The Stone of Farewell (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, #2)

by Tad Williams

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. Jhiná-T’senei lies drowned beneath the southern seas. The ruins of Kementari stand somewhere on Warinsten 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 well—or you have in a way . . .” “What does that mean?” “Nakkiga was the city the Norns built long ago in the shadow of Stormspike, before they were retreating into the great ice mountain itself. On the dream-road with Geloë and myself you visited it, but doubtless you overlooked its crumbling remains beside the mountain’s immensity. So in a way, then, you have visited Nakkiga also.”