersman," Binabik shouted, "every

hour of every day is leaving alt of us nearer to death " He blinked his

reddened eyes. "Of course we have need for haste. Do you think I do not

care for Simon5 Why have we been at trudging here and there since sunup?

If I could exchange Qantaqa's nose for mine. I would with certainty! But

she was badly frightened by the horror at Skodi's abbey, I am thinking

see! It is only with reluctance she is even following!"

Qantaqa had again balked. As Binabik looked back, she dipped her

massive head and whined, barely audible against the rising wind.

Sludig slapped his leather-clad hands on his legs with a wet smack.

"Damn me, troll, I know! But we need her nose! We don't even know

where the boy went, or why he won't answer us. We have been shouting

for hours!"

Binabik shook his head morosely. "That is what gives me the most

worry. We did not go far before finding his horsehalf of a league at the

most. We have been twice that distantness now, and most of the way

returning, but still no sign of Simon is there to see."

The Rimmersman squinted into the flurrying snow. "Come. If he's

fallen off, he'd probably make his way back down his own cracks . . .

390 Tad Williams

while they lasted Let's drag the wolf a little farther, head back toward the

abbey All the way back this time Maybe if she actually smells the boy

close by, she will do better " He urged his mount and the trailing pack-

horses forward Binabik grimaced and whistled for Qantaqa The wolf

came reluctantly

"I am not liking this storm that comes," the troll called, only a short

distance ahead, the Rimmersman had already become a bulky blur "Not

any bit This is the outrider for the darkness we saw gathering in the

north near Stormspike It is coming down with great swiftness "

"I know it," Sludig shouted over his shoulder "Soon we will have Co

look to our own safety, whether we find the boy or not."

Binabik nodded, then thumped his hand sharply against his jacketed

chest, once, twice, then a third time Unless the gods of his people were

watching, no one saw his anguished gesture

The abbey, lately the scene of such wild horror, had become a quiet,

snow-draped sepulcher The mounds of drifting snow obscured most

signs of what had become ofSkodi and her young charges, but could not

hide all Qantaqa would not approach within an arrow's flight of the silent

walls, Binabik and Sludig themselves only crossed into the abbey's door-

yard long enough to make certain that Simon was not one of the still,

white-shrouded forms, then left hurriedly

when they had put a thousand paces between themselves and the abbey,

they stopped and stood silently for a while, sharing long swallows from a

bottle of kangkang as they listened to the mournful wind Qantaqa,

obviously happy to be heading away from that dire place once more,

sniffed briefly at the air before curling up at Bmabik's feet

"Holy Aedon, troll," Sludig said at last, "what manner of witch was

that girl Skodi, anyway3 I have never seen anything to match it Was she

one of the Storm King's followers5"

"Only in the way that those like her do what the Storm King wishes,

whether they are knowing it or not She had power, but she was hoping

to become a Powerwhich, I am thinking, is very different A little Nom

Queen with her own little band of followers was what she was wishing to

be Times of war and strife are the arising times of new forces The old order

begins its changing, and those like Skodi appear, seeking to make a mark "

"I only thank blessed God for wiping out the whole nest of them to the

smallest pup " Sludig shivered and scowled "No good could have come

from any of those witchlets surviving "

Binabik looked at him curiously "The innocent can be molded, as those

children were, but sometimes luck is granting that they can be molded

back I have little belief in evil beyond redeeming, Sludig "

"Oh3" The Rimmersman laughed harshly "What about your Storm

King5 What good thing could you possibly say about such a black-hearted

hellspawn as that3"

STONE OF FAREWELL391

"Once he loved his people more than his own life," Binabik said

quietly

The sun made a surprisingly swift crossing through the murky sky By

the time they halted again, early twilight was approaching They had

twice more covered the distance between the abbey and the spot in the

deep woods that they had decided on as the outermost point All their

shouting and beating of bushes had been to no avail Simon remained

unfound, and now darkness and fresh storms were fast approaching

"Aedon's Blood," Sludig said in disgust, then patted Simon's gray

mare. which was roped to the train of pack horses "At least we did not

lose the damnable sword as well " He waved a hand at Thorn, but did not

touch it Where the black sword was visible through the loose swaddling,

snowflakes lit upon its surface and slid away, leaving it free of the white

that spattered everything else "It makes our decision more difficult,

though If the lad and the sword were lost together, we would have no

choice but to search "

Binabik looked up with angry eyes "What 'decision' do you speak

about3"

"We can't very well abandon everything for the stripling, troll I'm

fond of him, the good Lord knows, but we have our duty to Prince

Josua You and the other book-readers keep saying chat josua needs this

blade or we are all doomed Should we ignore that to hunt for a lost boy3

Then we would be more foolish than the boy was for getting lost in the

first place "

"Simon is not foolish " Binabik buried his face in the ruffofQantaqa's

neck for a long moment "And I am tired of being an oath-breaker I

swore for his protection " The troll's voice was muffled by the wolfs pelt,

but the straining edge was unmistakable

"We are forced to difficult choices, troll "

Binabik looked up His usually mild brown gaze had turned flinty

"Do not be speaking to me of choices Do not go teaching me about

difficulty Take the sword On my master's grave I swore to protect

Simon To me, nothing else has more importance "

"Then you are the most foolish of all," Sludig growled "We are down

to two left while the world freezes around us Would you send me alone

with the sword that could save your people and mine3 All so you need not

be an oath-breaker to a dead master3"

Binabik straightened His eyes brimmed with angry tears "Do not dare

speak to me of my oath," he hissed "I am taking no advice from a witless

Croohok'"

Sludig raised a gloved fist as though to strike at the little man The

Rimmersman stared at his own trembling hand, then turned and stalked

out of the clearing Binabik did not look up to see him ago, but instead

392 Tad Williams

returned to stroking Qantaqa's shaggy back. A tear ran down his cheek

and vanished into the fur of his hood.

Minutes passed without even a bird's cry.

"Troll?" Sludig stood at the edge of the glade, just beyond the horses.

Binabik still would not look up. "Listen, man," Sludig continued, "you

must listen to me." The Rimmersman still hung back, like an unexpected

guest waiting to be invited indoors. "Once, soon after we first met, I told

you that you knew nothing of honor. I wished to go and kill Storfot,

Thane of Vcstvennby, for his insults to Duke Isgnmnur. You said I

should not go. You said that my lord Isgnmnur had given me a task to

perform, and that putting that task's fulfillment in Jeopardy was neither

brave or honorable, but foolish."

The troll continued to rub distractedly along Qantaqa's back.

"Binabik, I know you arc honorable. You know 1 am the same. We

have a bad choice to make, but it is not right that allies should fight and

throw insults like stones at each other."

The troll still did not reply, but his hands fell from the wolf and into his

lap. He crouched unspeakmg for long moments, chin on chest.

"1 have been disgracing myself, Sludig," he said at last. "You are right

to be hurling my own words back into my face. I beg for your pardon,

although I have done nothing for its deserving." He turned an unhappy

face up to the Rimmersman, who took a few steps back into the clearing.

"We cannot afford to search for Simon forever," Sludig said quietly.

"That is a truth separate from love and friendship."

"You are not wrong," Binabik said. He shook his head slowly. "Not

wrong." He stood and moved toward the bearded soldier, extending a

small hand. "If you can show forgiving of my stupidity ..."

"There is nothing to forgive." His broad palm clasped Bmabik's, en-

gulfing it.

A weary smile flitted across the troll's face. "Then one favor there is I

will ask. Let us be making a fire here during tonight and tomorrow night,

and we will call for Simon. If we are finding no trace of him, then the

morning after tomorrow we will walk on toward the Stone of Farewell.

Otherwise, I will feel as though 1 have deserted him without proper

searching."

Sludig nodded gravely. "Fairly spoken. Now, we should gather wood.

Night is coming on quickly."

"The cold wind is not lessening, either," Binabik said, frowning. "An

unhappy thought for all who are out of doors without shelter."

^

Brother Hengfisk, the king's unpleasant cupbearer, gestured to the

doorway. The monk's grin was as derangedly fixed as ever, as though he

STONE OF FAREWELL393

struggled with some monstrous humor only barely held in check. The

Ear] of Utanyeat stepped through the door and silent Hengfisk scuttled

away down the stairs, leaving the earl standmgjust inside the bell chamber.

Guthwulf took a moment to catch his breath. It was a very long climb

up the tower steps and the earl had not been sleeping well lately.

"You called for me. Highness?" he said at last.

The king stood hunched over the sill of one of the high-arched win-

dows, his heavy cloak glinting in the torchlight like a fly's glass-green

back. Although the afternoon was only half gone, the sky outside was

evening-dark, purple and sullen gray. The curve ofElias' shoulders made

Guthwulf think of a vulture. The king wore the heavy gray sword

scabbarded at his side; seeing it, the earl shivered uncontrollably.

"The storm is almost upon us," Elias said without turning. "Have you

been this high in Green Angel Tower before?"

Guthwulf forced himself to speak casually. "I have been m the entry

hall. Perhaps once to the chaplain's rooms on the second floor. Never this

high, sire."

"It is a strange place," the king said, his gaze still fixed on something

beyond the northwestern window. "This place. Green Angel Tower, was

once the center of the greatest kingdom Osten Ard has ever seen. Did you

know that, Guthwulf?" Ehas swung away from the window. His eyes

were bright, but his face was drawn and lined as though his iron crown

were cinched too tightly about his brow.

"Do you mean your father's kingdom, Highness?" the earl asked,

puzzled and more than a little fearful. He had felt only a kind of dread when

he had received this latest summons. This man was no longer his old

friend. At times the king seemed almost unchanged, but Guthwulf could

not ignore the underlying reality: the Elias he had known might as well be

dead. However, the gallows in Battle Square and the spikes atop the

Nearulagh Gate were now crowded with the mortal remains of chose who

had upset this new Elias in some way or other. Guthwulf knew to keep his

mouth well shut and do what he was toldat least for a while longer.

"Not my father's, idiot. For the love of God, my hand stretches over a

far realer kingdom than his ever did. My father had King Uuth on his

very doorstep; now there are no other kings but me." Elias' moment of

bad temper faded as he waved his arm expansively. "No, Guthwulf, there

are more things in this world than such as you can even dream of. This

was once the capital of a mighty empirevaster than Fingil's Greater

Rimmersgard, older than the Nabban of the Imperators, stronger in lore

than lost Khandia." His voice sank so that it was almost lost in the call of

the wind. "But with his help, I will make this castle [he seat of an even

greater kingdom."

"Whose help, Highness?" Guthwulf could not refrain from asking. He

felt a surge of cold jealousy. "Pryrates?"

394 Tad Williams

Elias looked at him oddly for a moment, then burst into laughter.

"Pryrates! Guthwulf, you are artless as a child!"

The Earl of the Utanyeat bit the inside of his cheek to hold back the

angryand potentially fatalwords. He clenched and unclenched his

scarred fists. "Yes, my king," he said at last.

The king was once more staring out the window. Above his head, the

great bells slept in dark clusters. Thunder muttered somewhere far away.

"But the priest does keep secrets from me," Elias said. "He knows my

power is growing as my understanding increases, and so he tries to hide

things from me. Do you see that, Guthwulf?" He pointed out the win-

dow. "Well, Fires of Hell, man, how can you see from there?" the king

snarled. "Come closer! Do you fear the wind will freeze you?" He laughed

strangely.

Guthwulf reluctantly stepped forward, thinking of what Elias had been

like before this insanity had begun to creep in: quick-tempered, yes, but

not inconstant as a spring breeze; fond of jokes, but with the bluff humor

of a soldier, not this mocking and incomprehensible wit. It was growing

harder and harder for Guthwulf to recall that other man, his friend.

Ironically, it seemed that the madder Elias became, the more he grew to

resemble his brother Josua.

"There." The king gestured across the damp rooftops of the Hayholt

toward the gray bulk of Hjeldin's Tower, squatting along the Inner

Bailey's northern wall. "I gave that to Pryrates to use for his various

endeavourshis investigations, if you willand now he keeps it always

locked; he will not even give a key to his king. For my safety, he says."

Elias glared across at the priest's brooding tower, gray as the sky, upper

windows of thick red glass. "He is growing very proud, the alchemist."

"Banish him, Eliasor destroy him!" Guthwulf spoke without think-

ing, then decided to press on- "You know I have always spoken to you as

a friend, blunt when it was needed. And you know I am no craven who

whimpers when a little blood is spilled or a few bones are cracked. But that

man is poisonous as a serpent and far more dangerous. He will stab you in

the back. Only say the word and I will kill him." When he finished he

found that his heart was racing, as in the hour before battle.

The king stared for a moment, then laughed again. "Ah, there is the

Wolf I knew. No, no, old friend, I told you once before: / need Pryrates,

and I will use whatever I need to perform the grand task before me.

Neither will he stab me in the back, for you see, he needs me, too. The

alchemist uses meor thinks he does."

Thunder pealed again in the distance as Elias stepped away from the

window and laid his hand on Guthwulfs arm. The earl could feel the

radiating cold right through his heavy sleeve. "But I do not want Pryrates

to kill you," the king said, "and kill you he would, make no mistake.

His courier arrived today from Nabban. The letter tells me that negotia-

STONE OF FAREWELL

395

tions with the lector are going very well, and that Pryrates will be back in

a few days- That is why it was a happy thought to send you out to the

High Thrithings at the head of my knights. Young Fengbald was pressing

for the command, but you have always been of great service to me,

andmore importantlyyou will then be out of the red priest's path until

he has done what I need."

"I am grateful for the chance to serve, my king," Guthwulf said slowly,

several kinds of anger and fear swelling venomously within him. To think

that the Earl of Utanyeat had come to such sneaking and bowing!

What if he were to grab Elias, he thought suddenly, wildlyjust grab

the king and then fling himself over the window's low railing, both of

them plunging down over a hundred cubits to smash like eggs. Usires the

Ransomer, what a relief it would be to end this festering brain-sickness

that had crept all through the Hayholt and through Guthwulf himself! His

mind reeled. Aloud, he only said: "Are you sure that these rumors of your

brother are not just that? Rumors only, the imaginings of complaining

peasants? I find it hard to believe that anything could have survived . . .

could have survived Naglimund." One step, he thought, just one, then

the two of them would be gliding down through the heavy air. It would

all be over in moments and the long dark sleep would begin. . . .

Elias moved away from the window, breaking the spell. Guthwulf felt

chill sweat beading on his forehead. "I do not heed 'rumors,' my dear

Utanyeat. I am Elias the High King, and I know." He stalked to a window

on the tower's far side, one that faced southeast, into the teeth of the

wind. His hair swirled, black as a crow's wing. "There." He pointed out

across the choppy, leaden-hued Kynslagh into the murky distance. A flash

of lightning briefly illuminated the deep wells of his eyes. "Josua lives,

indeed, and he is somewhere . . . out. . . there. I have received word from a

trusted source." Thunder came, chasing the lightning. "Pryrates tells me

my energies could be better spent. He tells me not to worry about my

brother. Ifl had not seen a thousand kinds of proof of Pryrates' black and

empty heart, I would think he felt sorry for Josua, so strongly does he

argue against this mission. But I will do as I please. I am the king and I

want Josua dead." Another lightning flare etched his face, which was

twisted like a ritual mask. The king's voice strained; for a moment it

seemed that only his white-knuckled grasp upon the stone sill kept him

from toppling. "And I want my daughter back. Back. I want Miriamele

back. She has disobeyed her father, joining with his enemies - . . with my

enemies. She must be punished."

Guthwulf could think of nothing to say. He nodded his head, trying to

dispel the terrible thoughts that now surged within him like a well filling

with black water. The king and his cursed sword! Even now, Guthwulf

felt the blade's presence sickening him. He would go to the Thrithings and

hunt for Josua, if that was what Elias wished. At least he would be out of

396

Tad Williams

this horrible castle with its night sounds, its fearful servants and mad,

mourning king. He would be able to think again. The earl would breathe

unsullied air and keep the company of soldiers once more, men with whose

thoughts and conversation he was comfortable.

Thunder rang through the chamber, setting the bells to humming. "I

will do as you say, my king," he said.

"Of course," Elias nodded, calm again. "Of course."

^

Scowling Guthwulf had gone away, but the king stayed for some time,

staring out into the cloudy sky, listening to the wind as carefully as if he

understood its mournful tongue. Rachel, Mistress of Chambermaids, was

beginning to feel very uncomfortable in her cramped hiding place. Still,

she had learned what she needed to know. Her mind was full of ideas

quite beyond her usual concerns: lately, Rachel the Dragon had found

herself thinking thoughts she had never dreamed possible.

Wrinkling her nose against the harsh but familiar scent of polishing

grease, she peeked out of the crack between the stone doorframe and the

warped wooden door. The king was still as a statue, gazing off into

nothingness. Rachel was again filled with horror at her own transgression.

Spying like the most slatternly, brought-in-just-for-the-holy-days servant

girl! And on the High King! Elias was the son of her beloved King

Johneven if he couldn't hope to match up to his fatherand Rachel, the

Hayholt's last bastion of rectitude, was spying on him.

The thought make her feel faint and weak; the odoriferous grease did not

help. She leaned against the wall of the bell-ringer's closet and was grateful

for its narrow confines. Between the stacks of rope, the bell hooks and

grease pots and brick walls standing close at either shoulder, she could not

topple over even if she tried-

She had not meant to spy, of coursenot really. She had heard the

voices as she was examining the woefully dirty stairs at Green Angel

Tower's third floor. She had stepped quietly out of the spiraling passage-

way into a curtained alcove so as not to seem to be listening to the king's

business, for she had recognized Elias* voice almost immediately. The

king had climbed past, speaking as though to the grinning monk Hengfisk

who accompanied him everywhere, but his words had seemed like bab-

bling nonsense Co Rachel. "Whispers from Nakkiga," he had said, and

"songs of the upper air." He had spoken of "listening for the cry of the

witnesses," and "the day of the hilltop bargain coming soon," and of

things even less understandable.

The pop-eyed monk followed at the king's bootheels, as he always did

these days. The mad words of Elias washed over him, but the monk only

STONE OF FAREWELL

397

nodded ceaselessly as he scrambled along behindthe king's grinning

shadow.

Fascinated and excited in a way she had not felt for some time, Rachel

had found herself following through the shadows a few ells behind the

pair as they climbed what seemed a thousand steps up the tower's long

stairway. The king's litany of incomprehensibles had continued until at

last he and the monk disappeared into the bell chamber. Feeling her age

and the throbbing of her infirm back, she had remained on the floor

below. Leaning against the oddly-tiled stone walls, fighting for breath, she

had wondered again at her own boldness. An open workroom lay before

her. A great pulley had been spread in pieces on top of a sawdust-mantled

block; a sledge lay on the floor nearby, as though its owner had disap-

peared in midswing. There was only the main room and a curtained

alcove beside the stairwell: thus, when the monk suddenly came pattering

back down the steps, there had truly been no choice but to bolt for the

alcove-

At the far end of the niche she had discovered a wooden ladder leading up

into darkness. Knowing she was caught between the king above and

whoever his cupbearer might bring from below, she had seen no other

choice but to climb upward in search of a more secure hiding place:

anyone walking too close to the alcove might brush the curtain aside and

reveal her, delivering Rachel up to humiliation or worse.

Worse. The thought of the heads rotting like black fruit atop Nearulagh

gate spurred her old bones up the ladder, which turned out to lead straight

to the bell-ringer's closet.

So it had not really been her fault, had it? She had not truly meant to

spyshe had been virtually forced to listen to Elias' confusing conversa-

tion with the Earl of Utanyeat. Surely good Saint Rhiap would under-

stand, she told herself, and would intercede on Rachel's behalf when it

came time to read from the Great Scroll in Heaven's anteroom.

She peered out through the door-crack again. The king had moved to

another windowthis one facing north, into the churning black heart of

the approaching stormbut otherwise seemed no nearer to leaving. Ra-

chel was beginning to feel panicky- People used to say that Elias spent

many sleepless nights at work with Pryrates in Hjeldin's Tower. Was it

the king's particular madness to walk around in towers until the break of

dawn? It was only afternoon now. Rachel felt another bout of dizziness.

Was she to be trapped in here forever?

Her eyes, wildly darting, lit upon something carved on the inside of the

bolted door and widened in surprise.

Somebody had scratched the name MiriameSe into the wood. The letters

were cut deeply, as though whoever had done it had been trapped like

Rachel, fidgeting away the time. But who would be here in the first place

that might do such a thing?

398 Tad Williams

For a moment she thought of Simon, remembering how the boy would

climb like an ape and get into trouble that others could not even find He

had loved Green Angel Towerwasn't it just a bit before King John

died that Simon had knocked over Barnabas the sexton downstairs3 Rachel

smiled faintly The boy had been a very devil

Thinking of Simon, she abruptly remembered what the chandler's boy

jeremias had said The smile dissolved from her face Pryrates Pryrates

had killed her boy When she thought of the alchemist, Rachel felt a hatred

that burned and bubbled like quicklime, a hatred quite unlike anything she

had ever felt in her life

Rachel shook her head, dizzied It was horrifying to think about Pryrates

What Jeremias told her about the hairless priest gave her ideas, black

thoughts she had not known she was capable of thinking

Frightened by the power other feelings, she forced her attention back to

the wall carving

Squinting at the careful letters, Rachel decided that, whatever other

mischief Simon had gotten into, this carving was not his doing It was far

too neat Even with Morgenes' instruction, Simon's writing had wandered

across a page like a drunken beetle These letters were made by someone

educated But who would carve the princess' name in such an out of the

way place5 Bamabas the sexton used this closet, no doubt, but the idea of

that sour, juiceless, leathery old lizard carving Mmamele's name labori-

ously into the door beggared even Rachel's imagination, and Rachel could

imagine men committing virtually any evil or stupidity if freed from the

proper influence of women Even so, sexton Barnabas as a pining lover

was too much to conceive

Her thoughts were wandering, Rachel chided herself angrily Was she

indeed so old and fearful that she must distract herself at a time when she

had many important things to think about3 A plan had been forming in

her mind since the night she and the other chambermaids had rescued

Jeremias but a part other wanted to forget about it, wanted things tojust

be the way they once were

Nothing will ever be the same, you old fool Face up to it

It was harder and harder to hide from such decisions these days Con-

fronted with the runaway chandler's lad, Rachel and her charges had

eventually realized that there was no solution but to help him escape, so

they had smuggled him out of the Hayholt one day's end, Jeremias

disguised as a chambermaid returning home to Erchester As she watched

the ill-used boy go limping to safety, Rachel had been seized by a revela-

tion the evil haunting her home could be ignored no longer And, she

now thought grimly, where the Mistress of Chambermaids saw that

which was foul, she must make it clean

Rachel heard the scuffling of heavy boots across the white stone floor of

the bell-chamber and risked a peek through the narrow opening The

STONE OF FAREWELL399

king's green-cloaked form was just disappearing through the doorway.

She listened as his steps descended and grew fainter, then waited a long

while after they had passed from her hearing altogether before she clam-

bered back down the ladder She stepped out from behind the curtain into

the ainness of the stairwell, then patted at her forehead and cheeks, which

were damp with perspiration despite the cold stone Stepping carefully and

quietly, she began to descend

The king's conversation had told her much that she needed to know

Now, she must only wait and think Surely planning such a thing could

not be half as complicated as commanding a spring cleaning3 And, m a

way, that was what she planned, was it not3

Her old bones aching, but her face stretched in an odd smile chat would

have sec her chambermaids to shuddering, Rachel walked slowly down

Green Angel Tower's endless stairway

^

Bmabik's eyes would not meet Sludig's across the cookfire Instead, the

troll swept his sad pile of knuckle-bones back into their bag He had cast

them several times that morning The results seemed to give mm little

pleasure

Sighing, the troll pocketed the sack, then turned and poked in the ashes

of the fire with a stick, digging out their breakfast, a cache of nuts that he

had located and dug from the frozen ground It was a bitterly cold day,

and their saddlebags were empty of food Binabik was not above stealing

from squirrels

"Do not speak," the troll said abruptly After an hour of silence, Sludig

had just opened his mouth "Please, Sludig, for a moment be saying

nothing Just the flask ofkangkang from your pocket I am asking for "

The Rimmersman sadly handed over the flask Binabik took a long

swallow, then wiped the sleeve of his jacket across his mouth The sleeve

made another pass across the troll's eyes

"A promise I made," he said quietly "I was asking for two night's fires

and you gave them Now I must be fulfilling the oath that of all I would

be most happily breaking We must take the sword to the Stone of

Farewell "

Sludig began to speak, but instead accepted the flask back from Binabik

and took a deep draught

Qantaqa returned from a hunting foray to discover the troll and the

Rimmersman wordlessly bundling their few belongings onto the pack-

horses The wolf watched them for a moment, then uttered a low moan of

distress and danced away She curled up at the edge of the clearing and

peered solemnly at Binabik and Sludig over the fence of her brushy tail

Binabik lifted the White Arrow out of the saddle bag and held it up, then

400 Tad Williams

pressed its wooden shaft against his cheek, the arrow shone more brightly

than the powdery snow lying all around He tucked the arrow back into

the bag "I will be back for you," the little man said to no one present "I

will find you "

He called for Qantaqa Sludig swung up into his own saddle and they

vanished into the forest, the string of pack horses following The downsiftmg

snow began to fill in their footprints By the time the muffled sounds of

their passage faded, all trace of their presence m the clearing was gone

4^

v

Sitting m one place lamenting his fate wasn't going to do him much

good, Simon decided In any case, the sky was becoming unpleasantly

dark for mid-morning and snow was beginning to fall more heavily He

stared ruefully at the looking glass Whatever Jinki's mirror might be, the

Sithi pnnce had spoken truth when he said that it would not bring him

magically to Simon's side He put it back m his cloak and stood up,

rubbing his hands

It was possible that Bmabik and Sludig were still somewhere close by

perhaps, like Simon, they had also been tumbled from their mounts and

were in need of help He had no idea how long he had lain helplessly in

the gnp of sleep, listening to the Sicha-woman speaking through his

dreamsit might have been hours or days His companions could still be

close by, or they might have given up on him They could be leagues

away.

Pondering the bleak possibilities, he began walking in what he hoped

was an expanding spiral, something he dimly remembered Bmabik sug-

gesting as a good thing to do when people were lost It was difficult to

know if this spiral-walking was exactly the right thing to do, however,

since he was not sure precisely who was lost Also, he had not paid

particularly close attention when the little man had explained how one

calculated this spiralthe troll's woodcraft lecture had concerned the

movement of sun, the coloration of bark and leaves, the direction certain

tree roots sprouted as they lay m running water, but at the time Bmabik

had been explaining these things, Simon had been watching a three-legged

lizard slowly limping along the Aldheorte Forest floor It was a shame

Bmabik had not tried to make his explanation a little more interesting,

Simon thought, but it was too late to do anything about it now

He tramped on through the thickening snowfall as the sun rose invisibly

behind the smother of clouds The brief afternoon arnved, then almost

immediately began preparing to leave The wind blew and the storm

seized Aldheorte in its frosty fingers and squeezed The cold jabbed at

Simon through his cloak, which began to feel as thin as a lady's summer

veil, it had seemed adequate while he was still m the company of friends,

401

STONE OFFAREWELL

but when he thought about it, he could not remember the last time he had

felt truly warm

As the day of unrewarded snow-trudging dragged on, his stomach

began to ache as well He had last eaten in Skodi's housethe memory of

the meal and its aftermath dislodged one of the few remaining shivers that

the cold wind had not yet discovered Who could say how much time had

passed since then5

Holy Aedon, he prayed, give me food The thought became a sort of verse

chat echoed over and over in his head in time with the crunching of snow

beneath his boots

Unfortunately, this was a problem that would not go away by thinking

of something else Neither had it gotten as bad as it could get Simon

knew he could not get any more lost than he was at that moment, but he

could become a great deal more hungry

In his time with Bmabik and the soldiers he had gotten used to others

doing the hunting and gathering, when he had helped, it was usually at

someone else's direction Suddenly he was as alone as he had been during

those first awful days in Aldheorte after he had fled the Hayholt He had

been dreadfully hungry then, and had survived until the troll found him,

but that had not been winter weather He had also been able to pilfer from

isolated freeholdmgs Now he wandered in a frozen and unpeopled wilder-

ness that made his earlier sojourn in the forest seem an afternoon outing

The storm winds rose m pitch The very air seemed to grow suddenly

colder, sending Simon into a fresh spasm of trembling As the forest

began to darken ever so slightly, sending the first warning that even this

weak daylight could not last forever, Simon found himself fighting back a

rising surge of horror All day long he had tried to ignore the faint

scrabbling of its claws at times he had felt as though he walked along the

edge of an abyss, a pit which had no bottom, no limit

In a situation like this, Simon realized, it would be very easy to go

madnot to spring suddenly into arm-waving lunacy, like a beggerman

ranting on Tavern Row, but rather to slip over into quiet madness He

would make some unrecognized misstep and topple slowly, helplessly into

the abyss whose nearness seemed at that moment so unarguably clear He

would fall and fall until he did not even remember that he was falling

anymore His real life, his memories, the friends and the home he had

once had, all would dwindle until they were nothing but ancient, dusty

objects inside a head like a boarded-up cottage

Was that what dying was like, he suddenly wondered7 Did a part of you

stay in your body, as in Skodi's ghastly song? Did you lie in the earth and

feel your thoughts dwindling away bit by bit, like a sandbar broken down

and earned off by a flowing stream? And now that he thought of it,

would that be so terrible after allto lie in the damp and dark and JUSC

402 Tad Williams

slowly cease Co be7 Might it not be better than the frantic concerns of the

living, the useless struggle against impossible odds, the panicky and point-

less flight from death's ultimate vlctory?

To give m Tojust stop fighting . .

It had a pacific sound to it, like a sad but pretty song It seemed a gentle

promise, a kiss before sleeping . . .

Simon was falling forward. Shocked into alertness, he threw out a hand

and steadied himself against the trunk of a skeletal birch. His heart was

beating very swiftly.

He saw with astonishment that snow had gathered thickly on his shoul-

ders and boots, as though he had stood m this place for a long timebut it

had seemed like the merest instant! He shook his head and slapped at his

cheeks with gloved fingers until the stinging brought life surging back

through his body. He growled at himself. To almost fall asleep standing

up' To freeze on your feet' What kind of a mooncalf was he^

No He growled again and shook his head. Binabik and Sludig had said

he was almost a man: he would not prove them wrong so easily. It was

cold and he was hungry, that was all. He would not cry and give up like a

lowly apprentice scullion locked out of the kitchen. Simon had seen and

done many things. He had survived worse than this.

But what should he do?

He couldn't solve the lack of food immediately, he knew, but that

wasn't so bad. One thing Binabik had said that Simon remembered very

well was chat a person could go a long time without food, but could not

survive a single night in the cold without shelter. For this reason, the troll

always said, fire was very, very important.

But Simon had no fire, nor could he make one

As he considered this grim fact, he kept walking Despite the fast-

increasing darkness he hoped to find a better camping place before he

stopped The snow was falling faster now, and at the moment he was

slogging along the bottom of a long, shallow canyon. He wanted to find

higher ground, someplace where he would not have to dig his way out if

he survived the night. Thinking about this, Simon felt a painful smile

form on his cracked lips With the dreadful luck he had been having, the

high place he chose would probably be struck by lightning.

He laughed hoarsely and was momentarily heartened by the sound of

his own mirth, but the wind snatched it away before he could savor it.

The spot he chose was a stand of hemlocks clustered atop a low hill like

white-caped sentries. He would have preferred the shelter of several large

stonesor better still, a cavebut his luck was not so generous. He

ignored the gurghngs of his empty stomach as he briefly surveyed the

little copse, then set to work pressing snow into hard lumps These he

piled between the trees on the windward side, pressing and smoothing

STONE OF FAREWELL403

them together until he had a serviceable wall that reached to a little above

his knees

As the last light started to bleed from the sky, Simon began pulling

branches from the surrounding hemlocks He pilled them near the base of

his snow-bulwark until he had made a bed of springy needles nearly as

high as the wall Not yet content, he continued his way around the

clearing, using his Qanuc knife to cut branches by the handful until a pile

of equal size lay beside the first He stopped for a moment, breathing

heavily, and felt the chill air suck the warmth away from his exposed face

as abruptly as if he had been fitted with a mask of sleet

Suddenly aware of the enormity of trying to stay warm during the

wintery night to comeand of the fact that if he decided wrong, he might

not wake up the following morninghe was spurred to a feverish renewal

of his efforts He shored up the snow wall, making it a little taller and

much thicker, then built a lower wall supported by tree trunks on the

other side of the first pile of branches He raced around the copse cutting

more brancheshis gloves were now so resinous that he could not sepa-

rate the fingers, and could only remove his hand from his knife by

stepping on the blade firstuntil the height of both piles equaled that of

his windward wall. By now it was almost too dark to see even the great

trees were rapidly blurring into murky smudges against the near-luminous

snow.

He lay down on his bed of branches, bending his knees and pulling his

long legs up against his body so that they would benefit as much as

possible from being wrapped m his cloak, then began to pull the remain-

ing branches over himself. He tried his best, with clumsy, sticky fingers,

to weave them together so that there were no large exposed areas, and

ended by reaching awkwardly up through the hemlock blanket to drag the

last few branches over his head He then turned his face sideways so that it

was mostly hidden in his hood The position was miserably uncomfort-

able and unnatural in the extreme, but he could feel his own warm breath

whispering in the pocket of the hood, for this little while at least, he

stopped shivering

He had been so exhausted when he lay down that Simon expected to be

asleep in a matter of moments, despite the tickling branches and his

cramped legs Instead, he found himself growing gradually more wakeful

as the first hour of night wore on The cold, while not as sharply biting as

when he had earlier walked through the forest into the teeth of the wind,

nevertheless sneaked through his meager shelter and seeped down into his

bones and flesh It was a dull and relentless sort of cold, patient as stone

The chill was bad enough, but though the thunder of his breathing and

the drumbeat of his heart were loud m his ears, he could hear other,

stranger noises as well He had forgotten how differently the night forest

sounded when no friend slept nearby. The wind moaned achmgly through

404 Tad Williams

the trees; other sounds seemed ominously stealthy, yet were loud enough

to be heard even above the lamenting wind. After all the horrors he had

seen, he harbored no idle hopes that the night was innocent of dangers

surely he was hearing damned souls crying m the storm, and lumbering

Hunen prowling the forest in search of warm blood!

As the night marched on, Simon felt black dread rising once more. He

was all alone! He was a lost, doomed fool of a mooncalf who should never

have dabbled in the affairs of his betters! Even if he survived the night,

even if he was spared the clutches of some gibbering, faceless mghtwalker,

it would only be to starve m the daylight! Certainly he could last a few

days, perhaps weeks if he was lucky, but from what Binabik had told him

it was many leagues to the Stone of Farewelland that was assuming that

he knew how to get there at all, and could find his way through Aldheorte's

unsympathetic depths to do so. Simon knew he did not possess the

woodcraft to survive a long exile in the wild: he was no Jack Mundwode,

not even close. Similarly, there was almost no chance that anyone who

could help would pass through this remote part of the northeastern forest,

especially in such hellish weather.

Worst of all, his friends were long gone. In the middle of the afternoon

he had suddenly found himself m a fit of panicky shouting, repeating their

names over and over again until his throat felt rough as a butcher's block.

At the last, just before his voice gave out, he thought he had been

screaming the names of the dead. That was the most frightening thought

of all, a path that ran very close to the abyss: shout for the dead today,

speak to them tomorrow, join them soon afterin a living death of

irredeemeable madness if nothing else, and that might be worse than

actually dying.

He lay beneath the branches and shivered, but no longer from only the

chill. Darkness rose within him and Simon struggled against it. He didn't

want to die yet, that he knewbut did it matter? There seemed to be

nothing he could do about it one way or the other.

But I will not die here, he decided at last, pretending for a moment he had

been offered some choice. He felt for his own desperation and began to

smooth it down and push it back, quieting it like a frightened horse. I've

touched dragon blood. I won a Sithi White Arrow. It all means something, doesn't

^

He didn't know if it did all mean something, but he suddenly wanted

very much to live.

I won't die yet. I want to see Binabik a^ain, andjosua . . . and Mfriamele.

And I want to see Pryrates and Elias suffer for what they did. I want a home

agaw, a warm bedoh, mercijul fJsires, if you really are real, let me have a home

a^ain! Don't let me die in the cold! Let me find a home . . . a home . . . let me

jind a home. . . !

Sleep was conquering him at last. He seemed to hear his own voice

STONE OFFAREWELL

405

echoing down an old stone well. At last he slid away from cold and

painful thoughts into a warmer place.

He survived that night and six more nights after it, each followed by a

morning of terrible, frigid stiffness, of solitude and increasing hunger.

The unseasonal cold had killed many of Spring's children in the womb,

but some plants had managed to bud and flower in the brief, false season

of warmth before the deadly winter returned to stay. Binabik and the Sithi

had both given him flowers to eat, but Simon had no idea if there were

right or wrong kinds of flowers. He ate what few he could find. They did

not fill him up, but neither did they kill him. Patches of bitter yellow

grass very bitterhad survived beneath some of the snow hummocks as

well, and he made full use of all he could find. Once, in a moment of

starved unreason, he even tried to eat a handful of fir needles. They tasted

astoundmgly dreadful, and the sap and his own froth made a sticky,

half-frozen mess of his downy beard.

One day, when his longing for something solid to eat had become a

maddening obsession, a chill-baffled beetle wandered across his path.

Rachel the Dragon had held a very firm line on the almost incalculable

filthmess of such vermin, but Simon's stomach had become a far more

powerful force than even Rachel's training. He could not let this opportu-

nity pass.

Despite his hollow gut, the first one proved very difficult. When he felt

the tiny legs moving within his mouth, he gagged and spit the beetle into

the snow. Its aimless kicking made him want to be sick, but a moment

later he snatched it up again, then chewed and swallowed it as quickly as

he could. The beetle's texture was that of a delicate, slightly flexible

nutshell, the taste little more than a musty tang. When an hour had passed

with none of Rachel's dire predictions coming to pass, Simon began to

watch the ground carefully m hope of a few more such slow-moving

morsels.

Different than his great hunger, and in some ways worse, was the

continuing cold: when he could find and devour a fistful of lutegrass, his

hunger was for a moment made less, and when he had hiked the first

morning hour, his muscles stopped aching for a short time ... but after

that initial moment when he first crawled into his forest-bed, he was never

warm again. When he ceased moving even for a few short moments he

began to shiver uncontrollably. The chill was so relentless that it began to

seem chat it pursued him like an enemy. He cursed at it weakly, swinging

his arms through the air as though the malevolent cold was something he

could strike, as he had struck at the dragon Igjarjuk, but cold was every-

where and nowhere; it had no black blood to spill.

There was nothing that Simon could do but walk. So, during all the

406

Tad Williams

painful hours of daylight, from Ehe rime his cramped limbs forced him

from his makeshift bed each morning to the hour when the sun finally

withdrew from the sodden gray sky, he walked almost ceaselessly south-

ward. The rhythm of his shuffling feet became as much a pan of the cycle

of life as the rise and fall of the wind, the passage of the sun, the settling of

snowflakes. He walked because it kept him warm; he walked south because

he dimly remembered Binabik saying that the Stone of Farewell stood in

the grasslands south of Aldheorte. He knew he could never survive a

journey through the entire forest, a passage across a vast nation of trees

and snow, but he had to have some destination: the endless tramping was

easier if all he had to do was let the occluded sun pass from his left to

his right.

He also walked because when he stood still the cold began to bring

strange, frightening visions. Sometimes he saw faces in the contorted

trunks of trees and heard voices speaking his name and the names of

strangers. Other times the snowy forest seemed a thicket of towers; the

sparse greenery was transformed into leaping flames and his heart tolled in

his ears like a doomful bell-

But most importantly, Simon walked because there was nothing else he

could do. If he did not keep moving, he would dieand Simon was not

ready to die.

"Bug now, don't run, don't flitter

Taste bitter, don't care, don't care

Bug stay, happy day, tasty bite

Don't fight ..."

It was late morning, the seventh day since his awakening. Simon was

stalking. A spotted brown and gray beetlelarger and possibly more

succulent than the small black variety which he had made a staple of his

dietwas picking its way across the trunk of a white cedar. Simon had

snatched at it once, some twenty ells back, but this beetle had wingsand

surely that proved its tastiness. since it had to work so hard to remain

uneaten!and had gone humming away most ungracefully. It had not

flown far. A second attempt had also failed, which had led to this most

recent landing place.

He was singing to himself; whether he sang out loud or not, he didn't

know. The beetle didn't seem to mind, so Simon kept it up.

"Beetle sleep, don't creep, trust me

Stand stilt, stand still, tasty crumb

Here I come, through the snow, don 'tgo . . ."

Simon, his eyes screwed down in a hunter's squint, was moving as

STONEOF FAREWELL

407

slowly as his trembling, ill-nourished body would permit. He wanted this

bettle. He needed this beetle. Feeling a shiver beginning to well up inside of

him, a shiver that would spoil his careful approach, he lunged. His palms

slapped eagerly against the bark, but when he brought his cupped hands

up to his face to peer within he saw that he held nothing.

"What do you want it for?" someone asked- Simon, who had carried on

more than a few conversations with strange voices during these last days,

had already opened his mouth to reply when his heart suddenly began

hammering in his chest. He whirled, but no one was there.

Now if's be^un, the ^omg-mad has begun . . . was all he had time to think

before someone tapped him on his shoulder. He spun again and almost fell

down.

"Here. I caught it." The beetle, curiously lifeless, hovered in the air

before him. A moment later he saw that it hung from the fingers of a

white-gloved hand. The hand's owner stepped out from behind the cedar

tree. "I don't know what you will do with it. Do your people eat these

things? I had never heard that."

For a brief instant he thought Jiriki had comethe golden-eyed face was

framed by a cloud of pale lavender hair, Jiriki's own odd shade, and

feathered braids hung beside each up-slanting cheekbonebut after a long,

staring instant he realized it was not his friend.

The stranger's face was very slender, but still slightly rounder than

Jiriki's. As with the prince, the alien architecture made some of this Sitha's

expressions seem cold or cruel or even faintly animalistic, yet still strangely

beautiful. The newcomer seemed younger and more unguarded than Jiriki:

her facehe had just realized that the stranger was femalechanged

swiftly from expression to expression even as he watched, like an ex-

change of subtle masks. Despite what seemed the fluidity and energy of

youth, Simon saw that deep in the cat-calm, golden eyes, this stranger

shared with Jiriki the ancient Sithi light.

"Seoman," she said, then laughed whisperingly. Her white-clad finger

touched his brow, light and strong as a bird's wing. "Seoman Snowlock."

Simon was quivering. "Wh . . . wh . . . who. . . ?"

"Aditu." Her eyes were faintly mocking. "My mother named me Aditu

no-Sa'onserei. I have been sent for you."

"S-sent? B-b-by. . . ?"

Aditu tilted her head to one side, stretching her neck sinuously, and

regarded Simon as someone might an untidy but interesting animal that

crouched on the doorstep. "By my brother, manchild. By Jiriki, of

course." She stared as Simon began to sway gently from side to side.

"Why do you look so strange?"

"Were you ... in my dreams?" he asked plaintively.

She continued to watch curiously as he abruptly sat down in the snow

beside her bare feet.

408 Tad Williams

"Certainly I have boots," Aditu said later. Somehow she had built a

fire, scraping away the snow and stacking the wood right beside the spot

where Simon had crumpled, then igniting it with some swift movement

of her slender fingers. Simon stared intently into the flames, trying to

make his mind work properly once more. "I just wanted to take them off

so I could approach more quietly." She eyed him blandly. "I did not

know what it was that could make such a blundering noise, but it was

you, of course. Still, there is something fine about the feel of snow on the

skin."

Simon shuddered, thinking of ice against bare toes. "How did you find

me?"

"The mirror- Its song is very powerful."

"So ... so if I had lost the mirror, you w-wouldn't have found me?"

Aditu looked at him solemnly. "Oh, I would have found you eventu-

ally, but mortals are frail creatures. There might not have been much of

interest left to find." She flashed her teeth in what he guessed was a smile.

She seemed both more and less human than Jirikialmost childishly

flippant at times, but in other ways far more exotic and alien than her

brother. Many of the traits Simon had observed in Jiriki, the feline grace

and dispassion, seemed even more pronounced in his sister.

As Simon rocked back and forth, still not absolutely sure he was awake

and sane, Aditu reached inside her white coatwhich, with her white

breeches, had made her all but indistinguishable against the snowand

removed a package wrapped in shiny cloth. She handed it to him. He

poked clumsily at the wrappings for some time before he was able to

expose what was inside: a loaf of golden-brown bread that seemed oven-

fresh, and a handful of fat pink berries.

Simon had to eat his meal m very small bites to avoid making himself

ill; even so, each less-than-a-mouthful seemed like time spent in paradise.

"Where did you find these?" he asked through a faceful of berries.

Aidtu looked at him for a long time, as if debating some important

decision. When she spoke, it was with what seemed an air of carelessness.

"You will soon see. I will take you therebut such a thing has never

happened before."

Simon did not pursue this cryptic last remark. Instead, he asked: "But

where are you taking me?"

"To my brother, as he asked me to," Adieu said. She looked solemn,

but a wild light gleamed in her eyes. "To the home of our people]ao

e-Tinukai'i."

Simon finished chewing and swallowed. "I will go anywhere there is a

fire."

21

Prince of Gross

3tl'y nothing," Hotvig murmured, "but look to the redcoat there by

the fence."

Deornoth followed the Thrithings-man's subtle gesture until his gaze lit

on a roan stallion. The horse regarded Deornoth wanly, stepping from

side to side as though he might bolt at any moment.

"Ah, yes." Deornoth nodded his head. "He is a proud one." He turned.

"Did you see this one, my prince?"

Josua, who was leaning against the gate at the far side of the paddock,

waved his hand. The prince's head was wrapped in linen bandages, and he

moved as slowly as if all of his bones were broken, but he had insisted on

coming out to assist in claiming the fruits of his wager. Fikolmy, apoplec-

tic with rage at the idea of watching Josua picking thirteen Thnthmgs

horses from the March-thane's own pens, had sent his randwarder Hotvig

in his place. Instead of mirroring his thane's attitude, Hotvig seemed

rather taken with the visitors and with Prince Josua in particular. On the

grasslands a one-handed man did not often kill an opponent half again

his size.

"What's the red's name?" Josua asked Fikolmij's horsekeeper, a wiry,

ancient man with a tiny wisp of hair on the top of his head.

" Vinyafod," this one said shortly, then turned his back.

"It means "Wind-foot" . . . Pnnce Josua." Hotvig pronounced the title

awkwardly. The randwarder went and slipped a rope about the stallion's

neck, then led the balking animal to the prince.

Josua smiled as he looked the horse up and down, then boldly reached

up and pulled at its lower lip, exposing the teeth. The stallion shook his

head and pulled away, but Josua grabbed the lip again. After a few

nervous head-shakes, the horse at last allowed himself to be examined, the

only sign of anxiety his blinking eyes. "Well, he is certainly one we shall

take east with us," Josua said, "although I doubt that will please Fikolmij."

"It will not," Hotvig said solemnly. "If his honor was not held up

410

Tad Williams

before all the clans, he would kill you just for coming near these horses

This Vin',afod was one that Fikolmi) demanded specially as part of

Blehmunt's boot\ when Fikolmi) became leader of the clans "

losua nodded solemnly "1 don't want the March-thane so angry that he

follows and murders us pledge or no pledge Deornoth I give you leave

to pick the rest. I trust your eye better than mine We -will take Vmyafod,

that is certainas a matter of fact, I think I will claim him for my own I

am tired of limping from here to there But as I said, let us not cull the

herd so thoroughly that we force Fikolmij to dishonor himself "

"I will choose carefully, sire " Deornoth strode across the paddock The

horsekeeper saw him coming and tried to sidle away, but Deornoth

hooked the old man's elbow and began asking questions The keeper was

hard-pressed to pretend he could not understand

josua watched with a faint smile on his face, shifting his balance from

one foot to another to spare his aching body Hotvig watched the prince

from the corner of his eye for a long time before he spoke

"You said you go east, Josua Why5"

The prince looked at him cunouslv "There are many reasons, some of

which I cannot discuss But mostly it is because I must find a place to

make a stand against mv brother and the evil that he has done "

Hotvig nodded his head with exaggerated seriousness "It seems that

you have kinsmen who feel as you do "

Josua's expression turned to puzzlement "What do you mean5"

"There are others of your kindother stone-dwellerswho have begun

to settle east of here That is why Fikolmi) brought us so far north of our

usual grazing areas for this season, to make sure that the newcomers were

not crossing onto our lands " A gnn crossed Hotvig's scarred face "There

were other reasons for our clan coming here, too The March-thane of the

Meadow Thnthmgs tried to steal away some of our randwarders at the

last Gathering of Clans, so Fikolmi) wanted his people far away from the

Meadow Thnthmgs Fikolmij is feared, but not well-loved Many wagons

have already left the Stallion Clan

losua waved impatiently The bickering between the Thnthmgs clans

was legendary "What about the stone-dwellers you spoke oP Who are

they5"

Hotvig shrugged and fingered his braided beard "Who can say5 They

came from the westwhole families, some traveling in carts as our people

do, some on footbut they were not our people, not Thnthmgs-men We

heard of them from our outriders when we were at the second-to-last

Gathering, but they passed through the north of the High Thnthmgs and

were gone "

"How many5"

Again the Thnthmgs-man shrugged "Stories say as many as in two or

three of our small clans "

411

STONE OF FAREWELL

"So, perhaps a hundred or two " The pnnce seemed to momentarily

escape his pain, for his face brightened as he pondered this news

"But that is not all, Prince Josua," Hotvig said earnestly "That was one

group Other companies have trickled past since then I have myself seen

two hand's worth or so all counted They are poor, though, and they have

no horses, so we let them pass out of our lands "

"You did not let my folk pass and we had not a pony between us "

Josua's smile was sardonic

"That is because Fikolmi) knew it was you The randwarders had

watched your people for several days "

Deornoth approached, the grumbling horsekeeper in tow "I have

chosen. Highness Let me show you " He pointed to a long-legged bay

"Since you have picked red Vinyafod for your own, Pnnce Josua, I have

selected this one for myself Vildahx is his nameWild-shine "

"He is splendid," Josua said, laughing "You see, Deornoth, I remem-

bered what you said about Thnthmgs horses Now you have some, Just as

you asked "

Deornoth looked at Josua's bandages "The price was too high, sire "

His eyes were sorrowful

"Show me the rest of our new herd," said Josua

Vorzheva came out to meet the pnnce as he and the others returned

from the paddock Hotvig took one look at her face and slipped away

"You are foolish to be up walking'" The thane's daughter turned to

Deornoth "How could you keep him out so long5 He is very unwell'"

Deornoth said nothing, but only bowed Josua smiled "Peace, Lady,"

the prince said "The fault is not Sir Deornoth's I wanted to see the

horses, since I am most assuredly going to ride and not walk from here "

He chuckled ruefully "Not that I could walk more than a furlong these

days in any case, even if my life were in the balance But I will get

stronger "

"Not if you stand in the cold " Vorzheva leveled her sharp-eyed glance

at Deornoth as if daring him to argue She took Josua's arm, adjusting her

pace to his halting strides, and together all three went back toward the

camp

The prince's company was still housed m the bull run Fikolmi) had

snarled thatjust because he had lost a wager was no reason that he must

treat miserable stone-dwellers like clansmen, but several of the more

high-minded Thnthings-folk had brought blankets and ropes and tent

stakes Fikolmi] was not a king while the people lending assistance to the

former prisoners gave the March-thane's camp a wide berth, neither were

they ashamed or afraid to go against his wishes

Led by practical Duchess Gutrun, Josua's people had quickly made of

these contributions a secure shelter, closed on three sides and double-

412

Tad Williams

roofed with blankets of heavy wool. This served to keep out the worst of

the cold rains, which seemed to increase m strength daily.

Above the Thnthmgs the gray-black sky hung threateningly close, as

though the very grasslands had been lifted up by giant hands. This spell of

bad weather, which had lasted nearly a week straight and off and on for

over a month, would have been unusual even in early spring. It was now

high summer, however, and the people of the Stallion Clan were openly

worried.

"Come, my lady,"Josua said as they reached the enclosure. "Let you

and I walk a little while longer."

"You should not walk more!" Vorzheva said indignantly. "Not with

your wounds! You must sit and have some hot wine."

"Nevertheless," Josua said firmly, "let us walk. I will look forward to

the wine. Deornoth, if you would pardon us. . . ?"

Deornoth nodded and bowed, turning at the gate in the bull run fence.

He watched the prince's laborious progress for a moment before he went

inside.

Josua's victory over Utvart had brought certain amenities. Like his lady,

the prince had exchanged his rags for newer garb, and now wore the soft

leather breeches, boots, and baggy-sleeved wool shirt of a randwarder, a

bright scarf knotted across his brow in place of his princely diadem.

Vorzheva wore a voluminous gray dress, rolled and belted at the hips in

the Thrithings manner to lift the hem above the wet grass, leaving visible

her thick woolen leggings and low boots. She had discarded her white

bride-band.

"Why do you take me away from the others to Calk?" Vorzheva de-

manded. Her defiant tone was belied by apprehensive eyes. "What do you

say that must be hidden?"

"Not hidden," Josua said, twining his arm around hers. "1 only wished

to speak where we would not be interrupted."

"My people do not hide things," she said. "We cannot, since we live so

close."

Josua nodded his head. "I only wished to say that I am sorry, Lady,

very sorry."

"Sorry?"

"Yes. I have treated you badly, as I admitted in your father's wagon. I

have not given you the respect you deserve."

Vorzheva's face twisted, somewhere between joy and anguish. "Ah,

still you do not understand me, Prince Josua of Erkynland. I do not care

for respect, not if that is all you give me. I want your attention. I want

your heart! If you give me that, then you can give to me all the ... the

not-respect ..."

Quietly: "Disrespect."

". . . All the disrespect you want. Do not treat me like you do the

STONE OF FAREWELL413

fanners who come to you for justice- I do not want your careful thinking,

your measuring, your talking, talking, talking ..." An angry tear was

quickly wiped away. "Just give your heart, you damned stone-dweller!"

They stopped, standing in wmd-nppled grass to their knees. "I try," he

said.

"No, you do not," she hissed bitterly. "You have that other woman's

face in your heart, your brother's wife. Men! You arc ail little boys, you

keep old loves m your heart like polished stones you have found. How can

I fight a dead woman!? I cannot grab her, I cannot slap her, I cannot drive

her away or follow you when you go to her!" She stood breathing

heavily, her legs wide-set as though braced for battle- Her hands dropped

to her stomach and her look changed. "But you did not give her a child.

You gave one to me."

Josua looked helplessly at her pale face, at the rosy flush of her checks

and her cloud of black hair. .A movement caught his eye: a rabbit,

emerging from a thatch of tall grass, stopped for a moment and rose on

its hindquarters to look around. Its dark, round eye touched his. A

moment later it sprang forward and was gone, a thin gray shadow skim-

ming the meadow.

"You have done nothing wrong. Lady," he said. "Nothing but attach

yourself to a brooding ghost of a man." He smiled sadly, then laughed.

"But in a way, I suppose, I have been reborn. I have been allowed to live

when surely I ought to have died, so I must take that as an omen and see

my life differently. You will bear our child, and we will be married when

we reach the Stone of Farewell."

A touch of indignation returned to Vorzheva's dark eyes. "We will be

married here, before my people," she said firmly. "We are betrothed: now

they will see and stop speaking behind their hands."

"But Lady," he began, "we have need of haste . . ."

"Have you no honor?" she demanded. "What if you are killed before

we reach this place? The child in me will be a bastard . . . and I will not

even be a widow."

Josua began to speak, but instead broke into laughter once more. He

reached his arm around her and pulled her close, unmindful of his injuries.

She resisted for a moment, then allowed herself to be embraced, but

retained her frown. "Lady, you are right," the prince said, smiling. "It

shall not be put off. Father Strangyeard will marry us and I will be a good

husband to you and keep you safe. And if I die before we reach our

destination, you will be the finest widow on the grasslands." He kissed

her. For a while they stood in the rain, faces pressed close together.

"You are trembling," Vorzheva said at last, but her own voice seemed

the unsteady thing. She pulled free ofJosua's embrace. "You have stood

and walked too long. If you die before we marry, it will spoil every-

thing." Her look was softer, but still some trace of apprehension re-

414 Tad Williams

mained, an edge of fear that would not go away. Josua took her hand and

lifted it to his lips. They turned and walked slowly back toward the

encampment, as carefully as if they were both very, very old.

^

"I must leave," Geloe announced that evening. Josua's people huddled

around the fire as fierce winds strummed at the walls of their makeshift

shelter.

"I hope you do not mean that," Josua said. "We have need of your

wisdom."

Deornoth felt himself both glad and sorry at the thought of the witch

woman leaving.

"We wilt all meet again, and soon," she said. "But I must go ahead to

the Stone of Farewell. Now that you are safe, there are things I must do

there before you come."

"What things?" Deomoth heard the edge of suspicion in his own voice

and was embarrassed by his lack of charity, but no one else seemed to

notice.

"There will be . . ." Geloe searched for words, ". . . shadows there.

And sounds. And faint traces like the ripples left behind when a pebble

drops into a stream. It is vital that I try to read these before people come

tramping around."

"And what will these things tell you?" Josua asked.

Geloe shook her graying head. "I do not know. Perhaps nothing. But

the Stone stands in a special and powerful place; it may be that there are

things 1 can learn. We face an immortal enemy; perhaps we can find some

clue toward his defeat among the vestiges of his immortal people." She

turned to Duchess Gutrun, who cradled sleeping Leieth in her lap. "Will

you keep the child until you see me again?"

Gutrun nodded. "Of course."

"Why do you not take her with you?" Deornoth asked. "You said she

helped to ... to center your skills in some way."

Firelight glinted in Geloe's great eyes. "True. But she cannot travel in

the way I must travel." The witch woman stood, tucking her breeches

into her heavy boots. "And I will do best traveling by night."

"But you will miss our marriage!" Vorzheva exclaimed. "Father

Strangyeard is to marry Josua and me at morning-time."

Those who had not yet heard offered congratulations; Josua received all

as calmly and graciously as if he stood again in his throne room at

Naglimund. Vorzheva's smiles at last dissolved into what were surely

happy tears, which she cried on Gutrun's accommodating shoulder. Leieth,

who had awakened and rolled out of the duchess' lap to stare silently at

the ruckus, was quickly scooped up into the thin arms of Father Strangyeard.

STONE OF FAREWELL415

"This is good news Vorzheva, Prince Josua, but I cannot stay," Geloe

said. "I do not think you will miss me I am not much for entertainments

or merrymaking and I am feeling particularly pressed- I had wished to

leave yesterday, but stayed to see that you actually claimed your horses."

She gestured out toward the darkness beyond the shelter, where the

prince's new steeds shifted and snorted in their own enclosure "Now I

can wait no longer."

After brief private conversations with Josua and Strangyeard and a few

words whispered into Leieth's earwords which the little girl received as

impassively as if listening to the ocean's voice echoing in a sea shell

Geloe said her brisk farewells and strode out into the night, threadbare

cloak snapping in the brisk wind.

Deornoth, who sat closest to the edge of the shelter, leaned his head out

a short time later. He had heard a mournful echo sweeping down from the

wind-raked sky, but when he looked up he caught only a momentary

glimpse of some shadowy, winged thing passing before the gelid moon.

Deornoth was standing his watchthey had not become so crusting of

the Thrithings-men chat they had lost their sensewhen Josua limped out

to join him.

"The stars have barely swung around," Deomoth whispered. "Look,

there is the Lamp, scarcely moved." He pointed to a dim flare in the

cloudy night sky. "It is not your turn for hours, Highness. Go back to

bed."

"I cannot sleep."

Deornoth was sure his smile was invisible in the darkness. "It is not

uncommon to have worries and doubts on the night before a wedding,

sire.

"It's not that, Deornoth. My worries and my self-doubcs, as once you

so correctly pointed out, are trivial. There are larger matters to think of "

Deomoth wrapped the collar of his cloak tighter around his neck during

the moment of silence. The night had grown very chill.

"I am happy to be alive," Josua said at last, "but I do feel a bit like a

mouse chat the cat has allowed to run into the corner. Alive, yes, but for

how long? Far worse than even my brother's evil, now the Hand of the

North is reaching out." He sighed. "Once I nurtured a hope thatJamauga's

talc was untrue, despite all the evidence, but the moment I saw those

white faces staring up at me from before the walls of Naglimund, some-

thing within me died. No, do not worry, good Deomoth," the prince said

hastily, "I am not about to run maundering, as I know you secretly dread.

I have taken your admonitions to heart." He laughed sourly. "But at the

same time, I tell only the truth- There are hatreds that run through this

world like blood, hot and lively. All my studies of evil with the Usirean

brothers, all their learned considerations of the Devil and his work, never

416 Tad Williams

made that so clear as one instant staring into those black eyes. The world

has a dark underbelly, Deornoth. I wonder if maybe it is better not to seek

after knowledge "

"But surely God put such things on the earth to test our faith, Pnnce

Josua," Deornoth ventured at last "If no one ever saw evil, who would

fear HelP"

"Who indeed7" The prince's tone changed. "But this is not why I came

out to speak to you Leave it to Josua to turn any conversation into a dour

and doomful one." He laughed again, this time it seemed more cheerful

"Actually, I came to ask you to stand for me when Vorzheva and I are

married in the morning."

"Prince Josua, I am honored Gladly1 will do it gladly."

"You have been the most loyal of friends, Deornoth."

"You are the best lord a man could have "

"I did not say 'liege man' or 'knight,' Deornoth." Josua spoke firmly,

but with a hint of good humor in his voice "I said 'friend'but do not

think that standing for me is an honor bereft of responsibility It is not."

He became serious. "I have not had a splendid history of caring for those

dear to me, Deornoth my friend. You may protest, but it is a simple fact.

Thus, if something happens to me, 1 want your word that you will look

after Vorzheva and our child "

"Of course, my prince."

"Say it." Then, more gently: "Swear it to me."

"I swear by the honor of Blessed Elysia that I will protect the welfare of

Lady Vorzheva and the child she carries as if they were my own family I

will lay down my life without hesitation, if need be."

Josua clasped the knight's wnst and held it for a moment. "Good. Many

thanks. The Lord bless you, Deornoth."

"May He bless you, too, Prince Josua "

The prince sighed "And all the rest as well Did you know, Deornoth,

that tomorrow is the first day of AmtuP That means tomorrow is

Hiafmansa There are many absent friends to whom our blessings should

go this mghtmany who no doubt are far closer to the fearful face of

darkness than we are "

Deornoth saw the shadow beside him move abruptly as the pnnce made

the sign of the Tree They shared a long moment of silence before Josua

spoke again "May God bless us all and deliver us from evil "

The men were up with the darkling dawn, saddling the horses and

packing the supplies gained when Josua had traded two of his new steeds

for a quantity of food and clothing Since Leieth would ride with Duchess

Gucrun, and Towser and Sangfugol would share a horse, four horses

remained to carry goods.

STONE OF FAREWELL417

When the mounts had been readied, the men returned to the bull run.

They found it surrounded by more than a few curious Thnthmgs-folk.

"What, have you made some announcement?" Josua demanded crossly

Vorzheva eyed him unbhnkmgly. She had donned the white bride-band

once more.

"Do you think my people would not notice you loading the horses?"

she snapped "Besides, what is the use of being married if it is done like

thieves stealing by night?" She strutted away, the wide skirt of her

wedding dress swirling. A moment later she returned, leading the wide-

eyed young girl who had been waiting on Fikolmi) when Josua's folk had

first come as prisoners to the wagon camp. "This is Hyara, my youngest

sister," Vorzheva explained. "She will be married someday, so I want her

to see that it is not always frightful."

"I will do my best to look like a nice person to marry," Josua said,

arching an eyebrow. Hyara stared back at him, anxious as a startled

fawn.

Vorzheva insisted that they be married beneath the open sky and before

the eyes of her clanfolk. The wedding party made its way out from

beneath the roof of blankets. Father Strangyeard mumbling fretfully as he

tned to remember the important sections of the marriage ceremonyhe

had not, of course, been able to bring a Book of the Aedon from Naglimund,

and had never performed a marriage before. Of the principals, he was

dearly the most nervous. Young Hyara, sensing a kindred spirit, walked

so close to him that she was almost between his feet, adding to the pnesc's

discomfiture.

It was not surprising to see a cheerful and curious crowd of Thnthmgs-

folk assembled along the edges of the bull runa crowd not greatly

different in mood, Deornoth reflected, than that which had come to watch

Josua be cut into silvers. It was a little disconcerting to see among them the

mother and sisters of he who had failed to slice Josua up, the late Utvart.

This group of women, dressed identically in dresses and scarves of dark

mourning blue, stared balefully at the emerging stone-dwellers, their

mouths pulled tight in uniform expressions of ill-regard.

If the attendance of Utvart's family was surprising, the appearance of

Fikolmi) on the scene was even more so. The March-thane, who had taken

his foul temper and virtually gone into hiding after Josua's victory, now

came swaggering through the camp to the bull run, trailed by a handful of

scarred randwarders. Although the gray dawn was not an hour passed,

Fikolmy's red-eyed stare had the look of drunkenness.

"By the Grass-Thunderer!" he bellowed, "surely you did not think I

would let my daughter and her horse-nch husband be wedded without

coming to share their happiness!7" He slapped his broad belly and guf-

fawed. "Go on! Go on' We are waiting to see how marriages are done in

the mazes of the stone-dwellers!"

418

Tad WiUiams

At the sound of her father's roar, little Hyara took a step backward and

looked wildly around, preparing to flee. Deomoth reached out and gently

took her elbow, holding it loosely until she gathered courage to move

forward and stand at Vorzheva's side once more. Hopelessly rattled,

Father Strangyeard started the Mansa Connoyisthe Prayer of Joining

several times without success, each time losing his way after a few lines

and stuttering to a halt like a millwheel whose ox was balking in the

traces. Each failed attempt drew more laughter from Fikolmij and his

randwarders. The archive-master's already pink face grew redder and

redder. At last, Josua leaned forward and whispered in his ear.

"You are a Scrollbearer now, Father, as was your friend Jarnauga." He

spoke so quietly that none but Strangyeard could hear. "Surely a simple

mansa is child's play for you, whatever the distractions."

"One-eye speaks the marriage/or One-hand!" Fikolmij shouted.

Strangyeard tugged self-consciously at his patch, then grimly nodded

his head. "You . . . you are right. Prince Josua. Forgive me. Let us

continue."

Speaking each word carefully, Strangyeard worked his way through the

long ritual as though wading in high and treacherous waters. The March-

thane and his jibing cronies shouted louder and louder, but the priest

would no longer be deterred. At last, the crowd of watching Thrithings-

folk became restive, tiring of Fikolmij's rudeness. Every time another

graceless jest echoed across the bull run, the murmur grew louder.

As Strangyeard neared the end of the prayer, Hotvig appeared on

horseback out of the west. He was windblown and disheveled, as though

he had ridden fast in his return to the wagon-city.

The rider sat dazedly surveying the scene for a moment, then swung

down from the saddle and trotted to his thane's side. He spoke rapidly,

then pointed back in the direction from which he had come. Fikolmij

nodded, grinning hugely, then turned and said something to the other

randwarders which set them rocking with laughter. A look of confusion

came over Hotvig's faceconfusion which soon turned to anger. As

Fikolmij and the others continued to chortle over the news he had brought,

the young Thrithings-man strode to the fence around the bull run and

waved for Isom's attention. Hotvig spoke into Isom's ear; the Rimmerman's

eyes widened. When Father Strangyeard paused in his recital a few mo-

ments and bent to look for the bowl of water he had filled earlier and put

by for this moment in the prayer, Isgrimnur's son pushed away from the

fence and marched directly to Prince Josua's side.

"Forgive me, Josua," Isom hissed, "but Hotvig says there are three

score armored riders coming down on the wagon camp. They are less

than a league away and riding hard. The leader's coat is a falcon in scarlet

and silver."

STONE OF FAREWELL

419

Startled, Josua looked up. "Fengbald! What is that whoreson doing

here?!"

"Fengbald?" Deornoth echoed, astounded. It seemed a name from an-

other age. "Fengbald?"

A rustle of wonder went through the crowd at this odd turn to the

ceremony.

"Josua," Vorzheva said tightly, "how can you talk of these things

now?"

"I am truly sorry, my lady, but we have little choice." He turned to

Strangyeard, who stood staring, his increasingly confident rhythms again

disrupted. "Go on to the final part," Josua directed him.

"Wha . . . what?"

"The final part, man. Come, then, hurry to it! I won't have it said I left

my lady unmarried against my promise, but if we stand much longer she

will be a widow before the mansa is over." He gave the priest a gentle

shove. "The end, Strangyeard!"

The archivist's one eye bulged. "May the love of the Ransomer, His mother

Elysia, and His Father the All-Highest bless this joining. May . . . may your

lives be long and your love be longer still. You are married." He waved his

hands anxiously. "That's . . . that's it. You are married, just as it says."

Josua leaned and kissed the astonished Vorzheva, then grabbed her wrist

and pulled her toward the paddock gate while Isorn hurried the rest of

their party after them.

"Are you so anxious for your wedding night, Josua?" Fikolmij smirked.

He and his randwarders pushed toward the gate as the crowd shouted

questions at their thane. "You seem to be in a hurry to leave."

"And you know why," Deornoch shouted at him, his palm itching on

the hilt of his sword. "You knew they were coming, didn't you? You

treacherous dog!"

"Watch your tongue, little man," Fikolmij growled. "I only said I

would not hinder your going. I sent word to the king's men long agoin

the hour when you first crossed over into my Thrithings." He laughed

heartily. "So I broke no promises. But if you wish to fight my men and

me before the Erkynlanders get here, come ahead. Otherwise, you had

better get on your new ponies and ride away."

Vorzheva pulled away from Josua as they passed through the gate and

into the crush ofThrithings-folk. She reached her father in a few steps and

slapped him stingingly across the face.

"You killed my mother," she shouted, "but someday I will kill you!"

Before he could grab her, she sprang back to Josua's side. Naidel whisked

out of the prince's sheath and swayed menacingly, a flickering tongue of

light beneath the dim sky. Fikolmij stared at Josua, eyes bulging, face

crimson with rage. With a visible effort, the March-thane subdued his

anger and contemptuously turned his back.

420 Tad Williams

"Go, ride for your lives," he growled. "I do not break my word over a

woman's feeble blows."

Hotvig followed as they hustled toward the paddock where the horses

were waiting. "The thane was right about one thing, Josua, Vorzheva,"

he called- "You must indeed ride for your lives You have an hour's start

and your horses are rested, so all is not lost. Some of the others will help

me slow them down."

Deornoth stared. "You'll. . . ? But Fikolmy wants us caught "

Hotvig shook his head roughly. "Not all favor the March-thane. Where

do you go?"

Josua thought for a moment. "Please do not let our enemies hear of this,

Hotvig." He lowered his voice a little. "We go north of where the rivers

meet, to a place called the Stone of Farewell."

The Thnthmgs-man looked at him strangely. "I have heard something

of it," he said. "Go swiftly, then. It is possible we will sec each other

again." Hotvig turned and gave Vorzheva a long look, then bowed his

head briefly. "Make these people know that not all Thnthings-folk are like

your father." Hotvig turned and walked away.

"No more time to talk!" Josua cried. "To horse!"

The outermost grazing lands of the wagon-camp were disappearing

behind them. Despite the injured and inexperienced riders, the long strides

of Vmyafod and his fellows ate up the ground. The grass Hew away

beneath their hooves.

"This is becoming sickenmgly famihar," Josua shouted across to Deomoth

and Isom.

"What?"

"Running' Pursued by supenor forces!" Josua waved his arm "I am

tired of showing my backside, whether to my brother or the Storm King's

minions!"

Deomoth looked up at the clotted sky, then over his shoulder. Only a few

lone cows dotted the rearward horizon: there was no sign of pursuing nders.

"We must find a place to make our stronghold, Pnnce Josua1" he called.

"That's right!" Isom shouted. "People will come flocking to your

banner then, you'll see!"

"And how will they find us?" Josua called back with a mocking smile.

"These people, how will they find us?"

"They will, somehow." Isom shouted, "everybody else does'" He

whooped with laughter. The pnnce and Deomoth joined in. Vorzheva

and the others stared at them as if they were mad.

"Ride on!" Josua cned. "I am married and an outlaw!"

The sun made no clear appearance all day. When the dim light at last

began to wane and the pall of approaching evening spread across the

stormy sky, the prince's party chose a spot and made camp.

STONE OF FAREWELL421

They had ridden due north from the wagon-city until they reached the

Ymstrecca in early afternoon, crossing the river at a muddy ford whose

banks were pockmarked with hoofpnnts. Josua had decided that travel-

ing eastward would be safer on the far side of the Ymstrecca, where they

would be within an hour's swift ride to the forest. If Fengbald continued

to pursue them, they would at least have a chance to spur toward the dark

trees and perhaps evade the superior force in Aldheorte's tangled depths-

Despite this caution, there had been no sign of the High King's horsemen

all afternoon. The night's watches also passed uneventfully. After breaking

their fast at sunrise on dried meat and bread, they were mounted and on

their way. They kept their pace swift, but fear of pursuit was lessening by

the hour: ifHotvig and others had done something to slow Fengbald, they

seemed to have made a good job of it. The only real misfortune was

the suffering of those who were unaccustomed to riding on horseback. The

cold, gray morning was full of regretful noises as they rode on into

the east.

On the second day's journey across the green but comfortless land, the

travelers began to see large roofed wagons and blowsy cottages of mud

and sticks dotted along the Ymstrecca's banks. In two or three places a

few huts had even grown together in a tiny settlement, like slow-moving

beasts seeking each other's company upon the dark plain. The chill grass-

lands were thick with mist and the travelers could not see far or clearly,

but the inhabitants of these huddhng-spots did not seem to be Thnthings-

folk.

"Hotvig spoke aright," Josua mused as they passed by one such settle-

ment. A handful of dim figures bobbed in the gray ribbon of the Ymstrecca

that wound beside the hutssettlers casting their fish nets "I think they

are JErkynIanders. See, that cottage has a holy Tree painted on its side! But

why are they here? Our folk have never lived in this land."

"Upheaval, crops ruined," Strangyeard said. "Goodness, how people

must be suffering in Erchester! Terrible!"

"They are more likely God-feanng folk who know Elias deals with

devils," Gutrun said. She clasped Leieth tighter against her considerable

bosom, as though to protect the child from the High King's communicants.

"Should we not tell them who you are, sire?" Deornoth asked. "There

is safety in numbers, and we have been few for very long. Besides, if they

are Erkynlanders, you are their rightful prince."

Josua gazed at the distant camp, then shook his head. "They may have

come out here to escape all princes, rightful or otherwise. Also, if we are

followed, why put innocents in danger by giving them knowledge of our

names and destination? No, as you said, when we have a stronghold we

will make ourselves known. They can then come to us if they wish, and

not because we have swept down on them with swords and horses."

422 Tad Williams

Deomoth kept his expression carefully neutral, but inside he was disap-

pointed They were in dire need of allies Why did Josua insist on being so

damnably careful and correct3 Some things about his pnnce, it was obvi-

ous, would never change

As the riders continued across the brooding steppe, the weather grew

steadily worse, as though they were abroad at the turning of winter

instead of the earliest days of Anitul-month in what should be high

summer Flurries of snow came riding on the back of the north wind, and

the impossibly broad sky had gone a perpetual gray, dreary as fireplace

ash

Even as the landscape on either side grew more dismal and uninviting,

the travelers began to encounter larger settlements along the Ymstrecca's

banks, settlements that seemed not to have grown so much as accumu-

lated As the river carried brambles and sticks and silt before sloughing

them off at convenient sandbars, so the very substance of these settle-

ments, both people and materials, seemed to have arrived in this strange

and only slightly hospitable place by chance, lodging as in some narrow

spot while the force that had carried them so far swept on without them.

Josua's people rode silently past these tiny, ramshackle hamlets, embry-

onic towns almost as forbidding as the land itself, each made up of perhaps

a dozen crude shelters Few living things could be seen outside the flimsy

walls, but wisps of smoke from their cooking fires twined on the wind

A second, third, and fourth night beneath the cloud-hidden stars took

the prince's exiles to the edge of the Stefflod river-valley The evening of

the fifth day brought more snow and bitter cold, but the darkness also

gleamed with lights torches and campfires, hundreds of fires that filled the

neck of the valley like a bowl of gems. The travelers had found the largest

settlement yet, a near-city of flimsy shelters nestled in the trough of the

shallow valley where the Ymstrecca and the Stefllod came together. After

a long journey across the empty plain, it was a heartening sight.

4-

"Still we go like thieves. Prince josua," Deornoth whispered crossly

"You arc the son of Prester John, my lord. Why must we skulk into this

crofter's clutter actingand lookinglike footpads?"

Josua smiled He had not changed his travel-stained Thnthmgs clothes,

although one of the things he had bartered for had been extra garments

"You arc no longer begging my pardon for your forwardness as once as

you once did, Deornoth No, do not apologize We have been through too

much together for me to disapprove You are right, we are not coming

down into this place as a prince and his courtwe make a sorry court, in

any case We shall instead find out what we can and not put our women

STONE OF FAREWELL423

and young Leieth and the rest in any unnecessary danger." He turned to

Isorn, who was the third and to this point quietest member of the tno. "If

anything, we will want to allay suspicion that we are anything but ordi-

nary travelers You, Isom, look especially well-fed your size alone might

make some of these poor folk afraid " He chuckled and poked the brawny

young Rimmersman m the side Isorn, taken unawares by the prince's

sudden hghtheartedness, stumbled and almost fell.

"I cannot make myself small, Josua," he grunted. "Be thankful I am not

as big as my father, or your poor folk might run screaming into the night

at the sight of me "

"Ah, how I miss Isgnmnur," Josua said. "May the Aedon indeed look

after your father, that good man, and bring him back to us safely."

"My mother misses him very much and fears for him," Isom said

quietly, "but she does not say so." His good-natured face was solemn.

Josua looked at him keenly. "Yes, your family is not one for breast-

beating."

"All the same," Deornoth suddenly said, "the duke can certainly make a

ruckus when he is displeased! I remember when he first found out that

Skali was coming to KmgJohn's funeral He threw a chair through Bishop

Domitis' screen and broke it to bits' Ouch' Damn me!" Laughing, Deornoth

tripped on a hummock in the darkness. Tonight's misted moon was

stinting with her light. "Hold the torch closer, Isorn. Why are we walking

and leading our horses, in any case?"

"Because if you break a leg, you can ride," the prince said dryly. "If

your new mount Vildahx breaks his, will you carry him?"

Deornoth granted the point grudgingly.

Talking quietly of Isom's father and his legendary temperthe expres-

sion of which was almost always followed, as soon as the duke calmed

down, by horrified apologiesthey made their way down the grassy slope

and coward the lights of the nearest fires. The rest of their party had built

camp at the valley's edge; the fire Duchess Gutrun tended was a shrinking

beacon on the high ground behind them.

A gang of shivering, starveling dogs barked and scattered as the three-

some approached the settlement. A few shadowy figures looked up from

their fires or stood cross-armed m the door-flaps of shabby huts, watching

the strangers pass, but if there was any sense that Josua and his comrades

did not belong, no one challenged them- From the snippets of speech they

picked up as they passed, it was clear that these settlers were indeed

mostly Erkynlanders, speaking both the old country speech and Westerlmg.

Here and there a Hemystin burr could be heard as well

A woman stood in the open space between two houses, talking to her

neighbor about the rabbit her son had brought home and how they had

steamed it with sourgrass for Hiafmansa. It was odd, Deomoth thought,

to hear people speaking of such mundane things here in the mist of the

424

Tad Williams

empty grassland, as if [here might be a church hidden behind a rock where

they would go for the morning prayer, or an ostler's shop under a leaf

where they could buy beer to drink with their rabbit stew.

The woman, of middle years, red-faced and raw-boned, turned at their

approach and surveyed them with a look of mixed apprehension and

interest. Deomoth and Isorn stepped to one side to pass around her, but

Josua halted.

"We wish you a pleasant evening, goodwife," the prince said, inclining

his head in a sort of bow. "Do you know where we could get a bit of

food? We are travelers and have good money to pay. Has someone got

something to sell?"

The woman looked him over carefully, then turned an eye on his

companions. "There are no taverns and no inns here," she said grimly.

"Everyone keeps what they have."

Josua nodded slowly, as if sifting particles of purest golden wisdom

from her discourse. "And what is the name of this place?" he asked. "It is

not on any map."

"Shouldn't think so," she snorted, "wasn't here two summers ago. It

doesn't have a name, not truly, but some call it Gadrinsett."

"GadrinsetC," Josua repeated. "Gathering-place."

"Not that anyone's gathering^ anything." She made a face. "Just can't

go any farther."

"And why is that?" Josua asked.

The woman ignored this last question, looking the prince up and down

once more in a calculating manner. "Here," she said at last, "if you want

food and you'll pay for it, I might be able to do something for you. Show

me your money first."

Josua showed her a handful of cintis and quints-pieces that he had

brought in his purse out of Naglimund. The woman shook her head.

"Can't take the bronze. Some folk farther along the river might trade

for the silver, so I'll take a chance on one o' them. D'you have aught else

to trade? Leather straps from broken saddle? Buckles? Extra clothes?" She

looked at Josua's outfit and smirked. "No, I doubt you've got extra

clothes. Come on then, I'll give you some soup and you can tell me any

news." She waved to her friendwho had remained at a safe distance,

watching the whole exchange open-mouthedthen led them back through

the cluster of huts.

The woman's name was lelda, and although she mentioned several

times that her man might return at any moment, Deornoth guessed that

this was mostly to forestall any thoughts of robbery that three strangers

might have; he saw no sign of any living husband around her camp, which

centered around an outdoor fire and small, rickety cottage. She did have

several children, their genders somewhat blurred by dirt and evening

darkness. These came out to watch the prince and his friends with the

425

STONE OF FAREWELL

same wide-eyed attention they might have given to a snake swallowing a

frog.

After receiving a quinis-piece, which immediately vanished into her

dress, lelda poured them each a bowl of thin soup, then procured from

somewhere ajar of beer that she said her man had brought with him from

Falshire where they had previously lived. Seeing that jar hardened in

Deomoth's mind the notion that her husband was dead: what man could

live in this Godforsaken hole, yet leave beer so long undrunk?

Josua thanked her gravely. The three of them passed the jar around

several times before thinking to ask lelda if she would like some herself.

She accepted with a gracious nod and took several healthy swallows. Her

children discussed this among themselves in a strange pidgin language

consisting mostly of grunts, a few recognizable words, and repeated

cuffings to the head and shoulders.

The pleasures of company and conversation soon began to work on

lelda. Reserved at first, before long she was holding forth quite knowl-

edgeably on everything there was to know about Gadrinsett and her

fellow squatters. Untutored, she nevertheless had a sly wit, and although

the travelers were chiefly interested in finding the way to their destination

Geloe's instructions had not been very precisethey found themselves

enjoying lelda's imitations other various neighbors.

Like many of Gadrinsett's other inhabitants, lelda and her family had

fled Falshire when Fengbald and the Erkynguard had burned down the

city's wool districta punishment for the resistance of the wool mer-

chants' guild to one of Elias* less popular proclamations. lelda also ex-

plained that Gadrinsett was even larger than Josua's folk had first guessed;

it continued for a way down the valley, she said, but the hills loomed high

enough that the camp fires at the far end were blocked from view.

The reason it was the stopping place for so many, lelda said, was that

the land beyond the spot where the Stefflod and Ymstrecca joined was

ill-omened and dangerous.

"Full of fairy-rings it is," she said earnestly, "and there are mounds

where spirits dance at night. That's why those folk chat live in the

Thrithings leave us in peacethey wouldn't live here anyway." Her voice

dropped and her eyes grew large. "One great hill there is where witches

meet, full of terrible warlock-stonesworse even than Thisterborg by

Erchester, if you've heard tell of that evil place. Not far from it is a city

where devils once lived, an unholy, unnatural city. Terrible magicks is

what that land across the river's full ofsome women here have had

children stolen away. One had a changeling left in return, pointed ears and

all!"

"That warlock-hill sounds a fearsome place indeed," Josua said, an

expression of great seriousness on his long face. When the woman looked

426 Tad Williams

down at her lap, where she was mixing flour and water in a bowl, he

caught Deornoth's gaze and winked. "Where is it?"

lelda pointed into the darkness. "Straight that way, up the Stefflod.

You're wise to avoid it." She stopped, frowning. "And where are you

going, sirs?"

Deornoth chimed in before Josua could speak. "Actually, we are travel-

ing knights who hope to lend our swords to a grand task. We have heard

that Prince Josua, the younger son of High King John the Presbyter, has

come here into the eastern lands, where he plots the overthrow of his

wicked brother, King Elias." Trying not to smile, Deornoth ignored

Josua's irritated gestures. "We have come to join that noble cause."

lelda, who had stopped kneading the dough for a moment to stare,

made a snorting noise and resumed her labor. "Prince Josua? Here on the

grasslands? That's a clever joke. Not that I wouldn't like to see something

done. Things just haven't been right since old Prester John died, bless

him." She made a stern face, but her eyes suddenly gleamed wetly. "It's

been hard for us all, so hard ..."

She stood abruptly and laid out the flattened balls of dough on a clean

heated stone at the edge of the fire; they began to quietly sizzle. "I'm just

going to see my friend," lelda said, "and find out if she has a bit more beer

we can borrow. I won't tell her what you said about the prince, because

she'd just laugh. Watch those cakes close now while I gothey're for the

children to eat in the morning." She got up and walked out of the circle of

firelight, dabbing at her eyes with a dirty shawl.

"What kind of foolishness is this, Deornoth?" Josua asked crossly.

"But did you hear? People like this are waiting for you to do some-

thing. You are their prince." It seemed so obvious. Surely Josua could see?

"Prince of what? Prince of rums, prince of empty lands and grass? I

have nothing to offer these folk . . . yet." He got up and walked to the

edge of the camp. lelda's children peered out at him, a cluster of white-

rimmed eyes gleaming in the darkened doorway.

"But how will you gain anything without folk to follow you?" Isom

asked. "Deornoth is right. If Fengbald now knows where we are, it is

only a matter of time until Elias brings his full anger to bear on us."

"Suspicion may keep these people away from the Stone of Farewell, but

it will not keep Earl Guthwulf and the High King's army at bay," said

Deornoth.

"If the king on the Dragonbone Chair is going to bring his armies down

on us," Josua replied hotly, throwing his hand up in a gesture of frustra-

tion, "a few hundred Gadrinsett-folk will be no more than feathers in a

gale against them. That is all the more reason not to drag them in. We few

at least can vanish into Aldheorte once more if we must, but these folk

cannot."

STONE OF FAREWELL

427

"Again we plan to retreat, Prince Josua," Deornoth replied angrily.

"You are tired of it yourselfyou said as much!"

The three were still arguing when lelda returned. They broke off into

guilty silence, wondering how much she might have heard. Their conver-

sation, however, was the last thing on her mind.

"My cakes'" she shrieked, then pulled them off the hot rock one after

the other, making little cries of pain as she burned her fingers. Each cake

was charred black as Pryrates' soul. "You monsters' How could you?

Talking all your high-flown nonsense about the prince, then letting my

cakes bum!" She turned and smacked ineffectually at Isom's broad shoulders.

"My apologies, goodwife lelda," Josua said. producing another quinis-

piece. "Please take this and forgive us . . ."

"Money!" she cried, even as she took the coin, "What about my cakes?

Will I give my children money to eat tomorrow morning when they are

crying!?" She snatched up a broom of bound twigs and swung lustily at

Deornoth's head, almost knocking him off the rock on which he sat. He

bounded quickly to his feet and joined Josua and Isorn in full retreat.

"Don't come 'round here any more!" she shouted after them. "Swords-

for-hire indeed! Cake-burners! The prince is dead, my friend saidand

your talk can't bring him back!"

Her angry cries slowly faded into the distance as Josua and his compan-

ions stumbled back to their horses and made their way out past the fringes

of Gadrinsett.

"At least," Josua said after they had walked a while, "we have a good

idea of where the Stone of Farewell lies."

"We learned more than that, Highness," Deornoth said, half-smihng.

"We saw how your name still inspires passion among your subjects."

"You may be the Prince of Grass, Josua," Isom added, "but you are

definitely not the King of Cakes."

Josua looked at them both disgustedly. "I would appreciate," he said

slowly, "going back to camp in silence."

22

Tftrougfi tfte Summer Gate

It IS TlOt a road that takes us there," Aditii said sternly. "It is a

sort of song."

Simon frowned m irritation. He had asked a simple question, but in her

maddening Sithi way, Jiriki's sister had once more given an answer that

was no answer. It was too cold to stand around talking nonsense. He tried

again.

"If there's no road, it must still be in some direction. What direction is

it, then?"

"In. Into the forest's heart."

Simon peered up at the sun to try and orient himself. "So, it's . . . that

way?" He pointed south, the direction in which he had been traveling.

"Not quite. Sometimes. But that would more often be when you

wished to enter through the Gate of Rains. That is not right at this time of

year. No, it is the Summer Gate that we seek, and that is a different song

altogether."

"You keep saying a song. How can you get to a thing by a song?"

"How. . . ?" She appeared to consider this carefully. She inspected

Simon. "You have a strange way of thinking. Do you know how to play

shout7"

"No. What docs that have to do with anything?"

"You might be an interesting playerI wonder if anyone ever has

played with a mortal? None of my folk would ask such a question as you

did. I must teach you the rules."

Simon grumbled his confusion, but Aditu lifted a slim-fmgered hand to

halt his questions. She stood very quietly, her web of lavender hair

trembling in the breeze, everything else still; in her white clothing she

was nearly invisible against the snow drifts. She seemed to have fallen

asleep standing, like a stork swaying on one leg among the reeds, but her

lustrous eyes remained open. At last she began to breathe deeply, letting

the air out again with a chuffmg hiss. The exhalations gradually became a

STONE OF FAREWELL429

crooning, humming sound that hardly seemed to come from Aditu at all.

The wind, which had been a cold-fmgered push on Simon's cheek, abruptly

changed direction.

No, he realized a moment later, it was more thanjust an altering of the

wind. Rather, it seemed that the whole of creation had moved ever so

slightlya frightening sensation that brought on a moment of dizziness.

As a child he had sometimes whirled himself around and around in a

circle; when he stopped, the world would continue to reel about him. This

dizziness felt much like that, yet calmer, as though the world that spun

beneath his feet moved as deliberately as the unfolding petals of a flower.

Aditu's wordless, airy drone solidified into a litany of unfamiliar Sithi

speech, then trailed off into silent breathing once more. The drab light

slipping down through the snowbound trees seemed to have gained some

warmer color, an infinitesimal shift of hue that leavened the gray with

blue and gold. The silence stretched.

"Is this magic?" Simon heard his voice shatter the stillness like the

braying of a donkey. He immediately felt foolish. Aditu swung her head

to look at him, but her expression showed no anger.

"I am not sure what you mean," she said. "It is how we find a hidden

place, and Jao e-Tinukai'i is indeed hidden. But there is no power in the

words themselves, if that is what you ask. They could be spoken in any

language. They help the searcher to remember certain signs, certain paths.

If that is not what you mean by 'magic,' I am sorry to disappoint you."

She did not look very sorry. Her mischievous smile had come back.

"I shouldn't have interrupted," Simon muttered. "I always asked my

friend Doctor Morgenes to show me magic. He never did." The thought

of the old man brought back a memory of a sunny morning in the

doctor's dusty chamber, the sound of Morgenes mumbling and musing

to himself while Simon swept. With that memory came a fierce pang of

regret. All those things were gone.

"Morgenes ..." Aditu said musingly. "I saw him once, when he

visited my uncle in our lodge. He was a pretty young man."

"Young man?" Simon stared again at her thin, waiflike face. "Doctor

Morgenes?"

The Sitha suddenly became serious once more. "We should delay no

longer. Would you like me to sing the song in your tongue? It could cause

no harm that is worse than the trouble we are already brewing, you and

I."

"Trouble?" Confusion was piling on confusion, but Aditu had taken her

odd stance once more. He had a sudden feeling that he must speak

quickly, as though a door were being closed. "Yes, please, in my tongue!"

She settled on the balls of her feet, poised like a cricket on a branch.

After breathing measuredly for a moment, she again began to chant. The

430

Tad Williams

song slowly became recognizable, the clumsy, blocky sounds of Simon's

Westerling speech softening and turning liquid, the words running and

flowing together like melting wax.

"The Serpent's dreaming eye is green,"

she sang, her eyes fixed on the icicles that hung like jeweled pennants

from the branches of a dying hemlock. The fire absent from the muted

sun now burned in their scintillant depths.

"His track is moon-silver.

Only the Woman-with-a-net can see

The secret places that he goes ..."

Aditu's hand drifted out from her side and hung in the air for a long

moment before Simon realized that he was expected to take it. He grasped

her fingers in his gloved hand, but .she pulled free. For a moment he

thought he had guessed wrong, that he had forced some unwanted, oafish

intimacy on this golden-eyed creature, but as her fingers flexed impa-

tiently he realized in a rush of confusing feelings that she wanted his bare

hand. He pulled his leather mitten off with his teeth, then clasped her

slender wrist with fingers warm and moist from their residence in the

glove. She gently but firmly pulled her wrist away, this time sliding her

hand against his own; her cool fingers curled around his. With a head-

shake like a cat awakened from a nap, she repeated the words she had

sunt

"The Serpent's dreaming eye is green,

His trade is moon-silver:

Only the Woman-with-a-nel can see

The secret places that he goes ..."

Aditu led him forward, ducking beneath the hemlock bough and its

burden of icicles. The stiff, snow-salted breeze that clawed at his face

brought tears into his eyes. The forest before him was suddenly distorted,

as chough he were trapped inside one of the icicles, staring out. He heard

his boots crunching in the snow, but it seemed to be happening at a great

distance, as though his head floated treetop-high.

"Wind-child wears an indigo crown,

Aditu crooned. They walked, but if felt more like floating, or swimming.

"His boots are of rabbit skin.

STONE OF FAREWELL431

Invisible is he to Moon-mother's stare,

But she can hear his cautious breathing . . ."

They turned and clambered down into what should have been a gulley

lined with evergreens; instead, to Simon's misted eyes the tree limbs

resembled shadowy arms reaching out to enfold the two travelers. Branches

swatted at his thighs as he passed, their scent spicy and strong. Sap-

covered needles clung to his breeches. The windwhich breathed

whisperingiy among the swaying brancheswas a little more moist, but

still shivenngly cold.

". . . Yellow is the dust on old Tortoise's shell."

Aditu paused before a bank of umber stone, which thrust from the

snow at the bottom of the gulley like the wall of a ruined house. As she

stood singing before it, the sunlight chat fell through the trees abruptly

shifted its angle; the shadows in the crevices of stone deepened, then

overtopped their clefts like flooding rivers, sliding across the face of the

rock as though the hidden sun were plummeting swiftly toward its eve-

ning berth.

"He goes in deep places,"

she chanted,

"Bedded beneath the dry rock,

He counts his own heartbeats in chalky shadow ..."

They curved around the massive stone and suddenly found themselves

on a down-slanting bank. Smaller outcroppings of dusky rock, pale pink

and sandy brown, pushed up through the snowy ground. The trees that

loomed against the sky were a darker green here, and full of quiet birdsong.

Winter's bite was noticeably less.

They had traveled, but it seemed they had also passed from one kind of

day to another, as though they somehow walked at right angles to the

normal world, moving unrestrainedly as the angels that Simon had been

told flew here and there at God's bidding. How could that be?

Staring up past the trees into the featureless gray sky. Adieu's hand

clutched in his, Simon wondered if he might indeed have died. Might this

solemn creature beside himwhose eyes seemed fixed on things he could

not seebe escorting his soul to some final destination, while his lifeless

body lay somewhere in the forest, slowly vanishing beneath a blanket of

drifting snow?

Is it warm in Heaven? he wondered absently.

432 Tad Williams

He rubbed at his face with his free hand and felt the reassuring pain of

his chapped skin. In any case, it mattered little: he was going where this

one led him. His contented helplessness was such that he felt he could no

more remove his hand from hers than remove his head from his body.

". . . Cloud-song waves a scarlet torch:

A ruby beneath a gray sea.

She smells of cedar bark,

And wears ivory at her breast ..."

Adieu's voice rose and fell, her song's slow, thoughtful cadence blend-

ing with the birdsong as the waters of one river would meld indistinguish-

ably into the flow of another. Each verse in the endless stream, each cycle

of names and colors, was a jeweled puzzle whose solution always seemed

to be at Simon's fingertips but never revealed itself. By the time he

thought he might be making sense of something, it was gone, and some-

thing new was dancing on the forest air.

The two travelers passed from the bank of stones into deep shade,

entering a thicket of dark green hedges pearled with tiny white flowers.

The foliage was damp, the snow underfoot soggy and unstable. Simon

clasped Aditu's hand more firmly. He tried to wipe his eyes, which had

blurred again. The little white flowers smelled of wax and cinnamon.

". . . The Otter's eye is pebble-brown.

He slides beneath ten wet leaves;

When he dances in diamond streams,

The Lantern-bearer laughs ..."

And now, joining with the rising and falling melody of Aditu's song

and the delicate trill of birds, came the sound of water splashing in shallow

pools, tuneful as a musical instrument made of fragile glass. Shimmering

light sparkled on melting snowdrops; as he listened in wonderment,

Simon looked all around at the starry gleam of sun through water. The

tree branches seemed to be dripping light.

They walked beside a small but active stream whose joyful voice rever-

berated through the tree-pillared forest halls. Melting snow lay atop the

stones and rich black earth lay beneath the damp leaves. Simon's head was

whirling. Aditu's melody ran through all his thoughts, just as the stream

slid around and over the polished stones that made its bed. How long had

they been walking? It had seemed only a few steps at first, but now it

suddenly seemed they had marched for hoursdays! And why was the

snow vanishing away? Just moments ago it had covered everything!

Spring! he thought, and felt a nervous but exultant laughter bubbling

inside him / think we're walking into Spring!

433

STONE OFFAREWELL

They strode on beside the stream. Aditu's music chimed on and on like

the water. The sun had vanished. Sunset was blooming in the sky like a

rose, singeing all ofAldheorte's leaves and branches and trunks with fiery

light, touching the stones with crimson. As Simon watched, the blaze

flared and died in the sky, then was swiftly supplanted by spreading

purple, which itself was devoured in turn by sable darkness. The world

seemed to be spinning faster beneath him, but he still felt firmly grounded:

one foot followed the other, and Aditu's hand was firm in his.

". . . Stone-listener's mantle is black as jet,

His rings shine like stars,

As she sang these words, a scattering of white stars indeed appeared

against the vault of the heavens. They blossomed and faded in a succession

of shifting patterns. Half-realized faces and forms coalesced, pricked in

starlight against the blackness, then dissolved again just as rapidly.

Nine he wears; but his naked finger

Lifts and tastes the southerly breeze ..."

As he walked beneath the velvet-black sky and wheeling stars, Simon

felt as if an entire lifetime might be passing with incredible swiftness;

simultaneously, the night journey seemed but a single moment of near-

infinite duration. Time itself seemed to sweep through him, leaving be-

hind a wild mixture of scents and sounds- Aldheorte had become a single

living thing that changed all around him as the deathly chill melted away

and the warmth came pushing through. Even in darkness he could sense

the immense, almost convulsive alterations.

As they walked in bright starlight beside the chattering, laughing river,

Simon thought he could sense green leaves springing from bare boughs

and vibrant flowers forcing their way out of the frozen ground, fragile

petals unfurling like the wings of butterflies. The forest seemed to be

shaking off winter like a snake shrugging its old, useless skin.

Adieu's song wound through everything like a single golden thread in a

tapestry woven of muted colors.

". . . Violet are the shadows in Lynx's ears.

He hears the sun rising;

His tread sends the cricket to sleep,

And wakes the white rose ..."

Morning light began to permeate Aldheorte, spreading evenly, as chough

it had no single source. The forest seemed alive, every leaf and branch

poised, waiting. The air was filled with a thousand sounds and numberless

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scents, with birdsong and bee-drone, the musk of living earth, the sweet

rot of toadstools, the dry charm of pollen. Unmuffled by clouds, the sun

climbed into a sky that showed purest pale blue between the towering

treetops.

". . . Sky-singer's cape is buckled in ^oM,"

Aditu sang triumphantly, and the forest seemed to throb around them

as though it had one vast and indivisible pulse.

"His hair isjuJI of nightingale feathers.

Every three paces he casts pearls behind,

And saffron flowers before him . . "

She stopped in her tracks and released Simon's hand; his arm fell to his

side, limp as a boned fish. Aditu stood on her toes and stretched, lifting

her upraised palms to the sun. Her waist was very slender.

It took a long time before Simon could speak. "Arc we . . ." he tried at

last, "are we. . - ?"

"No, but we have traveled the most difficult part," she said, then

turned on him with a droll look. "I thought you would break my hand,

you clutched so hard."

Simon remembered her calm, strong grip and thought how unlikely

that was. He smiled dazedly, shaking his head. "I have never ..." He

couldn't make the words come. "How far have we come7"

She seemed to find this a surprising question and thought hard for

a moment. "Quite far into the forest," she said at last. "Quite far in "

"Did you make the winter go away by magic3" he asked, turning in a

stumbling circle. On all sides the snow was gone. The morning light

knifed down through the trees and splashed on the crush of damp leaves

underfoot. A spider web quivered, afire m a column of sunlight.

"The winter has not gone away," she said. "We have gone away from

the winter."

"What?"

"The winter you speak of is falseas you know. Here, in the forest's

true heart is a place the storm and cold have not penetrated."

Simon thought he understood what she was saying. "So you are keep-

ing the winter away by magic."

Aditu frowned- "That word again. Here the world dances its true

dance. That which would change such a truth is 'magic'dangerous

magicor so it seems to me." She turned away. obviously tiring of the

subject. There was little of imposture in Aditu's character, at least when it

was a matter other time being wasted in niceties. "We are almost there

now, so there is no need to rest. Are you hungry or thirsty?"

STONE OF FAREWELL435

Simon realized that he was ravenous, as if he had not eaten for days.

"Yes! Both."

Without another word, Aditu slipped between the trees and vanished,

leaving Simon standing alone by the stream. "Stay," she called, her voice

echoing so that it seemed to come from every side at once. A few

moments later she reappeared with a reddish sphere held delicately m each

hand. "Kraile," she said. "Sunfruifs. Eat them."

The first sunfruit proved sweet and full of yellowy juice, with a spicy

aftertaste that made him quickly bite into the second. By the time he had

finished both, his hunger was pleasantly blunted.

"Now, come," she said. "I would like to reach Shao Irigu by noon

today."

"What's 'Shao Irigu'and what day is it today, anyway?"

Aditu looked annoyed, if such a mundane expression could be said to

exist on so exotic a face. "Shao Irigu is the Summer Gate, of course. As

for the other, I cannot do all the measurements. That is for those like First

Grandmother. I think you have a moon-span you call 'Ahn-ee-tool'?"

"Anitui is a month, yes."

"That is as much as I can say. It is that 'month,' by your reckoning."

Now it was Simon's turn to be annoyed: he could.have told her that

much himselfalthough months did tend to sneak past when one was on

the road. What he had been hoping to discover, in a roundabout way, was

how long it had taken them to get here. It would have been easy to ask

straight out, of course, but somehow he knew that the answer Aditu gave

him would not be very satisfying.

The Sitha-woman moved forward. Simon scrambled after her. De-

spite his irritation, he more than half-hoped she would ask for his hand

again, but that part of the journey seemed to be over. Aditu picked her

way down the slope beside the stream without looking back to see if he

was following.

Nearly deafened by the cheerful cacophony of birds in the trees over-

head, bewildered by all that had happened, Simon opened his mouth to

complain about her evasions, then stopped suddenly m his tracks, shamed

by his own short-sightedness. His weariness and crossness abruptly fell

away, as though he had sloughed off a heavy blanket of snow dragged

with him out of winter. This was a wild sort of magic, whatever Aditu

said! To have been m a deadly storma storm that covered all the

northern world, as far as he could telland then to follow a song into

sunlight and clear skies! This was as good as anything Simon had ever

heard in one of Shem Horsegroom's stories. This was an adventure even

Jack Mundwode never had. Simon the scullion was going to the Kingdom

of the Fair Folk!

He hastened after her, chortling. Aditu looked back at him curiously.

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As the weather had changed during their strange journey, so, Coo, had

the vegetation: the evergreens and low shrubs in which Simon had been

snowbound and lost had given way to oak and birch and white ash, their

interlaced branches bound with flowering creepers, making an overhead

canopy colorful as a stained glass ceiling but far more delicate. Ferns and

wood sorrel blanketed the stones and fallen trees, covering Aldheorte's

floor with a bumpy counterpane of green. Mushrooms crouched hiding in

pools of shadow like deserting soldiers, while other pale but oddly beauti-

ful fungi clung to the trunks of trees like the steps of spiraling stair-

cases. The morning sun sprinkled all with a light like fine silver and

gold dust.

The stream had cut a gentle gorge in its passage, winding down into a

valley whose bottom was obscured by close-leaning trees. As Simon and

Aditu picked their way carefully over the slippery rocks that lined the

gorge, the stream filled the air around them with fine spray. The water-

course splashed into a series of narrow ponds that grew successively

larger down the hillside, each one spilling over into the one below. The

ponds were overhung by aspen and drooping willows, the surrounding

stones slickly furred in rich green moss.

Simon sat down on one to rest his ankles and catch his breath.

"We will be there before too much longer," Aditu said, almost kindly.

"I'm fine." He stretched out his legs before him, staring critically at his

cracked boots. Too much snow had ruined the leatherbut why should

he worry about that now? "I'm fine," he repeated.

Aditu sat down on the stone beside him and looked up to the skies.

There was something quite marvelous about her face, something that he

had never seen in her brother, despite the distinct familial resemblance:

Jiriki had been very interesting to look at, but Simon thought that Aditu

was lovely.

"Beautiful," he murmured.

"What?" Aditu turned to look at him questioningly, as though she did

not know the word.

"Beautiful," Simon repeated. "Everything is very beautiful here." He

cursed himself for a coward and took a deep breath. "You are beautiful,

Coo, Lady," he finally added.

Aditu stared at him for a moment, her golden eyes puzzled, her mouth

creased in what seemed a tiny frown. Then she abruptly burst into a peal

of hissing laughter. Simon felt himself redden.

"Don't look so angry." She laughed again. "You are a very beautiful

Snowlock, Seoman. I am glad you are happy." Her swift touch on his

hand was like ice on a hot forehead. "Come," Aditu said, "we will go on

now,"

The water, uninterested in their doings, continued on its own way,

STONE OF FAREWELL

437

belling and splashing beside them as they made their way down toward

the valley. Scrambling over the rocks as he struggled to keep up with

light-stepping Aditu, Simon wondered if just this once he might actually

have said the right thing. She certainly didn't seem angry at his forward-

ness. Still, he resolved to continue thinking carefully before he spoke.

These Sithi were damnably unpredictable!

When they had nearly reached level ground, they stopped before a pair

of towering hemlocks whose trunks seemed vast enough to be the col-

umns upholding Heaven. Where these mighty trees thrust up between

their smaller neighbors into unshadowed sunshine, tangled nets of flower-

ing creepers grew like an arbor between the two trunks, trailing blossom-

laden vines that hung almost to the ground and quivered in the wind. The

grumble of bees was loudest from the flowers, but they swarmed every-

where among the creepers,' stolid laborers in gold and black, wings

glistening.

"Stop," Aditu said. "Do not so lightly pass through the Summer

Gate."

Despite the power and beauty of the great hemlocks, Simon was sur-

prised. "This is the gate? Two trees?"

Adieu looked very serious. "We left all monuments of stone behind

when we fled Asu'a the Eastward-Looking, Seoman. Now, Jiriki bade me

tell you something before you entered Shao Irigu. My brother said that

no matter what may occur later, you have been given the rarest of all

honors. You have been brought to a place in which no mortal has ever

set foot. Do you understand that? No mortal has ever walked in beneath

this gate."

"Oh?" Simon was startled by her words. He looked around quickly,

fearing he might see some disapproving audience. "But . . . but I just

wanted someone to help me. I was starving ..."

"Come," she said, "Jiriki will be waiting." Aditu took a step forward,

then turned. "And do not look so worried," she smiled. "It is a great

honor, it is true, but you are Hikka Stajaan Arrow-Bearer. Jiriki does

not break the oldest rules for just anyone."

Simon was passing beneath the great trees before he understood what

Aditu had said. "Break the rules?"

Aditu was moving quickly now, almost skipping, swift and sure-footed

as a deer as she made her way along the path that stretched downhill from

the Summer Gate. The forest here seemed just as wild but more accom-

modating. Trees as old and grand as these could never have known the

touch of an axe, yet they stopped just short of the path; their hanging

branches would not brush the head of any but the tallest traveler.

They followed this winding path for no little way, traveling on a rise

just a short distance above the floor of the valley. The forest was so

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thick-shrouded with trees on either side of the path that Simon could

never see more than a stone's throw before him, and began to feel as

though he stood in one place while an endless succession of mossy trunks

marched past him. The air had become positively warm. The wild river

which, judging from its noisy voice, snaked a parallel course along the

valley floor not a hundred cubits awayfilled the forest air with delicate

mist. The sleepy hum of bees and other insects washed over Simon like a

healthy swallow ofBinabik's hunt-liquor.

He had almost forgotten himself entirely, and was dreamily following

Aditu by sheer repetition of left foot, right foot, left foot, when the

Sitha-woman drew him to a halt. To their left the curtain of trees fell

away, revealing the valley floor.

"Turn," she said, suddenly whispering. "Remember, Seoman, you are

the first of your kind to see Jao e-Tinukai'ithe Boat on the Ocean of

Trees,"

It was nothing like a boat, of course, but Simon understood the name in

an instant. Stretched between treetop and ground, and from trunk to

trunk and bough to bough, the billowing sheets of cloth in a thousand

diverse colors resembled at first sight nothing so much as exquisite sails

indeed, for that first moment the entire valley floor seemed in truth a vast

and incredible ship.

Some of these expanses of brilliantly gleaming cloth had been stretched

and tented to make roofs. Others twined about the trunks of trees, or

spanned from bough to ground to form translucent walls. Some simply

heaved and snapped in the wind, bound to the highest branches with shiny

cords and allowed to wave. The whole city undulated with every shift of

the wind, like a seaweed forest on the ocean floor bowing gracefully with

the tide.

The cloth and binding cords mirrored with subtle differences the hues of

the forest all around, so that in places the additions were barely discernible

from that which had grown naturally. In fact, as Simon peered closer,

overwhelmed with Jao e-Tinukai'i's subtle and fragile beauty, he saw that

in many places the forest and city appeared to have truly been shaped as

one, so that they blended together with unearthly harmony. The river

which meandered along the center of the valley floor was more subdued

here, but still full of relentless, ringing music; the rippling light it reflected

onto the city's shifting facades added to the illusion of watery depth.

Simon thought he could also see the silvery tracks of other streams

weaving in and out through the trees.

The forest floor between the housesif such they werewas covered

with thick greenery, mostly springy clover. This grew like a carpet

everywhere but on the paths of dark earth that had been lined with

STONE OF FAREWELL439

shimmering white stone. A few of the gracefully haphazard bridges that

spanned the waterway were also constructed of this same stone. Beside

these paths, strange birds with fanlike, iridescent tails of green and blue

and yellow strutted or flapped unsteadily back and forth between earth

and the lowest branches of the surrounding trees, all the while uttering

harsh and somewhat foolish-sounding cries. There were other flashes of

incandescent color among the upper branches, birds as brilliantly-feathered

as the fantails but considerably more mellifluous of voice.

Warm, gentle winds lifted an essence of spices and tree sap and summer

grass to Simon's nose; the avian choir fluted a thousand different songs

that somehow fit together like a terrifyingly beautiful puzzle. The marvel-

ous city stretched away before him into the sunlit forest, a Heaven more

welcoming than any he had ever envisioned.

"It's . . . wonderful," Simon breathed.

"Come," Aditu said. "Jiriki awaits you in his house."

She beckoned. When he didn't move, she gently took his hand and led

him. Simon stared around in delight and awe as they followed a cross-trail

down off the rise and onto the outermost path of the valley floor. The

rustling of silken folds and the murmuring river blended their melodies

together beneath the birdsong, creating a new sound .that was altogether

different, but still infinitely satisfying.

There was a long time of looking, smelling, and listening before Simon

ever began thinking once more. "Where is everyone?" he asked at last. In

all of the city within his sight, a space easily twice the size of Battle Square

back in Brchester, he could not see a single living soul.

"We are a solitary folk, Seoman," Aditu said. "We stay largely to

ourselves, except at certain times. Also, it is midday now, when many of

our people like to leave the city and go out walking. I am surprised we

saw no one near the Pools."

Despite her reasonable words, Simon thought he sensed something

troubling the Sitha, as though she herself was not quite sure she spoke the

truth. But he had no way of knowing: expressions or behaviors that

meant something definite among those with whom Simon had grown up

were almost useless as standards by which to judge any of the Sitha he had

met. Nevertheless, he felt fairly sure that something was troubling his

guide, and that it might very well be the emptiness Simon had noticed.

A large wildcat strode imperiously onto the pathway before them. For a

startled moment, Simon felt his heart speed to a frenzied pace. Despite the

creature's size, Aditu did not break stride, walking toward it as calmly as

if it were not there. With a flip of its stubby tail, the wildcat abruptly

bounded away and vanished into the undergrowth, leaving only the bounc-

ing fronds of a fern to show it had existed at all.

Clearly. Simon realized, birds were not the only creatures who roamed

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unhindered through Jao e-Tinukai'i. Beside the path, the coats of foxes

seldom seen at night, let alone bright noonglimmered like flames in the

tangled brush- Hares and squirrels stared incuriously at the pair as they

passed. Simon felt quite sure that if he leaned down toward any of them

they would move unhurriedly out of his fumbling reach, discommoded

for a moment but utterly unafraid.

They crossed a bridge over one of the river-forks, then turned and

followed the watercourse down a long corridor of willows. A ribbon of

white cloth wound in and out among the trees on their left, wrapped

about trunks and looped over branches. As they passed farther down the

row of willow sentries, the initial ribbon was joined by another. These

two snaked in and out, crossing behind and before each other as though

engaged in a kind of static dance.

Soon more white ribbons of different widths began to appear, woven

into the growing pattern in knots of fantastic intricacy. These weavings at

first made up only simple forms, but soon Simon and Aditu began to pass

increasingly complex pictures that hung in the spaces framed by the

willow trunks: blazing suns, cloudy skies overhanging oceans covered

with jagged waves, leaping animals, figures in flowing robes or filigreed

armor, all formed by interlaced knots. As the first plain pictures became

entire tapestries of tangled light and shadow, Simon understood that he

watched an unfolding story. The ever-growing tapestry of knotted fabric

portrayed people who loved and fought in a gardenlike land of incredible

strangeness, a place where plants and creatures thrived whose forms seemed

obscure even though precisely rendered by the unknown weaver's master-

ful, magical hands.

Then, as the tapestry eloquently showed, something began to go wrong.

Only ribbons of white were used, but still Simon could almost see the

dark stain that began to spread through the people's lives and hearts, the

way it sickened them. Brother fought brother, and what had been a place

of unmatched beauty was blighted beyond hope. Some of the people

began building ships . . .

"Here," Aditu said, startling him. The tapestry had led them to a

whirlpool swirl of pale fabric, an inward-leading spiral that appeared to

lead up a gentle hill. On the right, beside this odd door, the tapestry

leaped away across the river, trembling in the bright air like a bridge of

silk. Where the taut ribbons of the tapestry vaulted the splashing stream,

the knots portrayed eight magnificent ships at sea, cresting woven waves.

The tapestry touched the willows on the far side and turned, winding back

up the watercourse in the direction from which Simon and Adieu had

come, stretching away from tree to tree until it could no longer be seen.

Aditu's hand touched his arm and Simon shivered. Walking in some-

one else's dream, he had forgotten himself. He followed her through

STONE OF FAREWELL

441

the doorway and up a set of stairs carefully cut into the hillside, then

paved with colorful smooth stones. Like everything else, the corridor

through which they walked was made of rippling, translucent cloth: the

walls were white near the door, gradually darkening to pale blue and

turquoise. In her white clothes Aditu reflected this shifting light, so that as

she walked before him, she, too, seemed to change color.

Simon trailed his fingers along the wall and found that it was as exqui-

sitely soft as it looked, but curiously strong; it slid beneath his hand as

smoothly as gold wire, yet was warm to the touch as the down of a baby

bird and quivered with the wind's every breath.

The featureless corridor soon opened up into a large, high-ceilinged

room chat, but for the instability of its walls, looked much like a room in

any fine house. The turquoise hue of the cloth near the entrance shaded

imperceptibly into ultramarine. A low table of dark wood stood near one

wall, with cushions scattered all around it. On the table sat a board painted

in many colors; Simon thought it a map until he recognized it as a place to

play the game called shent, which he had seen Jiriki do in his hunting

lodge. He remembered Aditu's challenge. The pieces, he guessed, were in

the intricate wooden box sitting beside it on the table top. The only other

item on the table was a stone vase containing a single branch from a

flowering apple tree.

"Sit down, Snowlock, please." Aditu waved her hand. "I believe Jiriki

has a visitor."

Before Simon could follow her suggestion, the room's far wall began to

billow. A section flew up as if it had torn free. Someone dressed in bright

green, whose braided hair was a jarringly contrasting shade of red, stepped

through,

Simon was surprised at how quickly he recognized Jiriki's uncle,

Khendraja'aro. The Sitha was muttering gruffly in what seemed to be

furyseemed, because Simon could see-no discernible emotion on his face

at all. Then Khendraja'aro looked up and spotted Simon. His angular face

blanched, as though the blood had run out of him like water from an

upended pail.

"Sudhoda'ya! hi-isi'ye-a Sudhoda'ya!" he gasped, his voice full of an

anger so astonished as to seem like something else altogether.

Khendraja'aro dragged his slender, beringed hand slowly across his eyes

and face as if trying to wipe away the sight of gangly Simon. Unable to do

so, Jiriki's uncle hissed in almost feline alarm, then turned on Aditu and

began to speak to her in rapid, quietly liquid Sithi that nonetheless strength-

ened the suggestion of spitting rage. Aditu absorbed his tirade expression-

lessly, her deep, gold-shot eyes wide but unfrightened. When Khendraja'aro

had finished, she answered him calmly. Her uncle turned and regarded

Simon once more, making a series of strangely sinuous gestures with his

splayed fingers as he listened to her measured response.

442 Tad Williams

Khendraja'ro took a deep breath, letting a preternatural calm overtake

him until he stood motionless as a pillar of stone. Only his bright eyes

seemed alive, burning in his face like lamps. After several moments of this

overwhelming stillness he walked from the room without a word or

sideways glance, padding silently down the corridor to the door of Jiriki's

house.

Simon was shaken by the unmistakable force ofKhendraja'aro's anger.

"You said something about breaking rules. . . ?" he asked.

Aditu smiled strangely. "Courage, Snowlock. You are Hikka Staja."

She brushed her fingers through her hair, a curiously human gesture, then

pointed to the flap where her uncle had entered. "Let us go in to my

brother."

They stepped through into sunlight. This room, too, was made of

fluttering cloth, but the fabric of one long wall had been rolled and drawn

up to the ceiling; beyond this opening the hill dropped away for some

dozen paces. Below lay a shallow, peaceful backwater of the same river

that passed before Jiriki's front door, a wide pond with a narrow inlet

neck, surrounded by reeds and quivering aspens. Little red-and-brown

birds hopped about on the rocks at the center of the pond, like conquerors

strutting the battlements of a captured stronghold. At pond's edge a bale

of turtles basked in the sun streaming down through the trees.

"In the evening the crickets are quite splendid here."

Simon turned to see Jiriki, who had apparently been standing in the

shadows at the opposite end of the room.

"Welcome toJao e-Tinukai'i, Seoman," he said. "We are well-met."

"Jiriki!" Simon sprang forward. Without thinking, he grasped the slen-

der Sitha in a tight embrace. The prince tensed for a moment, then

relaxed. His firm hand patted Simon's back. "You never said farewell,"

Simon said, then pulled away, embarrassed.

"I did not," Jiriki agreed. He wore a long, loose robe of some thin blue

cloth, belted at the waist with a wide red band; his feet were bare. His

lavender hair descended in braids before either ear, and was gathered atop

his head with a comb of pale, polished wood.

"I would have died in the woods if you had not helped me," Simon said

abruptly, then gave an awkward laugh. "If Aditu had not come, that is."

He turned to look at her; Jiriki's sister was watching intently. She nodded

her head in acknowledgment. "I would have died." He realized as he

spoke that it was absolutely true. He had begun the process of dying when

Aditu had found him, growing more distant each day from the business of

life.

"So." Jiriki folded his arms before him. "I am honored I could help. It

still does not discharge my obligation, however. I owed you two lives.

You are my Hikka Staja, Seoman, and so you will remain." He looked

over to his sister. "The butterflies have gathered."

STONE OF FAREWELL443

Aditu replied in their lyric tongue, but Jiriki held up his hand.

"Speak in a way that Seoman can understand. He is my guest."

She stared at him for a moment. "We met Khendraja'aro. He is not

happy."

"Uncle has not been happy since Asu'a fell. No plans of mine are likely

to change that."

"It is more than that. Willow-switch, and you know it." Aditu stared

hard at him, but her face remained dispassionate. She turned to look

briefly at Simon; for a moment, embarrassment seemed to darken her

cheeks. "It is strange to speak this tongue."

"These are strange days, Rabbitand you know that." Jiriki lifted his

hands toward the sunlight. "Ah, what an afternoon. We must go, now, all

of us. The butterflies have gathered, as I said. I speak lightly of

Khendraja'aro, but my heart is uneasy."

Simon stared at him, completely baffled.

"First allow me to take off this ridiculous clothing," Adieu said. She

slipped away through another hidden door so quickly that she seemed to

melt into shadow.\

Jiriki led Simon toward the front of his house. "We will wait for her

below. You and I have much to speak about, Seoman. but first we must

go to the Yasira."

"Why did she call you . . . Willow-switch?" Of all his countless ques-

tions, this was the only one he could put into words.

"Why do I call you Snowlock?" Jiriki looked closely at Simon's face,

then smiled his charming, feral smile. "It is good to see you well, manchild."

"Let us be off," Aditu said. She had come up behind Simon so sound-

lessly that he gasped in surprise. When he turned a moment later, he

gasped again. Aditu had shed her heavy snow-clothing for a dress that was

little more than a wisp of glimmering, nearly transparent white cloth

belted with a ribbon of sunset orange. Her slim hips and small breasts

were clearly silhouetted beneath the loose garment. Simon felt his face

grow hoc. He had grown up with the chambermaids, but they had moved

him out many years before sending him to sleep with the other scullions.

Such near-nakedness was more than disconcerting. He realized he was

staring and turned hurriedly away, his face coloring. One hand made an

involuntary Tree before his chest.

Aditu's laugh was like rain. "1 am happy to be shed of all that! It was

cold where the manchild was, Jiriki! Cold!"

"You are right, Aditu," Jiriki said grimly. "We find the winter outside

easy to forget when it is still summer in our home. Now, it is off to the

Yasira, where some do not want to believe that winter exists at all."

He led the way out his strange entry hall to the sunsplashed corridor of

willows beside the river. Aditu followed him. Simon brought up the rear,

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still blushing furiously, with no choice but to watch her springy, swaying

walk.

With the added distraction of Aditu in her summer finery, Simon did

not think about much of anything for a while, but even Jiriki's lissome

sister and Jao e-Tinukai'i's myriad other glories could not distract him

forever. Several things had been said lately that were beginning to worry

him: Khendraja'aro was angry with him, apparently, and Simon had

distinctly heard Adieu say something about breaking rules. What exactly

was happening?

"Where are we going, Jiriki?" he asked at last.

"The Yasira." The Sitha gestured ahead. "There, do you see?"

Simon stared, shielding his eyes from the strong sunlight. There were

so many distractions here, and the sunlight itself was one of the strongest.

Only a few days before he had been wondering if he would ever be warm

again- Why was he yet again allowing himself to be dragged somewhere

else, when all he wanted to do was flop down on his back in the clover

and sleep. . . ?

At first the Yasira seemed like nothing so much as a grand and oddly-

shaped tent, a tent whose center pole mounted fifty ells into the air, made

of a fabric more shifting and colorful than any of Jao e-Tinukai'i's other

beautiful structures. It took another two dozen paces before Simon real-

ized that the center pole was a gigantic ash tree with wide-spreading

branches, whose crown rose into the forest sky high above the Yasira

itself. He drew another hundred paces closer before he saw why the fabric

of the vast tent shimmered so.

Butterflies.

Trailing to the ground from the ash tree's widest branches were a

thousand threads, so slender chat they seemed little more than parallel

glints of light as they fell a hand-span apart all around the tree. Clinging to

these strands from top to bottom, lazily fanning their iridescent wings,

huddling so closely that they overlapped each other like the shingles on

some impossible roof were ... a million, million butterflies. They were

of every color imaginable, orange and wine-red, oxblood and tangerine,

cerulean blue, daffodil yellow, velvet black as the night sky. The quiet

whisper of their wings was everywhere, as if the warm summer air itself

had been given voice. They moved sluggishly, as though near sleep, but

were otherwise bound in no way that Simon could see. Countless chips of

vibrant moving color, the butterflies shattered the sunlight like an incom-

parable treasury of living gems.

In that moment, as Simon first saw it, the Yasira seemed the breathing,

glowing center of Creation. He stopped and abruptly burst into helpless

tears.

STONE OF FAREWELL

445

Jiriki did not see Simon's overwhelmed response. "The little wings are

restless," he said. "S'hue Khendraja'aro has brought the word."

Simon sniffled and wiped at his eyes. Faced with the Yasira, he sud-

denly thought he could understand the bitterness of Ineluki, the Storm

King's hatred for childish, destructive mankind. Shamed, Simon listened

to Jiriki's words as though from a great distance. The Sitha prince was

saying something about his unclewas Khendraja'aro talking co the

butterflies? Simon didn't care any longer. This was all just too much

for him. He didn't want to think; he wanted to lie down. He wanted to

sleep.

Jiriki had at last noticed his distress. He took Simon carefully by the

elbow and guided him toward the Yasira. At the front of the mad,

glorious structure, butterfly-laden strands trailed on either side of a wooden

doorway, which was no more than a simple carved frame wound round

with trailing roses. Adieu had already stepped through, and now Jiriki led

Simon in.

If the effect of the butterflies from outside was one of gleaming magnifi-

cence, the view from within was entirely different. The multicolored

shafts of light leaked down through the living roof, as if through stained

glass that had somehow become unstable. The great ash tree that was the"

Yasira's spine stood bathed in a thousand shifting hues; Simon was again

reminded of some strange forest thriving beneath the inconstant ocean.

This time, however, he was beginning to find the thought a little much to

bear. He felt almost as though he were drowning, floundering helplessly

in an opulence he could not entirely understand.

The great chamber had few furnishings. Beautiful rugs lay scattered

everywhere, but in many places the grass grew uncovered. Shallow pools

gleamed here and there, flowering bushes and stones around them, all

things just as they were outside. The only differences were the butterflies

and the Sithi.

The chamber was full of Sithi-folk, male and female, in costumes as

variegated as the wings of the butterflies that quivered overhead. One by

one at first, then in clusters, they turned to look at the new arrivals,

hundreds of calm, catlike eyes agleam in the shifting light. What seemed

to Simon a quiet but malicious hiss rose from the multitude. He wanted to

run away, and actually made a brief, stumbling attempt, but Jiriki's grip

on his arm was gently unbreakable. He found himself led forward to a rise

of earth before the base of the tree. A tall, moss-netted stone stood there

like an admonishing finger sunken in the grassy ground. On low couches

before it sat two Sithi dressed in splendid pale robes, a woman and a man.

The man, who was seated closest, looked up at Simon and Jiriki's

approach. His hair, tied high atop his head, was jet black, and he wore a

crown of carved white birchwood. He had the same angular golden

446 Tad Williams

features as Jiriki, but there was something drawn at the comers of his

narrow eyes and thin mouth that suggested a life of great length filled with

vast but subtle disappointment. The woman who sat beside him on his left

hand had hair of a deep, coppery red; she, too, wore a circlet ofbirchwood

on her brow. Long white feathers hung from her many braids, and she

wore several bracelets and rings as black and shiny as the hair of the man

beside her. Of all the Sithi Simon had seen, her face was the most

immobile, the most rigidly serene. Both man and woman had an air of age

and subtlety and stillness, but it was the quiet of a dark old pond in a

shadowed wood, the calm of a sky tilted with motionless thunderhcads; it

seemed entirely possible that such placidity might hide something

dangerousdangerous to callow mortals, at least.

"You must bow, Scoman," Jiriki said quietly. Simon, as much because

of his shaking legs as anything else, lowered himself to his knees. The

smell of the warm turf was strong in his nostrils.

"Scoman Snowlock, manchild," Jiriki said loudly, "know you are come

before Shima'onari, King of the Zida'ya, Lord of Jao e-Tinukai'i, and

Likimeya, Queen of the Dawn-Children, Lady of the House of Year-

Dancing."

Still kneeling, Simon looked up dizzily. All eyes were focused on him,

as though he were a singularly inappropriate gift. Shima'onari at last said

something to Jiriki, words as harsh-sounding as anything Simon had yet

heard the Sithi tongue produce.

"No, Father," Jiriki said. "Whatever else, we must not so lightly turn

our backs on our traditions. A guest is a guest. I beg you, speak words

that Seoman can understand."

Shima'onari's thin face pinched in a frown. When he spoke at last,

he proved far less facile with the Wcsterling tongue than his son and

daughter.

"So. You are the manchild that saved Jiriki's life." He nodded his head

slowly, but did not seem very pleased. "I do not know if you can

understand this, but my son has done a very bad thing. He has brought

you here against all laws of our peopleyou, a mortal." He straightened

up, looking from face to face among the Sithi-folk that surrounded them.

"What is done is done, my people, my family," he called. "No harm can

come to this manchiid: we have not sunk so far. We owe him honor as

Hikka Stajaas bearer of a White Arrow." He turned back to Simon, and

a look of infinite sadness crept over his face. "But neither can you leave,

manchild. We cannot let you leave. So you will stay forever. You will

grow old and die with us, here in Jao e-Tinukai'i."

The wings of a million butterflies murmured and whispered.

"Stay. . . ?" Simon turned, uncomprehending, to Jiriki. The prince's

usually imperturbable face was an ashen mask of shock and sorrow.

STONE OFFAREWELL

447

Simon was silent as they walked back to Jiriki's house. Afternoon was

slowly fading into twilight; the cooling valley was alive with the smells

and sounds of untainted summer.

The Sitha did nothing to break the silence, guiding Simon along the

tangled paths with nods and gentle touches. As they approached the river

that ran past Jiriki's door, Sithi voices lifted in song somewhere in the

overhanging hills. The melody that spilled echoing over the valley was an

intricately constructed series of descending figures: sweet, but with a

touch of dissonance winding through it, like a fox dodging in and out

among rainy hedgerows. There was something unquestionably liquid

about the song; after a moment, Simon realized that the invisible musi-

cians were in some way singing along with the noise of the river itself.

A flute joined in, ruffling the surface of the music like wind on [he

watercourse. Simon was abruptly and painfully struck by the strangeness

of this place; loneliness welled within him, an aching emptiness that could

not be filled by Jiriki or any of his alien kind. For all its beauty, Jao

e-Tinukai'i was no better than a cage. Caged animals, Simon knew,

languished and soon died.

"What will I do?" he said hopelessly.

Jiriki stared at the glinting river, smiling sadly. "Walk. Think. Leam

how to play shent. In Jao e-Tinukai'i, there are many ways to pass time."

As they walked toward Jiriki's door the water-song cascaded down

from the tree-mantled hillside, surrounding them with mournful music

that seemed ever-changing but unhurried, patient as the river itself.

23

Deep Waters

BV r^tVSUl- the Mother," Aspitis Preves said, "what a terrible

time^ou haveTiad of it, Lady Marya!" The earl lifted his cup to drink but

found it empty. He tapped his fingers on the cloth as his pale squire

hurried forward to pour more wine. "To think that the daughter of a

nobleman should be so ill-treated in our city."

The trio sat around the earl's circular table as the remains of a more than

adequate supper were cleared away by a page. Flickering lamplight threw

distorted shadows on the walls; outside, the wind sawed in the rigging.

Two of the earl's hounds brawled over a bone beneath the table.

"Your Lordship is too kind." Mmamele shook her head. "My father's

barony is very small, just a freeholding, really. One of the smallest

baronies in Cellodshire."

"Ah, then your father must know Godwig?" Aspitis' Westerling was a

little difficult to understand, and not only because it was his second

tongue: the goblet in his hand had been drained and filled several times.

"Of course. He is the most powerful of all the barons therethe king's

strong hand in Cellodshire." Thinking of the despicable, braying Godwig,

Miriamele found it hard to keep her expression pleasant, even while

looking on the goldenly handsome Aspitis. She darted a glance at Cadrach,

who was sunk in some dark mood, his brow furrowed like a thunderhead.

He thinks I'm saying too much, Miriamele decided. She felt a flash of

anger. But who is he to make faces? He got us into this trap; now, thanks to me,

instead of us going over the side as kilpafood, we're at the master's table drinking

wine and eating good Lakeland cheese.

"But I am still astonished by your ill fortune, Lady," Aspitis said. "I

had heard that these Fire Dancers were a problem in the provinces, and I

have seen a few heretical madmen preaching the Fire Dancer creed in

Nabban's public placesbut the idea that they would actually dare to lay

hands on a noblewoman!"

"An Erkynlandish noblewoman, a very unimportant one," Miriamele

STONE OF FAREWELL449

said hastily, worried she might have gone too far in her improvisation.

"And I was dressed to travel to my new convent home. They had no idea

of my position."

"That is immaterial." Aspitis waved his hand airily, almost knocking

over the candle on the tabletop with his trailing sleeve. He had shed the

finery he wore on the quarterdeck, choosing instead a long, simple robe

like those worn by knights during their vigil. But for a delicate gold Tree

on a chain about his neck, his only adornment was the insignia of the

Prevan House woven on each sleeve; the osprey wings wrapped his

forearms like climbing flames. Miriamele was favorable impressed that a

wealthy young man like Aspitis would greet guests in such modest attire.

"Immaterial," he repeated. "These people are heretics and worse. Besides,

a noblewoman from Erkynland is no different than one of Nabban's own

Fifty Families. Noble blood is the same throughout Osten Ard, and like a

spring of sweet water in an and wilderness, must be protected at all

costs." He leaned forward and gently couched her arm through her sleeve.

"Had I been there, Lady Marya, I would have given my life before letting

one of them mishandle you." He leaned back and patted the hilt of his

scabbarded sword, studiedly casual. "But if I had been forced to make that

ultimate sacrifice, I would have insisted chat a few ^if them accompany

me."

"Oh," said Miriamele. "Oh." She took a deep breath, a little over-

whelmed- "But really, Earl Aspitis, there is no need to worry. We escaped

quite safelyit's just that we had to flee to your boat and hide. It was

dark, you see, and Father Cadrach ..."

"Brother," the monk said sourly from across the table. He took a

draught of wine.

", . . Brother Cadrach said that this would be the safest place. So we hid

ourselves in the cargo hold. We are sorry for the imposition, Earl, and we

thank you for your kindness. If you will only put us ashore at the next

port ..."

"Leave you out among the islands somewhere? Nonsense." Aspitis

leaned forward, fixing her with his brown eyes. He had a dangerous

smile, Mmamele realized, but it did not frighten her as much as she knew

it should. "You will ride out the voyage with us, then we may put you

safe back in Nabban where you belong. It will be little more than a

fortnight, Lady. We will treat you wellboth you and your guardian."

He briefly turned his smile on Cadrach, who did not seem to share

Aspitis' good humor. "I think I even have some clothes on board that will

fit you, Lady. They should suit your beauty better than your . . . traveling

clothes."

"How nice'" Miriamele said, then remembered her imposture. "If it

meets with Brother Cadrach's approval."

"You have women's clothes on board?" Cadrach asked, eyebrow raised.

450 Tad Williams

"Left by my sister." Aspitis' smile was untroubled.

"Your sister." He grunted. "Yes. Well, I shall have to think on it."

Miriamele started to raise her voice to the monk, then remembered her

situation. She strove to look obedient, but silently cursed him. Why

shouldn't she be allowed to wear nice clothes for a change?

As the earl began to talk ammatedly of his family's great keep beside

Lake Eadneironically, a freehold that Miriamele had visited when a very

young child, although she did not now remember itthere was a rap at

the door. One of Aspitis' pages went to answer it.

"I come to speak with the ship's lord," a breathy voice said.

"Come in, my friend," Aspitis said. "You have all met, of course. Gan

Itai, you were the one who found Lady Marya and her guardian, yes?"

"That is true, Earl Aspitis," the Niskie nodded. Her black eyes twinkled

as they reflected the lamplight.

"If you would be so good as to come back in a while," Aspitis said to

the sea watcher, "then we will talk."

"No, please. Earl Aspitis." Miriamele stood. "You've been very kind,

but we should not keep you any longer. Come, Brother Cadrach."

"Keep me?" Aspitis put a hand to his breast. "Should I complain at

being the victim of such lovely company? Lady Marya, you muse think

me a dullard indeed." He bowed and took her hand, holding it for a

lingering moment against his lips. "I hope you do not think me too

forward, sweet lady." He snapped his fingers for a page. "Young Thures

will show you to your beds. I have put the captain out of his cabin. You

will sleep there."

"Oh, but we couldn't take the captain's ..."

"He spoke out of turn and did not show you proper respect, Lady

Marya. He is lucky I do not hang himbut I am willing to forgive. He is

a simple man, not used to women on his ships. A few nights sleeping at

general quarters with his crew will do him no harm." He dragged fingers

through his curly hair, then waved his hand. "Go on, Thures, lead them."

He bowed to Miriamele again, then smiled politely at Cadrach. This

time Cadrach returned the smile, but it seemed little more than a baring of

teeth. The little page, lantern held carefully before him, led his charges out

the door.

Aspitis stood silent a while in thought, then found the wine ewer and

poured himself another gobletful, which he drank off in a long swallow.

At last he spoke.

"So, Gan Itai, it is unusual for you to come hereand it is even more

unusual for you to leave the bow at night. Are the waters so untroubled

that your song is not needed?"

The Niskie shook her head slowly. "No, Ship's Master. The waters are

very troubled, but for this moment they are safe, and I wished to come

and tell you that I am disturbed."

STONE OF FAREWELL451

"Disturbed? By the girl? Surely Niskies are not superstitious like sailors."

"Not like sailors, no." She pulled her hood forward, hiding all but her

bright eyes. "The girl and the monk, even if they are not what they say,

are the least of my worries There is a great storm coming down from the

north."

Aspitis looked up at Gan Itai. "You left the bow to tell me that?" he

asked mockingly- "I have known that since before we set sail. The captain

says we will be out of deep waters before the storm reaches us."

"That may be. but there are great shoals of kilpa moving in from the

northern seas, as if they are swimming before the storm. Their song is

fierce and cold. Earl Aspitis; they seem to come up from the blackest

water, from the deepest trenches. I have never heard the like."

Aspitis stared for a moment, his whole aspect slightly out of kilter, as

though the wine had finally begun to effect him. "Eadne Cloud has many

important tasks to perform for Duke Bemgans," he said. "You must do

what it is your life's work to do." He lowered his head into the palms of

his hands. "I am tired, Gan Itai. Go back to the bow. I need to sleep."

The Niskie watched him for a moment, full of imponderable gravity,

then bowed gracefully and backed out of the door, letting it fall shut

behind her with a quiet thump. Earl Aspitis leaned .forward across the

table, pillowing his head on his forearms in the circle of lamplight.

It is good to be around a nobleman once more," Miriamele said.

"They are full of themselves, yes, but they do understand how to show a

woman respect."

Cadrach snorted from his pallet on the floor. "I find it hard to believe

you could sec any value in that ringleted fop, Princess."

"Hush!" Miriamele hissed. "Idiot! Don't speak so loudly! And don't call

me that I am Lady Marya, remember."

The monk made another noise of disgust. "A noblewoman chased by

Fire Dancers. That was a pretty tale to spin."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Yes, and now we must spend our time with Earl Aspitis, who will ask

question after question. If you had only said you were a poor tailor's

daughter who had hidden in fear for her virtue, or some such, the earl

would leave us alone and put us off at the first island where they take on

water and provisions."

"And make us work like dogs until thenif he didn't just throw us into

the sea. I, for one, am growing tired of this disguise. It is bad enough I

have been an acolyte monk all this time, now should I be a tailor's

daughter as well?"

Although she could not see him in the darkened cabin, Miriamele knew

by the sound of his voice that Cadrach was shaking his heavy head in

disagreement. "No. no, no. Do you understand nothing, Lady? We are

452

Tad Williams

not choosing parts like a children's game, we are struggling to stay alive.

Umivan, the man who brought us here, has been kitted. Do you under-

stand? Your father and your uncle are at war. The war is spreading. They

have killed the lector, the Ransomer's chief priest on the face of Osten

Ard, and they will stop at nothing. Lady! It is no game!"

Minamele choked back an angry reply, thinking instead about what

Cadrach had said. "Then why didn't Earl Aspitis say anything about the

lector? Surely it's the kind of thing people would talk about. Or did you

make that up as well?"

"Lady, Ranessin was only killed late last night. We left early in the

morning." The monk struggled to keep his patience. "The Sancellan

Aedomtis and the Escntonal Council may not announce what has hap-

pened for a day or two. Please, believe what I say is true, or we will both

come to a terrible end."

"Hmmph." Minamele lay back, pulling the blanket up to her chin. The

feeling of the boat rocking was quite soothing. "It seems that if it weren't

for my inventiveness and the earl's good manners, we might have come to

a terrible end already."

"Think what you like, Lady," Cadrach said heavily, "but do not, I beg

you, extend your trust to others any farther than you have with me."

He fell silent. Minamele waited for sleep. An odd, hauntingly alien

melody floated on the air, timeless and arrhythmic as the roar of the sea,

persistent as the rising and falling wind. Somewhere in the darkness

outside, Gan Itai was singing the kilpa down.

Eolair rode down out of the heights of the Grianspog Mountains in the

midst of the summer's worst snowstorm. The secret trails that he and his

men had so laboriously cut through the forest only weeks before were

now buried beneath three cubits of drifting white. The dismal skies hung

oppressively close, like the ceiling of a tomb. His saddlebags were

crammed with carefully-drawn maps, his head with brooding thoughts.

Eolair knew there was no use pretending that the land was suffenng

only a long bout of freakish weather. A grievous sickness was spreading

over Osten Ard. Perhaps Josua and his father's sword truly were tied up in

something vaster than the wars of men.

The Count of Nad Mullach was suddenly reminded of his own words,

uttered over the King's Great Table a year beforeGods of earth and sky,

he thought, but didn't it seem a lifetime since those relatively peaceful

days! "Evil is abroad . . ."he had told the assembled knights that day. "It is

not only bandits who prey on travelers and cause the disappearance of isolated

jarmers. The people of the North are ajraid . . ."

Not only bandits . . . Eolair shook his head, disgusted with himself. He

STONE OF FAREWELL453

had been so caught up in the day-to-day matters of his people's struggle to

survive that he had failed to heed his own warning. There were indeed

greater menaces to fear than Skah of Kaldskryke and his cutthroat army.

Eolair had heard stones told by survivors of the fall of Naglimund, the

bewildered accounts of a ghostly army raised by Elias the High King.

From the days of his childhood Eolair had heard tales of the White Foxes,

demons who lived in the blackest, coldest lands of the uttermost north,

who appeared like a plague, then vanished again. All during this last year

the Frostmarch dwellers had whispered over their night-fires ofjust such

pale demons. How foolish that Eolair of all people should not have

realized the truth behind these taleshad he not spoken of just that at the

Great Table!?

But what could it all mean? If they were truly involved, why should

creatures like these White Foxes side with Elias? Could it have something

to do with that monstrous priest Pryrates?

The Count of Nad Mullach sighed, then leaned far to the side to help

his horse balance as they made their way down a treacherous hill path.

Perhaps for all her foolishness, Maegwin had been right to set this task for

him. But still, that was no justification for the way in which she had done

it. Why should she treat him as she did in the underground city, after all

he had done for her family and the faithful service he had given her father

King Lluth? The terror and strangeness of their situation might be the

reason for such unkindness, but it was no excuse.

Such thoughtlessness was yet another odd change in Maegwin's demea-

nor, the latest of many. He feared for her deeply, but could think of no

way to help. She despised his solicitousness, and seemed to think he was

little more than a sly courtierEolair, who hated falsity, yet had been

driven to master it in the loyal service of her father! When he tried to help,

she insulted him and turned her back: he could only watch her sickening as

the land around him had sickened, her mind filling with strange fancies.

He could do nothing.

Eoiair was two days making his way down through the silent valleys of

the Gnanspog, with only his own cold thoughts for company.

It was astonishing to see how quickly Skali was making his occupation

of Hcrnystir permanent. Not content with taking over those houses and

buildings still standing in Hernysadharc and the surrounding villages, the

Thane of Kaldskryke had begun to construct new ones, great longhouses

of rough-hewn timbers. The Circoille Forest fringe was shrinking rapidly,

replaced by a growing expanse of mutilated tree stumps.

Eolair made his way along the ridgetops, watching the antlike figures

swarming over the flatlands below. The clatter of hammer on wedge rang

through the snowy hills.

He could not at first understand why Skali should need to build more

dwelling places: the conqueror's army, while of good size, was hardly so

454 Tad Williams

vast that it could not harbor itself in the Hemystiri's abandoned dwellings.

It was only when Eolair looked away to the lowering northern skies that

he realized what was happening.

All Skali's Rimmersfolk must he coming herejrom the Northold and young,

women and children. He stared down at the tiny, industrious shapes. I/it's

snowing in Hemysadharc in late Tiyagar-month, it must he a jrozen hell up by

Naarved and Sko^gey. Bagba bite me, what a thought! Skali has chased us into

the caves. Now he will move his Rimmersgarders onto our captured lands.

Despite all that his folk had already suffered at the hands of Skali.

Sharp-nose's warriors, despite King Lluth struck down, Prince Gwythinn

tortured and dismembered, and hundreds of Eolair's own brave Mullachi

dead beneath the gray skies of the western meadows, the count found

suddenly and to his surprise that he contained depths of anger and raw

hatred yet unplumbed. Skali's men strutting in the roads of Hemysadharc

was bad enough, but the thought of them bringing their women and

families to live on Hernystiri land filled Eolair with an unchanneled rage

stronger than he had felt since the first Hemystirmen had fallen at the

Inniscrich. Helpless on the ridgetop, he cursed the invaders and promised

himself that he would see Skali's jackals whipped howling back to

Kaldskrykethose who did not die on the precious Hemystiri soil chat

they had usurped.

Suddenly, the Count of Nad Mullach longed for the purity of battle.

The Hemystiri forces had been so savaged at Inniscrich that they had been

unable to fight anything but rearguard actions since. Now they had been

driven into hiding in the Grianspog and there was little they could do but

harrass the victors. Gods, he thought, but it would be fine to swing steel

in the open once more, to line up breast to breast with shields flashing

sunlight and sound the charge! The count knew it was a foolish craving,

knew himself for a careful man who always preferred talking sensibly to

fighting, but just now he craved simplicity. Open warfare, for all its

witless violence and horror, could seem a sort of beautiful idiocy into

which one could throw oneself as into the arms of a lover-

Now the call of that compelling but dangerous lover was growing

stronger. Whole nations seemingly on the march, topsy-turvy weather,

mad men ruling and dire legends come to lifehow he suddenly longed

for simple things!

But even as he yearned for unthinking release, Eolair knew that he

would hate its coming to be: the fruits of violence did not necessarily go to

the just or the wise.

Eolair skirted Hernysadharc's westernmost outposts and circled far around

the largest encampments of Skali's Rimmersmen, who had spread across

the meadowlands beneath Hemystir's capital. He rode instead through the

hilly country called the Dillathi, wliich stood like a bulwark along Hemystir's

STONE OFFAREWELL

455

coast as if to prevent invasion by sea. Indeed, the Dillathi would have

presented a nearly impossible problem for any would-be conqueror, but

the invasion which had undone Hemystir had come from the opposite

direction.

The highland folk were a suspicious lot, but they had grown used to

war-fugitives in the past year, so Eolair was able to find welcome in a few

houses. Those who took him in were far more interested in his news than

the fact that their guest was the Count of Nad Mullach. These were days

when gossip was the most valued coin in the country.

So far from the cities, no one had known much of Prince josua in the

first place, let alone how his struggle with the High King might be

somehow connected to Hemystir's plight. No one in the Dillathi country

had the slightest idea of whether King Ellas' brother Josua was alive or

dead, let alone where he might be. But the highlanders had heard of their

own King Lluth's mortal wounding from the tales of wanderering sol-

diers, survivors of the fighting at the Inniscrich. Thus, Eolair's hosts were

usually heartened to discover from him that Lluth's daughter still lived,

and that a Hemystiri court-in-exile of sorts still existed. Before the war

they had thought little of what the king in the Taig said or did, but he had

been part of their lives nonetheless. Eolair guessed they found it reassuring

that at least a shadow of the old kingdom remained, as chough the

continued existence of Lluth's family somehow assured that the Rimmersmen

would eventually be forced out.

Coming down out of the Dillathi, Eolair steered wide of high-walled

Crannhyr, Hemystir's strangest and most insular city, guiding his horse

instead toward Abaingeat at the mouth of the River Baraillean. He was

unsurprised to find that the Hemystirmen of Abaingeat had found a way to

live under the heavy hands of both Elias and Skali; Abaingeaters had a

reputation for flexibility. It was a common joke in other parts of the

country to refer to the port city as "Extremely North Perdruin" because

of the shared affection for profits and dislike of politicsthe kind of

politics that interfered with business, anyway.

It was also in Abaingeat that Eolair received his first real clue tojosua's

whereabouts, and it happened in a very typical Abaingeat way.

Eolair shared a supper table with a Nabbanai priest in an inn along the

waterfront. The wind was howling and rain was beating on the roof,

making the common room rumble like a drum. Under the very eyes of

bearded Rimmersmen and haughty ErkynlandersHemystir's new con-

querorsthe good father, who had perhaps had one tankard of ale too

many, told Eolair a disjointed but fascinating story. He had just arrived

from the Sancellan Aedonitis in Nabban, and he swore that he had been

told by someone there, someone he characterized as "the most important

priest in the Sancellan," that Josua Lackhand had survived Naglimund.

456

Tad Williams

with seven other survivors, had made his way eastward through the

grasslands to safety. These facts had been told to him, the priest said, only

under the condition of his complete discretion.

Immediately after telling this tale, Eolair's companion, full of drunken

remorse, begged him swear to secrecyas, the count felt sure, the priest

had begged many other recipients of this same secret. Eclair agreed with a

commendably straight face.

There were several things that interested Eolair about this talc. The

exact number of survivors injosua's party seemed a possible indication of

its authenticity, although he had to admit it sounded almost like a legend

in the making: The One-Handed Prince and his Gallant Seven. Also, the

priest's contrition about blurting out the secret seemed genuine. He had

not told the tale to make himself appear more grand; rather, he was simply

the kind of man who could not keep a confidence to save his soul.

This, of course, raised a question. Why would a man of some impor-

tance to Mother Church, as the priest's informant supposedly was, entrust

such a vital piece of intelligence to a numbwit on whose flushed, foolish

face untrustworthiness was clearly written? Surely no one could expect

this cheerful drunkard to keep anything to himself, let alone keep hidden a

subject of such interest in the war-torn North?

Eolair was puzzled but intrigued. As thunder growled over the

Frostmarch, the Count of Nad Mullach began to consider a journey to the

grassy country beyond Erkynland.

Later chat night, coming back from the stablesEolair never trusted

others to take proper care of his horse, a habit that had benefited him more

often than nothe stopped outside the inn's front door. A fierce wind

laden with snow blew down the street, banging the shuttered windows.

Beyond the docks the sea murmured uneasily. All of Abaingeat's inhabi-

tants seemed to have vanished. The midnight city was a ghost ship,

floating captainless beneath the moon.

Strange lights played across the northern sky: yellow and indigo and a

violet like the after-image of lightning. The horizon pulsed with rippling,

radiant bands unlike anything Eolair had ever seen, at once chilling and yet

incredibly vital. Compared to silent Abaingeat, the North seemed wildly

alive, and for a mad moment the count wondered if it was worth fighting

any more. The world he had known was gone. and nothing could bring it

back. Perhaps it would be betterjust to accept . . .

He smacked his gloved hands together. The clap echoed dully and

faded. He shook his head, trying to shake the leadenness from his thoughts.

The lights were compelling indeed.

And where would he go now? It was a ride of several weeks to the

meadowlands beyond Hasu Vale of which the priest had spoken. Eolair

knew he could cling to the coastline, passing Meremund and Wentmouth,

STONE OF FAREWELL457

but that would mean riding as a lone traveler through an Erkynland that

owed its complete allegiance to the High King. Or, he could let the

shimmering aurora draw him north instead, to his home in Nad Mullach.

His keep was occupied by Skah's reavers, but those of his people who

survived in the countryside would give him shelter and news, and also a

chance to rest and reprovision himself for the remainder of his long

journey. From there he could turn east and pass Erchester to the north,

moving in the protective shadow of the great forest.

Pondering, he stared at the spectral glow in the northern sky. It made

for a very chilly light.

4-

The waves were choppy, the dark sky wild with tattered, ominous

clouds. A zigzag of lightning flared on the blackened horizon.

Cadrach gripped the railing and groaned as the Eadne Cloud lifted high,

then settled once more into the trough of a wave. Overhead the sails

popped in the strong wind, percussive bursts of sound like whipcracks.

"Oh, Brynioch of the Skies," the monk implored, "take this tempest

away!"

"This is barely a storm at all," Miriamele said derisively. "You've never

been in a real sea-storm."

Cadrach made a gulping sound. "Nor do 1 want to be."

"Besides, what are you doing, praying to pagan gods? I thought you

were an Aedonite monk."

"I have been praying for Usires' intercession all afternoon," Cadrach

said, his face pale as fish-flesh. "I thought it time to try something

different." He rose on tiptoes and leaned farther out over the railing.

Miriamele turned her head away. A moment later the monk settled back,

wiping his mouth with his sleeve. A spatter of rain drifted across the deck.

"And you, Lady," he said, "does nothing bother you?"

She bit back a mocking reply. He looked truly pathetic, his few strands

of hair pasted flat, his eyes dark-rimmed. "Many things, but not being on

a boat at sea."

"Count yourself blessed," he mumbled, then turned back to sag against

the rail once more. Instead, his eyes widened. He screeched in shock and

tumbled backward, falling rump-first to the deck.

"Bones ofAnaxos!" he shouted. "Save us! What is it?!"

Miriamele stepped to the rail to see a gray head bobbing in the saddle of

the waves. It was vaguely manlike, hairless yet unsealed, sleek as a

dolphin, with a red-rimmed, toothless mouth and eyes like rotting black-

berries. The flexible mouth rounded into a circle as though it would sing.

It gave out a strange, gurgling hoot, then slipped beneath the waves,

458 Tad Williams

showing a glimpse of long-toed, webbed feet as it dove A moment later

the nub of head appeared again a little closer to the ship It watched them

Minamele's stomach fluttered "Kilpa," she whispered

"It is horrible," Cadrach said, still crouching below the wale "It has the

face of a damned soul "

The empty black eyes followed Miriamcic as she moved a few steps up

the railing She understood the monk clearly The kilpa was far more

horrifying than any mere animal could be, no matter how savageso

dreadfully near-human, yet so devoid of anything that looked like human

feeling or understanding

"I have not seen one in years," she said slowly, unable to tear her eyes

away "1 don't think I have ever seen one so close " Her thoughts tumbled

back to her childhood, to a trip she had taken with her mother Hyhssa

from Nabban to the island ofVmitta Kilpa had glided in and out of their

wake, and to the younger Minamele they had seemed almost sportive, like

porpoises or flving fish Seeing this one so closely, she now understood

why her mother had hastily dragged her from the rail She shuddered

"You say that you have seen them before, my lady5" a voice asked She

whirled to find Aspitis standing behind her, his hand resting on crouching

Cadrach's shoulder The monk looked quite sick

"On a long-ago visit toto Wentmouth," she said hastily "They are

terrible, aren't they5"

Aspitis nodded slowly, staring at Minamele rather than the slick gray

thing bobbing off the stern rail "I hadn't realized that kilpa traveled into

cold northern waters," he said

"Doesn't Gan Itai keep them away7" she said, trying to change the

subject "Why has this one come so close5"

"Because the Niskie is exhausted and is sleeping for a while, and also

because the kilpa have become very bold " Aspitis bent and picked a

square-headed iron nail off the deck, then pitched it at the silent watcher

It splashed a foot from the kilpa's noseless, earless head The black eyes

did not blink "They are more active than I have ever heard of, these

days," the earl said "They have swarmed several small craft since the

winter, and even a few large ones " He hurriedly raised a hand on which

gold rings sparkled "But fear not. Lady Marya There is no better singer

than my Gan Itai "

"That thing is a horror and I am ill " Cadrach groaned "I must go and

lie myself down " He ignored Aspitis' proffered hand and clambered to

his feet, then went stumbling away

The earl turned and shouted instructions to the crewmen swarming in

the wind-buffeted rigging ' We must reef the sails,' he said by way of

explanation ' There is a verv fierce storm coming, and we can only ride it

out " As if to underscore his point, lightning flashed once more on the

northern horizon "Perhaps you would be good enough to join me for my

STONE OF FAREWELL459

evening meal " Thunder came rolling across the swells, a flurry of rain

swept over them "That way, your guardian can be given some pnvacy to

recuperate, and you need not be without company if the storm grows

frightening " He smiled, showing even teeth

Minamele felt tempted but cautious There was an impression of coiled

strength to Aspitis, as though some potential were being hidden so as not

to frighten In a way, it reminded her of old Duke Isgnmnur, who created

women with gentle, almost excessive deference, as though his blundenng

bluffness might at any time escape his control and burst forth to shock and

offend Aspitis, too, seemed to hold something in check It was a quality

she found intriguing

"Thank you, your Lordship," she said at last "I would be honored

you will have to excuse me, though, if I must leave from time to time to

see that Brother Cadrach is not suffering too badly for want of aid or

company "

"Did you not," Aspitis said, smoothly taking her arm, "you would not

be the good and gentle lady that you are I can see that you two are as

close as family, that you respect Cadrach as you would a beloved uncle "

Minamele could not help looking over her shoulder as Aspitis led her

across the deck, beneath the crewmen shouting at each other in the rigging

so they could be heard above the wall of the wind The kilpa still floated

m the rough green seas, watching solemnly as a priest, its open mouth a

round black hole

The earl's squire, a thm, whey-faced young man with a resentful frown,

directed the two pages as they loaded the table with fruit and bread and

white cheese Thures, the smaller of the pages, tottered out beneath the

weight of a salver bearing a cold joint of beef The boy stayed to assist,

handing the squire a new carving untensil each time that artist impatiently

waved his hand The little page seemed cleverhis dark eyes watched the

pasty-faced squire intently for the slightest signbut the bad-tempered

older boy nevertheless found several opportunities to cuff him for his

slowness

"You seem very comfortable on a ship. Lady Marva," Aspitis said,

smiling as he filled a wine goblet from a beautiful brass ewer He had his

other page carry it around the table to her "Have you been at sea before7

It is a long way from Cellodsmre to what we in Nabban call the Veir

Maymsthe Great Green "

Minamele silently cursed herself Perhaps Cadrach was right She should

have thought of a simpler story to tell "Yes I mean, no, I haven't Not

really " She took a long, studied sip of wine, forcing herself to smile back

at the earl despite its sourness "We traveled on shipboard down the

Glemwent several times I have been on the Kynslagh as well " She took

460 Tad Wilhams

another long sip and realized she had emptied the goblet. She set it down,

embarrassed What would this man think of her5

"Who is 'we'7"

"I beg your pardon7" She guiltily pushed the goblet away, but Aspitis

took this as a sign and refilled it, pushing it back to her side of the nmmed

table with an understanding smile. As the cabin pitched with the boat's

motion, the wine threatened to overtop the edge of the goblet. Mmamele

picked it up, holding it very gingerly.

"I said, who is 'we', Lady Marya, if I may ask? You and your guardian?

You and your family? You mentioned your father, Baron . . . Baron ..."

He frowned "A thousand apologies, I've forgotten his name."

Mmamele had forgotten also. She covered her moment of panic with

another sip of wine; it became rather a long sip as she struggled with her

memory. The name she had chosen came back at last. She swallowed.

"Baron Seoman."

"Of courseBaron Seoman. Was that who took you down the

Gleniwent?"

She nodded her head, hoping not to get into any further trouble.

"And your mother?"

"Dead."

"Ah." Aspitis' golden face became somber as a cloud-curtained sun.

"Forgive me. I am being rude, asking so many questions. I am terribly

sorry to hear that."

Mmamele had a moment of inspiration. "She died in the plague last

year."

The earl nodded. "So many did. Tell me. Lady Maryaif you will

allow me one last and quite forward questionis there a special man to

whom you are promised?

"No," she answered quickly, then wondered if she could have given a

better and less potentially troublesome answer. She took a deep breath,

holding the earl's gaze The pomander that scented the cabin air was nch

in her nostrils. "No," she repeated. He was very handsome.

"Ah." Aspilis nodded gravely- With his youthful face and head of

bnlhant curls, he seemed almost a child play-acting as an adult. "But see,

you have not eaten anything, Lady. Does the fare displease you?"

"Oh, no. Earl Aspitis!" she said breathlessly, looking for a spot to put

her wine goblet down so she could pick up her knife. She noticed that the

cup was empty. Aspitis saw her look and leaned forward with the ewer.

As she picked at her food, Apitis talked. As if in apology for his earlier

interrogation, he kept his conversation airy as swansdown, speaking mostly

of odd or silly things that happened at the Nabbanai court. To hear him

talk, it was quite a glittering place. He told stones well and soon had her

laughingin fact, with the rocking of the ship and the walls of the

small, lampht cabin pressing in upon her, she began to wonder if she

STONE OF FAREWELL461

was laughing too much The whole thing felt rather dreamlike. She was

having difficulty keeping her eyes squarely on Aspitis* smiling face.

As she suddenly realized chat she could no longer see the earl at all, a

hand came to rest lightly upon her shoulder: Aspitis was behind her, still

talking about the ladies of the court. Through the wine fumes that filled

her head, she could feel his touch, weighty and hot.

". . . But of course their beauty is that rather . . . arranged beauty, if

you know what I mean, Marya. I do not mean to be cruel, but sometimes

when Duchess Nessalanta is caught in a breeze, the powder flies off her

like snow from a mountamtop!" Aspitis' hand squeezed gently, then

moved to her other shoulder as he altered his stance. On the way, his

fingers trailed gently across the nape other neck. She shuddered. "Do not

misunderstand me," he said, "I would defend to the death the honor and

beauty of our courtly Nabbanai womenbut in my heart there is nothing

so fine as the unimproved loveliness of a country girl." His hand moved

to her neck again, the touch delicate as a thrush's wing. "You are such a

beauty. Lady Marya I am so pleased to have met you. I had forgotten

what it was to see a face that needed no embellishment ..."

The room spun. Mmamele abruptly straightened and her elbow toppled

the wine cup. A few drops like blood pooled on herJiand towel. "I must

go outside," she said. "1 must have some air."

"My lady," Aspitis said, concern plain in his voice, "are you ill7 I hope

it is not my poor table that has offended your gentle constitution "

She waved a hand, trying to placate him, wanting only to be out of the

glaring lamplight and the stiflingly warm, perfumed air. "No, no. I just

want to go outside "

"But there is a storm, my lady. You would be soaked. I can't allow it."

She stumbled a few steps toward the door. "Please. I'm ill."

The earl shrugged helplessly. "Let me at least get you a warm cloak that

will keep out most of the damp " He clapped for his pages, who were

trapped with the unpleasant squire in the tiny room that served as both

larder and kitchen. One of the pages began to go through a large chest in

search of an appropriate garment while Mmamele stood by miserably. She

was at last outfitted in a musty-smelling wool cloak with a hood, Aspitis,

similarly dressed, took her elbow and guided her up onto the deck.

The wind was blowing in earnest. Torrents of rain sliced down, turning

to cascades of sparkling gold as they passed through the guttering lamp-

light, then vanishing back into blackness. Thunder drummed.

"Let us at least sit beneath the canopy. Lady Marya," Aspitis cried, "or

we will both of us catch some terrible ague!" He led her aft, where a

red-striped sailcloth awning stretched between the wales, humming as it

vibrated in the strong wind A steersman in a flapping cloak bowed his

head as they ducked beneath the cloth, but kept his hands firmly clasped

on the tiller. The pair sat down on a pile of dampened rugs.

462 Tad Williams

"Thank you," Minamele said. "You are kind. I feel very foolish to

trouble you."

"I only worry that this is a cure worse than the illness," Aspitis said,

smiling. "If my physician were to hear of this, he would be leeching me

for brain fever before I could blink."

Minamele laughed and shivered in quick succession. Despite the chill,

the tangy sea air had vastly improved her outlook. She no longer felt as

though she might faintin fact, she felt so much better that she did not

object when the Earl of Eadne and Drina slipped a solicitous arm around

her shoulders.

"You are a strange but fascinating young woman, Lady Marya," Aspitis

whispered, barely audible above the moan of the wind. His breath was

warm against the chilled flesh of her ear. "I feel there is some mystery

about you- Are all country girls so full of moods?"

Miriamele was very definitely of two minds about the tingling that was

running right through her. Fear and excitement seemed dangerously

intermixed. "Don't," she said at last.

"Don't what, Marya?" Even as the storm roared and flailed outside,

Aspitis' touch was solemn, silken.

A flurry of confusing images seemed to sweep in on the windher

father's cold, distant face, young Simon crookedly smiling, the riverbanks

of the Aelfwent flashing past, flickering with light and shadow. Her blood

was warm and loud in her ears.

"No," she said, pulling free of the earl's clinging arm. She scrambled

forward until she was out from under the canopy and could straighten up.

The rain smacked wetly against her face.

"But Marya ..."

"Thank you for the lovely supper, Earl Aspitis. I have been a great deal

of trouble and I beg your forgiveness."

"No forgiveness need be sought, my lady."

"Then I will bid you goodnight." She stood, buffeted by the strong

wind, and made her way unsteadily down to the deck, then followed the

cabin wall to the ladder down into the narrow corridor. She stepped

through the door into the cabin she shared with Cadrach. She stood in

darkness and listened to the monks's even, sonorous breathing, thankful

that he did not wake. A few moments later came the sound of Aspitis'

boots on the ladder rungs; his cabin door opened, then closed behind him.

For a long while Minamele leaned against the door. Her heart beat as

swiftly as if she been hiding for her life's preservation.

Was this love5 Fear? What kind of spell did the golden-haired earl cast

that she should feel so wild, so pursued? She was breathless and confused

as a flushed hare.

The thought of lying on her bed, trying to sleep while her thoughts

raced and Cadrach snored on the floor, was intolerable. She opened the

STONE OF FAREWELL463

cabin door a crack and listened, then slipped out into the corridor and onto

the deck once more. Despite the rain pelting down, the storm seemed to

have lessened The deck still pitched so that she could not make her way

forward without keeping a hand on the shrouds, but the sea had calmed

considerably.

A trill of disquieting but curiously seductive melody drew her along.

The song curved and recurved, stitching the stormy night like a thread of

silver-green. By turns it was soft or hearty or piercingly loud, but the

changes unfolded so jomlessly that it was impossible to remember what

had been happening a moment before, or to understand how anything

different than what was happening at this particular moment could even

exist.

Gan Itai sat cross-legged in the forecastle, head thrown back so that her

hood fell loosely on her shoulders and her white hair streamed in the

breeze. Her eyes were closed. She swayed from side to side, as though her

song were a fast-moving river which took every bit of her concentration

to ride.

Minamele drew her own hooded cloak close and settled into the dubi-

ous shelter of the ship's wale to listen.

The Niskie's song went on for what seemed an hour, sliding smoothly

from pitch to pitch and pace to pace. Sometimes her liquid words seemed

arrows that flew outward to spark and sting, other times an array of gems

that dazzled with smoldering colors. Through it all ran a deeper melody

that never entirely disappeared, a melody which seemed to speak of

peaceful green depths, of sleep, and of the coming of a heavy, comforting

silence.

Minamele awakened with a little start. When she lifted her head, it was

to see Gan Itai regarding her curiously from the forecastle. Now that the

Niskie had stopped singing, the roar of the ocean seemed curiously flat

and tuneless

"What are you doing, child?"

Minamele was oddly embarrassed. She had never been so near a singing

Niskie before. It almost seemed that she had been spying on some very

private thing.

"I came out on deck to get some air. I was having supper with Earl

Aspitis and felt sick." She took a breath to still her shaking voice. "You

sing wonderfully."

Gan Itai smiled slyly. "That is true, or the Eadne Cloud would not have

made so many safe voyages. Come, sit by me and talk. I need not sing for

a while, and the late watches are lonely."

Minamele climbed up, seating herself beside the Niskie. "Do you get

tired, singing?" she asked.

Gan Itai laughed quietly. "Does a mother grow tired raising her chil-

dren? Of course, but it is what I do."

464 Tad Williams

Minamele stole a glance at Gan Itai's wrinkled face. The Niskie's eyes

peered our from beneath her white brows, fixed on the spray and swells.

"Why did Cadrach call you Tinook . ." She tried to remember the

word.

"Tmukeda'ya Because that is what we are Ocean Children. Your

guardian is learned."

"But what does it mean5"

"It means we always lived on the ocean. Even in the far-away Garden,

we dwelt always at land's end It has only been since we came to this place

that some of the Navigator's Children have been changed Some have left

the sea entirely, which is as hard for me to understand as if someone were

to stop breathing and claim that was a good way to live " She shook her

head, pursing her thin lips

"Where arc your people from5"

"Far away Osten Ard is only our most recent home."

Minamele sat for a while, thinking. "I always thought that Niskies were

just like Wrannamen. You look very much like Wrannamen "

Gan Itai laughed sibilantly "I have heard," she said, "that though they

are different, some animals grow to look like each other because they do

the same things Perhaps the Wrannamen, like the Tmukcda'ya, have

bowed their heads for too long." She laughed again, but Minamele did

not think it was a happy laugh "And you, child," the Niskie said at last,

"it is your turn to answer questions Why are you here7"

Minamele stared, caught off balance. "What5"

"Why are you here7 I have thought about what you said, and I am not

sure I believe you "

"Earl Aspitis does," Minamele said, a little defiantly

"That may be true, but I am altogether different " Gan Itai turned her

gaze on Minamele. Even in the dim lamplight, the Niskie's eyes glittered

hke anthracite "Speak to me."

Minamele shocked her head and tried to pull away, but a thin, strong

hand closed on her arm. "I am sorry," Gan Itai said. "1 have frightened

you. Let me put your mind at case. I have decided that there is no harm in

youno harm to the Eadne Chud, at least, which is what I care about. I

am considered peculiar among my folk because I judge quickly. When 1

like something or someone, I like it." She chuckled dryly. "I have decided

that 1 like you, Maryaif that is your name. It shall be your name for

now, if you wish. You need never fear me, not old Gan Itai."

Bewildered by the night, by wine, and by this latest of many unusual

feelings, Minamele began to weep.

"Now, child, now ..." Gan Itai's gentle, spidery hand patted her back.

"I have no home." Minamele fought her tears She felt herself on the

verge of saying things she should not say, no matter how much she

wished to be unburdened. "I am . . a fugitive."

STONE OF FAREWELL465

"Who pursues you5"

Minamele shook her head Spray arched high over the bow as the ship

nosed down into another trough "I cannot say, but I am in terrible

danger That's why I had to hide on the boat."

"And the monk? Your learned guardian? Is he not in danger, too5"

Minamele was brought up short by Gan Itai's question There was

much she had not had time to think about "Yes, I suppose he is."

The Niskie nodded, as if satisfied. "Fear not. Your secret is safe with

me."

"You won't tell Aspitis . . the earl5"

Gan Itai shook her head "My own allegiances are more complex than

you can know But I cannot promise you he will remain ignorant. He is a

clever one, Endue Cloud's master."

"I know." Minamele's reply was heartfelt.

The mounting storm flung down another wash of ram Gan Itai leaned

forward, staring out into the wmd-tossed sea. "House ofVe, they do not

stay down long! Curse them, but they are strong!" She turned to Minamele

"I think it is time for me to sing once more It would probably be good

for you to get below deck."

Minamele awkwardly thanked the Niskie for her companionship, then

stood and made her way down the slippery ladder and off the forecastle

Thunder growled like a beast hunting them through the darkness. She

wondered suddenly, desperately, if she had been a fool to open her heart

to this strange creature.

At the hatchway she stopped, cocking her head. In the black night

behind her, Gan Itai's song had been lifted against the storm once more, a

slender ribbon offered to hold back the angry sea.

24

Dogs ofErchester

lOSXUl' S company rode north along the banks of the river Stefflod,

heading upstream from the juncture with the Ymstrecca through grassland

rumpled with low hills. Soon the downs began to rise higher on either

side, so that the prince's folk found themselves traveling through a

meadowed river-valley, a wide trough of land with the watercourse at its

center.

The Stefflod wound along beneath the somber sky, shining dully as a

vein of tarnished silver. Like the Ymstrecca, its song at first seemed

muffled, but Deomoth thought this river had a queer undertone to its

murmuring, as though it hid the voices of a great whispering throng.

Sometimes the noise of the water seemed to rise in what was almost a

thread of melody, clear as a succession of pealing bells. A moment later, as

Deornoth strained to hear what it was that had captured his attention,

nothing sounded but the mutter and rush of moving water.

The light playing upon the Stefflod's surface was just as dreamily

inconstant. Despite the overcast, the water glimmered at times as though

cold-burning stars were rolling and bumping along the river's bottom. At

other moments the gleam heightened to a sparkle like a froth of jewels.

-Thenjust as suddenly, whether the sun was showing or cloud-hidden

the waterway would again become dark and unreflective as lead.

"Strange, isn't it?" Father Strangyeard said. "For all the things we've

. my goodness, the world still has more to show us, doesn't it?"

seen

"There's something very . . . alive about it." Deornoth squinted. A curl

of light seemed to wriggle on the river's agitated skin, like a radiant fish

struggling against the current.

"Well, it is all ... hmmm ... all part of God," Strangyeard said,

making the sign of the Tree on his breast, "so of course it 15 alive." He

squinted too, frowning slightly. "But I do know what you mean, Sir

Deornoth."

The valley that had gradually risen around them seemed to take much of

467

STONE OFFAREWELL

its character from the river. Willow trees stood sleepily beside the water-

course, shivering as they bent to the cold water like women washing their

hair. As the riders traveled farther, the river widened and slowed. Thickets

of reeds appeared along the banks, resplendent with birds who shrieked

from their bowers to warn all their tribe that strangers walked the land.

Strangers, Deornoch thought. That is what we suddenly seem here. As if we

have passed out of the lands meant/or our folk and crossed over into someone else's

domain. He remembered Geloe's words on that night, weeks back, when

they had first met her in the forest:

"Sometimes you men are like lizards, sunning on the stones of a crumbled

house, thinking: 'what a nice basking spot someone built for me.' " The witch

woman had frowned as she spoke.

She told us we were m Sifhi lands, he recalled. Now we are again entering

their fields, that is all. That is why things seem so strange.

Somehow this did not dispel his unsettled feeling.

They made camp in a meadow. The low grass was dotted here and

there with fairy-rings, as the woman lelda had called them, perfect circles

of small white toadstools that shone faintly against the dark turf as twi-

light came on. Duchess Gutrun did not like the idea of sleeping so near to

these rings, but Father Strangyeard sensibly pointed out that the people of

Gadrinsett said the whole of this land belonged to the "faines," so the

proximity of a mushroom ring meant little. Gutrun, more concerned for

the safety of the child Leieth than herself, gave in with reservations.

A small fire, made with willow branches they had gathered during the

journey, helped to dispel some of the strangeness. The prince's party ate

and calked quietly long into the evening. Old Towser, who had been

sleeping so long and so deeply during the journey that he hardly seemed

one of their company anymore, but more like a piece of baggage, awak-

ened and lay staring at the night sky.

"The stars aren't right," he said at last, so quietly that none heard him.

He repeated himself more loudly. Josua came to kneel beside him, caking

the jester's trembling hand in his.

"What is it, Towser?"

"The stars, they aren't right." The old man pulled his fingers free from

the prince's grip and gestured upward. "There's the Lamp, but it's got one

star more than it should. And where's the Crook? It shouldn't be gone 'til

harvest time. And there's others there I don't know at all." His lip

quivered. "We're all dead. We've gone through into the Shadow Land like

my grandmother used to tell of. We're dead."

"Come, now,"Josua said gently. "We are not dead. We are simply in a

different place, and you have been in and out of dreams."

Towser fixed him with a surprisingly sharp eye. "It is Amtul-month, is

it not? Don't think I am crazy-old yet, no matter what I have been

468 Tad Williams

through. I have stared at summer skies for nearly twice your lifetime,

young prince. We may be in a different place, but all Ostcn Ard shares the

same starsdoes it not?"

Josua was silent for a while. A thin babble of voices rose from the

campfire behind him. "I did not mean to say you had lost your wits, old

friend. We are in a strange place, and who knows what stars may shine

upon us? In any case, there is nothing to be done about it." He Cook the

old man's hand again- "Why do you not come and sit closer to the fire? I

think it would be comforting to have us all together, at least for a little

while."

Towser nodded and let Josua help him rise. "A little warmth would not

go amiss, my prince. I feel a growing cold in my bones . . . and I don't

like it."

"All the better, then, to sit near the fire on a damp night." He led the

old jester back.

The fire had dimmed to embers and Towser's unfamiliar stars were

wheeling in the sky overhead. Josua looked up when a hand touched his

shoulder. Vorzheva had a blanket draped over her arm.

"Come, Josua, "she said. "Let us go and make our bed by the riverside."

He looked around at the others, all sleeping but Deornoth and

Strangyeard, who Calked quietly on the far side of the fire. "I do not think

I should leave my people alone."

"Leave your people?" she said. There was an edge of anger in her voice,

but a moment later it gave way to a quiet laugh. She shook her head and

her black hair fell across her face. "You will never change. I am your wife

now, do you remember thac? We have gone four nights as if our marriage

had never happened because you feared pursuit by the king's soldiers and

wished to be close to the others. Do you still fear?"

He looked up at her. His lip curled in a smile. "Not tonight." He rose

and put his arm about her slender waist, feeling the strong muscles of her

back. "Let us go down by the river."

Josua left his boots by the fire circle and together they went barefoot

through the damp grass until the glow of the coals had disappeared behind

them. The murmur of the river grew louder as they made their way down

to the sandy verge. Vorzheva unfurled the blanket and sank down upon it-

Josua joined her, pulling his heavy cloak over them both. For a while they

lay in silence beside the dark Stefflod, watching the moon holding court

among her stars. Vorzheva's head rested on Josua's chest, her river-

washed hair against his cheek.

"Do not think that because our wedding was foreshortened, it meant

any less to me," he said finally. "I promise you that one day we will have

our lives back as they were meant to be. You shall be the lady of a great

house, not an exile in the wilderness."

STONE OF FAREWELL469

"Gods of my clan! You are a fool, Josua," she said. "Do you think that

I care what kind of house I live in?" She turned and kissed him, wriggling

closer against his body. "Fool, fool, fool." Her breath was hot against his

face.

They spoke no more. The stars gleamed in the sky and the river sang

to them.

Deomoth awakened just after dawn to the sound of Leieth crying. It

took him a moment to realize why that seemed so strange. It was the first

sound he had heard the child make.

Even as the last shreds of dream fell awayhe had stood before a great

white tree whose leaves were flameshe was clawing for the hilt of his

sword. He sat up to see Duchess Gutrun holding the little girl on her lap.

Beside her, Father Strangyeard had poked his head tortoiselike from be-

neath his cloak; the priest's wispy red hair was dew-dampened.

"What is it?" Deomoth asked.

Gutrun shook her head. "I don't know. She woke me up with her

crying, the poor thing." The duchess tried to cradle Leieth against her

breast, but the child pulled back. She continued to cry, her eyes wide

open, scaring at the sky. "What's the matter, little one, what's the mat-

ter?" Gutrun crooned.

Leieth tugged her hand free from the woman's embrace and tremblingly

pointed toward the northern horizon. Deornoth could see nothing but a

black fist of clouds in the most distant part of the sky. "Is something out

there?" he asked.

The child's cries died away to hiccoughing sobs. She pointed again

at the horizon, then turned away to huddle in Gutrun's lap, face hidden.

"It's just a bad dream, that's all," the duchess soothed- "There now,

little one, just a bad dream. ..."

Josua was suddenly standing before them, Naidel unsheathed in his

hand. The prince wore nothing but his breeches; his slender frame gleamed

pallidly in the dawnlight. "What is it?" he demanded.

Deornoth pointed to the darkened horizon. "The child saw something

there that made her cry."

Josua stared grimly. "We who saw Naglimund's last days would do

well to pay attention. That is an ugly knot of stormciouds." He looked

around at the wet grasslands. "We are all tired," he said, "but we must

make a faster pace. I do not like the look of that storm any more than did

the child. I doubt we will find any shelter on these open plains until we

reach Geloe's Stone of Farewell." He turned and shouted to Isorn and the

others, who were just waking up. "Saddle up- We will break our fast as

we travel. Come, there is no longer such a thing as a simple storm. If I can

help it, we will not be caught by this one."

470 Tad Williams

The river valley continued to deepen The vegetation began to grow

thicker and more lush, the sparse meadowland now broken by freestand-

ing groves of birches and alders, as well as thickets of strange trees with

siKery leaves and slim trunks deep-furred in moss

The prince's party had little time to admire this new greenery They

rode at a fierce pace all day, stopping only for a brief rest in afternoon,

then continuing on until long after the sun had dropped behind the

horizon and twilight had sapped the brightest colors from the land The

threatening stormclouds now obscured much of the northern sky

As the rest made a circle of scones and built a healthy blazefirewood

was now m broad supplyDeomoth and Isorn took the horses down to

the river

"At least we are no longer on foot," Isorn said, uncmchmg the buckle

on a set of saddlebags, which slid to the grass with a soft thump "That is

something worth thanking Aedon's goodness for "

"True " Dcornoth patted Vildahx The drops of perspiration on the

horse's neck had already chilled m the evening breeze Deomoth rubbed

him dry with a saddle blanket before moving on toJosua's horse Vmyafod

"We have precious little else to be thankful for "

"We are alive," Isorn said reprovingly, his wide face serious "My wife

and children are alive and safe with Tonnrud in Skoggey, and I am here to

protect my mother " He pointedly avoided mentioning his father Isgnmnur,

from whom there had been no word since the duke had left Naglimund

Deomoth said nothing, understanding the worry Isom must feel He

knew well the love his Rimmersman friend felt for the duke In a way, he

envied Isorn, and wished his feelings for his own father could be so

admirable Deomoth was unable to fulfill God's command for sons to

honor their sires Despite his knightly ideals, he had never been able to

feel anything but the most grudging respect and no love whatsoever for

the pmch-souled old tyrant who had made Deomoth's boyhood a misery

"Isorn," he said at last, considering, "someday, when things are as they

were beforebefore all this happenedand we are celling our grandchil-

dren about it, what will we sav3" The breeze blew harder, making the

willow branches slap together

His friend did not respond After a moment, Deomoth stood up and

looked across Vmyafod's back to where Isom stood a few ells away,

holding the horses' reins as they drank from the river The Rimmersman

was only a faint silhouette against the purple-gray evening sky "Isom5"

"Look to the south, Deornoth " he said. his voice strained "There are

torches "

Away across the grasslands, back down the Stefflod in the direction

from which they had come. a swarm of tiny lights moved across the land

"Merciful Acdon " Dcornoth groaned, "it is Fcngbatd and his men

They have caught us up after all " He turned and gave Vmyafod a light

STONE OF FAREWELL471

slap on the flanks, causing the charger to Cake a few prancing steps

forward "No rest for you yet, fellow " He and Isorn sprinted up the bank

toward the wind-whipped flames that marked their camp

And they are less than a league away," Isorn finished breathlessly

"Down by the river we could see the lights clearly "

Josua's face was composed, but noticeably pale in the firelight "God

has given us a hard test, to let us get so far and then pull the trap shut "

He sighed The eyes of all watched him in fearful fascination "Well, at

least we must kick out the fire and ride on Perhaps if we can find a thick

enough copse of trees to hide in, and if they have no hounds, they may

pass us by Then we can think of what other plan might suffice "

As they clambered into their saddles once more, Josua turned to Deomoth

"We brought two bows as part of our booty from Fikolmy's camp, did

we not7"

Deomoth nodded

"Good You and Isorn take them " The prince laughed grimly, bran-

dishing the stump of his right wrist "I am not much of a bowman, but I

think we will have need of a little arrow-play "

Deornoth nodded again, wearily

They rode swiftly, though all the party sensed that they could not do so

for long The Thnthmgs horses ran gamely, but it had already been a long

day's trek before the company had stopped Vmyafod and Vildalix seemed

as though they had several hours left in them, but some of the other

mounts were clearly winded, their riders were scarcely stronger As his

horse moved beneath him and the moonlit grasslands rolled past, Deornoth

could almost feel his will to resist ebbing away, draining like sand through

the neck of an hourglass

We have come ten times as jar as anyone would have dreamed possible, he

thought, clinging tightly to the reins as Vildahx topped one of the meadow

downs and plunged down the opposite slope like a boat breasting a wave

There is no dishonor in failing now What more can God expect than that we gwe

our all7 He looked back The rest of the party was beginning to fall

behind Deornoth pulled up on the reins, slowing his charger until he was

in the midst of the company once more God might be ready to reward

them with a hero's place in Heaven, but he could not give up the struggle

while innocents like the duchess and the child were at risk

Isom was beside him now, clutching Leieth on the saddle before him

The young Rimmersman's face was a gray blur in the moonlight, but

Deornoth did not need to see his friend to know the anger and determina-

tion written on his broad features

He looked back once more For all their haste, the rippling torches had

472

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gained ground on them, closing the distance in the last two hours until

they trailed the prince's folk by less than a dozen furlongs.

"Slow up!" Josua cried behind him in the darkness. "If we run farther,

we will have no strength left to fight. There is a grove of trees atop

the rise there. That is where we will make a stand."

They followed the prince up the slope. The cold wind had risen and

the trees bent and thrashed, branches scraping together. In the dark-

ness the pale, swaying trunks seemed white-robed spirits lamenting some

terrible circumstance.

"Here." The prince ushered them past the outermost circle of trees.

"Where are those bows, Sir Deornoth?" His voice was flat.

"At my saddle. Prince Josua." Deornoth heard the awful formality

echoed in his own tones, as though they all participated in some ritual. He

loosed the two bows and flung one to Isorn, who had handed Leieth over

to his mother to free his hands. As Deornoth and the young Rimmersman

strung the supple ashwood, Father Strangyeard accepted an extra dagger

from Sangfugol. He held it unhappily, as chough he pinched a serpent's

tail. "What will Usires think?" he said mournfully. "What will my God

think of me?"

"He will know you fought to save the lives of women and children,"

Isorn said shortly, nocking one of their few arrows.

"Now we wait," Joshua hissed. "We stay close together, in case I see a

chance for us to run once more, and we wait."

The minutes stretched as taut as the bowstring beneath Deornoth's

fingers. The nightbirds had gone silent in the trees overhead, but for one

whose eerie, whispering call echoed over and over until Deornoth wished

he could put an arrow through its feathered throat. A sound as of distant

and continuous drumming began to separate itself from the droning mur-

mur of the Steffiod, growing ever louder. Deornoth thought he could feel

the ground beginning to shudder beneath his feet. He suddenly wondered

if blood had ever been shed in this seemingly uninhabited land before. Had

the roots of these pale trees ever drunk of things other than water? The

great oaks around the battlefield at the Knock were said to have gorged on

blood until their pith was rosy pink.

The thunder ofhoofbeats rose until it was louder than Deornoth's own

heart drumming in his ears. He lifted his bow but did not bend it, saving

his strength for the moment it would be needed. A swirl of flickering

lights appeared on the meadow below them. The headlong flight of the

horsemen slowed, as though they somehow sensed the prince's folk hiding

in the grove above them. As they reined up, the flames of their streaming

torches bobbed upright once more, blooming like orange flowers.

"They are nearly two dozen," Isorn said unhappily.

"I will take the first," Deornoth whispered. "You take the second."

"Hold," saidJosua quietly. "Not until I say."

STONE OF FAREWELL

473

The leader got down from his horse, bending to the ground so that he

disappeared out of the glow of torchlight. When he stood his pale,

hooded face turned to look up the slope, so that it almost seemed to

Deornoth he had sighted them in the fastness of the shadows. Deornoch

lowered his arrowhead until it pointed at the cloaked chest beneath the

faint moon of face.

"Steady now," Josua murmured, "a moment more . . ."

There was a rush and clatter in the branches overhead. A dark shape

battered at Deornoth's head, startling him so that the arrow flew free,

high above its intended mark. Deornoth shouted in alarm and staggered

back, raising his hands to protect his eyes, but whatever had struck him

was gone.

"Stop!" a voice cried from the trees above, a creaking, whistlingly

inhuman voice. "Stop!"

Isorn. who had stared in stupefaction as Deornoth swatted at nothing,

turned grimly and lowered his own arrow to the target. "Demons!" he

growled, pulling his bowstring back to his ear.

"Josua?" somebody called from the meadow below. "Prince Josua? Are

you there?"

There was a moment of silence. "Aedon be praised," Josua breathed.

He pushed his way through the crackling undergrowth and strode out into

the full light of the moon, his cloak billowing like a sail in the fierce wind.

"I am here!" he shouted.

"What is he doing?" Isorn hissed frantically. Vorzheva let out a small

cry of anguish, but Deornoth, too, had recognized the voice.

"Josua?" the leader of the horsemen cried. "It is Hotvig of the Stallion

Clan." He pushed back his hood to show his beard and wind-tossed

yellow hair. "We have followed you for days!"

"Hotvig!" Vorzheva shouted anxiously. "Is my father with you?"

The Thrithings-man laughed harshly. "Not him. Lady Vorzheva. The

March-thane is no happier with me than he is with you or your husband!"

As the randwarder and Josua clasped hands, the rest of the prince's party

emerged from the copse of trees, tight-strung muscles trembling, babbling

among themselves with relief.

"There is much to tell, Josua," Hotvig said as his fellow riders came up

the slope to join them. "First, though, we must make a fire. We have been

riding fast as the Grass Thunderer himself. We are cold and very tired."

"Indeed," Josua smiled. "A fire."

Deornoth stepped forward and took Hotvig's hand in his. "Praise

Usires' mercy,'* he said. "We thought you were Fengbald, the High

King's man. I was a moment from loosing an arrow into your heart, but

something struck my hand in the darkness."

"You may praise Usires," a dry voice said, "but I had something to do

with it, too."

474

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Geloe came out of the trees behind them, marching down the slope and

into the circle of torchlight. The witch woman, Deomoth realized with a

start, wore a cloak and breeches that came from his own saddlebag. Her

feet were unshod.

"Valada Geloe!" josua said in wonderment. "You come unlooked-for."

"You may not have looked for me, Prince Josua, but I looked for you.

And a good thing that I did, else this night might have ended in bloodshed."

"It was you that struck me before I could let my arrow fly?" Deornoth

said slowly. "But how. . . ?"

"Time enough for stories later," Geloe said, then kneeled as Leieth

pulled free of Gutrun's clutch to run into the wise woman's arms with a

wordless cry of pleasure. As she embraced the child, Geloe's huge yellow

eyes held Deornoth's gaze; he felt a shiver travel down his backbone.

"Time enough for stories later," she repeated. "Now it is time to make a

fire. The moon is far along in her journey. If you are on your horses by

dawn tomorrow, you will reach the Stone of Farewell before dark." She

looked up at the northern sky. "And perhaps before the storm, as well."

The sky was tar-black with angry clouds. The rain was turning into

sleet. Rachel the Dragon, chilled and storm-battered, stepped into the lee

of a building on Ironmonger's Street for a moment's rest. The byways of

Erchester were empty but for flurrying hailstones and a solitary figure

carrying a large bundle on its back as it trudged away through the mud

toward Main Row.

Probably leaving for the countryside, carrying all his wordly goods, she thought

bitterly. Another one gone, and who could blame him? It's like the plague has run

through this city.

Shivering, she set out once more.

Despite the vicious weather, many of the doors along Ironmonger's

Street swung back and forth unlatched, opening to giving a glimpse of

empty blackness beyond, banging closed with a sound like breaking

bones. It was indeed much as if some pestilence had devastated Erchester,

but it was a scourge of fear rather than disease that was driving out the

city's denizens. This, in turn, had forced the Mistress of Chambermaids to

walk the entire length of the ironmongery district before she could find

someone to sell her what she needed. She carried her new purchase under

her cloak and against her bosom, hidden from the sight of passersbyof

which there were obviously fewand perhaps, she hoped, somehow also

hidden from the eyes of a disapproving God.

The irony was that there had been no necessity to walk through the

savage winds and deserted streets: any of several hundred implements in

the Hayholt's kitchen would have admirably suited her bill of particulars.

STONE OF FAREWELL475

But this was her own plan and her own decision. To take what she needed

from Judith's cupboards might put the fat Mistress of Kitchens in jeop-

ardy. and Judith was one of the few castle folk for whom Rachel felt

respect. More importantly, it truly was Rachel's own plan, and in a way it

had been necessary for her to walk one more time through Erchester's

haunted alleyways: it was helping her work up the courage to do what

must be done.

Spring cleaning, she reminded herself grimly. A shrill, un-Rachel-like

laugh escaped her lips. Spring cleaning in midsummer, with snow on the way.

She shook her head, feeling a momentary urge to sit down in the muddy

street and cry. That's enough, old woman, she told herself, as she often did.

There's work to be done, and no rest this side of Heaven.

If there had been any doubts that the Day of Weighing-Out was almost

at hand, just as foretold in the holy Book of the Aedon, Rachel had only

to think back to the comet that had appeared in the sky during the spring

of Elias' regnal year- At the time, with the optimism of those days not

long past, many had thought it a sign of a new age and a new beginning

for Ostcn Ard. Now it was clear as well water that it had instead

prophesied the last days of Trial and Doom. And what-else, she upbraided

herself, could such a hellish red slash in the sky mean? It was only blind

foolishness that could have made anyone think otherwise.

Welladay, she thought, peering from beneath her hood at the desolate

shops of Main Row, we have all made our bed of pain: now God will make us

lie in it. In His anger and wisdom He's given us plague and drought, and now

unnatural storms. And who could ask for a plainer sign than the poor old lector

dying so horribly?

The shocking news had swept through the castle and city below like

flame. Folk had spoken of little else for the last week: Lector Ranessin was

dead, murdered in his bed by some terrible pagans called Fire Dancers.

These godless monsters had also set part of the Sancellan Aedonitis ablaze.

Rachel had seen the lector when he came for John's funeral, a fine and holy

man. Now, in this dreadful year of years, he, too, had been stuck down.

Lord save our souls. The holy lector murdered, and demons and spirits walking

the night, even in the Hayholt itself. She shuddered, thinking of the sight she

had seen from the window of the servant's quarters one night not long

ago. Lured to the window, not by any sound or sight, but rather by some

undefmable feeling, she had silently left her sleeping charges and clam-

bered up onto a stool, leaning on the window casement to look out on the

Hedge Garden below. There, amid the shadowy shapes of the hedge-

animals, had stood a circle of silent, black-robed figures- Almost breath-

less with terror, Rachel had rubbed at her old and treacherous eyes, but

the figures were no dream or illusion. Even as she stared, one of the

hooded shapes had turned to look up at her, its eyes black holes in a

476 Tad Williams

corpse-white face. She had run back and leaped into her hard bed, pulling

the blanket up over her face to lie in sweaty, sleepless fear until dawn.

Before this year of derangement, Rachel had trusted her own judgment

with the same iron faith she extended to her God, her king, and the

sanctity of tidiness. After the comet came, and particularly since Simon's

cruel death, that faith had been badly shaken. The two days following her

midnight vision she wandered through the castle in a daze, mind only half

on her chores, wondering if she had turned into the kind of daft old

woman she had vowed to die before becoming.

But as she quickly discovered, if the Mistress of Chambermaids was

mad, it was a contagious madness. Many others had also seen such

pallid-faced specters. The diminished marketplace along Erchester's Main

Row was full of whispered talk about the things that walked by night in

both countryside and city. Some said that they were ghosts of Ehas'

victims, unable to sleep while their heads were spiked above the Nearulagh

Gate. Others said chat Pryrates and the king had struck a deal with the

Devil himself, that these undead hell-wights had thrown down Naghmund

on Ellas' behalf and now waited upon his bidding for further unholy tasks.

Rachel the Dragon had once believed in nothing that Father Dreosan did

not include in his catalog of churchly acceptabilities, and had doubted that

even the Prince of Demons himself could bar her way in a pinch, since she

had both blessed Usires the Ransomer and common sense on her side.

Rachel was now as much of a believer as her most superstitious chamber-

maid, because she had seen. With her own two eyes, she had seen the hosts

of Hell in her castle's Hedge Garden. There could be little doubt chat the

Day of Weighing-Out was at hand.

Rachel was dragged from her brooding thoughts by a noise in the street

ahead. She looked up, shielding her eyes from the stinging sleet. A pack of

dogs was fighting over something in the muddy road, snarling and baying

as they dragged it back and forth. She moved to the side of the road,

hugging the walls of the buildings. There were always dogs running loose

in Erchester's streets, but with so few people left they had become wild in

a way they had never been before. The ironmonger had told her that

several dogs had leaped through a window in Cooper's Alley and attacked

a woman in her bed, biting her so badly chat she bled to death. Thinking

of this, Rachel felt a tremor of fear run right through her. She stopped,

wondering if she should walk past the creatures or not. She looked up and

down the road, but there was no one else about. A pair of dim figures

moved in the distance a couple of furlongs off, much too far away to be of

any help. She swallowed and moved forward, dragging the fingers of one

hand along the wall, the other clutching her purchase close against her

body. As she edged past the struggling hounds she looked around for an

open doorway, just to be safe.

It was hard to tell just what they were fighting for, since both dogs and

STONE OF FAREWELL477

prize were splattered with dark mud. One of the curs looked up from the

roil of lean bellies and bony haunches, mouth stretched in a tongue-

lolling, idiot gnn as it watched Rachel pass. The soiled snout and gaping

jaw suddenly put her in mind of some sinner condemned to the ultimate

pit, a lost soul that had forgotten whatever it had once known of beauty or

happiness. The beast stared silently as hailstones pitted the muddy street.

Its attention caught once more by the struggles of its fellows, the dog

turned away at last. With a snarl, it dove back into the thrashing pile.

Tears starting in her eyes. Rachel lowered her head and struggled

against the wind, hurrying back toward the Hayholt.

Guthwulf stood beside the king on a balcony that overlooked the

courtyard of the Inner Bailey. Elias seemed in an unusually cheerful mood,

considering the unimpressive size of the crowd that had been brought into

the Hayholt to watch the mustering-out of the Erkynguard.

Guthwulf had heard the rumors that passed among his fighting men,

stories of the night-terrors that were emptying the halls of the Hayholt

and the houses of Erchester. Not only had comparatively few folk ap-

peared to see the king, but the mood of those gathered was restive;

Guthwulf did not think he would like to walk unarmed through such a

crowd while wearing the sash that proclaimed him King's Hand.

"Damnable weather, isn't it?" Elias said, his green eyes intent on the

milling riders who labored to hold their horses in place beneath the pelting

hail. "Oddly cold for Anitui, don't you think, Wolf?"

Guthwulf turned in surprise, wondering if the king made a strange joke.

The upside-down weather had been the chief topic of conversation through-

out the castle for months. It was far, far more than *oddly cold.' Such

weather was terrifyingly wrong, and had added in no little part to the

earl's feeling of impending disaster.

"Yes, sire," was all he said. There was no longer any question in his

mind. He would lead the Erkynguard out, as Elias requested, but once he

and the troops were beyond the king's immediate reach, Guthwulf himself

would never return. Let heedless, criminal idiots like Fengbald do the

king's bidding. Guthwulf would take those Erkynguards who were will-

ing, along with his own loyal Utanyeaters, and offer his services to Elias'

brother josua. Or, if the prince's survival were nothing more than rumor,

the earl and those who followed him would go someplace where they

could make their own rules, out of reach of this fever-brained creature

who had once been his fnend.

Elias patted him stiffly on the shoulder, then leaned forward and waved

an imperious hand. Two of the Erkynguard lifted their long horns and

played the muster-call, and the hundred or so guardsmen redoubled their

478 Tad Williams

efforts to form their balking mounts into a line. The king's emerald

dragon-banner whipped in the wind, threatening to pull free from its

bearer's grasp. Only a few of the watching crowd cheered, their voices all

but buried by the noise of wind and pattering sleet.

"Perhaps you should let me go down to them. Majesty," Guthwulfsaid

quietly. "The horses are anxious in this storm. If they bolt, they will be

among the crowd in a moment."

Elias frowned. "What. do you worry about a little blood beneath their

hooves? They arc battle-bred: it will not harm them." He turned his gaze

onto the Earl of Utanyeac. His eyes were so alien that Guthwulf flinched

helplessly. "That is the way it is, you know," Elias continued, lips

spreading in a smile. "You can either grind down that which stands before

you, or else be ground down yourself. There is no middle ground, friend

Guthwulf."

The earl bore the king's glance for a long moment, then looked away,

staring miserably at the crowd below. What did that mean? Did Elias

suspect? Was this whole show only an elaborate setting for the king to

denounce his old comrade and send Guthwulf s head to join the others that

now clustered thick as blackberries atop the Nearulagh Gate?

"Ah, my king," rasped a familiar voice, "are you taking a little air? I

could wish you a better day for it."

Pryates stood in the curtained archway behind the balcony, teeth bared

in a vulpine grin. The priest wore a great hooded cloak over his usual

scarlet robe.

"I am glad to see you here," Elias said. "I hope you are rested after your

long journey yesterday."

"Yes, Highness. It was an unsettling trip, but a night in my own bed in

Hjeldin's Tower has done wonders. I am ready to do your bidding." The

priest made a little mock bow, the top of his pale bald head revealed for a

moment like a new moon before he straightened and looked to Guthwulf.

"And the Earl of Utanyeat. Good momingtide to you. Guthwulf. I hear

you are riding forth in the king's behalf."

Guthwulf looked at Pryrates with cold distaste. "Against your advice, I

am told."

The alchemist shrugged, as if to show that his personal reservations

were of little account. "I do think there are perhaps more important

matters with which His Majesty should concern himself than a search for

his brother. Josua's power was broken at Naglimund: I see little need in

pursuing him. Like a seed on stony ground, I think he will find no

purchase, no place to grow strong. No one would dare flaunt the High

King's Ward by giving such a renegade shelter." He shrugged again. "But

I am only a counselor- The king knows his own mind."

Elias, staring down at the quiet assembly in the courtyard below,

seemed to have ignored the entire conversation. He rubbed absently at the

STONE OF FAREWELL

479

iron crown on his brow, as though it caused him some discomfort.

Guthwulf thought the king's skin had a sickly, transparent look.

"Strange days," Elias said, half to himself. "Strange days . . ."

"Strange days indeed," Guthwulf agreed, drawn to reckless conversa-

tion. "Priest, I hear you were in the Sancellan on the very night of the

lector's assassination."

Pryrates nodded soberly. "A ghastly thing. Some mad cult of heretics, I

hear. I hope Velligis, the new lector, will soon root them out."

"Ranessin will be missed," Guthwulfsaid slowly. "He was a popular

and well-respected man, even among those who do not accept the True

Faith."

"Yes, he was a powerful man," Pryrates said. His black eyes glinted as

he gazed sidelong at the king. Elias still did not look up, but an expression

of pain seemed to flit across his pallid features. "A very powerful man,"

the red priest repeated.

"My people do not seem happy," the king murmured, leaning out

against the stone railing. The scabbard of his massive double-hiked sword

scraped the stone and Guthwulf suppressed a shudder. The dreams that

still haunted him, the dreams of that foul sword and its two brother

blades!

Pryrates moved forward to the king's side. The Earl of Utanyeat edged

away, unwilling to touch even the alchemist's cloak. As he turned, he saw

a blur of movement from the archwaybillowing curtains, a pale face, a

dull glint of exposed metal. An instant later a howling shriek echoed

through the courtyard.

"Murderer!"

Pryrates staggered back from the railing, a knife handle standing be-

tween his shoulder blades.

The next moments passed with dreadful slowness: the lassitude of

Guthwulf s movements and the dull, doomed progression of his thoughts

made him feel as though he and all the others on the balcony were

suddenly immersed in choking, clinging mud. The alchemist turned to

face his attacker, a wild-eyed old woman who had been thrown down to

the stone floor behind him by the priest's spasmodic reaction. Pryrates'

lips skinned back from his teeth in a horrible doglike grin of agony and

fury. His naked fist lifted in the air and a weird gray-yellow glow began to

play about it. Smoke seeped from his fingers and around the knife wag-

ging in his back, and for a moment the very light in the sky seemed to

dim. Elias had turned as well, his mouth a black hole of surprise in his

face, his eyes bulging with a panicky horror such as Guthwulf had never

dreamed he would see on the king's face- The woman on the floor was

scrabbling at the stone tiles as if swimming in some thick fluid, trying to

drag herself away from the priest.

Pryrates' black eyes seemed almost to have fallen back into his head. For

480

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a moment, a leering, scarlet-robed skeleton stood over the old woman,

bony hand smoldering into incandescence.

Guthwulf never knew what spurred his next action. A commoner had

attacked the king's counselor, and the Earl of Utanycat was King's Hand;

nevertheless, he found himself suddenly lurching forward. The noise of

the crowd, the storm, his own heartbeat, all swelled together into a single

hammering pulse as Guthwulf grappled with Pryrates. The priest's spindly

form was solid as iron beneath his hands. Pryrates' head turned, agoniz-

ingly slowly. His eyes burned into Guthwulf s. The earl felt himself

abruptly pulled out of his own body and sent spinning down into a dark

pit. There was a flash of fire and a blast of incredible heat, as though he

had fallen into one of the forge-furnaces beneath the great castle, then a

howling blackness took him away.

When Guthwulf awakened, he was still in darkness. His body seemed

one dull ache of pain. Droplets of moisture pattered lightly on his face and

the smell of wet stone was in his nostrils.

"... I did not even see her," a voice was saying- After a moment,

Guthwulf was able to identify it as the king's, although there was a subtle,

chiming tone to it that he had not marked before. "By God's head, to

think that I have become so slow and preoccupied." The king's laugh had

a fearful tinge. "I was sure she had come for me."

Guthwulf tried to respond to Elias, but found that he could not form

the proper sounds. It was dark, so dark that he could not make out the

king's form. He wondered if he had been brought to his own room, and how

long he had been senseless.

"I saw her," Pryrates rasped. His voice, too, had taken on a ringing

sound. "She may have escaped me for a moment, but by the Black Eon,

the scrubbing-bitch will pay."

Guthwulf, still struggling for speech, found himself amazed that Pryrates

should be able to speak at all, let alone be standing while the Earl of

Utanyeat lay on the ground.

"I suppose now I shall have to wait for Fengbald to return before I can

send out the Erkynguardor perhaps one of the younger lords could lead

them?" The king sighed wearily. "Poor Wolf." There seemed in his

strangely tuneful voice little sympathy.

"He should not have touched me," Pryrates said contemptuously. "He

interfered and the slattern escaped. Perhaps he was in league with her."

"No, no, 1 do not think so. He was always loyal- Always."

Poor Wolf? What, did they think he was dead? Guthwulf strained to

make his muscles work. Had they brought him to some curtained room to

lie in waiting for burial? He fought for mastery of his body, but all his

limbs seemed coldly unresponsive.

A horrible thought came to him suddenly. Perhaps he was deadfor

STONE OF FAREWELL481

who, after all, had ever returned to say what it was like? Only Usires

Himself, and he was the son of God. Oh, merciful Aedon, would he have

to stay trapped in his body like a prisoner in a forgotten cell, even as they

laid him in the wormy ground? He felt a scream building within him.

Would it be like the dream when he touched the sword? God save him.

Merciful Aedon . . .

"I am going, Elias. I will find her, even if I must crush the stones of the

servant's quarters into dust and flay the skin off of every chambermaid."

Pryrates spoke with a sort of sweetness, as though the savor of this

thought was as splendid as wine. "I will see that people are punished."

"But surely you should rest," Elias said mildly, as though speaking to a

froward child. "Your injury . . ."

"The pain I inflict on the chamber-mistress will take my own pain

away," the alchemist said shortly. "I am well. I have grown strong, Elias.

It will take more than a single knife thrust to dispatch me."

"Ah." The king's voice was emotionless. "Good. That is good."

Guthwulf heard Pryrates' bootheels clocking against the tiled stone

floor, striding away. There was no sound of a door opening and closing,

but another shower of moisture spattered the Earl ofUtanyeat's face. This

time he felt the chill of the water.

"L ... L ... 'Lias," he managed to say at last.

"Guthwulf!" the king said, gently surprised. "You live?"

"Wh . . . where. . . ?"

"Where is what?"

". . . Me."

"You are on the balcony, where you had your . . . accident."

How could that be? Had it not been morning time when they had

watched the Erkynguard muster? Had he lain here lifelessly until evening?

Why hadn't they moved him to a more comfortable place?

". . . He's right, you know," Elias was saying. "You really shouldn't

have interfered. What did you think you were doing?" The odd ringing

sound was beginning to fade from his voice. "It was very foolish. I told

you to stay away from the priest, didn't I?"

". . . Can't see . . ." Guthwulf managed at last.

"I'm not surprised," Elias said calmly. "Your face is badly burned,

especially around your eyes. They look very bad. I was certain you were

deadbut you're not." The king's voice was distant. "It's a pity, old

comrade, but I told you to watch out for Pryrates."

"Blind?" Guthwulf said, his voice hoarse, throat seizing in a painful

spasm. "Blind?!"

His rasping howl broke across the commons, bouncing from wall to

stone wall until it seemed a hundred Guthwulfs were screaming. As he

vented his agony, the king patted him on the head as though soothing an

old dog.

482

Tad Williams

4-

The nvcr valley waited for the oncoming storm The chilly air warmed

and grew heavv The Stefflod murmured uneasih and the sky was gravid

with angry-looking clouds The travelers found themselves speaking softly,

as if they rode past the sleeping form of some huge beast who might be

awakened by disrespectful loudness or levity

Hotvig and his men had decided to ride back to the rest of their party,

who were nearly four score all told, men, women, and children Hotvig's

clanfolk and their wagons were following as swiftly as they could, but

they were no match for the speed of unencumbered riders

"I am still amazed that your people would uproot themselves to follow

us into an unknown and ill-omened wilderness," Josua said at their parting

Hotvig grinned, showing a gap in his teeth earned in some past brawl

"Uproot3 There is no such word to the folk of the Stallion Clan Our

roots are in our wagons and our saddles "

"But surely vour clansmen are worried about riding into such strange

territory5"

A brief look of concern flickered across the Thnthings-man's face,

quickly supplanted by an expression of disdainful pride "You forget,

Prince Josua that they are mv kmfolk I told them, 4f stone-dwellers can

nde there without fear, can the people of the Free Thnthmgs shy awav5'

They follow me " He pulled at his beard and grinned once more "Be-

sides, it is worth manv risks to get out from under Fikolmij's hand "

"And you are sure he will not pursue you7" the prince asked

Hotvig shook his head "As I told you last night, the March-thane has

lost face because of vou Anyway, our clans often split into smaller

clan-families It is our right as people of the Free Thnthmgs The last

thing Fikolmij can do now is to try to keep us few from leaving the

greater clan That would prove beyond doubt that he is losing his hold on

the reins "

When they had all gathered around the fire after their encounter in the

dark, Hotvig had explained how FikolmiJ's treatment of his daughter and

Prince Josua had caused much disgruntled talk around the wagons of the

Stallion Clan Fikolmy had never been a popular leader, but he had been

respected as a powerful fighter and clever strategist To see him so bedev-

iled by the mere presence of stone-dwellers, to the point where he would

lend aid to Fengbald and others of the High King's men without consult-

ing his clan chiefs, had made many wonder out loud whether FikolmiJ was

still capable of lording it as March-thane of all of the High Thnthmgs

When Earl Fengbald had arrived with his fifty or so armored men,

swaggering into the wagon camp like conquerors, Hotvig and some of the

other randwarders had brought the men of their own clan-families to

FikolmiJ's wagon The March-thanc had wished to set the Erkynlanders

483

STONE OF FAREWELL

quickly on the trail ofJosua's party, but Hotvig and the others had stood

against their leader

"No stone-dwellers go armed across the Stallion Clan's fields without a

gathering of chiefs to say they can," Hotvig had cried, and his fellows had

echoed him Fikolmij had fumed and threatened, but the laws of the Free

Thnthings were the only immutable things in the clan-folk's nomadic

existence The argument had ended with Hotvig and the other randwarders

telling Earl Fengbald"a foolish, dangerous man who likes himself well,"

as Hotvag described himthat the only way the High King's men could

pursue Josua was to go around the Stallion Clan's territory Fengbald,

outnumbered by ten to one or more, had no choice but to ride away,

taking the shortest route back off the High Thnthmgs The Earl of

Falshire had made many angry threats before departing, promising that

the grasslanders' long days of freedom were over, that High King Ehas

would come soon and knock the wheels off their wagons once and for all

Unsurprisingly, this public thwarting of FikolmiJ's authority brought

on a terrible argument that several times almost erupted into deadly

bloodshed The disputing ceased only when Hotvig and several other

randwarders took their families and followed Josua, leaving Fikolmy be-

hind to curse and lick his wounds, his strength as March-thane weakened

but by no means ended

"No, he will not follow us," Hotvig repeated "That would say to all

the clans that mighty FikolmiJ cannot survive the loss of our few wagons,

and that the stone-dwellers and their feuds are more important to the

March-thane of all the High Thnthmgs than his own people Now, we

clan exiles will live near you for a while at your Farewell Stone and

talk among ourselves about what we will do "

"I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your help," Josua said sol-

emnly "You have saved our lives If Fengbald and his soldiers had caught

us, we would be going back to the Hayholt in chains Then there would

be no one to stop my brother "

Hotvig looked at him keenly "You may think so, but you do not know

the strength of the Free Thnthings if you think we would be so easily

overcome " He hefted his long spear "Already the men of the Meadow

Thnthings are making things very difficult for the stone-dwellers of

Nabban "

Father Strangycard, who had been listening carefully, made a worried

face "The king is not the only one we fear, Hotvig "

The Thnthmgs-man nodded "So you told me And I would hear more,

but now I must go back for the rest of my people If your destination is as

close as the woman says," he indicated Geloe with careful respect, "then

look for us before sunset tomorrow The wagons can go no faster "

"But do not delay," the wise woman said "I did not speak lightly when

I said we must make haste ahead of this storm "

484 Tad Williams

"No one can ride like grasslander horsemen," Hotvig said sternly

"And our wagon-teams are not much slower We will be with you before

tomorrow's night " He laughed, again showing his missing tooth "Leave

it to city folk to find stone in the middle of the meadowlands, then want

to make their home there Still," he said to the prince, "1 knew when you

killed Utvart that things would never be the same for anyone My father

taught me to trust my hand and my heart " He grinned "My luck, too I

bet one of my foals on you, Josua, m your fighting with Utvart My

friends were ashamed to best me so easily, but they took my wager," He

laughed loudly "You won four good horses for me'" He turned his

mount toward the south, waving "Soon we will meet again!"

"And no arrows this time," cried Deornoth

"Go safely," Josua called as Hotvig and his men spurred away across the

green lands

Heartened by the encounter with the Thnthmgs-folk, the travelers rode

cheerfully through the morning despite the threatening skies. When they

stopped briefly to take their midday meal and water the horses, Sangfugol

even convinced Father Strangyeard to sing with him The priest's surpris-

ingly sweet voice blended well with the harper's, and if Father Strangyeard

did not quite understand what "The Ballad of Round-Heeled Moirah" was

about, his enjoyment was the greater for it, and for the laughing praise

given to him after

When they were in the saddle once more, Deomoth found himself

ndmg beside Geloe, who cradled Leieth before her on the saddle She rode

flawlessly, as one of long experience, Deomoth found himself wondering

once more what the wise woman's strange history might be She was also

still wearing the spare clothing he had brought out of the wagon-camp, as

if she had come to that fateful copse of trees naked After thinking for a

while about why that might be, and remembering the clawed thing that

had struck at him in darkness, Deornoth decided that there were some

things about which a God-fearing knight should not inquire

"Forgive me, Valada Geloe," he said, "but you look very gnm Is there

something important you have not told us yet5" He indicated Sangfugol

and Strangyeard, laughing with Duchess Gutrun as they rode. "Are we

singing in the lich-yard, as the old saying goes5"

Geloe continued to watch the sky From her lap, Leieth looked at him as

though he were an interesting rock. "I fear many things. Sir Deomoth,"

Geloe said at last "The problem with being a 'wise woman' is chat

sometimes you knowjust enough to be truly afraid, while still not having

any better answers than might the youngest child I fear this coming

storm. The one who is our true enemyI will not say his name here m

this land, not in the openis reaching the summit of his power We have

already seen in this cold summer how his pride and anger speak m the

485

STONE OFFAREWELL

winds and clouds Now, black weather is swirling out of the north I am

sure it is his storm if I am right, it will bring woe to those who resist

him"

Deornoth found himself following her gaze Suddenly, the ominous

clouds seemed an inky hand stretching across the sky from the north,

blindly but patiently searching The idea of waiting for that hand to find

them sent a poisonous dread twisting through him, so that he had to look

down at his saddle for a moment before he could lift his eyes to Geloe's

yellow stare

"I understand," he said

Sunlight bled fitfully through chinks in the clouds The wind turned,

blowing into their faces, heavy and moist As they followed the line of the

valley, a broad bend in the Stefflod revealed for the first time the old

forest, the Aldheorte The great wood was much nearer than Deomoth

would have guessedthe party's return on horseback had been far swifter

than their straggling march out-across the Thnthings Because of their

descent into the river valley, the forest now stood on the heights above

them, a solid line of vegetation like dark cliffs along the valley's northern

nm

"It is not far now," Geloe said

They rode on through the afternoon as the curtained sun slid down the

sky, glowing behind the gray murk Another turn in the nver's course

brought them around a cluster of shallow hills They stopped short

"Merciful Aedon," Deornoth breathed to himself

"Sesuad'ra," Geloe said "There stands the Stone of Farewell "

"That's no stone," Sangfugol said disbelievmgly "That's a mountain'"

A great hill rose from the valley floor before them Unlike its low,

rounded neighbors, Sesuad'ra thrust up from the meadows like the head of

a buned giant, bearded with trees, crowned with angular stones that stood

along the ndgehne Beyond the spiky stones some shimmering whiteness

lay along the hill's very peak An immense, upward-straining slab of

weathered rock and clinging brush, Sesuad'ra loomed some five hundred

cubits above the nver The uneven sunlight washed across the hill in

wavering bands, so that the entire mass almost seemed to turn and watch

them as they rode slowly down the watercourse.

"It is much like Thisterborg, near the Hayholt," Josua said wondenngly

"That's no stone," Sangfugol repeated stubbornly, shaking his head

Geloe laughed harshly "It is all stone Sesuad'ra is a part of the very

bones of the earth, thrust free other body in the pain of the Days of Fire,

but still reaching down into the very center of the world "

Father Strangyeard was eyeing the massive hill nervously. "And we are

going to ... are going to . . stay there5 Live there5"

The witch woman smiled "We have permission "

486 Tad Williams

As they neared, it became apparent that the Stone was not so sheer as

distance made it seem A path, a lighter streak through the choking trees

and brush, snaked its way around the base of the hill, then appeared again

farther up, spirahng summitward around the circumference of the rock

until it disappeared near the crest

"How can trees live on such a stone, let alone thrive5" Deornoth asked

"Can they grow in the very rock5"

"Sesuad'ra has been broken and worn over the eons of its existence,"

Geloe answered fa Plants will ever find a way, and they themselves help to

further break the stone until it is crumbled to a dirt scarcely less rich than

found on a Hewenshire freeholding "

Deornoth frowned slightly at this reference to his birthplace, then

wondered how the wise woman knew of his father's farm He had

certainly never mentioned it to her

Soon they were walking in the sudden twilight of the hill's long shadow,

whipped by a chilly wind The path that began at Sesuad'ra's base lay

before them, hugging the hillside, a trampled cut of grass and moss

overhung by trees and twining creepers

"And we are going up5" Duchess Gutrun asked in some consternation

"Up into this place3"

"Of course," Geloe said, a touch of impatience in her rough voice "It is

the highest ground for leagues We have need of high ground just now

Besides, there are other reasonsmust I explain them all again7"

"No, Valada Geloe, please lead us,"Josua said The prince seemed fired

by some inner flame, his pale face alight with excitement "This is what

we have been searching for This is where we will begin the long road

back " His face slackened somewhat "I do wonder, though, how Hotvig

and his folk will feel about leaving their wagons below It is a pity there is

no way to get them up the hill "

The wise woman waved her callused hand "You worry too soon Step

ahead and you will have a surprise "

They rode forward Beneath the straggling grass the path that wound

up the hillside was as smooth as one of old Naglimund's hallways and

wide enough for any wagon.

"But how can this be5"Josua asked.

"You forget," Geloe responded, "this is a Sithi place Beneath this

bramble is the road they built It takes many, many centuries to destroy

the handiwork of the Zida'ya."

Josua was not cheered "I am ama7ed, but now I am even more

worried What will keep our enemies from climbing as easily as we do5"

Geloe snorted in disgust "First, it is easier to defend a high place than

to take it from below Secondly, the nature of the place itself is against it

Third, and perhaps most importantly, our enemy's own rage may out-

smart him and ensure our survivalat least for a while."

STONE OF FAREWELL

487

"How so5" the pnnce demanded

"You will see " Geloe spurred her horse up the path, Leieth bobbing on

the saddle before her The child's wide brown eyes took in everything

without any show of feeling Josua shrugged and followed

Deornoth turned to see Vorzheva sitting upright on her horse, face set

in lines of grim fear "What is it, my lady'" he asked "Is something

amiss5"

She offered a nervous smile "My people have hated and feared this

valley forever Hotvig is a clan-man and would not show it, but he fears

this place, too " She sighed shakily "Now I must follow my husband up

on this unnatural rock I am afraid "

For the first time since his prince had brought this odd woman to live in

the castle at Naglimund, Deornoth felt his heart opening to her, filling

with admiration "We are all deathly afraid, my lady," he said "The rest

of us arejust not as honest as you "

He tapped gently with his heels at Vildalix's nbs and followed Vorzheva

up the path

The road was overhung with trailing vines and the tangled branches of

trees, forcing the travelers to spend as much time ducking their heads as

they did riding upright As they slowly circled out of the shadow, hke

ants walking the perimeter of a sundial, the mist that clung to the hill lent

an unusual sparkle to the afternoon glow

Deornoth thought that the smell of the place was what seemed strangest

of all Sesuad'ra gave off a scent of timeless growth, of water and roots

and damp earth in a place long undisturbed There was an air of peace

here, of slow, careful thought, but also a disturbing sensation of

watchfulness From time to time the stillness was broken by the trill of

unseen birds whose songs were as somber and hesitant as children whis-

pering in a high-ceilmged hall

As the grassy meadow began to drop away below them, the travelers

passed posts of standing stone, time-smoothed white shapes almost twice

a man's height that had in their unrecognizable outlines some hint of

movement, of life They passed the first as the path brought them around

into direct sunlight for the first time

"Marking pillars." Geloe called over her shoulder "One for each of the

moons in the year We'll pass a dozen every time we circle around the hill

until we reach the summit They were carved to look like animals and

birds once, I think "

Deornoth stared at the rounded nob chat might have been a head and

wondered what beast it had once represented Weathered by wind and

ram, it was now as shapeless as melted wax, faceless as the forgotten dead

He shivered and make the sign of the Tree on his breast

488

Tad Williams

A little while later Geloe stopped and pointed downward toward the

northwest part of the valley, where the rim of the old forest reached out

almost to the very banks of the Stefflod. The river was a tiny streak of

quicksilver along the valley's emerald floor.

"Just beyond the river," she said, "do you see?" She gestured again at

the forest's dark breakfront, which might have been a frozen sea-wave

awaiting only spring's thaw before it swept across the low ground. "There,

in the forest's fringe. Those are the ruins ofEnki-e-Shao'saye, which some

say was the most beautiful city ever built in Osten Ard since the world

began."

As his companions whispered and shaded their eyes, Deomoth moved

to the edge of the path, squinting at the distant forest. He saw nothing but

what might have been a crumbled wall of lavender, a flash of gold.

"There's not much to see," he said quietly-

"Not in this age," Geloe replied.

Up they climbed as the day waned. Each time they circled around to the

hill's northern slope, coming out of shade into ever-decreasing afternoon

light, they could see the spreading knot of blackness on the horizon. The

storm was moving in swiftly. It had now swallowed the far borders of

great Aldheorte, so that all the north seemed a gray uncertainty.

As they finished their twelfth circuit around the hill, passing the one

hundred and forty-fourth of the marking pillarsa small enough diver-

sion, but still Deomoth had kept scorethe travelers emerged at last from

the shadowing greenery, clambering up a final slope until they stood on

the hill's windy summit. The sun had fallen away into the west; only a

reddish sliver remained.

The top of the hill was nearly flat and scarcely less wide than Sesuad'ra's

base. All around its perimeter jutted fingers of upright stone, not smoothed

like the marking pillars, but great, raw standing stones, each as tall as four

men, made of the same gray rock veined with white and pink that formed

the hill.

In the center of the plateau, in the midst of a field of waving grass,

stood a vast, low building of opalescent stone, tinged with the sunset's

red glow.

At first it seemed a temple of some sort, like the great old buildings of

Nabban from the days of the Imperium, but its lines were plainer. Its

unassuming but affecting style made it seem almost to spring from the hill

itself. It was plain that this structure belonged on this windy hilltop,

beneath this incredibly wide sky. The grandeur and self-interest that spoke

from every angle of houses of human worship, however finely wrought,

was a language alien to whoever had built this. The passage ofunguessable

years had in places brought its walls to collapse. Unhindered for centuries,

STONE OF FAREWELL

489

trees had thrust up through the building's very roof, or pushed their way

in at the arched doorways like unwanted guests. Still, the simplicity

and beauty of the place were so plainand at the same time so inhuman

that for a long time no one ventured to speak.

"We are here,"Josua said at last, his tones solemn but exalted. "After all

our danger and all our suffering, we have found a place where we can stop

and say: we go no farther."

"It is not forever, Prince Josua." Geloe spoke gently, as if unwilling to

break his mood, but the prince was already striding confidently across the

hilltop toward the white walls.

"It need not be forever," he called. "But for now, we will be safe!" He

turned and waved his hand for the others to follow, then continued

turning, gazing around him on all sides. "I take back what I said!" he shouted

to Geloe. "With a few good folk behind me, I could make a stand here and

Sir Camaris himself could not defeat me, not with all the knights of my

father's Great Table at his side!"

He bounded away toward the pale walls that now showed a touch of

blue. Evening was coming on. The others went after him, talking quietly

among themselves as they passed through the swaying grass.

25

Petak in a WuuC Storm

4-

game," Simon said. "It doesn't make any

sense."A'

Aditu lifted an eyebrow.

"It doesn't!" he insisted, "I mean, look! You could win if you just

moved here . . .*' he pointed, "and there . . -" he pointed again. Looking

up, he found Adieu's golden eyes upon him, laughing, mocking. "Couldn't

you. . . ?" he finished.

"Of course, Seoman." She moved the polished stones across the gaming

board as he had suggested, from one golden island to another over a sea of

sapphire-blue waves. The mock-ocean was surrounded by scarlet flames

and murky gray clouds. "But then the game is over, and only the shallow-

est waters have been explored."

Simon shook his head. He had struggled for days to leam the complex

rules of shent, only to discover that what he had been taught were only

the rudiments- How could he learn a game that people did not play to

win? But Aditu did not try to lose either, as far as Simon could tell.

Instead, it seemed as though the issue was to make the game interesting by

introducing themes and puzzles, most of which were as far beyond Si-

mon's comprehension as the mechanisms of the rainbow.

"If you will not take offense," Adieu said, smiling, "may I instead show

you another way?" She put the markers back in their previous locations.

"If I use these Songs of mine to build a Bridge here . . ."a quick flurry

of movements"then you can cross to the Isles of the Cloud of Exile."

"But why do you want to help me?" Somewhere, as if in the very fabric

of the mutable walls, a stringed instrument began to sound; if Simon had

not known that they were quite alone within the airy nectarine halls of

Aditu's house, he would have thought a musician played in the next

wind-shifting room. He had stopped wondering about such things, but

could not still a reflexive shudder; the music felt eerie and delicate as a

491

STONE OFFAREWELL

small and excessively-legged something walking across his skin. "How

can you win a game when you keep helping the other person?"

Aditu leaned back from the gaming board. In her own home she wore

just as little as she did on the walkways ofjao e-Tinukai'i, if not less.

Simon, who still could not look comfortably on the abundance of her

golden limbs, stared hard at the playing pieces.

"Manchild," she said, "1 think you can learn. I think you are learning.

But remember, we Zida'ya have been playing this game since time before

time. First Grandmother says it came with us from the Garden that is

Lost." She laid a placatory hand on Simon's arm, raising goosebumps

there. "Shent can be played to amuse, only. I have played games that were

nothing but gossip and friendly mockery, and all strategies were turned to

that end. Other games one can only win by almost losing. 1 have also

experienced games where both players truly strove to losealthough it

took years for one to succeed." Some memory brought a flick of smile.

"Do you not see, Snowlock, winning and losing are only the walls within

which the game takes place. Inside the House of Shent..." she paused, a

frown touching her mercurial face like a shadow. "It is hard to say in your

tongue." The frown disappeared. "Perhaps that is why it seems so difficult

for you. The thing is, within the House of Shent it,is the coming and

going, the visitorsfriends and enemies boththe births and deaths, all of

these things that matter." She gestured around her at her own habitation,

the floors deep in sweet grass, the rooms tangled with the branches of tiny

flowering trees. Some of the trees, Simon had discovered, had fierce little

thorns. "As with all dwellings," she said, "of mortals and immortals both,

it is the living that makes a housenot the doors, not the walls."

She rose and stretched. Simon watched covertly, struggling to keep his

frowning mask even as her graceful movements caused his heart to leap

painfully. "We will continue our play tomorrow," she said. "I think you

are learning, although you do not know it yet. Shent has lessons even for

Sudhoda'ya, Seoman."

Simon knew that she was bored and that it was time for him to leave.

He was terribly conscious of never overstaying his welcome. He hated it

when the Sithi were kind and understanding with him, as though he were

a stupid animal that did not know better.

"1 should go, Aditu."

She did not ask him to stay. Anger and regret and a sort of deep

physical frustration all struggled within him as he bowed his head briefly,

then turned and made his way out between the swaying blossoms. The

afternoon light glowed through the orange and rose walls, as if he moved

inside the very heart of a sunset.

He stood outside Adieu's house for some time, looking out past the

shimmering mist thrown up from the cataract that played beside her

doorway. The valley was umber and gold, slashed with the darker green

492

Tad Williams

of the tree-covered hills and the bright emerald of tended meadows. To

look at, Jao e-Tinukai'i seemed straightforward as sun and rain. Like any

other place, it had rocks and plants and trees and housesbut it also had

the Sithi, the folk who lived in these houses, and Simon had grown quite

sure that he would never understand them. Like the minute and secret life

that teemed in the black earth beneath the valley's placid grass, Simon

now realized that Jao e-Tinukai'i was crowded with things beyond his

comprehension. He had already found out how little he understood when

he had embarked upon an attempt at escape, soon after being sentenced to

a lifetime's imprisonment among these gentle captors.

He had waited three full days after his sentence had been delivered by

Shima'onari. Such patience, Simon had felt sure, demonstrated a cold-

blooded subtlety of maneuver worthy of the great Camaris. Looking back

a fortnight later, such ignorance was already laughable. What had he

thought he was doing. . . ?

On the fourth day of his sentence, in late afternoon while the

prince was away, Simon walked out of Jiriki's house. He crossed

the river quickly buthe hopedunobtrusively, clambering over a nar-

row bridge, then headed back toward the spot where Aditu had first

brought him to the valley. The cloth-knotted mural that led to Jiriki's

house continued on the river's far side as well, spanning from tree to tree.

The sections Simon passed seemed to show the survivors of some great

disaster bringing their boats to a new landthe Sithi coming to Osten

Ard?and building great cities, empires in the forests and mountains.

There were other details, too, signs woven into the tapestry that suggested

strife and sorrow had not been left behind in the blighted homeland, but

Simon was in too much of a hurry to stop and look closely.

After making his way down the river path for some distance he turned

off at last and headed for the heavy undergrowth at the base of the hills,

where he hoped to make up in stealth what he lost in time. There were not

many Sithi about, but he was certain chat any one of them would sound

the alarm at the sight of their prisoner traveling coward the boundaries of

Jao e-Tinukai'i, so he slid through the trees as carefully as he could,

keeping away from the common paths. Despite the exhilaration of escape,

he felt more than a pang of guilt: Jiriki would doubtless suffer some

punishment for letting the mortal captive slip away. Still, Simon owed a

responsibility to his other friends that outweighed even the multimillennial

laws of the Sithi.

No one saw him, or at lease no one made an attempt to stop him. By

the time several hours had passed, he had moved into what seemed a

wilder, less tamed section of the old forest, and was certain he had made

his escape. His entire trip with Adieu, from the Pools to Jiriki's door, had

STONE OF FAREWELL493

taken less than two hours. He had now gone easily twice chat, straight

back along the river.

But when Simon crept down from the cover of the thickest vegetation,

it was to find himself still in Jao e-Tinukai'i, albeit in a part he had not yet

seen.

He stood in the middle of a shadowed, dusky clearing. The trees all

around were draped with fine, silky streamers like spiderwebs; the after-

noon sun set them gleaming, so that the forest seemed wound in a fiery

net. In the middle of the clearing an oval door of moss-matted white

wood had been built into the trunk of a huge oak, around which the silk

hung so thickly that the cree itself was barely visible. He paused for a

moment, wondering what undersized hermit would live here, in a tree on

the outskirts of the city. Next to the beautiful, rippling folds of Jiriki's

house or the other graceful constructions of Jao e-Tinukai'i, let alone the

living magnificence of the Yasira, this place seemed backward, as though

whoever dwelled here hid himself from even the slow pace of the Sithi.

But despite its aura of age and isolation, the spidersilk house seemed in no

way menacing. The clearing was empty and peaceful, comfortable in its

unimportance. The air was dusty but pleasant, like the pockets of a

beloved aunt. Here the rest of Jao e-Tinukai'i seemed only a memory of

vibrant life. A person could linger here beneath the silk-draped trees while

the very world crumbled away outside. . . .

As Simon stood watching the undulating strands, a mourning dove

hooted softly. He abruptly remembered his mission. How long had he

stood here, staring like a fool? What if the owner of this strange house had

come out, or returned from some errand? Then the hue and cry would go

up and he would be caught like a rat.

Frustrated by this first error in reckoning, Simon hurried back into the

forest. He had misjudged his time, that was all. Another hour's hiking

would carry him beyond the city's fringe and back through the Summer

Gate. Then, with the hoarded provisions he had quietly stolen from the

prince's generous table, he would head due south until he reached the edge

of the forest. He might die in the attempt, but that was what heroes did.

This he knew.

Simon's willingness to become a dead hero seemed to have little effect

on the subtleties of Jao e-Tinukai'i. When he emerged at last from the

dense brush, the sun now far across the sky toward evening, it was to find

himself up to his knees in the golden grass of open woodland before the

mighty Yisira, where he stood dumbstruck before the shimmering, shift-

ing wings of the butterflies.

How could this be? He had followed the river carefully. It had never

been out of his sight for more than a few steps, and always it had flowed

in the same direction. The sun had seemed to move correctly across the

sky. His journey into this place with Aditu would be printed on his heart

494 Tad Williams

foreverhe could not forget a single detail'but nevertheless, he had

walked more than half the afternoon to travel a distance of a few hundred

paces

With this realization, the strength flowed from his body He fell to the

warm, damp ground and lay with his face against the turf, as though he

had been struck a blow

Jinki's house had many rooms, one of which he had given to Simon to

be his own, but the prince seemed to spend most of his own time in the

open-sided chamber where Simon had first met him on arriving in Jao

e-Tmukai'i As the earliest weeks of his confinement passed it became

Simon's habit to spend each evening there with Jinki, sitting on the gentle

slope above the water while the light gradually dimmed from the sky,

watching the shadows lengthen and the glassy pond grow darker As the

last gleam of the sunset vanished from between the branches the pond

became a somber mirror, stars blooming in its violet depths

Simon had never really listened to the sounds of oncoming night, but

Jinki's often silent company encouraged him to give ear to the songs of

cricket and frog, to begin to hear the sighing of wind in the trees as

something other than a warning to pull his hat down tightly over his ears

At times, as he sank into the swelling evening, he felt he was on the verge

of some great understanding A sense of being more than himself stole

over him, of what it felt like to live in a world that cared little for cities or

castles or the worries of the folk who built them Sometimes he was

frightened by the size of this world, by the limitless depths of the evening

sky salted with cold stars

But for all these unfamiliar insights, he still remained Simon most of

the time he was merely frustrated

"Surely he didn't mean it " He licked thejmce of a just-devoured pear

from his fingers, then peevishly flung the core across the grassy verge

Beside him, Jinki was toying with the stem that remained from his own

This was Simon's fifteenth evening in Jao e-Tmukai'ior was it the

sixteenth3 "Stay here until I die7 That's madness'" He had not, of course,

told Jinki of his failed attempt at escape, but neither could he pretend to be

satisfied with his captivity

hnki made what Simon had come to recognize as an unhappy face, a

subtle thinning of the lips, a hooding of his upturned, feline eyes "They

are mv parents," the Sitha said "They are Shima'onan and Likimeya,

Lords of the Zida'ya, and what they decide is as unchangeable as the wheel

of seasons

"But then why did vou bring me here5 You broke that rule'"

"There was no rule to break Not truly " Jinki twitched the stem once

more between his long fingers, then flicked it into the pond A tiny circle

spread to show where it had fallen "It was always an unspoken law, but

495

STONE OF FAREWELL

that is different than a Word of Command It is traditional among the

Dawn Children that we may do what we please unless it goes against a

Word of Command, but this business of bringing a mortal here cuts to the

heart of the things that have divided our people since time out of mind I

can only ask you to forgive me, Seoman It was a risk, and I had no right to

gamble with your life However, I have come to believe that for once

and hear me, only this onceyou mortals may be right and my folk may

be wrong This spreading winter threatens many things beside the king-

doms of the Sudhoda'ya "

Simon lay back, staring up at the brightening stars He tried to smother

the feeling of desperation that rose inside him "Might your parents

change their minds7"

"They might," Jinki said slowly "They are wise, and would be kind if

they could But do not let your hopes rise too high We Zida'ya never

hasten to decisions, especially difficult ones What might seem to them a

reasonable time to ponder could be years, and such waiting is hard for

mortals to bear."

"Years'" Simon was horrified He suddenly understood the beast that

would gnaw off its own leg to escape a trap "Years'"

"I am sorry, Seoman " Jinki's voice was hoarse as though with great

pain, but his golden features still showed little emotion "There is one

hopeful sign, but do not read too much into it The butterflies remain "

"What7"

"At the Yasira They gather when great decisions are to be made They

have not flown, so there are things still unresolved "

"What things7" Despite Jinki's warning, Simon felt a surge of hope

"I do not know " He shook his head "Now is the time for me to stay

away At this moment, I am not my father's and mother's favored voice,

so I must wait before I go to them again to make my arguments Fortu-

nately, First Grandmother Amerasu seems to have concerns about my

parents' actionsmy father's, especially " He smiled wryly "Her words

carry great weight "

Amerasu Simon knew that name He inhaled deeply of the night

Suddenly it came back to him a face more beautiful and yet undeniably

more ancient than even those ofJinki's ageless parents Simon sat up

"Do you know, Jinki, I saw her face once in the mirrorAmerasu, the

one you call First Grandmother "

"In the mirror7 In the dragon-scale mirror7"

Simon nodded "I know I wasn't supposed to use it unless I was calling

for your help, but what happenedit was an accident " He proceeded

to describe his strange encounter with Amerasu and the terrifying appear-

ance of silver-masked Utuk'ku

Jinki seemed to have entirely forgotten the cnckets, despite the splendor

of their song "I did not forbid you to use the mirror, Seoman," he said

496 Tad Williams

"What is surprising is that you were able to see anything but natural

reflection That is odd." He made an unfamiliar gesture with his hand. "I

must talk to First Grandmother about this. Very odd "

"May I come7" Simon asked.

"No, Seoman Snowlock," Jinki smiled. "No one goes to see Amerasu

the Ship-Born without her invitation. Even Root and Boughwhat you

would call her nearest kinmust ask very respectfully for such a favor.

You do not know how astonishing it is that you saw her m my mirror.

You are a menace, manchild "

"A menace? Me7"

The Sitha laughed "Your presence is what I refer to " He touched

Simon lightly on the shoulder. "You are without precedent, Snowlock.

Completely unknown and unforeseen " He rose. "I will move on this I am

anxious myself for something to do "

Simon, who had never been good at waiting, was left alone with the

pond, the crickets, and the unreachable stars.

It all seemed so strange One moment he had been fighting for his life,

perhaps even for the survival of all Osten Ard, struggling against bone-

weanness and dark magic and terrible odds, a moment later he had been

snatched out of winter and dropped headlong into summer, out of hideous

danger and into . - . boredom.

But, Simon realized, it was not even so simple as that Just because he

had been removed from the world did not mean that the problems he had

left behind were solved On the contrary, somewhere out there, living or

dead in the snowy woods beyond Jao e-Tinukai'i, was his horse Homefmder

and its terrible burdenthe sword Thorn, for which Simon and his

fnends had crossed hundreds of leagues and shed precious blood. Men and

Sithi alike had died to find that blade for Josua. Now, with the sword

perhaps lost in the forest, Simon had been imprisoned as offhandedly as

Rachel had once locked him in one of the Hayholt's dark pantries for some

trifling misdeed.

Simon had told Jinki about the lost sword, but the Sitha had only

shrugged, mfunatmgly placid There was nothing to be done.

Simon looked up- He had wandered far up the nverbank in the stillness

of early afternoon; Jinki's house, with its tapestry of knots, had fallen out

of sight behind him- He sat down on a stone and watched a white egret

stilt out into one of the river's shallow backwaters, bright eye staring

obliquely, pretending disinterest to allay the fears of any wary fish.

He was sure that at least three weeks had passed since he had come to

the valley For the last few days his imprisonment had seemed almost a

sort of terribly dull joke, one that had gone on too long and now

threatened to spoil everyone's enjoyment.

STONE OF FAREWELL497

What can I do7' In frustration, he scrabbled up a twig from the dirt and

sent it spinning out onto the water. There's no way to leave'

Thinking back on the grand failure of his first escape and the other

confirming experiments that had followed, Simon made a noise of disgust

and threw another twig out onto the river. Every attempt to find his way

out had left him back in the center of Jao e-Tinukai'i.

How could I have been such a mooncalf he thought sourly Why should

I think it would he so easy to walk awayjrom here, when Aditu and I had to walk

clear out of winter to arrive7 The stick whirled for a moment, spinning like a

weathervane, then was sucked under by the gentle current.

That's me, he thought That's what I'll be like as far as these Sithi-folk are

concerned I'll be around for a little while, then before they even realize I'm

getting old, I'll be dead The thought brought a lump of terror into his

throat. Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to be around his own

short-lived kindeven Rachel the Dragonrather than these soft-spoken,

cat-eyed immortals.

Filled with restlessness, he sprang up from the nverbank, kicking his

way through the reeds as he pushed back toward the path. He almost

bumped into someone: a Sitha-man, dressed only m a pair of thin, loose-

fitting blue breeches, who stood in the undergrowth and gazed out toward

the nver. For a moment, Simon thought this stranger had been spying on

him, but the fine-boned face showed no expression at Simon's approach.

The Sitha continued to stare out past him as the youth walked by. The

stranger was singing quietly to himself, a breathy melody ofsibilances and

pauses. His attention was fixed on a tree growing out of the nverbank,

half-submerged in the current

Simon could not restrain a grunt of irritation. What was wrong with

these people5 They wandered around like sleepwalkers, said things chat

made no senseeven Jinki sometimes talked mysterious, circular non-

sense, and the pnnce was by far the most direct of this tnbeand they all

looked at Simon as though he were an insect When they bothered to

notice him at all

Several times Simon had encountered Sithi who he was certain were

Ki'ushapo and Syandi, the pair who had accompanied Jinki and Simon's

company north from the Aldheorte to the base of Urmsheim, but the Sithi

showed no recognition, made no sign of greeting. Simon could not swear

beyond any doubt chat the faces were theirs, but something m the way

they steadfastly avoided his eye assured him that he was correct.

After thejoumey across the northern waste, both Jinki's kinsman An'nai

and the Erkynlandish soldier Grimmnc had died on the dragon-mountain

Urmsheim, beneath the icy waterfall known as the Uduntree They had

been buried together, mortal and immortal, something which Jinki had

said was unprecedented, a binding between their two races unknown for

centunes. Now Simon, a mortal, had come to forbidden Jao e-Tinukai'i.

498

Tad Williams

Ki'ushapo and Sijandi might not approve of his being here, but they knew

he had saved their prince Jiriki, and they knew Simon was Hikka StaJa, an

Arrow-Bearerso why should they avoid him so completely? If Simon

was wrong in his identification, it should still be simple enough for the

real pair to seek him out, since he was the only one of his kind among

their folk. Were they so angry at his being here that they could not even

greet him? Were they in some way embarrassed for Jiriki, that the prince

should have brought such a creature to their secret valley? Then why did

they not say so, or say something? At least Jiriki's uncle Khendraja'aro

made his dislike of mortals plain and public.

Thinking of these slights put Simon in a foul humor. He muddled his

way up the stream bank, fuming. It Cook all his restraint not to turn back

to the river-watching Sitha and shove his handsome, alien face into the

mud.

Simon struck out across the valley, not with any idea of escape this

time, but rather to walk off some of his restless irritation. His stiff-legged

strides carried him past several more Sithi. Most walked by themselves,

although a few strolled in unspeaking pairs. Some looked at him with

unblinking interest, others did not seem to notice him at all. One group of

four sat quietly listening to the singing of a fifth, their eyes intent on the

delicate gliding movements of the singer's hands.

Mercijul Aedon, he grumbled to himself, what are they thinking about all

the time? They're worse than Doctor Morgenes! Although the doctor, too, had

been prone to long silences, unbroken but for his distracted, tuneless

humming, at least at the end of a day he would unstop a jug of beer and

teach Simon some history, or make suggestions about his apprentice's

rather blobby handwriting.

Simon kicked a fir cone and watched it roll. He did have to admit that

the Sithi were beautiful. Their grace, the flowing line of their garments,

their serene faces, all made him feel like some mud-covered mongrel

bumping against the table linens of a great lord's house. Though his

captivity infuriated him, sometimes a cruel inner voice whispered that it

was only justice. He had no right to be in this place, and having come, an

urchin like Simon should never be allowed to return and sully the immor-

tals with his tales. Like jack Mundwode's man Osgal in the story, he had

gone down into a fairy-mound. The world could never be the same.

Simon's pace slowed from an angry march to a slouch. Before long, he

began to hear the steady ringing of water on stone. He looked up from his

grass-stained boots to discover that he had wandered right across the

valley into the shade of the hills. A stirring of hope made itself felt inside

him. He was near the Pools, as Aditu had called them; the Summer Gate

stood nearby. It seemed that by not thinking about finding his way out, he

had been able to do what he had failed so miserably to accomplish in days

past.

STONE OF FAREWELL

499

Trying to imitate the degree of not-caring that had brought him this far,

Simon wandered off the path, angling toward the sound of splashing

water, staring up into the overarching trees with what he hoped was

suitable nonchalance. Within a few steps he had left the sunlight and

entered the cool shadow of the hills, where he made his way up grass-

tangled slopes carpeted in shy blue gilly-flowers and white starblooms. As

the song of falling water grew louder he had to restrain himself from

breaking into a run; instead, he stopped to rest against a tree, precisely as if

he were in the middle of a contemplative walk. He stared at the stripes of

sunshine lancing down through the leaves and listened to his own grad-

ually slowing breath- Then, just when he had nearly forgotten where he

was goingdid he only fancy that he could hear the rush of water

suddenly increase?he started up the hill once more.

As he reached the summit of this first slope, certain that he would see

the bottommost of the Pools before him, he found himself standing

instead on the rim of a circular valley. The valley's upper slopes were

covered by a host of white birch trees whose leaves were just now turning

summer-yellow- They rattled softly in the breeze, like bits of golden

parchment. Beyond the birches, the next level of the valley was thickly

grown with silvery-leaved trees that trembled as the wind continued its

sweep down toward the valley floor.

At the base of the circular valley, in the depths within the ring of silver

leaves, lay a vegetative darkness that Simon's eyes could not pierce.

Whatever things grew there also took the wind in their turn: a sort of

clattering whisper arose from the valley's shadowed deeps, a sound that

might have been the scraping of breeze-blown leaves and branches, or just

as easily the hiss of a thousand slim knives being drawn from a thousand

delicate sheaths.

Simon let out his pent-up breath. The scent of the valley rose up to him,

musty and bittersweet. He caught the smell of growing things, a pungent

odor like mown grass, but also a deep and intoxicating spiciness reminis-

cent of the bowls ofhippocras Morgenes had mulled on cold evenings. He

took another whiff and felt strangely drunken. There were other scents,

too, a dozen, a hundredhe could smell roses growing against an old stone

wall, stable muck. rain puffing on dusty ground, the salty tang of blood,

and the similar but by no means identical odor of sea-brine. He shivered

like a wet dog and felt himself drawn a few steps down the slope.

"I am sorry. You may not go there."

Simon whirled to see a Sitha-woman standing on the hilltop behind

him. For a moment he thought it was Aditu. This one wore a wisp of

cloth around her loins and nothing else- Her skin was red-golden in the

slanting sunlight.

"What. . . ?"

"You may not go there." She spoke his mortal tongue carefully. There

500

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was no ill humor on her face. "I am sorry, but you may not." She took a

step forward and looked at him curiously. "You are the Sudhoda'ya who

saved Jiriki."

"So? Who are you?" he asked sullenly. He didn't want to look at her

breasts, her slim but well-muscled legs, but it was nearly impossible not

to. He felt himself growing angry.

"My mother named me Maye'sa," she said, making each word too

precisely, as if Simon's language were a trick she had learned but never

before performed. Her white hair was streaked with gold and black.

Staring at her long, coiled tressesa safe place to let his eyes restSimon

suddenly realized that all the Sitha had white hair, that the myriad of

different rainbow colors chat made them seem like outlandish birds were

just dyes. Even Jiriki, with his odd, heather-flower shadedyes! Artifice!

Just like the harlot-women that Father Dreosan had ranted about during

his sermons in the Hayholt chapel! Simon felt his anger deepening. He

turned his back on the Sicha-woman and started downward into the

valley.

"Come back, Seoman Snowlock," she called. "That is the Year-Dancing

Grove. You may not go there."

"Stop me," he growled. Maybe she would put an arrow in his back. He

had seen Aditu's terrifying facility with a bow just a few mornings before,

whenjiriki's sister had put four arrows side by side into a tree limb a> Fifty

paces. He had little doubt that others of her sex were just as competent,

but at this moment he cared little. "Kill me if you want to," he added,

then wondered if such a remark might strain his luck.

Half-hunching his shoulders, he strode down the slope into the whisper-

ing birches. No arrow came, so he risked a backward look. The one called

Maye'sa still stood where he had left her. Her thin face seemed puzzled.

He began to run down the hillside, past row after row of white,

papery-barked trunks. After a moment, he noticed that the slope was

leveling off. When he found himself beginning to run uphill he stopped,

then walked until he found a spot from which he could look about and

discover where he was. The entirety of the great bowl still lay beneath

him, but he had somehow moved around the valley's rim from the spot

where the Sitha-woman stood, watching.

Swearing in fury, he started down the slope once more, but experienced

the same feeling of leveling, swiftly followed by the resumption of an

upward slant. He had gotten no closer to the bottomhe was still, as far

as he could Cell, only a third of the way through the ring of birch trees.

Attempts to turn away from the uphill slope also met with failure. The

wind sighed in the branches, the birch leaves rustled, and Simon felt

himself struggling as though in a dream, making no headway despite all

his exertions. At last, in a paroxysm of frustration, he closed his eyes and

ran. His terror turned into a moment of heady exhilaration as he felt the

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ground sloping away beneath his feet. Tree branches slapped at his face,

but some peculiar luck kept him from striking any of the hundreds of

trunks chat lay in the path of his headlong flight.

When he stopped and opened his eyes, he was back at the top of the

hillside once more. Maye'sa stood before him, her gauzy bit of skirt

fluttering in the restless breeze.

"I told you, you may not go into the Year-Dancing Grove," she said,

explaining a painful truth to a child. "Did you think you could?" Stretch-

ing her sinuous neck, she shook her head. Her eyes were wide, inquisitive.

"Strange creature."

She vanished back down the hillside toward Jao e-Tinukai'i. A few

moments later, Simon followed. Head down, watching his boot toes

scuffing through the grass, he soon found himself standing on the path

before Jiriki's house. Evening was coming on and the crickets were

singing by the river-pond.

"Very good, Seoman," Aditu said the next day. She examined the shenc

board, nodding. "Misdirection! To go away from that which you wish to

gain. You are learning."

"It doesn't always work," he said glumly.

Her eyes glittered. "No. Sometimes you need a deeper strategy. But it

is a beginning."

^

Binabik and Sludig had not come far into the forest, only deep enough

to shelter their camp from the bitter wind sweeping down the plains, a

wind whose voice had become a ceaseless howling. The horses shifted

uneasily on their tethers, and even Qantaqa seemed restless. She had just

returned from her third excursion into the forest, and now sat with ears

erect, as though listening for some expected but nonetheless dire warning.

Her eyes gleamed with reflected firelight.

"Do you think we are any safer here, little man?" Sludig asked, sharp-

ening his swore. "I think I would rather face the empty plains than his

forest."

Binabik frowned. "Perhaps, but would you rather also be facing hairy

giants like those we saw?"

The White Way, the great road that spanned the northern borders of

Aldheorte, had turned at last by the forest's easternmost edge, leading them

south for the first time since they had come down off the Old Tumet'ai

Road with Simon many days earlier. Not long after the southward turn,

they had spotted a group of white shapes moving in the distance behind

themshapes that they both realized could be nothing but Hunen. The

giants, once unwilling to leave their hunting lands at the foot ofStormspike,

502 Tad Williams

now seemed to range the length and breadth of the northland. Remember-

ing the destruction that a band of these creatures had wreaked on their

large traveling party, neither troll nor Rimmersgarder had any false hopes

that the two of them could survive an encounter with the shaggy

monstrosities-

"What makes you sure we are any safer because we have come a few

furlongs into the woods?" demanded Sludig.

"Nothing that is certain," Binabik admitted, "but I know that the

small, creeping diggers are reluctant to tunnel into Aldheorte. Perhaps the

giants may be having similar reluctance."

Sludig snorted and made the blade rasp loudly on the whetstone. "And

the Hune that Josua killed near Naglimund, when the boy Simon was

found? That one was in the forest, was it not?"

"That giant was driven to there," Binabik said irritably. He pushed the

second of the leaf-wrapped birds into the coals. "There are no promises in

life, Sludig. but it seems to me smarter to take fewer chances."

After a short silence, the Rimmersman spoke up. "You speak rightly,

troll. I am only tired. I wish we would get where we are going, to this

Farewell Stone! I would like to give Josua his damnable sword, then sleep

for a week. In a bed."

Binabik smiled. "With certainty. But it is notJosua's sword, or at least 1

am not sure it is meant for him." He stood and took the long bundle from

where it leaned against a tree. "I am not sure what it is for at all."

Binabik's fingers unwrapped the blade, allowing its dark surface to show.

The firelight revealed no more than its dark outlines. "Do you see?"

Binabik said, hefting the bundle in his arms. "Thorn now seems to chink

it is acceptable for a small troll to carry it."

"Don't talk about it as if it were alive," Sludig said, sketching a hasty

Tree in the air. "That is against nature."

Binabik eyed him. "It may not be alive, as a bear or a bird or a man is

alive, but there is something in it chat is more than sword-metal. You

know that, Sludig."

"That may be." The Rimmersman frowned. "No, curse it, I do know.

That is why I do not like speaking of it. I have dreams about the cave

where we found the thing."

"That is not surprising to me," the troll said softly. "That was a

fearsome place."

"But it is not just the placenot even the worm, or Grimmric's death. I

dream of the damnable sword, little man. It was laying there among those

bones as though it waited for us. Cold, cold, like a snake in its den ..."

Sludig trailed off. Binabik watched him, but said nothing.

The Rimmersman sighed. "And I still do not understand what good

having it will do Josua."

"No more do I, but it is a powerful thing. It is good to remember that."

STONE OFFAREWELL

503

Binabik stroked the glinting surface as he might the back of a cat. "Look

at it, Sludig. We have been so caught up in our trials and losses that we

have almost been forgetting Thorn. This is an object that is making

legends! Perhaps it is the greatest weapon ever to have come to light in

Osten Ardgreater than Hern's spear Oinduth, greater than Chukku's

sling."

"Powerful it may be," Sludig grumbled, "but I have doubts as to how

lucky it is. It didn't save Sir Camaris, did it?"

Binabik showed a small, secretive smile. "But he did not have it when

he was swept over the side in Firannos Bay: Towser the jester Cold that to

us. That is why we were able to discover it on the dragon-mountain.

Otherwise it would be at ocean's bottomlike Camaris."

The wind shrieked, rattling the branches overhead. Sludig waited an

appropriate interval, then moved closer to the comforting fire. "How

could such a great knight fall off a boat? God grant that I die more

honorably, in battle. It only proves to me, if I had any doubts, that boats

are things best left alone."

Binabik's yellow grin widened. "To be hearing such words from one

whose ancestors were the greatest sailors mankind has known!" His ex-

pression grew serious. "Although it must be cold that some doubt Camaris

was swept into the sea. Some there are who say that he was drowning

himself."

"What? Why in Usires' name would he do such a thing?" Sludig poked

at the fire indignantly.

The troll shrugged. "It is only being rumor, but I do not ignore such

things. Morgenes' writings are filled with many strange stories. Qinkipa!

How I wish I had found more time for reading the doctor's book! One

thing Morgenes was telling in his life-story of Prescer John was that Sir

Camaris was much like our Prince Josua: a man of strange, melancholy

moods. Also, he was much in admiration of John's queen, Ebekah. King

Prester John had made Camaris her special protector. When the Rose of

Hernysadharcas many were naming herdied in the birthing of Josua,

Camaris was said to be much upset. He grew fell and strange, and railed

against his God and Heaven. He gave up sword and armor and other

things, as one who takes up a life of religionor, as one who knows he

will die. He was making his way back to his home in Vinitta after a

pilgrimage to the Sancellan Aedonitis. In a storm he was lost in the ocean

off Harcha-island."

Binabik leaned forward and began pulling the wrapped birds out of the

fire, exerting caution so as not to burn his stubby fingers. The fire

crackled and the wind moaned.

"Welladay," Sludig said at last. "What you say only makes me more

sure that I will avoid the high and the mighty whenever possible. But for

Duke Isgrimnur, who has a good level head on his shoulders, the rest of

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them are drifty and foolish as geese. Your Prince Josua, if you will pardon

my saying it, first among them."

Binabik's grin returned. "He is not my Prince Josua, and he iswhat

was your wording?drifty. But not foolish. Not foolish at all. And he

may be our last hope for staving off the coming storm." As though he had

stumbled into an uncomfortable subject, the troll busied himself with their

supper. He pushed a smoking bird over to the Rimmersman. "Here. Have

something to eat. Perhaps if the Hunen are enjoying the cold weather,

they will be leaving us alone. We can then gain ourselves a good night

sleeping."

"We will need it. We have a long road before we can give away this

damnable sword."

"But we owe it to those who have fallen," Binabik said, staring out into

the dark reaches of the surrounding forest. "We do not have the freedom

of making a failure."

As they ate, Qantaqa rose and paced about the campsite, listening

intently to the wailing wind.

Snow was blowing savagely across the Waste, flung hard enough by the

howling wind to strip the very bark from the trees along the Aldheorte's

ragged north fringe. The great hound, not hindered in the least by such

unfriendly weather, bounded lightly back through the blinding flurries,

stone-hard muscles coiling and uncoiling beneath its short fur. When the

dog reached Ingen's side, the Queen's Huntsman reached into his vest and

produced a length of gnarled, dried meat that had at one end something

suspiciously like a fingernail. The white hound crunched it in a r' ond,

then stood peering out into the darkness, cloudy little eyes full of ager-

ness to be moving once more. Ingen scratched carefully behind the dog's

ears, his gloved fingers trailing across a bulgingly muscled jaw that could

crush rock.

"Yes, Niku'a" the huntsman whispered, voice echoing within his helm.

His own eyes were as madly intent as those of the hound. "You have the

scent now, do you not? Ah, the Queen will be so proud. My name will

be sung until the sun turns black and rotten and drops from the sky."

He lifted his helmet and let the stinging wind batter his face. As

certainly as he knew that frosty stars shone somewhere above the dark-

ness, so, too, he knew that his quarry was still before him, and that he

drew nearer to it with every day that passed. At this moment he did not

feel himself to be the stolid, tireless hound chat was his sigil, and whose

snarling face made the mask of his helm; he was instead some subtler,

more feline predator, a creature of fierce but quiet joy. He felt the freezing

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night on his face and knew that nothing that lived beneath the black sky

could escape him for long.

Ingen Jegger slid the crystalline dagger from his sleeve and held it before

him, staring at it as though it were a mirror in which he could see himself,

the Ingen who had feared to die in obscurity. Catching some hardy beam

of moonlight or starshine, the translucent blade burned with a chilly blue

fire; its carvings seemed to writhe like serpents beneath his fingers- This

was all he had dreamed, and more. The Queen in the Silver Mask had set

him a great task, a task befitting the making of a legend. Soonhe felt it

with a certainty that made him tremblesoon that task would be accom-

plished. Ingen let the dagger slide back into his sleeve.

"Go, Niku'a," he whispered, as though the hidden stars might betray

him if they heard. "It is time to hunt our prey to ground. We will run."

Ingen vaulted into the saddle. His patient mount stirred as if awakening.

The snow swirled, blowing through the empty night where a moment

before a man, a horse, and a dog had stood.

^

The afternoon light was failing, the translucent walls ofJiriki's house

gradually growing darker. Aditu had brought a meal of fruit and warm

bread to Simon's room, an act of kindness for which he would have been

even more appreciative had she not stayed to annoy him. It was not that

Simon did not enjoy Aditu's company or admire her exotic beauty: it was,

in fact, her very beauty and shamelessness that disturbed him, making it

especially difficult to concentrate on such mundane tasks as eating.

Aditu trailed a finger up his backbone once more. Simon nearly choked

on a mouthful of bread.

"Don't do that!"

The Sitha-woman made an interested face. "Why not? Does it cause you

pain?"

"No! Of course not. It tickles." He turned away sulkily, inwardly

regretting his lack of mannersbut not much. He was feeling, as he

usually did around Aditu, quite flummoxed. Jiriki, for all his alien ways,

had never made Simon think of himself as a cloddish mortal: beside Aditu,

Simon felt himself to be made of mud.

She was attired today in little but feathers and jeweled beads and a few

strips of fabric. Her body gleamed with scented oils.

"Tickles? But is that bad?" she asked. "I do not wish to hurt you or

make you uncomfortable, Seoman. It is just that you are so" she

searched for the proper word, "so unusual, and I have seldom been near

your kind." She seemed to be enjoying his discomfiture. "You are very

wide here . . ." She ran a finger from one of his shoulders to the other,

506 Tad Williams

sighing as this occasioned another muffled yelp "It is clear you are not

made like our folk "

Simon, who had slid out of reach once more, grunted He was uncom-

fortable around her, that was a simple fact Her presence had begun to

make him feel as though he had some kind of damnable itch. and in his

solitude he had come to both vearn for and vet fear her arrivals Every

time he stole a glance at her slim body, displayed with an immodesty that

still shocked him to the depths of his being, he found himself remember-

ing the thundering sermons of Father Dreosan Simon was astonished to

discover that the priest, whom he had always thought an idiot, had been

right after allthe devil did make snares for the flesh Just watching

Aditu's lissomc, catlike movements filled Simon with a squirming con-

sciousness of sin It was the more terrible, he knew, because Jinki's sister

was not even of his own kind

As the priest had taught, Simon tried to keep the pure face ofElvsia the

Mother of God before him when he was confronted by the temptation of

flesh Back in the Hayholt Simon had seen that face in hundreds of

paintings and sculptures, in countless candlelit shrines, but now he was

alarmed to find his memory turning traitor In recollection, the eyes of

Usires' sainted mother seemed more playful and morefelinethan

could possibly be proper or holy

Despite this discomfort, in his loneliness he was still grateful to Aditu

for all her attentions, however perfunctory he sometimes thought them to

be, and however careless of Simon's feelings her teasing sometimes be-

came He was most grateful for the meals Jinki was seldom at home of

late, and Simon was more than a little uncertain about which of the fruits,

vegetables, and less familiar plants growing in the prince's extensive forest

gardens could be safely eaten There was no one but the prince's sisr on

whom he could rely Even among the first familythe "Root and Bf' -,h"

as Jinki had phrased itthere seemed to be nothing like servants Every-

one fended for themselves, as befitted the Sithi's solitary habits Simon

knew that the Sithi kept animals, or rather, that the valley was full of

animals that came when they were called The goats and sheep must allow

themselves to be milked for the meals Aditu brought him often included

fragrant cheeses, but the Sithi seemed to eat no meat Simon often thought

longingly about all those trusting animals wandering the paths of Jao

e-Tinukai'i He knew he would never dare do anything about it, but

Aedon'wouldn't a teg of mutton be a fine thing to have'

Aditu poked him again Simon stolidly ignored her She got up and

walked past the nest of soft blankets that was Simon's bed, stopping

before the billowing blue wall The wall had been scarlet when Jinki first

brought him. but Simon's Sitha host had somehow changed its color to

this more soothing cerulean When Aditu brushed it with her long-

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fingered hand, the fabric slid away like a drawn curtain, revealing another,

larger room beyond

"Let us return to our game," she said "You are too serious, manchild "

"I will never be able to learn it," Simon muttered

"You do not apply yourself Jinki claims you have a good mind

although my brother has been wrong before " Aditu reached into a fold in

the wall and produced a crystal sphere which began to glow at her touch

She placed it on simple tripod of wood, letting its light spread through

the darkened room, then took a carved wooden case from beneath the

colorful shent board and removed the polished stones that served as

playing pieces "I think I had just made myself an acre of Woodlarks

Come, Seoman, play and don't pout You had a good idea the other day, a

very clever ideafleeing that which you truly sought " She stroked his

arm, making the hairs stand up, and gave him one of her strange Sithi

smiles, full of impenetrable significance

"Seoman has other games to play tonight "

Jinki stood in the doorway, dressed in what appeared to be ceremonial

attire, an intricately embroidered robe in varied shades of yellow and blue

He wore soft gray boots His sword Indreju dangled at his hip in a

scabbard of the same gray stuff, and three long white heron feathers were

braided into his hair "He has received a summons "

Aditu carefully set the pieces on the board "I shall have to play by

myself, thenunless you are staying. Willow-switch " She gazed from

beneath lowered lids

Jinki shook his head "No, sister I must be Seoman's guide "

"Where am I going5" Simon asked "Summoned bv who5"

"By First Grandmother " Jinki lifted his hand and made a brief but

solemn gesture "Amerasu the Ship-Born has asked to see you "

Walking m silence beneath the stars, Simon thought about the things he

had seen since leaving the Hayholt To think that once he had feared he

would live and die a castle-drudge' Was there to be no end to the strange

places he must go, to the strange people he must meet5 Amerasu might be

able to help him, but still he was growing weary of strangeness Then

again, he realized with a flutter of panic, if Amerasu or some other did

not come to his aid, the lovely but limited vistas of Jao e-Tinukai'i might

be all he would ever see again

But the strangest thing, he thought suddenly, was that no matter where

he went or what he saw, he always seemed to remain the same old

Simona little less mooncalfish, perhaps, but not very different from the

clumsy kitchen boy who had lived at the Hayholt Those distant, peaceful

days seemed utterly gone, vanished without hope of reclamation, but the

Simon who had lived them was still very much present Morgenes had

told him once to make his home in his own head That way, home could

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never be taken from him. Was this what the doctor meant? To be the same

person no matter where you went, no matter what madness occurred?

Somehow, that didn't seem quite right.

"I will not burden you with instructions," Jinki said suddenly, startling

him. "There are special rites to be performed before meeting the First

Grandmother, but you do not know them, nor could you perform all of

them even if they were told to you. I do not think that cause to worry,

however. I believe Amerasu wishes to see you because of who you are and

what you have seen, not because she wishes you to watch you perform the

Six Songs of Respectful Request."

"The six what?"

"It is not important. But remember this: although First Grandmother is

of the same family as Aditu and myself, we are both children of the Last

Days. Amerasu Ship-Born was one of the first speaking creatures to set

foot on Osten Ard I say this not to frighten," he added hurriedly, seeing

Simon's distressed, moonlit expression, "but only to have you know she

is different even than my father and mother."

The silence returned as Simon pondered this. Could the handsome,

sad-faced woman he had seen really be one of the oldest living things in

the world? He did not doubt Jinki, but his own wildest thoughts stretched

to their limits still could not encompass the prince's words.

The winding path led them across a stone bridge. Once over the river,

they made their way into the more heavily wooded part of the valley.

Simon did his best to take note of what paths they took, but found that

the memories quickly melted away, insubstantial as starlight. He remem-

bered only chat they crossed several more streams, each seeming slightly

more melodious than the last, until they finally entered into a part of the

forest that seemed quieter. Among these thickly knotted trees ev/ the

cncket songs were hushed. The tree branches swayed, but the win was

silent.

When they finally stopped, Simon found to his surprise that they stood

before the tall, cobwebbed tree he had found in his first attempt at escape.

Faint lights shone through the tangle of silken threads, as though the great

tree wore a glowing cloak.

"I was here before," Simon said slowly. The warm, still air made him

feel at once drowsy and yet keenly alert.

The prince looked at him and said nothing, but led him toward the oak.

Jinki set his hand to the moss-covered door, set so deeply into the bark

that the tree might have grown around it.

"We have permission." he said quietly. The door swung silently inward.

Beyond the doorway was an impossible thing: a narrow hallway that

stretched away before him, as silk-tangled as the front of the oak-house.

Tiny lights no larger than fireflies burned within the matted threads,

filling the passageway with their flickering light. Simon, who could have

STONE OF FAREWELL509

sworn guiltlessly on a holy Tree that nothing lay behind the spreading oak

but more trees, took a step back through the doorframe to see where such

a hallway could possibly be hiddencould it pass down into the ground.

somehow?but Jinki took his elbow and gently steered him across the

threshold once more. The door fell shut behind them.

They were completely surrounded by lights and silken webs, as though

they moved through the clouds and among the stars. The curious sleepi-

ness was still upon Simon: every detail was sharp and clear, but he had no

idea how long they spent walking in the scintillant passage. They came at

last to a more open place, a chamber that smelled of cedar and plum

blossoms and other scents more difficult to identify. The minute and

inconstant lights were fewer here, and the wide room was full of long,

shuddery shadows. From time to time the walls creaked, as though he and

Jinki stood in the hold of a ship, or inside the trunk of a tree far larger

than any Simon had ever seen. He heard a sound as of water slowly

dripping, like the last drops of a rainstorm trickling from willow branches

into a pool. Half-visible shapes lined the dark walls, things shaped like

people; they might have been statues, for they were certainly very still.

As Simon stared, his eyes not yet adjusted to the diminished light,

something brushed against his leg. He jumped and cried out, but a

moment later the flickering lights showed him a waving tail that could

only belong to a cat; the creature swiftly vanished into the darkness along

the walls. Simon caught his breath.

Strange as the place was, he decided, there was nothing truly frighten-

ing about it. The shadowy chamber had an air of warmth and serenity

unlike anything he had experienced thus far in Jao e-Tinukai'i. Judith, the

Hayholt's plump kitchen mistress, would almost have called it cozy.

"Welcome to my house," a voice said from the darkness. The pinpricks

of light grew brighter around one of the shadowy figures, revealing a

white-haired head and the back of a tall chair. "Come closer, manchild. I

can see you there, but I doubt you can see me."

"First Grandmother has very sharp sight," Jinki said; Simon thought he

could detect a trace of amusement in the Sitha's voice. He stepped for-

ward. The golden light revealed the ancient yet youthful face he had seen

inJiriki's mirror.

"You are m the presence of Amerasu y'Senditu no'e-Sa'onserei, the

Ship-Born," intoned Jiriki from behind him. "Show respect, Seoman

Snowlock."

Simon felt no compunction about doing so. He kneeled on wobbling

legs and lowered his head before her.

"Stand up, mortal boy," she said quietly. Her voice was deep and

smooth. It rugged at Simon's memory. Had their short contact through

the mirror burned itself so deeply on his mind?" "Hmmm," she mur-

mured. "You are taller even than my young Willow-switch. Will you find

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the manchild a stool, jiriki, so I do not have to stare up at him? Get

yourself one, too."

When Simon was seated beside Jiriki, Amerasu inspected him carefully.

Simon felt suddenly tongue-tied, but curiosity vied with shyness- He stole

return glances while doing his best to avoid her almost frighteningly deep

eyes.

She was much as he remembered her: shining white hair, skin tight-

Stretched over her fine bones. Other than the measureless depths of her

stare, the only hint of the immense age to which Jiriki had alluded was in

the careful deliberation with which she assayed every movement, as though

her skeleton were fragile as dried parchment. Still, she was very beautiful.

Caught in the web other regard, Simon imagined that in the dawn of the

world Amerasu might have been as terrifyingly, blindingly splendid to

look upon as the face of the sun.

"So," she said finally. "You are out of your depths, little fish."

Simon nodded.

"Are you enjoying your visit toJao e-Tinukai'i? You are one of the first

of your kind to come here."

Jiriki sat up straighter. "One of the first, wise Amerasu? Not the first?"

She ignored him, keeping her gaze fixed on Simon. He felt himself

drawn gently but helplessly into her spell of command, a wriggling fish

pulled inexorably toward the water's blinding surface. "Speak, manchild.

What do you think?"

"I ... 1 am honored to visit," he said at last, then swallowed. His

throat was very dry. "Honored. But . . . but I don't want to stay in this

valley. Not forever."

Amerasu leaned back in her chair. He felt himself held more loosely,

though the power other presence was still strongly upon him. "I/not

surprised." She took a long breath, smiling sadly. "But you wouk have

to be prisoned here a long while before you would be as weary of this life

as I am."

jiriki stirred. "Should I leave, First Grandmother?"

His question gave Simon a faint tremor of fright. He could feel the

Sitha-woman's great kindness and great painbut she was so fearfully

strong! He knew that if she wished, she could keep him here forever, just

with the power of her voice and those compelling, labyrinthine eyes.

"Should 1 leave?" Jiriki asked again.

"I know it pains you to hear me speak so. Willow-switch," Amerasu

said. "But you are dearest of all my young ones and you are strong. You

can hear truth." She shifted slowly in her chair, long-fingered hand

settling on the breast of her white robe. "You, too, manchild, have

known loss. That is in your face. But though every loss is grave, the lives

as well as losses of mortals appear and fade as swiftly as the seasons turn

the leaves. I do not mean to be cruel. Neither do I seek pitybut not you

STONE OF FAREWELL

511

or any other mortal has seen the dry centuries roll past, the hungry

millennia, seen the very light and color sucked out of your world until

nothing remains butjuiceless memories." Strangely, as she spoke her face

seemed to grow more youthful, as though her grief were the most vital

thing left in her. Now Simon could see much more than a hint of her

former splendor. He lowered his head, unable to speak.

"Of course you have not," she said, a slight tremor in her voice. "I

have. That is why I am here, in the dark. It is not that I fear the ligfft, or

that I am not strong enough to stand day's brightness." She laughed, a

sound like a whipoorwill's mournful call. "No, it is only that in darkness I

can see the lost days and faces of the past more clearly."

Simon looked up. "You had two sons," he said quietly. He had realized

why her voice seemed so familiar. "One of them went away."

Amerasu's face hardened. "Both of them are gone. What have you told

him, Jiriki? These are not tales for the small hearts of mortals."

"I told him nothing. First Grandmother."

She leaned forward intently. "Tell me of my sons. What old legends do

you know?"

Simon swallowed. "One son was hurt by a dragon. He had to go away.

He was burnedlike me." He touched his own scarred cheek. "The other

. . . the other is the Storm King." As he whispered this last, Simon looked

around, as though something might step toward him out of the deep

shadows. The walls creaked and water dripped, but that was all.

"How do you know this?"

"I heard your voice in a dream." Simon searched for words. "You

spoke in my head for a long time when I was sleeping."

The Sitha-woman's beautiful face was grave. She stared at him as

though something hidden within him threatened her. "Do not be afraid,

manchild," she said at last, reaching out with her slender hands. "Do not

fear. And forgive me."

Amerasu's cool, dry fingers couched Simon's face. The lights streamed

like shreds of lightning, then flickered and faded, dropping the chamber

into utter darkness. Her grip seemed to tighten. The blackness sang.

There was no pain, but somehow Amerasu was inside his head, a

forceful presence so intimately connected to him at chat moment that he

felt shockingly, terrifyingly raw, an exposure far more profound than any

merely physical nakedness. Sensing his terror, she calmed him, cradling

his secret self like a panicking bird until he was no longer afraid. First

Grandmother then began to pick delicately through his memories, probing

him with gentle but purposeful thoroughness.

Dizzy snatches of thought and dream fluttered past, swirling like flower

petals in a windstormMorgenes and his countless books, Miriamele

singing, seemingly meaningless fragments of conversation from Simon's

days in the Hayholt- The night of Thisterborg and the dreadful gray

512 Tad Williams

sword spread though his mind like a dark stain, followed by the silver face

of Utuk'ku and the three swords from his vision in the house of Geloe.

Plump Skodi and the thing that had laughed in the courtyard flames

whirled and melted into the lunacy of the Uduntree and the emotionless

eyes of the great white worm Igjarjuk. Thorn was there, too, a black slash

across the light of recollection. As the memories flew by, he again felt the

burning pam of the dragon's blood and the fearful sense of connection to

the spinning world, the sickening vastness of the hope and pain of all

living things. At last, like the tatters of a dream, the pictures faded.

The lights came back slowly- Simon's head was cradled in Jinki's lap.

The wound on his cheek was throbbing.

"Forgive me, First Grandmother," jinki said as though from a great

distance, "but was that necessary? He would have told you all he knew."

Amerasu was silent for a long time. When she spoke, it was with great

effort. Her voice seemed older than before. "He could not have told me

all, Willow-switch. Those things that to me seem most important, he is

not even aware that he knows." She turned her eyes down to Simon, her

face full of weary kindness. "I am truly sorry, manchild. I had no right to

plunder you that way, but I am old and frightened and I have little

patience left. Now, I am more frightened than ever."

She tried to pull herself up. Jinki reached out to help, and she rose

unsteadily from her chair and vanished into the shadows. She returned a

moment later with a cup of water, which she held to Simon's lips with her

own hands. He drank thirstily. The water was cold and sweet, withjust a

savor of wood and earth, as though it had been scooped from the trunk of

a hollow tree. In her white robe, Simon thought, Amerasu looked like

some pale and radiant saint from a church picture.

"What . . . did you do?" he asked as he sat up. There was a bua ' g

sound in his ears and small shining flecks dancing before his eyes.I

"Learned what I needed to leam," Amerasu said. "I knew that I' -ad

seen you in Jinki's mirror, but I thought that a fluke, a mischance. The

Road of Dreams has changed much of late, and has become as obscure and

unpredictable to even the experienced as it once was for those who only

traveled it in sleep. I see now that our earlier meeting was no accident of

fate."

"Do you mean that your meeting with Simon was intended by some-

one, First Grandmother?" Jinki said.

"No. I mean only that the boundaries between those worlds and ours

are beginning to weaken. Someone like this manchild, who has been

pulled one way and another, who through true chance or some unimaginable

design has been dragged into many powerful and dangerous connections

between the dream world and the waking ..." She trailed off, seating

herself carefully once more before continuing. "It is as though he lived on

the edge of a great wood. When the trees begin to spread outward, it is his

STONE OF FAREWELL513

house chat first has roots across the threshold. When the wolves of the

forest begin to grow hungry, it is beneath his window that they first come

howling."

Simon struggled to speak. "What did you learn . . . from my memo-

ries? About . . . about Ineluki?"

Her face became impassive. "Too much. 1 believe I now understand my

son's terrible, subtle design, but I must think a while longer. Even in this

hour, I must not be frightened into foolish haste." She lifted a hand to her

brow. "If I am correct, our danger is graver than we ever guessed. I must

speak to Shima'onari and Likimeya. I only hope they listenand that time

has not passed us by. We may be starting to dig the well as our houses

burn down."

jinki helped Simon sit up. "My father and mother must listen. Every-

one knows your wisdom, First Grandmother.'*

Amerasu smiled sadly. "Once, the women of the House Sa'onserei were

the keepers of lore. The final word belonged to the eldest of the house.

WhenJenjiyana of the Nightingales saw the right of things, she spoke and

it was so. Since the Flight, things have changed." Her hand fluttered in the

air like a bird alighting. "1 am certain your mother will listen to reason.

Your father is good. Jiriki, but in some ways he dwells even more deeply

in the past than I do." She shook her head. "Forgive me. I am weary and I

have much to think about. Otherwise, I would not talk so uncarefully, and

especially in front of this boy." She extended her hand toward Simon,

brushing his cheek with her fingertip. The pain of his old burn became

less. As Lc looked at her solemn face and the weight she seemed to carry,

he reached up and touched her retreating hand.

"Jinki spoke to you truthfully, manchild," she said. "For better or for

worse, you have been marked- I only wish I could give you some word to

help you on your journey."

The light faded again. Simon letJirki lead him out in darkness.

26

Painted Eyes

JVLlTTUTTU^te leaned against the railing, watching the bustle and

activity of the docks Vinitta was not a large island, but its ruling Benidnvine

house had provided Nabban's final two Imperators, as well as its three

dukes under Prester John's kingship It had also been the birthplace of the

legendary Camans, but even so great a knight was accorded only a

middling-high place in Vinitta's luminous, hero-studded history The port

was a busy one with Bemgans on the ducal throne, the fortunes ofVimtta

still ran high

Aspitis Preves and his captain had gone down into the town to accom-

plish their business What that might be, Minamele could not say The

earl had intimated that he had some important mission direct from Duke

Bemgans, but that was as far as he would discuss the subject Aspitis had

bade both Minamele and Cadrach stay on board until he returned, suggest-

ing that the port was not the place for a noble lady to wander, and th3

had not enough men-at-arms available to handle his own affairs safely | d

still detach a pair of soldiers for their protection

Minamele knew what this meant Whatever Aspitis thought of her,

however he valued her beauty and company, he did not intend to give her

the chance to slip away Perhaps he harbored some doubts about her

story, or simply worried that she might be persuaded to leave by Cadrach,

who had made little attempt to disguise his growing hatred of the Earl of

Eadne and Drma

She sighed, gazing sadly at the rows of tented booths that ran along the

dockfront, each one festooned with flags and crammed with goods for

sale Hawkers cned their wares as they shuffled along the road, carrying

their stock on their backs in huge, overstuffed bags Dancers and musicians

performed for coins, and the sailors ofvanous boats mingled with Vinitta's

residents in a shouting, laughing, swearing throng Despite the dark skies

and intermittent flumes of rain, the crowds that swarmed the waterfront

STONE OF FAREWELL515

seemed bent on making a cheerful ruckus Mmamele's heart ached tOJOin

them

Cadrach stood beside her, pink face paler than usual The monk had not

spoken much since Aspitis' pronouncement, he had watched the earl's

party leave the Eadne Cloud with much the same sour expression as he

now leveled on the activity below

"God," he said, "but it makes a man sick to see such heedlessness " It

was not exactly clear what his remark addressed, but Minamele felt it

rankle nonetheless

"And }ou," she snapped "You are better3 A drunkard and coward5"

Cadrach's large head came around, moving as ponderously as a millwheel

"It is my very hecdfulness that makes me so. Lady I have watched too

carefully "

"Watched what5 Oh, never mind I am not in the mood for one of your

roundabout lectures " She shivered with anger, but could nor summon the

sense of righteousness she sought Cadrach had grown more remote over

the last few days, observing her from what seemed a disapproving dis-

tance This irritated her, but the continuing flirtation between herself and

the earl made even Minamele somewhat uncomfortable It was hard to

feel truly Justified m her irritation, but it was harder still to have Cadrach's

gray eyes staring at her as chough she were a child or a misbehaving

animal "Why don't you go and complain to some of the sailors3" she said

at last "See how well they'll listen to you "

The monk folded his arms He spoke patiently, but did not meet her eyes

"Will you not listen to me, Lady3 This last time3 My advice is not half so

bad as you make out and you know it How long will you listen to the

honeyed words of thisthis court beauty5 You are like his little bird

that he takes from the cage to play with, then puts back He does not care

for you "

"You are a strange person to talk of that. Brother Cadrach The earl has

given us the captain's cabin, fed us at his own cable, and treated me with

complete respect " Her heart sped a little as she remembered Aspitis'

mouth at her ear, his firm, gentle couch "You, on the other hand, have

lied to me, taken money for my freedom, and struck me senseless Only a

madman could put himself forward as the better friend after all that "

Now Cadrach did lift his eyes, holding her gaze for a long moment He

seemed to be looking for something, and his probing inspection brought

warmth to her cheeks She made a mocking face and turned away

"Very well. Lady," he said From the comer of his eye she saw him

shrug and walk off down the deck "It seems they teach little of kindness

or forgiving m Usires' church these days," he said over his shoulder

Minamele bunked back angry tears "You are the religious man, Cadrach,

not me If that is true, you are the best example'" She did not receive

much pleasure from her own harsh rejoinder

516 Tad Williams

When she had tired of watching the dockyard crowds, Minamcic went

down to her cabin The monk was sitting there, staring resolutely at

nothing Minamele did not want to speak to him, so she turned and made

her way above deck once more, then paced restlessly back and forth along

the length of the Eadne Cloud Those of the ship's crew who had remained

on board were refitting her for the outgoing voyage, some clambering in

the rigging checking the state of the sails, others effecting various small

repairs here and there about the deck. This was to be their only night on

Vinitta, so the crewmen fairly flew through their tasks in a hurry to get

ashore.

Soon Minamele found herself at the rail by the top of the gangplank,

staring down once more at the eddying citizenry of the island As the cool,

moist wind ruffled her hair, she found herself thinking about what Cadrach

had said Could he be right? She knew that Aspitis had a flattering tongue,

but could it be possible he did not care for her at all? Minamele remem-

bered their first night on deck, and the other sweet and secret kisses he had

stolen from her since, and knew chat the monk was wrong. She did not

pretend that Aspitis loved her with all his soulshe doubted that her face

tormented him at sleeping time, as his did to herbut she also knew

beyond question that he was fond other, and that was more than could be

said of the other men she knew. Her father had wanted her to marry that

horrible, drunken braggart Fengbald, and her uncle Josua hadjust wanted

her to sit quietly and not cause him any trouble.

But there was Simon . . she thought, and felt a flicker of warmth cut

through the gray morning. He had been sweet in his foolish way, yet

brave as any of the noblemen she had seen. But he was a scullion and she a

king's daughter. . and what did it matter anyway? They wee" on

opposite sides of the world. They would never meet again.(

Something touched her arm, startling her She whirled to fini' the

wrinkled face of Gan Itai gazing up into hers. The Niskie's usual look of

wily good humor was absent.

"Girl, I need to speak to you," the old one said.

"Wh-what5" Something m the Niskie's expression was alarming

"I had a dream. A dream about youand about bad times." Gan Itai

ducked her head, then turned and looked out to sea before turning back.

"The dream said you were in danger, Min ..."

The Niskie broke off, looking past Minamele's shoulder The princess

leaned forward. Had she misheard, or had Gan Itai been about to call her

by her true name5 But that could not be: no one beside Cadrach knew

who she was, and she doubted chat the monk would have told anyone on

the shipwhat such news might bring was too unpredictable, and Cadrach

was trapped out on the ocean just as she was. No, it must have been only

the Niskie's odd way of speaking.

STONE OF FAREWELL

517

"Ho' Lovely lady!" A cheerful voice rang up from dockside "It is a wet

morning, but perhaps you would like to see Vinitta^'

Minamele whirled Aspitis stood at the base of the gangplank with his

men-at-arms. The earl wore a beautiful blue cloak and shiny boots His

hair danced m the wind.

"Oh, yes!" she said, pleased and excited. How wonderful it would be to

get off this ship' "I'll be right down!"

When she turned, Gan Itai had vanished. Minamele frowned slightly,

puzzled She suddenly thought of the monk sitting stone-faced in the cabin

they shared and felt a twinge of pity for him.

"Shall I bring Brother Cadrach7" she called down.

Aspitis laughed. "Certainly' We may find use in having a holy man

with us who can talk us out of temptations! That way we may come back

with a few cintis-pieces left m our purses!"

Minamele ran downstairs to tell Cadrach He looked at her oddly, but

drew on his boots, then carefully chose just the right heavy cloak before

following her back up the ladder.

The wind rose and the ramshowers became heavier. Although at first it

was enough merely to walk along the busy waterfront with the handsome,

sociable earl beside her, soon Minamele's excitement at being off the ship

began to wear away. Despite the pushing crowd, Vinitta's narrow streets

seemed sad and gray. When Aspitis bought her a chain of bluebells from a

flower seller and tenderly hung them around her neck, she found it all she

could do to smile for him

It is the weather, she guessed This unnatural weather has turned hi^h summer

into a dismal yay murk and put the cold n^ht into my bones

She thought of her father sitting alone in his room, of the chilly,

distant face he sometimes wore like a maska mask that he had come to

wear more and more frequently in her last months in the Hayholt. Cold

bones and cold hearts, she sang quietly to herself as the Earl of Eadne led his

party down Vinitta's rain-slicked byways.

Cold bones and cold hearts

Lie m the rain m battle's wake,

On chilly beach by Clodu-lake,

'Til Aedon's trumpet calls . .

Just before noon Aspitis took them into an eating hall, where Minamele

immediately felt her flagging spirits begin to revive. The hall had a high

ceiling, but the three large fire pits kept it warm and cheery while at the

same time filling the air with smoke and the smell of roasting meat. Many

others had decided the hall might be a nice place to be on this bitter

morning the rafters echoed with the tumult of diners and drinkers. The

518 Tad Williams

master of the hall and his several assistants were being worked to the

utmost, thumping jugs of beer and bowls of wine onto the wooden tables,

then snatching the proffered coins in a single continuous movement.

A crude stage had been set up at the hall's far end. At the moment a boy

wasJugghng between acts of a puppet play, doing his best to keep several

sticks in the air while suffering the drunken jests of spectators, using

his feethis only available extremitiesto stop the occasional coin chat

came bouncing up onto the stage.

"Will you have something to cat, fair lady?" Aspitis asked. When

Minamele nodded shyly, he dispatched two of his men-at-arms. His other

guardsmen unceremoniously removed a large family from one of the

pitted tables. Soon the original pair of soldiers returned with a crackling

haunch of lamb, bread, onions, and a generous supply of wine.

A bowlful soon drove away much of Minamele's chill, and she found

that the morning's walk had given her a considerable appetite. The noon

bell had scarcely rung before her food was gone. She readjusted her

position on the seat. trying to avoid an unladylike belch.

"Look," she said, "they're starting the puppet play. Can we watch3"

"Certainly." Aspitis said, waving his hand generously. "Certainly. You

will forgive me if I do not come with you. I have not finished my meal.

Besides, it looks like a Usires play. You will not think me disrespectful if I

say that, living in the lap of Mother Church, I see them frequently

enoughin all varieties, from the grandest to the meanest." He turned

and signaled one of his men to accompany her. "It is not a good idea for a

well-dressed gentle lady like yourself to go unprotected among the mill-

ing crowd."

in

"I am done eating," Cadrach said, standing. "I will come too, Lady

Marya." The monk fell m beside the earl's guardsman.)

The play was in full swing. The spectators, especially the childr i,

shrieked with delight as the puppets capered and smacked each other ~v -th

their slapping-sticks. Minamele, too, laughed as Usires tricked Crexis into

bending over, then delivered a kick in the seat to the evil Imperator, but

her smile soon faded. Instead of his usual horns, Crexis wore what looked

like a crown of antlers. For some reason this filled her with unease. There

was also something panicky and desperate in Usires' high-pitched voice,

and the puppet's painted, upturned eyes seemed unutterably sad. She

turned to find Cadrach looking at her somberly.

"So we labor to build our little dams," the monk said, barely audible

above the shouting throng, "while the waters rise all around us." He made

the sign of the Tree above his gray vestments.

Before she could ask him what he meant, a rising howl from the crowd

drew her attention back to the puppet stage. Usires had been caught and

hung wrongside-up on the Execution Tree, wooden head dangling. As

Crexis the Goat prodded the helpless savior, another puppet appeared,

STONE OF FAREWELL519

rising from the darkness. This one was clothed all in orange and red tatters

of cloth; as it swayed from side to side in an eerie dance, the rags swirled,

as though the puppet were covered with licking flames. Its head was a

black, faceless knob, and it carried a small wooden sword the color of

mud.

"Here comes the Fire Dancer to throw you down into the dark earth!" Crexis

squealed. The Imperator did a little dance of joy.

"/ do not live by the sword," the puppet Usires said. "A sword cannot harm

that which is God within me, that which is silence and peace." Miriamele almost

believed she could see its motionless lips mouthing the words.

"You can be silent forever, thenand worship your God in pieces!" the

Imperator shouted triumphantly as the faceless Fire Dancer began to hack

with its sword. The laughing, screaming crowd grew louder, a sound like

hounds at the kill. Minamele felt dizzy, taken as though with a sudden

fever. Fear growing within her, she turned away from the stage.

Cadrach no longer stood beside her.

Miriamele turned to the guardsman on the other side. The soldier,

seeing her questioning look, whirled m search of the monk. Cadrach was

nowhere to be seen.

A search of the eating hall by Aspitis and his men turned up no trace of

the Hernystirman. The earl marched his party back to the Eadne Cloud

through the windswept streets, his furious mood mirroring the angry

skies. He was silent all the long walk back to the ship.

^

Sinetns the fisherman looked the new arrival up and down. The stranger

was a full head taller than him, broad as a gate, and soaking wet from the

rain that hammered on the ceiling of the boat stall. Sinetris weighed the

advantages and disadvantages of circling slowly around this newcomer

until he could address the man from outside the tiny shelter. The disad-

vantages of such a plan were clear: it was the kind of day today that made

even the hardiest shiver by the fire and praise God for roofs. Also, it was

Sinetns' own stall, and it seemed terribly unfair that he should have to go

outside so that this stranger could growl and champ and suck up all the air

while the fisherman stood miserably in the storm.

The advantages, however, were equally clear. If he were outside, Sinetns

could run for his life when this panting madman finally became murderous.

"I don't know what you're saying, Father. There are no boats out

today. You see how it is." Sinetris gestured out at the sheeting rain, flung

almost sideways by the force of the wind.

The religious man stared at him furiously. The gigantic monk, if that

was indeed what he was, had gone quite red and mottled in the face, and

520 Tad Williams

his eyebrows twitched. Strangely enough, Smetns thought the monk

seemed to be growing a beard: his whiskers were longer than even a

week's razorless travel would cause. To the best of the fisherman's knowl-

edge, Aedonite monks did not wear beards. Then, again, this one was

some kind of barbarous northerner by his accent, a Rimmersman or some

such: Smetris supposed that those born beyond the River Gleniwent would

be capable of just about any eccentricity. As he looked at the ragged

whiskers and the chafed pmk skin gleaming beneath, his unwholesome

opinion of the monk grew more pronounced. This was definitely a man

with whom to have as little to do as possible.

"I don't think you understand me, fisherman," the monk hissed, lean-

ing forward and squinting in a truly frightening way. "I have come nearly

through Hell itself to get this far. I'm told that you are the only one who

would Cake his boat out in such bad weatherand that the reason is

because you overcharge." A beefy hand closed on Sinetris' arm, occasion-

ing a squeal of shock. "Splendid. Cheat me, rob me, I don't care. But I'm

going downcoast to Kwanidpul and I'm tired of asking people to take me.

Do you understand?"

"B-but you could go overland!" Semtris squeaked. "This is no weather

to be on the water ..."

"And how long would it take to go overland from here?"

"A day! Two, perhaps! Not long!"

The monk's grip on his arm tightened cruelly. "You he, little man. In

this weather, through that marshy ground, it would take me a solid

fortnight. But you're rather hoping I'll try, though, aren't you? Hoping

I'll go away and sink into the mud somewhere?" An unpleasant smile

flitted across the monk's broad face.

"No, Father! No! I would never think so of a holy man!"1

"That's strange, because your fellow fishermen tell me you've che ;d

everyone, monks and priests by the score among 'em! Well, you shall L^ve

your chance to help a man of Godand you shall have your just and more

than ample payment."

Sinetris burst into tears, impressing even himself. "But Bminence! We

truly dare not go out in such weather!" As he said it, he realized that for

once he was telling the truth and not merely trying to raise his price. This

was weather that only a fool would brave. His pleading took on a note of

greater desperation. "We will drownyou, God's holiest priest, and poor

Sinetris, hard-working husband and father to seven lovely children!"

"You have no children, and pity the woman who will ever be your

wife. I talked to your fishing-fellows, don't you remember? You are the

scum that even Perdruin the Mercenary has driven from her shores. Now,

name your price, damn you. 1 must get to Kwanitupul as soon as possible."

Sinetris sniffled a bit to give himself time to think. The standard

ferrying charge was one quinis, but with rough weatherand they certainly

STONE OFFAREWELL

521

had that today, with no exaggerationthree or even four quinis would

not be out of line.

"Three gold Imperators." He waited for the bellow of anger. When none

came, he thought for a delirious moment he might have made his sum-

mer's income in two days. Then he saw the pink face drawing close, until

the monk's breath was hot on his cheeks.

"You worm," the monk said softly. "There is a difference between

simple robbery and rape. I think I should just fold you up like a napkin

and take the damnable boatleaving a gold Imperator for your imaginary

widow and seven nonexistent brats, which is more than the whole leaky

thing is worth."

"Two gold Imperators, Eminence? One for my imag . . . widow, one

to purchase a mansa for my poor soul at the church?"

"One, and you know that is a gross overpayment. It is only because I

am in a hurry. And we will leave now."

"Now? But the boat is not fitted out. . . ! "

"I'H watch." The monk let go of Sinetns' throbbing wrist and folded

his arms across his broad chest. "Go ahead, now. Hop to it!"

"But kind Father, what about my gold piece. . . ? "

"When we get to Kwanitupul. Do not fear you wril be cheated, as you

have cheated others. Am I not a man of God?" The strange monk

laughed.

Sinetris, snuffling quietly, went looking for his oars.

^

"You said you had more gold!" Charystra, the proprietress of the inn

known as Pelippa's Bowl put on a practiced look of disgust. "I treated you

like a princeyou, a little marsh-manand you lied to me! I should

have known better than to trust a dirty Wrannaman."

Tiamak struggled to keep his temper. "I think, good lady, that you

have done very well from me. I paid you on arrival with two gold

Imperators."

She snorted. "Well, it's all spent."

"In a fortnight? You accuse me of lying, Charystra, but thai might as

well be theft."

"How dare you speak that way to me! You had the best accommoda-

tions and the services of the best healer in Kwanitupul."

The ache of Tiamak's wounds only added to his anger. "If you are

referring to that drunken person who came to twist my leg and hurt me, I

am sure his fee was scarcely more than a bottle or two of fem beer. As a

matter of fact, he appeared to have enjoyed the payments of a few other

victims before he came here."

The irony! To think that Tiamak, author of the soon-to-be definitive

522

Tad Williams

revision of Sovran Remedys of the Wranna Healers, should be forced into the

care of a dryland butcher!

"Anyway, I am lucky I kept my leg," he growled. "Besides, you

moved me out of the best accommodations quickly enough." Tiamak

waved his thin arm at the nest of blankets he now shared with Cealho, the

simplemmded door keeper.

The innkeeper's frown turned into a smirk. "Aren't you very high and

cocksure for a marsh-man? Well, get on with you, then. Go to some other

inn and see if they'll treat a Wrannaman as kindly as Charystra has."

Tiamak choked back a funous reply. He knew he must not let his anger

get the better of him. He was being dreadfully cheated by this woman, but

that was how things always went when Wrannamen put their fortunes in

the hands of drylanders. He had already failed his tribe, on whose behalf

he had sworn to go to Nabban and argue their case against higher tribute.

If he were thrown out of Pelippa's Bowl, he would fail Morgenes as well,

who had explicitly asked for him to stay at this inn until he was needed.

Tiamak offered a short prayer for patience to He Who Always Steps on

Sand. If his staying in such a place was so important to Dinivan and

Morgenes, couldn't they at least have sent him money with which to pay

for it? He took a deep breath, hating to grovel before this red-faced woman.

"It is foolish to fight, good lady," he said finally. "I am still expecting

that my friend will show up, bringing more gold." Tiamak forced himself

to smile. "Until then, I think I still have some little bit of my two

Imperators remaining. Surely it is not all spent quite yet? If I have to leave,

someone else will be earning gold for giving their best accommodations to

me and my friend."

She stared at him for a moment, weighing the advantages of throwing

him out against the possibility of future money-gouging. "Well..."'

said grudgingly, "perhaps out of the goodness of my heart I could let -u

stay another three days. But no meals, mind you. You'll have to come ap

with more coins, or else find your own food. I set a lavish table for my

guests and can't afford to give it away."

u

Tiamak knew that the lavish table consisted mostly of thin soup and

dried bread, but also knew that even such meager fare was better than

nothing. He would have to feed himself somehow. He was used to going

long on little provender, but he was still quite weak from his leg wounds

and resulting illness. How he would love to bounce a sling-stone off this

woman's mocking face!

"Very fair, my lady." He gritted his teeth. "Very fair."

"My friends always say I'm coo good."

Charystra swaggered back into the common room, leaving Tiamak to

cover his head with his odoriferous blanket and contemplate the grim state

of his affairs.

***

STONE OF FAREWELL523

Tiamak lay sleeplessly m the dark. His mind was spinning, but he could

think of no solution to his problems. He could barely walk. He was

stranded without resources in a strange place, among bandit drylanders. It

seemed that They Who Watch and Shape had conspired to torment him.

The old man Ceallio grunted in his sleep and rolled over, his long arm

flopping heavily against Tiamak's face. Painfully thumped, the Wrannaman

moaned and sat up. It was no use being upset with the ancient simpleton:

Cealho was no more to blame for their uncomfortable proximity than was

Tiamak himself. The Wrannaman wondered if Ceallio was upset at having

to share his bed, but somehow he doubted it. The cheerful old man was as

guileless as a child; he seemed to accept everything that came his way

blows, kicks, and curses includedas acts of fate, unfathomable and un-

avoidable as thunderstorms.

Thinking of evil weather, Tiamak shivered. The hovering storm that

had turned the air of the Wran and all the southern coast hot and sticky as

broth had fallen at last, drenching Kwamtupul in unseasonable rams.

The normally placid canals had turned choppy and unpredictable. Most

ships rode at anchor, slowing the business of the thriving port city to a

crawl. The heavy storm had also nearly choked off the flow of new

visitors, which was another reason for Charystra's unpleasantness.

Tonight the rain had stopped for the first time in several days. Not long

after Tiamak had crawled into his insufficient bed, the constant rattle on

the roof had suddenly gone silent, a silence so deep it seemed almost like

another noise. Perhaps, he thought, it was this unaccustomed silence that

made it so hard to sleep.

Shivering again, Tiamak tried to pull his blanket closer about him, but

the old man beside him had caught up the whole tangle m a death-grip.

Despite his advanced age, the fool seemed to be a great deal stronger than

Tiamak, who even before his unfortunate brush with the crocodile had

never been robust, even by the standards of his small-boned people. The

Wrannaman ceased struggling for the covers; Ceallio gurgled and mur-

mured in the throes of some dream of past happiness. Tiamak frowned.

Why had he ever left his house in the banyan tree, in his beloved, familiar

swamp? It was not much, but it was his. And unlike this drafty, damp

boat-house, it had always been warm. . . .

This was more than Just night-cold, he realized suddenly, wracked by

more shivers. There was a chill in the air that pierced the chest like

daggers. He initiated another doomed struggle for blankets, then sat up

again in despair. Perhaps the door had been left open?

Giving vent to a full-throated groan of anguish, he crawled away from

his bed, forcing himself to stand. His leg throbbed and burned. The

tosspot healer had said that his poultices would take the pain away soon

enough, but Tiamak had little faith in such an obvious drunkard, and so

far his doubts had been borne out. He limped slowly across the rough

524 Tad Williams

wood floor, doing his best to avoid the two upended boats that dominated

the room He managed to stay near the wall and thus evade these large

obstacles, but a hard stool leaped up before him and cruelly battered his

good shin, so that for a moment Tiamak had to stop and bite his lip as he

rubbed the leg, holding in a screech of pain and anger that he feared

would have no ending Why had he and he alone been singled out for such ill

treatment?

When he could walk once more, he continued with even more care, so

that his journey to the door seemed to take hours When he reached it at

last he discovered to his immense disappointment that the door was shut,

there seemed little more he could do to prevent himself from spending a

sleepless and freezing night As he thumped his hand against the frame m

frustration, the door swung open to reveal the empty pier outside, a dim

gray rectangle in the moonlight A blast of chill air rolled over him, but

before he could grasp the elusive handle and pull the door closed again,

something caught his eye Baffled, he took a couple of limping steps out

through the doorway There was something odd about the fine mist that

floated down through the moonlight

A long moment passed before Tiamak realized that it was not rain that

dotted his outstretched palm, but rather nny flakes of white He had never

seen this thing beforeno Wrannaman ever hadbut he was unusually

well-read, and had also heard it described many times in his student days

It took only a moment for him to understand the significance of the

downy flakes and the vapor that rose from his own lips to drift and

dissipate on the night air

Snow was falling on Kwanitupul, m the heart of summer

^\

Minamele lav in her bed in darkness and wept until she was too tired to

weep any longer As Eadne Cloud rocked at anchor in Vmitta's harbor, she

felt loneliness pressing down on her like a great weight

It was not so much Cadrach's betrayal despite her moments of weak-

ness toward him, the monk had shown his true colors long ago It was

rather that he was her last link with her true self, with her past life As if

an anchor-rope had been cut, she felt herself suddenly adrift in a sea of

strangers

Cadrach's desertion had not been a complete surprise So little good

feeling remained between the two of them that it seemed only circum-

stance had kept him from deserting her earlier She looked back on the

cool dcliberateness he had shown in selecting his traveling cloak before they

left the boat and saw that he had clearly anticipated this escape, at least

from the moment they had been summoned down to Vimtta In a way, he

STONE OF FAREWELL525

had tried to warn her, hadn't he5 On the deck he had asked her to listen,

saying "this last time "

The monk's betrayal was unsurprising, but the pain was no less heavy

for that A long-anticipated blow had fallen at last

Desertion and indifference That seemed to be the thread that ran

through her life Her mother had died, her father had changed into

something cold and uncani , her uncle josua had only wished her out of

his wayhe would deny it, no doubt, but it had been plain m his every

word and expression For a while she had thought Dimvan and his master

the lector could shelter her, but they had died and left her friendless

Although she knew it was not even remotely their fault, she still could not

forgive

No one would help her The kinder ones, like Simon and the troll or

dear old Duke Isgnmnur, were absent or powerless Now Cadrach, too,

had left her

There must be something inside other that pushed others away, Minamele

broodedsome stain like the dark discoloration m the white stone canals

of Meremund, hidden until the tide went out Or maybe it was not in her

at all, but in the souls of those around her, those who could not stay

rooted to obligation, who could not remember their duty to a young

woman

And what ofAspitis, the golden earl3 She had little hope that he would

prove more responsible than the others, but at least he cared for her At

least he wanted her for something

Perhaps when all was over, when her father had reshaped the world in

whatever way pleased his corrupt fancy, she would be able to find a home

somewhere She would be happy with a small house by the sea, would

gladly shed her unwanted royalty like an old snakeskm But until then,

what should she do5

Minamele rolled over and pushed her face into the rough blanket,

feeling the bed and the entire ship moving in the sea's gentle but insistent

grip It was all too much, too many thoughts, too many questions She

felt quite strengthless She wanted only to be held, to be protected, to let

time slip away until she could wake into a better world

She cned quietly, fretfully, anchorless on the edge of sleep

The afternoon slipped past Minamele lay in the darkness of her cabin,

wandering m and out of dreams

Somewhere above, the lookout cned sunset, no other sound intruded

but the lap of waves and the muffled cry of sea birds The ship was all but

deserted, the sailing men ashore in Vimtta

Minamele was not surprised when the cabin door quietly opened at last

and a weight pressed down on the bed beside her

Aspitis' finger traced her features Minamele turned away, wishing she

526 Tad Williams

could pull the shadows over her like a blanket, wishing she were a child

again, living beside an ocean that was still innocent of kilpa, an ocean

upon whose waves storms touched only lightly and disappeared at the

sun's golden rising.

"My lady . . ." he whispered. "Ah, I am so sorry. You have been badly

treated."

Minamele said nothing, but his voice seemed a soothing balm to her

painful thoughts. He spoke again, telling her other beauty and kindness.

In her feverish sadness the words were little more than nonsense, but his

voice was sweet and reassuring. She felt calmed by it, gentled like a

nervous horse. When he slid beneath the sheet she felt his skin against

hers, warm and smooth and firm. She murmured in protest, but softly,

with no real strength: in a way, this, too, seemed a kindness.

His mouth was at her neck. His hands moved over her with calm

possessiveness, as though he handled some lovely thing that belonged only

to him. Tears came to her again. Full of loneliness, she let herself be drawn

into his embrace, but she could not suffer his touch unfeelingly. While a

part of her yearned only to be held, to be drawn into a reassuring warmth,

a safe harbor like the one in which Eadne Cloud rocked gently at anchor,

untroubled by the storms that swept the great ocean, a different self

wished to break free and run madly into danger. Still another shadow

huddled deeper within her, a shape of dark regret, tied to her heart with

chains of iron.

The thin light leaking in at the doorframe caught glimmering in his hair

as Aspitis pressed himself against her. What if someone should come in?

There was no latch, no latch on the door. She struggled. Mistaking her

fear, he whispered soothing things about her beauty.

Each curl of his hair was intricate, textured and individual as a trtHis

head seemed a forest, his dark form looming like a distant mountai\ ide.

She cried out softly, unable to resist such implacability.

Time slid by in the shadows and Minamele felt herself drifting away.

Aspitis once more began to speak.

He loved her, her goodness and wit and loveliness.^

His words, like caresses, were blind but enflammg. She did not care for

flattering talk, but felt her resistance melting before his strength and

sureness. He cared for her, at least a little. He could hide her away in

darkness, pull it around her like a cloak. She would disappear into the

deeps of a sheltering forest until the world was right again.

The boat swayed gently on the cradling waters.

He would protect her from those who would harm her, he said. He

would never desert her

She gave herself up to him at last. There was pain, but there were also

promises. Miriamele had hoped for nothing more. In a way, it was a

lesson the world had already Caught her.

STONE OF FAREWELL527

Awash with strange new feelings, not completely comfortable with any

of them, Minamele sat quietly across the dining table from Aspitis,

pushing food from one side of her plate to the other. She could not

understand why the earl had forced her to come sit with him in the

brightly candlelit room. She could not understand why she was not even

slightly in love.

A soldier rapped at the doorway, then entered.

"We've caught him, Lord," the guardsman said. His satisfaction at

having redressed the earlier error of the monk's escape was plain in his voice.

Minamele, seated across the table from Earl Aspitis, felt herself stiffen.

The guardsman stepped aside and two of his fellows brought Cadrach

in, slumped between them. The monk seemed to be having trouble

keeping his head up. Had they beaten him? Miriamele felt a sickening

pang of regret. She had half-hoped that Cadrach would just vanish, so

that she would never have to see him again. It was easier to hate him when

he was not around.

"He's drunk, Lord Aspitis," the guardsman said. "Stinking. We found

him m the Feathered Eel, down on the east dock. He'd already bought a

place out on a Perdrumese merchantman, but the fool got pissed and diced

it away."

Cadrach looked up blearily, his face slack with despair. Even from

across the table, Minamele could smell the stink of wine. "Was 'bout

t'win it back, too. Would've." He shook his head. "Maybe not. Luck's

gone bad. Water's rising ..."

Aspitis rose and strode around the table. He reached out a hand and

grasped the monk's chin, pressing with his strong fingers until the flesh

bulged between them. He forced Cadrach's pink face upward until their

eyes met.

The earl turned to Minamele. "Has he tned to do this before, Lady

Marya?"

Minamele nodded helplessly. She wished she were somewhere else.

"More or less."

Aspitis returned his attention to the monk. "What a strange man. Why

does he notjust leave your father's service instead of sneaking away like a

thief?" The earl turned to his squire. "And you are sure nothing is

missing?"

The squire shook his head. "Nothing, Lord."

Cadrach Cried to pull his head free from Aspitis' restraining fingers.

"Had m'own gold. Stole nothing- Need t'gec away ..." His eyes fixed

uncertainly on Minamele, his voice took on a note of added desperation.

"Dangerous . . . storm will get us. Danger."

The Earl of Eadne let go of the monk's chin and wiped his fingers on

the tablecloth. "Afraid of a storm? I knew he was not a good sailor, but

528 Tad Williams

still . . . that is very strange If he were my liege man, his back would be

flayed for this trick Still, the fellow shall certainly not be rewarded for

deserting his innocent ward. Neither shall he share a cabin with you any

more. Lady Marya." The earl's smile was stiffy reassuring "He may have

gone mad, or have conceived some drunken fancy He says danger, but he

is the dangerous one as I see it. He will be confined on the Eadne Cloud

until I return you to Nabban, and we shall then hand him over to Mother

Church for discipline."

"Confine him7" Minamele asked. "That is not ..."

"I may not leave him loose to plague you or worry you, my lady." The

earl turned to his guardsmen. "The hold will do nicely for him. Give him

water and bread, but put the leg irons on him."

"Oh, no'" Minamele was genuinely horrified. However much she

despised the monk and his cowardly treachery, the thought of any living

thing forced to wear a chain, trapped in a dark hold. . . .

"Please, my lady." Aspitis' voice was soft but firm. "I must have order

on my ship- I gave you sanctuary, and this man with you. He was your

guardian. He betrayed your trust. I still am not sure he has not stolen

something from me, or perhaps chinks to sell some intelligence of my

mission here in Vimtta. No, I am afraid you must leave such men's

business to me, pretty Marya." He waved his hand; Cadrach was led out,

staggering between his escorts.

Minamele felt her eyes blurring with tears. They spilled over and she

lurched suddenly from her chair. "Excuse me, Earl Aspuis," she mum-

bled, feeling her way along the table toward the door. "I wish to lie

down."

He caught her before she reached the handle, grasping her arm and

pulling her smoothly around. The heat of him was very close. She a\ ted

her face, conscious of how foolish she must look, eyes red-nmme(\ 'nd

cheeks wet. "Please, my lord. Let the monk go."

"I know you must feel quite lost, pretty Marya," Aspitis said softly.

"Do not fear. I promised that I would keep you safe."

She felt herself yielding, becoming pliant. Her strength seemed to be

draining away. She was so tired of running and hiding. She had only

wanted someone to hold her, to make everything go away. . . .

Minamele shivered and pulled away. "No. It is wrong. Wrong! If you

do not let him go, I will not stay on this ship!" She pushed out through

the door, stumbling blindly.

Aspitis caught her long before she reached the ladder to the deck. The

sea watcher Gan Itai was crooning quietly m the darkness above.

"You are upset, Lady," he said. "You must he down, as you said

yourself."

She struggled, but his grip was firm. "I demand that you release me! I

STONE OF FAREWELL529

do not wish to stay here any longer. I will go ashore and find my own

passage from Vinitta."

"No, my lady, you will not."

She gasped "Let go of my arm. You're hurting me."

Somewhere above, Gan Itai's song seemed to falter.

Aspitis leaned forward. His face was very close to hers. "I think there

are things that must be made clear between us " He laughed shortly. "As a

matter of fact, there is much for us to talk aboutlater. You will go to

your cabin now. I will finish my supper and then come to you."

"I won't go."

"You will."

He said it with such quiet certainty that her angry reply caught in her

throat as fear clutched her. Aspitis pulled her close against him, then

turned and forced her along the passageway.

The sea watcher's song had stopped. Now it began again, rising and

fading as Gan Itai murmured to the night and the quiet sea.

27

The Btocfc Sfctf

They.

more than hs

J, m^y are getting close," Sludig gasped "If your Farewell Stone

is more than half a league from here, little man, we will have to turn and

fight "

Shaking the water from his hood, Bmabik leaned forward across Qantaqa's

neck The wolfs tongue lolled and her sides heaved like a blacksmith's

bellows They had been traveling without a stop since daybreak, fleeing

through the storm-battered forest

"I wish I could be telling you that it is near, Sludig I do not know

how much distance remains, but I fear it is most of a day's riding " The

troll stroked Qantaqa's sodden fur "A brave run, old friend " She ignored

him, absorbed in drinking rainwater from the hollow stump of a tree

"The giants are hunting us," Sludig said grimly "They have developed

a taste for man-meat " He shook his head "When we make our stand at

last, some of them will regret that "

Bmabik frowned "I have too little size to be a satisfying morsel, so I

will not waste their time by being caught That way, no one will be

having regrets "

The Rimmcrsman steered his mount over to the stump Trembling with

the cold, parched despite the pelting rain, the horse was heedless of the

wolf a handsbreadth away

As their steeds drank, a long rumbling howl lifted above the wind,

blood-freezing! y close

"Damn me'" Sludig spat, slapping his palm against his sword-hilt

"They are no farther behind us than they were an hour ago' Do they run

fast as horses7"

"Near to it it is seeming," Bmabik said "I am thinking we should

move deeper into the forest The thicker trees may slow them "

"You thought getting off the flatlands would slow them, too," Slud%

said, reining his reluctant horse away from the hollow stump

"If we live, then you can be telling me all my incorrectness," Bmabik

STONE OF FAREWELL531

growled He took a tight grip on the thick fur that mantled Qantaqa's

neck "Now, unless you have been thinking of ways to fly. we should

ride "

Another deep, coughing cry came down the wind

Sludig's sword swished from side to side, clearing the brush as they

pushed their way down the long, wooded slope "My blade will be dull

when I have greatest need," he complained

Bmabik, who was leading the string of balking horses, tnpped and fell to

the muddy earth, then slid a short way down the hillside The horses

milled nervously, confined to the path Sludig had hacked in the swarming

undergrowth Struggling to keep his balance in the mud, the troll got up

and tracked down the bridle of the lead horse

"Qmklpa of the Snows' This storm is never-ending'"

They took most of the noon hour to make their way down the slope It

appeared that Binabik's reliance on the forest cover had been at least

partially correct the occasional howls of the Hunen became a little

fainter, although they never faded completely The forest appeared to be

growing thinner The trees were still huge, but not as monumental as their

kin that grew closer to Aldheorte's center

The trees, alder and oak and tall hemlock, were garlanded in looping

vines The grass and undergrowth grew thick, and even m this queerly

cold season a few yellow and blue wildflowers lifted their heads up from

the mud, bobbing beneath the heavy ram Had it not been for the torrent

and the biting wind, this arm of the southern forest would have been a

place of rare beauty

They reached the base of the slope at last and clambered onto a low shelf

of stone to scrape the worst of the mud from their boots and clothing

before ndmg once more Sludig looked back up the hillside, then lifted a

pointing finger

"Elysia's mercy, little man, look "

Far up the slope but still horribly near, a half-dozen white shapes were

pushing their way through the foliage, long arms swinging like Nascadu

apes One lifted its head, the face a black hole against the pale, shaggy fur

A cry of thundering menace rang down the rainy hillside and Sludig's

horse pranced in terror beneath him

"It is a race," Binabik said His round, browr face had gone quite pale

"For this moment, they are having the best of it "

Qantaqa leaped from the shelf of stone, bearing the troll with her

Sludig and his mount werejust behind, leading the other horses Hooves

drummed on the sodden ground

In their haste and ill-suppressed fear, it was some while before they

noticed that the ground, while still overgrown, had become unusually flat

532 Tad Williams

They rode beside long-empty riverbeds that were now filled anew with

rushing, foaming rainwater Here and there bits of root-gnawed stone

stood along the banks, covered with centuries of moss and clinging vines

"These look like bridges, or the bones of broken buildings," Sludig

called as they rode

"They are," Binabik replied "It means we are nearing our goal, I hope

This is a place where once the Sithi had a great city " He leaned forward,

hugging Qantaqa's neck as she leaped over a fallen trunk.

"Do you think it will keep the giants at bay5" Sludig asked "You said

that the diggers did not like the places that the Sithi lived "

"They do not like the forest and the forest does not like them," the troll

said, gentling Qantaqa to a halt "The giant Hunen seem to be having no

such troubleperhaps because they are less clever, or less easily fright-

ened Or because they are not digging I do not know " He tilted his head,

listening It was hard to hear anything over the relentless hissing patter of

rain on leaves, but for the moment the surroundings seemed innocent of

danger "We will follow the flowing water " He pointed to the new-

grown river hurrying past them, laden with broken branches knocked

loose by the storm "Sesuad'ra, the Stone of Farewell, is in the valley

beside the forest's ending, very close to the city Enki-e-Shao'sayeon

whose outskirts we are sitting " He gestured around him with his

stubby, mittened hand "The river must be flowing down to the valley, so

it is sense for us to accompany it "

"Less Calking, thenmore accompanying," Sludig said

"I have been speaking, in my day," Binabik said with a certain stiffness,

"to more appreciative ears " With a shrug, he urged Qantaqa forward

They rode past countless remnants of the vast and long untenanted city

Fragments of old walls shimmered in the undergrowth, masses of pale,

crumbled brick forlorn as lost sheep, in other spots the foundations of

eroded towers lay exposed, curved and empty as ancient jawbones, choked

with parasitic moss Unlike Da'ai Chikiza, the forest had done more than

grow into Enki-e-Shao'saye there was virtually nothing left of this city

but faint traces The forest, it seemed, had always been a part of the place,

but over the millennia it had become a destroyer, smothering the elaborate

stonework in a mass of snaking foliage, enfolding it with roots and branches

that patiently unmade even the matchless products of the Sithi builders,

returning all to mud and damp sand

There was little inspiration in the crumbling ruins of Enki-e-Shao'saye

They seemed only to demonstiate that even the Sichi were bound within

the sweep of time, that any work of hands, however exalted, must come

at last CO ignoble result

Binabik and Sludig found a clearer path running beside the river bank

and began to make better time, winding their way through the ram-

soaked forest They heard nothing but the sounds of their own passage

STONE OF FAREWELL533

and were glad of it Just as the troll had predicted, the land began to slope

more acutely, falling away coward the southwest Despite its swerving

course, the river was moving in that direction as well, the water gaining

speed and becoming possessed of what almost seemed like enthusiasm It

positively threw itself at its banks, as if desiring to be everywhere at once,

the gouts of water that flew up at obstructions in the nver bed seemed to

leap higher than they normally should, as though this watercourse, granted

a temporary life, labored to prove to some stern riverine deities its fitness

for continued survival

"Almost out of the forest," Binabik panted from Qantaqa's bobbing

back "See how the trees are now thinning5 See, there is light between

them ahead'"

Indeed, the stand of trees just before them seemed poised at the outer-

most rim of the earth Instead of more mottled green foliage, beyond

them lay only a wall of fathomless, featureless gray, as though the world's

builders had run short of inspiration

"You are right, little man," Sludig said excitedly "Forest's end' Now,

if we are within a short nde of this sanctuary of yours, we may shake

those whoreson giants after all'"

"Unless my scrolls are none of them correct," Bmabik replied as they

cantered down the last length of slope "It is not much distance from

forest's edge to the Stone of Farewell "

He broke off as they reached the final line of trees Qantaqa stopped

abruptly, head held low, sniffing the air Sludig reined up alongside

"Blessed Usires," the Rimmersman breathed

The slope abruptly fell away before them, dropping at a much steeper

angle to the wide valley below Sesuad'ra loomed there, dark and secretive

in its shroud of trees, a bony thrust of stone standing far above the valley

bottom Its height was particularly apparent because it was entirely sur-

rounded by a flat plain of water

The valley was flooded The Stone of Farewell, a great fist that seemed

to defy the rain-lashed skies, had become an island in a gray and restless

sea Binabik and Sludig were perched at the forest's edge only a half-

league away from their goal, but every cubit of valley floor that lay

between was covered by fathoms of floodwater.

Even as they stared, a roar echoed through the forest behind them,

distant but still fnghtenmgly close Whatever magic remained to Enki-e-

Shao'saye was too weak to discourage the hungry giants

"Aedon, troll, we are caught like flies in a honey jar," Sludig said, a

tremor of fear creeping into his voice for the first time "We are backed

against the edge of the world Even if we fight and stave off their first

attack, there is no escape'"

Binabik stroked Qantaqa's head The wolfs hackles were up, she whim-

pered beneath his touch as though she ached to return the challenge

534

Tad Williams

floating down the wind. "Peace, Sludig, we must be thinking." He

turned to squint down the precipitous slope. "I fear you are right about

one thing. We are never to be leading horses down this grade."

"And what would we do at the bottom, in any case?" Sludig growled.

Rain dnbbled from his beard-braids. "That is no mud puddle! This is an

ocean! Did your scrolls mention that?!"

Binabik waggled his head angrily. His hair hung in his eyes, pasted to

his forehead by the ram. "Look up, Sludig, look up! The sky is full of

water, and it is all being dropped down on us, courtesy of our enemy."

He spat in disgust. "This is perhaps become an ocean now, but a week ago

it was a valley only, just as the scrolls say." A worried look crossed his

face. "I am wondering ifJosua and the rest were caught in low ground!

Daughter of the Snows, what a thought! If so, we might as well make our

stand in this placeat the world's end, as you call it. Thorn's journey will

stop here."

Sludig flung himself down out of the saddle, skidding briefly m the

mud. He strode to the lead packhorse and detached the bundled length of

the black sword. He hefted it easily, carrying it back to Binabik m one

hand. "Your 'living sword' seems eager for battle," he said sourly. 'T am

half-tempted to see what it can do, though it may turn anvil-heavy on me

in midstroke."

"No," Binabik said shortly, "My people are not fond of running from a

fight, but neither is it time for us to be singing Croohok death-songs and

be going happily to glorious defeat. Our quest is not yet given over."

Sludig glowered. "Then what do you say, troll? Shall we fly to that far

rock?"

The little man hissed in frustration. "No, but first we can look for some

other way for getting down." He gestured at me river thundering past

them, which disappeared down the steep wooded slope. "This is not the

only waterway. It could be that others will lead us down in a more

gradual path to the valley."

"And then what?" Sludig demanded. "Swim?"

"If necessary." As Binabik spoke, the hunting cry of their pursuers rose

again, setting the horses to milling and bumping in panic. "Take the

horse, Sludig," Binabik said. "There is still chance we may win free."

"If so, you are a magical troll indeed. I will name you a Sithi and you

can live forever."

"Do not joke here," Binabik said. "Do not mock." He slid from

Qantaqa's back, then whispered something in the wolfs ear. With a

bound, she was away through the dripping vegetation, tracking eastward

along the face of the slope. Sludig and the troll followed as best they

could, cutting a trail that the horses could follow.

Qantaqa, swift as a racing shadow now that the weight other rider had

been lifted from her back, soon found an angled traverse down the chffside.

STONE OF FAREWELL535

Despite the sticky, treacherous footing, they were able to make their way

slowly down from the high promontory, gradually approaching the

lowest edge of the forest, now the shore of a wind-tormented sea.

The forest did not come to a sudden ending, but rather disappeared into

the rain-nppled water In some places the tops of submerged trees still

protruded above the surface, little islands of rippling leaves Naked branches

thrust up from the gray flood beside them like the hands of drowning

men.

Sludig's horse pulled up just at the water's edge and the Rimmersman

vaulted down to stand ankle-deep in muddy water. "I am not sure I see

the improvement, troll," he said, surveying the scene. "At least before we

were on high ground."

"Cut branches," Binabik said, clambering through the mud Coward

him. "Long ones, as many as you can be finding. We will build a raft."

"You are mad!" Sludig snapped.

"Perhaps. But you are the strong one, so you must be the cutter. I have

rope m the packs for binding the limbs together, and I can do that.

Hurry!"

Sludig snorted, but set himself to work. Within moments his sword was

smacking dully against wood.

"If my axes had not been lost on this foolish quest," he panted, "I could

build you a whole longhouse in the time it will take me to chop a tree

with this poor blade."

Binabik said nothing, intent on lashing together the rough spars Sludig

had already knocked loose. When he had finished with what was available,

he went searching for loose wood. He discovered another tributary nearby

that dropped down into a narrow gulley before emptying at last into the

greater flood. A treasure trove of loose limbs had accumulated m the

narrowest spot. Binabik grabbed them up by the armful, hurrying back

and forth between the river and the place where Sludig labored.

"Qantaqa cannot swim so far," Binabik grunted as he carried the last

useful batch. His eyes had drifted to the distant bulk ofSesuad'ra. "But I

cannot be leaving her to find her own way. There is no way for knowing

how long this storm will last. She might never find me again." He

dumped the wood, frowning, then bent to his knots once more, his

fingers threading loops of slender cord around the damp wood. "I cannot

make this raft big enough for all three, not and take that of our belongings

which we must be saving. There is no time."

"Then we will take turns being in the water," Sludig said. He shud-

dered, staring at the ram-pocked flood. "Elysia, Mother of God, but I hate

the thought of it."

"Clever Sludig! You are right. We need only make it big enough for

one of us to rest while the other two are swimming, and we will go into

the water one .after the other." Binabik allowed himself a thin smile. "You

536

Tad Williams

Rimmersmen have not lost all your seagoing blood, I see." As he redou-

bled his efforts, a furious groan rolled through the woods. They looked

up, startled, to see a massive white shape on the promontory only a few

short furlongs away-

"God curse them!" Sludig moaned, hacking frenziedly at a slender

trunk. "Why do they pursue us! Do they seek the sword?*'

Bmabik shook his head. "Almost done," he said. "Two more long ones

I am needing.*'

The white figure on the hillside above quickly became several figures, a

pack of furious ghosts that raised their long arms against the storming sky.

The giants' voices rolled and boomed across the water, as though they

threatened notjust the puny creatures below, but the Stone of Farewell

itself, squatting in serene insolence just beyond their reach.

"Done," Bmabik said, tying the last knot. "Let us move it to the water.

If it is not floating, you will have that fight you so desire, Sludig."

It did float, once they had pushed it out past the tangle of drowned

undergrowth. Above the storm came the dull crackling of vegetation

being smashed aside as the giants came pushing their way down the

muddy hillside. Sludig carefully tossed Thorn onto the damp logs. Binabik

hastened back to loot the saddlebags. He dragged one leather sack over

unopened, and Hung it out to Sludig, who stood waist-deep in the murky

water. "Those things are belonging to Simon," the troll called. "They

should not be lost." Sludig shrugged, but pushed the bag on beside the

wrapped sword.

"What about the horses?" Sludig shouted. The howl of their pursuers

was growing louder.

"What can we do?" Binabik said helplessly. "We must set them free!"

He drew his knife and slashed the bridle-traces from Sludig's mount, then

rapidly cut the belly-straps of the packhorses as well, so that their burdens

slid down onto the muddy turf.

"Hurry, troll!" Sludig cried. "They are very close!"

Binabik looked around, his face screwed up m desperate thought. He

bent and rifled one last saddlebag, pulling a few articles out before pelting

down the slope once more and out into the water.

"Get on," growled Sludig.

"Qantaqa!" Binabik shouted. "Come!"

The wolf snarled as she turned to face the ruckus of the oncoming

giants. The horses were rushing in all directions, whinnying with fright.

Suddenly, Sludig's mount broke away through the trees toward the east

and the others swiftly followed. The giants were now quite plain, a few

hundred paces up the hill and descending rapidly, their leathery black faces

gaping as they howled their hunting song. The Huncn carried great clubs

which they whickered back and forth like hollow reeds, smashing a path-

way through the knotted trees and shrubbery.

STONE OF FAREWELL537

"Qantaqa!" Binabik shouted, panic in his voice. "Urnmu nimi! Ummu sosa!"

The wolf turned and bounded coward them, breasting the water then

paddling furiously. Sludig pushed off, taking a few more steps down the

submerged slope until his feet no longer touched the bottom. Before they

were thirty cubits from the water's edge, Qantaqa had caught (hem. She

scrambled over Sludig's back onto the raft, setting it rocking treacherously

and almost sinking the Rimmersman.

"No, Qantaqa!" Bmabik cried,

"Let her be!" Sludig gurgled. "Reach down and paddle!"

The first giant burst from the forest behind them, howling with rage.

His shaggy head twisted from side to side as if he sought some other angle

to head off his prey's escape. When none was apparent, he strode forward

into the water. He went several steps before he suddenly fell forward with

a splash, disappearing from view for a moment beneath the water. When

he surfaced an instant later he was thrashing madly, dirty white fur

festooned with branches. He raised his chin and barked thunderously at the

storm, as though demanding help. His fellows swarmed on the shore

behind him, hooting and groaning with frustrated bloodlust.

The first giant swam awkwardly and unhappily back to the shallows.

He stood up, streaming with water, and reached down an apelike arm to

pull loose a massive tree limb thick as a man's leg. Grunting, he flung it

through the air. The limb hit the water beside the raft with a tremendous

splash, tearing Sludig's cheek with a jutting branch and nearly upsetting

the crude boat. Stunned, Sludig foundered. Bmabik disentangled himself

from Qantaqa and leaned forward, hooking the toes of his boots into gaps

between the beams of the pitching raft. The little man clutched the

Rimmersman's wrist with both hands until Sludig recovered. The giants

hurled more missiles, but none came as close as the first. Their thwarted

bellows seemed to rumble across all the flooded valley.

Cursing giants and rafts equally. Sludig pushed off with his long Qanuc

spear until they at last floated free of clinging branches. He began to kick,

pushing the raft and its unlikely cargo out across the chill gray water

toward the shadowy stone.

^

Eolair rode east from his ancestral home of Nad Mullach beneath night

skies a-flicker with strange lights. The countryside around his captured

stronghold had proved less hospitable than he had hoped. Many of his

people had already been driven away by the misfortunes of war and the

terrible weather, and those who remained were reluctant to open their

doors to a strangereven if that stranger claimed to be the ruling count.

Occupied Hernystir was a land held prisoner more by fear than by enemy

soldiers.

538 Tad Williams

Few others were abroad by night, which was when Eolair did most of

his traveling Even Skali of Kaldskryke's men, despite their conquerors'

crowns, seemed reluctant to stir forth, as if taking on the character of

those they had conquered In this gnm summer of snow and restless

spirits, even the war's victors bowed before a greater power

Eolair was more than ever certain that he must find Josua, if the prince

still lived Maegwm might have sent him on this quest because of some

odd or spiteful notion, but now it seemed laughably apparent that the

north of Osten Ard had fallen beneath a shadow of more than human

ongm, and that the riddle of the sword Bnght-Nail might very well have

something to do with it Why else would the gods have arranged that

Eolair should be in that monstrously strange city beneath the ground, or

that he should meet its even stranger denizens5 The Count of Nad Mullach

was a pragmatist by nature His long years of service to the king had

hardened his heart to fantasy, but at the same time his experience of

diplomacy had also made him mistrustful of excessive coincidence To

suggest that there was no overriding supernatural element to the summer-

that-was-wmter, the reappearance of creatures out of legend, and the

sudden importance of forgotten but near-mythical swords was to close

one's eyes to a reality as plain as the mountains and the seas

Also, despite all his endless days in the court of Erkynland, Nabban,

and Perdrum, and for all his cautious words to Maegwm, Eolair was a

Herynstirman More than any other mortal men, the Hemystin remembered

As Eolair rode into Erkynland, across bleak Utanyeat coward the battle

site of Ach Samrath, the storm grew stronger The snow, however unsea-

sonable, had until now fallen only moderately, as it might in the early

days ofNovander Now the winds were rising, changing the flat country-

side into a flurrying landscape of white nothingness The cold was so

fierce that he was forced to abandon night nding altogether for a few days,

but he worried little about being recognized- the roads and countryside

were all but deserted even at gray, blustery noon He noted with sour

satisfaction that Utanyeatthe earldom of Guthwulf, one of High King

Ellas' favoriteswas as storm-wounded as any of Hernystir There was

some justice, after all

Trekking endlessly through white emptiness, he found himself thinking

often of his people left behind, but especially of Maegwm Although m some

ways she had become almost as wild and intractable as a beast since the

death other father and brother, he had always felt great affection toward her

That was not yet gone, but it was hard not to feel betrayed by her treatment

of him, no matter how well he thought he understood its cause Still, he

could not bring himself to hate her He had been a special fnend to her since

she had been a little girl, making a point of speaking with her whenever he

was at court, letting her show him the Taig's gardens, as well as the pigs

STONE OF FAREWELL539

and chickens to which she gave names, and which she treated with the

same annoyed fondness a mother might show her reckless children

As she grew, becoming as tall as a manbut none the less comely for

itEolair had watched her also become steadily more reserved, only

occasionally showing the flashes ofgirhshness which had so delighted him

before She seemed to turn inward, like a rosebush balked by an over-

hanging roof that coiled in on itself until its own thorns rubbed its stems

raw She still reserved special attention for Eolair, but that attention was

more and more confusing, more and more made up of awkward silences

and her angry self-recnmmations

For a while he had thought she cared for him as more than just a fnend

of her family and distant kinsman He had wondered whether two such

solitary folk could ever find cheir way togetherEolair, for all his easy

speech and cleverness, had always felt that the best part of himself was

hidden far beneath the surface, just as his quiet hill-keep at Nad Mullach

stood remote from the bustle of the Taig But even as he had finally

begun to think m earnest about Maegwmeven as his admiration for her

honesty and for her impatience with nonsense had begun to ripen into

something deepershe had turned cold to him She seemed to have

decided that Eolair was only another of the legion of idlers and flatterers

that surrounded King Lluth

One long afternoon in eastern Utanyeat, as the snow stung his face and

he wandered far away m thought, he suddenly wondered Was I wrong7

Did she care for me all that time^ It was a horrifying thought, because it

suddenly turned the world he knew on its head and gave vastly different

meaning to everything that had transpired between them since Maegwm

had become a woman

Hav? I been bimd^ But if that were so, why should she act so backwardly to

me7 Have I not always treated her with respect and kindness^

After turning the idea over in his head for a long hour, he put it away

again It was too uncomfortable to consider any longer here in the middle

of nowhere, with months or more between now and when he could see

her again

And she had sent him away in anger, had she not5

The wind picked restlessly at the unsettled snow.

He rode past Ach Samrath on a morning when the storm had abated

somewhat, stopping his horse on a rise above the ancient battlefield where

Prince Sinnach and ten thousand of his Hernystirmen had been destroyed

by Fingil ofRimmersgard and the treachery of the Thnthmgs-lord Niyunort

As on the few other occasions he had visited this site, Eolair felt a shiver

climb through him as he looked down at the great, flat field, but this time

it was not prompted by the gnsly past With the freezing wind on his face

and the cold, blank face of the north stanng down at him, he suddenly

540 Tad Williams

realized that by the time this new and greater war had endedwhether on

a battlefield or beneath a remorseless tide of black winterit might be in a

frenzy of death that would make Ach Samrath seem a petty dispute.

He rode on, his anger turning to ice inside him. Who had set this great

thing in motion? Who had set this evil wheel to turning? Had it been Ehas,

or his pet serpent Pryrates? If so, there should be a special Hell prepared

for them. Eolair only hoped he would be around to sec them sent there

maybe on the end of Prester John's Bright-Nail, if the subterranean

dwarrows spoke rightly.

As Eolair came to the edge ofAldheorte, he reverted once more to night

riding. The storm's teeth seemed a little duller here in Ehas' realm, only a

dozen leagues from the outskirts ofErchester, and he also thought it safer

not to count on the mfrequency of meeting other travelers any longer

here, that infrequent other traveler was likely to be one of the High King's

Erkynguard.

Beneath the shadow of the great wood, the silent, snow-blanketed

farmlands seemed to wait apprehensively for whatever might come next,

as chough this storm were only the precursor of some darker deed. Eolair

knew that these were his own feelings, but also felt strongly that they

were not his alone: a sense of dread hung over Erkynland, filling the

air like a terrible, will-sapping fog. The few lone farmers and woodsmen

whose wagons he saw on the road did not respond to his greetings except to

make the sign of the Tree as they passed him on the moonless roads, as

chough Eolair might be some demon or walking dead man. But their

torches revealed chat ic was their own faces that had gone slack and pale as

the masks of corpses, as though the fearful winds and constant snow had

leached the very life from them.

He approached Thisterborg. The great hill stood only a few leagues

from Erchester's gates, and was the closest he would come to the Hayholt

from which, on certain of the blackest nights, he could almost feel Ehas'

sleepless malice burning like a torch in a high tower. It was only the High

King, he reminded himself, a mortal man whom he had once respected,

although never liked. Whatever mad plans Elias had made, whatever

dreadful bargains, he was still only a man.

Thisterborg's peak seemed to flicker as the count drew nearer, as though

high on the hillcrest great watchfires burned. Eolair wondered if Elias had

made it a guard post, but could think of no reason why. Did the High

King fear some invasion from the ancient forest, the Aldheorte? It mat-

tered little, in any case. Eolair was firmly resolved to circle Thisterborg on

the far side from Erchester, and felt no urge whatsoever to investigate the

mysterious lights. The black hill had an evil reputation that extended back

far beyond the days of even Elias' father, King John. Stories about

Thisterborg were many, none of them pleasant to hear. In such days as

STONE OF FAREWELL541

these, Eolair wished he could avoid coming any closer than a league or so,

but the forestanother dubious place to be at nightand the walls of

Erchester prevented such a judiciously wide swing.

He had just started around the north of the hill, his mount picking its

way through the ever-thickening trees of Aldheorte's fringe, when he felt

a wave of fear sweep over him that was unlike anything he had ever

experienced. His heart hammered and a chill sweat broke out on his face,

then turned almost immediately to fragile ice; Eolair felt like a fieldmouse

that, too late for escape, suddenly perceived the stooping hawk. He had to

restrain himself from digging in his spurs and riding madly in whatever

direction he was already facing. He whirled, looking wildly for whatever

might be the cause of such dreadful terror, but could see nothing.

At last he slapped his horse's flank and rode a short distance farther into

the shielding trees. Whatever had caused him to feel this way, it seemed a

product of the unprotected snows rather than the shadowy forest.

The storm was much less fierce here, as it had been since he had entered

Aldheorte's lee: but for a sprinkling of snow, the sky was clear. A vast

yellow moon hung in the eastern sky, turning all the landscape to a sickly

shade of bone. The Count of Nad Mullach looked up at the looming bulk

of Thisterborg, wondering if that could be the source of his sudden fright,

but could see or hear nothing extraordinary. A part of him wondered if he

had not been nding too long alone with his morbid thoughts, but that part

was easily ignored. Eolair was a Hernystirman. Herynstin remembered.

A thin sound, an unidentifiable but persistent scraping, began to make

itself heard. He looked down from secretive Thisterborg and turned his

gaze westward across the snows, toward the direction from which he had

come. Something was moving slowly across the white plain.

The chill of fear grew deeper, spreading through him like a prickling

frost. As his horse moved uncomfortably, Eolair put a trembling hand on

its neck; the beast, as if it perceived his own terror, suddenly became very

still. Their twin plumes of breath were the only moving things in the

shadow of the trees.

The scraping grew louder. Eolair could now see the shapes moving

closer over the snows, a mass of luminous white followed by a lump of

blackness. Then, with the stark unreality of a nightmare, the gleaming

shapes came clear.

It was a team of white goats, shaggy pelts glowing as though with

captured moonlight. Their eyes were red as embers, and their heads

seemed somehow gravely wrong: when he thought of it afterward he could

never say why, except that the shapes of their hairless muzzles seemed to

suggest some kind of unpleasant intelligence. The goats, nine in all, drew

behind them a great black sled; it was the sound of the runners crunching

through the snow that he had heard. Seated on the sled was a hooded

figure that even across a distance of some hundred cubits seemed too

542 Tad Williams

large Several other, smaller black-robed figures marched solemnly along-

side, hoods tilted downward like monks m meditation

An almost uncontrollable horror ran up Eolair's spine His horse had

turned to stone beneath him, as if fright had stopped its heart and left it

dead upon its feet The ghastly procession scraped past, agonizingly slow,

silent but for the noise of the sled Just as the robed figures were about to

vanish into the darkness ofThistcrborg's lowest slopes, one of the hooded

shapes turned, showing Eolair what he fancied was a flash of skeletal

white face, black holes that might have been eyes The part of his shrieking

thoughts that was still coherent thanked the gods of his and all other

peoples for the shadows of the forest's fringe The hooded eyes turned

away at last The sled and its escort vanished into the snowy woods of

Thisterborg

Eolair stood a long time, allowing himself to tremble, but did not move

from the spot until he was sure it was safe His teeth had been so tightly

clenched that his jaws ached He felt as though he had been stripped raw

and tumbled down a long black hole When he dared to move at last, he

threw himself onto his horse's neck and galloped away into the east as

swiftly as he could His mount, eager as he, needed no spurs, no crop

They whirled away in a cloud of snow

As Eolair fled Thisterborg and its mysteries, running eastward beneath

the mocking moon, he knew that everything he had feared was true, and

that there were things in the world that were worse even than his fears

^

Ingen Jegger stood beneath the spreading arms of a black hemlock,

unmindful of the bitter wind or the frost growing in his close-cropped

beard But for the impatient life in his pale blue eyes, he might have been a

luckless traveler, frozen to death waiting for a morning's warmth that

came too late

The huge white hound crouching in the snow at his feet stirred, then

made an inquiring sound like the scrape of rusty hinges

"Hungry, Niku'a5" A look almost of fondness ran across Ingen's taut

features "Quiet Soon, you will have your fill "

Motionless, Ingen watched and listened, sifting the night like a whisk-

ered beast of prey The moon crept from one gap in the overhanging trees

to another The forest, but for the wind, was silent

"Ah " Satisfied, he took a few steps and shook the snow from his cloak

"Now, Niku'a Call your brothers and sisters Howl up the Stormspike

pack' It is time for the last chase "

Niku'a leaped up, quivering with excitement As if it had understood

Ingen's every word, the great hound trotted out into the middle of the

clearing before settling back on its haunches and lifting its snout to the

543

STONE OF FAREWELI

sky Powerful throat muscles convulsed, and a coughing howl shattered

the night Even as the first echoes died, Niku'a's strident voice burst out

again, hacking and baying The very branches of the trees trembled

They waited, Ingen's gloved hand resting on the dog's wide head Time

passed Niku'a's cloudy white eyes gleamed as the moon slid along be-

tween the trees At last, as night's coldest hour crept in, the faint cnes of

hounds came sweeping down the wind

The belling rose until it filled the forest A host of white shapes ap-

peared from the darkness, filtering into the clearing like four-legged ghosts.

The Stormspike hounds wove in and out among the tree roots, narrow,

sharkhke heads questing and sniffing Starlight gleamed on muzzles smeared

with blood and spittle Niku'a went among them, nipping, snarling, until

at last the whole pack crouched or lay in the snow around Ingen Jegger,

red tongues lolling

The Queen's Huntsman calmly looked over his strange congregation,

then picked his snarling, dog-faced helm from the ground

"Too long have you been roaming free," he hissed, "harrying the forest

fringes, stealing babies like kennel cubs, running down foolish travelers

for the joy of the chase Now your master has come back Now you must

do what you were bred to do " The milky eyes followed him as he moved

to his horse, which waited with supernatural patience beneath the hem-

lock "But this time / will lead, not you It is a strange chase, and Ingen

alone has been taught the scent." He pulled himself up into the saddle

"Run silently " He lowered the helmet onto his head, so that hound

looked at hounds "We take death to the Queen's enemies "

A low growling rose from the dogs as they rose and came together,

sliding against one another, snapping at each other's faces and tails in fierce

anticipation Ingen spurred his horse forward, then turned "Follow'" he

cried "Follow to death and blood'"

He passed swiftly from the clearing The pack ran after, voiceless now,

silent and white as snowfall

^

Huddled deep in his cloak, Isgnmnur sat in the bow of the small boat

and watched stubby Sinetns rowing and sniffling The duke wore a fixed

expression of grim preoccupation, in part because he found the boatman's

company extremely unrewarding, but mostly because he himself hated

boats, especially small boats like the one on which he was now trapped

Smetns had spoken truthfully about one thing, anyway this was no time

to be on the water A great storm was flailing the entire length of the

coast The choppy water of Firannos Bay constantly threatened to swamp

them, and Sinetns had not stopped moaning since their hull had first

touched the water a week before, some thirty leagues northward

544 Tad Williams

The duke had to admit that Sinetns was a talented boatman, if only in

the defense of his own life The Nabban-man had handled his craft well

under terrible conditions If only he would stop sniveling' Isgnmnur was

no happier about the conditions for their journey than Sinetns was, but he

would be damned to the blackest circle of Hell before he made a fool out

of himself by showing it

'How far to KwamtupuP" he shouted over the noise of wind and waves

"Haifa day, master monk," Sinetns called back, eyes red and stream-

ing "We will stop soon to sleep, then we can be there by midday

tomorrow "

"Sleep'" Signmnur roared. "Are you madP It is not even dark yet'

Besides, you will only try to sneak away again, and this time I will not be

so merciful If you cease your self-pitying nonsense and work, you can

sleep m a bed tonight'"

"Please, holy brother'" Sinetns almost shrieked "Do not force me to

row in darkness' We will run onto the rocks Our only beds will be down

among the kilpa'"

"Don't hand that superstitious nonsense to me I'm paying you well and

I am in a hurry If you are too weak or sore, let me Cake those paddles for

a while "

The oarsman, wet and cold, still managed a convincing look of wounded

pride "You' You would have us under the water in a moment' No, you

cruel monk, if Sinetns must die, let it be with his oars in his hand, as befits

a Firannos boatman If Sinetns must be torn from his home and the

bosom of his family and sacrificed to the whims of a monster in the robes

of a priest, if he must die . . let it be as a guild-man'"

Isgnmnur groaned "Let it be with his mouth closed, for a change And

keep paddling "

"Rowing," Sinetns replied frostily, then burst into tears once more

It was past midnight when the first stilt-houses of Kwamtupul came

into view Sinetns, whose complaining had faded at last to a low, self-

pitying murmur, nosed the boat into the great network of canals Isgnmnur,

who had briefly fallen asleep, rubbed his eyes and craned his head, looking

around Kwanitupul's ramshackle warehouses and inns were all dusted

with a thin coating of snow

If I doubted that the world had gone topsy-turvy, Isgnmnur thought bemus-

ediy, here is all the proof I need a Rimmersman taking a leaky boat to sea in a

storm, and snow in the southlandin high summer Can any doubt the world has

run mad7

Madness He remembered the hideous death of the lector and felt his

stomach gurgle Madnessor something else7 It was a strange coincidence

that Pryraces and Bemgans should both be in the house of Mother Church

on such a dreadful night Only a stroke of rare luck had brought Isgnmnur

STONE OF FAREWELL545

to Dinivan in time to hear the pnest's last words, and perhaps to salvage

something from this grim pass

He had escaped from the Sancellan Aedonitis only moments before

Bemgans, Duke of Nabban, had ordered his guardsmen to bar all doors

Isgnmnur could not have afforded captureeven if he had not been

immediately recognized, his story would not have held up long Hiafmansa

Eve, the night of the lector's murder, had been a bad night to be an

unfamiliar guest at the Sancellan

"Do you know of a place here called Pelippa's Bowf" he asked aloud "1

think it is an inn or a hostel "

"I have never heard of the place, master monk," Sinetns said gravely

"It sounds like a low establishment, one in which Sinetns would not be

seen " Now chat they had reached the relatively still waters of the canals,

the boatman had reassumed much of his dignity Isgnmnur decided he

liked him better when he sniveled

"By the Tree, we will never find it at night Take me to some inn you

know, then I must get something under my belt "

Sinetns steered the tittle craft down a series of cnsscrossing canals to the

city's tavern distnct Things seemed quite lively here despite the late hour,

the boardwalks lined with gansh cloth lanterns that swung in the wind,

the alleyways full of drunken revelers

"This is a fine inn, holy brother," Sinetns said as they glided to a stop at

the dock stairs of a well-lit establishment "There is wine to be had, and

food " Sinetns, feeling bold now that their Journey had ended safely, gave

Isgnmnur a chummy, gap-toothed smile "And women, too " His smile

grew uncertain as he surveyed Isgnmnur's face. "Or boys, if that is

more to your liking "

The duke forced a great hiss of air between his teeth He reached into

his cloak and pulled out a gold Imperator, then placed it gently on the

rowing bench beside Sinetns' skinny leg Isgnmnur next moved to the

bottommost stair "There is your thievish payment, as I promised Now.

I have a suggestion for how you might spend your evening "

Sinetns looked up wanly. "Yes5"

Isgnmnur drew down his eyebrows in a hornble frown "Spend it

doing your very best to make sure that I do not see you again Because if I

do," he lifted his hairy fist, "I will roll your eyeballs around in your

pointy head Understood3"

Sinetns dropped his oar-blades and backed water hastily, so that Isgnmnur

had to quickly swing his other foot up onto the stairs "So this is how you

monks treat Sinetns after all his favors'?" the boatman said indignantly,

puffing up his thin chest like a courting pigeon "No wonder the church is

in bad repute' You . . bearded barbanan'" He splashed off into the

darkened canal

Isgnmnur laughed harshly, then stumped up the stairs to the inn

546 Tad Williams

After several fitful nights in the grasslandsnights in which he had been

forced to keep a careful watch on the treacherous Smetris, who had several

times tried to slip away and leave Isgnmnur standed on the bleak, wind-

swept coast of Firannos Baythe Duke of Elvirtshalla took his sleep in

full measure. He remained in bed until the sun was high m the sky, then

broke his fast with a manly portion of bread and honey accompanied by a

stoup of ale. It was nearly noontide before he obtained directions to

Pelippa's Bowl from the innkeeper and was out on the rainy canals once

more. His boatman this time was a Wrannaman, who despite the bitter

wind wore only a loincloth and a broad-brimmed hat with a red, drizzle-

soaked feather drooping from the band. The boatman's sullen silence was

a pleasant change from the ceaseless carping of Smetris. Isgnmnur settled

back to fondle his new-sprouted beard and enjoy the sodden sights of

Kwamtupu), a city he had not visited for many years.

The storm had obviously cast a pall over the trading city. Unless things

had changed greatly since his last sojourn, there should be many more

boats out on the water at midday, many more folk wandering Kwamtupul's

exotic byways. Those who were about seemed to be hurrying to their

destinations. Even the ritual cries of greeting and challenge that rang

between canal boats seemed unusually muted. Like insects, the residents

seemed chilled almost to immobility by the snow that melted in patches

on their wooden walkways, and the wind-borne sleet that stung exposed

limbs and filled the canals with circular ripples.

Here and there among the sparse crowds Isgnmnur saw small gather-

ings of Fire Dancers, the religious maniacs who had gained their notoriety

by self-immolation. They had become a familiar sight to the duke since he

had first reached Nabban. These wild-eyed penitents, uncaring of the cold,

stood on the walkways near busy canal intersections and shouted the

praises of their dark master, the Storm King. Isgrimnur wondered where

they had heard that name. He had never heard it spoken south of the

Frostmarch before, even in a children's bogey-story. It was no coinci-

dence, he knew, but he could not help musing on whether these robed

lunatics were the pawns of someone like Pryrates or true visionaries. If the

latter was the case, then the end they foresaw might be real.

Isgrimnur shuddered at this thought and made the sign of the Tree on

his breast. Black times, these were. For all their shouting, though, the Fire

Dancers did not seem to be engaging in their familiar trick of setting

themselves aflame. The duke smiled sourly. Perhaps it was a little too

damp today.

The boatman stopped at last before an unprepossessing structure in the

warehouse district, far from the centers of commerce. When Isgnmnur

had paid him, the little dark man reached up with his gaff hook and pulled

down the rope ladder from the dock. The duke was scarcely halfway up

STONE OF FAREWELL

547

the swinging ladder before the boatman had turned around and was

coasting out of sight down a side-canal.

Huffing and cursing his fat belly, Isgnmnur at last made his way up

onto the more trustworthy footing of the dock. He rapped at the weather-

worn door, then waited a long time in the freezing ram without answer,

growing increasingly cross- At last the door swung open, revealing a

frowning woman of middle age.

"I uon't know where the half-wit is," she told Isgnmnur as though he

had asked. "It's not enough that I have to do every other lick of work

here, but now I have to answer the door as well."

For a moment the duke was so taken aback that he almost apologized.

He struggled with his impulse toward chivalry. "I want a room," he said

at last.

"Well, come in, then," the woman said doubtfully, opening the door

wider. Beyond lay a makeshift boathouse that stank of tar and old fish. A

couple of hulls were laid out like casualties of battle. In the corner, a

brown arm protruded from a huddle of blankets For a moment Isgrimnur

thought it was a corpse that had been carelessly thrown into the doorway;

when the arm moved, pulling the blankets closer, he realized that it was

only someone sleeping. He had a sudden premonition that he might not

find the accommodations here up to the best standards, but he forced the

thought down.

You're getting jussy, old man, he chided himself. On the battlefield, you've

slept m mud and blood and the nests of biting flies.

He had a mission, he reminded himself. His own comfort was secondary.

"By the way," he called after the innkeeper, whose brisk steps had

taken her almost the entire length of the dooryard, "I'm looking for

someone." Suddenly he could not recall the name Dimvan had told him-

He stopped, running his fingers through his damp beard, then remem-

bered- "Tiamak. I'm looking for Tiamak."

When the woman turned, her sour expression had been supplanted by a

look of greedy pleasure. "You?" she said. "You're the one with the gold?"

She opened her arms wide as though to embrace him. Despite the dozen

cubits that separated them, the duke took a step backward, repelled. The

bundle of blankets m the comer began to wiggle like a nest of piglets, then

felt away. A small and very thin Wrannaman sat up, eyes still half-closed

from sleep.

"I am Tiamak," he said, trying to stifle a yawn. As he surveyed

Isgnmnur, the marsh-man's face seemed to show disappointment, as

though he had expected something better. The duke felt his annoyance

returning. Were all these people mad? Who did they think he was, or

expect him to be?

"I bring you tidings," Isgrimnur said stiffly, uncertain of how to pro-

ceed. "But we should talk in private."

548 Tad Williams

"I will show you to your room," the woman said hastily, "the finest in

the house, and the little brown gentlemananother honored guestcan

join you there "

Isgnmnur had just turned back to Tiamak, who seemed to be dressing

awkwardly beneath the blankets, when the inside door of the inn thumped

open and a horde of children barged through, whooping like Thnthmgs-

men at war They were pursued by a tall, white-haired old man, who

grinned from ear to ear as he pretended to stalk them They fled him with

shrieks of delight, and crashed through the door leading out to the dock

Before he could pursue them any further the landlady stepped before him,

fists on hips

"Damn you for a simple ass, Cealho, you are here to answer the door'"

The old man, chough considerably taller, cowered before her as though

expecting a blow "I know you are addled-pated, but you are not deaf

Did you not hear someone knocking at the door5"

The old man moaned wordlessly The landlady turned from him m

disgust "He's as stupid as a stone," she began, then broke off, staring, as

Isgnmnur dropped to his knees

The duke felt the world tilt, as though giant hands had lifted it It took

long moments before he could speak, moments in which the landlady, the

little Wrannaman. and the old doorkeeper looked at him with varying

degrees of uneasy fascination When Isgnmnur spoke, it was to the old

man

"My lord Camans," he said, and felt his voice catch in his throat The

world had gone mad now the dead lived again "Merciful Elysia, Camans,

do you not remember me7 I am Isgnmnur' We fought for Prester John

togetherwe were fnends' Ah, God, you live' How can that be'"

He reached his hand out to the old man, who took it as a child might

take something shiny or colorful offered by a stranger The old man's grip

was callused, with a great strength that could be felt even as his hand lay

flaccidly in Isgnmnur's own His handsome face showed only smiling

incomprehension

"What are you saying3" the landlady said crossly "That's old Ceallio,

the doorkeeper Been here for years He's a simpleton "

"Camans" Isgnmnur breathed as he pressed the old man's hand to

his cheek, wetting it with tears He could scarcely speak, "Oh, my good

lord, you live "

28

Sparks

-L/t/Ol/l'l't/ the unceasing loveliness ofJao e-Tunukai'i, or perhaps

because of it, Simon was bored He was also unutterably lonely

His imprisonment was a strange thing the Sithi did not hinder him, but

other than Jinki and Adieu, they continued to show no interest in him,

either Like a queen's lapdog, he was well fed and well cared for, allowed

to roam wherever he could go, but only because the outside world was

beyond his reach Like a prize pet, he amused his masters, but was not

taken seriously When he spoke to them, they responded politely in

Simon's own Westerhng speech, but among themselves they spoke the

liquid Sithi tongue Only a few recognizable words ever reached his ear,

but whole rivers of incomprehensible talk flowed around him The suspi-

cion that they might be discussing him in their private conversations

infuriated him The possibility that they might not, that they might never

think of him except when in his presence, was somehow even worse. IE

made him feel insubstantial as a ghost

Since his interview with Amerasu, the days had begun to flit past even

more rapidly As he lay m his blankets one night, he realized he could no

longer say for certain how long he had been among the Sithi Aditu, when

asked, claimed not to remember Simon Cook the same question to Jinki,

who fixed him with a look of great pity and asked whether he truly

wished to count the days Chilled by the implication, Simon demanded

the truth Jinki told him that a little over a month had passed

That had been some days ago

The nights were the most difficult In his nest of blankets in Jinki's

house, or roaming the soft, damp grass beneath strange stars, Simon

tormented himself with impossible plans for escape, plans that even he

knew were as impractical as they were desperate He became more and

more morose He knew Jinki was worried for him, and even Adieu's

quicksilver laugh seemed forced Simon knew that he was speaking con-

stantly of his misery, but could not hlue itmoreover, he did not want to

hide it Whose fault was it chat he was crapped here?

550 Tad Williams

They had saved his life, of course. Would it truly have been better to die

by freezing or slow starvation, he chided himself, rather than living as a

pampered, if restricted, guest in the most wonderful city in Osten Ard?

But even though such ingratitude might be shameful, he still could not

reconcile himself to his blissful prison.

Every day was much the same. He wandered through the forest alone,

or threw stones into the countless streams and rivers, and thought of his

friends. In the sheltering summer of Jao e-Tmukai'i, it was hard to

imagine how they must all be suffering in the dreadful winter outside.

Where was Bmabik? Miriamele? Prince Josua? Did they even live? Had

they fallen beneath the black storm, or did they still struggle?

Growing ever more frantic, he begged Jiriki to let him speak to Amerasu

again, to plead for her help in setting him free, butJinki declined.

"It is not my place to instruct First Grandmother. She will act in her

own time, when she has thought carefully. I am sorry, Seoman, bur these

matters are too important to hurry."

"Hurry!" Simon raged. "By the time anyone does anything m this

place, I will be dead!"

ButJiriki, although visibly saddened, remained adamant.

Balked at every turn, Simon's anxiousness began to turn to anger. The

reserved Sithi came to seem smug and self-nghteous beyond enduring.

While Simon's friends were fighting and dying, engaged in a dreadful

losing battle with the Storm King as well as with Elias, these foolish

creatures wandered through their sunlit forest singing and contemplating

the trees. And who was the Storm King, anyway, but a Sithi!? No

wonder that his fellows were keeping Simon prisoned while the world

outside withered before Ineluki's cold wrath.

So the days spun by, each more and more like its predecessor, each

increasing Simon's disaffection. He ceased taking his evening meal with

Jiriki, preferring a more solitary appreciation of the songs of crickets and

nightingales. Resentful of Aditu's playfulness, he began to avoid her. He

was sick of being teased and fondled. He meant no more to her, he knew,

than the lapdog did to the queen. He would have no more. If he must be a

prisoner, he would act like one.

Jiriki found him sitting in a copse of larch trees, sullen and prickly as a

hedgehog. The bees were mumbling m the clover and the sun streamed

down through the needles, crosshatchmg the ground with shvers of light.

Simon was chewing on a piece of bark.

"Seoman," the prince said, "may I speak to you?"

Simon frowned. He had learned that Sithi, unlike mortals, would actu-

ally go away if permission was not given. Jinki's folk had a deep respect

for privacy.

"I suppose so," Simon said at last.

STONE OF FAREWELL551

"I would like you to come with me," Jiriki said. "We will go to the

Yasira."

Simon felt a quickening of hope, but it was a painful thing. "Why?"

"I do not know. I only know that we are all asked to come, all who live

in Jao e-Tinukai'i. Since you live here now, I think it fitting that you

come."

Simon's hopes sank. "They did not ask for me." For a moment he had

envisioned how it would be: Shima'onari and Likimeya apologizing for

their mistake, sending him back to his own kind bearing presents, laden as

well with the wisdom to help Josua and the others. Another mooncalf

daydreamhadn't he grown out of them yet? "I don't want to go," he

said at last.

Jiriki squatted beside him, poised as gracefully as a hunting bird upon a

branch. "I wish that you would, Seoman," he said at last. "I cannot force

you and I will not plead, but Amerasu will be there. It is rare indeed for

her to ask to speak to our people, except when it is the Day of

Year-Dancing."

Simon felt his interest quicken. Perhaps Amerasu was going to speak on

his behalf, order them to let him go! But if that was the case, why hadn't

he been asked to come?

He feigned indifference. Whatever else occurred, he was steadily learn-

ing Sithi ways. "There you go about Year-Dancing again, Jinki," he said.

"But you have never told me what it means. I saw the Year-Dancing

grove, you know."

Jiriki appeared to be suppressing a smile. "Not very closely, I think. But

come, Seoman, you are playing a game. Some other time 1 will tell you

what I can of the responsibilities of our family's house, but now I must

go. You, too, if you plan to accompany me."

Simon tossed the piece of chewed-upon bark over his shoulder. 'Tli go

if I can sit near the door. And if I don't have to speak."

"You can sit wherever you please, Snowlock. You are a prisoner,

perhaps, but an honored one. My people are trying to make your time

here endurable. As to the rest, I have no say over what you may be asked.

Come, you are almost grown, manchild. Do not be afraid to stand for

yourself."

Simon frowned, considering. "Lead on, then," he said.

They stopped before the doorway of the great living tent. The butter-

flies were agitated, fluttering their spangled wings so that shifting patterns

colored shadow rippled across the face of the Yasira like wind through a

field of wheat- The papery rustle of their gentle commingling filled the

whole glen. Suddenly unwilling to proceed through the door, Simon

pulled back, shaking himself free ofJinki's companionable arm.

"1 don't want to hear anything bad," he said. There was a cold heaviness

552 Tad Williams

m the pit of his stomach, the same as he had felt when he expected

punishment from Rachel or the Master of Scullions. "I don't want to be

shouted at "

Jinki looked at him quizzically "No one will shout, Seoman That is not

our way, we Zida'ya This may be nothing to do with you at all "

Simon shook his head, embarrassed "Sorry. Of course " He took a

deep breath and shrugged nervously, then waited until Jinki gently took

his arm once more and steered him Coward the Yasira's rose-entwined

doorway A thousand thousand butterfly wings hissed like a dry wind as

Simon and his companion stepped through into the vast bowl of multi-

hued light.

Likimeya and Shima'onan, as before, were seated at the center of the

room on low couches near the jutting finger-stone. Amerasu sat between

them on a higher couch, the hood other pale gray robe thrown back Her

snowy white hair, unbound, spread m a soft cloud upon her shoulders.

She wore a sash of bright blue around her slender waist, but no other

ornamentation or jewelry

As Simon stared, her eyes passed briefly across his. If he hoped for a

helpful smile or a reassuring nod, he was disappointed her gaze slid by as

though he were just one unexceptional tree m a great forest. His heart

sank. If any ideas remained about Amerasu's being concerned with moon-

calf Simon's fate, he decided, it was time to put them away.

Beside Amerasu, on a pedestal of dull gray rock, stood a curious object-

a disk of some pale icy substance, mounted on a broad stand of dark and

shiny witchwood wrought with twining Sttm carvings. Simon thought it

a table-mirrorhe had heard that some great ladies possessed thembut,

oddly, it did not seem to reflect The disk's edges were sharp as knives,

like a sugar-sweet that had been sucked to near-transparency Its color was

the frosty near-white of a winter moon, but other, deeper hues seemed to

move sleepily within it. A wide, shallow bowl of the same translucent

substance lay before the stone disk, nestled in the carved stand

Simon could not stare at the thing too long. The changing colors

disturbed him. in some strange manner, the shifting stone reminded him

of the gray sword Sorrow, and that was a memory he did not wish

reawakened He turned his head away and looked slowly around the great

chamber.

As Jinki had suggested, all the residents ofJao e-Tmukai'i seemed to

have come to the Yasira this afternoon. Dressed m their emphatically

colorful manner, plumed like rare birds, still the golden-eyed Sithi seemed

unusually reserved, even by the standards of a retiring folk Many eyes had

turned toward Simon and Jinki upon their entrance, but no one gaze had

lingered long the attention of all assembled seemed fixed on the three

figures at the center of the vast tree-chamber. Glad of the anonymity,

Simon chose a place on the outskirts of the silent crowd for Jinki and

STONE OF FAREWELL553

himself to sit He did not see Aditu anywhere, but he knew she would be

hard to pick out in the midst of such an array

For a long time there was no movement or speech, although it seemed

to Simon chat there were hidden currents moving just beneath his own

understanding, subtle communications shared by everyone in the room

but him Still, he was not so insensitive that he failed to perceive the

tension of the quiet Sithi, the clear sense of uneasy anticipation There was

a sharpness to the air, as before a lightning storm

He had begun to wonder if they would go on this way all afternoon,

like a group of cat-rivals gathered on a wall, silently staring each other

down, when at last Shima'onan rose and began to speak This time, the

master ofJao e-Tinukai'i did not bother with Simon's own Westerlmg

tongue, but used the musical Sithi speech He spoke for some while,

accompanying his soliloquy with graceful hand gestures, the sleeves of his

pale yellow robe fluttering as he emphasized his words. To Simon, it was

only confusion piled atop incomprehensibility.

"My father speaks of Amerasu and asks us to listen to her," Jinki

whispered, translating- Simon was dubious Shima'onan seemed to have

spoken a very long timejust to say that He glanced around the Yasira at

the somber, cat-eyed faces Whatever Jinki's father was saying, he had the

undivided and almost fnghtenmgly complete attention of his people

When Shima'onan concluded, Likimeya rose, and all eyes then turned

to her. She, too, spoke for a long time in the language of the Zida'ya

"She says Amerasu is very wise," explained Jinki. Simon frowned.

When Likimeya finished a great, gentle sigh arose, as chough all assem-

bled had released their breath at once. Simon let out his own quiet sigh, one

of relief as the incomprehensible babble of Sithi-tongue went on and on,

he had been finding it harder and harder to concentrate. Even the butter-

flies were moving restlessly above, the colorful sun-patterns made by their

wings swimming back and forth across the great chamber.

At last Amerasu stood She seemed much less frail than she had in her

house. Simon had thought her then like a martyred saint, but now he saw

in her a Couch of the angelic, a power that smoldered low but which

could burst out into pure white light. Her long hair moved in a breeze that

might have come from the careful movement of a million wings

"I see that the mortal child is here," she said, "so I will speak in a way

that he can understand, as much of what I say came from him. He has a

right to hear "

Several Sithi turned their heads to gaze impassively at Simon Caught

by surprise, he dropped his chin and looked down at his chest until they

had turned away once more.

"In fact," Amerasu continued, "strange as this may sound, it is possible

that some of the things I must say are better suited to the languages of the

Sudhoda'ya The mortals have always lived beneath one kind of darkness

554 Tad Williams

or another That is among the reasons we named them 'sunset-children'

when they first came to Osten Ard " She paused "The manchildren, the

mortals, have many ideas of what happens after they die and wrangle

about who is right and who is wrong These disagreements often come to

bloodshed, as if the} wished to dispatch messengers who could discover

the answer to their dispute Such messengers, as far as I know of mortal

philosophy, never return to give their brethren the taste of truth they

yearn for

"But among the mortal peoples there are stones that say that some do

return as bodiless spirits, although they bring no answers with them

These spirits, these ghosts, are mute reminders of that shadow of death

Those who encounter such unhomed spirits call themselves 'haunted

Amerasu took a breath, her immense composure seemed to slip It was a

moment before she resumed "That is a word we Zida'ya do not have, but

perhaps we should "

The silence, but for the murmur of delicate wings, was absolute

"We fled out of the Uttermost East, thinking to escape that Unbemg

that overwhelmed our Garden-land That story is known to all but the

mortal boyeven those of our children born after the Flight from Asu'a

take it in with their mother's milkand so it will not be told again here

"When we reached this new land, we thought we had escaped that

shadow But a piece of it came with us That stain, that shadow, is part of

usjust as the mortal men and women of Osten Ard cannot escape the

shadow of their own dying

"We are an old people We do not fight the unfightable That is why we

fled Venyha Do'sac, rather than be unmade in a fruitless struggle But the

curse of our race is not that we refuse to throw down our lives in

purposeless defiance of the great shadow, but that we instead clasp the

shadow to ourselves and hug it tightly, gleefully, nursing it as we would a

child

"We brought the shadow with us Perhaps no living, reasoning thing

can be without such shadow, but we Zida'yadespite our lives, beside

which the spans of mortals are like firefliesstill we cannot ignore that

shadow that is death We cannot ignore the knowledge of Unbemg

Instead, we carry it with us like a brooding secret

"The mortals must die. and they are frightened by that We who were

once of the Garden must also die, although our span is vastly greater, but

we each embrace our death from the moment we first open our eyes,

making it an insoluble part of us We yearn for its complete embrace, even

as the centuries roll bv, while around us the death-fearing mortals breed

and drop like mice We make our death the core of our being, our private

and innermost friend, letting life spin past as we enjoy Unbemg's grave

company

"We would not give Ruyan Ve's children the secret of our near-

r

555

STONE OF FAREWELL

immortality, though they were stock of the same tree We denied eternal

life to Ruyan's folk, the Tmukeda'ya, even as we clasped Death tighter

and tighter to our own bosoms We are haunted, my children The mortal

word is the only correct one We are haunted "

He did not understand most of what First Grandmother said but

Amerasu's voice worked on Simon like the scolding of a loving parent He

felt small and unimportant, but reassured that the voice was there and that

it spoke to him The Sithi around him maintained their careful impassivity

"Then the ship-men came," Amerasu said, her voice deepening, "and

were not content to live and die within the walls of Osten Ard as the

mortal mice before them had been They were not satisfied with the

morsels we tossed to them We Zida'ya could have stopped their depreda-

tions before they became great, but instead we grieved over the loss of

beauty while secretly rejoicing Our death was coming9a glorious and final

ending that would make the shadows real My husband lyu'unigato was

one such His gentle, poetic heart loved death more than it ever loved his

wife or the sons of his loins "

For the first time a quiet whisper began to travel through the assembly,

an uneasy murmur scarcely louder than the rustle of the butterflies over-

head Amerasu smiled sadly

"It is hard to hear such things," she said, "but this is a time when truth

must be spoken Of all the Zida'ya, only one truly did not yearn for quiet

oblivion He was my son Ineluki, and he burned I do not mean the manner

of his dyingthat may be seen as a cruel irony, or as a fated inevitability

No, Ineluki burned with life, and his light dispelled the shadowsat least

some of them

"All know what happened All know that Ineluki slew his gentle father,

that he was then unmade at the last, bringing Asu'a to destruction as he

struggled to save himself and all his folk from oblivion But his fires were

so fierce that he could not go peacefully into the shadows beyond life I

curse him for what he did to my husband and his people and himself, but

my mother's heart is still proud By the Ships that brought us, he burned

then and he bums still' Ineluki wfU not die9"

Amerasu lifted a hand as a fresh spatter of whispering rolled through the

Yasira "Peace children, peace'" she cried, "First Grandmother has not

herself embraced that shadow I do not praise him for what he is now,

only for the fierce spirit that no other showed, when such a spirit was the

only thing that could save us from ourselves And he did save us, for his

resistance and even his madness gave others the will to flee here, to the

house of our exile " She lowered her hand "No, my son embraced

hatred It kept him from dying a true death, but it was a flame even hotter

than his own, and it has consumed him There is nothing left of the bright

blaze that was my son " Her eyes were hooded "Almost nothing "

When she did not speak for a while, Shima'onan rose as if to go to her,

556

Tad Williams

saying something quietly in the Sithi tongue. Amerasu shook her head.

"No, grandson, let me speak." A touch of anger entered her voice. "This

is all I have left, but if I am not heard, a darkness will descend that will be

unlike the loving death which we sing to in our dreams. It will be worse

than the Unbeing that drove us out of our Garden beyond the sea."

Shima'onari, looking curiously shaken, sat down beside stone-eyed

Likimeya.

"Ineluki has changed," Amerasu resumed. "He has become something

the world has not seen before, a smoldering ember of despair and hatred,

surviving only to redress those things which long ago were injustices and

mistakes and tragic underestimations, but now are simply facts. Like

ourselves, Ineluki dwells in the realm of what was. But unlike his living kin,

Ineluki is not content to wallow in memories of the past. He lives, or

existshere is a place the mortal language is too inexactto see the

present state of the world obliterated and the injustices made right, but his

only window is anger. His justice will be cruel, his methods even more

horrible."

She moved to stand beside the object on the stone pedestal, letting her

slim fingers rest gently on the disk's rim. Simon feared that she would cut

herself, and felt an abnormal horror at the idea of seeing blood on Amerasu's

thin, golden skin.

"I have long known that Ineluki had returned, as have all of you.

Unlike some, though, I have not pushed it from my mind, or rolled it

over and over in my thoughts only to enjoy the pain of it, as one prods a

bruise or sore spot. I have wondered, I have thought, and I have spoken

with those few who could help me, trying to understand what might be

growing in the shadows of my son's mind. The last of those who brought

me knowledge was the mortal boy Seomanalthough he did not realize,

and still does not, half of what I gleaned from him."

Simon again felt eyes upon him, but his own were helplessly fixed to

Amerasu's luminous face, framed in the great white cloud other hair.

"That is just as well," she said. "The manchild has been fate-battered

and chance-led in many curious ways, but he is no spell-wielder or great

hero. He has fulfilled his responsibilities admirably, but needs no more

heaped upon his young shoulders. But what I learned from him has, I

think, taught me the true shape oflneluki's plan." She took a deep breath,

summoning strength. "It is terrible. I could tell you, but words may not

suffice. I am the eldest of this tribe; I am Amerasu the Ship-Bom. Still

there would be some who would secretly doubt, and others who would

continue to turn their faces away. Many of you would prefer to live with

the beauty of imagined shadows instead of the ugly blackness at the core

of this shadowof the shadow that my son spreads over us all.

"So I will show you what / have seen, then you will see, too. If we can

still turn our heads away, my children, at least we cannot continue to

STONE OF FAREWELL

557

pretend. We may keep out the winter for a while, but at last it will engulf

us, too." Her voice suddenly rose, plaintive but powerful. "If we are

running joyfully into the arms of death, let us at least admit that is what

we do! Let us for this once see ourselves plainly, even at the ending of

things."

Amerasu let her gaze drop, as though great weariness or sorrow had

overtaken her. There was a moment of silence, then just as a few quiet

conversations had begun, she lifted her face to them once more and placed

her hand on the pale moon-disk.

"This is the Mist Lamp, brought by my mother Senditu out ofTumct'ai

as the creeping hoarfrost swallowed that city. As with the scales of the

Greater Worm, as with the Speakfire, the singing Shard, and the Pool in

great Asu'a, it is a door to the Road of Dreams. It has shown me many

things. Now it is time to share those visions."

Amerasu reached down, lightly touching the bowl before the stone

disk. A blue-white flame sprang up and hovered wickless above the

bowl's pale rim. The disk began to gleam with a secretive light. Then,

even as it grew brighter, the entire chamber of the Yasira started to

darken, until it seemed to Simon that the afternoon had truly withered

away and the moon had fallen from the sky to hang there before him.

"These days, the dream-lands have drawn nearer to our own," Amerasu

said, "just as Ineluki's winter has surrounded and worn away the sum-

mer." Her voice, though clear, seemed but a whisper. "The dream-lands

are troubled, and there will be moments when it is difficult to stay upon

the road, so please lend me your thoughts and quiet assistance. The day is

long passed when the daughters ofJenjiyana could speak as effortlessly

through the Witnesses as from ear to ear." She waved a hand over the disk

and the room grew darker still. The tender scraping of butterfly wings

increased, as though the creatures felt change in the air.

The disk glowed. A bluish stain like fog crept across its face; when it

passed, the Mist Lamp had turned black. In that blackness a scattering of

icy stars appeared and a pale shape began to grow, sprouting up from the

base of the Lamp's disk. It was a mountain, white and sharp as a tusk,

bleak as bone.

"Nakkiga," Amerasu said from the darkness. "The mountain the mor-

tals call Stormspike. The home of Utuk'ku, who hides her agedness

behind a silver mask, unwilling to admit that the shadow of death can

touch her, too. She fears Unbeing more than any other of our race,

though she is the eldest who still livesthe last of the Gardenborn."

Amerasu laughed quietly. "Yes, my great-grandmother is very vain." For

a moment there was a flash of metal, but the Mist Lamp blurred and the

mountain reappeared- "1 can feel her," Amerasu said. "Like a spider, she

waits. No fire of justice bums within her as it bums in Ineluki, however

mad he has become. She wishes only to destroy all who remember how

558 Tad Williams

she was humbled in the dim, dim past when our peoples broke asunder.

She gave my son's raging spirit a home; together they have fed each

other's hatred. Now they are ready to do what they have plotted for so

many centuries. Look!"

The Mist Lamp throbbed. The white mountain loomed closer, steaming

beneath the cold black skies. Then, suddenly, it began to fade back into

darkness. A few moments later it was gone, leaving only sable emptiness.

A long interval passed. Simon, who had been hanging on the Sitha

woman's every word, felt suddenly adrift. The crackling tension in the air

was back, stronger than ever.

"Oh!" Amerasu gasped, startled.

All around Simon the Sithi were shifting, murmuring, as questioning

turned to uneasiness and the seeds of fear began to grow inside them. A

gleam of silver appeared m the center of the Mist Lamp, then spread

outward like oil on a pond, filling the darkened silhouette. The silver

smeared and ran until it became a face, a woman's face, unmoving but for

pale eyes that peered from the darkened slits.

Simon watched the silver mask helplessly, his eyes smarting as they

filled with frightened tears. He could not look away. She was so old and

strong ... so strong . . ,

"It has been many turns of the year, Amerasu ic'e-Sa'onserei." The Nom

Queen's voice was surprisingly melodious, but the sweetness could not

entirely hide the vast corruption beneath. "If has been long, granddaughter.

Are you ashamed of your northern km, that you have not invited us back among

you before?"

"You mock me, Utuk'ku Seyt-Hamakha." There was a quaver in

Amerasu's voice, a frightening note of dismay. "All know the reasons for

your exile and the separation of our families."

"You always loved righteousness, little Amerasu." The scorn in the Norn

Queen's voice made Simon feel as though a fever ran through him. "But

the righteous soon become meddlers, and so it has always been with your Song-

reaching clan. You would not scourge the mortals from the Sand, which might have

saved all. And even after they have destroyed the Gardenborn, you cannot leave

the mortals be." Utuk'ku's breath hissed in and out. "Ah. I see, there is one

among you even now!"

Simon's heart seemed to grow, pushing up into his throat until he could

scarcely breathe. Those terrible eyes staring at himwhy didn't Amerasu

make her go away?! He wanted to shout, to run, but could not. The

Sithi-folk around him seemed equally nerveless, struck to stone.

"You oversimplify, grandmother," Amerasu said at last. "When do you

not simply lie."

Utuk'ku laughed, and the sound was something that could set stones to

weeping.

"Fool!" she cried. "I oversimplify? You have overreached. You have long

559

STONE OFFAREWELL

concerned yourself with the doings of mortals, hut you have missed the most

important things. That will prove your death!"

"I know what you plan!" Amerasu said. "You may have taken from me

what remains of my son, but even through death, I have discerned his

mind. I have seen ..."

"Enough'" Utuk'ku's angry cry blew through the Yasira, a chill gust of

wind that bent the grass and set the butterflies to panicky fluttering

"Enough. You have spoken your last and condemned yourself. It is death!"

Ternfymgly, Amerasu began to quiver in the dim light, struggling

against some invisible restraint, her eyes wide, her mouth moving without

sound.

"And you will not interfere furtherany of you!" The Norn Queen's voice

was rising to a dreadful pitch. "The false peace is over' Over! Nakkiga

renounces you all!"

All around the Yasira the Sithi were shouting with amazement and

anger. Likemeya rushed forward to the darkened figure of Amerasu, even

as Utuk'ku's face shimmered and vanished from the Mist Lamp. The

Witness fell dark for a moment, but only a moment. A tiny spot of red

kindled in the Lamp's center, a small spark which grew steadily until it

was a rippling blaze that outlined the startled features ofJinki's parents

and mute Amerasu with scarlet light. Two dark holes opened m the flame,

lightless eyes in the face of fire. Simon felt himself seized in a grip of

frozen horror, clutched so tight by it that his muscles quivered. Chill

dread beat outward from that wavering face, as heat would rise from an

ordinary fire. Amerasu stopped struggling, becoming as still as if she had

turned to stone-

Another blackness gaped in the billowing flame, beneath the empty

eyes. Bloodless laughter issued forth. Sickened, Simon struggled desper-

ately to get awayhe had seen this horror-mask before.

The Red Hand! He meant it to be a shout, but fear choked his words into

helpless, whistling breath.

Likimeya stepped forward, her husband beside her, helping to shield

Amerasu. She raised her arms before the Mist Lamp and the fiery thing

that surged within it. A kind of silvery glow surrounded her. "Go back to

your shriveled mistress and dead master. Corrupted One," she cried.

"You are not one of us any more."

The flame-thing laughed again. "No. We are more, far morel The Red

Hand and its master have grown strong. Ail of creation must fall beneath the

Storm King's shadow. Those who betrayed us will squeak and chitter in that

darkness!"

"You have no power here!" Shima'onan cned, grasping his wife's

upraised hand. The glow around the two of them intensified, until the fog

of silvery moonlight had grown to encompass the fiery face as well. "This

place is beyond you! Go back to your cold mountain and black emptiness!"

560 Tad Williams

"You do not understand'" the thing exulted "We, of all who ever lived, have

returned jrom UnbeifiQ We have yown strong Grown strong!"

Even as the hollow voice echoed through the Yasira, overwhelming the

Sithi-fblk's cries of rage and alarm, the thing in the Mist Lamp suddenly

billowed outward, expanding into a vast pillar of flame, its shapeless head

flung back in a thundering cry It spread its blazing arms wide, as though

to grasp all before it in a crushing, burning embrace

As the sun-hot fires leaped up, the butterflies clinging to the silken

threads overhead began to puff into flame A million of them seemed to

spring into the air at once, a great cloud of fire and smoking wings

Burning, they flew through the air like cinders, careening into the shout-

ing Sithi, crumbling as they struck the trunk of the great ash tree The

Yasira was in chaos, plunged in a blackness shot with spinning, whirling

sparks

The towering thing at the room's center laughed and blazed, but gave

no light It seemed instead to suck all brightness into its own interior, so

that it fattened and grew taller still A wild, writhing knot of bodies leaped

around it, the heads and waving arms of clamoring Sithi-folk silhouetted

against the red blaze

Simon looked around in panic Jinki was gone

Another sound was now rising through the chaos, swelling until it

equaled the terrible mirth of the Red Hand creature It was the raw-

throated baying of a hunting pack

A horde of pale shapes came flooding into the Yasira White hounds

were suddenly everywhere, their slit eyes reflecting the hellish light of the

thing at the chamber's center, their howling red mouths snapping and

barking

"Ruakha, ruakha Zida'-yei'" Simon heard Jinki shouting somewhere nearby

"T'5i e-isi'ha as-Shao In^u'"

Simon moaned, searching desperately for some weapon A hthe white

shape vaulted past him, carrying something in its dripping mouth

jmgizu

A memory forced itself into Simon's head As though the blaze without

had kindled a blaze within, a burning tongue of remembrance leaped up

inside him the black depths beneath the Hayholt, a dream of tragedy and

ghostly fire

Jmgizu The heart of all Sorrow

The tempest of disorder rose and grew wilder, a thousand throats

wailing in the spark-flurrying darkness, a broil of flailing limbs and

terrified eyes and the maddening voices of the Stormspike pack Simon

tried to stand, then quickly threw himself back to the ground The

scrambling Sithi had found their bows arrows were flying through the

smoky air, visible only as streaks of light

A hound stumbled toward Simon and sagged to the ground at his feet, a

STONE OF FAREWELL561

blue-fletched arrow through its neck Revolted, Simon crawled away

from the corpse, feeling the grass and the parchment ashes of butterflies

between his fingers His hand closed upon a rock, which he lifted and

clutched He crept forward like a blind mole toward where the heat and

noise were greatest, driven by nothing he could describe, helplessly reliving

something he might have experienced in a dream, a vision of spectral

figures that ran in fearful panic while their home died in flames

A huge beast, the largest hound Simon had ever seen, had driven

Shnna'onan back toward the trunk of the great ash tree, forcing the lord

of the Sithi up against the blackened and smoldering bark Shima'onan's

robe was smoking Weaponless, Jinki's father held the dog's massive head

in his bare hands, struggling to keep the clashing jaws from his face

Strange lights flickered around them, blue and glaring red

Near where his father struggled, Jinki and several others had sur-

rounded the bellowing fire-creature The prince was a small figure stand-

ing before the beast of the Red Hanc Hs witchwood sword Indreju a

black tongue of shadow held upraised against the shimmering flames

Simon lowered his head and crawled forward, still struggling toward

the center of the Yasira The din was deafening Bodies pushed past him,

some of the Sithi racing forward to help Jinki fight the invader, others

running like maddened creatures, their hair and clothes afire

A sudden blow flung Simon to the turf One of the dogs was upon him,

iiS corpsehke snout thrusting for his throat, blunt claws scraping at his

arms as he tried frantically to twist out from under it He groped unseeing

until he found the stone that had slipped from his grasp, then struck at the

creature's head It yelped wetly and dug its teeth into his shirt, gouging his

shoulder as it tried to reach his neck He struck again, struggled to free his

weary arm, then brought the stone down once more The dog went limp

and slid down his chest Simon rolled over and kicked the body away

A scream abruptly shuddered out, overtopping the tumult, and a wintry

wind howled through the Yasira, a freezing gale that seemed to pass right

through him Fanned by that wind, the fiery figure at the center of the

chamber grew even larger for a moment, then fell back into itself in a

burst of billowing flame There was a sound like thunder, then Simon felt

a great percussive slap against his ears as the creature of the Red Hand

vanished in a rain of hissing sparks Another rush of wind threw Simon

and many others flat on the ground as air hurried to fill the space where

the blazing thing had been After that, a strange sort of quiet came down

over the Yasira

Stunned, Simon lay on his back staring upward The sheen of natural

twilight slowly returned, gleaming through the mighty tree whose limbs

were now empty of living butterflies, but studded with their blackened

remains Groaning, Simon clambered up onto his shaky legs All around

him the inhabitants ofJao e-Tmukai'i were still milling in shocked disor-

562 Tad Williams

der. Those Sithi who had found spears and bows were putting an end to

the remaining dogs.

Had that terrible scream been the fire-creature's death shriek? HadJinki

and the others somehow destroyed it? He stared into the cloudy murk in

the middle of the chamber, trying to see who it was that stood beside the

Mist Lamp. He squinted and took a step forward. Amerasu was there . . .

and someone else. Simon felt his heart lurch.

A figure with a helmet made in the image of a snarling dog stood at

First Grandmother's shoulder, wreathed m the smoke curling up from the

scorched earth. One of this intruder's leather-clad arms was around her

waist, clutching her slight, sagging form as closely as it might hold a

lover. The other hand slowly lifted the hound-helm free, revealing the

tanned mask of Ingen Jegger.

"Niku'a!" he shouted. "Yinva! Come to me!" The huntsman's eyes

gleamed scarlet, reflecting the smoldering bark of the great tree.

Near the trunk of the ash, the huge white hound rose unsteadily. Its fur

was scorched and blackened, its ragged maw all but toothless. Shima'onari

remained unmoving on the ground where the beast had crouched, a blood-

ied arrow clutched in the Sithi-lord's fist. The dog took a step, then fell

clumsily and rolled onto its side. Innards gleamed from the opening in its

belly as Niku'a's broad chest moved slowly up and down.

The huntsman eye's widened. "You've killed him!" Ingen screamed.

"My pride! The best of the kennels!" He earned Amerasu before him as he

cook a few steps toward the dying hound. First Grandmother's head

bobbed limply. "Niku'a!" Ingen hissed, then turned and looked slowly

around the Yasira. The Sithi stood unmoving all around, their faces

blood-stained and ash-smeared as they silently returned the huntsman's

stare.

Ingen Jegger's thin mouth contorted in sorrow. He lifted his eyes to the

scorched limbs of the ash tree and the gray sky above. Amerasu was

pinned against his chest, her white hair curtaining her face.

"Murder!" he cried, then there was a long moment of silence.

"What do you want from First Grandmother, mortal?"

It was Likemeya who spoke so calmly. Her white dress was smeared

with ashes. She had come to kneel beside her fallen husband, and she

held his reddened hand in hers. "You have caused enough heartache. Let

her go. Leave this place. We will not pursue you."

Ingen stared at her as at some long-forgotten landmark seen after a hard

journey. His frown stretched into a ghastly smile and he shook Amerasu's

helpless form until her head wobbled. He lifted his hound-helmthe fist

that clutched it was crimson-drenchedand waved it in mad joy.

"The forest witch is dead!" he howled. "I have done it! Praise me,

mistress, I have done your bidding!" He lifted his other hand to the skies,

letting Amerasu slump to the ground like a discarded sack. Blood shone

STONE OF FAREWELL563

dully on her gray robe and golden hands. The translucent hilt of the

crystal dagger stood out from her side. "I am immortal!" cried the

Queen's Huntsman.

Simon's choked gasp echoed in the terrible silence.

Ingen Jegger slowly turned. Recognizing Simon, the huntsman curled

his mouth in a hplcss smile "You led me to her, boy."

An ash-darkened figure rose from the smoking clutter at Ingen's feet.

"Venyha s'anh!" Jinki shouted, and drove Indreju squarely into the

huntsman's midsection.

Driven backward by the impact ofJinki's blow, Ingen at last staggered

to a halt, bending over the length of the blade which had been wrenched

from its owner's hand. He gradually straightened, then coughed. Blood

dnbbled from his mouth and stained his pale beard, but his smile re-

mained. "The time of the Dawn Children ... is over," he rasped. There

was a humming sound. Suddenly, a half-dozen arrows stood in Ingen's

broad trunk, sprouting on all sides like hedgehog quills.

"Murder!"

It was Simon who shouted this time. He leaped to his feet, his heartbeat

sounding loud as war-drums in his ears; he felt the whipsong breath

of the second volley of arrows as he ran forward toward the huntsman. He

swung the heavy stone which he had clutched for so long.

"Seaman! No!" shouted Jinki.

The huntsman slid to his knees, but remained upright. "Your witch . . .

is dead," he panted. He raised a hand toward the approaching Simon.

"The sun is setting ..."

More arrows leaped across the Yasira and Ingen Jegger slowly topped to

the ground.

Hatred burst out like a flame in Simon's heart as he stood over the

huntsman, and he raised the stone high in the air. Ingen Jegger's face was

still frozen in an exultant grin, and for the thinnest moment his pale blue

eyes locked with Simon's. An instant later Ingen's face disappeared in a

smash of red and the huntsman's body was rolled across the ground by the

force of the blow. Simon clambered after him with a wordless cry of rage,

all his pent frustration flooding out in a maddening surge.

They've taken everything jrom me. They laughed at me. Everything.

The fury turned into a kind of wild glee. He felt strength flowing through

him. At last! He brought the rock down upon Ingen's head, lifted it and

smashed it down again, then over and over uncontrollably until hands pulled

him away from the body and he slid down into his own red darkness.

Khendraja'aro brought him toJiriki. The prince's uncle, as all the other

citizens ofJao e-Tunukai'i, was dressed in dark mourning gray. Simon,

564

Tad Williams

too, wore pants and shirt of that color, brought to him by a subdued

Aditu the day after the burning of the Yasira

Jinki was staying m a house not his own, a dwelling of pink, yellow,

and pale brown circular tents that Simon thought looked like giant bee-

hives. The Sitha-woman who lived there was a healer, Aditu had cold

him The healer was taking care thatJinki's bums were given proper care

Kehndraja'aro, his face a stiff, heavy mask, left Simon at the house's

wind-whipped entranceway and departed without a word Simon entered

as Aditu had directed and found himself in a darkened room lit only by a

single dim globe on a wooden stand Jinki was propped up m a great bed

His hands lay upon his chest, bandaged with strips of silky cloth The

Sitha's face was shiny with some oily substance, which served only to

accentuate his otherworldly appearance Jinki's skin was blackened in

many places, and his eyebrows and some of his long hair had been

scorched away, but Simon was relieved to see chat the Prince did not seem

badly scarred

"Seoman," Jinki said, and showed a trace of smile

"How are you?" Simon asked shyly. "Are you hurting7"

The prince shook his head. "I do noc suffer much, not from these bums,

Seoman. In my family we are made of stern stuffas you may remember

from our first meeting." Jinki looked him up and down "And how is

your own health?"

Simon felt awkward. "I'm well " He paused. "I'm so sorry." Facing the

calm figure before him, he was ashamed by his own ammahty, ashamed to

have become a screaming brute before the eyes of all That memory had

weighed heavily on him in the days just passed. "It was all my fault "

Jinki hastened to raise his hand, then eased it back down, conceding

only a small gnmace of pain. "No, Seoman, no. You have done nothing

for which you should apologize. That was a day of terror, and you have

suffered far too many of those."

"It's not that," Simon said miserably. "He followed me' Ingen Jegger

said he followed me to find First Grandmother' I led her murderer here."

Jinki shook his head. "This was planned for some time, Seoman.

Believe me, the Red Hand could not lightly send one of their own into the

fastness ofJao e-Tunukai'i, even for the few moments it lasted. Ineluki is

not yet so strong. That was a well-conceived attack, one long considered

It took a great deal of power from both Utuk'ku and the Storm King to

accomplish it.

"Do you think it a coincidence that First Grandmother should be

silenced by Utuk'ku just before she could reveal Ineluki's design5 That the

Red Hand creature should force its way through JUSC then, at a tremendous

expense of spell-bought strength5 And do you think the huntsman Ingen

wasjust wandering in the wood and suddenly decided to kill Amerasu the

Ship-Born5 No, I do not think so. eitheralthough it is true that he may

STONE OF FAREWELL565

have stumbled on your trail before Aditu brought you here. Ingen Jegger

was no fool, and it would have been far easier for him to track a mortal

than one of us, but he would have found his way into Jao e-Tunukai'i

somehow Who can know how long he waited beyond the Summer Gate

once he had found it, waiting for his mistress to set him upon her enemies

atjust the right moment? It was a war plan, Seoman, precise and more than

a little desperate. They must have feared First Grandmother's wisdom

very much."

Jinki lifted his bandaged hand to his face, touching it for a moment to

his forehead. "Do not take the blame upon yourself, Seoman. Amerasu's

death was ordained in the black pits below Nakkigaor perhaps even when

the Two Families parted at Sesuad'ra, thousands of years ago. We are a

race that nurses its hurts a long time in silence You were not at fault."

"But why15" Simon wanted to believe Jirki's words, but the horrible

sense of loss that had threatened to overwhelm him several times already

that morning would not go away.

"Why5 Because Amerasu had seen into Ineluki's secret heartand who

would have been better able to do chat than she? She had discovered his

design at last and was going to reveal it to her people. Now, we may

never knowor perhaps we will understand only when Ineluki sees fit to

display it in all its inevitability." Weanness seemed to wash through him.

"By our Grove, Seoman, we have lost so much! Not only Amerasu's

wisdom, which was great, but we have also lost our last link with the

Garden. We are truly unhomed " He lifted his eyes to the billowing

ceiling, so that his angular face was bathed in pale yellow light. "The

Hernystin had a song of her, you know:

"Snow-white breast, lady of the foaming sea,

She is the light that shines by night

Until even the stars are drunken ..."

Jink) took a careful breath to ease his scorched throat. A look of

surpnsing fury contorted his normally placid face "Even from the place

where Ineluki lives, from beyond deathhow could he send a stranger to kill

his mother'?"

"What will we do? How can we fight him?"

"That is not for you to worry about, Seoman Snowlock "

"What do you mean5" Simon restrained his anger. "How can you say

that to me? After all we've both seen?"

"I did not mean it in the way it sounded, Seoman." The Sitha smiled m

self-mockery "I have lost even the basest elements of courtesy. Forgive

me."

Simon saw that he was actually waiting. "Of course, Jinki. Forgiven "

"I mean only that we Zida'ya have our own councils to keep My father

566 Tad Williams

Shima'onari is badly wounded and Likimeya my mother must call the folk

togetherbut not at che Yasira. I think we will never meet in that place

again. Did you know, Seoman, that the great tree was burned white as

snow? Did you not have a dream once about such a thing?" Jinki cocked

his head, his gaze full of subtle light. "Ah, forgive me again. I wander in

thought and forget the important things Has anyone told you? Likimeya

has decreed that you will go."

"Go? Leave Jao c-Tinukai'i?" The rush of joy was accompanied by an

unexpected current of regret and anger. "Why now?"

"Because it was Amerasu's last wish. She told my parents before the

gathering began. But why do you sound so unsettled? You will go back to

your own people. It is for the best, in any case. We Zida'ya must mourn

the loss of our eldest, our best. This is no place for mortals, nowand it is

what you wanted, is it not? To go back to your folk?"

"But you can't just close yourselves off and turn away! Not this time!

Didn't you hear Amcrasu? We all have to fight the Storm King! It is

cowardice not Co!" Her stern, soft face was suddenly before him again, at

least in memory. Her magnificently knowing eyes . , .

"Calm yourself, young friend," Jinki said with a tight, angry smile.

"You are full of good intentions, but you do not know enough to speak so

forcefully." His expression softened. "Fear not, Seoman. Things are chang-

ing. The Hikeda'ya have killed our eldest, struck her down in our own

sacred house. They have crossed a line that cannot be recrossed. Perhaps

they meant to, but that matters less than the fact that it has happened.

That is another reason for you to leave, manchild. There is no place for

you in the war councils of the Zida'ya."

"Then you're going to fight^" Simon felt a sudden pinch of hope at his

heart.

Jinki shrugged. "Yes, I think sobut how or when is not for me to

say."

"It's all so much," Simon murmured. "So fast."

"You must go, young friend. Aditu will return soon from attending my

parents. She will take you to where you can find your folk. It is best done

swiftly, since it is not usual for Shima'onari or Likimeya to undo their

own Words of Decree. Go. My sister will come to you at my house by the

nver." Jinki leaned down and lifted something from the mossy floor.

"And do not forget to take your mirror, my friend." He smiled slyly.

"You may need to call me again, and I still owe you a life."

Simon took the gleaming thing and slid it into his pocket. He hesitated,

then leaned forward and carefully wrapped his arms around Jinki, trying

not to touch his burns as he gently embraced him- The Sithi prince

touched Simon's check with his cool lips.

"Go in peace, Seoman Snowlock. We will meet again. That is a promise."

"Farewell, Jinki." He turned and marched swiftly away without look-

STONE OF FAREWELL567

ing back. He slowed his pace after he stumbled once in the winding

hallway, a long, wmd-nppled tunnel the color of sand.

Outside, immersed in a swirl of confused thoughts, Simon suddenly

realized chat he was feeling a curious chill. Looking up, he saw chat the

summery skies over Jao e-Tinukai'i had darkened, taking on a more

somber hue. The breeze was colder than any he had ever felt there before.

The summer is fading, he thought, and was frightened again. I don't think

they'll ever get it back.

Suddenly all his petty anger toward the Sithi evaporated and a great,

heavy sorrow for them overtook him. Whatever else was here, [here was

also beauty unseen since the world was young, long preserved against the

killing frosts of time. Now the walls were tumbling down before a great,

wmtery wind. Many exquisite things might be ravaged beyond reclaiming.

He hurried along the nverbank toward Jinki's house.

^

The joumey out of Jao e-Tinukai'i passed swiftly for Simon, dim and

slippery as a dream. Adieu sang in her family's tongue and Simon held her

hand tightly as the forest shimmered and changed around them. They

walked out of cool grayish-blue skies into the very jaws of winter, which

had lain in wait like a stalking beast.

Snow covered the forest floor, a blanket so thick and cold that it was

hard for Simon Co remember that Jao e-Tinukai'i itself had not been

covered, that in chat one place winter was still held at bay: here outside

the magical circle of the Zida'ya, the Storm King's handiwork was so

terribly real. But now, he realized, even that circle had been broken.

Blood had been spilled in the very heart of summer.

They walked through the morning and early afternoon, gradually leav-

ing the densest part of the woods and moving toward the forest fringe-

Aditu answered Simon's few questions, but neither had the strength for

much talk, as though the awful cold had withered the affection that had

once flowered between them. As uncomfortable as her presence had often

made him, still Simon was saddened, but the world had changed some-

how and he had no more strength to struggle. He let the winter world

flow over him like a dream, and did not think.

They walked for some hours beside a swift river, following it until they

reached a long gentle slope. Before them lay a vast body of water, as gray

and mysterious as an alchemist's bowl. A shadowed, tree-covered hill

jutted from it like a dark pestle.

"There is your destination, Seoman," Aditu said abruptly. "That is

Sesuad'ra."

"The Stone of Farewell?"

Aditu nodded. "The Leavetaking Stone."

568 Tad Williams

The abstraction finally made real, Simon felt as though he were step-

ping from one dream into another. "But how will I get there? Am I

supposed to swim?"

Aditu said nothing, but led him down the slope to where the river

rushed into the gray water, spilling across the rocks with a roar. A little

distance along the shoreline, out of the way of the river's turbulent inflow,

a small, silvery boat bobbed at anchor. "Once every hundred or so

winters," she said, "when the rams are particularly fierce, the lands around

Sesuad'ra floodalthough this is certainly the first time it has ever hap-

pened when Reniku the Summer-Lantern was in the sky." She turned

away, unwilling to share thoughts written on her face so that even a

mortal could understand. "We keep these hiyanhathese boatshere and

there, so that Sesuad'ra will not be denied to those who wish to visit it."

Simon put his hand on the little boat, feeling the smooth grain of the

wood beneath his fingers. A paddle of the same silvery stuff lay in the

hull. "And you're sure that's where I go?" he asked, suddenly unwilling to

say good-bye.

Aditu nodded. "Yes, Seoman." She shrugged off the bag she had been

carrying on her shoulder and handed it to him. "This is for youno," she

corrected herself, "not for you. It is for you to take to your Prince Josua,

from Amerasu. She said she believed he would know what to do with

itif not now, then soon."

"Amerasu? She sent this. . . ?"

Aditu put a hand on his cheek. "Not exactly, Seoman. First Grand-

mother had asked me to take it if your imprisonment did not end. Since

you have been released, I give it to you." She stroked his face. "I am glad

for your sake that you are free. It pained me to see you so unhappy. It was

good to know of youa rare thing." She leaned forward and kissed him-

Despite all that had happened, he still felt a quickening of his heart as her

mouth touched his. Her lips were warm and dry and tasted of mint.

Adieu stepped away. "Farewell, Snowlock. I must go back and mourn."

Before he could even lift his hand to wave, she turned and disappeared

among the trees. He watched for some moments, looking for some sign of

her slender form, but she was gone. He turned and clambered into the

small boat and set the sack she had given him down in the hull. It was of

good weight, but he was too weary and sore-hearted even to look at what

might be inside. He thought it might be peaceful to fall asleep here in the

boat, at the edge of the great forest. It would be a blessing to sleep and not

wake for a year and a day. Instead, he picked up his paddle and pushed

himself out onto the still water.

The afternoon fell away and the deep chill of evening came on. As

Simon floated toward the growing shadow of Sesuad'ra, he felt the

silence of the winter world envelop him, until he thought he might be the

only living, moving thing upon the face ofOsten Ard.

STONE OF FAREWELL

569

For a long time he did not notice that there were torches bobbing before

him on the twilit shoreline. When he saw them at last, he was already

close enough to hear the voices. His arms were cold and numb. He felt as

though he had no more strength left to paddle, but managed to push

himself a few last strokes, until a large, splashing shapeSludig?waded

out from the rocky verge and pulled him into shore. He was lifted from

the boat and half-carried up the bank, then surrounded by an army of

torchht, laughing faces. They seemed familiar, but the sensation of dream

was upon him again. It was not until he saw the smallest figure that he

remembered where he was. He staggered forward and swept Binabik into

his arms, crying unashamedly.

"Simon-friend!" Binabik chortled, thumping him on the back with his

small hands. "Qmklpa is good! Joyful! This is joyful! In the days since I

was coming here I had almost lost my hope to see you."

Simon wept, unable to speak. At last, when he had cried himself dry, he set

the little man down. "Binabik," he said, voice raw. "Oh, Binabik. I have

seen terrible things."

"Not now, Simon, not now." The troll took his hand firmly. "Come.

Come up to the hilltop. Fires have been built there and I am sure there is

something cooking. Come."

The little man led him- The crowd of familiar strangers fell in behind,

talking and laughing among themselves. The flames of the torches hissed

beneath a soft fall of snow, and sparks rose into the sky to drift and fade.

Soon one of them began to sing, a good, homely sound. As darkness crept

over the drowned valley, the sweet, clear vo'ce rose -hi-ough the trees and

echoed out over the black water.

Appendix

^

PEOPLE

ERKYNLANDERS

BamabasHayholt chapel sexton

BreyugarCount of the Westfold, Lord Constable of the Hayholt under

Elias

ColmundCamaris' squire, later baron of Rodstanby

Deomoth, SirJosua's knight, sometimes called "Prince's Right Hand*'

Eahlstan FiskerneFisher King, first Erkynlandish master of Hayholt

EliasHigh King, Prester John's eldest son, Josua's brother

Ethelbearnsoldier, Simon's companion on Journey from Naghmund

FengbaldEarl of Falshire

Gamwoldsoldier dead from Norn attack in Aldheorte

GodwigBaron of Cellodshirc

Grimmricsoldier, Simon's companion on journey from Naglimund

GuthwulfEarl of Utanyeat, High King's Hand

HaestanNaglimund guardsman, Simon's companion

Hclfcene, FatherChancellor of Hayholt

Helmfestsoldier, part of company that escaped Naglimund

Hepzibahcastle chambermaid

leldaFalshire woman, Gadrinsett squatter

Inchfoundry-master, once Doctor Morgenes' assistant

Jack Mundwodemythical forest bandit

Jaelcastle chambermaid

Jakobcastle chandler

Jeremiaschandler's boy

[ohnKing John Presbyter, High King

(osuaPrince, John's younger son, lord of Naglimund, called "Lackhand"

JudithCook and Kitchen Mistress

LangrianHoderundian monk

LeiethMiriamele's handmaiden

574 Tad Williams

Malachiasone of Minamclc's disguise names

Maryaone of Minamele's disguise names

Master of ScullionsSimon's Hayholt master

Minamcle, PrincessEllas' only child

Morgenes, DoctorScrollbearcr, KingJohn's castle doctor, Simon's friend

Osgalone ofMundwodc's mythical band

OstraelNaglimund pikeman, son ofFirsfram ofRunchester

RachelMistress of Chambermaids, called "The Dragon"

Ruben the Bearcastle smith

SangfugolJosua's harper

Sarrahcastle chambermaid

Shem Horscgroomcastle groom

Simona castle scullion, given name "Seoman" at birth

Strangycard, FatherArchivist of Naglimund

Towserjester (original name Cruinh)

HERNYSTIRI

AmoranHernystin minstrel

Bagba Cattle God

Brymoch of the SkiesSky God

Cadrach-ec-Crannhyr, Brothermonk of indeterminate Order

Craobhanold knight, advisor to King Lluth

Cuairih EarthdogHernystin god of the earth, patron deity of miners

EolairCount of Nad Mullach, emissary of King Lluth

Gealsgialhship's captain, called "Old"

GwythmnPrince, Lluth's son, Macgwin's half-brother

HernFounder of Hcrnystir

InahwenLluth's third wife

Lluth-ubh-LlythmnKing of Hernystir

Maegwin, PrincessLluth's daughter, Gwythmn's half-sister

MirchaRam Goddess, wife ofBrynioch

Mullachiresidents ofEolair's holding, Nad Mullach

Murhagh One-Arma god

Rhynn of the Cauldrona god

SmnachPrince, Battle ofAch Samrath war-leader, also at the Knock

RIMMERSMEN

EinskaldirRimmersgard chieftain

ElvntFirst Osten Ard king ofRimmersmcn

STONE OF FAREWELL

575

Endechild at Skodi's

FmgilKing, first master ofHayholt, "Bloody King"

GutrunDuchess ofElvntshaIla, Isgrumnur's wife, Isorn's mother

HengfiskHodcrundian priest

HjeldinKing, Fmgil's son, "Mad King"

IngenJeggerBlack Rimmersman, master of Norn hounds

IsbeornIsgnmnur's father, first Rimmersgard duke under John, also his

son's pseudonym

IsgnmnurDuke of Elvntshalla, Gutrun's husband

IsornIsgnmnur's and Gutrun's son

JamaugaScrollbcarer from Tungoldyr

Nisse(Nisscs) Hjeldm's priest-helper, author ofDu Svardenvyrd

SkaliThane of Kaldskryke, railed "Sharp-nose"

SkendiSaint, founder of abbey

Skodiyoung Rimmerswoman at Gnnsaby

Sludigyoung soldier, Simon's companion

StorfotThane of Vestvennby

TonnrudThane of Skoggey, Duchess Gutrun's uncle

UdunAncient Sky God

NABBANAI

Amtullesformer Imperator

Antippa, Ladydaughter ofLeobardis and Nessalanta

Ardnvislast Imperator, uncle ofCamans

Aspitis PrevesEarl ofDnna and Eadne

BemdnvineNabbanai noble house, kingfisher crest

BemgansDuke ofNabban, son ofLeobardis and Nessalanta

Camans-sa-Vimttabrother ofLeobardis, friend ofPresterJohn

ClaveanNabbanai noble house, pelican crest

Clavesformer Imperator

Crexis the Goatformer Imperator

DimvanLector Ranessin's secretary

DomitisBishop of Saint Sutnn's cathedral in Erchester

Elysiamother of Usires

Emettmlegendary knight

Fluiren, Sirfamous Johannme knight of disgraced Sulian House

HylissaMinamele's late mother, Ellas' wife, Nessalanta's sister

Ingadannenoble family, albatross house-crest

Larexes IIIformer Lector of Mother Church

LeobardisDuke ofNabban, father ofBenigans, Varellan, Antippa

NessalantaDuchess of Nabban, Bemgans' mother, Minamele's aunt

NeylmSeptes' companion

576 Tad Williams

Nuanni (Nuannis)ancient sea god of Nabban

Pelippa, Saintnoblewoman from Book ofAedon, called "Pelippa of the

Island"

Prevannoble family, osprey house-crest (ocher and black)

Pryrates, Fatherpriest, alchemist, wizard, Ellas' counselor

Ranessin, Lector(born Oswine of Stanshire, an Erkynlander) Head of

Church

RhiappaSaint, called "Rhiap" in Erkynland

RovallesSeptes' companion

Septesmonk from abbey near Lake Myrme

Sulis, LordHayholt's "Heron King" sometimes known as Sulis the

Apostate: Nabbanai nobleman, founder of Sulian House, of which Sir

Flmren is best-known descendenc

ThuresAspitis' young page

Tiyagarisfirst Imperator

Usires AedonAedonite religion's Son of God

VelligisEscritor

SITHI

Aditudaughter ofLikimeya and Shima'onari, Jiriki's sister

Amerasu y'Senditu no'e-Sa'onsereimother oflneluki and Hakatn, Jiriki's

great-grandmother, also known as "Amerasu Ship-Born" and "First

Grandmother"

An'naiJiriki's lieutenant, hunting companion

Cloud-songcharacter in Aditu's song

Gardenbornall those whose roots can be traced to Venyha Do'sae, the

"Garden"

HakatriIneluki's elder brother, gravely wounded by dragon Hidohebhi,

vanished into West

InelukiPrince, now Storm King

lyu'unigacoEri-king, Ineluki's father

Jiriki, (i-Sa'onserei)Prince, son of Shimao'anari and Likimeya<

Kendhraja'aroJiriki's uncle

Kmshapocompanion of Simon and Jiriki on trip to Urmsheim

Lady Silver Mask and Lord Red EyesSkodi's names for Utuk'ku and

Ineluki

Lantern-bearercharacter in Aditu's song

LikimeyaQueen of the Dawn-Children, Lady of the House of Year-

Dancing

Maye'saSitha woman

MezumiiruSithi Sedda (Moon Goddess)

Nenais'uSithi woman from An'nai's song, lived in Enki-e-Shao'saye

S10NE OF FAREWELL577

RabbitJiriki's name for Aditu

SendituAmerasu's mother

Shima'onariKing of the Zida'ya, Lord ofJao c-Tunukai'i

Sijandicompanion of Simon andJinki on trip to Urmsheim

Sky-singercharacter in Aditu's song

Stone-listenercharacter in Aditu's song

Utuk'ku Seyt-HamakhaQueen of the Norns, mistress ofNakkiga

Vmdaomeyo the Fletcherancient Sithi arrow-maker ofTumet'ai

Willow-switchAditu's name forJinki

Wind-childcharacter in Aditu's song

Woman-with-a-netcharacter in Aditu's song (probably Mezumiiru)

QANUC

Binabik(Binbiniqcgabenik) Ookequk's apprentice, Simon's friend

Chukkulegendary troll hero

Kikkasutking of birds, husband ofScdda

Lmgitlegendary son of Sedda, father ofQanuc and men

MakuhkuyaQanuc avalanche goddess

Morag EyelessDeath god

Nunuuikathe Huntress

OokequkSinging Man of Mintahoq tribe, Bmabik's master

Qangolikthe Spirit Caller

Qinklpa of the Snowssnow and cold goddess

Seddamoon goddess, wife of Kikkasut

Sisqi(Sisqmanamook) youngest daughter of Herdcr and Huntress,

Bmabik's betrothed

Snenneqherd-chief of Lower Chugik, part ofSisql's party

Uammannaqthe Herder

Yanalegendary daughter of Sedda, mother of Sithi

THRITHINGS-FOLK

Blehmuntchieftain Fikolmij killed to become March-thane

Clan MehrdonVorzheva's clan (Stallion Clan)

FikolmiJVorzheva's father, March-thane of Clan Mehrdon and all the

High Thnthings

HotvigHigh Thnthings randwarder

HyaraVorzheva's young sister

KunretHigh Thn things-man

OzhbernHigh Thnthings-man

578 Tad Williams

The Four-FootedThnthmgs clan-oath (refers to the Stalhon)

The Grass ThundererThnthmgs clan-oath (refers to the Stalhon)

UtvartThnthings-man who wished to wed Vorzheva

VorzhevaJosua's companion, daughter of a Thrithmgs-chief

WRANNAMEN

He Who Always Steps on SandWran god

He Who Bends the TreesWran weather god

Older MogahibWrannman elder

Roahogpotter, Wrannaman elder

She Who Birched Mankindgoddess

She Who Waits to Take All BackWran death goddess

They Who Breathe DarknessWran gods

They Who Watch and ShapeWran gods

Tiamakscholar, correspondent of Morgenes

TugumakTiamak's father

PERDRUINESE

AlespoStreawe's servant

Cealliodoor-keeper at inn called Pelippa's Bowl

CharystraXorastra's niece, innkeeper of Pelippa's Bowl

LentiStreawe's servant, also known as "Avi Stetto"

Middastntrader, friend of Tiamak

Smetrisboatman living on coast above Wran

Streawe, CountLord of Ansis Pehppe and all Perdrum

Talhstro, SirJohannme knight of Great Table

Xorastraproprietress of Peltppa's Bowl

OTHERS

Gan ItaiNiskie, kilpa-smger on Eadne Cloud

Honsaa Hyrka girl, one of Skodi's children

Imai-ana dwarrow

Lightless Onesdwellers in Stormspike

Ruyan Vealso known as Ruyan the Navigator, led Tmukeda'ya (and

others) to Osten Ard

Sho-vennaea dwarrow

STONE OF FAREWELL579

VrenHyrka boy

Yis-fidna dwarrow, Yis-hadra's husband, keeper of Pattern Hall

Yis-hadraa dwarrow, Yis-fidn's wife, keeper of Pattern Hall

PLACES

AbamgeatHernystm trading port, on Barraillcan River at coast

Aldheortelarge forest covering much of Central Osten Ard

Amtullean Roadmain road into Nabban from east through Commeis

Valley

Ansis Pehppecapital and largest city of Pcrdruin

Asu'a the Eastward-LookingSithi name for Hayholt

Bacea-sa-Repraharbor town on northern coast of Nabban, in Bay of

Emettin, means "River-mouth "

Bampha-sha-zethe Pattern Hall in Mezutu'a

Barailleanriver on border ofHcmystir and Erkynland, called "Greenwade"

in Erkynland

Bay of Emettinbay north of Nabban

Bay ofFirannosbay south of Nabban, location of "Southern Islands"

BellidanNabannai town on Amtullean Road, in Commeis Valley

Blue Mud LakeLake at eastern base ofTrollfells, summer home ofQanuc

CelhdshireErkyniandish barony west ofGlemwent

Chidsik Uh LingitQanuc's "House of the Ancestor," on Mintahoq in

Yiqanuc

Commeis ValleyOpening to Nabban

Crannhyrwalled city on Hcrnystin coast

Da'ai Chikiza"Tree of the Singing Winds," abandoned Sithi city on east

side ofWealdhelm, in Aldheorte

Dillathihilly region ofHcmystir, southwest ofHernysadharc

Dnnaformer barony ofDevasalles, given to Aspitis Preves by Bcnigans

Enki-e-Shao 'wyeSithi "Summer-City" east ofAidheortc, long-ruined

Feathered Eeltavern on Vimtta

FeluweltThnthmgs name for part of northern meadowlands in shadow

of Aldheorte

Gadnnsettsquatter town near juncture ofSteffIod and Ymstrecca, settled

by refugees from Erkynland

Garden that it VanishedVenyha Do'sae

Gate of Rainsentrance tojao e-Tmukai'i

Grams Sacranatown in Nabban's Commeis valley

580 Tad Williams

GratuvaskRimmersgard river that runs by Elvritshalla

Grenammansouthern island off tip ofNabban

Grinsabytown in White Waste north of Aldheorte

Harborstonea rocky promontory in Perdruin's Ansis Pelippe

Hasu Valevalley on Erkynland's eastern borders

Hewenshirenorthern Erkynlandish town west ofNaglimund

Hikehikayoabandoned dwarrow city beneath Rimmersgard's Vestivegg

Mountains, also one of Sithi Nine Cities

Huelheimmythical land of the dead from old Rimmersgard religion

Jao e-Tinukai'iBoat on [the] Ocean [of] Trees", only still-thriving Sithi

settlement, in Aldheorte

jhind-T'seneione of Sithi Nine Cities, now beneath ocean

Kementarione of Sithi Nine Cities, apparently on or near Warinsten

Khandiamythical ancient empire in far south

Kwatiitupu!large city on edge ofWran

Lake CloduNabbanai lake, scene of Battle of the Lakelands, Thrithings

War

Lake EadneNabbanai lake, part of fiefdom of Prevan House

Lake MyrmeNabbanai lake

Little Nosealso known as "Yamok," mountain in Yiqanuc where Binabik's

parents died

Mesutu'adwarrow-occupied city beneath Hemystir's Grianspog Moun-

tains, one of Sithi Nine Cities

Pelippa's Bowlinn at Kwanitupul

NaarvedRimmersgard city

Nakkiga"Mask of Tears," ruined Nom city beside Stormspike, also

rebuilt Nom city inside mountain. Old version was one of the Nine

Cities

Ogohak Chasmdeep place on Mintahoq where criminals are excecuted

Old Tumet'ai Roadroad that runs south across White Waste from ancient

site of Tumet'ai

Pattern Halldwarrow place of maps and charts recorded on stone

Pelippa's Bowlinn at Kwanitupul

Place of Echoessacred spot on Mintahoq

Red Dolphin, Thetavern in Ansis Pellipe

Re Suri'eniSithi name for river running through Shisae'ron

Sancellan Aedonitispalace of Lector and chief place ofAedonite Church

Sancellan Mahistrevisformer Imperial palace, now palace of Nabban's

duke

Sanceiline Hilllargest hill in Nabban, site of both Sancellans

Sesuad'raStone of Farewell, site of the parting of Sithi and Nom.

Shao IriguSithi name for Summer Gate

Shisae'ronSithi name for southwestern realm of Aldheorte forest

Site of Witnessarena in Mezutu'a where Shard stands

STONE OF FAREWELL581

SkoggeyRimmersgard freehold, home of Thane Tonnrud

Sovebekabandoned town in White Waste, east of St. Skendi's monastery

Sta Mirorecentral mountain ofPerdruin, also called "Streawe's Steeple"

StejJIodriver running beside and within Aldheorte's border, joins with

the Ymstrecca

Stormspikemountain home of Noms, "Sturmrspeik" to Rimmersmen,

also called "Nakkiga"

Summer Gatean entrance to Jao e-Tinukai'i, also called "Shao Irigu"

Teliguregrape-growing town in northern Nabban

Tumet'ainorthern Sithi city, buried under ice east of Yiqanuc, one of the

Nine Cities

UmstrejhaThrithings name for Ymstrecca

Urmsheimdragon-mountain north of White Waste

Utanyeatearldom in northwestern Erkynland

Venyha Do'saeThe Garden, legendary home of the Zida'ya (Sithi),

Hikeda'ya (Norns), and Tinukeda'ya (dwarrows and Niskies)

VihyuyaqQanuc name for Stormspike

Village GroveTiamak's home village in Wran

Vinittasouthern island, birthplace of Camaris and Benidrivine House

Warinstenisland off coast of Erkynland, birthplace of King John

Way of the Fountainsscenic spot in city ofNabban

White Wayroad along northern edge of Aldheorte Forest, in White

Waste

WuljholtGuthwulfs freehold in Utanyeat

YijarjukQanuc name for Urmsheim

YdsiraSithi meeting-place in Jao e-Tinukai'i

Ymstreccawest-east river through Erk. and High Thrithings

Zae-y'miritha, Catacombs ofcaverns apparently built or modified by

dwarrows

CREATURES

AlarmCamaris' horse

BukkenRimmersgard name for diggers; also called "Boghanik" (Qanuc)

Crab-footone of Tiamak's pigeons

Diggerssmall, manlike subterranean creatures

Chantsunpleasant, chitinous, seemingly sentient Wran fauna

Giantslarge, shaggy, manlike creatures

HidohehhiBlack Worm, mother ofShuraka and Igjarjuk, slain by Ineluki;

also called "Drochnathair" (Hernystiri)

582

Tad Williams

HomefmderSimon's marc

Honey-loverone ofTiamak's pigeons

HunenRimmersgard name for giants

IgjarjukIce-worm of Urmsheim

Ink-daubone ofTiamak's pigeons

Khaerukama'o the Goldendragon, father ofHidohebhi

Kilpamanlike marine creatures

Niku'aIngen Jegger's lead hound

QantaqaBinabik's wolf companion

Red-eyeone ofTiamak's pigeons

Rimplow-horse

ShurakaiFire-drake slain beneath Hayholt, whose bones are Dragonbone

Chair

So-fastone ofTiamak's pigeons

Spitflysmall and unpleasant marsh insect

Stormspike PackNorn hunting dogs

VildalixDeornoth's horse, from Fikolmij

^rnyii/odjosua's horse, from Fikolmij

THINGS

Ballad of Round-Heeled Moirah, Thesong of questionable taste sung by

Sangfugol and Father Strangyeard

Battle ofHuhinka Valleybattle between trolls and Rimmersmen

Battle of the Lakelandspivotal battle ofThrithings War, fought at Lake Clodu

Boar and Spearsemblem of Guthwulf of Utanyeat

Bright-Nailsword of Prester John, containing nail from the Tree and

finger bone of Saint Eahlstan Fiskerne

Children of Hemdwarrow name for Hernystiri

Cintis-pieceNabbanai coinone hundredth of a gold Imperator

Cilrilsour, aromatic root for chewing

Conquerordicing game, popular with soldiers

Conqueror Star, Thea book of occult fact, in Nabbanai: "Sa Asdridan

Condiquilles"

Crookstar (possibly same as Sithi's "Luyasa's Staff')

Day of Weighing-OutAedonite day of final justice and end of the mortal

world

Days of Firepossibly very ancient era of Osten Ard (obscure reference by

Geloe)

STONE OF FAREWELL583

Du Svardenvyrdnear-mythical prophetical book by Nisses

Eadne CloudAspitis Preves' ship

Elysia Chapelfamous chapel in Saint Sutrin's church in Erchester

En Semblis Aedonitisfamous religious book about the philosophical un-

derpinnings of Aedonite religion and life of Usires

Fifty FamiliesNabbanai noble houses

Great TableKing John's assemblage of knights and heroes

House of Year-DancingWesterling translation ofJiriki's family name

Hunt'wineQanuc liquor (for special occasions, and mostly for women

only)

Ice HouseQanuc holy spot, where rituals are performed to insure coming

of Spring

Ilenitea costly, shimmery metal

IndrejuJiriki's witchwood sword

KangkangQanuc liquor

KraileSithi name for "sunfruits"

KvalnirIsgrimnur's sword

Lampstar (possibly same as Sithi's Reniku)

Leavetaking StoneHernystiri song about the Stone of Farewell

Loon, OtterWrannamen names for stars

Luyasa's Staff Sithi name for line of three stars in the sky's northeast

quadrant in early Yuven-month

Lutegrassa long grass

Mansa Connoyis"prayer of joining": wedding prayer

Mezumiiru's Netstar cluster; to Qanuc: Sedda's Blanket

Minneyariron sword of King Fingil, inherited through line ofElvrit

Minogedible plant with wide leaves, native to Wran

Mist Lampa Witness from Tumet' ai

Mockfoila flowering herb

NaidelJosua's sword

Navigator's ChildrenTinukeda'ya's name for themselves

OinduthHern's black spear

Pillar and Treeemblem of Mother Church

Poolapparently the Witness in old Asu'a

Quickweeda spice

Reniku, the Summer-LanternSithi name for star that signals ending of

summer

Rhynn's CauldronHernystiri battle-summoner

Rife of QuickeningQanuc ritual performed at Ice House to insure coming

of Spring

River-applemarsh fruit

Sand-palmmarsh tree

Shardthe Witness in Mezutu'a

ShentSithi game, reportedly brought from Venyha Do'sae

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Tad Williams

Silrerwwda wood favored by Sithi builders

Singing Harpthe Witness in Nakkiga, in Great Well

Six Son^s of Respectful Requesta Sithi ritual

Sorrowsword of iron and witchwood smithicd by Ineluki, gift to Elias.

To Sithi: "Jingizu"

Sotfenf;selElvrit's famous ship, buried at Skipphavven

Speakfirethe Witness in Hikehikayo

Starhloomssmall white flowers

Thornstar-sword of Camaris

Ti-tunofamed Sithi horn

Traveler's Rewardpopular brand of ale

Treethe Execution Tree, on which Usires was hung upside down before

temple ofYuvcnis in Nabban, now sacred symbol ofAedonite religion

Wind FestivalWrannaman celebration

Winter Lastdayday in Yiqanuc when Rite of Quickening is performed

Yethu'roola common herb used for tea in Wran (and elsewhere in south)

Knuckle BonesBinabik's auguring tools. Patterns include:

Wingless Bird

Fish-Spear

The Shadowed Path

Torch at the Cave-Mouth

Balking Ram

Clouds in the Pass

The Black Crevice

Unwrapped Dart

Circle of Stones

Holidays

Feycver 2Candlemansa

Marris 25Elysiamansa

Avrel 1All Fool's Day

Avrel 3f)Stoning Night

Maia 1Belthainn Day

Yuven 23Midsummer's Eve

Tiyagar 15Saint Sutrin's Day

Anitui 1Hiafmansa

Scptander 29Saint Grams' Day

Octander 30Harrows Eve

Novander 1Soul's Day

Decandcr 21Saint Tunath's Day

Decander 24Aedonmansa

STONE OF FAREWELL

585

Months

Jonever, Feycver, Marris, Avrel, Maia, Yuven, Tiyagar, Anitui, Septander,

Octander, Novander, Decander

Days of the Week

Sunday, Moonday, Tiasday. Udunsday, Drorsday, Frayday, Satrinsday

A GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION

ERKYNLANDISH

Erkynlandish names are divided into two types, Old Erkynlandish (O.E.)

and Warinstenner. Those names which are based on types from Prester

John's native island of Warinsten (mostly the names of castle servants or

John's immediate family) have been represented as variants on Biblical

names (EliasElijah, EbekahRebecca, etc.) Old Erkynlandish names

should be pronounced like modern English, except as follows:

aalways ah, as in "father"

aeay of "say"

ck as in "keen"

eai as in "air," except at the end of names, when it is also sounded,

but with an eh or uh sound, i.e., Hruse "Rooz-uh"

easounds as a in "mark," except at beginning of word or name,

where it has the same value as ae

galways hard^, as in "glad"

hhard h of "help"

ishort i of "in"

jhardj" of "jaw"

olong but soft o, as in "orb"

uoo sound of "wood," never yoo as in "music"

HERNYSTIRI

The Hernystiri names and words can be pronounced in largely the same

way as the O.E., with a few exceptions:

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Tad Williams

thalways the th in "other," never as in "thing"

cha guttural, as in Scottish "loch"

ypronounce yr like "beer," ye like "spy"

hunvoiced except at beginning of word or after t or c

eay as in "ray"

//same as single 1: LluthLuth

RIMMERSPAKK

Names and words in Rimmerspakk differ from O.E. pronunciation in the

following:

jpronounced y: JamaugaYarnauga; HjeldinHyeldin (H nearly si-

lent here)

eilong i as in "crime"

eee, as in "sweet"

ooo, as m "coop"

auow, as in "cow"

NABBANAI

The Nabbanai language holds basically to the rules of a romance language,

i.e., the vowels are pronounced "ah-eh-ih-oh-ooh," the consonants arc all

sounded, etc. There are some exceptions.

imost names take emphasis on second to last syllable: Ben-i-GAR-is.

When this syllable has an i, it is sounded long (Ardrivis: Ar-DRY-vis)

unless it comes before a double consonant (Antippa; An-TIHP-pa)

eat end of name, es is sounded long: GellesGel-leez

yis pronounced as a long i, as in "mild"

QANUC

Troll-language is considerably different than the other human languages.

There are three hard "k" sounds, signified by: c, cj, and k. The only

difference intelligible to most non-Qanuc is a slight clucking sound on the

q, but it is not to be encouraged in beginners. For our purposes, all three

will sound with the k of "keep." Also, the Qanuc u is pronounced uh, as

in "bug." Other interpretations are up to the reader, but he or she will not

go far wrong pronouncing phonetically.

STONE OF FAREWELL587

SITHI

Even more than the language of Yiqanuc, the language of the Zida'ya is

virtually unpronounceable by untrained tongues, and so is easiest rendered

phonetically, since the chance of any of us being judged by experts is

slight (but not nonexistent, as Binabik learned). These rules may be

applied, however.

twhen the first vowel, pronounced ih, as in "clip." When later in

word, especially at end, pronounced ee, as in "fleet": JirikiJih-REE-kee

aipronounced like long (", as in "time"

' (apostrophe)represents a clicking sound, and should not be voiced

by mortal readers.

EXCEPTIONAL NAMES

GeloeHer origins arc unknown, and so is the source of her name. It is

pronounced "Juh-LO-ee" or "Juh-LOY." Both are correct.

Ingenje^gerHe is a Black Rimmersman, and the "J" inJegger is sounded,

just as in "jump."

MiriameleAlthough born in the Erkynlandish court, hers is a Nabbanai

name that developed a strange pronunciationperhaps due to some

family influence or confusion of her dual heritageand sounds as

"Mih-rce-uh-M EL."

VorzhewA Thrithings-woman, her name is pronounced "Vor-SHAY-va,"

with the zh sounding harshly, like the Hungarian 2-5-

WORDS AND PHRASES

HERNYSTIRI

Domhaini"dwarrows"

Goirach"mad" or "wild'

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Isgbahta"fishing boat"

Sithi"Peaceful Ones"

NABBANAI

Duos Onenpondensis, Feata Voruin Lexeran!"God All-Powerful, let

this be Your law!"

Duos wulstei"God willing"

En Semblis Aedonitis"In the likeness of the Aedon"

Escritor"Writer": one of a group of advisors to lector

Lector"Speaker": head of Church

Sa Asdridan Condiquilles"The Conqueror Star"

Veir Maynis"Great Green," the ocean

PERDRUINESE

Avi stetto"I have a knife."

Ohe, vo stetto"Yes, he has a knife."

QANUC

Aia"back" (Hinik Aia=get back)

Boghanik"diggers" (Bukken)

Chash"true" or "correct"

Chok"run"

Crookhok"Rimmersman"

Croohokuqplural of Croohok"Rimmersmen"

Guyop"Thank you"

Hinik"go" or "get away"

Mosoq"find"

Muqang"enough"

Nihut"attack"

Ninit"come"

Sosa"come" (stronger than "Ninit")

Ummu"now"

Utku"lowlanders"

RIMMERSPAKK

Dverning'' dwarrow"

Gjal es, kunden!roughly "Leave it alone, children!"

Haja"yes"

Halad, kunde!"Stop, child!"

Kunde-manne"man-child"

STONE OF FAREWELL589

Rimmersmanne"Rimmersman"

Vacr"beware"

Vjer sommen marroven"We arc friends"

SITHI (AND NORN)

Ai, Nakkiga, o'do 'tkc stazho(Norn) "Ah, Nakkiga, I've failed you"

Asu'a"Looking eastward"

Hiyanha"pilgrimage boats"

Hikcda'ya"Children of Cloud": Norns

Hikeda'yeisecond-person plural of'Hikeda'ya""You Norns!"

Hikka"Bearer"

Isi-isi'ye-a Sudhoda'ya"It is indeed a mortal"

J'asu pra-pcroihin!"shame of my house'"

Rasterm of respect: "sir" or "noble sir"

Ruakha"dying"

S'hucroughly "lord"

Ske'i"stop"

Staja Ame"White Arrow"

Sudhoda'ya"Sunset-children": Mortals

Venyha s'anh!"By the Garden!"

Yinva(Norn) "come"

Zida'ya"Children of Dawn": Sithi