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

by Tad Williams

As he dropped in 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 Showing-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 to pray—but one really ought to say the right prayer.

“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.”

“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?”

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 it—and 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?

“Gods in the 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 Usires Aedon.

Isorn’s broad face was grim. “We owe them a blood feud. Someday, they will pay for what they did. And when it happens, Einskaldir 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 of Rimmersgard, and would instead be forced to spend his eternity in the quieter environs of Aedon’s paradise.