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

by Tad Williams

He witnesses a weird scene:

Understatement of the century.

Geloë’s forest house,

Baba yagaaaaaa

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?

I'm not certain we want to know

Closing his eyes, he felt the huge and uncaring world spin ever so slowly beneath him.

Things are never quite what you think they’re going to be, are they?”

“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’ important, y’r friend Jiriki said. Called ‘Ice House.’ Th’ little folk be all worked up over it right this moment. Don’t know why—don’t want t’know, either.”

Sus.

“Although they are not really called a king and queen in the Qanuc language. It would be closer to say the Herder and Huntress.”

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 thought someday I would see such things as this, have such adventures? No one knows what will come to them. . . .

“Seoman,” Jiriki said, “I promised myself that I would not mistranslate or interfere in your speech with the lords of Yiqanuc, 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.”

Hmmmm

Binabik, apprentice of the Singing Man, has committed a terrible crime.”

Wut.

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?

Both? Both is good.

“You know best, Father. You paid your way and did your work aboard—although I would say your lad did the heartiest share of it.

Cause the "monk" is a swindler

Where was God, the younger Miriamele had wondered; where was He when love was slowly hardening into indifference and care becoming duty?

Oof.

“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.”

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,

Do we have a matriarchy

Where was God, who the priests said saw every act? Why should He leave Simon in the grasp of such dreadful darknesses?

Even the bravest mortals grow sick with too much truth.”

no one ever explained how terrible it is to be in the middle of a tale and not to know the ending. . . .

“Tasted like horse piss,

Why do you know what horse piss tastes like

Guthwulf had shorn his graying hair close to his head before the siege had started. Now his helmet fit loosely. Even though 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.

Nah bruh. You sense pure evil.

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 blood—in such ink were His intentions written, a philosopher had once said.

Guthwulf felt a heavy stone of fear settle in his gut. Slowly, he began to consider the unthinkable.

Gonna go all Benedict?

it is not sin, you know, but foolish sentiment that sets the angels to moaning in despair.

“Fight and live, fight and die, God waits for all.”

“When we are safe, Strangyeard,” Deornoth 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.”

I'm cry

It’s not my sword, Simon reminded himself.

Bud....that *is* your sword. Are you unfamiliar with Arthurian Legend? :p

“Do not be waiting for me. Sisqinanamook can take you to a place of safeness where you can begin your trip down-mountain.

He talks like Oh from Home

“My love for you is as strong as the mountain’s rocky bones.

Tradition served us, but now it shackles us.

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?

whoever would have thought that merely living could become a burdensome duty!

Am I 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 . . . ?

Elias is awake. He pondered this for a moment. He has not slept well since Josua first began plotting against him.

I don't think there has been any plotting

had even lost the hound-helm that marked him as the first mortal ever to be Queen’s Huntsman.

In fact, I think you should seek a greater challenge than merely being wiser than men.”

Padreic ec-Crannhyr is long dead. There is only Cadrach now.”

The elders wanted Tiamak to go and speak for them, to protest this further meddling by the drylanders in the lives of the Wrannamen.

Ahhh he is in Nabaan

by his friend in Nabban.

Who his friend in Nabban?

Bringe from 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— —When Blayde, Call, and Man Come to Prince’s right Hande Then the Prisoned shall once more go Free . .

Something about the swords and Josua?

since he was always less hungry when the heat was fierce,

Same

fourth-best—and last—bowl,

I will have to take the measure of my bowls

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.

Well this is upsetting

“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.

“Fear goes where it is invited,”

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.

“It is the place, this is saying, where covenant was broken when the Zida’ya and Hikeda’ya—the Sithi and the Norns—split asunder to be going their separate ways. It is a place of power and of great sorrow.”

Sounds super fun

well-oiled boots.

I am outdoorsy but i am not "have to oil your clothes and shoes" outdoorsy

Berries and teeth.”

Amazing

There wasn’t really anything wrong with teeth—he had a mouthful himself.

Bahahaha. I would have immediately died from wretching

“Simple answers to life’s questioning. That would be a magic beyond any I have ever been seeing.”