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

by Tad Williams

“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,

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.

Back in his familiar home, the priest seemed like a war-horse awaiting battle, full of trembling need to go, to do.

It was a crude illustration of an antlered 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. Sa Asdridan Condiquilles, she read from the caption below the picture. The Conqueror Star.

“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.”

“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 and An’nai would never see a sunset like the one that painted the sky before Simon, beautiful and meaningless.

How could An’nai not go to heaven? How could heaven be such a stupid place?

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 Usires Aedon.

“Are you still my friend, Binabik?” he said at last. The troll took the flute from his lips. “To death and beyond, Simon-friend.”

The sound of the trolls singing to their rams woke Simon from a dream.

Becoming a man, it seemed, would not mean becoming anything other than a slightly different type of Simon, which was a faintly saddening thought.

“Please answer me,” she said. “I 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 Vé. Now we have a common enemy. I need your help!”

the kangkang was flowing vigorously

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.”

“We are very small,” Simon said between swallows. The kangkang seemed to be flowing in his veins like blood. “So are the stars, kundë-mannë,” Sludig murmured. “But they each one burn as bright as they can.

“She also urges you for being careful of her intended—who is me—and 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 intended—who is also my friend—to death and beyond.”

know we will be together once more—if the gods are kind.” “Even if they are not.”

his and Maegwin’s ancestors—who had burrowed their way through the very stuff of the world to bring beautiful things back to the light.

the help of Cuamh’s servants, the deep-delving dwarrows, supernatural beings presumed to grant favors and wealthy ore-veins to lucky miners.

hope alone was not a fit diet for a knight—even an old one like the duke, with his best days behind him. There was also duty.

Tiamak could feel the storm’s yearning hunger to exist;

He Who Always Steps on Sand, he amended his prayer, let a cooling but gentle storm come soon!

If she had seen what he did next, she would have stumbled to the shrine of She Who Birthed Mankind at the back wall of the family hut, then fainted dead away.

The crocodile was not the largest he had ever seen, but it was certainly the largest he had ever been beneath.

The fish’s eye was open; its mouth, too, as though it were trying to ask Death a question.

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 to mention what would happen if Pryrates did not die—p’raps he has some sorcerous shield.

It was nice that someone cared about him, he supposed, even if he did not entirely agree with the form that caring took.

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.

Part of manhood, I am thinking, is to ponder one’s words before opening one’s mouth.”

“Too often it is that men think those who serve are doing it from inferiorness or weakness.”

He had been trying to show Miriamele 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 Miriamele could care about him?

most Sithi songs have as their root thoughts of loss and long memory,

“Where 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, eyes downcast as he strove to find the proper words. “They were 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.”

“I wanted you to remember that place, Simon . . . but do not grieve. Still there is being much of beauty in this world.”

What about Jiriki? Is he a demon?” The Rimmersman turned to him, an unhappy smile flashing in his blond beard. “No, youngling, but neither is he a magical playmate and protector, as you seem to think him. Jiriki is older and deeper than any of us can know. Like many such things, he is also more dangerous than mortals can know.

Something was there in his mind, but just beyond reach, some occult shape that he could feel but not recognize. It was something about his dreams, something about Past and Future . . .

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.”

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, and—Chukku’s Stones! You poor fellow! That has been an hour ago! You must be fast approaching the awful moment of finalness.”

“Damned thing?” 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 is?”

“. . . 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 but growing ever stronger, a terrible, potent music that matched and then devoured his rhythms, that drowned out his weak and artless notes, until it had absorbed the entire song of his soul into its darkly triumphant tune.

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 . . .

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 of Rimmersgard, and would instead be forced to spend his eternity in the quieter environs of Aedon’s paradise.

If you have a proud and headstrong woman, you would be better off not to judge your success by her obedience.

“Other objects take their power from the stuff of their making. The great swords alluded to in Nisses’ lost book are examples here. All seem to derive their worth from their materials, although the crafting of each was a mighty task. Minneyar, King Fingil’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 Camaris, was forged from the glowing metals of a fallen star—like Minneyar’s iron, something foreign to Osten Ard. And Sorrow, the sword that Nisses claims Ineluki of the Sithi used to slay his own father the Erl-king, was made of Sithi witchwood and iron, two elements long thought to be antithetical and unmixable. Thus, such objects derive their strength primarily, it would seem, from 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 from both their substance and their making.

Sometimes obvious foolishness is the only answer to grave problems.”

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.

“We won’t let them have you,” she said. Her straightforward tone made it clear that any gainsaying of her will would bring great risk to the gainsayer.

“‘When your teeth are gone,’ we Qanuc say, ‘learn to like mush.’”