Stone of Farewell (Memory, Sorrow & Thorn, #2)

by Tad Williams

I’m in a sort of story, just like Jiriki said. A story like Shem used to tell—or 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. …

It was really quite startling, Simon thought, how everything was part of something else! But though the world was vast beyond comprehension, still every mote of life in it fought for its own continued existence. And each mote mattered.

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. …

“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 find what you need to furnish it—memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey …”

“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.

“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.”

“Sometimes you men are like lizards, sunning on the stones of a crumbled house, thinking: ‘what a nice basking spot someone built for me.’”