
Copyright  1993 by Tad Williams.

 All Rights Reserved.

 Maps by Tad Williams.

 Cover Art by Michael Whelan.

 For color prints of Michael Whelan paintings,

 please contact:

 

 Glass Onion Graphics

 P. 0. Box 88

 Brookfield, CT 06804

 

 DAW Book Collectors No. 948.

 DAW Books are distributed by Penguin U- S. A.

 

 All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

 Any resemblance to persons living or dead

 is strictly coincidental.

 

 This series is dedicated to my mother,

 Barbara Jean Evans,

 who taught me to search for other worlds,

 and to share the things I find in them.

 

 This final volume, To Green Angel Tower,

 in itself a little world of heartbreak and joy,

 I dedicate to Nancy Deming-Williams,

 with much. much love.

 

 If you purchase this book without a cover you should be

 aware that this book may have been stolen property and re-

 ported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher. In such

 case neither the author nor the publisher has received any

 payment for this "stripped book."

 

 First Paperback Printing, July 1994

 

 

 

 

 789

 

 DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

 

 U. S. PAT OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

 MARCA REGISTRADA

 HECHO EN U.S.A.

 

 PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

 

 Autftor's Note

 

 tAnrf </eafA shall have no dominion.

 

 (Dead men naked they shall be one

 With the man in the wind and the west moon;

 

 (.When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones

 Igone

 

 They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

 

 Though they go mad they shall be sane,

 

 Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

 

 Though lovers be lost love shall not;

 

 And death shall have no dominion ...

 

 DYLAN THOMAS

 

 (from "And Death Shall Have No

 Dominion ")

 

 Tell all the truth but tell it slant.

 Success in circuit lies,

 Too bright for our infirm delight

 The truth's superb surprise;

 

 As lightning to the children eased

 With explanation kind,

 The truth must dazzle gradually

 Or every man be blind.

 

 EMILY DICKINSON

 

 xTad Williams

 

 Many people gave me a great deal of help with these

 books, ranging from suggestions and moral support to

 crucial logistical aid. Eva Cumming, Nancy Deming-

 Williams, Arthur Ross Evans, Andrew Harris, Paul

 Hudspeth, Peter Stampfel, Doug Werner, Michael

 Whelan, the lovely folks at DAW Books, and all my

 friends on GEnie make up only a small (but significant)

 sampling of those who helped me finish The Story That

 

 Ate My Life.

 

 Particular thanks for assistance on this final volume

 of the Bloated Epic goes to Mary Frey, who put a

 bogglesome amount of energy and time into reading

 andfor lack of a better wordanalyzing a monstrous

 manuscript. She gave me an incredible boost when I re-

 ally needed it.

 

 And, of course, the contributions of my editors, Sheila

 Gilbert and Betsy Wollheim, are incalculable. Caring a lot

 is their crime, and here at last is their well-deserved pun-

 ishment.

 

 To all of the above, and to all the other friends and sup-

 porters unmentioned but by no means unremembered, I

 give my most heartfelt thanks.

 

 NOTE: There is a cast of characters, a glossary of terms,

 and a guide to pronunciation at the back of this book.

 

 Synopsis of

 The Drogonfione Chair

 

 For eons the Hayholt belonged to the immortal Sithi, but

 they had fled the great castle before the onslaught of

 Mankind. Men have long ruled this greatest of strong-

 holds, and the rest of Osten Ard as well. Prester John,

 High King of all the nations of men, is its most recent

 master; after an early life of triumph and glory, he has

 presided over decades of peace from his skeletal throne,

 the Dragonbone Chair.

 

 Simon, an awkward fourteeir year old, is one of the

 Hayholt's scullions. His parents are dead, his only real

 family the chambermaids and their stem mistress, Rachel

 the Dragon. When Simon can escape his kitchen-work he

 steals away to the cluttered chambers of Doctor Mor-

 genes, the castle's eccentric scholar. When the old man

 invites Simon to be his apprentice, the youth is over-

 joyeduntil he discovers that Morgenes prefers teaching

 reading and writing to magic.

 

 Soon ancient King John will die, so Elias, the older of

 his two sons, prepares to take the throne. Josua, Elias'

 somber brother, nicknamed Lackhand because of a disfig-

 uring wound, argues harshly with the king-to-be about

 Pryrates, the ill-reputed priest who is one of Elias' clos-

 est advisers. The brothers' feud is a cloud of foreboding

 over castle and country.

 

 Elias' reign as king starts well, but a drought comes

 and plague strikes several of the nations of Osten Ard.

 

 XD

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Soon outlaws roam the roads and people begin to vanish

 from isolated villages. The order of things is breaking

 down, and the king's subjects are losing confidence in his

 rule, but nothing seems to bother the monarch or his

 friends. As rumblings of discontent begin to be heard

 throughout the kingdom, Elias' brother Josua disap-

 pearsto plot rebellion, some say-

 

 Elias' misrule upsets many, including Duke Isgrimnur

 of Rimmersgard and Count Eolair, an emissary from the

 western country of Heraystir. Even King Elias* own

 daughter Miriamele is uneasy, especially about the

 scarlet-robed Pryrates, her father's trusted adviser.

 

 Meanwhile Simon is muddling along as Morgenes'

 helper. The two become fast friends despite Simon's

 mooncalf nature and the doctor's refusal to teach him

 anything resembling magic. During one of his meander-

 ings through the secret byways of the labyrinthine

 Hayholt, Simon discovers a secret passage and is almost

 captured there by Pryrates. Eluding the priest, he enters a

 hidden underground chamber and finds Josua, who is be-

 ing held captive for use in some terrible ritual planned by

 Pryrates. Simon fetches Doctor Morgenes and the two of

 them free Josua and take him to the doctor's chambers,

 where Josua is sent to freedom down a tunnel that leads

 beneath the ancient castle. Then, as Morgenes is sending

 off messenger birds to mysterious friends, bearing news

 of what has happened, Pryrates and the king's guard come

 to arrest the doctor and Simon. Morgenes is killed fight-

 ing Pryrates. but his sacrifice allows Simon to escape into

 the tunnel.

 

 Half-maddened, Simon makes his way through the

 midnight corridors beneath the castle, which contain the

 ruins of the old Sithi palace. He surfaces in the graveyard

 beyond the town wall, then is lured by the light of a bon-

 fire. He witnesses a weird scene: Pryrates and King Elias

 engaged in a ritual with black-robed, white-faced crea-

 tures. The pale things give Elias a strange gray sword of

 disturbing power, named Sorrow. Simon flees.

 

 Life in the wilderness on the edge of the great forest

 Aldheorte is miserable, and weeks later Simon is nearly

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 xm

 

 dead from hunger and exhaustion, but still far away from

 his destination, Josua's northern keep at Naglimund. Go-

 ing to a forest cot to beg, he finds a strange being caught

 in a trapone of the Sithi, a race thought to be mythical,

 or at least long-vanished. The cotsman returns, but before

 he can kill the helpless Sitha, Simon strikes him down.

 The Sitha, once freed, stops only long enough to fire a

 white arrow at Simon, then disappears. A new voice tells

 Simon to take the white arrow, that it is a Sithi gift.

 

 The dwarfish newcomer is a troll named Binabik, who

 rides a great gray wolf. He tells Simon he was only pass-

 ing by, but now he will accompany the boy to Naglimund.

 Simon and Binabik endure many adventures and strange

 events on the way to Naglimund: they come to realize

 that they have fallen afoul of a threat greater than merely

 a king and his counselor deprived of their prisoner. At

 last, when they find themselves pursued by unearthly

 white hounds who wear the brand of Stormspike, a moun-

 tain of evil reputation in the far north, they are forced to

 head for the shelter of Geloe's forest house, taking with

 them a pair of travelers they have rescued from the

 hounds. Geloe, a blunt-spoken forest woman with a repu-

 tation as a witch, confers with them and agrees that some-

 how the ancient Noms, embittered relatives of the Sithi,

 have become embroiled in the fate of Prester John's king-

 dom.

 

 Pursuers human and otherwise threaten them on their

 journey to Naglimund. After Binabik is shot with an ar-

 row, Simon and one of the rescued travelers, a servant

 girl, must struggle on through the forest. They are at-

 tacked by a shaggy giant and saved only by the appear-

 ance of Josua's hunting party.

 

 The prince brings them to Naglimund, where Binabik's

 wounds are cared for, and where it is confirmed that Si-

 mon has stumbled into a terrifying swirl of events. Elias

 is coming soon to besiege Josua's castle. Simon's serving-

 girl companion was Princess Miriamele traveling in dis-

 guise, fleeing her father, whom she fears has gone mad

 under Pryrates' influence. From all over the north and

 

 XIV Tad Williams

 

 elsewhere, frightened people are flocking to Naglimund

 and Josua, their last protection against a mad king.

 

 Then, as the prince and others discuss the coming bat-

 tle, a strange old Rimmersman named Jamauga appears

 in the council's meeting hall. He is a member of the

 League of the Scroll, a circle of scholars and initiates of

 which Morgenes and Binabik's master were both part,

 and he brings more grim news. Their enemy, he says, is

 not just Elias: the king is receiving aid from Ineluki the

 Storm King, who had once been a prince of the Sithibut

 who has been dead for five centuries, and whose bodiless

 spirit now rules the Noms of Stormspike Mountain, pale

 relatives of the banished Sithi.

 

 It was the terrible magic of the gray sword Sorrow that

 caused Ineluki's deaththat, and mankind's attack on the

 Sithi. The League of the Scroll believes that Sorrow has

 been given to Elias as the first step in some incomprehen-

 sible plan of revenge, a plan that will bring the earth be-

 neath the heel of the undead Storm King. The only hope

 comes from a prophetic poem that seems to suggest that

 "three swords" might help turn back Ineluki's powerful

 magic.

 

 One of the swords is the Storm King's Sorrow, already

 in the hands of their enemy. King Elias. Another is the

 Rimmersgard blade Minneyar, which was also once at

 the Hayholt, but whose whereabouts are now unknown.

 The third is Thorn, black sword of King John's greatest

 knight. Sir Camaris. Jarnauga and others think they have

 traced it to a location in the frozen north. On this slim

 hope, Josua sends Binabik, Simon, and several soldiers

 off in search of Thorn, even as Naglimund prepares for

 siege.

 

 Others are affected by the growing crisis. Princess

 Miriamele, frustrated by her uncle Josua's attempts to

 protect her, escapes Naglimund in disguise, accompanied

 by the mysterious monk Cadrach. She hopes to make her

 way to southern Nabban and plead with her relatives

 there to aid Josua. Old Duke Isgrimnur, at Josua's urg-

 ing, disguises his own very recognizable features and

 follows after to rescue her. Tiamak. a swamp-dwelling

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWERXV

 

 Wrannaman scholar, receives a strange message from his

 old mentor Morgenes that tells of bad times coming and

 hints that Tiamak has a part to play. Maegwin. daughter

 of the king of Hemystir, watches helplessly as her own

 family and country are drawn into a whirlpool of war by

 the treachery of High King Elias.

 

 Simon and Binabik and their company are ambushed

 by Ingen Jegger, huntsman of Stormspike, and his ser-

 vants. They are saved only by the reappearance of the

 Sitha Jiriki, whom Simon had saved from the cotsman's

 trap. When he learns of their quest, Jiriki decides to ac-

 company them to Urmsheim Mountain, legendary abode

 of one of the great dragons, in search of Thom.

 

 By the time Simon and the others reach the mountain,

 King Elias has brought his besieging army to Josua's cas-

 tle at Naglimund, and though the first attacks are re-

 pulsed, the defenders suffer great losses. At last Elias'

 forces seem to retreat and give up the siege, but before

 the stronghold's inhabitants can celebrate, a weird storm

 appears on the northern horizon, bearing down on

 Naglimund. The storm is the cloak under which Ineluki's

 own horrifying army of Noras and giants travels, and

 when the Red Hand, the Storm King's chief servants,

 throw down Naglimund's gates, a terrible slaughter be-

 gins. Josua and a few others manage to flee the ruin of

 the castle. Before escaping into the great forest. Prince

 Josua curses Elias for his conscienceless bargain with the

 Storm King and swears that he will take their father's

 crown back.

 

 Simon and his companions climb Urmsheim, coming

 through great dangers to discover the Uduntree, a titanic

 frozen waterfall. There they find Thom in a tomblike

 cave. Before they can take the sword and make their es-

 cape, Ingen Jegger appears once more and attacks with

 his troop of soldiers. The battle awakens Igjarjuk, the

 white dragon, who has been slumbering for years beneath

 the ice. Many on both sides are killed. Simon alone is left

 standing, trapped on the edge of a cliff; as the ice-worm

 bears down upon him, he lifts Thorn and swings it. The

 

 xviTad Williams

 

 dragon's scalding black blood spurts over him as he is

 struck senseless.

 

 Simon awakens in a cave on the troll mountain of

 Yiqanuc. Jiriki and Haestan, an Erkynlandish soldier,

 nurse him to health. Thom has been rescued from

 Urmsheim, but Binabik is being held prisoner by his own

 people, along with Sludig the Rimmersman, under sen-

 tence of death. Simon himself has been scarred by the

 dragon's blood and a wide swath of his hair has turned

 white. Jiriki names him "Snowlock" and tells Simon that,

 for good or for evil, he has been irrevocably marked.

 

 Synopsis of

 Stone of Farewell

 

 Simon, the Sitha Jiriki, and soldier Haestan are honored

 guests in the mountaintop city of the diminutive Qanuc

 trolls. But Sludigwhose Rimmersgard folk are the

 Qanuc's ancient enemiesand Simon's troll friend

 Binabik are not so well treated; Binabik's people hold

 them both captive, under sentence of death. An audience

 with the Herder and Huntress, rulers of the Qanuc,

 reveals that Binabik is being blamed not only for desert-

 ing his tribe, but for failing to-fulfill his vow of marriage

 to Sisqi, youngest daughter of the reigning family. Simon

 begs Jiriki to intercede, but the Sitha has obligations to

 his own family, and will not in any case interfere with

 trollish justice. Shortly before the executions, Jiriki de-

 parts for his home.

 

 Although Sisqi is bitter about Binabik's seeming fickle-

 ness, she cannot stand to see him killed. With Simon and

 Haestan, she arranges a rescue of the two prisoners, but

 as they seek a scroll from Binabik's master's cave which

 will give them the information necessary to find a place

 named the Stone of Farewellwhich Simon has learned

 of in a visionthey are recaptured by the angry Qanuc

 leaders. But Binabik's master's death-testament confirms

 the troll's story of his absence, and its warnings finally

 convince the Herder and Huntress that there are indeed

 dangers to all the land which they have not understood.

 After some discussion, the prisoners are pardoned and Si-

 

 xvmTad Williams

 

 mon and his companions are given permission to leave

 Yiqanuc and take the powerful sword Thorn to exiled

 Prince Josua. Sisqi and other trolls will accompany them

 as far as the base of the mountains.

 

 Meanwhile, Josua and a small band of followers have

 escaped the destruction of Naglimund and are wandering

 through the Aldheorte Forest, chased by the Storm Kind's

 Noms. They must defend themselves against not only ar-

 rows and spears but dark magic, but at last they are met

 by Geloe, the forest woman, and Leieth, the mute child

 Simon had rescued from the terrible hounds of

 Stormspike. The strange pair lead Josua's party through

 the forest to a place that once belonged to the Sithi, where

 the Noms dare not pursue them for fear of breaking the

 ancient Pact between the sundered kin. Geloe then tells

 them they should travel on to another place even more sa-

 cred to the Sithi, the same Stone of Farewell to which she

 had directed Simon in the vision she sent him.

 

 Miriamele, daughter of High King Elias and niece of

 Josua, is traveling south in hope of finding allies for

 Josua among her relatives in the courts of Nabban; she is

 accompanied by the dissolute monk Cadrach. They are

 captured by Count Stredwe of Perdruin, a cunning and

 mercenary man, who tells Miriamele he is going to de-

 liver her to an unnamed person to whom he owes a debt.

 To Miriamele's joy, this mysterious personage turns out to

 be a friend, the priest Dinivan, who is secretary to Lector

 Ranessin, leader of Mother Church. Dinivan is secretly a

 member of the League of the Scroll, and hopes that

 Miriamele can convince the lector to denounce Elias and

 his counselor, the renegade priest Pryrates. Mother

 Church is under siege, not only from Elias, who demands

 the church not interfere with him, but from the Fire

 Dancers, religious fanatics who claim the Storm King

 comes to them in dreams. Ranessin listens to what

 Miriamele has to say and is very troubled.

 

 Simon and his companions arc attacked by snow-giants

 on their way down from the high mountains, and the sol-

 dier Haestan and many trolls are killed. Later, as he

 broods on the injustice of life and death, Simon inadver-

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWERXIX

 

 tently awakens the Sitha mirror Jiriki had given him as a

 summoning charm, and travels on the Dream Road to en-

 counter first the Sitha matriarch Amerasu, then the terri-

 ble Nom Queen Utuk'ku. Amerasu is trying to understand

 the schemes of Utuk'ku and the Storm King, and is trav-

 eling the Dream Road in search of both wisdom and al-

 lies.

 

 Josua and the remainder of his company at last emerge

 from the forest onto the grasslands of the High Thrithing,

 where they are almost immediately captured by the no-

 madic clan led by March-Thane Fikolmij, who is the fa-

 ther of Josua's lover Vorzheva. Fikolmij begrudges the

 loss of his daughter, and after beating the prince severely,

 arranges a duel in which he intends that Josua should be

 killed; Fikolmij's plan fails and Josua survives. Fikolmij

 is then forced to pay off a bet by giving the prince's com-

 pany horses. Josua, strongly affected by the shame

 Vorzheva feels at seeing her people again, marries her in

 front of Fikolmij and the assembled clan. When

 Vorzheva's father gleefully announces that soldiers of

 King Elias are coming across the grasslands to capture

 them, the prince and his followers ride away east toward

 the Stone of Farewell.

 

 In far off Hemystir. Maegwin is the last of her line. Her

 father the king and her brother have both been killed

 fighting Elias' pawn Skali, and she and her people have

 taken refuge in caves in the Grianspog Mountains.

 Maegwin has been troubled by strange dreams, and finds

 herself drawn down into the old mines and caverns be-

 neath the Grianspog. Count Eclair, her father's most

 trusted liege-man, goes in search of her, and together he

 and Maegwin enter the great underground city of

 Mezutu'a. Maegwin is convinced that the Sithi live there,

 and that they will come to the rescue of the Hemystiri as

 they did in the old days, but the only inhabitants they dis-

 cover in the crumbling city are the dwarrows, a strange,

 timid group of delvers distantly related to the immortals.

 The dwarrows, who are metalwrights as well as stone-

 crafters, reveal that the sword Minneyar that Josua's peo-

 ple seek is actually the blade known as Bright-Nail,

 

 XX

 

 Tad Williams

 

 which was buried with Prester John, father of Josua and

 Elias. This news means little to Maegwin, who is shat-

 tered to find that her dreams have brought her people no

 real assistance- She is also at least as troubled by what

 she considers her foolish love for Eclair, so she invents

 an errand for himtaking news of Minneyar and maps of

 the dwarrows' diggings^ which include tunnels below

 Elias* castle, the Hayholt, to Josua and his band of survi-

 vors, Eolair is puzzled and angry at being sent away, but

 

 goes.

 

 Simon and Binabik and Sludig leave Sisqi and the

 other trolls at the base of the mountain and continue

 across the icy vastness of the White Waste. Just at the

 northern edge of the great forest, they find an old abbey

 inhabited by children and their caretaker, an older girl

 named Skodi. They stay the night, glad to be out of the

 cold, but Skodi proves to be more than she seems: in

 the darkness, she traps the three of them by witchcraft,

 then begins a ceremony in which she intends to invoke the

 Storm King and show him that she has captured the

 sword Thom. One of the undead Red Hand appears be-

 cause of Skodi's spell, but a child disrupts the ritual and

 brings up a monstrous swarm of diggers. Skodi and the

 children are killed, but Simon and the others escape,

 thanks largely to Binabik's fierce wolf Qantaqa. But Si-

 mon is almost mad from the mind-touch of the Red Hand,

 and rides away from his companions, crashing into a tree

 at last and striking himself senseless. He falls down a gul-

 ley, and Binabik and Sludig are unable to find him. At

 last, full of remorse, they take the sword Thorn and con-

 tinue on toward the Stone of Farewell without him.

 

 Several people besides Miriamele and Cadrach have ar-

 rived at the lector's palace in Nabban. One of them is

 Josua's ally Duke Isgrimnur, who is searching for

 Miriamele. Another is Pryrates, who has come to bring

 Lector Ranessin an ultimatum from the king. The lector

 angrily denounces both Pryrates and Elias; the king's em-

 issary walks out of the banquet, threatening revenge.

 

 That night, Pryrates metamorphoses himself with a

 spell he has been given by the Storm King's servitors, and

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWERXXI

 

 becomes a shadowy thing. He kills Dinivan and then bru-

 tally murders the lector. Afterward, he sets the halls

 aflame to cast suspicion on the Fire Dancers. Cadrach,

 who greatly fears Pryrates and has spent the night urging

 Miriamele to flee the lector's palace with him, finally

 knocks her senseless and drags her away. Isgrimnur finds

 the dying Dinivan, and is given a Scroll League token for

 the Wrannaman Jiamak and instructions to go to the inn

 named Pelippa's Bowl in Kwanitupul, a city on the edge

 of the marshes south of Nabban.

 

 Tiamak, meanwhile, has received an earlier message

 from Dinivan and is on his way to Kwanitupul, although

 his journey almost ends when he is attacked by a croco-

 dile. Wounded and feverish, he arrives at Pelippa's Bowl

 at last and gets an unsympathetic welcome from the new

 landlady.

 

 Miriamele awakens to find that Cadrach has smuggled

 her into the hold of a ship- While the monk has lain in

 drunken sleep, the ship has set sail. They are quickly

 found by Gan Itai, a Niskie, whose job is to keep the ship

 safe from the menacing aquatic creatures called kilpa. Al-

 though Gan Itai takes a liking to the stowaways, she nev-

 ertheless turns them over to the ship's master, Aspitis

 Preves, a young Nabbanai nobleman.

 

 Far to the north, Simon has awakened from a dream in

 which he again heard the Sitha-woman Amerasu, and in

 which he has discovered (hat Ineluki the Storm King is

 her son. Simon is now lost and alone in the trackless,

 snow-covered Aldheorte Forest. He tries to use Jiriki's

 mirror to summon help, but no one answers his plea. At

 last he sets out in what he hopes is the right direction, al-

 though he knows he has little chance of crossing the

 scores of leagues of winterbound woods alive. He ekes

 out a meager living on bugs and grass, but it seems only

 a question of whether he will first go completely mad or

 starve to death. He is finally saved by the appearance of

 Jiriki's sister Aditu, who has come in response to the

 mirror-summoning. She works a kind of traveling-magic

 that appears to turn winter into summer, and when it is

 finished, she and Simon enter the hidden Sithi stronghold

 

 xxilTad Williams

 

 of Jao e-Tinukai'i. It is a place of magical beauty and

 timelessness. When Jiriki welcomes him, Simon's joy is

 great; moments later, when he is taken to see Likimeya

 and Shima'onari, parents of Jiriki and Aditu, that joy

 turns to horror. The leaders of the Sithi say that since no

 mortal has ever been permitted in secret Jao e-Tinukai'i,

 

 Simon must stay there forever.

 

 Josua and his company are pursued into the northern

 grasslands, but when they turn at last in desperate resist-

 ance, it is to find that these latest pursuers are not Elias'

 soldiers, but Thrithings-folk who have deserted Fikolmij's

 clan to throw in their lot with the prince. Together, and

 with Geloe leading the way, they at last reach Sesuad'ra,

 the Stone of Farewell, a great stone hill in the middle of

 a wide valley. Sesuad'ra was the place in which the Pact

 between the Sithi and Noms was made, and where the

 parting of the two kin took place. Josua's long-suffering

 company rejoices at finally possessing what will be, for a

 little while, a safe haven. They also hope they can now

 discover what property of the three Great Swords will al-

 low them to defeat Elias and the Storm King, as promised

 in the ancient rhyme of Nisses.

 

 Back at the Hayholt, Elias' madness seems to grow

 ever deeper, and Earl Guthwulf, once the king's favorite.

 begins to doubt the king's fitness to rule. When Elias for-

 ces him to touch the gray sword Sorrow. Guthwulf is al-

 most consumed by the sword's strange inner power, and

 is never after the same. Rachel the Dragon, the Mistress

 of Chambermaids, is another Hayholt denizen dismayed

 by what she sees happening around her. She leams that

 the priest Pryrates was responsible for what she thinks

 was Simon's death, and decides something must be done.

 When Pryrates returns from Nabban, she stabs him. The

 priest has become so powerful that he is only slightly in-

 jured, but when he turns to blast Rachel with withering

 magics, Guthwulf interferes and is blinded. Rachel es-

 capes in the confusion.

 

 Miriamele and Cadrach, having told the ship's master

 Aspitis that she is the daughter of a minor nobleman, are

 treated with hospitality; Miriamele in particular comes in

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 xxm

 

 for much attention. Cadrach becomes increasingly mo-

 rose, and when he tries to escape the ship, Aspitis has him

 put in irons. Miriamele, feeling trapped and helpless and

 alone, allows Aspitis to seduce her.

 

 Meanwhile, Isgrimnur has laboriously made his way

 south to Kwanitupul. He finds Tiamak staying at the inn,

 but no sign of Miriamele. His disappointment is quickly

 overwhelmed by astonishment when he discovers that the

 old simpleton who works as the inn's doorkeeper is Sir

 Camaris. the greatest knight of Prester John's era, the

 man who once wielded Thorn. Camaris was thought to

 have died forty years earlier, but what truly happened re-

 mains a mystery, because the old knight is as witless as a

 very young child.

 

 Still carrying the sword Thom, Binabik and Sludig es-

 cape pursuing snow-giants by building a raft and floating

 across the great storm-filled lake that was once the valley

 around the Stone of Farewell.

 

 In Jao e-Tinukai'i, Simon's imprisonment is more bor-

 ing than frightening, but his fears for his embattled

 friends are great. The Sitha First Grandmother Amerasu

 calls for him, and Jiriki brings him to her strange house.

 

 |She probes Simon's memories for anything that might

 help her to discern the Storm King's plans, then sends

 

 ;him away.

 

 ^Several days later Simon is summoned to a gathering

 . of all the Sithi. Amerasu announces she will tell them

 what she has learned of Ineluki, but first she berates her

 people for their unwillingness to fight and their unhealthy

 

 ,obsession with memory and, ultimately, with death. She

 brings out one of the Witnesses, an object which, like

 Jiriki's mirror, allows access to the Road of Dreams.

 Amerasu is about to show Simon and the assembled Sithi

 what the Storm King and Nom Queen are doing, but in-

 stead Utuk'ku herself appears in the Witness and de-

 

 |nounces Amerasu as a lover of mortals and a meddler.

 One of the Red Hand is then manifested, and while Jiriki

 

 ,and the other Sithi battle the flaming spirit, Ingen Jegger,

 the Nom Queen's mortal huntsman, forces his way into

 

 xxivTad Williams

 

 Jao e-Tmukai'i and murders Amerasu, silencing her be-

 fore she can share her discoveries.

 

 Ingen is killed and the Red Hand is driven away, but

 the damage has been done. With all the Sithi plunged into

 mourning, Jiriki's parents rescind their sentence and send

 Simon, with Aditu for a guide, out of Jao e-Tinukai'i. As

 he departs, he notices that the perpetual summer of'the

 Sithi haven has become a little colder.

 

 At the forest's edge Aditu puts him in a boat and gives

 him a parcel from Amerasu that is to be taken to Josua.

 Simon then makes his way across the rainwater lake to

 the Stone of Farewell, where he is met by his friends. For

 a little while, Simon and the rest will be safe from the

 

 growing storm.

 

 Synopsis of

 To Green AngeC Tower

 (Port One)

 

 Simon and most of his companions have taken refuge

 with Prince Josua on Sesuad'rathe great hill famous in

 Sithi history as the Stone of Farewell. There they wait

 and hope for some break in the storm clouds of war and

 fear that Josua's brother. King Elias, and his undead ally,

 Ineluki the Storm King, have set into swirling motion.-

 

 Simon is knighted for his services to Josua and his aid in

 the recovery of the sword Thorn. As he spends his vigil

 night in the old Sithi ruins, he sees a vision of The Parting,

 the day in the dim past when the Sithi and the Noms sun"

 |dered the links between their two families. Soon after Si-

 i'. mon is knighted, the Hemystirman Eolair arrives at

 |Sesuad'ra with news he has gained from the subterranean

 tdwarruws: King John's sword, Bright-Nail, was actually

 ^the older sword Minneyar, one of three blades that an an-

 ^cient rhyme suggests might be the only help against Ineluki

 ^and his dark sorceries. But Bright-Nail is buried in John's

 tebarrow, only a short distance from the Hayholt, Elias' cas-

 ;tie fortress; there seems little chance of capturing it.

 

 .Far to the south. King Elias' daughter Miriamele has

 1become the lover and increasingly unwilling guest of a

 ;Nabbanai lord, Aspitis Proves. When Aspitis reveals his

 plans to marry her she rebels, but he reveals that he

 knows her true identity and that one way or another, he

 

 XXVI

 

 Tad Williams

 

 will have her as his bride, to use as a political tool.

 Miriamele's companion, the monk Cadrach, has already

 been imprisoned; her only ally is the Niskie, Gan Itai.

 

 At Sesuad'ra, Prince Josua decides to send Duke

 Isgrimnur's son horn to accompany Eolair back to

 Hernystir, hoping that along the way he can recruit some

 of the Rimmersmen scattered by war, aid Eolair's people,

 and then return to help Josua and the others. But soon af-

 ter the mission departs, Josua, Simon and the others dis-

 cover that King Elias has sent an army led by Duke

 Fengbald to bring his brother to heel. Simon, the witch-

 woman Geloe, and others use the power of the old Sithi

 ruins to walk the Dream-Road in an effort to summon to

 Sesuad'ra anyone who might help them.

 

 In Hernystir, Maegwin, the king's daughter, is search-

 ing frantically for a way to save her defeated people, now

 living in caves in the mountains. She climbs a high peak

 and falls into a prophetic dream where she unwittingly

 encounters Simon, who is searching the Dream-Road for

 Miriamele. Maegwin experiences the dream-meeting

 betweeen Simon and his Sitha friend Jiriki as a colloquy

 between the gods and heroes of her people, and interprets

 it as a sign from Heaven.

 

 In the marsh-city of Kwanitupul, Tiamak the Wran-

 naman. Duke Isgrimnur, and the apparently senile great

 hero, Canwris, all wait at an inn for Miriamele. Tiamak is

 attacked by Fire Dancers, members of a human cult who

 worship the Storm King, but is saved by Camaris.

 

 Deep beneath the Hayholt, Elias' mighty castle,

 Guthwulf, the king's onetime friend and general, wanders

 in darkness. He has been blinded by a spell from the al-

 chemist Pryrates. and except for the companionship of a

 cat, is alone and nearly mad with grief and regret. Else-

 where in the castle's depths, Rachel the Dragon, former

 Mistress of Chambermaids, hides from the king and

 Pryrates, determined to survive until better days return.

 

 Sesuad'ra prepares for war. Newly-knighted Simon

 leads a sortie to spy on Fengbald's camp. On the way

 back, he and his company see mysterious lights on the

 banks of the freezing lake that surrounds the Stone of

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWERXXVII

 

 Farewell. Later, Simon's friend Binabik takes him to the

 source of the lightsa camp of the little man's troll kin,

 brought by Binabik's beloved Sisqi to fight for Josua. The

 reunion brings a moment of joy in a dark time.

 

 On Aspitis' ship, Miriamele is helped by Gan Itai, first to

 talk to imprisoned Cadrach, then to plan an escape. Gan Itai

 is angered by Miriamele's discovery that Aspitis is aiding

 the Fire Dancers, who have persecuted the Nisldes, and so

 instead of using her magical song to keep the demonic kilpa

 at bay, she brings the sea-creatures up to attack the ship.

 During the bloodletting and confusion, Miriamele gravely

 wounds Aspitis and she and Cadrach escape in a small

 boat. As they float on the empty ocean the next day,

 Cadrach tells her of his life, how he had been recruited by

 Doctor Morgenes into the League of the Scroll, but how his

 own dissolute ways and the discovery of a terrible old

 book, Du Svardenvyrd, had caused him to despair and fall

 away from the other Scrollbearers. Later, he had been cap-

 tured by Pryratesonce a Scrollbearer himself, before the

 others found out his true natureand tortured into reveal-

 ing where he had disposed of the forbidden volume.

 

 In the depths of Aldheorte forest the Sithi are mus-

 tering, for the first time in centuries, but whether they

 will come to the aid of Prince Josua and Simon, even

 Jiriki cannot say.

 

 Duke Fengbald brings his army to the base of Sesuad'ra,

 camping on the shore of the frozen lake around the great

 hill. Josua's ragtag army prepares its resistance, and in a

 day of fierce fighting manages to hold its own against a su-

 perior force. Still, Simon and his friends are outnumbered,

 and they have little hope that they will be victorious in the

 end. But Fengbald, in an attempt to take Sesuad'ra by

 treachery, is himself caught in a trap, and drowns in the

 black water and crumbling ice floes of the lake.

 

 In the west, Maegwin and the other Hernystiri, driven

 by the mistaken vision she has had during her vigil,

 emerge from the mountain caves to confront those who

 have driven them out of their homes, the army of Skali of

 Rimmersgard, King Elias' ally. At first it seems that they

 have merely hastened their doom, but the sudden appear-

 

 XXVIII

 

 Tad Williams

 

 ance of the Sithi, come to repay their old debt to

 Hemystir, puts Skali and his men to flight. Maegwin,

 convinced that she has seen the gods themselves come

 down to earth to save her people, tips over into madness.

 When Eolair returns to Hemystir, it is to find the strange

 Sithi in full occupation and Maegwin convinced that she

 herself was killed in the battleand that therefore Eolair

 too must be dead, her companion in the afterlife.

 

 In the south, Miriamele and Cadrach at last reach

 Kwanitupul where they meet Isgrimnur and Tiamak, as

 well as the even more suprising spectacle of a resurrected

 Camaris- Before they can do more than exchange hurried

 news they leam that Aspitis, anxious for vengeance, has

 discovered their whereabouts. They escape the city just

 ahead of Miriamele's spumed lover and his soldiers, tak-

 ing a small boat into the Wran, the vast and dangerous

 swamp that is Tiamak's home.

 

 Things have changed in the Wran. The discovery that the

 people of Tiamak's village have vanished is followed rapid-

 ly by Tiamak's own disappearance. Helpless without a

 guide, Miriamele and her companions struggle to find their

 way out They find another Wrannaman floating dazed and

 feverish in Tiamak's boat, and from him leam that Tiamak

 has been taken by the subhuman ghants and is being held

 prisonerif he still livesin their sprawling mud nest.

 

 Cadrach is terrified of the nest, but Miriamele,

 Isgrimnur and Camaris enter it in search of Tiamak, and

 find him being used by the ghants as the centerpiece of a

 strange ritual. They rescue the little Wrannaman and

 bring him out into the light once more.

 

 Back on Sesuad'ra, Simon and the others bury their

 dead, among whom is Josua's most stalwart companion,

 Sir Deomoth. The cost of defeating Fengbald has been

 very high, and their greater enemies, Elias and the Storm

 King, have not even begun to exert themselves. At a

 somewhat muted victory celebration, Simon's romantic

 encounter with a local girl is interrupted by the sudden

 appearance of Aditu, Jiriki's sister, who has come as an

 envoy. The Sithi are going to take a pan in mortal wars

 for the first time in five centuries.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWERXXIX

 

 In the Hayholt, the High King is troubled. His soldiers

 have been defeated by Josua's peasant army, and now the

 immortals themselves have entered the fray. Pryrates tries

 to reassure him, but it is clear that he and Elias are pur-

 suing separate strategies. Beneath the castle, Rachel the

 Dragon has a frightening encounter with the king's de-

 mented cupbearer, Hengfisk, and Guthwulf finds himself

 increasingly drawn by the magical pull of the king's

 sword. Sorrow, and its yearning for its brother swords.

 

 Under the icy mountain Stormspike, the Norn Queen

 Utuk'ku is also troubled by events, and dispatches a team

 of assassins southward-

 

 Miriamele and the others make their way out of the

 Wran. Relations are strained within the companyTiamak

 thinks Cadrach is trying to steal his precious scroll, and

 Isgrimnur and Cadrach's arguments have also caused a

 smoldering distrust After Aspitis Proves catches them at last

 on the fringes of the marsh, but is defeated by an unwilling

 Camaris, Cadrach steals a horse and disappears. Miriamele

 and the others push on toward Sesuad'ra and Josua. They

 reach Sesuad'ra at last, reviving hopes and bringing impor-

 tant news about Nabban and the Fire Dancers.

 

 Simon is more than a little overwhelmed by Miriamele's

 return, and she in turn is suprised to see that the kitchen-

 boy she remembered is almost a grown man. Their friend-

 ship has an edge of attraction with which neither is quite

 comfortable- When she rejects his attempt to gift her with

 the White Arrow, he insists she let him become her

 knightly Protector. Pleased but troubled, Miriamele agrees-

 

 Prince Josua mourns Deomoth and the other lost lives

 and tries to decide what to do next. Sesuad'ra's growing

 population and the Storm King's terrible winter have

 combined to reduce their resources almost to nothing. The

 prince's companions seem evenly split between pursuing

 the war against Elias into Erkynland or forging southward

 into Nabban in hopes of toppling the High King's more

 vulnerable ally, Benigaris, and using the Nabbani forces

 to bring them closer to parity with the king's power. Josua

 decides on this latter course, despite fierce opposition

 from Miriamele, who will not explain all her reasons, and

 

 XXX Tad Williams

 

 from Simon, who wants a chance to reclaim the sword

 Bright-Nail from King John's barrow near the Hayholt.

 

 Tiamak and Father Strangyeard become Scrollbearers,

 and with Binabik and Geloc they struggle to interpret

 Tiamak's scroll. It seems to speak of Camaris, whose wits

 are still clouded, and when they realize that the gift

 Amerasu of the Sithi sent to Josua with Simon is Canwis'

 old battle-hom, they resolve to try to bring him back to bis

 senses. After the horn and the blade Thom are put into his

 hands, and Josua implores him not to let Deomoth have

 died in vain, Camaris re-awakens, full of secret sorrow, but

 willing to do what he can to stem the encroaching tide of

 darkness. Josua's company prepare to move south.

 

 In Hemystir, Eclair leads Jiriki down into the mountain

 fastnesses where he and Maegwin had encountered the

 shy dwarrows, but the cave-dwellers have fled, and only

 their magical Witness, the Shard, is left behind. Jiriki tries

 to turn it to his own purposes, but a more powerful force

 takes hold of it and he is almost killed, saved only by

 Eolair's intervention. Afterward, Jiriki and his mother

 Likimeya proclaim that they will lead the Sithi toward

 Josua's old stronghold Naglimund, which is now in the

 posession of the Noms. Eolair and some Hemystiri volun-

 teer to go with them. Maegwin insists on coming along,

 and Eolair, despite his worries about her continuing delu-

 sions, has no choice but to accede.

 

 Josua and company make camp, unaware that they are

 being stalked by Utuk'ku's Nom assassins. Geloe and

 Aditu discuss the mystery of Camaris, sharing fears that

 it may have something to do with the current conflict. Si-

 mon searches the camp for Miriamele and discovers her

 trying to escape the camp and set out on her own. She

 begs him not to stop her. Tom between his duty to Josua

 and his fears for Miriamele's safety, he at last decides to

 accompany herhe is, after all, her Protector. Together

 they ride out, leaving nothing behind but Simon's hasty

 note. As they depart, they see fire and smoke behind

 them. The camp has been attacked.

 

 PART ONE

 A

 

 The

 Turning WfteeC

 

 End of PART ONE

 

 

 

 

 Tears and Smoke

 

 Ttona^- fowvt the empty treelessness of the High

 Thrithing oppressive- Kwanitupul was strange, too, but he

 had been visiting that place since childhood, and its tum-

 bledown buildings and ubiquitous waterways at least re-

 minded him a little of his marshy home. Even Perdruin,

 where he had spent time in lonely exile, was so filled

 with close-leaning walls and narrow pathways, so riddled

 with shadowy hiding places and blanketed in the salt

 smell of the sea, that Tiamak had been able to live with

 his homesickness. But here on (jhe grasslands he felt tre-

 mendously exposed and utterly out of place. It was not a

 comforting feeling.

 

 They Who Watch and Shape have indeed made a

 strange life for me, he often reflected. The strangest, per-

 haps, of any they have made for my people since Nuobdig

 married the Fire Sister.

 

 Sometimes there was solace in this thought. To have

 been marked out for such unusual events was, after all, a

 sort of repayment for the years of misunderstanding that

 his own people and the drylanders on Perdruin had shown

 him. Of course he was not understoodhe was special:

 

 what other Wrannaman could speak and read the dryland-

 er tongues as he could? But lately, surrounded again by

 strangers, and with no knowledge of what had happened

 to his own folk, it filled him with loneliness. At such

 times, disturbed by the emptiness of these queer northern

 surroundings, he would walk down to the river that ran

 

 34

 

 Tad Williams

 

 through the middle of the camp to sit and listen to the

 calming, familiar sounds of the water-world.

 

 He had been doing just that, dangling his brown feet in

 the Stefflod despite the chill of water and wind, and was

 returning to camp a little heartened, when a shape flashed

 past him. It was someone running, pale hair streaming,

 but whoever it was seemed to move as swiftly as a drag-

 onfly, far faster than anyone human should travel. Tiamak

 had only a moment to stare after the fleeing form before

 another dark shape swept past. It was a bird, a large one,

 flying low to the ground as though the first figure was its

 prey.

 

 As both shapes vanished up the slope toward the heart

 of the prince's encampment, Tiamak stood in stunned

 amazement. It took some moments for him to realize who

 the first shape had been.

 

 The Sitha-woman! he thought. Chased by a hawk or an

 owl?

 

 It made no sense, but then sheAditu was her name

 made little sense to Tiamak either. She was like nothing

 he had ever seen and, in fact, frightened him a little- But

 what could be chasing her? From the look on her face she

 had been running from something dreadful.

 

 Or to something dreadful, he realized, and felt his

 stomach clench. She had been heading toward the camp'.

 

 He Who Always Steps on Sand, Tiamak prayed as he

 set out, protect meprotect us all from evil. His heart was

 beating swiftly now, faster than the pace of his running

 feet. This is an ill-omened year!

 

 For a moment, as he reached the nearest edge of the

 vast field of tents, he was reassured. It was quiet, and few

 campfires burned. But there was too much quiet, he de-

 cided a moment later. It was not early, but still well be-

 fore midnight. People should be about, or at least there

 should be some noise from those not yet asleep. What

 could be wrong?

 

 It had been long moments since he had caught his most

 recent glimpse of the swooping birdhe was certain now

 it was an owland he hobbled on in the direction he had

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER35

 

 last seen it, his breath now coming in harsh gasps. His in-

 jured leg was not used to running, and it bumed him,

 throbbed. He did his best to ignore it.

 

 Quiet, quietit was still as a stagnant pond here. The

 tents stood, dark and lifeless as the stones drylanders set

 in fields where they buried their dead.

 

 But there' Tiamak felt his stomach turn again. There

 was movement! One of the tents not far away shook as

 though in a wind, and some light inside it threw strange

 moving shadows onto the walls.

 

 Even as he saw it he felt a tickling in his nostrils, a sort

 of burning, and with it came a sweet, musky scent. He

 sneezed convulsively and almost tripped, but caught him-

 self before falling to the ground. He limped toward the

 tent, which pulsed with light and shadow as though some

 monstrous thing was being born inside. He tried to raise

 his voice to cry out that he was coming and to raise an

 , alarm, for his fear was rising higher and higherbut he

 could not make a sound. Even the painful rasp of his

 breathing had become faint and whispery.

 

 The tent, too, was strangely silent. Pushing down his

 fright, he caught at the flap and- threw it back.

 

 At first he could see nothing more than dark shapes and

 bright light, almost an exact reflection of the shadow pup-

 pets on the outside walls of the tent. Within a few in-

 stants, the moving images began to come clear.

 

 At the tent's far wall stood Camaris. He seemed to have

 been struck, for blood rilled from some cut on his head,

 staining his cheek and hair black, and he reeled as though

 his wits had been addled. Still, bowed and leaning against

 the fabric for support, he was yet fierce, like a bear beset

 by hounds. He had no blade, but held a piece of firewood

 clenched in one fist and waved it back and forth, holding

 off a menacing shape that was almost all black but for a

 flash of white hands and something that glinted in one of

 those hands.

 

 Kicking near Camaris' feet was an even less decipher-

 able muddle, although Tiamak thought he saw more

 black-clothed limbs, as well as the pale nimbus of Aditu's

 

 Tad Williams

 

 hair. A third dark-clad attacker huddled in the corner,

 warding off a swooping, fluttering shadow.

 

 Terrified, Tiamak tried to raise his voice to call for

 help, but could make no sound. Indeed, despite what

 seemed to be life-or-death struggles, the entire tent was

 silent but for the muffled sounds of the two combatants

 on the floor and the hectic flapping of wings.

 

 Why can't I hear? Tiamak thought desperately. Why

 can't I make a sound?

 

 Frantic, he searched the floor for something to use as a

 weapon, cursing himself that he had carelessly left his

 knife behind in the sleeping-place he shared with

 Strangyeard. No knife, no sling-stones, no blow-darts

 nothing! She Who Waits to Take All Back had surely

 sung his song tonight.

 

 Something vast and soft seemed to strike him in the

 head, sending Tiamak to his knees, but when he looked

 up, the several battles still raged, none of them near him.

 His skull was throbbing even more painfully than his leg

 and the sweet smell was chokingly strong- Dizzy, Tiamak

 crawled forward and his hand encountered something

 hard. It was the knight's sword, black Thorn, still

 sheathed. Tiamak knew it was far too heavy for him to

 use, but he dragged it out from beneath the tangle of bed-

 ding and stood, as unsteady now on his feet as Camaris.

 What was in the air?

 

 The sword, unexpectedly, seemed light in his hands,

 despite the heavy scabbard and dangling belt. He raised it

 high and took a few steps forward, then swung it as hard

 as he could at what he thought was the head of Camaris'

 attacker. The impact shivered up his arm, but the thing

 did not fall. Instead, the head turned slowly. Two eyes,

 shining black, stared out of the corpse-white face.

 Tiamak's throat moved convulsively. Even had his voice

 remained, he could not have made a sound. He lifted his

 shaking arms, holding the sword up to strike again, but

 the thing's white hand flashed out and Tiamak was

 knocked backward. The room whirled away from him; the

 sword flew from his nerveless fingers and tumbled to the

 grass that was the tent's only floor.

 

 TO GREENANGEL TOWER

 

 37

 

 Tiamak's head was as heavy as stone, but he could not

 otherwise feel the pain of the blow. What he could feel

 were his wits slipping away. He tried to lift himself to his

 feet once more but only got as far as his knees. He

 crouched, shaking like a sick dog.

 

 He could not speak but, cursedly, could still see.

 Camaris was stumbling, wagging his headas damaged,

 seemingly, as Tiamak. The old man was trying to hold off

 his attacker long enough to reach something on the

 groundthe sword, the Wrannaman realized groggily, the

 black sword. Camaris was prevented from reaching it as

 much by the dark, contorted forms of Aditu and her en-

 emy rolling on the ground beneath him as by the foe he

 was trying to keep at bay with his firelog club.

 

 In the other corner, something glittered in the hand of

 one of the pale-faced things, a shining something red as

 a crescent of firelight. The scarlet gleam moved, swift as

 a striking snake, and a tiny cloud of dark shapes exploded

 outward, then drifted to the ground, slower than snow-

 flakes. Tiamak squinted helplessly as one settled on his

 hand. It was a feather. An owl's feather.

 

 Help. Tiamak's skull felt as though it had been staved

 in. We need help. We will die if no one helps us.

 

 Camaris at last bent and caught up the sword, almost

 over-balancing, then managed to lift Thorn in time to

 hold off a strike by his enemy. The two of them circled

 each other, Camaris stumbling, the black-clad attacker

 moving with cautious grace. They fell together once

 more, and one of the old knight's hands shot out and

 pushed away a dagger blow, but the blade left a trail of

 blood down his arm. Camaris fell back clumsily, trying to

 find room to swing his sword. His eyes were half-closed

 with pain or fatigue.

 

 He is hurt, Tiamak thought desperately. The throbbing

 in his head grew stronger. Maybe dying. Why does no one

 come?

 

 The Wrannaman dragged himself toward the wide bra-

 zier of coals that provided the only light. His dimming

 senses were beginning to wink out like the lamps of

 Kwanitupul at dawn. Only a dim fragment of an idea was

 

 38

 

 Tad Williams

 

 in his mind, but it was enough to lift his hand toward the

 iron brazier- When he feltas dimly as a distant echo

 the heat of the thing against his fingers, he pushed. The

 brazier tumbled over, scattering coals like a waterfall of

 rubies.

 

 As Tiamak collapsed, choking, the last things he saw

 were his own soot-blackened hand curled like a spider

 and, beyond it, an army of tiny flames licking at the bot-

 tom of the tent wall.

 

 A

 

 "We don't need any more damnable questions,"

 Isgrimnur grumbled- "We have enough to last three life-

 times. What we need are answers."

 

 Binabik made an uncomfortable gesture. "I am agree-

 ing with you. Duke Isgrimnur. But answers are not like a

 sheep that is coming when a person calls."

 

 Josua sighed and leaned back against the wall of

 Isgrimnur's tent. Outside, the wind rose for a moment,

 moaning faintly as it vibrated the tent ropes. "I know how

 difficult it is, Binabik. But Isgrimnur is rightwe need

 answers- The things you told us about this Conqueror Star

 have only added to the confusion. What we need to know

 is how to use the three Great Swords. All that the star

 tells usif you are rightis that our time to wield them

 is running out."

 

 "That is what we are giving the largest attention to,

 Prince Josua," said the troll. "And we think we may per-

 haps be learning something soon, for Strangyeard has

 found something that is of importantness."

 

 "What is that?" Josua asked, leaning forward. "Any-

 thing, man, anything would be heartening."

 

 Father Strangyeard, who had been sitting quietly,

 squirmed a little. "I am not as sure as Binabik, Highness,

 that it is of any use. I found the first of it some time

 ago, while we were still traveling to Sesuad'ra."

 

 "Strangyeard was finding a passage that is written in

 Morgenes' book," Binabik amplified, "something about

 the three swords that are so much concerning us."

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER39

 

 "And?" Isgrimnur tapped his fingers on his muddy

 knee. He had spent a long time trying to secure his

 tentstakes in the loose, damp ground.

 

 "What Morgenes seems to suggest," the archivist said,

 "is that what makes the three swords specialno, more

 than special, powerfulis that they are not of Osten Ard.

 Each of them, in some way, goes against the laws of God

 and Nature."

 

 "How so?" The prince was listening intently. Isgrimnur

 saw a little ruefully that these sorts of inquiries would al-

 ways interest Josua more than the less exotic business of

 being a ruler, such as grain prices and taxes and the laws

 of fireeholding.

 

 Strangyeard was hesitant. "Geloe could explain better

 than I. She knows more of these things."

 

 "She should have been coming here by now," Binabik

 said. "I wonder if we should be waiting for her."

 

 "Tell me what you can," said Josua. "It has been a very

 long day and I am growing weary. Also, my wife is ill

 and I do not like being away from her."

 

 "Of course. Prince Josua. I'm sorry. Of course."

 Strangyeard gathered himself. "Morgenes tells that there

 is something in each sword that is not of Osten Ardnot

 of our earth. Thom is made from a stone that fell from the

 sky. Bright-Nail, which was once Minneyar, was forged

 from the iron keel of Elvrit's ship that came over the sea

 from the West. Those are lands that our ships can no

 longer find." He cleared his throat. "And Sorrow is of

 both iron and the Sithi witchwood, two things that are in-

 imical. The witchwood itself, Aditu tells me, came over

 as seedlings from the place that her people call the Gar-

 den. None of these things should be here, and also, none

 of them should be workable .. - except perhaps the pure

 iron of Elvrit's keel."

 

 "So how were these swords made, then?" asked Josua.

 "Or is that the answer you still seek?"

 

 "There is something that Morgenes is mentioning,"

 Binabik offered. "It is also written in one of Ookekuq's

 scrolls. It is called a Word of Makinga magic spell is

 

 40 Tad Williams

 

 what we might be naming it, although those who are

 knowing the Art do not use those words,"

 

 "A Word of Making?" Isgrimnur frowned. "Just a

 word?"

 

 "Yes .. . and no," Strangyeard said unhappily. "In

 truth, we are not sure. But Minneyar we know was made

 by the dwarrowsthe dvemings as you would call them

 in your own tongue. Duke Isgrimnurand Sorrow was

 made by Ineluki in the dwarrow forges beneath Asu'a.

 The dwarrows alone had the lore to make such mighty

 things, although Ineluki learned it. Perhaps they had a

 hand in Thorn's forging as well, or their lore was used

 somehow. In any case, it is possible that if we knew the

 way in which the swords were created, how the binding

 of forces was accomplished, it might teach us something

 about how we can use them against the Storm King."

 

 "I wish I had thought to question Count Eolair more

 carefully when he was here," said Josua, frowning. "He

 had met the dwarrows."

 

 "Yes, and they told him of their part in the history of

 Bright-Nail," Father Strangyeard added. "It is also possi-

 ble, however, that it is not the making of them that is im-

 portant for our purpose, but just the fact that they exist.

 Still, if we have some chance in the future to send word

 to the dwarrows, and if they will speak with us, I for one

 would have many questions."

 

 Josua looked at the archivist speculatively. "This chore

 suits you, Strangyeard. I always thought you were wasted

 dusting books and searching out the most obscure points

 of canon law."

 

 The priest reddened. "Thank you. Prince Josua. What-

 ever I can do is because of your kindness."

 

 The prince waved his hand, dismissing the compliment.

 "Still, as much as you and Binabik and the rest have ac-

 complished, there is still far more to do. We remain afloat

 in deep waters, praying for a sight of land . . ." He

 paused. "What is that noise?"

 

 Isgrimnur had noticed it, too, a rising murmur that had

 slowly grown louder than the wind. "It sounds like an ar-

 gument," he said, then waited for a moment, listening.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER4!

 

 "No, it is more than thatthere are too many voices." He

 stood. "Dror's Hammer, I hope that someone has not

 started a rebellion." He reached for Kvalnir and was

 calmed by its reassuring heft. "I had hoped for a quiet

 day tomorrow before we are to ride again."

 

 Josua clambered to his feet. "Let us not sit here and

 wonder,"

 

 As Isgrimnur stepped out of the door flap, his eyes

 were abruptly drawn across the vast camp. It was plain in

 an instant what was happening.

 

 "Fire!" he called to the others as they spilled out after

 him. "At least one tent burning badly, but it looks like a

 few more have caught, too." People were now rushing

 about between the tents, shadowy figures that shouted

 and gesticulated. Men dragged on their sword belts, curs-

 ing in confusion. Mothers dragged screaming children out

 of their blankets and carried them into the open air. All

 the pathways were full of terrified, milling campfolk.

 Isgrimnur saw one old woman fall to her knees, crying, al-

 though she was only a few paces from where he stood, a

 long distance from the nearest flames.

 

 "Aedon save us!" said Josua. "Binabik, Strangyeard,

 call for buckets and waterskins, then take some of these

 mad-wandering folk and head for the riverwe need wa-

 ter! Better yet, pull down some of the oiled tents and see

 how much water you can carry in them!" He sprang away

 toward the conflagration; Isgrimnur hastened after him.

 

 The flames were leaping high now, filling the night sky

 with a hellish orange light. As he and Josua approached

 the fire, a flurry of dancing sparks sailed out, hissing as

 they caught in Isgrimnur's beard. He beat them out, curs-

 ing.

 

 *

 

 Tiamak awakened and promptly threw up, then strug-

 gled to catch his breath. His head was hammering like a

 Perdruinese church bell.

 

 There were flames all around him, beating hot against

 his skin, sucking away the air. In a blind panic, he

 

 42

 

 Tad Williams

 

 dragged himself across the crisping grass of the tent floor

 toward what looked like a patch of cool darkness, only to

 find his face pushed up against some black, slippery fab-

 ric. He struggled with it for a moment, dimly noting its

 strange resistance; then it flopped aside, exposing a white

 face buried in the black hood. The eyes were turned up,

 and blood slicked the lips. Tiamak tried to scream, but his

 mouth was full of burning smoke and his own bile. He

 rolled away, choking.

 

 Suddenly, something grabbed at his arm and he was

 yanked forward violently, dragged across the pale-skinned

 corpse and through a wall of flame. For a moment he

 thought he was dead. Something was thrown over him,

 and he was rolled and pummeled with the same swift vi-

 olence that had carried him away, then whatever covered

 him was lifted and he found himself lying on wet grass.

 Flames licked at the sky close beside him, but he was

 safe. Safe!

 

 "The Wrannaman is alive," someone said near him. He

 thought he recognized the Sitha-woman's lilting tones, al-

 though her voice was now almost sharp with fear and

 worry. "Camaris dragged him out. How the knight man-

 aged to stay awake after he had been poisoned I will

 never know, but he killed two of the Hikeda'ya." There

 was an unintelligible response.

 

 After he had lain in place for a few long moments, just

 breathing the clean air into his painful lungs, Tiamak

 rolled over. Aditu stood a few paces away, her white hair

 blackened and her golden face streaked with grime. Be-

 neath her on the ground lay the forest woman Geloe, par-

 tially wrapped in a cloak, but obviously naked beneath it,

 her muscular legs shiny with dew or sweat. As Tiamak

 watched, she struggled to sit up.

 

 "No, you must not," Aditu said to her, then took a step

 backward. "By the Grove, Geloe, you are wounded."

 

 With a trembling effort, Geloe lifted her head. "No,"

 she said. Tiamak could barely hear her voice, a throaty

 whisper. "I am dying."

 

 Aditu leaned forward, reaching out to her. "Let me help

 you...."

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER43

 

 "No!" Geloe's voice grew stronger. "No, Aditu, it is

 ... too late. I have been stabbed ... a dozen times." She

 coughed and a thin trickle of something dark ran down

 her chin, glinting in the light of the burning tents. Tiamak

 stared. He saw what he took to be Camaris' feet and legs

 behind her, the rest of the knight's long form stretched out

 in the grass hidden by her shadow. "I must go." Geloe

 tried to clamber to her feet but could not do so-

 

 "There might be something ..." Aditu began.

 

 Geloe laughed weakly, then coughed again and spat out

 a gobbet of blood. 'Do you think I... do not... know?"

 she said. "I have been a healer for ... a long time." She

 held out a shaking hand. "Help me. Help me up."

 

 Aditu's face, which for a moment had seemed as

 stricken as any mortal's, grew solemn. She took Geloe's

 hand, then leaned forward and clasped her other arm as

 well. The wise woman slowly rose to her feet; she

 swayed, but Aditu supported her,

 

 "I must ... go. I do not wish to die here." Geloe

 pushed away from Aditu and took a few staggering steps.

 The cloak fell away, exposing her nakedness to the leap-

 ing firelight. Her skin was slick with sweat and great

 smears of blood. "I will go baclrto my forest. Let me go

 while I still can."

 

 Aditu hesitated a moment longer, then stepped back

 and lowered her head. "As you wish, Valada Geloe. Fare-

 well, Ruyan's Own. Farewell .,. my friend. Sinya'a du-

 n'sha e-d'treyesa inro."

 

 Trembling, Geloe raised her arms, then took another

 step. The heat from the flames seemed to grow more in-

 tense, for Tiamak, where he lay, saw Geloe begin to shim-

 mer. Her outline grew insubstantial, then a cloud of

 shadow or smoke seemed to appear where she stood. For

 a moment, the very night seemed to surge inward toward

 the spot, as though a stitch had been taken in the fabric of

 the Wrannaman's vision. Then the night was whole again.

 

 The owl circled slowly for a moment where Geloe had

 been, then flew off, close above the wind-tossed grasses.

 Its movements were stiff and awkward, and several times

 it seemed that it must lose the wind and fall tumbling to

 

 44

 

 Tad Williams

 

 the earth, but its lurching flight continued until the night

 sky had swallowed it.

 

 His head still full of murk and painful clangor, Tiamak

 slumped back. He was not sure what he had seen, but he

 knew that something terrible had happened. A great sad-

 ness lurked just out of his reach. He was in no hurry to

 bring it closer.

 

 What had been the thin sound of voices in the distance

 became a raucous shouting. Legs moved past him; the

 night seemed suddenly full of movement. There was a

 rush and sizzle of steam as someone threw a pail of water

 into the flames of what had been Camaris' tent.

 

 A few moments later he felt Aditu's strong hands under

 his arms. "You will be trampled, brave marsh man," she

 said into his ear, then pulled him farther away from the

 conflagration, into the cool darkness beside some tents

 untouched by the blaze. She left him there, then returned

 shortly with a water skin. The Sitha pressed it against his

 cracked lips until he understood what it was, then left him

 to drinkwhich he did, greedily.

 

 A dark shadow loomed, then abruptly sank down be-

 side him. It was Camaris. His silvery hair, like Aditu's,

 was scorched and blackened. Haunted eyes stared from

 his ash-smeared face. Tiamak handed him the water skin,

 then prodded him until he lifted it to his lips.

 

 "God have mercy on us .. ." Camaris croaked. He

 stared dazedly at the spreading fires and the shouting mob

 that was trying to douse them.

 

 Aditu returned and sat down beside them. When

 Camaris offered her the water skin, she took it from him

 and downed a single swallow before handing it back.

 

 "Geloe. - - ?" Tiamak asked.

 

 Aditu shook her head. "Dying. She has gone away."

 

 "Who ..." It was still hard to speak. Tiamak almost

 did not want to, but he suddenly felt a desire to know, to

 have some reasons with which to balance off the terrible

 events. He also needed somethingwords if nothing

 elseto fill the emptiness inside of him. He took the skin

 bag from Camaris and moistened his throat. "Who was

 it... ?"

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER45

 

 "The Hikeda'ya," she said, watching the efforts to

 quell the flames. "The Noms. That was Utuk'ku's long

 arm that reached out tonight."

 

 "I ... I tried to ... to call for help. But I couldn't."

 

 Aditu nodded. "Kei-vishaa. It is a sort of poison that

 floats on the wind. It kills the voice for a time, and also

 brings sleep." She looked at Camaris, who had leaned

 back against the tent wall that sheltered them. His head

 was thrown back, his eyes closed. "I do not know how he

 stood against it for the time he did. If he had not, we

 would have been too late. Geloe's sacrifice would have

 been for nothing." She turned to the Wrannaman. "You,

 too, Tiamak. Things would have been different without

 your aid: you found Camaris' sword. Also, the fire fright-

 ened them. They knew they did not have much time, and

 that made them careless. Otherwise, I think we would all

 be there still." She indicated the burning tent.

 

 Geloe's sacrifice. Tiamak found his eyes filling with

 tears. They stung.

 

 She Who Waits to Take All Back, he prayed desperately,

 do not let her drift by!

 

 He covered his face with his hands. He did not want to

 think any more-

 

 A

 

 Josua ran faster. When Isgrimnur caught him at last, the

 prince had already stopped to make sure that the fires

 were being mastered. The original blaze had spread only

 a little way, catching perhaps a half-dozen other tents at

 most, and all but some in the first tent had escaped.

 Sangfugol was one of them. He stood, clothed only in a

 long shirt, and blearily watched the proceedings.

 

 After assuring himself that everything possible was be-

 ing done, Isgrimnur followed Josua to Camaris and the

 other two survivors, the Sitha-woman and little Tiamak,

 who were resting nearby. They were all bloodied and

 singed, but Isgrimnur felt sure after looking them over

 quickly that they would all live.

 

 "Ah, praise merciful Aedon that you escaped. Sir

 

 46 Tad miiams

 

 Camaris," said Josua, kneeling at the side of the old

 knight. "I feared rightly that it might be your tent when

 we first saw the blaze." He turned to Aditu, who seemed

 to have her wits about her, which could not quite be said

 of Camaris and the marsh man. "Who have we lost? I am

 told there are bodies inside the tent still."

 

 Aditu looked up. "Geloe, I fear. She was badly

 wounded. Dying."

 

 "God curse it!" Josua's voice cracked. "Cursed day!"

 He pulled a handful of grass and flung it down angrily.

 With an effort, he calmed himself. "Is she still in there?

 And who are the others?"

 

 "They are none of them Geloe," she said. "The three

 inside the tent are those you call Noms. Geloe has gone

 to the forest."

 

 "What!" Josua sat back, stunned. "What do you mean,

 gone to the forest? You said she was dead."

 

 "Dying." Aditu spread her fingers- "She did not want

 us to see her last moments, I think. She was strange,

 Josuastranger than you know. She went away."

 

 "Gone?"

 

 The Sitha nodded slowly. "Gone."

 

 The prince made the sign of the Tree and bowed his

 head. When he looked up, there were tears running on his

 cheek; Isgrimnur did not think they were caused by the

 smoke. He, too, felt a shadow move over him as he

 thought of the loss of Geloe. With so many pressing tasks

 he could not dwell on it now, but the duke knew from

 long experience in battle that it would strike him hard

 later.

 

 "We have been attacked in our very heart," the prince

 said bitterly. "How did they get past the sentries?"

 

 "The one I fought was dripping wet," said Aditu.

 "They may have come down the river."

 

 Josua swore. "We have been dangerously lax, and I am

 the worst miscreant. I had thought it strange we had es-

 caped the Noms* attentions so long, but my precautions

 were inadequate. Were there more than those three?"

 

 "I think there were no more," Aditu replied. "And they

 would have been more than enough, but that we were

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER47

 

 lucky. If Geloe and I had not guessed something was

 amiss, and if Tiamak had not somehow known and ar-

 rived when he did, this tale would have had a different

 ending. I think they meant to lull Camaris, or at least to

 take him."

 

 "But why?" Josua looked at the old knight, then back

 to Aditu.

 

 "I do not know. But let us carry him, and Tiamak, too,

 to some warm place. Prince Josua. Camaris has at least

 one wound, perhaps more, and Tiamak is burned, I

 think."

 

 "Aedon's mercy, you are right," said Josua. "Thought-

 less. thoughtless. One moment." He turned and called

 some of his soldiers together, then sent them off with or-

 ders for the sentries to search the camp. "We cannot be

 sure there were not more Noms or other attackers," Josua

 said. "At the very least, we may find something to tell us

 how these came into our camp without being seen."

 

 "None of the Gardenborn are easily seen by

 mortalsif they do not wish to be seen," said Aditu.

 "May we take Camaris and Tiamak away now?"

 

 "Of course." Josua called two of the bucket car-

 riers. "You men! Come and help us!" He turned to Is-

 grimnur. "Four should be enough to carry them, even

 though Camaris is large." He shook his head. "Aditu is

 rightwe have made these brave ones wait too long."

 

 The duke had been in such situations before, and knew

 that too much haste was as-bad as too little- "I think we

 would be better to find something to carry them on," he

 said. "If one of those outer tents has been saved from the

 fire, we might use it to make a litter or two."

 

 "Good." Josua stood. "Aditu, I did not ask if you had

 wounds that needed tending."

 

 "Nothing I cannot care for myself. Prince Josua. When

 these two have been seen to, we should gather those that

 you trust and talk."

 

 "I agree. There is much to talk about. We will meet at

 Isgrimnur's tent within the hour. Does that suit you,

 Isgrimnur?" The prince turned aside for a moment, then

 turned back. His face was haggard with grief. "I was

 

 48

 

 Tad Williams

 

 thinking that we should find Geloe to come nurse them

 ... then I remembered."

 

 Aditu made a gesture, fingers touching fingers before

 her. 'This is not the last time we shall miss her, 1 think."

 

 *

 

 "It is Josua," the prince called from outside the tent.

 When he stepped inside, Gutrun still had the knife held

 before her. The duchess looked fierce as an undenned

 badger, ready to protect herself and Vorzheva from what-

 ever danger might show itself. She lowered the dagger as

 Josua entered, relieved but still full of worry.

 

 "What is it? We heard the shouting. Is my husband

 with you?"

 

 "He is safe, Gutrun." Josua walked to the bed, then

 leaned forward and pulled Vorzheva to him in a swift em-

 brace. He kissed her brow as he released her. "But we

 have been attacked by the Storm King's minions. We

 have lost only one, but that is a great loss."

 

 "Who?" Vorzheva caught his arm as he tried to

 straighten.

 

 "Geloe,"

 

 She cried out in grief.

 

 "Three Norns attacked Camaris," Josua explained.

 "Aditu, Geloe, and the Wrannaman Tiamak came to his

 aid. The Noms were killed, but Aditu says that Geloe

 took a fatal wound." He shook his head. "I think she was

 the wisest of us all. Now she is gone and we cannot re-

 place her."

 

 Vorzheva fell back. "But she was just here, Josua. She

 came with Aditu to see me. Now she is dead?" Tears

 filled her eyes.

 

 Josua nodded sadly. "I came to see that you were safe.

 Now I must go meet with Isgrimnur and the others to de-

 cide what this means, what we will do." He stood, then

 bent and kissed his wife again. "Do not sleepand keep

 your knife, Gutrununtil I can send someone here to

 guard you."

 

 "No one else was hurt? Gutrun said that she saw fires."

 

 TO GREFN ANGEL TOWFR

 

 49

 

 "Camaris' tent. He seems to have been the only one at-

 tacked." He began to move toward the door.

 

 "But Josua," Vorzheva said, "are you sure? Our camp

 is so big."

 

 The prince shook his head. "I am sure of nothing, but

 we have not heard of any other attacks. I will have some-

 one here to guard you soon. Now I must hurry,

 Vorzheva."

 

 "Let him go, Lady," Gutrun told her. "Lie back and try

 to sleep. Think of your child."

 

 Vorzheva sighed. Josua squeezed her hand, then turned

 and hastened from the tent.

 

 A

 

 Isgrimnur looked up as the prince strode into the light

 of the campfire. The cluster of men waiting for the prince

 stepped back respectfully, letting him pass. "Josua ..."

 the duke began, but the prince did not let him finish.

 

 "I have been foolish, Isgrimnur. It is not enough to

 have sentries running through the camp looking for signs

 of invading Norns. Aedon's Blood, it took me long

 enough to realize itSludig!"'-he shouted. "Is Sludig

 somewhere nearby?"

 

 The Rimmersman stepped forward. "Here, Prince

 Josua."

 

 "Send soldiers through the camp to see if everyone is

 accounted for, especially those of our party who might be

 at risk. Binabik and Strangyeard were with me until the

 fire started, but that does not mean they are safe still. It

 is late in the day for me to realize this might have been

 a diversion. And my niece, Miriamelesend someone to

 her tent immediately. And Simon, too, although he may

 be with Binabik." Josua frowned. "If they wanted

 Camaris, it seems likely it was about the sword. Simon

 carried it for a while, so perhaps there is some danger to

 him as well. Damn me for my slow wits."

 

 Isgrimnur made a throat-clearing noise. "I already sent

 Freosel to look after Miriamele, Josua. I knew you would

 

 50

 

 Tad Williams

 

 want to see Lady Vorzheva as soon as you could and I

 thought it should not wait."

 

 "Thank you, Isgrimnur. I did go to her. She and Outrun

 are fine." Josua scowled. "But I am shamed you have had

 to do my thinking."

 

 Isgrimnur shook his head. "Let's just hope the princess

 is safe."

 

 "Freosel has been sent after Miriamele," Josua told

 Sludig. "That is one less to hunt for. Go and see to the

 rest now. And post two guards at my tent, if you would.

 I will think better knowing that someone is watching over

 Vorzheva."

 

 The Rimmersman nodded. He commandeered a large

 portion of the soldiers who were milling aimlessly around

 Isgrimnur's camp and went off to do as he had been bid.

 

 "And now," Josua said to Isgrimnur, "we wait. And

 think."

 

 Before the hour was too much older, Aditu reappeared;

 

 Father Strangyeard and Binabik were with her. They had

 gone with the Sitha to make sure Camaris and Tiamak

 were resting comfortably in the care of one of New

 Gadrinsett's healing-womenand also, apparently, to

 talk, for they were all three deep in conversation when

 they reached Isgrimnur's tent.

 

 Aditu told Josua and the rest all the details of the

 night's events. She spoke calmly, but Isgrimnur could not

 help noticing that, although she chose her words with as

 much care as ever, the Sitha seemed profoundly troubled.

 She and Geloe had been friends, he knew: apparently the

 Sithi felt grief just as mortals did. He liked her better for

 it, then dismissed the thought as unworthy. Why should

 immortals not take hurt like humans? From what

 Isgrimnur knew, they had certainly suffered at least as

 much.

 

 "So." Josua sat back and looked around the circle. "We

 have found no trace of anyone else being attacked. The

 question is, why did they single out Camaris?"

 

 "There must be something to this Three Swords rhyme

 after all," said Isgrimnur. He didn't like such things: they

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER51

 

 made him. feel as though the ground beneath his feet was

 unsolid, but that seemed to be the kind of world he found

 himself in. It was hard not to yearn for the clean edge that

 things had when he was younger. Even the worst of mat-

 ters, like war, terrible as it was, had not been so shot

 through with strange sorceries and mysterious enemies-

 'They must have been after Camaris because of Thorn."

 

 "Or perhaps it was Thorn alone they were seeking for,"

 Binabik said soberly. "And Camaris was not of the most

 importance."

 

 "I still do not understand how they were able almost to

 overcome him," Strangyeard said. "What is that poison

 you spoke of, Aditu?"

 

 "Kei-vishaa. In truth, it is not just a poison: we

 Gardenbom use it in the Grove when it is time to dance

 the year's end. But it can also be wielded to bring a long,

 heavy sleep. It was brought from Venyha Do'sae; my peo-

 ple used it when they first came here, to remove danger-

 ous animalssome of them huge creature*.. whose like

 have long passed from Osten Ardfrom the places where

 we wished to build our cities. When I smelted it, I knew

 that something was wrong. We Zida'ya have never used it

 for anything except the year-dancing ceremonies."

 

 "How is it used there?" the archivist asked, fascinated.

 

 Aditu only lowered her eyes. "I am sorry, good

 Strangyeard, but that is not for me to say. I perhaps

 should not have mentioned it at all. I am tired."

 

 "We have no need to pry into your people's rituals,"

 said Josua. "And we have more important things to

 speak of, in any case." He turned an irritated look on

 Strangyeard, who hung his head. "It is enough that we

 know how they were able to attack Camaris without his

 raising an alarm. We are lucky that Tiamak had the pres-

 ence of mind to set the lent ablaze. From now on, we will

 be absolutely rigid in the arrangement of our camp. All

 who are in any way at risk will set their tents close to-

 gether in the very center, so we all sleep within sight of

 each other. I blame myself for indulging Camaris' wish

 for solitude. I have taken my responsibilities too lightly."

 

 Isgrimnur frowned. "We must all be more careful."

 

 52 Tad Williams

 

 As the council turned to talk of what other precautions

 should be taken, Freosel appeared at the fireside- "Sorry,

 Highness, but the princess be not anywhere 'round her

 tent, nor did anyone see her since early."

 

 Josua was clearly upset. "Not there? Aedon preserve

 us, was Vorzheva right? Did they come for the princess

 after all?" He stood up. "I cannot sit here while she may

 be in danger. We must search the entire camp."

 

 "Sludig is doing that already," said Isgrimnur gently.

 "We will only confuse things."

 

 The prince slumped down again. "You are right. But it

 will be hard to wait."

 

 They had barely resumed the discussion when Sludig

 returned, his face grim. He handed Josua a piece of

 parchment. "This was in young Simon's tent."

 

 The prince read it quickly, then flung it down on the

 ground in disgust. A moment later he stooped for it, then

 handed it to the troll, his face stiff and angry. "I am sorry,

 Binabik, I should not have done that. It seems to be for

 you." He stood. "Hotvig?"

 

 "Yes, Prince Josua." The Thrithings-man also stood.

 

 "Miriamele has gone. Take as many of your riders as

 you can quickly find. The chances are good that she has

 headed toward Erkynland, so do most of your searching

 west of the camp. But do not ignore the possibility that

 she might go some other way to throw us off before she

 turns back to the west."

 

 "What?" Isgrimnur looked up in surprise. "What do

 you mean, gone?"

 

 Binabik looked up from the parchment. 'This was writ-

 ten by Simon. It is seeming that he has gone with her, but

 he also says he will try to bring her back." The troll's

 smile was thin and obviously forced. "There is some

 question in my head about who is leading who. I am

 doubting Simon will convince her for coming back very

 soon."

 

 Josua gestured impatiently. "Go, Hotvig. God only

 knows how long they have been gone. As a matter of fact,

 since you and your riders are the fastest horsemen we

 have here, go west; leave the other part of the search to

 

 TOGRfcENANGELTOWER53

 

 the rest of us." He turned to Sludig. "We will ride around

 the camp, making our circle wider each time. I will saddle

 Vinyafod. Meet me there." He turned to the duke. "Are

 you coming?"

 

 "Of course." Silently, Isgrimnur cursed himself. /

 should have known something was coming, he thought.

 She has been so quiet, so sad, so distant since we came

 here. Josua hasn't seen the change as I have. But even if

 she thinks we should have marched on Erkynland, why

 would she go on her own? Fool of a headstrong child.

 And Simon. I thought better of that boy.

 

 Already unhappy at the thought of a night in the saddle

 and what it would do to his sore back, Isgrimnur grunted

 and rose to his feet.

 

 A

 

 "Why won't she wake up!?" Jeremias demanded.

 "Can't you do something?"

 

 "Hush, boy, I'm doing what I can." Duchess Gutrun

 bent and felt Leieth's face again. "She is cool, not fever-

 ish."

 

 "Then what's wrong with her?" Jeremias seemed al-

 most frantic. "I tried to wake her for a long time, but she

 just lay there."

 

 "Let me give another cover for her," Vorzheva said.

 She had made room in the bed for the girl to lie beside

 her, but Gutrun had disallowed it, frightened that Leieth

 had some sickness which Vorzheva might catch. Instead,

 Jeremias had carefully set the girl's limp form on a blan-

 ket upon the ground.

 

 "You just lie still and I'll worry about the child," the

 duchess told her. "This is altogether too much noise and

 fretting."

 

 Prince Josua stepped through the door, unhappiness

 etched on his face. "Is there not enough gone wrong? The

 guard said someone was sick. Vorzheva? Are you well?"

 

 "It is not me, Josua. The little girl Leieth, sh cannot

 be wakened."

 

 Duke Isgrimnur stumped in. "A damned long ride and

 

 54

 

 Tad Williams

 

 no sign of Miriamele," he growled. "We can only hope

 that Hotvig and his Thrithings-men have better luck than

 we did."

 

 "Miriamele?" Vorzheva asked. "Has something hap-

 pened to her, also?"

 

 "She has ridden off with young Simon," Josua said

 grimly,

 

 "This is a cursed night," Vorzheva groaned. "Why does

 this all happen?"

 

 "To be fair, I don't think it was the lad's idea."

 Isgrimnur bent and put his arm about his wife's shoulders,

 then kissed her neck. "He left a letter which said he

 would try to bring her back." The duke's eyes narrowed.

 "Why is the girl here? Was she hurt in the fire?"

 

 "I brought her," Jeremias said miserably. "Duchess

 Gutrun asked me to look after her tonight."

 

 "I didn't want her underfoot with Vorzheva so sick."

 Outrun could not entirely hide her own discomfort. "And

 it was just for a while, when Geloe was going to meet

 with you men."

 

 "I was with her all evening," Jeremias explained. "Af-

 ter she was asleep, I fell asleep, too. I didn't mean to. I

 was just tired."

 

 Josua turned and looked at the young man kindly. "You

 did nothing wrong to fall asleep. Go on."

 

 "I woke up when everyone was shouting about the fire.

 I thought Leieth would be frightened, so I went over to let

 her know I was still there. She was sitting up with her

 eyes open, but I don't think she heard a word I said. Then

 she fell back and her eyes closed, like she was sleeping.

 But I couldn't wake her up! I tried for a long time. Then

 I brought her here to see if Duchess Gutrun could help."

 As Jeremias finished, he was on the verge of tears.

 

 "You did nothing wrong, Jeremias," the prince re-

 peated. "Now, I need you to do something for me."

 

 The young man caught, his breath on the verge of a sob.

 "W-What, your Highness?"

 

 "Go to Isgrimnur's tent and see if Binabik has re-

 turned. The troll knows something of healing. We will

 have him look at young Leieth."

 

 I

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER55

 

 Jeremias, only too glad to have something useful to do,

 hurried out.

 

 "In truth," Josua said, "I no longer know what to think

 of all that has happened tonightbut I must admit that I

 am very fearful for Miriamele. Damn her frowardness."

 He clutched Vorzheva's blanket in his fingers and twisted

 it in frustration.

 

 There had been no change in Leieth's condition when

 Jeremias returned with Binabik and Aditu. The little man

 inspected the girl closely.

 

 "I have seen her being like this before," he said. "She

 is gone away somewhere, to the Road of Dreams or some

 other place."

 

 "But surely she has never been tike this for so long,"

 Josua said. "I cannot help but think it has something to do

 with the night's happenings. Could the Norn poison have

 made her this way, Aditu?"

 

 The Sitha kneeled beside Binabik and lifted the little

 girl's eyelids, then laid her slim fingers below Leieth's

 ear to feel how swiftly her heart beat. "I do not think so.

 Surely this one," she indicated Jeremias, "would also

 have been struck if the Kei-vishaa had spread so far."

 

 "Her lips are moving!" Jeremias said excitedly.

 "Look!"

 

 Although she stilt lay as if deeply asleep, Leieth's

 mouth was indeed opening and closing as though she

 would speak.

 

 "Silence." Josua leaned closer, as did most of the oth-

 ers in the room.

 

 Leieth's lips worked. A whisper of sound crept out.

 ". . . hear me ..."

 

 "She said something!" Jeremias exulted, but was stilled

 by a look from the prince.

 

 "... I will speak anyway. I am fading. I have only a

 short time left." The voice that issued from the little girl's

 mouth, though thin and breathy, had a familiar cadence.

 

 "... There is more to the Noms than we suspect, I

 think. They play some double game ... Tonight was not a

 feint, but something even more subtle ..."

 

 56

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "What's wrong with the child?" Outrun said nervously.

 "She's never spoken beforeand she sounds wrong."

 

 "That is Geloe speaking." Aditu spoke calmly, as

 though she identified a familiar figure coming up the

 road.

 

 "What?" The duchess made the Tree sign, her eyes

 wide with fear. "What witchcraft is this?"

 

 The Sitha leaned close to Leieth's ear. "Geloe?'' she

 said. "Can you hear me?"

 

 If it was the wise woman, she did not seem to hear her

 friend's voice. "... Remember what Simon dreamed ...

 the false messenger." There was a pause. When the voice

 resumed it was quieter, so that all in the room held their

 breath in an effort not to obscure a word. "... / am dying.

 Leieth is here with me somehow, in this ... dark place. I

 have never understood her completely, and this is strang-

 est of all. I think I can speak through her mouth, but I do

 not know if anyone is listening. My time is short. Remem-

 ber: beware a false messenger....."

 

 There was another long, silent interval. When everyone

 was certain that they had heard the last, Leieth's lips

 moved again, '7 am going now. Do not mourn me. I have

 had a long life and did what I wished to do. If you would

 remember me, remember that the forest was my home. See

 that it is respected. I will try to send Leieth back, al-

 though she does not want to leave me. Farewell.

 Remember ..."

 

 The voice faded. The little girl again lay like one dead.

 

 Josua looked up- His eyes were bright with tears. "To

 the last," he said, almost in anger, "she tried to help us-

 Oh, God the Merciful, she was a brave soul."

 

 "An old soul," Aditu said quietly, but did not elaborate.

 She seemed shaken.

 

 Though they sat around the bedside in heavy, mournful

 silence for some time, Leieth did not stir any more.

 Geloe's absence seemed even more powerful, more dev-

 astating than it had earlier in the evening. Other eyes be-

 sides Josua's filled with tears of sorrow and fear as the

 realization of the company's loss settled in. The prince

 began to speak quietly of the forest woman, praising her

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 57

 

 bravery, wit, and kindness, but no one else seemed to

 have the heart to join in. At last he sent them all off to

 rest. Aditu, saying that she felt no need to sleep, stayed

 to watch over the child in case she awakened in the night.

 Josua lay down fully dressed beside his wife, ready for

 whatever calamity might befall next. Within moments, he

 had fallen into a deep, exhausted slumber.

 

 In the morning, the prince awakened to discover Aditu

 still watching over Leieth. Wherever the child's spirit had

 journeyed with Geloe, it had not yet returned.

 

 Not long afterward, Hotvig and his men rode into

 camp, weary and empty-handed.

 

 <

 

 2

 

 Ghost Moon

 A

 

 Simon W\d. Minamefe rode in near-silence, the prin-

 cess leading as they made their way down into the valley

 on the far side of the hills. After they had gone a league

 or more, Miriamele turned them north so that they were

 riding back along the same track the company had taken

 on its way to Gadrinsett.

 

 Simon asked her why.

 

 "Because there are already a thousand fresh hoofprints

 here," Miriamele explained. "And because Josua knows

 where I'm going, so it would be stupid to head straight

 that way in case they find out we've left tonight."

 

 "Josua knows where we're going?" Simon was dis-

 gruntled. "That's more than I do."

 

 "I'll tell you about it when we're far enough that you

 can't ride back in one night," she said coolly. "When I'm

 too far away for them to catch me and bring me back."

 

 She would not answer any more questions.

 

 Simon squinted at the bits of refuse that lined the wide,

 muddy track. A great army of people had crossed this

 way twice now, along with several other smaller parties

 that had made their way to Sesuad'ra and New

 Gadrinsett; Simon thought it would be a long time before

 the grass grew on this desolated swath again.

 

 / suppose that's where roads come from, he thought,

 and grinned despite his weariness. / never thought about

 it before. Maybe someday it will be a real king's road,

 with set stones and inns and way stations ... and I saw

 it when it was nothing but a hoof-gouged track.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER59

 

 Of course, that was presuming that whatever happened

 in the days to come, there would be a king who cared

 about roads. From what Jeremias and others had told him

 about the state of affairs at the Hayholt, it didn't seem

 very likely that Elias was worrying about such things.

 

 They rode on beside the Stefflod, which glowed silver

 in the moon's ghostly light. Miriamele remained uncom-

 municative, and it seemed to Simon that they rode for

 days on end, although the moon had not yet moved

 much past the midpoint of the sky. Bored, he watched

 Miriamele, admiring how her fair skin took the moon-

 light, until she, irritated, told him to stop staring at her.

 Desperate for diversion, he then considered the Canon of

 Knighthood and Camaris' teachings; when that failed to

 hold his interest for more than half a league, he quietly

 sang all the Jack Mundwode songs he knew. Later, after

 Miriamele had rebuffed several more attempts at conver-

 sation, Simon began counting the stars that dotted the sky,

 numerous as grains of salt spilled on an ebony tabletop.

 

 At last, when Simon was certain that he would soon go

 madand equally certain that a full week must have

 passed during this one long nightMiriamele reined up

 and pointed to a copse of trees standing on a low hill

 some three or four furlongs from the wide rut of the in-

 fant road.

 

 There," she said. "We'll stop there and sleep."

 

 "I don't need to sleep yet," Simon lied. "We can ride

 longer if you want to."

 

 'There's no point. I don't want to be out in the open in

 daylight tomorrow. Later, when we're farther away, we

 can ride when it's light."

 

 Simon shrugged. "If you say so." He had wanted this

 adventure, if that was what it was, so he might as well

 endure it as cheerfully as possible. In the first moments

 of their escape he had imaginedduring those few brief

 instants in which he had allowed himself to think at

 allthat Miriamele would be more pleasant once the

 immediate worry of discovery had lessened- Instead,

 she had seemed to grow even more morose as the night

 wore on.

 

 6o Tad Williams

 

 The trees at the top of the hill grew close together,

 making an almost seamless wall between their makeshift

 camp and the road. They did not light a fireSimon had

 to admit he could see the wisdom of thatbut instead

 shared some water and a little wine by moonlight, and

 gnawed on a bit of Miriamele's bread.

 

 When they had wrapped themselves in their cloaks and

 were lying side by side on their bedrolls, Simon suddenly

 found that his weariness had fledin fact, he did not feel

 the least bit sleepy. He listened, but although Miriamele's

 breathing was quiet and regular, she did not sound like

 she was sleeping either. Somewhere in the trees, a lone

 cricket was gently sawing away.

 

 "Miriamele?"

 

 "What?"

 

 "You really should tell me where we're going. I would

 do better as your protector. I could think about it and

 make plans."

 

 She laughed quietly. "I'm certain that's true. 1 will tell

 you, Simon. But not tonight."

 

 He frowned as he stared up at the stars peeping through

 the branches. "Very well."

 

 "You should go to sleep now. It will be harder to do

 once the sun is up."

 

 Did all women have a little Rachel the Dragon in

 them? They certainly seemed to enjoy telling him what he

 should do. He opened his mouth to tell her he didn't need

 any rest just yet, but yawned instead.

 

 He was trying to remember what he had meant to say

 even as he passed over into sleep.

 

 In the dream Simon stood on the edge of a great sea.

 Extending from the beach before him was a thin cause-

 way of land that extended out right through the teeth of

 the waves, leading to an island some long distance off-

 shore. The island was bare except for three tall white tow-

 ers which shimmered in the late afternoon sun, but the

 towers were not what interested Simon. Walking on the

 island before them, passing in and out of their threefold

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER6l

 

 shadow, was a tiny figure with white hair and a blue robe.

 Simon was certain it was Doctor Morgenes.

 

 He was considering the causewayit would be easy

 enough to walk across, but the tide was growing higher,

 and soon might cover the thin spit of land entirelywhen

 he heard a distant voice. Out on the ocean, midway be-

 tween the island and the rocky shoal where Simon stood,

 a small boat was rocking and bobbing in the grip of

 strong waves. Two figures stood in the boat, one tall and

 solid, the other small and slender. It took a few moments

 to recognize Geloe and Leieth. The woman was calling

 something to him, but her voice was lost in the roar of the

 sea.

 

 What are they doing out in a boat? Simon thought. It

 will be night soon.

 

 He moved a few steps out onto the slender causeway.

 Geloe's voice wafted to him across the waves, barely au-

 dible.

 

 "... False!" she cried. "It's false .. f"

 

 What is false? he wondered. The spit of land? It

 seemed solid enough. The island itself? He squinted, but

 although the sun had now dropped low on the horizon,

 turning the towers into black fingers and the shape of

 Morgenes into something small and dark as an ant, the is-

 land seemed indisputably substantial. He took another

 few steps forward.

 

 "False!" Geloe cried again.

 

 The sky abruptly turned dark, and the roar of the waves

 was overwhelmed by the cry of rising wind. In an instant

 the ocean turned blue and then blue-white; suddenly, all

 the waves stiffened, freezing into hard, sharp points of

 Itice. Ge!oe waved her arms desperately, but the sea around

 'her boat surged and cracked. Then with a roar and an out-

 IL-wash of black water as alive as blood, Geloe, Leieth, and

 the boat disappeared beneath the frozen waves, sucked

 down into darkness.

 

 Ice was creeping up over the causeway. Simon turned,

 but it was now as far back to the beach as it was toward

 the island, and both points seemed to be receding from

 him, leaving him stranded in the middle of an ever-

 

 62 Tad Williams

 

 lengthening spit of rock. The ice mounted higher, crawl-

 ing up to his boots.. ..

 

 Simon Jerked awake, shivering. Thin dawn light filled

 the copse and the trees swayed to a chill breeze. His cloak

 was curled in a hopeless tangle around his knees, leaving

 the rest of him uncovered.

 

 He straightened the cloak and lay back. Miriamete was

 still asleep beside him, her mouth partially open, her

 golden hair pushed out of shape. He felt a wave of long-

 ing pass over and through him, and at the same time a

 sense of shame. She was so defenseless, lying here in the

 wilderness, and he was her protectorwhat sort of knight

 was he, to have such feelings? But he longed to pull her

 close to him, to warm her, to kiss her on that open mouth

 and feet her breath on his cheek. Uncomfortable, he

 rolled over and faced the other direction.

 

 The horses stood quietly where they had been tied,

 their harnesses wrapped around a low-hanging tree

 branch. The sight of the saddlebags in the flat morning

 light suddenly filled him with a hollow kind of sadness.

 Last night this had seemed a wild adventure. Now, it

 seemed foolish. Whatever Miriamele's reasons might be,

 they were not his own. He owed many, many debtsto

 Prince Josua, who had lifted him up and knighted him; to

 Aditu, who had saved him; to Binabik, who had been a

 better friend than he deserved. And there were also those

 who looked up to Simon as well, like Jeremias- But he

 had deserted them all on a moment's whim. And for

 what? To force himself on Miriamele, who had some sad

 purpose of her own in leaving her uncle's camp. He had

 left the few people who wanted him to tag along after

 someone who did not.

 

 He squinted at his horse and felt his sadness deepen.

 Homefinder. That was a pretty name, wasn't it? Simon

 had just run away from another home, and this time there

 was no good reason for it.

 

 He sighed and sat up. He was here and there was little

 to be done about it, at least right now. He would try again

 to talk Miriamele into going back when she woke up-

 

 r

 f

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 63

 

 Simon pulled his cloak about him and got to his feet.

 He untied the horses, then stood at the edge of the copse

 and peered cautiously around before leading them down

 the hill to the river to drink. When he brought them back,

 he tied them to a different tree where they could easily

 reach the long shoots of new-grown grass. As he watched

 Homefinder and Miriamele's unnamed steed contentedly

 break their fast, he felt his mood lighten for the first time

 since awakening from his frightening dream.

 

 He gathered up deadwood from around the copse, tak-

 ing only what seemed dry enough to burn with little

 smoke, and set about making a small fire. He was pleased

 to see that he had brought his flint and striking-steel, but

 wondered how long it would be until he discovered some-

 thing he needed just as much but had forgotten in the

 hurry to leave camp. He sat before the fire for a while,

 wanning his hands and watching Miriamele sleep.

 

 A bit later, as he was looking through the saddlebags to

 see what there might be to eat, Miriamele began to toss in

 her sleep and cry out.

 

 "No!" she mumbled. "No, I won't..." She half-raised

 her arms, as though to fight something off. After watch-

 ing in consternation for a moment, Simon went and

 kneeled beside her, taking her hand.

 

 "Miriamele. Princess. Wake up. You're having a bad

 dream."

 

 She tugged against his grip, but strengthlessly. At last

 her eyes opened. She stared at him, and briefly seemed to

 see someone else, for she brought her free hand up as

 though to protect herself. Then she recognized him and

 let the hand fall. Her other hand remained clutched in his.

 

 "It was just a bad dream." He squeezed her fingers

 gently, surprised and gratified by how much larger his

 hand was than hers.

 

 "I'm well," she muttered at last, and drew herself up

 into a sitting position, pulling the cloak tightly about her

 shoulders. She glared around at the clearing as though the

 presence of daylight was some silly prank of Simon's.

 "What time of day is it?"

 

 64

 

 Tad Williams

 

 'The sun's not over the treetops yet. Down there, I

 mean. I walked down to the river."

 

 She didn't reply, but clambered to her feet and walked

 unsteadily out of the copse. Simon shrugged and went

 back to his search for something on which they could

 break their fast.

 

 When Miriamele returned a short time later, he bad

 turned up a lump of soft cheese and round loaf of bread;

 

 he had split the latter open and was toasting it on a stick

 over the small fire. "Good morning," she said. She looked

 tousled, but she had washed the dirt from her face and her

 expression was almost cheerful. "I'm sorry I was so

 cross. I had a ... a terrible dream."

 

 He looked at her with interest, but she did not elabo-

 rate. "There's food here," he said.

 

 "A fire, too." She came and sat near, holding out her

 hands. "I hope the smoke doesn't show."

 

 "It doesn't. I went out a little way and looked."

 

 Simon gave Miriamele half the bread and a hunk of the

 cheese. She ate greedily, then smiled with her mouth full.

 After swallowing, she said: "I was hungry. I was so wor-

 ried last night that I didn't eat."

 

 "There's more if you want it."

 

 She shook her head. "We have to save it. I don't know

 how long we'll be traveling and we may have trouble get-

 ting more." Miriamele looked up. "Can you shoot? I

 brought a bow and a quiver of arrows." She pointed to the

 unstrung bow hanging beside her saddle.

 

 Simon shrugged. "I've shot one, but I'm no

 Mundwode. I could probably hit a cow from a dozen

 paces or so."

 

 Minamele giggled. "I was thinking of rabbits or squir-

 rels or birds, Simon. I don't think there will be many

 cows standing around."

 

 He nodded sagely. "Then we'd better do as you say and

 save our food."

 

 Miriamele sat back and placed her hands on her stom-

 ach. "As long as the fire's going ..." She stood and went

 to her saddlebags. She brought out a pair of bowls and a

 small drawstring sack and returned to the fire, then placed

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 65

 

 two small stones in the embers to heat. "I brought some

 calami nt tea."

 

 "You don't put salt and butter in it, do you?" Simon

 asked, remembering the Qanuc and their odd additions.

 

 "Elysia's mercy, no!" she said, laughing. "But I wish

 we had some honey."

 

 While they drank the teaSimon thought it a great im-

 provement on Mintahoq akaMiriamele talked about

 what they would do that day. She did not want to resume

 riding until sundown, but there were other things to be ac-

 complished.

 

 "You can teach me something about swordplay, for one

 thing."

 

 "What?" Simon stared at her as though she had asked

 him to show her how to fly.

 

 Miriamele gave him a scornful glance, then got up and

 walked to her saddlebag. From the bottom she drew out a

 short sword in a tooled scabbard. "I had Freosel make it

 for me before we left. He cut it down from a man's

 sword." Her disdainful look gave way to a wry, strangely

 self-mocking grin. "I said I wanted it to protect my virtue

 when we marched on Nabban." She looked hard at Si-

 mon. "So teach me."

 

 "You want me to show you'how to use a sword," he

 said slowly.

 

 "Of course. And in turn, I will show you how to use a

 bow." She raised her chin slightly. "I can hit a cow at a

 great deal more than a few pacesnot that I have," she

 said hurriedly. "But old Sir Fluiren taught me how to

 shoot a bow when I was a little girl. He thought it was

 amusing."

 

 Simon was nonplussed. "So you are going to shoot

 squirrels for the dinner pot?"

 

 Her expression turned cool again. "I didn't bring the

 bow for hunting, Simonthe sword, either. We are going

 somewhere dangerous- A young woman traveling these

 days would be a fool to go unarmed."

 

 Her calm explanation made him suddenly cold. "But

 you won't tell me where."

 

 "Tomorrow morning. Now comewe're wasting

 

 66 Tad Williams

 

 time." She picked up the sword and drew it from the

 scabbard, letting the leather slide to the wet ground. Her

 eyes were bright, challenging.

 

 Simon stared. "First, you don't treat your scabbard that

 way." He picked it up and handed it to her. "Put the blade

 away, then buckle on the sword belt."

 

 Miriamele scowled. "I already know how to buckle a

 belt."

 

 "First things first," Simon said calmly. "Do you want

 to leam or not?"

 

 The morning passed, and Simon's irritation at having to

 teach swordsmanship to a girl passed with it. Miriamele

 was fiercely eager to learn. She asked question after ques-

 tion, many of which Simon had no answer to, no matter

 how much he wracked his memory for all the things

 Haestan, Siudig, and Camaris had tried to teach him. It

 was hard to admit to her that he, a knight, did not know

 something, but after a few short but unpleasant exchanges

 he swallowed his pride and said frankly that he did not

 know why a sword's hilt only stuck out on two sides and

 not all around, it just did. Miriamele seemed happier with

 that answer than she had been with his previous attempts

 at mystification, and the rest of the lesson passed more

 swiftly and pleasantly.

 

 Miriamele was surprisingly strong for her size, al-

 though when Simon thought about what she had been

 through his surprise was less. She was quick as well, with

 good balance, although she tended to lean too far for-

 ward, a habit that could quickly prove fatal in an actual

 fight, since almost any opponent would be larger than she

 was and have a longer reach. All in all, he was impressed.

 He sensed that he would quickly run out of new things to

 tell her, and then it would just be practice and more prac-

 tice. He was more than a little glad they were sparring

 with long sticks instead of blades; she had managed dur-

 ing the course of the morning to give him a few nasty

 swipes.

 

 After they took a long pause for water and a rest, they

 changed places: Miriamele instructed Simon in the care

 

 TO GREENANGELTOWER67

 

 of the bow, paying special attention to keeping the bow-

 string warm and dry. He smiled at his own impatience. As

 Miriamele had been unwilling to sit through his explana-

 tions of swordsmanshipmuch of it taken in whole cloth

 from Camaris' teachings to himhe himself was itching

 to show her what he could do with a bow in his hand. But

 she was having none of it, and so the remainder 'of the af-

 ternoon was spent learning the proper draw. By the time

 shadows grew long, Simon's fingers were red and raw. He

 would have to think of some way to acquire finger-

 leathers like Miriamele's if he was going to be shooting

 in earnest.

 

 They made a meal for themselves with bread and an

 onion and a little jerked meat, then saddled the horses.

 

 "Your horse needs a name," Simon told her as he fas-

 tened Homefmder's belly strap. "Camaris says your horse

 is part of you, but it's also one of God's creatures."

 

 "I'll think about it," she said.

 

 They looked one last time around the camp to make

 sure they had left no trace of their presencethey had

 buried the fire ashes and raked the bent grass with a long

 branchthen rode out into the disappearing day.

 

 "There's the old forest," Simon said, pleased. He

 squinted against the first dawn light. "That dark line,

 there."

 

 "I see it." She headed her horse off the road, aiming

 due north. "We will go as far toward it as we can today

 instead of stoppingI am going to break my own rule

 and ride in daylight. I'll feel safer when we're there."

 

 "We aren't going back to Sesuad'ra?" Simon asked.

 

 "No. We're going to Aidheortefor a while."

 

 "We're going to the forest? Why?"

 

 Miriamele was looking straight ahead. She had thrown

 her hood back, and the sun was in her hair. "Because my

 uncle may send people after me. They won't be able to

 find us if we're in the woods."

 

 Simon remembered all too well his experiences in the

 great forest. Very few of them had been pleasant. "But it

 takes forever to travel through there."

 

 68 Tad Williams

 

 "We won't be in the woods long. Just enough to be

 sure that no one finds us."

 

 Simon shrugged. He had no idea where exactly she

 wanted to go, or why, but she had obviously been plan-

 ning.

 

 They rode on toward the distant line of the forest.

 

 They reached the outskirts of the Aldheorte late in the

 afternoon. The sun had sunk toward the horizon; the

 grassy hills were painted with slanting light.

 

 Simon supposed they would stop and make camp in

 the thin vegetation of the forest's outer edgeafter all,

 they had now been riding steadily since the evening be-

 fore, almost a day straight, with only a few short naps

 stolen along the waybut Miriamele was determined to

 get well in, safe from accidental discovery. They rode

 through the increasingly close-leaning trees until riding

 was no longer practical, then led the horses another quar-

 ter of a league. When the princess at last found a site that

 was to her liking, the forest was in the last glow of twi-

 light; beneath the thick tree canopy the world was all

 muted shades of blue.

 

 Simon dismounted and hurriedly started a fire. When

 that was crackling healthily, they made camp. Miriamele

 had picked the site in part because of a small streamlet

 that trickled nearby. As she searched for the makings of a

 meal, he walked the horses over to the water to drink.

 

 Simon, after a full day spent almost entirely in the sad-

 dle, found himself strangely wakeful, as though he had

 forgotten what sleep was. After he and Miriamele had fed

 themselves, they sat beside the fire and talked about ev-

 eryday matters, although more by Miriamele's choice

 than Simon's. He had other things on his mind, and

 thought it strange that she should so earnestly discuss

 Josua and Vorzheva's coming child and ask for more sto-

 ries about the battle with Fengbald when there were so

 many questions still unanswered about their present jour-

 ney. At last, frustrated, he held up his hand.

 

 "Enough of this. You said you would tell me where we

 are going, Miriamele."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER69

 

 She looked into the flames for a while before speaking,

 "That's true, Simon. I have not been fair, I suppose, to

 bring you so far on trust alone. But I didn't ask you to

 come with me."

 

 He was hurt, but tried not to show it. "I'm here,

 though. So tell mewhere are we going?"

 

 She took a deep breath, then let it out. "To Erkynland."

 

 He nodded. 'T guessed that- It wasn't hard, listening to

 you at the Raed. But where in Erkynland? And what are

 we going to do there?"

 

 "We're going to the Hayholt." She looked at him in-

 tently, as if daring him to disagree.

 

 Aedon have mercy on us, Simon thought. Out loud, he

 said: "To get Bright-Nail?" Although it was madness

 even to consider it, there was a certain excitement to the

 thought. Hewith help, admittedlyhad found and se-

 cured Thorn, hadn't he? Perhaps if he brought back

 Bright-Nail as well, he would be ... He didn't even dare

 to think the words, but a sudden picture came to himhe.

 Simon, a sort of knight-of-knights, one who could even

 court princesses....

 

 He pushed the picture back into the depths. There was

 no such thing, not really. And he and Miriamele would

 never come back from such a foolhardy venture in any

 case. 'To try to save Bright-Nail?" he asked again.

 

 Miriamele was still looking at him intently. "Perhaps."

 

 "Perhaps?" He scowled. "What does that mean?"

 

 "I said I would tell you where we were going," she re-

 sponded- "I didn't say I would tell you everything in my

 head."

 

 Simon irritatedly picked up a stick and broke it in half,

 then dumped the pieces into the firepit. " 'S Bloody Tree,

 Miriamele," he growled, "why are you doing this? You

 said I was your friend, but then you treat me like a child."

 

 "I am not treating you like a child," she said hotly.

 "You insisted on coming with me. Good. But my errand

 is my own, whether I am going to get the sword or head-

 ing back to the castle to get a pair of shoes that I left be-

 hind by mistake."

 

 Simon was still angry, but he couldn't suppress a bark

 

 70 Tad Williams

 

 of laughter. "You probably are going back for shoes or a

 dress or something. That would be just my luckto get

 killed by the Erkynguard in the middle of a war for trying

 to steal shoes."

 

 A little of Miriamele's annoyance had dissipated. "You

 probably stole enough things and got away with it when

 you were living at the Hayholt. It will only be fair."'

 

 "Stole? Me?"

 

 "From the kitchens, constantly. You told me yourself,

 although I knew it already. And who was it who stole the

 sexton's shovel and put it in the gauntlet of that armor in

 the Lesser Hall, so that it looked like Sir Whoever was

 going out to dig a privy pit?"

 

 Surprised she had remembered, Simon let out a quiet,

 pleased chortle. "Jeremias did that with me."

 

 "You dragged him into it, you mean. Jeremias would

 never have done something like that without you."

 

 "How did you know about that?"

 

 Miriamele gave him a disgusted look. "I told you, you

 idiot, I followed you around for weeks."

 

 "You did, didn't you." Simon was impressed. "What

 else did you see me do?"

 

 "Mostly sneak off and sit around mooning when you

 were supposed to be working," she snapped. "No wonder

 Rachel had to pinch your ears blue."

 

 Offended, Simon straightened his back. "I only

 sneaked off to have some time to myself. You don't know

 what it's tike living in the servants' quarters."

 

 Miriamele looked at him. Her expression was suddenly

 serious, even sad. "You're right. But you don't know

 what it was like being me, either. There certainly wasn't

 much chance to be off by myself."

 

 "Maybe," Simon said stubbornly. "But I'll bet the food

 was better in your part of the Hayholt."

 

 "It was the same food," she shot back. "We just ate it

 with clean hands." She looked pointedly at his ash-

 blackened fingers.

 

 Simon laughed aloud. "Ah! So the difference between

 a scullion and a princess is clean hands. I hate to disap-

 

 TOGREENANCELTOWERfl

 

 point you, Miriamele, but after spending a day up to my

 elbows in the washing tub, my hands were very clean."

 

 She looked at him mockingly- "So then I suppose there

 is no difference between the two at all."

 

 "I don't know." Simon grew suddenly uncomfortable

 with the discussion; it was moving into painful territory.

 "I don't know, Miriamele."

 

 Sensing that something had changed, she fell silent.

 

 Insects were creaking musically all around, and the

 shadowy trees loomed like eavesdroppers. It was strange

 to be in the forest again, Simon thought. He had grown

 used to the vast distances to be seen from atop Sesuad'ra

 and the unending openness of the High Thrithing. After

 that, Aldheorte seemed confining. Still, a castle was con-

 fining, too, but it was the best defense against enemies.

 Perhaps Miriamele was right: for a while, anyway, the

 forest might be the best place for them.

 

 "I'm going to sleep," she said suddenly. She stood up

 and walked to the spot where she had unrolled her bed.

 Simon noted that she had placed his bedroll on the far

 side of the campfire from her own.

 

 "If you wish." He couldn't tell if she was mad at him

 again. Perhaps she'd just run short of things to say. He

 felt like that around her sometimes, once all the talk of

 small things was finished. The big things were too hard to

 speak of, too embarrassing ... and too frightening. "I

 think I'll sit here for a while."

 

 Miriamele rolled herself in her cloak and lay back. Si-

 mon watched her through the shimmer of the fire. One of

 the horses made a soft, contented-sounding noise.

 

 "Miriamele?"

 

 "Yes?"

 

 "I meant what I said the night we left. I will be your

 protector, even if you don't tell me exactly what I'm pro-

 tecting you from."

 

 "I know, Simon. Thank you."

 

 There was another gap of silence. After a while, Simon

 heard a thin sound, quietly melodious. He had a moment

 of apprehension before he realized it was Miriamele hum-

 ming softly to herself.

 

 72 Tad Williams

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 "What song is that?"

 

 She stirred and turned toward him. "What?"

 

 "What song is that you were humming?"

 

 She smiled. "I didn't know I was humming. It's been

 running through my head all this evening. It's one my

 mother used to sing to me when I was little. I think it's a

 Hernystiri song that came from my grandmother, but the

 words are Westerling."

 

 Simon stood and walked to his bedroll. "Would you

 sing it?"

 

 Miriamele hesitated. "I don't know. I'm tired, and I'm

 not sure I can remember the words. Anyway, it's a sad

 song."

 

 He lay down and pulled his cloak over him, abruptly

 shivering. The night was growing cold. The wind lightly

 rattled the leaves. "I don't care if you get the words right.

 It would just be nice to have a song."

 

 "Very well. I'll try." She thought for a moment, then

 began to sing. Her voice was husky but sweet.

 

 "In Cathyn Dair there lived a maid,"

 

 she began. Although she sang quietly, the slow melody

 ran all through the darkened forest clearing.

 

 "/ Cathyn Dair, by Siiversea,

 The fairest girl was ever born

 And I loved her and she loved me.

 

 "By Siiversea the wind is cold

 The grass is long, the stones are old

 And hearts are bought, and love is sold

 And time and time the same tale told

 In cruel Cathyn Dair.

 

 "We met when autumn moon was high

 In Cathyn Dair, by Siiversea,

 In silver dress and golden shoon

 She danced and gave her smile to me.

 

 "When winter's ice was on the roof

 In Cathyn Dair. by Siiversea,

 We sang beside the fiery hearth

 She smiled and gave her lips to me.

 

 "By Siiversea the wind is cold

 The grass is long, the stones are old

 And hearts are bought, and love is sold

 And time and time the same tale told

 In cruel Cathyn Dair.

 

 "When spring was dreaming in the fields

 In Cathyn Dair, by Siiversea,

 In Mircha's shrine where candles burned

 She stood and pledged her troth to me.

 

 "When summer burned upon the hills

 In Cathyn Dair, by Siiversea,

 The banns were posted in the town

 But she came not to marry me.

 

 "By Siiversea the wind is cold

 The grass is long, the stones are old

 And hearts are bought, and love is sold

 And time and time the same tale told

 In cruel Cathyn Dair.

 

 "When Autumn's moon had come again

 

 In Cathyn Dair, by Siiversea,

 

 I saw her dance in silver dress

 

 The man she danced for was not me.

 

 "When winter showed its cruel claws

 In Cathyn Dair, by Siiversea,

 I walked out from the city walls

 No more will that place torment me.

 

 74Tad Williams

 

 "By Silversea the wind is cold

 The grass is long, the stones are old

 And hearts are bought, and love is sold

 And time and time the same tale told

 In cruel Cathyn Dair ..."

 

 'That's a pretty song," Simon said when she had fin-

 ished. "A sad song." The haunting tune still floated

 through his head; he understood why Miriamele had been

 humming it all unawares.

 

 "My mother used to sing it to me in the garden at

 Meremund. She always sang. Everyone said she had the

 prettiest voice they'd ever heard."

 

 There was silence for a while. Both Simon and

 Miriamele lay wrapped in their cloaks, nursing their se-

 cret thoughts.

 

 "I never knew my mother," Simon said at last. "She

 died when I was bom, I never knew either of my par-

 ents."

 

 "Neither did I."

 

 By the time the oddness of this remark sifted down

 through Simon's own distracted thoughts, Miriamele had

 rolled over, placing her back toward the fireand toward

 Simon. He wanted to ask her what she meant, but sensed

 that she did not want to talk anymore.

 

 Instead, he watched the fire burning low and the last

 few sparks fluttering upward into the darkness.

 

 Wimfows Lifce Eyes

 

 The TO-ms stood so close together that there was

 scarcely room to move between them. Binabik sang a

 quiet sheep-soothing song as he threaded his way in and

 out among the woolly obstacles.

 

 "Sisqi," he called. "I need to speak to you."

 She was sitting cross-legged, retying the knots of her

 ram's harness. Around her several of the other troll men

 and women were seeing to final tasks before the prince's

 company resumed its march into Nabban. "I am here,"

 

 she said.

 

 Binabik looked around. "Would you come with me

 

 somewhere more quiet?"

 

 She nodded and set the harness down on the ground. "I

 

 will."

 

 They snaked their way back out through the herd of

 jostling rams and climbed up the knoll. When they sat

 down in the grass the milling camp lay spread below

 them. The tents had been dismantled early that morning,

 and all that remained of what had been a small city for

 three days was a formless, moving mass of people and

 

 animals.

 

 "You are fretful," Sisqi said abruptly. 'Tell me what is

 wrong, belovedalthough we have certainly seen enough

 bad fortune in the last few days to make anyone sad for

 a long time."

 

 Binabik sighed and nodded. "That is true. The loss of

 Geloe is a hard one, and not only because of her wisdom.

 

 76 Tad Williams

 

 I miss her, too, Sisqi- We will not see anyone like her

 again."

 

 "But there is more," Sisqi prompted him gently. "I

 know you well, Binbiniqegabenik. Is it Simon and the

 princess?"

 

 "That is the root of it. LookI will show you some-

 thing." He pulled apart the sections of his walking stick,

 A long white shaft tipped with blue-gray stone slid out.

 

 "That is Simon's arrow." Sisqi's eyes were wide. "The

 gift of the Sithi. Did he leave it behind?"

 

 "Not on purpose, I think. I found it tangled in one of

 the shirts Outrun made for him. He took with him little

 but the clothes he wore on his back, but he did take the

 sack that held his most treasured possessionsJiriki's

 mirror, a piece of stone he brought from Haestan's cairn,

 other things. I believe the White Arrow must have been

 left by mistake. Perhaps he had taken it out for some

 other purpose and forgot to return it to the sack." Binabik

 lifted the arrow until it caught the morning sun and

 gleamed. "It reminds me of things," he said slowly. "It is

 the mark of Jiriki's debt to Simon. A debt which is no

 less than the one / owe, on my master Ookequk's behalf,

 to Doctor Morgenes."

 

 A sudden look of fear came to Sisqi's face, although

 she did her best to hide it. "What do you mean, Binabik?"

 

 He stared at the arrow miserably. "Ookequk promised

 help to Morgenes. I took on that oath. I swore to help pro-

 tect young Simon, Sisqi."

 

 She took his hand in hers. "You have done that and

 more, Binabik. Surely you are not to guard him day and

 night for the rest of your life."

 

 "This is different." He carefully slid the arrow back

 into his walking stick. "And there is more than my debt,

 Sisqi. Both Simon and Miriamele are already in danger

 traveling alone in the wilderness, even more so if they go

 where I fear they do. But they are also a risk to the rest

 of us."

 

 "What do you mean?" She was having trouble keeping

 the pain from her words.

 

 "If they are caught, they will eventually be taken to

 

 TO GRE-EN ANGEL TOWFR

 

 77

 

 Pryrates, King Ellas' advisor. You do not know him,

 Sisqi, but 1 do, at least from tales. He is powerful, and

 reckless in his use of that power. And he is cruel. He will

 learn from them whatever they know about us, and Simon

 and Miriamele both know a great dealabout our plans,

 about the swords, everything. And Pryrates will kill them,

 or at least Simon, in the getting of that knowledge."

 "So you are going to find them?" she asked slowly.

 He hung his head. "I feel I must."

 "But why you? Josua has an entire army!"

 "There are reasons, my beloved. Come with me when

 I speak to Josua and you will hear the reasons. You

 should be there, in any case."

 

 She looked at him defiantly. "If you go after them, then

 I will go with you."

 

 "And who will keep our people safe in a strange land?"

 He gestured at the trolls moving below. "You at least

 speak some of the Westerling speech now. We cannot

 both go and leave our fellow Qanuc altogether deaf and

 

 mute."

 Tears were forming in Sisqi's eyes. "Is there no other

 

 way?"

 

 "I cannot think of one," he said slowly. "I wish I

 could." His own eyes were damp as well.

 

 "Chukku's Stones!" she swore. "Are we to suffer ev-

 erything we have suffered to be together, only to be sep-

 arated again?" She squeezed his fingers tightly. "Why are

 you so straight-backed and honorable, Binabik of

 Mintahoq? I have cursed you for it before, but never so

 bitterly."

 

 "I will come back to you. I swear, Sisqinanamook. No

 matter what befalls, I will come back to you."

 

 She leaned forward, pushing her forehead against his

 chest, and wept. Binabik wrapped his arms around her

 and held tightly; tears rolled down his cheeks as well.

 

 "If you do not come back," she moaned, "may you

 never have a moment's peace until Time is gone."

 

 "I will come back," he repeated, then fell silent. They

 stayed that way for a long time, locked in a miserable em-

 brace.

 

 78 Tad Williams

 

 "I cannot say I like this idea, Binabik," said Prince

 Josua. "We can ill-afford to lose your wisdom

 especially now, after Geloe's death." The prince looked

 morose. "Aedon knows what a blow that has been to us.

 I feel sick inside. And we have not even a body to weep

 over."

 

 "And that is as she was wishing it," Binabik said

 gently. "But, speaking about your first worry, it is my

 thinking that we can even less be suffering the loss of

 your niece and Simon. I have made you know my fears

 about that."

 

 "Perhaps. But what about discovering the use of the

 swords? We still have much to leam."

 

 "I have little help left for giving to Strangyeard and

 Tiamak," said the little man. "Nearly all of Ookequk's

 scrolls I have already made into Westerling. Those few of

 them that are remaining still, Sisqi can be helping with

 them." He indicated his betrothed, who sat silently beside

 him, her eyes red. "And then, I must also be saying with

 regret, when that task is being finished she will take the

 remaining Qanuc and return to our people."

 

 Josua looked at Sisqi. "This is another great loss."

 

 She bowed her head.

 

 "But you are many now," Binabik pointed out. "Our

 people suffer, too, and these herdsmen and huntresses will

 be needed at Blue Mud Lake."

 

 "Of course," said the prince. "We will always be grate-

 ful that your people came to our aid. We will never for-

 get, Binabik." He frowned. "So you are determined to

 go?"

 

 The troll nodded. "There are many reasons it is seem-

 ing the best course to me. It is also my fear that

 Miriamele hopes to get the sword Bright-Nailperhaps

 with thinking she can hurry the end of this struggle. That

 is frightening to me, since if Count Eolair's story was

 true, the dwarrows have already confessed to the minions

 of the Storm King that Minneyar is the sword that is rest-

 ing now in your father's grave."

 

 "Which is likely the end of our hopes, in any case,"

 

 TOC.REENANGELTOWKR79

 

 Josua said gloomily. "For if he knows that, why would

 Elias leave it there?"

 

 "The Storm King's knowing and the knowing of your

 brother may not be the same thing," Binabik observed. "It

 is not an unheard-of strangeness for allies to be hiding

 things from each other. The Storm King may not be

 knowing that we also have this knowledge." He smiled a

 yellow smile. "It is a thing of great complication, is it

 not? Also, from the story that the old man Towser was so

 often tellingthe story of how your brother acted when

 Towser was giving him the bladeit is possible that

 those who have the taint of Stormspike cannot bear its

 nearness."

 

 "It is a great deal to hope for," Josua said. "Isgrimnur?

 What do you make of all this?"

 

 The duke shifted on the low stool. "About which? The

 swords, or the troll's going off after Miri and the boy?"

 

 "Either. Both." Josua waved his hand wearily.

 

 "I can't say much about the swords, but what Binabik

 has to say makes a kind of sense. As to the other ..."

 Isgrimnur shrugged. "Someone should go, that's clear. I

 brought her back once, so I'll go again if you want,

 Josua."

 

 "No." The prince shook his head firmly. "I need you

 here. And I would not separate you from Outrun yet again

 for the sake of my headstrong niece." He turned to the

 troll. "How many men would you take, Binabik?"

 

 "None, Prince Josua."

 

 "None?" The prince was astonished. "But what do you

 mean? Surely it would be safer to take at least a few good

 men, as you did on the journey to Urmsheim?"

 

 Binabik shook his head. "I am thinking that Miriamele

 and Simon will not hide from me, but they would be hid-

 ing with certainness from mounted soldiers pursuing

 them. Also, there are places Qantaqa and I can go that

 even riders of great skill, like Hotvig's Thrithings-men,

 cannot. I can be more silent, too. No, it is a better thing

 if I go by myself."

 

 "I do not like it," Josua said, "and I can see that your

 Sisqi does not like it either. But I will consider it, at least.

 

 8o Tad Williams

 

 Perhaps it would be bestthere is more of me than just

 an uncle's love that fears what might happen if Miriamele

 and Simon fall into my brother's hands. Certainly some-

 thing must be done." He lifted his hand and rubbed at his

 temples. "Let me think on it a while."

 

 "With certainty. Prince Josua." Binabik stood. "But re-

 member that even Qantaqa's wonderful nose cannot be

 tracking a scent that has been too long on the ground." He

 bowed, as did Sisqi, then they turned and went out.

 

 "He is smallthey both are," Josua said reflectively.

 "But not only do I wish the trolls were not leaving, I wish

 I had a thousand more like them.'*

 

 "He's a brave one, that Binabik, right enough," said

 Isgrimnur. "Seems sometimes as if that's all we have

 left."

 

 A

 

 Eclair watched the fly buzzing near his horse's head for

 some time. The horse, but for an occasional ear-flick,

 seemed little bothered, but Eolair continued to stare.

 There was not much else to look at while riding through

 this westernmost part of Hemystir on the fringes of the

 Frostmarch, and the fly also reminded him of something

 he could not quite summon to mind, but which was nev-

 ertheless bidding for his attention. The Count of Nad

 Mullach watched the tiny black speck for some time be-

 fore he finally realized why it seemed significant.

 

 This is the first fly I've seen in a whilethe first since

 the winter came down, I think. It must be getting warmer.

 

 This rather ordinary thought gave rise to a host of

 other, less usual speculations.

 

 Could it be that somehow the tide has turned? he won-

 dered. Could Josua and his people have accomplished

 something that has diminished the Storm King's power

 and pushed back his magical winter? He looked around at

 the small, tattered troop of Hemystiri that rode behind

 him, and at the great company of Sithi who led them,

 their banners and armor ablaze with color. Could the fact

 that Jiriki's folk have entered the battle somehow have

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 8l

 

 tipped the scale in our favor? Or am I making too much

 out of the tiniest of signs ?

 

 He laughed to himself, but grimly. This last year and its

 attendant horrors seemed to have made him as omen-

 drunk as his ancestors of Hem's day.

 

 His ancestors had been on Eolair's mind more than a

 little in the last few days. The army of Sithi and men rid-

 ing toward Naglimund had recently stopped at Eolair's

 castle at Nad Mullach on the River Baraillean. In the two

 days the army was quartered there, the count had found

 another three score men from the surrounding area who

 were willing to join the war partymost of them more

 for the wonder of riding with the fabled Peaceful Ones,

 Eolair suspected, than out of any sense of duty or thirst

 for revenge. The young men who agreed to Join the com-

 pany were mostly those whose families had been lost or

 scattered during the recent conflict. Those who still had

 land or loved ones to protect had no desire to ride off to

 another war, no matter how noble or all-encompassing the

 causenor could Eolair have commanded them to do so:

 

 the landholders of Hemystir had not possessed that right

 since King Tethtain's day.

 

 Nad Mullach had been less harshly treated than

 Hemysadharc, but it had still suffered during Skali's con-

 quest. In the short time he had, Eolair rounded up those

 few of his retainers who remained and did his best to set

 things on the right course again. If he did manage some-

 how to return from this mad war that was growing mad-

 der by the day, he wanted nothing more than to put down

 the reins of responsibility as soon as possible and live

 once more in his beloved Nad Mullach.

 

 His liege-folk had held out long against the small por-

 tion of Skali's army that had been left to besiege them,

 but when those prisoned within the castle's walls began to

 starve, Eolair's cousin and castellaine Gwynna, a stern,

 capable woman, opened the gates to the Rimmersmen.

 Many of the fine things that had been in Eolair's line

 since not long after Sinnach's alliance with the Eri-king

 were destroyed or stolen, and so were many objects that

 Eolair himself had brought back from his travels through-

 

 82 Tad Williams

 

 out Osten Ard. Still, he had consoled himself, the walls

 still stood, the Fieldsunder a blanket of snowwere

 still fertile, and the wide Baraillean, unhindered by war or

 winter, still rushed past Nad Mullach on its way to

 Abaingeat and the sea.

 

 The count had commended Gwynna for her decision,

 telling her that had he been in residence he would have

 done the same. She, to whom the sight of Skali's outland-

 ers in her great house had been the most galling thing

 imaginable, was a little comforted, but not much.

 

 Those outlanders, perhaps because their master was far

 away in Hernysadharc, or perhaps because they were not

 themselves of Skali's savage Kaldskryke clan, had been

 less hateful in their occupation than the invaders in other

 parts of Hemystir. They had treated their conquered pris-

 oners poorly, and had plundered and smashed to their

 hearts* content, but had not indulged in the kind of rape,

 torture, and senseless killing that had marked Skali's

 main army as it drove on Hernysadharc.

 

 Still, despite the comparative lightness of the damage

 to his ancestral home, as he rode out of Nad Mullach

 Eolair was nevertheless filled with a sense of violation

 and shame. His forebears had built the castle to watch

 over their bit of the river valley. Now it had been attacked

 and defeated, and the current count had not even been at

 home. His servants and kin had been forced to make their

 way alone.

 

 / served my king, he told himself. What else could I

 do?

 

 There was no answer, but that did not make it any

 easier to live with the memories of shattered stone,

 scorched tapestries, and frightened, hollow-eyed peo-

 ple. Even should both war and spirit-winter end tomor-

 row, that harm had already been done.

 

 "Would you like something more to eat, my lady?"

 Eolair asked.

 

 He could not help wondering what Maegwin in her

 madness made of the rather poor fare that had been their

 lot so far on the trip toward Naglimund. Nothing much

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWFR83

 

 could be expected of a war-ravaged countryside, of

 course, but the count was curious how hard bread and

 leathery onions could be considered food fit for gods.

 

 "No, Eolair, thank you." Maegwin shook her head and

 smiled gently. "Even in a land of unending pleasure, we

 must rest from pleasure occasionally."

 

 Unending pleasure! The count smiled back despite

 himself. It might not be bad to be as touched as Maegwin,

 at least during meals.

 

 A moment later he chided himself for the uncharitable

 thought. Look at her. She's like a child. It's not her fault

 perhaps it was the blow Skali struck her. It may not have

 killed her, as she thinks, but it might have disordered her

 brains.

 

 He stared at her. Maegwin was watching the sunset

 with evident pleasure. Her face seemed almost to glow.

 

 What is that term they use in Nabban? "Holy fools."

 That's what she looks likesomeone who is no longer of

 the earth.

 

 "The sky of heaven is more beautiful than I would

 have imagined," she said dreamily. "I wonder if perhaps

 it is our own sky, but we see it .now from the other side."

 

 And even were there some cure, Eolair wondered sud-

 denly, what right have I to take this away from her? The

 thought was shocking, like cold water dashed in his face.

 She is happyhappy for the first time since her father

 went off to war and his death. She eats, she sleeps, she

 talks to me and others ... even if most of it is arrant non-

 sense. How would she be better off if she came back to

 her senses in this dreadful time?

 

 There was no answer to that, of course. Eolair took a

 deep breath, fighting off the weariness that assailed him

 when he was with Maegwin. He stood and walked to a

 patch of melting snow nearby, washed his bowl, then re-

 turned to the tree where Maegwin sat, staring out across

 the rolling fields of grass and gray snow toward the ruddy

 western sky.

 

 "I am going to talk to Jiriki," he told her. "Will you be

 well here?"

 

 Tad Williams

 

 She nodded, a half-smile tilting her lips. "Certainly,

 Count Eclair."

 

 He bowed his head and left her.

 

 The Sithi were seated upon the ground around

 Likimeya's fire. Eolair stopped some distance away, mar-

 veling at the strangeness of the sight. Although close to, a

 dozen of them sat in a wide circle, no one spoke: they

 merely looked at each other as though they carried on

 some wordless conversation. Not for the first time, the

 Count of Nad Mullach felt the hairs on the back of his

 neck rise in superstitious wonder. What strange allies!

 

 Likimeya still wore her mask of ashes. Heavy rains had

 swept down on the traveling army the day before, but her

 strange face-painting seemed just as it had been, which

 made the count suspect that she renewed it each day.

 Seated across from her was a tall, narrow-featured Sitha-

 woman, thin as a priest's staff, with pale sky-blue hair

 drawn up atop her head in a birdlike crest. It was only be-

 cause hriki had told him that Eolair knew that this stem

 woman, Zinjadu, was even older than Likimeya.

 

 Also seated at the fire was Jiriki's red-haired, green-

 garbed uncle Khendraja'aro, and Chekai'so Amber-Locks,

 whose shaggy hair and surprisingly open faceEolair

 had even seen this Sitha smile and laughmade him

 seem almost human. On either side of Jiriki sat Yizashi,

 whose long gray witchwood spear was twined about with

 sun-golden ribbons, and Kuroyi, who was taller than any-

 one else in the entire company, Sithi or Hemystin, and so

 pale and cold-featured that but for his tar-black hair he

 might have been a Nom. There were others, too, three fe-

 males and a pair of males that Eolair had seen before, but

 whose names he did not know.

 

 He stood uncomfortably for some time, uncertain of

 whether to stay or go. At last, Jiriki looked up. "Count

 Eolair," he said. "We are just thinking about Naglimund."

 

 Eolair nodded, then bowed toward Likimeya, who low-

 ered her chin briefly in acknowledgment. None of the

 other Sithi gave him much more attention than a flick of

 feline eyes. "We will be there soon," he said.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 85

 

 "A few days," agreed Jiriki. "We Zida'ya are not used

 to fighting against a castle held by enemiesI do not

 think we have done it since the last evil days back in

 Venyha Do'sae. Are there any among your folk who know

 Josua's stronghold well, or about such fighting? We have

 many questions."

 

 "Siege warfare... ?" said Eolair uncertainly. He had

 thought that the frighteningly competent Sithi would have

 prepared for this long before. "There are a few of my

 men who have fought as mercenaries in the Southern Is-

 lands and the Lakeland wars, but not many. Hernystir it-

 self has been peaceful during most of our lifetimes. As to

 Naglimund ... I suppose that / know it best of any

 Hemystirman still living. I have spent much time there."

 

 "Come and sit with us." Jiriki gestured to an open

 place near Chekai'so.

 

 Black-haired Kuroyi said something in the liquid Sithi

 tongue as Eolair seated himself on the ground. Jiriki

 showed a hint of a smile. "Kuroyi says that surely the

 Noms will come out and fight us before the walls. He be-

 lieves that the Hikeda'ya would never hide behind stone

 laid by mortals when the Zida'ya have come to resolve

 things at last."

 

 "I know nothing of the ... of those we call Noms,"

 Eolair said carefully. "But I cannot imagine that if their

 purpose is as deadly earnest as it seems, they will give up

 the advantage of a stronghold like Naglimund."

 

 "I believe you are correct," said Jiriki. "But it is hard

 to convince many of my people that. It is hard enough for

 most of us to believe that we go to war with the

 Hikeda'ya, let alone that they might hide within a fortress

 and drop stones on us as mortal armies do." He said

 something in the Sithi speech to Kuroyi, who replied

 briefly, then fell silent, his eyes cold as bronze plates.

 Jiriki next turned to the others.

 

 "It is impolite for us to speak in a language Count

 Eolair does not know. If anyone does not feel comfortable

 speaking Hernystiri or Westerling, I will be happy to

 render your words for the count's understanding."

 

 "Mortal tongues and mortal strategies. We will all have

 

 86 Tad Williams

 

 to leam," Likimeya said abruptly. "It is a different age. If

 the rules of mortals now make the world spin, then we

 must leam those rules."

 

 "Or decide whether it is possible to live in such a

 world." Zinjadu's voice was deep yet strangely uninflec-

 ted, as though she had learned Westerling without ever

 having heard it spoken. "Perhaps we should let the

 Hikeda'ya have this world of mortals that they seem to

 desire."

 

 "The Hikeda'ya would destroy the mortals even more

 readily than they would destroy us," Jiriki said calmly.

 

 "It is one thing," spoke up Yizashi Grayspear, "to ful-

 fill an ancient debt, as we have just done at M'yin

 Azoshai. Besides, those were mortals we routed, and the

 descendants of bloody Fingil's ship-men besides. It is an-

 other thing to go to war with other Gardenbom to aid

 mortals to whom we owe no such debtincluding those

 who hunted us long after we lost Asu'a. This Josua's fa-

 ther was our enemy'"

 

 "Then does the hatred never end?" Jiriki replied with.

 surprising heat. "Mortals have short lives. These are not

 the ones who warred on our scattered folk."

 

 "Yes, the lives of mortals are short," said Yizashi dis-

 passionately. "But their hatreds run deep, and are passed

 from parents to children."

 

 Eolair was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable

 but did not think the time was right for him to speak up.

 

 "It is possible that you forget, noble Yizashi," said

 Jiriki, "that it was the Hikeda'ya themselves who brought

 this war to us. It was they who invaded the sanctity of the

 Yasira. It was truly Utuk'ku's handnot that of the mor-

 tal catspaw who wielded the daggerwhich slew First

 Grandmother."

 

 Yizashi did not reply.

 

 "There is little point in this," Likimeya said. Eolair

 could not help noticing how the depths of Likimeya's

 eyes cast the light back, glowing orange as the stare of a

 torchlit wolf. "Yizashi, I asked you and these others, the

 House of Contemplation, the House of Gathering, all the

 houses, to honor your debts to the Grove. You agreed.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 87

 

 And we are set upon our course because we need to

 thwart Utuk'ku Seyt-Hamakha's plans, not just repay an

 old debt or avenge Amerasu's murder."

 

 Black-browed Kuroyi spoke up. "The mortals have a

 saying, I am told." His voice was measured and eerily

 musical, his Hemystiri somehow over-precise. " 'The en-

 emy of my enemy is my friend ... for a little while.'

 Silvermask and her kin have chosen one set of mortals to

 be their allies, so we will choose those mortals* enemies

 to be our allies. Utuk'ku and her minions have also bro-

 ken the Pact of Sesuad'ra. I find no shame in fighting be-

 side Sudhoda'ya until the issue is settled." He raised his

 hand as though to ward off questions, but the circle was

 completely still. "No one has said I must love these mor-

 tal allies: I do not, and feel sure that I will not, whatever

 happens. And if I live until these days end, I will return

 to my high house in hidden Anvi'janya, for I have long

 been surfeited with the company of others, whether mor-

 tal or Gardenbom, But until then, I will do as I have

 promised to Likimeya."

 

 There was a long pause after Kuroyi had finished. The

 Sithi again sat in silence, but Eolair had the feeling that

 some issue was in the air, some tension that sought reso-

 lution. When the quiet had gone on so long that he was

 beginning to wonder again whether he should leave,

 Likimeya lifted her hands and spread them flat in the air

 before her.

 

 "So," she said. "Now we must think about this

 Naglimund. We must consider what we will do if the

 Hikeda'ya do not come out to fight."

 

 The Sithi began to discuss the upcoming siege as

 though there had been no dispute over the honorability of

 fighting beside mortals. Eolair was puzzled but impressed

 by their civility. Each person was allowed to speak as

 long as he wished and no one interrupted. Whatever dis-

 sension there had beenand although Eolair found the

 immortals difficult to fathom, he had no doubt there had

 been true disagreementnow seemed vanished: the de-

 bate over Naglimund, although spirited, was calm and ap-

 parently free of resentment.

 

 88 Tad Williams

 

 Perhaps when you live so long, Eolair thought, you

 learn to exist by such ruleslearn you must exist by such

 rules. Forever is a long time to carry grudges, after all.

 

 More at ease now, he entered the discussion

 hesitantly at first, but when he saw that his opinion was

 to be given due weight he spoke openly and confidently

 about Naglimund, a place he knew almost as well as he

 knew the Taig in Hemysadharc. He had been there many

 times: Eolair had often found that Josua's was a useful

 ear for introducing things into the court of his father,

 King John Presbyter. The prince was one of the few peo-

 ple the Count of Nad Mullach knew who would listen to

 an idea on its own merits, then support it if he found it

 good, regardless of whether it benefited him.

 

 They talked long; eventually the fire burned down to

 glowing coals. Likimeya produced one of the crystal

 globes from her cloak and set it on the ground before her

 where it gradually grew bright; soon it cast its cool lunar

 glow all around the circle.

 

 Eolair met Isom on his way back from the council of

 the Sithi.

 

 "Ho, Count," the young Rimmersman said. "Out for a

 stroll? I have a skin of wine herefrom your own Nad

 Mullach cellars, I think. Let's find Ule and share it."

 

 "Gladly. 1 have had a strange evening. Our allies ...

 Isom, they are like nothing and no one I have ever seen."

 

 "They are the Old Ones, and heathen on top of it,"

 Isom said blithely, then laughed. "Apologies, Count. I

 sometimes forget that you Hemystiri are ..."

 

 "Also heathens?" Eolair smiled faintly. "No offense

 was taken. I have grown used to being the outsider, the

 odd one, during my years in Aedonite courts. But I have

 never felt so much the odd man as I did tonight."

 

 "The Sithi may be different from us, Eolair, but they

 are bold as thunder."

 

 "Yes, and clever. I did'not understand all that was

 spoken of tonight, but I think that we have neither of us

 ever seen a battle like the one that will take place at

 Naglimund."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER89

 

 Isom lifted an eyebrow, intrigued. "That is something

 to save and tell over that wine, but I am glad to hear it.

 If we live, we will have stories to amaze our grandchil-

 dren."

 

 "If we live," Eolair said.

 

 "Come, let us walk a little faster." Isorn's voice was

 light. "I am getting thirsty."

 

 They rode across the Inniscrich the next day. The bat-

 tlefield where Skali had triumphed and King Lluth had

 received his death-wound was still partially blanketed in

 snow, but that snow was full of irregular hummocks, and

 here and there a bit of rusted metal or a weathered

 spearhaft stuck up through the shrouding white. Although

 many prayers and curses were quietly spoken, none of the

 Hemystiri had any great interest in lingering at the site

 where they had been so soundly defeated and so many of

 their people had died, and for the Sithi it had no signifi-

 cance at all, so the great company passed by swiftly as

 they rode north along the river.

 

 The Baraillean marked the boundary between Hemystir

 and Erkynland: the people of Utanyeat on the river's east-

 ern side called it the Greenwade. These days, there were

 few living near either bank, although there were still fish

 to catch. The weather might have grown warmer, but

 Eolair could see that the land was almost lifeless. Those

 few survivors of the various struggles who still scratched

 out their lives here on the southern edge of the

 Frostmarch now fled before the approaching army of

 Sithi and men, unable to imagine any good that yet one

 more troop of armored invaders might bring.

 

 At last, a week's journeying north of Nad Mullach

 even when they were not in full charge the Sithi moved

 swiftlythe host crossed the river and moved into

 Utanyeat, the westernmost tip of Erkynland. Here the

 land seemed to grow more gray. The thick morning mists

 that had blanketed the ground during the ride across

 Hernystir no longer dispersed with the sun's ascension, so

 that the army rode from dawn to dusk in a cold, damp

 haze, like souls in some cloudy afterlife- In fact, a deathly

 

 90 Tad Williams

 

 palt seemed to hang over all the plains. The air was cold

 and seemed to reach directly into the bones of Eolair and

 his fellows. But for the wind and the muffled hoofbeats of

 their own horses, the wide countryside was silent, devoid

 even of birdsong. At night, as the count huddied with

 Maegwin and Isom before the fire, a heavy stillness lay

 over everything. It felt, Isorn remarked one night, as

 though they were passing through a vast graveyard.

 

 As each day brought them deeper into this colorless,

 cheerless country, Isom's Rimmersmen prayed and made

 the Tree-sign frequently, and argued almost to bloodlet-

 ting over insignificant things. Eotair's Hemystiri were no

 less affected. Even the Sithi seemed more reserved than

 usual. The ever-present mists and forbidding silence made

 all endeavor seem shallow and pointless.

 

 Eolair found himself hoping that there would be some

 sign of their foes soon. The sense of foreboding that hung

 over these empty lands was a more insidious enemy, the

 count felt sure, than anything composed of flesh and

 blood could ever be. Even the frighteningly alien Noms

 were preferable to this journey through the netherworld.

 

 "I feel something," said Isom. "Something pricks at

 my neck."

 

 Eolair nodded, then realized the duke's son probably

 could not see him through the mist, although he rode only

 a short distance away. "I feel it, too."

 

 They were nine days out of Nad Mullach. Either the

 weather had again gone bad, or in this small part of the

 world the winter had never abated. The ground was car-

 peted in snow, and great uneven drifts lay humped on ei-

 ther side as they rode up the low hill. The failing sun was

 somewhere out of sight, the afternoon so gray there might

 never have been such a thing as a sun at all.

 

 There was a clatter of armor and a flurry of words in

 the liquid Sithi speech from up ahead. Eolair squinted

 through the murk. "We are stopping." He spurred his

 horse forward. Isom followed him, with Maegwin, who

 had ridden silently all day, close behind.

 

 The Sithi had indeed reined up, and now sat silently on

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 91

 

 their horses as if waiting for something, their bright-

 colored armor and proud banners dimmed by the mist.

 Eolair rode through their ranks until he found Jiriki and

 Likimeya. They were staring ahead, but he saw nothing in

 the shifting fog that seemed worth their attention.

 

 "We have halted," said the count.

 

 Likimeya turned to him. "We have found what we

 sought." Her features seemed stony, as though her whole

 face had now become a mask.

 

 "But I see nothing." Eolair turned to Isorn, who

 shrugged to show that he was no different.

 

 "You will," said Likimeya. "Wait."

 

 Puzzled, Eolair patted his horse's neck and wondered.

 There was a stirring as the wind rose again, fluttering his

 cloak. The mists swirled, and suddenly something dark

 appeared as the murk before them thinned.

 

 The great curtain wall of Naglimund was ragged, many

 of its stones tumbled out like the scales of a rotting fish.

 In the midst of its great, gray length was a nibble-filled

 gap where the gate had stood, a sagging, toothless mouth.

 Beyond, showing even more faintly through the tendrils

 of mist, Naglimund's square stone towers loomed up be-

 yond the walls, the dark windows glaring like the empty,

 bone-socket eyes of a skull.

 

 "Brynioch," Eolair gasped.

 

 "By the Ransomer," said Isom, just as chilled.

 

 "You see?" Likimeya asked. Eolair thought he detected

 a dreadful sort of humor in her voice. "We have arrived."

 

 "It is Scadach." Maegwin sounded terrified. "The Hole

 in Heaven. Now I have seen it."

 

 "But where is Naglimund-town?" Eolair asked. "There

 was a whole city at the castle's foot!"

 

 "We have passed it, or at least its ruins," Jiriki said.

 "What little remains of it is now beneath the snows."

 

 "Brynioch!" Eolair felt quite stupefied as he stared first

 at the insignificant-seeming lumps of earth and snow be-

 hind them, then turned back to the huge pile of crumbling

 stone just ahead. It seemed dead, yet as he gazed at it his

 nerves felt tight as lute strings and his heart was pound-

 ing. "Do we just ride in?" he asked no one in particular.

 

 1ud Williams

 

 Just thinking about it was like contemplating a headfirst

 crawl into a dark tunnel full of spiders.

 

 "I will not go in that place," Maegwin said harshly. She

 was pale. For the first time since her madness had de-

 scended, she looked truly and completely fearful. "If you

 enter Scadach, you leave Heaven and its protection. It is

 a place from which nothing returns."

 

 Eolair did not even have the heart to say anything

 soothing, but he reached out and took her gloved hand.

 Their horses stood quietly side by side, vaporous breath

 mingling.

 

 "We will not ride into that place, no," Jiriki said sol-

 emnly. "Not yet."

 

 Even as he spoke, flickering yellow lights bloomed in

 the depths of the black tower windows, as though what-

 ever owned those empty eyes had just awakened.

 

 A

 

 Rachel the Dragon slept uneasily in her tiny room deep

 in the Hayholt's underground warrens.

 

 She dreamed that she was again in her old room, the

 chambermaids' room that she knew so well. She was

 alone, and in her dream she was angry: her foolish girls

 were always so hard to find.

 

 Something was scratching at the door; Rachel had a

 sudden certainty that it was Simon. Even in the midst of

 the dream, though, she remembered that she had been

 fooled once before by such a noise. She went carefully

 and quietly to the doorway and stood beside it for a mo-

 ment, listening to the furtive noises outside.

 

 "Simon?" she said. "Is that you?"

 

 The voice that came back was indeed that of her long-

 lost ward, but it seemed stretched and thin, as though it

 traveled a long distance to reach her ear.

 

 "Rachel, I want to come back. Please help me. I want

 to come back." The scratching resumed, insistent,

 strangely loud....

 

 The onetime Mistress of Chambermaids jerked awake,

 

 . f

 

 ;E

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER93

 

 shivering with cold and fear. Her heart was beating very

 fast.

 

 There. There was that noise again, just as she had heard

 it in the dreambut now she was awake. It was a strange

 sound, not so much a scratching as a hollow scraping, dis-

 tant but regular. Rachel sat up.

 

 This was no dream, she knew. She thought she had

 heard something like it as she was falling off to sleep, but

 had dismissed it. Could it be rats in the walls? Or some-

 thing worse? Rachel sat up on her straw pallet- The small

 brazier with its few coals did no more than give the room

 a faint red sheen.

 

 Rats in stone walls as thick as these? It was possible,

 but it didn't seem likely.

 

 What else would it be. you old fool? Something is mak-

 ing that noise.

 

 Rachel sat up and moved stealthily toward the brazier.

 She took a handful of rushes from her carefully collected

 pile and dipped one end into the coals. After they had

 caught, she lifted the makeshift torch high.

 

 The room, so familiar after all these weeks, was empty

 but for her stores. She bent low to look into the shadowy

 comers, but saw nothing moving. The scraping noise was

 a little fainter now but still unmistakable. It seemed to be

 coming from the far wall. Rachel took a step toward it

 and smacked her bare foot against her wooden keepsake

 chest, which she had neglected to push back against the

 wall after examining its sparse contents the night before.

 She let out a muffled shriek of pain and dropped a few of

 the flaming rushes, then quickly hobbled to her jug for a

 handful of water to put them out. When this was done,

 she stood on one foot while she rubbed her smarting toes.

 

 When the pain subsided, she realized that (he noise had

 also stopped. Either her surprised cry had frightened the

 noise-maker awaylikely if it were a rat or mouseor

 merely warned the thing that someone was listening. The

 thought of something sitting quietly within the walls,

 aware now that someone was on the other side of the

 stone, was not one that Rachel wished to pursue.

 

 94

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Rats, she told herself. Of course it's rats. They smell

 the food I've got in here, little demon imps.

 

 Whatever the cause had been, the noise was gone now.

 Rachel sat down on her stool and began to pull on her

 shoes. There was no point trying to sleep now.

 

 What a strange dream about Simon, she thought. Could

 it be his spirit is restless7 I know that monster murdered

 him. There are tales that the dead can't rest till their mur-

 derers are punished. But I already did my best to punish

 Pryrates, and look where it got me. No good to anyone.

 

 Thinking of Simon condemned to some lonely darkness

 was both sad and frightening.

 

 Get up, woman. Do something useful.

 

 She decided that she would set out more food for poor

 blind Guthwulf.

 

 A brief sojourn to the room with a slit of window up-

 stairs confirmed that it was almost dawn. Rachel stared at

 the dark blue of the sky and the faded stars and felt a lit-

 tle reassured.

 

 I'm still waking up regular, even if I live in the dark

 most days like a mole. That's something.

 

 She descended to her hidden room, pausing in the door-

 way to listen for the scraping noises. The room was si-

 lent. After she had found suitable fare for both the earl

 and his feline familiar, she donned her heavy cloak and

 made her way down the stairwell to the secret passage-

 way behind the tapestry on the landing.

 

 When she arrived at the spot where she customarily left

 Guthwulf's meal, she found to her distress that the previ-

 ous morning's food had not been touched; neither man

 nor cat had come.

 

 He's never missed two days running since we started,

 she thought worriedly. Blessed Rhiap, has the poor man

 fallen down somewhere?

 

 Rachel collected the untouched food and put out more,

 as though somehow a slightly different arrangement of

 what was really the same dried fruit and dried meat could

 tempt back her wandering earl.

 

 If he doesn't come today, she decided, /'// have to go

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 95

 

 and look for him. He has no one else to see to him, after

 all. It's the Aedonite thing to do.

 

 Full of worry, Rachel made her way back to her room.

 

 A

 

 The sight of Binabik seated on a gray wolf as though it

 were a war-horse, his walking-stick couched like a lance,

 might have been comical in other circumstances, but

 Isgrimnur felt no urge even to smile.

 

 "Still I am not sure this is the best thing," Josua said.

 "I fear we will miss your wisdom, Binabik of Yiqanuc."

 

 'Then that is being all the larger reason for me to begin

 my journey now, since it will be ended so much more

 soon." The troll scratched behind Qantaqa's ears.

 

 "Where is your lady?" Isgrimnur asked, looking

 around. Dawn was creeping into the sky overhead, but the

 hillside was deserted except for the three men and the

 wolf. "I would think she'd want to come and say fare-

 well."

 

 Binabik did not meet his eye, but rather stared at

 Qantaqa's shaggy neck. "We were saying our farewells in

 the earliness of the morning, Sisqi and I," he said quietly.

 "It is a hard thing for her to see me riding away."

 

 Isgrimnur felt a great wash of regret for all the unwise,

 unthinking remarks he had ever made about trolls. They

 were small and strange, but they were certainly as bold-

 hearted as bigger men. He extended his hand for Binabik

 to clasp.

 

 "Ride safely," the duke said. "Come back to us."

 

 Josua did the same. "I hope you find Miriamele and Si-

 mon. But if you do not, there is no shame in it. As

 Isgrimnur said, come back to us as soon as you can,

 Binabik."

 

 "And I am hoping that things will be going well for

 you in Nabban."

 

 "But how will you find us?" Josua asked suddenly, his

 long face worried.

 

 Binabik stared at him for a moment, then, surprisingly,

 let out a loud laugh. "How can I be finding an army of

 

 96 Tad Williams

 

 grasslanders and stone-dwellers mixed together, led by a

 dead hero of great famousness and a one-handed prince?

 I am thinking that it will not be difficult obtaining word

 of you."

 

 Josua's face relaxed into a smile. "I suppose you are

 right. Farewell, Binabik." He raised his hand, exposing

 for a moment the dulled manacle he wore as a reminder

 of his imprisonment and the debt he owed his brother for

 it.

 

 "Farewell, Josua and Isgrimnur," said the troll. "Please

 be saying that for me to the others as well. I could not

 bear to be making good-byes to all at once." He leaned

 forward to whisper something to the patiently waiting

 wolf, then turned back toward them. "In the mountains,

 we are saying this: 7ny koku na siqqasa min taq'

 'When we meet again, that will be a good day.' " He sunk

 both his hands into the wolf's hackles. "Hinik, Qantaqa.

 Find Simon. Hinik ummu!"

 

 The wolf leaped forward up the wet hillside. Binahik

 swayed on her broad back but kept his seat. Isgrimnur

 and Josua watched until the strange rider and his stranger

 mount topped the hilt's crest and vanished from sight.

 

 "I fear I will never see them again," said Josua. "I am

 cold, Isgrimnur."

 

 The duke put his hand on the prince's shoulder. He was

 not himself feeling either very warm or very happy.

 "Let's go back. We have near a thousand people we need

 to get moving by the time the sun is above the hilltops."

 

 Josua nodded. "So we do. Come, then."

 

 They turned and retraced their own footsteps in the

 sodden grass.

 

 4

 

 A Thousand Leaves^

 A Thousand Shadows

 

 *

 

 Miruunefe and Simon spent the first week of their

 

 flight in the forest. The traveling was slow and painfully

 laborious, but Miriamele had decided long before her es-

 cape that it would be far better to lose time than to be

 captured. The daylight hours were spent struggling

 through the dense trees and matted, tangling undergrowth,

 all to the tune of Simon's grumbling. They led their

 horses more often than they rode them.

 

 "Be happy," she told him once as they rested in a clear-

 ing, leaning against the trunk of an old oak. "At least we

 are getting to see the sun for a few days. When we leave

 the forest again, we'll be riding by night."

 

 "At least if we ride at night I won't have to look at the

 things that are tearing all the skin off my body," Simon

 said crossly, rubbing at his tattered breeches and the

 bruised flesh underneath.

 

 It was heartening, Miriamele discovered, to have some-

 thing to do. The feeling of helpless dread that had gripped

 her for weeks faded away, leaving her able to think

 clearly, to see everything around her as if with new eyes

 ... and even to enjoy being with Simon.

 

 She did enjoy his company. Sometimes she wished she

 didn't enjoy it quite so much. It was hard not to feel as

 though she were tricking him somehow. It was more than

 just not telling him all her reasons for leaving Uncle

 Josua and setting out for the Hayholt. She also felt as

 

 98 Tad Williams

 

 though she were not wholly clean, not wholly fit to be

 with someone else.

 

 /(is Aspitis. she thought. He did this to me. Before him,

 I was as pure as anyone could want to he.

 

 But was that really true? He had not forced himself

 upon her. She had let him do what he wishedin some

 ways she had welcomed it. In the end, Aspitis had proved

 to be a monster, but the way in which he came to her bed

 was no different than that in which most men came to

 their sweethearts. He had not savaged her. If what they

 had done was wrong and sinful, she bore equal blame.

 

 And what, then, of Simon? She had very mixed feel-

 ings. He was not a boy any more but a man, and a part of

 her feared the man he had become, as it would fear any

 man. But, she thought, there was also something about

 him that had remained strangely innocent. In his earnest

 attempts to do right, in the poorly-hidden hurt that he

 showed when she was short with him, he was still almost

 childlike- This made her feel even worse, that in his trans-

 parent regard for her he had no clue as to what she was

 truly like. It was precisely when he was kindest to her,

 when he most admired and complimented her, that she

 felt most angry with him. It seemed he was being will-

 fully blind.

 

 It was a dreadful way to feel. Luckily, Simon seemed

 to understand that his sincere affection was somehow

 painful to her, so he fell back on the jesting, mocking

 friendship with which she was more comfortable. When

 she could be around him without thinking about herself,

 she found him good company.

 

 Despite growing up in the courts of her grandfather and

 father, Miriamele had found little opportunity to be with

 boys. King John's knights were mostly dead or long since

 retired to their estates scattered about Erkynland and else-

 where, and in her grandfather's later years the king's

 court had become empty of almost any but those who had

 to live near the king for the sake of their day-to-day live-

 lihoods. Later, when her mother had died, her father had

 frowned on her spending time even with the few boys and

 girls of her age. He had not filled the void with his own

 

 TUGREENANGELTOWER99

 

 presence, but had instead mewed her up with unpleasant

 old men and women who lectured her about the rituals

 and responsibilities of her position and found fault with

 everything she did. By the time her father had become

 king, Miriamele's solitary childhood was over.

 

 Leieth, her handmaiden, had been almost her only

 young companion. The little girl had idolized Miriamele,

 hanging on the princess' every word. In turn, Leieth had

 told long stories about growing up with brothers and

 sistersshe was the youngest of a large baronial

 familywhile her mistress listened in fascination, trying

 not to be jealous of the family she had never had.

 

 That was why it had been so difficult to see Leieth

 again upon reaching Sesuad'ra. The lively little girl she

 remembered had vanished. Before they had fled the castle

 together, Leieth had been quiet sometimes, and many

 things frightened her, but it was as though some com-

 pletely different creature now lived behind the little girl's

 eyes. Miriamele had tried to remember if there had ever

 been any sign of the sort of things that Geloe had discov-

 ered in the child, but could think of little, except that

 Leieth had been prone to vivid, intricate, and sometimes

 frightening dreams. Some of them had seemed so detailed -

 and unusual in Leieth's retelling that Miriamele had been

 more than half certain the little girl had invented them.

 

 When Miriamele's father had ascended to his own fa-

 ther's throne, she found herself both surrounded by peo-

 ple and yet terribly lonely. Everyone at the Hayholt had

 seemed obsessed with the empty ritual of power, some-

 thing Miriamele had lived with for so long that it held no

 interest for her. It was like watching a confusing game

 played by bad-tempered children. Even the few young

 men who paid court to heror rather to her father, for

 most of them had been interested in little more than the

 riches and power that would fall to the one who received

 her marriage-pledgehad seemed to her like some other

 type of animal than she, boring old men in the bodies of

 youths, sullen boys masquerading as adults.

 

 The only ones in all of Meremund or the Hayholt who

 seemed to enjoy life for what it was rather than what gain

 

 100

 

 Tad Williams

 

 could be coaxed from it were the servants. In the Hayholt

 especially, with its army of maids and grooms and scul-

 lions, it was as though an entirely different race of people

 lived side by side with her own bleak peers. Once, in a

 moment of terrible sadness, she had suddenly seen the

 great castle as a kind of inverted lich-yard, with the

 creaking dead walking around on top while the living

 sang and laughed below.

 

 Thus Simon and a few others had first come to her

 attentionboys who seemed to want nothing much more

 than to be boys. Unlike the children of her father's no-

 bles, they were in no hurry to take on the clacking, dron-

 ing, mannered speech of their elders. She watched them

 dawdling through their chores, laughing behind their

 hands at each others' foolish pranks, or.playing hoodman

 blind on the commons grass, and she ached to be like

 them. Their lives seemed so simple. Even when a more

 mature wisdom taught her that the lives of the serving-

 folk were hard and wearisome, she still dreamed some-

 times that she could put off her royalty as easily as a

 cloak and become one of their number. Hard work had

 never frightened her, but she was terrified of solitude.

 

 "No," Simon said firmly. "You should never let me get

 this close to you."

 

 He moved his foot slightly and twisted the hilt of his

 sword so that its cloth-wrapped blade pushed hers away.

 Suddenly, he was pressing against her. His smell, com-

 pounded of sweat and leather jerkin and the sodden frag-

 ments of a thousand leaves, was very strong. He was so

 tall! She forgot that sometimes. The sudden impact of his

 presence made it hard for Miriamele to think clearly.

 

 "You've left yourself open now," he said. "If I used my

 dagger, you wouldn't have a chance. Remember, you'll

 almost always be fighting someone with more reach."

 

 Instead of trying to bring her sword back where it

 would do some good, she let it drop, then put both hands

 against Simon's chest and pushed. He fell back, stum-

 bling, before he regained his balance.

 

 "Leave me alone." Miriamele turned and walked a few

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER101

 

 I

 ^

 

 steps away, then stooped to pick up a few branches for

 the fire so her shaking hands would have something to

 do.

 

 "What's wrong?" Simon asked, taken aback. "Did I

 hurt you?"

 

 "No, you didn't hurt me." She took her armful of wood

 and dumped it into the circle they had cleared on the for-

 est floor. "I'm just done with that game for a while."

 

 Simon shook his head, then sat to undo the rags wound

 about his sword.

 

 They had made camp early today, the sun still high

 above the treetops- Miriamele had decided that tomor-

 row they would follow the little streamlet that had long

 been their companion down to the River Road; the course

 of the stream had been bending in that direction for most

 of this day's journey. The River Road wound beside the

 Ymstrecca, past Stanshire and on to Hasu Vale. It would

 be best, she had reasoned, for them to take to the road at

 midnight and still have some walking time before dawn,

 rather than spend all of this night in the forest and then

 wait through daylight again so they could travel the road

 in darkness.

 

 This had been her first opportunity to use her sword in

 several days, except for the inglorious purpose of clearing

 brush. It had even been she who had suggested an hour of

 practice before they ate their evening mealwhich was

 one of the reasons her abrupt change of heart obviously

 puzzled Simon. Miriamele felt torn between a desire to

 tell him it wasn't his fault, and an obscure feeling that

 somehow it was his faulthis fault for being male, his

 fault for liking her, his fault for coming with her when

 she would have been happier being miserably alone.

 

 "Don't mind me, Simon," she said at last, and felt

 weak for doing so- "I'm just tired."

 

 Mollified, he finished his careful rewinding of the

 cloth, then dropped the ball of dusty fabric into his sad-

 dlebag before coming to join her beside the unlit fire. "I

 just wanted you to be careful. I told you that you lean too

 far."

 

 "I know, Simon. You did tell me."

 

 102 Tad Williams

 

 "You can*t let someone bigger than you get that close."

 

 Miriamele found herself wishing silently that he would

 stop talking about it. "I know, Simon. I'm just tired."

 

 He seemed to sense that he had annoyed her again.

 "But you're good, Miriamele. You're strong."

 

 She nodded, absorbed now with the flint. A spark fell

 into the curls of tinder, but failed to produce a flamfc.

 Miriamele wrinkled her nose and tried again.

 

 "Do you want me to try?"

 

 "No, I don't want you to try." She struck again without

 result. Her arms were getting weary,

 

 Simon looked at the wood shavings, then up at

 Miriamele's face, then quickly back down again. "Re-

 member Binabik's yellow powder? He could start a fire in

 a rainstorm with that. I saw him make one catch when we

 were on Sikkihoq, and there was snow, and the wind was

 blowing...."

 

 "Here." Miriamele stood, letting the flint and the steel

 bar tumble to the dirt beside the tinder. "You do it." She

 walked to her horse and began hunting through the sad-

 dlebags.

 

 Simon seemed about to say something, but instead ap-

 plied himself to the task of fire-lighting. He had no better

 luck than Miriamele for a long time. At last, when she

 had returned with a kerchief full of the things she had

 found, he finally caught a small spark and provoked it

 into flame. As she stood over him she saw that his hair

 was getting quite long, hanging down onto his shoulders

 in reddish curls.

 

 He looked up at her shyly. His eyes were full of con-

 cern for her- "What's wrong?"

 

 She ignored his question. "Your hair wants cutting. I'll

 do it after we eat." She undid the kerchief. "These are our

 last two apples. They're getting a little old, in any caseI

 don't know where Fengbald found them." She had been

 told about the source of much of Josua's confiscated

 foodstuffs. There was an obscure pleasure in eating what

 had once been destined for that strutting braggart.

 "There's still some dried mutton, too, but we're almost

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 103

 

 through with it. We may have to try out the bow some-

 time soon."

 

 Simon opened his mouth, then shut it. He took a breath.

 "We'll wrap the apples in leaves and bury them in the

 coals- Shem Horsegroom used to do that all the time.

 Then it doesn't matter if they're a little old."

 

 "If you say so," Miriamele replied,

 

 Miriamele leaned back and licked her fingers. They

 still smarted a little from the hot apple skin, but it had

 been worth it. "Shem Horsegroom," she said, "is a man

 of astonishing wisdom."

 

 Simon smiled. His beard was sticky with juice. "It was

 good. But now we don't have any more."

 

 "I couldn't eat any more tonight, anyway. And tomor-

 row we'll be on the road to Stanshire. I'm sure we can

 find something almost as good along the way."

 

 Simon shrugged. "I wonder where old Shem is," he

 asked after a few moments had passed. The fire popped

 and spat as the leaves in which the apples had cooked be-

 gan to blacken. "And Ruben. And Rachel. Do you think

 they're all still living at the Hayholt?"

 

 "Why shouldn't they be? The king still needs grooms

 and blacksmiths. And there must always be a Mistress of

 Chambermaids," She offered a faint smile-

 Simon chortled. "That's true. I can't imagine anyone

 getting Rachel to leave unless she wanted to. You might

 as well try to drag a porcupine out of a hollow stump.

 Even the kingyour father, I meancouldn't make her

 leave until she was ready."

 

 "Sit up." Miriamele felt the sudden need to do some-

 thing. "I said I was going to cut your hair."

 

 Simon felt at the back of his head. "Do you think it

 needs it?"

 

 Miriamele's look was stem. "Even sheep get sheared

 once a season."

 

 She got out her whetstone and sharpened her knife. The

 noise of the blade on the stone was like a louder echo of

 the crickets that chirped beyond the light of the small fire.

 

 104 Tad Williams

 

 Simon peered over his shoulder. "I feel like I'm about

 to be carved for the Aedonmansa feast."

 

 "You never know what may happen when the dried

 meat runs out. Now look straight ahead and be quiet."

 She stood behind him, but there was not enough light to

 see. When she sat, his head was too far above her. "Stay

 there," she said-

 She dragged over a large stone, digging a rut in the

 moist earth; when she sat on it, she was just the right

 height. Miriamele lifted Simon's hair in her hands and

 stared at it judiciously. Just a little off the bottom ... No.

 Quite a bit off the bottom.

 

 His hair was finer than it looked. Although it was thick,

 it was quite soft. Nevertheless, it was grimed with the

 days of travel. She thought of how her own must look and

 frowned. "When is the last time you bathed yourself?"

 she asked.

 

 "What?" He was surprised. "What do you mean?"

 

 "What do you think I mean? Your hair is full of bits of

 sticks and dirt."

 

 Simon made a noise of disgust. "And what do you ex-

 pect when I've been crawling through this stupid forest

 for days and days?"

 

 "Well, I can't cut it like this." She thought for a mo-

 ment. "I'm going to wash it."

 

 "Are you mad? What do I want it washed for?" He

 drew up his shoulders protectively, as though she had

 threatened to stick the knife into him.

 

 "I told you. So I can cut it." She stood and went to

 fetch the water skin.

 

 "That's drinking water," Simon protested.

 

 "I'll fill it again before we set out," she said calmly.

 "Now lean your head back."

 

 She had thought momentarily of trying to warm the

 water, but she was just cross enough at his complaining to

 enjoy the spluttering noises he made as she disgorged the

 chilly contents of the water skin on his head. She then

 took her sturdy bone comb, which Vorzheva had given

 her back at Naglimund, and combed out the snarls as best

 she could, ignoring Simon's indignant protests. Some of

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 105

 

 the twigs were so entangled she had to unbind them with

 her fingernails, difficult work which made her lean close.

 The scent of wet hair added to his pungent Simon-smell

 was somehow quite pleasant, and Miriamele found herself

 humming quietly.

 

 When she had done the best she could with the knots,

 she took up her knife again and began to trim his hair. As

 she had suspected, merely taking off the ragged ends was

 not entirely satisfying. Moving quickly in case Simon

 should begin to complain again, she began to cut in ear-

 - nest. Soon the back of his neck came into view, pale from

 the long months hidden from the sun.

 

 As she stared at Simon's neck, at the way it broadened

 at its base, at the line of red-gold hairs gradually thicken-

 ing toward the hairline, she was suddenly moved.

 

 There is something magical about everyone, she

 thought dreamily. Everyone.

 

 She ran her fingers lightly up his neck and Simon

 jumped.

 

 "Hoy! What are you doing? That tickles."

 

 "Oh, shut your mouth." She smiled behind his back

 where he could not see.

 

 She trimmed the hair up over'his ears as well, leaving

 just a little bit to hang down in front where the beard be-

 gan. She lifted the front and shortened that as well, then

 stepped to the side to make sure it would not fall down

 into his eyes. The snowy streak was as vivid as lightning.

 

 "This is where the dragon's blood splashed you." The

 white hair felt no different than the red as it trailed across

 her fingertips. "Tell me again what it was like."

 

 Simon seemed about to make some flippant remark, but

 ' paused instead, then spoke softly. "It was ... it was not

 like anything, Miriamele. It just happened. I was fright-

 ened, and it was like someone was blowing a hom inside

 my head. It burned when it touched me. I don't remember

 much more until I woke up in the cave with Jiriki and

 Haestan." He shook his head. "There was more to it than

 that. Some things are hard to explain."

 

 "I know." She let the strands of damp hair fall, then

 took a breath. "I'm finished."

 

 io6 Tad Williams

 

 Simon raised his hands to pat at the back and sides. "It

 feels short," he said. "I wish I could see it."

 

 "Wait until morning, then have a look in the stream."

 She felt herself smiling again, stupidly, for no reason. "If

 I had known you were so vain, I would have brought one

 of my mirrors."

 

 He turned a look of mock contempt upon her, then' sat

 up straight. "I do have a mirror," he crowed- "Jiriki's! It's

 in my sack."

 

 "But I thought that it was dangerous!"

 

 "Not Just to look at." Simon rose and headed for his

 saddlebags, in which he began to rummage energetically,

 like a bear seeking honey in a hollow tree. "Found it," he

 said. A frown crossed his face. He withdrew the hand that

 held the mirror, then reached back into the saddlebags

 with the other and continued to search.

 

 "What is it?"

 

 Simon withdrew his drawstring bag and brought it over

 to the fire. He handed her the Sithi mirror, which she held

 carefully, almost fearfully, while he scrabbled with in-

 creasing desperation in the large sack. At last he stopped

 and looked up at her, his eyes wide, his face a picture of

 loss. "It's gone."

 

 "What's gone?"

 

 "The White Arrow. It's not in here." He took his hands

 out of the sack. "Aedon's Blood! I must have left it in the

 tent. I must have forgotten to put it back that time." His

 face then registered a deeper shock. "I hope I didn't leave

 it up on Sesuad'ra!"

 

 "You took it back to your tent, didn't you? That day

 you wanted to give it to me?"

 

 He nodded slowly. "That's right. It must-have been in

 there somewhere. At least that means it's probably not

 lost." He looked down at his empty hands. "But I don't

 have it." He laughed. "I tried to give it away. It didn't

 like that, I guess. Sithi gifts, Binabik told me, don't take

 them lightly. Remember on the river, when we were first

 traveling together? I was showing off with it and 1 fell out

 of the boat."

 

 Miriamele smiled sadly. "I remember."

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 107

 

 -4-

 A

 

 ^

 

 "I've done it this time, though, haven't I?" he said mo-

 rosely, and sighed. "Still, it can't be helped. If Binabik

 finds it, he'll take care of it. And it's not like I need to

 have it to prove something to Jiriki. If I ever see him

 again." He shrugged and tried to smile. "May I have the

 mirror back?"

 

 He held it up and carefully examined his hair. "It's

 good," he said. "It's short in the back. Like Josua's or

 someone like that." He looked up at her. "Like Camaris."

 

 "Like a knight."

 

 Simon looked down at his hand for a moment, then

 reached out and took Miriamele's, enfolding her fingers

 in his warm grasp. He did not quite meet her eyes.

 "Thank you. You did it very handsomely."

 

 She nodded, desperately wanting to pull her hand free,

 to be not so close, but at the same time happy to feel his

 touch. "You are welcome, Simon."

 

 At last, almost reluctantly, he let her go. "I suppose we

 should try to sleep if we're going to get up at midnight,"

 he said.

 

 "We should," she agreed.

 

 They packed away their few goods' and unfurled their

 bedrolls in friendly, if slightly uneasy, silence.

 

 Miriamele was awakened in the middle of the night by

 a hand over her mouth. She tried to scream, but the hand

 clamped even more tightly.

 

 "No! It's me!" The hand lifted.

 

 "Simon?" she hissed. "You idiot! What are you

 doing?"

 

 "Quiet. There's someone out there."

 

 "What?" Miriamele sat up, staring uselessly into the

 darkness. "Are you sure?"

 

 "I was just falling asleep when I heard it," he said into

 her ear, "but it wasn't a dream. I listened after I was wide

 awake and I heard it again."

 

 "It's an animala deer."

 

 Simon bared his teeth to the moonlight. "I don't know

 any animals that talk to themselves, do you?"

 

 "What?"

 

 io8 Tad Williams

 

 "Quiet!" he whispered. "Just listen."

 

 They sat in silence. It was hard for Miriamele to hear

 anything over the pounding of her own heart. She

 sneaked a glance at the fire. A few embers still glowed:

 

 if there was a person out there, they had demonstrated

 their presence quite thoroughly. She wondered if it would

 do any good now to throw dirt on the coals.

 

 Then she heard it, a crackling noise that seemed a good

 hundred paces away. Her skin tingled. Simon looked at

 her significantly. The sound came again, a little more dis-

 tant this time.

 

 "Whatever it is," she said quietly, "it sounds like it's

 leaving."

 

 "We were going to try to make our way down to the

 road in a few hours. I don't think we should risk it."

 

 Miriamele wanted to arguethis was her Journey, after

 all, her planbut found that she could not. The idea of

 trying to make their way along the tangled riverbank

 by moonlight, while something followed along after

 them ... "I agree," she said. "We'll wait until light."

 

 "I'll stay up for a while and keep watch. Then I'll wake

 you and you can let me sleep for a while." Simon sat him-

 self cross-legged with his back against a stump. His

 sword was across his knees. "Go on, sleep." He seemed

 tense, almost angry.

 

 Miriamele felt her heart slowing a little. "You said it

 was talking to itself?"

 

 "Well, it could be more than one person," he said, "but

 it didn't seem to make enough noise for two. And I only

 heard one voice."

 

 "What was it saying?"

 

 She could dimly see Simon shake his head. "I couldn't

 tell. It was too quiet. Just ... words."

 

 Miriamele settled back onto her bedroll. "It might just

 be some cotsman. People do live in the forest."

 

 "Might be." Simon's voice was flat. Miriamele sud-

 denly realized that he sounded that way because he was

 frightened. "There are all kinds of things in these woods,"

 he added.

 

 She let her head fall back until she could see a few

 

 TO GREENANGEL TOWER

 

 109

 

 stars peeping through holes in the forest roof. "If you

 start to feel sleepy, don't be a hero, Simon. Wake me up."

 

 "I will. But I don't think I'll be sleepy for a while."*

 

 Neither will /. she thought.

 

 The idea of being stalked was a dreadful one. But if

 someone was following them, someone her uncle had

 sent, why would the stalker go away again without doing

 anything? Perhaps it had been forest outlaws who would

 have slaughtered them in their sleep if Simon had not

 awakened. Or perhaps it had only been an animal after

 all, and Simon had imagined the words.

 

 Miriamele at last drifted into an uneasy sleep, a sleep

 haunted by dreams of antler-headed, two-legged figures

 moving through the forest shadows.

 

 It took them a good part of the morning to make their

 way out of the forest. The reaching branches and foot-

 snagging undergrowth almost seemed to be trying to hold

 them back; the mist rising from the forest floor was so

 treacherously dense that if they had not had the sound of

 the stream to keep them on track, Miriamele felt sure they

 might just as easily have gone in the wrong direction. At

 last, sore and sweaty and even more tattered than they

 had been at dawn, they emerged onto the sodden downs.

 

 After a short ride across the uneven meadowland they

 reached the River Road late in the morning. There was no

 snow here, but the sky was dark and threatening, and the

 thick forest mist seemed to have followed themthe land

 was shrouded in fog as far as they could see.

 

 The River Road itself was almost empty: as they rode

 along they met only one wagon, which bore an entire

 family and its belongings. The driver, a careworn man

 who looked older than he probably was, seemed almost

 overwhelmed by the effort of nodding to Simon and

 Miriamele as they passed. She turned to watch the wagon

 wheeling slowly eastward behind a thin-shanked ox, and

 wondered if they were going to Sesuad'ra to cast their

 fortunes with Josua. The man, his scrawny wife, and their

 silent children had looked so sad, so tired, that it was

 painful to think that they might be traveling toward a

 

 tio Tad Williams

 

 place she knew to be deserted. Miriamete was tempted to

 warn them that the prince was already marching south,

 but she hardened her heart and turned around. Such a fa-

 vor would be dangerous foolishness: appearing in

 Erkynland with knowledge of Josua would attract far

 more attention than was healthy.

 

 The few small settlements they passed as morning wore

 into afternoon seemed almost deserted; only a few plumes

 of gray wafting from the smoke holes of houses, a gray

 just a little darker than the surrounding mist, suggested

 that people still went about their lives in this depressing

 place. If these had been fanning communities, there was

 little sign of it now: the fields were full of dark weeds

 and there were no animals to be seen. Miriamele guessed

 that if the times were as bad here as she had heard re-

 ported of other parts of Erkynland, the few cows and

 sheep and pigs not yet eaten were being jealously

 guarded-

 

 "I'm not sure we should stay on this road too much

 longer." Miriamele squinted up from the broad, muddy

 causeway into the reddening western sky.

 

 "We've barely seen a dozen people all day," Simon re-

 plied. "And if we're being followed, we're best out in the

 open, where we can see anyone behind us."

 

 "But we'll be coming to the outskirts of Stanshire

 soon." Miriamele had traveled in this area a few times

 with her father, and had a fairly good idea of where they

 were. "That's a much bigger town than any of these little

 places we've passed. There'll be people on the road there,

 that's certain. Maybe guardsmen, too."

 

 Simon shrugged. "I suppose. What are we going to do,

 ride through the fields?"

 

 "I don't think anyone will notice or care. Haven't you

 seen how all the houses are shuttered? It's too cold for

 people to be looking out the windows."

 

 In answer, Simon exhaled a puff of foggy breath and

 smiled. "As you say. Just be careful we don't run the

 horses into a bog or something. It'll be dark soon."

 

 They turned their mounts off the road and through a

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWERIII

 

 hedge of loose brush. The sun was almost gone now, a

 thin slice of crimson on the horizon all that remained. The

 wind increased, whipping through the long grass.

 

 Evening had settled in across the hilly landscape by the

 time they saw the first signs of Stanshire. The village lay

 on both sides of the river, joined by a central bridge, and

 on the northern bank the clutter of houses extended al-

 most to the eaves of the forest. Simon and Miriamele

 stopped on a hilltop and looked down on the twinkling

 lights.

 

 "It's smaller," Miriamele said. "It used to fill this en-

 tire valley."

 

 Simon squinted. "I think it still doessee, there are

 houses all the way across. It's just that only half of them

 have fires, or lamps burning, or whatever." He pulled off

 his gloves to blow on his fingers. "So. Where shall we

 stay tonight? Did you bring any money for an inn?"

 

 "We are not going to sleep indoors."

 

 Simon raised an eyebrow. "No? Well, at least we can

 find a hot meal somewhere."

 

 Miriamele turned to look at him. "You don't under-

 stand, do you? This is my father's country. I have been

 here before myself. And there are so few travelers on the

 road that even if we weren't recognized by anyone, peo-

 ple would want to ask us questions," She shook her head.

 "I can't take the chance. We can probably send you in

 somewhere to buy some foodI did bring some money

 but stay in a hostel? We might as well hire a trumpeter to

 walk before us."

 

 It was hard to tell in the dim light, but Simon seemed

 to be flushing. There was certainly an angry edge to his

 voice. "If you say so."

 

 She calmed her own temper. "Please, Simon. Don't you

 think that I would love a chance to wash my face and sit

 down on a bench and eat a real supper? I'm trying to do

 what's best."

 

 Simon looked at her for a moment, then nodded. "I'm

 sorry. That's good sense. I was just disappointed."

 

 Miriamele felt a sudden gust of affection for him. "I

 know. You're a good friend."

 

 112

 

 Tad Williams

 

 He looked up sharply, but said nothing. They rode

 down the hillside into the Stanshire valley.

 

 There was something wrong with Stanshire. Miriamele

 remembered it from her visit some half-dozen years be-

 fore as a bustling, thriving town populated mostly by

 miners and their families, a place where even at night the

 narrow streets were full of lamplightbut now the few

 passersby seemed in a hurry to be inside once more, and

 even the town's inns were quiet as monasteries and nearly

 empty.

 

 Miriamele waited in the shadows outside The Wedge

 and Beetle while Simon spent some of their cintis-pieces

 on bread and milk and onions.

 

 "I asked the owner about some mutton and he just

 stared at me," Simon said. "I think it's been a very bad

 year."

 

 "Did he ask you any questions?"

 

 "He wanted to know where I came from." Simon was

 already nibbling on his bread. "I told him I was a chan-

 dler from Hasu Vale, looking for some work. He looked

 at me funny again, then said, 'Well, you've found there's

 no work to be had here, haven't you?' It's just as well he

 didn't need some work because I've forgotten everything

 Jeremias ever told me about how to make candles. But he

 asked me how long since I'd left Hasu Vale, and was it

 true what everyone said, that there's hauntings in the hills

 there."

 

 "Hauntings?" Miriamele felt a thin line of ice along her

 spine. "I don't like the sound of that. What did you tell

 him?"

 

 "That I'd been gone a long time, of course. That I'd

 been traveling in the south looking for work. Then, before

 he could start asking me about that, I told him my wife

 was waiting in the wagon up on the River Road and that

 I had to go."

 

 "Your wife?"

 

 Simon grinned. "Well, I had to tell him something,

 didn't I? Why else would a man take his food and hurry

 back out into the cold?"

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER113

 

 Miriamele made a disgusted noise, then clambered up

 into the saddle. "We should find a place to sleep, at least

 for a while. I'm exhausted."

 

 Simon looked around. "I don't know where we could

 go hereit's hard to tell which houses are empty, even if

 there's no smoke and no light. The people may have left,

 or they just might not have any firewood."

 

 As he spoke, a light rain began to fall.

 

 "We should move farther out," she said. "On the west-

 ern edge of town we can probably find an empty bam or

 a shed. Also there's a quarry out there, a big one."

 

 "Sounds splendid." Simon took a bite from one of the

 rather shriveled-looking onions. "You lead."

 

 "Just don't eat my supper by mistake," she said darkly.

 "And don't spill any of that milk."

 

 "No, my lady," he replied.

 

 As they rode west on Soakwood Road, one of

 Stanshire's main thoroughfares, Miriamele found herself

 oddly disturbed by Simon's words. It was indeed impos-

 sible to tell if any of the darkened houses and shops were

 occupied, but she had a distinct sense of being watched,

 as though hidden eyes peered-out through the cracks in

 the window shutters.

 

 Soon enough they reached the farmland outside town.

 The rain had eased, and was now little more than a driz-

 zle. Miriamele pointed out the quarry, which from their

 vantage point on Soakwood Road was a great black noth-

 ingness. When the road had climbed a little higher up the

 hill, they could see a flickering of reddish light on the

 lower walls of the quarry.

 

 "Someone's got a fire there," said Simon. "A big one."

 

 "Perhaps they're digging stone," Miriamele replied.

 "Whatever they're doing, though, we don't need to know

 about it. The fewer people who see us, the better." She

 turned them off the wide road and down one of the small

 lanes, away from the quarry and back toward the River

 Road. The path was muddy, and finally Miriamele de-

 cided that it would be better to light a torch than risk a

 broken leg for one of the horses. They dismounted, and

 

 ii4 Tad Williams

 

 Simon did his best to hold off the misting rain with his

 cloak while Miriamele stmggled with the flint. At last she

 managed to strike a spark that set the oily rag burning.

 

 After riding a little farther they found a likely shelter,

 a large shed standing in a field that had gone mostly to

 weeds and bramble- The house to which it apparently be-

 longed, several hundred paces away down the glen,

 looked deserted. Neither Miriamele nor Simon were cer-

 tain that the house was truly empty, but the shed at least

 seemed relatively safe, and they would certainly be drier

 and happier than beneath open sky. They tethered their

 horses to a gnarledand sadly barrenapple tree behind

 the shed, out of sight of the house below.

 

 Inside, the torchlight revealed a heap of damp straw in

 the middle of the dirt floor, as well as a few rusting tools

 with splintered or missing handles leaned against the wall

 in anticipation of repair. A corroded scythe was depress-

 ing to Miriamele in its forgotten uselessness, but also

 heartening in that it suggested no one had used this shed

 for some time. Reassured, she and Simon went back out

 and fetched their saddlebags.

 

 Miriamele kicked the straw into two even piles, then

 laid out her bedroll on one of them. She looked around

 critically. "I wish we could risk a real fire," she said, "but

 I do not even like the torch."

 

 Simon had stuck the burning brand into the dirt of the

 floor, away from the straw. *T need to be able to see to

 eat," he said. "We'll put it out soon."

 

 They devoured what remained of their meal hungrily,

 washing the dry bread down with draughts of cool milk.

 As they wiped fingers and lips clean on their sleeves, Si-

 mon looked up.

 

 "So what do we do tomorrow?" he asked.

 

 "Ride. If the weather stays like this, we might as well

 ride by day. In any case, we'll see no towns of any size

 until we reach the walls of Falshire, so there shouldn't be

 many people on the road."

 

 "If the rest of the countryside around here is anything

 like Stanshire," Simon said, "we won't see half a dozen

 people all day."

 

 115

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 "Perhaps. But if we hear anything greater than a few

 riders coming toward us, we should get off the road, just

 to be safe."

 

 There was a silence as Miriamele took a last drink from

 the water skin, then crawled onto her bedroll and pulled

 her cloak over her.

 

 "Are you going to tell me any more about where we're

 going?" Simon asked at last. She could hear from his

 voice that he was trying to be careful, that he didn't want

 to make her angry. She was touched by his cautiousness,

 but also felt more than a little cross at being treated like

 a child susceptible to tantrums.

 

 "I don't want to talk about it now, Simon." She turned

 away, not liking herself, but unwilling to spill out her se-

 cret heart. She could hear him clamber onto his own bed-

 roll, then a quiet curse as he realized he had not snuffed

 the torch. He crawled back across the shed-

 

 "Don't soak it," she said. "It will make it easier to light

 the next time we need it."

 

 "Indeed, my lady." Simon's voice was sour. There was

 a sizzle and the light was gone. After a few moments, she

 heard him return to his sleeping^ spot.

 

 "Good night, Simon."

 

 "Good night." He sounded angry.

 

 Miriamele lay in darkness and thought about what Si-

 mon had asked. Could she even explain to him? It would

 sound so foolish to someone else, wouldn't it? Her father

 was the one who had started this waror rather, she felt

 sure, he had started it at Pryrates' urgingso how could

 she explain to Simon that she needed to see him, to talk

 to him? It wouldn't just sound foolish, she decided, it

 would sound like the worst and most reckless sort of

 madness.

 

 And maybe that's true, she thought gloomily. What if I

 am just fooling myself? I could be captured by Pryrates

 and never see my father at all. Then what would happen?

 That red-robed monster would have every secret of

 Josua's that I know.

 

 She shuddered. Why didn't she tell Simon what she

 planned? And more importantly, why hadn't she told Un-

 

 u6 Tad Williams

 

 cle Josua instead of just running away? Just the little bit

 she had told him had made him angry and suspicious ...

 but maybe he was right. Who was she, one young woman,

 to decide what was right and wrong for her uncle and all

 his followers? And wasn't that what she was doing,

 taking their lives into her hands to satisfy a whim?

 

 But it's not a whim. She felt herself divided into war-

 ring factions, like her father and uncle, two halves in con-

 flict- She was coming apart. It's important. No one can

 stop this but my father, and only I know what started it.

 But I'm so frightened....

 

 The magnitude of what she had done and what she

 planned to do came rising up, until she suddenly felt she

 might choke. And no one knew but herno one!

 

 Something inside her seemed about to break beyond

 mending. She took in a great gulp of bream.

 

 "Miriamele? Miriamele, what's wrong?"

 

 Fighting to control herself, she did not reply- She could

 hear Simon moving nearby, the straw rustling.

 

 "Are you hurt? Are you having a bad dream?" His

 voice was closer, almost beside her ear.

 

 "No," she gasped, then sobbing took her voice away.

 

 Simon's hand touched her shoulder, then tentatively

 moved up to her face.

 

 "You're crying!" he said, surprised.

 

 "Oh ..." She struggled to speak. "I'm so ... I'm so

 ... lonely! I want t-to go h-h-home!" She sat up and

 bent forward, pressing her face into the damp cloak over

 her knees. Another great storm of weeping overtook her.

 At the same time, a part of her stood as though separate,

 watching her own performance with disgust.

 

 Weak, it told her spitefully. No wonder you won't get

 what you want. You 're weak.

 

 "... Home?" Simon said, wondering. "Do you want to

 go back to Josua and the others?"

 

 "No, you idiot!" Anger at her own stupidity momentar-

 ily cut through the sobs so that she could speak, "I want

 to go home! I want things to be the way they used to be!"

 

 In the dark, Simon reached for her and pulled her close.

 Miriamele struggled for a moment, then let her head fall

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER117

 

 against his chest. Everything hurt. "I'll protect you," he

 said softly. There was a curious note in his voice, a sort

 of quiet exultation. "I'll take care of you, Miriamele."

 

 She pushed herself away from him. In the sliver of

 moonlight that leaked through the shed's doorway, she

 could'see his tousle-haired silhouette. "I don't want to be

 protected! I'm not a child. I just want things to be right

 again."

 

 Simon sat unmoving for a long moment, then she felt

 his arm again around her shoulder. His voice was gentle

 when she expected to have her own anger returned.

 

 "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm scared, too. I'm sorry."

 

 And as he spoke, she realized suddenly that this was

 Simon beside her, that he was not her enemy. She let her-

 self sag back against his chest, craving for a moment the

 warmth and solidity of him. A fresh torrent of tears came

 rushing up and spilled out of her.

 

 "Please, Miri," he said helplessly- "Don't cry." He put

 his other arm around her and held her tightly.

 

 After a while the storm of weeping subsided.

 Miriamele could only lean against Simon, without

 strength. She felt his fingers run along her jaw, tracing the

 path of her tears. She pushed in closer, burrowing like a

 frightened animal, until she felt her face rub against his

 neck, his hidden blood pulsing against her cheek.

 

 "Oh, Simon," she said, her voice ragged. "I'm so

 sorry."

 

 "Miriamele," he began, then fell silent. She felt his

 hand on her chin, cupping it gently. He turned her face up

 to his, to his warm breath. He seemed about to say some-

 thing. She could feel the words suspended between them,

 trembling, unspoken. Then she felt his lips upon hers, the

 gentle scratch of his beard around her mouth.

 

 For a moment, Miriamele felt herself floating in some

 unfixed place, in some unrecorded time. She sought a

 huddling place, somewhere to flee from the pain that

 seemed all around her like a storm. His mouth was soft,

 careful, but the hand that touched her face was shaking.

 She was shaking, too. She wanted to fall into him, to dive

 into him like a quiet pool.

 

 n8 Tad Williams

 

 Unbidden, a picture came to her like a shred of dream:

 

 Earl Aspitis, his fine golden hair gleaming in lamplight,

 bending above her. The arm around her was suddenly a

 confining claw.

 

 "No," she said, pulling away. "No, Simon, I can't."

 

 He let go of her quickly, like someone caught pilfering.

 "I didn't ..."

 

 "Just leave me alone." She heard her own voice, flat

 and cold. It did not match the swirl of violent feelings in-

 side her. "I'm ... I just ..." She, too, was at a loss for

 words.

 

 In the silence, there was a sudden noise. A long mo-

 ment passed before Miriamele realized that it came from

 outside the shed. It was the horses, whinnying nervously.

 An instant later, a twig crackled just beyond the door.

 

 "There's someone out there!" she hissed. The confu-

 sion of the moment before fell away, replaced by the ice

 of fear.

 

 Simon fumbled for his sword; finding it, he stood and

 moved to the door. Miriamele followed.

 

 "Should I open it?" he asked. '

 

 "We don't want to be caught in here," she whispered

 sharply. "We don't want to be trapped."

 

 Simon hesitated, then pushed the door outward. There

 was a flurry of movement outside. Someone was hurrying

 away, a shadow lurching toward the road through the

 misted moonlight.

 

 Simon kicked free of the cloak tangled about his legs,

 then sprang out the door after the fleeing shape.

 

 Simon W05 fitted with anger, a high, wild fury that

 pushed him on like a wind at his back. The figure running

 before him faltered and he drew closer. He felt as he

 thought Qantaqa must feel when she ran some small flee-

 ing thing to ground.

 

 Spy on me! Spy on me, will you?!

 

 The shadowy form stumbled again. Simon lifted his

 sword, ready to hew the sneaking creature down in its

 tracks. Another few paces -..

 

 "Simon!" Something caught at his shirt, tugging him

 off stride. "Don't!"

 

 He lowered his hand to regain his balance and his

 sword caught in the weedy grass and sprang from his fin-

 gers. He pawed at the ground, but could not find it in the

 deep brush, in the dark. He hesitated for a moment, but

 the dark shape before him had regained its stride and was

 pulling away. With a curse, Simon abandoned the sword

 and ran on. A dozen strong paces and he had caught up

 again. He wrapped his arms around his quarry's midsec-

 tion and tumbled them both to the ground.

 

 "Oh, sweet Usires!" the thing beneath him shrieked.

 "Don't bum me! Don't bum -me!" Simon grabbed the

 thrashing arms and held on.

 

 "What are you doing?!" Simon hissed. "Why have you

 been following us?"

 

 "Don't bum me!" the man quavered, struggling to keep

 his face turned away. He flailed his spindly limbs in

 seeming terror. "Weren't following no one!"

 

 120Tad Williams

 

 Miriamele arrived, Simon's sword clutched in both

 hands. "Who is it?"

 

 Still angry, although even he was not quite sure why,

 Simon took the man's ear in his handas Rachel the

 Dragon had oftentimes done with a certain recalcitrant

 scullionand twisted it until the face swung toward him.

 

 His prisoner was an old man; Simon did not know him.

 The man's eyes were wide and blinking rapidly. "Didn't

 mean no harm, old Heanwig didn't'" he said. "Don't bum

 me!"

 

 "Bum you? What are you babbling about? Why were

 you following us?"

 

 Miriamele looked up suddenly. "Simon, we can't stay

 here shouting. Let's take him back."

 

 "Don't bum Heanwig!"

 

 "Nobody's burning anybody," Simon grunted. He

 dragged the old man onto his feet less gently than he

 might have, then marched him toward the shed. The in-

 truder sniffled and pleaded for his life.

 

 Simon retained his hold on the old man while

 Miriamele tried to relight the torch. She eventually gave

 up and took another from her saddlebag. When it was

 burning, Simon let go of the prisoner and then sat with

 his back against the door so that the old man could not

 make another bolt for freedom.

 

 "He doesn't have any weapons," Simon said. "I felt his

 pockets."

 

 "No, masters, got no nothing." Heanwig seemed a little

 less frightened, but still pathetically eager not to offend.

 "Please, just let me go and I'll tell no one."

 

 Simon looked him over. The old man had the reddened

 cheeks and nose of a veteran tosspot, and his eyes were

 bleary. He was staring worriedly at the torch, as though it

 were now the greatest danger in the room. He certainly

 didn't seem much of a threat, but Simon had learned long

 ago from Doctor Morgenes' small-outside, large-inside

 chambers that things could be other than they appeared.

 "Why were you following us?" he demanded. "And why

 do you think we'd burn you?"

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 121

 

 "Don't need to burn no one," the old man said. "Old

 Heanwig means no harm. He won't tell nobody."

 

 "Answer my question. What are you doing here?"

 

 "Was just looking for place to sleep, masters." The old

 man chanced a quick survey of the shed. "Slept here be-

 fore once or twice. Didn't want to be outside tonight, no,

 not tonight."

 

 "Were you following us in the forest? Did you come to

 our camp last night?"

 

 The old man looked at him with what seemed genuine

 surprise. "Forest? In Oldheart? Heanwig won't go there.

 Things and beasties and suchthat's a bad place, mas-

 ters. Don't you go to that Oldheart."

 

 "I think he's telling the truth," said Miriamele. "I think

 he was just coming here to sleep," She fished the water

 skin out of her saddlebag and gave it to the old man. He

 '' Slooked at it for a moment with suspicion. Understanding,

 Miriamele lifted it to her own mouth and drank, then

 passed it to him. Reassured, the old man swallowed hun-

 grily, then looked at her as accusingly as if his fear of

 poison had been confirmed.

 

 "Water," he murmured sullenly,

 

 Miriamele stared at him, bufSimon slowly smiled. He

 leaned across and fished out the other skin bag, the one

 Miriamele had told him she was saving for cold nights or

 painful injuries- Simon squirted a little bit of the red

 Perdruin into a bowl and held it out whwe the old man

 could see. Heanwig's trembling fingers reached for it, but

 Simon pulled the bowl back.

 

 "Answer our questions first. You swear you were not

 searching for us?"

 

 Heanwig shook his head emphatically. "Never seen you

 before. Won't remember you when you're gone. That's a

 promise." His thin hands snaked out again.

 

 "Not yet. Why did you think we'd burn you?"

 

 The old man looked at him, then at the wine, plainly

 torn. "Thought you were those Fire Dancers," he said at

 last, with obvious reluctance. "Thought you meant to

 burn me like they burned old Wiclaf who used to be First

 Hammerman up to quarry."

 

 122 Tad Williams

 

 Simon shook his head, puzzled, but Miriamele leaned

 closer, fear and distaste in her expression. "Fire Dancers?

 Are there Fire Dancers here?"

 

 The old man looked at her as though she had asked

 whether fish could swim. "Town be full of them. They

 chased me, chased Heanwig. But I hid from them." He

 smiled a weak smile, but his eyes remained wary and cal-i

 culating. "They be in quarry tonight, dancing and praying

 to their Storm Lord."

 

 "The quarry!" Miriamele breathed. 'That's what the

 lights were!"

 

 Simon was still not sure he trusted the old man. Some-

 thing was bothering him, like a fly buzzing beside his ear,

 but he could not decide what it was. "// he's telling the

 truth."

 

 "I tell the truth," Heanwig said with sudden force. He

 tried to draw himself up straight, fixing Simon with his

 rheumy eyes. "I was coming here for a bit of sleep, then

 I heard you. Thought the Fire Dancers were herethey

 roam all through town at night. People with houses bar

 their doors, do you see, but Heanwig's got no house no

 more. So I ran."

 

 "Give the wine to him, Simon," Miriamele said. "It's

 cruel. He's just a frightened old man."

 

 Simon made a face and handed Heanwig the bowl. The

 old man sniffed it and a look of rapture crossed his age-

 spotted features. He tilted the bowl and drank thirstily.

 

 "The Fire Dancers!" Miriamele hugged herself.

 "Mother of Mercy, Simon, we don't want to get caught by

 them. They're all mad. Tiamak was attacked by some in

 Kwanitupul, and I saw others light themselves on fire and

 burn to death."

 

 Simon looked from Miriamele to the old man, who was

 licking his wrinkled lips with a tongue that looked like

 something which made its home in a seashell. He felt an

 unlikely urge to reach out and cuff the old tosspot, al-

 though the man had done little enough, really- Simon sud-

 denly remembered how he had raised the sword, that

 moment of fury when he might have slain this poor

 wretch, and was horribly ashamed.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER123

 

 What sort of knight would cut down a feeble drunkard?

 

 But what dreadful fate had sent the old man to frighten

 the horses and break twigs in the very moment when he

 was finally holding Miriamele in his arms? They had

 been kissing! She, the princess, the beautiful Miriamele,

 had been kissing Simon!

 

 He turned his gaze from the old man to Miriamele once

 more. She, too, had been watching Heanwig drain his

 bowl, but now her eyes flicked up to Simon's for a mo-

 ment. Even in the torchlight, he could see her blush. Fate

 was cruel ... but a little earlier, it had been kind as well-

 Oh, sweet Fate, sweet Luck!

 

 Simon abruptly laughed. The greater part of his anger

 dissipated like chaff before the wind. The loveliest girl in

 all of Aedondom, clever and quickand she had kissed

 him. Called him by his name! He could still feel the

 shape of her face on his fingertips. What right had he to

 complain?

 

 "So what do we do?" he asked.

 

 Miriamele avoided his eye. "We will stay the night.

 Then in the morning we will get as far away from the Fire

 Dancers as we can."

 

 Simon darted a glance at Heanwig, who was looking

 hopefully toward the saddlebags. "And him?"

 

 "We will let him stay here for the night, too."

 

 "And what if he drinks all the wine and takes it into his

 head to strangle us in our sleep?" Simon protested. Even

 he found it rather silly to say such things about the bony,

 shivering old man, but he desperately wanted to be alone

 with Miriamele once more.

 

 As if she understood this and was equally determined

 not to see it happen, Miriamele said: "He'll do nothing of

 the sort. And we will take turns sleeping. Will that make

 you feel better, Simon? You can guard the wine."

 

 The old man looked from one to the other, evidently

 trying to decide where the battle lines were drawn. "Old

 Heanwig won't be no bother. You don't nead to stay up,

 young masters. You be tired. Old fellow like me doesn't

 need sleep. I'll stay up and watch for them Fire Dancers."

 

 Simon snorted. "I'm certain you would. Let's toss him

 

 124 Tad Williams

 

 out, Miriamele. If he isn't the one who followed us,

 there's no reason to keep him."

 

 "There's a perfectly good reason. He's an old man and

 he's frightened. You forget, Simon, I've seen the Fire

 Dancers and you haven't. Don't be cruel just because

 you're in a bad mood." She gave him a stem look, but Si-

 mon thought he saw a tiny flash of knowing amusement

 in it.

 

 "No, don't send me out to those Fire Dancers,"

 Heanwig begged. "They bumed Wiclaf, they did. I saw it.

 And him not harming nobody. They lit him on fire down

 Pulley Road, screaming 'Here's what's coming! Here's

 what's coming!'" Heanwig trailed off, shuddering. What

 had started out as a self-serving justification had become

 real as the memory played out before his mind's eye.

 "Don't send me away, masters. I'll never speak no word."

 His abrupt sincerity was apparent.

 

 Simon looked from Miriamele to the old man, then

 back to the princess. He had been neatly outflanked. "Oh,

 very well." he growled. "But I'm staying up on first

 watch, old man, and if you do anything the least bit sus-

 picious, you'll be out that door and into the cold so fast

 your head will spin."

 

 He gave Miriamele a last look compounded of annoy-

 ance and longing, then settled back against the shed door.

 

 Simon awoke in the early morning to discover

 Miriamele and the old man both up and chatting amiably.

 Simon thought that Heanwig looked even worse in day-

 light, his seamed features smudged with dirt, his clothes

 so tattered and soiled that even poverty could not excuse

 it.

 

 "You should come with us," Miriamele was saying.

 "You'll be safer than by yourself. At least join us until

 you're far away from the Fire Dancers."

 

 The old man shook his head doubtfully. "Those mad

 folk be most everywhere, these days."

 

 Simon sat up. His mouth was dry and his head hurt, as

 though he were the drunkard of the company. "What are

 you saying? You can't bring him with us."

 

 i

 

 E-

 '

 

 I

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER125

 

 "I certainly can," said Miriamele. "You may accom-

 pany me, Simon, but you may not tell me where I can go

 or who I can bring along."

 

 Simon stared at her for a moment, sensing an argument

 that he had no hope of winning, no matter what he did.

 He was still weighing his next words when he was saved

 from the useless engagement by Heanwig.

 

 "Are you bound for Nabban?" the old man asked. "I

 never have seen those parts."

 

 "We're going to Falshire," Miriamele said. "Then on to

 Hasu Vale."

 

 Simon was just about to upbraid her for telling this

 complete stranger their travel planswhat had happened

 to the need for caution she had lectured him about?

 when the old man made a gasping noise. Simon turned,

 angry already at the thought that the old tosspot was now

 going to be sick right in front of them, but was startled by

 the look of horror on Heanwig's mottled face.

 

 "Going to Hasu Vale!?" His voice rose. "What, be ye

 mad? That whole valley runs haunted." He scrambled a

 cubit toward the door, grasping fruitlessly for a handhold

 in the moldering straw beneath him, as though the two

 travelers had threatened to drag him to the hated place by

 force. "Sooner I'd crawl down into quarry with those Fire

 Dancers."

 

 "What do you mean, haunted?" Miriamele demanded.

 "We've heard that before. What does it mean?"

 

 The old man stared at her, eyes rolling to show the

 whites. "Haunted! Bad 'uns, bogies from out the lien-

 yard. Witches and suchlike!"

 

 Miriamele stared at him hard. After a year like the last

 one, she was not inclined to dismiss such talk as supersti-

 tion. "We're going there," she said at last. "We have to.

 But you don't have to travel any farther than you want

 to."

 

 Heanwig got shakily to his feet. "Don't want to go

 west'ard. Heanwig'll stay here'bouts. There's folk in

 Stanshire as still have a morsel to spare, or a drop, even

 in bad times." He shook his head- "Don't go there, young

 

 126 Tad Williams

 

 mistress. You been kind." He looked pointedly at Simon

 to make it clear who had not been.

 

 The old sot, Simon thought grumpily. Who gave him

 the wine, anyway? Who didn't break his head when he

 could have?

 

 "Go southyou'll be happy there," Heanwig contin-

 ued, almost pleading. "Stay out the Vale."

 

 "We must go," said Miriamele. "But we won't make

 you come."

 

 Heanwig had been sidling toward the door. Now he

 stopped with his hand already on the wood and ducked

 his head. "I thank you, young mistress. Aedon's Light be

 on you." He paused, at a loss for words. "Hope you come

 back again safe."

 

 "Thank you, too, Heanwig," Miriamele replied sol-

 emnly.

 

 Simon suppressed a groan of irritation, reminding him-

 self that a knight did not make faces and noises like a

 scullion didespecially a knight who wished to stay on

 the good side of his lady. And at least the old man appar-

 ently would not be traveling with them. That was an ac-

 ceptable reward for a little forbearance.

 

 As they rode out of Stanshire into the countryside, the

 rain began to fall once more. At first it was little more

 than a flurry of drops, but by the time mid-moming came,

 it was falling in great sheets. The wind rose, carrying the

 rain toward them in cold, cascading slaps of water.

 

 "This is as bad as being on a ship in storm," Miriamele

 shouted.

 

 "At least on a ship you have oars," Simon called back.

 "We're going to need some soon."

 

 Miriamele laughed, pulling her hood down low over

 her eyes-

 Simon felt warmer just knowing he had amused her. He

 had been feeling a little ashamed of the way he had

 treated the old man; almost as soon as Heanwig had gone

 shuffling away down the lane, heading back toward the

 center of Stanshire, Simon had felt his bad temper evap-

 orate. It was hard to say now what it was about the old

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 127

 

 man that had so perturbed himhe hadn't really done

 anything.

 

 They headed back toward the River Road along a suc-

 cession of wagon-rutted lanes that now were little more

 than sluices of mud. The countryside began to look more

 wild. The farmlands around Stanshire, although mostly

 ^given over to weeds, still bore the mark of past human

 |,care in the fences and stone walls and an occasional cot-

 ittage, but as the town and its outlying settlements fell

 1away behind them, the wilderness reasserted itself-

 

 HIt was a peculiarly bleak place. The nearly endless win-

 ^ter had stripped all of the trees but the evergreens, and

 I'even the pines and firs seemed to have suffered unkind

 ^handling. Simon thought the strange, twisted shape of the

 [trunks and branches resembled the writhing human bodies

 in the mural of The Day of Weighing-Out which stretched

 across the wall of the Hayholt's chapel. He had spent

 Jmany a boring hour in church staring in fascination at the

 scenes of torment, marveling at the invention of the anon-

 ymous artist. But here in the real, cold, wet world, the

 gnarled shapes were mostly disheartening. Leafless oaks

 and elms and ash trees loomed against the sky, skeletal

 hands that clenched and unclenched as the wind bent

 them. With the sky bruised almost black by clouds and

 the rain flung slantwise across the muddied hillsides, it

 made a much drearier picture than even the decorations in

 the chapel-

 Simon and Miriamele rode on through the storm,

 mostly unspeaking. Simon was chagrined that the prin-

 cess had not once mentioned, or even hinted at, their kiss

 of the night before. It was not a day conducive to flirta-

 tious conversation, he knew, but she seemed to be pre-

 tending it had never even happened. Simon did not know

 what to do about this: several times he was on the verge

 of asking her, but he could not think of anything to say

 about it that would not sound stupid in the light of day.

 That kiss had been a bit like his arrival in Jao e-Tinukai'i,

 a moment in which he had stepped out of time. Perhaps,

 like a trip to a fairy-hill, what they had shared the night

 before had been something magical, something destined

 

 128

 

 Tad Williams

 

 to fade as quickly from memory as an icicle melting in

 the sun.

 

 No. I won't let it fade. I'll remember it always . .. even

 if she doesn 't.

 

 He stole a glance at Miriamele. Most of her face was

 hidden by the hood, but he could see her nose and part of

 her cheek and her sharp chin. She looked almost Silha-

 like, he thought, graceful and beautiful, yet not quite

 knowable. What was going on in her head? How could

 she cling to him as she had, then say nothing about it af-

 terward, until he wondered if he had dreamed the whole

 thing or was going mad? Surely she had returned that kiss

 as eagerly as he had given it? Little as he knew of women

 and kissing, he could not believe that the way she had re-

 sponded meant nothing.

 

 Why don't I just ask her? I'll go mad if I don't find out.

 But what if she laughs at me, or gets angryor doesn't

 remember?

 

 The idea that Miriamele might have no strong emotions

 corresponding to the feelings that churned within him was

 chilling. His resolve to make her talk abruptly vanished.

 He would think about it more.

 

 But I want to kiss her again.

 

 He sighed. The sound was lost in the hissing tumult of

 the rain.

 

 The River Road was muddy and almost entirely empty;

 

 as Simon had predicted, they passed fewer than a dozen

 other travelers all day. Only one man bothered to do more

 than nod, a short, bandy-legged fellow whose knob-kneed

 horse pulled a tented wagon full of tinker's goods. Hop-

 ing for information about what might lie ahead, Simon

 took courage at his pleasant greeting and asked the man

 to stop. The tinker stood in the downpour, apparently glad

 for someone to talk to, and told them that there was a way

 station ahead that they should reach not long after sun-

 down. He said he was on his way out from Falshire, and

 described that city as quiet and the business he had done

 there as poor. After quietly making sure that Miriamele

 approved, Simon invited the man to come join them be-

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER129

 

 neath a stand of pines that kept out most of the rain. They

 handed him the wineskin, and while their new acquaint-

 ance took a few healthy swallows, Simon repeated his

 story of being an itinerant chandler.

 

 "Thank you kindly." The tinker handed back the wine-

 skin. "Cuts the chill a bit, that does." He nodded. "You'll

 be hoping to do some trade for Saint Tunath's and

 Aedonmansa, then. Good luck to you. But if you'll par-

 don advice not asked for, I think you'd best go no farther

 west than Falshire."

 

 Simon and Miriamele locked eyes briefly before turn-

 ing back to the traveler.

 

 "Why is that?" asked Simon.

 

 "People just say it's bad there." The man's grin seemed

 forced. "You know the sort of tales. Bandits, the like.

 Some talk of odd happenings in the hills." He shrugged.

 

 Simon pressed him for details, but the man did not

 seem inclined to elaborate- Simon had never heard of a

 traveling tinker who would not happily finish a proffered

 wineskin while regaling his listeners with tales of his

 journeying; whether this man was an exception to the

 rule, or whether there was something that had disturbed

 him enough to keep him quiet,'Simon could not tell. He

 seemed a reasonable sort.

 

 "We're looking for nothing but a roof over our heads

 and a few timings worth of work here and there," said Si-

 mon.

 

 The tinker cocked an eyebrow at the sword on Simon's

 belt and the metal hauberk protruding beyond his sleeves.

 "You're tolerable well-armed for- candle-making, sirrah,"

 he said gently. "But I suppose that shows what the roads

 are like these days." He nodded with a sort of careful ap-

 proval, as if to suggest that whatever he thought of a

 chandler wearing the gear of a knightalbeit a tattered

 knight who had seen better timeshe saw no reason to

 ask further questions.

 

 Simon, catching the implicit message that he was ex-

 pected to adopt the same courteous disinterest, offered the

 tinker a handclasp as they all walked back to the road.

 

 "Anything you need?" the man asked as he once more

 

 130 Tad Williams

 

 took the bridle of his horse, which had been standing pa-

 tiently in the rain. "I get a few things in trade from them

 as has not a cintis piece to paysome vegetables, little

 bits of metal clutter ... shoeing-nails, the like."

 

 Simon said that they had everything they needed until

 they reached Falshire: he was quite sure that the things

 they most needed would not be in the back of a rain-

 soaked wagon. But Miriamele asked to see the vegetables,

 and picked out a few spindly carrots and four brown on-

 ions, giving the tinker a coin in return- Afterward they

 waved him farewell as he took his horse and went

 squelching away east along the muddy road.

 

 As the gray afternoon wore away, the rain continued to

 spatter down. Simon was growing tired of it pounding on

 his head.

 

 Wish I'd remembered to bring my battle-helm, he

 thought. But that'd probably be like sitting under a bucket

 and having someone throw stones at yourattle, rattle,

 rattle till you go mad.

 

 To entertain Miriamele, he tried to sing a song called

 "Badulf and the Straying Heifer" that Shem Horsegroom

 had taught him, which had a rainstorm in it and seemed

 appropriate, but most of the words had slipped his mem-

 ory, and when he sang the parts he remembered, the wind

 flung rain down his gullet until he thought he would

 strangle. He abandoned the experiment at last and they

 continued in silence.

 

 The sun which had been invisible all day at last sank

 beneath the rim of the world, leaving behind a deeper

 darkness. They rode on as the rain turned even colder, un-

 til their teeth were chattering and their hands grew numb

 on the reins. Simon had begun to doubt that the tinker had

 spoken truly when at last they found the way station.

 

 It was only a shed, four walls and a roof, with a smoke

 hole and a circle of stones dug into the floor for a fire-

 place. There was a covered spot outside at the back to tie

 the horses, but Simon, after unsaddling them, tethered

 them in a copse nearby where they would be almost as

 dry, and would be able to crop at the thin grass.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER131

 

 The last inhabitant of the stationSimon guessed it

 was the tinker himself, who had seemed a decent and

 conscientious fellowhad brought in fresh wood before

 leaving. It had to be new-gathered, because it was still

 wet and proved difficult to light: Simon had to restart it

 three times after the smoldering tinder fizzled out against

 the damp branches. He and the princess made themselves

 a stew with some carrots and one of the onions and a bit

 of flour and dried beef from Miriamele's stores.

 

 "Hot food," proclaimed Simon, sucking his fingers, "is

 a wonderful thing." He held the bowl up and licked the

 last drops of gravy from the bottom.

 

 "You're getting stew on your beard," Miriamele said

 sternly.

 

 Simon pushed open the door of the way station, then

 leaned out and let his cupped palms fill with rainwater.

 He drank some and used the rest to rub the grease from

 his whiskers. "Better?"

 

 "I suppose." Miriamele began arranging her bedroll.

 

 Simon got up, patting his stomach contentedly. He

 went and dragged his own bedroll loose from the saddle,

 then came back and laid it out close to Miriamele's. She

 stared at it silently for a moment; then, without looking

 up, pulled hers around the fire, putting several cubits of

 straw-matted floor between them.

 

 Simon pursed his lips. "Should we keep watch?" he

 said at last. "There's no bar on the door."

 

 "That would be wise. Who first7"

 

 "Me. I have a lot to think about."

 

 His tone finally made Miriamele look up. She eyed him

 warily, as though he might do something sudden and

 frightening- "Very well. Wake me when you get tired."

 

 "I'm tired now. But so are you. Sleep. I'll get you up

 after you've had a little time to rest."

 

 Miriamele settled back without protest, wrapping her

 cloak tightly about her before she closed her eyes. The

 way station was silent but for the patter of rain on the roof.

 Simon sat motionless for a long time, watching the flick-

 ering firelight play across her pale, composed features.

 

 132

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Sometime in the earliest hours after midnight, Simon

 caught himself nodding. He sat up, shaking his head, and

 listened. The rain had stopped, but water was still drip-

 ping from the way station roof and drizzling on the

 ground outside.

 

 He crawled over to wake Miriamele, but paused by the

 bedroll to look at her in the red light of the dying embers.

 She had twisted in her sleep, dislodging the cloak she

 used as a blanket, and her shirt had pulled loose from the

 top of the men's breeches she wore, exposing a measure

 of white skin along her side and the shadowed curve of

 her lowest ribs. Simon felt his heart turn over in his chest.

 He longed to touch her.

 

 His hand, seemingly of its own volition, stole out; his

 fingers, gentle as butterflies, lit upon her skin. It was cool

 and smooth. He could feel goosebumps rise beneath his

 touch.

 

 Miriamele made a groggy noise of irritation and

 brushed at him, flicking as though the butterflies had be-

 come less pleasant insects a-crawhng. Simon quickly

 withdrew his hand.

 

 He sat for a moment trying to catch his breath, feeling

 like a thief who had been nearly surprised in his crime. At

 last he reached out again, but this time only clasped her

 shoulder and gave a careful shake.

 

 "Miriamele. Wake up, Miriamele."

 

 She grunted and rolled over, turning her back to him.

 Simon shook her again, a little more strongly this time.

 She made a sound of protest and her fingers groped for

 her cloak without success, as though she sought protec-

 tion from whatever cruel spirit plagued her.

 

 "Come, Miriamele, it's your turn to keep watch."

 

 The princess was sleeping soundly indeed. Simon

 leaned closer and spoke into her ear. "Wake up. It's

 time." Her hair was against his cheek.

 

 Miriamele only half-smiled, as though someone had

 made a small joke. Her eyes remained shut. Simon slid

 down until he was lying next to her and stared for a few

 long moments at the curve of her cheek glowing in the

 emberlight. He slid his hand down from her shoulder and

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER133

 

 let it fall across her waist, then moved forward until his

 chest touched her back. Now her hair was all along his

 cheek and his body wrapped hers. She made a noise that

 might have been contentment and pushed back against

 him ever so slightly, then fell silent once more. Simon

 held his breath, fearing she would wake, fearing that he

 himself would cough or sneeze and somehow spoil this

 achingly splendid moment. He felt her warmth all down

 the length of his body. She was smaller than he, much

 smaller: he could wrap around her and protect her like a

 suit of armor. He thought he would like to lie this way

 forever.

 

 As the two lay like nestling kittens, Simon drifted into

 sleep. The need to keep a watch was forgotten, eased

 from his mind like a leaf carried away by a river current.

 

 Simon woke up alone. Miriamele was outside the way

 station, using a leafless branch to groom her horse. When

 she came in, they broke their fast on bread and water- She

 said nothing of the night before, but Simon thought he de-

 tected a little less brittleness in her manner, as though

 some of her chill had melted away while they lay huddled

 in sleep.

 

 They traveled six more days on me River Road, slowed

 by the monotonous rains that had turned the broad track

 into sloppy mud. The weather was so miserable and the

 road generally so empty that Miriamele's fear of discov-

 ery seemed to lessen, although she still kept her face cov-

 ered when they passed through smallish towns like

 Bregshame and Garwynswold. Nights they slept in way

 stations or beneath the leaky roofs of roadside shrines. As

 they sat together each night in the hour between eating

 and sleeping, Miriamele told Simon stories of her child-

 hood in Meremund. In return, he recounted his days

 among the scullions and chambermaids; but as the nights

 passed, he spoke more and more about his time with Doc-

 tor Morgenes, of the old man's good humor and occasion-

 ally fierce temper, of his contempt for those who did not

 ask questions and his delight in life's unexpected com-

 plexity.

 

 '34 Tad Williams

 

 The night after they passed through Garwynswold,

 Simon abruptly found himself in tears as he related some-

 thing Morgenes had once told him about the wonders of

 beehives. Miriamele stared, surprised, as he struggled to

 control himself; afterward she looked at him in a strange

 way he had not seen before, but although his first impulse

 was shame, he could not truthfully see anything contemp-

 tuous in her expression.

 

 "I wish he had been my father or my grandfather," he

 said later. They had retired to their respective bedrolls.

 Although Miriamele was, as usual, an arm's length away,

 he felt that she was in some way nearer to him than she

 had been any night since they had kissed. He had held her

 since then, of course, but she had been asleep. Now she

 lay nearby in the darkness, and he almost thought he felt

 some unspoken agreement growing between them. "He

 was that kind to me. I wish he was still alive."

 

 "He was a good man."

 

 "He was more than that. He was ... He was someone

 who did things when they needed to be done." Simon felt

 a tightening in his chest, "He died so that Josua and I

 could escape. He treated me like ... like I was his own.

 It's all wrong. He shouldn't have had to die."

 

 "Nobody should die," Miriamele said slowly. "Especi-

 ally while they're still alive."

 

 Simon lay in silence for a moment, confused. Before he

 could ask her what she meant, he felt her cool fingers

 touch his hand, then nestle into his palm.

 

 "Sleep well," she murmured.

 

 When his heart had slowed, her hand was still there. He

 fell asleep at last, still cupping it as gently as if it were a

 baby bird.

 

 More than the rains and gray mist plagued them. The

 land itself, under the pall of bad weather, was almost

 completely lifeless, dreary as a landscape of stones and

 bones and spiderwebs- In the towns, the citizens appeared

 tired and frightened, unwilling even to regard Simon and

 Miriamele with the curiosity and suspicion that were usu-

 ally a stranger's due. At night the windows were shut-

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER135

 

 tered, the mucky streets empty. Simon felt as though they

 passed through ghost villages, as though the actual inhab-

 itants had long departed, leaving only the insubstantial

 shades of previous generations, all doomed to a weary,

 pointless haunting of their ancestral homes.

 

 In dim afternoon on their seventh day out of Stanshire,

 Simon and Miriamele rounded a bend in the river road

 and saw the squat bulk of Falshire Castle looming on the

 western horizon before them. Green grazing land had

 once covered the castled hill like a king's train, but now,

 despite the heavy rains, the hillside fields were barren;

 

 near the hillcrest some were even patched with snow. At

 the base of the hill lay the walled city, bestriding the river

 that was its lifeblood. From docks along the shore

 Falshire's hides and wool were loaded on boats to travel

 to the Kynslagh and beyond, returning with the gold and

 other goods that had long made Falshire one of the richest

 cities in Osten Ard, second in importance in Erkynland

 only to Erchester.

 

 "That castle used to be Fengbald's," said Miriamele.

 "And to think my father would have had me marry him!

 I wonder which of his family lords it there now." Her

 mouth tightened. "If the new master is anything like the

 old one, I hope the whole thing falls down on him."

 

 Simon peered into the diffuse western light that made

 the castle seem only an oddly-shaped black crag, then

 pointed to the city below to distract her attention. "We

 can be in Falshire-town before nightfall. We can have a

 true meal tonight."

 

 "Men always think of their stomachs."

 

 Simon thought the assertion unfair, but was pleased

 enough to be called a man that he smiled. "How about a

 dry night in a warm inn, then?"

 

 Miriamele shook her head. "We have been lucky, Si-

 mon, but we are getting closer to the Hayholt every day.

 I have been in Falshire many times. There is too good a

 chance someone might recognize me."

 

 Simon sighed. "Very well. But you don't mind if I go

 in somewhere and get us something to eat like I did in

 Stanshire, do you?"

 

 136 Tad Williams

 

 "As long as you don't leave me waiting all night. It's

 bad enough being a poor traveling chandler's wife with-

 out having to stand in the rain while the husband's inside

 slurruping down ale by a hot fire."

 

 Simon's smile became a grin. "Poor chandler's wife."

 Miriamele looked at him dourly. "Poor chandler if he

 makes her angry."

 

 The inn called The Tarbox was brightly torchlit, as if

 for some festive holiday, but as Simon peered in through

 the doorway he thought the mood inside seemed far from

 merry. It was crowded enough, with perhaps two or three

 dozen people scattered around the wide common room,

 but the talk among them was so quiet that Simon could

 hear the rainwater dripping off the cloaks that hung be-

 side the door.

 

 Simon made his way between the crowded benches to

 the far side of the common room. He was aware of many

 heads turning to watch him pass, and a slight increase in

 the buzz of conversation, but he kept his eyes to himself.

 The landlord, a thin, tuft-haired fellow whose face spar-

 kled with the sweat of the roasting oven, looked up as he

 approached.

 

 "Yes? D'you need a room?" He looked at Simon's tat-

 tered clothes. 'Two quinis the night."

 

 "Just a few slices of that mutton and some bread. And

 perhaps some ale as well- My wife's waiting outside.

 We've far to go."

 

 The landlord shouted at someone across the room to

 have patience, then glared at Simon suspiciously- "You'll

 need your own jug, for none of mine's walking out the

 door." Simon lifted his jug and the man nodded. "Six

 cintis for all. Pay now."

 

 A little nettled, Simon dropped the coins on the table.

 The landlord picked them up and examined them, then

 pocketed the lot and scurried off.

 

 Simon turned to survey the room. Most of the denizens

 seemed to be Falshire-folk, humble in garb and settled in

 their residence: there were very few who looked as

 though they might be travelers, despite the fact that this

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER137

 

 was one of the closest inns to the city gates and the River

 Road. A few returned his gaze, but he saw little malice or

 even curiosity- The people of Falshire, if this room was

 any indication, seemed to have much in common with the

 sheep they raised and sheared.

 

 Simon had just turned back to look for the landlord

 when he sensed a sudden stirring in the room. He won-

 dered if the Falshire-folk had indeed had more of a reac-

 tion to him than he'd realized. Then a chill breeze

 touched the back of his neck.

 

 The door of the inn was open again. Standing before a

 curtain of water sluicing down from the roof outside, a

 trio of white-robed figures calmly surveyed the room. It

 was not Simon's imagination that all the other folk in the

 common room shrank back a little into themselves. Fur-

 tive glances were darted, conversations grew quieter or

 louder, and some of the patrons nearest the door sidled

 slowly away.

 

 Simon felt a similar urge. Those must be Fire Dancers,

 he thought. His heartbeat had grown swifter. Had they

 seen Miriamele? But what would she have meant to them

 in any case?

 

 Slowly Simon leaned back-against the long table, put-

 ting on an air of mild interest as he watched the newcom-

 ers. Two of the three were large, as muscled as the

 dockers who worked the Hayholt's sea gate, and carried

 blunt-ended walking staves that looked more useful for

 skull-cracking than hiking. The third, the leader by his

 position in front, was small, thick, and bull-necked, and

 also carried one of the long cudgels. As he lowered his

 rain-soaked hood, his squarish, balding head glinted in

 the lamplight. He was older than the other two and had

 clever, piggy eyes.

 

 The hum of conversation had now reached something

 like its normal level once more, but as the three Fire

 Dancers moved slowly into the common room they still

 received many covert stares. The robed men seemed to be

 openly searching the room for something or somebody;

 

 Simon had a moment of helpless fear as the leader's dark

 eyes lighted on him for a moment, but the man only lifted

 

 138 Tad Williams

 

 an amused eyebrow at Simon's sword, then shifted his at-

 tention to someone else,

 

 Relief swept over Simon. Whatever they wanted, it was

 apparently not him. Sensing a presence at his shoulder, he

 turned quickly and found the inn's proprietor standing be-

 hind him with a pitted wooden platter. The man gave Si-

 mon the mutton and bread, which Simon wrapped in his

 kerchief, then poured an appropriate measure of ale into

 the jug. Despite the attention these tasks required, the

 landlord's eyes scarcely left the three newcomers, and his

 reply to Simon's courteous thanks was distracted and in-

 complete. Simon was glad to be going.

 

 As he opened the door, he caught a quick glimpse of

 Miriamele's pale, worried face in the shadows across the

 street. A loud, mocking voice cut through the room be-

 hind him.

 

 "You didn't really think that you could leave without

 our noticing, did you?"

 

 Simon went rigid in the doorway, then slowly turned.

 He had a parcel in one hand and a jug in the other, his

 sword hand. Should he drop the ale and draw the blade,

 or make the jug useful somehowperhaps he could

 throw it? Haestan had taught him a little about tavern

 brawls, although the guardsman's main recommendation

 had been to avoid them.

 

 He completed his pivot, expecting to confront a sea of

 faces and the threatening Fire Dancers, but found to his

 astonishment that no one was even looking in his direc-

 tion. Instead, the three robed men stood before a bench in

 the comer farthest from the fire. The two seated there, a

 man and woman of middle, years, looked up at them help-

 lessly, faces slack with terror.

 

 The leader of the Fire Dancers leaned forward, bring-

 ing his catapult-stone of a head almost to the level of the

 tabletop, but though his position suggested discretion, his

 voice was pitched to carry through the room. "Come,

 now. You didn't really think that you could just walk

 away, did you?"

 

 "M-Maefwaru," the man stuttered, "we, we could not

 ... we thought that ..."

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 139

 

 The Fire Dancer laid a thick hand on the table, silenc-

 ing him. "That is not the loyalty that the Storm King ex-

 pects." He seemed to speak quietly, but Simon could hear

 every word from the doorway. The rest of the room

 watched in sickly fascinated silence. "We owe Him our

 lives, because He has graced us with a vision of how

 things will be and a chance to be part of it. You cannot

 turn your back on Him."

 

 The man's mouth moved, but no words came out. His

 wife was equally silent, but tears ran down her face and

 her shoulders twitched. This was obviously a meeting

 much feared.

 

 "Simon!"

 

 He turned to look back out the inn's door. Miriamele

 was only a few paces away in the middle of the muddy

 road. "What are you doing?" she demanded in a loud

 whisper.

 

 "Wait."

 

 "Simon, there are Fire Dancers in there! Didn't you see

 them?!"

 

 He raised his hand to stay her, then wheeled to face the

 interior. The two large Fire Dancers were forcing the man

 and woman up from their bench, dragging the woman

 across the rough wood when her legs would not support

 her. She was crying in earnest now; her companion, pin-

 ioned, could only stare at the ground and murmur miser-

 ably.

 

 Simon felt anger flame within him. Why didn't anyone

 in this place help them? There must be two dozen seated

 here and only three Fire Dancers.

 

 Miriamele tugged at his sleeve. "Is there trouble?

 Come, Simon, let's go!"

 

 "I can't," he said, quietly but urgently. "They're taking

 those two people somewhere."

 

 "We can't afford to be caught, Simon. This is not a

 time for heroes."

 

 "I can't just let them take those people, Miriamele." He

 prayed that someone else in the crowded room would

 stand up, that some general movement of resistance

 would begin. Miriamele was right: they couldn*t afford to

 

 140 Tad Wilbams

 

 do anything foolish. But no one did more than whisper

 and watch.

 

 Cursing himself for his stupidity, and God or Fate for

 putting him in this position, Simon pulled his sleeve from

 Miriamele's grasp and took a step back into the common

 room. He carefully set the supper parcel and jug down be-

 side the wall, then curled his hand around the hilt of the

 sword Josua had given him.

 

 "Stop!" he said loudly.

 

 "Simon!"

 

 Now all heads did turn toward him- The last to swivel

 around was that of the leader. Although he was only a lit-

 tle shorter than an average man, there was something cu-

 riously dwarflike in his large, cleft-chinned head. His tiny

 eyes flicked Simon up and down. This time there was no

 amusement.

 

 "What? Stop, you say? Stop what?"

 

 "I don't think those people want to go with you." Si-

 mon addressed the male captive, who was struggling

 weakly in the grip of one of the large Fire Dancers. "Do

 you?"

 

 The man's eyes flicked back and forth between Simon

 and his chief captor. At last. miserably, he shook his head.

 Simon knew then that what the man feared must be truly

 terrible, that he would risk making this situation worse in

 the desperateand unlikelyhope that Simon could save

 him from it.

 

 "You see?" Simon tried, with mixed results, to keep his

 voice firm and calm. "They do not wish to accompany

 you. Set them free." His heart was pounding. His own

 words sounded curiously formal, even deliberately high-

 flown, as if this were a Tallistro story or some other

 chronicle of imaginary heroism.

 

 The bald man looked around the room as if to judge

 how many might be prepared to join Simon in resistance.

 No one else was moving; the entire room seemed to share

 a single held breath. The Fire Dancer turned back to Si-

 mon, a grin curling his thick lips. "These folk betrayed

 their oath to the Master. This is no concern of yours."

 

 Simon felt an immense fury wash over him. He had

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 141

 

 seen all the bullying he had the stomach for, from the

 countrywide misdeeds of the king to the precisely pointed

 cruelties of Pryrates. He tightened his grip on the hilt. "I

 am making it my concern. Take your hands from them

 and get out."

 

 Wthout further argument, the leader spat out a word

 and the follower who held the woman let her goshe

 slumped against the table, knocking a bowl onto the

 floorand leaped toward Simon, his blunt-headed staff

 swinging in a wide arc. A few people shouted in fear or

 excitement. Simon was frozen for an instant, his sword

 only halfway out of his scabbard.

 

 Idiot! Mooncalf!

 

 He dropped to the floor and the staff whistled over his

 head, knocking several cloaks from the wall and becom-

 ing entangled in one of them. Simon seized the moment

 and threw himself forward into the man's legs. They both

 fell, tumbling, and Simon's sword came free of the scab-

 bard and thumped into the floor rushes- He had hurt his

 shoulderhis attacker was heavy and solidly-builtand

 as he disentangled himself and pulled free, the Fire

 Dancer managed to catch him with a cudgel blow to his

 leg which stung cold as a knife wound. Simon rolled to-

 ward his lost sword and was hugely grateful when he felt

 it beneath his fingers. His attacker was up and moving to-

 ward him, his cudgel darting out like a striking snake.

 From the comer of his eye, Simon could see that the sec-

 ond big man was coming toward him as well.

 

 First things first, was the inane thought that ran

 through his head, the same thing Rachel had always told

 him about doing his chores when he wanted to go climb

 or play a game- He rose to a standing crouch, his sword

 held before him, and deflected a blow from his first at-

 tacker. It was impossible to remember all the things he

 had been taught in the muddle of noise and movement

 and panic, but he was relieved to find that as long as he

 could keep his sword between himself and the Fire

 Dancer, he could keep the man at bay. But what would he

 do when the second arrived?

 

 He received an answer of sorts a moment later, when a

 

 142 Tad Williams

 

 blur of movement at the edge of his vision warned him to

 duck. The second man's staff whickered past and clacked

 against the first man's. Simon took a step backward with-

 out turning and then whirled and swung his blade around

 as hard as he could. He caught the man behind him across

 the arm, drawing an angry shriek. The Fire Dancer

 dropped his staff and stumbled back toward the doorway,

 clutching his forearm. Simon returned his attention to the

 man in front of him, hoping that the second man was, if

 not defeated, at least out of the battle for a few

 desperately-needed moments. The first attacker had

 learned the lesson of not getting too close, and was now

 using the length of his club to keep Simon on the defen-

 sive.

 

 There was a crash from behind; Simon, startled, almost

 lost sight of the foe before him. Seeing this, the man

 aimed another whirling blow at his head. Simon managed

 to get his blade up in time to deflect it; then, as the Fire

 Dancer raised the staff once more, Simon brought his

 sword up, sweeping the cudgel even farther upward so

 that it struck the low timbers of the roof and caught in the

 netting below the thatch. The Fire Dancer stared up for a

 moment in surprise; in that instant, Simon took a step for-

 ward, lodged the sword against the man's midsection and

 pushed it home. He struggled to pull the blade free, con-

 scious that at any moment the other attacker, or even the

 leader, might be upon him.

 

 Something struck him from the side, flinging him

 against a table. For a moment, he was staring into the

 alarmed face of one of the common-room drinkers. He

 whirled to see that the person who had shoved him,

 the bald man Maefwaru, was pushing his way between

 the tables, headed toward the door; he did not pause to

 look down at either of his minions, the one Simon had

 slain or the other, who lay in a curious position near the

 doorway.

 

 "It will not be so easy," Maefwaru shouted as he van-

 ished through the door and into the rainy night.

 

 A moment later Miriamele stepped back into the room.

 She looked down at the Fire Dancer laying there, the one

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER143

 

 Simon had wounded on the arm. "I've broken our jug on

 his head," she said, excited and breathless. "But I think

 the one who just ran out is going to come back with more

 of his friends. Curse my luck! I couldn't find anything to

 hit him with. We'll have to run."

 

 "The horses," Simon panted- "Are they... ?"

 "A few steps away," replied Miriamele. "Come."

 Simon bent and snatched up the supper sack he had left

 on the floor. The kerchief was wet, soaked by the ale that

 had splashed from the jug which lay in pieces around the

 limp Fire Dancer. He looked around the room. The man

 and woman that Maefwaru and his henchmen had threat-

 ened were cringing against the far wall, staring as bewil-

 deredly as any of the inn's other customers,

 

 "You had better get out of here, too," he called to them.

 'That bald one will bring back more. Go onrun!"

 

 Everyone was looking at him. Simon wanted to say

 something clever or braveheroes usually didbut he

 couldn't think of anything. Also, there was real blood on

 his sword and his stomach seemed to have crawled up

 into his throat. He followed Miriamele out the door, leav-

 ing behind two bodies and a room full of wide eyes and

 open, speechless mouths.

 

 6

 

 The Circle Narrows

 

 The SWirt of snow had lessened, but the wind still

 moved angrily across the hillside beneath Naglimund,

 fluting in the teeth of the broken wall. Count Eolair

 nudged his horse toward Maegwin's mount, wishing he

 could shield her somehow, not just from the cold but also

 from the horror of the naked stone towers, the windows

 now flickering with light.

 

 Yizashi Grayspear rode forward from the ranks of the

 Sithi, his lance couched beneath one arm. He lifted the

 other and waved something that looked like a silver

 baton. His hand flashed in a wide arc, making a loud mu-

 sical noise which had something of the metallic in it; the

 silver thing in his hand opened like a lady's fan, spread-

 ing into a glittering, semicircular shield.

 

 "A y'ei g'eisu!" he shouted up at the blankly staring

 keep. " Yas 'a pripuma jo-shoi!"

 

 The lights in Naglimund's windows seemed to waver

 like wind-fluttered candles as shadows moved in their

 depths. Eolair felt himself almost overwhelmed with the

 urge to turn and ride away. This was no longer a human

 place, and the poisonous terror he was feeling was noth-

 ing like the anticipatory fear before any human battle. He

 turned to Maegwin. Her eyes were closed and her mouth

 moved in silent speech. Isom seemed similarly unnerved,

 and when Eolair turned in his saddle and looked back, the

 pale faces of his fellow Hemystiri were as gape-mouthed

 and hollow-eyed as a row of corpses.

 

 Brynioch preserve us, the count thought desperately, we

 

 145

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 do not belong in this. They will bolt in a moment if I do

 the wrong thing.

 

 Deliberately, he tugged his sword from its scabbard and

 showed it to his men, then held it high over his head for

 a moment before dropping it to his side. It was only a

 small show of bravery, but it was something.

 

 Now Jiriki and his mother Likimeya rode forward, halt-

 ing on either side of Yizashi. After a moment's whispered

 conversation, Likimeya spurred her horse a few paces

 ahead. Then, startlingly, she began to sing.

 

 Her voice, thin at first against the rude piping of the

 wind, grew slowly stronger. The impenetrable Sithi

 tongue flowed out, slurring and clicking yet somehow as

 smooth as warm oil poured from a jar. The song rose and

 fell, pulsed, then rose again, each time growing more

 powerful. Although Eolair understood nothing of the

 words, there was something clearly denunciatory to the

 roll and swoop of it, something challenging in the ca-

 dence. Likimeya's voice chimed like a herald's brazen

 horn, and as with the call of a hom, there was a ring of

 cold metal beneath the music.

 

 "What goes on here?" whispered Isom.

 

 Eolair gestured for silence. -

 

 The mist floating before the walls of Naglimund

 seemed to thicken, as though one dream was ending and

 another beginning. Something changed in Likimeya's

 voice. It took a moment before Eolair recognized that the

 mistress of the Sithi had not altered her song, but rather

 that another voice had joined it. At first the new thread of

 melody clung close to the challenge-song. The tone was

 as strong as Likimeya's, but where hers was metal, this

 new voice was stone and ice. After some long moments

 the second voice began to sing around the original mel-

 ody, weaving a strange pattern like a glass filigree over

 Likimeya's belling tones. The sound of it made the Count

 of Nad Mullach's skin stretch and tingle and his body hair

 lift, even beneath the layers of clothing.

 

 Eolair raised his eyes. His heart began to beat even

 more swiftly.

 

 Through the dimming fog, a thin black shadow ap-

 

 146 Tad Williams

 

 peared atop the castle wall, rising into view as smoothly

 as though lifted by an unseen hand. It was man-sized,

 Eolair decided, but the mist subtly distorted its shape, so

 that one moment it seemed larger, the next smaller and

 thinner than any living thing. It looked down on them,

 black-cloaked, face invisible beneath a large hoodbut

 Eolair did not need to see its face to know that it was the

 source of the high, stone-edged voice. For long moments

 it only stood in the swirling mist atop the wall, embroid-

 ering upon Likimeya's song. Finally, as if by some prior

 agreement, they both fell still at the same moment.

 

 Likimeya broke the silence, calling out something in

 the Sithi tongue. The black apparition answered, its words

 ringing like shards of jagged flint, and yet Eolair could

 hear that the words they spoke were much the same, the

 differences mainly in rhythm and the greater harshness of

 the robed creature's speech. The conversation seemed in-

 terminable.

 

 There was a movement behind him. Eolair flinched; his

 horse startled, kicking snow. Sky-haired Zinjadu, the lore-

 mistress, had brought her own mount to where the mor-

 tals stood,

 

 "They speak of the Pact of Sesuad'ra." Her eyes were

 fixed on Likimeya and her opposite, 'They speak of old

 heartbreaks and the mourning songs yet to be sung."

 

 "Why so much talk?" asked Isom raggedly. "The wait-

 ing is dreadful."

 

 "It is our way." Zinjadu's lips tightened; her thin face

 seemed carved in pale golden stone. "Although it was not

 respected when Amerasu was slain,*'

 

 She offered nothing more. Eolair could only wait in un-

 easy fear and, ultimately, a kind of horrible boredom as

 challenge and response were offered.

 

 Finally the thing on the wall turned its attention away

 from Likimeya for a moment; its eyes lit on the count and

 his few scores of Hemystinnen. With a movement almost

 as broad as a traveling player's, the black-robed one flung

 back its hood, revealing a sleet-white face and thin hair

 just as colorless which rose in the wind, floating like the

 strands of some sea-plant.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER147

 

 "Shu'do-tkzayha!" the Nom said in a tone almost of

 exultation. "Mortals! They will yet be the death of your

 family, Likimeya Moon-Eyes!" He, if it was a he, spoke

 the Westerling tongue with the harsh precision of a game-

 keeper imitating a rabbit's death squeal. "Are you so

 weak that you summoned this rabble to aid you? It is

 hardly Sinnach's great army!"

 

 "You have usurped a mortal's castle," said Likimeya

 coldly. Beside her Jiriki still sat his horse stiffly, his

 sharp-boned face empty of any recognizable emotion;

 

 Eolair wondered again how anyone could ever feel they

 knew the Sithi. "And your master and mistress have en-

 tered into the disputes of mortals. You have little to crow

 about."

 

 The Nom laughed, a noise like fingernails on slate.

 "We use them, yes. They are the rats that have dug into

 the walls of our housewe might skin them for gloves,

 but we do not invite them in to sup at our table! That is

 your weakness, as it was Amerasu Ship-Born's."

 

 "Do not speak other!" Jiriki cried. "Your mouth is too

 foul to hold her name, Akhenabi!"

 

 The thing on the wall smiled, a folding of white. "Ah,

 little Jiriki. I have heard T:ales of you and your

 adventuringor should I say meddling. You should have

 come to live in the north, in our cold land. Then you

 would have grown strong. This tolerance for mortals is a

 terrible weakness. It is one reason why your family has

 grown dissolute while mine has grown-ever sterner, ever

 more capable of doing what needs to be done." The Nom

 turned and lifted his head, directing his words now to

 Eolair and the nervously whispering Hemystiri. "Mortal

 men! You risk more than your lives fighting beside these

 immortals. You risk your souls as well!"

 

 Eolair could hear the rustle of frightened speech behind

 him. He spurred his horse forward a few paces and raised

 his sword. "Your threats arc empty!" he shouted. "Do

 your worst! Our souls are our own!"

 

 "Count Eolair!" Maegwin called. "No! It is Scadach,

 the Hole in Heaven! Go no closer!"

 

 Akhenabi leaned down, fixing the count with black-

 

 148 Tad Williams

 

 bead eyes. "The captain of the mortals, are you? So, little

 man, if you do not fear for your sake, or for your troop,

 what of the mortals still prisoned within these walls?"

 

 "What are you saying?!" Eolair shouted.

 

 The creature in the black robe turned and lifted both

 arms. A moment later two more figures clambered up into

 view beside him. Although they also wore heavy cloaks,

 their clumsy movements marked them as something other

 than the spider-graceful Noms.

 

 "Here are some of your brethren!" trumpeted

 Akhenabi. "They are our guests. Would you see them die

 for the sake of your immortal allies as well?" The two

 figures stood silently, slumped and hopeless. The faces in

 the wind-lashed hoods were clearly those of men, not

 Gardenbom.

 

 Eolair felt himself fill with helpless rage. "Let them

 go!"

 

 The Nom laughed again, pleased. "Oh, no, little mor-

 tal. Our guests are enjoying themselves too much. Would

 you like to see them show their joy? Perhaps they will

 dance." He lifted his hand and made a florid gesture. The

 two figures began slowly to revolve. Horribly, they lifted

 their arms in a parody of a courtly dance, swaying from

 side to side, stumbling together in front of the grinning

 Nom. They locked arms for a moment, teetering precari-

 ously along the edge of the high wall, then pulled apart

 and resumed their solitary posturing.

 

 Through the tears of fury that misted his eyes, Eolair

 saw Jiriki spur his horse a few ells nearer the wall. The

 Sitha lifted a bow; then, in a movement so swift as to be

 almost invisible, he withdrew an arrow from the quiver

 on his saddle, nocked it, and drew the bow until it trem-

 bled in a wide arc. Atop the wall, the Nom Akhenabi's

 grin widened. He made a wriggling movement, almost a

 shiver; a moment later he had disappeared, leaving only

 the two shambling shapes in hideous lockstep.

 

 Jiriki let his arrow fly. It struck one of the two dancers

 in the foot, jerking back the leg and overbalancing both

 the one struck and the one to whom he clung. They

 flailed briefly at the air, then toppled off the wall, drop-

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER149

 

 ping twenty ells to hit with a terrible smacking noise on

 the snow-covered rocks beneath. Several of the Hemystiri

 shouted and groaned.

 

 "Blood of Rhynn!" Eolair screamed. "What have you

 done?!"

 

 Jiriki rode forward, scanning the now empty wall cau-

 tiously. When he reached the huddled bodies, he dis-

 mounted and kneeled, then waved Eolair forward.

 

 "Why did you do that, Jiriki?" the count demanded.

 His throat felt as tight as if someone's fingers were curled

 around it. 'The Nom was gone." He stared down at the

 twisted, dark-robed figures. The hands and fingers pro-

 truding from their robes were splayed as though they still

 grabbed at a safety they would never find. "Did you think

 to spare them torture? What if we drove out the

 Norasis there no chance we could rescue them?"

 

 Jiriki said nothing, but reached down with surprising

 gentleness and turned over the nearest of the bodies, tug-

 ging a little to pull it free of the partner with which it was

 entwined. He folded back the hood.

 

 "Brynioch!" Eolair choked. "Brynioch of the Skies

 preserve us!"

 

 The face had no eyes, only llack holes. The skin was

 waxy, and in places had burst from the force of the fall,

 but it was clear that this corpse was not fresh.

 

 "Whoever he was, he has been dead since Naglimund's

 defeat," Jiriki said softly. "I do not think there are any

 living prisoners within the walls."

 

 Count Eolair felt his gorge rising and turned away "But

 they ... moved... !"

 

 "One of the Red Hand is lord here," Jiriki said. "That

 is now confirmed, for no others have the strength to do

 this. Their power is a part of their master's."

 

 "But why?" Eolair said. He looked at the humped

 corpses, then turned his gaze outward, toward the mass-

 ing of men and Sithi in the snow. "Why would they do

 this?"

 

 Jiriki shook his head, his own hair as white and flutter-

 ing as that of the creature that had mocked them from the

 

 i50

 

 Tad WUwms

 

 wall. "I cannot say. But Naglimund will not fall without

 a full tithing of horrors, that is certain."

 

 Eolair looked at Maegwin and Isom waiting fearfully

 for him to return. "And there is no turning back."

 

 "No. I fear the final days have begun," said Jiriki. "For

 good or ill."

 

 

 

 Duke Isgrimnur knew that he should be paying close

 attention to everything that was going on around him, to

 the people of Metessa, to the arrangements and manpower

 in the baronial hall. Metessa was the easternmost of

 Nabban's major outer states, and might be the place

 where Josua's challenge stood or fell. Success here could

 hinge on the smallest detail, so Isgrimnur had plenty to

 occupy himbut it was difficult to attend to his duties

 while the little boy followed him around like a shadow.

 

 "Here," the duke said after he had almost trod upon the

 child for the dozenth time, "what are you up to? Don't

 you have somewhere to be? Where's your mother?"

 

 The pale-haired, thin-faced little boy looked up at him,

 showing no fear of the large, bearded stranger. "My

 mother told me to stay away from the prince and you

 other knights. I did not agree."

 

 The child was unnervingly well-spoken for his years,

 the duke reflected, and his Westerling was almost as good

 as Isgrimnur's own. It was odd to see how Prester John's

 Warinsten language had spread so thoroughly in only a

 couple of generations. But if things fell apart, as they

 seemed to be doing, would not the common tongue, like

 everything else, soon slip away? Empires were like sea-

 walls, he thought sadly, even those which embodied the

 best of hopes. The tide of chaos beat at them and beat at

 them, and as soon as no one was shoring up the stones

 any more ...

 

 Isgrimnur shook his head, then growled at the young-

 ling a little more sternly than he intended. "Well, if your

 mother told you to stay away from the knights, what are

 you doing here? This is men's business tonight."

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 151

 

 The boy deliberately raised himself until the top of his

 head reached the duke's bottom rib. "I will be a man

 some day. I am tired of living with the women. My

 mother is afraid I will run away to fight in war, but that

 is just what I will do."

 

 There was something so unintentionally comic in his

 fierce determination that Isgrimnur smiled despite him-

 self. "What's your name, lad?"

 

 "Pasevalles, Sir Foreign Knight. My father is

 Brindalles, Baron Seriddan's brother."

 

 "A knight is not the only thing in the world to be. And

 war is not a game. It is a terrible thing, little Pasevalles."

 

 "I know that," said the boy readily. "But sometimes

 there is no choice, my father says, and there must be men

 who will fight."

 

 The duke thought of Princess Miriamele in the ghant

 nest, and of his own beloved wife standing with an ax be-

 fore Elvritshalla, ready to defend it to her death before

 Isom persuaded her at last to let it go and flee with the

 rest of the family. "Women also fight."

 

 "But women cannot be knights. And I am going to be

 a knight."

 

 "Well, I suppose since I am sot your father, I cannot

 send you back to your chambers. And I certainly can't

 seem to be rid of you. You might as well come with me

 and tell me a little about the place."

 

 Pleased, Pasevalles bounced up and down a few times

 like a puppy. Then, just as suddenly, he stopped and fixed

 Isgrimnur with a suspicious glance. "Are you an enemy?"

 he asked sharply. "Because if you are. Sir Foreign Knight,

 I cannot show you things that might hurt my uncle."

 

 Isgrimnur's grin was sour. "In these days, young fel-

 low, it's hard to say who is enemy to who. But I can

 promise you that my liege-lord Prince Josua intends no

 harm to any who live in Metessa."

 

 Pasevalles considered this for a moment. "I will trust

 you," he said at last. "I think you tell the truth. But if you

 do not, then you are no knight, who would lie to a young

 child."

 

 Isgrimnur's grin widened. Young child! This nuumtkin

 

 152

 

 Tad Williams

 

 could give Count Eolair lessons in politicking. 'Tell me

 nothing that would help your uncle's enemies, and I will try

 not to ask anything that would put your honor in danger."

 "That is fair," said the boy gravely. "That is knightly."

 

 Metessa was more than just another Nabbanai hedge-

 barony. Situated beside the outermost edges of the

 Thrithings, it was a wide and prosperous piece of country,

 hilly and wide-meadowed. Even after the unseasonal

 snows, the rolling terrain gleamed greenly. One of the

 Stefflod's branches wound through the grasslands, a rib-

 bon of silver foil bright even beneath the dull gray skies.

 Sheep and a few cows dotted the hillsides.

 

 Chasu Metessa, the baronial keep, had stood atop one

 of the highest hills since the days of the later Imperators,

 looking down on these valleys full of small farms and

 freeholdings just as Isgrimnur did now.

 

 He turned from the window to find Pasevalles pacing

 impatiently. The boy said: "Come and see the armor."

 

 "That sounds like the kind of thing I shouldn't see."

 

 "No, it's old armor." He was disgusted by Isgrimnur's

 obtuseness. "Very old."

 

 The Rimmersman allowed himself to be tugged along.

 The child's energy seemed without bound.

 

 If Isorn had been this demanding, he thought wryly, /

 would likely have taken him out to the Frostmarch and

 left him, like they did in the old days when they had one

 mouth too many to feed.

 

 Pasevalles led him through a warren of hallways, past

 more than a few of the keep's inhabitants, who looked at

 Isgrimnur with alarm, to a comer tower that seemed a

 fairly late addition to the ancient hill fortress. After they

 had climbed far more stairs than were good for

 Isgrimnur's aching back, they reached a cluttered room

 near the top. The ceiling had not been recently swepta

 canopy of cobwebs hung down almost to head height

 and a heavy patina of dust covered the floor and all the

 crude furnishings, but Isgrimnur was nevertheless im-

 pressed with what he saw.

 

 A series of wooden armor-stands ranged the room like

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER153

 

 silent guardsmen. Unlike the rest of the objects in the cir-

 cular chamber, they were comparatively clean. On every

 stand hung a set of armorbut not modem armor, as

 Pasevalles had so crossly pointed out: the helmets and

 breastplates and curious metal-strip skirts were of a type

 that Isgrimnur had seen before only in very old paintings

 in the Sancellan Mahistrevis.

 

 'This is armor from the Imperium!" he said, impressed.

 "Or damn clever copies."

 

 Pasevalles drew himself up to his full height. "They are

 not copies! They are real. My father has been keeping

 them for years- My grandfather bought them in the great

 city."

 

 "In Nabban," Isgrimnur mused. He walked along the

 rows, examining the various costumes, his warrior's eye

 seeing which were flawed in design, which simply miss-

 ing pieces from the original arrangement. The metal the

 old Imperatorial craftsmen had used was heavier than that

 now used, but the armor was splendidly made. He leaned

 close to examine a helm with a twining sea-dragon crest.

 To get a better look, he puffed away a fine layer of dust.

 

 "These have not been polished in some time," he said

 absently.

 

 "My father has been ill." Little Pasevalles' voice was

 suddenly querulous. "I try to keep them clean, but they

 are too tall for me to reach and too heavy for me to lift

 down."

 

 Isgrimnur looked around the room, thinking. The unin-

 habited armor suits seemed like watchers at a Raed, wait-

 ing for some decision. There were still many things for

 him to do. Surely he had spent enough time with this

 boy? He walked to the tower window and peered out into

 the gray western sky.

 

 "We will not eat for some hour or so yet," he said at

 last, "and your uncle and Prince Josua will not be speak-

 ing of the other important things that must be discussed

 until afterward. Go and get your father's cleaning

 thingsat least a whisking broom to get the dust off. You

 and I can make short work of this."

 

 The boy looked up, eyes wide. "Truly?"

 

 154

 

 Tad Williams

 

 'Truly. I am in no hurry to go back down all those

 stairs, in any case." The boy was still staring. "Bless me,

 child, go on. And bring a lamp or two. It'll be dark soon."

 

 The boy sped out of the room and down the narrow

 stairwell like a hare. Isgrimnur shook his head.

 

 The banqueting hall of Chasu Metessa had a fireplace

 along each wall, and was warm and bright despite the

 chilliness of the season. The courtiers, landed folk from

 all over the valley, seemed to be dressed in their finest:

 

 many of the women wore long shimmery dresses and hats

 almost as weirdly inventive as those to be seen at the

 Sancellan Mahistrevis itself. Still, Isgrimnur noted the air

 of worry that hung like a fog in the huge, high-raftered

 chamber. The ladies talked swiftly and brightly and

 laughed at tiny things. The men were mostly quiet; what

 little they did say was spoken behind their hands.

 

 A cask of Teligure wine had been breached at the start

 of things and its contents shared out around the room.

 Isgrimnur noticed that Josua, who was seated at the right

 of their host Baron Seriddan, had raised his goblet to his

 lips many times, but had not yet allowed the page beside

 him to refill it. The duke approved ofJosua's forbearance.

 The prince was not much of a drinker at the best of times,

 but since the chance of dislodging Benigaris from the du-

 cal throne might rest on the knife-edge of tonight's do-

 ings, it was doubly important that Josua's wits be sharp

 and his tongue cautious.

 

 As he surveyed the room, the duke was stopped short

 by a pale glimmer in the doorway, far across the room.

 Squinting, Isgrimnur suddenly smiled deep in his beard. It

 was the boy Pasevalles, who had doubtless once more es-

 caped from his mother and her ladies- He had come,

 Isgrimnur had no doubt, to watch Real Knights at table.

 

 He may just get an eyeful.

 

 Baron Seriddan Metessis rose from his seat at the head

 of the table and lifted his goblet. Behind him a blue

 crane, symbol of the Metessan House, spread its long

 wings across a wall banner.

 

 "Let us salute our visitors," the baron said. He smiled

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 155

 

 ironically, his sun-browned, bearded face wrinkling. "I

 am doubtless a traitor already, just for letting you inside

 the gates. Prince Josuaso it does no further harm to

 drink your health."

 

 Isgrimnur found himself liking Seriddan, and respecting

 him more than a bit. He little resembled the duke's fondly-

 held image of an effete Nabbanai baron: his thick neck and

 seamed peasant face made Seriddan look more a genial

 rogue than the hereditary master of a great fiefdom, but his

 eyes were shrewd and his manner deceptively self-

 mocking, His command of Westerling was so good that lit-

 tle Pasevalles' fluency no longer seemed surprising.

 

 After the glasses were drained, Josua rose and lifted his

 own cup to thank the folk of Chasu Metessa for their hos-

 pitality. This was greeted by polite smiles and murmurs of

 approval that seemed more than a little forced. When the

 prince sat down, the whisper of table talk began to grow

 once more, but Seriddan gestured for quiet.

 

 "So," he said to Josua, loud enough for everyone at the

 table to hear. "We have fulfilled the obligations that good

 Aedonites owe to their fellowsand some would say we

 have done far more than that, considering you appeared in

 our lands unasked for, and with an army at your back."

 Above the smiling mouth, Seriddan's stare was cool.

 "Will we see your heels in the morning, Josua of

 Erkynland?"

 

 Isgrimnur suppressed a noise of surprise. He had as-

 sumed that the baron would send the lesser folk of his

 household away so that he could talk to the prince in pri-

 vacy, but apparently Seriddan had other ideas.

 

 Josua, too, was taken aback, but quickly said: "If you

 hear me out and are unmoved. Baron, you will indeed see

 our heels soon after sunrise. My people are not camped

 outside your walls as a threat to you. You have done me

 no wrong, and I will do you none either."

 

 The baron stared at him for a long moment, then turned

 to his brother. "Brindalles, what do you think? Does it not

 seem odd that an Erkynlandish prince would wish to pass

 through our lands? Where might he be. going?"

 

 The brother's thin face bore many similarities to the

 

 156 Tad Williams

 

 baron's, but the features that looked roguishly dangerous

 on Seriddan seemed merely tired and a trifle unsettled on

 Brindalles.

 

 "If he is not going to Nabban," came the mild reply,

 "he must be planning to walk straight to the sea."

 Brindalles' smile was wan. It was hard to think that such

 a diffident man could be the father of bright-burning

 Pasevalles,

 

 "We are going on to Nabban," said Josua. "That is no

 secret."

 

 "And what purpose could you have that is not danger-

 ous to me and dangerous to my liege-lord. Duke

 Benigaris?" Seriddan demanded. "Why should I not make

 you a prisoner?"

 

 Josua looked around the now-silent room. Chasu

 Metessa's most important residents all sat at the long ta-

 ble, watching with rapt attention. "Are you certain you

 wish me to speak so openly?*'

 

 Seriddan gestured impatiently. "I will not have it said

 that I misunderstood you, whether I let you pass through

 my lands or hold you here for Benigaris. Speak, and my

 people here will be my witnesses."

 

 "Very well." Josua turned to Sludig, who despite hav-

 ing drained his wine cup several times was watching the

 proceedings with a wary eye. "May I have the scroll?"

 

 As the yellow-bearded Rimmersman fumbled in the

 pocket of his cloak, Josua told Seriddan; "As I said,

 Baron: we go to Nabban. And we go in hopes of remov-

 ing Benigaris from the Sancellan Mahistrevis. In part, that

 is because he is an ally of my brother, and his fall would

 weaken the High King's position. The fact that Elias and

 I are at war with each other is no secret, but the reasons

 why are less well-known."

 

 "If you think they are important," Seriddan said equa-

 bly, "tell them. We have plenty of wine, and we are at

 home. It is your little army that may or may not be leav-

 ing with the dawn."

 

 "I will tell you, because I would not ask allies to fight

 unknowing," said Josua.

 

 "Hea! Allies? Fight!?" The baron scowled and sat

 

 TO GREEN. ANGEL TOWER

 

 157

 

 straighten "You are walking a dangerous road, Josua

 Lackhand. Benigaris is my liege-lord. It is mad even to

 contemplate letting your people pass, knowing what I

 know, but I show respect for your father by letting you

 speak. But to hear you talk of me fighting beside you

 madness!" He waved his hand. Some two dozen armed

 men, who had been standing back against the shadowed

 walls all during the meal, came rustlingly to attention.

 

 Josua did not flinch, but calmly held Seriddan's eye.

 "As I said," he resumed, "I will give you the reasons that

 Elias must be driven from the Dragonbone Chair. But not

 now. There are other things to tell you first." He reached

 and took the scroll from Sludig's hand. "My finest knight,

 Sir Deomoth of Hewenshire, was at the battle of Bullback

 Hill when Duke Leobardis, Benigaris' father, came to re-

 lieve my castle at Naglimund."

 

 "Leobardis chose your side," Seriddan said shortly.

 "Benigaris has chosen your brother's. What the old duke

 decided does not affect my loyalty to his son." Despite

 his words, there was a certain veiled look in the baron's

 eyes; watching him, Isgrimnur suspected Seriddan might

 just wish that the old duke were still alive and that his

 loyalty could be more comfortable. "And what does this

 Sir What-may-be-his-name have to do with Metessa?"

 

 "Perhaps more than you can know." For the first time

 there was an edge of impatience in Josua's tone.

 

 Careful, man. Isgrimnur tugged anxiously at his beard,

 Don't let your sorrow over Deomoth betray you. We're

 farther along than I had thought we 'd be. Seriddan's lis-

 tening, anyway.

 

 As if he heard his old friend's silent thought, Josua

 paused and took a breath. "Forgive me. Baron Seriddan.

 I understand your loyalty to the Kingfisher House. I only

 wish to tell you things you deserve to know, not tell you

 where your duties lie. I want to read you Deomoth's

 words about what happened near Bullback Hill. They

 were written down by Father Strangyeard ..." the prince

 pointed to the archivist, who was trying to make himself

 unobtrusive down near the long table's far end, "and

 sworn to before that priest and God Himself."

 

 158

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "Why are you reading some piece of parchment?"

 Seriddan asked impatiently. "If this man has a story to

 tell, why does he not come here before us?"

 

 "Because Sir Deomoth is dead," said Josua. "He died

 at the hands of Thrithings mercenaries King Elias sent

 

 against me."

 

 At this there was a small stir in the room- The

 Thrithings-folk were objects of both contempt and fear to

 the outland baronies of Nabbancontempt because the

 Nabbanai thought them little more than savages, fear be-

 cause when the Thrithings-men went into one of their pe-

 riodic raiding frenzies, outland fiefdoms such as Metessa

 bore the greatest part of the suffering.

 

 "Read." Seriddan was clearly angry. Isgrimnur thought

 that the canny baron might already sense the snare into

 which his own cleverness had delivered him. He had

 hoped to deal with the odd and difficult situation of the

 prince by forcing Josua to speak his treason in front of

 many witnesses. Now the baron must sense that Josua's

 words might not be so easily dismissed. It was an awk-

 ward spot. But even now, Metessa's master did not dis-

 perse the other folk sitting at table: he had made his

 gambit and he would live with it. The Duke of

 Elvritshalla found himself appreciating the man anew.

 

 "I had Deomoth tell his story to our priest before the

 battle for New Gadrinsett," Josua said. "What he saw was

 important enough that I did not wish to chance it might

 die with him, as there seemed little likelihood we would

 survive that fight." He held up the scroll, unrolling it with

 the stump of his right wrist. "I will read only the part that

 I think you need to hear, but I will gladly give the whole

 thing to you. Baron, so that you may read it at your ease."

 

 He paused for a moment, then began. The listeners

 along the table leaned forward, greedy for more strange-

 ness on what was already a night that would be discussed

 in Metessa for a long time.

 

 ". . . When we came upon the field, the

 Nabbanai had ridden after Earl Guthwulf of

 Utanyeat and his men of the Boar and Spears,

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER159

 

 who were falling back with great swiftness to the

 slope of Bullback Hill. Duke Leobardis and three

 hundred knights came at them in such a wise as to

 pass between Utanyeat and the High King's army,

 which was still some way distant, as we thought.

 

 "Prince Josua, fearing that Leobardis would

 be delayed too long and that thus the king could

 come against him in the unprotected open lands

 south of Naglimund, brought many knights out

 of the castle to save Nabban from the king, and

 also perhaps to capture Utanyeat, who was the

 greatest of King Elias' generals. Josua himself

 led us, and Isom Isgrimnurson and a score of

 Rimmersmen were with us too.

 

 "When we struck against the side of the Boar

 and Spears, we at first did bring them great woe,

 for they were outnumbered manyfold. But

 Guthwulf and the king had prepared a trap, and

 soon it was sprung. Earl Fengbald of Falshire

 and several hundred knights came down a-horse

 from the woods at the top of Bullback Hill.

 

 "/ saw Duke Leobardis and his son Benigaris

 at the outermost edge of the fighting, behind their

 men-at-arms. As Fengbald's falcon-crest came

 down the hill. I saw Benigaris draw his sword

 and stab his father in the neck, slaying him in the

 saddle so that Leobardis fell across his horse's

 withers, bleeding most piteously ..."

 

 At this last sentence, the silence abruptly dissolved into

 shocked cries and rebukes. Several of Baron Seriddan's

 liege-men stood, shaking their fists in fury as though they

 would strike Josua down. The prince only looked at them,

 still holding the parchment before him, then turned to Serid-

 dan. The baron had retained his seat, but his brown face had

 paled except for bright spots of color high on each cheek.

 

 "Silence!" he shouted, and glared at his followers until

 they sank back onto their benches, full of angry mutter-

 ing. Several of the women had to be helped from the

 room; they stumbled out as though they themselves had

 

 l6o Tad Williams

 

 been stabbed, their intricate hats and veils suddenly as

 sad as the bright flags of a defeated army. 'This is an old

 story," the baron said at last. His voice was tight, but

 Isgrimnur thought there was more than rage there.

 

 He feels the snare drawing closed.

 

 Seriddan drained his goblet, then banged it down on the

 tabletop, making more than a few people jump. "It is an

 old tale," he said again. "Often repeated, never proved.

 Why should I believe it now?"

 

 "Because Sir Deomoth saw it happen," said Josua sim-

 ply.

 

 "He is not here. And I do not know that I would be-

 lieve him if he were."

 

 "Deomoth did not lie. He was a true knight."

 

 Seriddan laughed harshly, "I have only your word on

 that. Prince. Men will do strange things for king and

 country." He turned to his brother. "Brindalles? Have you

 heard any reason here tonight that I should not throw the

 prince and his followers into one of the locked cells be-

 neath Chasu Metessa to wait for Benigaris' mercy?"

 

 The baron's brother sighed. He held his two hands

 close together, touching at the fingertips. "I do not like

 this story, Seriddan. It has an unpleasantly truthful ring,

 since those who prepared Leobardis for burial spoke won-

 deringly of the evenness of the wound- But the word of

 any one man, even Prince Josua's knight, is not enough to

 condemn the Lord of Nabban."

 

 Wit is not lacking in the family blood! the Duke of

 Elvritshalla noted. But on such hard-headed men must our

 luck ride. Or fail.

 

 "There are others who saw Benigaris* terrible deed,"

 Josua said. "A few of them are still alive, although many

 died when Naglimund was conquered."

 

 "A thousand men would not be enough," Seriddan spat.

 "Hea! What, should the flower of Nabbanai nobility fol-

 low youan Erkynlander and enemy of the High King

 against the rightful heir to the Kingfisher House, on the

 strength of the writings of a dead man?" A murmur of

 agreement rose from Chasu Metessa's other inhabitants.

 The situation was growing ugly.

 

 161

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 "Very well," said Josua. "I understand. Baron. Now I

 will show you something that will convince you of the se-

 riousness of my undertaking. And it may also answer

 your fears about following an Erkynlander anywhere."

 He turned and gestured. A hooded man seated near

 Strangyeard at the shadowy end of the table abruptly rose.

 He was very tall. Several of the men-at-arms drew their

 swords; the hiss of emerging blades seemed to make the

 room grow cold.

 

 Do not fail us, Isgrimnur prayed.

 

 "You said one thing that was not true. Baron," Josua

 said gently.

 

 "Do you call me a liar?"

 

 "No. But these are strange days, and even a man as

 learned and clever as you cannot know everything. Even

 were Benigaris not a patricide, he is not first claimant on

 his father's dukedom. Baron, people of Metessa, here is

 the true master of the Kingfisher House . . . Camaris

 Benidrivis."

 

 The tall figure at the end of the table pushed back

 his hood, revealing a snowfall of white hair and a face

 full of sadness and grace.

 

 "What... ?" The baron was utterly confused.

 

 "Heresy!" shouted a confused landowner, stumbling to

 his feet. "Camaris, he is dead!"

 

 One of the remaining women screamed. The man beside

 her slumped forward onto the table in a drunken faint.

 

 Camaris touched his hand to his breast. "I am not

 dead." He turned to Seriddan. "Grant me forgiveness,

 Baron, for abusing your hospitality in this manner."

 

 Seriddan stared at the apparition, then rounded on

 Josua. "What madness is this?! Do you mock me, Erkyn-

 lander?"

 

 The prince shook his head. "It is no mockery, Seriddan.

 This is indeed Camaris. I thought to reveal him to you in

 private, but the chance did not come."

 

 "No." Seriddan slapped his hand on the table. "I cannot

 believe it. Camaris-sa-Vinitta is deadlost years ago,

 drowned in the Bay of Firannos."

 

 "I lost only my wits, not my life," the old knight said

 

 162

 

 Tad Williams

 

 gravely. "I lived for years with no memory of my name

 or my past." He drew a hand across his brow- His voice

 shook. "I sometimes wish I had never been given either

 back again. But I have. I am Camaris of Vinitta, son of

 Benidrivis. And if it is my last act, I will avenge my

 brother's death and see my murdering nephew removed

 from the throne in Nabban."

 

 The baron was shaken, but still seemed unconvinced.

 His brother Brindalles said: "Send for Eneppa."

 

 Seriddan looked up, his eyes bright, as though he had

 been reprieved from some awful sentence. "Yes." He

 turned to one of his men-at-anns. "Fetch Eneppa from the

 kitchen. And tell her nothing, on pain of your life."

 

 The man went out. Watching his departure, Isgrimnur

 saw that little Pasevalles had disappeared from the doorway.

 

 The folk remaining at table whispered excitedly, but

 Seriddan no longer seemed to care. While he waited for

 his man to return, he downed another goblet of wine.

 Even Josua, as if he had given something a starting push

 and could no longer control it, allowed himself to finish

 his own cup. Camaris remained standing at the foot of the

 table, a figure of imposing stolidity. No one in the room

 could keep their eyes off him for long.

 

 The messenger returned with an old woman in tow. She

 was short and plump, her hair cut short, her simple dark

 dress stained with flour and other things. She stood anx-

 iously before Seriddan, obviously fearing some punishment.

 

 "Stand still, Eneppa," the baron said. "You have done

 nothing wrong. Do you see that old man?" He pointed.

 "Go and look at him and tell me if you know him."

 

 The old woman sidled toward Camaris. She peered up

 at him, starting a little when he looked down and met her

 eyes. "No, my lord Baron," she said at last. Her Wester-

 ling was awkward.

 

 "So." Seriddan crossed his arms before his chest and

 leaned back, an angry little smile on his face.

 

 "Just a moment," Josua said. "Eneppa, if that is your

 name, this is no one you have seen in recent days. If you

 did know him, it was long ago."

 She turned her frightened-rabbit face from the prince

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER163

 

 back to Camaris. She appeared ready to turn from him

 just as quickly the second time, then something caught at

 her. She stared. Her eyes widened. Abruptly, her knees

 bent and she sagged. Swift as thought, Camaris caught

 her and kept her from falling.

 

 "Ulimor Camaris?" she asked in Nabbanai, weeping.

 "Veveis?" There followed a torrent in the same language.

 Seriddan's angry smile vanished, replaced by an expres-

 sion that was almost comically astonished.

 

 "She says that they told her I had drowned," Camaris

 said. "Can you speak Westerling, good woman?" he

 asked her quietly. "There are some here who do not un-

 derstand you."

 

 Eneppa looked at him as he steadied her, then let her

 go. She was dazed, crumpling the skirt of her dress in her

 gnarled fingers. "He ... he is Camaris. Duos preterate!

 Have ... have the dead come back to us again?"

 

 "Not the dead, Eneppa," said Josua. "Camaris lived,

 but lost his wits for many years."

 

 "But although I know your face, my good woman," the

 old knight said wonderingly, "I do not recognize your

 name. Forgive me. It has been a long, long time."

 

 Eneppa began to cry again in earnest, but she was

 laughing, too. "Because that is not my name in that time.

 When I work in your father's great house, they call me

 Fuiri 'flower.' "

 

 "Fuiri." Camaris nodded. "Of course. I remember you.

 You were a lovely girl, with smiles in full measure for ev-

 eryone." He lifted her wizened hand, then bent and kissed

 it. She stared open-mouthed as though God Himself had

 appeared in the room and offered her a chariot ride

 through the heavens. "Thank you, Fuiri. You have given

 me back a little of my past. Before I leave this place, you

 and I will sit by the fire and talk."

 

 The sniffling cook was helped from the room.

 

 Seriddan and Brindalles both looked stunned. The rest

 of the baron's followers were equally amazed, and for

 some time no one said anything. Josua, perhaps sensing

 the battering that the baron had taken this night, merely sat

 and waited. Camaris, his identity now confirmed, allowed

 

 164

 

 Tad Williams

 

 himself to sit down once more; he, too, fell into silence.

 His half-lidded gaze seemed fixed on the leaping flames in

 the fireplace at the table's far side, but it was clear to

 Isgrimnur that he was looking at a time, not a place.

 

 The stillness was interrupted by a sudden burst of

 whispering. Heads turned. Isgrimnur looked up to see

 Pasevalles walking straddle-legged into the room; some-

 thing large and shiny was cradled against his small body.

 He stopped just inside the doorway, hesitated as he

 looked at Camaris, then moved awkwardly to stand be-

 fore his uncle.

 

 "I brought this for Sir Camaris," the boy said. His bold

 

 words were belied by his shaky voice. Seriddan stared at

 him for a moment, then his eyes widened.

 

 'That is one of the helmets from your father's room!"

 He nodded solemnly. "I want to give it to Sir Camaris."

 Seriddan turned helplessly to his brother. Brindalles

 looked at his son, then briefly at Camaris, who still was

 lost in thought. At last, Brindalles shrugged. "He is who

 he says he is. There is no honor he has not earned,

 Seriddan." The thin-faced man told his son: "You were

 right to ask first." His smile was almost ghostly. "I sup-

 pose sometimes things must be taken down and dusted off

 and put to use. Go ahead, boy. Give it to him."

 

 Isgrimnur watched in fascination as Pasevalles walked

 past clutching the heavy sea-dragon helm, his eyes as

 fearfully fixed as though he walked into an ogre's den. He

 stopped before the old knight and stood silently, although

 he looked as though any moment he might collapse be-

 neath the weight of the helmet.

 At last, Camaris looked up. "Yes?"

 "My father and my uncle said I may give you this."

 Pasevalles struggled to lift the helm closer to Camaris,

 who even sitting down still towered above him. "It is

 

 very old."

 

 A smile stretched across Camaris' face. "Like me, eh?"

 He reached out his large hands. "Let me see it, young

 sir." He turned the golden thing to the light. "This is a

 helm of the Imperium," he said wonderingly. "It is old."

 

 "It belonged to Imperator Anitulles, or so I believe,"

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 165

 

 said Brindalles from across the room. "It is yours if you

 wish it, my lord Camaris-"

 

 The old man examined it a moment more, then care-

 fully put it on. His eyes disappeared into the shadows of

 the helm's depths, and the cheek-guards jutted past his

 jaw like blades. "It fits tolerably well," he said.

 

 Pasevalles stared up at the old man, at the coiling,

 high-finned sea-worm molded along the helmet's crest.

 His mouth was open.

 

 "Thank you, lad." Camaris lifted the helmet off and

 placed it on the table beside him. "What is your name?"

 

 "P-Pasevalles."

 

 "I will wear the helm, Pasevalles. It is an honor. My

 own armor has gone to rust years ago."

 

 The boy seemed transported to another realm, his eyes

 bright as candleflame. Watching him, Isgrimnur felt a

 twinge of sorrow. After this moment, after this experience

 with knighthood, how could life hold much but disap-

 pointment for this eager child?

 

 Bless you, Pasevalles, the duke thought. / hope your life

 is a happy one, but for some reason I fear it won't be so.

 

 Prince Josua had been watching. Now, he spoke.

 

 "There are other things you must know. Baron

 Seriddan. Some of them are frightening, others infuriat-

 ing. Some of the things I must tell you are even more

 amazing than Camaris alive. Would you like to wait until

 the morning? Or do you still wish us locked up?"

 

 Seriddan frowned. "Enough. Do not mock me, Josua.

 You will tell me what I need to know. I do not care if we

 are awake until cockcrow." He clapped his hands for

 more wine, then sent all but a few of his benumbed and

 astonished followers home.

 

 Ah, Baron, Isgrimnur thought, soon you'll find yourself

 down in the pit with the rest of us. I could have wished

 you better.

 

 The Duke of Elvritshalla pulled his chair closer as

 Josua began to speak.

 

 Wftite Tree, Black Fruit

 

 At first it seemed a tower or a mountainsurely noth-

 ing so tall, so slender, so bleakly, flatly white could be

 anything alive. But as she approached it, she saw that

 what had seemed a vast cloud surrounding the central

 shaft, a diffuse milky paleness, was instead an incredible

 net of branches.

 

 It was a tree that stood before her, a great, while tree

 that stretched so high that she could not see the lop of it;

 

 it seemed tall enough to pierce the sky. She stared, over-

 whelmed by its fearsome majesty. Even though a part of

 her knew that she was dreaming, Miriamele also knew

 that this great stripe of white was a very important thing.

 

 As she drew closershe had no body: was she walk-

 ing? Flying? It was impossible to tellMiriamele saw

 that the tree thrust up from the featureless ground in one

 smooth shaft like a column of irregular but faultlessly

 polished marble. If this ivory giant had roots, they were

 set deep, deep underground, anchored in the very heart of

 the earth. The branches that surrounded the tree like a

 cloak of worn gossamer were already slender where they

 sprouted from the trunk, but grew even more attenuated

 as they reached outward. The tangled ends were so fine

 that at their tips they vanished into invisibility.

 

 Miriamele was close to the great tree now. She began

 to rise, passing effortlessly upward. The trunk slipped

 past her like a stream of milk.

 

 She floated up through the great cloud of branches.

 Out beyond the twining filaments of white, the sky was a

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 167

 

 flat gray-blue. There was no horizon; there seemed noth-

 ing else in the world but the tree.

 

 The web of branches thickened. Scattered here and

 there among the stems hung little kernels of darkness,

 clots of black like reversed stars. Rising as slowly as

 swansdown caught in a puff of wind, Miriamele reached

 outsuddenly she had hands, although the rest of her

 body still seemed curiously absentand touched one of

 the black things. It was shaped like a pear, but was

 smooth and turgid as a ripe plum. She touched another

 and found it much the same. The next one that passed be-

 neath her fingers felt slightly different. Miriamele's fin-

 gers tightened involuntarily and the thing came loose and

 fell into her grasp.

 

 She looked down at the thing she had captured. It was

 as taut-skinned as the others, but for some reason it felt

 different. It might have been a little warmer. She knew,

 somehow, that it was readythat it was ripe.

 

 Even as she stared, and as the tendrils of the white tree

 fell endlessly past her on either side, the black fruit in her

 hands shuddered and split. Nestled in the heart of it,

 where a peach would have hidden its stone, lay an infant

 scarcely bigger than a finger. Eyelids tiny as snowflakes

 were closed in sleep. It kicked and yawned, but the eyes

 did not open.

 

 So every one of these fruits is a soul, she thought. Ch-

 are they just... possibilities? She didn't quite know what

 these dream-thoughts meant, but a moment later she felt

 a wash of fear. But I've pulled it loose' I've plucked it

 too soon! I have to put it back!

 

 Something was still drawing her upward, but now she

 was terrified. She had done something very wrong. She

 had to go back, to find that one branch in the net of

 manyfold thousands. Maybe it was not too late to return

 what she had unwittingly stolen.

 

 Miriamele grabbed at the tangle of branches, trying to

 slow her ascent. Some of them, narrow and brittle as ici-

 cles, snapped in her hands; a few of the black fruits

 worked loose and went tumbling down into the gray-white

 distances below her.

 

 168

 

 Tad Williams

 

 No! She was frantic. She hadn't meant to cause this

 damage. She reached out her hand to catch one of the

 falling fruits and lost her grip on the tiny infant. She

 made a desperate grab, but it was out of her reach.

 

 Miriamele let out a wail of despair and horror....

 

 It was dark. Someone was holding her, clutching ^er

 

 tightly.

 

 "No'" she gasped- "I've dropped it!"

 

 "You haven't dropped anything," the voice said.

 "You're having a bad dream."

 

 She stared, but could not make out the face. The voice

 .. .'she knew the voice. "Simon... ?"

 

 "I'm here." He moved his mouth very close to her ear.

 "You're safe. But you probably shouldn't shout any

 

 more."

 

 "Sorry. I'm sorry." She shivered, then began to disen-

 gage herself from his arms. There was a strong damp

 smell to the air and something scratchy beneath her Fin-

 gers. "Where are we?"

 

 "In a barn. About two hours' ride outside the walls of

 

 Falshire. Don't you remember?"

 

 "A little. I don't feel very well." In fact, she felt dread-

 ful. She was still shivering, yet at the same time she felt

 hot and even more bleary than she usually did when she

 woke up in the middle of the night. "How did we get

 

 here?"

 

 "We had a fight with the Fire Dancers."

 "I remember that. And I remember riding."

 Simon made a sound in the darkness that might have

 been a laugh. "Well, after a while we stopped riding. You

 were the one who decided to stop here."

 She shook her head- "I don't remember."

 Simon let go of hera little reluctantly, it was clear

 even to her dulled sensibilities. Now he crawled away

 over the thin layer of straw. A moment later something

 creaked and thumped and a little light leaked in. Simon's

 dark form was silhouetted in the square of a window. He

 was trying to find something to prop the shutter.

 "It's stopped raining," he said.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER169

 

 "I'm cold." She tried to dig her way down into the

 straw.

 

 "You kicked off your cloak." Simon crawled back

 across the loft to her side. He found her cloak and tucked

 it up beneath her chin. "You can have mine, too, if you

 want."

 

 "I think I'll be happy with this," Miriamele said, al-

 though her teeth were still chattering.

 

 "Do you want something to eat? I left your half of the

 supperbut you broke the ale jug on that big fellow's

 head."

 

 "Just some water." The idea of putting food in her

 stomach was not a pleasant one.

 

 Simon fussed with the saddlebags while Miriamele sat

 hugging her knees and staring out the open window at the

 night sky. The stars were invisible behind a veil of

 clouds. After Simon brought her the water skin and she

 drank, she felt weariness sweep over her again.

 

 "I feel -.. bad," she said. "I think I need to sleep some

 more."

 

 The disappointment was plain in Simon's voice. "Cer-

 tainly, Miri."

 

 "I'm sorry. I just feel so iH. -.." She lay back and

 pulled the cloak tight beneath her chin. The darkness

 seemed to spin slowly around her. She saw Simon's shad-

 owed silhouette against the window once more, then

 shadows came and took her back down.

 

 By early morning Miriamele's fever was quite high. Si-

 mon could do little for her but put a damp cloth on her

 forehead and give her water to drink.

 

 The dark day passed in a blur of images: gray clouds

 sweeping past the window, the lonely sound of a solitary

 dove, Simon's worried face rising above her as periodi-

 cally as the moon. Miriamele discovered that she did not

 much care what happened to her. All the fear and concern

 that had driven her was leached away by the illness. If

 she could have chosen to fall asleep for a year, she would

 have; instead, she bobbed in and out of consciousness like

 a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a spar. Her dreams were

 

 170 Tad Williams

 

 full of white trees and drowned cities with seaweed wav-

 ing in their streets.

 

 In the hour before dawn of their second day in the

 barn, Miriamele awakened to find herself clear-headed

 again, but terribly, terribly weak. She had a sudden fear

 that she was alone, that her companion had left her be-

 hind.

 

 "Simon?" she asked. There was no answer. "Simon!?"

 

 "Humf?"

 

 "Is that you?"

 

 "What? Miriamele? Of course it's me." She could hear

 him roll over and crawl toward her. "Are you worse?"

 

 "Better, I think." She stretched out a shaking hand until

 she found his arm, then finger-walked down it until she

 could clasp his hand- "But still not very well. Stay with

 me for a little while."

 

 "Of course. Are you cold?"

 

 "A bit."

 

 Simon caught up his cloak and laid it atop her own.

 She felt so strengthless that the very gesture made her

 want to cryindeed, a cold tear formed and trickled

 down her cheek.

 

 "Thank you." She sat in silence for a while. Even this

 short conversation had tired her. The night, which had

 seemed so large and empty when she woke, now seemed

 a little less daunting.

 

 "I think I'm ready to go back to sleep now." Her voice

 sounded fuzzy even in her own ears.

 

 "Good night, then."

 

 Miriamele felt herself slipping away. She wondered if

 Simon had ever had a dream as strange as the one about

 the white tree and the odd fruits it bore. It seemed un-

 likely. ...

 

 When she awoke to the uncertain light of a slate-gray

 dawn, Simon's cloak was still covering her. He was sleep-

 ing nearby, a few wisps of damp hay his only covering.

 

 Miriamele slept a great deal during their second day in

 the barn, but when she was not sunk in slumber, she felt

 much healthier, almost her old self. By midday she was

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER171

 

 able to take some bread and a morsel of cheese. Simon

 had been out exploring the local countryside; while she

 ate he told her of his adventures.

 

 "There are so few people! I saw a couple on the road

 out of FalshireI didn't let them see me, I promise

 youbut almost no one else. There's a house down be-

 low that's almost falling apart. I think it belongs to the

 people who own this barn. There are holes in the roof in

 a few places, but most of the thatching is good. I don't

 think anyone's living there now. If we need to stay longer,

 that might be a drier place than this."

 

 "We'll see," said Miriamele. "I may be able to ride to-

 morrow."

 

 "Perhaps, but you'll have to be able to move around a

 bit first. This is the first time you've sat up since the night

 we left Falshire." He turned toward her suddenly- "And I

 almost got killed!"

 

 "What?" Miriamele had to grab for the waterskin to

 keep herself from choking on the dry bread. "What do

 you mean?" she demanded when she had recovered. "Was

 it Fire Dancers?"

 

 "No," Simon said, his eyes^wide, his expression sol-

 emn. A moment later he grinned. "But it was a near thing,

 even so. I was coming back uphill from the field next to

 the house. I had been picking some ... some flowers

 there."

 

 Miriamele looked at him quizzically. "Flowers? What

 did you want with flowers?"

 

 Simon went on as though the question had not been

 asked. "Something made a noise and I looked up- Stand-

 ing there at the top of the rise behind me was a bull."

 

 "Simon!"

 

 "He didn't look very friendly, either. He was all bony,

 and his eyes were red, and he had bloody scratches along

 his sides." Simon dragged his fingers down his ribs, illus-

 trating. "We stood there staring at each other for a mo-

 ment, then he began to lower his head and make huffing

 noises. I started walking backward toward where I'd

 been. He came down the hill after me, making these little

 dancing steps, but going faster and faster."

 

 172 Tad Williams

 

 "But Simon! What did you do?"

 

 "Well, running downhill in front of a bull seemed fairly

 stupid, so I dropped the flowers and climbed the first

 good-sized tree that I reached. He stopped at the

 bottomI got my feet up out of the way Just as he got

 therethen all of a sudden he lowered his head, and ...

 thump!" Simon brought his fist into his open palm, "he

 smacked up against the trunk. The whole tree shook and

 it almost knocked me off the branch I was hanging on,

 until I got my legs wrapped around good and tight. I

 pulled myself up until I was sitting on the branch, which

 was a good thing, because this idiot bull began butting his

 head against the tree, over and over until the skin began

 to peel off his head and there was blood running down his

 face."

 

 "That's terrible. He must have been mad, poor animal."

 

 "Poor animal! 1 like that!" Simon's voice rose in mock-

 despair. "He tries to kill your special protector and all

 you can say about him is 'poor animal.* "

 

 Miriamele smiled. "I'm glad he didn't kill you. What

 happened?"

 

 "Oh, he got tired at last and went away," Simon said

 airily. "Walked on down the dell, so that he wasn't be-

 tween me and the fence anymore. Still, as I was running

 up the slope, I kept thinking I heard him coming up be-

 hind me."

 

 "Well, you had a close call." Unable to help herself,

 Miriamele yawned; Simon made a face. "But I'm glad

 you didn't slay the monster," she continued, "even if you

 are a knight. He can't help being mad."

 

 "Slay the monster? What, with my bare hands?" Simon

 laughed, but sounded pleased. "But maybe killing him

 would have been the kindest thing to do- He certainly

 seemed past saving. That's probably why whoever lived

 there left him behind."

 

 "Or he may have gone mad because they left him be-

 hind," Miriamele said slowly. She looked at Simon and

 saw that he had heard something odd in her voice. "I'm

 tired, now. Thank you for the bread."

 

 "There's one thing more." He reached into his cloak

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER173

 

 and produced a small green apple. "The only one within

 walking distance."

 

 Miriamele stared at it suspiciously for a moment, then

 sniffed it before taking a tentative bite. It was not sweet,

 but its tartness was very pleasant. She ate half, then

 handed the rest to Simon.

 

 "It was good," she said. "Very good. But I still can't

 eat much."

 

 Simon happily crunched up the rest. Miriamele found

 the hollow she had made for herself in the straw and

 stretched out. "I'm going to sleep a little more, Simon."

 

 He nodded. He was looking at her so carefully, so thor-

 oughly, that Miriamele had to turn away and pull her

 cloak up over her face. She was not strong enough to sup-

 port such attention, not just now.

 

 She awakened late in the afternoon. Something was

 making a strange noisethump and swish, thump and

 swish. A little frightened and still very weak, Miriamele

 lay unmoving and tried to decide whether it might be

 someone looking for them, or Simon's bull, or something

 entirely different and possibly worse. At last she nerved

 herself and crawled silently across the loft, trying not to

 make any noise as she moved over the thin carpet of

 straw. When she reached the edge, she peered over.

 

 Simon was on the ground floor of the bam practicing

 his sword strokes. Despite the coolness of the day, he had

 taken off his shirt; sweat gleamed on his pale skin. She

 watched him as he measured a distance before him, then

 lifted his sword with both hands, holding it perpendicular

 to the floor before gradually lowering its point. His freck-

 led shoulders tensed. Thumphe took a step forward.

 Thump, thumphe pivoted to the side, moving around

 the almost stationary sword as though he held someone

 else's blade trapped against it. His face was earnest as a

 child's, and the tip of his tongue protruded pinkly from

 his mouth as he gripped it between his teeth in solemn

 concentration. Miriamele suppressed a giggle, but she

 could not help noticing how his skin slid over his lean

 muscles, how the fanlike shapes of his shoulder blades

 and the knobs of his backbone pushed against the milky

 

 174

 

 Tad Williams

 

 skin. He stopped, the sword again held motionless before

 him. A drop of sweat slid from his nose and disappeared

 into his reddish beard. She suddenly wanted very much

 for him to hold her again, but despite her desire, the

 thought of it made her stomach clench in pain. There was

 so much that he did not know.

 

 She pushed herself back from the edge of the loft as

 quietly as she could, retreating to her hollow in the straw.

 She tried to fall into sleep once more, but could not. For

 a long time she lay on her back, staring up at the shadows

 between the rafters as she listened to the tread of his feet,

 the hiss of the blade sliding through the air, and the muf-

 fled percussion of his breath.

 

 Just before sunset Simon went down to look at the

 house again. He came back and reported that it was in-

 deed empty, although he had seen what looked like fresh

 bootprints in the mud. But there was no other sign of any-

 one about, and Simon decided that the tracks most likely

 belonged to another harmless wanderer like the old

 drunkard Heanwig, so they gathered up their belongings

 and moved down. At first Miriamele was so light-headed

 that she had to lean on Simon to keep from falling, but af-

 ter a few dozen steps she felt strong enough to walk un-

 aided, although she was careful to keep a good grip on his

 arm. He went very slowly, showing her where the track

 was slippery with mud.

 

 The cottage appeared to have been deserted for some

 time, and there were, as Simon had pointed out, some

 holes in the thatching, but the bam had been even draftier,

 and the cottage at least had a fireplace. As Simon carried

 in some split timbers he had found stacked against the

 wall outside and struggled to get a fire started, Miriamele

 huddled in her cloak and looked around at their home for

 the night.

 

 Whoever had lived here had left few reminders of their

 residence, so she guessed that the-circumstances which

 had driven the owners away had not come on suddenly.

 The only piece of furniture that remained was a stool with

 a splintered leg squatting off-kilter beside the hearth. A

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER175

 

 single bowl lay shattered on the stone beside it, every

 piece still in the spot where it had tumbled to a halt, as if

 the bowl had fallen only moments before. The hard clay

 of the floor was covered with rushes which had gone

 damp and brown. The only signs of recent life in the

 room were the innumerable cobwebs hanging in the

 thatches or stretching in the corners, but even these

 looked threadbare and forlorn, as if it had not been a good

 season even for spiders.

 

 "There." Simon stood up. "That's got it. I'm going to

 fetch down the horses."

 

 While he was gone, Miriamele sat before the fire and

 hunted through the saddlebags for food. For the first time

 in two days, she was hungry. She wished the house's

 owners had left their stew potthe hook hung naked over

 the growing firebut since it was gone she would make

 do with what she had. She pushed a couple of stones into

 the fire to heat, then rooted out the few remaining carrots

 and an onion. When the stones were hot enough, she

 would make some soup.

 

 Miriamele scanned the ceiling critically, then unrolled

 her bedroll in a spot that looked like it was far enough

 from the nearest hole to stay dry in case the rains re-

 turned- After a moment's thought she unrolled Simon's

 nearby. She left what she considered to be a safe distance

 between them, but his bedroll was still closer than she

 would have preferred had there not been a leaky roof to

 deal with. When all was arranged, she found her knife in

 the saddlebag and got to work on the vegetables.

 

 "It's blowing hard now," Simon said as he came back

 in. His hair was disarranged, standing out in strange tufts,

 but his cheeks were red and his smile was wide. "It will

 be a good night to be near a fire."

 

 "I'm glad we moved down here," she said. "I feel

 much better tonight. I think I'll be able to ride tomorrow."

 

 "If you're ready." As he walked past her to the fire-

 place, he put his hand on her shoulder for a moment, then

 trailed it gently across her hair. Miriamele said nothing,

 but went on chopping the carrots into a clay bowl.

 

 176 Tad Williams

 

 The meal had not been anything either of them would

 remember fondly, but Miriamele felt better for having

 something hot in her stomach. When she had rinsed the

 bowls and scoured them with a dry twig, she put them

 away, then crawled onto her bedroll. Simon fussed with

 the fire for a bit, then laid himself down as well. They

 spent a silent interval staring at the flames.

 

 "There was a fireplace m my bedroom at Meremund,"

 Miriamele said quietly. "I used to watch the flames danc-

 ing at night when I couldn't sleep. I saw pictures in them.

 When I was very little, I thought I saw the face of Usires

 smiling at me once."

 

 "Mmmm," Simon said. Then; "You had your own room

 to sleep in?"

 

 "I was the only child of the prince and heir," she said

 a little crisply. "It is not unheard of."

 

 Simon snorted. "It's unheard of by me. I slept with a

 dozen other scullions. One of them. Fat Zebediah, used to

 snore like a cooper cutting slats with a handsaw."

 

 Miriamele giggled. "Later on, in the last twelvemonth

 when I lived in the Hayholt, Leieth used to sleep in my

 room. That was nice. But when I was in Meremund, I

 slept by myself, with a maid just on the other side of the

 door."

 

 "That sounds ... lonely."

 "I don't know. I suppose it was." She sighed and

 laughed at the same time, a funny noise that made Simon

 lift his head beside her. "Once I was having trouble sleep-

 ing, so I went in to my father's room. I told him that there

 was a cockindrill under my bed, so that he would let me

 sleep with him. But that was after my mother died, so he

 only gave me one of his dogs to take back with me. 'He's

 a cockindrill-hound, Miri,' he said to me. 'By my faith,

 he is. He'll keep you safe.' He was always a bad liar. The

 dog just lay by the door and whimpered until I finally let

 him out again."

 

 Simon waited for a while before speaking. The flames

 made jigging shadows in the thatching overhead. "How

 did your mother die?" he asked at last. "No one ever told

 me."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 177

 

 "She was shot by an arrow." Miriamele still hurt when

 she thought of it, but not as badly as she once had. "Un-

 cle Josua was taking her to my father, who was fighting

 for Grandfather John along the edge of the Meadow

 Thrithing during the uprising there. Josua's troop was sur-

 prised in broad daylight by a much larger force of

 Thrithings-men. He lost his hand defending her, and did

 succeed in winning free, but she was struck down by a

 stray arrow. She was dead before sunset."

 

 "I'm sorry, Miriamele."

 

 She shrugged, even though he could not see her. "It

 was long ago- But losing her gave my father even more

 misery than it gave me. He loved her so much! Oh, Si-

 mon, you only know what my father has become, but he

 was a good man once. He loved my mother more than he

 loved anything else in the world."

 

 And thinking other father's gray, grief-stricken face, of

 the pall of anger that had descended on him and never

 lifted, she began to cry.

 

 "And that's why I have to see him," she said finally,

 her voice unsteady. "That's why."

 

 Simon rustled atop his bedroll. "What? What do you

 mean? See who?"

 

 Miriamele took a deep breath. "My father, of course.

 That's why we're going to the Hayholt. Because I have to

 speak to my father."

 

 "What nonsense are you talking?" Simon sat up.

 "We're going to the Hayholt to get your grandfather's

 sword, Bright-Nail."

 

 "I never said that- You did." Despite the tears, she felt

 herself grow angry.

 

 "I don't understand you, Miriamele. We are at war with

 your father. Are you going to go see him and tell him

 there's a cockindrill under your bed again? What are you

 saying?"

 

 "Don't be cruel, Simon. Don't you dare." She could

 feel the tears threatening to become a torrent, but a small

 ember of fury was burning inside her as well.

 

 "I'm sorry," he said, "but I just don't understand."

 

 Miriamele pressed her hands together as tightly as she

 

 178 Tad Williams

 

 could, and concentrated on that until she felt herself in

 control again. "And I have not explained to you, Simon.

 I'm sorry, too."

 

 Tell me. I'll listen."

 

 Miriamele listened to the flames crackle and hiss for a

 while. "Cadrach showed me the truth, although I don't

 think he realized it. It was when we were traveling to-

 gether, and he told me of Nisses' book. He had once

 owned it, or a copy of it."

 

 "The magical book that Morgenes talked about?"

 

 "Yes. And it is a powerful thing. Powerful enough that

 Pryrates learned that Cadrach had owned it and so

 Pryrates ... sent for him." She fell silent momentarily, re-

 membering Cadrach's description of the blood-red win-

 dows and the iron devices with the skin and hair of the

 tortured still on them. "He threatened him until Cadrach

 told him all the things he remembered, Cadrach said that

 Pryrates was particularly interested in talking with the

 dead'Speaking through the Veil,' he called it."

 

 "From what I know of Pryrates, that doesn't surprise

 me." Simon's voice was shaky, too. Obviously he had his

 own memories of the red priest.

 

 "But that was what showed me what I needed to

 know," Miriamele said, unwilling to lose the thread of her

 idea now that she was finally talking about it out loud.

 "Oh, Simon, I had wondered so long why my father

 changed the way he did, why Pryrates was able to turn

 him to such evil tasks." She swallowed. There were still

 tears standing wet on her cheeks, but for the moment she

 had found a new strength. "My father loved my mother.

 He was never the same after she died. He did not marry,

 did not even consider it, despite all the wishes of my

 grandfather. They used to have terrible arguments about

 it. 'You need a son to be your heir,' Grandfather used to

 say, but my father always told him he would never marry

 again, that he had been given a wife and then God had

 taken her back." She paused, remembering.

 

 "I still don't understand," said Simon quietly.

 

 "Don't you see? Pryrates must have told my father that

 he could talk to the deadthat he could let my father

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 179

 

 speak with my mother again, perhaps even see her. You

 don't know him, Simon. He was heartsick with losing her.

 He would have done anything, I think, to have her back,

 even for a little while."

 

 Simon drew in a long breath. "But that's ... blas-

 phemy. That's against God."

 

 Miriamele laughed, a little shrilly. "As if that would

 have stopped him. I told you, he would have done any-

 thing to have her back. Pryrates must have lied to him

 and told him that they could reach her . -. beyond the

 Veil, or whatever that horrible book called it. Maybe the

 priest even thought that he could. And he used that prom-

 ise to make my father first his patron, then his partner ...

 then his slave."

 

 Simon pondered this. "Perhaps Pryrates did try," he

 said finally. "Perhaps that is how they reached through to

 ... to the other side. To the Storm King."

 

 The sound of this name, even as quietly it had been

 spoken, was greeted with a skirl of wind in the thatches

 above, a rush of sound so abrupt that Miriamele flinched.

 

 "Perhaps." The thought made her cold. To think of her

 father waiting eagerly to speak with his beloved wife and

 finding that thing instead. It was a little like the terrifying

 old story of what the fisherman Bulychlinn brought up in

 his nets....

 

 E'"But I still don't understand, Miriamele." Simon was

 gentle but stubborn. "Even if all that is true, what good

 will it do to speak to your father?"

 

 "I'm not sure it will do any good." And that was true:

 

 it was hard to picture any happy result from their meeting

 after so much time and so much anger and sorrow. "But

 if there's even a small chance that I can show him sense,

 that I can remind him that this began out of love, and so

 convince him to stop ... then I have to take that chance."

 She lifted a hand and wiped at her eyes: she was crying

 again. "He just wanted to see her...." After a moment

 she steadied herself. "But you do not have to go, Simon.

 This is my burden."

 

 He was silent. She could sense his discomfort.

 

 "It is too great a risk," he said at last. "You might

 

 i8o Tad Williams

 

 never get to see your father, even if that would do any

 good. Pryrates might catch you first, and then no one

 would ever hear from you again." He said it with terrible

 conviction.

 

 "I know, Simon. I Just don't know what else to do. I

 have to speak to my father. I have to show him what's

 happened, and only I can do it."

 

 "You're determined, then?"

 

 "I am."

 

 Simon sighed. "Aedon on the Tree, Miriamele, it's

 madness. I hope you change your mind by the time we

 

 get there."

 

 Miriamele knew there would be no change. "I have

 been thinking about it for a long time."

 

 Simon slumped back onto his bedroll. "If Josua knew,

 he'd tie you up and carry you a thousand leagues away."

 

 "You're right. He would never allow it."

 

 In the darkness, Simon sighed again. "I have to think,

 Miriamele. I don't know what to do."

 

 "You can do anything but stop me," she said evenly.

 "Don't try to stop me, Simon."

 

 But he did not reply. After a while, despite all me fear

 and furor, Miriamele felt the heaviness of sleep pulling

 her down.

 

 She was startled awake by a loud roar. As she lay with

 her heart pounding, something flashed up in the ceiling,

 brighter than a torch. It took a moment for her to realize

 that the source had been a sky-spanning sheet of lightning

 glaring through the holes in the roof. There was another

 crash of thunder-

 

 The room smelled even damper and closer than it had

 before. When the next lightning flash came, Miriamele

 saw in its momentary brilliance a torrent of raindrops

 pouring through the ragged thatching. She sat up and felt

 along the floor. The rain was falling well short of her, but

 it was splashing on Simon's boots and the bottoms of his

 breeches. He was still asleep, snoring quietly.

 

 "Simon!" She shook him. "Get up'"

 

 He grunted, but showed no other signs of wakefulness.

 

 TOGREENANOELTOWERl8l

 

 "Simon, you have to move. You're being rained on."

 

 After a few more shakes, he rolled over. Complaining

 muzzily, he helped Miriamele pull his bedroll closer to

 hers, then flopped onto it with every sign of going imme-

 diately back to sleep.

 

 As she lay listening to the rain patter on the straw, she

 felt Simon move closer. His face was very close to hers in

 the dark; she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. It

 was oddly peaceful, despite all the danger they had seen

 and still faced, to lie here and listen to the storm with this

 young man close beside her.

 

 Simon stirred. "Miriamele? Are you cold?*'

 

 "A little."

 

 He moved closer still, then reached out his arm and put

 it under her neck, tipping her in toward his chest so that

 she could feel him the whole length of her. She felt

 trapped but not frightened. His mouth was now pressed

 against her cheek.

 

 "Miriamele ..." he said softly.

 

 "Sssshhh." She stayed huddled against him. "Don't say

 a word."

 

 They remained that way for some time. Rain rattled in

 the thatch. From time to time thunder sounded in the dis-

 tance like giants' drums.

 

 Simon kissed her cheek. Miriamele felt his beard tick-

 ling along her jaw, but it seemed so strangely right that

 she did not squirm. He turned her head slightly, then his

 lips met hers. The thunder rumbled again from farther

 away, something happening in another place, another

 time.

 

 Why does there have to be more than this? Miriamele

 wondered sadly. Why should there be all the complica-

 tions? Simon had put his other arm around her, gentle but

 insistent, and now they were pressed together, body

 against body. She could feel his lean, muscled arms and

 his hard chest against her stomach, against her breasts. If

 only time could stop!

 

 Simon's kisses were stronger now. He lifted his face

 and buried it in her hair.

 

 "Miriamele," he whispered, hoarse-throated.

 

 182 Tad Williams

 

 "Oh. Oh, Simon," she murmured back. She was not

 quite sure what she wanted, but she knew she would be

 happy just kissing him, just holding him.

 

 His face was against her neck now, sending chills all

 through her. It felt wonderful, but also frightening. He

 was a boy, but he was a man as well. She stiffened, but

 he brought his face back to hers. Again he kissed her,

 clumsy but ardent, pushing a little too hard. She lifted her

 hand to his bearded face and gentled him, so that their

 lips could meet and touchoh, so softly!

 

 Even as they shared breath, his hand was moving

 across her face, across her neck. He touched her every-

 where he could without losing the warmth pressed be-

 tween mem, running his fingers across the swell of her

 hip, letting his hand rest in the hollow beneath her arm.

 She tingled, yearning to rub hard against him, but she felt

 a strange softness, too, as though they were slowly

 drowning together, sinking down into dark ocean depths.

 She could hear her own heartbeat above the rustle of rain

 in the straw.

 

 Simon rolled farther, until he was half above her, then

 drew back a little. He was only a shadow, which she

 found somehow frightening. She reached up until she

 could feel his cheek, the delicate rasp of his beard. His

 mouth moved-

 

 "I love you, Miriamele."

 

 Her breath caught. Suddenly there was a knot of cold-

 ness in her stomach. "No, Simon," she whispered. "Don't

 say that."

 

 "But it's true! I think I've loved you since I first saw

 you, up in the tower with the sun in your hair."

 

 "You can't love me." She wanted to push him off, but

 she had no strength. "You don't understand."

 

 "What do you mean?"

 

 "You ... you can't love me. It's wrong."

 

 "Wrong?" he said angrily. His body was now quivering

 against her, but it was the trembling of suppressed fury.

 "Because I'm a commoner. I'm not good enough for a

 princess, is that it?" He twisted away, kneeling in the

 straw beside her. "Damn your pride, Miriamele. I fought

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER183

 

 a dragon! A dragon, a real dragon! Isn't that enough for

 you'? Do you prefer somebody like Fengbalda m-m-

 murderer, but a m-murderer with a t-title?" He fought

 against tears.

 

 The rawness in his voice tore at her heart. "No, Simon,

 that's not it! You don't understand!"

 

 "Tell me, then!" he snapped. 'Tell me what I don't un-

 derstand!"

 

 "It's not you. It's me."

 

 There was a long silence. "What do you mean?"

 

 "Nothing's wrong with you, Simon. I think you're

 brave, and kind, and everything you should be. It's me,

 Simon. I'm the one who doesn't deserve to be loved."

 

 "What are you talking about?"

 

 She gasped and shook her head violently. "I don't want

 to talk any more. Leave me alone, Simon. Find someone

 else to love. There will be plenty who would be happy to

 have you." She rolled over, turning her back to him. Now,

 when she most wanted the relief of tears, tears would not

 come. She felt high and cold and strange.

 

 His hand clutched her shoulder. "By the bloody Tree,

 Miriamele, would you talk to me'? What are you say-

 ing?"

 

 "I'm not pure, Simon. I'm not a maiden." There. It was

 out-

 It took him several moments to respond. "What?"

 

 "I have been with a man." Now that she was talking, it

 was easier than she had thought it would be. It was like

 listening to someone else speak. "The nobleman from

 Nabban I told you about, the one who took Cadrach and

 me aboard his ship. Aspitis Preves."

 

 "He raped you... ?" He sounded stunned, but anger

 was growing. "That . - - that ..."

 

 Miriamele's laugh was short and bitter. "No, Simon, he

 did not rape me. He held me prisoner, yes, but that was

 later. He was a monsterbut I let him come to my bed

 and I did not resist." Then, to bolt the door for good, so

 that Simon would leave her alone, so that she would bring

 him no further suffering after this night: "I wanted him

 to. I thought he was beautiful. I wanted him to."

 

 184

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Simon made an inarticulate noise, then stood up. His

 breath sawed in and out, in and out. For all she could see

 of him in the darkness, he could have been shape-

 changing: he seemed wordless and bedeviled as a trapped

 animal. He growled, then ran for the door of the cottage.

 It crashed open as he fled out into the dying storm.

 

 After a few moments Miriamele went and pulled the

 door closed again. He would be back, she felt sure. Then

 he would leave her, or they would go on together, but

 things would be different. That was what she wanted.

 That was what she needed.

 

 Her head felt empty. Those few thoughts almost

 seemed to echo, like stones rattled down a well.

 

 She waited a long time for sleep. Just as she was begin-

 ning to slip away, she heard Simon come back in. He

 dragged his bedroll to the far corner and lay down. Nei-

 ther of them spoke.

 

 Outside, the storm had passed, but water still dripped

 from the ceiling. Miriamele counted the drops.

 

 By midday the next day, Miriamele felt herself recov-

 ered enough to ride. They set out under dark clouds of

 more than one kind.

 

 After all the pain and emotion of the night before they

 were both flat with each other, bruised and sullen like two

 swordfighters waiting for their final bout. They spoke no

 more than was necessary, but Miriamele saw signs of Si-

 mon's anger all day, from the over-brisk way he saddled

 and readied his horse to the way he rode ahead of her, just

 close enough to stay in sight.

 

 For her part, Miriamele felt a sort of relief. The worst

 was out now and there was no turning back. Now Simon

 would know her for what she was, which could only be

 for the good, ultimately. It hurt to have him despise her,

 as he so obviously did at present, but it was better than

 leading him on falsely. Nevertheless, she could not shake

 the feeling of loss. It had been so warm, so nice, to kiss

 him and hold him without thinking. If only he had not

 talked of love. If only he had not forced her to consider

 her responsibilities. Deep down, she had known that any-

 

 TOQREENANGELTOWER

 

 185

 

 thing more than friendship between them would mean liv-

 ing in a lie, but there had been moments, sweet moments,

 when she had allowed herself to pretend it could be dif-

 ferent.

 

 Making the best time they could on the terrible, muddy

 roads, they rode well beyond the reach of Falshire by eve-

 ning time, out into the wildlands west of the city. When

 darkness came downlittle more than a thickening of the

 already murky daythey found a wayside shrine to Ely-

 sia and made their beds on its floor. After a sparse meal

 and even sparser conversation, they retired to their bed-

 rolls. This time it did not seem to bother Simon when

 Miriamele unfurled her pallet on me opposite side of the

 fire from his.

 

 After her first day in the saddle following several days

 of illness, Miriamele felt ready to sink into sleep immedi-

 ately, but sleep would not come. She moved several

 times, trying to find a comfortable position, but nothing

 seemed to help. She lay in darkness, staring up at nothing,

 listening as a light rain pattered the roof of the shrine.

 

 Would Simon leave her, she wondered? It was an unex-

 pectedly frightening thought. She had said several times

 that she was willing to make inis journey by herself, as

 she had originally planned, but she realized now that she

 did not want to travel alone. Perhaps she had been wrong

 to tell him. Perhaps it would have been better to give him

 some more face-saving lie: if she had disgusted him too

 completely, he might simply go back to Josua.

 

 And she did not want him to go, she realized. It was

 more than the idea of traveling these gloomy lands by

 herself that disturbed her. She would miss him.

 

 It was odd to think about, now that she had probably

 thrown up an unbreachable wall between them, but she

 did not want to lose him. Simon had worked his way into

 her heart in a way no other friend ever had. His boyish

 silliness had always charmed her when it didn't irritate

 her, but now it was counterbalanced by a serious air that

 was very handsome. Several times she had caught herself

 watching him in surprise, amazed he had become a man

 in such a short time.

 

 186 Tad Williams

 

 And there were other qualities that had become dear

 to her as well, his kindness, his loyalty, his open-

 mindedness. She doubted that the most traveled of her fa-

 ther's courtiers faced life with the same unprejudiced

 interest as Simon did.

 

 It was frightening even to contemplate losing all those

 things if he left her.

 

 But she had lost him nowor at least, there would al-

 ways be a shadow over their friendship. He had seen the

 stain that was at the core of her; she had made it as vis-

 ible and unpleasant as she could. She was not willing to

 suffer for lies any. more, and seeing the way he felt about

 her was more suffering than she could stand. He was in

 love with her.

 

 And she had been falling in love with him.

 

 The thought hit her with unexpected force. Was that

 true? Wasn't love supposed to come like a bolt of sky-

 fire, to blind and stun? Or at the least, like a sweet per-

 fume that rose and filled the air until one could think of

 nothing else? Surely her feelings for Simon had been dif-

 ferent. She thought of him, of the laughable way his hair

 looked in the morning, of his earnest glances when he

 was worried for her.

 

 Elysia, Mother of God, she prayed, take this pain away.

 Did I love him? Do / love him?

 

 It didn't matter now, in any case. She had taken steps

 of her own to remove the hurt. Letting Simon continue to

 think of her as a chaste maiden worthy of his youthful

 ideals would be worse than anythingworse even than

 losing him completely, if that was the result.

 

 So why, then, was the pain still so very strong?

 

 "Simon.. - ?" she whispered. "Are you awake?'*

 

 If he was, he did not answer. She was alone with her

 thoughts.

 

 The next day seemed even darker. The wind was sharp

 and biting. They rode swiftly, unspeaking, with Simon

 again keeping Homefmder a short distance ahead of

 Miriamele and her still-nameless steed.

 

 By late morning they came to the fork where the River

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 187

 

 Road joined the Old Forest Road. Two corpses hung in

 iron cages at the crossing, and had clearly done so for

 some time: It was impossible to tell from the wind-tossed

 rags of clothing or the grinning bones who these unfortu-

 nates had been. Miriamele and Simon both made the sign

 of the Tree as they crossed, passing as far from the

 clanking cages as they could. They took the Old Forest

 Road turning, and soon the River Road vanished from

 sight behind the low hills to the south.

 

 The road began to dip downward. On the north side

 they could now see the edge of Aldheorte Forest, which

 flowed onto and over the foothills there. As they passed

 down through the outskirts of Hasu Vale and into the

 shelter of the hills the wind became less, but Miriamele

 did not feel comforted. Even at midday the valley was

 dark and almost silent except for the slow drip of the

 morning's rains from the leafless branches of oak and ash.

 Even the evergreens seemed full of shadow.

 

 "I don't like this valley, Simon." She spurred forward.

 He slowed to allow her to catch up. "It was always a

 quiet, secretive placebut it feels different now."

 

 He shrugged, looking away across the deep-shaded

 hillside. It was only when he stared so long at the un-

 changing landscape that she understood he did not want

 to meet her eyes- "I have not liked most of the places

 we've been." His voice was cold. "But we are not travel-

 ing for pleasure."

 

 She felt a flare of anger. "That's not what I meant and

 you know it, Simon. I mean that this valley feels ... I

 don't know, dangerous."

 

 Now he did turn. His smile was a smirk that hurt her to

 see. "Haunted, you mean? Like that old drunkard said?"

 

 "I don't know exactly what I mean," she said furiously.

 "But I can see it was a waste of time talking about it with

 you."

 

 "No doubt." He gently but deliberately touched his

 spurs to Homefinder's side and sent her trotting forward.

 Watching his straight back, Miriamele fought down the

 urge to shout at him. What had she expected? No, more

 to the point, what had she wanted, after all? Wasn't it best

 

 188

 

 Tad Williams

 

 he had been told the truth? Perhaps things would be easier

 when some time had passed, when he realized they could

 still be friends.

 

 The road descended deeper into the valley, so that the

 thick-mantled hills seemed to be growing even higher on

 either side. The road was deserted, and the few rough cot-

 tages they saw perched on the hillsides seemed equaUy

 uninhabited, but at least it seemed they would be able to

 find shelter somewhere tonightwhich was a reassuring

 thought, since Miriamele did not in the least wish to

 spend a night here out of doors. She had conceived a se-

 rious dislike of Hasu Vale, although nothing had actually

 happened to make her feel that way. Still, the smother-

 ing quality of the stillness and the thick, overgrown

 hillsidesand perhaps, just a little bit, her own sorrow

 conspired to make her look forward to the moment they

 rode out of this valley again and saw the headlands of

 Swertclif, even though that would mean that Asu'a and

 her father were very, very close.

 

 It was also disheartening to think of spending another

 strained, silent night with Simon. Before their last un-

 pleasant exchange, he had spoken to her only a few times

 today, and then only about practical things. He had dis-

 covered what he claimed were new footprints near the

 shrine where they had spent the night and had told her

 about them soon after they set out, but he had seemed

 quite offhand and uncaring about it- Miriamele secretly

 thought it likely that the muddy footmarks were their

 own, since they had tramped about a great deal while

 searching for firewood. Other than that. Simon had con-

 versed with her only about whether it was time to stop

 and eat and rest the horses, and to issue curt thanks when

 she had given him food or shared the water skin. It would

 not be a pleasant night, she felt sure.

 

 They were in the deeps of the valley when Simon ab-

 ruptly stopped, pulling back on Homefinder's reins so

 that the mare paced nervously from side to side for a long

 moment after she halted.

 

 'There's somebody on the road ahead," he said quietly-

 "There. Just through the trees." He pointed to a spot

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER189

 

 where the path hooked to one side and passed out of

 sight. "Do you see them?"

 

 Miriamele squinted. The early twilight had turned the

 road before them into a dim streak of gray. If something

 was moving beyond the trees, she could not see it from

 her angle, "We're getting near the town."

 

 "Come,-then," he said. "It's probably just someone on

 their way home, but we haven't seen anyone else all day."

 He eased Homefinder ahead.

 

 As they rounded the bend they came upon two figures

 hunching along in the middle of the road, both of them

 carrying buckets. When the noise of Simon and

 Miriamele's horses reached the pair, they flinched and

 looked over their shoulders as guiltily as thieves sur-

 prised. Miriamele felt sure that they were just as startled

 as Simon to find other travelers on the road.

 

 The pair moved to the verge of the road as the riders

 approached. From what Miriamele could see of their

 dark, hooded cloaks, they were probably local people,

 hill-folk. Simon lifted his hand to his brow in salute.

 

 "God give you good day," he said.

 

 The nearest of the pair looked up at him and cautiously

 raised his own hand to return the greeting, but stopped

 abruptly, staring.

 

 "By the Tree'" Simon reined up. "You're the ones from

 the tavern in Falshire."

 

 What is he doing? Miriamele wondered fearfully. Are

 they Fire Dancers? Ride on, Simon, you idiot!

 

 He turned toward her. "Miriamele. Look here."

 

 Unexpectedly, the two hooded folk dropped to their

 knees. "You saved our lives," a woman's voice said-

 

 ^firiamele pulled up and stared. It was the woman and

 man that the Fire Dancers had threatened.

 

 "That's true," the man said. His voice was unsteady.

 "May Usires bless you, good knight."

 

 "Please, get up." Simon was clearly pleased yet embar-

 rassed. "I'm sure someone else would have helped you if

 we hadn't."

 

 The woman stood, unmindful of the mud on the knees

 of her long skirt. "None seemed in a hurry to help," she

 

 190 Tad Williams

 

 said. 'That's the way. Those who are good are given the

 pain."

 

 The man darted a glance at her. 'That's enough, wife.

 These folk don't need your tellin' what's wrong with the

 world."

 

 She looked back at him with poorly-hidden defiance.

 "It's a shame, that's all. A shame the world works thus."

 

 The man turned his attention back to Simon and

 Miriamele. He was middle-aged, with a face reddened

 and wrinkled by years of harsh sun. "My wife has her

 ideas, mind, but the bottom of it's true enough. You saved

 our lives, that you did." He forced a smile. He seemed

 nervous; having his life saved must have been almost as

 frightening as not having it saved. "Have you a place to

 stay for tonight? My wife's Gullaighri and I am Roelstan,

 and we would be pleased to offer you what shelter we

 have."

 

 "We cannot stop yet," Miriamele said, unsettled by the

 thought of staying with strangers.

 

 Simon looked at her. "You have been ill," he said.

 "I can ride farther."

 

 "Yes, you probably can, but why turn down a roof over

 our heads, even for one night?" He turned to look at the

 man and woman, then moved his horse closer to

 Miriamele. "It may be the last chance to get out of the

 wind and rain," he murmured, "the last until - -." He

 broke off, unwilling even to whisper any hint of their des-

 tination.

 

 Miriamele was certainly weary. She hesitated a mo-

 ment longer, then nodded her head.

 

 "Good," said Simon, then turned to the man and

 woman. "We would be glad of shelter." He did not offer

 their own names to these strangers; Miriamele silently ap-

 proved of that at least.

 

 "But we have nothing worthy of such good folk, hus-

 band." Gullaighn had a face that might have been kindly,

 but fear and hard times had made the skin slack, the eyes

 sorrowful. "It is no favor to bring them to our rude

 place."

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER191

 

 "Be quiet, woman," her husband said. "We will do

 what we can."

 

 She appeared to have more to say, but instead closed

 her mouth in a grim line.

 

 "It's settled, then," he said. "Come. It is not much far-

 ther."

 

 After a moment's consideration, Simon and Miriamele

 dismounted so that they could walk beside their hosts.

 "Do you live here in Hasu Vale?" asked Simon.

 

 Roelstan laughed shortly. "For a short time only. We

 lived once in Falshire."

 

 Miriamele hesitated before speaking. "And - .. and

 were you Fire Dancers?"

 

 'To our sorrow."

 

 "They are a powerful evil." Gullaighn's voice was

 thick with emotion. "You should have nothing to do with

 them, my lady, nor anything they've touched."

 

 "Why were those men after you?" Simon reflexively

 fingered the hilt of his sword.

 

 "Because we left," Roelstan said. "We could stand it

 no longer. They are mad, but like dogs, even in their mad-

 ness they can do harm."

 

 "But it is not so easy to escape them," said Gullaighn.

 "They are fierce and they do not let go. And they are ev-

 erywhere." She lowered her voice- "Everywhere!"

 

 "By the Ransomer, woman," Roelstan growled, "what

 are you trying to do? You have seen this knight wield a

 sword. He has naught to fear from them."

 

 Simon walked a little straighten Miriamele smiled, but

 a look at Gullaighn's anxious face made the smile fade.

 Could she be right? Might there be more Fire Dancers

 about? Perhaps by tomorrow it would be time to leave the

 main road again and travel more secretively.

 

 As if echoing her thoughts, Roelstan stopped and

 waved at a track climbing up from the Old Forest Road,

 winding away into the wooded hillside. "We have made

 our place up there," he said. "It is no good to be too close

 to the road, where the smoke of a fire might bring visitors

 less welcome than you two."

 

 They followed Roelstan and Gullaighn up the narrow

 

 192 Tad Williams

 

 path. After the first few turnings the road had disappeared

 behind them, hidden beneath a blanket of treetops. It was

 a long and steep climb through the close-leaning trees,

 and the dark cloaks of their guides became harder and

 harder to follow as twilight came on. Just as Miriamele

 began to think that they would see the moon before they

 saw a place to stop, Roelstan halted and pulled back the

 thick branch of a pine tree that had hung across their path,

 

 "Here it is," he said.

 

 Miriamele led her horse through after Simon, and

 found herself in a wide clearing on the hillside- In the

 center was a house made of split timbers, plain but sur-

 prisingly large. Smoke twined from a hole in the roof.

 

 Miriamele was taken aback. She turned to Gullaighn,

 suddenly full of misgivings. "Who else lives here?"

 

 The woman gave no answer.

 

 Miriamele saw movement in the doorway of the house.

 A moment later, a man emerged onto the dark hard-

 packed earth before the door. He was short and thick-

 necked, clothed in a white robe.

 

 "We meet again," said Maefwaru. "Our visit in the

 tavern was too short."

 

 Miriamele heard Simon curse, then the scrape of his

 sword leaving the scabbard. He pulled at her bridle to

 turn her horse around.

 

 "Don't," Maefwaru said. He whistled. A half-dozen

 more white-robed figures stepped from the shadows

 around the edge of the clearing. In the twilight, they

 seemed ghosts bom from the secretive trees. Several of

 them had drawn their bows.

 

 "Roelstan, you and your woman move away." The bald

 man sounded almost pleasant. "You have done what you

 were sent to do."

 

 "Curse you, Maefwaru!" Gullaighn cried. "On the Day

 of Weighing-Out, you will eat your own guts for sau-

 sages!"

 

 Maefwaru laughed, a deep nimble. "Is that so? Move,

 woman, before I have someone put an arrow in you."

 

 As her husband dragged her away, Gullaighn turned to

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 193

 

 Miriamele with eyes full of tears. "Forgive us, my lady.

 They caught us again. They made us!"

 

 Miriamele's heart was cold as a stone.

 

 "What do you want with us, you coward?" Simon de-

 manded.

 

 Maefwaru laughed again, wheezing a little. "It is not

 what we want of you, young master. It is what the Storm

 King wants of you. And we will find out tonight, when

 we give you to Him." He waved to the other white-robed

 figures. "Bind them. There is much to do before mid-

 night."

 

 As the first of the Fire Dancers seized his arms, Simon

 turned to Miriamele, his face full of anger and despera-

 tion. She knew that he wished to fight, to make them kill

 him instead of simply surrendering, but was afraid to for

 her sake.

 

 Miriamele could give him nothing. She had nothing left

 inside of her but stifling dread.

 

 8

 

 A Confession

 

 *

 

 "Unto her side he came, he came,"

 sang Maegwin,

 

 "A youth dressed all in sable black

 With golden curls about his head

 And silken cape upon his back.

 

 'And what would you my lady fair?'

 That golden youth did smile and say.

 'What rare gift may I give to you,

 So you will be my bride this day?

 

 The maiden turned her face aside.

 'There is no gift so rich, so fine,

 That I would give you in return

 That rare thing that is only mine.'

 

 The youth he shook his golden head

 And laughed and said, 'Oh, maiden sweet

 You may turn me away today,

 But soon find that you can't say no.

 My name is Death, and all you have

 Will come to me anyway ...' "

 

 It was no use. Over the sound of her own melody, she

 could still hear the odd wailing that seemed to portend so

 much unhappiness.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 195

 

 Maegwin's song trailed off and she stared into the

 flames of the campfire. Her cold-cracked lips made it

 painful to sing. Her ears stung and her head hurt. Nothing

 was as it should benothing was as she had expected.

 

 It had seemed at first that things were going the way

 they should. She had been a dutiful daughter to the gods:

 

 it was no surprise that after her death she should be raised

 up to live among themnot as an equal, of course, but as

 a trusted subordinate, a beloved servant. And in their

 strange way the gods had proved every bit as wondrous as

 she had imagined they would, with their inhuman, flash-

 ing eyes and their rainbow-hued armor and clothing. Even

 the land of the gods had been much as she had expected,

 like her own beloved Hernystir, but better, cleaner,

 brighter. The sky in the godlands seemed higher and more

 blue than a sky could be, the snow whiter, the grass so

 green that its verdancy was almost painful. Even Count

 Eolair, who had also died and come to this beautiful eter-

 nity, seemed more open, more approachable; she had been

 able to tell him without fear or shyness that she had al-

 ways loved him. Eolair, relieved like her of the burden of

 mortality, had listened with kind concernalmost like a

 god himself!

 

 But then things had begun to go wrong.

 

 Maegwin had thought mat when she and the other liv-

 ing Hemysdri had faced their enemies, and by doing so

 brought the gods out into the world, they had somehow

 tipped a balance. The gods themselves were at war, just

 as the Hemystiribut the gods' war had not been won.

 The worst, it seemed, was yet to come.

 

 And so the gods had ridden across the broad white

 fields of Heaven, searching for Scadach, the hole into

 outer darkness. And they had found it. Cold and black it

 was, bounded in stone quarried from eternity's darkest re-

 cesses, just as the lore-masters had taught herand full

 of the gods' direst enemies.

 

 She had never believed that such things could exist,

 creatures of pure evil, shining vessels of emptiness and

 despair. But she had seen one stand on the ageless wall of

 Scadach, heard its lifeless voice prophesy the destruction

 

 196 Tad Williams

 

 of gods and mortals alike. All that was wrong lay behind

 that wall ... and now the gods were trying to bring the

 wall tumbling down.

 

 Maegwin would have guessed that the ways of gods

 were mysterious. What she would not have guessed was

 just how mysterious they could be.

 

 She raised her voice in song again, still hoping that she

 could blot out the disturbing noise, but gave it up after a

 few moments. The gods themselves were singing, and

 their voices were much stronger than hers.

 

 Why don't they stop? she thought desperately. Why

 don't they leave it alone?!

 

 But it was useless to wonder. The gods had their rea-

 sons. They always did.

 

 Eolair had long since given up trying to understand the

 Sithi. He knew they were not gods, whatever Maegwin's

 poor, fevered mind might see, but neither were they a

 great deal more comprehensible than the Lords of

 Heaven.

 

 The count turned away from the fire, turned his back

 on Maegwin. She had been singing to herself, but had

 fallen silent. She had a sweet voice, but set against the

 chanting of the Peaceful Ones it sounded thin and discor-

 dant. It was not her fault. No mortal voice would sound

 like much when set against ... this.

 

 The Count of Nad Mullach shivered. The chorus of

 Sithi voices rose again. Their music was as impossible to

 ignore as were their catlike eyes when they stared you in

 the face. The rhythmic song gained in volume, pulsing

 like the oar-master's call to his rowers.

 

 The Sithi had been singing for three days, clustered be-

 fore the bleak walls of Naglimund in the flurrying snow.

 Whatever they were doing, the Noms within the castle

 did not ignore them: several times the white-faced de-

 fenders had mounted to the tops of the walls and let fly

 a volley of arrows. A few of the Sithi had been killed in

 these attacks, but they had their own archers. Each time,

 the Noms were driven from the walls and the Sithi voices

 would rise once more.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER197

 

 "I don't know that I can stand this much longer,

 Eolair." Isom appeared out of the whirl of mist, his beard

 Jeweled with frost. "I had to go hunting just to get away,

 but the noise followed me as far as I went." He dropped

 a hare onto the ground near the fire. Red dribbled from

 the arrow-wound in its side, staining the snow. "Good

 day. Lady," the duke's son said to Maegwin. She had

 stopped singing, but did not look up at him. She seemed

 incapable of seeing anything but the wavering fire.

 

 Eolair received Isorn's curious look and shrugged. "It

 is not really such a terrible sound."

 

 The Rimmersman raised his eyebrows. "No, Eolair, it

 is beautiful in its way. But it is too beautiful for me, too

 strong, too strange. It is making me ill."

 

 The count frowned. "I know. The rest of the men are

 unsettled, too. More than unsettledfrightened."

 

 "But why are the Sithi doing this? They are risking

 their livestwo more were killed yesterday! If this is

 some fairy ceremony they must perform, can they not

 sing out of bowshot?"

 

 Eolair shook his head helplessly. "I do not know.

 Bagba bite me, I do not know anything, Isom."

 

 As continual as the noise of the ocean, the voices of the

 Sithi washed across the camp.'

 

 Jiriki came in the dark before dawn. The slumbering

 coals picked out his sharp features in scarlet light.

 

 "This morning," he said, then squatted, staring at the

 embers. "Before noon."

 

 Eolair robbed his eyes, trying to bring himself fully

 awake. He had been sleeping fitfully, but sleeping none-

 theless. "This ... this morning? What do you mean?"

 

 "The battle will begin." Jiriki turned and gave Eolair a

 look that on a more familiar face might have betokened

 pity. "It will be dreadful."

 

 "How do you know that the battle will start then?"

 

 "Because that is what we have been working toward.

 We cannot fight a siegewe are too few. Those you call

 Noms are fewer than we are, but they sit inside a great

 shell of stone, and we do not have the engines mortals

 

 198 Tad Williams

 

 make for such battles nor the time to build them. So we

 will do it our way."

 

 "Does it have something to do with the singing?"

 

 Jiriki nodded in his oddly avian way. "Yes. Make your

 men ready. And tell them this: whatever they may think

 or see, they are fighting against living creatures. The

 Hikeda'ya are like you and like usthey bleed. They

 die." He fixed Eclair with an even, golden stare. "You

 will tell them that?"

 

 "I will." Eolair shivered and leaned closer to the fire,

 warming his hands before the dreaming coals. "Tomor-

 row?"

 

 Jiriki nodded again, then stood. "We will have our best

 chance while the sun is high. If we are lucky, it will be

 over before the darkness comes."

 

 Eolair couldn't imagine rugged Naglimund being

 brought down in so short a time. "And if it's not over?

 What, then?"

 

 "Things will be ... difficult." Jiriki took a step back-

 ward and vanished into the mist.

 

 Eolair sat before the coals for a little while, clenching

 his teeth to keep them from chattering. When he was sure

 he would not embarrass himself, he went to waken Isom.

 

 A

 

 Buffeted by brisk winds, the gray and red tent rode the

 peak of the hill like a sailing ship breasting a high wave.

 A few other tents shared the hilltop; many more were

 scattered down the slope and clustered in the valley. Be-

 yond them lay Lake Clodu, a vast blue-green mirror, still

 as a contented beast.

 

 Tiamak stood outside the tent, lingering despite the

 chill breeze. So many people, so much movement, so

 much life! It was disturbing to look down on that great

 sea of people, frightening to know that he was so close to

 the grinding stones of History, but still it was somehow

 hard to turn away. His own little story had been quite

 swallowed up by the great tales that stalked through

 Osten Ard in these days. It sometimes seemed that a sack

 

 TO GREEN ANOEL TOWER199

 

 full of the mightiest dreams and nightmares had been

 emptied out. That Tiamak's own small accomplishments,

 fears, and desires seemed likely to be ignored was the

 best he could hope for. An equally strong possibility was

 that they might be trampled entirely.

 

 Shivering a little, he finally lifted the tent flap and

 stepped through.

 

 It was not, as he had feared when Jeremias brought him

 the prince's summons, a council of war. Such things made

 him feel completely useless. Only a few waitedJosua,

 Sir Camaris, Duke Isgrimnur, all seated on stools,

 Vorzheva propped up in her bed, and the Sitha-woman

 Aditu, cross-legged on the floor at Vorzheva's side. The

 only other person in the tent was young Jeremias, who

 had apparently been very busy this afternoon. Just now,

 he was standing before the prince, trying to look attentive

 while gasping slightly for air.

 

 "Thank you for your haste, Jeremias," said Josua. "I

 understand completely. Please just go back and tell

 Strangyeard to come when he can. After that, you are re-

 leased."

 

 "Yes, your Highness." Jeremias bowed, then headed for

 the door.

 

 Tiamak, who was still standing in the doorway, smiled

 at the approaching youth. "I did not have a chance to ask

 you before, Jeremias; how is Leieth? Is there any

 change?"

 

 The youth shook his head. He tried to keep his voice

 even, but the pain was obvious. "Just the same.. She never

 wakes up. She drinks a little water, but takes no food." He

 rubbed fiercely at his eye. "No one can do anything."

 

 "I am sorry," said Tiamak gently.

 

 "It's not your fault." Jeremias moved uncomfortably

 from one foot to the other. "I have to go take Josua's

 message back to Father Strangyeard."

 

 "Of course." Tiamak stepped out of the way. Jeremias

 slipped past him and was gone.

 

 Tiamak," the prince called, "please come and join us."

 He pointed to an empty stool.

 

 200

 

 Tad Williams

 

 When the Wrannaman was seated, Josua looked

 around. "This is very difficult," he said at last. "I am go-

 ing to do a terrible thing and I apologize for it now. Noth-

 ing can excuse it but the strength of our need." He turned

 to Camaris. "My friend, please forgive me. If I could do

 this some other way, I would. Aditu feels that we should

 know whether you went to the Sithi home of,Jao

 e-Tinukai'i, and if you did, why."

 

 Camaris raised his tired eyes to Josua's. "Is a man per-

 mitted no secrets?" he asked heavily. "I promise you,

 Prince Josua, that it is nothing to do with this struggle

 against the Storm King. On the honor of my knighthood."

 

 "But someone who does not know all the history of our

 peopleand Ineluki was one of us, oncemay not know

 all the ties of blood and fable." Aditu spoke without

 Josua's reluctance, clearly and forcefully- "Everyone here

 knows you are an honorable man, Camaris, but you may

 not realize whether what you have seen or learned is use-

 ful."

 

 "Will you not tell just me, Camaris?" Josua asked.

 "You know I hold your honor as high as my own. You

 certainly need not spill all your secrets to a room full of

 people, if that is what you fear, even though they are your

 friends and allies."

 

 Camaris looked at him for a moment. His gaze seemed

 to soften; he struggled visibly with some impulse, but af-

 ter a moment he shook his head violently. "No. A thou-

 sand pardons. Prince Josua, but to my shame I cannot.

 There are some things that even the Canon of Knighthood

 cannot drive me to."

 

 Isgrimnur was wringing his large hands together,

 clearly pained by Camaris' discomfort. Tiamak had not

 seen the Rimmersman so unhappy since they had left

 Kwanitupul. "And me, Camaris?" the duke asked. "I have

 known you longer by far than anyone here. We both

 served the old king. If it is something to do with Prester

 John, you can share it with me."

 

 Camaris sat straighter, but it seemed to be weak oppo-

 sition to something that was bending him down inside. "I

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER201

 

 cannot, Isgrimnur. It would put too great a burden on our

 friendship. Please, ask me not."

 

 Tiamak felt the tension in the room. The old knight

 seemed to be backed into a comer no one else could see.

 

 "Can you not leave him alone?" Vorzheva's voice was

 raw. She draped her hands over her round belly as though

 to protect the child from so much unpleasantness and sor-

 row.

 

 Why am I here? Tiamak wondered- Because f traveled

 with him when he was witless? Because I am a

 Scrollbearer? With Geloe dead and Binabik gone, the

 League is a sorry collection just now. And where is

 Strangyeard?

 

 A thought suddenly came to him. "Prince Josua?"

 

 The prince looked up. "Yes, Tiamak?"

 

 "Forgive me. This is not my place, and I do not know

 all the customs ..'." he hesitated, "but you Aedonites

 have a tradition of confession, do you not?"

 

 Josua nodded. "Yes."

 

 He Who Always Steps on,Sand, Tiamak prayed silently,

 let me walk the right path now!

 

 The Wrannaman turned to Camaris. The old knight, for

 all his dignified bearing, looked back at him with the

 eyes of a hunted animal. "Could you not tell your story

 to a priest," Tiamak asked him, "perhaps Father

 Strangyeard, if he is the proper kind of holy man? That

 way, if I understand things rightly, your story would be

 between you and God. But also, Strangyeard knows as

 much about the Great Swords and our struggle as any

 man living. He could at least tell the rest of us whether

 we should truly look elsewhere for answers."

 

 Josua slapped his hand on his knee. "You are indeed a

 Scrollbearer, Tiamak. You have a subtle mind."

 

 Tiamak stored Josua's compliment away to be appreci-

 ated later and kept his gaze on the old knight.

 

 Camaris stared. "I do not know," he said slowly. His

 chest rose and fell as he took a long breath. "I have not

 told this story, even in the confessional. That is part of

 my shamebut not the greatest part."

 

 "Everyone has shame, everyone has done wrong."

 

 202

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Isgrimnur was obviously growing a little impatient- "We

 do not want to drag this out of you, Camaris. We only

 wish to know whether any dealings you might have had

 with the Sithi can answer some of our questions. Damn

 it!" he added as an afterthought.

 

 A wintry smile moved across Camaris' face. "You were

 always admirably forward, Isgrimnur." The smile fell

 away, revealing a terrible, trapped emptiness. "Very well.

 Send for the priest."

 

 "Thank you, Camaris-" Josua stood up. "Thank you.

 He is praying at young Leieth's bedside. I will fetch him

 myself."

 

 Camaris and Strangyeard had walked far down the hill

 together. Tiamak stood in the doorway of Josua's tent and

 watched them, wondering despite the praise of his clever-

 ness if he had done the right thing. Perhaps something he

 had heard Miriamele say was correct: they might have

 done Camaris no favor by waking him from his witless

 state. And forcing him to dredge up such obviously pain-

 ful memories seemed no kinder.

 

 The pair, the tall knight and the priest, stood for a long

 time on the windy hillsidelong enough for a long bank

 of clouds to roll past and finally reveal the pale afternoon

 sun. At last Strangyeard turned and started back up the

 hill; Camaris remained, staring out across the valley to

 the gray mirror of Lake Clodu. The knight seemed carved

 in stone, something that might wear away to a featureless

 post but would still be standing in that spot a century

 from now.

 

 Tiamak leaned into the tent. "Father Strangyeard is

 coming."

 

 The priest struggled up the hill hunched over, whether

 against the cold or because he now bore the burden of

 Camaris' secrets, Tiamak could not guess. Certainly the

 look on his face as he made his way up the last few ells

 bespoke a man who had heard things he would have been

 happier not knowing.

 

 "Everyone is waiting for you. Father Strangyeard,"

 Tiamak told him.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER203

 

 The archivist nodded his head distractedly. His eye was

 cast down, as though he could not walk without watching

 where he set his feet. Tiamak let him pass, then followed

 him into the comparative warmth of the tent.

 

 "Welcome back, Strangyeard," said Josua. "Before you

 begin, tell me: how is Camaris? Should we send someone

 to him?"

 

 The priest looked up in startlement, as though it was a

 surprise to hear a human voice. The look he gave Josua

 was curiously fearful, even for the timid archivist. "I ...

 I do not know. Prince Josua. I do not know much ..,

 much of anything at this moment."

 

 "I'll go see to him," Isgrimnur grumbled, levering him-

 self up off the stool.

 

 Father Strangyeard raised his hand. "He ... wishes to

 be alone, I think." He fidgeted with his eye-patch for a

 moment, then ran his fingers through his sparse hair- "Oh,

 merciful Usires. Poor souls."

 

 "Poor souls?" said Josua- "What are you saying,

 Strangyeard? Can you tell us anything?"

 

 The archivist wrung his hands. "Camaris was in Jao

 e-Tinukai'i. That much ... oh, my ... that much he told

 me before he asked for the sea^of confession, knowing

 that I would tell you. But the reason, and what happened

 there, are locked behind the Door of the Ransomer." His

 stare wandered around the room as if it hurt him to look

 at anything too long. Then his eye fell on Vorzheva, and

 for some reason lingered there as he talked. "But this

 much I can say, I believe: I do not think that his experi-

 ences have aught to do with the present situation, nor is

 there anything to be learned from them about the Storm

 King, or the Three Great Swords, or any of the other

 things you need to know to fight this war. Oh, merciful

 Usires. Oh, dear." He patted at his thin red hair again-

 "Forgive me. Sometimes it is hard to remember that I am

 merely the doorkeeper of the Ransomer, and that the bur-

 den is not mine to bear, but God's. Ah, but it is hard right

 now."

 

 Tiamak stared. His fellow Scrollbearer looked as

 

 204

 

 Tad Williams

 

 though he had been visited by vengeful spirits- The

 Wrannaman moved closer to Strangyeard.

 

 "Is that all?" Josua seemed disappointed. "Are you cer-

 tain that the things he knows cannot help us?"

 

 "I am not certain of anything but pain. Prince Josua,"

 the archivist said quietly but with surprising firmness.

 "But I truly think it unlikely, and I know for certain that

 to force anything more from that man would be cruel'be-

 yond belief, and not just to him."

 

 "Not just to him?" Isgrimnur said. "What does that

 mean?"

 

 "Enough, please." Strangyeard seemed almost angry

 something Tiamak had not imagined possible. "I have

 told you what you needed to know. Now I would like to

 leave."

 

 Josua was taken aback. "Of course. Father Strangyeard."

 

 The priest nodded. "May God watch over us all."

 

 Tiamak followed Strangyeard out through the tent door.

 "Is there something I can do?" he asked. "Perhaps just

 walk with you?"

 

 The archivist hesitated, then nodded. "Yes. That would

 be kind."

 

 Camaris was gone from the spot where he had stood;

 

 Tiamak looked for him, but saw no sign.

 

 When they had traveled some way down the hill,

 Strangyeard spoke in a musing voice- "I understand now

 ... why a man would wish to drink himself into oblivion.

 I find it tempting myself at this moment."

 

 Tiamak raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

 

 "Perhaps drunkenness and sleep are the only ways God

 has given us to forget," Strangyeard continued. "And

 sometimes forgetting is the only cure for pain."

 

 Tiamak considered. "In a way, Camaris was as one

 asleep for two score years."

 

 "And we awakened him." Strangyeard smiled sadly.

 "Or, I should say. God allowed us to awaken him. Per-

 haps there is a reason ^or all this. Perhaps there will be

 some result beside sorrow after all."

 

 He did not, the Wrannaman thought, sound as though

 he believed it.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER205

 

 Guthwulf paused and let the air wash over him, trying

 to decide which of the passageways led upwardfor it

 was upward that the sword-song was leading him. His

 nostrils twitched, sniffing for the faintest indication from

 the damp tunnel air as to which way he should go. His

 fingers traveled back and forth along the stone walls on

 either side, questing like eyeless crabs.

 

 Disembodied, alien speech washed over him once

 more, words that he did not hear so much as feel. He

 shook his head, trying to drive them from his brain. They

 were ghosts, he knew, but he had learned that they could

 not harm him, could not touch him. The cluttering voices

 only interfered with what he truly wanted to hear. They

 were not real. The sword was real, and it was calling.

 

 He had first felt the pull return several days before.

 

 As he awakened into the confusion of blind solitude, as

 he had so many times, a thread of compelling melody had

 followed him up out of sleep into his waking blackness.

 It was more than Just another of his pitiful dreams: this

 was a powerful feeling, frightful and yet comfortably fa-

 miliar, a song without words or melody that rang in his

 head and wrapped him with tendrils of longing. It tugged

 at him so strongly that he scrambled clumsily to his feet,

 eager as a young swain called by his beloved. The sword!

 It was back, it was near!

 

 Only as the last clinging remnants of his slumbers left

 him did he remember that the sword was not alone.

 

 It was never alone- It belonged to Elias, his once-

 friend, now bitter enemy. Much as Guthwulf ached to be

 near it, to bask in its song as he would the warmth of a

 fire, he knew he would have to approach cautiously. Mis-

 erable as his current life was, he preferred it to what Elias

 would do to him if he was capturedor worse, what Elias

 would let that serpent Pryrates do to him.

 

 It never occurred to him that it would be even better

 simply to leave the sword alone. The song of it was like

 

 206 Tad Williams

 

 the splash of a stream to a traveler dying of thirst. It drew

 him, and he had no choice but to follow its call.

 

 Still, some animal cunning remained. As he felt his

 way through the well-learned tunnels, he knew he needed

 not only to find Elias and the sword, but also to approach

 them in such a way so as to avoid discovery and capture,

 as he had managed once before to spy on the king from

 a shelf of rock above the foundry floor. To this end, he

 followed the sword's compelling summons but remained

 at as great a distance as he could, like a hawk circling its

 master on a long trace. But trying to resist the complete

 pull was maddening. The first day he followed the sword,

 Guthwulf forgot completely to go to the spot where the

 woman regularly left food for him. By the second day

 which, to the blind Earl of Utanyeat, was whatever came

 between one sleep and the nextthe sword's call beating

 within him like a second heartbeat had almost dissolved

 the memory that such a spot even existed. He ate what

 crawling things his groping hands encountered, and drank

 from any moving trickle of water he could find. He had

 learned in his first weeks in the tunnels what happened

 when he drank from standing pools.

 

 Now, after three sleeps full of sword-dreams, he had

 wandered far beyond any of the passageways familiar to

 him. The stones he felt beneath his hands had never met

 his touch before; the tunnels themselves, but for the

 always-present phantom voices and the equally constant

 pull of the Great Sword, seemed completely alien.

 

 He had some small idea of how long he had been

 searching for the sword this time, and, in a rare moment

 of clear thinking, he wondered what the king was doing

 down in the hidden places beneath the castle for such a

 long time.

 

 A moment later, a wild, glorious thought came to him.

 

 He's lost the sword. He's lost it down here somewhere,

 and it's just sitting, waiting/or whoever finds it! Waiting

 for me! Me!

 

 He did not even realize that he was slavering in his

 dusty beard. The thought of having the sword all to

 himselfto touch, to listen to, to love and to worship

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 207

 

 was so horrifyingly pleasurable that he took a few steps

 and then fell to the floor, where he lay quivering until

 darkness took his remaining senses.

 

 After he had regained his wits, Guthwulf rose and wan-

 dered, then slept once more. Now he was awake again,

 and standing before the branching of two tunnels, trying

 to decide which one was most likely to lead him upward.

 He knew, somehow, that the sword was above him, }ust as

 a mole beneath the ground knows which way to dig to

 reach the surface. In other lucid moments he had worried

 that perhaps he was grown so sensitive to the sword's

 song that it was leading him upward to the king's very

 throne room, where he would be caught and slaughtered

 just as a mole would be if it dug its way up into the ken-

 nels.

 

 But even though he had been moving steadily upward,

 he had started very deep. He felt sure the rise had not

 been anything so great as he feared. He was also certain

 that in his roundabout way he was moving ever outward,

 away from the core of the castle. No, the beautiful, terri-

 fying thing that drew him, the living, singing blade, must

 be somewhere here beneath the earth, coffined in rock

 just as he was. And when he found it, he would not be

 lonely any more. He only had to decide which of these

 tunnels to follow....

 

 Guthwulf raised his hands and reflexively rubbed at his

 blind eyes. He felt very weak. When was the last time he

 had eaten? What if the woman gave up on him and

 stopped putting out food? It had been so nice to eat real

 food....

 

 But if I find the sword, if I have it all to myself, he

 gloated, / won't care about any of that.

 

 He cocked his head. There was a scratching noise just

 beyond him somewhere, as though something were

 trapped inside the stone- He had heard that noise

 beforein fact, he heard it ever more frequently of late

 but it was nothing to do with what he sought.

 

 The scratching ended, and still he stood in painful inde-

 cision before the forking tunnels. Even when he put down

 

 208 Tad Williams

 

 stones for markers, it was so easy to become lost, but he

 was certain that one of these passages led upward to the

 heart of the songthe crooning, sucking, soul-drowning

 melody of the Great Sword. He did not want to go the

 wrong way and spend another endless time trying to find

 his way back. He was weak with hunger, numb with wea-

 riness.

 

 He might have stood for an hour or a day. At last, be-

 ginning as gently as a dust devil, a wind came tugging at

 his hair, a puff of breeze from the right-hand turning.

 Then, a moment later, a flurry of somethings welled up

 out of the tunnel and floated past himthe spirits that

 haunted the dark nether-roads. Their voices echoed in his

 skull, dim and somehow hopeless.

 

 ... The Pool. We must seek him at the Pool. He will

 know what to do ...

 

 Sorrow. They have called down the final sorrow ...

 

 As the twittering things blew past, blind Guthwulf

 slowly smiled. Whatever they were, spirits of the dead or

 bleak products of his own madness, they always came to

 him out of the depths, from the deepest, oldest parts of

 the labyrinth. They came from below ... and he wished

 to climb.

 

 He turned and shuffled into the left-hand tunnel-

 

 A

 

 The remains of Naglimund's massive gate had been

 plugged with rubble, but since it was lower than the sur-

 rounding wall and the piles of broken stone offered pur-

 chase for climbing feet, it seemed to Count Eclair the

 logical place for an assault to begin. He had been sur-

 prised when the Sithi had concentrated themselves before

 a blank and undamaged stretch of wall.

 

 He left Maegwin and the contingent of anxious mortal

 warriors under Isom's command, then crept up the snowy

 hillside to join Jiriki and Likimeya in the shell of a bro-

 ken building a few hundred ells from Naglimund's out-

 wall. Likimeya gave him a cursory glance, but Jiriki

 nodded.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 209

 

 "It is almost time," the Sitha said. "We have called for

 the m'yon rashithe strikers."

 

 Eolair stared at the contingent of Sithi before the wall.

 They had stopped singing, but had not moved away. He

 wondered why they should risk the arrows of the Norns

 when whatever their singing was intended for seemed fin-

 ished. "Strikers? Do you mean battering rams?"

 

 Jiriki shook his head, smiling faintly. "We have no his-

 tory of such things. Count Eolair. I imagine we could

 devise such an engine, but we decided to fall back on

 what we know instead." His look darkened. "Or rather,

 what we learned from the Tinukeda'ya." He gestured.

 "Look, the m'yon rashi come."

 

 A quartet of Sithi were approaching the wall. Although

 he did not recognize them, Eolair thought they looked no

 different than the hundreds of other Peaceful Ones

 camped in Naglimund's shadow. All were slender and

 golden-skinned. Like most of their fellows, no two

 seemed quite alike in the color of either their armor or the

 hair that streamed from beneath their helms; the m'yon

 rashi gleamed against the snow like misplaced tropical

 birds. The only difference the count could see between

 these and any other of Jiriki's people was that each bore

 a dark staff long as a walking-stick. These staffs were of

 the same odd gray-black stuff as Jiriki's sword Indreju;

 

 each was knobbed with a globe of some blue crystalline

 stone.

 

 Jiriki turned from the Hemystirman and called out an

 order. His mother rose from her crouch and added words

 of her own. A contingent of Sithi archers moved up until

 they surrounded the group near the walls. The bowmen

 nocked arrows and drew, then froze in place, eyes scan-

 ning the empty walls.

 

 The leader of the m'yon rashi, a female Sitha with

 grass-green hair and armor of a slightly deeper green,

 lifted her stick and slowly swung it toward the wall as if

 she forced it against the flowing current of a river. When

 the blue gem struck, all the m'yon rashf chanted a single

 loud syllable. Eolair felt a tremor in his bones, as though

 

 210Tad Williams

 

 a tremendous weight had struck the ground nearby. For a

 moment the earth seemed to shift beneath him.

 

 "What... ?" he gasped, struggling to find his balance.

 Before him, Jiriki raised a hand for silence.

 

 The other three Sithi stepped forward to join the

 woman in green. As they all chanted, each in turn brought

 his staff forward to strike in a rough triangle around the

 first; each syrup-slow impact reverberated through the

 earth and up through the feet of Eolair and the other ob-

 servers.

 

 The Count of Nad Mullach stared. For a dozen ells up

 and down the wall from where the m'yon rashi stood, the

 snow slid off the stones. Around the jeweled heads of the

 four staffs, Eolair saw that the stone had turned a lighter

 shade of gray, as though it had sickened somehowor as

 though it were covered with a web of fine cracks.

 

 Now the Sithi lifted their striking-rods away from the

 wall. Their chanting grew louder. The leader struck again,

 a little more swiftly this time. The silent thunder of her

 blow rolled through the icy ground. The rest followed

 suit, each strike emphasized by a loudly chanted word. As

 they struck for the third time, bits of stone began to

 shiver loose from the top of the high wall, falling down to

 vanish into the high snow.

 

 The count could not contain his astonishment. "I have

 never seen the like!"

 

 Jiriki turned, his high-boned face serene. "You should

 go back to your folk. It will be only a moment more and

 they should be ready."

 

 Eolair could not take his eyes from the strange specta-

 cle. He walked backward down the hill, steadying himself

 with his arms outstretched whenever the shifting ground

 threatened to topple him from his feet.

 

 At the fourth impact, a great section of the wall crum-

 bled and fell inward, leaving a hole at the top that looked

 as though some huge creature had taken a bite from it.

 Eolair at last realized the imminence of what Jiriki had

 told him and hurried the rest of the way down to Isorn

 and the waiting Hemystiri.

 

 "Ready!" he cried. "Be ready!"

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER211

 

 There was a fifth shuddering, the strongest yet Eolair

 lost his balance and fell forward, tumbling down the hill

 until he rolled to a stop, his nose and mouth stinging and

 cold from the snow. He half-expected his troop to laugh,

 but they were staring wide-eyed up the hill past him.

 

 Eolair looked back. Naglimund's great wall, as thick as

 the height of two men, was dissolving like a wave-struck

 sand castle. There was a loud rasping of stone on stone,

 but that was all. The wall fell down into the banks of

 white with an eerily muffled .sound. Great gouts of snow

 were thrown up everywhere, so that a fog of white flakes

 filled the air, obscuring all.

 

 When it cleared, the m'yon rashf had retreated. A hole

 a dozen ells across was opened into Naglimund and its

 shadows. Slowly, a sea of dark figures was filling that

 hole. Eyes gleamed. Spear-points glimmered.

 

 Eolair struggled to his feet. "Men of Hernystir!" he

 cried. 'To me! The hour has come!"

 

 But the count's troops did not budge, and instead it was

 the horde within Naglimund that came surging out

 through the breach, swift and uncountable as termites

 swarming from a shattered nest.

 

 There was a great clang of l>lade on shield from the

 Sithi ranks, then a flight of arrows hissed out, felling

 many of the first Noras rushing down the hillside. Some

 of the Noms carried bows as well, and clambered up onto

 the castle wall to shoot, but for the most part neither side

 seemed content to wait. Wth the eagerness of lovers, the

 ancient kindred rushed forward to meet each other.

 

 The battle before Naglimund quickly became a scene

 of horrible confusion. Through the swirling snow, Eolair

 saw that more than the slender Noms had issued from the

 crack in the wall. There were giants, too, creatures tall as

 two men and covered with gray-white fur, yet armored

 like humans, each bearing a great club which crushed

 bones like dry sticks.

 

 Before the count could even retreat toward his men,

 one of the Norns was upon him. Incredibly, though a

 helm hid most of his pale face and armor covered his

 torso, the black-eyed creature wore no shoes, his long feet

 

 212Tad Williams

 

 carrying him across the powdery snow as though it were

 solid stone. He was swift as a lynx. As Eolair stared in

 amazement, he almost lost his head to the Nom's first

 sweeping blow.

 

 Who could fathom such madness? Eolair pushed all

 thoughts but survival from his mind.

 

 The Norn bore only a small arm shield, and with his

 light sword was far faster than the Count of Nad Mullach-

 Eolair found himself instantly plunged into a defensive

 struggle, wading backward down the hill, encumbered by

 his heavy armor and shield, almost betrayed several times

 by treacherous footing. He fended off several blows, but

 the Nom's exultant grimace told Eolair that it was only a

 matter of time before his sinewy opponent found a fatal

 opening.

 

 Abruptly, the Nom stood straight, his jet eyes puzzled.

 A moment later he sagged forward and fell. A blue-

 fletched arrow quivered in the back of his neck.

 

 "Keep your men together. Count Eolair!" Jiriki waved

 his bow as he shouted from up the slope. "If they are sep-

 arated from each other, they will lose heart- And

 rememberthese foes can bleed and die!" The Sitha

 turned his horse and spurred back into the thick of battle;

 

 in a moment he was obscured by snow and the twisting

 shapes of battle.

 

 Eolair hurried downhill toward the Hemystiri. The hill-

 side echoed with the shrieks of horses and men and even

 stranger creatures.

 

 The confusion was almost complete. Eolair and Isom

 had only just managed to rally their men for a charge up

 the hill when two of the white giants appeared at the top

 of the rise, carrying between them the trunk of a tree.

 With a choking roar, the giants came rushing down on

 Eolair's men, using the tree like a scythe to crush all who

 were caught between them. Bones shattered and red-

 soaked forms vanished beneath the churned snow. A ter-

 rified Hemystirman managed to put an arrow into one

 giant's eye, then a few more feathered the second until it

 was reeling. Still, two more men were smashed to death

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 213

 

 by the flailing tree trunk before the remaining Hemystiri

 dragged the giant down and killed him.

 

 Eolair looked up to see that most of the Noms were en-

 gaged with the Sithi. Horrible as was the chaos of battle,

 the count was still compelled to stop and stare. Never

 since the dawn of time had such a thing been seen, the

 immortals at war. Those that were visible through the

 snow seemed to move with a ghastly, serpentine swift-

 ness, feinting, leaping, swinging their dark swords like

 they were willow wands. Many contests seemed settled

 before the first blow was struck; indeed, in many of the

 single combats, after much dancelike movement, only one

 blow was struckthe blow that ended the fight.

 

 There was a sour skirling of pipes from atop the hill-

 side. Eolair looked up to see what seemed to be a line of

 trumpeters atop the stone, their long, tubelike instruments

 lifted to the gray sky. But the piping noise came from

 some musicians in the shadows of Naglimund below, for

 when the Noms atop the wall puffed their cheeks and

 blew, what came from their tubes was not sound but a

 'cloud of dust as orange as sunset.

 

 Eolair watched in sickened fascination. What could it

 be? Poison? Or just some other incomprehensible ritual of

 the immortals?

 

 As the plume of orange floated down across the hill-

 side, the tide of battle seemed to surge and writhe beneath

 itbut no one fell. If poison, the count thought, it was of

 a more subtle sort than he had heard of. Then Eolair felt

 a burning in his own throat and nostrils- He gasped for

 breath, and for a moment thought he would surely choke

 and die. A moment later he could breathe again. Then the

 sky dropped down upon him, the shadows began to

 stretch, and the snow seemed to catch fire.

 

 Eolair was filled with a fear that blossomed like a

 great, black, ice-cold flower. Men were screaming all

 around him. He was screaming, too. And the Norns that

 now came surging forward out of the ruined shell of

 Naglimund were demons that even the^riests had never

 dreamed. The count and his men turned to run, but the

 

 214

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Sithi behind them, merciless and golden-eyed, were just

 as terrifying as their corpse-white cousins.

 

 Trapped! Eolair thought, all else subsumed in panic.

 Trapped! Trapped! Trapped!

 

 Something grabbed him and he lashed out. scratching

 with his nails to pull free of the horrible thing, a monster

 with a great yellow-tendriled face and shrieking mouth.

 He raised his sword to kill it, but something else struck

 him from behind and he fell sideways into the cold white-

 ness with the monstrous thing still clutching at him, still

 clawing at his arms and face. He was pushed face forward

 into the freezing snow, and though he struggled, he could

 not get free.

 

 What is happening? he suddenly thought. There were

 monsters, yes, giants and Nomsbut nothing so near.

 And the Sithihe remembered how ghastly they had

 looked, how he had been certain that they intended to trap

 Eolair and the other Hemysriri between themselves and

 the Noms, then crush the mortalsthe Sithi are not our

 foes.. . !

 

 The weight on his back had lessened. He slipped free

 and sat up. There was no monster. Isom crouched in the

 snow beside him, hanging his head like a sick calf. Al-

 though the madness of battle still raged around him, and

 his own men were snapping at each other and struggling

 brother against brother like crazed dogs, Eolair felt the

 terrible fear ebbing away. He reached up and pawed at his

 chilled face, then held out his gloved hand and stared at

 the orange-tinted snow.

 

 "The snow washed it away," he said. "Isom! It is some

 poison they have blown at us! The snow washes it away!"

 

 Isom retched and nodded weakly. "Mine has come off,

 too." He gasped and spat. "I tried ... to kill you."

 

 "Quickly," Eolair said, struggling to his feet. "We must

 try and get it off the others. Come!" He scooped up an

 armful of snow, scraping off the thin sprinkling of orange

 dust, and staggered to a small knot of squealing, strug-

 gling men nearby. They were all bleeding, but most only

 shallowly from wounds made by nails and teeth: although

 the poison had maddened them, it had made them clumsy

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER215

 

 and ineffectual as well. Eolair smashed clean snow into

 each face he could reach.

 

 After he and Isom had managed to bring some sem-

 blance of sanity back to the nearest men, they hurriedly

 explained and sent those they had rescued off to help oth-

 ers. One man did not get up. He had lost both eyes and

 was bleeding to death, staining all the ground around him.

 Eolair pulled the man's cloak over his ruined face and

 then stooped to gather more snow.

 

 The Sithi did not seem to be anywhere near as badly

 stricken by the dusty poison as Eolair and his men. Some

 of the immortals closest to the walls seemed dazed and

 slowed, but none showed symptoms of the unrestrained

 madness that had swept the Hemystiri. Still, the hillside

 was full of dreadful sights.

 

 Likimeya and a few Sithi were surrounded by a com-

 pany of Nom foot soldiers, and though Jiriki's mother and

 her companions were mounted and able to deal deadly

 blows from above, one by one they were being pulled

 down into a mass of white hands that waved and swayed

 like some terrible plant.

 

 Yizashi Grayspear faced a howling giant who already

 held a crushed Sithi body in each hand. The Sitha horse-

 man, his face as sternly impassive as a hawk's, spurred

 forward.

 

 Jiriki and two others had knocked another of the giants

 to his knees, and now hacked at the still-living monster as

 though they butchered an ox. Great jets of blood foun-

 tained up, covering Jiriki and his companions in a sticky

 mist.

 

 The limp body of Zinjadu, her pale-blue hair clotted

 with red, had been hoisted on the spears of a group of

 Noms as they ran back toward Naglimund's walls in tri-

 umph. Chekai'so and dark Kuroyi rode them down before

 they could bear their prize to safety, and each killed three

 of their white-skinned brethren, although both took many

 wounds. When they had slaughtered the Noms, Chekai'so

 Amber-Locks draped Zinjadu's corpse across his saddle.

 His own streaming blood mixed with hers as he and

 Kuroyi bore her back toward the Sithi camp.

 

 2l6

 

 Tad Williams

 ***

 

 The day wore on, full of madness and misery. Behind

 the mist and snow, the sun rose past noon and began to

 fall. The broken west wall of Naglimund began to glow

 with the light of a murky afternoon, and the snows grew

 even more red.

 

 Maegwin walked along the edge of the battle like a

 ghostas indeed she was. At first she had hidden behind

 the trees, afraid to witness such horrible things, but even-

 tually her better sense had led her out again.

 

 If I am dead, then what do I fear?

 

 But it was hard to look at the bloody forms that lay

 scattered about the snowy hillside and not fear death.

 

 Gods do not die, and mortals die but once, she reas-

 sured herself. When this is settled, they will all rise again.

 

 But if they should all rise again, then what was the

 point of this battle? And if the gods could not die, then

 what did they fear from the demon hordes out of

 Scadach? It was puzzling.

 

 Pondering, Maegwin walked slowly beside slayers and

 slain. Her cloak fluttered behind her, and her feet left

 small, even prints in the froth of white and scarlet.

 

 9

 

 The Tftird: House

 

 Simon WOS furious. They had walked into a trap, as

 sweetly and sfupidly as spring lambs led to the killing

 block.

 

 "Can you move your hands at all?" he whispered to

 Miriamele. His own wrists were bound very securely: the

 two Fire Dancers who had done the job had some experi-

 ence with knots.

 

 She shook her head. He could barely see her in the

 deepening night.

 

 They were kneeling side by side at the center of the

 forest clearing. Their arms had been tied behind their

 backs and their ankles roped. Seeing Miriamele trussed

 and helpless, the idea of brute animals readied for slaugh-

 ter returned and black anger rose inside Simon once

 more.

 

 I'm a knight! Doesn't that mean anything? How could

 I let this happen?

 

 He should have known. But he had been busy strutting

 like a mooncalf over the man Roelstan's compliments.

 "You have seen this knight wield a sword," the traitor had

 said. "He has naught to fear from Fire Dancers."

 

 And I believed him. I am not fit to be a knight. I am a

 disgrace to Josua and Morgenes and Binabik and every-

 one who's ever tried to teach me anything. .

 

 Simon engaged in another futile struggle with his

 bonds, but the ropes held him in an unbreakable grip.

 

 "You know something of these Fire Dancers, don't

 you?" he whispered to Miriamele. "What are they going

 

 218 Tad Williams

 

 to do with us? What do they mean when they say they're

 going to give us to the Storm King? Bum us?"

 

 He felt Miriamele shudder against him. "I don't know."

 Her voice was flat, dead. "I suppose so."

 

 Simon's terror and anger were for a moment overcome

 by a stab of regret. "I let you down, didn't I?" he said

 quietly, "Some protector."

 

 "It's not your fault. We were tricked."

 

 "I wish I could get my hands on that Roelstan's throat.

 His wife was trying to tell us something was wrong, but

 I was too stupid to listen. But hehe... '"

 

 "He was frightened, too." Miriamele spoke as from a

 great and lofty height, as though the things of which she

 spoke were of little import. "I don't know if I could give

 my own life up to save the lives of strangers. Why should

 I hate those two for not being able to?"

 

 " 'S Bloody Tree." Simon didn't have the strength to

 waste pity on treacherous Roelstan and Gullaighn. He had

 to save Miriamele somehow, had to burst these bonds and

 fight his way free. But he didn't have the slightest idea

 how to begin.

 

 The business of the Fire Dancer camp went on around

 them. Several white-robed folk were tending the fire and

 preparing a meal; others were feeding the goats and

 chickens, while still others sat and talked quietly. There

 were even a few women and children among them. But

 for the two bound prisoners and the omnipresent gleam of

 white robes, it might have been the onset of evening in

 any rural steading.

 

 Maefwaru, the Fire Dancers' leader, had taken a trio of

 his lieutenants into the large cottage. Simon did not much

 wish to think about what they might be discussing.

 

 The evening grew deeper. The white-clad Figures ate a

 frugal meal, none of which they offered to share with the

 prisoners. The fire danced and fluttered in the wind.

 

 "Get them up." Maefwaru's eyes flicked across Simon

 and Miriamele, then rolled up to the blue-black sky. "It is

 nearing the time."

 

 Two of his helpers dragged the prisoners to their feet.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER219

 

 Simon's feet were numb, and it was difficult to balance

 with his ankles tied together; he swayed and would have

 fallen if the Fire Dancer behind him had not grabbed his

 arms and jerked him upright once more. Beside him,

 Miriamele also teetered. Her captor wrapped an arm

 around her, handling her as casually as if she had been a

 log.

 

 "Don't you touch her," Simon snarled.

 

 Miriamele gave him a tired look. "It does no good, Si-

 mon. Let it go."

 

 The Fire Dancer at her side grinned and pawed at her

 breasts for a moment, but a sharp sound from Maefwaru

 sobered him fast. As the robed man turned to face his

 chief, Miriamele hung in his grasp, her face devoid of

 feeling.

 

 "Idiot," Maefwaru said harshly. "These are not chil-

 dren's toys. They are for Himfor the Master. Do you

 understand?"

 

 Miriamele's captor swallowed and nodded rapidly.

 

 "It is time to go." Maefwaru turned and headed for the

 edge of the clearing.

 

 The Fire Dancer behind Simon gave him a rough

 shove. Simon toppled like a felled tree- His breath flew

 out in a great huff and the night swam with points of

 light.

 

 "Their legs are tied," the Fire Dancer said slowly.

 

 Maefwaru whirled. "I know that' Take the ropes off

 their legs."

 

 "But ... but what if they run?"

 

 'Tie a rope to their arms," said the leader. "Tie the

 other end around your waist." He shook his bald head in

 thinly-concealed disgust.

 

 Simon felt a flash of hope as the robed man produced

 a knife and bent to saw through the knots at his ankles. If

 Maefwaru was the only clever one. as seemed to be the

 case, perhaps there was some hope after all.

 

 When he and Miriamele were both able to walk, the

 Fire Dancers tied ropes around both of them, then pushed

 them ahead as though they were balky oxen, prodding

 them with spear-points if they stumbled or lagged. The

 

 220

 

 Tad Williams

 

 spears were oddly formed, short and yet slim-hafted and

 very sharp, not quite like anything Simon had seen be-

 fore.

 

 Maefwaru stepped through the vegetation at the edge of

 the clearing and disappeared, evidently leading them

 somewhere out of the clearing. Simon was a little re-

 lieved. He had been watching the fire for a long time and

 having very bad thoughts about it. At least they would be

 taken to some other place; it might be that their chance of

 escape would improve. Perhaps there would even be an

 opportunity as they traveled- He looked back and was dis-

 mayed to see that what seemed like the entire enclave of

 Fire Dancers was following them, a line of white trailing

 off into the gloom.

 

 What had appeared to be solid forest was instead a

 well-packed trail that switched back and forth as it wound

 uphill. It was hard to see its progress more than a few ells

 ahead: the ground was thick with mist, a grayish murk

 that seemed to absorb sound as thoroughly as it masked

 sight. But for the muffled tread of two-score feet, the

 woods were silent. Not a nightbird sang. Even the wind

 had quieted.

 

 Simon's mind was racing, but as quickly as he thought

 of plans for escape, he had to abandon each in turn as im-

 possible. He and Miriamele were vastly outnumbered and

 in an unfamiliar place- Even if they managed to jerk

 themselves free from the Fire Dancers who held their

 ropes, they would be unable to use their arms for balance

 or clearing a path, and would be caught within moments.

 

 He looked back at the princess plodding along behind

 him. She looked cold and miserable and drearily resigned

 to whatever might come. At least they had let her keep

 her cloak. In her only moment of spirit, she had con-

 vinced one of their captors to allow her to wear it against

 the night breeze. Simon had not been so lucky. His cloak

 had gone, along with his sword and Qanuc knife. The

 horses and saddlebags had been taken somewhere, too.

 The only things left to him now were the clothes he wore

 and his life and soul.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER221

 

 And Miriamele's life, too, he thought. / have sworn to

 protect it. That is still my responsibility.

 

 There was some comfort in that. While he had breath in

 him, he had a purpose,

 

 He was slapped in the face by a hanging branch. He

 spat out wet fir needles. Maefwaru was a small ghostly

 shape in the murk before him, leading them ever higher.

 

 Where are we going ? Perhaps it would be better if we

 never found out.

 

 They stumbled on through the gray mist like damned

 souls trying to walk out of Hell.

 

 It seemed they had been walking for hours. The mists

 had thinned a little, but me silence was still heavy, the air

 thick and damp. Then, as swiftly as the passing of winter

 twilight, they emerged from a tangle of trees and found

 themselves on the hilltop.

 

 While they had passed through the shadows of the

 wooded hill a great wash of clouds had covered the sky

 overhead, extinguishing the moon and stars, so that now

 the only light came from a few torches and the leaping

 flames of a huge bonfire. The summit's sloping ground

 bulged with strange vast shapes^ forms limned with flick-

 ering red light so that they seemed to move fitfully, like

 sleeping giants. Once these might have been pieces of

 some great wall or other large structure; now they lay

 scattered and broken, smothered beneath a matted carpet

 of vines and grass.

 

 In the middle of the wide hilltop one piece of stone had

 been cut free from vegetationa huge pale rock, angular

 as an ax head, that jutted to twice the height of a man.

 Between the high bonfire and this naked stone stood three

 motionless dark-robed shapes. They looked as though

 they had been waiting for a long timeperhaps as long as

 the rocks themselves had waited. As the Fire Dancers

 pushed the prisoners toward the center of the hill, the

 dark trio turned, almost in unison.

 

 "Hail, Cloud Children'" Maefwaru shouted. "Hail to

 the Master's first Chosen. We have come as He wished."

 

 The black-robed things regarded him silently-

 

 222 Tad Williams

 

 "And we have brought more even than we promised,"

 Maefwani continued. "Praise to the Master!" He turned

 and waved to his underlings, who hurried Simon and

 Miriamele forward; but as they approached the bonfire

 and the silent watchers, the Fire Dancers slowed, then

 stopped and looked helplessly back to their leader.

 

 'Tie them to that tree, there." Maefwani gestured im-

 patiently at the wind-gnarled corpse of a pine standing

 some twenty paces from the fire. "Hurryit is almost

 midnight."

 

 Simon grunted in pain as one of their captors pulled his

 arms behind his back to secure them to the tree. As soon

 as the Fire Dancers had finished and withdrawn, he edged

 toward Miriamele until their shoulders touched, in part

 because he was frightened, and hungry for a little of her

 warmth, but also so that they might more easily whisper

 without attracting attention.

 

 "Who are those three dark ones?" he asked under his

 breath.

 

 Miriamele shook her head.

 

 The nearest of the black-robed figures slowly turned

 toward Maefwani. "And these are for the Master?" it

 said. The words were as cold and sharp as the edge of a

 knife. Simon felt his legs weaken. There was an unmis-

 takable sound to the voice, a sour yet melodic accent he

 had heard only in moments of terror ... the hiss of

 Stormspike.

 

 "They are," said Maefwani, nodding his blunt head ea-

 gerly. "I dreamed of the red-haired one some moons ago.

 I know that the Master gave me that dream. He wants this

 one."

 

 The robed thing seemed to regard Simon for a moment.

 "Perhaps," it said slowly. "But did you bring another as

 well, in case the Master has other plans for these? Did

 you bring blood for the Binding?"

 

 "I did, oh, yes!" In the presence of these strange be-

 ings the cruel Fire Dancer chieftain had become as hum-

 ble and ingratiating as an old courtier. "Two who tried to

 flee the Master's great promise!" He turned and gestured

 to the knot of other Fire Dancers still waiting nervously at

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER223

 

 the edge of the hilltop. There was shouting and a convul-

 sion of activity, then a handful of the white-robed figures

 dragged two others forward. One of the captured pair had

 lost his hood in the struggle.

 

 "God curse you!" shouted Roelstan, sobbing. "You

 promised that if we brought you those two we'd be for-

 given!"

 

 "You have been forgiven," Maefwani said cheerfully.

 "I forgive you your foolishness. But you cannot escape

 punishment. No one flees the Master."

 

 Roelstan collapsed, sagging to his knees while the men

 around him tried to tug him back onto his feet. His wife

 Gullaighn might have fainted; she hung limply in the

 arms of her captors.

 

 Simon's heart seemed to rise into his throat; for a mo-

 ment, he could not breathe. They were powerless, and

 there was no help to be expected this time. They would

 die here on this windswept hillor the Storm King would

 take them, as Maefwani had said, which would surely be

 unimaginably worse. He turned to look at Miriamele.

 

 The princess seemed half-asleep, her eyes lidded, her

 lips moving. Was she praying?

 

 "Miriamele! Those are NomsJ The Storm King's ser-

 vants!"

 

 She ignored him, absorbed in her own thoughts.

 

 "Damn you, Miriamele, don't do this! We have to

 thinkwe have to get free!"

 

 "Shut your mouth, Simon!" she hissed.

 

 He was thunderstruck. "What!?"

 

 "I'm trying to get something." Miriamele pushed

 against me dead tree, her shoulders moving up and down

 as she fidgeted behind her back. "It's at the bottom of the

 pocket of my cloak."

 

 "What is it?" Simon strained closer, until his hands

 could feel her fingers beneath the cloth. "A knife?"

 

 "No, they took my knife. It's your mirrorthe one

 Jiriki gave you. I've had it since I cut your hair." Even as

 she spoke, he felt the wooden frame slide free from the

 pocket and touch his fingers. "Can you take it?"

 

 "What good will it do?*' He gripped it as firmly as he

 

 224 Tad Williams

 

 could. "Don't let go yet, not until I've got it. There." He

 tugged it loose, holding it tightly in his bound hands.

 

 "You can call Jiriki!" she said triumphantly. "You said

 that it was to be used in direst need."

 

 Simon's momentary elation ebbed. "But it doesn't

 work that way. He doesn't just appear. It's not that kind

 of magic."

 

 Miriamele was silent for a moment. When she spoke,

 she, too, was more subdued. "But you said it brought

 Aditu when you were lost in the forest."

 

 "It took her days to find me. We don't have days,

 Miri."

 

 "Try it anyway," she said stubbornly. "It can't hurt.

 Maybe Jiriki is somewhere close by. It can't hurt!"

 

 "But I can't even see it," Simon protested. "How can I

 make it work without being able to look into it?"

 

 "Just try!"

 

 Simon bit back further argument. He took a deep

 breath, then forced himself to think of his own face as it

 had looked the last time he had seen,it in the Sithi glass.

 He could remember things generally, but suddenly could

 not remember detailswhat color were his eyes, exactly?

 And the scar on his cheek, the burning mark of dragon's

 bloodhow long was it? Past the bottom of his nose?

 

 For a brief moment, as the memory of the searing pain

 from Igjarjuk's black blood washed through him, he

 thought he felt the frame of the looking glass warm be-

 neath his ringers. A moment later, it was cold again. He

 tried to summon the feeling back, but was unsuccessful.

 He kept on fruitlessly for long moments.

 

 "It's no use," he said wearily. "I can't do it."

 

 "You're not trying hard enough," Miriamele snapped.

 

 Simon looked up. The Fire Dancers were paying no at-

 tention to Miriamele or him, their interest fixed instead

 on the weird scene beside the bonfire. The two renegades,

 Roelstan and Gullaighn, had been carried to the'top of the

 large stone and forced onto their backs. Their four captors

 stood atop the rock holding their ankles, so that the pris-

 oners' heads hung down, arms dangling helplessly.

 "Usires Aedon!" Simon swore. "Look at that!"

 

 TO GREENANGELTOWER

 

 225

 

 "Don't look," said Miriamele. "Just use the mirror."

 

 "I told you, I can't. And it wouldn't do any good any-

 way." He paused for a moment, watching the contorted,

 upside-down mouth of Roelstan, who was shouting inco-

 herently. The three Noms stood before him, looking up as

 if at some interesting bird sitting on a branch.

 

 "Bloody Tree," Simon swore again, then dropped the

 mirror to the ground.

 

 "Simon!" Miriamele said, horrified. "Have you gone

 mad? Pick it up!"

 

 He lifted his foot and ground his heel into the looking

 glass. It was very strong, but he hooked it over so that it

 was tilted against the tree, then stepped down hard. The

 frame did not give, but the crystalline surface broke with

 a faint percussive sound; for a moment, the scent of vio-

 lets rose around them. Simon kicked it again, scattering

 transparent shards.

 

 "You have gone mad!" The princess was in despair.

 

 Simon closed his eyes. Forgive me, Jiriki, he thought.

 But Morgenes told me any gift that cannot be thrown

 away is not a gift but a trap. He crouched as deeply as he

 could, but the rope that held him to the trunk would not

 allow his fingers to reach the shattered mirror.

 

 "Can you get to that?" he asked Miriamele.

 

 She stared at him for a moment, then slid herself as

 low as she could. She, too, was several handlengths short

 of the goal. "No. Why did you do it?"

 

 "It was no good to us," Simon said impatiently. "Not in

 one piece, anyway." He caught at one of the larger shards

 with his foot and dragged it closer. "Help me."

 

 Arduously, Simon got his toe beneath the piece of crys-

 tal and tried to lift it high enough for Miriamele's abbre-

 viated reach, but the contortion was too difficult and it

 slid away, tumbling to the ground once more. Simon bit

 his lip and tried again.

 

 Three times the shard fell free, forcing them to begin

 over. Fortunately, the Fire Dancers and the black-robed

 Noms seemed caught up in the preparations for their rit-

 ual, whatever it might be. When Simon sneaked a glance

 toward the center of the clearing, Maefwaru and his min-

 

 226 Tad Williams

 

 ions were on their knees before the stone. Roelstan had

 stopped shouting; he made weak sounds and thrashed,

 striking his head against the stone. Gullaighn hung mo-

 tionless.

 

 This time, as the jagged thing began to slide off his

 boot again, Simon lurched to the side and managed to

 trap it against the leg of Miriamele's breeches. He pushed

 his own leg against it to keep it from falling, then lowered

 his foot to the ground before he toppled.

 

 "Now what?" he asked himself.

 

 Miriamele pushed against him, then slowly moved up

 onto her toes, lifting the shard higher along Simon's leg. It

 sliced through the rough cloth with surprising ease, draw-

 ing blood, but Simon remained as still as he could, unwill-

 ing to let a little pain deter them. He was impressed by

 Miriamele's cleverness.

 

 When she had lifted herself as high as she could, they

 moved again so that the crystal fragment rested primarily

 on Simon, then Miriamele eased herself back down. Next

 it was Simon's turn. The process was excruciatingly slow,

 and the crystal itself seemed sharper than any normal

 mirror-glass. By the time the shard was almost close

 enough for Simon to grasp in his hand, both prisoners had

 legs ribboned with blood.

 

 As he strained his fingers toward it, and found it still

 just beyond reach, Simon felt the hackles on his neck rise.

 Across the hilltop, the Noms had begun to sing-

 

 The melody rose like a serpent rearing above its coils.

 Simon found himself starting to slide away into a sort of

 dream. The voices were cold and fearsome, but also

 strangely beautiful. He thought he heard the hollow echo

 of measureless caverns, the musical drip of slow-melting

 ice. He could not understand the words, but the ageless

 magic of the song was unmistakable. It drew him along

 like a subterranean stream, down, down into darkness-...

 

 Simon shook his head, trying to drive the grogginess

 away. Neither of the captives dangling across the top of

 the rock was struggling now. Beneath them, the Noms

 had spread out until they formed a rough triangle around

 the jut of stone.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 227

 

 Simon strained against the rope as hard as he could,

 wincing as the hemp bit into his wrists; it tormented his

 flesh as though he were bound in smoldering metal.

 Miriamele saw the tears form in his eyes and leaned

 against him, pushing her head against his shoulder as

 though she could somehow force the pain away. Simon

 strained, gasping for air. At last, his fingers touched the

 cold edge. Just the light contact sliced his skin, but the

 thin bright line of pain signaled victory. Simon sighed in

 relief.

 

 The Noms' song ended. Maefwaru rose from his kneel-

 ing position and made his way forward to the stone.

 "Now is the time," he cried. "Now the Master shall see

 our loyalty! It is time to call forth His Third House!"

 

 He turned and said something to the Noms in a voice

 too low for Simon to hear, but Simon was paying little at-

 tention in any case. He grasped the shard of crystal in his

 fingers, unmindful of shedding a little more of his own

 blood as long as it did not make his hold too slippery,

 then turned and began feeling blindly for Miriamele's

 bound wrists.

 

 "Don't move," he said.

 

 Maefwaru had been given a long knife that glinted in

 the wavering firelight like something from a nightmare-

 He stepped to the rock, then reached up and grabbed

 Roelstan's hair, pulling it so hard that the captive's ankles

 were almost tugged loose from the grip of the Fire Danc-

 ers atop the rock. Roelstan raised his hands as if to fight,

 but his movements were horribly slow: he might have

 been drowning in great depths. Maefwaru pulled the

 blade across Roelstan's neck and stepped back, but could

 not avoid all the blood that spurted free; darkness spat-

 tered his face and white robe,

 

 Roelstan thrashed. Simon stared, sickened but fasci-

 nated, as streams of blood ran down the face of the pale

 rock. Gullaighn, hanging upside down beside her dying

 husband, began to shriek. Where the red liquid pooled at

 the base of the stone, the ground-hugging mist turned

 crimson, as though the blood itself had been rendered into

 fog.

 

 228 Tad Williams

 

 "Simon!" Miriamele bumped against him. "Hurry!"

 He reached out to find her fingers, then followed them

 up to the knots around her wrists. He placed the slick

 fragment of crystal against the bristling rope and began to

 

 saw.

 

 They still faced the bonfire and the bloody stone-

 Miriamele's eyes were wide in her pale face. "Please

 hurry!"

 

 Simon grunted. It was difficult enough just keeping the

 crystal in his lacerated, blood-dripping hand. And what

 was happening in the center of the hilltop was making

 him even more frightened than he had been.

 

 The red mist had spread until it surrounded and par-

 tially obscured the great stone. The Fire Dancers were

 chanting now, cracked voices unpleasantly echoing the

 poison-sweet song of the Norns.

 

 There was a movement in the mist, a pale bulky some-

 thing that Simon at first thought was the stone itself given

 magical life. Then it strode forward out of the reddened

 darkness on four huge legs and the earth seemed to shud-

 der beneath its tread- It was a great white bull, bigger

 than any Simon had ever seen, taller than a man at its

 shoulders. Despite its solidity, it seemed oddly translu-

 cent, as though it had been sculpted from fog. Its eyes

 burned like coals, and its bone-hued horns seemed to cra-

 dle the sky. On its back, riding like a knight on a horse,

 sat a massive black-robed figure. Terror beat out from this

 apparition like the heat of a summer sun. Simon felt first

 his fingers, then his hands go nerveless, so that he could

 not tell if he was still holding the precious shard. All he

 could think of was escaping from that terrible, empty

 black hood. He wanted only to throw himself against the

 weight of his ropes until they burst, or gnaw them until he

 was free to run and run and run....

 

 The chanting of the Fire Dancers grew ragged, shouts

 of awe and terror intermixed with the ritualistic words.

 Maefwaru stood before his congregation, waving his thick

 arms in horrified glee.

 

 "Veng'a Sutekh!" he shouted. "Duke of the Black

 Wind! He is come to make the Master's Third House!"

 

 TO OREENANGEL TOWER

 

 229

 

 The great figure atop the bull stared down at him, then

 the hood turned slowly, surveying the hilltop. Its invisible

 eyes passed across Simon like a freezing wind.

 

 "Oh, Usires on the T-T-Tree!" Miriamele moaned.

 "W-What is it?"

 

 Strangely, for a moment Simon's madness lessened, as

 though the fear had become too great to sustain any

 longer. He had never heard Miriamele so frightened, and

 her horrified voice pulled him back from the brink. He re-

 alized that he still held the bit of crystal clutched between

 his stiffened fingers.

 

 "It is a bad ... a bad thing," he panted. "One of the

 Storm King's ..." He caught at her wrist and began saw-

 ing away once more. "Oh, Miri, hold still."

 

 She was gulping air. "I'll ... try...."

 

 The Noms had turned and were speaking to Maefwaru,

 who alone of his congregation seemed able to stand the

 sight of the bull and its rider: the rest of the Fire Dancers

 groveled in the tangled undergrowth, their chanting now

 entirely given way to sobs of almost ecstatic fear.

 Maefwaru turned and gesticulated toward the tree where

 Simon and Miriamele were tied.

 

 "They're c-coming for us," Simon stuttered. As he

 spoke, the shard sliced through the last strands of

 Miriamele's ropes. "Cut mine, quick."

 

 Miriamele half-turned, trying to use her fluttering cloak

 to hide what they were doing from their captors. He could

 feel her vigorous movements as she dragged the edge of

 the crystal fragment back and forth across the thick hemp.

 The Noms were making their way slowly across the hill-

 top toward them.

 

 "Oh, Aedon, they're coming!" Simon said.

 

 "I'm almost through!" she whispered. He felt some-

 thing gouge into his wrist, then Miriamele cursed. "I

 dropped it!"

 

 Simon hung his head. So it was hopeless, then. Beside

 him, he felt Miriamele hastily winding her own severed

 rope around her wrists once more so that it would appear

 she was still bound.

 

 The Noms came on, their graceful walk and billowing

 

 230 Tad Williams

 

 robes making them almost seem to float over the rough

 ground. Their faces were expressionless, their eyes black

 as the holes between stars. They converged around the

 tree and Simon felt his arm caught in a cold, unbreakable

 grip. One of the Noms severed the rope that had leashed

 the prisoners, then Simon and Miriamele were drawn

 stumbling across the hilltop toward the looming stone and

 the terrifying shape that had appeared from the red mist:

 

 He felt his'heart speeding as he neared the bull and its

 rider, racing faster with each step until he thought it

 would burst through the walls of his chest. The Noms

 who held him were frighteningly alien, implacably hos-

 tile, but the fear they inspired was as nothing before the

 all-crushing terror of the Storm King's Red Hand.

 

 The Noms flung him to the ground. The bull's hooves,

 each wide as a barrel, were only a few cubits away. He

 did not want to look, wanted only to keep his face pressed

 against the shielding vegetation, but something drew his

 head inexorably upward until he was staring at what

 seemed a shimmer of flame in the depths of the black

 hood.

 

 "We have come to raise the Third House," the thing

 said. Its stony voice rumbled both without and within Si-

 mon, shaking the ground and his bones as well. "What is

 ... this?"

 

 Maefwaru was so frightened and excited that his voice

 was a squeal. "I had a dream! The Master wanted this

 one, great Veng'a SutekhI know that he did'"

 

 An invisible something abruptly grasped Simon's mind

 as a falcon's claws might seize a rabbit. He felt his

 thoughts shaken and flung about with brutal abandon, so

 that he fell down onto his face, shrieking with pain and

 horror. He only dimly heard the thing speak again.

 

 "We remember this little flybut it is no longer

 wanted. The Red Hand has other business now ... and we

 need more blood before we are ready. Add this one's life

 to that of the others upon the Wailing Stone."

 

 Simon rolled over onto his back and stared up at the

 clouded, starless sky as the world reeled about him.

 

 No longer wanted ... The words spun crazily in his

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 231

 

 head. Someone somewhere was calling his name. No

 longer wanted ...

 

 "Simon! Get up!"

 

 He dimly recognized Miriamele's voice, heard its shrill

 terror. His head lolled. There was a form approaching

 him, a pale smear in his blurry sight. For an appalling

 moment he thought it might be the great bull, but his vi-

 sion cleared. Maefwaru was stalking toward him, the long

 knife held up so that it glinted in the bonfire's wavering

 light.

 

 "The Red Hand wants your blood," the Fire Dancer

 chieftain said. His eyes were completely mad. "You will

 help to build the Third House."

 

 Simon struggled to free himself from the tangling

 grasses and clamber up onto his knees. Miriamele had

 thrown off her false bonds, and now flung herself toward

 Maefwaru. One of the Norns caught at her arm and

 tugged her to his black-cloaked breast, pulling her as

 close as a lover wouldbut to Simon's surprise, the im-

 mortal did no more than hold her helpless; the Norn's

 black eyes were intent on Maefwaru, who had continued

 toward Simon without sparing an instant's attention to the

 girl.

 

 Everything seemed to pause; even the fire seemed to

 slow in its fluttering. The Red Hand, the Noms,

 Maefwaru's cowering followers, all stood or lay still, as if

 waiting. The blocky Fire Dancer chieftain raised his knife

 higher.

 

 Simon tugged furiously at his restraints, straining until

 he thought he could feel his muscles pulling free from his

 bones. Miriamele had cut through part of the rope.

 

 If only ... if only ...

 

 The rope snapped. Simon's arms flew outward, and the

 coil slithered down his arm and dropped to the ground.

 Blood dribbled down his wrists and hands where the

 shard had cut him, the ropes had scored him.

 

 "Come, then," he gasped, and lifted his hands before

 him. "Come and get me."

 

 Maefwaru laughed. Beads of sweat stood out on his

 brow and bald scalp. The thick muscles of his neck

 

 Tad Williams

 

 jumped as he pulled another knife from inside his robe-

 For a moment Simon thought the Fire Dancer was going

 to throw it to him, to make it a fair fight, but Maefwaru

 had no such intentions. A blade in each hand, he took an-

 other step toward Simon. He stumbled, caught himself,

 then strode forward another pace.

 

 A moment later Maefwaru straightened up, bringing his

 hands to his neck so suddenly that he gashed himself with

 his own knife. His furious joy turned to puzzlement, then

 his legs folded beneath him and he toppled forward into

 the undergrowth.

 

 Before Simon could make sense of what was happen-

 ing, a shadowy form flew past him and struck the Nom

 who prisoned Miriamele, knocking the white-skinned

 thing to the ground- The princess tumbled free.

 

 "Simon!" someone shouted. "Take the knife!"

 

 Dazed, Simon saw the long blade that still gleamed in

 Maefwaru's fist. He dropped to a kneethe night air was

 suddenly full of strange noises, growls and shouts and a

 strange rumbling humand tugged it loose from the Fire

 Dancer's death-grip, then stood up.

 

 Even as his two fellows hurried to his aid, the Nom

 who had held Miriamele was rolling on the ground with

 a gray, snarling something. The princess had crawled

 away; now, as she saw Simon, she scrambled to her feet

 and ran toward him, tripping on clinging vines and leaf-

 hidden stones.

 

 "Here, come here!" someone shouted from the edge of

 the hilltop. "This is the way!"

 

 As Miriamele reached him, Simon grabbed her hand

 and ran toward the voice. A pair of Fire Dancers leaped

 up to stop them, but Simon slashed one with Maefwaru's

 knife, opening a red wound through the white robe;

 

 Miriamele escaped the other, scratching at the man's pan-

 icky face as she pulled free of his grasp. The rumbling

 roar of the thing atop the bullit was speaking, Simon

 realized, but now he could no longer understand itgrew

 until Simon's head hammered.

 

 "Over here!" A small figure had emerged from the

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 233

 

 trees at the edge of the hilltop. The roiling bonfire painted

 the little man in flame-colored light.

 

 "Binabik!"

 

 "Run to me," the troll cried. "With swiftness, now!"

 

 Simon could not help taking a look back. By the sacri-

 ficial stone, the great bull snorted and pawed at the

 ground, tearing great furrows in the damp earth. Ineluki's

 servitor was glowing, red light leaking through the black

 robes, but it made no move to pursue Simon and

 Miriamele, as though reluctant to leave the circle of

 blood-drenched ground. One of the Noms lay with its

 neck ragged and red; another was sprawled nearby, a vic-

 tim of one of the troll's darts. The third black-robed fig-

 ure was struggling with whatever had torn out its fellow's

 throat. But the Fire Dancers were finally gathering their

 wits, and as Simon watched, half a dozen of Maefwaru's

 followers turned to follow the escaping prisoners. An ar-

 row flew past Simon's ear and vanished into the trees-

 

 "Down here," Binabik said, hopping nimbly ahead of

 them down the hill. He gestured for Simon and Miriamele

 to move past him, then stopped and raised his hands to

 his mouth. "Qantaqa!" he shouted. "Qantaqa sosa!"

 

 As they plunged down the hillside into the trees, the

 confusing roar grew slightly less behind them. Before

 they had taken a score of steps, two shapes loomed before

 them in the misttwo horses.

 

 "They are tied with looseness," the troll called down to

 them. "Climb and ride!"

 

 "Here, Binabik, ride with me," Simon panted.

 

 "There is no need," he replied. Simon looked up to see

 a large gray shape appear on the foggy rise just above

 Binabik. "Brave Qantaqa!" Binabik grabbed the wolf's

 hackles and pulled himself up onto her back-

 

 The noise of pursuit was rising again. Simon fumbled

 with the reins, pulling them free at last. Beside him,

 Miriamele dragged herself up by her saddle hom. Simon

 struggled onto his horse's backit was Homefinder! Af-

 ter all the other mad things that had happened, Simon was

 so astonished to be reunited with his horse that he simply

 stopped thinking. Qantaqa leaped past with Binabik on

 

 234

 

 Tad Williams

 

 her back, loping rapidly down the hillside. Simon

 clutched Homefinder's neck and dug in his heels, fol-

 lowing the wolf's bobbing tail through the clutching

 branches, down into darker shadows.

 

 The night had become a sort of waking dream, a blur

 of twisted trees and damp murk; when Binabik finally,

 stopped, Simon was not sure how long they had been

 traveling. They were still on the hill slope, but in deep

 trees, cut off from even a sight of the cloudy sky. The

 darkness had become so thick that they had been moving

 at a walk for some time, Simon and Miriamele straining

 to see Qantaqa's gray form though the wolf was only cu-

 bits ahead of them.

 

 "Here," Binabik said quietly. "Here is shelter."

 

 Simon dismounted and followed the sound of his voice,

 leading Homefinder by the reins.

 

 "Be keeping your head low," the troll said. There was

 an echo behind his words.

 

 The damp, spongy ground gave way to something drier

 and more firmly packed. The air was musty-

 

 "Now, stop where you are standing." Binabik fell silent

 but for some rustling noises. Long moments passed. Si-

 mon stood and listened to his own heavy breathing. His

 heart was still pounding, his skin still damp with cold

 sweat. Could they really be safe? And Binabik! Where

 had he come from? How had he arrived, so improbably,

 so fortunately?

 

 There was a hiss and a flicker, then a blossom of flame

 rose at the end of a torch clutched in the troll's small

 hand. The light revealed a long, low cavern, its farthest

 end out of sight around a bend in the rock.

 

 "Deeper in we are going," he said- "But it would not be

 safe for traveling in here with no light."

 

 "What is this place?" Miriamele asked. The sight of

 her bloodied legs and pale, frightened face made Simon's

 heart cinch in pain.

 

 "A cave, only." Binabik smiled, a welcome and famil-

 iar baring of yellow teeth. 'Trust it for a troll to be find-

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER235

 

 ing a cave." He turned and gestured for them to follow.

 "Soon you can rest."

 

 The horses balked at first, but after a few moments'

 soothing they allowed themselves to be led on. The cave

 was strewn with dry branches and leaves. Here and there

 the bones of small animals winked up from the litter on

 the floor. Within a few hundred paces they had reached the

 innermost end, a grotto that was a little loftier and a great

 deal wider than the outer tunnel. At one end a sheet of wa-

 ter ran down a flat stone and drizzled into a small pool; Si-

 mon tethered Miriamele's steed and Homefinder to a stone

 beside it.

 

 "Here we will make our home for the evening," said

 Binabik. "The wood I have left here is dry, and the smoke

 it is making will not be great." He pointed up to a dark

 crevice in the roof. "I was making a fire here last night.

 The smoke is carried up there, so breathing is possible."

 

 Simon sank down onto the floor. The dry brush crack-

 led beneath him. "What about the Noms and the others?"

 At this moment he didn't really much care. If they wanted

 him, they could come and get him. Every inch of his body

 seemed to throb painfully.

 

 "I am doubting they will find this place, but I am

 doubting even more they will be searching long." The

 troll began piling wood atop the ashes in the circle of

 stones he had made the night before. "The Noms were at

 some great task, and seemed to need you only for your

 blood. I am thinking that there will be blood enough

 among those remaining mortals for the task to be com-

 pleted."

 

 "What did they want, Binabik?" Miriamele's eyes were

 fever-bright. "What were they saying about the Third

 House? And what was that ... that thing?"

 

 "That fearsome thing was one of the Red Hand,"

 Binabik said, his matter-of-fact tone betrayed by the wor-

 ried look on his face. "I have never seen with my eyes

 anything like it, although Simon was telling me stories."

 He shook his head, then took his flint to put a spark to the

 wood. "I do not know what its purpose was, although it

 seems clear to me that it was doing the Storm King's bid-

 

 236 Tad Williams

 

 ding. I will think on that more." As the fire caught, he

 lifted his pack and began to search in it. "Now, let me be

 cleaning those cut places you both have."

 

 Simon sat quietly as the troll dabbed at Miriamele's

 various wounds with a damp rag and rubbed something

 from a small pot on each. By the time it was his turn, Si-

 mon felt his eyes drooping. He yawned.

 

 "But how did you get here, Binabik?" He winced as the

 little man probed a painful spot. "What ... what... ?"

 

 The troll laughed. "There will be time enough for all

 telling soon. First, though, food and sleeping are needed."

 He eyed them both. "Perhaps first sleeping, then food?"

 He rose to his feet and dusted his hands off on his wide

 breeches. "There is something you will be pleased to

 see." He pointed to something lying in the darkness near

 where Homefinder and Miriamele's mount stood drinking

 from the pool.

 

 "What?" Simon stared. "Our saddlebags!"

 

 "Yes, and with your sleeping-beds still upon them. A

 luckiness it was for me that the Fire Dancers had not re-

 moved them. I left them here when I followed you up the

 hill. It was a risk, but I did not know what might be in

 them that would be bad for losing." He laughed. "Neither

 did I wish to make you ride laden horses in the dark."

 

 Simon was already dragging loose his bedroll and ex-

 amining the saddlebags. "My sword!" he said, delighted.

 Then his face fell. "I had to break Jiriki's mirror,

 Binabik."

 

 The little man nodded. "That I was seeing. But I doubt

 I could have helped your escaping if you had not freed

 your hands. A sad but clever sacrifice, friend Simon."

 

 "And my White Arrow," he mused. "I left that back at

 Sesuad'ra." He tossed Miriamele her bedroll, then found

 a relatively smooth place to unroll his own. "I have not

 taken very good care of my gifts,..."

 

 Binabik niled a tiny smile. "You are having too much

 worry. Sleep for a while now. I will wake you later with

 something warm to eat." He returned to the task of build-

 ing the fire. The torchlight played on his round face.

 

 Simon looked at Miriamele, who had already curled up

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER237

 

 and closed her eyes. She did not seem too badly hurt, al-

 though she was clearly as exhausted as he. So they had

 survived, somehow, after all. He had not failed his pledge.

 

 He sat up suddenly. "The horses' I have to unsaddle

 them!"

 

 "I will be doing all," Binabik assured him. "It is time

 for your resting."

 

 Simon lay back on the bedroll and watched the shad-

 ows playing along the cavern roof. Within moments he

 was asleep.

 

 10

 

 A Wourut in tfte WorbC

 

 Simon awakened, to the delicate patter of falling wa-

 ter.

 

 He had been dreaming about being caught in a ring of

 fire, flames that seemed to grow closer and closer. Some-

 where outside the fiery circle, Rachel the Dragon had

 been calling him to come and do his chores. He had tried

 to tell her that he was trapped, but smoke and ashes had

 filled his mouth.

 

 The water sounded as lovely as morningsong in the

 Hayholt chapel- Simon crawled across the rustling cavern

 floor and dipped his hands in the pool, then stared at his

 palms for a moment, unable to tell by the light of the low

 fire whether the water looked safe. He smelled it and

 touched it briefly with his tongue, then drank. It was

 sweet and cold. If it was poisonous, then he was willing

 to die that way.

 

 Mooncalf. The horses drank from it, and Binabik used

 it to wash our cuts.

 

 Besides, even poisoning would be preferable to the

 doom that had almost been theirs ... last night?

 

 The cold water made the wounds on his wrists and

 hands sting. All his muscles ached, and his joints were

 stiff and sore. Still, he did not feel quite as dreadful as he

 might have expected to. Perhaps he had been asleep

 longer than a few hoursit was impossible to tell what

 time of day it might be. Simon looked around the cavern,

 searching for clues. How long had he slept? The horses

 still stood quietly nearby. On the far side of the campfire

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 239

 

 he could see Miriamele's golden hair peeping out from

 beneath her cloak.

 

 "Ah, Simon-friend!"

 

 He turned. Binabik was trotting up the tunnel toward

 the central chamber, his hands cupped before him.

 "Greetings," said Simon. "And good morningif it is

 morning."

 

 The troll smiled. "It is indeed that time, although the

 middle-day will be soon arriving. I have just been out in

 the cold and misted woods, stalking a most elusive

 game." He held up his hands. "Mushrooms." He walked

 to the fire and spilled his treasures out on a flat stone,

 then began sorting through them. "Gray-cap, here. And

 this is being a rabbit-noseand tasting far better than any

 true rabbit's nose, I am thinking, as well as having much

 less messiness to prepare." He chortled. "I will cook

 these and we will break our fast with great enjoyment."

 

 Simon grinned. "It's good to see you, Binabik. Even if

 you hadn't rescued us, it would be very good to see you."

 

 The troll cocked an eyebrow. "You both did much to

 make your own rescuing, Simonand that is a fortunate

 thing, since you seem to be flinging yourself constantly

 into odd troubles. You said once that your parents were

 being common folk. It is my thought that at least one of

 them was not a person at all, but a moth." He smiled

 wryly and gestured toward the fire. "You are always

 heading toward the nearest burning flame."

 

 "It does seem that way." Simon found himself a seat on

 an outcropping of stone, shifting gingerly to find the least

 painful position. "So now what do we do? How did you

 find us?"

 

 "As to what thing we should be doing," Binabik wrin-

 kled his brow in concentration as he cut up mushrooms

 with his knife, " 'eat' is being my suggestion. I decided

 that it would be more kindness to let you sleep than to

 wake you. You must now be feeling great hungriness."

 

 "Great hungriness," Simon affirmed.

 

 "As to the other question, I think I will be waiting until

 Miriamele is also awake. Much as I enjoy talking, I do

 not want to be telling all my stories twice."

 

 240 Tad Williams

 

 "If you wanted me awake," Miriamele said crossly

 from her bedroll, "then talking so loud is just the way to

 go about it."

 

 Binabik was unperturbed. "We have made a favor for

 you, then, for I will soon have food for you both. There

 is clean water here for washing, and if you wish to go^

 outside, I have looked around with care and there doesj

 not seem anyone about."I

 

 "Oh," Miriamele groaned. "I hurt." She dragged her-j_

 self off her bedroll, wrapped her cloak about her, then^

 staggered out of the cavern,j

 

 "She isn't very cheerful in the mornings," Simon of-j

 fered with some satisfaction. "Not used to getting upj

 early, I suppose." He had never liked getting out of bed^,

 much either, but a scullion was given little say over howt

 early he would rise or when he would work, and Rachel

 had always made it quite clear that sloth was the greatest^

 of all sins.t

 

 "Who would be having much cheer after what you

 went through last night?" said Binabik, frowning. He

 tossed the mushroom bits into a pot of water, added some

 powdery substance from a pouch, then set the pot on the

 outermost edge of the coals. "I am surprised that the

 things you have been seeing in this year gone past have

 not made you mad, Simon, or at least trembling and fear-

 ful always."

 

 Simon thought about this for a moment. "I do get

 frightened sometimes. Sometimes it all seems so bigthe

 Storm King, and the war with Elias. But all I can do is

 what is in front of me." He shrugged. "I'll never under-

 stand it all. And I can only die once."

 

 Binabik looked at him shrewdly. "You have been talk-

 ing to Camaris, my knightly friend. That sounds with

 great similarity to his Canon of Knighthoodalthough

 the words have true Simon-like humbleness." He peered

 into his pot and agitated the contents with a stick. "Just a

 few things to add, then I will be leaving it to itself for

 a time." He tossed in a few strips of dried meat, chopped

 a small and rather lopsided onion into pieces and added

 those as well, then gave the mixture another stir.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 241

 

 When he had finished this chore, the troll fumed and

 pulled his hide bag close to him, rummaging through it

 with an air of great concentration. "There is something in

 here I thought might give you interest ..." he said ab-

 sently. After a few moments, he pulled a long parcel

 wrapped in leaves out of the sack. "Ah. Here."

 

 Simon took it, knowing it by the feel even before it was

 unwrapped. "The White Arrow!" he breathed. "Oh,

 Binabik, thank you! I was sure I had lost it."

 

 "You did lose it," said the troll dryly. "But since I was

 coming for visiting you in any case, it seemed that I

 might as well be carrying it along."

 

 Miriamele reentered. Simon held up his prize. "Look,

 Miri, my White Arrow! Binabik brought it!"

 

 She gave it barely a glance. "That was kind, Simon.

 I'm glad for you."

 

 He stared at her as she made her way to her saddlebags

 and began searching for something. What had he done to

 make her mad now? The girl was more changeable than

 weather! And wasn't he supposed to be upset with her?

 

 Simon snorted quietly and turned back to Binabik.

 "Are you going to tell us how you found us?"

 

 "Patience!" Binabik waved a stubby paw. "Let us have

 our food and a little peace, first. Princess Miriamele has

 not even come for joining us yet. And there is other news

 as well, some of it not happy." He bent over his sack and

 rooted some more. "Ah. Here they are." The troll pro-

 duced yet another parcel, a small drawstring bag. He up-

 ended it and his knucklebones tumbled out onto a flat

 rock. "While we are waiting, 1 will find what the bones

 may be telling me." The bones made a soft clicking noise

 as he gentled them in his hands then tipped them out onto

 the stone. He squinted.

 

 "The Shadowed Path." The troll grinned sourly. "That

 is not the first time I have been seeing that." He rolled

 them out again. "The Black Crevice." Binabik shook his

 head. "Still we are having that, as well." He shook the

 bones for a final time and spilled them before him.

 "Chukku's Stones!" His voice was unsteady.

 

 "Is Chukku's Stones a bad throw?" Simon asked.

 

 242 Tad Williams

 

 "It is a cursing word," Binabik informed him. "I was

 using it because I have never been seeing this pattern of

 bones." He leaned closer to the pile of yellowed objects.

 "A little like Wingless Bird," he said. "But not." He lifted

 one of the bones, which was delicately perched on two of

 its fellows, then took a deep breath. "Could this be Moun-

 tains Dancing?" He looked up at Simon, eyes bright, but

 not in a way Simon liked. "I have never been seeing/it,

 and have not known anyone who was seeing it. But I

 think I was hearing of it once, when Ookekuk my master

 talked to a wise old woman from Chugik Mountain."

 

 Simon shrugged helplessly. "What does it mean?"

 

 "Changing. Things changing. Large things." Binabik

 sighed. "If it is indeed Mountains Dancing. If I had my

 scrolls, I could perhaps be discovering with sureness." He

 swept up the bones and dropped them back into their

 pouch; he seemed more than a little frightened. "It is a

 throw that has only been appearing a few times ever since

 the Singing Men of Yiqanuc have written their lives and

 learning on hides."

 

 "And what happened?"

 

 Binabik put the pouch away. "Let me wait before more

 talking, Simon. I must be thinking on this."

 

 Simon had never taken the troll's bone oracles too

 seriouslythey had always seemed as general and un-

 helpful as a fortune-reader from a traveling fairbut he

 was shaken now by Binabik's obvious uneasiness.

 

 Before he could press the troll for more information,

 Miriamele returned to the fire and sat down. "I'm not go-

 ing back," she said without preamble. Binabik, like Si-

 mon, was taken by surprise-

 

 "I am not understanding your meaning. Princess

 Miriamele."

 

 "Yes, you do. My uncle sent you to bring me back. I'm

 not going." Her face was as hard and determined as Si-

 mon had ever seen it. Now he understood her preoccupa-

 tion. He also felt more than a little anger. Why was she

 always so stubborn, so cross? It almost seemed she en-

 joyed pushing people away from her with words.

 

 Binabik spread his palms in the air. "I could not make

 

 TOGREENANOELTOWER

 

 243

 

 you do anything that was not your wanting, Miriamele

 and I would not try such doing." His brown eyes were

 full of concern, "But, yes, your uncle and many others

 worry for you. They worry about your safeness, and they

 worry about what you plan. I will ask you to be coming

 back ... but making I cannot do."

 

 Miriamele looked slightly relieved, but her jaw was

 still set. "I'm sorry, Binabik, if you have traveled so far

 for nothing, but I am not returning. I have something to

 do."

 

 "She wants to tell her father that this whole war is a

 mistake," Simon muttered sullenly.

 

 Miriamele gave him a look of disgust. "That's not why

 I'm going, Simon. I told you the reason." She haltingly

 explained to Binabik her ideas about what might have led

 Elias to the clutches of the Storm King.

 

 "I am thinking you may indeed have discovered his

 mistake," Binabik said when she had finished. "It is close

 to some of my own supposingbut that does not mean

 that there is any likeliness you will be succeeding." He

 frowned. "If your father has been brought close to the

 Storm King's power, whether by the trickiness of Pryrates

 or something else, he may be like a man who drinks too

 much kangkangtelling him that his family is starving

 and his sheep are wandering away may not be heard." He

 laid a hand on Miriamele's arm. She flinched, but did not

 pull away. "Alsoand this is a hard thing for my heart to

 be sayingit is perhaps true that your father the king

 cannot anymore survive without the Storm King. The

 sword Sorrow is a thing of great power, a strong, strong

 thing. Perhaps if it is taken from him, he will go sliding

 into madness."

 

 Miriamele's eyes welled with tears, but her expression

 remained grim. "I am not trying to take the sword from

 him, Binabik. Only to tell him that things have gone too

 far. My fathermy real fatherwould not have wanted

 so much harm to come from his love for my mother. Ev-

 erything that has happened since must be the work of oth-

 ers."

 

 Binabik raised his hands again, this time in resignation.

 

 244 Tad Williams

 

 "If you have guessed the reasons for his madness, for this

 war, for his pact with the Storm King. And if he can be

 hearing you. But as I told you, I cannot stop your journey.

 I can only accompany you to help keep you from harm."

 

 "You're going to come with us?" Simon asked. He was

 very pleased and strangely relieved to think that someone

 else would share what felt like a heavy burden.

 

 The troll nodded, but his smile was long gone. "Unless'

 you are to be returning with me to Josua, Simon? That

 might be reason for not going on."

 

 "I have to stay with Miriamele," he pronounced firmly.

 "I gave my oath as a knight."

 

 "Even though I didn't ask for it," said Miriamele-

 

 Simon felt a moment's angry pain, but remembered the

 Canon of Knighthood and mastered himself. "Even

 though you didn't ask for it," he repeated, glowering at

 her. Despite the terrible times they had shared, she

 seemed determined to hurt him. "I still have my duty.

 And," he said to Binabik, "if Miriamele is going to the

 Hayholt, I'm going to Swertclif. Bright-Nail is there, and

 Josua needs it. But I can't think of any way to get into the

 castle to get Sorrow," he added reflectively.

 

 Binabik sat back and let loose a weary sigh. "So

 Miriamele is going to the Hayholt to plead with her father

 for stopping the war, and you are going there to be rescu-

 ing one of the Great Swords, just your single knightly

 self?" He leaned forward suddenly and dragged the stir-

 ring stick through me mixture simmering in the pot. "Are

 you hearing how like younglings you sound? I was think-

 ing you were both wiser after your many dangers and

 almost-dyings than to take such things on yourselves."

 

 "I'm a knight," said Simon. "I'm not a child any more,

 Binabik."

 

 "That is just meaning that the damage you can be

 doing is greater," the troll said, but his tone was almost

 conciliatory, as though he knew he could not win the ar-

 gument. "Come, let us be eating. This is still a happy

 meeting, even if the times are those of unhappiness."

 

 Simon was relieved to have the argument end. "Yes,

 let's eat. And you still haven't told us how you found us."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 245

 

 Binabik gave the stew another stir, "That and other

 news when you have been eating your food," was all he

 said.

 

 When the sound of contented chewing had slowed a lit-

 tle, Binabik licked his fingers and took a deep breath.

 "Now that your stomachs at least are full, and we are

 safe, there is grim news that needs telling."

 

 As Simon and Miriamele sat in growing horror, the

 troll described the Noms' attack on the camp and its af-

 termath.

 

 "Geloe dead?" Simon felt as though the earth was

 eroding beneath him; soon there would be nowhere safe

 left to stand. "Curse them! They are demons' I should

 have been there! A knight of the prince.. - !"

 

 "It is perhaps true you should both have been there,"

 Binabik said gently, "or at least that you two should not

 have left. But you could have done nothing, Simon. Ev-

 erything was happening with great suddenness and si-

 lence, and only one target there was."

 

 Simon shook his head, furious with himself.

 

 "And Leieth." Miriamele nibbed away tears. "That

 poor childshe has had nothing but pain."

 

 After they had sat in mournful silence for a while,

 Binabik spoke again. "Let me now be speaking of a less

 sad thinghow I was finding you. In truth, there is not a

 great deal for telling. Qantaqa it was who did the most of

 the tracking. She has a cunning nose. My only fear would

 be that we would fall too far behindhorses are traveling

 faster than wolves over long distancesand that the

 smells would grow too old. But our luck held.

 

 "I was following you into the edge of Aldheorte Forest,

 and there things grew muddled for some time. I had the

 most worry that we would lose you in that place, since it

 was slow going, and then it was raining, too. But clever

 Qantaqa managed to keep your trail,"

 

 "Was it you, then?" Simon asked suddenly. *Wcre you

 the one who was skulking around our camp in the for-

 est?"

 

 246 Tad Williams

 

 The troll looked puzzled. "I am not thinking it was.

 When did this thing happen?"

 

 Simon described the mysterious lurker who had ap-

 proached the camp and then retreated into darkness-

 

 Binabik shook his head. "It was not me. I would not

 have been talking to myself, although perhaps I might

 have been saying words to Qantaqa. But I am promising

 you," he drew himself up proudly, "Qanuc do not make

 so much noise. Especially in the forest at night. Very con-

 cerned with not becoming a meal for something large, we

 Qanuc are." He paused, "And the time is wrong, also. We

 would have been a day or two days at least behind you

 then. No, it was doubtless one of the things you were

 guessing, a bandit or a forest cotsman." Still, he consid-

 ered for a few moments before continuing with his tale.

 

 "In any manner, Qantaqa and I followed you. We were

 forced to make our hunting secretI had no wish for rid-

 ing Qantaqa into a large town like Stanshireso I could

 only have hope that you were coming out of these places

 again. We wandered about on the outskirts of the large

 settlements trying to find your track. Several times I

 thought that I had made it too difficult for Qantaqa's

 scenting, but always she found you again." He scratched

 his head, contemplating. "I suppose that if you had not

 emerged, I would have then been forced to go searching

 for you. I am glad I did not need to do that thingI

 would have had to leave Qantaqa out in the wildlands,

 and I would have myself been an easy target for Fire

 Dancers or frightened villagers who had never been see-

 ing a troll." He smiled slyly. "The people of Stanshire and

 Falshire have still not seen a troll."

 

 "When did you find us?"

 

 "If you think on it, Simon, you will be guessing very

 easily. I had no reason to hide from you, so I would have

 been greeting you as soon as I came upon youunless

 some reason there was not to."

 

 Simon considered. "Because we were with someone

 you didn't know?"

 

 The troll nodded, satisfied. "Exactly. A young man and

 

 ?

 i-

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER247

 

 woman may be traveling in Erkynland and speaking to

 strangers without too much attention. A troll may not."

 

 "So it must have been when we were with that man and

 womanthe Fire Dancers. We met other people, but we

 were alone each time afterward."

 

 "Yes. I came upon you here in Hasu ValeI had been

 making camp in this very cave the night beforeand fol-

 lowed you and that pair up into the hills. Qantaqa and I

 were watching all from the trees. We saw the Fire Danc-

 ers." He frowned. "They have become numerous and

 unafraidby spying on other travelers along the road and

 listening to their gossip I was learning that. So I saw what

 these Fire Dancers did, and when they were taking you to

 the hilltop, I freed your horses and followed." He grinned,

 pleased with his own cleverness.

 

 "Thank you, Binabik," Miriamele said. Some of her

 earlier frosty manner had disappeared. "I haven't said that

 yet."

 

 He smiled and shrugged. "We all are doing what we

 can when we are able. As I was once before telling Si-

 mon, we three have saved each other's lives enough times

 that the tallying is no longer important." As he picked up

 a hank of moss and began to scrub his bowl, Qantaqa

 strode silently into the cavern. Her fur was wet; she shook

 herself, sending a fine spray of droplets everywhere.

 

 "Ah." Binabik placed the bowl on the floor before the

 wolf. "You may be performing this task, then." As

 Qantaqa's pink tongue scoured out the last bits of stew,

 the troll stood up. "So, that is the telling. Now, if we are

 going carefully, I think we can leave this place today. We

 will stay away from the road until Hasu Vale is being

 safely behind."

 

 "And the Fire Dancers won't find us?" Miriamele

 asked.

 

 "After the last night's doings, I am doubting that there

 are many left, or that they are wishing to do much of any-

 thing but hide. I am thinking that the Storm King's ser-

 vant gave them as much fright as it gave to you." He bent

 to begin picking up. "And now their chieftain is dead."

 

 "That was one of your black-tipped darts," Simon said,

 

 248 Tad Williams

 

 remembering Maefwaru's puzzled expression as he

 clutched at his throat.

 

 "It was."

 

 "I'm not sorry." Simon went to tie up his bedroll. "Not

 sorry at all. So you're really going to come with us."

 

 Binabik thumped his chest with the heel of his hand. "I

 am not believing what you do is wise or good. But I,can-

 not be letting you go off when I might be able to help you

 survive." He frowned, pondering. "I wish there was some

 way for sending a message back to the others."

 

 Simon remembered the trolls in Josua's camp, and es-

 pecially Sisqi, the loved one Binabik must have left be-

 hind to come here. The magnitude of the little man's

 sacrifice struck him and he was suddenly ashamed.

 Binabik was right: Simon and Miriamele were behaving

 like wayward children. But one look at the princess con-

 vinced him that she could no more be talked out of this

 than the waves could be argued out of crashing onto the

 beachand he could not imagine himself leaving her to

 face her fate alone- Like Binabik, he was trapped. He

 sighed and picked up the bedroll.

 

 Either Binabik was a good guide or the Fire Dancers

 had, in fact, given up looking for them. They saw nothing

 living during their afternoon's Journey through the damp,

 thick-forested hills of Hasu Vale except for a few jays and

 a single black squirrel. The woods were densely crowded

 with trees and ground plants, and every trunk was blan-

 keted in spongy moss, but the land still seemed strangely

 inactive, as though everything that lived there slept or

 waited silently for the intruders to pass.

 

 An hour after sunset they made camp beneath a rocky

 overhang, but the accommodations were far less pleasant

 than the dry and secret cave. When the rains came and

 water ran streaming down the hillside, Simon and the oth-

 ers were forced to huddle as far back under the overhang

 as they could. The horses, appearing none too pleased,

 were tethered at the front where they were intermittently

 lashed by rain. Simon hoped that since horses often stood

 in fields during bad weather, they would not suffer too

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 249

 

 badly, but he felt obscurely guilty. Surely Homefinder, a

 knight's companion, deserved better treatment?

 

 After she hunted, Qantaqa came and curled herself

 against all three of them as they huddled in a row, making

 up with the warmth she provided for the strong smell of

 damp wolf that filled the shelter. They fell asleep at last,

 then awakened at dawn, stiff and sore. Binabik did not

 want to light a fire in such an exposed place, so they ate

 a little dried meat and some berries the troll gathered,

 then set out again.

 

 It was a difficult day's traveling, the hillsides and dales

 slippery with mud and wet moss, the rain blowing up in

 sudden squalls that lashed them with water and slapped

 branches into their faces; when the rain ceased, the mist

 crept back in, hiding treacherous pitfalls. Their progress

 was achingly slow. Still, Simon was impressed that his

 trollish friend could find a Way at all with no sun visible

 and the road far away and out of sight.

 

 Sometime after noon Binabik led them along the hill-

 side past the outskirts of the town of Hasu Vale itself. It

 was difficult to make out much more through the close-

 knit trees than the shapes of some rough houses, and

 when the mist was momentarily cleared by a stiff

 windthe snaking course of the road, a dark streak some

 furlongs away. But the town seemed just as muted and

 lifeless as the forest: nothing but gray mists rose around

 the smoke holes of the cottages, and there was no sign of

 people or animals.

 

 "Where has everyone gone?" Miriamele asked. "I have

 been here. It was a lively place."

 

 "Those Fire Dancers," Simon said grimly. "They've

 scared everyone away."

 

 "Or perhaps it is the things with which the Fire Danc-

 ers have been making celebration on the hilltops at

 night," Binabik pointed out. "It is not necessary, I am

 thinking, to see those things, as you two were seeing, to

 know that something is wrong. It is a feeling in the air."

 

 Simon nodded. Binabik was right. This entire area felt

 much like Thisterborg, the haunted hill between the forest

 and Erchester, the place where the Anger Stones stood ...

 

 250 Tad Williams

 

 the place where the Norns had given Sorrow to King

 Elias....

 

 He did not like thinking about that horrible night, but

 for some reason the memory suddenly seemed important-

 Something was pulling at him, scattered thoughts that

 wanted to be fit together. The Norns. The Red Hand.

 Thisterborg....

 

 "What's that?" Miriamele cried in alarm. Simon

 jumped. Homefinder startled beneath him and slipped a

 little in the mud before finding her footing.

 

 A dark shape had appeared in the mist before them,

 gesticulating wildly. Binabik leaned forward against

 Qantaqa's neck and squinted. After a long, tense moment,

 he smiled. "It is nothing. A rag caught by the wind.

 Someone's lost shin, I am thinking."

 

 Simon squinted, too. The troll was correct- It was a tat-

 tered bit of clothing wrapped around a tree, the sleeves

 fluttering in the wind like pennants.

 

 Miriamele made the sign of the Tree, relieved.

 

 They rode on. The town vanished into the thick green-

 ery behind them as quickly and completely as if the wet,

 silent woods had swallowed it.

 

 They camped that evening in a sheltered gully at the

 base of the valley's western slope. Binabik seemed preoc-

 cupied; Simon and Miriamele were both quiet. They ate

 an unsatisfying meal and made some small talk, then ev-

 eryone took refuge in the darkness and the need to sleep.

 

 Simon again felt the awkward distance that existed now

 between himself and Miriamele. He still did not quite

 know what to feel about the things she had told him. She

 was no maiden, and it was by her own choice. That was

 painful enough, but the way she had told him, the manner

 in which she had lashed out at him as though to punish,

 was even more infuriatingly confusing. Why was she so

 kind to him sometimes, so hateful at others? He would

 have liked to believe that she was playing the come-

 hither, go-away games that young court women were

 taught to play with men, but he knew her too well:

 

 Miriamele was not one for that kind of frippery. The only

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER25!

 

 solution that he could find to this puzzle was that she

 truly wanted him for a friend, but was afraid that Simon

 wanted more.

 

 / do want more, he thought miserably. Even if I won't

 ever have it.

 

 He did not fall asleep for a long time, but instead lay

 listening to the water pattering through the leaves to the

 forest floor. Huddled beneath his cloak, he probed at his

 unhappiness as he might at a wound, trying to find out

 how much pain came with it.

 

 By the middle of the next afternoon they climbed out

 of the valley, leaving Hasu Vale behind. The forest still

 stretched out at their right hands like a great green blan-

 ket, vanishing only at the horizon. Before them was the

 hilly grass country that lay between the Old Forest Road

 and the headlands at Swertclif.

 

 Simon could not help wishing that this journey with

 Binabik and Miriamele could be more like the first heady

 days they had traveled together after leaving Geloe's

 lake house, so many months ago. The troll had been full

 of songs and silliness during that journey; even the

 princesspretending then to be the servant girl Marya

 had seemed excited and happy to be alive. Now the three

 of them went forward like soldiers marching toward a

 battle they did not expect to win, each immersed in pri-

 vate thoughts and fears.

 

 The empty, rolling country north of the Kynslagh did

 not inspire much cheer in any case. It was fully as dreary

 and lifeless as Hasu Vale, equally as wet, but did not af-

 ford the hiding places and security to be found in the

 densely forested valley. Simon felt that they were terribly

 exposed, and could not help marveling at the astonishing

 courageor stupidity, or bothof walking virtually un-

 armed into the High King's gateyard. If there were left

 any scrap of the companions or their tale when these dark

 

 - times had someday passed, surely it would make a won-

 ^ derful, unbelievable song! Some future Shem Horse-

 

 -i groom, perhaps, might tell some wide-eyed scullion: "Do

  ye listen, lad. whilst I tell ye of Brave Simon and his

 

 252

 

 Tad Williams

 

 friends, them who rode open-eyed and empty-handed into

 the very Jaws of Darkness...."

 

 Jaws of Darkness. Simon liked that. He had heard that

 in a song of Sangfugol's.

 

 He suddenly thought of what that darkness really

 meantthe things he had seen and felt, the dreadful,

 clutching shadows waiting beyond the light and warmth

 of lifeand his skin went shudderingly cold from head to

 foot.

 

 It took them two days to ride across the hilly meadow-

 lands, two days of mist and frequent cold rains. No matter

 which direction they traveled, the winds seemed always

 to be blowing into their faces. Simon sneezed the entirety

 of the first night and felt warm and unstable as melting

 candle wax- He was a bit recovered by morning.

 

 In mid-aftemoon of the second day, the headlands of

 Swertclif appeared before them, the raw edge of the high,

 rocky hill on whose summit the Hayholt perched. As he

 stared into the twilight, Simon thought he could see an

 impossibly slim white line looming beyond Swertclif's

 naked face.

 

 It was Green Angel Tower, visible even though it stood

 the better part of a league beyond the nearest side of the

 hill.

 

 Simon felt something tingle up his back, lifting the

 hairs on the nape of his neck. The tower, the great shining

 spike that the Sithi had built when the castle was theirs,

 the tower where Ineluki had lost his earthly lifeit was

 waiting, still waiting. But it was also the site of Simon's

 own boyhood wanderings and imaginings. He had seen it,

 or something like it, in so many dreams since he had left

 his home that now it almost seemed like just another

 dream. And below it, out of sight beyond the cliff, lay the

 Hayholt itself. Tears welled up in Simon, but only damp-

 ened his eyes. How many times had he yearned for those

 mazy halls, the gardens and scullion hiding-holes, the

 warm comers and secret pleasures?

 

 He turned to look at Miriamele. She, too, was staring

 fixedly into the west, but if she thought of the pleasures

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER253

 

 of home, her face did not show it. She looked like a

 hunter who had finally run a dangerous but long-sought

 quarry to ground. He blinked, ashamed that she might see

 him tearful.

 

 "I wondered if I'd ever see it again," he said quietly. A

 flurry of rain struck his face and he wiped his eyes, grate-

 ful for the excuse- "It looks like a dream, doesn't it? A

 strange dream."

 

 Miriamele nodded but said nothing.

 

 Binabik did not hurry them away. He seemed content to

 wait and let Qantaqa nose the ground while Simon and

 Miriamele sat and silently gazed.

 

 "Let us make camp," he said finally. "If we are riding

 another short time, we can find shelter at the base of the

 hills." He gestured toward Swertclif's massive face.

 "Then in the morning we will have better light for ...

 whatever we may be doing."

 

 "We're going to John's barrow," Simon said, more

 firmly than he felt. "At least that's what I'm doing."

 

 Binabik shrugged- "Let us be riding. When we have a

 fire and food will be time for making of plans."

 

 The sun vanished behind Swertclif's broad hump long

 before evening- They rode forward in cold shadow.

 Even the horses seemed uneasy: .Simon could feel

 Homefinder's unwillingness, and thought that if he al-

 lowed her she would turn and race in the opposite direc-

 tion.

 

 Swertclif waited like an infinitely patient ogre. As they

 drew closer, the great dark hill seemed to blot out the sky

 as well as the sun, spreading and swelling until it seemed

 they could not turn away from it even if they tried. From

 the slope of its outermost foothills, they saw a flash of

 gray-green to the south, just beyond the cliffsthe

 Kynslagh, visible for the first time. Simon felt a pang of

 joy and regret, as he remembered the familiar, soothing

 song of the gulls and thought of the fisherman-father he

 had never known.

 

 At last, when the hill's almost perpendicular face stood

 above them like a vast wall, they made camp in a ravine.

 

 254

 

 Tad Williams

 

 The winds were less here, and Swertclif itself blocked

 much of the rain. Simon smiled grimly at the thought that

 the ogre's waiting was over: he and his companions were

 going to sleep in its lap tonight.

 

 No one wanted to be first to speak of what they would

 do tomorrow. The making of the fire and the preparation

 of a modest supper were undertaken with a minimum of

 conversation and little of the fellowship that usually en-

 livened the evenings. Tonight Miriamele did not seem an-

 gry but preoccupied, and even Binabik was hesitant in his

 actions, as though his thoughts were elsewhere.

 

 Simon felt surprisingly calm, almost cheerful, and was

 disappointed that his companions did not share his mood.

 This was a dangerous place, of course, and the next day's

 doings would be fearfulhe was not letting himself think

 too much about where the sword was and what needed to

 be done to find itbut at least he was doing something.

 At least he was performing the kind of task for which he

 had been knighted. And if it workedoh, glory! If it

 worked, surely Miriamele would see that taking the sword

 to Josua would be more important than trying to convince

 her mad father to halt a war that was doubtless already

 beyond his power to stop. Yes, surely when they had

 Bright-Nailthink of it, Bright-Nail! Prester John's fa-

 mous sword!in hand, Miriamele would realize that they

 had obtained the greatest prize they could hope for, and

 he and Binabik could coax her back to the comparative

 safety of her uncle's camp.

 

 Simon was considering these ideas and letting his meal

 settle when Binabik finally began to speak.

 

 "Once we are climbing this hill," the troll said slowly,

 "we will be having great difficulty to turn back. We are

 having no knowledge whether there are soldiers above

 perhaps Elias has placed guards for protecting his father's

 sword and tomb. If we are going any farther westward,

 we will be coming to where people in that great castle can

 be seeing us. Do you have certainnessreal, real true

 certainness!that you both want this? Please think before

 you are speaking."

 

 Simon did as his friend asked. After a while, he knew

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 255

 

 what he wished to say. "We are here. The next time we

 are so close to Bright-Nail, there may be men fighting ev-

 erywhere. We may never be able to get near it. So I think

 it would be foolish not to try to take it now. I'm going."

 

 Binabik looked at Simon, then slowly nodded. "So we

 will go to take the sword." He turned to the princess.

 "Miriamele?"

 

 "I have little to say about it. If we need to use the

 Three Swords, then that will mean I have failed." She

 smiled, but it was a smile Simon did not like at all. "And

 if I fail to convince my father, I doubt that whatever hap-

 pens afterward will mean much to me."

 

 The troll made a close-handed gesture. "There is never

 sure knowledge. I will help you as I can, and Simon will

 also, I am not doubting thatbut you must not give up

 any chance of coming out again. Thinking of this sort will

 make you careless."

 

 "I would be very happy to come out again," said

 Miriamele- "I want to help my father understand so that

 he will cease the killing, then I want to say farewell to

 him. I could never live with him after what he has done."

 

 "I am hoping that you get the thing you are wishing

 for," Binabik replied. "Sofirst we are to go sword-

 searching, then we will decide what can be done for help-

 ing Miriamele- For such weighty efforts, I have need of

 sleep."

 

 He lay down, curling against Qantaqa, and pulled his

 hood over his face. Miriamele continued to stare into the

 campfire. Simon watched her awkwardly for a short

 while, then pulled his own cloak tight around him and lay

 back. "Good night, Miriamele," he said. "I hope ... I

 hope...."

 

 "So do I."

 

 Simon threw his arm over his eyes and waited for

 sleep.

 

 He dreamed that he sat atop Green Angel Tower,

 perched like a gargoyle. Someone was moving beside

 him.

 

 It was the angel herself, who had apparently left her

 

 256 Tad Williams

 

 spire and now seated herself beside him, laying a cool

 hand on his wrist. She looked strangely like the little girl

 Leieth, but made of rough bronze and green with verdi-

 gris.

 

 "It is a long way down." The angel's voice was beau-

 tiful, soft but strong.

 

 Simon stared at the tiny rooftops of the Hayholt below

 him. "It is."

 

 "That is not what 1 mean." The angel's tone was gently

 chiding- "I mean down to where the Truth is- Down to the

 bottom, where things begin."

 

 "I don't understand." He felt curiously light, as though

 the next puff of wind might send him sailing off the tower

 roof, whirling like a leaf. It seemed that the angel's grip

 on his arm was the only thing that held him where he sat.

 

 "From up here, the matters of Earth look small," she

 said. "That is one way to see, and a good one. But it is

 not the only one. The farther down you go, the harder

 things are to understandbut the more important they

 are. You must go very deep,"

 

 "I don't know how to do that." He stared at her face,

 but despite its familiarity it was still lifeless, just a casting

 of rough metal. There was no hint of friendship or kind-

 ness in the stiff features. "Where should I go? Who will

 help me?"

 

 "Deep. You." The angel suddenly stood; as her hand

 released him, Simon felt himself beginning to float free of

 the tower. He clutched a curving bit of the roof and clung.

 "It is hard for me to talk to you, Simon," she said. "I may

 not be able to again."

 

 "Why can't you just tell me?" he cried. His feet were

 floating off the edge; his body fluttered like a sail, trying

 to follow. "Just tell me!"

 

 "It is not so easy." The angel turned and slowly rose

 back to her plinth atop the tower roof. "If I can come

 again, I will. But it is only possible to talk clearly about

 less important things. The greatest truths lie within, al-

 ways within. They cannot be given. They must be found.*'

 

 Simon felt himself tugged free of his handhold. Slowly,

 like a cartwheel spun loose from its axle, he began to re-

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER257

 

 volve as he floated out. Sky and earth moved alternately

 past him, as though the world were a child's ball in which

 he had been imprisoned, a ball now sent rolling by a

 vengeful kick....

 

 Simon awakened in faint moonlight, sweating despite

 the chill night air. The dark bulk of Swertclif hung above

 him like a warning.

 

 The next day found Simon considerably less certain

 about things than he had been the night before. As they

 readied for the climb, he found himself worrying over the

 dream. If Amerasu had been right, if Simon had truly be-

 come more open to the Road of Dreams, could there be a

 meaning to what he had been told by the dream angel?

 How could he go deeper? He was about to climb a tall

 hill. And what answer was within? Some secret that even

 he didn't know? It just didn't make sense.

 

 The company set out as the sun began to warm in the

 sky- For the first part of the morning they rode up through

 the foothills, mounting Swertclif's lower reaches. As the

 lower, gentler slopes fell away behind them, they were

 forced to dismount and lead the horses.

 

 They stopped for a mid-moming meala little of the

 dried fruit and bread that Binabik had brought with him

 from Josua's camp stores.

 

 "I am thinking it is time to leave the horses behind us,"

 said the troll. "If Qantaqa is still wishing to come, she

 will climb on her own instead of. carrying me upon her

 back."

 

 Simon had not thought about having to leave

 Homefinder. He had hoped there would be a way to ride

 to the summit, but the only level path was the one on the

 far side of Swertclif, the funeral road that led across the

 top of the headland from Erchester and the Hayholt.

 

 Binabik had brought a good quantity of rope in his sad-

 dlebag; he sacrificed enough of it for Simon and

 Miriamele to leave their mounts tied on long tethers to a

 low, wind-curled tree within reach of a natural rocky pool

 full of rainwater. The two horses had ample room to graze

 during the half a day or more they would be required to

 

 258 Tad Williams

 

 wait. Simon laid his face against Homefinder's neck and

 quietly promised her he would be back as soon as he

 could.

 

 "Any other things there are that need doing?" asked

 Binabik; Simon stared up at the pinnacle of Swertclif and

 wished he could think of something that would forestall

 the climb a little longer. "Then let us be going," the troU

 said.

 

 Swertclif's eastern face was not as sheerly vertical as it

 seemed from a distance. By traversing diagonally, the

 company, with Qantaqa trailing behind, were even able

 occasionally to walk upright, although more often than

 not they went crouching from handhold to cautious hand-

 hold. In only one spot, a narrow chink between the cliff

 face and a standing stone, did Simon feel any worry, but

 he and his two companions inched through while

 Qantaqa, who had found some private wolfish path, stood

 on the far side with her tongue dangling pinkly, watching

 their struggles with apparent amusement.

 

 A few hours after noon the skies darkened and the air

 grew heavy. A light rain swept across the cliff face, wet-

 ting the climbers and worrying Simon. It was not so bad

 where they were, but it looked to get more difficult very

 soon, and there was nothing pleasant about the idea of

 trying to cross some of the steeply angled stones if they

 were slick with rain. But the small shower passed, and al-

 though the clouds remained threatening, no larger storm

 seemed imminent.

 

 The climb did grow steeper, but it was better than Si-

 mon had feared. Binabik was leading, and the little man

 was as surefooted as one of his Qanuc sheep. They only

 used the rope once, tying themselves for safety as they

 leapt from one grassy shelf to another over a long, slant-

 ing scree of naked stones. Everyone made the jump

 safely, although Miriamele scratched her hands and Si-

 mon banged his knee hard when he landed. Qantaqa

 seemed to find this part laughably easy as well.

 

 As they paused for breath on the far side of this cross-

 ing, Simon found that he was standing just a few cubits

 below a small patch of white flowersstarblooms

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 259

 

 whose petals gleamed like snowflakes in the dark green

 grass that surrounded them. He was heartened by the dis-

 covery: he'd seen very few flowers since he and

 Miriamele had first left Josua's camp. Even the Wiotercap

 or Frayja's Fire that one might expect to see at this cold

 time of the year had been scarce.

 

 The climb up Swertclif's face took longer than they

 had anticipated: as they toiled up the last long rise, the

 sun had sunk low in the sky, gleaming a handbreadth

 above the horizon behind the pall of clouds. They were

 all bent nearly double now and working hard for breath;

 

 they had been using their hands for balance and leverage

 so frequently in this last stage that Simon wondered what

 Qantaqa must think to see all her companions turned as

 four-footed as she. When they stepped up and could at

 last stand Upright on the grassy verge of Swertclif's sum-

 mit, a sliver of sun broke through, washing the rounded

 hill with pale light.

 

 The mounds of the Hayholt's kings lay before them,

 some hundred ells from where they stood struggling to re-

 gain breath. All except one of the barrows were nothing

 more than grassy humps, so rounded by time as to seem

 part of the hill; that one, which'was surely John's, was

 still only a pile of naked stones. At the hill's distant west-

 ern edge lay the dim bulk of the Hayholt; the needle-thin

 spire of Green Angel Tower was brighter than anything

 else in sight.

 

 Binabik cocked an eye up at the weak sun. "We are be-

 ing later than my hope. We will not be able to go down

 again before we are in darkness," He shrugged. "There is

 nothing that will help that. The horses will be able to feed

 themselves until the morning when we can return to

 them."

 

 "But what about..." Simon looked at Qantaqa, embar-

 rassed; he had been about to say "wolves," "-.. what

 about wild animals? Are you sure they'll be all right?"

 

 "Horses can be defending themselves very well. And I

 have seen few animals of any kind or name in these

 lands." Binabik patted Simon's arm. "And also there is

 nothing we can be doing otherwise except risking a bro-

 

 260

 

 Tad Williams

 

 ken neck or other unfortunate crunching or snapping of

 

 bones."

 

 Simon took a breath and started off toward the barrows.

 

 "Come on, then."

 

 The seven mounds were laid out in a partial circle.

 Space had been left for others to share this place. Simon

 felt a twinge of superstitious fear as he thought about

 that. Who else would lie here someday? Elias? Josua?

 Or neither? Perhaps the events that had been set in mo-

 tion meant that nothing expected would ever happen

 

 again.

 

 They walked into the center of the incomplete circle

 

 and stopped. The wind stirred and bent the grasses. The

 hilltop was silent. Simon walked to the first barrow,

 which had sunk into the waiting earth until it was scarcely

 a man's height, though it stretched several times that in

 length and was nearly equally wide. A verse floated into

 Simon's head, a verse and a memory of black statues in

 a dark, silent throne room.

 

 "Fingil first, named the Bloody King."

 

 he said quietly,

 

 "Flying out of the North on war's red wing."

 

 Now that he had spoken the initial verse, it seemed un-

 lucky to stop. He moved to the next barrow, which was as

 old and weatherworn as the first. A few stones glinted in

 the grass, like teeth-

 

 "Hjeldin his son, the Mad King dire

 Leaped to his death from the haunted spire."

 

 The third was set close to the second, as if the one

 buried there still sought protection from his predeces-

 sors.

 

 "Ikferdig next, the Burned King hight

 He met the fire-drake by dark of night."

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER26l

 

 Simon paused. There was a gap between this trio of

 mounds and the next, and there was also another verse

 prodding his memory. After a moment, it came.

 

 "Three northern kings, all dead and cold

 The north rules no more in lofty Hayholt."

 

 He moved to the second group of three, the song

 swiftly coming back to him now, so that he did not have

 to search for words. Miriamele and Binabik stood in si-

 lence, watching and listening.

 

 "The Heron King Sulis, called Apostate

 Fled Nabban, but in Hayholt he met his fate

 

 "The Hemystir Holly King, old Tethtain

 Came in at the gate, but not out again

 

 "Last, Eahlstan Fisher King, in lore most high

 The dragon he woke, and in Hayholt he died."

 

 Simon took a deep breath. It almost seemed that he was

 saying a magical spell, that a few more words might bring

 the barrows' inhabitants up from their centuried sleep,

 grave ornaments clinking as they broke through the earth.

 

 "Six kings have ruled in Hayholt's broad halls

 Six masters have stridden her mighty stone walls

 Six mounds on the cliff over deep Kynslagh-bay

 Six kings will sleep there until Doom's final day ..."

 

 When he finished, the wind grew stronger for a mo-

 ment, flattening the grass and moaning as it whirled

 across the hilltop . -. but nothing else happened. The

 mounds remained silent and secretive. Their long shad-

 ows lay on the sward, stretching toward the east.

 

 "Of course, there are seven kings here now," he said,

 ^breaking the silence. Now that the moment had come, he

 " was tremendously unsettled. His heart was rattling in his

 | ribs and he suddenly found it hard to speak without the

 

 262

 

 Tad Williams

 

 words catching in his throat. He turned to face the last

 barrow. It was higher than the rest, and the grass had only

 partly covered the pile of stones. It looked like the shell

 of an immense sea-creature stranded by the waves of

 some ancient flood.

 

 "King John Presbyter," said Simon.

 

 "My grandfather."

 

 Struck by the sound of Miriamele's voice, Simon

 turned. She appeared positively haunted, her face color-

 less, her eyes hollow and frightened.

 

 "I can't watch this," she said. "I'm going to wait over

 there." She turned and made her way around Fingil's bar-

 row, sinking down out of sight at last as she sat, presum-

 ably to look out to the east and the hilly land they had just

 crossed.

 

 "Let us be working, then,'* said Binabik. "I will not be

 enjoying this task, but you spoke rightly, Simon: we are

 here, and it would be foolishness not to take the sword."

 

 "Prester John would want us to," he said with more

 confidence than he felt. "He would want us to do what we

 can to save his kingdom, his people."

 

 "Who knows what the dead are wishing?" Binabik said

 darkly. "Come, let us work. Still we must be making at

 least some shelter for ourselves before night comes, for

 hiding the light of a fire if nothing else. Miriamele," he^ ^

 called, "can you look to see if some of those shrubs there

 along the hill could provide some wood for burning?"

 

 She raised her hand in acknowledgment.

 

 Simon bent to John's cairn and began tugging at one of

 the stones. It clung to the giassy earth so tenaciously that

 Simon had to put his boot on the stone beside it to help

 him pull it free. He stood up and wiped sweat from his

 face. His chain mail was too bulky and uncomfortable for

 this sort of work. He unlaced it and removed it, then took

 off the padded jerkin, too, and laid them both in the grass

 beside the mound. The wind ^clawed at him through 'his

 thin shirt.

 

 "Halfway across Osten Ard we have been traveling,"

 Binabik said as he dug his fingers into the earth, "and no

 one was thinking to find a shovel."

 

 263

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 "I have my sword," said Simon.

 

 "Save it until there is real need." A little of the troll's

 usual dryness had returned- "Gouging at stones has a

 dulling effect on blades, I am told. And we may be need-

 ing a sword with some sharpness. Especially if anyone

 notices us at our work digging up the High King's father."

 

 Simon shut his eyes for a moment and said a brief

 prayer asking Aedon's forgivenessand Prester John's,

 too, for good measurefor what they were about to do.

 

 The sun was gone. The gray sky was beginning to turn

 pink at its western edge, a color that Simon usually found

 pleasant, but which now looked like something beginning

 to spoil- The last stone had been pulled out of the hole in

 the side of Prester John's grass-fringed cairn. The black

 nothingness that lay beyond looked like a wound in the

 flesh of the world.

 

 Binabik rumbled with his flints. When at last he struck

 a spark, he lit the end of the torch and shielded it from the

 brisk wind until it caught. Unwilling to stare at the wait-

 ing blackness, Simon looked out instead across the dark

 green of the hilltop. Miriamele .was a small figure in the

 distance, bending and rising as she scavenged for the

 makings of a campfire. Simon wished he could stop now,

 just turn and go. He wished he had never thought of such

 a foolish thing to do.

 

 Binabik waved the flame inside the hole, pulled it out,

 then pushed the torch back inside again. He got down on

 his knees and took a cautious sniff. "The air, it is seem-

 ing, is at least good." He pushed more clods of earth from

 the edge of the hole before poking his head through. "I

 can see the wooden sides of something. A boat?"

 

 "Sea-Arrow." The gravity of what they were doing had

 begun to settle on Simon like a great weight. "Yes, Pres-

 ter John's boat. He was buried in it."

 

 Binabik edged in a little farther. "There is plenty of room

 for me to stand in here," he said. His voice was muffled.

 "And the timbers above are seeming to me quite sturdy."

 

 "Binabik," said Simon. "Come out."

 

 264 Tad Williams

 

 The little man backed up until he could turn to look.

 "What is wrong, Simon?"

 

 "It was my idea. I should be the one to go in."

 

 Binabik raised an eyebrow. "No one is wishing to take

 from you the glory of finding the sword. It is only that I

 am being smallest and best suited for cave-wandering."

 

 "It's not the gloryit's in case anything happens., I

 don't want you hurt because of my stupid idea."

 

 "Your idea? Simon, there is no blame here. I am doing

 what I think is being best. And I am thinking there is

 nothing inside here to hurt anyone." He paused. "But if

 you wish ..." He stepped aside.

 

 Simon lowered himself to his hands and knees, then

 took the torch from the troll's small hand and pushed it

 into the hole before him. In the flickering light he could

 see the great muddy sweep of Sea-Arrow's hull; the boat

 was curved like a huge dead leaf, like a cocoon ... as

 though something within it was waiting to be reborn.

 

 Simon sat up and shook his head. His heart was ham-

 mering.

 

 Mooncalf! What are you afraid of? Prester John was a

 good man.

 

 Yes, but what if his ghost was angry about what had

 happened to his kingdom? And surely no spirit liked its

 grave being robbed.

 

 Simon took in a gulp of air, then slowly eased himself

 through the hole in the side of the mound-

 He slid down the crumbling slope of the pit until he

 touched the boat's hull. The dome of spars and mud and

 white root tendrils stretching overhead seemed a sky cre-

 ated by a feeble, half-blind god. When he finally took an-

 other breath, his nostrils filled with the smells of soil and

 pine sap and mildew, as well as stranger scents he could

 not identify, some of them as exotic as the contents of Ju-

 dith me Kitchen Mistress' spice jars. The sweet strength

 took him by surprise and set him choking. Binabik

 popped his head through the hole.

 

 "Are you well? Is there badness to the air?"

 

 Simon regained his breath- "I'm well. I just ..." He

 swallowed. "Don't worry."

 

 

 

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER265

 

 Binabik hesitated, then withdrew.

 

 Simon looked at the side of the hull for what seemed a

 very long time. Because of the way it was wedged in the

 pit, the wales rose higher than his head. Simon could not

 see a way to climb with one hand, and the torch was too

 thick to be carried comfortably in his mouth. After a mo-

 ment in which he was strongly tempted to turn and clam-

 ber back out again and let Binabik solve the problem, he

 wedged the butt of the torch in beside one of the mound

 timbers, then threw his hands over the wale and pulled

 himself up, kicking his feet in search of a toehold. The

 wood of Sea-Arrow's hull felt slimy beneath his fingers

 but held his weight.

 

 Simon pulled the top half of his body over the wale and

 hung there for a moment, balanced, the edge of the boat

 pushing up against his stomach like a fist. The sweet,

 musty odor was very strong. Looking down, he almost

 cursedbiting back words that might be unlucky and were

 certainly disrespectfulwhen he realized that he had

 placed the torch too low for its light to reach into the boat's

 hull. All he could see beneath him were ill-defined lumps

 of shadow. Of course, he thought, it should be simple

 enough to find a single body and the sword it held, even in

 darkness: he could do it by touch alone. But there was not

 a chance in the world that Simon was going to try that.

 

 "Binabik!" he shouted. "Can you come help me?" He

 was proud of how steady his voice sounded.

 

 The troll clambered over the lip of the hole and slid

 down the incline. "Are you trapped somehow?"

 

 "No, but I can't see anything without the torch- Can

 you get it for me?"

 

 As Simon hung over the dark hull, the wooden wale

 trembled. Simon had a moment's fear that it might col-

 lapse beneath him, a fear that was not made less by a

 quiet creaking that drifted through the underground cham-

 ber. Simon was almost certain that the noise came from

 the tormented woodthe king's boat had been two years

 in the wet ground, after allbut it was hard not to imag-

 ine a hand ... an ancient, withered hand ... reaching up

 from the shadowed hull....

 

 266 Tad Williams

 

 "Binabik!?"

 

 "I am bringing it, Simon. It was higher than I could be

 reaching."

 

 "Sorry. Just hurry, please."

 

 The light on the roof of the barrow changed as the flame

 was moved. Simon felt a tapping on his foot. Balancing as

 carefully as he could, he swung his legs around, pivoting

 until he was lying with his stomach along the length of the

 wale and could reach down and take the torch from

 Binabik's upstretched hand. With another silent prayer

 and his eyes half-shut for fear of what he might see

 Simon turned and leaned over the void of the inner hull.

 

 At first it was hard to see anything. He opened his eyes

 wider. Small stones and dirt had worked loose from the bar-

 row ceiling and covered much of Sea-Arrow's contents

 but the detritus of the grave had not covered everything.

 

 "Binabik!" Simon cried. "Look!"

 

 "What!?" The troll, alarmed, rushed along the hull to a

 spot where the boat touched the wall of the barrow, then

 clambered up, nimble as on a high Mintahoq trail. Bal-

 ancing lightly atop the wale, he worked his way over until

 he was near Simon.

 

 "Look." Simon gestured with the shaking torch.

 

 King John Presbyter lay in the bosom of Sea-Arrow,

 surrounded by his funeral gifts, clad still in the magnifi-

 cent raiment in which he had been buried. On the High

 King's brow was a golden circlet; his hands were folded

 on his chest, resting on his long snowy beard. John's skin,

 but for a certain waxy translucency, looked as firm as the

 flesh of a living man. After several seasons in the corrupt-

 ing earth, he seemed to be only sleeping.

 

 But, terrifyingly strange as it was to see the king whole

 and uncorrupted, that was not all that had made Simon

 cry out.

 

 "Kikkasut!" Binabik swore, no less surprised than Si-

 mon. A moment later he had clambered down into the

 hull of the boat.

 

 A search of the grave and its effects confirmed it: Pres-

 ter John still lay in his resting place on Swertclifbut

 Bright-Nail was gone-

 

 11

 

 Heartbeats

 

 

 

 ''Just because Varellan is my brother does not mean I

 will suffer stupidity," Duke Benigaris snarled at the

 knight who kneeled before him. He smacked his open

 palm on the arm of his throne. 'Tell him to hold firm un-

 til I arrive with the Kingfishers- If he does not, I will

 hang his head from the Sancellan's gate-wall!"

 

 "Please, my lord," said his armorer, who was hovering

 just to one side, "I beg you, do not thrash about so. I am

 trying to measure."

 

 "Yes, do sit still," added his mother. She occupied the

 same low but ornate chair she had when her husband

 ruled in Nabban. "If you had not been making such a pig

 of yourself, your old armor would still fit."

 

 Benigaris stared at her, mustache twitching with fury.

 "Thank you, Mother."

 

 "And do not be so cruel to Varellan. He is hardly more

 than a child."

 

 "He is a dawdling, simpering halfwitand it is you

 who spoiled him. Who talked me into letting him lead the

 troops at the Onestrine Pass, in any case?"

 

 Dowager Duchess Nessalanta waved her hand in airy

 dismissal. "Anyone could hold that pass against a ragtag

 mob like Josua's. / could. And the experience will do him

 good."

 

 The duke jerked his arm free of the armorer's grasp

 and slammed it on the chair arm once more. "By the Tree,

 Mother! He has given up two leagues in less than a fort-

 night, despite having several thousand foot soldiers and

 

 268 Tad Williams

 

 half a thousand knights. He is falling back so fast that by

 the time I ride out the front door, I will probably trip over

 him."

 

 "Xannasavin says there is nothing to fret about," she

 replied, amused. "He has examined the skies carefully.

 Benigaris, please calm yourself. Be a man."

 

 The duke's stare was icy. His jaw worked for a momenf

 before he spoke. "One of these days, Mother, you will

 push me too far."

 

 "And what will you dothrow me into the cells? Cut

 off my head?" Her look become fierce. "You need me.

 Not to mention the respect you owe the one who bore

 you."

 

 Benigaris scowled, took a deep breath, then turned his

 attention back to the knight who had delivered young

 Varellan's message. "What do you wait for?" he de-

 manded. "You heard what I had to say. Now go and tell

 him."

 

 The knight rose and made an elaborate bow, then

 turned and walked from the throne room. The ladies in

 colorful dresses who were talking quietly near the door

 watched him go, then huddled and began discussing

 something that caused them to giggle loudly.

 

 Benigaris again tugged his wrist free of the armorer's

 clutch, this time so he could snap his lingers at one of the

 pages, who trotted over with a cup of wine.

 

 The duke took a draught and wiped his mouth. "There

 is more to Josua's army than we first thought. People say

 that the High King's brother has found a mighty knight

 who fights at the head of his army. They are claiming it

 is Camaris. Seriddan of Metessa believes it, or at least he

 has joined them." He grimaced. "Traitorous dog."

 

 Nessalanta laughed sourly. "I didn't give Josua as

 much credit as he deserved, I admit. It is a clever ploy.

 Nothing arouses the common folk like the mention of

 your uncle's name. But Seriddan? You ask me to worry

 about him and a few other puny barons from the wilder-

 ness? The Metessan Crane hasn't flown from the palace

 towers in five hundred years. They are nobodies."

 

 "So you are quite sure that this talk of Sir Camaris is

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER269

 

 just a ploy?" Benigaris' words, intended to be mocking,

 came out a little hollow.

 

 "Of course it is! How could it be him? Camaris is forty

 years dead."

 

 "But his body was never found. Father always ago-

 nized because he couldn't give his brother an Aedonite

 burial."

 

 The duchess made a noise of dismissal but kept her

 eyes on her needlework. "I knew Camaris, my brave son.

 You did not. Even if he had Joined a monastery or gone

 into hiding, word would have leaked out: he was so

 madly honest he could never have lied to anyone who

 asked him who he was. And he was so self-satisfied, such

 a meddler, that it is not possible he would have stood by

 while Prester John fought the second Thrithings War

 without leaping in to be Camaris the Magnificent,

 Camaris the Holy, Camaris the Great." Nessalanta pricked

 her finger and cursed under her breath- "No, this is no liv-

 ing Camaris that Josua has foundand it is certainly no

 ghost. It is some tall imposter, some oversized grassland

 mercenary with his hair whitened with powder. A trick.

 But it makes no difference in any case." She examined

 her stitchery for a moment, then put the hoop down with

 an air of satisfaction. "Even the real Camaris could not

 unseat us. We are too strong ... and his age is gone,

 gone, gone."

 

 Benigaris looked at her appraisingly. "Unseat us... ?"

 he began, but was interrupted by a movement at the

 room's far end. A herald with the golden kingfisher sigil

 on his tabard had appeared in die throne room doorway.

 

 "Your Highness," the man said in loud ceremonial

 tones. "Count Streawe of Ansis Pellip6 arrives at your

 summons."

 

 The duke settled back, a smile tightening his lips. "Ah,

 yes- Send the count in."

 

 Streawe's litter was carried through the doors and set

 near the great high-arched windows that overlooked the

 sea, windows covered today in heavy draperies to keep

 out the cold air. The count's minions lifted out his chair

 and put it down before the dais that bore the ducal throne-

 

 270 Tad Williams

 

 The count coughed, then caught his breath. "Greetings,

 Duke," he wheezed- "And Duchess Nessalanta, what a

 pleasure to see you! As usual, please forgive my sitting

 without your leave."

 

 "Of course, of course," Benigaris said cheerfully. "And

 how is your catarrh, Streawe? I cannot think that it is

 helped by our cold sea air- I know how warm you keep

 your house on Sta Mirore."

 

 "As a matter of fact, Benigaris, I had wished to speak

 to you of just that ..." the old man began, but the duke

 cut him short.

 

 "First things first, I regret to say. Forgive me my impa-

 tience, but we are at war as you know. I am a blunt man."

 

 Streawe nodded. "Your straightforwardness is well-

 known, my friend."

 

 "Yes. So, to the point, then. Where are my riverboats?

 Where are my Perdruinese troops?"

 

 The count raised a white eyebrow ever so slightly, but

 his voice and manner remained unperturbed. "Oh, all are

 coming. Highness. Never fear. When has Perdruin not

 honored a debt to her elder sister Nabban?"

 

 "But it has been two months," Benigaris said with

 mock sternness. "Streawe, Streawe, my old friend ... I

 might almost think that you were putting me offthat for

 some reason you were trying to stall me."

 

 This time the count's eyebrows betrayed no surprise,

 but nevertheless a subtle, indefinable change ran across

 his face. His eyes glittered in their net of wrinkled flesh.

 "I am disappointed that Nabban could think such a thing

 of Perdruin after our long and honorable partnership."

 Streawe dipped his head. "But it is true that the boats you

 wish for river transport have been slow in comingand

 for that I apologize most abjectly. You see, even with the

 many messages I have sent back home to Ansis Pellipe,

 detailing your needs with great care, there is no one who

 can get things accomplished in the way that I can when I

 take them in hand personally. I do not wish to malign my

 servitors, but, as we Perdruinese say, 'when the captain is

 below decks, there are many places to stretch a ham-

 mock.' " The count brought his long, gnarled fingers up

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 to brush something from his upper lip. "I should go back

 to Ansis Pellipe, Benigaris- As sad as I should be to lose

 the company of you and your beloved mother" he

 smiled at Nessalanta, "I feel confident that I could send

 your riverboats and the troop of soldiers we agree on

 within a week after returning." He coughed again, a

 wracking spasm that went on for some moments before

 he regained his wind. "And for all the beauty of your pal-

 ace, it is, as you said, a trifle airier than my own house.

 My health has worsened here, I fear."

 

 "Just so," said Benigaris. "Just so. We all fear for your

 health, Count. It has been much on my mind of late. And

 the men and boats, too." He paused, regarding Streawe

 with a smile that seemed increasingly smug. 'That is why

 I could not allow you to leave Just now. A sea voyage at

 this momentwhy, your catarrh would certainly worsen.

 And let me be brutally honest, dear Count ... but only

 because Nabban loves you so. If you were to grow more

 ill, not only would I hold myself responsible, but cer-

 tainly it would also slow the arrival of boats and men

 even more. For if they are haphazard now, with your care-

 ful instructions, imagine how laggard they would become

 with you ill and unable to oversee them at all. There

 would be many hammocks stretched then, I'm sure!"

 

 Streawe's eyes narrowed. "Ah. So you are saying that

 you think it best I do not leave just now?"

 

 "Oh, dear Count, I am insisting you remain."

 Benigaris, tiring at last of the ministrations of his ar-

 morer, waved the man away. "I could not forgive myself

 if I did anything less. Surely after the boats and your

 troop of soldiers arrive to help us defend against this

 madman Josua, the weather will have turned warm

 enough that you can safely travel again."

 

 The count considered this for a moment, giving every

 impression of weighing Benigaris' arguments. "By

 Pellipa and her bowl," he said at last, "I can see the sense

 of what you are saying, Benigaris." His tight grin dis-

 played surprisingly good teeth. "And I am touched at the

 concern you show for an old friend of your father's."

 

 "I honor you just as I honored him."

 

 272 Tad Williams

 

 "Indeed." Streawe's smile now became almost gentle.

 "How lovely that is. Honor is in such short supply in

 these grim days." He waved a knobby hand, summoning

 his bearers. "I suspect that I should send another letter to

 Ansis Pellipe, urging my castellain and boatwrights to

 hasten their efforts even more."

 

 "That sounds like a very good idea. Count. A very

 good idea." Benigaris sat back against the throne and

 finger-brushed his mustache- "Will we see you at table to-

 night?"

 

 "Oh, I think you will. Where else would I find such

 kind and considerate friends?" He leaned forward on his

 chair, sketching a bow. "Duchess Nessalantaa pleasure

 as always, gracious lady."

 

 Nessalanta smiled and nodded. "Count Streawe."

 

 The old man was lifted back into his litter. After the

 curtain was drawn, his four servitors carried him from the

 throne room.

 

 "I do not think you needed to be so ham-fisted," said

 Nessalanta when the count had gone. "He is no danger to

 us. Since when have sticky-fingered Perdruinese ever

 wanted more than to earn a little gold?"

 

 "They have been known to accept coins from more

 than one pocket." Benigaris lifted his cup. "This way,

 Streawe will have a much stronger wish to see us victori-

 ous. He is not a stupid man."

 

 "No, he certainly is not. That is why I don't understand

 the need to use such a heavy hand."

 

 "Everything I know. Mother," said Benigaris heartily,

 "I learned from you."

 

 

 

 Isgrimnur was growing annoyed.

 

 Josua could not seem to keep his attention on the mat-

 ters at hand; instead, every few moments he went to the

 door of the tent and stared back up the valley at the mon-

 astery standing on the hillside, a humble collection of

 stone buildings that glowed golden-brown in the slanting

 sunlight.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER273

 

 "She is not dying, Josua," the duke finally growled.

 "She is only expecting a child."

 

 The prince looked up guiltily. "What?"

 

 "You have been staring at that place all afternoon." He

 levered his bulk off the stool and walked to Josua's side,

 then placed a hand on the prince's shoulder. "If you are

 so consumed, Josua, then go to her. But I assure you she

 is in good hands. What my wife doesn't know about ba-

 bies isn't worth knowing."

 

 "I know, I know." The prince returned to the map

 spread out on the tabletop. "I cannot stop my mind chum-

 ing, old friend. Tell me what we were talking about."

 

 Isgrimnur sighed. "Very well." He bent to the map.

 "Camaris says there is a shepherd's trail that runs above

 the valley...."

 

 Someone made a discreet noise in the doorway of the

 tent. Josua looked up. "Ah, Baron. Welcome back. Please

 come in."

 

 Seriddan was accompanied by Sludig and Freosel. All

 exchanged greetings as Josua brought out a jug of

 Teligure wine. The baron and Josua's lieutenants bore the

 marks of a day's muddy riding-

 

 "Young Varellan has dug in his heels just before Chasu

 Yarinna," the baron said, grinning. "He has more grit than

 I thought. I had expected him to fall back all the way to

 the Onestrine Pass."

 

 "And why hasn't he?" Isgrimnur asked.

 

 Seriddan shook his head. "Perhaps because he feels

 that once the battle for the pass begins, there is no turning

 back."

 

 "That might mean that he is not so sure of our weak-

 ness as his brother Benigaris is," Josua mused. "Perhaps

 he may prove willing to talk."

 

 "What is just as likely," said Sludig, "is that he is try-

 ing to keep us out of the pass until Duke Benigaris comes

 up with reinforcements. Whatever they might have

 thought of our strength to start with. Sir Camaris has

 changed their minds, I promise you."

 

 "Where is Camaris?" Josua asked.

 

 "With Hotvig and the rest up at the front." Sludig

 

 274

 

 Tad Williams

 

 shook his head in wonderment. "Merciful Aedon, I heard

 all the stories, but I thought they were just cradle songs.

 Prince Josua, I have never seen anything like him! When

 he and Hotvig's horsemen were caught between two

 wings of Varellan's knights two days ago, we were all

 sure that he was as good as dead or captured. But he

 broke the Nabbanai knights like they were kindling woocM

 One he cut nearly in half with a single stroke. Sheared

 right through him, armor and all! Surely that sword is

 magical!"

 

 "Thorn is a powerful weapon," said Josua. "But with it

 or without it, there has never been a knight like Camaris."

 

 "His horn Cellian has become a terror to the

 Nabbanmen," Sludig continued. "When it echoes down

 the valley, some of them turn and ride away. And out of

 every troop Camaris defeats, he takes one of the prisoners

 and sends him back to say: 'Prince Josua and the others

 wish to talk with your lord.* He has beaten down so many

 that he must have sent two dozen Nabbanai prisoners

 back by now, each one carrying the same message."

 

 Seriddan raised his wine cup. "Here's to him. If he is

 a terror now, what must he have been like in the height of

 his powers? I was a boy when Camaris ..." he laughed

 shortly, "I almost said 'died.' When he disappeared. I

 never saw him."

 

 "He was little different," Isgrimnur said thoughtfully.

 "That is what surprises me. His body has aged, but his

 skills and fighting heart have not. As though his powers

 have been preserved."

 

 "As though for one final test," Josua said, measuring

 out the words. "God grant that it is soand that he suc-

 ceeds, for all our sakes."

 

 "But I am puzzled." Seriddan took another sip. "You

 have told me that Camaris hates war, that he would rather

 do anything than fight- Yet I have never seen such a kill-

 ing engine."

 

 Josua's smile was sad, his look troubled. "Camaris at

 war is like a lady's maid swatting spiders."

 

 "What?" Seriddan lowered his eyebrows and squinted,

 wondering if he was being mocked.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER275

 

 "If you tell a maid to go and kill the spiders in her la-

 dy's chamber," the prince explained, "she will think of a

 hundred excuses not to do anything. But when she is fi-

 nally convinced that it must be done, no matter the horror

 she feels, she will dispatch every single spider with great

 thoroughness, just to make sure she does not have to take

 up the task again." His faint smile disappeared. "And that

 is Camaris. The only thing he hates worse than warfare is

 unnecessary warfareespecially killings which could

 have been avoided by making a clean ending the first

 time. So once he is committed, Camaris makes sure that

 he does not have to do the same thing twice." He raised

 his glass in salute to the absent knight- "Imagine how'it

 must feel to do best in all the world what you least wish

 to do."

 

 After that, they drank their wine in silence for a time.

 

 A

 

 Tiamak limped out across the terrace. He found a place

 on the low wall and hoisted himself up, then sat with his

 legs dangling and basked in the late afternoon light. The

 Frasilis Valley stretched before"him, two rippling banks

 of dark soil and gray-green treetops with the Anitullean

 Road snaking between them. If he narrowed his eyes,

 Tiamak could make out the shapes of Josua's tents nestled

 in the purple shadows of the hillside to the southwest.

 

 My companions may think we Wrannamen live like sav-

 ages. he thought to himself, but I am as happy as anyone

 to be in one place for a few days and to have a solid roof

 over my head.

 

 One of the monks walked by, hands folded in his

 sleeve. He gave Tiamak a look that lasted the length of

 several steps, but only nodded his head in formal greet-

 ing.

 

 The monks do not seem happy to have us here. He felt

 himself smiling. Unwilling as they are to be caught up in

 a war, how much more dubious must they be about having

 women and marsh men'within the cloisters, too?

 

 Still, Tiamak was glad that Josua had chosen this spot

 

 276 Tad Willwms

 

 as a temporary refuge, and that he had allowed his wife

 and many others to remain here as the army moved far-

 ther down the gorge. The Wrannaman sighed as he felt

 the cool, dry breeze, the sunshine on his face. It was good

 to have shelter, even for just a little while. It was good

 that the rains had let up, that the sun had returned.

 

 But as Josua said. he reminded himself, it means noth-

 ing. A respite is allthe Storm King has not been slowed

 by anything we have done so far. If we cannot solve the

 riddles before us, if we cannot gain the swords and leam

 how to use them, this moment of peace will mean nothing.

 The deadly winter will returnand there will be no sun-

 shine then. He Who Always Steps on Sand, let me not fail!

 Let Strangyeard and me find the answers we seek!

 

 But answers were becoming fewer and farther between.

 The search was a responsibility that had begun to feel

 more and more burdensome. Binabik was gone, Geloe

 was dead, and now only Tiamak and the diffident priest

 remained of all the Scrollbearers and other wise ones. To-

 gether they had pored over Morgenes' manuscript,

 searching it minutely from one end to the other in hope of

 finding some clues they had missed, some help with the

 riddle of me Great Swords. They had also scrutinized the

 translated scrolls of Binabik's master Ookequk, but so far

 these had provided nothing but a great deal of trollish

 wisdom, most of which seemed to concern predicting av-

 alanches and singing away the spirits of frostbite.

 

 But if Strangyeard and I do not find more success soon,

 Tiamak thought grimly, we may have more need of

 Ookequk's wisdom than we will like.

 

 In the past few days, Tiamak had set Strangyeard to re-

 late every bit of information that the archivist possessed

 about the Great Swords and their undead enemyhis

 own book-learning, the things old Jamauga had taught

 him, the experiences of the youth Simon and his compan-

 ions, everything that had happened in the last year that

 might contain some clue to their dilemma. Tiamak prayed

 that a pattern might show somewhere, as the ripples in a

 river demonstrated the presence of a rock beneath the sur-

 face. In all the lore of these wise men and women, these

 

 TO GREBN ANGEL TOWER277

 

 adventurers and accidental witnesses, someone must

 know something of how to use the Great Swords.

 

 Tiamak sighed again and wiggled his toes. He longed

 to be just a little man with little problems again. How im-

 portant those problems had seemed! And how he longed

 to have only those problems now. He held up his hand

 and looked at the play of light across his knuckles, a gnat

 that crept across the thin dark hairs on his wrist. The day

 was deceptively pleasant, just like the surface of a stream.

 But there was no question that rocks or worse lay hidden

 beneath.

 

 A

 

 "Please lie back, Vorzheva," said Aditu.

 

 The Thrithings-woman made a face. "Now you talk

 like Josua. It is only a little pain."

 

 "You see what she's like." Gutrun wore an air of grim

 satisfaction. "If I could tie her to that bed, I would."

 

 "I do not think that she needs to be tied to anything,"

 the Sitha woman replied. "But Vorzheva, neither is there

 any dishonor in lying down when you are in pain."

 

 The prince's wife reluctantly slumped back against the

 cushions and allowed Gutrun to pull the blanket-up. "1

 was not raised to be weak." In the light filtering down

 from the high small window she was very pale.

 

 "You are not weak. But both your life and the child's

 life are precious," Aditu said gently. "When you feel well

 and strong, move around as you like. When you are hurt-

 ing or weak, lie down and let Duchess Gutrun or me help

 you." She stood and took a few steps toward the door.

 

 "You are not going to leave?" Vorzheva asked in dis-

 may. "Stay and talk to me. Tell me what is happening

 outside. Gutrun and I have been in this room all day-

 Even the monks do not speak to us. I think they bate

 women.'*

 

 Aditu smiled. "Very well. My other tasks can wait in

 such a good cause." The Sitha seated herself upon the bed

 once more, folding her legs beneath her. "Duchess

 

 278

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Gutrun. if you wish to stretch your legs, I will be here to

 sit with Vorzheva for a little while longer."

 

 Gutrun sniffed dismissively. "I'm Just where I should

 be." She turned back to her sewing.

 

 Vorzheva reached out her hand and clasped Aditu's fin-

 gers. "Tell me what you have seen today. Did you go to

 

 Leieth?"

 

 The Sitha nodded, her silver-white hair swinging. "Yes.

 She is just a few rooms awaybut there is no change.

 And she is growing very thin. I mix nurturing herbs with

 the small draughts of water she will swallow, but even

 that is not enough, I fear. Something still tethers her to

 her bodyto look at her she seems only to be sleeping

 but I wonder how much longer that tie will hold." A trou-

 bled look seemed to pass over Aditu's alien face. "This is

 another way that Geloe's passing has lessened us. Surely

 the forest woman would know some root, some leafy

 thing that might draw Leieth's spirit back."

 

 "I'm not sure," Gutrun said without looking up. "That

 child was never more than half hereI know, and I cared

 for her and held her as much as anyone. Whatever hap-

 pened to her in the forest when she traveled with

 Miriamele, those dogs and merciful Usires only knows

 what else, it took a part of her away." She paused. "It's

 not your fault, Aditu. You've done all that anyone could,

 I'm sure."

 

 Aditu turned to look at Gutrun, but betrayed no change

 of expression at the duchess' conciliatory tone. "But it is

 sad," was all she said.

 

 "Sad, yes," Gutrun replied. "God's wishes often make

 His children sad. We just don't understand, I suppose,

 what He plans. Surely after all she suffered. He has some-

 thing better in mind for little Leieth."

 

 Aditu spoke carefully. "I hope that is so."

 

 "And what else do you have to tell me?" Vorzheva

 asked. "I guessed about Leieth. You would have told me

 first if there was any new thing."

 

 "There is not much else to relate. The Duke of

 Nabban's forces have fallen back a little farther, but soon

 they will stop and fight again. Josua and the others are

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER279

 

 trying to arrange a truce so that they can stop the fighting

 and talk."

 

 "Will these Nabbanai talk to us?"

 

 Aditu shrugged sinuously. "I sometimes wonder if I un-

 derstand even the mortals I know best. As to those who

 arc completely strange to me ... I certainly cannot offer

 any firm idea as to what these men may do. But the

 Nabbanai general is a brother of the ruling duke, I am

 told, so I doubt that he will be very sympathetic to any-

 thing your husband has to say."

 

 Vorzheva's face contorted. She gasped, but then waved

 the solicitous Aditu back. "No, I am well. It was just a

 squeezing." After a moment she took a deep breath. "And

 Josua? How is he?"

 

 The Sitha looked to Gutrun, who raised her eyebrows

 in a gesture of amused helplessness. "He was just here

 this morning, Vorzheva," the duchess said. "He is not in

 the fighting."

 

 "He is well," Aditu added. "He asked me to send his

 regards."

 

 "Regards?" Vorzheva sat up. "What sort of word is that

 from a man, from a husband?-Regards?"

 

 "Oh, Elysia, Mother of Mercy," Gutrun said in disgust.

 "You know that he cares for you, Vorzheva. Let it go."

 

 The Thrithings-woman sank back, her hair spreading

 against the pillow like a shining dark cloth. "It is only be-

 cause I cannot do anything. Tomorrow I will be stronger.

 Tomorrow I will walk to where I can see the battle."

 

 "Only if you can drag me that far," said the duchess.

 "You should have seen her, Aditushe couldn't stand

 this morning, the pains were so dreadful. If I had not

 caught her, she would have fallen down right on the stone

 floor."

 

 "If she is strong enough," Aditu said, "then for her to

 walk is certainly goodbut carefully, and not too great a

 distance." She paused, looking at the Thrithings-woman

 carefully. "I think perhaps you are too excitable to look at

 the battle, Vorzheva."

 

 "Hah." Vorzheva's disgust was plain. "You said your

 

 280

 

 Tad Williams

 

 people hardly ever have children. Why are you now so

 wise about what I should do?"

 

 "Since our birthings are so infrequent, we take them all

 the more seriously." Aditu smiled regretfully. "I would

 greatly love to bear a child one day. It has been a privi-

 lege to be with you while you cany yours." She leaned

 forward and pulled back the coverlet. "Let me listen." /

 

 "You will only say that the baby is too unhappy to go

 walking tomorrow," Vorzheva complained, but she did

 not prevent Aditu from laying a golden cheek against her

 tautly rounded stomach.

 

 Aditu shut her upturned eyes as though she were falling

 asleep. For a long moment, her thin face seemed set in al-

 most perfect repose. Then her eyes opened wide, a flash-

 ing of brilliant amber. "Venyha s'ahn!" she hissed in

 surprise. She lifted her head for a moment, then placed

 her ear back against Vorzheva's belly.

 

 "What?" Outrun was -out of her chair in a heartbeat,

 stitchery tumbling to the floor. "The child! Is the child

 ... is something wrong?"

 

 'Tell me, Aditu." Vorzheya was lying perfectly still,

 but her voice cracked at the edges. "Do not spare me."

 

 The Sitha began to laugh.

 

 "Are you mad?" Gutrun demanded. "What is it?"

 

 Aditu sat up. "I am sorry. I was marveling at the con-

 tinuing astonishment I feel around you mortals. And

 when I think that my own people count themselves lucky

 if we birth a handful of children in a hundred years!"

 

 "What are you talking about?" Outrun snapped.

 Vorzheva looked too frightened to ask any more ques-

 tions.

 

 "I am talking about mortals, about the gifts you have

 that you do not know." She laughed again, but more qui-

 etly. 'There are two heartbeats."

 

 The duchess stared. "What... ?"

 

 "Two heartbeats," Aditu said evenly. 'Two children are

 growing inside of Vorzheva."

 

 12

 

 Sleepless in Darkness

 

 *

 

 Simon's disappointment was an emptiness deep and

 hollow as the barrow in which they stood. "It's gone," he

 whispered. "Bright-Nail isn't here."

 

 "Of that there is being little doubt." In the torchlight,

 Binabik's face was grim- "Qinkipa of the Snows! I almost

 am wishing we did not find out until we had come here

 with Prince Josua's army. I do not wish to take him such

 news."

 

 "But what could have happened to ft?" Simon stared

 down at the waxen face of Prester John as though the

 king might wake from his deathly sleep to give an an-

 swer.

 

 "It seems plain to me that Elias knew its value and

 took it away. I am not doubting it is sitting in the Hayholt

 now." The troll shrugged; his voice was heavy. "Well, we

 knew always that we must be taking Sorrow from him.

 Two swords or one seems to me a small difference only."

 

 "But Elias couldn't have taken it! There was no hole

 until we dug one!"

 

 "Perhaps he was taking it out shortly after John was

 buried. The marks would be gone after such a time pass-

 ing."

 

 "That doesn't make any sense," Simon stubbornly in-

 sisted. "He could have kept it in the first place if he

 wanted it. Towser said that Elias hated itthat he

 couldn't wait to get rid of it."

 

 "I have no certain answers, Simon. It is being possible

 that King Elias did not know its value then, but heard of

 

 282 Tad Williams

 

 it later. Perhaps Pryrates was discovering its power and so

 had it removed. There are many things possible." The

 troll passed his torch to Simon, then crawled off the wale

 of Prester John's boat and began to clamber back up to-

 ward the hole they had made. The twilit sky shone

 through, blue-gray and muddy with clouds.

 

 "I don't believe it." Simon's hands, weary with dig-

 ging, painfully sore still from the ordeal in Hasu Vale,

 hung limply in his lap. "I don't want to believe it."

 

 "The second, I am afraid, is the truer thing," Binabik

 said kindly. "Come, friend Simon, we will see if

 Miriamele has made a fire. Some hot soup will be making

 the situation a little easier for thinking about." He

 climbed to the lip of the hole and wriggled out, then

 turned. "Hand the torches to me, then I will be helping

 you out."

 

 Simon barely heard the troll's words. His attention

 abruptly caught by something, he held both torches

 higher, leaning out over the boat once more to stare at the

 base of the barrow's far wall.

 

 "Simon, what are you seeking still?" Binabik called.

 "We have already nearly turned the poor king's body

 overside-up in searching."

 

 "There's something on the other side of the mound-

 Something dark."

 

 "Oh?" A trace of alarm crept into Binabik's tone.

 "What dark something are you seeing?" He leaned farther

 in through the entrance they had dug, blocking the view

 of the sky.

 

 Simon took both torches in one hand, then slid along

 the wale of Sea-Arrow until he could get close enough to

 confirm his suspicions. "It's a hole!"

 

 "That does not seem to me surprising," the troll said.

 

 "But it's a big oneright into the side of the mound.

 Maybe it's the one they used to get in."

 

 Binabik stared at the spot where he pointed, then sud-

 denly vanished from the opening. Simon inched closer.

 The ragged hole in the side of the barrow was as wide as

 an ale cask.

 

 The troll reappeared. "I see nothing on the outer side

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER283

 

 that matches," he called. "If they were making their hole

 there they covered it with great care, or they were doing

 it long ago; the grass is untouched."

 

 Simon made his way carefully around to the narrow

 stem. He let himself down from the wale into Sea-Arrow

 and moved as carefully as he could to the other railing,

 then clambered up. There was a space little more than a

 cubit wide between the outside of the hull and the bar-

 row's wall of mud and timber. He slid down to the floor

 so that he could examine the hole more closely, bringing

 the torch close to the shadowed gap. Surprise set his neck

 tingling. "Aedon," he said quietly. "It goes down."

 

 "What?" Binabik's voice reflected some impatience.

 "Simon, there are things to do before the darkness is be-

 coming full."

 

 "It goes down, Binabik! The tunnel beyond this hole

 goes down!" He thrust his torches into the opening and

 leaned as close as he dared. There was nothing to see but

 a few gleaming, hair-thin roots; beyond them the torch-

 light faded as the tunnel wound down and away into

 blackness.

 

 After a moment, the troll said: "Then we will be exam-

 ining it more tomorrow, after we have had a chance for

 thinking and sleeping. Come up, Simon."

 

 "I will," said Simon. "Go ahead." He moved closer. He

 knew he should be more frightened than he was

 anything that made a hole this large, animal or human,

 was nothing to sneer atbut he felt an unmistakable cer-

 tainty that this gaping rent in the earth had something to

 do with Bright-Nail's disappearance. He stared into the

 empty hole, then lifted the torch out of the way and

 squinted.

 

 There was a gleam down in the darknesssome object

 that reflected the torchlight.

 

 "Something's in there," he called.

 

 "Something of what sort?" Binabik said worriedly.

 "Some animal?"

 

 "No, something like metal." He leaned into the hole.

 He smelled no animal spoor, only a faint acridity like

 sweat. The gleaming thing seemed to lie a short way

 

 284

 

 Tad Williams

 

 down the tunnel, just where it bent out of sight. "I can't

 reach it without going in."

 

 "We will be looking for it in the morning, then,"

 Binabik said firmly. "Come now."

 

 Simon edged a little way into the hole. Maybe it was

 closer than it lookedit was hard to tell by torchlight. He

 held the burning brands before him and moved forward

 on his elbows and knees until he was entirely into the tun-

 nel. If he could just extend himself to full length, it

 should be almost within his grasp....

 

 The soil beneath him abruptly gave way and Simon

 was flailing in loose dirt. He grabbed at the tunnel wall,

 which crumbled but held for a moment as he braced him-

 self with arms outstretched. His legs continued to slip

 downward through the oddly soft earth until he was

 buried waist-deep in the tunnel floor. One of the torches

 had fallen from his grip and lay sizzling against the damp

 soil Just a few handbreadths from his ribs. The other was

 pinioned by his palm, rammed against the tunnel wall; he

 could not have dropped it even if he wished. He felt

 strangely empty, unafraid.

 

 "Binabik!" he shouted. "I've fallen through!"

 

 Even as he struggled to work himself free, he felt the

 soil shifting beneath him in a very strange way, unstable

 as sand beneath a retreating wave-

 

 The troll stared, eyes so wide the whites gleamed.

 "Kikkasut!" he swore, then shouted: "Miriamele! Come

 here quickly!" Binabik scrambled down the incline into

 the barrow, working his way around the broad hull of

 the boat.

 

 "Don't come too close," Simon cautioned him. "The

 dirt feels strange. You might fall through, too."

 

 "Then do not be moving." The little man gripped the

 protruding edge of the boat's buried keel and stretched his

 arm toward Simon, but his reach was short by more than

 a cubit. "Miriamele will bring our rope." The troll's voice

 was quiet and calm, but Simon knew that Binabik was

 frightened-

 

 "And there's something ... something moving down

 there," Simon said anxiously. It was a dreadful sensation,

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER285

 

 a compression and relaxation of the soil that held him, as

 though some great serpent twisted its coils in the depths.

 Simon's dreamlike sense of calm evaporated, replaced by

 mounting horror. "B-Bin ... Binabik!" He could not get

 his breath.

 

 "Do not be moving!" his friend said urgently. "If you

 . can but ..."

 

 Simon never heard the rest of what the troll meant to

 say. There was a sharp stinging around his ankles as

 though they had been suddenly wrapped in nettles, then

 the earth twitched again beneath him and he was swal-

 lowed. He barely had time to close his mouth before the

 clotted soil rose up and closed over his head like an angry

 sea.

 

 

 

 Miriamele saw Binabik emerge from the hole. As she

 stacked the brambles and twigs she had gathered, she

 watched him hover beside the entrance they had dug into

 the mound, talking to Simon, who was still inside the bar-

 row. She wondered dully what they had found. It seemed

 so pointless, somehow. How could all the swords in the

 world, magical or not, put a stop to the runaway wagon

 that her father's maddened grief had set in motion? Only

 Elias himself could cry halt, and no threat of magical

 weapons would make him do that. Miriamele knew her

 father only too well, knew the stubbornness that ran

 through him Just as his blood did. And the Storm King,

 the shuddersome demon glimpsed in dreams, the master

 of the Noms? Well, her father had invited the undead

 thing into the land of mortals. Miriamele knew enough

 old stories to feel sure that only Elias could send Ineluki

 away again and bar the door behind him.

 

 But she knew that her friends were set on their plan,

 just as she was on hers, and she would not stand in their

 way. Still, she had not for a moment wished to descend

 with them into the grave- These were strange days, yes,

 but not strange enough that she wished to discover what

 

 286 Tad Williams

 

 two years iri the disrespectful earth had done to her

 grandfather John.

 

 It had been difficult enough to go to the burial and

 watch his body lowered into the ground. She had never

 been close to him, but in his distant way, he had loved her

 and been kind to her. She had never been able to imagine

 him young, since he had already been ancient when she

 was a small girl, but she had once or twice seen a glint in

 his eye or a hint in his stooped posture that suggested the

 bold, world-conquering man he must have been. She did

 not want even those few memories to be sullied by ...

 

 "Miriamele! Come here quickly!"

 

 She looked up, startled by the fearful urgency in

 Binabik's tone. Despite his call the little man did not look

 back to her, but slid into the gouge in the barrow's side

 and vanished, quick as a mole. Miriamele leaped to her

 feet, knocking over her pile of gathered brush, and hur-

 ried across the hilltop. The sun had died in the west; the

 sky was turning plum-red.

 

 Simon. Something has happened to Simon.

 

 It seemed to take forever to cross the intervening dis-

 tance. She was out of breath when she reached the grave,

 and as she dropped to her knees dizziness swept over her.

 When she leaned into the hole, she could see nothing-

 

 "Simoh has ..." Binabik shouted, "Simon has ... NoF

 

 "What is it? I can't see you!"

 

 "Qantaqaf" the troll shrieked. "Qantaqa sosa!"

 

 "What's wrong!?" Miriamele was frantic. "What is it!"

 

 Binabik's words came in ragged bursts. "Get ... torch!

 Rope! Sosa, QantaqaF The troll suddenly let out a cry of

 pain. Miriamele kneeled in the opening, terrified and con-

 fused. Something dreadful was happeningBinabik

 clearly needed her. But he had told her to get the torch

 and the rope, and every instant she delayed might help

 doom the troll and Simon both-

 

 Something huge pushed her aside, bowling her over as

 though she were an infant. Qantaqa's gray hindquarters

 disappeared down the incline and into the shadows; a mo-

 ment later the wolf's furious snarl rumbled up from the

 depths. Miriamele turned and ran back toward the place

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 287

 

 where she had begun her fire, then stopped, remembering

 that the rest of their belongings were somewhere closer to

 Prester John's mound. She looked around in desperation

 until she saw them lying on the far side of the half-circle

 of graves.

 

 Panting, her hands shaking so badly that it was difficult

 even to hold the flint and steel in her hands, Miriamele

 worked frantically until the torch caught. She grabbed a

 second brand; as she searched in desperation for rope, she

 set this torch alight with the first.

 

 The rope was not among their belongings. She let out

 a string of Meremund river-rider curses as she hurried

 back to the mound.

 

 The coil of rope lay half-buried in the dirt Simon and

 the troll had excavated. Miriamele wrapped it loosely

 about her so she could keep her hands free, then scram-

 bled down into the barrow.

 

 The inside of the grave was as strange as a dream.

 Qantaqa's low growling filled the space like the hum of

 an angry beehive, but there was another sound, tooa

 strange, insistent piping. At first, as her eyes became used

 to the darkness, the flickering torchlight showed her only

 the long, broad curve of Sea-Arrow and the sagging tim-

 bers jutting through the barrow's earthen roof like ribs.

 Then she saw movementQantaqa's agitated tail and

 back legs, all that was visible of her past the stern of the

 boat. The earth around the wolf was aboil with small dark

 shapesrats?

 

 "Binabik!" she screamed. "Simon!"

 

 The troll's voice, when it came, was hoarse and tattered

 with fright, "No, run away! This place is being ... full of

 boghanik! Run!"

 

 Terrified for her companions, Miriamele scrambled

 around the side of the boat. Something small and chit-

 tering leaped down from the wale above her head, raking

 her face with its claws. She shrieked and knocked it away,

 then pinned it to the ground with the torch. For a horrify-

 ing instant she saw a wizened little manlike thing writh-

 ing beneath the burning brand, matted hair sizzling,

 sharp-toothed mouth stretched in a shrill of agony.

 

 288 Tad Williams

 

 Miriamele screamed again, pulling the torch away as she

 kicked the dying thing into the shadows.

 

 Her pulse beating in her temples until she felt her head

 would burst, she forced her way forward. Several more of

 the spidery things swarmed toward her, but she swiped at

 them with the twin torches and they danced back. She

 was close enough now to touch Qantaqa, but felt no urge

 to do so: the wolf was hard at work, moving swiftly in the

 confined space, breaking necks and tearing small bodies.

 

 "Binabik!" she cried. "Simon! I'm here! Come toward

 the light!"

 

 Her call brought another cluster of the cluttering terrors

 toward her. She hit two with her torch, but the second al-

 most pulled the brand from her grasp before it fell to the

 earth, squealing. A moment later she saw a shadow above

 her and jumped back, raising the torch again.

 

 "It is me. Princess," Binabik gasped. He had climbed

 up onto Sea-Arrow's railing. He stooped for a moment

 and vanished, then reemerged, only his eyes clearly visi-

 ble in the blood and earth that smeared his face. He thrust

 the butt of a long spear down for her to grasp. 'Take this.

 Do not let them become close!"

 

 She grasped the spear, then was forced to turn and

 sweep a half dozen of the things against the barrow wall.

 She dropped one of the torches. As she bent, another of

 the shriveled creatures pranced toward her; she speared it

 as a fisherman might. It wriggled on the spearhead, slow

 to die.

 

 "Simon!" she shouted. "Where is he?" She picked up

 the second torch and held it toward Binabik, who had

 ducked down into the boat once more, and now stood

 with an ax clutched in his hands, a weapon nearly as long

 as the troll was tall.

 

 "I cannot be holding the torch," Binabik said breath-

 lessly. "Push it into the wall." He raised the ax over his

 head and then jumped down beside her.

 

 Miriamele did as he said, jamming the butt of the torch

 into the crumbling earth.

 

 "HinikAia!" Binabik shouted. Qantaqa backed up, but

 the wolf seemed reluctant to disengage; she made several

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER289

 

 snarling rushes back toward the chirping creatures. While

 she was engaged on one such sortie, another swarm of the

 things scurried around her. Binabik swept several into

 bloody ruin with the ax and Miriamele fended off others

 with jabs of the spear. Qantaqa finished her engagement

 and swept in to finish off the raiding party. The rest of the

 crowding creatures sputtered angrily, their white eyes

 gleaming like a hundred tiny moons, but they did not

 seem anxious to follow Miriamele and her companions as

 they backed toward the hole.

 

 "Where is Simon?" she asked again. Even as she

 spoke, she knew she did not want to hear the answer.

 There was a kind of cold nothingness inside her. Binabik

 would not leave Simon behind if he still lived.

 

 "I am not knowing," Binabik said harshly. "But he is

 beyond our power for helping. Lead us into the air."

 

 Miriamele pulled herself up and through the hole in the

 mound. She emerged from the darkness into the violet of

 evening and a chilly wind. When she turned to extend the

 spear's haft down into the .barrow for Binabik to clasp,

 she saw the creatures capering in impotent anger around

 the base of Sea-Arrow, their shadows made long and even

 more grotesque by torchlight. Just before Binabik's shoul-

 ders rose to block the hole, she caught a momentary

 glimpse of her grandfather's pale, serene face.

 

 The troll huddled before the paltry fire, his face a

 soiled mask of loss. Miriamele tried to find her own pain

 and could not. She felt empty, scoured of feeling.

 Qantaqa, reclining nearby, cocked her head to one side as

 if puzzled by the silence. Her chops were sticky with

 gore.

 

 "He was falling through," Binabik said slowly. "One

 moment he was before me, then he was gone. I was dig-

 ging and digging, but there was only dirt." He shook his

 head. "Digging and digging. Then the boghanik came."

 He coughed and spat a glob of mud onto the fire. "So

 many they were, up from the dirt like worms. And more

 were coming always. More and more."

 

 "You said it was a tunnel. Maybe there were other tun-

 

 290 Tad Williams

 

 nels." Miriamele heard the unreal calmness of her voice

 with wonder. "Maybe he just fell through into another

 tunnel. When those things, those -.. diggers ... go away,

 we can search."

 

 "Yes, with certainty." Binabik's voice was flat-

 

 "We'll find him. You'll see."

 

 The troll ran his hand across his face and brought/it

 away smeared with dirt and blood. He stared at it ab-

 sently.

 

 "There's water in the skin bag," she said. "Let me

 clean those cuts."

 

 "You are also bleeding." Binabik pointed a stubby

 black finger at her face.

 

 "I'll get the water." She stood on shaky legs, "We'll

 find Simon. You'll see."

 

 Binabik did not reply. As Miriamele walked unsteadily

 toward their packs, she reached up to dab at her jaw, at

 the spot where the digger's claws had raked her. The

 blood was almost dry, but when she touched her cheeks,

 they were wet with tearstears that she had not even

 known she was crying.

 

 He's gone, she thought. Gone.

 

 Her eyes blurred so that she almost stumbled.

 

 ^

 

 Elias, High King of Osten Ard, stood at the window

 and stared up at the pale, looming finger of Green Angel

 Tower, silvered by moonlight. Wrapped in silence and se-

 crecy, it seemed a specter sent from another world, a

 bearer of strange tidings. Elias watched it as a man who

 knows he will live and die a sailor watches the sea.

 

 The king's chamber was as disorderly as an animal

 nest. The bed in the middle of me room was naked but for

 the sweat-stained pallet; the few blankets that remained

 lay tangled on the floor, unused, home now to whatever

 small creatures could bear the chilly air that Elias found

 more a necessity than a comfort.

 

 The window at which the king stood, like all the other

 windows of the long chamber, was flung wide. Rainwater

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 was puddled on the stone tiles beneath the casements; on

 some particularly cold nights it froze, making streaks of

 white across the floor. The wind had also carried in leaves

 and stems and even the stiffened corpse of a sparrow.

 

 Elias watched the tower until the moon haloed the an-

 gel's silhouette atop the spire. At last he turned, pulling

 his tattered robe about him, his white skin showing

 through the gaps where the threads had rotted in their

 seams.

 

 "Hengfisk," he whispered. "My cup."

 

 What had seemed another clump of bedding wadded in

 the comer of the room now unfurled itself and stood. The

 silent monk scurried to a table Just inside the chamber

 door and uncapped a stone ewer. He filled a goblet with

 dark, steaming liquid, then brought it to the king. The

 monk's ever-present smile, perhaps a little less wide than

 usual, glimmered faintly in the dark room.

 

 "I shall not sleep again tonight," the king said. "It is

 the dreams, you know."

 

 Hengfisk stood silently, but his bulging eyes offered

 complete attention.

 

 "And there is something else. Something I can feel but

 cannot understand." He took hts goblet and returned to

 the window. The hilt of the gray sword Sorrow scraped

 against the stone sill. Elias had not taken it off in a long

 time, even to sleep; the blade had pressed its own shape

 into the pallet beside the indentation of the king's form.

 

 Elias raised his cup to his lips, swallowed, then sighed.

 "There is a change in the music," he said quietly. "The

 great music of the dark. Pryrates has said nothing, but I

 know. I do not need that eunuch to tell me everything. I

 can see things now, hear things .. . smell things." He

 wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his robe, leaving a

 new smear of black among the countless others already

 dried on the cloth. "Somebody has changed things." He

 paused for a long moment. "But perhaps Pryrates isn't

 merely hiding it from me." The king turned to regard his

 cupbearer with an expression that was almost sane. "Per-

 haps Pryrates himself doesn't know. It wouldn't be the

 only thing he doesn't know. I still have a few secrets of

 

 Tad Williams

 

 my own." Elias brooded. "But if Pryrates doesn't realize

 how ... how things have changed ... now what might

 that mean, I wonder?" He turned back to the window,

 watching the tower. "What might that mean?"

 

 Hengfisk waited patiently. Finally, Elias finished his

 draught and held out the cup. The monk took it from

 the king's hand and returned it to the table beside the

 door, then moved back to his comer. He curled himself

 against the wall, but his head stayed up, as though he

 waited further instruction.

 

 "The tower is waiting," Elias said quietly. "It has been

 waiting a long time."

 

 As he leaned against the sill a wind arose and set his

 dark hair fluttering, then lifted some of the leaves from

 the floor and sent them whispering and rattling around the

 chamber.

 

 "Oh, Father ..." the king said softly. "God of Mercy,

 I wish I could sleep."

 

 *

 

 For a horrifying time, Simon felt himself drowning in

 cold, damp earth. Every nightmare he had ever had of

 death and burial flooded through him as dirt filled his

 eyes, his nose, pinioned his arms and legs. He clawed un-

 til he could not feel his hands at the ends of his arms, but

 still the choking earth surrounded him.

 

 Then, just as abruptly as the earth had swallowed him,

 it seemed to vomit him out once more. His legs, kicking

 like a drowning man's, were suddenly thrashing without

 resistance; an instant later he felt himself tumbling down-

 ward in a great avalanche of loose soil. He landed heav-

 ily, the breath he had held so long pushed out of him in

 a painful hiss. He gasped and swallowed dirt.

 

 He was on his knees for long moments, choking and

 retching. When the flashes of light swarming before his

 eyes began to disperse, he lifted his head. There was light

 somewherenot much, but enough to show him the

 vague outlines of a rounded space only a little wider than

 he was. Another tunnel? Or just a pit down in the depths,

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER293

 

 a grave of his very own where the air would soon give

 out?

 

 A small flame seemed to have sprouted from the loose

 mound of soil upon which he crouched. That was the

 source of light. When he could force his trembling limbs

 to move, he crawled toward it and discovered that it was

 the tip of one of his torches, the only part of the burning

 brand that had not been buried in the great fall of earth.

 As carefully as he could, he worked his hand into the

 loamy earth and freed the torch, then flicked off the cling-

 ing dirt, cursing distractedly when he scorched his fin-

 gers. When it was as clean as he could get it, he turned

 it upside down so that the small flame could spread; soon

 the glow widened.

 

 The first thing Simon saw was that he was indeed in

 another tunnel. In one direction it led downward. Just like

 the one he had entered from the barrow, but this tunnel

 had no opening to the world above: the end was just be-

 side him, a featureless spill of dirt, a great blunt nothing-

 ness of damp clods and loose soil. He could see no light

 or anything else beyond it; whatever gap he had fallen

 through was now choked with earth.

 

 The second thing he saw was" a dull glint of metal in

 the pile of dirt before him. He reached to pick it up, and

 was distractedly disappointed at how easily it came loose,

 how small an object it was. It was not Bright-Nail. It was

 a silver belt buckle.

 

 Simon lifted the mud-smeared buckle up to catch the

 torchlight. When he wiped the dirt away with his fingers,

 he laughed, a harshly painful sound that died quickly in

 the narrow confines. So this was what he had risked his

 life forthis was the lure that had dropped him into the

 prisoning depths. The buckle was so scratched and worn

 that the markings were only faintly recognizable. Some

 kind of animal head was at the center of it, something

 square-snouted like a bear or pig; around it were a few

 slender things that might be sticks or arrows. It was old

 and meaningless. It was worthless.

 

 Simon plunged his torch handle into the ground, then

 abruptly scrambled up the mound of soil. The sky must be

 

 294

 

 Tad Williams

 

 somewhere above. His terror was growing strong. Surely

 Binabik was digging for him! But how would the troll

 find him if Simon did not help!? He slid back a cubit for

 every cubit he scrambled at first, until he found a way to

 move without dislodging so much soil. At last he climbed

 far enough that he could lay his hands against the loose

 earth at the tunnel's end. He dug there frantically, freeing

 a shower of dirt, but more dirt kept appearing to take its

 place. As long moments passed his movements became

 even more uncontrolled. He tore at the unresisting earth,

 gouged it away in great handfuls, bringing down ava-

 lanches of soil from above, but all to no effect. Tears

 streamed down his face, mixing with the beads of sweat

 until his eyes stung- There was no end to it, no matter

 how he dug.

 

 He stopped at last, shuddering, covered in settling dirt

 almost to his waist. His heart was racing so swiftly that it

 took him a moment to realize that the tunnel had grown

 darker. He turned to see that his heedless digging had al-

 most buried the torch once more. Simon stared, suddenly

 afraid that if he crawled back down the slope, down the

 pile of loose earth, sliding soil would cover the flame

 completely. Once extinguished, there would be no re-

 lighting it. He would be in complete and utter blackness.

 

 He carefully freed himself from the small landslide that

 prisoned his legs, moving as delicately as he once had

 while stalking frogs across the Hayholt's moat.

 

 Gently, gently, he told himself. Not the dark, no- Need

 the light. There won't be anything left for them to find if

 I lose the light.

 

 A tiny avalanche was stirred. Clods of dirt went tum-

 bling down the pile and a small slide stopped Just short of

 the flame, which wavered. Simon's heart nearly stopped.

 

 Gently. Gently. Very gently.

 

 When his hands pushed into the crumbly soil beneath

 the torch, he held his breath; when he had lifted it free, he

 let the breath out again. There was such a narrow line

 really only a fraying edge of shadowbetween the dark-

 ness and the light.

 

 Simon went through the process of cleaning the torch

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 295

 

 all over again, singeing the same fingers, cursing the

 same curses, until he discovered that his sheathed Qanuc

 knife was still strapped to his leg. After saying a prayer

 in gratitude for this, what seemed his first piece of luck in

 some time, he used the bone blade to finish the task. He

 wondered briefly how long the torch would continue to

 bum, but pushed the thought away. There was no chance

 of clawing his way out, that seemed clear. So he would

 move a little farther down the tunnel and wait for Binabik

 and Miriamele to dig down from above. Surely they

 would be doing so soon. And there was plenty of air,

 when he stopped to think of it....

 

 As he tipped the torch over so that the whole head

 caught fire once more, another patter of dirt came tum-

 bling down the slope- Simon was so intent on what he

 was doing that he did not look up until a second fall of

 earth caught his attention. He held up the torch and

 squinted at the plugged end of the tunnel- The dirt was

 ... moving.

 

 Something like a tiny black tree pushed up from the

 soil, flexing flat, slender branches. An instant later an-

 other sprouted next to it, then a small lump forced its way

 up between them. It was a head. Blind white eyes turned

 toward him and nostrils twitched. A mouth, opened in a

 terrible semblance of a human grin.

 

 More hands and heads were pushing up through the

 : dirt. Simon, who had been staring in shocked terror,

 ; lurched up onto his knees, holding his torch and knife be-

 | fore him.

 xBukken! Diggers! His throat clenched.

 

 There were perhaps half a dozen in all. As they freed

 themselves from the loose earth they bunched together,

 twittering quietly among themselves, their spindly, hairy

 limbs so intertwined and their movements so twitchingly

 sudden that he could not count them accurately. He

 waved the torch at them and they shrank back, but not far.

 They were being cautious, but they were certainly not

 frightened.

 

 Usires Aedon, he prayed silently- / am in the earth with

 ? the diggers. Save me now. Somebody please save me.

 

 296 Tad Williams

 

 They advanced in a clump, but then suddenly separated,

 skittering toward the walls. Simon shouted in fear and

 smacked the nearest with his torch. It shrilled in agony but

 leaped and wrapped its legs and arms about his wrist;

 

 sharp teeth sank into his hand so that he almost dropped

 the torch. His shout turning to a wordless rasp of pain, he

 smashed his arm against the wall of the tunnel, trying to

 dislodge the thing. Several more, heartened by the removal

 of the flame, pranced forward, piping eagerly.

 

 Simon slashed at one and caught it with his knife, tear-

 ing at the moldy bits of rags the diggers wore like gar-

 ments, cutting deeply into the meat beneath. He drove his

 other hand against the wall again, as hard as he could,

 and felt small bones break. The thing that had clutched

 his wrist dropped free, but Simon's hand was throbbing as

 though bitten by a venomous serpent.

 

 He moved back, sliding awkwardly down the slope on

 his knees, struggling to keep his balance on the loosely-

 packed earth as the diggers ran at him. He swung his torch

 back and forth in a wide arc; the three creatures still stand-

 ing stared back at him, shriveled little faces drawn tight,

 mouths open in hatred and fear. Three. And two small

 crumpled forms lying in the dirt where he had kneeled a

 moment before. So had there been only five... ?

 

 Something dropped from the tunnel roof onto the top of

 his head. Ragged claws scraped at his face and a hand

 grabbed his upper lip. Simon shrieked and reached up,

 grabbed the squirming body as hard as he could, then

 pulled. After a moment's struggle it came free with sev-

 eral tufts of his hair clutched in its fists. Still screaming

 in disgust and terror, he smashed it down against the

 ground, then flung the broken body toward the others- He

 saw the remaining three tumble back into the shadows be-

 fore he turned and crawled away down the tunnel as fast

 as he could, cursing and spluttering, spitting to rid his

 mouth of the vile taste of the digger's oily skin.

 

 Simon expected any moment to feel something clutch

 at his legs; when he had crawled for some time he turned

 and raised the torch. He thought he saw a faint, pale

 gleam of eyes, but couldn't be sure. He turned and contin-

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 297

 

 ued scrambling downward. Twice he dropped the torch,

 snatching it up as swiftly and fearfully as if it were his

 own heart tumbled from his breast.

 

 The diggers did not seem to have pursued him. Simon

 felt some of the fear dropping away, but his heart still

 pounded. Beneath his hands and knees, the soil of the tun-

 nel had become firmer.

 

 After a while he stopped and sat back. The torchlight

 showed nothing following in the featureless tunnel behind

 him, but something was different. He looked up. The roof

 was much farther awaytoo far to touch while sitting

 down.

 

 Simon took a deep breath, then another. He stayed

 where he was until he felt as though the air in his lungs

 was beginning to do him some good once more, then held

 up the torch and repeated his inspection. The tunnel had

 indeed grown wider, higher. He reached out to touch the

 wall and found that it was almost as solid as mud brick.

 

 With a last look behind him, Simon struggled up onto

 his feet. The roof of the tunnel was a handsbreadth above

 his head.

 

 Weary beyond belief, he raised the torch before him

 and began to walk. He knew now why Binabik and

 Miriamele had not been able to dig down to him. He

 hoped the diggers had not caught Binabik in the barrow.

 It was something he could not think about for more than

 a momenthis poor friend! The brave little man! But Si-

 mon had his own very immediate problems.

 

 The tunnel was featureless as a rabbit warren, and led

 downward, ever deeper into the earth's black places. Si-

 mon desperately wanted to return to the light, to feel the

 windthe last thing he wanted was to be in this place,

 this long, slender tomb. But there was nowhere else to go.

 He was alone again. He was utterly, utterly alone.

 

 Aching in every Joint, struggling to push away each

 dreadful thought before it could find a resting place in a

 mind which felt no less pained than his body, Simon

 plodded down into shadow.

 

 13

 

 Tfte Fatten Sun

 

 EoCtrir Stared, at the remnants of his Hemystiri troop.

 Of the hundred or so who had left their western land to

 accompany him, only a little more than two score re-

 mained. These survivors sat huddled around their fires at

 the base of the hillside below Naglimund, their faces

 gaunt, their eyes empty as dry wells.

 

 Look at these poor, brave men, Eolair thought. Who

 would ever know that we were winning? The count felt as

 drained of blood and courage as any of them; he felt in-

 substantial as a ghost.

 

 As Eolair walked from one fire to the next, a whisper

 of strange music came wafting down the hill. The count

 saw the men stiffen, then whisper unhappily among them-

 selves. It was only the singing of the Sithi, who were

 walking sentry outside Naglimund's broken walls ... but

 even the Hemystirmen's Sithi allies were alien enough to

 make mortals anxious. And the Noms, the Sithi's immor-

 tal cousins, sang, too.

 

 A fortnight of siege had razed Naglimund's walls, but

 the white-skinned defenders had only retreated to the in-

 ner castle, which had proved surprisingly resistant to de-

 feat. There were forces at play that Eolair could not

 understand, things that even the mind of the shrewdest

 mortal general could not graspand Count Eolair, as he

 often reminded himself, was no general. He was a land-

 owner, a somewhat unwilling courtier, and a skilled dip-

 lomat. Small surprise that he, like his men, felt that he

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER299

 

 was swimming in currents too powerful for his weak

 skills.

 

 The Noms had established their defenses by the means

 Of what sounded, when Jiriki described it to him, like

 pure magic. They had "sung a Hesitancy," Jiriki ex-

 plained. There was "Shadow-mastery" at work. Until the

 music was understood and the shadows untangled, me

 castle would not fall. In the interim, clouds gathered over-

 head, stormed briefly, then retreated. At other times,

 when the skies were clear, lightning flashed and thunder

 boomed. The mists around Naglimund's keep sometimes

 seemed to become diamond hard, sparkling like glass; at

 other moments they turned blood red or ink black, and

 sent tendrils swirling high above the walls to claw at the

 sky. Eolair begged for explanation, but to Jiriki, what the

 Noms were doingand what his own people were trying

 to do in retaliationwas no stranger than wooden hoard-

 ings or siege engines or any of the other machinery of hu-

 mankind's wars: the Sitha terms meant little or nothing to

 Eolair, who could only shake his head in fearful wonder.

 He and his men were caught up in a battle of monsters

 and wizards out of bardic songs. This was no place for

 mortalsand the mortals knew it.*

 

 Pondering, walking in circles, the count had returned to

 his own fire.

 

 "Eolair," Isorn greeted him, "I have saved the last

 swallows for you." He motioned the count toward the fire

 and held up a wineskin.

 

 Eolair took a swallow, more out of comradeship than

 anything else. He had never been much of a drinker, es-

 pecially when there was work to do: it was too hard to

 keep a cool head at a foreign court when one washed

 large dinners down with commensurate amounts of spir-

 its. "Thank you." He brushed a thin skin of snow from

 the log and sat down, pushing his bootsoles near to the

 fire. "I am tired," he said quietly. "Where is Maegwin?"

 

 "She was out walking earlier. But I am certain she has

 ^gone to sleep by now." He gestured to a tent a short dis-

 tance away.

 

 "She should not walk by herself," Eolair said.

 

 300 Tad Williams

 

 "One of the men went with her. And she stays close by.

 You know I would not let her go far away, even under

 guard."

 

 "I know." Eolair shook his head. "But she is so sick-

 spiritedit seems a criminal thing to bring her to a bat-

 tlefield. Especially a battlefield like this." His hand swept

 out and gestured to the hillside and the snow, but Isom

 certainly knew that it was not the terrain or weather that

 he meant.

 

 The young Rimmersman shrugged. "She is mad, yes,

 but she seems to be more at ease than the men."

 

 "Don't say that!" Eolair snapped. "She is not mad!" He

 took a shaky breath.

 

 Isom looked at him kindly. "If this is not madness,

 Eolair, what is? She speaks as though she is in the land of

 your gods."

 

 "I sometimes wonder if she is not right."

 

 Isom lifted his arm, letting the firelight play across the

 jagged weal that ran from wrist to elbow. "If this is

 Heaven, then the priests at Elvritshalla misled me." He

 grinned. "But if we are dead already, then I suppose we

 have nothing left to fear."

 

 Eolair shuddered. "That is just what worries me. She

 does think that she is dead, Isorn! At any moment she

 may walk out into the middle of the fighting again, as

 she did the first time she slipped away...."

 

 Isorn put a wide hand on his shoulder. "Her madness

 seems more clever to me than that. And she may not be

 as terrified as the men, but she is not unafraid. She

 doesn't like that damned windy castle or those damned,

 filthy white things any more than we do. She has been

 safe so far and we will keep her that way. Surely you do

 not need more things to worry about?"

 

 The count smiled wearily. "So, Isom Isgrimnurson, you

 are going to take up your father's Job, I see."

 

 "What do you mean?"

 

 "I have seen what your father does for Josua. Picks the

 prince up when he wants to lie down, pokes his ribs and

 sings him songs when the prince wants to weep. So you

 will be my Isgrimnur?"

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER301

 

 The Rimmersman's grin was wide. "My father and I

 are simple men. We do not have the brains to worry like

 you and Josua."

 

 Eolair snorted and reached out for the wineskin-

 

 For the third night running, the count dreamed of the

 most recent skirmish inside Naglimund's walls, a night-

 mare more vivid and terrifying than anything mere imag-

 ination could contrive.

 

 It had been a particularly dreadful battle. The

 Hemystirmen, now wearing masks of cloth rubbed with

 fat or tree sap to keep off the Norn's madness-dust, had

 become as frightening to look at as the rest of the com-

 batants; those mortals who had survived the first days of

 the siege now fought with terrified determination, know-

 ing that nothing else would give them a chance of leaving

 this haunted place alive. The greatest part of the struggle

 had taken place in the narrow spaces between scorched,

 crumbling buildings and through winter-blasted

 gardensplaces where Eolair had once walked on warm

 evenings with ladies of Josua's court.

 

 The dwindling army of Noms defended the stolen cita-

 del with a kind of heedless madness: Count Eolair had

 seen one of them shove forward against a sword rammed

 through his chest, working his way up the blade to kill the

 mortal that clutched the hilt before dying in a coughing

 spray of red.

 

 Most of the giants had also died, but each one exacted

 a horrible toll of men and Sithi before it fell. Dreaming,

 remembering, Eolair was again forced to watch one of the

 huge brutes grab Ule Frekkeson, one of the few

 Rimmersmen who had accompanied the war party out of

 Hemysadharc, then swing him around and dash his brains

 out against a wall as easily as a man might kill a cat. As

 a trio of Sithi surrounded him, the Hune contemptuously

 shook the almost headless corpse at them, showering

 them with gore. The hairy giant then used Ule's body as

 a club, killing one of the Sithi with it before the spears of

 the other two punched into the monster's heart.

 

 Squirming in the dream's unshakable grasp, Eolair

 

 302

 

 Tad Williams

 

 helplessly watched dead Ule used as a weapon, smashed

 left and right until his body began to come apart....

 

 He woke quivering, head throbbing as though it might

 burst. He pressed his hands against his temples and

 squeezed, trying to relieve the pressure. How could a man

 see such things and keep his reason?

 

 A hand touched his wrist.

 

 Terrified, Eolair gasped and flung himself to one side,

 scrabbling for his sword. A tall shadow loomed in the

 doorway of his tent.

 

 "Peace, Count Eolair," said Jiriki- "I am sorry I startled

 you. 1 called from outside the door. but I thought you

 must be asleep since you did not reply. Please forgive my

 intrusion."

 

 Eolair was relieved, but angry and embarrassed. "What

 do you want?"

 

 "Forgive me, please. I came because it is important and

 time is short."

 

 The count shook his head and took a slow breath.

 "What is it? Is something wrong?"

 

 "Likimeya asks that you come. All will be explained."

 He lifted the tent flap and stepped back outside. "Will

 you come? I will wait for you to dress."

 

 "Yes ... yes, certainly I will."

 

 The count felt a sort of muted pride. Likimeya had sent

 her son for him, and since these days Jiriki seemed in-

 volved only in things of the first and most crucial or-

 der, the Sithi must indeed think it important that Eolair

 come. A moment later bis pride turned to a gnawing of

 disquiet: could circumstances be so bad that they were

 searching for ideas or leadership from me master of two

 score terrified mortal warriors? He had been sure they

 were winning the siege.

 

 It took only a few moments to secure his sword belt

 and pull on his boots and fur-lined cloak. He followed

 Jiriki across the foggy hillside, marveling that the foot-

 falls of the Sitha, who was as tall as Eolair and almost as

 broad, should only dimple the snow while his own boots

 dug deep gouges in the white crust.

 

 Eolair looked up to where Naglimund crouched on the

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 303

 

 hilltop like a huddled, wounded beast. It was almost im-

 possible to believe that it had once been a place where

 people danced and talked and loved. Prince Josua's court

 had been thought by some rather grimbut, oh, how

 those who had mocked the prince would feel their mouths

 dry and their hearts flutter if they saw what grim truly

 meant.

 

 Jiriki led the count among the gossamer-thin tents of

 the Sithi, tents that gleamed against the snow as though

 they were half-soaked in moonlight. Despite the hour,

 halfway between midnight and dawn, many of the Fair

 Folk were out; they stood in solemn clusters and stared at

 the sky or sat on the ground singing quietly. None of

 them seemed at all bothered by the freezing wind that had

 Eolair clutching his hood close beneath his chin. He

 hoped that Likimeya had a fire burning, if only out of

 consideration for the frailties of a mortal visitor.

 

 "We have questions to ask you about this place you

 call Naglimund, Count Eolair." There was more than a

 hint of command in Likimeya's voice.

 

 Eolair turned from the blaze to face Jiriki, his mother,

 and tall, black-haired Kuroyi. "What can I tell you that I

 have not told you already?" The count felt a mild anger

 at the Sithi's confusing habits, but found it hard to hold

 that emotion in the presence of Likimeya's powerful,

 even gaze. "And is it not a little late to be asking, since

 the siege began a fortnight ago?"

 

 "It is not such things as the height of walls and the

 depth of wells that we need to know." Jiriki sat down be-

 side the count, the cloth of his thin shirt glinting. "You

 have already told us much that has helped us."

 

 "You spent time in Naglimund when the mortal prince

 Josua ruled here." Likimeya spoke briskly, as though im-

 patient with her son's attempts at diplomacy. "Does it

 have secrets?"

 

 "Secrets?" Eolair shook his head- "Now I am com-

 pletely confounded. What do you mean?"

 

 "This is not fair to the mortal." Kuroyi spoke with an

 emotionless reserve that was extreme even for the Sithi.

 

 304

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "He deserves to know more. If Zinjadu had lived, she

 could tell him. Since I failed my old friend and she is

 now voyaging with the Ancestors, I will take her place as

 the lore-giver." He turned to Likimeya. "If Year-Dancing

 House approves, of course."

 

 Likimeya made a wordless musical noise, then flicked

 her hand in permission.

 

 "Jiriki i-Sa'onserei has told you something of the Road

 of Dreams, Count Eclair?" Kuroyi asked.

 

 "Yes, he has told me a little. Also, we Hemystiri still

 have many stories of the past and of your people. There

 are those living among us who claim they can walk the

 Dream Road, just as you taught our ancestors to do." He

 thought sourly of Maegwin's would-be mentor, the scryer

 Diawen: if some Hemystiri did still have that power, it

 had little to do with good sense or responsibility.

 

 "Then 1 am sure he has spoken of the Witnesses, too

 those objects that we use to make the journeying easier."

 Kuroyi hesitated, then reached into his milk-white shirt

 and produced a round, translucent yellow object that

 caught the firelight like a globule of amber or a ball of

 melted glass. "This is one suchmy own." He let Eolair

 look for a moment, then tucked the thing away again.

 "Like most others, it is of no use in these strange times

 the Dream Road is as impassable as a road of this world

 might be in a terrible blizzard.

 

 "But there are other Witnesses, too: larger, more pow-

 erful objects that are not moveable, and are linked to the

 place where they are found. Master Witnesses, they are

 called, for they can look upon many things and places.

 You have seen one such,"

 

 "The Shard?"

 

 Kuroyi nodded his head once. "In Mezutu'a, yes. There

 were others, although most are now lost to time and

 earth-changes. One lies beneath the castle of your enemy

 King Elias."

 

 "Beneath the Hayholt?"

 

 "Yes. The Pool of Three Depths is its name. But it has

 been dry and voiceless for centuries."

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 305

 

 "And this has something to do with Naglimund? Is

 there something of that sort here?"

 

 Kuroyi smiled, a narrow, wintery smile, "We are not

 sure."

 

 "I don't understand," the count said. "How can you not

 be sure?"

 

 The Sitha lifted his long-fingered hand. "Peace, Eolair

 of Nad Mullach. Let me finish my tale. By the standards

 of the Gardenbom it is quite short."

 

 Eolair shifted slightly; he was glad for the firelight,

 which disguised his flush of embarrassment. How was it

 that among these folk he was as easily cowed as a

 childas if all his years of statecraft had been forgotten?

 "My apologies."

 

 "There have always been in Osten Ard certain places,"

 Kuroyi resumed, "which act much like Master Witnesses

 ... but in which no Master Witness seems to be present.

 That is, many of the effects are therein fact, sometimes

 these places exhibit more powerful results than any

 Witnessbut no object can be found which is responsi-

 ble. Since we first came to this land long ago, we have

 studied such places, thinking that they might answer

 questions we have about the Witnesses and why they do

 what they do, about Death itself, even about the Unbeing

 that made us flee our native land and come here."

 

 "Forgive me for interrupting again," said Eolair, "but

 how many of these places exist? And where are they?"

 

 "We know of only a handful between far Nascadu and

 the wastelands of the white north. A-Genay'asu'e, we call

 them"Houses of Traveling Beyond" would be a crude

 rendering in your tongue. And we Gardenbom are not the

 only ones to sense the power of these places: they often

 draw mortals as well, some merely seekers-after-

 knowledge, some god-maddened and dangerous. What

 mortals call Thisterborg, the hill near Asu'a, is one such

 spot."

 

 "I know it." Remembering a black sled and a team of

 misshapen white goats, Eolair felt his flesh tighten. "Your

 cousins the Norns also know about Thisterborg. I saw

 them there."

 

 306 Tad Williams

 

 Kuroyi did not seem surprised. "We Gardenbom have

 been interested in these sites since long before the fami-

 lies parted. The Hikeda'ya, like us, have made many at-

 tempts to harness the might of such places. But their

 power is as wild and unpredictable as the wind."

 

 Eolair pondered. "So there is not a Master Witness here

 at Naglimund, but rather one of these things, a ... Be-

 yonding House? I cannot remember the words in your

 tongue."

 

 Jiriki looked toward his mother, smiling and nodding

 with what almost looked like pride. Eolair felt a flash of

 annoyance; was a mortal who could listen and reason

 such a surprise to them?

 

 "An A-Genay'asu. Yes, that is what we believe," said

 Kuroyi. "But it came to our attention late, and there was

 never a chance to find out before the mortals came."

 

 "Before the mortals came with their iron spikes."

 Likimeya's soft voice was like the hiss that preceded a

 whip-crack. Surprised by her vehemence, Eolair looked

 up, then just as quickly turned his gaze back to Kuroyi's

 more placid face.

 

 "Both Zida'ya and Hikeda'ya continued to come to this

 place after men built their castle here at Naglimund," the

 black-haired Sitha explained. "Our presence frightened

 the mortals, though they saw us only by moonlight, and

 even then only rarely. The man the Imperators had given

 to rule over the locality filled the fields all around with

 the iron that gave the place its name: Nail Fort."

 

 "I knew that the nails were there to keep out the Peace-

 ful Oneswhat we Hemystiri call your folk," said Eolair,

 "but since it was built in the era when your people and

 ours were at peace, I could not understand why the place

 should have needed such defenses."

 

 "The mortal named Aeswides who had it done may

 have felt a certain shame that he had trespassed on our

 lands in building this keep so close to our city Da'ai

 Chikiza, on me far side of those hills," Kuroyi gestured

 toward the east. "He may have feared that we would

 some day come and take the place back; he may also have

 thought that those of our folk who still made pilgrimage

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER307

 

 to this place were spies. Who knows? In fact, he traveled

 less and less out of the gates, and died at last a recluse

 afraid, it was said, even to leave his own well-guarded

 chamber for terror of what the dreaded immortals might

 do." Kuroyi's cool smile returned. "Strangely, although

 the world is already full of fearful things, mortals seem

 always to hunt for new worries."

 

 "Nor do we relinquish the old ones." Eolair returned

 the tall Sitha's smile. "For, like the cut of a man's cloak,

 we know that the tried and true is best in the long run.

 But I doubt you have brought me here only to tell about

 what some long-dead mortal did."

 

 "No, we have not," Kuroyi agreed. "Since we were

 driven from the land at a time when we considered it bet-

 ter policy not to interfere, and to let the mortals build

 where they wished, we have unanswered questions still

 about this place."

 

 "And we need those questions answered now, Count

 Eolair," Likimeya broke in. "So tell us: this place you call

 Naglimundis it known among mortals for strangeness

 of any kind? Apparitions? Odd happenings? Is it reputed

 a haunt of spirits of the dead?",

 

 The count frowned as he considered. "I must say that

 I have never heard anything like that. There are other

 places, many others, some within a league of my birth-

 place, of which I could tell you a whole night's worth of

 tales. But not Naglimund. And Prince Josua was always a

 lover of odd loreI feel sure that if there were such sto-

 ries, it would have been his pleasure to relate them." He

 shook his head. "I am sorry to force you to tell such a

 long tale yourself for so little result."

 

 "We still think it likely that this place is an

 A-Genay'asu," Jiriki said. "We have thought so since

 long before Asu'a fell. Here, Count Eolair, you look

 thirsty. Let me pour for you."

 

 The Hemystirman gratefully accepted another cup of

 mulled ... something; whatever it was, it tasted of flow-

 ers and wanned him very nicely. "In any case," he said

 after he had taken a few sips, "what does it mean if

 Naglimund is such a place?"

 

 308 Tad Williams

 

 "We are not certain. That is one of the things that wor-

 ries us." Jiriki sat down across from Eolair and raised a

 slim hand. "We had hoped that the Hikeda'ya came here

 only to pay their part of the bargain with Elias, and that

 they had remained here because it was a way station be-

 tween Stormspike and the castle that stands on Asu'a's

 bones."

 

 "But you do not think that any longer." It was a state-

 ment, not a question.

 

 "No. Our cousins have fought too hard, long past the

 time when they could have gained anything from resist-

 ing. This is not the final confrontation. However much

 Utuk'ku has reason to hate us, it is not a blind anger: she

 would not throw away the lives of so many Cloud Chil-

 dren to hold a useless ruin."

 

 Eolair had not heard much about the Norn Queen,

 Utuk'ku, but what he had was shuddersome. "So what

 does she want? What do they want?"

 

 Jiriki shook his head. "They want to remain in

 Naglimund. That is all we know for certain. And it will

 be dreadful work to drive them out. I fear for you and

 your remaining soldiers. Count Eolair. I fear for all of

 

 us."

 

 A horrible thought occurred to the Hernystirman. "For-

 give me, since I know little of these thingsalthough

 perhaps more now than I would have wishedbut you

 said that these Beyonding places had something to do

 with the secrets of ... of death?"

 

 "All mysteries are one mystery until they are solved,"

 said Kuroyi. "We have tried to leam more about Death

 and Unbeing from the A-Genay'asu'e, yes."

 

 'These Noms we are fighting are living creaturesbut

 their master is not. Could they be trying to bring the

 Storm King ... back to life?"

 

 Eolair's question brought neither derisive laughter nor^

 shocked silence.

 

 "We have thought on this." Likimeya was blunt. "It

 cannot happen."

 

 "Ineluki is dead." Kuroyi spoke more softly, but with

 equal firmness- "There are some things we know about

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER309

 

 only little, but death we know very well." His lips

 twitched in a tiny, dry smile. "Very well, indeed. Ineluki

 is dead. He cannot return to this world."

 

 "But you told me he was in Stormspike," Eolair said to

 Jiriki. "You said that the Noms do as he bids. Are we at

 war against something imaginary?"

 

 "It is indeed confusing. Count Eolair," Jiriki replied.

 "Inelukialthough he is not truly Ineluki any morehas

 no more existence than a sort of dream. He is an evil and

 vengeful dream, one that possesses all the craftiness that

 the Storm King had in life, as well as knowledge of the

 ultimate darknesses no living thing has ever had ... but

 he is only a dream, for all of that. Trust that I speak truly.

 As we can travel on the Road of Dreams, and see and feel

 things there, so Ineluki can speak to his followers in

 Nakkiga through the Breathing Harp, which is one of the

 greatest of the Master Witnessesalthough I would guess

 that Utuk'ku alone has the skill even to understand him.

 So he is not a thing, Eolair, with an existence in this

 world." He gestured to the walls of the tent. "He is not

 real, like this cloth is real, like the ground is real beneath

 our feet. But that does not mean he cannot do great evil

 ... and Utuk'ku and her servitors are more than real

 enough."

 

 "Forgive me if I seem stubborn," Eolair said, "but I

 have heard much tonight that is still confused in my head.

 If Ineluki cannot return, then why are the Noms so eager

 to hold Naglimund?"

 

 "That is the question we must answer," said Jiriki.

 "Perhaps they hope to use the A-Genay'asu to make their

 master's voice clearer. Perhaps they intend to tap its force

 in some other way. But it is clear that they want this place

 very much. One of the Red Hand is here."

 

 The Red Hand? The Storm King's servants?"

 

 "His greatest servants, since like him they have passed

 through death and into the outer realms. But they cannot

 exist in this world without an immense expenditure of

 power by him every moment they are embodied, for they

 are almost as much of a deadly contradiction as he is.

 That is why when one of them attacked us in our fastness

 

 3io Tad Williams

 

 at Jao e-Tinukai'i, we knew that the time had come to

 take up arms. Ineluki and Utuk'ku must have been des-

 perate to expend so much force to silence Amerasu." He

 paused. Eolair stared, bewildered by the unfamiliar

 names. "I will explain this to you at a later time. Count

 Eolair." Jiriki stood. "I am sure you are weary, and we

 have talked much of your sleeping time away."

 

 "But this Red Hand creature is here? Have you seen

 it?"

 

 Jiriki pointed at the campfire. "Do you have to touch

 the flames to know that the fire is hot? He is here, and

 that is why we have not been able to overcome their most

 important defenses, why we must instead knock down

 stone walls and struggle with sword and spear. A large

 portion of Ineluki's power is burning down in the heart of

 Naglimund's keep. But for all his might, the Storm King

 has limits. He is spread thin ... so there must be some

 reason he wishes this place to remain in the hands of the

 Hikeda'ya."

 

 Eolair stood, too. The blur of strange ideas and names

 had begun to tell on him: he was indeed feeling the need

 for sleep. "Perhaps the Noms' task is something to do

 with the Red Hand, then," the count said. "Perhaps ..."

 

 Jiriki's smile was sad. "We have cursed you with our

 own plague of 'perhaps,' Count Eolair. We had hoped you

 would give us answers, but instead we have weighed you

 down with questions."

 

 "I have not been free of them since old King John

 died." He stifled a yawn. "So this is nothing strange." He

 laughed. "What a thing to say! It is maddeningly strange.

 But not unusual. Not in these times."

 

 "Not in these times," agreed Jiriki.

 

 Eolair bowed to Likimeya, then nodded a farewell to

 stone-faced Kuroyi before walking out into the cold wind.

 Thoughts were buzzing in his head like flies, but he knew

 that nothing useful could be done about any of them.

 Sleep was what he needed. Perhaps, if he was lucky, he

 would sleep right through the remainder of this gods-

 cursed siege.

 

 3"

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 Maegwin had quietly left her tent while the weary

 guardhe seemed a sad and ragged sort to have received

 Heaven's favor, but who was she to question the gods?

 gossiped by the fire with one of his fellows. Now she

 stood in the deep shadows of a copse of trees, not a hun-

 dred cubits downslope from the tumbled walls of

 Naglimund. Above her loomed the silhouette of the

 blocky stone keep. As she stared at it, wind sifted snow

 across her boots.

 

 Scadach. she thought. It is the Hole in Heaven. But

 what lies beyond?

 

 She had seen the demons that had come swarming

 through from the Outer Darknesshorrible corpse-white

 things and shaggy, monstrous ogresand had watched

 the gods and a few dead mortal heroes fight with them. It

 was clear that the gods wished this wound in heaven's

 flesh healed so that no more evil could creep in. For a

 while it had seemed that the gods would win easily. Now

 she was not so sure.

 

 There was ... something inside Scadach. Something

 dark and hideously strong, something that was empty as

 a flame is empty, but that nevertheless had a kind of

 brooding life. She could feel it, could almost hear its

 dreadful ruminations; even the faint part of its brooding

 that licked against her mind cast her into despair. But at

 the same time, there was something oddly familiar about

 the thoughts of whatever lurked in Scadach, whatever

 godsbane burned so angrily in the deeps. She felt

 strangely drawn, as to a darkly fascinating sibling: that

 horrid something ... was much like her.

 

 But what could that mean? What a mad thought! What

 could there be in that gnawing, spiteful heat that was any-

 thing like her, a mortal woman, king's daughter, slain be-

 loved of the gods now privileged to ride with them across

 the fields of heaven?

 

 Maegwin stood in the snow, silent, motionless, and let

 the incomprehensible thoughts of the thing within

 Scadach wash over her. She felt its turmoil- Hatred, that

 

 3*2 Tad Williams

 

 was what it felt ... and something more. A hatred of the

 living coupled with an agonized longing for quietude and

 death.

 

 She shivered. How could heaven be so cold, even in

 this black outer fringe?

 

 But I don't long for death! Perhaps I did when I was

 alive, for a time. But now that is behind me. Because I

 diedI diedand the gods lifted me up to their country.

 Why should f still feel that so strongly? I am dead. I am

 no longer afraid, as I once was. I did my duty and

 brought the gods to save my peopleno one can say I did

 not. I no longer mourn for my brother and father. I am

 dead, and nothing can harm me. I have nothing in com-

 mon with that ... thing out there in the darkness, beyond

 those walls of heaven-stone.

 

 A sudden thought came to her- But where is my father?

 And where is Gwythinn? Didn't they both die heroes?

 Surely the gods have lifted them up and carried them

 away after their deaths, just as they did me. And surely

 they would have demanded to be allowed to fight here, at

 the side of the Masters of Heaven. Where are they?

 

 Maegwin stood, dumbfounded. She shivered again. It

 was wretchedly cold here. Were the gods playing some

 trick on her? Was there still some test she had yet to pass

 before she could be reunited with her father and brother,

 with her long-dead mother Penemhwye? How could that

 be?

 

 Troubled, Maegwin turned and hurried back down the

 slope toward the lights of the other homeless souls.

 

 

 

 More than five hundred pikemen of Metessa stood

 shoulder to shoulder in the neck of the Onestrine Pass,

 shields lifted above their heads so that it seemed some

 great centipede had lodged in the narrows between the

 cliffs. The baron's men wore boiled leather cuirasses and

 iron helms, armor that was nicked and abraded from long

 use. The Crane banner of their House waved above the

 serried pikes.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER313

 

 Nabbanai bowmen along the canyon walls filled the

 sky with a swarm of arrows. Most bounced harmlessly

 from the shield roof, but some found their way through

 the locked shields. Wherever a Metessan fell, though, his

 fellows drew together.

 

 'The bowmen cannot move them!" Sludig enthused.

 "Varellan must charge! By the Aedon, the baron's men

 are proud bastards!" He turned to Isgrimnur with a look

 of glee on his face. "Josua has chosen his allies well!"

 

 The duke nodded, but could not match Sludig's excite-

 ment. As he stood with the elite of Josua's forces, what

 was now being called the prince's household guarda

 curious phrase Isgrimnur thought, considering the prince

 had no housethe duke only wanted the fighting to end.

 He was tired of war.

 

 As he stared out across the narrowing valley, he was

 struck by how the ridged hills on both sides resembled a

 cage of ribs, the Anitullean Road its breastbone. When

 Prester John had fought his way through to victory in this

 same Frasilis Valley more than fifty years before, it was

 said that so many had died that the bodies were not all

 buried for months. The pass and the open land to the

 north of the valley had been littered with bones, the sky

 black with carrion birds for days.

 

 And to what purpose? Isgrimnur wondered. Less than a

 man's lifetime has passed and here we are again, making

 more feasts for the vultures. Over and over and over. f am

 sick with it.

 

 He sat uncomfortably in the saddle, looking down the

 length of the pass. Below him stood the waiting ranks of

 the prince's newest allies, their house banners bright in

 the noon sun, an aviary of Goose, Pheasant, Tem, and

 Grouse. Seriddan's neighboring barons had not been slow

 to follow his lead: none seemed happy with Duke

 Benigaris, and the) resurrected Camaris was difficult to ig-

 nore.

 

 Isgrimnur was struck by the circularity of the situation.

 Josua's forces were led by a man thought long-dead, and

 they were fighting a crucial battle in the very place where

 Prester John, Josua's father and Camaris' closest friend,

 

 Tad Williams

 

 had won his greatest triumph. It should have been a good

 omen, Isgrimnur thought ... but instead he felt the past

 reaching up to squeeze the life out of the present, as

 though History was some great and Jealous monster thai

 wished to force all that followed after into unhappy mim-

 icry.

 

 This is no life for an old man. The duke sighed. Sludig,

 watching raptly as the battle developed, was oblivious. To

 fight a war, you must believe it can accomplish some-

 thing. We fight this one to save John's kingdom, or per-

 haps even to save all of mankind ... but isn 't that what

 we always think? That all wars are uselessexcept the

 one we're fighting now?

 

 He fingered his reins. His back was stiff, sore already,

 and he had not even put it to any hard work. Kvalnir hung

 sheathed at his side, untouched since he had sharpened it

 and polished it in the sleepless hours last night.

 

 I'm just tired, he thought. / want Elvritshalla back. I

 want to see my grandchildren. I want to walk with my

 wife by the Gratuvask when the ice is breaking up. But I

 can have none of those things until this damnable fighting

 is over.

 

 And that is why we do it, he decided. Because we hope

 it will bring us peace. But it never, never does....

 

 Sludig cried out. Isgrimnur looked up, startled, but his

 earl's shout had been one of glee.

 

 "Look! Camaris and the horsemen are coming down on

 them!"

 

 When it had become clear that bowshot would not dis-

 lodge Seriddan's Metessan shield wall from the center of

 the pass, Varellan of Nabban had ordered another charge

 by his knights. Now that Varellan's forces had committed

 themselves to pushing the prince's troops back down the

 valley, Camaris and Hotvig's Thrithings-men had come

 down from the hillroads and thrown themselves into the

 side of Varellan's larger force.

 

 "Where is Camaris?" Sludig said. "Ah! There! I see his

 helm!"

 

 Isgrimnur could see it, too. The sea-dragon was little

 more than a flaming smear of gold from this distance, but

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 315

 

 its wearer stood tall in his stirrups, a visible circle of dis-

 may spreading around him as the Nabbanai knights strug-

 gled to stay out of Thorn's black reach.

 

 Prince Josua, who had been watching the battle from a

 point about a hundred cubits downslope from Isgrimnur

 and Sludig, now turned Vinyafod toward them. "Sludig!"

 he called- 'Tell Freosel I want his troop to wait until he

 counts his fingers ten times after I give the sign for the

 rest of us to charge."

 

 "Yes, Highness." Sludig wheeled his steed around and

 jogged toward where Freosel and the rest of Josua's

 household troop stood in fretting anticipation.

 

 The prince continued upslope until he was at

 Isgrimnur's side. "Varellan's youth is finally beginning to

 show. He has proved himself overeager."

 

 "There are worse faults in a commander," Isgrimnur re-

 plied, "but you're right. He should have been content to

 hold the mouth of the pass."

 

 "But he thought he saw a weakness when he threw us

 back yesterday." Josua squinted up at the sky. "Now he is

 committed to pushing us back. We are lucky. Benigaris,

 for all his rashness in other matters, would never have

 taken such a risk."

 

 "Then why did he take the chance of sending little

 brother in the first place?"

 

 Josua shrugged. "Who knows? Perhaps he underesti-

 mated us. Remember also that Benigaris does not rule

 alone in Nabban."

 

 Isgrimnur grunted. "Poor Leobardis. What did he do to

 deserve such a wife and son?"

 

 "Again, who knows? But perhaps there is some end

 that we cannot see to all this."

 

 The duke shrugged-

 

 The prince was watching the flow of the battle criti-

 cally, eyes shadowed in the depths of his helm. He had

 drawn Naidel, which lay across his saddle and knee. "Al-

 most time," he said. "Almost time."

 

 "They are still many more than us, Josua." Isgrimnur

 pulled Kvalnir from its sheath. There remained a momen-

 tary pleasure in this: the blade had stood him well in

 

 3i6 Tad Williams

 

 many a contest, witnessed by the fact that he was still

 here, still alive, with aching back and chafing armor and

 doubts and all.

 

 "But we have Camarisand you, old friend." Josua

 grinned tightly. "We can ask for no better odds." His gaze

 had not left the neck of the pass. "May Usires the Ran-

 somer preserve us." The prince solemnly made the sign of

 the Tree on his breast, then lifted his hand. Naidel caught

 the sunlight, and for a moment Isgrimnur found it hard to

 breathe. "To me, men!" Josua cried.

 

 A hom sounded on the slopes above him. From the nar-

 rows of the pass, Cellian blared back an answer.

 

 As the prince's troops and the rebel barons and their

 men charged up the road, Isgrimnur could not help mar-

 veling. They had become a real army at last, several thou-

 sand strong. When he remembered how it had begun,

 Josua and a dozen other bedraggled survivors slipping out

 of Naglimund through a back door, he felt heartened.

 Surely God the Merciful could not bring them so far only

 to dash their hopes!

 

 The Metessans had held firm. Josua and his army

 swirled around and past them; the pikemen, freed from

 their deadly chore, dragged their wounded back down the

 road. The prince's forces flung themselves on Varellan's

 knights, whose superior numbers and heavy armor had

 been overwhelming even the ferocity of Camaris and the

 Thrithings-men.

 

 Isgrimnur held back at first, lending aid where he

 could, but unwilling to throw himself into the thick,

 where lives seemed to be measured in instants. He spotted

 one of Hotvig's men unhorsed, standing over his dying

 steed and warding off the pike of a mounted knight.

 Isgrimnur rode forward, bellowing a challenge; when the

 Nabbanai knight heard him and turned, me Thrithings-

 man leapt forward and shoved his sword in beneath the

 man's arm where there was no shielding metal on his

 leather coat. As the knight toppled, bleeding, Isgrimnur

 felt a twitch of fury at his ally's dishonorable tactic, but

 when the rescued man shouted his thanks and legged

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER317

 

 down the slope, back into the heart of the struggle, the

 duke did not know any longer what to think. Should the

 Thrithings-man have died to preserve the lie that war

 could be honorable? But did another man deserve death

 because he believed that lie?

 

 Slowly, as the afternoon turned, Isgrimnur found him-

 self drawn deeper into the bloody conflict, slaying one

 man and driving several others back, bloodily wounded.

 He sustained only minor hurts himself, but only because

 luck was with him. He had stumbled once, and his oppo-

 nent's swinging two-handed sword blow had glanced off

 the top of his helm; had he not fallen, it would likely have

 separated head from neck. Isgrimnur fought with none of

 his old battle rage, but fear brought out a strength he had

 forgotten he had. It was like the ghant nest all over again:

 

 everywhere he turned there were hard-shelled things that

 wanted to kill him.

 

 Upslope, Josua and his knights had pushed Varellan's

 force back almost to the outer lip of the pass. Surely,

 thought Isgrimnur, some of those who fought in the front

 line must be able to see the broad valley below, green in

 the sunlightexcept that to look at anything except the

 man in front of you and his weapon was to court swift

 death.

 

 The knights of Nabban bent, but did not give. If they

 had made a mistake in trying to push their earlier advan-

 tage, they would make no mistake now. Whatever Prince

 Josua wanted, it was clear that he and his army would

 have to take it with their own hands.

 

 As the sun began to dip down toward the horizon,

 Isgrimnur momentarily found himself in a backwater of

 the fighting, a spot in which the struggle had ended for a

 time; all around the bodies of murdered men lay sprawled

 like the leavings of a receding tide.

 

 Just down the hill Isgrimnur saw a gleam of gold: it

 was Camaris. The duke watched him in amazement.

 Hours since the battle had begun, and although his move-

 ments seemed a little slower, still the old knight fought on

 with undiminished purpose. Camaris sat upright in his

 saddle, his movements as regular and unexcited as those

 

 318

 

 Tad Williams

 

 of a fanner at work in his field. The battle horn swung at

 his side. Thorn whistled through the air like a black

 scythe, and where it touched, headless bodies fell like

 harvested wheat.

 

 He's not as fierce as he ever was, Isgrimnur marveled,

 he's fiercer. He fights like a damned soul. What is in that

 man's head? What gnaws at his heart?

 

 Isgrimnur suddenly felt shame that he stood watching

 as Camaris, twenty years his senior, fought and bled. The

 most important battle, perhaps, that had ever been fought,

 and it still hung in the balance, unclaimed. He was

 needed. Old and tired of war he might be, but he was still

 an experienced blade.

 

 He lightly dug his spurs into his mount's side, heading

 toward the place where Sir Camaris now kept three foot

 soldiers at bay. It was a spot blocked from view by a web

 of low trees. Even though he had little doubt that Camaris

 could hold out until others reached him, it might be some

 while before they spotted him .. . and in any case,

 Camaris in the saddle was an inspiration to the rest of

 Josua's troops that would be a shame to waste behind

 concealing shrubbery.

 

 Before he had gone more than a dozen cubits,

 Isgrimnur saw an arrow suddenly sprout from his horse's

 chest, just before his leg; the horse reared, shrilling with

 agony. Isgrimnur felt a burning pain in his own side, then

 a moment later he was tumbling free of his saddle. The

 ground rose up and hit him like a club. His horse, strug-

 gling for balance on the rocky slope, wavered above him

 with front legs flailing, then its shadow descended.

 

 The last thing Isgrimnur saw and felt was a tremendous

 concussion of light, as though the sun had dropped from

 the sky to land on top of him.

 

 14

 

 Empires of Dust

 

 A

 

 It was THodHeninfl. Simon was parched, his mouth

 dry as bone dust, and all around him echoed the sound of

 dripping water ,.. but there was no water to be found. It

 was as though some demon had looked into his thoughts,

 then plucked out his fondest desire and turned it into a

 cruel trick-

 He stopped, peering into the darkness. The tunnel had

 widened, but still led downward, and there had been no

 place to turn, no crossing corridors. Whatever made that

 dripping was now behind him, as though he had passed it

 somehow in the featureless shadows.

 

 But that can't be! The sound was before me, and now

 it's behind mebut it was never beside me. Simon fought

 to keep down his fear, which felt like a living thing inside

 him, all tiny clicking scales and scrabbling claws.

 

 He might be lost beneath the ground, he told himself,

 but he was not dead. He had been trapped in tunnels like

 these before and had come out into the sun again. And

 now he was older; he had seen things that few others had

 seen. Somehow, he would survive. And if he didn't? Then

 he would face the end without shame.

 

 Brave words, mooncalf, an inner voice mocked him-

 Brave words now. But when a sunless day and a moonless

 night pass with no water? When the torch bums out?

 

 Be quiet, he told the inner voice.

 

 ^

 

 320Tad Williams

 

 "King John went down the darksome hole,"

 

 Simon sang quietly- His throat hurt, but he was grow-

 ing tired of the monotony of his bootheels clumping

 against the stone. Not to mention the miserable, lonely

 way the sound made him feel.

 

 "To seek the fiery beast below,

 Through caveish haunt of toad and troll,

 Where none but he had dared to go ..."

 

 Simon frowned. If only this were the haunt of trolls.

 He would have given anything for Binabik's companion-

 shipnot to mention a skin full of water followed by a

 healthy swallow of kangkang. And if Prester John had

 brought nothing but a sword down into the earthwhich

 he hadn't, come to think of it: wasn't that what the

 Hemystirman Eolair had come to Sesuad'ra to tell them?

 That John had found Minneyar somewhere down in the

 ground?then what had he done for light? Simon had

 one torch, and its flame was beginning to look a little thin

 around the edges. It was all very well to go thumping and

 bumping about looking for dragons, but the songs never

 said much about food and water and trying to make fires.

 

 Old cradle songs and missing swords and tunnels in the

 dark, fetid earth. How had his life ever come to revolve

 around such things? When Simon had prayed for knightly

 adventures, he had hoped for more noble thingsbattle-

 fields and gleamingly polished armor, deeds of bravery,

 the love of the multitudes. He had found those, more or

 less, but they had not been what he had expected. And

 time and time again he was drawn back into this madness

 of swords and tunnels, as though he were being forced to

 play some childhood game long past the point where he

 had tired of it....

 

 His shoulder bumped against the wall and he almost

 fell. The torch dropped from his grasp and lay on the tun-

 nel floor. Simon stared at it stupidly for a moment before

 suddenly regaining his senses. He snatched it up and held

 it tightly, as though the torch itself had tried to escape.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER321

 

 Mooncalf.

 

 He sat down heavily. He was tired of walking, tired of

 empty nothingness and solitude. The tunnel had become a

 winding hole through irregular slabs of rock, which likely

 meant he was now deep among the bones of Swertclif; he

 seemed to be bound for the center of the earth-

 

 Something in his pocket chafed against his leg, catch-

 ing his attention. What was he carrying? He had been

 stumbling down these passageways for what seemed like

 hours, and he had not even bothered to see what odd-

 ments he had brought with him when he fell through the

 crumbling earth.

 

 Emptying out the pockets stitched on his breeches,

 wincing and making soft sounds at the stinging of his

 abraded fingers, he discovered that he had not missed

 much by postponing his inventory. There was a stone, a

 round smooth one that he had picked up because he liked

 the heft of it, and the almost featureless belt buckle,

 which he had thought he discarded. He decided to keep it,

 thinking vaguely that it could be used for scratching or

 digging.

 

 The only significant find was a bit of dried meat from

 yesterday's mid-aftemoon mealF He looked longingly at

 the wrinkled strip, which was about the length and width

 of his finger, then put it aside. He had a feeling that he

 would want it more later than he did even now.

 

 That accounted for his pockets. The gold ring Mor-

 genes had sent to him was still on his finger, almost invis-

 ible under a layer of dirt, but whatever use or significance

 it might have in the world of sunlight was meaningless

 here: he could not eat it, and it would not frighten an en-

 emy. His Qanuc knife was still in the sheath tied to his

 leg. Other than that and the torch, he was truly defense-

 less. His sword was somewhere above the groundwith

 Binabik and Miriamele, if they had escaped the diggers

 along with his White Arrow, his cloak, his armor, and the

 rest of his meager possessions. He was nearly as empty-

 handed as when he had fled the castle almost a year be-

 fore. And he was back in the black earth again. In the

 smothering earth ...

 

 322 Tad Williams

 

 Stop it, he ordered himself. What was it Morgenes

 said? "Not what's in your hands, but what's in your

 head." That's something, anyway. I have a lot more in my

 head than I did then.

 

 But what good will it do me if I die of thirst?

 He struggled to his feet and began walking again. He

 had no idea where the tunnel might lead, but it must lead

 somewhere. It must. The possibility that this direction

 might finish as the other end had, in an impenetrable wall

 of fallen dirt or stone, was not something he could afford

 to consider.

 

 "Down pitch-black pit went young King John."

 Simon sang again, quieter than before,

 

 "Where Fire-Drake lurked on hoard of gold,

 And no one knew that he had gone,

 For not a person had he told ..."

 

 It was strange. Simon did not feel mad, but he was

 hearing things that were not truly there. The sound of

 splashing water had returned, louder and more forceful

 than before, but now it seemed to come from all sides, as

 though he walked through the curtain of a waterfall.

 Mixed with it, just barely separable from the hiss and

 spatter, was the murmur of speech.

 

 Voices! Perhaps there are cross-tunnels somewhere

 nearby. Perhaps they lead to people. To real, living

 people ...

 

 The voices and the water-sounds stayed with him for a

 time without revealing their source, then faded away,

 leaving him again with the noise of his footsteps as his

 only company.

 

 Confused and weary, frightened by what the phantom

 sounds might mean, he almost stepped into a hole in the

 tunnel floor. He tripped and then caught himself, braced

 his hand against the wall, and stared down. The light of

 another torch seemed to gleam in the depths below, and

 for a moment he thought his heart would stop.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER323

 

 "Who .,. Who's th ..." As he leaned down, the light

 below him seemed to rise.

 

 A reflection. Water.

 

 Simon dropped to his knees and pushed his face toward

 the tiny pool, then stopped as its smell came up to him,

 oily and unpleasant. He dipped his fingers in and brought

 them out. The water seemed oddly slippery on his skin.

 He brought the torch forward for a better look. A sheet of

 flame leapt up and slapped hotly against his face; he

 shouted in pain and surprise as he tumbled backward. For

 a moment it seemed the whole world had caught fire.

 

 Sitting splay-legged on the ground, he lifted his hand to

 his cheek and felt gingerly across his features. The skin

 was as tender as if he had been too long in the sun, and

 he could feel the hairs of his beard turned crisp and

 curled, but everything seemed to be in its proper place.

 He looked down to see a flame dancing in the hole in the

 tunnel floor.

 

 Usires Aedon! he cursed silently. Mooncalf's luck. /

 find water and it's the kind that bumswhatever that is.

 

 A tear coursed down his hot cheek.

 

 Whatever was in the pool was burning merrily. Simon

 stared at it, so disappointed to find his drinking water un-

 drinkable that he could not for a long time make sense of

 what he was seeing. At last, something Morgenes had

 once said came back to him.

 

 Perdruinese Firethat's what it is. The doctor said it's

 found in caves. The Perdruin-folk used to make catapult

 balls of it and throw it at their enemies and bum them to

 cracklings. That was the kind of history lesson that Simon

 had paid close attention tothe sort where interesting

 things happened. If I had more sticks and more rags, I

 could use it to make torches.

 

 Shaking his head, he clambered to his feet and started

 down the tunnel once more. After a few paces he stopped

 and shook his head again.

 

 Mooncalf. Stupid mooncalf.

 

 He returned to the burning pool and sat down, then

 took off his shirt and began to tear strips of cloth from the

 hem. The Perdruinese Fire was pleasantly warm.

 

 324

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Rachel would skin me if she saw me ruining a perfectly

 good shirt. He giggled too loudly. The echoes rolled

 down the corridor into empty darkness. It would be good

 to see Rachel again, he realized. The idea seemed strange

 but indisputable.

 

 When he had a dozen stripshis shirt now ended not

 far beneath his armpitshe sat and stared at the flames

 for a moment, trying to decide how to dip the cloth with-

 out burning the skin off his hands. He considered using

 the torch but decided against it. He had no idea how deep

 this hole in the tunnel ran and he was afraid he might

 drop the brand- Then the only light he possessed would

 be one he could not move.

 

 At last, after long moments of thought, he set the torch

 to one side, then began shoveling loose dirt from the

 cracks between slabs of stone into the hole. After he had

 poured in a score of handfuls, the flame flickered and

 died. He waited a little longer, having no idea of how

 long it might take to cool, then shoveled the sticky din

 away until there was an open space into which he could

 dip the rags. When he had soaked all the strips of cloth,

 he put one aside and then rolled each of the others tightly

 and set them all side by side on the last and largest piece

 he had torn from his shirt. He bundled up this makeshift

 sack and hung it on his belt. The remaining strip he care-

 fully wrapped around the torch just below the flame, then

 turned the brand until the cloth soaked in Perdruinese Fire

 caught. It burned brightly, and Simon nodded. He still

 needed food and water, but if he managed carefully, he

 would not have to worry about losing his light for some

 while yet. Lost and alone he might be, but he was not just

 Simon Mooncalfhe was the fabled Seoman Snowlock

 as well.

 

 But he would much rather have been just Simon, and

 free to walk upon the green world with his friends.

 

 Choices, he thought unhappily, could be both a blessing

 and a curse.

 

 Simon had already slept once, curled in a ball on the

 hard tunnel floor with a fresh rag of Perdruinese Fire

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 325

 

 wrapped around his torch. When he awakened from a

 panicky dream in which all light was gone and he crawled

 through muddy blackness, the torch's flame was still

 burning steadily.

 

 Since then, he had walked for what seemed like several

 more hours. His thirst had grown greater and greater until

 every step seemed to leach moisture from his body, until

 he could think of almost nothing but finding water. The

 strip of meat was still in his pocketjust the thought of

 eating the dry, salty thing made his head ache, despite a

 hunger almost as great as his thirst.

 

 Now, suddenly, the monotonous stone and earth walls

 of the tunnel had been breached. A cross tunnel, a ragged

 but substantial hole that was clearly not natural, opened

 out on either side. After a near-infinity of choiceless plod-

 ding, he had a decision to make: should he go forward,

 right, or left?

 

 What he wanted, of course, was a path leading upward,

 but neither of the two branches seemed anything but

 level. He walked a little way down each in turn, sniffing

 the air, looking and listening for anything that might be a

 sign of open air or water, but to no avail: the cross tunnel

 seemed as devoid of interest as the one through which he

 had been trudging since Aedon only knew when.

 

 He moved back to the main tunnel and stood for a mo-

 ment, trying to decide where he might be. Surely he was

 somewhere far beneath Swertclif itselfhe could not

 have walked downward at such a steady angle for so long

 without having descended to beneath the hill itself. But

 his way had wound so many times he could not possibly

 guess where he might stand in relation to the world

 above. He would just have to make a choice and see what

 happened.

 

 /// only ever turn one direction, I can at least find my

 way back to where I've been.

 

 Based on nothing definite, he resolved to take the left-

 hand tunnel, and to always take the left-hand turning from

 here on. Then, if he decided he had made a bad decision,

 he would just turn around and take all the turns back to

 the right.

 

 326 Tad Williams

 

 He turned to the left and stumbled on.

 

 At first the tunnel seemed no different than the one he

 had left, a tube of uneven stone and earth without any

 sign of use or purpose. Who had made these grim holes?

 It must have been men, or manlike beings, for in places

 he felt sure he could see spots where rock been chipped

 or broken away to open the meandering course.

 

 His thirst and dreary loneliness were such that he did

 not notice the soft voices again until they were all about

 him once more. This time, though, there was a sensation

 of movement as wella plucking at his clothes like the

 touch of the wind, a hurrying of shadows that made the

 light in. the tunnel seem to flicker. The voices were wail-

 ing softly in a language he could not understand. As they

 passed around him or through him he felt a sad coldness.

 These were memories ... of a sort. These were lost

 things, shapes and feelings that had come unstuck from

 their own time. He was nothing to them, and they, dis-

 turbing as they might be, were really nothing to him.

 

 Unless I become one of these myself. He felt bubbles of

 fear rising within him. Unless someday some other wan-

 dering mooncalf feels a Simon-shadow brushing past him

 saying "Lost, lost, lost ..."

 

 It was a horrible thought. Long after the flurry of

 almost-shapes was gone and the voices were silent, it

 stayed with him.

 

 He had turned three more times, on each occasion

 choosing the left-hand direction, when at last things be-

 gan to change.

 

 Simon was considering going backhis last turning

 had led him into a tunnel that now sloped sharply

 downwardwhen his eye was caught by a blotchiness

 along the walls. He brought his torch close and saw that

 the cracks of the stone were full of moss. Moss, he felt

 sure, meant water somewhere nearby. He was so parched

 that he pulled loose a matted handful and put it in his

 mouth- After a few tentative chews he managed to swal-

 low it. Bile rose in his throat, and for a moment he

 thought he might be ill. It was dreadfully bitter, but there

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER327

 

 was moisture in it. If he had to, he could eat it and prob-

 ably stay alive for a whilebut he prayed he could find

 some other alternative.

 

 He was staring at the tiny fronds, trying to decide

 whether he could stomach a second helping, when he no-

 ticed pale marks in the gap where he had pulled loose the

 first handful. He squinted and held the torch closer. It was

 the remains of some kind of design, that was cleargreat

 curving parallels and eroded shapes that might have been

 leaves or petals. Time had worn them away almost com-

 pletely, but they seemed to have some of the looping

 grace of carvings he had seen in Da'ai Chikiza and

 Sesuad'ra. Sithi work? Had he gone so deep so quickly?

 

 Simon looked around at the tunnel itself, at the crude,

 jagged-faced stones. He couldn't imagine the Sithi mak-

 ing such a place, even for the most basic of purposes. But

 if they had not dug these tunnels, why would there be

 Sithi carving on the walls?

 

 He shook his head. Too many questions when the only

 ones that mattered were, where could he find some

 waterand which way was out?

 

 Although he began to examine the walls carefully as he

 walked, his discovery of the moss was not immediately

 followed by anything more useful. The tunnel now began

 to widen, and the next two passageways he chose seemed

 more artfully constructed, the walls symmetrical, the floor

 even. Then, as he explored yet another branching, he put

 his foot down on nothing.

 

 With a shout of horrified surprise, Simon caught at the

 entrance of the tunnel. His torch flew from his hand and

 tumbled down into the darkness where he had nearly gone

 himself. As he watched in fearful anticipation, it struck

 and then rolled; it stopped at last, flickering ... but did

 not go out.

 

 Stairs. His torch was lying on a flight of rough stairs

 leading downward. The first half-dozen steps had crum-

 bled or been broken away, leaving nothing behind but a

 few rough edges.

 

 He did not want to go down. He wanted to go up.

 

 But stairs! Maybe there's something real down there

 

 328 Tad Williams

 

 some place that makes sense. What could be worse than

 what's already happening?

 

 Nothing. Everything.

 

 It was a left-hand turning, so he would not be com-

 pletely lost if it proved a bad choice. But it would be

 much easier to drop down the gap comprised by the miss-

 ing stepsa distance almost twice his heightthan to

 climb back up again if he changed his mind. Perhaps he

 should take one of the other paths....

 

 What nonsense are you thinking? he berated himself.

 He would have to go down just to retrieve his torch.

 

 Simon sat, dangling his legs over the stairiess gap, and

 pulled the strip of dried meat from his pocket. He broke

 off a small piece and sucked on it meditatively as he

 looked down. The torchlight showed the steps had been

 chiseled square, but left unfinished: they were made to be

 useful, nothing else. Looking at them, there was no way

 to tell whether they led anywhere.

 

 He chewed and stared. His mouth filled with saliva as

 he savored the salty, smoky taste. It was wonderful to

 have something solid between his teeth again!

 

 Simon rose, then turned and went back up the corridor,

 feeling with his hand when the light grew dim, until he

 found more moss clinging to the wall. He pulled loose

 several handfuls, then shoved the sticky mass into his

 pocket. He returned to the stairwell and peered down until

 he felt he had located the best spot to land. He slid his

 legs over, then rolled onto his front and let himself down

 as carefully as he could, gritting his teeth as the stone

 scraped against his stomach and chest. When he was al-

 most hanging full length, he let go.

 

 A piece of loose stone, perhaps a fragment of the miss-

 ing -steps, was lying in wait for him like a viper. He felt

 one foot touch before the other, then the first foot rolled

 over at the ankle. A flash of pain shot through his leg.

 

 Tears in his eyes, Simon lay on the topmost step for a

 moment, cursing his luck. He sat up, slid forward until he

 could reach the fallen torch, then set it down beside him

 and took off his boot to examine his injured ankle.

 

 He could bend it reasonably well, although each

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER329

 

 change of position was painful. He decided that it was not

 brokenbut what could he have done about it if it were?

 He pulled off his shirt and tore loose yet another strip,

 then pulled the ever-shrinking garment back on. When he

 had bound the cloth around his ankle and foot as snugly

 as he could, he pulled the boot back on and tested him-

 self. He could walk, he decided, but it would hurt.

 

 Walk, then. What else can you do?

 

 He began his limping descent.

 

 Simon had hoped that the stairs would lead him down

 to some place more real than the endless, pointless tun-

 nels. But the more real his surroundings became, the

 more they also became unreal.

 

 After several score small but painful descents, the stairs

 ended and Simon hobbled out through a jagged hole into

 another corridor, a passage quite unlike the tunnels

 through which he had been traveling. Moss-festooned and

 almost black with the dirt of ages, it was nevertheless

 made of carefully-cut dressed stone; its walls were thick

 with carvings. But when he stared at these carvings for

 more than an instant, those that were just at the comers of

 his vision seemed to shimmer and move, as though they

 were not marks in stone at all, but rather some kind of

 parchment-thin creatures, slender as thread. The walls and

 floor seemed somehow unstable, too: when Simon looked

 away for a moment in his plodding progress, lured by yet

 another smear of movement at the edge of his eye, or was

 distracted by the flickering of the torch flame, they ap-

 peared to change. The long straight corridor suddenly had

 an upward slant, or seemed abruptly narrower. If he

 turned away and then looked back, everything was as it

 had been before.

 

 Nor were these the only tricks this place played on

 him. The noises that he had heard before returned, voices

 and rushing water now joined by a strange, abstract mu-

 sic, all sourceless and ghostly. Unexpected scents washed

 over him, too, rushes of sweet flowery air one moment

 that quickly gave way to dank emptiness once more, only

 

 33"

 

 Tad Williams

 

 to be supplanted a moment later by the harsh smell of

 something burning.

 

 It was too much. Simon wanted to lie down, to go to

 sleep and wake up with everything stable and unchang-

 ing. Even the monotony of the tunnels above was prefer-

 able to this. He might have been trudging at the bottom of

 the sea, where the currents and uneven light made every-

 thing sway and dance and shimmer.

 

 How long did you think you could walk in the empty

 earth before you went mad. Mooncalf?

 

 f'm not going mad, he told himself. I'm just tired. Tired

 and thirsty. If only there weren't all these water-noises.

 They just make things worse.

 

 He pulled some of the moss from his pocket and

 chewed as he walked, forcing himself to swallow the

 hateful stuff.

 

 There was no question that he was walking in a place

 in which people ... in which someone ... had once lived,

 The ceiling rose higher above him, the floor was level be-

 neath the rubble and dust, and the crossing passages, al-

 most all of them choked with stone and soil, were faced

 with carved arches, soiled and worn to pebble-smoothness

 but clearly the work of careful craft.

 

 Simon paused for a moment before one of these en-

 tranceways. As he stood resting his throbbing ankle, star-

 ing at the jumble of rocks and dirt that plugged it, the

 mound of dirt seemed to darken, then turn black. A small

 light bloomed in that blackness, and Simon suddenly felt

 he was looking through the doorway. He took a step

 closer. In the darkness beyond he saw a single spot of lu-

 minance, an orb of light dimly glowing. Near it, bathed in

 faint radiance, was ... a face.

 

 Simon gasped. The face lifted, as though the person sit-

 ting in near-darkness had heard him, but the high-slanted

 eyes did not meet his, staring instead out past him. It was

 a Sitha face, or seemed so in the moment he could ob-

 serve it, a world of pain and concern in the shining eyes.

 He saw the lips move in speech, the eyebrows rise in sad

 inquiry. Then the darkness blurred, the light vanished, and

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 331

 

 Simon was standing with his nose a finger's breadth away

 from a doorway choked with rubble.

 

 Dry. Dry. Dead. Dead.

 

 A sob hitched in his throat. He turned back to the long

 corridor.

 

 Simon didn't know how long he had been staring at the

 flame of his torch. It wavered before him, a universe of

 yellow light. It was a terrible effort to wrench his gaze

 away.

 

 The walls on both sides had turned to water.

 

 He stopped, staring in awe. Somehow the tunnel floor

 had become a narrow walkway over a great darkness and

 the walls had retreated: they no longer touched the floor

 on which he stood, and their stone facing was completely

 covered by flowing sheets of water. He could hear it rush-

 ing down into the emptiness below, see the uneven reflec-

 tion of the torch as it played across the liquid expanse.

 

 Simon moved to the edge of the walkway and stretched

 out his hand, but his fingers did not reach. He could feel

 a faint dew of mist on his fingertips, and when he drew

 the hand back and touched it to his mouth, there was a

 faint taste of wet sweetness. He'leaned out again, swaying

 perilously over the darkness, but still could not touch

 even a fingertip to the sheeting water. He cursed in fury.

 If he only had a bowl, a cup, a spoon'

 

 Think, Mooncalf! Use your head!

 

 After a moment's consideration, he put his torch down

 on the walkway and shucked his tattered shirt over his

 head. He got down on his knees; then, clutching one

 sleeve, he flung the rest of it out as far as he could. It

 touched lightly against the cascade and was pulled down-

 ward. He yanked it back, his heart beating faster as he felt

 me shirt's new heaviness. He threw back his head, then

 pushed the sodden cloth against his mouth. The first

 drops were like honey on his tongue....

 

 The light flickered. Everything in the long chamber

 seemed to lurch to one side. The rush of the water grew

 louder, then hissed away into silence.

 

 Simon's mouth was full of dust.

 

 332

 

 Tad Williams

 

 He gagged and spat, spat again, then fell to the floor in

 a panicked fury, growling and thrashing like a beast with

 a thorn in its side. When he looked up, he could still see

 the walls and the gap that stretched between them and the

 walkway on which he crouchedthat much was real

 but there was no sheeting water, only a lighter-colored

 smear on the stone wall where his shirt had flicked loose

 a few centuries' worth of grime.

 

 Simon shook with tearless sobbing as he wiped the dirt

 from his face and rubbed the last of crumbs of soil from

 his swollen tongue. He tried to eat a little of the moss to

 take the taste of the dust away, but it was so foul he was

 almost sick again. He spat the leafy wad down into the

 abyss.

 

 What kind of cursed, haunted place is this? Where am

 

 I?

 

 I'm alone, alone.

 

 Still shaking, he dragged himself to his feet, looking

 for a safer place to lie down for a while and sleep. He

 needed to get away. There was no water. There was no

 water anywhere. And no safety either.

 

 Faint voices up in the shadows of the high ceiling sang

 words he could not understand. A wind he could not feel

 fluttered' the torch flame.

 

 Am / alive?

 

 Yes, I am. I am Simon, and 1 am alive, and 1 will not

 give up. I am not a ghost.

 

 He had slept twice more, and had chewed enough of

 the bitter moss to keep himself moving in between rests.

 He had used more than half of his treated rags to keep the

 torch burning. It was difficult to remember a time when

 he had not seen the world by wavering torchlight, or

 when the world itself had not consisted of unpeopled

 stone corridors and whispering, bodiless voices. He felt as

 though his own essence had begun to melt away, as

 though he were becoming a chittering shade.

 

 / am Simon, he reminded himself. / met the dragon and

 I won the White Arrow. I am real.

 

 As in a dream, he moved through the halls and corri-

 

 TO GREENANGEL TOWER

 

 333

 

 dors of a great castle. For illuminated moments swift as

 the whiteflash of lightning, he could see it in full life, the

 halls full of faint golden faces, the walls pale, shining

 stone that reflected the colors of the sky. It was a place

 unlike anything he had ever seen, with streams prisoned

 in stone banks that ran from room to room, and waterfalls

 that frothed down the walls of chambers. But for all the

 splashing, it was still dream-water. Each time he reached,

 the promise turned to grit in his hands; the walls darkened

 and slouched, the light dimmed, the beautiful fretwork

 withered away, and Simon found himself walking in

 ruined stone halls again, a homeless spirit in a vast tomb.

 

 The Sithi lived here. he told himself. This was Asu 'a,

 shining Asu 'a. And somehow they are still here ... as

 though the stones themselves are dreaming of the old

 days.

 

 A poisonously seductive idea began to make itself felt.

 Amerasu Ship-Bom had said that somehow Simon lived

 closer to the Dream Road than othershe had seen the

 Parting of the Families during his vigil atop Sesuad'ra,

 hadn't he? Perhaps, then, if he could discover some way

 to do it, he could ... step across. He would go into the

 dream, he would live in beautiful Asu'a and plunge his

 face into the living streams that meandered through the

 palaceand this time they would not turn to dust. He

 would live in Asu'a, and never come back again to this

 dark, haunted world of crumbling shadows....

 

 Never come back to your friends? Never come back to

 your duty?

 

 But the dream-Asu'a was so beautiful. In the instants

 of its flickering existence, he could see roses and other

 startlingly bright flowers climbing up the walls to bask in

 the sun from the high windows. He could see the Sithi,

 the dream-people who lived here, graceful and strange as

 bright-plumed birds. The dream showed a time before Si-

 mon's kind had destroyed the Sithi's greatest house.

 Surely the immortals would welcome a lost traveler ...

 Oh, Mother of Mercy, might they welcome him in from

 the darkness... ?

 

 Weak and weary, Simon stumbled on a loose paving

 

 334

 

 Tad Williams

 

 stone and fell to his hands and knees. His heart felt like

 an anvil in his chest. He could not move, could not go an-

 other step. Anything was better than this mad loneliness!

 

 The wide room before him pulsed, but did not disap-

 pear. Out of the nebulous cloud of moving forms, one of

 the figures became clearer. It was a Sitha woman, skin

 golden as sunlight, hair a cloud of nightblack. She stood

 between two twining trees laden with silvery fruit, and

 her eyes slowly turned to Simon. She paused. A strange

 look came over her face, as though she had heard a voice

 calling her name in a lonely place.

 

 "Can ... can you see me?" Simon gasped. He scrab-

 bled toward her across the floor. She continued to stare at

 the spot where he had been.

 

 Terror rushed through him. He had lost her! His limbs

 turned boneless and he slumped forward onto his belly.

 Behind the black-haired woman a fountain of water spar-

 kled, the drops that flew through the slanting light of the

 windows glowing like gems. She closed her eyes, and Si-

 mon felt a questing touch at the farthest edge of his mind.

 She seemed only a few short steps away, but at the same

 moment as distant as a star in the sky. "Can't you see

 me!?" he howled."! want to come inside! Let me in!"

 

 She stood as immobile as a statue, her hands folded be-

 fore her. The high-windowed chamber grew dark, until

 she alone stood in a column of radiance. Something

 brushed against Simon's thoughts, light as a spider's step,

 soft as a butterfly's breath.

 

 Go back, little one. Go back and live.

 

 Then she opened her eyes and looked at him again. Her

 eyes were full of a wisdom so vast and kind mat Simon

 felt himself lifted and held and known. But her words

 were bitter for him.

 

 This is not for you.

 

 She began to fade. For a moment, she was only another

 shadowy figure in the ancient parade of shapes. Then the

 beautiful airy room itself flickered and vanished. Simon

 was sprawled in the dirt. His torch burned fitfully on the

 ground, half a pace from his outstretched fingers.

 

 Gone. Left me behind.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 335

 

 Simon cried until he could not cry any more, until he

 was hoarse with weeping and his face hurt. He dragged

 himself to his feet and went on.

 

 He had almost forgotten his namehe had certainly

 forgotten how many times he had slept, and how many

 times he had sucked at the diminishing wad of moss

 crammed in his pocketwhen he found the great stairs.

 

 There were only a few rags left to replace the one that

 burned on his torch. Simon was thinking about what that

 meant, and realizing that he had gone too far to find his

 way back to the pool of Perdruinese Fire before he was

 plunged into darkness, when he walked through one of

 the sweeping portals of the labyrinthine castle and found

 himself on a vast landing. Above and below this open

 place stretched a flight of wide stairs circling around

 emptiness, an uncountable sweep of steps that curled up

 into shadow and down into darkness.

 

 The stairs! A memory, dim as a fish in a muddy pond,

 came floating up. The ... Tan'ja Stairs? Doctor Mor-

 genes said ... said ...

 

 Long ago, in another life, another Simon had been told

 to look for stairs like theseanti they had led him upward

 to night air and moonlight and damp green grass.

 

 Then that means ... if I go up ...

 

 A shockingly ragged laugh burst out and echoed in the

 stairwell. Something, bats or sad little memories, fluttered

 away into the darkness above, rustling like a handful of

 parchments. Simon began climbi-ng the stairs, his throb-

 bing ankle, his terrible thirst, his utter, utter loneliness al-

 most forgotten.

 

 /';/ breathe the air. I'll see the sky. I'm ... I'm... I'm

 Simon. I won't be a ghost.

 

 Before he had gone half a hundred steps upward, he

 found that a section of the wall had tumbled down,

 smashing the outermost edge of the steps so that a ragged

 gap faced out into the empty darkness. The rest of the

 staircase was blocked by fallen stone.

 

 "Bloody Tree!" he screamed in rage. "Bloody, Bloody

 Tree!"

 

 336

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "... ree ..." the echo repeated. "... ee ..."

 He waved the torch over his head in a furious challenge

 to the empty air; the flame billowed and streaked across

 the black. At last, defeated, he hobbled back down the

 wide stairs-

 He remembered little of his first journey up the Tan'Ja

 Stairs almost a year before, a journey that had taken place

 through both outer and inner darknesses ... but surely

 there had not been so many of these damnable steps! It

 was almost impossible to believe that he could descend so

 far without finding himself in the pits of Hell.

 

 His plodding descent seemed to take at least a day.

 There was no way off: the arches that led from the land-

 ings were blocked by rubble, and the only other escape

 would be over the baluster and a plummet down into ...

 who knew what? By the time he stopped at last to sleep

 on one of the dusty landings, he wished he had never

 stepped onto the stairs at all, but the thought of dragging

 himself all the way back up that near-infinitude of steps

 to the spot where he had entered was horrifying. No,

 down was the only direction left to him. Surely even

 these monstrous stairs must come to an end somewhere!

 Simon curled up and fell into a thick slumber-

 

 His dreams were powerful but confusing. Three almost

 painfully vivid images haunted hima young fair-haired

 man bearing a torch and a spear down a steeply-sloping

 tunnel; an older man, robed and crowned, with a sword

 lying across his knees and a heavy book opened on top of

 it; a tall figure, hidden in shadow, who stood straight-

 backed in the middle of a strangely mobile floor. Again

 and again the same three visions appeared, changing

 slightly, showing more while revealing nothing. The

 spearman cocked his head as though he heard voices. The

 gray-haired man looked up from his reading as though

 disturbed by a sudden noise, and a bloom of red light

 filled the darkness, painting the man's strong features

 scarlet. The shadow-shape turned; a sword was in his

 hand, and something like antlers lifted from his brow....

 Simon awakened with a gasp, sweat cooling on his

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER337

 

 forehead, limbs a-tremble. This had not been the stuff of

 ordinary sleep: he had fallen into some rushing river of

 dream and been carried along like a piece of bark, help-

 lessly careening. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, but he

 was still on the broad landing, still adrift on the ocean of

 stairs.

 

 Dreams and voices, he thought desperately. / need to

 get away from them. If they don't leave me alone, I'll die.

 

 His second-to-last rag was now on the torch. Time was

 running out. If he did not find his way soon, if he did not

 find the air and the sun and moon once more, he would be

 alone in darkness with the shadows of dead time.

 

 Simon hurried down the steps.

 

 The Tan'ja Stairs became a blur, and Simon himself

 was a cracked millwheel, his legs going up, down, up,

 down, every other step bringing a sharp pain as he forced

 his wounded ankle to bear the weight of his hurried de-

 scent. Shallow breaths fluted in and out of his dry mouth.

 If he had not been mad before, madness finally took him

 now. The stairs were the teeth of a mouth that wanted to

 swallow him, but as fast as he bounded downward, falling

 and not feeling the pain, clambering to his feet and plung-

 ing down to the next step, he 'could not escape. There

 were always more teeth. Always more white, even

 teeth....

 

 The voices that had been silent so long rose up around

 him like the choir of monks in the Hayholt's chapel. Si-

 mon paid them no heed. All he could do was fling himself

 down step after step after step. Something in the air was

 different, but he could not let himself pause to decide

 what it was: the voices were haunting him, the teeth

 taunting, waiting to snap closed.

 

 Where there should have been a step, there was instead

 a flat white expanse of ... something. Simon, in mid-leap

 downward, was brought up short and sent tumbling for-

 ward. His elbows cracked painfully against stone. He lay

 for a moment, whimpering, clutching his torch so hard his

 knuckles throbbed. Slowly he lifted his head. The air was

 ... the air smelled ... damp.

 

 The wide landing stretched before him, then ended in

 

 338

 

 Tad Williams

 

 blackness. There were no more stairs, or at least none he

 could see.

 

 Still making pained noises, Simon crawled forward un-

 til the blackness was just before him. As he leaned out,

 his arm swept a small scree of dust and gravel over the

 edge.

 

 Plink. PUnk, pUnk. The sound of small stones falling

 into water. And not falling very far.

 

 Panting, he leaned out, holding his torch as far over the

 darkness as he could. He could see a reflection just a few

 ells below, a wavering smudge of fiery light. Hope welled

 up in him, and that was somehow worse than any of his

 pain.

 

 It's a trick, he mourned. It's another trick. It's dust...

 dust ... dust ...

 

 Still, he crawled around the edge of the landing, look-

 ing for a way down. When he discovered a small and el-

 egantly carved staircase, he crab-climbed down the steps

 on his hands and knees. The stairwell ended in a circular

 landing and a small spit of pale stone that stretched out

 over the blackness. The torch light did not reveal how far

 it extended, but he could see the sweep of the pool's sides

 as they vanished away into the shadows in either direc-

 tion. It was hugealmost a small lake.

 

 Simon dropped onto his stomach and extended his

 hand, then stopped, sniffing. If this great pond were full

 of Perdruinese Fire and he brought his torch close, there

 would be nothing of Simon left but a scrap of cinder. But

 there was no oily smell. He dipped his hand in and felt

 the water close over it, cold and just as wet as wet should

 be. He sucked his fingers. There was a faint metallic

 tangbut it was water.

 

 Water!

 

 He scooped it up in a double handful and lifted it to his

 mouth, more dribbling on his chin and neck than went

 down his throat. It seemed to tingle and sparkle on his

 tongue and fill his veins with warmth. It was glorious

 better than any liquor, more wonderful than any drink he

 had ever tasted- It was water. He was alive.

 

 Simon was light-headed with joy. He drank until he

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER339

 

 was uncomfortably full, until his stomach pressed against

 the wasteband of his breeches; the cool, slightly tangy

 water felt so splendidly wet that it was difficult to stop.

 He poured it over his head and face, splashing so vigor-

 ously that he almost doused the torch, which made him

 laugh until the echoes crisscrossed. When he had moved

 his light up the stairwell to safety, he went back and

 drank more, then took off his ragged shirt and breeches

 and scrubbed himself all over, letting the water run off

 him in wonderfully wasteful excess. At last his fatigue

 overcame him. He lay singing happily until he fell asleep

 on the wet stone-

 Simon awakened slowly, as if swimming upward from

 a great depth. For long moments he did not know where

 he was or what had happened. The powerful rush of

 dream-pictures had come to him again, whirling through

 his sleeping head like leaves in a great windstorm. The

 sword-bearing men were part of it, but there had also

 been a flash of shields as an armored host rode out

 through a tall silver gate, a splintery array of towers in

 rainbow hues, a glint of yellow-as a raven cocked its head

 to reveal a bright eye, a circle that flashed gold, a tree

 with bark pale as snow, a dark wheel turning-. -.

 

 Simon rubbed his temples, trying to clear away the

 clinging images. His head, which had felt hollow and airy

 when he was bathing himself, now throbbed and pounded.

 He groaned and sat up. He would be plagued by dreams,

 it seemed, no matter what happened. But there were other

 things to think about, things about which he could do

 somethingor at least try. Food. Escape.

 

 He looked up to where his torch lay on one of the steps

 of the narrow staircase. He had been foolish, risking his

 light with all that splashing. And it would not bum much

 longer. He had found water, but his predicament was still

 deathly grim.

 

 The light of the torch suddenly seemed to grow. Simon

 squinted, then realized it was not the torch, but that rather

 the whole great chamber was filling with smoky light.

 

 340 Tad Williams

 

 And there was .. - something ... very near. Something

 strong. He could feel it like hot breath on his neck.

 

 Simon rolled over, conscious of his nakedness, his

 helplessness. He could see the great pool more clearly,

 could make out the fantastically elaborate carvings that

 covered the near walls and ceiling far overhead, but even

 with the spreading light he still could not see the pool's

 far side; a sort of mist seemed to hang over the water, ob-

 scuring his view.

 

 As he gaped, a shadowy figure appeared m the the mist

 at the pool's center, a shape exaggerated by the gray fog

 and directionless light. It was tall and billow-cloaked,

 with homs ... antlers ... growing from its head.

 

 The figure bowednot in reverence, it seemed, but in

 despair.

 

 Jingizu.

 

 The voice rolled through Simon's mind, mournful yet

 angry, powerful and cold as ice that cracked and split

 stone- The mist swirled and eddied. Simon felt his own

 thoughts swept away before it.

 

 Jingiw- So much sorrow.

 

 For a moment, Simon's spirit flickered like a candle in

 a storm wind. He was being extinguished by the force of

 the thing that hovered in the mists. He tried to scream,

 but could not; he was being eaten by its terrible empti-

 ness. He felt himself dwindling, fading, vanishing....

 

 The light shifted again, then abruptly died. The pool

 became a wide black oval once more, and the only light

 was the dim yellow glow of his guttering torch.

 

 For some moments, Simon lay gasping for air like a

 fish dragged into a boat. He was afraid to move, to make

 a sound, terrified the shadowy thing would return.

 

 Merciful Aedon, give me rest. The words of the old

 prayer came up unbidden. In Your Arms will I sleep, upon

 Your bosom ...

 

 He no longer had the slightest urge to cross over to

 the dream-side, to join the ghosts of this place. Of all the

 things he had seen and felt since tumbling down into the

 ground, this place seemed the strangest, the most terrify-

 ingly powerful. Water or no water, he could not stay. And

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 341

 

 soon his light would be gone, and the darkness would

 swallow him.

 

 Quivering, he kneeled at the bottom of the stairwell

 and drank his fill once more. Cursing the lack of a water

 skin, he dragged on his breeches and boots, then dunked

 his shirt into the pool. It would stay wet for a while and

 he could squeeze out water when he needed it. He picked

 up the torch and began searching for a way out. His ankle

 

 ..;; had stiffened, but for the moment the pain was unimport-

 

 ^ ant. He had to leave this place.

 

 t.The pool, which a moment before had been a fount of

 

 H terrifying visions, was now only a silent circle of black.

 

 15

 

 A Meandering of Ink

 

 

 

 Miriamete was as ^entte with the bandages as she

 

 could be, and Binabik said not a word, but she could tell

 that the pain of his blistered hands was fierce.

 

 'There." She tied a careful knot. "Now Just let them

 alone for a while. I'll get us something to eat."

 

 "All that digging, and with nothing for result," the troll

 said mournfully- He examined his cloth-wrapped paws.

 "Dirt and more dirt and more dirt."

 

 "At least those ... things didn't come back." The sun

 had dropped behind the western horizon; Miriamele was

 finding it difficult to see into the depths of the pack. She

 sat down and smoothed her cloak across her lap, then

 dumped out the contents. 'Those diggers."

 

 "I am almost wishing that they had, Miriamele. I would

 have been getting some pleasure in killing more of them.

 Like Qantaqa, I would be growling as their blood came

 

 out."

 

 Miriamele shook her head, disturbed by Binabik's un-

 characteristic savagery, but also worried by her own hol-

 lowness. She felt no such angerthere was almost

 nothing inside her at all. "If he ... survived, then he will

 find a way to come back to us again." The ghost of a

 smile crept across her face. "He's stronger than I ever

 thought he might be, Binabik."

 

 "I remember when I was first meeting him in the for-

 est," the little man said. "Like a hatchling, like the young

 of a bird, he looked to me, his hair pointing up and every

 other way. I was thinking then, 'Here is one who would

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER343

 

 be quickly dying if I had not found him.' He seemed to

 me as helpless as the most wobbling-legged of lambs

 gone stray from the herd. But he has surprised me many

 times since then, many times." The troll fluted a sigh. "If

 there was something beneath his falling beside more dirt

 and boghanik, then I am thinking he will find a way out."

 

 "Of course he will." Miriamele stared at the array of

 wrapped bundles in her lap. Her eyes were misty, and she

 had forgotten what she was looking for. "Of course he

 will."

 

 "So we will go on, and trust in the luck that has kept

 him well for so long a time in all the moments of terrible

 peril." Binabik spoke as though afraid he would be con-

 tradicted.

 

 "Yes. Certainly." Miriamele brought her hands to her

 face, kneading her temples as though that might make her

 scattered thoughts more manageable. "And I will say a

 prayer for Elysia the Mother of God to look after him."

 

 But many prayers are said every day, she thought. And

 only a few are answered. Curse you, Simon, why did you

 go away?

 

 Simon was almost a stronger presence lost than he had

 been while still with them. Miriamele, despite the deep

 affection she felt for Binabik, found it difficult to sit with

 him over the thin stew she had made for their supper; that

 they should be alive and eating seemed an insult to their

 absent friend. Still, they were both grateful for the bit of

 meata squirrel that Qantaqa had brought back.

 Miriamele wondered whether the wolf had done her own

 hunting first or felt she should bring a prize to her master

 before pursuing her own needs, but Binabik professed not

 to know.

 

 "She only brings me such things on occasion, and usu-

 ally when I am sad or hurt." He showed a tiny flash of

 teeth. "This time I am both things, I suppose."

 

 "Bless her for it anyway,'* Miriamele said, and meant

 it. "Our larder is nearly bare."

 

 "I am hoping ..." the troll began, then abruptly fell si-

 lent. Miriamele was quite sure that he was thinking about

 

 344

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Simon, who even if he survived would be somewhere be-

 neath the ground without food. Neither of them spoke

 

 more until the meal was finished.

 

 "So now what is the thing to be doing?" Binabik asked

 

 gently. "I do not wish to seem ..."

 

 "I am still going to find my father. Nothing has

 

 changed that."

 

 Binabik looked at her but did not speak.

 "But you do not have to come with me." Disliking the

 sound of her voice, she added: "It might be better if you

 don't. Maybe if Simon finds his way out he will come to

 this place. Someone should wait for him. And anyway,

 this is not your duty, Binabik. He's my father, but he's

 

 your enemy."

 

 The troll shook his head. "When we come to the place

 at which no back-turning can happen, then I will decide.

 This is not seeming a safe spot to me for waiting." He

 looked briefly over to the distant Hayholt; in the evening

 light the castle was only a blackness that contained no

 stars. "But perhaps I could stay hidden somewhere with

 Qantaqa and come at certain times to look." He made an

 open-handed gesture. "Still, it is too soon for such think-

 ing- I do not even know what plan you have made for

 your castle entrance." He turned and waved toward the

 invisible keep. "You may have some way for persuading

 your father the king, but you would not be taken to him

 if you present yourself at the gate, I am thinking. And if

 Pryrates is receiving you, he may decide it is of more

 convenience for you to be dead and not interfere with his

 plans for your father. You would become vanished."

 

 Miriamele .twitched involuntarily. "I am not stupid,

 Binabik, no matter what my uncle and others may think.

 

 I have some ideas of my own."

 

 Binabik spread his palms. "I do not think you are any-

 thing like being stupid, Miriamele. I am not knowing any-

 one who thinks that."

 

 "Perhaps." She got to her feet and walked across the

 damp grass toward her pack. Rain was coming down in a

 light mist. After rummaging in the bag, she found the

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 345

 

 i&.

 r i

 

 bundle she had sought and carried it back to the small

 fire, "I spent a long time on Sesuad'ra making these."

 

 Binabik unrolled the bundle, then slowly smiled. "Ah."

 

 "And I copied them onto hides as well," she said with

 more than a little pride, "because I knew they would last

 that way. I saw those scrolls you and Sis ... Sis ,.."

 

 "Sisqinanamook," Binabik said, frowning over the

 skins. "Or 'Sisqi' is easier for lowlander tongues." His

 face went blank for a moment, then his features resumed

 life and he looked up at Miriamele. "So you copied the

 maps that Count Eolair was bringing."

 

 "I did. He said that they were of the old dwarrow tun-

 nels. Simon came out of the castle through them, so I

 thought that might be a way to get back in without being

 caught."

 

 "It is not all being tunnels." Binabik stared at the me-

 andering lines drawn on the skins. "The old Sithi castle is

 beneath the Hayholt, and it was of great largeness." He

 squinted. "These are not easy for reading, these maps."

 

 "I wasn't sure what any of it meant, so I copied it

 all, even the little drawings and marks on the side,"

 Miriamele said humbly- "I only know that these are the

 right maps because I asked Father Strangyeard." She felt

 a sudden bite of fear. "They are the right maps, aren't

 they?"

 

 Binabik nodded slowly, black hair bouncing against his

 forehead. "They are looking like maps of this place,

 indeedsee, there is what you call the Kynslagh." He

 pointed to a large curving crescent at the edge of the top-

 most map. "And this must be Swertclif which lies be-

 neath us even now."

 

 Miriamele leaned forward to look, following Binabik's

 small finger with eager attention. A moment later, she felt

 a wash of intense sadness. "If that's where we are, the

 spot where Simon fell through has no tunnels."

 

 "Perhaps." Binabik sounded genuinely unsure, "But

 I maps and charts are being made at particular times,

 | Miriamele. Just as likely it is that other tunnels have been

 Tmade since the drawing of this thing."

 

 "Elysia, Mother of Mercy, I hope that's true."

 

 346

 

 Tad Wiams

 

 "So where was Simon emerging from his tunnels?"

 Binabik asked. "I seem to have a memory that it was..."

 

 "In the lien-yard, just on the other side of the wall from

 Erchester," Miriamele finished for him. "I saw him there,

 but he ran away when I called to him. He thought I was

 a ghost."

 

 "There are many tunnelings that seem to emerge

 around that place. But these were made long before

 Erchester and the rest were being built. I am doubting

 these landmarks still remain." He looked up as Qantaqa

 returned from her hunting, her shaggy pelt pearled with

 rain.

 

 "I think I know more or less where he must have come

 up," Miriamele said. "We can look, anyway."

 

 "That we will do." Binabik stretched. "Now, one more

 night we will be sleeping in this place. Then down to the

 horses."

 

 "I hope they've had enough to eat. We didn't expect to

 leave them this long."

 

 "I can be promising you that if they were finishing the

 grass, the next thing they chewed through would be the

 leather traces that held them. The horses will not suffer

 for want of finding food, but we may not be finding the

 horses."

 

 Miriamele shrugged. "As you are always saying,

 there's nothing we can do about it until we get there."

 

 "I say it because it has a great truthfulness," Binabik

 replied gravely.

 

 4fc

 

 Rachel the Dragon knew what she would find, but her

 resignation did not make it less of a blow. For the eighth

 day in a row, the food and water she had put out were un-

 touched.

 

 Offering a sad prayer for patience to Saint Rhiappa,

 Rachel gathered up those things that would not keep and

 put them in her sack. She would eat the small apple and

 the bit of hardening bread tonight. She replaced the ne-

 glected offerings with fresh ones, then lifted the lid on the

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER347

 

 bowl of water to make sure it was still clean and drink-

 able.

 

 She frowned. Where was that poor man Guthwulf? She

 hated to think of him wandering blind in the darkness, un-

 able to find his way back to the regular meals that she had

 been providing him. She was half-tempted to go and look

 for himhad in fact roamed a little wider than normal in

 me last few daysbut knew that it would be inviting

 trouble. The farther down into these tunnels she went, the

 greater the chance that she would fall and hit her head, or

 tumble into a hole. Then she would be helpless. She

 might worry about blind Guthwulf, but no one at all was

 worrying about old Rachel.

 

 [, These thoughts made her frown deepen. Just as such

 ^ things might happen to her, so might they have happened

 ; to Guthwulf. He might be only a few furlongs away, lying

 injured. The thought of someone needing her care when

 I she could not give it was like an itch inside of her, a hot

 i-frustration. Once she had been the mistress of all the cas-

 I tie servants, a queen of sorts; now she could not even do

 I what was necessary for one poor sightless madman.

 

 | Rachel shouldered her bag and stumped back up the

 |stairs, heading toward her hidden sanctuary.

 I When she had pulled aside the tapestry and pushed the

 |door inward on its well-oiled hinges, she lit one of her

 [lanterns and looked around. In a way, it was almost rest-

 |ful living in such a solitary fashion: the place was so

 | small it was easy to keep clean, and since only she came

 Uiere, she knew that everything was done in just the right

 I: way.

 

 Rachel set the lamp on the stool she used as a table and

 pulled her chair next to it, wincing. The damp was in her

 ' ones tonight, and her extremities ached- She did not feel

 (luch like sewing, but there was little else to do, and it

 ras still at least an hour before the time she would go to

 Rachel was determined not to lose her routine. She

 always been one to wake up just moments before

 tie hom blare of the night sentries giving over duty to the

 loming watch, but these days only her morning trip up-

 urs to get water from the room with an outside window

 

 348

 

 Tad Williams

 

 helped her retain a connection with the world beyond.

 She did not want anything to strain the tenuous contact

 with her old life, so she would sew for at least an hour

 before she allowed herself to lie down, no matter how her

 fingers cramped.

 

 She took out her knife and cut the apple into small sec-

 tions. She ate it carefully, but when she was finished her

 teeth and gums hurt, so she dipped the heel of bread into

 her water cup to soften before she ate it. Rachel gri-

 maced. Everything hurt tonight. There was a storm com-

 ing, that seemed sureher bones told her. It didn't seem

 fair. There had only been a few days in the past week

 when she had actually been able to see sunlight out of the

 window upstairs, and now even that was to be snatched

 

 away.

 

 Rachel found her needlework hard going. Her mind

 kept flittering away, something that normally would not

 have affected her stitchery at all, but which tonight was

 causing her to stop for long moments between every few

 

 movements of the needle.

 

 What would things have been like if Pryrates hadn 't

 

 come? she wondered.

 

 Elias might not have been a wonderful king like his

 sainted father, but he was strong and shrewd and capable.

 Perhaps he would have outgrown his churiishness and his

 bad companions; the castle would have remained in her

 control, the long tables snowy with their spotless cloths,

 the flagstones swept and mopped to a high gleam. The

 chambermaids would be working industriouslyunder

 Rachel's stem gaze, everyone worked industriously. Well,

 

 almost everyone ...

 

 Yes, Simon. If the red priest hadn't come to blight their

 lives, Simon would still be here. Perhaps he would have

 found some work to suit him by now. He would be

 biggeroh, they grew so quickly at that agemaybe

 even with a man's beard, although it was hard to imagine

 anything manly about young Simon. He would come by

 sometimes to visit her at the end of the day, maybe even

 share a cup of cider and a little talk. She would keep a

 careful eye that he wasn't getting too big for his breeches,

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER349

 

 that he wasn't making a fool of himself over the wrong

 sort of girlsit wouldn't do to let that boy get too far out

 of hand....

 

 Something wet fell onto her hand. Rachel started.

 

 Crying? Crying, you old fool? After that mooncalf bay?

 She shook herself angrily. Well, he's in better hands than

 yours now. and tears won't bring him back.

 

 Still, it would have been nice to see him grown, a man,

 but still grinning that same impudent grin....

 

 Rachel put down her needlework in disgust. If she was

 not going to get any sewing done, it was a waste of time

 to pretend. She would find something else to do, instead

 of just sitting in her chair moping and dreaming like some

 ancient crone beside the fireplace. She wasn't dead yet.

 There was still work for her to do.

 

 Someone did need her. Pacing slowly back and forth in

 the tiny chamber, ignoring the dull throb of her Joints, Ra-

 chel decided that she would indeed go and look for Earl

 Guthwulf- She would be careful, and she would keep as

 safe as she could, but it was her Aedonite duty to find out

 whether the poor man was hurt somewhere, or sick.

 

 Rachel the Dragon began making plans.

 

 *

 

 A great curtain of rain swept across the lich-yard,

 bending the knee-high grass and splattering on the old

 tumbled stones.

 

 "Did you find anything?" Miriamele called.

 

 "Nothing that is pleasant." She could barely hear the

 troll for the hissing of the rain. She bent closer to the

 crypt door- "I am finding no tunnel," he elaborated.

 

 "Then come out. I'm soaking wet." She pulled her

 cloak tight and looked up.

 

 Beyond the lich-yard, the Hayholt loomed, its spires

 dark and secretive against the muddy gray sky. She saw

 light glimmering in the red windows of Hjeldin's Tower

 and crouched lower in the grass, like a rabbit covered by

 the shadow of a hawk. The castle seemed to be waiting,

 quiet and almost lifeless. There were no soldiers on the

 

 350

 

 Tad Williams

 

 battlements, no pennants fluttering atop the roofs. Only

 Green Angel Tower with its sweep of pure white stone

 seemed somehow alive. She thought of the days she had

 hidden there, spying on Simon as he daydreamed through

 idle afternoons in the bell chamber. As constricting and

 smothering as the Hayholt had seemed to her then, it had

 been a comparatively cheerful place. The castle that stoo^.

 before her now waited like some ancient hard-shelled

 creature, like an old spider brooding at the center of its

 web.

 

 Can I actually go there? she wondered. Maybe Binabik

 is right. Maybe I am being stubborn and headstrong to

 think I can do anything at all.

 

 But the troll might be wrong. Could she afford to gam-

 ble? And more importantly, could she walk away from

 her father, knowing that the two of them might never

 again meet on this earth?

 

 "You were speaking the truth." Binabik slipped out

 through the crypt door, shielding his eyes with his hand-

 "The rain is falling down very strongly."

 

 "Let's go back to where we left the horses," Miriamele

 said. "We can shelter there. So you found nothing?"

 

 "Another place with no tunnels." The troll wiped mud

 from his hands onto his skin breeches. "But there were

 quite a few dead people, none of them good to be spend-

 ing time with."

 

 Miriamele made a face, "But I'm sure that Simon came

 up here. It has to be one of these."

 

 Binabik shrugged and set out toward the clutch of

 . wind-rattled elms along the lich-yard's south wall. As he

 walked, he pulled up his hood. "Either you are remember-

 ing it with some slight wrongness, or the tunnel is hidden

 in a way I cannot discover. But I have scrabbled in all the

 walls, and been lifting all the stones ..."

 

 "I'm certain it's not you," she said. A flare of lightning

 lit the sky; the thunder followed a few moments later.

 Suddenly an image of Simon struggling in the dark earth

 appeared before her mind's eyes. He was gone, lost for-

 ever, despite all the brave things she and the troll had

 said. She gasped and stumbled. Tears coursed down her

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 35i

 

 rain-wet cheeks. She stopped, sobbing so hard she could

 not see.

 

 Binabik's small hand closed about hers. "I am here

 with you." His own voice trembled.

 

 They stood together in the rain for a long time. At last

 Miriamele grew calmer. "I'm sorry, Binabik. I don't know

 what to do. We have spent the whole day searching and it

 hasn't done us any good." She swallowed and wiped wa-

 ter from her face. She could not speak of Simon. "Per-

 haps we should give up. You were right: I could never

 walk up to that gate."

 

 "Let us make ourselves dry, first." The little man

 tugged her forward, hurrying them toward shelter. "Then

 we will talk over what are the things we should do."

 

 "We have looked, Miriamele," said Binabik. The

 horses made anxious noises as the thunder caromed

 across the sky once more. Qantaqa stared up at the clouds

 as though the great sound were something she would like

 to chase and catch. "But if you wish it, I will wait and

 look again when the rain is goneperhaps the searching

 would be safer by night."

 

 Miriamele shuddered at the Thought of exploring the

 graves after dark. Besides, the diggers had proved that

 there was far more to fear in these crypts than just the

 restless spirits of the dead. "I don't want you to do that."

 

 He shrugged. "Then what is your wishing?"

 

 She looked at the map. The wandering lines of ink

 were nearly invisible in the dark, storm-curtained after-

 noon. 'There are other lines that must be other tunnels

 going in. Here's one."

 

 Binabik screwed up his eyes as he studied the map.

 "That one is seeming to me to come out in the rock wall

 over the Kynslagh. Very difficult it would be to find, I

 think, and it would be even more beneath the nose of

 your father and his soldiers."

 

 Miriamele nodded sadly. "I think you're right. What

 about this one?"

 

 The troll considered. "It is seeming to be in the place

 the town now stands."

 

 

 

 

 352

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "Erchester?" Miriamele looked back, but could not see

 over the tall lich-yard wall. "Somewhere in Erchester?"

 

 "Yes, are you seeing?" He traced the line with his short

 finger. "If this is the little forest called Kynswood, and

 this is where we are- now standing ..."

 

 "Yes. It must be almost in the middle of the town." She

 paused to consider. "If I could disguise my face,

 somehow ..."

 

 "And I would be disguising my height and my troll-

 ness?" Binabik asked wryly.

 

 She shook her head, feeling me idea solidify. "No. You

 wouldn't need to. If we took one horse, and you rode with

 me, people would think you were a child."

 

 "I am honored."

 

 Miriamele laughed a little wildly. "No, it would work!

 No one would look at you twice if you kept your hood

 pulled low."

 

 "And what would we do with Simon's horse, and with

 Qantaqa?"

 

 "Perhaps we could bring them with us." She didn't

 want to give up. "Maybe they would think Qantaqa was

 

 a dog."

 

 Now Binabik laughed, too, a sudden huff of mirth. "It

 is one thing to make people be thinking a small man like

 me is a child, but unless you could find a cloak for her as

 well, no one will ever have belief that my companion is

 anything but a deadly wolf from the White Waste."

 

 Minamele looked at Qantaqa's shaggy gray bulk and

 nodded sadly. "I know. It was just a thought."

 

 The troll smiled. "But the rest of your idea is good.

 There are just a few things we must do, I am think-

 ing. . -."

 

 They finished their work in a grove of linden trees on

 the edge of a fallow field Just west of the main road, a

 few furlongs from Erchester's northernmost city gate.

 

 "What did you put in this beeswax, Binabik?"

 Miriamele scowled, probing with her tongue. "It tastes

 terrible!"

 

 "That is not for touching or tasting," he said. "It will

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER353

 

 come loose. And the answer is being, just a little dark

 mud for color."

 

 "Does it really look like teeth are missing?"

 

 Binabik cocked his head, eyeing the effect. "Yes. You

 are appearing very scruffy and not-princess-like."

 

 Miriamele ran her hand through her dirt-matted hair

 and carefully stroked her muddy face. / must be a sight.

 She could not help being pleased for some reason. It is

 like a game, like a Usires Play. I can be anyone I want to.

 

 But it was not a game, of course. Simon's face loomed

 before her; she abruptly and painfully remembered what

 she was doing, what dangers it would bringand what

 had already been lost so that she could get to this place.

 

 It is to end the pain, the killing, she dutifully reminded

 herself. And to bring my father back to his senses.

 

 She looked up. "I'm ready, I suppose."

 

 The troll nodded. He turned and patted Qantaqa's broad

 head, then led the wolf a short distance away and

 crouched beside her, burying his face in her neck fur to

 whisper in her ear. It was a long message, of which

 Miriamele could hear only the throaty clicking of trollish

 consonants. Qantaqa twisted her head to the side and

 whined softly but did not move. When Binabik had fin-

 ished, he patted her again and touched his forehead to

 hers-

 

 "She will not let Simon's horse stray far away," he

 said. "Now it is time for us to be going forward."

 

 Miriamele swung up into the saddle, then leaned down

 to extend a hand to the little man; he scrambled up and

 seated himself before her. She tapped her heels against

 the horse's side.

 

 When she looked back, Simon's horse Homefinder was

 cropping grass at the base of a rain-dripping tree. Qantaqa

 sat erect, ears high, yellow eyes intent on her master's

 small back.

 

 The Erchester Road was a sea of mud. The horse

 seemed to spend almost as much time unsticking itself as

 it did walking.

 

 The city gate proved to be unbolted. The delicately-

 

 354

 

 Tad Williams

 

 weighted portal swung open with only a light push from

 Miriamele, creaking gently. She waded back across the

 muddy wagon ruts and remounted, then they rode in be-

 tween the tall gate towers, rain drizzling down on them

 from the clotted gray skies.

 

 "There are no guards," she whispered.

 

 "There is no one at all that I am seeing."

 

 Just in'side the gate lay Battle Square, a vast expanse of

 cobblestones with a green in the center, the site of count-

 less parades and festivals. Now the square was empty but

 for a few stark-ribbed dogs rooting in debris at the mouth

 of one of the alleys. The square looked as though it had

 been unused for some time, forgotten by all except the

 scavengers- Wide puddles rippled beneath the rain. The

 green had become a desolate patch of pockmarked mud.

 

 The echo of the horse's hooves caught the dogs' atten-

 tion. They stared, tongues lolling, dark eyes wary; a mo-

 ment later the pack turned and fled splashing down the

 alleyway.

 

 "What has happened here?" Miriamele wondered.

 

 "I think we can be guessing," said Binabik. "You saw

 other nearby towns and villages, and I saw such empti-

 ness all through the snowy lands of the north. And this

 place, do you see, is closest of all to what has happened

 at the Hayholt."

 

 "But where have all the people gone? From Stanshire,

 from Hasu Vale, from ... from here? They didn't just dis-

 appear."

 

 "No. Some may have been dying when the harvests

 were not coming in, but others have just gone to the

 south, I am thinking. This year has been a fearful enough

 thing for those of us who are having some knowledge of

 what is happening. For those who were living here, it

 must have seemed that they were suddenly finding them-

 selves under a curse."

 

 "Oh, Merciful Elysia." Her unhappiness was strangely

 mixed with anger and pity. "What has my father done?"

 

 Binabik shook his head.

 

 As they entered broad Main Row, there at last appeared

 some signs of human life: from the cracks of a few shut-

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 355

 

 tered windows firelight flickered, and somewhere farther

 up the thoroughfare a door banged shut. Miriamele even

 thought she could hear a faint voice raised in prayer, but

 somehow she could not imagine a person from whom

 such a ragged sound would come; rather, it seemed that

 some wandering spirit had left behind its mournful cry.

 

 As they turned the bend in Main Row, a figure in a

 ragged cloak appeared from one of the narrow cross

 streets in front of them and went shambling slowly away

 up the road. Miriamele was so surprised to see an actual

 person that she reined up and sat staring for long mo-

 ments. As if sensing the presence of strangers, the figure

 turned; for an instant a look of fear showed on the wrin-

 kled face beneath the hoodit was difficult to tell if it

 was a man or a womanthen the cloaked shape scuttled

 rapidly forward and vanished down an alleyway. When

 Miriamele and Binabik drew even with the place, there

 was no sign of anyone. All the doors that faced the nar-

 row byway looked as though they had been boarded up

 for some time.

 

 "Whoever that was, they were scared of us." Miriamele

 could not keep the pained surprise out of her voice.

 

 "Can you feel blame for them about that?" The little

 man waved his hand at the haunted streets. "But it is no

 matter. I am not doubting that many ghastly things have

 been happening herebut it is not our task to be worry-

 ing about such happenings. We are looking for some-

 thing."

 

 "Of course," Miriamele replied quickly, but her mind

 did not fix easily on what the little man was saying. It

 was hard to tear her eyes from the mud-spattered walls,

 the gloomy, empty streets. It looked as though a great

 flood had rushed through and swept all the people away.

 "Of course," she said again. "But how will we find it?"

 

 "On the map, the tunnel end looked as though it was

 being in the center of the town. Are we going in that di-

 rection?"

 

 "Yes. Main Row goes through town all the way up to

 the Nearulagh Gate."

 

 "Then what is that thing being?" Binabik pointed. "It

 

 356 Tad Williams

 

 seems to block any going forward." A few furlongs

 ahead, a huge dark mass straddled the road.

 

 "That?" Miriamele was still so disoriented that it took

 her a long moment to recognize it. "Oh. That's the back

 of Saint Sutrin'sthe cathedral."

 

 Binabik was silent for some moments. "And it is at the

 center of the town?"

 

 "More or less." Something in the tone of the troll's

 voice finally dragged her attention back from the

 dreamlike emptiness of Main Row. "Binabik? What is it?

 Is something wrong?"

 

 "Let us just wait until we are seeing it from more

 closely. Why is there no golden wall? I thought from the

 traveler's tales told to me that such a wall was being a fa-

 mous thing about this Saint Sutrin's."

 

 "It's on the other sidethe side that faces the castle."

 

 They continued up Main Row- Miriamele wondered

 whether there might be people here after allif instead of

 almost deserted, the city might actually be full-tenanted.

 Perhaps if all the inhabitants were as fearful as the one

 she had seen, they were even now watching quietly from

 behind shuttered windows and through cracks in the

 walls. Somehow that was just as bad as imagining the

 people of Erchester all gone.

 

 Or perhaps it was something stranger still. On either

 side of the road, the stalls which had once housed the var-

 ious small merchants were empty, but now she thought

 she could feel a sort of anticipation, as though these hol-

 low holes waited to be filled with some new kind of

 lifesomething as unlike the farmers, peasants, and

 townsfolk who had once bustled through their lives here

 as mud was unlike dry, sunlit soil.

 

 The golden facade of Saint Sutrin's had been peeled

 away by scavengers; even the famous stone reliefs were

 gouged almost into unrecognizability, as though the gold

 that had covered them had been smashed loose with ham-

 mers in the course of a single hasty hour.

 

 "It was beautiful." Miriamele had not much room left

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 357

 

 for sadness or surprise. "When the sun was on it, it

 looked like the church was covered in holy flames."

 

 "In times of badness, gold is being worth more than

 beauty," Binabik mused, squinting up at the crushed faces

 of the saints. "Let us go and try the door."

 

 "Do you think it's here? The tunnel?"

 

 "You saw from the map that it was coming up in the

 center of this town of Erchester. I am guessing that this

 place goes deeper than any other in the town."

 

 The great wooden doors did not open easily, but

 Miriamele and Binabik both lowered their shoulders; the

 hinges groaned and the doors grated open almost a cubit,

 allowing them to slip inside.

 

 The forechamber had also lost much of its decoration.

 The pedestals on either side of the door were empty, and

 the huge tapestries that had once made the chamber walls

 into windows that looked out on the days of Usires Aedon

 now lay crumpled on the flagstones, crisscrossed with

 muddy footprints- The room stank of damp and decay, as

 though it had been long deserted, but light glowed from

 the great chapel beyond the forechamber doors.

 

 "Someone is here," Miriamelfc said quietly.

 

 "Or at least they are still coming for lighting the can-

 dles."

 

 They had only taken a few steps when a figure ap-

 peared in the inner doorway.

 

 "Who are you? What do you seek in God's house?"

 

 Miriamele was so surprised to hear another human

 voice that for a moment she did not reply. Binabik took a

 step forward, but she put her hand on his shoulder. "We

 are travelers," she said. "We wanted to see Saint Sutrin's.

 The doors were never closed in the past."

 

 "Are you Aedonites?"

 

 Miriamele thought there was something familiar about

 the voice. "I am. My companion is from a foreign land,

 but he has been of service to Mother Church."

 

 There was a moment's hesitation before the man spoke

 again. "Enter, then, if you swear you are not enemies."

 

 Miriamele doubted from the tremulousness of his tone

 

 358 Tad Williams

 

 that the man speaking could have stopped them if they

 were enemies, but she said: "We are not. Thank you."

 

 The shadowy figure vanished from the doorway and

 Miriamele led Binabik through. She was still wary. In this

 haunted city, anyone could live in a cathedral- Why not

 then use it as a trap spider used its burrow, as a lure to the

 incautious?

 

 It was not much warmer inside than out, and the great

 chapel was thick with shadows. Only a dozen candles

 burned in the huge room, and their light was scarcely

 enough to illuminate the vaulting high overhead. Some-

 thing was strange about the dome as well. After a few

 moments' scrutiny, Miriamele realized that all of the glass

 was gone but for a few splinters clinging to the lead

 frame. A solitary star glimmered in the naked sky.

 

 "Smashed by the storm," a voice said beside her. She

 flinched, startled. "All our lovely windows, the work of

 ages, shattered. It is a judgment on Mankind."

 

 Standing beside her in the dim light was an old man in

 a dirty gray robe, his face sagging into a thousand wrin-

 kles, his white-wisped, balding head covered with a lop-

 sided hat of strange shape. "You look so sad," he

 murmured; his accent marked him as an Erkynlander.

 "Did you ever see our Saint Sutrin's before .. -" he hes-

 itated, as he tried to find a word, but could not. "Did you

 ever see it ... before?"

 

 "Yes." Miriamele knew it was better policy to profess

 ignorance, but the old man seemed so pathetically proud

 that she did not have the heart. "I saw it. It was very

 beautiful."

 

 "Only the great chapel in the Sancellan Aedonitis could

 compare," he said wistfully. "I wonder if it still stands?

 We hear little from the South these days."

 

 "1 am sure it does."

 

 "Ah, yes? Well, that is very good." Despite his words,

 he sounded faintly disappointed that his cathedral's rival

 had not suffered a similarly ignoble fate, "But, may our

 Ransomer forgive us, we are poor hosts," he said sud-

 denly, catching Miriamele's arm with a gently trembling

 claw. "Come in and shelter from the storm. You and your

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 359

 

 son" he gestured to Binabik, who looked up in surprise;

 

 the old man had already forgotten what Miriamele had

 told him, "will be safe here. They have taken our beau-

 tiful things, but they have not taken us from the watchful-

 ness of God's eye."

 

 He led them up the long aisle toward the altar, a block

 of stone with a rag stretched over it, mumbling as he went

 about the wonderful things that had once stood here or

 there and the horrible things that had happened to them.

 Miriamele was not listening to him closely: she was pre-

 occupied by the scatter of shadowy human shapes which

 leaned against the walls or lay in comers. One or two

 were draped lengthwise across the benches as though in

 sleep. All together, there seemed to be several dozen peo-

 ple in the huge chapel, all silent and apparently unmov"

 ing. Miriamele had a sudden, horrid thought. "Who are

 all these folk?" she asked. "Are they ... dead?"

 

 The old man looked up, surprised, then smiled and

 shook his head. "No, no, they are pilgrims like yourself,

 travelers who sought a safe haven. God led them here,

 and so they shelter in His church."

 

 As the old man recommenced his description of the

 splendors of Saint Sutrin's as it-once had been, Miriamele

 felt a tug at her sleeve.

 

 "Ask him whether there is anything beneath this place

 like that thing we are searching," the troll whispered.

 

 When the man paused for a moment, Miriamele seized

 her chance. "Are there tunnels beneath the cathedral?"

 

 Tunnels?" The question set an odd light burning in the

 old man's rheumy eye. "What do you mean? There are

 the catacombs, where all the bishops of this place lie rest-

 ing until the Day of Weighing-Out, but no one goes there.

  It is ... holy ground." He seemed disturbed, staring past

 the altar at nothing Miriamele could see. "That is not a

 place for any traveler. Why do you ask?"

 

 Miriamele did not wish to upset him any further. "I was

 told once that there was a ... a holy place here." She

 bowed her head. "Someone dear to me is in danger. I had

 thought that maybe there was a special shrine...." What

 had seemed a lie had come to her quickly, but as she

 

 360 Tad Williams

 

 thought about it, she realized it was only truth: someone

 dear to her was in peril. She should light a candle for Si-

 mon before they left this place.

 

 "Ah." The old man seemed mollified. "No, it is not

 that sort of place, not at all. Now come, it is almost time

 for the evening mansa."

 

 Miriamele was surprised. So the rites were still cele-

 brated here, even though the church seemed little more

 than a shell. She wondered what had happened to fat,

 blustering Bishop Domitis and all his priestly underlings.

 

 The man led them to the first row of benches facing the

 altar, then gestured for them to sit down. The irony did

 not escape Miriamele: she had often sat there before at

 her father's side, and at her grandfather's before that. The

 old man walked to a place behind the stone and its ragged

 covering, then lifted his arms in the air. "Come, my

 friends," he said loudly. "You may return now."

 

 Binabik looked at Miriamele. She shrugged, unsure of

 what the man wanted them to do.

 

 But they were not the ones who had been addressed. A

 moment later, whirring and flapping, a host of black

 shapes descended from the shadowy wreckage of the

 dome. Miriamele gave out a little squeak of surprise as

 the ravens settled upon the altar. Within moments almost

 a score of them stood wing to wing on the altar cloth, oily

 feathers gleaming in the candlelight.

 

 The old man began to speak the Mansa Nictalis, and as

 he did, the ravens preened and ruffled.

 

 "What is this thing?" Binabik asked. "It is not a part of

 your worship that I have heard of."

 

 Miriamele shook her head. The old man was clearly

 mad. He was addressing the Nabbanai words to the rav-

 ens, who strutted back and forth along the altar giving

 voice to harsh, grating cries. But there was something

 else about the scene that was almost as strange as the ee-

 rie ceremony, some elusive thing....

 

 Abruptly, as the old man lifted his arms and made the

 ritual sign of the Great Tree, she recognized him. This

 was Bishop Domitis himself at the altaror his wasted

 remains, since he seemed shriveled to half his previous

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 361

 

 weight. Even his voice was different: deprived of the

 great bellows of flesh, it had become reedy and thin. But

 as he rolled into the sonorous cadences of the mansa,

 much of the old Domitis seemed to return; in her weary

 mind she could see him again as he once had been,

 swelled bullfrog-great with self-importance.

 

 "Binabik," she whispered. "I know him! He is the

 bishop of this place. But he looks so different!"

 

 The troll was eyeing the capering ravens with a mixture

 of amusement and uneasiness. "Can you then be persuad-

 ing him to help us?"

 

 Miriamele considered. "I don't think so. He seems very

 protective of his church, and he certainly didn't seem to

 want us wandering around down in the catacombs."

 

 "Then I am thinking that is just the place we must go,"

 Binabik said quietly. "We must be looking for the chance

 to come to us." He looked up at Domitis, who stood with

 head thrown back and eyes closed, his arms widespread

 as if in imitation of his avian congregation. "I have some-

 thing that I must be doing now. Wait for me here. It will

 take me only a little time." He got up quietly from the

 bench, then turned and moved quickly back down the

 aisle toward the front of the cathedral.

 

 "Binabik!" Miriamele called softly, but the troll only

 raised his hand before disappearing into the forechamber.

 Unsettled, she turned reluctantly to watch the rest of the

 odd performance.

 

 Domitis seemed to have completely forgotten the pres-

 ence of anyone but himself and the ravens. A pair of

 these had flown up from the altar to settle on his shoul-

 ders. They clung there as he swayed; as he windmilled his

 arms in the fervor of his speech, they flapped their great

 black wings to maintain balance on their perches.

 

 Finally, as the bishop began the last stages of the

 mansa. the whole flock of birds rose up and began cir-

 cling his head like a croaking thundercloud. Whatever hu-

 mor the ritual had held was gone: Miriamele suddenly

 found the whole thing frightening. Was there no corner of

 the world left that had not succumbed to madness? Had

 everything been corrupted?

 

 362 Tad Williams

 

 Domitis intoned the last Nabbanai phrases and fell si-

 lent. The ravens circled a few moments more, then went

 whirling up toward the ruptured dome like a whirlwind,

 vanishing into the shadows with only the echoes of their

 rasping cries left hanging in the air behind them. When

 even those had died and the cathedral had fallen quiet,

 Bishop Domitis, now almost gray with expended effort,

 bent down behind the altar.

 

 When some time had passed and he had not stood up

 again, Miriamele began to wonder whether the old man

 had fallen into some sort of fit, or had perhaps even

 dropped dead. She got to her feet and moved cautiously

 toward the altar, keeping an eye cocked toward the ceiling

 as she went, half-fearing that at any moments the ravens

 might descend again, talons and beaks flailing....

 

 Domitis was curled on a ragged blanket behind the al-

 tar, snoring softly. In repose, the loose skin of his face

 seemed even more formless, sagging into long folds so

 that he seemed to wear a mask of melted candlewax.

 Miriamele shuddered and hurried back to her chair, but

 after a few moments even that began to feel too exposed-

 The room was still full of silent figures, but it was not

 difficult to imagine that they were only feigning sleep,

 waiting to be sure her companion was not returning be-

 fore they rose and came toward her....

 

 Miriamele waited for what seemed a long time. The

 forechamber was colder even than the broken-domed

 chapel, but escape was within reach at a moment's notice.

 A little of the night wind slipped through the partially

 open door, which made her feel closer to freedom and

 hence a great deal safer, but she still jumped when the

 door hinges screeched.

 

 "Ah," said Binabik, slipping inside, "it is still raining

 with great forcefulness." He shook water onto the stone

 floor.

 

 "Bishop Domitis has gone to sleep behind the altar.

 Binabik, where did you go?"

 

 'To take your horse back to where Homefmder and

 Qantaqa wait. Even if we are not finding what we seek

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER363

 

 here, we can easily travel through the town by walking.

 But if we find a tunnel-entering-place, I am fearing that

 we would come back at a later time to find your horse as

 part of some hungry person's soup."

 

 Miriamele had not thought of that, but she did not

 doubt that he was right. "I'm glad you did it. Now what

 should we do?"

 

 "Go hunting for our tunnel," said Binabik.

 

 "When Bishop Domitis was talking about the cata-

 combs, he kept looking over to the back of the cathedral,

 that wall behind the altar."

 

 "Hmmrn." The troll nodded. "You are wise for noticing

 and remembering. That is, I am thinking, the first place

 we should search."

 

 "We have to be quietwe don't want to wake him up."

 

 "Like snow-mice we will be, our pads whispering on

 the white crust." Binabik squeezed her hand.

 

 Her worries about the slumbering Domitis were un-

 founded. The old man was snoring thinly but emphati-

 cally, and did not even twitch as they padded by. The

 great wall behind the altar, which had once been covered

 in a tiled representation of Saint Sutrin's martyrdom, was

 now only crumbling mortar witfi a few remaining spots of

 ceramic color. At one end of the wall, tucked behind a

 rotting velvet drapery, stood a low door. Binabik gave it

 a tug and it opened easily, as though it had been used

 with some frequency. The troll peered inside, then turned.

 "Let us be taking some candles," he murmured. "That

 way we can be saving the torches in our packs for a later

 time."

 

 Miriamele went back and plucked two of the candles

 from the sconces. She felt a little shame, since Domitis

 had been kind to them in his own strange way, but she

 reasoned that their greater goal outweighed the sin of

 theft, and would benefit the bishop as wellmaybe one

 day he would even see his beloved cathedral rebuilt. She

 could not help wondering if the ravens would be welcome

 then. She hoped not.

 

 Each holding a candle, Miriamele and Binabik went

 carefully down the narrow staircase. Centuries of human

 

 364

 

 Tad Williams

 

 traffic had worn a groove like a dry river bed in the center

 of the stone steps. They stepped off the stairs into the

 low-ceilinged catacombs and stopped to look around. The

 walls on either side were honeycombed with niches, each

 containing a silent stone effigy of a figure in repose, most

 wearing the robes and other symbols of church office. But

 for these, the narrow halls seemed entirely empty.

 

 Binabik pointed at one turning that seemed less trav-

 eled. "This way, I am thinking."

 

 Miriamele peered down the shadowy tunnel. The pale

 plaster walls were unmarked; no would-be saints lay here,

 it seemed. She took a deep breath. "Let's go."

 

 In the cathedral above, a pair of ravens dropped down

 from the ceiling and, after circling briefly, settled on the

 altar. They stood side by side, bright eyes glaring at the

 door to the catacombs. Nor were they the only observers.

 A figure detached itself from the shadows along the wall

 and crept silently across the cathedral. It moved past the

 altar, stepping just as carefully as had Miriamele and the

 troll, then paused for a while outside the vault door as

 though listening. When a short time had passed, the dark

 shape slipped through the doorway and went pattering

 quietly down the stairs.

 

 After that, nothing was heard in the dark cathedral but

 the bishop's even snoring and the faint rustle of wings.

 

 16

 

 Roots of tfte Wftite Tree

 

 *

 

 Simon Stored' at the amazing thing for a long time. He

 took a step closer, then danced back nervously. How

 could it be? It must be a dream-picture, like so many

 other illusions in these endless tunnels.

 

 He rubbed his eyes and then opened them again: the

 plate still stood in the niche by the stair landing, chest-

 high. On it, arranged as prettily as at a royal banquet, was

 a small green apple, an onion, and a heel of bread. An un-

 adorned bowl with a cover stood beside it.

 

 Simon shrank back, looking wildly from side to side.

 Who would do such a thing? What would make someone

 leave a perfectly good supper in the middle of an empty

 stairwell in the depths of the earth? He raised his gutter-

 ing torch to inspect the magical offering once more.

 

 It was hard to believeno, it was impossible. He had

 been wandering for hours since leaving the great pool,

 trying to stay on an upward course but not at all sure that

 the curving bridges, downsloping corridors, and oddly-

 constructed stairways were not taking him even further

 into the earth, no matter how many steps he climbed. All

 that time the flame of his torch had been growing fainter,

 until it was little more than a wisp of blue and yellow

 which might be blown out by any errant breeze. He had

 all but convinced himself that he would be lost forever,

 that he would starve and die in darknessand then he

 had found this ... this miracle.

 

 It was not just the food itself, although the sight of it

 filled his mouth with saliva and made his fingers twitch.

 

 366 Tad Williams

 

 No, it meant there must be people somewhere nearby, and

 likely light and fresh air as well. Even the walls, which

 were rough-cobbled human work, spoke of the surface, of

 escape. He was as good as saved!

 

 Hold a moment. He caught himself with hand out-

 stretched, almost touching the skin of the apple. What if

 it's a trap? What if they know someone is down here, and

 they're trying to lure him out?

 

 But who would "they" be? No one could know he was

 down here but his friends and the bestial diggers and the

 shadowy ghosts of the Sithi in their dream-castle. No,

 someone had brought supper down here, then for some

 reason had walked away, forgetting it.

 

 If it was even real.

 

 Simon reached, ready for the food to vanish, to turn to

 dust ... but it did not. His hand closed on the apple. It

 was hard beneath his fingers. He snatched it up, sniffed it

 brieflywhat did poison smell like, anyway?and then

 took a bite.

 

 Thank you, merciful Usires. Thank you.

 

 It was ... wonderful- The fruit was far from ripe, the

 juice tan, even sour, but it felt like he held the living

 green earth in his hand again, that the life of the sun and

 wind and rain was crisping between his teeth and tongue,

 running down his throat. For a moment he forgot all else,

 savoring the glory of it.

 

 He lifted the cover from the bowl, sniffed to make sure

 it was water, then drank it down in thirsty gulps. When

 the bowl was empty, he grabbed the plate of food and

 darted back down the corridor, searching for a place to

 hide and eat in safety.

 

 Simon fought with himself to make the apple last, even

 though each bite seemed like a year of his life given back

 to him. When he had finished it, and had licked every bit

 of juice from his fingers, he stared longingly at the bread

 and onion. With masterful self-control, he tucked them

 both into the pockets of his breeches. Even if he found his

 way back to the surface, even if he was near some place

 where people were, there was no guarantee he would be

 

 TOGREEN ANGELTOWER

 

 367

 

 fed. If he came up within Erchester or one of the small

 villages along the Kynslagh, he might find a place to hide

 and even some allies; if he came up in the Hayholt, all

 hands might be turned against him. And if he was wrong

 about what the plate signifiedwell, he would be grateful

 to have the rest of the meal when the thrilling effect of an

 entire apple wore off.

 

 He picked up the torchit was even dimmer now, the

 flames a transparent azureand stepped back out into the

 corridor, then paced forward until he reached the branch-

 ing place. A chill passed through him. Which way had he

 turned? He had been in such a hurry to put distance be-

 tween himself and anyone who might return for the food

 that he had acted without his normal care. Had he turned

 ^ left, as he should have? Somehow that did not seem cor-

 ^ rcct.

 

 -^Still, he could do nothing but trust to the way he had

 done it so far. He took the rightward branching. Within

 moments, he became convinced that he had chosen

 wrongly: this way led down. He retraced his steps and

 took another of the corridors, but this one also sloped

 away downward. A few moments' examination proved

 that all the branches went down.-He walked back toward

 where he had eaten the apple and found the stem he had

 dropped, but when he held the guttering torch close to the

 ground he saw that the only footprints on the dusty floor

 led back the way he had come.

 

 Curse this place! Curse this mad maze of a place!

 

 Simon trudged back to the branching. Something had

 happened, it was clearthe tunnels had shifted again in

 some strange way. Resigned, he chose the downward path

 that seemed least steep and started on his way again.

 

 The corridor twisted and turned, leading him back into

 the depths. Soon the walls again showed signs of Sithi

 work, hints of twining carvings beneath the centuries of

 grime. The passageway widened, then widened again. He

 stepped out into a vast open area and knew it only from

 the far-ranging echoes of his bootheels: his torch was lit-

 tle more now than a smoldering glow.

 

 This cavernous place seemed as high-ceilinged as that

 

 368 Tad Williams

 

 which had held the great pool. As Simon moved forward

 and his eyes adjusted to the greater dimensions, his heart

 lifted. It was like the chamber of the pool in another way

 as well: a great staircase ran upward into the darkness,

 following the curve of the walls. Something else gleamed

 faintly in the middle of the chamber. He moved closer,

 and the dying light of his torch revealed a great circle of

 stone that might have been the base of a fountain; at its

 center, set in black earth but stretching up to many times

 Simon's height, was a tree. Or at least it seemed to be a

 treethere was a suggestion of humped and knotted roots

 at the bottom and amazingly tangled branches abovebut

 no matter how close he held the torch, he could see no de-

 tail of it, as though it were draped in clinging shadow.

 

 As he leaned nearer, the shadow-tree rattled in an

 unfelt wind, a sound like a thousand dry hands rubbing

 against each other. Simon leaped back. He had been about

 to touch it, certain it was carved stone. Instead he turned

 and hurried past it to the base of the winding stairway.

 

 As he circled around the perimeter of the chamber,

 picking his way up the steps by fading torchlight, he was

 still intensely aware of the tree standing at the room's

 center. He could hear the breathing sound of its leaves as

 they moved, but he could feel its existence even more

 strongly; it was as palpable in the darkness as someone

 lying beside him in a bed. It was not like anything he had

 felt beforeless starkly powerful than the pool, perhaps,

 but somehow more subtle, an intelligence vast, old, and

 unhurried. The pool's magic was like a roaring bonfire

 something that could bum or illuminate, but would do

 neither unless someone was present to use its power. Si-

 mon could not imagine anyone or anything using the tree.

 It stood and dreamed and waited for no one. It was not

 good or evil, it simply was.

 

 Long after he had left the base of the stairway behind

 him, he could feel its living presence.

 

 The light from his torch grew less and less. At last, af-

 ter he had climbed some hundreds of steps, it finally died.

 Having anticipated its passing for so long did not make

 the moment any less dreadful: Simon slumped down and

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER369

 

 sat in complete darkness, too tired even to weep. He ate

 a mouthful of bread and some onion, then squeezed some

 of the last of the water from his drying shirt. When he

 had finished, he took a deep breath and began to crawl up

 the stairs on his hands and knees, feeling before him in

 the blackness.

 

 It was hard to tell whether the voices that followed him

 were phantoms of the underground realm or the chattering

 of his own drifting thoughts.

 

 Climb up. All will be ready soon.

 

 On your knees again, mooncalf?

 

 Step after stone step passed beneath his hands. His fin-

 gers were numb, his knees and shins aching dully.

 

 The Conqueror is coming! Soon all will be ready.

 

 But one is missing!

 

 It does not matter. The trees are burning. All is dead,

 gone. It does not matter.

 

 Simon's mind wandered as he clambered up the wind-

 ing track. It was not hard to imagine that he had been

 swallowed whole, that he was in the belly of some great

 beast. Perhaps it was the dragonthe dragon that was

 spoken of in the inscription on his ring. He stopped and

 felt his finger, reassured by the feel of the metal. What

 had Binabik said the inscription meant? Dragon and

 Death?

 

 Killed by a dragon, maybe. I've been swallowed by

 one, and I'm dead. I'll climb around and around inside it

 forever, here in the dark. I wonder if anyone else has been

 swallowed? It's so lonely....

 

 The dragon is dead, the voices told him. No, the

 dragon is death, others assured him.

 

 He stopped and ate a little more of his food. His mourn

 was dry, but he did not take more than a few drops of wa-

 ter before resuming his four-legged climb.

 

 Simon stopped to catch his breath and rest his aching

 leg for perhaps the dozenth time since entering the stair-

 well. As he crouched, panting, light suddenly flickered

 around him. He thought wildly that his torch had blazed

 again, until he remembered that the dead brand was stuck

 

 370

 

 Tad Williams

 

 beneath his belt. For a startlingly beautiful moment the

 whole stairwell seemed full of pale golden light, and he

 looked up the shaft into infinite distance, up past a

 shrinking spiral of stairs to a hole that led straight to

 heaven. Then, with a silent concussion, a ball of angry

 flame bloomed in the heights above him, turning the very

 air red, and for a moment the stairwell became hot/as

 forge fire. Simon shouted in fear.

 

 No! the voices screamed- No! Speak not the word! You

 will summon Unbeing.1

 

 There was a crack louder than any thunder, then a blue-

 white flash that dissolved everything in pure light. An in-

 stant later everything was black once more.

 

 Simon lay on the stairs, panting. Was it truly dark

 again, or had the flare blinded him? How could he know?

 

 What does it matter? asked a mocking voice.

 

 He pressed his fingers against his closed eyelids until

 faint sparkles of blue and red moved in the darkness, but

 it proved nothing.

 

 / will not know unless I find something that I know I

 should be able to see.

 

 He had a hideous thought. What if, blinded, he crawled

 past a way out, a lighted doorway, a portal open to the

 sky?

 

 Can't think. I'll climb. Can't think.

 

 He struggled upward. After a while he seemed to lose

 himself entirely, drifting away to other places, other

 times. He saw Erchester and the countryside beyond as

 they had looked from the bellchamber atop Green Angel

 Towerthe rolling hills and fenced farms, the tiny houses

 and people and animals laid out below him like wooden

 toys on a green blanket. He wanted to warn them all, tell

 them to run away, that a terrible winter was coming.

 

 He saw Morgenes again. The lenses that the old man

 wore glinted in a beam of afternoon light, making his

 eyes flash as though some greater-than-ordinary fire

 burned within him. Morgenes was trying to tell him

 something, but Simon, young, stupid Simon, was watch-

 ing a fly buzzing near the window. If only he had lis-

 tened! If only he had known!

 

 TO GREENANGEL TOWER

 

 371

 

 And he saw the castle itself, a fantastic hodgepodge of

 towers and roofs, its banners rippling in a spring wind.

 The Hayholthis home. His home as it had been, and

 would never be again. But, oh, what he would give to turn

 Time in its track and send it rolling backward! If he could

 have bargained his soul for it ... what was a soul worth,

 anyway, against the happiness of home restored?

 

 The sky behind the Hayholt lightened as if the sun had

 emerged from behind a cloud. Simon squinted. Perhaps it

 was not spring after allperhaps it was high summer... ?

 

 The Hayholt's towers faded, but the light remained.

 

 Light!

 

 It was a faint, directionless sheen, no brighter than

 moonglow through fogbut Simon could see the dim

 form of the step before him, his dirt-crusted, scabby hand

 flattened upon it. He could see!

 

 He looked around, trying to determine the source of the

 light. As far as he could see ahead of him, the steps

 wound upward. The light, faint as swamp-fire, came from

 somewhere above.

 

 He got to his feet, swayed woozily for a moment, then

 began to walk upright once more. At first the angle

 seemed strange and he had to clutch the wall for support,

 but soon he felt almost human. Each step, laborious as it

 seemed, was taking him closer to the light. Each twinge

 of his wounded ankle was taking him nearer to ... what?

 Freedom, he hoped.

 

 What had seemed an unlimited vista during the blind-

 ing flash of light now abruptly closed off above him. The

 stairs opened out onto a broad landing, but did not con-

 tinue upward. Instead, the stairwell had been sealed off

 with a low ceiling of crude brick, as though someone had

 r tried to cork the stair-tower like the neck of a bottlebut

 light leaked through at one side. Simon shuffled toward

 the glow, crouching so that he would not bump his head,

 and found a place where the bricks had fallen down, leav-

 ; ing a crevice that seemed just wide enough for a single

 ? person to climb. He jumped, but his hands could only

 |touch the rough brick lining the hole; if there was an up-

 

 372

 

 Tad Williams

 

 per side, it was out of his reach. He jumped again, but it

 was useless.

 

 Simon stared up at the opening. A heavy, defeated wea-

 riness descended on him. He slumped down to the landing

 and sat for a moment with his head in his hands. To have

 climbed so far!

 

 He finished off the heel of bread and weighed the onion

 in his hand, wondering if he should just eat it; at last, he

 put it away again. It wasn't time to give up yet. After a

 few moments of thought, he crawled over to the scatter of

 bricks that had crumbled loose from the ceiling and began

 piling them one atop the other, trying to find an arrange-

 ment that was stable. When he had made the sturdiest pile

 he could, he clambered atop it. Now, as he reached up, his

 hands stretched far into the crevice, but he still could not

 feel any upper surface. He tensed his muscles, then

 leaped. For a moment, he felt a lip at the upper part of the

 hole; an instant later his hands failed their grip and he slid

 back down, tumbling from the pile of bricks and twisting

 his sore ankle. Biting his lip to keep from shouting at the

 pain, he laboriously stacked the bricks again, climbed

 atop them, crouched, and jumped-

 

 This time he was prepared. He caught the top of the

 hole and hung, wincing. After taking a few strong

 breaths, he pulled upward, his whole body trembling with

 the strain.

 

 Farther, farther, just a little farther ...

 

 The broken edges of brick passed before him. As he

 pulled himself higher, his elbows pushed against the

 brick, and for a moment it seemed that he would be

 trapped, wedged and left hanging in the hole like a game

 bird. He sucked in another breath, clenched his teeth

 against the pain of his arms, and pulled. Quivering, he

 inched higher; he braced himself for a short moment

 against the back of the hole, then pulled again. His eyes

 rose past the top of his hole, then his nose, then his chin.

 When he could, he threw his arm out onto the surface and

 clutched, pressing his back against the brick, then brought

 the other arm out as well. Using his elbows as levers, he

 worked his way up out of the crevice, ignoring the scrape

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER373

 

 of stone along his back and sides, then slid forward onto

 his chest and kicked like a swimmer until the whole of

 his length was lying on dank stone, safe.

 

 Simon lay for a long time, sucking air, trying not to

 think about how much his arms and shoulders hurt. He

 rolled over on his back and stared up at another ceiling of

 stone, this one only a little higher above him than the last

 had been. Tears trickled down his cheeks. Was this to be

 the next variation in his torments? Would he be forced to

 pull himself up by sheer strength through hole after hole,

 forever? Was he damned?

 

 Simon pulled the wet shirt from his breeches and

 squeezed it to get a few drops into his mouth, then sat up

 and looked at what was around him.

 

 His eyes widened; his heart seemed to expand inside

 his chest. This was something different.

 

 He was sitting on the floor of what was obviously a

 storeroom. It was human-made, and full of human imple-

 ments, although none seemed to have been touched for

 some time. In one corner was a wagon wheel with two of

 its spokes missing. Several casks stood against another

 wall, and beside them were piled cloth sacks bulging with

 mysterious contents. For a moment, all Simon could think

 about was the possibility that they might contain food.

 Then he saw the ladder beside the far wall, and realized

 where the light was coming from.

 

 The upper part of the ladder vanished through an open

 hatch door in the ceiling, a square full of light. Simon

 stared, gape-mouthed. Surely someone had heard his an-

 guished prayers and had set it there to wait for him.

 

 He roused himself and moved slowly across the room,

 then clutched the rungs of the ladder and looked upward.

 There was light above, and it seemed like the clean light

 of day. After all this time, could such a thing be?

 

 The room above was another storeroom. It had a hatch

 door and ladder as well, but in the upper part of the wall

 there was a small, narrow windowthrough which Si-

 mon could see gray sky.

 

 Skyf

 

 He had thought that he had no more tears to cry, but as

 

 374

 

 Tad Williams

 

 he stared at the rectangle of clouds, he began to weep,

 sobs of relief like a lost child reunited with a parent. He

 sank to his knees and offered a prayer of thanks. The

 world had been given back to him. No, that was not true:

 

 he had found the world once more.

 

 After resting a few moments, he mounted the ladder.

 On the upper side of the hatchway he found a small

 chamber full of masonry tools and jars of paint and

 whitewash. This room had an ordinary door and ordinary

 rough plaster walls. Simon was delighted. Everything was

 so blessedly ordinary! He opened the door carefully, sud-

 denly aware that he was in a place where people lived,

 that much as he wished to see another face and hear a

 voice that did not issue from empty shadows, he had to be

 cautious.

 

 Outside the door lay a huge chamber with a floor of

 polished stone, lit only by small high windows. The walls

 were covered with heavy tapestries. On his right, a wide

 staircase swept upward and out of sight; across the cham-

 ber a smaller set of steps rose to a landing and a closed

 door. Simon looked from side to side and listened, but

 there seemed no one about but him. He stepped out.

 

 Despite all the cleaning implements in the various

 storerooms, the large chamber did not seem to have ben-

 efited from their use: pale freckles of mold grew on the

 tapestries and the air was thick with the damp, close smell

 of a place long-untended.

 

 The astonishment of being in daylight again, the glory

 of escape from the depths, was so strong that Simon did

 not realize for some time that he stood in a place he knew

 well. Something in the shape and arrangement of the win-

 dows or some dimly-perceptible detail in one of the fad-

 ing tapestries finally pricked his memory.

 

 Green Angel Tower. The awareness came over him like

 a dream, the familiar turned strange, me strange become

 familiar. I'm in the entry hall. Green Angel Tower!

 

 That surprising recognition was followed by one much

 less pleasant.

 

 I'm in the Hayholt. In the High King's castle. With

 Ellas and his soldiers. And Pryrates.

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 375

 

 He stepped back into the shadows along the wall as

 though any moment the Erkynguard would crash through

 the tower's main door to take him prisoner. What should

 he do?

 

 It was tempting to consider climbing up the wide stair-

 case to the bellchamber, the place that had been his child-

 hood refuge. He could look down and see every corner of

 the Hayholt; he could rest and try to decide what to do

 next. But his swollen ankle was throbbing horridly, and

 the thought of all those steps made him feel weak.

 

 First he would eat the onion he had saved, he decided.

 He deserved a small celebration. He would think later.

 

 Simon slipped back into the closet, then considered that

 even that place might be a little too frequented. Perhaps

 the tower's entry chamber only seemed unvisited. He

 clambered down the ladder into the storeroom beneath,

 grunting softly at the ache in his arms and ankle, then

 pulled the onion from his pocket and devoured it in a se-

 ries of greedy bites. He squeezed the last of his water

 down his throatwhatever else might happen, rain was

 sluicing through all the castle gutters and drizzling down

 past the windows, so soon he would have all the water he

 wantedand then lay back with his head resting against

 one of the sacks and began organizing his thoughts.

 

 Within moments he fell asleep.

 

 A

 

 "We tell lies when we are afraid," said Morgenes.

 The old man took a stone from his pocket and tossed it

 into the moat. There was a flirt of sunlight on the ripples

 as the stone disappeared. "Afraid of what we don't know.

 afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be

 found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing

 that we fear grows stronger."

 

 Simon looked around. The sun was vanishing behind

 the castle's western wall; Green Angel Tower was a black

 spike, boldly silhouetted. He knew this was a dream. Mor-

 genes had said this to him long ago, but they had been in

 the doctor's chambers standing over a dusty book at the

 

 376 Tad Williams

 

 time, not outside in the fading afternoon. And in any case,

 Morgenes was dead. This was a dream, nothing more.

 

 "It is. in fact, a kind of magicperhaps the strongest of

 all," Morgenes continued. "Study that, if you wish to un-

 derstand power, young Simon. Don't fill your head with

 nattering about spells and incantations. Understand how

 lies shape us, shape kingdoms."

 

 "But that's not magic," Simon protested, lured into the

 discussion despite himself. "That doesn't do anything.

 Real magic lets you ... I don't know. Fly. Make bags of

 gold out of a pile of turnips. Like in the stones."

 

 "But the stories themselves are often lies, Simon. The

 bad ones are." The doctor cleaned his spectacles on the

 wide sleeve of his robe. "Good stories will tell you that

 facing the lie is the worst terror of all. And there is no

 talisman or magic sword that is half so potent a weapon

 as truth."~,

 

 Simon turned to watch the ripples slowly dissipating. It

 was wonderful to stand and talk with Morgenes again,

 even if it was only a dream. "Do you mean that if I said

 to a great dragon like the one that King John killed:

 

 'You're an ugly dragon.' that would be better than cutting

 its head off with a sword?"

 

 Morgenes' voice was fainter. "If you had been pre-

 tending it wasn't a dragon, then yes. that would be the

 best thing to do. But there is more, Simon. You have to go

 deeper still."

 

 "Deeper?" Simon turned back, angry now. "I've been

 down in the earth, -Doctor. I lived and f came up again.

 What do you mean?"

 

 Morgenes was ... changing. His skin had turned pa-

 pery and his pale hair was full of leaves. Even as Simon

 watched, the old man's fingers began to lengthen, chang-

 ing into slender twigs, branching, branching. "Yes, you

 have learned," the doctor said. As he spoke, his features

 began to disappear into the whorls on the white bark of

 the tree. "But you must go deeper still. There is much to

 understand. Watch for the angelshe will show you

 things, both in the ground and far above it."

 

 "Morgenes!" Simon's anger was all gone. His friend

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER377

 

 was changing so swiftly that there was almost nothing

 manlike left of him, only a faint suggestion in the shape

 of the trunk, an unnatural trembling in the tree's limbs.

 "Don't leave me!"

 

 "But I have left you already," the doctor's voice mur-

 mured. "What you have of me is only what is in your

 head-I am part of you. The rest of me has become part

 of the earth again." The tree swayed slightly. "Remember,

 thoughthe sun and stars shine on the leaves, but the

 roots are deep in the earth, hidden ... hidden...."

 

 Simon clutched at the tree's pale trunk, his fingers

 scrabbling uselessly against the stiff bark. The doctor's

 voice was silent.

 

 Simon sat up, nightmare-sweat stinging his eyes, and

 was horrified to discover himself in darkness.

 

 It was all a dream! I'm still lost in the tunnels, I'm

 lost....

 

 A moment later he saw starlight through the store-

 room's high window.

 

 Mooncalf. Fell asleep and it got dark outside.

 

 He sat up, rubbing his sore limbs. What was he to do

 now? He was hungry and thirsty, and there seemed little

 chance that he would find anything to eat here in Green

 Angel Tower. Still, he was more than a little reluctant to

 leave this relatively safe place.

 

 Have I climbed out of the dark ground only to starve to

 death in a closet? he chided himself. What kind of knight

 would do that?

 

 He got to his feet and stretched, noting the dull ache in

 his ankle. Perhaps just a foray out to get some water and

 see the lay of the land. Certainly it would be best to do

 such things while it was still dark.

 

 Simon stood uncertainly in the shadows outside Green

 Angel Tower. The Inner Bailey's haphazard roofs made a

 familiar jumble against the night sky, but Simon did not

 feel at all comfortable. It was not just that he was an out-

 law in his childhood home, although that was disconcert-

 ing enough: there was also something strange in the air

 

 378 Tad Williams

 

 that he could not name, but which he nevertheless could

 sense quite cle'arly. The maddening slipperiness of the

 world belowground had somehow seeped up into the ev-

 eryday stones of the castle itself. When he tilted his head

 to one side, he could almost see the buildings ripple and

 change at the edge of his sight. Faint blurs of light, like

 phantom flames, seemed to flicker along the edges of

 walls, then quickly vanish.

 

 The Hayholt, too? Had all the world broken loose from

 its moorings? What was happening?

 

 With some difficulty, he nerved himself to go explor-

 ing.

 

 Although it seemed the great castle was deserted, Si-

 mon soon discovered it was not. The Inner Bailey was

 dark and quiet, but voices whispered down corridors and

 behind closed doors, and there were lights in many of the

 higher windows. He also heard snatches of music, odd

 tunes and odder voices that made him want to arch like a

 cat and hiss. As he stood in the deep concealing shadows

 of the Hedge Garden, he decided that the Hayolt had

 somehow become spoiled, a fruit left to sit for too long

 now grown soft and rotten beneath the outer shell. He

 could not quite say what was wrong, but the whole of the

 Inner Bailey, the place that had been the center of Si-

 mon's childhood world, seemed to have sickened.

 

 He went stealthily to the kitchen, the lesser pantry, the

 chapeleven, in a moment of high daring, to the ante-

 chamber of the throne room, which opened onto the gar-

 dens. All the outer doors were barred. He could find no

 entrance anywhere. Simon could not remember any time

 before when that had been so. Was the king frightened of

 spies, of a siege? Or were the barriers not to keep out in-

 truders, but to make sure that those who were inside re-

 mained there? He breathed quietly and thought. There

 were windows that could not be closed, he knew, and

 other secret waysbut did he want to risk such difficult

 entrances? There might be fewer people about at night,

 but judging by the barred doors, those who were up, espe-

 cially if they were sentries, would be even more alert to

 unexpected noises.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER379

 

 Simon returned to the kitchen and pulled himself up

 into the branches of a small, barren apple tree, then

 climbed from there onto the ledge of the high window.

 The thick glass was gone, but the window slot had been

 wedged fall of stones; there would be no way to remove

 them without making a terrible clatter. He cursed silently

 and descended.

 

 He was sore and still terribly hungry, despite the luxury

 of a whole onion. He decided that he had wasted his time

 on the doors of the Inner Bailey. On the far side of the

 moat, though, the Middle Bailey might prove less well-

 protected.

 

 There were several distressingly naked patches of

 ground between the two baileys. Despite not having seen

 a single guard or, in fact, a single other person, Simon

 had to force himself to cross these open stretches; each

 time he dashed for the safety of shadows as soon as he

 was clear. The bridge across the moat was the most un-

 nerving part. He began to cross it and then changed his

 mind twice. It was at least thirty ells long, and if someone

 appeared while he was in the middle, he would be as ob-

 vious as a fly walking on a white wall.

 

 At last he blew out a shaky breath, drew in a deep gasp

 of air, and sprinted across. His steps sounded as loud to

 him as thunder. He forced himself to slow down and cross

 at a silent walk, despite the thumping of his heart. When

 he reached the far side he ducked into a shed where he sat

 until he felt steady again.

 

 You're doing well, he told himself. No one's around.

 Nothing to fear.

 

 He knew that was a lie.

 

 Plenty to fear, he amended. But no one's caught you

 yet. Not in a while, anyway.

 

 As he got to his feet, he could not help wondering why

 the bridge over the moat had been down in the first place

 if all the doors were barred and windows blocked against

 some feared attack,

 

 And why wasn't Green Angel Tower locked up? He

 could think of no answer.

 

 Before he had taken a hundred paces across the muddy

 

 38o Tad Williams

 

 thoroughfare in the center of Middle Bailey, he saw

 something that made him shrink back into the darkness

 again, his terrors suddenly returnedthis time with rea-

 son.

 

 An army was camped in the bailey.

 

 It had taken him some long moments to realize it, since

 so few fires burned, and since the tents were made of

 dark cloth that was almost invisible in the night, but the

 entire bailey seemed to be full of armed men. He could

 see perhaps a half dozen on the nearer outskirts, sentries

 by the look of them, cloaked and helmeted and carrying

 long pikes. In the dim light he could not see much of their

 faces. Even as he stood hidden in a crack between two of

 the bailey's buildings, wondering what to do next, another

 pair of cloaked and hooded figures passed him. They also

 carried long spears, but he could see immediately that

 they were different- Something in the way they carried

 themselves, something in their graceful, deceptively swift

 strides, told him beyond doubt that these were Noms.

 

 Simon sank farther back into the concealing darkness,

 trembling. Would they know he was here? Could they ...

 smell him?

 

 Even as he wondered, the black-robed creatures paused

 only a short way from his hiding place, alert as hunting

 dogs. Simon held his breath and willed himself to total

 stillness. After a long wait, the Noms abruptly turned in

 unison, as though some wordless communication had

 passed between them, and continued on their way. Simon

 waited a few shaky moments, then cautiously poked his

 head around the wall. He could not see them against the

 darkness, but he could see the human soldiers move out

 of their way, quick as men avoiding a snake. For an in-

 stant the Noms were silhouetted against one of the

 watchfires, twin hooded shapes that seemed oblivious to

 the humans around them. They slipped from the light of

 the fire and vanished once more.

 

 This was something unexpected. Noras! The White

 Foxes, here in the Hayholt itself! Things were worse even

 than he had imagined. But hadn't Geloe and the others

 said that the immortals couldn't come back here? Perhaps

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER381

 

 they had meant that Ineluki and his undead servitors

 couldn't return. But even if that last was true, it seemed

 little solace just now.

 

 So the Middle Bailey was full of soldiers, and there

 were Noms moving freely around the keep, silent as hunt-

 ing owls. Simon's skin prickled. He had no doubt that the

 Outer Bailey was also full of Black Rimmersmen, or

 Thrithings mercenaries, or whatever cutthroats Elias had

 bought with Erkynland's gold and the Storm King's

 magic. It was hard to believe that many of the king's own

 Erkynguard, even the most ruthless, would remain in this

 haunted place with the corpse-faced Noms: the immortals

 were too frighteningly different. It had been easy to see in

 just a brief instant that the soldiers in the Middle Bailey

 were frightened of them.

 

 Now I have a reason to escape besides just my own

 skin. Josua and the others need to know what is going on

 in here. He felt a momentary surge of hope. Maybe know-

 ing the Noms are here with Elias will bring Jiriki and the

 rest of the Sithi. Jiriki's kin would have to help the mor-

 tals then, wouldn't they? Simon tried to think carefully. In

 fact, I should try to escape nowif I can. What good will

 I do Josua or anyone else if I don't get out?

 

 But he had barely learned anything. He was exactly

 what any war leader most valuedan experienced eye in

 the middle of the enemy camp. Simon knew the Hayholt

 like a farmer knew his fields, like a blacksmith knew his

 tools. He owed it to his good fortune in surviving this

 fargood fortune, yes, he reminded himself, but his wits

 and resourcefulness had helped him, tooto take all he

 could from the situation.

 

 So. Back to the Inner Bailey. He could last a day or

 two without food if necessary, since water seemed to be

 abundantly available. Plenty of time to spy out what use-

 ful things he could, then find a way out past the soldiers

 to freedom. If he had to, he could even make his way

 back under the castle and through the dark tunnels again.

 That would be the surest way to escape undetected.

 

 No. Not the tunnels.

 

 382 Tad Williams

 

 It was no use pretending. Even for Josua and the oth-

 ers, that was something he could not do.

 

 He was approaching the bridge to the Inner Bailey

 when a loud clatter made Simon pull back into the shad-

 ows once more. When he saw the group of mounted

 shapes riding out onto the span, he silently thanked Usires

 for not bringing him to the bridge a few moments earlier.

 

 The company seemed made up of armored Erkyn-

 guardsmen, strangely dispirited-looking for all their mar-

 tial finery. Simon had only a moment to wonder what

 their errand might be when he saw a chillingly familiar

 bald head in their midst.

 

 Pryrates! Simon pushed back against the wall, staring.

 A choking hatred rose up inside of him. There the mon-

 ster was, not three score paces away, his hairless features

 limned by faint moonlight.

 

 / could be on him in a moment, he thought wildly. If I

 walked up slowly, the soldiers wouldn't worrythey'd

 just think I was one of the mercenaries who 'd drunk too

 much wine. I could crush his skull with a rock....

 

 But what if he failed? Then he would easily be cap-

 tured, any use he might be to Josua finished before it had

 begun. And worse, he would be the red priest's prisoner.

 It was just as Binabik had said: how long would it be un-

 til he told Pryrates every secret about Josua, about the

 Sithi and the swordsuntil he begged to tell the alche-

 mist anything he wanted to hear?

 

 Simon could not help shuddering like a taunted dog at

 the end of a rope. The monster was so close... '

 

 The company of horsemen stopped. The priest was be-

 rating one of the Erkynguards, his raspy voice faint but

 unmistakable. Simon leaned as far forward as he could

 without losing the shadow of the wall, cupping his hand

 behind his ear so that he could hear better.

 

 "... or I will ride you!" the priest spat.

 

 The soldier said something in a muffled voice. Despite

 his height and the sword he wore sheathed on his hip, the

 man cowered like a terrified child. No one dared speak

 sharply to Pryrates. That had been true even before Simon

 had fled the castle.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 383

 

 "Are you mad or just stupid?" Pryrates' voice rose. "I

 cannot ride a lame horse for days, all the way to

 Wentmouth. Give me yours."

 

 The soldier got down, then handed the reins of his

 mount to the alchemist- He said something else. Pryrates

 laughed.

 

 "Then you will lead mine. It will not hurt you to walk,

 I think, since it was your idiocy that ..." The rest of his

 mocking remark was too soft to hear, but Simon thought

 he heard another reference to Wentmouth, the rocky

 height in the south where the Gleniwent River met the

 sea. Pryrates pulled himself up into the guardsman's sad-

 dle, his scarlet robe appearing for a moment from beneath

 his dark cloak like a bloody wound. The priest spurred

 down off the bridge and onto the mud of the Middle Bai-

 ley. The rest of the company followed after him, trailed

 on foot by the soldier leading Pryrates' horse.

 

 As they passed by his hiding spot, Simon found that he

 was clutching a stone in his hand; he could not remember

 picking it up- He stared at the alchemist's head, round and

 bare as an eggshell, and thought about what pleasure he

 would feel to see it cracked open. That evil creature had

 killed Morgenes, and God Himself alone knew how many

 others. His fear mysteriously fled, Simon struggled

 against the almost overwhelming urge to shout his fury

 and attack. How could the good ones like the doctor and

 Geloe and Deornoth die when such a beast was allowed

 to live? Killing Pryrates would be worth the loss of his

 own life- An unimaginable vileness would be gone from

 the world. Doing the necessary, Rachel would have called

 it. A dirty job, but one as needs doing. But it seemed his

 life was not his to give.

 

 He watched the company troop past. They circled

 around the tents and vanished, moving toward the Lesser

 Gate that led to the outermost bailey. Simon dropped the

 rock he had been clutching into the mud and stood, trem-

 bling.

 

 A thought came to him suddenly, an idea so wild and

 mad that he frightened himself. He looked up at the sky,

 trying to guess how much time remained until dawn. By

 

 34

 

 Tad Williams

 

 the chill, empty feel of the air, he felt sure the sun was at

 least a few hours away.

 

 Who was most likely to have taken Bright-Nail from

 the mound? Pryrates, of course. He might not even have

 told King Elias, if that suited his purposes. And where

 would it be if that was true? Hidden in the priest's

 strongholdin Hjeldin's Tower.

 

 Simon turned. The alchemist's tower, unpleasantly

 squat beside the pure sweep of Green Angel, loomed over

 the Inner Bailey wall. If there were lights inside, they

 were hidden: the scarlet windows were dark. It looked

 desertedbut so did everything else at the center of the

 great keep. The whole of the Hayholt's interior might

 have been a mausoleum, a city of the dead.

 

 Did he dare to go insideor at least try? He would

 have to have light. Perhaps there were extra torches or a

 hooded lantern he could use somewhere in Green Angel

 Tower. It would be a fearful, terrible risk....

 

 If he had not seen Pryrates leaving with his own eyes,

 if he had not heard the red priest talk of riding to

 Wentmouth, Simon would not even have thought of it:

 

 just the idea of making his way into the-ill-omened tower

 when hairless, black-eyed Pryrates might be sitting inside,

 waiting like a spider at the center of his web, made his

 stomach heave. But the priest was gone, that was undeni-

 able, and Simon knew he might never have such a chance

 again. What if he found Bright-Nail?! He could take it

 and be gone from the Hayholt before Pryrates even re-

 turned. That would be a satisfying trick to play on the

 red-robed murderer. And wouldn't it be fine to ride into

 Prince Josua's camp and show them Bright-Nail flashing

 in the sun? Then he would truly be Simon, Master of the

 Great Swords, wouldn't he?

 

 As he moved quickly and quietly across the bridge, he

 found himself staring at the bailey wall before him.

 Something about it had changed. It had grown ... lighter.

 

 The sun was coming up, or at least as much of the sun

 as would appear on this gray day. Simon hurried a little.

 He had been wrong.

 

 A few more hours, eh? You've been lucky. What if you'd

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 385

 

 been rattling around outside the door of Hjeldin's Tower,

 when the sun came up? Mooncalf, still a mooncalf.

 

 Still, he was not entirely unrepentant. Knights and he-

 roes had to be bold, and what he was considering now

 was a bold plan indeed. He would simply have to wait un-

 til tomorrow night's darkness to accomplish it. It would

 be a marvelous, brave thing to do.

 

 But even as he hurried back toward his hiding hole in

 Green Angel Tower, he wished his friends were around to

 talk him out of it.

 

 The sun had set a few hours before. A fine drizzle was

 descending from the night sky. Simon stood in Green An-

 gel Tower's doorway and prepared himself to step out-

 It was not easy. He was still feeling weak and hungry,

 although after sleeping the day away he had found the re-

 mains of someone's supper, a crust of bread and a scanty

 rind of cheese, on a plate in an alcove off the tower's an-

 techamber. Both bread and cheese were dry, but still

 seemed only hours old, not days or weeks; even as he

 gobbled them down he had wondered whose meal it had

 been. Did Bamabas the sexton sdll care for the tower and

 its great bells? If so, he was doing a poor job.

 

 Thinking of Bamabas had made Simon realize that not

 once in the time he had returned had he heard Green An-

 gel's bells- Now, as he stood in the doorway of the tower,

 waiting for darkness, the thought came to him again. The

 great echoing cry of the bronze bells had been the heart-

 beat of the Hayholt as he had known it, an hourly re-

 minder that things went on, that time passed, that life

 continued. But now they were silent.

 

 Simon shrugged and stepped out. He paused to cup his

 hands beneath a stream of rainwater running down from

 the roof, then drank thirstily. He wiped his hands on his

 breeches and stared at the shadow of Hjeldin's Tower

 against the violet sky. There was nothing left to do. There

 was no reason to wait any longer.

 

 Simon made his way along the outer perimeter of the

 bailey, using the cover of the buildings to keep himself

 hidden from any eyes that might be watching. He had al-

 

 Tad Williams

 

 386

 

 most walked into the arms of Pryrates and the soldiers the

 night before; despite the seeming emptiness of the keep,

 he would take nothing for granted. Once or twice he

 heard wisps of conversation drift past, but he saw no

 living people who might have been responsible. A long,

 sobbing laugh floated by. Simon shivered.

 

 As he moved out around the edge of one of the out-

 buildings, he thought he saw a flicker of light in the tow-

 er's upper windows, a momentary gleam of red like a

 coal that still hid smoldering life. He stopped, cursing

 quietly to himself. Why should he be so sure that just be-

 cause Pryrates was gone, the tower would be empty? Per-

 haps the Norns lived there.

 

 But perhaps not. Surely even the priest needed servants

 to look after him, to sweep the floors and light the lamps,

 just as Simon had once done for Doctor Morgenes. If any-

 one moved inside the tower, it was likely some terrified

 castle-dweller forced to labor in the red priest's strong-

 hold. Perhaps it was Rachel the Dragon. If so, Simon

 would rescue her as well as Bright-Nail. Wouldn't she be

 astonishedhe would have to be careful not to frighten

 her too badly. She must have wondered where in the

 world her wayward scullion had gone.

 

 Simon turned before he reached the tower doors and

 clambered into a patch of ivy growing along the bailey

 wall. Hero or not, he was no fool. He would wait to see

 if there was any sign the tower was occupied.

 

 He huddled, holding his knees. The bulk of the tower

 overhead, its blunt dark stones, made him uncomfortable.

 It was hard not to feel it waited for him like a giant

 feigning sleep, anticipating the moment when Simon

 

 would come within reach-...

 

 Time seemed to pass very slowly. When he could stand

 the waiting no longer, he dragged himself out of the ivy,

 which seemed to cling more strongly than it should. No

 one had come near the doorway; no one was moving any-

 where about the Inner Bailey. He had seen no more lights

 in the windows, nor had he heard anything but the moan-

 ing of the wind in the towertops. It was time-

 But how to get in? There was scarcely any chance he

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER387

 

 would be able to unlock the huge black doorssomeone

 as secretive as Pryrates must have bolts on his fortress

 gateway that could keep out an army. No, it would un-

 doubtedly take climbing. The gatehouse that stood around

 and over the front door was probably his best chance.

 From the top of it he could perhaps find a way up to one

 of the upper windows. The stones of the walls were heavy

 and crudely set: climbing holds should not be too difficult

 

 to find.

 

 He ducked into the shelter of the gatehouse and paused

 for a moment to look at the black timbers of the front

 doors. They were indeed massiveSimon guessed that

 even men with axes would not penetrate them in anything

 less than half a day. Testing, he grasped one of the mas-

 sive door handles and pulled. The right side door swung

 out silently, startling Simon so that he stumbled back-

 ward, out into the thin rain.

 

 The doors were openunlocked! For a moment he

 wanted only to run, certain it was a trap set just for him;

 

 but as he stopped, hands raised as though to ward off a

 blow, he realized that was unlikely. Or perhaps there were

 more certain protections inside... ?

 

 Simon hesitated a moment longer, his heart rattling.

 

 Don't he a fool. Either go in or stay out. Don't stand

 around in the middle of everything waiting to be noticed

 

 by someone.

 

 He clenched his fists and stepped through, then pulled

 the door shut behind him.

 

 There was no need yet for the torch in his belt, which

 he had refurbished with oil from one of Green Angel

 Tower's storage rooms; one already burned in a bracket

 on the wall of the high antechamber, making shadows

 shiver in the comers. Simon could not help wondering

 who had lit it, but quickly dismissed the useless thought:

 

 he could only begin looking, try to move quietly, and lis-

 ten for anyone else who might be in Hjeldin's Tower with

 

 him.

 

 He walked across the antechamber, dismayed by the

 loud hiss his boot soles made rubbing on the stone. Stairs

 

 388 Tad Williams

 

 led upward along one wall to the highest, darkest parts of

 the tower. They would have to wait.

 

 So many doors! Simon chose one and opened it gently.

 The torchlight bleeding in from the antechamber revealed

 a room filled entirely with furnishings made from bones

 that had been tied and glued together, including one large

 chair which had, as if in mockery of the High King's

 throne, an awning made entirely from skullshuman

 skulls. Many of the bones still had bits of dark dry flesh

 stuck to them. From somewhere in the room came the

 fizzing chirp of what sounded like a cricket. Simon felt

 his stomach rising into his throat and hurriedly shut the

 door.

 

 When he had recovered a little he took his own brand

 and lit it from the wall torch. If he was really going to

 look for the sword, he would have to be able to see even

 into the dark comers, no matter what he might find there.

 

 He went back to the bone room, but further inspection

 turned up nothing but the dreadful furnishings, an incred-

 ible array of bones. Simon hoped some of them were an-

 imal bones, but doubted it. The insistent buzz of the

 cricket drove him out once more.

 

 The next chamber was filled wall to wall with tubs

 covered by stretched nets. Things Simon could not quite

 make out slithered and splashed in dark fluid; from time

 to time a slippery back or an oddly-terminated appendage

 pushed against the netting until it bulged upward. In an-

 other room Simon found thousands of tiny silvery figures

 of men and women, each carved with amazing accuracy

 and realism: each little statue was a perfect representation

 of a person frozen in a position of fear or despair. When

 Simon lifted one of them, the shiny metal felt slippery

 and strangely warm against his skin. A moment later, he

 dropped it and backed quickly out of the room. He was

 sure he had felt it squirm in his grip.

 

 Simon made his way from one room to the next, con-

 tinuously disturbed by what he found, sometimes by the

 sheer unpleasantness of the priest's possessions, some-

 times by their incomprehensibility. The last room on the

 ground floor contained a few bones as well, but they were

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER389

 

 far too large to belong to anything human. They were

 boiling in a great vat that hung above an oil flame, filling

 the damp room with a powerful but unrecognizable stink.

 Viscous black fluid ran in oozing drops from a spigot on

 the vat's side into a wide stone bowl. The fetid steam

 swirling up made Simon's head reel and the scar on his

 cheek sting. A quick search discovered no trace of the

 sword, and he retreated gratefully to the relatively clean

 air outside.

 

 After hesitating a moment, he climbed the stairs to the

 next level. There was undoubtedly more to be discovered

 beneath the tower, down in its catacombsbut Simon

 was in no hurry to do that. He would put such a search off

 for last, and pray that he found the sword before then.

 

 A room full of glass beakers and retorts much like

 things Morgenes had possessed, a chamber whose walls

 and ceiling were draped with inordinately thick

 spiderwebshis search of that one was brief and

 perfunctoryanother which seemed an indoor jungle full

 of trailing vines and fat, rotting blossoms, Simon passed

 through them all, feeling more and more like some peas-

 ant boy from a story who had entered a witch's magical

 castle. Some of the chambers had contents so dreadful he

 could do no more than peer for a moment into the shad-

 owed interior before shoving the door closed again. There

 were some things he simply could not force himself to do:

 

 if the sword was in one of these rooms, it would have to

 remain unrescued.

 

 One room that did not at first seem so dreadful held

 only a single small cot, oddly woven from a mesh of

 leather straps. At first he thought this might be the place

 Pryrates slept ... until he saw the hole in the stone floor

 and the stains beneath the cot. He left quickly, shud-

 dering. He didn't think he could spend much longer in

 this place and keep his sanity.

 

 On the fifth floor of the priest's storehouse of night-

 mares, Simon hesitated. This was the level at which the

 great red windows were set: if he moved from room to

 room with his torch, it was quite possible someone else-

 where in the keep might notice the moving flicker of light

 

 390

 

 Tad Williams

 

 in what should be an empty tower. After some consider-

 ation, he set his torch in one of the high brackets on the

 wall. He would have to search in near-darkness, Simon

 realized, but he had spent enough time below ground that

 he thought he might be better suited for that than almost

 anyone except a Sitha ... or a Nom.

 

 Only three chambers opened off the landing. The first

 was another featureless room with a cot, although this one

 had no drain in the floor. Simon had no problem believing

 that this was indeed Pryrates' sleeping place: something

 in the stark emptiness of the room seemed appropriate.

 Simon could picture the black-eyed priest lying on his

 back staring up into nothing, plotting. There was also a

 privy, a strangely natural possession for someone so un-

 natural.

 

 The second chamber was some sort of reliquary. The

 entire room was lined with shelves, and every inch of

 shelf space was taken up by statues. These were not all of

 a type, like the silver figurines on the first floor, but all

 shapes and sizes, some that looked like saint's icons, oth-

 ers lopsided wooden fetishes that might have been carved

 by children or lunatics. It was fascinating, in a way. Had

 Simon not felt the terror of this strange tower all around

 him, the incredible risk he was taking just being here, he

 might have liked to take some time to look at the bizarre

 collection. Some were made from wax and had candle

 wicks protruding from the heads, others were little more

 than conglomerations of bones and mud-and feathers, but

 each was recognizably a figure of some sort, although

 many seemed more animal than human. But nowhere was

 there anything like a sword. The eyes of some of the im-

 ages seemed to follow Simon as he backed out again.

 

 The last and largest room was perhaps the red priest's

 study. Here the great scarlet windows were most visible,

 since they covered a large part of the curved wall, al-

 though with night sky outside they were dark. The room

 itself was littered with scrolls and books and a collection

 of other objects as haphazardly odd and dispiriting as

 anything he had seen in any of the other chambers. If he

 could not find the sword here, his only hope was the cat-

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER391

 

 acombs beneath the tower. The roof above was full of

 star-gazing equipment and other strange machineryhe

 had seen that late in the afternoon from one of Green An-

 gel Tower's narrow windows; Simon doubted there would

 be anything so valuable hidden out there, but he would

 look anyway. No sense avoiding anything that might save

 him a trip down below Hjeldin's monument- -..

 

 The study was thick with shadows and extremely clut-

 tered, almost the entire floor covered with objects, al-

 though the walls were curiously empty of furnishings or

 anything else. At the room's center a high-backed chair

 faced away from the door toward the high windows. It

 was surrounded by free-standing cabinets, each one over-

 flowing with parchments and heavy bound books. The

 wall beneath the windows, Simon saw by the faint torch-

 light, was covered in pale, painted runes.

 

 He took a few steps toward the wall, then stumbled

 slightly. Something was wrong: he felt an odd tingling, a

 faintly nauseating unsteadiness in his bones and his guts.

 A moment later, a hand shot out from the darkness of the

 chair and fastened onto his wrist. Simon screamed and

 fell down, but the hand did not let go. The powerful grip

 was. cold as frost.

 

 "What have we here?" a voice said. "A trespasser?"

 

 Simon could not yank himself free. His heart sped so

 swiftly that he thought he would die of fear. He was

 pulled slowly back onto his feet, then tugged around the

 chair until he could look into the pale face that gazed at

 him from its shadows. The eyes that met his were almost

 invisible, faint smears of reflected light that nevertheless

 seemed to hold him just as strongly as the bony hand on

 his wrist.

 

 "What have we here?" his captor repeated, and leaned

 forward to stare at him.

 

 It was King Elias.

 

 17

 

 An Em6er in tfte Nigftt Sfey

 

 

 

 Desfrite tfte urqency of his errand and the dull ache

 of his tailbone, Tiamak could not help pausing in wonder

 to watch the proceedings on the broad hillside.

 

 It occurred to him that he had spent so much of his life

 reading scrolls and books that he had found very little

 chance to experience the sort of things about which they

 were written. Except for his brief stay in Ansis Pellipe

 and his monthly forays to the Kwanitupul market, the

 hurly-burly of life had not intruded much on his hut in the

 banyan tree. Now, in this last year, Tiamak had been

 caught up in the great movements of mortals and immor-

 tals. He had fought monsters beside a princess and a

 duke. He had met and spoken with one of the legendary

 Sithi. He had seen the return of the greatest knight of the

 Johannine Age. Now, as though the pages of one of Doc-

 tor Morgenes' dusty volumes had taken on magical life,

 he stood beneath cloudy skies watching the surrender of

 an army after a life or death struggle in the famous

 Onestrine Pass. Surely any scholar worth his quill pen

 would give everything he had to be here.

 

 Then why, Tiamak wondered, did he feel such intense

 longing to see his banyan tree again?

 

 / am as They Who Watch and Shape have made me, he

 decided. / am not a hero, like Camaris or Josua or even

 poor Isgrimnur. No, 1 belong with Father Strangyeard

 and the others like usthe small, the quiet. We do not

 want the eyes of people on us all the time, wailing to see

 what we do next.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER393

 

 Still, when he considered some of the things he had

 seen and even done, he was not quite sure that he would

 have passed them up, even if given a choice.

 

 As long as I can keep dodging She Who Waits to Take

 All Back a while longer, that is. I would not mind having

 a family some day. I would not mind a wife and children

 who would fill the house with some laughter when I am

 old.

 

 But that would mean finding a Wran-bride, of course.

 Even had he any taste for the tall, fish-skinned women of

 the drylander cities, he doubted any of them would be

 eager to live on crab soup in a tree house in the marsh.

 

 Tiamak's thoughts were interrupted by Josua's voice.

 He started to move toward the prince to deliver his mes-

 sage, but found his way blocked by several large soldiers

 who, caught up as they were with the spectacle before

 them, seemed in no hurry to make room for the small

 man.

 

 "I see you are here already," the prince said to some-

 one- The Wrannaman stood on his tiptoes, straining to

 see.

 

 "Where else would I go. Prince Josua?" Varellan rose

 to greet the victor. Benigaris' younger brother, even with

 cuts and bruises on his face and his arm in a sling, looked

 strangely unsuited to his role as war-leader. He was tall,

 and handsome enough in a thin, pale way, but his eyes

 were watery and his posture apologetic. He looked,

 Tiamak thought, like a sapling that had not received

 enough sun.

 

 Josua faced him. The prince wore still a torn surcoat

 and battered boots, as though the battle had ended only

 moments ago instead of two full days before. He had not

 left camp in that time, engaged in so many duties that

 Tiamak doubted he had slept more than an hour here or

 there. 'There is no need for shame, Varellan," Josua said

 firmly. "Your men fought well, and you did your duty."

 

 Varellan shook his head furiously, looking for a mo-

 ment like an unhappy child. "I failed. Benigaris will not

 care that I did my duty."

 

 "You failed in one thing," Josua told him, "but your

 

 394

 

 Tad Williams

 

 failure may bring more good than you knowalthough

 not much of it will come to your brother."

 

 Camaris stepped up silently to stand beside the prince.

 Varellan's eyes opened wider, as though his uncle were

 some larger-than-life monsteras, Tiamak thought, in a

 way he was. "I cannot be happy about what has hap-

 pened, Prince Josua," said Varellan tightly.

 

 "When we are finished with this, you will find out

 things that may change your mind."

 

 Varellan grimaced. "Have I not heard enough of such

 things already? Very well, then let us be finished. You al-

 ready took my war banner. I would have preferred to give

 this to you on the battlefield as well."

 

 "You were wounded." Josua spoke as though to a son.

 "There is no shame in being carried off the field. I knew

 your father well: he would have been proud of you."

 

 "I wish I could believe that." Varellan, made awkward

 by the arm sling, pulled a slender golden rod from his

 belt; a carving of a high-crested bird's head sat atop it. He

 winced as he kneeled. "Prince Josua, here is my commis-

 sion, the warmaster's baton of the Benidrivine House. For

 those men who are in my command, I give you our sur-

 render. We are your prisoners."

 

 "No." A stirring of surprise went through the watchers

 at Josua's words. "You do not surrender to me."

 

 Varellan looked up, puzzled and sullen. "My lord?"

 

 "You have not surrendered your Nabbanai soldiers to a

 foreign army. You have been defeated by the rightful heir

 of your household. Despite your brother's patricide

 I know you do not believe me yet, Varellanthe

 Benidrivine House still will rule, even when Benigaris is

 in shackles." Josua stepped back. "It is to Camaris-sa-

 Vinitta you surrender, not to me."

 

 Camaris seemed more surprised than Varellan. The old

 knight turned questioningly to Josua; then, after a mo-

 ment's hesitation, he extended a long arm and gently took

 the baton from the young man's hand.

 

 "Rise, nephew," he said. "You have brought only honor

 on our House."

 

 Varellan's face was a confusion of emotions. "How can

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 395

 

 that be?" he demanded. "Either you and Josua are lying

 and I have lost our most important pass to a usurper, or

 I have sent hundreds of brave soldiers to die in the cause

 of the man who murdered my father!"

 

 Camaris shook his head. "If your error was innocent,

 then there is no blame." He spoke with a curious heavi-

 ness, and his gaze seemed fixed on something other than

 the suffering young man before him. "It is when evil is

 done by choice, however small or foolish the undertaking

 may seem, that God mourns." He looked to Josua, who

 nodded. The old knight then turned to face the watching

 soldiers and prisoners. "I declare that all who will fight

 with us to free Nabban shall themselves be free men,"

 Camaris cried, loud enough that even the most distant

 parts of the gathering could hear him. He raised the

 baton, and for a moment the battle-light seemed to be on

 him again. "The Kingfisher House will restore its honor."

 

 There was a loud shout from the men. Even Varellan's

 defeated army seemed surprised and heartened by what

 they had seen.

 

 Tiamak took the onset of more general celebration to

 elbow his way through the crowd of soldiers and sidle up

 to Josua; the prince was having a few quiet words with

 Varellan, who was still angry and bewildered.

 

 "Your Majesty?" The Wrannaman stood by the prince's

 elbow, uncomfortably conscious of his small stature in the

 midst of all these armored giants. How could little

 Binabik and his troll-kinnone of them much more than

 two-thirds Tiamak's sizestand it?

 

 Josua turned to see who had spoken. "A moment,

 please, Tiamak. Varellan, this goes far deeper than even

 what your brother did at Bullback Hill. There are things

 that you must hear that will seem strange beyond belief

 but I am here to tell you that in these days, the impossible

 has become the actual."

 

 Tiamak did not want to stand waiting for Josua to tell

 the whole story of the Storm King's war. "Please, your

 Majesty. I have been sent to tell you that your wife, Lady

 Vorzheva, is giving birth."

 

 396

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "What?!" Josua's attention was now complete. "Is she

 well? Is anything amiss?"

 

 "I cannot say. Duchess Gutrun sent me as soon as the

 time came. I rode all the way from the monastery. I am

 not used to riding." Tiamak resisted the temptation to rub

 his aching rump, deciding that as casual as his relations

 with nobility had become, there were perhaps some

 boundaries still. But he did ache. There was something

 foolishly dangerous about riding around on an animal so

 much bigger than he was. It was a drylander custom he

 did not see himself adopting.

 

 The prince looked helplessly at Varellan, then at

 Camaris. The old knight's lips creased in a ghostly smile,

 but even this seemed to have pain in it. "Go, Josua," he

 said. "There is much I can tell Varellan without you." For

 a moment he paused and his face seemed to crumple;

 

 tears welled in his eyes. "May God give your wife a safe

 birthing."

 

 "Thank you, Camaris." Josua seemed too distracted to

 take much note of the old man's reaction. He turned.

 "Tiamak. I apologize for my bad manners. Will you ride

 back with me?"

 

 The Wrannaman shook his head. "No, thank you,

 Prince Josua. I have other things I need to do."

 

 And one of them is recover from the ride here, he added

 silently.

 

 The prince nodded and hurried away.

 

 "Come," Camaris was saying as he laid his long arm

 across Varellan's shoulder. "We need to talk."

 

 "I'm not sure that I wish to hear what you will tell

 me," the young man replied. He seemed only half-Joking.

 

 "I am not the only one who should speak, nephew," the

 old knight said. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

 "There is much I would hear from you of my home and

 of my family. Come."

 

 He led Varellan off toward the row of tents pitched

 along the ridge-line. Tiamak watched them go with a faint

 sense of disappointment.

 

 There it is. I may be in the thick of things, but I am still

 an outsider. At least if this were written in a book, I would

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 397

 

 know what they will say to each other. There is indeed

 something to be said for a lonely banyan tree.

 

 After a few moments watching the retreating figures,

 Tiamak shivered and wrapped his cloak closer about him-

 self. The weather had turned cold again; the wind seemed

 to have knives in it. He decided it was time to go in

 search of a little wine to relieve the aching of his back

 

 % and fundament.

 

 ^

 

 i*

 

 The mist that surrounded Naglimund was poisonously

 chill. Eolair would have given much to be in front of the

 fire in his great hall at Nad Mullach, with war a distant

 memory. But war was here, waiting just a short distance

 up the slope.

 

 "Stand fast," he told the Hemystiri who huddled be-

 hind him. "We will move soon. Rememberthey all

 bleed- They all die."

 

 "But we die faster," one of the men said quietly.

 

 Eolair did not have the heart to rebuke him. "It is the

 waiting," he murmured to Isorn. The duke's son turned a

 pale face toward him. 'These are brave men. It is the

 waiting and the not-knowing that undoes them."

 

 "It is not Just that." Isom gestured with his chin toward

 the fortress, a craggy shadow in the mists. "It is this

 place- It is the things we fight."

 

 Eolair ground his teeth together. "What is keeping the

 Sithi? It might be different if we could understand what

 our allies are doing. I swear, it seems they are waiting for

 the wind to change or some particular birds to fly over-

 head. It is like fighting beside an army of scryers."

 

 Isom, despite his own tension, turned a look of pity on

 the count. Eolair felt it almost as a rebuke. "They know

 best how to battle their kinfolk."

 

 "I know, I know." Eolair slapped at his sword-hilt.

 "But I would give much ..."

 

 A high-pitched note sang along the hillside. Two more

 homs joined in.

 

 "Finally!" the Count of Nad Mullach breathed. He

 

 398

 

 Tad Williams

 

 turned in the saddle. "We follow the Sithi," he called to

 his men. "Stay together. Protect each other's hacks, and

 do not lose yourselves in this gods-cursed murk."

 

 If Eolair expected to hear an answering shout from the

 men, he was disappointed. Still, they followed him as he

 spurred up the slope. He looked back and saw them wad-

 ing through the snow, grim and silent as prisoners, and he

 wished again he had brought them to some better fate.

 

 What should I expect? We are fighting an unnatural en-

 emy, our allies are no less strange, and now the battle is

 not even on our own soil. It is hard for the men to see this

 is for the good ofHernystir, let alone for the good of their

 villages and families. It is hard for me to see that, though

 I believe it.

 

 The mists swirled about them as they drove toward

 Naglimund's shadowy wall. Beyond the gap he could see

 only the faintest signs of moving shapes, although a trick

 of hearing made the shrill cries of the Norns and the bird-

 like war-songs of the Sithi seem to echo all around. Sud-

 denly the great hole in the wall was before them, a mouth

 opening to swallow the mortals whole.

 

 As Eolair rode through, the air was torn by a flash of

 light and a booming crash. For a moment all seemed to

 go inside out; the mist turned black, the shadowy forms

 before him white. His horse reared, screaming, and fought

 the reins. A moment later another great smear of light

 rubbed against his eyes, blinding him. When Eolair could

 see again, his terrified horse was heading back toward the

 breach in the wall, right into the reeling mass of the

 count's own troop. Eolair yanked furiously at the reins, to

 no effect. With a strangled curse, he pulled himself free

 of the stirrups and rolled out of the saddle, then crashed

 to the snowy ground as his mount ran wildly, scattering

 the reeling soldiers before him and trampling several.

 

 As he lay struggling to catch his breath, Eolair felt

 rough hands close on him and drag him to his feet. Two

 of his Hernystirmen were staring at him, eyes wide with

 

 fear.

 

 "That ... that light ..." one of them stammered.

 "My horse ran mad," the count shouted above the din.

 

 I

 

 TOGREBNANGELTOWER399

 

 He smacked snow loose from his leggings and surcoat

 and strode forward. The men fell in behind him. Isorn's

 horse had not bolted; still mounted, the young

 Rimmersman had vanished somewhere in the mists

 ahead.

 

 Naglimund's inner court looked like some kind of

 nightmarish foundry. Mist hung everywhere like smoke,

 and flames leaped periodically from the high windows

 and traveled along the stone walls in great blazing cur-

 tains. The Sithi were already at close quarters with the

 Nom defenders; their shadows, magnified by flames and

 fog, stretched out across the castle like warring gods- For

 a moment Eolair thought he knew what Maegwin saw. He

 wanted to fall down on his face until it all went away.

 

 A horseman appeared out of the fog. "They are hard

 pressed before the inner keep," Isorn called. He had a

 bloody streak down his jaw. "That is where the giants

 are."

 

 "Oh, gods," Eolair said miserably. He waved his men

 to follow, then set out at a lope after Isom. His boots sank

 into the snow at each step, so that he felt as though he la-

 bored up a steep hill. Eolair knew his mail-coat was too

 heavy to let him run for very long. He was breathing hard

 already, and not one blow struck.

 

 The battle before the inner keep was a chaos of blades

 and mist and near-invisible foes into which Eolair's men

 quickly vanished. Isom stopped to pick up a fallen pike

 and ride against a bloodied giant who held half a dozen

 Sithi at bay with his club. Eolair sensed movement nearby

 and turned find a dark-eyed Nom rushing toward him

 waving a gray ax. The count traded strokes with his at-

 tacker for a moment, then his foot slipped and he dropped

 to a knee. Before his foe could take advantage, he

 scooped a handful of snow and flung it up in a white

 shower toward the Norn's face. Without waiting to see if

 it had distracted his opponent, Eolair lunged forward,

 sweeping his sword around at ankle-height. There was a

 resounding crunch of steel against bone and his enemy

 fell atop him.

 

 The next moments passed in what seemed a profound

 

 400 Tad Williams

 

 stillness. The sounds of battle dropped away, as though he

 had passed through into some other realma silent world

 only a cubit wide and a few inches deep where nothing

 existed but his own panicked struggle, his failing wind,

 and the bony fingers clawing at his throat. The white face

 hovered before him, grinning mirthlessly like some

 Southern devil mask. The thing's eyes were flat dark peb-

 bles; its breath smelled like a cold hole in the ground.

 

 Eolair had a dagger at his belt, but he did not want to

 let go even an instant to reach for it. Still, despite his ad-

 vantage in size, he could feel his hands and arms losing

 their strength. The Nom was gradually crushing the mus-

 cles of Eolair's neck, closing his windpipe. He had no

 

 choice.

 

 He released his grip on the Nom's wrists and snatched

 

 at his sheath. The Fingers on his throat tightened and the

 silence began to hiss; blackness spread across the cubit-

 wide world. Eolair hammered with the knife at the thing's

 side until the pressure slackened, then he clutched his

 dying enemy like a lover, trying to prevent the Norn from

 reaching any weapon of its own. At last the body atop

 him ceased struggling. He pushed and the Nom rolled off,

 flopping into the snow.

 

 As Eolair lay gasping for breath, the dark-haired head

 of Kuroyi appeared at the edge of his cloudy vision. The

 Sitha seemed to be deciding whether the count would live

 or not; then, without saying a word, he vanished from

 

 Eolair1 s view.

 

 Eolair forced himself to sit up. His surcoat was sodden

 with the Norn's fast-cooling blood. He glanced at the

 sprawled corpse, then turned to stare, arrested even in the

 midst of chaos. Something about the shape of his enemy's

 face and slender torso was ... wrong,

 

 It was a woman. He had been fighting a Norn woman.

 

 Coughing, each breath still burning in his throat, Eolair

 struggled to his feet. He should not feel ashamedshe

 had almost killed himbut he did.

 

 What kind of world... ?

 

 As the silence in his head receded, the singing of Sithi

 and Cloud Children pressed in on him anew, combining

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 401

 

 with the more mundane screams of anger and shrieks of

 pain to fill the air with a complicated, frightening music.

 

 Eolair was bleeding in a dozen places and his limbs felt

 heavy as stone. The sun, which had been shrouded all

 day, seemed to have gone down into the west, but it was

 hard for him to tell whether it was sunset or the leaping

 flames that stained the mists red. Most of the defenders of

 Naglimund's inner keep had fallen; only a final knot of

 Noms and the last and largest of the giants remained, all

 backed into a covered passageway before the keep's tall

 doors. They seemed determined to hold this ground. The

 muddy earth before them was piled with bodies and

 drenched with blood.

 

 As the battle slackened, the count ordered his

 Hemystirmen back. The dozen who still stood were dull-

 eyed and sagging with weariness, but they demanded to

 see the battle through to the end; Eolair felt a fierce love

 for them even as he cursed their idiocy out loud. This was

 the Sithi's fight now, he told them: long weapons and

 swift reflexes were needed, and the staggering mortals

 had nothing left to offer but theic failing bodies and brave

 hearts- Eolair held to his call for retreat, sending his men

 toward the relative safety of Naglimund's outwall. He

 was desperate to bring some of them out of this nightmare

 alive.

 

 Eolair remained to hunt for Isom, who had not an-

 swered the war horn's summons. He stumbled along the

 outskirts of the struggle, ignored by the Sithi warriors try-

 ing to force the giant out of the shelter of the arched door-

 way, where he was inflicting terrible injuries even in his

 dying moments. The Sithi seemed in a desperate hurry,

 but Eolair could not understand why. All but a few of the

 defenders were dead; those who remained were protecting

 the doors to the inner keep, but whoever was still inside

 seemed content to let them die doing so rather than try to

 bring them inside. Eventually, the Sithi would pick them

 offJiriki's folk had few arrows left, but several of the

 Noms had lost their shields, and the giant, half-concealed

 

 402

 

 Tad Williams

 

 behind one of the arch pillars, already had a half-score of

 feathered shafts lodged in his shaggy hide.

 

 Where Eolair walked, the bodies of mortals and immor-

 tals alike lay scattered as if the gods had flung them down

 from heaven. The count passed by many faces he recog-

 nized, some of them young Hernystirmen with whom he

 had sat at the campfire only the night before, some Sithi

 whose golden eyes stared up into nothing.

 

 He found Isom at last, on the far side of the keep. The

 young Rimmersman was lying on the ground, limbs awk-

 wardly splayed, his helmet tumbled beside him. His horse

 

 was gone.

 

 Brynioch of the Skies! Eolair had spent hours in the

 freezing wind, but when he saw his friend's body, he went

 colder still- The back of Isom's head was soaked with

 blood. Oh. gods, how will I tell his father?

 

 He hurried forward and grasped Isom's shoulder to turn

 him over. The young Rimmersman *s face was a mask of

 mud and fast-melting snow. As Eolair gently wiped some

 of it away, Isom choked.

 

 "You live!"

 

 He opened his eyes. "Eolair?"

 

 "Yes, it's me. What happened, man? Are you badly

 

 wounded?**

 

 Isom took in a great rasping wheeze of breath. "Ran-

 

 somer preserve me, I don't knowit feels like my head

 is split open." He lifted a shaking hand to his head, then

 stared at his reddened fingers. "One of the Hunen struck

 me- A great hairy thing." He sagged back and closed his

 eyes, giving Eolair another fright before he opened them

 again. He looked more alert, but what he said belied it.

 

 "Where's Maegwin?"

 

 "Maegwin?" Eolair took the young man's hand. "She is

 in the camp. You are inside Naglimund, and you've been

 hurt. I'll go find some folk to help me with you ..."

 

 "No," Isom said, impatient despite his weakness. "She

 was here. I was chasing her when ... when the giant

 clubbed me. He did not strike me full."

 

 "Maegwin ... here?" For a moment it was as though

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 403

 

 the northerner had begun speaking another tongue. "What

 do you mean?"

 

 "Just as I said. I saw her walk past the outskirts of the

 fighting, right through the courtyard, heading around the

 keep. I thought I was seeing things in the mist, but I know

 she's been strange. I followed, and saw her just . . .

 there ..." he winced at the pain as he pointed toward the

 far comer of the blocky keep, "and followed. Then that

 thing caught me from behind. Before I knew it, I was ly-

 ing here. I don't know why it didn't kill me." Despite the

 chill, sweat beaded on his pale forehead. "Perhaps some

 of the Sithi came up."

 

 Eolair stood. "I'll get help for you. Don't move any

 more than you have to."

 

 Isom tried to smile. "But I wanted to take a walk in the

 castle gardens tonight."

 

 The count draped his cloak over his friend and sprinted

 back toward the front of the keep, skirting the siege of the

 keep's great doors. He found his Hemystinnen huddled

 beside a gap in the outwall like sheep terrified of thunder,

 and took four of the healthiest back to carry Isom to the

 camp. As soon as he saw they had him safe, he returned

 to his search for Maegwin; it had taken all the restraint he

 possessed to see his friend out of harm's way first.

 

 It did not take him long to find her. She was curled on

 the ground at the back of the keep. Although he could see

 no marks of violence on her anywhere, her skin felt

 deathly cold to his touch. If she breathed, he could find

 no sign of it.

 

 When his wits returned sometime later, he was carrying

 Maegwin's limp body in his arms, staggering across the

 camp at the base of the hill below Naglimund. He could

 not remember how he had gotten there. Men's faces

 looked up as he approached, but at that moment their ex-

 pressions had no more meaning for him than the bright

 eyes of animals.

 

 "Kira'athu says that she is alive, but very close to

 death," said Jiriki. "I bring you my sorrow, Eolair of Nad

 Mullach,"

 

 404

 

 Tad Williams

 

 As the count looked up from Maegwin's pale, slack

 face, the Sitha healer rose from the far side of the pallet

 and went quietly past Jiriki and out of the tent. Eolair al-

 most called her back, but he knew that there were others

 who needed her help, his own men among them. It was

 clear that there was little more she could do here, al-

 though Eolair could not have said what exactly the silver-

 haired Sitha woman had done; he had been too busy

 willing Maegwin to live to pay attention, clutching the

 young woman's cold hand as though to lend her some of

 his own feverish warmth.

 

 Jiriki had blood on his face. "You've been hurt," Eolair

 pointed out.

 

 "A cut, no more." Jiriki made a flicking movement

 with his hand. "Your men fought bravely."

 

 Eolair turned so he could speak without craning his

 neck, but he retained his grip on Maegwin's fingers. "And

 the siege is over?"

 

 Jiriki paused for a moment before replying. Eolair,

 even in the depth of his mourning, felt a sudden fear.

 "We do not know," the Sitha finally said.

 "What does that mean?"

 

 Jiriki and his kin had a quality of stillness in them at all

 times that marked them off from Eolair and his mortal

 fellows, but even so it was clear that the Sitha was dis-

 turbed. 'They have sealed the keep with the Red Hand

 still inside. They have sung a great Word of Changing and

 there is no longer a way in."

 

 "No way in? How can that be?" Eolair pictured huge

 stones pushed against the inside of the entrance- "Is there

 no way to force the doors?"

 

 The Sitha moved his head in a birdlike gesture of nega-

 tion. 'The doors are there, but the keep is not behind

 them." He frowned. "No, that is misleading. You would

 think us mad if I told you that, since the building clearly

 still stands." The Sitha smiled crookedly. "I do not know

 if I can explain to you. Count. There are not words in any

 mortal tongue that are quite right." He paused. Eolair was

 astonished to see one of the Sithi looking so distraught, so

 

 TOOREENANGELTOWER

 

 405

 

 ... human. "They cannot come out, but we cannot enter

 in. That is enough to know."

 

 "But you brought down the walls. Could you not knock

 down the stones of the keep as well?"

 

 "We brought down the walls, yes, but if the Hikeda'ya

 had been given time earlier to do what they have now ac-

 complished, those walls would still be standing. Only

 some all-important task could have kept them from doing

 that before we laid siege. However, even if we now took

 down every stone of the keep and carried it a thousand

 leagues away, we still could not reach thembut they

 would still be there."

 

 Eolair shook his head in weary confusion. "I do not un-

 derstand, Jiriki. If they cannot come out and the rest of

 Naglimund is ours, then there is no worry, is there?" He

 had reached his limit with the vague explanations of the

 Peaceful Ones. He wanted only to be left in peace with

 Lluth's dying daughter.

 

 "I wish it were so. But whatever purpose brought them

 here is still not understoodand it is likely that as long

 as they can stay in this place, close to the A-Genay'asu,

 they can still do what they came to do."

 

 "So this whole struggle has -been for nothing?" Eolair

 let go of Maegwin's hand and rose to his feet. Rage flared

 within him. "For nothing? Three score or more brave

 Hernystirmen slaughterednot to mention your own

 peopleand Maegwin ..." he waved helplessly, "... like

 this! For nothing?!" He lurched forward a few steps, arm

 raised as though to strike at the silent immortal. Jiriki re-

 acted so swiftly that Eolair felt his wrists caught and held

 in a gentle yet unbreakable grip before he saw the Sitha

 move. Even in his fury, he marveled at Jiriki's hidden

 strength.

 

 "Your sorrow is real. So is mine, Eolair. And we should

 not assume that all has been for naught: we may have hin-

 dered the Hikeda'ya in ways we do not yet realize. Cer-

 tainly we are alerted now, and will be on our guard for

 whatever the Cloud Children may do. We will leave some

 of our wisest and oldest singers here."

 

 Eolair felt his anger subside into hopelessness. He

 

 406 Tad Williams

 

 slumped, and Jiriki released his arms- "Leave them

 here?" he asked dully. "Where are you going? Back to

 your home?" A part of him hoped that it was true. Let the

 Sithi and their strange magics return to the secret places

 of the world. Once Eolair had wondered if the immortals

 still existed. Now he had lived and fought with them, and

 doing so had experienced more horror and more pain than

 he had ever thought possible.

 

 "Not to our home. Here, do you see?" Jiriki lifted the

 tent flap. The night sky had cleared; beyond the campfires

 hung a canopy of stars. "There. Beyond what we call the

 Night Heart, which is the bright star above the comer of

 Naglimund's outwall."

 

 Puzzled and irritated, Eolair squinted. Above the star,

 high in the sable sky, was another point of light, red as a

 dying ember.

 "That one?" he asked.

 

 Jiriki stared at it. "Yes. It is an omen of terrible power

 and significance. Among mortal peoples, it is called the

 Conqueror Star."

 

 The name had a disturbingly familiar sound, but in his

 grief and emptiness Eolair could summon no memories.

 "I see it. What does it mean?"

 

 Jiriki turned. His eyes were cold and distant. "It means

 the Zida'ya must return to Asu'a."

 

 For a moment the count did not understand what he

 was being told. "You are going to the Hayholt?" he said

 finally. *To fight Elias?"

 "It is time."

 

 The count turned back to Maegwin. Her lips were

 bloodless. A thin line of white showed between her eye-

 lids. "Then you will go without me and my men. I have

 had enough of killing. I will take Maegwin back so she

 may die in Henystir. I will take her home."

 

 Jiriki lifted a long-fingered hand as though he would

 reach out to his mortal ally. Instead, he turned and pulled

 the tent. flap open once more. Eolair expected some dra-

 matic gesture, but the Sitha only said: "You must do what

 you think best, Eolair. You have given much already." He

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 407

 

 slid out, a dark shadow against the starlit sky, then the

 flap fell back into place.

 

 Eolair slid down beside Maegwin's pallet, his mind full

 of despair and confusion. He could not think any more.

 He laid his cheek against her unmoving arm and let sleep

 take him.

 

 A

 

 "How are you, old friend?"

 

 Isgrimnur groaned and opened his eyes. His head

 pounded and ached, but that was as nothing to the pain

 below his neck- "Dead. Why don't you bury me?"

 

 "You will outlive us all."

 

 "If it feels like this, that is no gift." Isgrimnur sat a lit-

 tle straighter. "What are you doing here? Strangyeard told

 me that Varellan was to surrender today."

 

 "He did. I had business here at the monastery."

 

 The duke stared at Josua suspiciously. "Why are you

 smiling? It doesn't look a thing like you."

 

 The prince chuckled. "I am a father, Isgrimnur."

 

 "Vorzheva has given birth?" The Rimmersman shot out

 his furry paw and clasped Josua's hand. "Wonderful,

 man, wonderful! Boy or girl?"

 

 The prince sat down on the bed so that Isgrimnur

 would not have to stretch so far. "Both."

 

 "Both?" Isgrimnur's look turned to suspicion again.

 "What nonsense is that?" Realization came, if slowly.

 "Twins?"

 

 "Twins." Josua seemed on the verge of laughing aloud

 with pleasure. "They are fine, Isgrimnurthey are fat

 and healthy. Vorzheva was right, Thrithings-women are

 strong. She hardly made a noise, though it took forever

 for them both to come."

 

 "Praise Aedon," the Rimmersman said; he made the

 sign of the Tree. "Both babies and their mother, all safe.

 Praise be." Moisture appeared in the corner of his eye. He

 wiped it away brusquely. "And you, Josua, look at you.

 You are practically dancing. Who would have thought fa-

 therhood would suit you so?"

 

 408 Tad Williams

 

 The prince still smiled, but something more serious

 was beneath. "I have something to live for, now,

 Isgrimnur. I did not understand it would be like this. They

 must come to no harm. You should see themperfect,

 perfect."

 

 "I will see them." Isgrimnur began struggling with his

 covers.

 

 "You will not!" Josua was shocked. "You will not get

 out of that bed. Your ribs ..."

 

 "Are still where they're supposed to be. They've just

 been dented by a tipped-over horse. I've felt worse. Most

 of the punishment was taken by my head, and that is all

 bone, anyway."

 

 Josua had grasped Isgrimnur's broad shoulders, and for

 a moment it seemed that he would actually try to wrestle

 the duke back into bed. Reluctantly, he let go. "You're

 being foolish," he said. "They are not going anywhere."

 

 "Nor will I be either if I never move around." Grunting

 with pain, Isgrimnur put his bare feet down on the cold

 stone floor. "I saw what happened to my father Isbeom.

 When he was thrown from his horse, he stayed in bed the

 whole winter. After that he could never walk again."

 

 "Oh, goodness. What is he ... what is he doing?" Fa-

 ther Strangyeard had appeared in the doorway, and was

 staring at the duke with profound unhappiness.

 

 "He is getting up to see the children," said Josua in a

 tone of resignation.

 

 "But ... but ..."

 

 "Blast you, Strangyeard, you sound like a chicken,"

 Isgrimnur growled. "Make yourself useful. Get me some-

 thing to sit on. I am not such a fool that I am going to

 stand up in there while I make faces at Josua's heirs."

 

 The priest, alarmed, hurried back out again.

 

 "Now come and help me, Josua. It's too bad we don't

 have one of those Nabbanai harnesses for lifting an

 armored man onto a horse."

 

 The prince braced himself against the edge of the bed.

 Isgrimnur grabbed Josua's belt and pulled himself up-

 right. By the time he was standing, the duke was breath-

 ing heavily.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER409

 

 "Are you well?" Josua asked worriedly.

 

 "No. I hurt damnably. But I'm on my feet, and that's

 something." He seemed reluctant to move further. "How

 far is it?"

 

 "Just down the hall a short way." Josua slid his shoul-

 der under the older man's arm. "We will go slowly."

 

 They moved carefully out into the long, cool hallway.

 After a couple of dozen paces, Isgrimnur stopped to rest.

 "I will not be able to sit a horse for a few days, Josua,"

 he said apologetically.

 

 "A few days!" Josua laughed. "You brave old fool. I

 will not let you on a horse for a month at least."

 

 "I won't be left behind, damn you!"

 

 "No one is going to leave you behind, Isgrimnur. I am

 going to need you more than ever in the days ahead,

 whether you can fight or not. My wife is not going to

 ride, either. We will find a way to get you to Nabban, and

 to wherever we go from there."

 

 'Traveling -with the women and children," The disgust

 in his voice did not mask the fear.

 

 "Only until you arc healed," Josua soothed him. "But

 don't lie to me, Isgrimnur. Don't tell me that you are

 ready when you are not. I mean it when I say that I need

 you, and I will not have you making yourself so weak

 that your wounds don't heal." He shook his head. "I

 should be hanged for letting you get out of bed."

 

 The duke was a little cheerier. "A new father cannot

 refuse a request. Didn't you know that? An old Rim-

 mersgard custom."

 

 "I'm sure," said Josua sourly.

 

 "And besides, even with smashed ribs, I could beat you

 the best day of your life."

 

 "Come on, then, old war-horse," the prince sighed.

 "You can tell me about it when we get you to a bench."

 

 Duchess Outrun left the protective circle around

 Vorzheva's bed to give Isgrimnur a furious scolding for

 leaving his bed. She had been running back and forth be-

 tween the two rooms for days, and was plainly exhausted.

 The duke did not argue, but sank onto the bench

 

 4io Tad Williams

 

 Strangyeard had dragged in with the air of an unrecaici-

 trant child.

 

 Vorzheva was propped against a mound of blankets

 with an infant in each arm. Like Gutrun, she was pale and

 obviously tired, but this did not diminish the proud seren-

 ity that shone from her like a lantern's hooded glow. Both

 babies were swaddled so that only their black-haired

 heads peeped out. Aditu squatted near Vorzheva's right

 shoulder, staring at the nearest child with rapt interest.

 

 When he had caught his breath, Isgrimnur leaned for-

 ward, stealing a glance at the Sitha woman. There seemed

 a strange hunger in her eyes, and for a moment the duke

 was reminded of old stories about the Sithi stealing mor-

 tal children. He pushed away the disconcerting thought.

 

 "They look fine," he said. "Which is which?"

 

 'The boy is in my right arm. And this is the girl."

 

 "And what will they be called?"

 

 Josua took a step closer, staring down at his wife and

 children with unalloyed pride. "We will name the boy

 Deornoth, in memory of my friend. If he grows up half so

 noble a man, I will be proud." He shifted his gaze to the

 other small, sleeping face. "The girl is Derra."

 

 "It is the Thrithings word for star." Vorzheva smiled.

 "She will bum bright. She will not be like my mother and

 sisters, a prisoner of the wagons."

 

 "Those are good names," Isgrimnur said, nodding.

 "When is the First Blessing to be?"

 

 "We leave here in three days* time," Josua replied, still

 staring at his family. "We will have the ceremony before

 we ride." He turned. "If Strangyeard can do it then, that

 

 is."

 

 "Me?" The archivist looked around as though there

 might be someone else of that name in the room. "But we

 are in Nabban, now, Josua. There is a church on every

 hillside. And I have never performed a First Blessing."

 

 "You married Vorzheva and me, so of course we would

 have no one else," Josua said firmly. "Unless you do not

 want to."

 

 "Want to? I shall be honored, of course. Of course!

 Thank you. Prince Josua, Lady Vorzheva." He began to

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 411

 

 edge toward the door. "I had better find a copy of the cer-

 emony and learn it."

 

 "We're in a monastery, man," Isgrimnur said. "You

 shouldn't have to look far."

 

 But Strangyeard had already slipped out- The duke felt

 sure that the attention had been too much for him.

 

 Outrun made a brisk throat-clearing noise. "Yes. Well,

 if all of you are quite finished with your talking, I think

 it's time for Vorzheva and the little ones to get some

 rest." She turned on her husband. "And you are going

 back to bed, you stubborn old bear. It nearly stopped my

 heart when I saw you carried back here on a sling, and it

 was just as bad when I saw you staggering in today. Have

 you no sense, Isgrimnur?"

 

 "I'm going. Outrun," he mumbled, embarrassed.

 "Don't bully me."

 

 Aditu's voice was quiet, but her melodious tones carr-

 ied surprisingly well. "Vorzheva, may I hold them for a

 moment?"

 

 "She needs to rest." Outrun was sharp; Isgrimnur

 thought he saw something beyond her usual firmness in

 her eyesa touch of fear, perhaps. Had she had the same

 thought he had? "The babies, too."

 

 "Just for a moment."

 

 "Of course," said Vorzheva, although she, too, looked a

 little startled. "You had only to ask."

 

 Aditu leaned down and carefully took the children, first

 the girl, then the boy, and balanced them in her arms with

 great care. For a long moment she looked at both of them

 in turn, then she closed her eyes. Isgrimnur felt an inex-

 plicable touch of panic, as though something fearful had

 been set into motion.

 

 "They will be as close as brother and sister can be,"

 Aditu intoned, her voice suddenly solemn and powerful,

 "although they will live many years apart. She will travel

 in lands that have never known a mortal woman's step,

 and will lose what she loves best. but find happiness with

 what she once despised. He will be given another name.

 He will never have a throne, but kingdoms will rise and

 fall by his hand." The Sitha's eyes opened wide, but

 

 412

 

 Tad Williams

 

 seemed to gaze far beyond the confines of the room.

 "Their steps will carry them into mystery." After a mo-

 ment her eyes closed; when they opened once more, she

 seemed as natural as it was possible for a Sitha to seem

 to mortals.

 

 "Is this some curse?" Gutrun was frightened but angry.

 "What right have you to put Sithi magics on these

 Aedonite children?"

 

 "Peace, wife," Isgrimnur said, although he, too, was

 shaken by what he had seen.

 

 Aditu handed the children back to Vorzheva, who

 stared at the Sitha in superstitious bafflement.

 

 Josua also seemed unhappy, but he was clearly trying

 to keep his voice even. "Perhaps it was meant as a gift.

 Still, Aditu, our customs are not yours...."

 

 "This is not something we Sithi do." Aditu seemed a

 little surprised herself. "Oh, sometimes there are prophe-

 sies that go with certain of our births, but it is not a reg-

 ular custom. No, something ... came to me. I heard a

 voice in my ear, as one sometimes does on the Road of

 Dreams. For some reason I thought it was ... young

 Leieth."

 

 "But she is down the hall, next to my room," said

 Isgrimnur. "She has been asleep for weeksand she

 never talked when she was awake. What nonsense is

 

 this?"

 

 "I do not know." Aditu's golden eyes were bright. Her

 own surprise gone, she seemed to be enjoying the dis-

 comfiture she had caused. "And I am sorry if I made any-

 one frightened."

 

 "That is enough," Gutrun said. "This is upsetting

 Vorzheva."

 

 "I am not upset," said the new mother mildly. She, too,

 had recovered some of her good humor. Isgrimnur won-

 dered if things like this happened among her wagon-folk.

 "But I am now tired."

 

 "Let us get you back to bed, Isgrimnur." Josua darted

 a last worried glance at his wife. "We will think on this

 later, I suppose Aditu's ... words ... should be written

 downalthough if they are true, I do not know that I

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER413

 

 wish to know the future. Perhaps they are better forgot-

 ten."

 

 "Please forgive me," Aditu said to him. "Someone

 wanted those words spoken. And I do not think they por-

 tend ill. Your children seem fated for great things."

 

 "I am not sure that any such portent could be good,"

 Josua replied. "I, for one, have had quite enough of great

 things." He moved to Isgrimnur's side and helped the

 duke to rise.

 

 When they were in the corridor again, Isgrimnur asked:

 

 "Do you think that was a true prophesy?"

 

 Josua shook his head. "I have been living with dreams

 and omens too long to say it could not be, but as with all

 such things, it no doubt has its tricks and twists." He

 sighed. "Mother of Mercy, old friend, it seems that even

 my children will not be free of the mysteries that plague

 us."

 

 Isgrimnur could think of nothing to say to comfort the

 prince. Instead, he changed the subject. "So Varellan has

 surrendered. I wish I had been there to see the end of the

 battle. And is Camaris well? And Hotvig and the rest?"

 

 "Both wounded, but not seriously. We are in surpris-

 ingly good strength, thanks to-Seriddan and the other

 Nabbanai barons."

 

 "So we march on to the city itself. Where do you think

 Benigaris will try to draw his line?"

 

 Bent beneath Isgrimnur's broad arm, the prince

 shrugged. "I do not know. But he will draw it, never

 fearand we may not come out of that battle so luckily,

 I do not like to think about fighting house to house down

 the peninsula."

 

 "We will get the lay of the land, Josua, then decide."

 As they reached his bedside, Isgrimnur found himself

 looking forward to getting into bed as eagerly as a young

 man might anticipate a day free from chores.

 

 You're turning soft, he told himself. But at this mo-

 ment, he did not care. It would be good to lay his aching

 bones down.

 

 'The children are splendid, Josua." He adjusted himself

 on the pallet. "Do not fret on Aditu's words."

 

 414

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "I always fret," the prince said, smiling weakly. "Just

 as you always bluster."

 

 "Are we really so set in our habits?" Isgrimnur yawned

 to cover a grimace at the fierce aching of his ribs and

 back. 'Then maybe it is time for the young ones to push

 

 us aside."

 

 "We must leave them a better world than this one if, we

 can. We have made a terrible muck of the one we were

 given." He took Isgrimnur's hand for a moment. "Sleep

 

 now, old friend."

 

 Isgrimnur watched the prince walk out, happy to see

 that some of the bounce still remained in his step.

 

 / hope you get the chance to see those two children

 grow. And that they get to do it in that better world you

 

 spoke of.

 

 He leaned back and closed his eyes, waiting for the

 welcome embrace of sleep.

 

 18

 

 The Shadow King

 

 *

 

 Simon's entire Gfe had shrunk to me length of two

 

 arms, his and the king's- The room was dark. Elias held

 him in a cold-fingered grip as unbreakable as any mana-

 cle.

 

 "Speak." The voice was accompanied by a puff of va-

 por like dragon-spume, although Simon's own breath was

 ^invisible. "Who are you?"

 

 iSimon struggled for words, but could make no sound.

 IThis was a nightmare, a terrible dream from which he

 Hcould not awaken.

 

 ^"Speak, damn you. Who are'you?" The faint gleam of

 4the king's eyes narrowed, almost vanishing into the shad-

 Hows that hid his face.

 

 "N-n-nobody," Simon stammered. "I ... I'm

 n-nobody-..."

 

 "Are you?" There was note of sour amusement. "And

 what brings you here?"

 

 Simon's head was empty of thoughts or excuses-

 "Nothing."

 

 "You are nobody ... and your business is nothing."

 Elias laughed quietly, a sound like parchment being torn.

 "Then you certainly belong in this place, with all the

 other nameless ones." He tugged Simon a step closer.

 "Let me look at you."

 

 Simon was forced in turn to look directly at the king.

 It was hard to see him clearly in the faint light, but Simon

 thought he did not look quite human. There was a sheen

 to his pale arm, faint as the glow of swamp water, and al-

 

 4i6 Tad Williams

 

 though the chamber was dank and very cold, all of Elias'

 skin that Simon could see was beaded with moisture.

 Still, for all his fevered look, the king's arm was knotted

 with muscle and his grip was like stone.

 

 A shadowy something lay against the king's leg, long

 and black. A sheath. Simon could feel the thing that was

 in it, the sensation as faint yet unmistakable as a voice

 calling from far away. Its song reached deep into the se-

 cret part of his thoughts ... but he knew he could not let

 it fascinate him. His real danger was far more immediate.

 

 "Young, I see," Elias said slowly. "And fair-skinned.

 What are you, one of Pryrates' Black Rimmersmen? Or

 Thrithings-folk?"

 

 Simon shook his head but said nothing.

 

 "It is all the same to me," Elias murmured. "Whatever

 tools Pryrates chooses for his work, it is all the same to

 me." He squinted at Simon's face. "Ah, I see you flinch.

 Of course I know why you are here." He laughed harshly.

 "That damned priest has his spies everywherewhy

 would he not have one in his own tower, where he keeps

 secrets that he will not show even to his master, the

 king?"

 

 Elias' clutch loosened for a moment. Simon's heart

 sped again in anticipation that he might be able to make

 a try for freedom, but the king was only settling himself

 in a different position; before Simon could do more than

 think about escape, the claw lightened again.

 

 But it's something to watch for, Simon told himself,

 struggling to keep hope from dying. Oh, if he does, I pray

 I can get the door downstairs open again!

 

 A sudden tug on his arm dragged Simon to his knees.

 

 "Down, boy, where I can see you without stretching

 my neck. Your king is tired and his bones ache." There

 was a moment of silence. "Strange. You do not have the

 face of a Rimmersman or Thrithings-rider. You look more

 like one of my Erkynlandish peasants. That red hair! But

 they say that the grasslanders were of Erkynland once,

 long ago-..."

 

 The sense of being in a dream returned- How could the

 king see the color of his hair in this darkness? Simon

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 417

 

 struggled to make his breathing even, to keep his fear

 down. He had faced a dragona real dragon, not a hu-

 man one like thisand he had also survived in the black

 dreadfulness of the tunnels. He must keep his wits about

 him and watch for any opportunity.

 

 "Once all of Erkynlandall of the lands of Osten

 Ardwere like the grasslands," Elias hissed. "Nothing

 but petty tribes squabbling over pastureland, horse-

 stealing savages." He took a deep breath and let it out

 slowly; the odor was strangely like metal- "It took a

 strong hand to change that. It takes a strong hand to build

 a kingdom. Do you not think that the hill-folk of Nabban

 cried and wailed when the Imperator's guardsmen first

 came? But their children were thankful, and their chil-

 dren's children would have had it no other way...."

 

 Simon could make no sense of the king's rambling, but

 felt a fluttering of hope as the deep voice trailed off and

 silence fell. After waiting for a score of rapid heartbeats,

 Simon pulled as gently as he could, but his arm was still

 held. The king's eyes were hooded and his chin appeared

 to have sunk onto his chest. But he was not sleeping.

 

 "And look what my father built," Elias said abruptly.

 His eyes opened wide, as though he could see beyond the

 shadowed room and its disturbing furniture. "An empire

 such as the old Nabbanai masters only dreamed about. He

 carved it out with his sword, then protected it from jeal-

 ous men and vengeful immortals. Aedon be praised, but

 he was a mana man!" The king's fingers tightened on

 Simon's wrist until it felt as though the bones were grind-

 ing together. Simon let out a gasp of pain. "And he gave

 it to me to tend, just the way one of your peasant ances-

 tors passed his son a small patch of land and a raddled

 cow. My father gave me the world! But that was not

 enoughno, it was not enough that I hold his kingdom,

 that I keep its borders strong, that I protect it from those

 who would take it away again. No, that is only part of rul-

 ing. Only part. And it is not enough."

 

 Elias seemed completely lost now, droning away as if

 to an old friendi Simon wondered if he was drunk, but

 there was no liquor on his breath, only that strange leaden

 

 4i8 Tad Williams

 

 smell. Simon's sense of being trapped rose again, choking

 him. Would he be kept here by the mad king until

 Pryrates returned? Or would Elias tire of talking and ad-

 minister king's justice himself to the captured spy?

 

 "This is what your master Pryrates will never under-

 stand," Elias continued. "Loyalty. Loyalty to a person, or

 loyalty to a cause. Do you think he cares what happens.to

 you? Of course you don'teven a peasant lad like you is

 not so thick- It would be hard to spend a moment in the

 alchemist's company without knowing his only loyalty is

 to himself. And that is where he does not understand me.

 He only serves me because I have power: if he could

 wield the power himself, he would happily slit my

 throat." Elias laughed. "Or he would try, in any case. I

 wish he would try. But I have a greater loyalty, to my fa-

 ther and to the kingdom he built, and I would suffer any

 pain for it." His voice broke suddenly; for a moment, Si-

 mon felt sure the king would weep. "I have suffered. God

 Himself knows that I have. Suffered like the damned

 souls roasting in Hell. I have not slept .. . have not

 slept ..."

 

 Again the king fell silent. Made wary by the last such

 pause, Simon did not move, despite the dull throbbing of

 his knees pressed against the hard stone floor.

 

 When he spoke again, Elias' voice had lost some of its

 harshness; he sounded almost like an ordinary man.

 "Look you, boy, how many years do you have? Fifteen?

 Twenty? If Hylissa had lived, she might have borne me a

 son like you. She was beautiful ... shy as a young colt,

 but beautiful. We never had a son. That was the problem,

 you know. He might have been your age now. Then none

 of this would have happened." He pulled Simon closer;

 

 then, horribly, he rested a cold hand atop Simon's head as

 though performing some ritual blessing. Sorrow's double-

 guarded hilt was only a few inches away from Simon's

 arm. There was something dreadful about the sword, and

 the idea that it might touch his flesh made Simon want to

 pull away screaming, but he was even more terrified by

 what might happen if he woke the king from this strange

 speaking dream. He held his arm rigid, and did not move

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 419

 

 even as Elias began slowly to stroke his hair, though it

 sent chills down his neck-

 

 "A son. That is what I needed. One that I could have

 raised as my father raised me, a son that could understand

 what was needed. Daughters ..." He paused and took

 several rasping breaths. "I had a daughter. Once. But a

 daughter is not the same. You must hope that the man she

 marries will understand, will have the right blood, for he

 will be the one who rules. And what man who is not his

 own flesh and blood can a father trust to inherit the

 world? Still, I would have tried. I would have tried ...

 but she would not have it. Damned, insolent child!" His

 voice rose. "I gave her everythingI gave her life, curse

 her! But she ran away! And everything fell to ashes.

 Where was my son? Where was he?"

 

 The king's hand tightened in Simon's hair until it

 seemed he must tear it loose from the scalp. Simon bit his

 lip to keep silent, frightened again by the turn Elias' mad-

 ness had taken. The voice from the shadows of the chair

 was growing louder. "Where have you been? I waited un-

 til I could not wait any longer. Then I had to make my

 own arrangements. A king cannot wait, you see- Where

 were you? A king cannot wait."Otherwise things begin to

 fall apart. Things fall apart, and everything my father

 gave me would be lost." His voice rose to a shout.

 "Lost!" Elias leaned forward until his face was only a

 handbreadth from Simon's- "Lost!" he hissed, staring. His

 face was glossy with sweat. "Because you did not come!"

 

 A rabbit in the fox's jaw, Simon waited, heart hammer-

 ing. When the king's hand loosened in his hair he ducked

 his head, waiting for the blow to fall.

 

 "But Pryrates came to me," Elias whispered. "He had

 failed me in his first task, but he came to me with words,

 words like smoke. There was a way to make things right."

 He snorted. "I knew that he only wanted power. Don't

 you see, that is what a king does. my son. He uses those

 who seek to use him. That is the way of it. That is what

 my father taught me, so listen well. I have used him as he

 has used me. But now his little plan is unraveling and he

 thinks to hide it from me. But I have my own ways of

 

 420 Tad Williams

 

 knowing, do you see? And I need no spies, no peasant

 boys skulking about. Even did I not hear the voices that

 howl through the sleepless nights, still the king is no fool.

 What is this trip to Wentmouth, that Pryrates should go

 there yet again even as the red star is rising? What is at

 Wentmouth but a hill and a harbor flame? What is to be

 done there that has not been done already? He says it is

 part of the great design, but I do not believe him. I do not

 believe him."

 

 Elias was panting now, hunched over with his shoul-

 ders moving as though he tried to swallow and could not.

 Simon leaned away, but his arm was still firmly prisoned.

 He thought that if he flung himself backward as hard as

 he could he might break free, but the idea of what would

 happen if he failedif he only brought the king's atten-

 tion back to where he was and what he was doingwas

 enough to make him stay shivering on his knees beside

 the chair. Then the king's next words pushed thought of

 escape from his mind.

 

 "I should have known that there was something wrong

 when he told me about the swords," the king grated. "I

 am no fool, to be frightened with such kitchen tales, but

 that sword of my father'sit burned me! Like it was

 cursed. And then I was given ... the other one." Al-

 though it hung at his hip only a few scant inches away,

 the king did not look at Sorrow, but instead turned his

 haunted stare up toward the ceiling. "It has ... changed

 me. Pryrates says it is for the best. Said that I will not

 gain what he promised me unless the bargain is kept. But

 it is inside me like my own blood now, this sorcerous

 thing. It sings to me all through the night hours. Even in

 the daytime it is like a demon crouched beside me.

 Cursed blade!"

 

 Simon waited for the king to say more, but Elias had

 fallen into another rough-breathing silence, his head still

 tilted back. At last, when it seemed that the king had truly

 fallen asleep, or had forgotten entirely what he had been

 saying, Simon nerved himself to speak.

 

 "A-and your f-f-father's sword? Where is it?"

 

 Elias lowered his gaze. "It is in his grave." His eyes

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 421

 

 held Simon's for a moment, then the muscles of his jaw

 tightened and his teeth appeared in a mirthless grin. "And

 what is it to you, spy? Why does Pryrates wish to know

 about that sword? I have heard it spoken of in the night.

 I have heard much." His hand reached up and the fingers

 wrapped around Simon's face like bands of steel. Elias

 coughed harshly and wheezed for breath, but his clutch

 did not loosen. "Your master would have been proud of

 you if you had escaped to tell him. The sword, is it? The

 sword? Is that part of his plan, to use my father's sword

 against me?" The king's face was streaming sweat. His

 eyes seemed entirely black, holes into a skull full of twit-

 tering darkness. "What does your master plan?" He

 heaved in another difficult breath. "T-t-tell me!"

 

 "I don't know anything!" cried Simon. "I swear!"

 

 Elias was shaken by a wracking cough. He slid back in

 the chair, letting go of his prisoner's face; Simon could

 feel the icy bum where the fingers had been. The hand on

 his wrist tightened as the king coughed again and gasped

 for breath.

 

 "God curse it," Elias panted, "Go find my cupbearer."

 

 Simon froze like a startled mouse.

 

 "Do you hear me?" The king" let go of Simon's wrist

 and waved at him angrily. "Get the monk. Tell him to

 bring my cup." He sucked in another draught of air. "Find

 my cupbearer."

 

 Simon pushed himself back along the stone until he

 was out of the king's reach. Elias was sunken in shadow

 once more, but his cold presence was still strong. Simon's

 arm throbbed where the king had squeezed it, but the pain

 was as nothing next to the heartbreaking possibility of es-

 cape. He struggled to his feet, and doing so, knocked over

 a stack of books; when they thumped to the floor Simon

 cringed, but Elias did not move.

 

 "Get him," the king growled.

 

 Simon moved slowly toward the door, certain that at

 any moment he would hear the king lurch to his feet be-

 hind him. He reached the landing, out of sight of the

 chair; then, within a moment, he was on the stairway. He

 did not even grab for his torch, though it was within

 

 422 Tad Williams

 

 arm's reach, but hurried down the stairs in darkness, his

 feet as surefooted as if he walked a meadow in sunlight.

 He was free! Beyond all hope, he was free! Free!

 

 On the stairs just above the first landing a small, dark-

 haired woman stood. He had a momentary glimpse of her

 yellowish eyes as she stepped out of his way. Silent, she

 watched him pass.

 

 He hit the tower's outside doors at a rush and burst

 through into the foggy, moonlit Inner Bailey, feeling as

 though he could suddenly sprout wings and mount up into

 the clouded sky. He had only taken two steps before the

 cat-silent, black-cloaked figures were upon him. They

 caught him as firmly as the king had, holding both his

 arms pinioned. The white faces stared at him dispassion-

 ately. The Noms did not seem at all surprised to have

 captured an unfamiliar mortal on the steps of Hjeldin's

 Tower.

 

 

 

 As Rachel shrank back in alarm, the bundle in her hand

 fell to the rough stone floor. She flinched at the noise it

 made.

 

 The crunch of footsteps grew louder and a glow like

 dawn crept up the tunnel: they would be upon her in a

 moment. Backed into a crevice in the stone wall, Rachel

 looked around for somewhere to hide her lamp. At last, in

 desperation, she put the treacherously bright thing be-

 tween her feet- and bent over it, draping her cloak around

 her like a curtain so that its hem spread out onto the

 ground. She could only hope that the torches they carried

 blinded them to the light that must leak from beneath. Ra-

 chel clenched her teeth and "silently prayed. The oily

 smell of the lamp was already making her feel ill.

 

 The men who were approaching moved at a leisurely

 pacefar too leisurely to miss an old woman hiding be-

 hind her cloak, she was fearfully certain. Rachel thought

 she would die if they stopped.

 

 ",.. they like those white-skinned things so much, they

 should put them to work," a voice said, becoming audible

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 423

 

 above the noise of footfalls. "Alt the priest has us doing

 is carrying away stones and dirt and running errands,

 That's no job for guardsmen."

 

 "And who are you to say?" another man asked-

 

 "Just because the king gives Red-robe a free hand

 doesn't mean that we ..." the first began, but was inter-

 rupted.

 

 "And I suppose you would tell him otherwise?" a third

 cackled. "He would eat you for supper and toss the bones

 away!"

 

 "Shut your mouth," the first snapped, but there was not

 much confidence in his tone. He resumed more quietly.

 "All the same, there's something dead wrong down here,

 dead wrong. I saw one of those corpse-faces waiting in

 the shadows to talk to him...."

 

 The scrape of boots on stone diminished. Within a few

 moments, the corridor was silent again.

 

 Gasping for air, Rachel flapped her cloak out of the

 way and staggered from the alcove. The fumes of the

 lamp seemed to have seeped right into her head; for a mo-

 ment the walls tilted. She put a hand out to steady herself.

 

 Blessed Saint Rhiap, she breathed voicelessly, thank

 you for protecting your humble-servant from the unright-

 eous. Thank you for making their eyes blind.

 

 More soldiers! They were all over the tunnels beneath

 the castle, filling the passageways like ants. This group

 was the third that she had seenor, in this instance,

 heardand Rachel did not doubt there were many more

 that she had not. What could they want down here? This

 part of the castle had lain unexplored for years, she

 knewthat was what had given her the courage to search

 here in the first place- But now something had caught the

 attention of the king's soldiers. Pryrates had put them to

 work digging, it seemedbut digging after what? Could

 it be Guthwulf?

 

 Rachel was full of frightened anger. That poor old

 man! Hadn't he suffered enough, losing his sight, driven

 out of the castle? What could they want with him? Of

 course, he had been the High King's trusted counselor be-

 fore he had fled: perhaps he knew some secrets that the

 

 424 Tad Williams

 

 king was desperate to have. [t must be terribly important

 to set so many soldiers tracking around in this dreary

 underworld.

 

 It must be Guthwulf. Who else woutd there be to search

 for down here? Certainly not Rachel herself: she knew

 she counted for little in the games of powerful men. But

 Guthwulfwell, he had fallen out with Pryrates, hadn't

 he? Poor Guthwulf. She had been right to look for

 himhe was in terrible danger! But how could she con-

 tinue her search with the passageways crawling with the

 king's menand worse things, if what the guardsmen

 seemed to be saying was true? She would be lucky if she

 made her own way back to sanctuary undiscovered.

 

 That's so, she told herself. They nearly had you that

 time, old woman. It's a presumption to expect the saint to

 save you again if you persist in foolishness. Remember

 what Father Dreosan used to say: 'God can do anything.

 but He does not protect the prideful from the doom they

 summon.'

 

 Rachel stood in the corridor while she waited for her

 breathing to slow. She could hear nothing in the corridor

 but her own swift-drumming heartbeat-

 

 "Right," she said to herself. "Home. To think." She

 turned back up the corridor, clutching her sack.

 

 The stairs were hard going. Rachel had to stop fre-

 quently to rest, leaning against the wall and thinking an-

 gry thoughts about her increasing infirmity. In a better

 world, she knew, a world not so smirched with sin, those

 who walked the path of righteousness would not suffer

 such twinges and spites. But in this world all souls were

 suspect, and adversity, as Rachel the Dragon had learned

 at her mother's knee, was the test by which God weighed

 them. Surely the burdens she carried now would lighten

 her in the Great Scales on that fated day.

 

 Aedon Ransomer, I hope so, she thought sourly. If my

 earthly burdens get any heavier, on the Day of Weighing-

 Out I will float away like a dandelion seed. She grinned

 wryly at her own impiety. Rachel, you old fool. listen to

 you. It's not too late to endanger your soul!

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 425

 

 There was something oddly reassuring in that thought.

 Strengthened, she renewed her assault on the stairs.

 

 She had passed the alcove and climbed a flight past it

 before she remembered about the plate. Surely nothing

 would be different than when she had looked on her way

 down that morning ... but even so, it would be wrong to

 shirk. Rachel, Mistress of Chambermaids, did not shirk,

 Although her feet ached and her knees protested, although

 she wanted nothing but to stagger to her little room and

 lie down, she forced herself to turn and go back down the

 stairs.

 

 The plate was empty.

 

 Rachel stared at it for long moments. The meaning of

 its emptiness crept over her only gradually.

 

 Guthwulf had come back.

 

 She was astonished to find herself clutching the plate

 and weeping. Doddering old woman, she berated herself.

 What on God's earth are you crying for? Because a man

 who has never spoken to you or known your namewho

 likely doesn 't even know his own name any morecame

 and took some bread and an onion from a plate?

 

 But even as she scolded herself she felt the dandelion-

 seed lightness that she had only imagined earlier. He was

 not dead! If the soldiers were looking for him, they had

 not yet found himand he had come back. It was almost

 as though Earl Guthwulf had known how worried she

 was. That was an absurd thought, she knew, but she could

 not help feeling that something very important had hap-

 pened.

 

 When she had recovered, she wiped her tears briskly

 with her sleeve, then took cheese and dried fruit from her

 sack and filled the plate again. She checked the covered

 bowl; the water was gone too. She emptied her own water

 skin into the bowl. The tunnels were a dry and dusty

 place, and the poor man would certainly be thirsty again

 soon.

 

 The happy chore finished, Rachel resumed her ascent,

 but this time the stairs seemed gentler. She had not found

 him, but he was alive. He knew where to come, and

 

 426 Tad Williams

 

 would come again. Perhaps next time he would stay and

 let her speak to him.

 

 But what would she say?

 

 Anything, anything. It will be someone to talk to. Some-

 one to talk to.

 

 Singing a hymn beneath her breath, Rachel made her

 way back to her hidden room.

 

 

 

 Simon's strength seemed to drain out. As the Noms

 took him across the Inner Bailey courtyard his knees gave

 way. The two immortals did not falter, but lifted him by

 the arms until only his toes dragged along the ground.

 

 By their silence and their frozen faces they might have

 been statues of white marble magicked into movement;

 

 only their black eyes, which flicked back and forth across

 the shadowy courtyard, seemed to belong to living crea-

 tures. When one of them spoke quietly in the hissing,

 clicking tongue of Stormspike, it was as surprising as if

 the castle walls had laughed.

 

 Whatever the thing had said, its fellow seemed to

 agree. They turned slightly and bore their prisoner toward

 the great keep that contained the Hayholt's chief build-

 ings.

 

 Simon wondered dully where they were taking him. It

 didn't seem to matter much. He had been small use as a

 spyfirst walking into the king's clutches, then practi-

 cally throwing himself into the arms of these creatures

 and now he would be punished for his carelessness.

 

 But what will they do? Exhaustion battled with fear. /

 won't tell them anything. I won't betray my friends. I

 won't!

 

 Even in his numb state, Simon knew that there was lit-

 tle chance that he would keep his silence when Pryrates

 returned. Binabik was right. He had been a wretched,

 damnable fool.

 

 / will find a way to kill myself if I have to.

 

 But could he? The Book of Aedon said it was a sin ...

 and he was afraid to die, afraid to set out on that dark

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 journey by his own choice. In any case, it seemed un-

 likely that he would be given any chance for such an es-

 cape. The Noras had taken his Qanuc bone knife, and

 they seemed capable of effortlessly countering anything

 he might try.

 

 The walls of the inner keep, covered in carvings of

 mythical beasts and only slightly better-known saints, ap-

 peared through the gloom. The door was half-open; deep

 shadow lay beyond. Simon struggled briefly, but he was

 held far too firmly by unyielding white fingers. He

 stretched his neck in desperation, trying to get a last view

 of the sky.

 

 Hanging in the murky northern night between Pryrates'

 stronghold and Green Angel Tower was a spot of shim-

 mering red lightan angry scarlet star.

 

 The poorly lit corridors went on and on. The Hayholt

 had always been called the greatest house of all, but Si-

 mon was dully surprised at how large it truly was. It al-

 most seemed that new passageways were being created

 just on the far side of every door. Although the night out-

 side had been calm, the corridors were full of chilly

 breezes; Simon saw only a few, flitting shapes at the far

 ends of passageways, but the shadows were lively with

 voices and strange sounds.

 

 Still clutching him firmly, the Noms dragged Simon

 through a doorway that opened onto a steep, narrow stair-

 well. After a long climb down, during which he was

 wedged so close between the two silent immortals that he

 thought he could feel their cold skin drawing the heat

 from his body, they reached another empty corridor, then

 quickly turned down into another stairwell.

 

 They're taking me down to the tunnels, Simon thought

 in despair. Down into the tunnels again. Oh, God, down

 into the dark!

 

 They stopped at last before a large door of iron-bound

 oak. One of the Norns produced a great crude key from

 its robe and pushed it into the lock, then tugged the door

 open with a flick of its white wrist. A billow of hot,

 smoky air pushed out, stinging Simon's nose and eyes.

 

 428 Tad Williams

 

 He wavered stupidly for a long moment, waiting for

 whatever would happen next. At last he looked up. The

 Noms' flat, expressionless black eyes stared back at him.

 Was this the prison chamber, he wondered? Or was this

 the place where they threw the bodies of their victims?

 

 He found the strength to speak. "If you want me to go

 in there, then you might as well make me go in." He stiff-

 ened his muscles to resist.

 

 One of the Norns gave him a push. Simon caught at the

 door and teetered for a moment on the threshold, then

 overbalanced and toppled through into emptiness,

 

 There was no floor.

 

 A moment later he discovered that there was a floor,

 but that it was several cubits lower than the doorway. He

 hit on broken stone and tumbled forward with a shout of

 startlement and pain. He lay for a moment, panting, and

 stared up at the play of firelight across the surprisingly

 high ceiling. The air was full of strange hissing noises.

 The lock clanked overhead as the key was turned.

 

 Simon rolled over and found that he was not alone in

 this place. A half-dozen strangely clad menif they were

 men: their faces were almost entirely covered by dirty

 ragsstood a short distance away, staring at him. They

 made no move toward him. If they were torturers, Simon

 thought, they must be tired of their work.

 

 Beyond them lay a large cavern that seemed to have

 been fitted for animals rather than men. A few ragged

 blankets were piled against the walls like empty nests; a

 trough of water, reflecting the scarlet glow, seemed full of

 molten metal. Instead of a solid stone wall, which Simon

 would have expected to see at the back of a prison cham-

 ber, the far side of the cavern was an opening into some

 bigger place beyond, a great space full of flickering, fiery

 light. Somewhere a pained voice cried out.

 

 He stared, amazed. Had he been carried all the way

 down to the flame pits of Hell? Or had the Noms built

 their own version to torment their Aedonite prisoners?

 

 The figures before him, which had been standing stol-

 idly as grazing animals, suddenly dispersed and moved

 quickly to the sides of the cavern. Simon saw a terrify-

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER429

 

 ingly familiar silhouette appear in the open space between

 the two caverns. Without thinking, he scuttled to one side

 and pushed himself back into a shadowed recess, then

 pulled a stinking blanket up to his eyes.

 

 Pryrates still had his back to the smaller cavern and to

 Simon, shouting to someone out of sight; the alchemist's

 head reflected an arc of fire. After a few last words, he

 turned and came forward, bootheels crunching in shat-

 tered stone. He crossed the cavern and climbed stone

 stairs to the narrow ledge, then pushed the flat of his hand

 against the door. It swung outward, then thumped shut

 again behind him.

 

 Simon had thought himself beyond any further fear or

 surprise, but now he was slack-mouthed with astonish-

 ment. What was Pryrates doing here when he had said he

 was going to Wentmouth? Even the king thought he had

 gone to Wentmouth, Why should the alchemist deceive

 his master?

 

 And where is "here" anyway?

 

 Simon looked up quickly at a sound nearby. One of the

 rag-masked figures was approaching him, moving with

 the aching slowness of a very^old man. The man, for his

 eyes above the cloth were clearly human, stopped before

 Simon and stared at him for a moment. He said some-

 thing, but it was too muffled for Simon to understand.

 

 "What?"

 

 The man reached up and slowly peeled the stiff cloth

 away from his face. He was almost impossibly gaunt, and

 his seamed face was covered with gray whiskers, but

 there was something about him that suggested he might

 be younger than he looked.

 

 "Lucky this time, eh?" said the stranger.

 

 "Lucky?" Simon was puzzled. Had the Noms put him

 in with madmen?

 

 "The priest. Lucky that'un had other business this time.

 Lucky there be no more ... tasks he needs prisoners for."

 

 "I don't know what you're talking about." Simon stood

 up out of his crouch, feeling the bruises from his most re-

 cent fall.

 

 430

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "You . . . you be no forge man," said the stranger,

 squinting. "Dirty you be, but there's no smoke on you."

 

 "The Norns captured me," Simon said after a moment's

 hesitation. He had no reason to trust this manbut he had

 no reason not to. "The White Foxes," he amended when

 he saw no recognition on the other's gaunt face.

 

 "Ah, those devils." The man furtively made the sign of

 the Tree. "We see 'em sometimes, but only at a ways off.

 Godless, unnatural things they be." He looked Simon up

 and down, then moved a little closer. "Don't tell no one

 else that you be not a forge man," he whispered. "Here,

 

 come here."

 

 He led Simon a little to one side. The other masked

 

 men looked up, but seemed little interested in the new-

 comer. Their eyes were empty as the stares of landed fish.

 

 The man reached down into a snarl of blankets and at

 last clawed up a smoke-mask and a dirty, tattered shirt.

 "Here, take thiswas Old Bent Leg's, but won't miss it

 where he be gone. Look like everyone else, you will."

 

 "Is that good?" Simon was finding it hard to keep his

 overstuffed head working. He was in the forge, it seemed.

 But why? Was this his only punishment for spying, to

 work in the castle's foundry? It seemed surprisingly mild.

 

 "If you don't want to get worked to death," the man

 said, then began coughing, long dry rasps that sounded as

 though they came all the way up from his feet. It was

 some time before he could talk again. "If Doctor sees you

 be a new 'un," he wheezed, "he'll get his work out of

 you, never fear. And more. A right bad 'un, he be." The

 man said it very convincingly. "Don't want him noticing

 

 you."

 

 Simon looked down at the soiled scraps of cloth.

 

 "Thank you. What's your name?"

 

 "Stanhelm." The man coughed again, "And don't tell

 others you be new either, or they'll run to Doctor so fast

 your eyes'll pop out. Tell 'em you worked with ore buck-

 ets. Those'uns sleep in 'nother hole on t'other side, but

 White Foxes and soldiers dump all runaways back

 through this door, 'matter which side 'uns ran from." He

 reflected sadly. "Few of us left and work to do. That's

 

 TO GREEN ANOEL TOWER

 

 431

 

 why 'uns brought you back and didn't kill you. What be

 your name, lad?"

 

 "Seoman." He looked around. The other forge men had

 fallen back into unheeding silence. Most had curled them-

 selves up on their thin blankets and closed their eyes.

 "Who is this Doctor?" For a split instant the sound of the

 name had filled him with wild hope, but Morgenes, even

 if he had lived through the dreadful blaze, would never be

 someone to occasion fear in men like these.

 

 "You'll meet 'un soon enough," Stanhelm said. "Don't

 be in no hurry."

 

 Simon wrapped the strip of cloth about his face. It

 smelled of smoke and dirt and other things, and did not

 seem very easy to breathe through. He told Stanhelm so.

 

 "You keep it wet. Thank Ransomer Himself you've got

 it, you will. Otherwise, fire goes right down your throat

 and bums innards." Stanhelm prodded the shirt with a

 blackened finger. "Put that on, too." He looked nervously

 over his shoulder at his fellow forge workers.

 

 Simon understood. As soon as he pulled on the shirt, he

 would no longer be differenthe would not draw atten-

 tion. These were bent, almost broken men, that was clear.

 They did not want to be noticed if they could avoid it.

 

 When his head poked free of the neck hole and he

 could see again, a looming shape was lurching toward

 him. For an instant, Simon thought one of the snow-

 giants had somehow found its way south to the Hayholt.

 

 The great head turned slowly from side to side. The

 mask of ruined flesh wrinkled in anger.

 

 'Too much sleeping, little rat-men," the thing rumbled.

 "Work to do. The priest wants everything finished now."

 

 Simon thanked Usires for the tattered fabric that made

 him another faceless captive. He knew this one-eyed

 monster.

 

 Oh, Mother of Mercy. They've given me to Inch.

 

 19

 

 Cunning 05 Time

 

 

 

 "DO you. thinfc Simon could be down here some-

 where?^'

 

 Binabik looked up from his dried mutton, which he had

 been tearing into small pieces. It was the morning meal,

 if morning could be said to exist in a sunless, skyless

 place. "If he is," the little man said, "I am thinking there

 is only a small chance we will find him. I am sorry,

 Miriamele, but here there are many leagues of tunnels."

 

 Simon wandering alone and in darkness. The thought

 hurt too muchshe had been so cruel to him'

 

 Desperate to think of something else, she asked: "Did

 the Sithi really build all this?" The walls stretched high

 above, so that the torchlight failed before it found the up-

 per reaches. They were roofed over by purest black; but

 for the absence of stars and weather, she and the troll

 might be sitting beneath the open night sky.

 

 "With help they built it. The Sithi were having the as-

 sisting of their cousins, I have readin fact, they were

 the people who were making the maps you copied. Other

 immortals, masters of stone and earth. Eolair said some

 still are living beneath Hemystir."

 

 "But who could live down here?" she wondered.

 "Never seeing the day ..."

 

 "Ah, you are not understanding." The troll smiled.

 "Asu'a was full of light. The castle you were living in

 had its building on the top of the Sithi's great house.

 Asu'a was buried so that the Hayholt could be born."

 

 "But it won't stay buried," Miriamele said grimly.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER433

 

 Binabik nodded. "We Qanuc have a believing that the

 spirit of a murdered man cannot rest, and stays on in the

 body of an animal. Sometimes it is following the one who

 killed him, sometimes it is staying in the place he was

 loving most. Either way, there is no rest for it until the

 truth has been discovered and the crime has been given its

 punishment."

 

 Miriamele thought of the spirits of all the murdered

 Sithi and shivered- She had heard more than a few strange

 echoes since they had entered the tunnels beneath Saint

 Sutrin's. "They can't rest."

 

 Binabik cocked an eyebrow. 'There is more here than

 just restless spirits, Miriamele-"

 

 "Yes, but that's what the ..." she lowered her voice

 "... that's what the Storm King is, isn't he? A murdered

 soul looking for vengeance."

 

 The troll looked troubled. "I am not happy to be talk-

 ing of such things here. And he brought his own death

 upon him, I am remembering."

 

 "Because the Rimmersmen had surrounded this place

 and were going to kill him anyway."

 

 "There is truth in what you say," Binabik admitted.

 "But please. Miriamele, no more. I do not know what

 things are in this place, or what ears might be listening,

 but I am thinking that the less we speak of such matters,

 the happier we will be. In many ways."

 

 Miriamele inclined her head, agreeing. In fact, she

 wished now she had never mentioned it. After more than

 a day wandering in these disturbing shadows, the thought

 of the undead enemy was already close enough.

 

 They had not penetrated far into the tunnels the first

 night. The catacomb passages beneath Saint Sutrin's had

 gradually become wider and wider, and soon had begun

 to slant steadily downward into the earth; after the first

 hour, Miriamele thought that they must have descended

 beneath even the bed of the many-fathomed Kynslagh.

 They had soon found a relatively comfortable spot to stop

 and eat a meal. After sitting down for a short while, both

 of them had realized just how weary they truly were, so

 

 434

 

 Tad Williams

 

 they had spread their cloaks and slept. Upon awaking,

 Binabik had relit their torches from his firepota tiny

 earthenware jug in which a spark was somehow kept

 smolderingand after a few bites of bread and some

 dried fruit washed down with warm water, they had set

 

 out again.

 

 The day's traveling had brought them down many

 twisting paths. Miriamele and Binabik had done their best

 to stay close to the general directions on the dwarrow

 map, but the tunnels were snaky and confusing; it was

 hard to feel very confident that they were following the

 correct course. Wherever they were, though, it was clear

 that they had left the realms of humankind. They had de-

 scended into Asu'ain a way, they had circled back into

 the past. Trying to fall asleep, Miriamele had found her

 thoughts reeling. Who could know the world had so many

 secrets in it?

 

 She was no less overwhelmed this morning. A well-

 traveled child, even for a king's daughter, she had seen

 many of the greatest monuments of Osten Ard, from the

 Sancellan Aedonitis to the Floating Castle at Warinsten

 but the minds that had conceived this strange hidden cas-

 tle made even the most innovative human builders seem

 

 timid.

 

 Time and falling debris had crushed much of Asu'a

 into dust, but enough of it remained to show how match-

 less it had been. Spectacular as the ruins of Da'ai Chikiza

 had seemed, Miriamele quickly decided, these far sur-

 passed them. Stairways, seemingly unsupported, rose and

 twisted into darkness like cloth streamers bending in the

 wind. Walls curved upward, then spread out overhead into

 spectacular fan-shaped arrays of multicolored, attenuated

 rock, or bent back on themselves in rippling folds; every

 surface was alive with carvings of animals and plants.

 The makers of this place seemed able to stretch stone like

 hot sugar-candy and etch it like wax.

 

 What had clearly been streambeds, although they now

 held only sifting dust, ran in and out from one room to

 the other along the broken floors, stitched by tiny, omate

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 435

 

 bridges. Overhead, great sconces shaped like fantastically

 unlikely flowers grew downward from the carved vines

 and leaves that festooned the ceilings. Miriamele could

 not help wishing she could have seen them when they had

 bloomed full of light. Judging by the traces of color that

 still remained in the grooves of the stone, the palace had

 been a garden of colors and radiance almost beyond

 imagining.

 

 But although chamber after ruined chamber dazzled her

 eyes, there was also something about these endless halls

 that set her teeth on edge. For all their beauty, they had

 clearly been made for inhabitants who saw things differ-

 ently than a mortal could: the angles were strange, the ar-

 rangements unsettling. Some high-arched chambers

 seemed far too vast for their furnishings and decorations,

 but other rooms were almost frightening in their close-

 ness, so cramped and tangled with ornament that it was

 hard to imagine more than one person occupying them at

 any given time. Stranger still, the remnants of the Sithi

 castle did not seem entirely dead. In addition to the faint

 sounds which might be voices and the odd shifts of the air

 in what should be a windless place, Miriamele saw an

 elusive shimmer everywhere, a hint of unseen movement

 at the comer of her eye, as though nothing was quite

 real. She imagined she could blink and find Asu'a

 restoredor, equally likely, find bare cavern walls and

 dirt.

 

 "God is not here."

 

 "What is that you are saying?" asked Binabik.

 

 Their meal finished, they were walking again, carrying

 their packs down a long, high-walled gallery, across a

 narrow bridge that stretched through emptiness like the

 flight of an arrow. The torchlight did not reach past the

 darkness below them.

 

 She looked up, embarrassed. "I'm not sure. I said,

 *God is not here.' "

 

 "You are not liking this place?" Binabik showed a

 small yellow smile. "I have fear of these shadows, too."

 

 "NoI mean, yes, I'm afraid- But that's not what I

 

 436 Tad Williams

 

 meant." She held her torch higher, staring at a string of

 carvings on the wall beyond the gap. "The people who

 lived here weren't anything like us. They didn't think

 about us. It's hard to believe it's the same world as the

 one I know. I was taught to believe that God is every-

 where, watching over everything." She shook her head.

 "It's hard to explain. It seems like this place is out of

 God's sight. Like the place itself doesn't see Him, so He

 doesn't see it."

 

 "Is that making you more afraid?"

 

 "I suppose so. It just seems as though the things hap-

 pening here don't have much to do with the things I was

 taught."

 

 Binabik nodded solemnly. In the yellow torchlight, he

 looked less like a child than he sometimes did. Outlined

 by shadow, his round face had an air of gravity. "But

 some would be saying that the things happening are ex-

 actly what your church is telling ofa battle between the

 armies of goodness and badness."

 

 "Yes, but it can't be that simple," she said emphati-

 cally. "Inelukiwas he good? Bad? He tried to do what

 was right for his people. I just don't know any more."

 

 Binabik paused, then reached out a small hand to take

 hers. "Your questions are sensible ones, and I am not

 thinking that we should hate ... our enemy. But do not be

 naming him, please!" He squeezed her fingers for empha-

 sis. "And make yourself assured of one thing: whatever

 he was being once, he has now become a dangerous

 thing, more dangerous than anything you know or can be

 thinking about. Do not be forgetting that! He wilt kill us

 and all of the people we love if his wishes are done. Of

 that I have certainty."

 

 And my father? she wondered. Is he only an enemy

 now, too? What if somehow I find my way to him. but

 there is nothing left of what I loved? That will be like

 dying. I won't care what happens to me then.

 

 And then it came to her. It was not that God was not

 watching, it was that no one was going to tell her right

 from wrong; she had not even the solace of doing some-

 thing just because someone else had ordered her not to.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER437

 

 Whatever decisions she made, she would have to make

 herself, then live by them.

 

 She held Binabik's hand for a moment longer before

 they resumed walking. At least she had the company of a

 friend. What would it be like to be alone in such a place?

 

 By the time they had slept three times in the ruins of

 Asu'a, even its crumbling magnificence could no longer

 hold Miriamele's attention. The dark halls seemed to

 breed memoriesunimportant pictures of her childhood

 in Meremund, her days as a captive princess in the

 Hayholt. She felt herself suspended between the Sithi's

 past and her own.

 

 They found a wide staircase leading upward, an ex-

 panse of dusty steps with balusters carved into the form

 of rose hedges. When Binabik's inspection of the map

 suggested that this was part of their path, she felt a rush

 of happiness. They would be going upward, after so long

 in the depths!

 

 But something more than an hour plodding up the ap-

 parently endless stairs soon cooled even that excitement;

 

 Miriamele's mind went wandering again.

 

 Simon is gone, and I never had a chance to ... to re-

 ally talk to him. Did I love him? It would never have

 come to anythinghow could he care for me after I told

 him about Aspitis? But perhaps we could have been n

 friends. But did I love him?\

 

 She looked down at her booted feet, climbing, climb- H

 ing, the stairs passing beneath her like a slow waterfall- ;

 

 It's useless to wonder ... but I suppose I did. Thinking :

 

 this, she felt something vast and unformed struggling in-

 side her, a grief that threatened to turn into madness. She

 fought it down, afraid of its strength- Oh, God, is this all

 there is to life? To have something precious and to realize

 it only after it's too late?

 

 She almost stumbled over Binabik, who had stopped

 abruptly on the step above her, his head nearly even with

 hers. The troll lifted a hand to his mouth, warning her to

 be silent-

 

 They had just mounted past a landing where several

 

 438

 

 Tad Williams

 

 archways led outward from the staircase, and at first

 Miriamele thought the quiet noise must come from one of

 them, but Binabik pointed up the stairwell. His meaning

 was clear: someone else was on the stairs.

 

 Miriamele's contemplative mood evaporated. Who

 could be walking these dead halls? Simon? That seemed

 too much to hope. But who else would be roaming the

 shadow-world? The restless dead?

 

 Even as they backed down toward the landing, Binabik

 fumbled his walking-stick into two pieces, pulling free

 the section that held a knife blade. Miriamele felt for her

 own knife as the sound of footfalls grew louder. Binabik

 shrugged off his pack and dropped it quietly to the stone

 floor near Miriamele's feet

 

 A shape came down the darkened stairwell, moving

 slowly and confidently into the torchlight. Miriamele felt

 her heart pressing against her ribs. It was a man, one she

 had not seen before. In the depths of his hood, his eyes

 bulged as though with surprise or fright, but his teeth

 were bared in a bizarre grin.

 

 A moment passed before Binabik gasped in recogni-

 tion- "Hangfish!"

 

 "You know him?" Her voice sounded shrill to her, the

 quaver of a frightened little girl.

 

 The troll held the knife before him as a priest might a

 holy Tree. "What do you want, Rimmersman?" he de-

 manded. "Are you lost?"

 

 The smiling man did not reply, but stretched his arms

 wide and took another step downward. There was some-

 thing terribly but indefinably wrong about him.

 

 "Get away, you!" she cried. Involuntarily, she took an-

 other step backward toward one of the arched doorways.

 "Binabik, who is he?"

 

 "I know who he was," the troll said, still brandishing

 the knife. "But I am thinking he has become something

 else. -.."

 

 Before Binabik had finished speaking, the pop-eyed

 man moved, scuttling down the stairs with shocking

 speed. In an eye-blink he had closed with the troll, grab-

 bing the wrist of Binabik's knife hand and wrapping his

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 other arm around the little man. After a moment's strug-

 gle, the two tumbled to the floor and rolled off the land-

 ing to the steps below. Binabik's torch flew free and

 bounced down the stairs ahead of them. The troll gasped

 and grunted with pain, but the other was silent.

 

 Miriamele had scarcely an instant to stare open-

 mouthed before several large hands snaked out of the

 shadowy archway and folded around her, seizing her

 wrists and clutching at her waist, the fingers rough but

 somehow tentative where they touched her skin. Her own

 torch was knocked to the ground. Before she had finished

 drawing breath to shout her alarm, something was pulled

 down over her head, shutting out the light. A sweet odor

 filled her nose and she felt herself slipping away, half-

 formed questions dissolving, everything fading.

 

 A

 

 "Why will you not come and sit beside me?" said

 Nessalanta, like a spoiled child denied a treat. "I have not

 spoken to you for days."

 

 Benigaris turned from the_railing of the rooftop garden.

 Below him, the first fires of evening had been lit. Great

 Nabban twinkled in the lavender twilight. "I have been

 occupied. Mother. Perhaps it has escaped your attention

 that we are at war."

 

 "We have been at war before," she said airily. "Merci-

 ful God, such things never change, Benigaris. You wanted

 to rule. You must grow up and accept the burdens that

 come with it."

 

 "Grow up, is it?" Benigaris turned from the railing

 with his fists clenched tight. "It is you who are the child,

 Mother. Do you not see what is happening? A week ago

 we lost the Onestrine Pass. Today I have been told that

 Aspilis Preves has taken to his heels and Eadne Province

 has fallen! We are losing this war, damn you! If I had

 gone myself instead of sending that idiot brother of

 mine ..."

 

 "You are not to say a. word against Varellan,"

 

 ,440

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Nessalanta snapped. "Is it his fault that your legion was

 full of superstitious peasants who believe in ghosts?"

 

 Benigaris stared at her for a long moment; there was no

 love in his gaze. "It is Camaris," he said quietly.

 

 "What?"

 

 "It is Camaris out there. Mother. You can say anything

 you wish, but I have heard the reports from the men who,

 have been on the battlefield- If it is not him, then it is one

 of our ancestors' old war gods returned to earth."

 

 "Camaris is dead," she sniffed.

 

 "Did he elude some trap you set for him?" Benigaris

 moved a few steps closer. "Is that how my father became

 duke of Nabban in the first placebecause you arranged

 to have Camaris killed? If so, it appears you failed. Per-

 haps for once you chose the wrong tool."

 

 Nessalanta's face contorted in fury. "There are no tools

 in this country strong enough for my will. Don't I know

 that!" She stared at her son. 'They are all weak, all dull-

 edged. Blessed Ransomer, if only I had been born a

 manthen none of this would have happened! We would

 not be bowing to any northern king on a chair of bones."

 

 "Spare me your dreams of glory. Mother. What did you

 arrange for Camaris? Whatever it was, he seems to have

 

 survived it."

 

 "I did nothing to Camaris." The dowager duchess rear-

 ranged her skirts, recovering a little of her calm. "I admit

 that I was not unhappy when he fell into the oceanfor

 a strong man, he was the weakest of all. Quite unsuitable

 to rule. But I had nothing to do with it."

 

 "I almost believe you. Mother. Almost." Benigaris

 smiled thinly. He turned to find one of his courtiers stand-

 ing in the doorway, looking out with poorly-hidden appre-

 hension. "Yes? What do you want?"

 

 "There ... there are many folk aslcing for you, my lord.

 You said you wished to be told ..."

 

 "Yes, yes. Who is waiting?"

 

 "The Niskie, for one, my lord. He is still outside the

 

 audience chamber."

 

 "Have I not enough to occupy me? Why won't he take

 

 t ^

 

 lr.

 

 IS

 

 >

 

 1-a

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER441

 

 the hint and go? What does the damned sea-watcher want,

 anyway?"

 

 The courtier shook his head. The long feather in his

 cap swayed before his face, fluttered by the evening

 breeze. "He will not speak to any but you. Duke

 Benigaris."

 

 "Then he will sit there until he dries out and lies gasp-

 ing on the floor. I have no time to listen to Niskie chat-

 ter." He turned to look out over the lights of the city.

 "And who else?"

 

 "Another messenger from Count Streawe, Lord."

 

 "Ah," Benigaris pulled at his mustache. "As expected.

 I think we will let that wine sit in the cask a little longer.

 Who else?"

 

 "The astrologer Xannasavin, Lord."

 

 "So he has arrived at last. Very grieved, I'm sure, to

 keep his duke waiting." Benigaris nodded slowly. "Send

 him up."

 

 "Xannasavin is here?" Nessalanta smiled. "I'm sure he

 has wonderful things to tell us. You'll see, Benigaris.

 He'll bring us good news."

 

 "No doubt."

 

 Xannasavin appeared within moments. As though to

 take attention away from his own lean height, the astrol-

 oger carefully lowered himself to his knees.

 

 "My lord. Duke Benigaris, and my lady. Duchess

 Nessalanta. A thousand, thousand pardons. I came as

 soon as I received your summons."

 

 "Come and sit beside me, Xannasavin," said the duch-

 ess. "We have seen too little of you lately."

 

 Benigaris leaned against the railing. "My mother is

 rightyou have been much absent from the palace."

 

 The astrologer rose and went to sit near Nessalanta.

 "My apologies. I have found that sometimes it is best to

 get away from the splendor of court life. Seclusion makes

 it easier to hear what the stars tell me."

 

 "Ah." The duke nodded as though some great riddle

 had been solved. "That is why you were seen in the

 marketplace dickering with a horse merchant."

 

 Xannasavin flinched minutely. "Yes, my lord. In fact, I

 

 442

 

 Tad Williams

 

 thought it might help me to ride beneath the night sky.

 Your court is so full of pleasurable distractions, and these

 are important times. I felt my mind should be clear so I

 might better serve you."

 

 "Come here," Benigaris said.

 

 The astrologer rose from his seat, smoothing the folds

 from his dark robe, then went to stand beside the duke at

 the garden railing.

 

 "What do you see in the sky?"

 

 Xannasavin squinted. "Oh, many things, my lord. But

 if you wish me to read the stars aright, I should go back

 to my chamber and get my charts-..."

 

 "But the last time you were here, the sky was so full of

 good fortune! You needed no charts then!"

 

 "I had studied them for long hours before coming up,

 

 my ..."

 

 Benigaris put his arm around the astrologer's shoulder.

 "And what of the great victories for the House of the

 

 Kingfisher?"

 

 Xannasavin squirmed. "They are coming, my lord. See,

 look there in the sky." He pointed toward the north. "Is

 that not as I foretold to you? Look, the Conqueror Star'"

 

 Benigaris fumed to follow Xannasavin's finger. "That

 

 little red spot?"

 

 "Soon it will fill the sky with flame, Duke Benigaris."

 "He did predict that it would rise, Benigaris,"

 Nessalanta called from her chair. She seemed disgruntled

 at being left out. "I'm sure everything else he said will

 

 come true as well."

 

 "I'm certain it will." Benigaris stared at the crimson

 pinhole in the evening sky. "The death of empires. Great

 deeds for the Benidrivine House."

 

 "You remember, my lord!" Xannasavin smiled. "These

 things that worry you are only temporary. Beneath the

 great wheel of heaven, they are only a moment of wind

 

 across the grass."

 

 "Perhaps." The duke's arm was still draped companion-

 ably across the astrologer's shoulders. "But I worry for

 you, Xannasavin."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 443

 

 "My lord is too kind, to spare a thought for me in his

 time of trial. What is your worry, Duke Benigaris?"

 

 "I think you have spent too much time looking up at

 the sky. You need to widen your view, look down at the

 earth as well." The duke pointed to the lanterns burning

 in the streets below. "When you stare at something too

 long, you lose sight of other things that are just as impor-

 tant. For instance, Xannasavin, the stars told you that

 glory would come to the Benidrivine Housebut you did

 not listen closely enough to the marketplace gossip that

 Lord Camaris himself, my father's brother, leads the ar-

 mies against Nabban. Or perhaps you did listen to the

 gossip, and it helped you make your sudden decision to

 take up riding, hmm?"

 

 "M--my lord wrongs me."

 

 "Because, of course, Camaris is the oldest heir of the

 Benidrivine House. So the glory for the house that you

 spoke of might very well be his victory, might it not?"

 

 "Oh, my lord, I do not think so... !"

 

 "Stop it, Benigaris," Nessalanta said sharply. "Stop

 bullying poor Xannasavin. Come sit by me and we will

 have some wine."

 

 "I am trying to help him. Mother." Benigaris turned

 back to the astrologer. The duke was smiling, but his face

 was flushed, his cheeks mottled. "As I said, I think you

 have spent too much time staring at the sky, and not

 enough paying attention to more lowly things."

 

 "My lord .. -"

 

 "I will remedy that." Benigaris abruptly stooped, drop-

 ping his arm down to Xannasavin's hip and wrapping his

 other arm around it. He straightened, grunting with the ef-

 fort; the astrologer swayed, his feet a cubit off the

 ground.

 

 "No, Duke Benigaris, no... !"

 

 "Stop that!" shrieked Nessalanta.

 

 "Go to hell." Benigaris heaved. Xannasavin toppled

 over the railing, his arms grabbing at nothing, and plum-

 meted out of sight. A long moment later a wet smack

 echoed up from the courtyard.

 

 "How ... how dare you... ?!" Nessalanta stammered,

 

 444

 

 Tad Williams

 

 her eyes wide with shock. Benigaris rounded on her, face

 contorted with rage. A thin stream of blood trickled down

 his forehead: the astrologer had pulled loose some of his

 hair.

 

 "Shut your mouth," he snarled. "I ought to throw you

 over, too, you old she-wolf. We are losing this war-

 losing! You may not care now, but you are not so safe as

 you think. I doubt that whey-faced Josua will let his army

 rape women and kill prisoners, but the people who whis-

 per in the market about what happened to Father know

 you are just as guilty as I am." He wiped blood from his

 face. "No, I don't need to do you in myself. Likely there

 are more than a few peasants sharpening their knives

 right now, just waiting for Camaris and the rest to show

 up at the gates before they start the festival." Benigaris

 laughed angrily. "Do you think the palace guard is going

 to throw their lives away protecting you when it's plain

 that everything is lost? They're just like the peasants,

 Mother. They have lives to lead, and they don't care who

 sits on the throne here. You old fool." He stared at her, his

 mouth working, fists trembling.

 

 The dowager duchess shrank back in her chair. "What

 are you going to do?" she moaned.

 

 Benigaris threw out his arms. "I am going to fight,

 damn you. I may be a murderer, but what I have I will

 keepuntil they take it from my dead hands." He stalked

 to the doorway, then turned. "And I do not want to see

 you again, Mother. I don't care where you go or what you

 do ... but I do not want to see you."

 

 He pushed through the door and disappeared.

 

 "Benigaris!" Nessalanta's voice rose to a scream.

 "Benigaris! Come back!"

 

 ^

 

 The silent monk had wrapped the fingers of one hand

 around Binabik's throat; even as he pressed down, his

 other hand brought the troll's own knife-hand up, forcing

 the blade closer and closer to Binabik's sweating face.

 

 "Why ... are ... you-.. ?" The fingers cinched tighter,

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER445

 

 cutting off the little man's air and his words. The monk's

 pale, sweating face hung close; it gave off a feverish heat.

 Binabik arched his back and heaved. For a moment he

 partially broke the monk's hold, and he used that sliver of

 freedom to kick himself off the edge of the stair, tumbling

 them both over so that when they rolled to a halt, Binabik

 was on top. The troll leaned forward, putting all his

 ^ weight behind his knife, but Hengfisk held it away with

 

 i^One hand- Although he was thin, the monk was nearly

 .twice the troll's size; only the odd jerkiness of his move-

 

 * ments seemed to be keeping him from a swift victory.

 ,^- Hengfisk's fingers slithered around the troll's neck

 ; once more. Frantic, Binabik tried to push the hand away

 ."-with his jaw, but the monk's grip was too strong.

 

 ,-i "Miriamele!" Binabik gasped. "Miriamele!" There was

 oo answering cry. The troll was choking now, fighting for

 breath. He could not force his blade closer to Hengfisk's

 elentlessly smiling face or dislodge the hand around his

 tiroat. The monk's knees rose and squeezed Binabik's

 ribs so that the little man could not wriggle free.

 

 Binabik turned his head and bit Hengfisk's wrist. For a

 loment the fingers at his neck clamped even more

 tightly, then skin and muscle parted beneath the troll's

  seth; hot blood welled in his mouth and spilled down his

 tin.

 

 Hengfisk did not cry outhis grin did not even

 ackenbut he abruptly twisted, using his legs to throw

 linabik to one side- The troll's knife slipped from his

 wd and skittered free, but he was too occupied trying

 at to skid off the edge of the step and down into dark-

 sss to do anything about it. He came to a halt, palms flat

 the stone, feet dangling beneath the baluster and past

 ; brink, then pulled himself forward with hands and

 sees, desperate to recover his knife. It was lying only

 ches from Hengfisk, who crouched against the wall,

 otuberant eyes glaring at the troll, hand drizzling red

 ato the stair.

 But his grin had vanished.

 

 "Vad... ?" Hengfisk's voice was a hollow croak. He

 Aed from side to side and up and down, as though he

 

 446

 

 Tad Williams

 

 suddenly found himself somewhere unexpected. The ex-

 pression he turned at last on Binabik was full of confused

 horror.

 

 "Why are you attacking me?" Binabik rasped. Blood

 was smeared on his chin and cheeks. He could barely

 speak. "We were not having friendship ... but ..." He

 broke off in a fit of coughing.

 

 'Troll... ?" Hengfisk's face, which moments before

 had been stretched in glee, had gone slack. "What... ?

 Ah, horrible, so horrible!"

 

 Astonished by the change, Binabik stared.

 

 "I cannot ..." The monk seemed overwhelmed with

 misery and bafflement. His fingers twitched. "I cannot

 ... oh, merciful God, troll, it is so cold... !"

 

 "What has happened to you?" Binabik pulled himself a

 little nearer, keeping a watchful eye on the dagger, but

 though it lay only a short distance from Hengfisk's hand,

 the monk seemed oblivious.

 

 "I cannot tell. I cannot speak it." The monk began to

 weep. 'They have filled me ... with ... pushed me aside

 .,. how could my God be so cruel. -. ?"

 

 'Tell me. Is there some helping thing I can do?"

 

 The monk stared at him, and for a brief moment some-

 thing like hope flickered in his bulging, red-rimmed eyes.

 Then his back stiffened and his head jerked. He screamed

 with pain.

 

 "Hengfisk!" Binabik threw his hands up as though to

 ward off whatever had stabbed at the monk.

 

 Hengfisk jerked, arms extended straight out, limbs

 shaking. "Do not... !" he shouted. "No!" For an instant

 he seemed to master himself, but his gaunt face, when he

 turned it back to Binabik, began to ripple and change as

 though serpents roiled beneath the flesh. "They are false,

 troll." There was a terrible, deathly weight to his words.

 "False beyond believing. But as cunning as Time itself."

 He turned awkwardly and took a few staggering steps

 down the stairway, passing so close that Binabik could

 have reached out to touch him. "Go," the monk breathed.

 

 Unnerved even more than he had been by the attack,

 Binabik crawled forward and picked up his knife. A

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER447

 

 sound behind him made him whirl. Hengfisk, his lips

 skinned back in a grin once more, was lurching up the

 steps. Binabik had time only to lift his arms before the

 monk fell upon him. Hengfisk's stinking robe wrapped

 around them both like a shroud. There was a brief strug-

 gle, then stillness.

 

 Binabik crawled out from beneath the body of the

 monk. After regaining his breath, he rolled Hengfisk over

 onto his back. The hilt of his bone knife protruded from

 the monk's left eye. Shuddering, the troll pulled the blade

 free and wiped it on the dark robe. Hengfisk's last smile

 was frozen on his face.

 

 Binabik picked up his fallen torch and stumbled back

 up the steps to the landing. Miriamele had vanished, and

 the packs that had contained their food and water and

 other important articles were gone, too. Binabik had noth-

 ing but his torch and h'is walking stick.

 

 "Princess!" he called. The echoes caromed into the

 emptiness beyond the stairs, "Miriamele!"

 

 Except for the body of the monk, he was alone.

 

 A

 

 "He must have gone mad- Are you certain that is what

 ^ he wants?"

 

 "Yes, Prince Josua, I am certain. I spoke to him my-

 self." Baron Seriddan lowered himself onto a stool, wav-

 ing away his squire when the young man tried to take his

 cloak. "You know, if this is not a trick, we could hardly

 wish for a better offer. Many men will die before we take

 the city walls, otherwise. But it is strange."

 

 "It is not at all what I expected of Benigaris," Josua ad-

 mitted. "He demanded that it be Camaris? Is he so tired

 of life?"

 

 Baron Seriddan shrugged, then reached out to take the

 cup his squire brought him.

 

 Isgrimnur, who had been watching silently, grunted. He

 understood why the baron and Josua were puzzled. Cer-

 tainly Benigaris was losingin the last month, the coali-

 tion assembled by Josua and the Nabbanai barons had

 

 448 Tad Williams

 

 pushed the duke's forces back until all that remained in

 Benigaris' control was the city itself. But Nabban was the

 greatest city in Osten Ard, and its seaport made a true

 siege difficult. Some of Josua's allies had provided their

 own house navies, but these were not enough to blockade

 the city and starve it into submission. So why should the

 reigning Duke of Nabban offer such an odd bargain? Still,

 Josua was taking the news as though it were he 'who

 would have to fight Camaris.

 

 Isgrimnur shifted his aching body into a more comfort-

 able position. "It sounds mad, Josuabut what have we

 to lose? It is Benigans who is trusting our good faith, not

 the other way around."

 

 "But it's madness!" Josua said unhappily. "And all he

 wants if he wins is safe passage for himself and his fam-

 ily and servants? Those are surrender termsso why

 should he wish to fight for them'? It makes no sense. It

 must be a trick." The prince seemed to be hoping some-

 one would agree with him. "This sort of thing has not

 been done in a hundred years!"

 

 Isgrimnur smiled. "Except by you, just a few short

 months ago in the grasslands. Everyone knows that story,

 Josua. They'll be telling it around the campfires for a

 long time."

 

 The prince did not return his smile. "But I used a trick

 to force Fikolmij into that! And he never dreamed that his

 champion might lose. Even if Benigaris does not believe

 that this is truly his uncle, he must have heard what sort

 of warrior he is! None of it makes sense!" He turned to

 the old knight, who had been sitting in the comer, still as

 a statue. "What do you think. Sir Camaris?"

 

 Camaris spread his broad hands palms upward before

 him. "It must end. If this is how the ending will come,

 then I will play my part. And Baron Seriddan speaks

 truly: we would be fools to throw away this chance out of

 suspicion. We may save many lives. For that alone, I

 would do whatever is needed."

 

 Josua nodded. "I suppose so. I still do not understand

 the why of it, but I suppose I must agree. The people of

 Nabban do not deserve to suffer because their lord is a

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 449

 patricide. And if we accomplish this, we have a greater

 task before usone for which we will need our army

 whole and strong."

 

 Of course, Josua's down-mouthed, Isgrimnur realized.

 He knows that we have horrors before us that may over-

 shadow the slaughter in the Onestrine Pass so gravely

 ' that we think back on that battle as a day of sport. Only

 \ Josua, of all of us in this room, survived the siege of

 ^Naglimund. He's fought the White Foxes. Of course he's

 grim.

 

 Out loud, he said: "Then it's settled. I just hope some-

 body will help me find a stool for my fat old backside so

 ;I can watch it happen."

 

 Josua looked at him a little sourly. "It is not a tourney,

 Isgrimnur. But you will be therewe all will. That seems

 to be what Benigans wants."

 

 

 

 Rituals, Tiamak thought. My people's must seem as odd

 

 the drylanders as these to me.

 

 He stood on the windy hillside, ^watching as Nabban's

 

 eat city gates swung wide. A small procession of horse-

 ien emerged, the leader dressed in plate armor that

 gleamed even beneath the cloudy afternoon skies. One of

 ie other riders carried the huge blue and gold banner of

 ie Kingfisher House. But no horns blew.

 

 Tiamak watched Benigaris and his party ride toward

 the place where the Wrannaman stood with Josua's com-

 pany. As they waited, the wind grew stronger. Tiamak felt

 it through his robe and shivered.

 

 It is bitterly cold. Too cold for this time of year, even

 near the ocean.

 

 The riders stopped a few paces short of the prince and

 |is followers. Josua's soldiers lounged in scattered ranks

 about the bottom of the hillside, caught up in the moment

 and watching attentively. Faces also peered from the win-

 dows and rooftops of outer Nabban and from the city

 walls. A war had been abruptly halted so that this mo-

 

 450

 

 Tad Williams

 

 ment could take place. Now all the participants stood

 waiting, like toys set up and then forgotten.

 Josua stepped forward. "You have come, Benigaris."

 The leading rider pushed up the visor of his helm. "I

 have, Josua. In my way, I am an honorable man. Just like

 

 you."

 

 "And you intend to abide by the terms you gave paron

 Seriddan? Single combat? And all you ask if you win is

 safe conduct for your family and retainers?"

 

 Benigaris flexed his shoulders impatiently. "You have

 my word. I have yours. Let us get on with this. Where is

 ... the great man?"

 

 Josua looked at him with some distrust. "He is here."

 

 As the prince spoke, the circle of people behind him

 parted and Camaris stepped forward. The old knight wore

 chain mail. His surcoat was without insignia, and he held

 the antique sea-dragon helmet under his arm. Tiamak

 thought that Camaris looked even more unhappy than

 

 usual.

 

 As he stared at the old man's face, Benigaris' sour

 smile curled the ends of his mustaches. "Ah. I was right.

 I told her." He nodded toward the knight. "Greetings, Un-

 cle."

 

 Camaris said nothing.

 

 Josua lifted his hand. He seemed to be finding the

 scene increasingly distasteful. "So, then. Let us get on

 with it.'* He turned to the Duke of Nabban. "Varellan is

 here, and he has not been mistreated. I promise that what-

 ever happens, we will treat your sister and mother with

 kindness and honor.'*

 

 Benigaris stared at him for a long moment, his eyes

 cold as a lizard's. "My mother is dead." He snapped his

 visor down, then turned his horse and rode a short way

 back up the hillside.

 

 Josua wearily beckoned Camaris. 'Try not to kill him."

 

 "You know I can promise nothing," the old knight said-

 "But I will grant him quarter if he asks."

 

 The wind grew sterner. Tiamak wished he had taken up

 drylander clothing more completely: breeches and boots

 would be a decided improvement over the bare legs and

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER45!

 

 sandals that his robe barely protected from the cold. He

 shivered as he watched the two riders turn toward each

 other.

 

 He Who Bends the Trees must have woken up angry, he

 thought, echoing something his father had often said. The

 idea sent a deeper chill through him than had the wind.

 But I do not think that it is the weatherlord of the Wran

 who sends this cold. We have another enemy, one who has

 lain quiet for a long timeand there is no question that

 he can command wind and storms.

 

 Tiamak stared up at the hillside where Camaris and

 Benigaris faced each other across a distance that a man

 could walk in a few short moments. They were only sep-

 arated by a short span, and were bound close by ties of

 blood, but it was clear that an impassable gulf stretched

 between them.

 

 And meanwhile the Storm King's wind blows, Tiamak

 thought. As these two, uncle and nephew, dance some

 mad drylander ritual ... just like Josua and Elias....

 

 The two riders abruptly spurred toward each other, but

 they were nothing but a blur to Tiamak. A sickening no-

 tion had crept over him, black and frightening as any

 storm cloud.

 

 We have been thinking all along that King Elias was

 the tool oflneluki's vengeance. And the two brothers have

 gone brawling from Naglimund to Sesuad'ra, biting and

 scratching at each other so that Prince Josua and the rest

 of us have had no chance to do anything but survive. But

 what if Elias is as benighted about what the Storm King

 plans as we are? What if his purpose in some vast plan is

 only to keep us occupied while that dark, undead thing

 pursues some completely different end?

 

 Despite the cold air on the hill, Tiamak felt beads of

 sweat cooling on his forehead. If this was true, what

 could Ineluki be planning? Aditu swore that he could

 never come back from the void into which his death spell

 had cast himbut perhaps there was some other revenge

 he schemed for that was far more terrible than simply rul-

 ing humankind through Elias and the Noms. But what

 could it be?

 

 452 Tad Williams

 

 Tiamak looked around for Strangyeard, anxious to

 share this worry with his fellow Scrollbearer, but the

 priest was hidden by the milling crowd. The people

 around the Wrannaman were shouting excitedly at some-

 thing. It took the distracted Tiamak a moment to realize

 that one of the mounted men had unhorsed the other. A

 brief stab of fear was allayed when he saw that it was

 gleaming-annored Benigaris who had fallen.

 

 A murmur ran through the crowd when Camaris dis-

 mounted. Two boys ran forward to lead the horses away.

 

 Tiamak put aside his suspicions for the moment and

 squeezed between Hotvig and Sludig, who were standing

 just behind the prince. The Rimmersman looked down in

 annoyance, but when he saw Tiamak he grinned.

 "Knocked him rump over plume! The old man is giving

 Benigaris a stem lesson!"

 

 Tiamak winced. He could never understand his com-

 panions' pleasure at such things. This "lesson" might end

 in death for one of the two men who were now circling

 each other, shields up and longswords at the ready. Black

 Thorn looked like a stripe of emptiest night.

 

 At first it seemed the combat would not last long.

 Benigaris was an able fighter, shorter than Camaris but

 stocky and broad-shouldered; he swung the heavy blade

 as easily as a smaller man might have brandished Josua's

 Naidel, and was well-trained in the use of his shield. But

 to Tiamak, Camaris seemed another kind of creature en-

 tirely. graceful as a river otter, swift as a striking serpent.

 In his hands, Thom was a complicated black blur, a web

 of glinting darkness. Although he knew nothing good of

 Benigaris, Tiamak could not help feeling sorry for him.

 Surely this whole ridiculous battle would be over in a few

 moments.

 

 The sooner Benigaris gives up, Tiamak thought, the

 sooner we can get out of this wind.

 

 But Benigaris, it rapidly became clear, had other plans.

 After looking almost helpless through the first score of

 strokes, Nabban's duke suddenly took the battle to

 Camaris, crashing blow after blow on the old knight's

 shield and deflecting those that his opponent returned.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER453

 

 Camaris was forced back, and Tiamak could feel the

 worry that ran through Josua's party like a whisper.

 

 He is an old man, after all. Older than my father's fa-

 ther was when he died. And perhaps he has even less

 heart for this battle than for others.

 

 Benigaris rained strokes against Camaris' shield, trying

 to push home his advantage as the old knight gave

 ground; the duke was grunting so loudly that everyone on

 the hillside could hear him above the clang of iron. Even

 Tiamak, with almost no knowledge of drylander sword-

 play, wondered how long he could keep up such an at-

 tack.

 

 But he doesn't necessarily have to last a long time,

 Tiamak realized. Just until he beats down Camaris' guard

 and finds an opening. He is gambling.

 

 For a moment Benigaris' gamble appeared to have

 paid. One of his hammering blows caught Camaris with

 his shield too low, skimmed off its upper edge and struck

 the old knight on the side of the helmet, staggering him.

 The crowd made a hungry sound- Camaris regained his

 footing and lifted his shield as though it had become al-

 most impossibly heavy. Benigaris waded in.

 

 Tiamak was not quite sure what happened next. One

 moment the old knight was in a crouch, shield raised in

 what looked like helplessness against Benigaris' battering

 sword; the next, he had somehow caught Benigaris*

 shield with his own and knocked it upward, so that for a

 moment it hung in the air like a blue and gold coin. When

 it fell to the earth, Thorn's black point was at the duke's

 gorget.

 

 "Do you yield, Benigaris?" The voice of Camaris was

 clear, but there was a hint of a weary tremor.

 

 In answer, Benigaris knocked Thorn aside with a

 mailed fist, then thrust his own blade at Camaris' unpro-

 tected belly. The old man seemed to contort as the sword

 touched his mail-clad midsection. For an instant Tiamak

 thought he might have been skewered, but instead

 Camaris whirled all the way around. Benigaris' sword

 slid past him, and as Camaris finished his circular turn

 Thom came with him in a flat, deadly arc. The black

 

 454 Tad Williams

 

 blade crunched into Benigaris' armor just below his ribs.

 The duke was driven to one knee; he wobbled for an in-

 stant, then collapsed. Camaris pulled Thom free of the

 rent in the breast plate and a freshet of blood followed it.

 

 Beside Tiamak, Sludig and Hotvig were cheering

 hoarsely. Josua did not seem so happy.

 

 "Merciful Aedon." He turned to look at his two cap-

 tains with more than a little anger, but his eye lit on me

 Wrannaman. "At least we can thank God Camaris was

 not killed. Let us go to him, and see what we can do for

 Benigaris. Did you bring your herbs, Tiamak?"

 

 The marsh man nodded. He and the prince began to

 push their way forward through the knot of people that

 was quickly forming around the two combatants.

 

 When they reached the center of the crowd, Josua put

 a hand on Camaris' shoulder. "Are you well?"

 

 The old man nodded. He appeared exhausted. His hair

 hung down his forehead in sweaty twists.

 

 Josua turned to the fallen Benigaris. Someone had re-

 moved' the duke's helmet. He was pale as a Nom and

 there was a froth of blood on his lips. "Lie still,

 Benigaris. Let this man look at your wound."

 

 The duke turned his bleary eyes on Tiamak. "A marsh

 man!" he wheezed. "You are a strange one, Josua." The

 Wrannaman kneeled down beside him and began looking

 for the catch-buckles on the breastplate, but Benigaris

 struck his hands away. "Leave me alone, damn you. Let

 me die without having some savage paw at me."

 

 Josua's mouth tightened, but he motioned Tiamak to

 step back. "As you wish. But perhaps there is something

 that can be done for you...."

 

 Benigaris barked a laugh. A bubble of bloody spittle

 caught in his mustache. "Let me die, Josua. That is what

 is left for me. You can have ..." he coughed more red

 froth, "... you can have everything else."

 

 "Why did you do it?" Josua asked. "You must have

 known you could not win."

 

 Benigaris mustered a grin. "But I frightened you all,

 didn't I?" His face contorted, but he regained control. "In

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER455

 

 any case, I took what was left to me ... just as my mother

 did."

 

 "What do you mean?" Josua stared at the dying duke

 as though he had never seen anything quite like him.

 

 "My mother realized ... with help from me ... that her

 game was over. There was nothing left but shame. So she

 took poison. I had my own way."

 

 "But you could have escaped, surely. You still control

 the seas."

 

 "Escape to where?" Benigaris spat another scarlet gob-

 bet- 'To the loving arms of your brother and his pet wiz-

 ard? And in any case, the damnable docks belong to

 Streawe nowI thought I was holding him prisoner, but

 he was gnawing away at my power from within. The

 count is playing us all off each other for his own profit."

 The duke's breath sawed in and out. "No, the end had

 comeI saw it as soon as the Onestrine Pass fell. So I

 chose my own death. I was duke less than a year, Josua.

 No one would ever have remembered me as anything but

 a father-murderer. Now, if anyone survives, I will be the

 man who fought Camaris for the throne of Nabban ...

 and damned near won."

 

 Josua was looking at Benigaris with an expression that

 was not quite recognizable. Tiamak could not let the

 question go unasked.

 

 "What do you mean, 'if anyone survives'?"

 

 Benigaris looked at the Wrannaman with contempt. "It

 talks." He slowly turned back to the prince. "Oh, yes," he

 said, his labored breathing not disguising his relish, "I

 forgot to tell you. You have won your prizebut you may

 not get much joy from it, Josua."

 

 "I almost felt sorry for you, Benigaris," the prince said.

 "But the feeling has passed." He stood up.

 

 "Wait!" Benigaris raised a bloody hand- "You really

 should know this, Josua. Stay just a moment. I won't em-

 barrass you long."

 

 "Speak."

 

 'The ghants are crawling up out of the swamps. The

 riders have begun coming in from the Lakelands and the

 coast towns along Firannos Bay bearing the tale. They are

 

 456

 

 Tad Williams

 

 swarming. Oh, there are more of them than you can imag-

 ine, Josua." He laughed, bringing up a fresh welter of

 blood. "And that's not all," he said gleefully. "There was

 another reason I had no desire to flee Nabban by boat.

 The kilpa, too, seem to have gone mad. The Niskies are

 terrified. So you see, not only did I buy myself a clean

 and honorable death ... but it is a death you and yours

 might find yourself envying very soon."

 

 "And your own people?" Josua asked angrily. "Do you

 care nothing for them? If what you say is true, they are

 already suffering."

 

 "My people?" Benigaris wheezed. "No more. I am

 dead, and the dead have no loyalty. And in any case, they

 are your people nowyours and my uncle's."

 

 Josua stared at him for a long moment, then turned and

 strode away. Camaris tried to follow him. but he was

 quickly surrounded by a curious mob of soldiers and

 Nabbanai citizens and could not break away.

 

 Tiamak was left to kneel beside the fallen duke and

 watch him die. The sun was almost touching the horizon,

 and cold shadows were stretching across the hillside,

 when Benigaris finally stopped breathing.

 

 20

 

 Prisoned on the Wheet

 

 Simon fuuf Ot first thought the great underground

 forge was someone's attempt to recreate Hell. After he

 had been captive there for nearly a fortnight, he was cer-

 tain of it.

 

 He and the other men seemed barely to have fallen into

 their ragged nests at the end of one backbreaking day be-

 fore one of Inch's assistantsa handful of men less terri-

 fying but no more humane than their masterwas

 braying at them to get up and start the next. Almost dizzy

 with weariness before the work had even begun, Simon

 and his fellow prisoners would gulp down a cupful of thin

 porridge that tasted of rust, then stumble out to the

 foundry floor.

 

 If the cavern where the workers slept was unpleasantly

 hot. the vast forge cavern was an inferno. The stifling

 heat pressed against Simon's face until his eyeballs felt

 dry as walnut shells and his skin seemed about to crisp

 and peel away. Each day brought a long, dreary round of

 backbreaking, finger-burning labor, made bearable only

 by the man who brought the water dipper. It seemed eons

 between drinks.

 

 Simon's one piece of luck was that he had fallen in

 with Stanhelm, who alone among the wretches working in

 the forge seemed to have retained most of his humanity.

 Stanhelm showed the new prisoner the spots to go and

 catch a breath where the air was a little cooler, which of

 Inch's minions to avoid most scrupulously, and, most im-

 portantly, how to look like he belonged in the forge. The

 

 458

 

 Tad Williams

 

 older man did not know that Simon had a particular rea-

 son to stay nameless and unnoticed, but sensibly believed

 that no one should invite Inch's attention, so he also

 taught the new prisoner what was expected of all the

 workers, the greatest part of which was cringing subservi-

 ence; Simon learned to keep his eyes lowered and work

 fast and hard whenever Inch was near. He also tied a strip

 of rag around his finger to cover his golden ring. He was '.

 unwilling to let such a precious thing out of his grasp, but

 he knew it would be a terrible mistake to let others see it.

 

 Stanhelm's work was to sort bits of waste metal for the

 crucibles. He had Simon Join him at it, then taught his

 new apprentice how to tell copper from bronze and tin

 from lead by tapping the metal against stone or scratching

 its surface with a jagged iron bar.

 

 A strange jumble of things passed through their hands

 on the way to the smelter, chains and pots and crushed bits

 of plating whose original purpose was unguessable, wagon

 rims and barrel bands, sacks full of bent nails, fire irons,

 and door hinges. Once Simon lifted a delicately wrought

 bottle rack and recognized it as something that had hung

 on the wall of Doctor Morgenes' chamber, but as he

 stared, caught for a moment in an eddying memory of a

 happier past, Stanhelm nudged him in warning that Inch

 was approaching. Simon hurriedly tossed it into the pile.

 

 The scrap metal was carried to the row of crucibles that

 hung in the forge fire, a blaze as large as a house, fed

 with a seemingly unending supply of charcoal and heated

 by bellows that were themselves pumped by the action of

 the foundry's massive water wheel, which was three times

 as high as a man and revolved ceaselessly, day and night.

 Fanned by the bellows, the forge fire burned with such in-

 credible ferocity that it seemed a miracle to Simon the

 very stone of the cavern did not melt. The crucibles, each

 containing a different metal, were moved by a collection

 of blackened chains and pulleys which were also con-

 nected to the wheel. Yet another set of chains, so much

 larger than the links that moved the crucibles that they

 seemed made to shackle giants, extended upward from

 the wheel's hub and vanished into a darkened crevice in

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 459

 

 the forge chamber's roof. Not even Stanhelm wanted to

 talk about where those went, but Simon gathered it had

 something to do with Pryrates.

 

 In stolen moments, Stanhelm showed Simon the whole

 process, how the scrap was melted down to a glowing red

 liquid, then decanted from the crucibles and formed into

 sows, long cylindrical chunks of raw metal which, when

 cool, were carried away by sweating men to another part

 of the vast chamber where they would be shaped into

 whatever it was that Inch supplied to his king. Armor and

 weapons, Simon guessed, since in all the great quantities

 of scrap, he had seen almost no articles of war that were

 not damaged beyond use. It made sense that Elias wished

 to convert every unnecessary bit of metal into arrow

 heads and sword blades.

 

 As the days passed, it became more and more clear to

 Simon that there was little chance he would escape from

 this place. Stanhelm told him that only a few prisoners

 had escaped during the past year and all but one had

 quickly been dragged back. None of the recaptured had

 lived long after returning.

 

 And the one who escaped was Jeremias, Simon

 thought. He only managed it because Inch was foolish

 enough to let him go upstairs on an errand. 1 doubt I will

 get such a chance.

 

 The feeling of being trapped was so powerful, the im-

 pulse to flee so intense, that at times Simon could hardly

 stand it. He thought obsessively about being carried up-

 ward by the great water wheel chains to whatever dark

 place they went. He dreamed of finding a tunnel leading

 out of the great chamber, as he had during his first escape

 from the Hayholt, but they were all filled in now, or led

 only to other parts of the forge. Supplies from the outside

 came with Thrithings mercenary guards armed with

 spears and axes, and the arrival of anything was always

 supervised by Inch or one of his chieftains. The only keys

 hung rattling on Inch's broad belt.

 

 Time was growing short for his friends, for Josua's

 cause, and Simon was helpless.

 

 And Pryrates has not left the castle, either. So it is

 

 460 Tad Williams

 

 likely only a matter of time until he comes back here.

 What if he is not in such a hurry next time? What if he

 recognizes me?

 

 Whenever he seemed to be alone and unwatched, Simon

 hunted for anything that might help him to escape, but he

 found little that gave him any hope. He pocketed a piece

 of scrap iron and took to sharpening it against the stone

 when he was supposed to be sleeping. If Pryrates discov-

 ered him at last, he would do what damage he could.

 

 Simon and Stanhelm were standing near the scrap pile,

 panting for breath. The older man had cut himself on a

 Jagged edge and his hand was bleeding badly.

 

 "Hold still." Simon tore a piece from his ragged

 breeches for a bandage and began to wrap it around

 Stanhelm's wounded hand. Exhausted, the older man

 wobbled from side to side like a ship in high winds.

 "Aedon!" Simon swore unhappily. "That's deep."

 

 "Can't go no more," Stanhelm muttered. Above the face

 mask, his eyes had finally taken on the lifeless glaze that

 marked the rest of the forge's laborers. "Can't go no more."

 

 "Just stand there," Simon said, pulling me knot tight.

 "Rest."

 

 Stanhelm shook his head hopelessly. "Can't."

 

 "Then don't. Sit down. I'll go find the dipper man, get

 you some water."

 

 Something large and dark passed before the flames,

 blocking the light like a mountain obscuring a sunset.

 

 "Rest?" Inch lowered his head, peering first at

 Stanhelm, then at Simon. "You are not working."

 

 "He h-hurt his hand." Avoiding the overseer's eyes, Si-

 mon stared instead at Inch's broad shoes, noting with

 numbed bemusement that one flat, blunt toe poked

 through on each- "He's bleeding."

 

 "Little men are always bleeding," Inch said matter-of-

 factly. "Time to rest later. Now there is work to do."

 

 Stanhelm swayed a little, then abruptly sagged and sat

 down. Inch stared at him, then stepped closer.

 

 "Get up. Time to work."

 

 Stanhelm only moaned softly, cradling his injured hand.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER4&I

 

 "Get up." Inch's voice was a deep rumble. "Now."

 

 The seated man did not look at him. Inch leaned down

 and smacked Stanhelm on the side of the head so hard

 that the forge worker's head snapped to one side and his

 body rocked. Stanhelm began to cry.

 

 "Get up."

 

 When this did not produce any better results. Inch

 lifted his thick fist high and struck Stanhelm again, this

 time knocking him into a splay-limbed sprawl.

 

 Several of the other forge workers had stopped to stare,

 watching Stanhelm's punishment with the crushed calm

 of a flock of sheep who have seen one of their number

 taken by a wolf, and know that for a while at least they

 are safe.

 

 Stanhelm lay silent, only barely moving. Inch lifted his

 boot above the man's head- "Get up, you."

 

 Simon's heart was racing. The whole thing seemed to

 be happening too fast. He knew he would be a fool to say

 anythingStanhelm had clearly reached his breaking

 point and was as good as dead. Why should Simon risk

 everything?

 

 It's a mistake to care about people, he thought angrily.

 

 "Stop." He knew it was his own voice, but it sounded

 unreal. "Let him be."

 

 Inch's wide, scarred face swung around slowly, his one

 good eye blinking in the scorched flesh. "You don't talk,"

 he growled, then gave Stanhelm an offhand kick.

 

 "I said ... let him be."

 

 Inch turned away from his victim and Simon took a

 step backward, looking for someplace to run. There was

 no turning back now, no escape from this confrontation.

 Terror and long-suppressed rage battled inside him. He

 yearned for his Qanuc knife, confiscated by the Noms.

 

 "Come here."

 

 Simon took another step backward, "Come and get me,

 you great sack of guts."

 

 Inch's ruined face screwed up in a snarl and he lunged

 forward. Simon darted out of his reach and turned to run

 across the chamber. The other workers gaped as the mas-

 ter of the forge lumbered after him.

 

 462 Tad Williams

 

 Simon had hoped to tire the huge man, but had reck-

 oned without his own weariness, the weeks of injury and

 deprivation. Within a hundred strides he felt his strength

 ebbing, although Inch stiU plodded some distance behind

 him. There was nowhere to hide, and there was no escape

 from the forge; better to turn and fight in the open, where

 he could best use whatever advantage of speed still re-

 mained to him.

 

 He bent to pick up a large chunk of stone. Inch, certain

 that he had Simon captured, but wary of the stone, moved

 steadily but slowly closer.

 

 "Doctor Inch is master here," he rumbled. 'There is

 work to do. You .., you have ..." He growled, unable to

 find words to describe the magnitude of Simon's crimes.

 He took another step forward.

 

 Simon flung the stone at his head. Inch dodged and it

 thumped heavily against his shoulder instead. Simon

 found himself filling with a dark exhilaration, a rising

 fury that surged through him almost like joy. This was the

 creature who had brought Pryrates to Morgenes' cham-

 ber! This monstrosity had helped kill Simon's master!

 

 "Doctor Inch!" Simon shouted, laughing wildly as he

 bent for another stone. "Doctor?! You are not fit to call

 yourself anything but Slug, but Filth, but HaIf-Wit! Doc-

 tor! Ha!" Simon flung the second stone, but Inch side-

 stepped and it clattered across the cavern floor. The big

 man leaped forward with startling speed and hit Simon a

 glancing blow that knocked him off his feet. Before he

 could regain his balance, a wide hand closed on his arm.

 He was jerked upright, then flung headfirst across the

 stone floor. Tumbling, he hit his head, then lay for a mo-

 ment, dazed. Inch's meaty hands closed on him again. He

 was lifted up, then something struck his face so hard that

 he heard thunder and saw lightning. He felt his cloth

 mask pull away. Another blow rocked him, then he was

 free and toppling to the ground. Simon lay where he had

 fallen, struggling to understand where he was and what

 had happened.

 

 "You make me angry ..." said a deep voice. Simon

 waited helplessly for another blow, hoping it would be

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 strong enough to take away the pain in his head and the

 sickness in his guts forever. But for long moments noth-

 ing happened.

 

 'The little kitchen boy," Inch said at last, "I know you.

 You are the kitchen boy. But you have hair on your face!"

 There was a sound like two stones being rubbed together. It

 took some time for Simon to realize that Inch was laughing.

 "You came back!" He sounded as pleased as if Simon were

 an old friend. "Back to Inchbut I am Doctor Inch now.

 You laughed at me. But you won't laugh any more."

 

 Thick fingers squeezed him and he was jerked up from

 the floor. The sudden movement filled his head with

 blackness-

 Simon struggled to move but could not. Something

 held him with his arms and legs extended, stretched to

 their utmost.

 

 He opened his eyes to the tattered moon face of Inch.

 "Little kitchen boy. You came back." The huge man

 leaned closer. He used one hand to pinion Simon's righl

 arm against whatever stood behind, then raised the other,

 which clutched a heavy mallet. Simon saw the spike be-

 ing held against his wrist and could not hold back his

 shout of terror.

 

 "Are you afraid, kitchen boy? You took my place, the

 place that should have been mine. Turned the old man

 against me. I didn't forget." Inch raised the mallet and

 brought it down hard against the head of the spike. Simon

 gasped and twitched helplessly, but there was no pain

 only a tightening of the pressure on his wrist. Inch ham-

 mered the spike in deeper, then leaned back to examine

 his work. For the first time Simon realized that they were

 high above the cavem floor. Inch was standing on a lad-

 der that leaned against the wall just below Simon's arm.

 

 But it wasn't the wall, Simon saw a moment later. The

 rope around his wrist was now spiked to the forge's im-

 mense water wheel. His other wrist and both ankles had

 already been secured. He was spread-eagled a few cubits

 beneath the wheel's edge, ten cubits above the ground

 

 464

 

 Tad Williams

 

 The wheel was not moving, and the sluice of dark water

 seemed farther away than it should.

 

 "Do whatever you want." Simon clenched his teeth

 against the scream that wanted to erupt. "I don't care. Do

 

 anything."

 

 Inch tugged at Simon's wrists again, testing. Simon

 could begin to feel the downward pull of his weight,

 against the bonds and the slow warmth in the joints of his

 arms, precursor of real pain.

 

 "Do? I do nothing." Inch placed his huge hand on Si-

 mon's chest and gave a push, forcing Simon's breath out

 in a surprised hiss. "I waited. You took my place. I waited

 and waited to be Doctor Inch. Now you wait."

 

 "W-wait for what?"

 

 Inch smiled, a slow spread of lips that revealed broken

 teeth. "Wait to die. No food. Maybe I will give you

 waterit will take longer that way. Maybe I will think of

 ... something else to do. Doesn't matter. You will wait."

 Inch nodded his head. "Wait." He pushed the mallet's

 handle into his belt and climbed down the ladder.

 

 Simon craned his neck, watching Inch's progress with

 stupefied fascination. The overseer reached the bottom

 and waved for a pair of his henchmen to take the ladder

 away. Simon sadly watched it go. Even if he somehow es-

 caped his bonds, he would surely fall to his death.

 

 But Inch was not Finished. He moved forward until he

 was almost hidden from Simon's view by the great wheel,

 then pulled down on a thick wooden lever. Simon heard

 a grinding noise, then felt the wheel jerk, its sudden mo-

 tion rattling his bones. It slipped downward, shuddering

 as it went, then splashed into the sluice, sending another

 jolt through Simon.

 

 iSlowly ... ever so slowly ... the wheel began to turn,

 

 At first it was almost a relief to be rotated down toward

 the ground. The weight shifted from both his arms to his

 wrist and ankle, then gradually the strain moved to his

 legs as the chamber turned upside down. Then, as he

 rolled even further downward, blood rushed to his head

 until it felt as though it would burst out through his ears.

 

 i

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER465

 

 At the bottom of his revolution, water splashed just be-

 yond him, almost wetting his finger tips.

 

 Above the wheel, the immense chains were again reel-

 ing up into darkness.

 

 "Couldn't stop it for long," rumbled a downside-up

 Inch. "Bellows don't work, buckets don't workand the

 Red Rat Wizard's tower don't turn." He stood staring for

 a moment as Simon slowly began to rise toward the cav-

 ern ceiling. "It does lots of things, this wheel." His re-

 maining eye glittered in the light from the forge. "Kills

 little kitchen boys."

 

 He turned and lumbered off across the chamber.

 

 It didn't hurt that much at first. Simon's wrists were so

 securely bound, and he was stretched so tightly against

 the wheel's wide rim, that there was very little movement.

 He was hungry, which kept him clearheaded enough to

 think; his mind revolved far more swiftly than the prison-

 ing wheel, circling through the events that had brought

 him to this place and through dozens of unlikely possibil-

 ities for escape.

 

 Perhaps Stanhelm would come when it was sleeping time

 and cut him loose, he told himself. Inch had his own cham-

 ber somewhere in another part' of the forge: with luck, Si-

 mon could be freed without the hulking overseer even

 knowing. But where would he go? And what made him

 think that Stanhelm was still alive, or if he was, that he

 would risk death again to save a person he barely knew?

 

 Someone else? But who? None of the other foun-

 drymen cared if Simon lived or diednor could he much

 blame them. How could you worry about another person

 when every moment was a struggle to breathe the air, to

 survive the heat, to perform backbreaking work at the

 whim of a brutish master?

 

 And this time there were no friends to rescue Simon.

 Binabik and Miriamele, even should they somehow make

 their way into the castle, would surely never come here.

 They sought the kingand had no reason to believe Si-

 mon still lived, anyway. Those who had rescued him from

 danger in the pastJiriki, Josua, Adituwere far away,

 

 466 Tad Williams

 

 on the grasslands or marching toward Nabban- Any

 friends who had once lived in the castle were gone. And

 even if he somehow managed to free himself from this

 wheel, where would he go? What could he do? Inch

 would only catch him again, and next time the forge-

 master might not devise such a gradual torment.

 

 He strained again at his bonds, but they were heavy

 ropes woven to resist the strains of forge work and they

 gaVe not at all. He could work at them for days and only

 tear the skin from his wrists. Even the spikes that held the

 knotted ropes against the wheel's timbers were no help:

 

 Inch had carefully driven them between the strands so

 that the rope would not split.

 

 The burning in his arms and legs was worsening. Si-

 mon felt a drumbeat of real dread begin inside him. He

 could not move. No matter what happened, no matter how

 bad it got, no matter how much he screamed and strug-

 gled for release, there was nothing he could do.

 

 It would almost be a relief, he thought, if Pryrates came^

 and found that Inch held him prisoner. The red priest would^

 do terrible things to him, but at least they would be differ-j|

 ent terrible thingssharp pains, long pains, little ones and|

 great ones. This, Simon could tell, was only going to be-r

 come steadily worse. Soon his hunger would become a tor-\'

 ment as well. Most of a day had passed since he had last

 eaten, and he was already thinking on his last bowl of

 scum-flecked soup with a regret bordering on madness.

 

 As he turned upside-down once more, his stomach^

 lurched, momentarily freeing him from hunger. It was lit-|"-

 tie enough to be grateful for, but Simon's expectations'i

 were becoming very slight.^

 

 The pain that burned his body was matched by a fury

 that grew within him as he suffered, a helpless rage that

 could findr no outlet and so began to gnaw at the very

 foundations of his sanity instead. Like an angry man he^

 had once seen in Erchester, who threw everything in his^

 house out of the window, piece by piece, Simon had noth-|

 ing to fling at his enemies but what was his ownhis be-&

 liefs, his loves, his most cherished memories.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 Morgenes and Josua and Binabik and the others had

 used him, he decided. They had taken a boy who could

 not even write his own name and had made him a tool.

 Under their manipulation and for their benefit he had

 been driven from his home, had been made an exile, had

 seen the death of many he held dear and the destruction

 of much that was innocent and beautiful. With no say in

 his own destiny he had been led this way and that, and

 told just enough half-truths to keep him soldiering on. For

 the sake of Josua he had faced a dragon and wonthen

 the Great Sword had been taken from him and given to

 someone else. For Binabik's sake he had stayed on in

 Yiqanucwho could say that Haestan would have been

 killed if the company had left earlier? He had come with

 Miriamele to protect her on her journey, and had suffered

 because of it, both in the tunnels and now on this wheel

 where he would likely die. They had all taken from him,

 taken everything he had. They had used him.

 

 And Miriamele had other crimes to answer for. She had

 led him on, treated him like an equal even though she was

 a king's daughter. She had been his friend, or had said she

 was, but she had not waited for him to come back from

 the quest to the northern mountains. No, instead she had

 gone off on her own without even a word left for him, as

 though their friendship had never existed- And she had

 given herself to another mandelivered her maidenhood

 to someone she did not even like! She had kissed Simon

 and let him think that his hopeless love had some mean-

 ing ... but then she had thrown her own deeds in his face

 in the crudest manner possible.

 

 Even his mother and father had abandoned him, dying

 before he could ever know them, leaving him with no life

 and no history but what the chambermaids had given him.

 How could they!? And how could God let such a thing

 be?! Even God had betrayed him, for God had not been

 there. He was said to watch all creatures of His world, but

 He obviously cared little for Simon, the least of His chil-

 dren. How could God love someone and leave them to

 suffer as Simon had suffered, for no fault other than try-

 ing to do right?

 

 468 Tad Williams

 

 Yet with all his fury at these so-called friends who had

 abused his trust, he had greater hatred still for his enemies:

 

 Inch, the brute animalno, worse than any animal, for an

 animal did not torture; King Elias who had thrown the

 world into war and blighted the earth with terror and fam-

 ine and death; silver-masked Utuk'ku, who had set her

 huntsman after Simon and his friends and had killed wise

 Amerasu; and the priest Pryrates, Morgenes' murderer,'

 who had nothing in his black soul but self-serving malice.

 

 But the greatest author of all Simon's suffering, it

 seemed, was he whose ravening hatred was so great that

 even the grave could not contain it. If anyone deserved to

 be repaid in torment, it was the Storm King. Ineluki had

 brought ruin to a world full of innocents. He had de-

 stroyed Simon's life and happiness.

 

 Sometimes Simon felt that hate was keeping him alive.

 When the agony became too strong, when he felt life slip-

 ping away, or at least passing out of his control, the need

 to survive and revenge himself was something to which

 he could cling. He would stay alive as long as he could,

 if only to return some measure of his own suffering to all

 who had abused him. Every miserable lonely night would

 be recompensed, every wound, every terror, every tear.

 

 Revolving through darkness, in and out of madness, Si-

 mon made a thousand oaths to repay pain for pain.

 

 At first it seemed a firefly, flitting on the edge of his

 visionsomething small that glowed without light, a

 point of not-black in a world of blackness. Simon, his

 thoughts floundering in a wash of ache and hunger, could

 make no sense of it.

 

 "Come," a voice murmured to him. Simon had been

 hearing voices through this entire second dayor was it

 the third?upon the wheel. What was another voice?

 What was another speck of dancing light?

 

 "Come."

 

 Abruptly he was pulled free, free of the wheel, free of

 the ropes that burned his wrists. He was tugged onward

 by the spark, and could not understand how escape could

 be accomplished so easily ... until he looked back.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 469

 

 A body hung on the slowly circling rim, a naked white-

 skinned form sagging in the ropes. Flame-hued hair was

 sweat-plastered on its brow. Chin sagged on chest.

 

 Who is that? Simon wondered briefly ... but he knew

 the answer. He viewed his own form with dispassion. So

 that's what I looked like? But there's nothing left in itit's

 like an empty jar.

 

 The thought came to him suddenly. I'm dead.

 

 But if that was so, why could he still dimly feel the

 ropes, still feel his arms yanked to the straining length of

 their sockets? Why did he seem to be both in and out of

 his body?

 

 The light moved before him again, summoning, beckon-

 ing. Without will, Simon followed. Like wind in a long

 daric chimney, they moved together through chaotic shad-

 ows; almost-things brushed at him and passed through him.

 His connection to the body hanging upon the wheel grew

 more tenuous. He felt the candle of his being flickering.

 

 "/ don't want to lose me! Let me go back!"

 

 But the spark that led him flew on.

 

 Swirling darkness blossomed into light and color, then

 gradually took on the shapes of real things. Simon was at

 me mouth of the great sluice that -turned the water wheel,

 watching the dark water tumble down into the depths below

 the castle, headed for the foundry. Next he saw the silent

 pool in the deserted halls of Asu'a. Water trickled down

 into the pool through the cracks in the ceiling. The mists

 mat floated above the wide tarn pulsed with life, as though

 mis water was somehow revivifying something that had

 long been almost lifeless. Could that be what the flickering

 light was trying to show him? That water from the forge

 had filled the Sithi pool? That it was coming to life again?

 

 Other images flowed past He saw the dark shape that

 grew at me base of me massive stairwell in Asu'a, the tree-

 thing he had almost touched, whose alien thoughts he had

 felt. The stairway itself was a spiraling pipe that led from me

 roots of me breathing tree up to Green Angel Tower itself.

 

 As he thought of the tower, he abruptly found himself

 staring at its pinnacle, which reared like a vast white tooth.

 Snow was falling and the sky was thick with clouds, but

 

 4?o

 

 Tad Williams

 

 somehow Simon could see through them to the night sky

 beyond. Hovering low in the northern darkness was a fiery

 ember with a tiny smear of tailthe Conqueror Star.

 

 "Why have you brought me here, to all these places?"

 Simon asked. The spot of light hovered before him as

 though listening. "What does this mean?"

 

 There was no answer. Instead, something cold splashed

 against his face-

 Simon opened his eyes, suddenly very much an inhab-

 itant of his painful flesh once more. A distorted shape

 hung upside down from the ceiling, piping like a bat.

 

 No. It was one of Inch's henchmen, and Simon himself

 was hanging head-down at the lowest point of the wheel's

 revolution, listening to the axle squeak. The henchman

 turned another dipper full of water over Simon's face,

 pouring only a little of it into his mouth. He gasped and

 choked, trying to swallow, then licked his chin and lips.

 As Simon began his upward turn, the man walked away

 without a word. Little drops ran down from Simon's head

 and hair, and for a while he was too busy trying to catch

 and swallow them before they dripped away to wonder at

 his strange vision. It was only when the wheel brought

 him down the other side again that he could think.

 

 What did that mean? It was hard to hold a coherent

 thought against the fire in his joints- What was that glow-

 ing thing, what was it trying to show me? Or was it just

 more madness?

 

 Simon had experienced many strange dreams since Inch

 had left himvisions of despair and exaltation, scenes of

 impossible victory over his enemies and of his friends suf-

 fering dreadful fates, but he had also dreamed of far less

 meaningful things. The voices he had heard in the tunnels

 had returned, sometimes as a faint babble barely audible

 above the splashing and groaning of the wheel, other times

 clear as someone whispering in his ear, snatches of speech

 that always seemed just tantalizingly beyond his compre-

 hension. He was beset by fantasies, dizzy as a storm-

 battered bird. So why should this vision be any more real?

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 471

 

 But it felt different. Like the difference between wind on

 your skin and someone touching you.

 

 Simon clung to the memory. After all, it was something

 to think about, something beside the horrible gnawing in

 his stomach and fire in his limbs.

 

 What did I see? That the pool down below the castle is

 alive again, filled up by the water that's splashing right

 under this wheel? The pool! Why didn't I think of it be-

 fore? Jirikino, Aditusaid that there was something in

 Asu'a called the Pool of Three Depths, a Master Witness.

 That must be what I saw down there. Saw? I drank from

 it! But what does that matter, even if it's true? He strug-

 gled with his thoughts. Green Angel Tower, that tree, the

 poolare they all linked somehow?

 

 He remembered his dreams of the White Tree, dreams

 that had plagued him for a long time. At first he had

 thought it was the Uduntree on frozen Yijarjuk, the great

 ice waterfall that had stunned him with its magnificence

 and improbability, but he had come to think it had another

 meaning as well.

 

 A white tree with no leaves. Green Angel Tower. Is

 something going to happen there? But what? He laughed

 harshly, surprising himself by the rasping noisehe had

 been silent for many, many hours. And what can I do

 about it anyway? Tell Inch?

 

 Still, something was happening. The Pool was alive,

 and Green Angel Tower was waiting for something ...

 and the water wheel kept turning, turning, turning.

 

 / used to dream about a wheel, tooa great wheel that

 spun through Time, that pulled the past up into the light

 and pushed everything alive down into the ground ... not

 a huge piece of wood paddling dirty water, like this.

 

 Now the wheel was carrying him down once more, tip-

 ping him so that the blood again rushed to his head and

 made his temples pound.

 

 What did the angel tell me in that other dream? He gri-

 maced and choked back a cry. The pain as it moved to his

 legs felt like someone jabbing him with long needles.

 "Go deeper," she said. "Go deeper."

 

 4?2 Tad Williams

 

 Time's walls began to crumble around Simon, as

 though the wheel that carried him, like the wheel that had

 haunted his dreams, plunged directly through the fabric of

 the living moment, pushing it down into the past and

 dredging up old history to spill across the present. The

 castle below him, Asu'a the Great, dead for five centu-

 ries, had become as real as the Hayholt above. The deeds

 of those who were goneor those like Ineluki who had

 died but still would not gowere as vital as those of liv-

 ing men and women. And Simon himself was spun be-

 tween them, a bit of tattered skin and bone caught on the

 wheel-rim of Eternity, dragged without his consent

 through the haunted present and the undying past.

 

 Something was touching his face. Simon surfaced from

 delirium to feel fingers trailing across his cheek; they

 caught in his hair for a moment, then slid free as the

 wheel pulled him away. He opened his eyes, but either he

 could not see or the torches in the chamber had all been

 extinguished-

 

 "What are you?" asked a quavering voice. It was just to

 one side, but he was moving away from it. "I hear you

 cry out. Your voice is not like the others. And I can feel

 you. What are you?"

 

 The inside of Simon's mouth was swollen so that he

 could barely breathe. He tried to speak, but nothing came

 out except a soft gargle of noise.

 

 "What are you?"

 

 Simon struggled to answer, wondering even as he did

 so if this was another dream. But none of those, for all

 their rustlingly intrusive presence, had touched him with

 solid flesh.

 

 An eternity of time seemed to pass as he made his way

 to the top of the wheel where the great chains sawed nois-

 ily upward, then began his downward turn again. By the

 time he reached the bottom he had worked up enough spit

 for something close to speech, although the effort tore at

 his aching throat.

 

 "Help ... me ..."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 473

 

 But if someone was there, they did not speak or touch

 him again. His circle continued, uninterrupted. In dark-

 ness, alone, he wept without tears.

 

 The wheel turned. Simon turned with it- Occasionally

 water splashed on his face and trickled into his mouth.

 ^ Like the Pool of Three Depths, he thirstily absorbed it to

 fi keep the spark inside him alive. Shadows flitted through

 his mind. Voices hissed in the porch of his ear. His

 thoughts seemed to know no boundary, but at the same

 time he was trapped in the shell of his tormented, dying

 body. He began to yeam for release.

 The wheel turned. Simon turned with it.

 

 He stared into a grayness without form, an infinite dis-

 tance that seemed somehow near enough to touch. A fig-

 ure hovered there, faintly glimmering, gray-green as

 dying leavesthe angel from the tower-top.

 

 "Simon," the angel said. "/ have things to show you."

 f Even in his thoughts, Simon could not form the words

 '. to question her.

 

 "Come. There is not much time."

 Together they passed through -things, moving cross-

 ways to another place. Like a fog evaporated by strong

 &un, the grayness wavered and melted away, and Simon

 found himself watching something he had seen before, al-

 

 -f though he could not say where. A young man with golden

 fhair moved carefully down a tunnel. In one hand was a

 torch, in the other a spear.

 

 . Simon looked for the angel, but there was only the man

 ". with the spear and his stance of fearfully poised expecta-

 tion. Who was he? Why was Simon being shown this vi-

 sion? Was it the past? The present? Was it someone

 SsComing to rescue him?

 

 ^ The stealthy figure moved forward. The tunnel wid-

 ened, and the torchlight picked out the carvings of vines

 and flowers that twined on the walls. Whenever this

 

 : might be, the past, future, or present, Simon now felt sure

 that he knew where it was happeningin Asu'a, in the

 ; depths below the Hayholt.

 

 474

 

 Tad Williams

 

 The man stopped abruptly, then took a step backward,

 raising his spear. His light fell upon a shape that bulked

 huge in the chamber before him, the torch-glare glittering

 on a thousand red scales. An immense clawed foot lay

 only a few paces from the archway in which the spearman

 stood, the talons knives of yellow bone.

 

 "Now look. Here is a part of your own story...,."

 But even as the angel spoke, the scene faded abruptly.

 

 Simon awoke to feel a hand on his face and water run-

 ning between his lips. He choked and spluttered, but at

 the same time did his best to swallow every life-

 preserving drop.

 

 "You are a man," a voice said. "You are real."

 

 Another draught of water was poured over his face and

 into his mouth. It was hard to swallow while dangling

 downside-up, but Simon had learned in his hours on the

 wheel.

 

 "Who... ?" he whispered, forcing the word out

 through cracked lips. The hand traced across his features,

 delicate as an inquisitive spider.

 

 "Who am I?" the voice asked. "I am the one who is

 here. In this place. I mean."

 

 Simon's eyes widened. Somewhere in another chamber

 a torch sdll burned, and he could see the silhouette before

 himthe silhouette of a real person, a man, not a mur-

 muring shadow. But even as he stared, the wheel drew

 him up again. He felt sure that when he came back around

 mis living creature would be gone, leaving him alone

 once more.

 

 "Who am I?" the man pondered. "I had a name, once

 but that was in another place. When I was alive."

 

 Simon could not stand such talk. All he wanted was a

 person, a real person to speak with. He let out a strangled

 sob.

 

 "I had a name," the man said, his voice becoming qui-

 eter as Simon rotated away. "In that other place, before

 everything happened. They called me Guthwulf."

 

 PART TWO

 

 A

 

 Trie

 Btaswg Tower

 

 s

 

 

 

 

 21

 

 Tfie FrigAtened' Ones

 

 *

 

 Mirumiefe OWafoietf slowly into darkness. She was

 moving, but not of her own power, carried by somebody

 or something as though she were a bundle of clothing.

 The cloying sweetness was still in her nose. Her thoughts

 were muddy and slow.

 

 What happened? Binabik was fighting that terrible

 grinning man....

 

 She dimly remembered being grasped and pulled back

 into darkness. She was a prisoner ... but of whom? Her

 father? Or worse ... far worse ... Pryrates?

 

 Miriamele kicked experimentally, but her legs were

 firmly held, restrained by something less painful than

 ropes or chains, but no more yielding; her arms were also

 pinioned. She was helpless as a child.

 

 "Let me go!" she cried, knowing it was useless, but un-

 able to restrain her frustration. Her voice was muffled: the

 sack, or whatever it was, still covered her face.

 

 Whoever held her did not reply; the bumpy progress

 did not slow. Miriamele struggled a bit longer, then gave

 up.

 

 She had been drifting in a half-sleep when whoever

 carried her stopped. She was set down with surprising

 gentleness, then the sack was carefully lifted from her

 head.

 

 At first the light, though dim, hurt her eyes. Dark fig-

 ures stood before her, one leaning so close that at first she

 did not recognize the silhouetted shape as a head. As her

 

 4?8

 

 Tad Williams

 

 eyes adjusted, she gasped and scrambled backward until

 hard stone halted her. She was surrounded by monsters.

 

 The nearest creature flinched, startled by her sudden

 movement. Like its fellows, it was more or less man-

 like, but it had huge dark eyes with no whites, and its

 gaunt, lantern-jawed head bobbed on the end of a slender

 neck. It reached out a long-fingered hand toward her,^

 then drew it back as though it feared she would bite.'It|

 said a few words in a tongue that sounded something like*

 Hemystiri. Miriamele stared back in horrified incompre-

 hension. The creature tried again, this time in halting,

 oddly-accented Westeriing,

 

 "Have we brought harm to you?" The spidery creature

 seemed genuinely worried. "Please, are you well? Is there

 aught we can give to you?"

 

 Miriamele gaped and tried to slide out of the thing's

 reach. It did not seem inclined to hurt herat least not

 yet. "Some water," she said at last. "Who are you?"

 

 "Yis-fidri am I," the creature replied. "These others are

 my fellows, and that is my mate Yis-hadra."^

 

 "But what are you?" Miriamele wondered if the seem-1|

 ing kindness of these creatures could be a trick of some|.

 sort. She tried to look unobtrusively for her knife, which

 was no longer sheathed at her waist; as she did so, she

 took in her surroundings for the first time. She was in a

 cavern, featureless but for the rough surface of the rock.

 It was dimly illuminated, all glowing pink, but she could^

 see no source for the light. A few paces away, the packs

 she and Binabik had carried lay beside the cavern wall.

 There were things inside them she could use as a weapon

 if she had to....

 

 "What are we?" The one called Yis-fidri nodded sol-

 emnly. "We are the last of our people, or at least the last

 who have chosen this way, the Way of Stone and Earth."

 The other creatures made a musical sound of regret, as

 though this meaningless remark had great significance.

 "Your people have known us as dwarrows,"

 

 "Dwarrows!" Miriamele could not have been more sur-

 prised had Yis-fidri announced they were angels.

 Dwarrows were creatures of folktale, goblins who lived in

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER479

 

 the earth. Still, as unbelievable as it seemed, they stood

 here before her. And more, there was something almost

 familiar in Yis-fidri's manner, as though she had known

 him or someone like him before. "Dwarrows," she re-

 peated. She felt a terrified laugh bubbling inside her. "Yet

 another story springs to life." She sat up straighter, trying

 to hide her fright. "If you mean me no harm, then take me

 back to my friend. He is in danger."

 

 The saucer-eyed creature looked mournful. He made a

 melodious sound and one of the other dwarrows stepped

 forward with a stone bowl. 'Take of this and drink. It is

 water, as you asked."

 

 Miriamele sniffed at it suspiciously for a moment, then

 realized that if they could bring her here so easily the

 dwarrows had little need to poison her. She drank, savor-

 ing the feel of the chill, clean water on her dry throat.

 "Will you take me back to him?" she asked again when

 she had finished.

 

 The dwarrows looked nervously at each other, heads

 wavering like poppies in a windy field. "Please, mortal

 woman, ask not for that," Yis-fidri said at last. "You were

 in a perilous placemore perilous than you can know

 and you carried something there which you should not

 have. The balance is exceeding delicate." The words

 sounded stilted and almost comical, but his reluctance

 was very clear.

 

 "Perilous!?" A spark of indignation kindled. "What

 right do you have to snatch me away from my friend? I

 will decide what is perilous for me!"

 

 He shook his head. "Not for youor not for you only.

 Dreadful things are in the balance, and that place ... it is

 not good." He seemed very uncomfortable, and the other

 dwarrows swayed a little behind him, humming nervously

 to themselves. Despite her unhappiness, Miriamele almost

 laughed at the odd spectacle. "We cannot let you go there.

 We are deeply sorry. Some of our number will return and

 look for your friend."

 

 "Why didn't you help him? Why couldn't you bring

 him with us if it was so important that we not be there?"

 

 "We were sorely afraid. He did fight with an Unliving

 

 480 Tad Williams

 

 One, or so it seemed. And the balance is very delicate

 there."

 

 "What does that mean?'" Miriamele stood up, for a

 moment more angry than fearful. "You cannot do this!"

 She began to edge toward a shadowy place on the cavern

 wall that she thought might be a tunnel mouth. Yis-fidri

 reached out and caught at her wrist. His thin fingers were

 callused and hard as stone. There was deceptive strength,

 great strength, in this slender dwarrow.

 

 "Please, mortal woman. We will tell you all that we are

 able. Content yourself for now to stay with us. We will

 seek for your friend."

 

 She struggled, but it was hopeless. She might have

 been pulling against the weight of the earth.

 

 "So," she said at last. Fright was turning to hopeless-

 ness. "I have no choice. Tell me what you know, then.

 But if Binabik is hurt because of what you've done, I'll

 ... 1*11 find a way to punish you, whoever you are. I

 will."

 

 Yis-fidri hung his great head like a dog being scolded.

 "It is not our wont to force others against their will. We

 have ourselves suffered too much at the hands of bad

 masters."

 

 "If I must be your prisoner, at least call me by my

 name. I'm Miriamele."

 

 "Miriamele, then." Yis-fidri let go of her arm. "Forgive

 us, Miriamele, or at least judge us not until all we have to

 say is heard."

 

 She lifted the bowl and took another drink, "Tell me,

 then."

 

 The dwarrow looked around at his fellows, at the circle

 of huge dark eyes, then began to talk.

 

 *

 

 "And how is Maegwin?" Isorn asked. His bandage

 gave him a strange, swollen-headed appearance. Icy air

 crept past the tent flap to ripple the flames of the small

 fire.

 

 "I had thought she might be coming back to us," Eolair

 

 TOGREENANOELTOWER481

 

 sighed. "Last night she began to move a little and take

 deeper breaths. She even spoke a few words, but they

 were whispered. I could make no sense of them."

 

 "But that is good news! Why are you so long-faced?"

 

 "The Sitha woman came to see her. She said it was like

 a feverthat sometimes the sufferer comes near to the

 surface, like a drowning man coming up for air one last

 time, but that does not mean ..." Eolair's voice shook.

 He made an effort to control himself. "The healer said

 that she was still just as close to death, if not closer."

 

 "And you believe the Sitha?"

 

 "It is not an illness of the flesh, Isom," the count said

 quietly- "It is a wound to her soul, which was already

 damaged. You saw her in the last weeks." He twined his

 fingers, then untwined them. "And the Sithi know more

 of these things than we do. Whatever happened to

 Maegwin left no marks, no broken bones or bleeding cuts.

 Give thanks that your own injury is something that can be

 mended."

 

 "I do, by my faith." The young Rimmersman frowned.

 "Ah, Merciful Usires, Eolair, that is more grim news,

 then. And is there nothing anyone can do?"

 

 The count shrugged. *tThe healer says it is beyond her

 powers. She can work only to make Maegwin comfort-

 able."

 

 "A cursed fate for such a good woman. Lluth's family

 is haunted somehow."

 

 "No one would have said so before this year." Eolair

 bit his lip before continuing. His own sorrow grew until

 it seemed it must escape or kill him. "But, Murhagh's

 Shield, Isom, no wonder that Maegwin sought the gods!

 How could she not think they had deserted us? Her father

 killed, her brother tortured and hacked to pieces, her peo-

 ple driven into exile?" He fought for a breath. ^My peo-

 ple! And now poor Maegwin, maddened and then left

 dying in the snows of Naglimund. It is more than the ab-

 sence of the godsit is as though the gods were deter-

 mined to punish us."

 

 Isorn made the sign of the Tree. "We can never know

 

 482

 

 Tad Williams

 

 what Heaven plans, Eolair. Perhaps there are greater de-

 signs for Maegwin than we can understand."

 

 "Perhaps." Eolair pushed down his anger. It was not

 Isom's fault that Maegwin was slipping away, and every-

 thing he said was kind and sensible. But the Count of Nad

 Mullach did not want kindness and sense. He wanted to

 howl like a Frostmarch wolf. "Ah, Cuamh bite me, Isom,

 you should see her' When she is not lying still as death,

 her face stretches in terror, and her hands clutch," he

 raised his own hands, fingers curled, "like this, as if she

 sought something to save her." Eolair slapped his palms

 against his knees in frustration. "She needs something,

 and I cannot give it to her. She is lost, and I cannot find

 her to bring her back!" He gasped raggedly.

 

 Isom stared at his friend. The light of understanding

 kindled in his eyes. "Oh, Eolair. Do you love her?"

 

 "I don't know!" The count put his hands to his face for

 a moment before continuing. "I thought once I might be

 coming to it, but then she turned harsh and cold to me,

 pushing me away whenever she could. But when the mad-

 ness came over her, she told me that she had loved me

 since she was a child. She was certain I would scom her,

 and did not like to be pitied, so she kept me ever at bay

 so I would not discover the truth."

 

 "Mother of Mercy," Isom breathed. He reached out his

 freckled hand and grasped Eolair's. The count felt the

 broad strength of the contact and held on for a long mo-

 ment.

 

 "Life is already a confounding maze without wars be-

 tween immortals and such. Ah, gods, Isorn, will we never

 have peace?"

 

 "Someday," said the Rimmersman. "Someday we

 must."

 

 Eolair gave his friend's hand a parting squeeze before

 he let it go. "Jiriki said the Sithi plan to leave within two

 days. Will you go with them, or back to Hemystir with

 me?"

 

 "I am not sure. The way my head feels, I cannot ride

 at anything like speed."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 483

 

 "Then go with me," the count said as he rose. "We are

 in no hurry, now."

 

 "Be well, Eolair."

 

 "And you. If you like, I'll come back later with some

 of that Sithi wine. It would do you miles of good, and

 take the sting of that wound away."

 

 "It will take more than that away," Isom laughed. "My

 wits will go, too. But I do not care. I am going nowhere,

 and am expected to do nothing. Bring the wine when you

 can."

 

 Eolair patted the younger man's shoulder, then pushed

 out through the door flap into the biting wind.

 

 As he reached the place where Maegwin lay, he was

 struck again by the power of Sithi craft. Isom's small tent

 was well-made and sturdy, but cold air crept in on all

 sides and melting snow seeped through at the base.

 Maegwin's tent was of Sithi make, since Jiriki had wished

 her to rest in as much comfort as she could, and though

 its glistening cloth was so thin as to be translucent, step-

 ping across the threshold was like walking into a well-

 built house. The storm that gripped Naglimund could

 have been leagues away.

 

 But why should that be so, Eolair wondered, when the

 Sithi themselves seemed almost unaware of cold or

 damp?

 

 Kira'athu looked up as Eolair entered- Maegwin,

 stretched out on the pallet beneath a thin blanket, was

 moving restlessly, but her eyes were still closed and the

 deathlike pallor had not left her face,

 

 "Any change?" Eolair asked, knowing the answer al-

 ready.

 

 The Sitha gave a small, sinuous shrug. "She is fighting,

 but I do not think she has the strength to break the grip of

 whatever has her." The Sitha seemed emotionless, her

 golden eyes unrevealing as a cat's, but the count knew

 how much time she spent at Maegwin's side. They were

 just different, these immortals; it was senseless trying to

 judge them by their faces and even voices. "Has she spo-

 ken any words to you?" Kira'athu asked suddenly.

 

 484

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Eolair watched as Maegwin's fingers clawed at the

 blanket, scrabbling for something that was not there. "She

 has spoken, yes, but I could not hear her well. And what

 I did hear was only babble- There were no words in it I

 recognized."

 

 The Sitha raised a silvery eyebrow. "I thought I

 heard ..." She turned to look at her ward, whose mouth

 now moved soundlessly.

 

 "Thought you heard what?"

 

 "The speech of the Garden." Kira'athu spread her

 hands, curving the fingers to meet the thumbs. "What you

 would call Sithi speech."

 

 "It is possible that she learned some in the time we

 have all traveled and fought together." Eolair moved

 closer. It tugged at his heart to see Maegwin's hands

 searching restlessly.

 

 "It is possible," the healer agreed. "But it seemed spo-

 ken as the Zida'ya would speak it ... almost."

 

 "What do you mean?" Eolair was confused and more

 than a little irritated.

 

 Kira'athu rose. "Forgive me. I should speak to Jiriki

 and Likimeya about it rather than trouble you. And it

 matters little, in any case, I think. I am sorry, Count

 Eolair. I wish I could give you happier news."

 

 He sat down on the ground at Maegwin's side. "It is

 not your fault. You have been very kind." He reached out

 his hand so Maegwin could grip it, but her cold fingers

 moved skittishly away. "Bagba bite me, what does she

 want?"

 

 "Is there something she usually carries with her or

 wears about her neck?" Kira'athu asked. "Some amulet or

 other thing that gives her comfort?"

 

 "I can think of nothing like that. Perhaps she needs wa-

 ter."

 

 The Sitha shook her head. "I have given her to drink."

 

 Eolair leaned down and began fumbling absently in the

 saddlebags that contained the strew of Maegwin's belong-

 ings. He took out a scarf of warm wool and pressed it into

 her hands, but Maegwin only held it a moment before

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 485

 

 pushing it away. Her hands began to search again as she

 murmured wordlessly in her throat.

 

 Desperate to give Maegwin some kind of comfort, he

 began to pull other things out of the bags, placing them

 one at a time beneath her fingersa bowl, a wooden bird

 that had apparently come from the Taig's Hall of Carv-

 ings, even the hilt of a sheathed knife. Eolair was not very

 happy to find this last. Afraid that with her mind clouded

 she might do herself an injury, he had forbidden her to

 bring it from Hemysadharc. Maegwin had apparently

 flouted his orders. But none of these things, nor the other

 small objects he gave to her, seemed to soothe her. She

 pushed them away, the movements of her hands angry

 and abrupt as a small child's, although her face was still

 empty.

 

 His fingers closed on something heavy. He lifted it out

 and stared at the chunk of cloudy stone.

 

 "What is that?" Kira'athu was surprisingly sharp.

 

 "It was a gift from the dwarrows." He lifted it so she

 could see its face. "See, Yis-fidri carved Maegwin's name

 upon itor so he told me."

 

 Kira'athu took the stone from him and turned it in her

 slender fingers. "That is indeed her name. Those are the

 craft-runes of the Tinukeda'ya. Dwarrows, do you say?"

 

 Eolair nodded. "I led Jiriki to their place in the earth,

 Mezutu'a." He took the stone back and held it, weighing

 it, watching the firelight become confused in its depths.

 "I did not know she had this with her."

 

 Maegwin suddenly moaned, a deep sound that made

 the count flinch. He turned hurriedly to the bed- She

 made another sound which seemed to have words in it.

 

 "Lost," Kira'athu murmured, moving closer.

 

 Eolair's heart clenched. "What do you mean?"

 

 "That is what she said. She is speaking in the Garden-

 tongue,"

 

 The count stared at Maegwin's furrowed brow. Her

 mouth moved again, but no sound came but a wordless

 hiss; her hqad whipped from side to side upon the pillow.

 Suddenly, her hands reached out and scrabbled at

 Eolair's. When he released the stone to take them, she

 

 486 Tad Williams

 

 snatched it from him and pulled it against^her breasts. Her

 feverish writhing subsided and she fell silent. Her eyes

 were still closed, but she seemed to have fallen back into

 a more peaceful sleep.

 

 Eolair watched, dumbfounded. Kira'athu bent over her

 and touched her brow, then smelled her breath.

 

 "Is she well?" the count asked finally.

 

 "She is no closer to us. But she has found a little rest

 for a while. I think that stone was what she sought."

 

 "But why?"

 

 "I do not know. I will speak to Likimeya and her son,

 and anyone else who might have some knowledge. But it

 changes nothing, Eolair. She is the same. Still, perhaps

 where she walks, on the Dream Road or elsewhere, she is

 less afraid. That is something."

 

 She pulled the blanket up over Maegwin's hands,

 which now clasped the dwarrow-stone as though it were

 a part of her.

 

 "You should rest yourself. Count Eolair." The Sitha

 moved to the doorway. "You will be no good to her if you

 fall ill as well."

 

 A breath of cold air moved through the tent as the flap

 opened and closed.

 

 *

 

 Isgrimnur watched Lector Velligis leave the throne

 room. The huge man's litter was carried by eight grimac-

 ing guards, and was led out, as it had been led in, by a

 procession of priests bearing sacred objects and smoking

 censers. Isgrimnur thought they resembled a traveling fair

 on its way to a new village. Spared kneeling by his inju-

 ries, he had watched the new lector's performance from a

 chair against the wall.

 

 Camaris, for all his noble look, appeared uncomfort-

 able on the high ducal throne. Josua, who had kneeled be-

 side the chair while Lector Velligis offered his blessing,

 now rose.

 

 "So." The prince dusted his knees with his hand.

 "Mother Church recognizes our victory."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER487

 

 "What choice did Mother Church have?" Isgrimnur

 growled. "We won. Velligis is one of those who always

 puts his money on the favoriteany favorite."

 

 "He is the lector. Duke Isgrimnur," said Camaris

 sternly. "He is God's minister on earth."

 

 "Camaris is right. Whatever he was before, he has been

 elevated to the Seat of the Highest. He deserves our re-

 spect."

 

 Isgrimnur made a noise of disgust. "I'm old and I hurt

 and I know what I know. I can respect the Seat without

 loving the man. Did taking the Dragonbone Chair make

 your brother a good king?"

 

 "No one ever claimed a kingship made its possessor in-

 fallible."

 

 'Try telling that to most kings," snorted Isgrimnur.

 

 "Please." Camaris raised his hand. "No more. This is a

 wearisome day, and there is more yet to be done."

 

 Isgrimnur looked at the old knight. He did look tired, in

 a way that the duke had never seen. It would have seemed

 that freeing Nabban from his brother's killer should have

 brought Camaris joy, but instead it seemed to have sapped

 the life from him.

 

 It's as if he knows he's done one of the things he's

 meant to dobut only one. He wants to rest. but he can't

 yet. The duke thought he finally understood. I've won-

 dered why he was so strange, so distant. He does not wish

 to live. He is only here because he believes God wishes

 him to finish the tasks before him. Clearly any ques-

 tioning of God's will, even the infallibility of the lector,

 was difficult for Camaris. He thinks of himself as a dead

 man. Isgrimnur suppressed a shudder. It was one thing to

 yeam for rest, for release, but another to feel that one was

 already dead. The duke wondered momentarily whether

 Camaris might, more than any of them, understand the

 Storm King.

 

 "Very well," Josua was saying. 'There is one person

 left we must see. I will speak to him, Camaris, if you do

 not mind. I have been thinking about this for some time."

 

 The old knight waved his hand, uncaring. His eyes

 were like ice chips beneath his thick brows.

 

 488 Tad Williams

 

 Josua signaled a page and the doors were thrown open.

 As Count Streawe's litter was earned in, Isgrimnur sat

 back and picked up the mug of beer he had hidden behind

 his chair. He took a long sip. Outside it was afternoon,

 but the chamber's ceiling-high windows were barred

 against the storm that lashed the seas beneath the palace,

 and torches burned in the wall sconces. Isgrimnur knew

 that the room was painted in delicate colors of sea and

 sand and sky, but in the torchlight all was muddy and in-

 distinct.

 

 Streawe was lifted from his litter and his chair was set

 down at the base of the throne. The count smiled and

 bowed his head. "Duke Camaris. Welcome back to your

 rightful home. You have been missed, my lord." He swiv-

 eled his white head. "And Prince Josua and Duke

 Isgrimnur. I am honored that you have summoned me.

 This is noble company."

 

 "I am not a duke, Count Streawe," said Camaris. "I

 have taken no title, but only revenged my brother's

 death."

 

 Josua stepped forward. "Do not mistake his modesty,

 Count. Camaris does rule here."

 

 Streawe's smile broadened, deepening the wrinkles

 around his eyes. Isgrimnur thought he looked like the

 most grandfatherly grandfather that God ever made. He

 wondered if the count practiced before a looking glass. "I

 am glad you took my advice. Prince Josua. As you see,

 there were indeed many folk unhappy with Benigaris'

 rule. Now there is joy in Nabban. As I came up from the

 docks, people were dancing in the public square."

 

 Josua shrugged. "That is more to do with the fact that

 Baron Seriddan and the others have sent their troops into

 the town with money to spend. This city did not suffer

 much because of Benigaris, difficult as times are. Patri-

 cide or no, he seems to have ruled fairly well."

 

 The count eyed him for a moment, then appeared to de-

 cide a different approach was warranted. Isgrimnur found

 himself enjoying the show. "No," Streawe said slowly,

 "you are correct there. But people know, don't you think?

 There was a sense that things were not right, and many

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER489

 

 rumors that Benigaris had slain his fatheryour dear

 brother. Sir Camaristo achieve the throne. There were

 problems that were certainly not all Benigaris' fault, but

 there was also much unrest."

 

 "Unrest which you and Pryrates both helped to kindle,

 then fanned the flames."

 

 Perdruin's ruler looked genuinely shocked. "You link

 me with Pryrates'?" For a moment his courtly mask fell

 away, showing the angry, iron-willed man beneath. "With

 that red-cloaked scum? If I could walk, Josua, we would

 cross swords for that."

 

 The prince stared at him coldly for a moment, then his

 face softened. "I do not say you and Pryrates worked in

 concert, Streawe, but that you each exploited the situation

 for your own ends. Very different ends, I'm sure."

 

 "If that is what you meant, then I name myself guilty

 and throw myself on the mercy of the throne." The count

 seemed mollified. "Yes, I work in the ways I can to pro-

 tect my island's interests. I have no armies to speak of,

 Josua, and I am always prey to the whims of my neigh-

 bors. 'When Nabban rolls over in its sleep,' it is said in

 Ansis Pellipe, 'Perdmin falls out of bed.' "

 

 "Well argued. Count," Josua laughed. "And quite true,

 as far as it goes. But it is also' said that you are perhaps

 the wealthiest man in Osten Ard. A;/ the result of your

 vigilance on Perdruin*s behalf?"

 

 Streawe drew himself up straighter. "What I have is

 none of your business. I understood you sought me as an

 ally, not to insult me."

 

 "Spare me your false dignity, my good Count. I find it

 hard to believe that calling you wealthy is an insult. But

 you are right about one thing: we wish to speak with you

 about certain matters of mutual interest."

 

 The count bobbed his head solemnly. "That is better to

 hear. Prince Josua. You know that I support you

 remember the note I sent with my man Lenti!and I am

 anxious to speak about ways that I can help you."

 

 "That we can help each other, you mean." Josua raised

 his hand to still Streawe's protest. "Please, Count, let us

 avoid the usual dancing. I am in a fierce hurry. There, I

 

 490

 

 Tad Williams

 

 have given up a bargaining token already by telling you

 so. Now please do not waste our time with false protesta-

 tions of this or that."

 

 The old man's lips pursed and his eyes narrowed.

 "Very well, Josua. I find myself oddly interested. What

 

 do you want?"

 

 "Ships. And sailors to man them. Enough to ferry our

 

 armies to Erkynland."

 

 Surprised, Streawe waited a moment before replying.

 "You intend to set sail for Erkynland now? After fighting

 fiercely for weeks to take Nabban, and with the worst

 storm in years sweeping down on us out of the north even

 as we speak?" He gestured toward the shuttered windows;

 

 outside, the wind wailed across the Sancelline Hill. "It

 was so cold last night that the water froze in the Hall of

 Fountains. The Clavean Bell barely rang over God's

 house, it was so icy. And you wish to go to sea?"

 

 Isgrimnur felt a clutch of shock at the count's mention

 of the bell. Josua turned for a moment and caught the

 Rimmersman's eye, warning him not to speak- Obviously

 he, too, remembered Nisses' prophetic poem.

 

 "Yes, Streawe," said the prince. "There are storms and

 storms. We must brave some to survive others. I will take

 ship as soon as I can."

 

 The count lifted his hands, showing open, empty

 palms. "Very well, you know your own business. But

 what would you have me do? Perdruin's ships are not

 warships, and they are all at sea. Surely Nabban's great

 fleet is what you need, not my trading vessels." He ges-

 tured to the throne. "Camaris is master of the Kingfisher

 

 House now."

 

 "But you are master of the docks," Josua replied. "As

 Benigaris said, he thought you were his prisoner, but all

 the time you were gnawing him away from within. Did

 you use some of that gold they say fills the catacombs be-

 low your house on Sta Mirore? Or something more

 subtlerumors, stories-.. ?" He shook his head. "It mat-

 ters not. The thing is, Streawe, you can help us or hinder

 us- I wish to discuss with you your price, whether in

 power or gold. There is provisioning to do as well. I want

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER491

 

 those ships loaded and on their way in seven days or

 less."

 

 "Seven days?" The count showed surprise for the sec-

 ond time. "That will not be easy. And you have heard

 about the kilpa, have you not? They are running like

 quinis-fishbut quinis-fish do not pull sailors over the

 rails and eat them. Men are reluctant to go to sea in these

 dark days."

 

 "So we have started the bargaining?" Josua asked.

 "Granted and granted. Times are difficult. What do you

 want, power or gold?"

 

 Abruptly, Streawe laughed. "Yes, we have started bar-

 gaining. But you underestimate me, Josua, or you under-

 value your own coffers. You have something that might

 be more use to me than either gold or powersomething

 that in fact brings both in its train."

 

 "And what is that?"

 

 The count leaned forward. "Knowledge." He sat up, a

 slow smile spreading across his face. "So now I have

 given you a bargaining token in return for your earlier

 gift." The count rubbed his hands in barely restrained en-

 joyment. "Let us speak in earnest, then."

 

 H,Isgrimnur groaned softly as Josua sat down beside

 .'Perdruin's master. Despite the prince's stated hurry, it was

 ;indeed going to be a complicated dance- This was clearly

 something Streawe enjoyed too much to do quickly, and

 something Josua took too seriously to be rushed through.

 Isgrimnur turned to look at Camaris, who had been silent

 during the whole discussion. The old knight was staring

 at the shuttered windows as if they were an intricately ab-

 sorbing picture, his chin resting on his hand. Isgrimnur

 made another noise of pain and reached for his beer. He

 sensed a long evening ahead.

 

 

 

 Miriamele's fear of the dwarrows was dwindling. She

 was beginning to remember what Simon and others had

 told her of Count Eolair's journey to Sesuad'ra. The

 count had met dwarrowshe called them domhainiin

 

 492

 

 Tad Williams

 

 the mines below Hernystir's mountains. He had called

 them friendly and peaceful, and that seemed to be true:

 

 except for snatching her from the stairs, they had not

 harmed her. But they still would not let her go.

 

 "Here." She gestured to the saddlebags. "If you are so

 certain that something I am carrying is harmful, or dan-

 gerous, or ... or whatever, search for yourselves."

 

 As the dwarrows conferred in anxious, chiming voices,

 Miriamele considered escape. She wondered if dwarrows

 ever slept. But where had they brought her? How could

 she find her way out, and where would she go then? At

 least she still had the maps, although she doubted she

 could read them as efficiently as Binabik had.

 

 Where was Binabik? Was he alive? She felt almost ill

 as she remembered the grinning thing that had attacked

 the troll. Another friend was lost somewhere in the shad-

 ows. The little man had been rightthis had been a fool-

 ish journey. Her own stubbornness had perhaps brought

 death to her two closest friends. How could she live with

 that knowledge?

 

 By the time the dwarrows had finished their discussion,

 Miriamele did not much care what they had decided.

 Gloom had settled on her, sapping her strength.

 

 "We will search among your possessions, by your

 leave," Tis-fidri said. "In respect of your customs, my

 wife Tis-hadra only will touch them."

 

 Miriamele was bemused by the dwarrow's circumspec-

 tion. What did they think she had brought down into the

 earth, the dainty small-clothes of a castle-dwelling prin-

 cess? Tiny, fragile keepsakes? Scented notes from admir-

 ers?

 

 Yls-hadra approached timidly and began to examine the

 contents of the saddlebags. Her husband came and

 kneeled beside Miriamele. "We are sorely grieved that

 things should be thus. It is truly not our waynever have

 we pressed our will by force on another. Never." He

 seemed desperate to convince her.

 

 "I still do not understand the danger you fear."

 

 "It was the place you and your two companions

 walked. It is ... it isthere are no words that I know in

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 493

 

 mortal tongues to explain." He flexed his long fingers.

 "There are ... powers, things which have been sleeping.

 Now they awaken. The tower stairwell in which you

 climbed is a place where these forces are strong. Every

 day they become stronger. We do not yet understand what

 is happening, but until we do, nothing must happen which

 might upset the balance...."

 

 Miriamele waved for him to stop. "Slowly, Yis-fidri. I

 am trying to understand. First of all, that... thing that at-

 tacked us on the stairs was not a companion of ours-

 Binabik seemed to recognize him, but I have never seen

 him before."

 

 Tis-fidri shook his head, agitated. "No, no, Miriamele.

 Be not insulted. We know that what your friend fought

 was no companionit was a walking hollowness full of

 Unbeing. Perhaps it was a mortal man once. No, I meant

 that companion who followed a little behind you."

 

 "Behind us? There were only two of us. Unless ..."

 Her heart skipped. Could it have been Simon, searching

 for his friends? Had he only been a short distance away

 when she had been taken? No, that would be too cruel!

 

 "Then you were followed," Yis-fidri said firmly. "For

 good or ill, we cannot say. We Jjist know that three mor-

 tals were upon the stairs."

 

 Miriamele shook her head, unable to think about it. Too

 much confusion was piled atop too much sorrow.

 

 Yis-hadra made a birdlike sound. Her husband turned.

 The she-dwarrow held up Simon's White Arrow.

 

 "Of course," Yis-fidri breathed. The. other dwarrows

 leaned closer, watching raptly. "We felt it, but knew it

 not." He turned to Miriamele. "It is not our work or we

 would know it as verily as you know your own hand at

 the end of your arm. But it was made by Vindaomeyo,

 one of the Zida'ya to whom we taught our skills and

 craft. And see," he reached to take it from his wife, "here

 is a piece of one of the Master Witnesses." He pointed to

 the cloudy blue-gray arrowhead. "No surprise that we felt

 it."

 

 "And carrying it on the stairwell was a danger some-

 how?" Miriamele wanted to understand, but terror had

 

 494

 

 Tad Williams

 

 battered her for a long time, and weariness was now pull-

 ing at her like an undertow. "How could that be?"

 

 "We will explain if we can. Things are changing- Bal-

 ances are delicate. The red stone in the sky speaks to the

 stones of the earth, and we Tinukeda'ya hear the voices of

 those stones."

 

 "And these stones tell you to snatch people off the

 staircase?" She was exhausted. It was hard not to be rude.

 

 "We did not wish to come here," Yis-fidri said gravely.

 "Things that happened in our home and elsewhere drove

 us ever southward, but when we reached this place

 through the old tunnels, we realized that the menace here

 is even greater. We cannot go forward, we cannot go

 back. But we must understand what is happening so that

 we can decide how best to escape it."

 

 "You're going to run away?" Miriamele asked- "That's

 why you're doing all these things? To give yourself a

 chance to run away?"

 

 "We are not warriors. We are not our once-masters, the

 Zida'ya. The way of the Ocean Children has always been

 to make do, to survive."

 

 Miriamele shook her head in frustration. They had

 trapped her and torn her away from her friend, but only so

 they could escape something she did not understand. "Let

 me go."

 

 "We cannot, Miriamele. We are sorry."

 

 "Then let me go to sleep." She crawled away toward

 the wall of the cavern and curled herself in her cloak. The

 dwarrows did not hinder her, but began talking among

 themselves again. The sound of their voices, melodious

 and incomprehensible as cricket calls, followed her down

 into sleep.

 

 22

 

 A Sleeping Dragon

 

 *

 

 Ohy p(ease^ Gody don't let him be gone!

 

 The wheel carried Simon upward. If Guthwulf still

 spoke in the darkness below, Simon could not hear him

 above the creak of the wheel and the clanking of the

 heavy chains.

 

 Guthwulf! Could it be the same man Simon had so of-

 ten glimpsed, the High King's Hand with his fierce face?

 But he had led the siege against Naglimund, had been one

 of King Elias' most powerful friends. What would he be

 doing here? It must be someone else. Still, whoever he

 was, at least he had a human voice.

 

 "Can you hear me?" Simon croaked as the wheel

 brought him down again. Blood, regular as the tide at

 evening, was rushing into his head once more.

 

 "Yes," Guthwulf hissed. "Don't speak so loudly. 1 have

 heard others here, and I think they would hurt me. They

 would take away all I have left."

 

 Simon could see him, a dim, bent figurebut large, as

 the King's Hand had been, broad shoulders evident de-

 spite his stoop. He held his head in an odd way, as though

 it hurt him.

 

 "Can I have ... more water?"

 

 Guthwulf dipped his hands into the sluice beneath the

 wheel; as Simon swung low enough to reach, he poured

 the water over the prisoner's face. Simon gasped and

 begged for more. Guthwulf filled his palms three more

 times before Simon rose out of reach. "You are on ... on

 

 496

 

 Tad Williams

 

 a wheel?" the man said, as though he could not quite be-

 lieve it.

 

 His thirst quenched for the first time in days, Simon

 wondered at the question. Was he simple-minded? How

 could anyone who wasn't blind doubt it was a wheel?

 

 Suddenly Guthwulf's odd way of holding his head

 made sense. Blind. Of course. No wonder he had felt at

 Simon's face.

 

 "Are you .. . Earl Guthwulf?" Simon asked as the

 wheel headed downward again. "The Earl of Utanyeat?"

 Remembering what his benefactor had said, he kept his

 voice low. He had to repeat the question when he was

 nearer.

 

 "I ... think I was." The earl's hands hung limply, drip-

 ping. "In another life. Before my eyes were gone. Before

 the sword took me. - -."

 

 The sword? Had he been blinded in battle? In a duel?

 Simon dismissed the thought: there were more important

 things to think about. His belly was full of water, but

 nothing else. "Can you bring me food? No, can you free

 me? Please!? They are tormenting me, torturing me!" So

 many words rasped his tender throat and he broke into a

 fit of coughing.

 

 "Free you... ?" Guthwulf sounded distinctly shaken.

 "But... you do not wish to be here? I'm sorry, things are^

 ... so different. I have trouble remembering."

 

 He's a madman. The only person who might help me,

 and he's mad!

 

 Aloud, he said: "Please. I am suffering. If you don't

 help me, I'll die here." A sob choked him. Talking about

 it suddenly made it real. "I don't want to die!"

 

 The wheel began to carry him up again.

 

 "I ... could not. The voices will not let me do any-

 thing," Guthwulf whispered. 'They tell me that I must go

 and hide, or someone will take everything I have from

 me." His voice took on a horribly wistfiil tone. "But I

 could hear you there, making noises, breathing. I knew

 you were a real thing, and I wanted to hear your voice. I

 have not spoken to anyone for so long." His words grew

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER407

 

 faint as the wheel took Simon away. "Are you the one

 who left me food?"

 

 Simon had no idea what the blind man was talking

 about, but heard him hesitating, troubled by Simon's pain.

 "I did!" He tried to be heard above the wheel without

 shouting. Was the man out of hearing? "I did! I brought

 you food!"

 

 Please let him be there when I get back, Simon prayed.

 Please let him be there. Please.

 

 As Simon neared the bottom again, Guthwulf reached

 out his hand once more and let it trail across Simon's fea-

 tures. "You fed me. I do not know. I am afraid. They will

 take everything from me. The voices are so loud!" He

 shook his shaggy head. "I cannot think now. The voices

 are very loud," Abruptly, he turned and lurched away

 across the cavern and vanished into the shadows.

 

 "Guthwulf!" Simon cried. "Don't leave me!"

 

 But the blind man was gone.

 

 The touch of a human hand, the sound of a voice, had

 awakened Simon to his terrible pain once more. The pass-

 ing hours or days or weekshe had long since given up

 trying to mark timehad beguiuo smear into a gradually

 increasing nothingness; he had been floating in fog, drift-

 ing slowly away from the lights of home. Now he was

 back again, and suffering.

 

 The wheel turned. Sometimes, when all the forge

 chamber's torches were lit, he saw masked, soot-

 blackened men hustling past him, but none ever spoke to

 him. Inch's helpers brought him water with excruciating

 infrequency, and did not waste words on him when they

 did. On a few occasions he even saw the huge overseer

 standing silently, watching as the wheel bore Simon

 around. Strangely, Inch did not seem interested in gloat-

 ing: he came only to inspect Simon's misery, as a house-

 holder might pause to mark the progress of his vegetable

 garden while on the way to some other duty.

 

 The pain in Simon's limbs and belly was so constant

 that he could not remember what it was like to feel any

 other way. It rolled through him as though his body were

 

 498

 

 Tad Williams

 

 only a sack to contain ita sack being tossed from hand

 to hand by careless laborers. With each rotation of the

 wheel, the pain rushed to Simon's head until it seemed his

 skull would burst, then pushed through his empty, aching

 guts to lodge in his feet once more, so that it seemed he

 stood on blazing coals.

 

 Neither did the hunger go away. It was a gentler com-

 panion than the agony of his limbs, but still a dull and un-

 ceasing hurt. He could feel himself becoming less with

 every revolutionless human, less alive, less interested

 into holding onto whatever made him Simon. Only a dim

 flame of vengefulness, and an even dimmer spark of hope

 that someday he might come home to his friends, kept

 him clinging to the remains of his life.

 

 / am Simon, he told-himself until it was hard to remem-

 ber what that meant. / won't let them take that. I am Si-

 mon.

 

 The wheel turned. He turned with it.

 

 A

 

 Guthwulf did not return to speak to him. Once, as he

 floated in a haze of misery, Simon felt the person who

 gave him water touch his face, but he could not move his

 lips to make a sound of inquiry. If it was the blind man,

 he did not stay.

 

 Even as Simon felt himself shrinking away to nothing-

 ness, the forge chamber seemed to grow larger. Like the

 vision the glowing speck had shown him, it seemed

 opened to the entire worldor rather, it seemed that the

 world had collapsed in upon the foundry, so that often Si-

 mon felt himself to be in many different places at the

 same moment.

 

 He felt himself trapped upon the empty, snow-chilled

 heights, burning with the dragon's blood. The scar upon

 his face was a searing agony. Something had touched him

 there, and changed him. He would never be the same.

 

 Below the forge, but also inside Simon, Asu'a stirred.

 The crumbled stone shivered and bloomed anew, gleam-

 ing like the walls of Heaven. Whispering shadows be-

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER499

 

 came golden-eyed, laughing ghosts. Ghosts become Sithi,

 hot with life. Music as delicately beautiful as dew-spotted

 spiderwebs stretched through the resurrected halls.

 

 A great red streak climbed into the sky above Green

 Angel Tower. The heavens surrounded it, but the other

 stars seemed only timid witnesses.

 

 And a great storm rolled down out of the north, a

 whirling blackness that vomited wind and lightning and

 turned everything beneath it to ice, leaving only dead, si-

 lent whiteness in its wake.

 

 Like a man floundering in a whirlpool, Simon felt him-

 self at the center of powerful currents with no strength to

 alter them- He was a prisoner of the wheel. The world

 was turning toward some mighty, calamitous change, but

 Simon could not even lift his hand to his burning face.

 

 

 

 "Simon."

 

 The fog was so thick he could not see. Gray blankness

 surrounded him. Who called him? Couldn't they see he

 needed to sleep? If he waited, the voice would go away.

 Everyone went away if he waited long enough.

 

 "Simon." The voice was insistent.

 

 He did not want voices any more. He wanted nothing

 except to go back to sleep, a dreamless, endless sleep....

 

 "Simon. Look at me."

 

 Something was moving in the grayness. He did not

 care. Why couldn't the voice leave him be? "Go away."

 

 "Look at me, Simon. See me, Simon. You must reach

 out."

 

 He tried to shut out the troubling presence, but some-

 thing inside him had been awakened by its voice. He

 looked into the emptiness.

 

 "Can you see me?"

 

 "No. I want to sleep."

 

 "Not yet, Simon. There are things you must do. You will

 have your rest somedaybut not today. Please, Simon,

 look!"

 

 The moving something took on a more definite form. A

 

 500 Tad Williams

 

 face, sad and beautiful, yet lifeless, hovered before him.

 Something like wings or flowing garments moved around

 it, barely distinct from the gray.

 

 "Do you see me?"

 

 "Yes."

 

 "Who am I?"

 

 "You're the angel. From the tower."

 

 "No. But that doesn't matter." The angel moved closer.

 Simon could see the discolorations on her weathered

 bronze skin. "/ suppose it is good you can see me at all.

 I have been waiting for you to come close enough. I hope

 . you can still get back."

 

 "I don't understand." The words were too difficult. He

 wanted only to let go, to float back into uncaring, to

 sleep. -..

 

 "You must understand, Simon. You must. There are

 many things I must show you, and I have only a little time

 left."

 

 "Show me?"

 

 "Things are different here. I cannot simply tell you.

 This place is not like the world."

 

 "This place?" He labored to make sense. "What place

 is this?"

 

 "It is ... beyond. There is no other word."

 

 A faint memory came to him. "The Dream Road?"

 

 "Not exactly: that road travels along the edge of these

 fields, and even to the borders of the place where I will

 soon go. But enough of this. We have little time." The an-

 gel seemed to float away from him. "Follow me."

 

 "I... I can't."

 

 "You did before. Follow me."

 

 The angel receded. Simon did not want her to go. He

 was so lonely. Suddenly, he was with her.

 

 "You see," she said. "Ah, Simon, I waited so long for

 this placeto be here all the time! It is wonderful! I am

 free!"

 

 He wondered what the angel meant, but he had no

 strength for more riddles. "Where are we going?"

 

 "Not where, but when. You know that." The angel

 seemed to give off a sort of joy; if she had been a flower,

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 501

 

 Simon thought, she would have been standing in a patch

 of sunlight, surrounded by bees. "/(was so terrible those

 other times when I had to go back. I was only happy here.

 I tried to tell you that once, but you could not hear me."

 

 "I don't understand."

 

 "Of course. You have never heard my voice until now.

 Never my own voice, that is. You heard hers."

 

 There were no words, Simon realized suddenly. He and

 the angel were not speaking as people spoke; rather, she

 seemed to give him her ideas and they found a home in

 his head. When she talked of "her," of the other whose

 voice he had heard, he did not perceive it as a word, but

 as a feeling of a protecting, holding, loving, but still

 somehow dangerous, female.

 

 "Who is 'her'?"

 

 "She has gone on ahead," the angel said, as though he

 had asked a completely different question. "Soon I will

 join her. But I had to wait for you, Simon. It doesn 't

 bother me, though. I am happy here. I'm just glad I didn 't

 have to go back." Simon felt "back" as a trapped, hurting

 place. "Even before, when 1 first came here, I never

 wanted to go back ... but she always made me."

 

 Before he could question furtherbefore he could even

 decide whether, in this strange'dream, he wanted to ques-

 tion furtherSimon found himself in the tunnels of

 Asu'a. A familiar scene spread before himthe fair-

 haired man, the torch, the spear, the great glittering some-

 thing that lay just beyond the archway.

 

 "What is this?"

 

 "Watch. It is your storyor part of it."

 

 The spearman took a step forward, every inch of him

 aquiver with fearful expectation. The great beast did not

 move. Its red claw lay curled on the ground just a few

 paces before his feet.

 

 Simon wondered if the beast slept. His own scar, or the

 memory of it, stung him.

 

 Run away. man. he thought. A dragon is more than you

 can know. Run away!

 

 The spearman took another cautious step, then stopped,

 Simon was suddenly closer, looking into the wide cham-

 

 502 Tad Williams

 

 ber as though he saw through the eyes of the golden-

 haired man. What he saw was at first hard to take in.

 

 The room was huge, with a ceiling that stretched up be-

 yond the limits of the torchflame. The walls had been

 blasted and melted by great fires.

 

 It's the forge, Simon realized. Or that's what it is now.

 This must be the past.

 

 The dragon lay sprawled across the cavern floor, red-

 gold, as though the countless scales mirrored the torch-

 light. It was larger than a house, its tail a seemingly

 endless coil of looping flesh. Great wings stretched from

 its haunches to the elongated spurs behind its front claws.

 It was magnificent and terrifying in a way that even the

 ice-dragon Igjarjuk had not been. And it was completely

 and utterly dead.

 

 The spearman stared. Simon, floating in a dream,

 stared.

 

 "Do you see?" the angel whispered. "The dragon was

 dead."

 

 The spearman took a step forward to prod the inert

 claw with his spear. Reassured, he moved into the great

 chamber of melted stone,

 

 Something pale lay beneath the dragon's breast.

 

 "It's a skeleton," Simon whispered. "A person's skele-

 ton. "

 

 "Hush," the angel said in his ear. "Watch. This is your

 story."

 

 "What do you mean?"

 

 The spearman moved toward the pile of white bones,

 his lingers tracing the sign of the Tree in the air. The

 shadow of his hand leaped across the wall. He leaned

 close, still moving slowly and stealthily, as though any

 moment the dragon might suddenly roar back to lifebut

 the man, like Simon, could see the ragged holes where the

 dragon's eyes had been, the withered, blackened tongue

 that lolled from the gaping mouth.

 

 The man reached down and reverently touched the hu-

 man skull that lay beside the dragon's breastbone like a

 pearl from a broken necklace. The rest of the bones were

 scattered close by. They were blackened and warped.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 503

 

 Looking at them, Simon suddenly remembered Igjarjuk's

 scalding blood, and felt a pang of sadness for the poor

 wretch who had slain this creature and received his own

 death. For slain it he had, it seemed; the only bones which

 still hung together were a forearm and hand, and they

 were wrapped around the hilt of a sword driven nearly to

 the hilt in the dragon's belly.

 

 The spearman stared at this odd sight for a long time,

 then at last lifted his head, looking wildly around the cav-

 ern as though in fear someone might be watching. His

 face was somber, but his eyes gleamed feverishly. In that

 instant Simon almost recognized him, but the grayness of

 his thoughts was not entirely dispersed; when the fair-

 haired man turned back to the skeleton, the recognition

 faded.

 

 The man dropped his spear and detached the skeletal

 hand from the sword's hilt with trembling care. One of

 the fingers broke loose. The man held it for a moment, his

 expression unreadable, then kissed the bone and tucked it

 into his shirt. When the hilt was freed, the man put his

 torch down on the stone, then took the sword in a firm

 grip. He placed his boot against the dragon's arching

 breastbone and pulled. Muscles, rippled on his arms and

 cords stood out in his neck, but the sword did not come

 free- He rested for a moment, then spat on his palms and

 gripped the sword again. At last it slid out, leaving a

 puckered hole between the gleaming red scales.

 

 The man lifted the sword before him, his eyes wide. At

 first Simon thought the blade a simple, almost crude piece

 of work, but its lines were clean and graceful beneath the

 char of dragon's blood. The man regarded it with an ad-

 miration so frank that it was almost greedy, then lowered

 it abruptly and looked around again, as though still afraid

 someone might be watching. He picked up the torch and

 began to move back toward the chamber's arched door-

 way, but stopped to stare at the dragon's leg and clawed

 front foot. After a long moment's consideration, he

 kneeled and began sawing away with the blackened

 sword at the leg's narrowest point, just in front of the

 wing-spur.

 

 504

 

 Tad Williams

 

 It was hard labor, but the man was young and power-

 fully built. As he worked, he looked up anxiously, staring

 into the shadows of the vast room as though a thousand

 scornful eyes were watching him. Sweat was trickling

 down his face and limbs. He seemed possessed, as though

 some wild spirit had taken hold of him; when he had

 sawed almost halfway through the thing he suddenly

 stood and began hacking with the sword, smashing at the

 arm with blow after blow until bits of tissue spun away

 on all sides. Simon, still a helpless but fascinated ob-

 server, saw that the man's eyes were full of tears, that his

 youthful face was contorted in a grimace of pain and hor-

 ror-

 

 Finally the last of the flesh parted and the claw rolled

 free. Shivering like a terrified child, the man shoved the

 sword through his belt, then hefted the huge claw up onto

 his shoulder as though it were a side of beef. His face still

 full of misery, he staggered out of the chamber and disap-

 peared up the tunnel.

 

 "He felt the Sithi ghosts," the angel whispered to him.

 Simon had been so caught up in the man's private torment

 that he was startled by her voice. "He felt them shame

 him for his lie."

 

 "/ don't understand." Something was tickling his mem-

 ory, but he had been in the gray for so long.... "What

 was that? And who was the other onethe skeleton, the

 one who killed the dragon?"

 

 "That is part of your story, Simon." And suddenly the

 cavern was gone and they were in nothingness once more.

 "There is much still to show you ... and there is very lit-

 tle time."

 

 "But 1 don't understand!"

 

 "Then we must go deeper still."

 

 The gray wavered, then dissolved into another of the

 visions that had come to him in sleep upon the Tan'ja

 Stairs.

 

 A large room opened before him, A few candles made

 all the light, and shadows hung in the comers. The room's

 sole occupant sat in a high-backed chair at the room's

 center, surrounded by a scatter of books and scrolls.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER505

 

 Simon had glimpsed this person during his stairwell

 dream. As in that earlier vision, the man sat in the chair

 with a book spread open in his lap. He was past middle

 age, but in his calm, thoughtful features there still re-

 mained a trace of the child he had once been, an innocent

 sweetness only slightly diminished by a long hard life.

 His hair had mostly gone to gray, although it still held

 darker streaks and much of his short beard remained light

 brown. He wore a circlet on his brow. His clothes, though

 simple in form, were well-made and of good cloth.

 

 As with the man in the dragon's lair, Simon felt a

 twinge of recognition. Before the dream, he had never

 seen this personyet, in some way, he knew him.

 

 The man looked up from his reading as two other fig-

 ures entered the room. One, an old woman with her white

 hair caught up in a ragged scarf, came forward and

 kneeled at the man's feet. He put his book aside, then

 stood and gave the woman his hand to help her up. After

 saying a' few words that Simon could not hearas with

 the dragon-dream, all these shapes seemed voiceless and

 remotethe man Walked across the chamber and squatted

 beside the old woman's companion, a little girl of seven

 or eight years. She had been crying; her eyes were puffy

 and her lip trembled with anger or fright. She avoided the

 man's gaze. pulling fitfully at her reddish hair. She, too,

 wore simple clothing, an unadorned dark dress, but de-

 spite her disarray she looked well cared for. Her feet were

 bare.

 

 At last the man reached out his arms for her- She hes-

 itated, then flung herself at him and buried her face

 against his chest, crying. Tears came to the man as well,

 and he held her for a long time, stroking her back. At last,

 with clear reluctance, he let her go and stood. The girl ran

 from the room. The man watched her go, then turned to

 the old woman. Without saying another word, he slipped

 a thin golden ring from his finger and gave it to her; she

 nodded and wrapped her fingers around it as he leaned

 down and kissed her forehead. She bowed to him; then, as

 if her own composure was fast slipping, she turned and

 hurried away.

 

 506 Tad Williams

 

 After a long moment the man walked to a book-

 covered chest that lay beside the wall, opened it, and

 withdrew a sheathed sword. Simon recognized it immedi-

 ately: he had seen that sparsely decorated hilt only mo-

 ments before, standing in a dragon's breast. The man held

 the sword carefully, but did not look at it for more than a

 moment; instead, he cocked his head as though he heard

 something. He made the Tree sign with slow deliberatrbn,

 lips moving in what might have been prayer, then re-

 turned to his seat. He set the sword across his lap, then

 picked up his book and opened it, spreading it atop the

 sword. But for the set of his jaw and the faintest tremor

 in his fingers as he turned the pages, he might have been

 thinking only of a good night's sleepbut Simon knew

 that he was waiting for something far different.

 The scene wavered and dissipated like smoke-

 "Do you see? Do you understand now?" the angel

 asked, impatient as a child-

 Simon felt as though he groped at a large sack. Some-

 thing was inside it, and he could feel strange comers and

 significant bumps, but just when he thought he knew

 what it contained, his imagination failed. He had been in

 the gray fog a long time. Thinking was difficultand it

 was hard to care.

 

 "I don't know. Why can't you just tell me, angel?"

 "It is not the way. These truths are too strong, the

 myths and lies around them too great. They are sur-

 rounded on all sides by walls I cannot explain, Simon.

 You must see them and you must understand/or yourself.

 But this has been your story."

 

 His story? Simon thought again about what he had

 seen, but meaning seemed to slither away from him. If he

 could only remember what things had been like before,

 the names and stories he had known before the grayness

 surrounded him... !

 

 "Hold to them," the angel said. "If you can get back,

 these truths will be of use to you. And now there is one

 more thing I must show you."

 

 "I'm tired. I don't want to see any more." The urge for

 restful oblivion had returned, pulling at him like a power-

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 507

 

 fill current. All he had gained from this visitor was con-

 fusion. Go back? To the world of pain? Why should he

 bother? Sleep was easier, the drowsy emptiness of not

 caring. He could just let go, and all would be so easy....

 

 "Simon!" There was fear in the angel's voice. "Don't!

 You must not give up."

 

 Slowly the angel's verdigrised features appeared once

 more. Simon wanted to ignore her, but although her face

 was a mask of lifeless bronze, there was something in her

 voice, some note of true need, that would not let him.

 

 "Why can't I rest?"

 

 "I have only a little while left with you, Simon. You

 were never near enough before. Then I must give you a

 push to send you back or you will wander here forever."

 

 "Why do you care?"

 

 "Because I love you." The angel spoke with sweet sim-

 plicity that held neither obligation or reproach. "You

 saved meor you tried. And there are others 1 love who

 need you. There is only a small chance that the storm can

 be turned awaybut it is the only chance that remains."

 

 Saved her? Saved the angel who stood on the tower

 top? Simon felt exhausting confusion tug at him again.

 He could not afford to wonder..

 

 "Then show me, if you must."

 

 This time the translation from gray nothing to living vi-

 sion seemed more difficult, as though this place was

 somehow harder to reach, or as though her powers were

 flagging. The first thing Simon saw was a great circular

 shadow, and for a long time he saw nothing else. The

 shadow grew ragged at one edge. Tracings of light ap-

 peared there, then became a figure.

 

 Even in the dislocated netherworld of the vision, Simon

 felt a stab of fear. The figure that sat at the edge of the

 shadowy circle wore a crown of antlers. Before it, point

 down, double-guarded hilt clutched in its hands, was a

 long gray sword-

 

 The enemy! His mind was empty of names, but the

 thought was clear and cold. The black-hearted one, the

 frozen yet burning thing that caused the world's misery.

 Simon felt fear and hatred burning inside him so strongly

 

 508

 

 Tad Williams

 

 that for a moment the vision flickered and threatened to

 vanish.

 

 "See!" The angel's voice was very faint. "You must

 

 see!"

 

 Simon did not want to see. His entire life had been de-

 stroyed by this monstrosity, this demon of ultimate evil.

 Why should he look?

 

 To learn the way to destroy it, he told himself, strug-

 gling. To keep my anger strong. To find a reason to go

 back to the pain.

 

 "Show me. I will watch."

 

 The image strengthened. It took Simon a moment to re-

 alize that the darkness which surrounded the enemy was

 the Pool of Three Depths. It gleamed beneath the cloak of

 shadows, the stone carvings uncorrupted, the pool itself

 alight and scintillant, shifting as though the very water

 were alive. Washed by the liquidly shifting glow, the fig-

 ure sat on a pedestal on a peninsula of stone with the Pool

 all around.

 

 Simon dared to look closer. Whatever else it might be,

 this version of the enemy was a living creature, skin and

 bone and blood. His long-fingered hands moved fretfully

 on the pommel of the gray sword. His face was covered

 by shadow, but his bowed neck and shoulders were those

 of one horribly burdened.

 

 His attention captured, Simon saw with surprise that

 the antlers upon the enemy's head were not homs at all,

 but slender branches: his crown was carved from a single

 circlet of some silvery-dark wood. The branches still bore

 a few leaves.

 

 The enemy lifted his head. His face was strange, as

 were the faces of all the immortals Simon had seen

 high-cheeked and narrow-chinned, pale in the shifting

 light, and surrounded by straight black hair, much of

 which hung in twisted plaits. His eyes were wide open,

 and he stared across the water as though in desperate

 search. If something was there, Simon could not see it.

 But it was the expression upon the enemy's face that Si-

 mon found most disconcerting. There was anger, which

 did not surprise him, and an implacable determination in

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER509

 

 the set of the long jaw, but the eyes were haunted. Simon

 had never seen such unhappiness. Behind the stem mask

 lurked devastation, an inner landscape that had been

 scoured to bare rock, a misery that had hardened into

 something like the stuff of the earth itself. If this being

 ever wept again, it would be tears of fire and dust.

 

 Sorrow. Simon remembered the name of the gray

 sword. Jingiw. So much sorrow. He felt a kind of convul-

 sion of despair and anger. He had never seen anything as

 terrible, as frightening, as the enemy's suffering face.

 

 The vision wavered.

 

 "... Simon ..." The angel's voice was as quiet as a

 leaf tumbling across the grass. "... / must send you

 back...."

 

 He was alone in misty gray nothingness. "Why did you

 show me that? What is it supposed to mean?"

 

 "... Go back, Simon. I am losing you, and you are far

 away from where you should be...."

 

 "But I need to know! I have so many questions!"

 

 "... I waited for you so long. I am called to go on, Si-

 mon. ..."

 

 And now he did feel her slipping away, A very differ-

 ent kind of fear caught at him. "Angel! Where are you?!"

 

 "... / am free now ..." Faint as feather brushing

 feather. "/ have waited so long...."

 

 And suddenly, as the last touch of her voice slid away,

 he knew her.

 

 "Leiethf" he cried. "Leieth! Don't leave me!"

 

 A sense of her smiling, of Leieth free and flying at

 last, brushed him, then was gone. Nothing came in its

 place.

 

 Simon was suspended in emptiness, without direction

 or understanding. He tried to move as he and Leieth had

 moved, but nothing happened. He was lost in the void,

 more lost than he had ever been. He was a rag blowing

 through the darkness. He was utterly alone.

 

 "Help me!" he screamed.

 

 Nothing changed.

 

 "Help me," he murmured. "Someone."

 

 Nothing changed. Nothing would ever change.

 

 23

 

 Tfte Rose Unmade

 

 Tfte Sriip plunged again. As the cabin timbers creaked,

 Isgrimnur's empty cup bounced from his hand and

 clanked to the floor.

 

 "Aedon preserve us! This is horrible!"

 

 Josua's smile was thin. "True. Only madmen are at sea

 in this storm."

 

 "Don't joke," Isgrimnur growled, alarmed. "Don't joke

 about boats. Or storms."

 

 "I was not jesting." The prince gripped his chair with

 his hand as the cabin lurched again. "Are we not mad to

 let the fear of a star in the sky hurry us into this attack?"

 

 The duke glowered. "We are here. Heaven knows, I

 don't want to be, but we are here."

 

 "We are here," Josua agreed. "Let us only give thanks

 that for now Vorzheva and the children and your Outrun

 are safe in Nabban."

 

 "Safe until the ghants get there." Isgrimnur winced,

 thinking of the horrid nest. "Safe until the kilpa decide to

 try dry land."

 

 "Now who is the worrier?" Josua asked gently.

 "Varellan, as we saw, has become an able young man, and

 a good portion of Nabban's army stayed there with him.

 Our ladies are much safer than we are."

 

 The ship shuddered and pitched. Isgrimnur felt the

 need to talk, to do anything besides listen to what

 sounded like the timbers of the hull being wrenched apart.

 "I have been wondering something. If the Niskies are

 cousins to the immortals, as Miriamele told us, then how

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER511

 

 are we to trust them? Why should they favor our fairy-

 folk over the Noms?" As if summoned by his words, a

 Niskie's song, alien and powerful, rose once more above

 the shouting winds.

 

 "But they do." Josua spoke loudly. "One of the sea-

 watchers gave her life so Miriamele could escape. What

 stronger answer do you need?"

 

 "They haven't kept the kilpa as far away as I'd like."

 He made the sign of the Tree. "Josua, we have been at-

 tacked three times already!"

 

 "And would have been attacked more often were it not

 for Nin Reisu and her brother and sister Niskies, I have

 no doubt," said Josua. "You have been on deck. You've

 seen the cursed things swimming all around. The seas are

 choked with them."

 

 Isgrimnur nodded somberly. He had indeed seen the

 kilpafar too many of themswarming about the fleet,

 active as eels in a barrel. They had boarded the flagship

 several times, once in daylight. Despite the agony of his

 ribs, the duke had killed two of the hooting things him-

 self, then spent hours trying to wash the oily, foul-

 smelling blood from his hands and face. "I know," he said

 at last. "It is as if they have been sent by our enemy to

 hold us back."

 

 "Perhaps they have." Josua poured a bit of wine into

 his cup, "I find it strange that the kilpa should rise and

 the ghants should come pouring out of the swamps at just

 the same moment. Our enemy's reach is long, Isgrimnur."

 

 "Little Tiamak believes that was happening in the

 ghant nest when we found himthat somehow Storm-

 spike was using him and the other Wrannamen to talk to

 those bugs." The thought of Tiamak's countrymen used

 by the ghants, burned up like candles and then discarded,

 and of the hundreds of Nabbanai mariners dragged away

 to a hideous death by the kilpa, made Isgrimnur curl his

 fist and wish for something to hit. "What kind of a demon

 could do such things, Josua? What kind of an enemy is

 this, that we cannot see and cannot strike?"

 

 *The greatest enemy we have." The prince sipped his

 

 5*2 Tad Williams

 

 wine, swaying as the ship pitched again. "An enemy we

 must defeat, no matter the cost."

 

 The cabin door swung open. Camaris steadied himself,

 then entered, his scabbard scraping the doorframe. The

 old knight's cloak drizzled water on the floor.

 

 "What did Nin Reisu say?" Josua asked as he poured

 wine for Camaris- "Will Emettin's Jewel hold together for

 one more night?"

 

 The old man drained his cup and stared at the les-

 

 "Camaris?" Josua moved toward him. "What did Nin

 Reisu say?"

 

 After a moment, the knight looked up. "I cannot

 sleep."

 

 The prince shared a worried look with Isgrimnur. "I do

 not understand."

 

 "I have been up on deck."

 

 Isgrimnur thought that was obvious from the water

 puddling on the floor. The old knight seemed even more

 fearfully distracted than was usual. "What's wrong,

 Camaris?"

 

 "I cannot sleep. This sword is in my dreams." He

 pawed fitfully at Thorn's hilt. "1 hear it ... singing to

 me." Camaris tugged it a short way out of the scabbard,

 a length of pure darkness. "I carried this sword for

 years." He struggled for words. "I ... felt it sometimes,

 especially in battle. But never this way. I think ... I think

 it is alive."

 

 Josua looked at the blade with more than a little dis-

 trust. "Perhaps you should not carry it, Camaris. You will

 be forced to take it up soon enough. Put it somewhere

 safe."

 

 "No." The old man shook his head. His voice was

 heavy. "No, I dare not. There are things to leam. We do

 not know how to use these Great Swords against our en-

 emy. As you said, the time is fast coming. Perhaps I can

 understand the song it sings. Perhaps ..."

 

 The prince lifted his hand as if to dispute him, then let

 it fall. "You must do as you think best. You are Thorn's

 master,"

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 513

 

 Camaris looked up solemnly. "Am I? I thought so,

 once."

 

 "Come, have some more wine," Isgrimnur urged him.

 He tried to rise from his stool but decided against it. The

 battles with the kilpa had set back his recovery. Wincing,

 he signaled to Josua to refill the old man's cup. "It is hard

 not to feel haunted when the wind howls and the sea

 flings us about like dice in a cup."

 

 "Isgrimnur is right." Josua smiled. "Here, drink up,"

 The room lurched once more, and wine splashed onto his

 wrist. "Come, while there is more in the cup than on the

 floor."

 

 Camaris was silent for long moments. "I must speak to

 you, Josua," he said abruptly. "Something weighs upon

 my soul."

 

 Puzzled, the prince waited.

 

 The knight's face seemed almost gray as he turned to

 the duke. "Please, Isgrimnur, I must talk with Josua

 alone."

 

 "I am your friend, Camaris," said the duke. "If anyone

 is to blame for bringing you here, it's me. If something is

 plaguing you, I want to help."

 

 "This is a shame that bums. I would not tell Josua, but

 that he needs to Hear it. Even as* I lie sleepless for fear of

 what the sword will do. God punishes me for my secret

 sin. I pray that if I make this right. He will give me the

 strength to understand Thorn and its brother swords. But

 please do not force me to bare this shame to you as well."

 Camaris looked truly old, his features slack, his eyes

 wandering. "Please. I beg you."

 

 Confused and more than a little frightened, Isgrimnur

 nodded. "As you wish, Camaris. Of course."

 

 Isgrimnur was debating whether he should wait in the

 narrow passageway any longer when the cabin door

 opened and Camaris emerged. The old knight brushed

 past, hunched beneath the low ceiling. Before Isgrimnur

 could get more than half his question out, Camaris was

 gone down the passageway, thumping from wall to wall

 as Emettin's Jewel heaved in the storm's grip.

 

 514

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Isgrimnur knocked at the cabin door. When the prince

 did not answer, he carefully pushed it open. The prince

 was staring at the lamp, his blasted expression that of a

 man who has seen his own death.

 

 "Josua?"

 

 The prince's hand rose as though tugged by a string. He

 seemed entirely leeched of spirit. His voice was flat, ter-

 rible. "Go away, Isgrimnur. Let me be alone."

 

 The duke hesitated, but Josua's face decided him.

 Whatever had happened in the cabin, there was nothing

 he could give the prince at this moment but solitude.

 

 "Send for me when you want me." Isgrimnur backed

 out of the room. Josua did not look up or speak, but con-

 tinued to watch the lamp as though it were the only thing

 that might lead him out of ultimate darkness.

 

 A

 

 "I am trying to understand." Miriamele's head ached.

 "Tell me again about the swords."

 

 She had been with the dwarrows for several days, as

 far as she could tell: it was hard to know for certain here

 in the rocky fastness below the Hayholt. The shy earth-

 dwellers had continued to treat her well, but still refused

 to free her, Miriamele had argued, pleadedeven raged

 for a long hour, demanding to be released, threatening,

 cursing. As her anger spent itself, the dwarrows had mur-

 mured among themselves worriedly. They seemed so

 shocked and unsettled by her fury that she had almost felt

 ashamed of herself, but the embarrassment passed as

 quickly as the anger.

 

 After all. she had decided, / did not ask to be brought

 here. They say their reasons are goodthen let their rea-

 sons make them feel better. I shouldn 't have to.

 

 She was convinced of, if not reconciled to, the reasons

 for her captivity. The dwarrows seemed to sleep very lit-

 tle if at all, and only a few of them at a time ever left the

 wide cavem. Whether they were telling her the entire

 truth or not, she did not doubt that there was something

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 515

 

 out there that frightened the slender, wide-eyed creatures

 very badly.

 

 "The swords," said Yis-fidri. "Very well, I will try bet-

 ter to explain- You saw that we knew the arrow, even

 though we did not make it?"

 

 "Yes." They had certainly seemed to know something

 y;significant was in the saddlebags, although it was possible

 ^they could have made up the story on the spot after find-

 ing it.

 

 "We did not make the arrow, but it was crafted by one

 who learned from us. The three Great Swords are of our

 making, and we are bound to them."

 

 ^'"You made the three swords?" This was what had con-

 fused her. It did not match what she had been told. "I

 knew that your people made Minneyar for King Elvrit of

 Rimmsersgardbut not that they forged the other two as

 well. Jamauga said that the sword Sorrow was made by

 Ineluki himself."

 

 "Speak not his name!" Several of the other dwarrows

 looked up and chimed a few unsettled words which

 Yis-fidri answered before turning back to Miriamele.

 "Speak not his name. He is closer than he has been in

 centuries. Do not call his attention!"

 

 It's like being in a whole cave full of Strangyeards,

 thought Miriamele. They seem afraid of everything. Still,

 Binabik had said much the same thing. "Very well. I

 won't say ... his name. But that story is not what I was

 told. A learned man said that ... he ... made it himself

 in the forges of Asu'a."

 

 The dwarrow sighed. "Indeed. We were the smiths of

 Asu'aor at least some of our people were ... some who

 had not fled our Zida'ya masters, but who were still Nav-

 igator's Children for all that, still as like to us as two

 chunks of ore from the same vein. They all died when

 the castle fell." Yis-fidri chanted a brief lament in the

 dwarrow tongue; his wife Yis-hadra echoed him. "He

 used the Hammer that Shapes to forge itour Hammer

 and the Words of Making that we taught to him. It might

 as well have been our own High Smith's hand that crafted

 

 5i6 Tad Williams

 

 it. In that terrible instant, wheresoever we were. scat-

 tered across the world's face ... we felt Sorrow's mak-

 ing. The pain of it is with us still." He fell silent for a

 long time. 'That the Zida'ya allowed such a thing." he

 said at last, "is one of the reasons we have turned away

 from them. We were so sorely diminished by that one act

 that we have ever since been crippled."

 

 "And Thorn?"

 

 Yis-fidri nodded his heavy head. "The mortal smiths of

 Nabban tried to work the star-stone. They could not. Cer-

 tain of our people were sought out and brought secretly to

 the Imperator's palace. These kin of ours were thought by

 most mortals to be only strange folk who watched the

 oceans and kept the ships safe from harm, but a small

 number knew that the old lore of Making and Shaping ran

 deep in all the Tmukeda'ya, even those who had chosen

 to remain with the sea.**

 

 "Tinukeda'ya?" It took a moment to sink in. "But

 that's what Gan Itai ... those are Niskies!"

 

 "We are all Ocean Children," said the dwarrow gravely.

 "Some decided to stay near the sea which forever sepa-

 rates us from the Garden of our birth. Others chose more

 hidden and secretive ways, like the earth's dark places

 and the task of shaping stone. You see, unlike our cousins

 the Zida'ya and Hikeda'ya, we Children of the Navigator

 can shape ourselves just as we shape other things."

 

 Miriamele was dumbfounded. "You're ... you and the

 Niskies are the same?" Now she understood the phantom

 of recognition that had troubled her upon first seeing Yis-

 fidri. There was something in his bones, in his way of

 moving, that reminded her of Gan Itai. But they looked so

 different!

 

 "We are not the same any more. The act of shaping

 ourselves takes generations, and it changes more than Just

 our outward seeming. But much does not change. The

 Dawn Children and Cloud Children are our cousinsbut

 the sea-watchers are our sisters and brothers."

 

 Miriamele sat back, trying to grasp what she had been

 told. "So you and the Niskies are the same. And Niskies

 forged Thom." She shook her head. "You are saying,

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 517

 

 then. that you can feel all the Great Swordseven more

 strongly than you felt the White Arrow?" A sudden

 thought came to her. "Then you must know where Bright-

 Nail isthe sword that was called Minneyar!"

 

 Yis-fidri smiled sadly. "Yes. although your King John

 hung it with many prayers and relics and other mortal

 magicks, perhaps in the hope of concealing its true na-

 ture. But you know your own arms and hands. Princess

 Miriamele, do you not? Would you know them any the

 less if they were still joined to you, but were clothed in

 some other mortal's jacket and gloves?"

 

 It was strange to think of her magnificent grandfather

 working so hard to hide Bright-Nail's heritage. Was he

 ashamed of owning such a weapon? Why? "If you know

 these swords so well, can you tell me where Bright-Nail

 is now?"

 

 "I cannot say, 'it is such and such a place,' no. But it

 is somewhere near. Somewhere within a few thousand

 paces."

 

 So it was either in the castle or the under-castle,

 Miriamele decided. That didn't help much, but at least her

 father had not had it thrown in the ocean or carried off to

 Nascadu. "Did you come here'because you knew the

 swords were here?"

 

 "No. We were fleeing other things, routed from our

 city in the north. We knew already that two of the swords

 were here, but that meant little to us at that time: we fled

 [away through our tunnels and they led us here. It was

 only as we drew close to Asu'a that we came to under-

 stand that other forces were also at work."

 

 "And so now you're caught between the two and don't

 know which way to run." She said it with more than a lit-

 tle disapproval, but knew even so that what the dwarrows

 faced was much like her own situation. She, too, was

 driven by things bigger than herself. She had fled her fa-

 ther, trying to put the entire world between the two of

 them. Now she had risked her life and the lives of her

 friends to come back and find him, but feared what might

 happen if she succeeded. Miriamele pushed the useless

 

 5i8 Tad Williams

 

 thoughts away. "Forgive me, Yis-fidri. I'm tired of sitting

 for so long, that's all."

 

 It had been good to rest the first day, despite her anger

 over her imprisonment, but now she was aching to be on

 her way, to move, to do something, whatever that might

 be. Otherwise, she was trapped with her thoughts. They

 made painful company.

 

 "We are truly sorry, Miriamele. You may walk as much

 as you wish here. We have tried to give you all that you

 

 need."

 

 It was fortunate for them that she had the packs that

 held the remaining provisions, she reflected. If she had

 been forced to subsist on the dwarrows' foodfungi and

 smalt, unpleasant burrowing creaturesshe would be a

 much less congenial prisoner. "You cannot give me what

 I need as long as I am held captive," she said. "Nothing

 can change that, no matter what you say."

 

 "It is too perilous."

 

 Miriamele bit back an angry reply. She had already

 tried that approach. She needed to think.

 

 Yis-hadra scraped at a bit of the cavern wall with a

 curved, flat-ended tool. Miriamele could not quite tell

 what Yis-fidri's wife was doing, but she seemed to be en-

 joying it: the dwarrow was singing quietly beneath her

 breath. The more Miriamele listened, the more the song

 fascinated her. It was scarcely louder than a whisper, but

 it had something in it of the power and complexity of Gan

 Itai's kilpa-singing. Yis-hadra sang in rhythm with the

 movement of her long, graceful hands. Music and move-

 ment together made one singular thing. Miriamele sat be-

 side her for some time, transfixed.

 

 "Are you building something?" she asked during a lull

 in the song.

 

 The dwarrow looked up. A smile stretched her odd

 face. "This s'h'rosa herethis piece of stone that runs

 through the other stone ..." she indicated a darker streak,

 barely visible in the glow of the rose crystal. "It wishes

 to ... come out. To be seen."

 

 Miriamele shook her head. "It wishes to be seen?"

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER519

 

 Yis-hadra pursed her wide mouth thoughtfully. "I do

 not have your tongue well. It ... needs? Needs to come

 out?"

 

 Like gardeners, Miriamele thought bemusedly. Tending

 the stone.

 

 Aloud, she said: "Do you carve things? AH the ruins of

 Asu'a I've seen are covered with beautiful carvings. Did

 the dwarrows do that?"

 

 Tis-hadra made an indecipherable gesture with curled

 fingers. "We prepared some of the walls, then the Zida'ya

 created pictures there. But in other places, we gave care

 to the stone ourselves, helping it... become. When Asu'a

 was built, Zida'ya and Tinukeda'ya still worked side by

 side." Her tone was mournful. "Together we made won-

 derful things."

 

 "Yes. I saw some of them." She looked around.

 "Where is Yis-fidri? I need to talk to him."

 

 Yis-hadra appeared embarrassed. "Is it I have said

 something bad? I cannot speak your tongue as I can the

 tongue of the mortals of Hemystir. Yis-fidri speaks more

 well than I."

 

 "No." Miriamele smiled. "Nothing bad at all. But he

 and I were talking about something, and I want to talk to

 him more."

 

 "Ah. He will come back in a little time. He has left this

 place,"

 

 "Then I'll just watch you work, if you don't mind."

 

 Yis-hadra returned the smile. "No. I will tell you some-

 thing about the stone, if you like. Stones have stories. We

 know the stories. Sometimes I think we know their stories

 better than our own."

 

 Miriamele sat down with her back against the wall.

 Yis-hadra continued with her task, and as she did so, she

 talked. Miriamele had never thought much about rocks

 and stone, but as she listened to the dwarrow's low, mu-

 sical voice, she saw for the first time that they were in a

 way living things, like plants and animalsor at least

 they were to Yis-hadra's kind. The stones moved, but that

 movement took eons. They changed, but no living thing,

 not even the Sithi, walked alive beneath the sky long

 

 520

 

 Tad Williams

 

 enough to see that change. The dwarrow-folk studied and

 cultivated, and even in a way loved, the bones of the

 earth. They admired the beauty of glittering gems and

 shining metals, but they also valued the layered patience

 of sandstone and the boldness of volcanic glass. Every

 one of them had its own tale, but it took a certain kind of

 vision and wisdom to understand the slow stories that

 stones told. Yis-fidri's wife, with her huge eyes and care-

 ful fingers, knew them well, Miriamele found herself

 oddly touched by this strange creature, and for a while,

 listening to Yis-hadra's slow, joyful speech, she forgot

 even her own unhappiness.

 

 

 

 Tiamak felt a hand close around his arm.

 

 "Is that you?" Father Strangyeard's voice sounded

 querulous.

 

 "It is me."

 

 "We shouldn't either of us be out on deck," the archi-

 vist said. "Sludig will be angry."

 

 "Sludig would be right," Tiamak said. "The kilpa are

 all around us." But still he did not move. The closed quar-

 ters of the ship's cabin had been making it hard to think,

 and the ideas that were moving at the edge of his mind

 seemed too important to lose Just because of a fear of the

 sea-creatureshowever worthy of fear they might be.

 

 "My sight is not good," Strangyeard said, peering wor-

 riedly into the darkness. He held his hand beside his good

 eye to shield against the strong winds. "I should probably

 not be walking the deck at night. But I was ... worried

 for you, you were gone so long."

 

 "I know." Tiamak patted the older man's hand where it

 lay on the weathered rail. "I am thinking about the things

 I told you earlierthe idea I had when Camaris fought

 Benigaris." He stopped, noticing for the first time the

 ship's odd movement. "Are we anchored?" he asked at

 last.

 

 "We are. The Hayefur is not lit at Wentmouth, and

 Josua feared to come too close to the rocks in darkness.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 521

 

 He sent word with the signal-lamp." The archivist shiv-

 ered. "It makes it worse, though, having to sit still. Those

 nasty gray things ..."

 

 "Then let us go down. I think the rains are returning, in

 any case." Tiamak turned from the rail. "We will warm

 some of your winea drylander custom I have come to

 appreciateand think more about the swords." He took

 the priest's elbow and led him toward the cabin door.

 

 "Surely this is better," Strangyeard said. He braced

 himself against the wall as the ship dipped into a trough

 between the waves, then handed the sloshing cup to the

 Wrannaman. "I had better cover the coals. It would be

 terrible if the brazier tipped over. Goodness! I hope ev-

 eryone else is being careful, too."

 

 "I think Sludig is allowing few others to have braziers,

 or even lanterns, except on deck." Tiamak took a sip of

 the wine and smacked his lips. "Ah. Good. No, we are the

 privileged ones because we have things to read and time

 is short."

 

 The archivist lowered himself to the pallet on the floor,

 pitching gently with the motion of the ship, "So I suppose

 we should be back at our work again." He drank from his

 own cup. "Forgive me, Tiamak, but does it not seem fu-

 tile to you sometimes? Hanging all our hopes on three

 swords, two of which are not even ours?" He stared into

 his wine.

 

 "I came late to these matters, in a way." Tiamak made

 himself comfortable. The rocking of the ship, however

 pronounced, was not that different from the way the wind

 rattled his house in the banyan tree. "If you had asked me

 a year ago what chance there was that I would be aboard

 a boat sailing for Erkynland to conquer the High King

 that I would be a Scrollbearer, that I would have seen

 Camaris reborn, been captured by the ghants, saved

 by the Duke of Elvritshalla and the High King's

 daughter ..." He waved his hand. "You see what I am

 saying. Everything that has happened to us is madness,

 but when we look back, it all seems to have followed log-

 ically from one moment to the next. Perhaps someday

 

 522

 

 Tad Williams

 

 capturing and using the swords will seem just as clear in

 

 its sense."

 

 "That is a nice thought." Strangyeard sighed and

 pushed his eyepatch, which had shifted slightly, back into

 place. "I like things better when they have already hap-

 pened. Books may differ, one from the other, but at least

 most every book claims to know the truth and set it out

 

 clearly."

 

 "Someday we will perhaps be in someone else's book,"

 Tiamak offered, smiling, "and whoever writes it will be

 very certain about how everything came to pass. But we

 do not have that luxury now." He leaned forward. "Now

 where is the part of the doctor's manuscript that tells of

 the forging of Sorrow?"

 

 "Here, I think." Strangyeard shuffled through one of

 the many piles of parchment scattered about the room.

 "Yes, here." He lifted it to the light, squinting. "Shall I

 read something to you?"

 

 Tiamak held out his hand. He had an immense fondness

 for the Archive Master, a closeness he had not felt to any-

 one since old Doctor Morgenes. "No," he said gently, "let

 me read. Let us not put your poor eyes to any more work

 

 tonight."

 

 Strangyeard mumbled something and gave him the

 

 sheaf of parchment.

 

 "It is this bit about the Words of Making that sticks in

 my head," Tiamak said. "Is it possible that all these

 swords were made with these same powerful Words?"

 

 "But why would you think so?" Strangyeard asked. His

 face became intent. "Nisses' book, at least as Morgenes

 quotes it, does not seem to say that. All the swords came

 from different places, and one was forged by mortals."

 

 "There must be something that links them all together,"

 Tiamak replied, "and I can think of nothing else. Why

 else should possessing them all give us such power?" He

 shuffled through the parchments. "Great magic went into

 their forging. It must be this magic that will bring us

 power over the Storm King!"

 

 As he spoke, the song of a Niskie rose outside, piercing

 the mournful sound of the winds. The melody throbbed

 

 TOGREENANOEL TOWER

 

 523

 

 with wild power, an alien sound even more disturbing

 than the distant rumble of thunder.

 

 "If only there were someone who knew of the swords'

 forging," Tiamak murmured in frustration; his eyes stared

 at Morgenes' precise, ornate characters, but did not really

 see them. The Niskie song rose higher, then vibrated and

 fell away on a note of keening loss. "If only we could

 speak to the dwarrows who made Minneyarbut Eolair

 says they were far to the north, many leagues beyond the

 Hayholt. And the Nabbanai smiths who forged Thorn are

 centuries dead." He frowned. "So many questions we

 have, and still so few answers. This is tiring, Strangyeard.

 It seems that every step forward takes us two paces back

 into confusion."

 

 The archivist was silent while Tiamak looked for the

 well-thumbed pages that described Ineluki creating Sor-

 row in the forges below Asu'a. "Here it is," he said at

 last. "I will read."

 

 "Just a moment," said Strangyeard. "Perhaps the an-

 swer to one is the answer to both."

 

 Tiamak looked up. "What do you mean?" He dragged

 his thoughts away from the page before him.

 

 "Your other idea was that somehow we have been pur-

 posely kept in confusionthat the Storm King has played

 Elias and Josua off against each other while he pursued

 some goal of his own."

 

 "Yes?"

 

 "Perhaps it is not just some secret goal he has that he

 wishes to conceal. Perhaps he also tries to hide the secret

 of the Three Swords."

 

 Tiamak felt a glimmer of understanding. "But if all the

 contention between Josua and the High King has been ar-

 ranged just to keep us from understanding how to use the

 swords, it might mean that the answer is quite simple

 something we would quickly see if we were not dis-

 tracted."

 

 "Exactly!" Strangyeard, in pursuit of an idea, had lost

 his usual reticence. "Exactly. Either there is something so

 simple that we could not fail to see it if we were not

 caught up in the day-to-day struggle, or there is someone

 

 524

 

 Tad Williams

 

 or someplace vital to us that we cannot reach as long as

 this war between brothers continues."

 

 They Who Watch and Shape, marveled Tiamak, it is

 good to have someone to share my thoughts with

 someone who understands, who questions, who searches

 for meaning! For a moment he did not even miss his

 home in the swamp. Aloud, he said: "Wonderful,

 Strangyeard. It is something well worth considering."

 

 The archivist colored, but spoke confidently. "I remember

 when we were first fleeing Naglimund, Deomoth said that

 the Norns seemed to wish to keep us from going certain

 directionsat that time it was deeper into Aldheorte. In-

 stead of trying to kill us, or capture us, they seemed to try

 to ... drive us." The priest wiped absently at his chill-

 reddened nostrils, not yet recovered from the sojourn on

 deck. "I think perhaps they were keeping us from the Sithi."

 

 Tiamak put the pages he was holding down: there would

 be time enough for them later. "So perhaps there is some-

 thing the Sithi knowperhaps even they do not realize it!

 He Who Always Steps on Sand, how 1 wish we had ques-

 tioned young Simon more closely about his time with the

 immortals." Tiamak stood up and moved toward the cabin

 door. "I will go tell Sludig that we wish to talk to Aditu."

 He stopped. "But I do not know how she could cross from

 one ship to another. The seas are so dangerous now."

 Strangyeard shrugged. "It will do no harm to ask."

 Tiamak paused, tilting back and forth with the ship's

 movement, then abruptly sat down again. "It can wait un-

 til the morning, when it would be a safe crossing. There

 is much we can do first." He picked up the parchments

 again. "It could be anything, Strangyeardanything! We

 must think back on all the places we have been, the peo-

 ple we have met. We have been reacting to only what was

 in front of us. Now it is up to you and me to think on

 what we did not see while we were busy watching the

 spectacle of pursuit and war."

 

 "We should talk to others, too. Sludig himself has seen

 much, and certainly Isgrimnur and Josua should be ques-

 tioned. But we do not even know what questions to ask."

 The priest sighed and shook his head mournfully. "Merci-

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER525

 

 ful Aedon, but it is a pity that Geloe is not here with us.

 She would know where to begin."

 

 "But she is not, as you said, and neither is Binabik. So

 we must do it on our own. This is our fearful duty, just as

 it is Camaris* task to swing a sword, and Josua's to bear

 the burdens of leadership." Tiamak looked at the untidy

 mess of writings in his lap. "But you are right: it is hard

 to know where to begin. If only someone could tell us

 more about the forging of these swords. If only that

 knowledge had not been lost."

 

 As the two sat, lost for a moment in glum silence, the

 Niskie's voice rose again, cutting through the clamor of

 the storm like a sharp blade.

 

 A

 

 At first the very size of the thing prevented Miriamele

 from understanding what it was. Its dawn-colored brilliance

 and massive velvety petals, the dew drops sparkling like

 glass globes, even the thorns, each one a great spike of

 dark curving wood, all seemed things that must be ab-

 sorbed and considered individually. It was only after a long

 whileor what seemed a long whilethat she could com-

 prehend that the vast thing spinning slowly before her eyes

 was ... a rose. It revolved as though its stem were being

 twirled by gigantic yet invisible fingers; its scent was so

 powerful that she felt the whole universe choked in per-

 fume, and yet even as it smothered her, it filled her with life.

 

 The wide, unbroken plain of grass above which the rose

 turned began to shudder. The sod buckled upward be-

 neath the mighty bloom; gray stones appeared, tall and

 angular, pushing up through the earth like moles nosing

 toward sunlight. As they burst free, and as she saw for the

 first time that the long stones were joined at the bottom,

 she realized that what she saw was a huge hand pushing

 up from below the world's surface. It lifted, grass and

 clotted dirt tumbling away; the stony fingers spread wide,

 encircling the rose. A moment later the hand closed and

 squeezed. The huge rose ceased turning, then slowly van-

 ished in the crushing grip. A single wide petal scudded

 

 526

 

 Tad Williams

 

 slowly from side to side as it floated to the ground. The

 rose was dead....

 

 Miriamele struggled up, blinking, her heart rattling in-

 side her chest. The cavern was dark but for the faint pink

 glow of a few of the dwarrow's crystals, as it had been

 when she had drifted off to sleep. Nevertheless, she could

 tell something was different.

 

 "Yis-fidri?" she called. A shape detached itself from

 the wall nearby and moved toward her, head bobbing.

 

 "He still has not returned," said Yis-hadra.

 

 "What happened?" Miriamele's head was throbbing as

 though she had been struck a blow. "Something just hap-

 pened."

 

 "It was very strong, this one." Yis-hadra was clearly

 

 upset: her immense eyes were wider than usual and her

 long fingers twitched spasmodically. "Some ... change is

 happening herea change in the bones of the earth and in

 the heart of Asu'a." She sought for words. "It has been

 happening for some time. Now it grows stronger."

 

 "What kind of change? What are we going to do?"

 

 "We do not know. But we will do nothing until Yis-

 fidri and the others are come back."

 

 'The whole place is falling down around our ears ...

 and you're not going to do anything?! Not even run away?"

 

 "It is not ... falling down. The changing is different."

 Yis-hadra laid a trembling hand on Miriamele's arm,

 "Please. My people are frightened. You make it worse."

 

 Before Miriamele could say anything else, a strange si-

 lent rumble moved through her, a sound too low to hear.

 The entire chamber seemed to shiftfor a moment, even

 Yis-hadra's odd, homely face became something unliving,

 and the roseate light from the dwarrow's batons deepened

 and chilled to glaring white, then azure. Everything

 seemed to be skewed. Miriamele felt herself slipping

 away sideways, as though she had lost her grip on the

 spinning world.

 

 A moment later, the crystal lights warmed again and

 the cavern was once more as it had been.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 527

 

 Miriamele took several shaky breaths before she could

 speak. "Something ... very bad ... is happening."

 

 Yis-hadra rose from her crouch, swaying unsteadily. "I

 must see to the others. Yis-fidri and I try to keep them

 from becoming too fearful. Without the Shard, without

 the Pattern Hall, there is little left to hold us together."

 

 Shivering, Miriamele watched the dwarrow go. The

 mass of stone all around her felt like the confining walls

 of a tomb. Whatever Josua and old Jamauga and the oth-

 ers had feared was now happening. Some wild power was

 coursing through the stones beneath the Hayholt just as

 blood ran through her own body. Surely there was only a

 little time left.

 

 Is this where it will end for me? she wondered. Down

 here in the dark, and never knowing why?

 

 Miriamele did not remember falling asleep again, but

 she awakenedmore gently this timesitting upright

 along the cavern wall, pillowed against the hood of her

 cloak. Her neck was sore, and she rubbed it for a moment

 until she saw someone squatting by her pack, a dim out-

 line in the faint rose light of the dwarrow-crystals.

 

 "You there! What are you doing?"

 

 The figure turned, eyes wide. "You are awake," the

 troll said.

 

 "Binabik?" Miriamele stared for a moment, dumb-

 founded, then sprang to her feet and ran to him. She

 caught him up in a hug that squeezed out a breathless

 laugh. "Mother of Mercy! Binabik! What are you doing?

 How did you get here?"

 

 "The dwarrows found me wandering on the stairs," he

 said as she set him down. "I have been here a little time.

 I did not want to wake you, but I am full of hunger, so I

 have been searching in the packs...."

 

 "There's a little trait-bread left, I think, and maybe

 some dried fruit." She rummaged through her belongings.

 "I am so happy to see youI didn't know what had be-

 come of you! That thing, that monk! What happened?"

 

 "I killed himor perhaps I was releasing him."

 Binabik shook his head. "I cannot say. He was himself for

 

 528 Tad Williams

 

 a moment, and warned that the Noms were ... what did

 he say? ... 'false beyond believing'." He took the piece

 of hard bread Miriamele offered. "I knew him as a man

 once, Simon and I met him in St. Hoderund's ruins. We

 were not being friends, Hengfisk and Ibut to look into

 his eyes... ! Such a terrible thing should not be done to

 anyone. Our enemies have much to be answering for."

 

 "What do you think of the dwarrows? Did they tell you

 why they took me?" A thought occurred to her. "Are you

 a prisoner now, too?"

 

 "I do not know if prisoner is being the correct word,"

 Binabik said thoughtfully. "Yes, Yis-fidri was telling me

 much when they found me, as we were making our way

 back to this place. At least for a while he was."

 

 "What do you mean?"

 

 "There are soldiers in the tunnels," the troll replied.

 "And others, tooNorns, I think, although we did not see

 them as we did the soldiers. But the dwarrows were cer-

 tainly feeling them, and I do not think they were pre-

 tending for the benefit of me. They were full of terror."

 

 "Noms? Here? But I thought they couldn't come to the

 castle!"

 

 Binabik shrugged. "Who can say? It is their deathless

 master who is barred from this place, but I did not think it

 likely the living Noms would wish to enter here. Still, if

 everything I have been thinking was truth was now proved

 false, it would no longer be a surprising thing to me."

 

 Yis-fidri approached, then stooped and crouched beside

 them, the padded leather of his garments creaking. De-

 spite his kind, sad face, Miriamele thought that his long

 limbs gave him something of the appearance of a spider

 picking its way across a web.

 

 "Here is your companion safe, Miriamele."

 

 "I'm glad you found him."

 

 "And not a moment too soon did we come upon him."

 Yis-fidri was clearly worried. "There are mortal men and

 Hikeda'ya swarming through the tunnels. Only our skill

 in hiding the doorway to this chamber keeps us safe,"

 

 "Do you plan to stay here forever? That won't help

 anything." The joy of Binabik's return had worn off a lit-

 

 TOOREENANGEL TOWER

 

 529

 

 tie, and now she felt desperation returning. They were all

 trapped in an isolated cavern while the world around them

 seemed to be moving toward some terrible cataclysm.

 "Don't you feel what is happening? All the rest of your

 folk felt it."

 

 "Of course we feel it." For a moment Yis-fidri almost

 sounded angry. "We feel more than you. We know these

 changes of oldwe know what the Words of Making can

 do. And the stones speak to us as well. But we have no

 strength to stop what is happening, and if we call atten-

 tion to ourselves, that will be the end. Our freedom is of

 no use to anyone."

 

 "Words of Making... ?" Binabik asked, but before he

 could finish his question, Yis-hadra appeared and spoke

 softly to her husband in the dwarrow tongue. Miriamele

 looked past her to where the rest of the tribe huddled

 against the cavern's far wall. They were clearly disturbed,

 eyes wide in the dim light, chattering quietly among them-

 selves with much nodding and shaking of their large heads.

 

 Yis-fidri's thin face wore a look of alarm. "Someone is

 outside," he said.

 

 "Outside?" Miriamele pulled the pack closed. "What

 do you mean? Who?"

 

 "We know not. But someone is outside the hidden door

 to this chamber, trying to get in." He flapped his hands

 anxiously. "It is not mortal soldiers, for whoever it is,

 they have some power over thingswe shielded that door

 to the limits of the Tinukeda'ya's art."

 

 'The Norns?" Miriamele breathed.

 

 "We know not!" Yis-fidri stood and put his thin arm

 around Yis-hadra. "But we must hope that even though

 they have found the door, they cannot force it. There is

 nothing more we can do."

 

 "There must be another way out. isn't there?"

 

 Yis-fidri hung his head. "We took a risk. Hiding two

 doors makes both of them more vulnerable, and we feared

 to expend too much Art when things are so unbal-

 anced. ..."

 

 "Mother of Mercy!" Miriamele cried. Anger fought with

 

 530

 

 Tad Williams

 

 hopeless terror inside her. "So we're trapped." She turned

 to Binabik. "God help us, what choice do we have?"

 

 The troll looked tired. "Are you asking if we will

 fight? Of course. The Qanuc are not giving their lives

 away. Mindunob inik yat, we say'my home will be your

 tomb.' " His laugh was grim. "But with certainty, even

 the fiercest troll would rather find a way to keep his cave

 without himself dying."

 

 "I found my knife," said Miriamele, drumming her fin-

 gers nervously on her leg. She struggled to keep her voice

 steady. Trapped! They were trapped with no way out, and

 the Noms were at the door! "Merciful Elysia, I wish I'd

 brought a bow. I only have Simon's White Arrow, but I'm

 sure he would approve if I feathered a Norn with it. I sup-

 pose I can use it to stab someone."

 

 Yis-fidri looked at them in disbelief. "You could not

 save yourself from the Hikeda'ya with a bow and a whole

 quiver full of Vindaomeyo's most perfect arrows, let

 alone with only a knife."

 

 "I don't think we will save ourselves," Miriamele

 snapped. "But we have come too far to let them take us as

 though we were frightened children." She took a breath to

 calm herself. "You are strong, Yis-fidriI felt it when you

 carried me off. Surely you won't just let them kill you?"

 

 "It is not our way, fighting," Yis-hadra spoke up. "We

 have never been the strong onesnot strong that way."

 

 "Then stay back." Inwardly, Miriamele thought she

 sounded like the worst kind of boastful tavern brawler, but

 it was already hard enough to think about what might be

 coming. Just looking at the trembling, terrified dwarrows

 sapped her resolve, and the fear that lay beneath felt like

 a hole into which she might tumble and fall forever. "Take

 us to the door. Binabik, let's at least pick up some stones.

 The good Lord knows this place is full of them."

 

 The huddled dwarrows watched them with distrust, as

 though the very act of preparing a resistance made them

 almost as dangerous as the enemy outside. Miriamele and

 Binabik quickly gathered a pile of stones, then Binabik

 broke down his walking-stick and placed the knife section

 in his belt, then readied the blowpipe.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 531

 

 "Better to use this first." He pushed a dart into the

 tube. "Perhaps a death they cannot see will make them a

 little more slow for coming in."

 

 The doorway appeared to be only another section of the

 striated cavern wall, but as Miriamele and the trol! stood

 before it, a faint silvery line began to creep up the stone.

 

 "Ruyan guide us!" Yis-fidri said miserably. "They have

 breached the wards!" There was a chorus of fearful noises

 from his fellow.

 

 The silver gleam crept up the rock face, then coursed

 across the length of a man's reach and started down

 again. When a whole section was bounded by a thread of

 light, the stone inside the glow slowly began to swivel in-

 ward, scraping as it moved against the cavern floor.

 Miriamele watched its ponderous movement with terrified

 fascination, trembling in every limb.

 

 "Do not step to the front of me," whispered Binabik. "I

 will tell you when it is safe for moving."

 

 The door ground to a halt. As a figure appeared in the

 narrow opening, Binabik raised his blowpipe to his

 mouth. The dark shape tottered and fell forward. The

 dwarrows moaned in fear.

 

 "You hit him!" Miriamele exulted. She hefted a rock,

 ready to try for the next one through while Binabik loaded

 another dart ... but no one else moved into the doorway.

 

 'They're waiting," Miriamele whispered to the troll.

 j"They saw what happened to the first one."

 

 "But I was doing nothing!" said Binabik. "My dart is

 still unflown."

 

 The figure raised its head. "Close ... the ... door."

 Each word was an agonized effort. "They are ... behind

 me...."

 

 Miriamele gaped in astonishment. "It's Cadrach!"

 ;Binabik stared first at her, then at the monk, who had

 collapsed again. He put down his walking-stick and ran

 forward.

 

 "Cadrach?" Miriamele slowly shook her head. "Here?"

 

 The dwarrows rushed past her, hurrying to shut the

 door.

 

 24

 

 Tfte Graytands

 

 

 

 Tfte coforfess fbq went on forever, without floor or

 ceiling or any visible limit at all. Simon floated in the

 middle of nothingness. There was no movement, no

 sound.

 

 "Help me!" he shouted, or tried to, but his voice never

 seemed to leave his own head. Leieth was gone, her last

 touch upon his thoughts now grown cool and distant.

 "Help! Someone!"

 

 If any shared the empty gray spaces with him, they did

 not answer.

 

 And what if there is someone or something here? Si-

 mon thought suddenly, remembering all he had been told

 about the Road of Dreams. It might be something I don't

 want to meet. This might not be the Dream Road, but

 Leieth had said it was close. Binabik's master Ookequk

 had met some dreadful thing while he walked the road

 and it had killed him.

 

 But would that be worse than just floating here forever,

 like a ghost? Soon there will be nothing left of me worth

 saving.

 

 Hours went by with nothing changing. Or it might have

 been days. Or weeks. There was no time here. The noth-

 ingness was perfect.

 

 After a long empty space, his weak and scattered

 thoughts again coalesced.

 

 Leieth was supposed to push me back, back to my body,

 to my life. Maybe f can do it myself.

 

 He tried to remember what it felt like to be inside his

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 533

 

 living body, but for a long while could form only dis-

 jointed and disturbing images of the most recent days

 burrowing diggers grinning into the torchlight, the Noms

 gathered whispering on the hilltop above Hasu Vale.

 Gradually he summoned a vision of the great wheel, and

 a naked body prisoned upon it.

 

 Me! he exulted. Me, Simon! I'm still alive!

 

 The figure hanging on the wheel's rim was shadowy

 and without much form, like a crudely carved image of

 Usires on His Tree, but Simon could feel the intangible

 connection between it and him. He tried to give the shape

 a face, but could not remember his own features.

 

 I've lost myself. The realization crawled over him like

 a blanket of killing frost. / don't remember what I look

 likeI don't have a face!

 

 The figure on the wheel, even the wheel itself, wavered

 and became indistinct.

 

 No! He clung to the wheel, willing its circular shadow

 to stay before his mind's eye. No! I'm real. I'm alive. My

 name is Simon!

 

 He struggled to remember how he had looked in Jiriki's

 mirrorbut first had to draw up the memory of the mir-

 ror itself, its cool feel beneath' his fingers, the delicate

 smoothness of its carvings. It had warmed at his touch

 until it felt like a living thing.

 

 Suddenly he could recall his own face prisoned in the

 Sithi glass. His red hair was thick and unkempt, slashed

 by a white streak; down his cheek from eye to jaw ran the

 mark of the dragon's blood. The eyes did not reveal all

 that went on behind them. It was not a boy who looked

 back from Jiriki's mirror, but a rawboned young man. It

 was his own face, Simon realized, his own face returned

 to him.

 

 He narrowed his will, straining to force his own fea-

 tures onto the shadowy form hanging on the wheel. As

 the mask of his face grew upon the dim figure, everything

 else became clearer, too. The forge chamber grew out of

 the indistinct gray nothing, faint and ghostly, but unques-

 tionably a real place from which Simon was separated

 

 534

 

 Tad Williams

 

 only by some short, indefinable distance. Hope flooded

 back into his heart.

 

 But no matter how he tried, he could not push any far-

 ther. He wanted desperately to returneven to the

 wheelyet it remained tantalizingly out of reach: the

 more he struggled, the greater the distance seemed be-

 tween the Simon that floated in the dreamworld and his

 empty, slumbering body,

 

 / can't reach it! Defeat pulled at him. / can't.

 With that realization, his vision of the wheel dimmed,

 then vanished. The phantom forge evaporated as well,

 leaving him adrift once more in the colorless void-

 He summoned up the strength to try again, but this time

 could bring into existence only the faintest glimmering of

 the world he had left behind. It faded swiftly. Furious, de-

 spairing, he tried again and again, but was unable to

 break through. At last, his will flagged. He was defeated.

 He belonged to the void.

 I'm lost....

 

 For a while Simon knew nothing but hollowness and

 hopeless pain.

 

 He did not know if he had slept or passed over into

 some other realm, but when he could feel himself think

 again, something else had finally come to share the emp-

 tiness. A single mote of light glowed faintly before him,

 like a candle flame seen through a thick fog.

 

 "Leieth!? Leieth, is that you?"

 

 The spark did not move. Simon willed himself toward

 the gleam of light.

 

 At first he could not say if it grew nearer, or whether,

 like a star on the horizon, it remained remote and beyond

 reach no matter how he traveled. But even though Simon

 could not be sure that the spark was any closer, things be-

 gan to change around him. Where once there had been

 only airy nothingness, he now began to see faint lines and

 shapes which gradually became sharper and more distinct

 until at last he could make out the forms of trees and

 stonesbut all were transparent as water. He was passing

 along a hillside, but the very earth below him and the

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 535

 

 vegetation that shrouded it seemed only scarcely more

 real than the void that stretched overhead in place of the

 sky. He seemed to be moving through a landscape of clear

 glass, but when he lost his way for a moment and stepped

 into a rock in his path, he passed through it.

 

 Am I the ghost? Or is it this place?

 

 The light was nearer. Simon could see its warm glow

 reflected faintly in the fog of tree-shapes that ringed it

 round. He moved closer.

 

 The radiance hovered on the edge of a ghostly valley,

 perched at the end of a jut of translucent stone. It was cra-

 dled in the arms of a dim, smoky figure. As he drew

 closer, the phantom turned. Ghost or angel or demon, it

 had the face of a woman. The eyes widened, although

 they did not quite seem to see him.

 

 "Who is there?" The shadowy woman's face did not

 move, but there was no question in his mind that it was

 she who spoke. Her voice was reassuringly human.

 

 "I am, I'm lost." Simon thought of how he would feel,

 approached in this deathly emptiness by a stranger. "I

 mean no harm."

 

 A ripple passed through the woman's form, and for a

 moment the gleam of light she cradled against her breast

 glowed more brightly. Simon felt it as a spreading

 warmth inside him and was strangely comforted. "I know

 you," she said slowly. "You came to me once before."

 

 He could make no sense of that. "I am Simon. Who are

 you? What is this place?"

 

 "My name is Maegwin." She sounded uneasy. "And

 this is the land of the gods. But surely you know both

 those things. You were the gods' messenger."

 

 Simon had no idea what she meant, but he was desper-

 ately hungry for the company of another creature, even

 this ghost-woman. "I am lost," he repeated. "May I stay

 here and talk to you?" It seemed somehow important that

 he have her permission.

 

 "Of course," she said, but the uncertainty had not left

 her voice. "Please, be welcome."

 

 For a moment he could see her more clearly; her sor-

 

 536

 

 Tad Williams

 

 rowful face was framed by thick hair and the hood of a

 long cloak. "You are very beautiful," he said.

 

 Maegwin laughed, something Simon felt more than

 heard. "In case I had forgotten, you have reminded me

 that I am far from the life I knew." There was a pause.

 The glowing light pulsed. "You say you are lost?"

 

 "I am. It's hard to explain, but I am not hereat least,

 the rest of me is not." He considered telling her more, but

 was hesitant to open himself completely even to this mel-

 ancholy, harmless-seeming spirit. "Why are you here?"

 

 "I wait." Maegwin's voice was regretful. "I do not

 know who or what I am waiting for. But I know that is

 what I do."

 

 For a time the two of them did not speak. The valley

 shimmered below, pellucid as mist.

 

 "It all seems so far away," Simon said at last. "All the

 things that seemed so important."

 

 "If you listen," Maegwin replied, "you can hear the

 music."

 

 Simon listened, but heard absolutely nothing. That in

 itself was astonishing, and for a moment he was over-

 whelmed. There was nothing at allno wind, no bird-

 song, no soft babble of voices, not even the muffled

 bumping of his own heart. He had never imagined a quiet

 so absolute, a peace so deep. After all the madness and

 uproar of his life, he seemed to have come to the still cen-

 ter of things.

 

 "I fear this place a little," he said. "I'm afraid that if I

 stay here too long, I won't even want to go back to my

 life."

 

 He could feel Maegwin's surprise. "Your life? Are you

 not already long dead? When you came to me before, I

 thought you must be an ancient hero." She made an un-

 happy sound. "What have I done? Could it be that you

 did not know you were dead?"

 

 "Dead?" Shock and fury and more than a little terror

 surged through him. "I'm not dead! I'm still alive, I just

 can't get back. I'm alive!"

 

 "Then what are you doing here with me?" There was

 something very strange in her voice.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 537

 

 "I don't know. But I'm alive!" And although he said it

 in part to combat his own sudden apprehension, he felt it,

 tooties that had grown weak but were nevertheless

 quite real still bound him to the waking world and his lost

 body.

 

 "But surely only the dead come here? Only the dead,

 like me?"

 

 "No. The dead go on." Simon thought of Leieth flying

 free and knew he spoke truly. "This is a waiting placea

 between-place. The dead go on."

 

 "But how can that be, when I ..." Maegwin suddenly

 fell silent.

 

 Simon's frightened anger did not dissipate, but he felt

 the flame of his life still inside him, a flame that had dim-

 med but had not yet blown out, and he was comforted. He

 knew he was alive. That was all he had to cling to, but it

 was everything.

 

 He felt something strange beside him. Maegwin was

 crying, not in sounds, but in great shuddering movements

 that caused her entire being to waver and almost dissi-

 pate, like breeze-stirred smoke.

 

 "What's wrong?" As odd and unsettling as all this was,

 he did not want to lose her, but she had become alarm-

 ingly insubstantial. Even the light she bore seemed to

 have grown fainter. "Maegwin? Why are you crying?"

 

 "I have been such a fool," she keened. "Such a fool!"

 

 "What do you mean?" He tried to reach out to her, to

 take her hand, but the two of them could not touch. Si-

 mon looked down and saw nothing where his body should

 be. It was odd, but in this dreamlike place it did not seem

 as terrifying as it might have elsewhere. He wondered

 how he looked to Maegwin. "Why have you been a

 fool?"

 

 "Because I thought I knew all. Because I thought even

 the gods waited to see what I would do."

 

 "I don't understand."

 

 For a long time she did not reply. He felt her sorrow

 flow through him in great gusts, angry and mournful in

 turn. "I will explainbut first tell me who you are, how

 you came to be in this place. Oh, the gods, the gods!" Her

 

 538

 

 Tad Williams

 

 sorrow threatened to sweep her away again. "I have made

 too many assumptions. Far, far too many."

 

 Simon did as she asked, starting slowly and hesitantly

 at first, then gaining confidence as bit by bit his past re-

 turned to him. He was surprised to find that he could re-

 member names which only a little while before had been

 misty holes in his memory.

 

 Maegwin did not interrupt, but as his recitation went on

 she became slightly more substantial. He could see her

 clearly again, her bright, wounded eyes, her lips pressed

 together tightly as though to keep them from trembling.

 He wondered who had loved her, for certainly she was a

 woman someone could love. Who mourned for her?

 

 When he spoke of Sesuad'ra, and of Count Eolair's

 mission from Hemysadharc, she broke her silence for the

 first time, asking him to tell more of the count and what

 he had said.

 

 As Simon described Aditu, and what the Sitha-woman

 had said about the Dawn Children riding to Hemystir,

 Maegwin again began to weep.

 

 "Mircha clothed in rain! It is as I feared. I have almost

 destroyed my people with my madness. I did not die!"

 

 "I don't understand." Simon leaned a little closer, bask-

 ing in the warmth of her glow. It made the strange ghostly

 landscape a little less empty. "You didn't die?"

 

 The shadow-woman began to speak of her own life. Si-

 mon realized with 'dawning amazement that he did indeed

 know of her, although they had never met: she was

 Lluth's daughter, sister of Gwythinn the Hernystirman Si-

 mon had seen at Josua's councils in Naglimund.

 

 The story she told, and then the further tale of dreams

 and misunderstandings and accidents that she and Simon

 pieced together from fragments and guesses, was terrible

 indeed. Simon, who had spent much of his time on the

 wheel in a fury of self-pity, found himself sickened by

 Magwin's lossesher father, her brother, her very home

 and country taken from her in a way that even he, for all

 his sorrows, had not experienced. And the cruel tricks

 that fate, with Simon's unwitting help, had played on her!

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 539

 

 No wonder she had lost her wits and imagined herself

 dead. He ached for her.

 

 When Maegwin had finished, the phantom valley again

 fell into total silence.

 

 "But why are you here?" Simon finally asked.

 

 "I do not know. I was not led here, like you. But after

 I touched the mind of the thing in what I thought was

 Scadachin Naglimund, if that is where it wasI was

 nowhere at all for a time. Then I awoke to this place, this

 land, and knew I was waiting." She paused- "Perhaps it

 was you I was meant to wait for."

 

 "But why?"

 

 "I do not know. But it seems we fight the same

 fightor rather we did fight it, since I see no way that ei-

 ther of us will leave this place."

 

 Simon waited and thought. "That thing ... that thing at

 Naglimund. What was it like? What did ... what did you

 feel when you touched its thoughts?"

 

 Maegwin struggled to find a way to explain. "It ... it

 burned. Being so near to it was like putting my face in the

 door of a kilnI feared it would scorch away my very

 being. I did not sense words, as I do from you, but ...

 ideas. Hatred, as I told youa hatred of the living. And

 a longing for death, for release, which was almost as

 strong as the longing for revenge." She made a sad noise.

 For a moment her light dimmed. "That was when I was

 first troubled about my own thoughts, for / felt that long-

 ing for death, tooand if I was already dead, how could

 I desire to be released from life?" She laughed, a bitter-

 sweet sensation that pricked at Simon's being. "Mircha

 shelter me! Listen to us! Even after all that has passed,

 this is a madness beyond all understanding, dear stranger.

 That you and I should be in this place, this moiheneg"

 she used a Hemystiri word or thought that Simon did not

 understand, "talking of our lives, although we do not

 even know whether we still live."

 

 "We have stepped out of the world," Simon told her,

 and suddenly everything seemed different. He felt a sort

 of calm descend upon him. "Perhaps we've been given a

 gift. For a time, we've been allowed to step outside the

 

 540 Tad Williams

 

 world. A time to rest." Indeed, he felt more like himself

 than he had since he had fallen through the earth of

 John's barrow. Meeting Maegwin had done much to make

 him feel like a living thing again.

 

 "A time to rest? Perhaps for you, Simonand if that is

 so, I am happy for you. But I can only look on the fool-

 ishness I made of my life and mourn."

 

 "Was there anything else you learned from ... from'the

 burning thing?" He was anxious to distract her. Her sor-

 row over her mistakes seemed only barely contained, and

 he feared that if it overwhelmed her he would find him-

 self alone again.

 

 Maegwin shimmered slightly. An unfelt wind seemed

 to toss her cloudy hair. "There were thoughts for which I

 have no words. Pictures I cannot quite explain. Very

 strong, very bright, as though they were close to the cen-

 ter of the flames that give that spirit life."

 

 "What were they?" If the burning presence Maegwin

 described was what he thought it was, any clue to its

 plansand by extension to the designs of its undead

 mastermight help avert an endless age of blackness.

 

 /// can even get back, he reminded himself. Iff can es-

 cape this place. He pushed the disturbing thought away.

 Binabik had taught him to do only what he could at any

 given time. 'You cannot catch three fish with two hands,'

 the little man often said.

 

 Maegwin hesitated, then the glow began to spread- "I

 will try to show you."

 

 In the valley of glass and shadows before them, some-

 thing moved. It was another light, but where the one that

 Maegwin held against her breast was soft and warm. this

 one blazed with a fierce intensity; as Simon watched, four

 more points of radiance sprang up around it. A moment

 later the central light grew into a licking flame, stretching

 upwardbut even as the flame grew, it changed color,

 becoming paler and paler until it was white as frost; the

 licking tendrils of fire stiffened into immobility even as

 they reached up and outward. Simon gaped at what they

 had become. At the center of the four-comered ring of

 flames now loomed a tall white tree, beautiful and un-

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 541

 

 earthly. It was the thing that had haunted him so long.

 The white tree. The blazing tower.

 

 "It's Green Angel Tower," he murmured.

 

 "This is where all the thoughts of the spirit in

 Naglimund are bent." Maegwin's voice was suddenly

 weary, as though showing Simon the tree had taken

 nearly all her strength. "That idea burns inside it, just as

 those flames bum around the tree." The vision wavered

 and fell away, leaving only the shadowy, insubstantial

 landscape.

 

 Green Angel Tower, Simon thought. Something is going

 to happen there.

 

 "One other thing." Maegwin had grown markedly

 fainter. "Somehow it thought of Naglimund as ... the

 Fourth House. Does that mean something?"

 

 Simon had a dim recollection of hearing something

 similar from the Fire Dancers on the hilltop over Hasu

 Vale, but at this moment it meant little to him. He was

 consumed by the thought of Green Angel Tower. The

 tower, and its mirror-phantom the White Tree, had

 haunted his dreams for almost a year. It was the last Sithi

 building in the Hayholt, the place where Ineluki had spo-

 ken the dreadful words that had slain a thousand mortal

 soldiers and had barred him forever from the living world

 of Osten Ard. If the Storm King desired some ultimate re-

 venge, perhaps by giving some dread power to his mortal

 ally Elias, what more likely place for it to happen than the

 lower?

 

 Simon felt a frustrated rage sweep over him. To know

 this, to see at last the outlines of the Enemy's ultimate

 plan, but to be helpless to do anythingit was madden-

 ing! More than ever he needed to be able to act, yet in-

 stead he was condemned to wander as an unhomed spirit

 while his body hung useless and unihabited.

 

 "Maegwin, I have to find a way out of this . -. this

 place. I must go back, somehow. Everything we have both

 fought for is there. Green Angel Tower in the Hayholt

 that is the White Tree. I must go back!"

 

 The shadowy figure beside him took a long time to re-

 

 542

 

 Tad Williams

 

 spond. "You wish to go back to that pain? To all your suf-

 fering?"

 

 Simon thought of all that had happened and still might

 happen, of his tormented body on the wheel and the ag-

 ony he had fled in coming here, but it did not change his

 resolve. "Aedon save me, I have to. Don't you want to go

 back, too?"

 

 "No." Maegwin's dim form shuddered. "No. I have no

 strength left, Simon. If something was not keeping me

 here, I would already have let go of everything that held

 me." She took what seemed to be a deep breath; when she

 spoke again, her voice trembled on the edge of weeping.

 "There are some I have loved, and I know now that many

 of them are still among the living. One in particular." She

 steadied herself. "I loved himloved him until I was sick

 with it. And perhaps he even cared for me a little and I

 was too stupidly prideful to see it ... but that is not im-

 portant now." Her voice grew ragged. "No, that is not i

 true. There is nothing in the living world more important '

 to me than that lovebut it is not to be. I would not go

 back and start again, even if I could."

 

 Her pain was so great that Simon was left without

 words. There were some things that could not be made .

 better, he realized. Some sorrows were irreparable.'

 

 "But I believe that you must go back," she said. "It is

 different for you, Simon. And I am glad to know that, to t

 find that there are still those who wish to live in the

 world. I would not wish the way I feel on anyone. Return,

 Simon. Save those you love if you canand those I love, .

 too."

 

 "But I can't." And now his thwarted anger at last gave

 way to desolation. There was no way to return. He and

 Maegwin would be here discussing the minutiae of their

 lives for eternity. "I don't know why I even said it, be-

 cause I can't. I've tried. I don't have the strength to find

 my body again."

 

 'Try. Try once more."

 

 "Don't you think I did? Don't you believe I tried as

 hard as I could? It's out of my reach!"

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER543

 

 "If you are right, we have forever. It will do no harm

 to try once more."

 

 Simon, who knew that he had already exerted his pow-

 ers to the utmost and failed, choked down bitter words.

 She was right. If he were to be any help to his friends, if

 he were to have even a remote chance to gain revenge for

 all he and Maegwin and thousands of others had suffered,

 he must try againhowever unlikely success might be.

 

 He tried to empty his mind of all his fears and distrac-

 tions. When he had achieved a small measure of calm, he

 called up the image of the waterwheel, willing it into ex-

 istence so that it turned in a great smoky circle over the

 ghostly valley. Then he summoned the image of his own

 face, his particular and only face, paying special attention

 this time to what was behind the features as well, the

 dreams and thoughts and memories that made him Simon.

 He tried to make the shadowy figure bound to the wheel

 come alive with Simon-ness, but already felt himself at

 the limits of his strength.

 

 "Can you help me, Maegwin?" As the wheel grew

 more substantial she had grown dimmer; she was now lit-

 tle more than a glow of hazy light. "I can't do it."

 

 "Try."

 

 He struggled to keep the wheel before him, tried to

 summon the pain and terror and unending loneliness that

 went with it. For a moment he almost felt the rough wood

 scraping his back, heard the splashing of the wheels and

 the grating clash of the great chains, but then it began to

 slip away once more. Fading, the wheel trembled like a

 reflection in a rippling pond. It had been so close, but

 now it was receding from his reach....

 

 "Here, Simon."

 

 And suddenly Maegwin's presence was all around

 himeven, somehow, inside of him. The glow that she

 had cradled as long as they spoke she now passed to him;

 

 it felt warm as the sun. "I think this is why I was brought

 here to wait. It is time for me to go onbut it is time for

 you to return."

 

 Her strength filled him. The wheel, the forge chamber,

 

 544

 

 Tad Williams

 

 the gnawing pain of his living body, all the things that at

 this moment meant life to hmi were suddenly very close.

 

 But Maegwin herself was far away. Her next words

 seemed to come from a great distance, faint and

 dwindling rapidly.

 

 "/ am going on, Simon. Take what I give you and use

 it: I do not need my life any more. Do what yyu must. I

 pray it will be enough. If you meet Eclair ... no, 7 will

 tell him myself. Someday. In another place ..."

 

 Her brave words did not mask her fear. Simon felt ev-

 ery bit of her terror as she let go and allowed herself to

 slip away into the dark unknown.

 

 "Maegwin! Don't!"

 

 But she was gone. The glow she had held was part of

 Simon, now. She had given him the only thing she had

 leftthe bravest, most terrible gift of all-

 Simon fought as he had never fought before, deter-

 mined not to waste Maegwin's sacrifice. Although the liv-

 ing world was so close he could feel it, still some

 inexplicable barrier separated him from the body he had

 left behindbut he could not let himself fail. Using the

 strength Maegwin had given him, he forced himself

 closer, embracing the agony, the fear, even the helpless-

 ness that would be his if he returned. There was nothing

 he could do unless he accepted what was real. He pushed

 and felt the barrier ripping. He pushed again.

 

 Murky gray turned to black, then red. As he passed

 back from the nether realms into the waking world, Si-

 mon screamed. He hurt. Everything hurt. He was reborn

 into a world of pain.

 

 The scream continued, rasping from his dried throat

 and cracked lips. His hand was on fire, full of scorching

 agony.

 

 "Quiet!" The frightened voice was very close. "I am

 trying ..."

 

 He was back on the wheel. His head was pounding, and

 splintered wood rubbed against his skin. But what was

 wrong with his hand? It felt as though someone were try-

 ing to tear it from his wrist with hot pincers. -..

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 545

 

 It moved! He could move his arm!

 

 Again there came a tremulous whisper. "The voices say

 I must hurry. They will be coming soon."

 

 Simon's left arm was free. As he tried to flex it, a flam-

 ing bolt of pain leaped into his shoulderbut the arm

 moved. He opened his eyes and goggled dizzily.

 

 A figure hung upside down before him; beyond, the

 forge cavern itself was inverted as well. The dark shape

 was sawing at his right arm with something that caught

 the gleam of one of the torches at the far side of the cav-

 ern. Who was it? What was it doing? Simon could not

 make his crippled thoughts follow each other.

 

 A throbbing, burning pain now crept into his right

 hand. What was happening?

 

 "You brought me food. I ... I could not leave you. But

 the voices say I must hurry!"

 

 It was hard to think with both of his arms on fire, but

 slowly Simon began to understand. He was hanging head-

 downward on the wheel. Someone was cutting him free.

 Someone ...

 

 "... Guthwulf... ?"

 

 "Soon the others will notice. They will come. Do not

 moveI cannot see and I fear I will cut you." The blind

 earl was working furiously.

 

 Simon ground his teeth as the blood rushed back into

 his arms, trying to choke back another scream. He had not

 believed such misery was possible.

 

 Free. It will be worth it. I'll be free.... He shut his

 eyes again, his jaws clamped together. His other arm was

 loose, and now both dangled beside his head. The change

 of position was excruciating.

 

 He dimly heard Guthwulf wade a few steps, then felt

 the rhythmic sawing begin on his ankle.

 

 Only a few moments, Simon promised himself, trying

 desperately to stay silent. He remembered what the cham-

 bermaids had told him when, as a child, he had wept over

 a small hurt. "It won't mean anything tomorrow. You'll be

 happy then."

 

 One ankle came free, and the misery of its release was

 equaled by the strain now put on the other. Simon turned

 

 546

 

 Tad Williams

 

 his head and sank his teeth into his own shoulder. Any-

 thing to keep from making noise that might bring Inch or

 his minions.

 

 "Almost ..." said Guthwulf hoarsely. There was an in-

 stant of slow movement, a sense of slippage, then Simon

 abruptly fell. Stunned, he found himself drowning in cold

 water. He thrashed helplessly, but could not feel his

 limbs- He did not know which direction was up.

 

 Something grasped his hair and yanked. A moment

 later, another hand curled chokingly around his neck be-

 neath his chin. Simon's mouth came up out of the water,

 and he gasped in a long breath. For a moment his face

 was pressed against Guthwulf's lean stomach while his

 rescuer struggled to get a better grip. Then Simon was

 dragged forward and dumped onto the rim of the sluice,

 His hands still did not work properly; he clung in place

 with his elbows, almost oblivious to the shrieking pain uf

 his joints. He did not want to go back into that water

 

 again.

 

 "We must..." he heard Guthwulf begin, then the blind

 man gasped and something smashed against Simon, who

 slid backward and only barely retained his hold on the

 edge of the sluice.

 

 "What happens here?'" Inch's voice was a dreadful

 rumbling growl. "You do not touch my kitchen boy'"

 

 Simon felt hope fade, replaced with sick terror. How i

 could this happen? It was wrong! That he should have !

 come back from death, from nothingness, only to have ,

 Inch show up a few moments too soonhow could Fate ;

 

 play such a monstrous trick?;

 

 Guthwulf gave a choking cry. then Simon could hear

 nothing but frenzied splashing. He slowly let himself

 back down until his feet touched the slippery bottom of

 the sluice. Putting weight on his wounded legs sent a

 blinding cloud of black fire through his head and back,

 but he stood. After his torments he knew he should not

 even be able to move, but he still retained some of the

 strength given to him by Maegwin's sacrifice; he felt it

 smoldering in him like a low-banked fire. He forced him-

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 547

 

 self to remain upright in the slow-moving water until he

 could see again.

 

 Inch had waded into the sluice, and now stood waist-

 deep in the center like some beast of the swamps. In the

 dim torchlight, Simon saw Guthwulf burst up from be-

 neath the water, struggling wildly to escape the overseer's

 clutches. Inch grabbed the blind man's head and pushed

 him back under.

 

 "No!" Simon's crippled voice was barely louder than a

 whisper. If it carried across the short distance. Inch gave

 him no heed. Still, the silence nagged at Simon in some

 obscure way. Was he deaf? No, he had heard both

 Guthwulf and Inch. So why did the chamber seem so

 quiet?

 

 Guthwulf's arms jerked above the surface, but the rest

 of him remained submerged in the dark waters.

 

 Simon stumbled toward them, thrashing against the

 slow current. The great wheel hung unmoving above the

 waterway. As he saw it, Simon realized why the cavern

 was strangely quiet: Guthwulf had somehow managed to

 lift the wheel so he could cut Simon free.

 

 As he neared Inch, the cavern began to grow lighter, as

 though dawn had somehow found its way down through

 the rock. Shadowy figures were approaching, a few of

 them bearing torches. Simon thought they must be sol-

 diers or Inch's henchmen, but when they came a little

 closer he saw their wide, frightened eyes. The forge

 workers had been roused, and now came hesitantly for-

 ward to see what was causing the uproar.

 

 "Help!" Simon rasped. "Help us! He cannot stop you

 all!"

 

 The tattered men stopped, as though Simon's words

 alone might make them traitors, liable to Inch's punish-

 ment. They stared, too cowed even to whisper among

 themselves.

 

 Inch was paying neither Simon nor his slave labor any

 attention. He had allowed Guthwulf to surface briefly,

 gasping and spitting, and now was shoving him back into

 the water again. Simon lifted his hands, still numb with

 their long binding, and struck at Inch as hard as he could.

 

 548

 

 Tad Williams

 

 He might as well have kicked a mountain. Inch turned to

 look at him. The overseer's scarred face was curiously

 expressionless, as though the act of violence in which he

 was engaged took all his attention.

 

 "Kitchen boy," Inch boomed. "You do not run away. You

 are next." He reached out a huge hand and jerked Simon

 forward. He released his grip on drowning Guthwulf long

 enough to pick Simon up with both hands and throw'him

 out of the sluiceway onto the hard stone. All Simon's breath

 blew out, and another rush of pain coursed through him,

 fiercer even than the simmering agony of his limbs. For a

 moment he could not make his battered body respond.

 

 Simon sensed somebody stooping over him. Certain it

 was Inch come to finish the job, he curled into a ball.

 

 "Here, lad," someone whispered, and tried to help him

 into a sitting position. Stanhelm, the forge worker who

 had befriended him, was crouching at his side. The older

 man seemed barely able to move: one arm curled use-

 lessly in front of his chest, and his neck was bent at an

 odd angle.

 

 "Help us." Simon struggled to rise. His chest felt

 dagger-stabbed with each breath.

 

 "Nothing left of me." Even Stanhelm's speech was

 slurred. "But look to yon wheel, lad."

 

 While Simon fought to make sense of this, one of

 Inch's helpers strode over.

 

 "Don't touch him," he snarled. "He's Doctor's."

 

 "Shut your mouth," said Stanhelm. The henchman

 lifted his hand as if to strike, but suddenly several other

 forge men moved in on either side of him. Some of them

 held bits of iron scrap, heavy and sharp-edged.

 

 "You heard," one of them growled quietly at Inch's

 man. "Shut your mouth."

 

 The man looked around, judging his chances. "You'll

 pay pretty when Doctor hears. He'll be done with that'un

 in a moment."

 

 "Then go watch," spat another of the forge workers.

 The men seemed frightened, but somehow they had

 drawn a line: if they were not yet willing to fight back

 against the hulking overseer, neither would they stand by

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 549

 

 and see Inch's crony harm Simon or Stanhelm. The

 henchman cursed and backed off, then hurried to the

 safety of his master's vicinity.

 

 "Now, lad," Stanhelm whispered. "Look to yon wheel."

 

 Dizzied by all that was happening, Simon stared at the

 forge man as he tried to make sense out of his words.

 Then he turned slowly and saw.

 

 The great wooden paddlewheel had been lifted up so

 that it hung almost twice a man's height above the water-

 course. Inch, who had pursued floundering Guthwulf a

 short way down the sluice, now stood beneath the wheel.

 

 Stanhetm extended a bent and shaking arm. "There.

 Them are the works."

 

 Simon struggled to his feet and took a few shaky steps

 toward the vast framework. The lever which he had seen

 Inch use was cocked, secured by a rope. Simon slowly

 tugged the rope free, straining his burning muscles and

 cramped hands, then grasped the lever itself in slippery,

 numbed fingers. Inch had pushed Guthwulf under again; he

 watched his victim's suffering with calm interest. The blind

 man was floundering away from his tormentor, toward Si-

 mon, and now appeared to be beyond the wheel's rim.

 

 Simon said the few words of the Elysia prayer that he

 could remember, then heaved' on the wooden lever. It

 moved only slightly, but the frame that held the wheel

 groaned. Inch looked up and around, then gradually

 turned his monocular gaze toward Simon.

 

 "Kitchen boy! You ..."

 

 Simon heaved again, this time lifting his feet from the

 ground so that all his weight hung on the lever. He

 screamed with the pain of holding on. The frame groaned

 again, then, with a grating squeal, the lever banged down

 and the wheel shuddered and dropped into the sluice with

 a thunderous splash. Inch tried to dive forward out of the

 way, but disappeared beneath the huge paddles.

 

 For a moment nothing moved in the whole cavern but

 the wheel, which began, slowly, to revolve. Then, as if

 the frothing channel gave birth to a monster, Inch burst

 to the surface howling in anger, water running from his

 wide-stretched mouth.

 

 550

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "Doctor!" he spluttered, waving his fist. "Can't kill

 me! Not Doctor Inch!" Simon slumped to the ground. He

 had done all he could.

 

 Inch took a sloshing step forward, then began to fly. Si-

 mon stared, overwhelmed. The world had run entirely mad,

 

 Inch's body lifted out of the water. Only when all of

 him was in view could Simon see that the foundry-

 master's broad belt had somehow caught on the fittings of

 one of the vast paddle blades.

 

 The waterwheel bore Inch upward. The giant was in a

 frenzy now, bellowing as he was manhandled by some-

 thing even larger than he was. He twisted at the end of the

 blade, struggling to free himself, reaching back to smash

 at the wooden paddle wius fist. As the wheel swung

 him up toward the top of its rotation, he reached out for

 the great chains which twined around its axle and climbed

 up out of sight into the shadows of the cavem ceiling.

 Inch's huge hands grasped the slippery links. He clung

 tightly. As they pulled upward past the wheel, he was

 stretched to his utmost for an instant. Then the buckle of

 his belt snapped loose and he fell free of the paddle. He

 clung to the massive chain with both his arms and legs.

 

 Inch was still not coherent, but his echoing roar

 changed to a note of triumph as the chains carried him

 slowly upward. He swung away from the wheel so he

 could drop into the water below, but when he let go, he

 fell only a little way and then tipped over. He slammed

 against the chain and dangled, head downward. His foot

 had slid through the center of one of the wide, oily links

 and was wedged there.

 

 The overseer thrashed, trying to pull himself up to free

 his foot. Howling and sputtering, he tore his own leg

 bloody, but he could not drag his weight high enough.

 The chain carried him up toward the unseen heights.

 

 His cries grew fainter as he vanished into the shadows

 overhead, then a horrendous agonized cry echoed down, a

 rasping gargle with nothing human in it. The wheel

 lurched in its rotation for a moment and stopped, bounc-

 ing a little from side to side as the current pushed at the

 immobilized paddle blades. Then the wheel began to turn

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 551

 

 again, forcing the obstruction through the monumental

 grinding gears that turned Pryrates' tower-top. A drizzle

 of dark fluids rained down. Bits of something more solid

 :spattered across the waterway.

 

 Moments later, what remained of Inch slowly de-

 ^scended into the light, wrapped around the huge chain

 like meat on a cooking skewer.

 

 Simon stared idiotically for a moment, then bent, retch-

 ing, but there was nothing in his stomach to bring up.

 

 Someone was patting his head. "Run, lad, if you got

 place to go. Red priest*!! come quick. His tower stopped

 turning for a good long time when wheel was up."

 

 Simon squinted against the black flecks that danced be-

 fore his eyes, fighting to make sense of things.

 "Stanhelm," he gasped. "Come with us."

 

 "Can't. Nothing left of me." Stanhelm gestured with

 his chin at his twisted, badly-healed legs. "Me and

 Others'11 keep the rest shut up. Say Inch had a bit of ac-

 cident. King's soldiers won't do us badlythey need us.

 You run. Didn't belong here."

 

 "Nobody belongs here," Simon gasped. "I'll come

 back for you."

 

 "Won't be here." Stanhelm turned away. "Go on now."

 

 Simon clambered to his feet and stumbled toward the

 watercourse, pain arrowing through him with every step.

 A pair of forge workers had lifted Guthwulf out of the

 water; the blind man lay on the cavern floor, struggling

 for air. The men who had saved him stared, but did noth-

 ing further to help. They seemed curiously numbed and

 slow,, like fish in a winter pond.

 

 Simon bent and tugged at Guthwulf. The last of the

 strength Maegwin's sacrifice had lent him was eddying

 away.

 

 "Guthwulf! Can you get up?"

 

 The earl flailed his hands. "Where is it? God help me,

 where is it?"

 

 "Where is what? Inch is dead. Get up! Hurry! Where

 do we go?"

 

 The blind man choked and spat water. "Can't go! Not

 without ..." He rolled over and forced himself up onto

 

 552

 

 Tad Williams

 

 hands and knees, then began scrabbling along the ground

 beside the watercourse, pawing as though to dig himself

 

 a hole.

 

 "What are you doing?"

 

 "Can't leave it. I'll die. Can't leave it." Suddenly,

 Guthwulf gave an animal cry of joy. "Here!"

 

 "Aedon's mercy, Guthwulf, Pryrates will be here any

 

 moment!"

 

 Guthwulf took a few staggering steps. He lifted some-

 thing that reflected a yellow strip of torchlight. "I should

 never have brought it," he babbled. "But I needed some-

 thing to cut the rope." He gasped in more air. "They all

 

 want to take it."

 

 Simon stared at the long blade. Even in the shadowy

 forge chamber, he knew it. Against all sense, against all

 likelihood ... here was the sword they had sought.

 

 "Bright-Nail," he murmured.

 The blind man suddenly lifted his free hand. "Where

 

 are you?"

 

 Simon took a few painful steps closer. "I'm here. We

 have to go. How did you get here? How did you come to

 

 (his place?"

 

 "Help me." Guthwulf put out his arm.

 

 Simon took it. "Where can we go?"

 

 "Toward the water. Where the water goes down." He

 began to limp along the edge of the channel. The forge

 workers drifted back to let them pass, watching with

 

 nervous interest.

 

 "You're free!" Simon croaked at them. "Free!" They

 stared at him as though he spoke a foreign tongue.

 

 But how are they free, unless they/allow us? The

 forges are still locked, the doors still barred. We should

 help them. We should lead them out.

 

 Simon had no strength left. Beside him, Guthwulf was

 mumbling, shuffling his feet like a lame old man. How

 could they save anyone? The forge workers would have

 

 to make their own way.

 

 The water ran foaming down through a fissure in the

 cavern wall. As Guthwulf felt his way along the stone, Si-

 mon was momentarily certain that the blind earl had lost

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER553

 

 what few wits he had leftthat they had escaped drown-

 ing once, but would now be washed down into blackness,

 But there was a narrow track along the edge of the water-

 course, one that Simon could never have found in the

 shadows. Guthwulf, to whom light was useless, made his

 way downward, tracking the wall with his fingers as Si-

 mon struggled to help him and still remain balanced.

 They passed out of the last gleams of torchlight and into

 blackness. The water churned noisily beside them.

 

 The darkness was so complete that Simon had to strug-

 gle to remember who he was and what he was doing.

 Fragments of the things Leieth had showed him floated

 up from his memory, colors and pictures as swirlingly

 confused as an oil film on a puddle. A dragon, a king

 with a book, a frightened man looking for faces in the

 shadowswhat did all these things mean? Simon did not

 want to think any more. He wanted to sleep. To sleep ...

 

 The roar of the water was very loud. Simon emerged

 suddenly from a haze of pain and confusion to find him-

 self leaning sideways at a precarious angle. He grabbed at

 the cracked wall of the fissure, pulling himself upright.

 "Guthwulf!"

 

 "They speak so many tongues," the blind man mur-

 mured. "Sometimes I think I understand them, but then I

 am lost again." He sounded very weak. Simon could feel

 him trembling.

 

 "I can't... go much longer." Simon clung to the rough

 stone. "I have to stop,"

 

 "Almost." Guthwulf took another stumbling step along

 the slender track. Simon forced himself away from the

 wall, struggling to retain his clutch on the blind man.

 

 They trudged on. Simon felt several openings in the

 stone wall pass beneath his fingers, but Guthwulf did not

 turn. When the tunnel began to resonate with loud voices,

 Simon wondered if he were sliding into Guthwulf's mad-

 ness, but after a short while he saw a gleam of amber

 torchglow on the cavern wall and realized that someone

 was coming down the sluiceway behind them.

 

 "They're after us! I think it's Pryrates." He slipped and

 

 554

 

 Tad Williams

 

 released his hold on the blind man to steady himself.

 When he reached out again, Guthwulf was gone.

 

 A moment of complete panic ended when Simon found

 the opening to a spur tunnel. Guthwulf was just inside.

 "Almost," the earl panted. "Almost. The voicesAedon,

 they're screaming'but I have the sword. Why are they

 screaming?"

 

 He headed down the tunnel, lurching against the wans.

 Simon kept his hand against the earl's back as Guthwulf

 turned several more times. Soon Simon could no longer

 remember all the turnings. That was hopefulwhoever

 followed them should find it no easier.

 

 The trudge through blackness seemed to go on and on.

 Simon felt bits of himself drifting away, until he thought

 himself a spirit again, an unhomed ghost like the one that

 had roamed the gray spaces alone.

 

 Alone except for Leieth. And Maegwin.

 

 Thinking of those who had helped him there, he

 reached down for a last increment of resolve and strug-

 gled on.

 

 Walking in a daze, he did not notice that they had

 stopped until he felt Guthwulf abruptly drop forward; when

 Simon's hand found him again, the blind man was crawl-

 ing. When Guthwulf stopped, Simon reached down and felt

 crumpled cloth strewn across the stone. A nest. Letting his

 hand travel farther across the floor, Simon touched the

 carPs quivering leg, then the cold metal of the sword.

 

 "Mine," Guthwulf said reflexively. His voice was

 muddy with fatigue. "This, too. Safe."

 

 At that moment, Simon no longer cared about the

 sword, about Pryrates or any soldiers who might be fol-

 lowing, or even whether the Storm King and Elias might

 bring the whole world tumbling down around his ears.

 Every breath burned, and his arms and legs were a-twitch

 with agonizing cramps. His head hammered like the bells

 in Green Angel Tower.

 

 Simon found a place of his own amid the scattered

 rags, then surrendered to the dark pull.

 

 25

 

 Living in Eidfe

 

 ^

 

 Jiriki took- his hands off the dwarrow-stone.

 

 Eolair did not need to be told. "She is gone." The count

 stared at Maegwin's pale face, relaxed now as though in

 sleep. "Gone." He had been preparing himself for this

 moment, but still felt as though a huge emptiness had

 opened inside him, a void that would never be filled. He

 reached out and grasped her hands, which were still

 warm.

 

 "I am sorry," said Jiriki.

 

 "Are you?" Eolair did not look at him. "What can the

 short life of a mortal mean to your kind?"

 

 The Sitha did not speak for 'a moment. "The Zida'ya

 die, just as mortals do. And when those we held in our

 hearts have passed from us, we, too, are unhappy."

 

 "Then if you understand," Eolair said, struggling for

 control, "please leave me alone."

 

 "As you wish." Jiriki stood, a catlike unfolding from

 his seat on the pallet. He seemed about to say something

 more, but instead went silently out of the tent.

 

 Eolair stared at Maegwin for a long time. Her hair,

 damp with sweat, lay in tight curls across her forehead.

 Her mouth seemed to hint at a smile. It was almost im-

 possible to believe that life had left her.

 

 "Oh, the gods have been cruel masters," he groaned.

 "Maegwin, what did we do to be so ill-treated?" Tears

 started in his eyes. He buried his face in her hair, then

 kissed her cooling cheek. "It has all been a cruel, cruel

 trick. It has all been for nothing, if you are dead." His

 

 556

 

 Tad Williams

 

 body was shaken by sobs. For a while he could only rock

 back and forth, clutching her hand. The dwarrow-stone

 was still in her other palm, held against her breast as

 though to keep it from theft.

 

 "I never knew. I never knew. You foolish woman, why

 did you tell me nothing? Why did you pretend? Now all

 is gone. All is lost...."

 

 Jiriki, white hair streaming in the wind, was waiting for

 him when he emerged. Eolair thought he looked like a

 storm-spiritlike a harbinger of death.

 

 "What do you want?"

 

 "As I said, Count Eolair, I am very sorry. But there are

 things I think you should knowthings that I discovered

 in the last moments of the Lady Maegwin's life."

 

 Oh, Brynioch preserve me, he thought wearily. The

 world was too much for Eolair, and he did not think he

 could bear any more Sithi riddles.

 

 "I am tired. And we must leave tomorrow for

 Hemystir."

 

 "That is why I wish to tell you now," Jiriki said pa-

 tiently.

 

 Eolair stared at him for a moment, then shrugged.

 "Very well. Speak."

 

 "Are you cold?" Jiriki asked this with the careful solic-

 itousness of one who had learned that although he never

 suffered from the elements, others did. "We can walk to

 one of the fires."

 

 "I will survive."

 

 Jiriki nodded slowly. "That piece of stone was given to

 Maegwin by the Tinukeda'ya, was it not? By those you

 call domhaini?"

 

 "It was a gift from the dwarrows, yes."

 

 "It was much like the great stone you and I visited in

 Mezutu'a beneath the mountainthe Shard, the Master

 Witness. When I touched this small stone, I felt much of

 Maegwin's thought."

 

 Eolair was disturbed by the idea of the immortal being

 with Maegwin in her last moments, being with her in a

 

 TOGREEN ANGELTOWER

 

 557

 

 way he could not. "And can you not leave those thoughts

 in peacelet them go with her to her barrow?"

 

 The Sitha hesitated. "It is difficult for me. I do not

 wish to force things upon you. But there are things I think

 you should know." Jiriki laid his long fingers against

 Eolair's arm. "I am not your enemy, Eolair. We are all

 hostages to the whims of a mad power." He let his hand

 fall. "I cannot claim to know for certain all that she felt

 or thought. The ways of the Dream Roadthe path that

 Witnesses such as the dwarrow-stone openare very

 confusing these days, very dangerous. You remember

 what happened when I touched the Shard. I was reluctant

 even to risk the Other Pathways, but felt that if there was

 a chance I could help, I should."

 

 From a mortal Eolair would have found this self-

 serving, but there was something about the Sitha that sug-

 gested an almost frightening sincerity. Eolair felt a little

 of his anger slip away.

 

 "In that muddle of thoughts and feelings," Jiriki contin-

 ued, "I did understand two things, or at least I am fairly

 sure that I did. I believe that at the end her madness

 lifted. I did not know the Maegwin that you knew, so I

 cannot be certain, but her thoughts seemed clear and

 unmuddied. She thought of you. I felt that very strongly."

 

 Eolair took a step backward. "She did? You do not say

 that to soothe me, as a parent might to a child?"

 

 The Sitha's smooth face momentarily showed surprise-

 "Do you mean tell you something that is not true, delib-

 erately? No, Eolair. That is not our way."

 

 "She thought of me? Poor woman! And I could do

 nothing for her." The count felt tears returning, but made

 no attempt to hide them. "This is no favor, Jiriki."

 

 "It was not meant to be. These are things you deserve

 to know. Now I must ask you a question. There is a

 young mortal named Seoman who is linked to Josua. Do

 you know him? More importantly, did Maegwin know

 him?"

 

 "Seoman?" Eolair was bewildered by the sudden shift

 of the conversation. He thought for a moment. "There

 was a young knight named Simon, tall, red-hairedis

 

 558

 

 Tad Williams

 

 that who you mean? I think I heard some call him Sir

 Seoman."

 

 "That is him."

 

 "I doubt very much that Maegwin knew him. She never

 traveled to Erkynland, and I believe that was where the

 young man lived before running away to serve Josua.

 Why?" Eolair shook his head. "I do not understand this."

 

 "Nor do I. And I fear what it might mean. But in those

 last moments, it seemed Maegwin thought also of young

 Seoman, almost as though she had seen him or spoken

 with him." Jiriki frowned. "It is our ill luck that the

 Dream Road is so murky now, so unrewarding. It was all

 I could do to glean that much. But something is happen-

 ing in Asu'athe Hayholtand Seoman will be there. I

 fear for him, Count Eolair. He is ... important to me."

 

 "But that is where you are going anyway. That is for-

 tunate, I suppose." Eolair did not want to think any more.

 "I wish you luck finding him."

 

 "And you? Even if Seoman had some significance for

 Maegwin? Even if she had some message from him, or

 for him?"

 

 "I am done with thatand so is she. I will take her

 back to Erkynland to be buried on the mountain beside

 her father and brother. There is much to do to rebuild our

 country, and I have been absent too long."

 

 "What help can I give you?" Jiriki asked.

 

 "I want no more help." Eolair spoke more sharply than

 he had intended. "We mortals are very good at burying

 our dead."

 

 He turned and walked away, pulling his cloak tight

 against the flurrying snows.

 

 

 

 Isgrimnur limped out onto the deck, cursing his aching

 body and his halting progress. He did not notice the shad-

 owy figure until he had nearly stumbled into it.

 

 "Greetings, Duke Isgrimnur." Aditu turned and re-

 garded him for a moment. "Is it not chill weather for one

 of your folk to be out in the wind?"

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER559

 

 Isgrimnur hid his startlement by an elaborate readjust-

 ment of his gloves. "Perhaps for the southern folk like

 Tiamak. But my people are Rimmersmen, my lady- We

 are hardened to the cold."

 

 "Am I your lady?" she said with amusement. "I cer-

 tainly hold no mortal title. And I cannot believe that

 Duchess Outrun would approve of any other meaning."

 

 He grimaced, and was suddenly grateful for the chill

 wind on his cheeks. "It is just politeness, my la ..." He

 tried again. "I find it difficult to call by their first name

 someone who ... who ..."

 

 "Who is older than you are?" She laughed, a not un-

 pleasant sound. "Another problem for which I am to

 blame! I truly did not come to you mortals to discomfort

 you."

 

 "Are you really? Older than me?" Isgrimnur was not

 sure if it was a polite questionbut after all, she had

 brought it up.

 

 "Oh, I should think so ... although my brother Jiriki

 and I are both accounted quite young by our folk. We are

 both children of the Exile, born since Asu'a fell. To some,

 like my uncle Khendraja'aro, we are barely even real peo-

 ple, and certainly not to be trusted with any responsibil-

 ity." She laughed again. "Oh, poor Uncle. He has seen so

 many outrageous things happen in these last daysa

 mortal brought to Jao e-Tinukai'i, the breaking of the

 Pact, Zida'ya and humans fighting side by side again. I

 fear that he will finish his present duty to my mother and

 Year-Dancing House and then simply let himself die.

 Sometimes it is the strongest who are the most brittle. Do

 you not think so?"

 

 Isgrimnur nodded. For once, he understood what the

 Sitha-woman meant. "I have seen that, yes. Sometimes

 those who act the strongest are really the most fright-

 ened."

 

 Aditu smiled. "You are a very wise mortal. Duke

 Isgrimnur."

 

 The duke coughed, embarrassed. "I am a very old, very

 sore mortal." He stared out across the choppy bay. "And

 tomorrow we make landfall. I am glad we have been able

 

 560 Tad Williams

 

 to shelter here in the KynslaghI don't think most of us

 could have taken much more of the storms and the kilpa

 on the open sea, and God knows I hate boatsbut I still

 don't understand why Elias has not lifted a hand in his

 own defense."

 

 "He has not yet," Aditu agreed. "Perhaps he feels that

 his Hayholt walls are defense enough."

 

 "Could be." Isgrimnur voiced the fear that others in the

 prince's fleet shared. "Or perhaps he is expecting allies

 the kind of allies he had at Naglimund."

 

 "That could also be true. Your people and my people

 have both wondered much about what is intended." She

 shrugged, a sinuous gesture that might have been part of

 a ritual dance. "Soon it will not matter. Soon we will

 learn first hand, as I think you say."

 

 They both fell silent. The wind was not strong, but its

 breath was bitterly cold. Despite his rugged heritage,

 Isgrimnur found himself pulling his scarf higher on his

 neck.

 

 "What happens to your fairy-folk when they get old?"

 Isgrimnur asked suddenly. "Do they just get wiser? Or do

 they turn silly and mawkish, as some of ours do?"

 

 " 'Old' means something different to us, as you know,"

 Aditu replied. "But the answer is: there are as many dif-

 ferent answers as there are Zida*ya, as is no doubt true

 with mortals. Some grow increasingly remote; they do not

 speak to anyone, but live entirely in their own thoughts.

 Others develop fondnesses for things others find unim-

 portant. And some begin to brood on the past, on wrongs

 and hurts and missed chances.

 

 "The oldest one of all, the one you call the Norn

 Queen, has grown old in that way. She was known once

 for her wisdom and beauty, for grace beyond measure-

 ment. But something in her was balked and grew bent,

 and so she curled inward into malice. As the years almost

 beyond counting rolled past, all that was once admirable

 became twisted." Aditu had suddenly become serious in a

 way that Isgrimnur had not seen before. "That is perhaps

 the greatest sorrow of our folk, that the ruin of the world

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER56!

 

 should be brought about by two who were among the

 greatest of the Gardenbom."

 

 "Two?" Isgrimnur was trying to reconcile the stories he

 had heard of the silver-masked queen of ice and darkness

 with Aditu's description.

 

 "Ineluki ... the Storm King." She turned back to look

 across the Kynslagh, as though she could see the old

 Asu'a looming beyond the darkness. "He was the

 brightest-burning flame ever kindled in this land. Had the

 mortals not comehad your own ancestors not come,

 Duke Isgrimnurand attacked our great house with iron

 and fire, he might have led us out of the shadows of exile

 and back into the light of the living world again. That was

 his dream. But any great dream can flower into madness."

 She was silent for a while. "Perhaps we must all learn to

 live with exile, Isgrimnur. Perhaps we must all leam to

 live with smaller dreams."

 

 Isgrimnur said nothing. They stood for a while in the

 wind, silent but not uncomfortably so, before the duke

 turned and sought the warmth of the cabins.

 

 

 

 Duchess Gutrun looked up in alarm when she felt the

 cold air. "Vorzheva! Are you mad? Bring those children

 away from the windows."

 

 The Thrithings-woman, one child cradled in each arm,

 did not move. Beyond the open window stretched

 Nabban, vast but strangely intimate; the city's famous

 hills made the houses and streets and buildings seem built

 almost on top of each other. "There is no harm in air. On

 the grasslands, we live all our lives out in the open."

 

 "Nonsense," Gutrun said crossly. "I've been there,

 Vorzheva, don't forget. Those wagons are almost like

 houses."

 

 "But we only sleep in them. Everything elseeating,

 singing, lovingwe do beneath the sky."

 

 "And your men cut their cheeks with knives, too. Does

 that mean you're going to do that to poor little

 Deomoth?" She bristled at the mere thought.

 

 562 Tad Williams

 

 The Thrithings-woman turned and gave her companion

 an amused look. "You do not think the little one should

 wear scars?" She gazed at the male infant's sleeping face,

 then laid a finger along his cheek, pretending to consider

 it. "Oh, but they are so handsome to see. .. ." She darted

 a sideward glance, then burst out laughing at the

 Rimmerswoman's horror. "Outrun! You think I mean it

 for true!"

 

 "Don't even say such things. And bring those poor ba-

 bies away from the window."

 

 "I am showing them the ocean where their father is.

 But you, Outrun, you are very angry and unhappy today.

 Are you not well?"

 

 "What is there to be happy about?" The duchess sank

 down again onto her chair and picked up her sewing, but

 only turned the cloth in her hands. "We are at war. People

 are dying. It is not even a week since we buried little

 Leieth!"

 

 "Oh, I am sorry," Vorzheva said. "I did not mean to be

 cruel. You were very close to her."

 

 "She was just a child. She suffered terrible things, may

 God grant her peace."

 

 "She did not seem to have any pain at the end. That is

 something. Did you think she would come awake, after

 all that time?"

 

 "No." The duchess frowned. "But that does not make

 the sadness less. I hope I am not the one who must tell

 young Jeremias when he comes back." Her voice

 dropped. "If he comes back."

 

 Vorzheva looked at the older woman intently. "Poor

 Outrun. It is not just Leieth, is it? You are frightened for

 Isgrimnur also."

 

 "My old fellow will come back well," Gutrun mut-

 tered. "He always does." She peered up at Vorzheva, who

 still stood before the open window, a sweep of ash-gray

 sky behind her. "But what of you, who feared so much

 for Josua? Where is your worry?" She shook her head.

 "Saint Skendi protect us, I should not speak of such

 things. Who knows what ill luck it could bring?"

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER563

 

 Vorzheva smiled. "Josua will come back to me. I had a

 dream."

 

 "What do you mean? Has all that nonsense of Aditu's

 turned your head?"

 

 "No," The Thrithings-woman looked down at her girl-

 child; Vorzheva's thick hair fell like a curtain, so that for

 a moment the faces of both mother and daughter were

 hidden. "But it was a true dream. I know. Josua came to

 me and said, 'I have what I always have wanted.' And he

 was at peace. So I know that he will win, and he will

 come back to me."

 

 Gutrun opened her mouth to say something, then shut

 it again. Her face was fearful. Quickly, while Vorzheva

 still gazed at little Derra, the duchess made the sign of the

 Tree.

 

 Vorzheva shivered and looked up. "Perhaps you are

 right, Gutrun. It is getting cold. I will shut the windows."

 

 The duchess levered herself up from her chair. "Non-

 sense. I'll do it. You take those little ones right back and

 get under the blankets." She paused in front of the win-

 dow. "Merciful Elysia," she said. "Look."

 

 Vorzheva turned. "What?"

 

 "It's snowing."

 

 A

 

 "You would think we were stopping for a visit to a lo-

 cal shrine," Sangfugol observed. "That these were boat-

 loads of pilgrims."

 

 Tiamak was huddled with the harper and Strangyeard

 on a windy, snow-clad slope east of Swertclif. Below

 them, landing boats bounced Josua's army across the

 choppy Kynslagh toward the shore; the prince and the

 martial arm of his household were at the landing site,

 overseeing the complex enterprise.

 

 "Where is Elias?" Sangfugol demanded. "Aedon's

 Bones, his brother is landing an army on his doorstep.

 Where is the king?"

 

 Strangyeard winced ever so slightly at the oath. "You

 sound as though you want him to come! We know where

 

 564

 

 Tad Williams

 

 the High King is, Sangfugol." He gestured toward the

 Hayholt, a cluster of spiky shadows almost hidden by

 whirling snow. "Waiting. But we do not know why."

 

 Tiamak sank deeper into his cloak. His bones felt fro-

 zen. He could understand that the prince might not want

 them underfoot, but surely they could have found a place

 to stay out of the way that was less exposed to the wind

 and snow?

 

 At least I have drylander breeches now. But I still do

 not want to end my days here, in this cold place. Please

 let me see my Wran again. Let me go to the Wind Festival

 one more time. Let me drink too much fern beer and play

 snatch-the-feather. I don't want to die here and be un-

 burned and unremembered.

 

 He shivered and tried to slough off such glum thoughts.

 "Has the prince sent scouts toward the castle?"

 

 Sangfugol shook his head, pleased to be knowledge-

 able. "Not in close. I heard him tell Isgrimnur that stealth

 was useless, since the king must have seen us coming

 days ago, and heard of it long before that. Now that he

 has made sure Elias has no soldiers hidden in Erchester

 soldiers! No one is there but dogs and rats!Josua will

 send outriders ahead when the company moves up to set

 the siege."

 

 As the harper went on to explain how, in his estima-

 tion, the prince should go about deploying his forces,

 Tiamak saw someone slogging up the hill through the

 snow.

 

 "Look!" Father Strangyeard pointed. "Who is that?"

 "It's young Jeremias." Sangfugol was a little nettled to

 be interrupted. "Been driven out like the rest of us, I sup-

 pose."

 

 Tiamak!" Jeremias called. "Come with me! Hurry!"

 "Goodness!" Strangyeard fluttered his hands. "Perhaps

 they've found something important!"

 Tiamak was already standing. "What is it?"

 "Josua says come quickly. The Sitha-woman is sick."

 "Shall we come, Tiamak?" Strangyeard asked. "No, I

 am sure you would rather not be crowded. And what help

 or comfort could / give to one of the Sithi?"

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER565

 

 The Wrannaman started down the hill, leaning into the

 wind. As the snow crunched beneath his feet, he was

 again grateful for Sangfugol's loan of boots and breeches,

 although both were too large.

 

 / am in a strange place, he marveled. A strange time.

 A marsh man wading through the snows of Erkynland to

 help one of the Sithi. It must be They Who Watch and

 Shape who have drunk too much fern beer.

 

 Aditu had been taken to a makeshift shelter, a cloth

 cargo cover that had been stretched across the bottom

 branches of a tree on a rise above the shoreline. Josua and

 Sludig and a few of the soldiers stood by awkwardly,

 hunched beneath the low roof. "Sludig found her," the

 prince said. "I feared she had surprised some of my

 brother's spies, but there are no marks of violence upon

 her and Sludig said he saw no signs of struggle. No one

 heard anything, either, although she was only a hundred

 paces up from the shore." He frowned worriedly. "It is

 like Leieth after Geloe died. She is sleeping, but will not

 wake."

 

 Tiamak stared at the Sitha's face. With her eyes closed

 she appeared nearly human. "I did little for Leieth," he

 said, "and I have no idea what-effect my herbs would

 have on one of the immortals. I do not know what I can

 do for Aditu."

 

 Josua made a gesture of helplessness. "At least see that

 she is comfortable."

 

 "Did you see anything that might have caused it?"

 Tiamak asked Sludig.

 

 The Rimmersman shook his head vigorously. "Nothing.

 I found her as you see her, lying on the ground with no

 one else nearby."

 

 "I must get back to watch over the unloading. Unless

 there is something . . ." Josua seemed distracted, as

 though even this upsetting event was not quite enough to

 hold his full attention. The prince had always been a bit

 remote, but in the day since they had made landfall, the

 Wrannaman had found him to be unusually preoccupied-

 Still, Tiamak decided, with what lay ahead of them all,

 the prince had a right to be a little distracted.

 

 566 Tad Williams

 

 "I will stay with her. Prince Josua." He bent and

 touched the Sitha's cheek. Her skin was cool, but he had

 no idea whether that was unusual.

 

 "Good. My thanks, Tiamak." Josua hesitated for a mo-

 ment, then ducked out from beneath the lean-to. Sludig

 and the other soldiers followed,

 

 Tiamak squatted beside Aditu. She was dressed in mor-

 tal clothes, pale breeches and a jacket made of hide, nei-

 ther of them heavy enough for the weatherbut Sithi

 cared little about weather, Tiamak reminded himself. She

 was breathing shallowly, and one hand was curled into a

 fist. Something about the way her long fingers were bent

 caught Tiamak's interest; he opened her hand. Her grip

 was surprisingly strong.

 

 Nestled in Aditu's palm was a small round mirror,

 scarcely larger than an aspen leaf. Its frame was a narrow

 ring of what appeared to be shiny bone, minutely carved.

 Tiamak lifted it up and balanced it gently in his own

 hand. It was heavy for its size and oddly warm.

 

 A tingling, prickling sensation crept through his fin-

 gers. He tilted the mirror so that he could see his face re-

 flected; as he moved the angle, he could find no trace of

 his own features, but only roiling darkness. He brought it

 closer to his face and felt the tingling grow more pro-

 nounced.

 

 Something struck his wrist. The mirror tumbled from

 his hand onto the damp ground.

 

 "Leave it." Aditu withdrew her hand and let herself fall

 back, covering her eyes with her long fingers. Her voice

 was thin and strained. "Do not touch it, Tiamak."

 

 "You are awake!" He looked at the mirror where it lay

 in the grass, but felt no particular urge to flout Aditu*s

 warning.

 

 "Yes, I am now. Were you sent to take care of me? To

 heal me?"

 

 "To watch over you, anyway." He moved a little closer

 to her. "Are you well? Is there anything I can get you?"

 

 "Water. Some snowmelt would be a good thing."

 

 Tiamak scrambled out from under the heavy cloth and

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER567

 

 scooped up a double handful of snow, then brought it

 back. "I have no cup or bowl."

 

 "It does not matter." She sat up, not without effort, and

 received it in her cupped palms. She pushed some of it

 into her mouth and rubbed the rest on her face. "Where is

 the mirror?"

 

 Tiamak pointed. Aditu bent and plucked it from the

 grass; a moment later, her hand was empty again. Tiamak

 had not seen where she put it. "What happened to you?"

 he asked. "Do you know?"

 

 "Yes and no." She pressed her hands against her face.

 "You have learned something of the Witnesses?"

 

 "A little."

 

 'The Dream Road, the place we Zida'ya go when we

 use such Witnesses as the mirror you held for a moment,

 has been almost completely barred to us since Amerasu

 Ship-Bom was slain in the Yasira. Because of this, I have

 not been able to confer with Jiriki or Likimeya my mother

 or any of my people since I left them. But I have been

 thinking about the things you and Strangyeard asked

 meeven though, as I told you, I have no answers my-

 self. I agree that your questions may be very important. I

 hoped that since we are now closer to my kin, perhaps I

 could somehow let them know I needed to speak with

 them."

 

 "And you failed?"

 

 "Worse than that, I may have done something foolish.

 I underestimated how things have changed on the Dream

 Road."

 

 Tiamak the Scrollbearer, glutton for knowledge, was

 starting to settle in for the tale before he remembered his

 nominal duty. "Is there anything else I can bring to you,

 Lady Aditu?"

 

 She smiled at something, but did not explain. "No. I

 am well."

 

 "Then please tell me what you meant about the Dream

 Road."

 

 "I will tell you what I canbut there is a reason I said

 'yes and no' when you asked whether I knew what had

 happened. I am not quite sure what did happen. The Road

 

 568 Tad Williams

 

 of Dreams was far more chaotic than I have ever found it,

 but that I expected. What I did not expect was some ter-

 rible thing to be waiting for me there."

 

 Tiamak was uneasy. "What do you mean, a 'thing'? A

 demon? One of our ... enemies?"

 

 "It was not like that." Aditu's amber eyes narrowed in

 concentration. "It was ... a structure, I suppose. Some-

 thing very powerful and very strange that had been'...

 built there. There is no other word. It was something as

 huge and menacing in its own way as the castle that Josua

 plans to attack here in the waking world."

 

 "A castle?" Tiamak was mystified.

 

 "Nothing so simple, nothing so much like anything you

 know. It was a construction of the Art, I believean in-

 telligent construction, not like the shadow-things that

 spontaneously spring into being along the Other Ways.

 It was a maelstrom of smoke and sparks and black en-

 ergiesa thing of great power, something that must have

 been long in the building. I have never seen or heard of

 anything like it. It caught me up as a whirlwind draws in

 a leaf, and I only barely won free again." She pressed her

 temples again. "I was lucky, I think."

 

 "Is it a danger to us? And if it is, is there anything you

 can think of that might help solve this riddle?" The

 Wrannaman was reminded of his earlier thought about

 unfamiliar ground: this was territory about which he

 knew nothing.

 

 "I find it hard to believe that such an unusual thing

 would not have something to do with Ineluki and the

 other events of these days." She paused, considering.

 "One thought I had might mean something, although it

 means nothing to me. When I first perceived it, I heard

 or felt the word 'Sumy'asu.' In the speech of the

 Gardenborn, that means 'The Fifth House.' "

 

 "The Fifth House?" repeated Tiamak, mystified.

 

 "Yes." Aditu lay back. "It means nothing to me, either.

 But that was the name I heard when I first encountered

 this powerful thing."

 

 "I will ask Strangyeard," said Tiamak. "And I suppose

 

 TO GREEN ANOEL TOWER569

 

 we should tell Josua, too. In any case, he will be relieved

 to hear you are well."

 

 "I am tired. I think I will lie here quietly a while and

 think." Aditu made a gesture unfamiliar to the

 Wrannaman. "My thanks to you, Tiamak."

 

 "I did nothing."

 

 "You did what you could." She closed her eyes and

 leaned back. "The Ancestors may understand all this

 but I do not. I am frightened. I would give much to speak

 to my kin."

 

 Tiamak rose and made his way back out onto the

 Kynslagh's snowy shores.

 

 *

 

 The cart rolled to a stop and the wooden wheels fell si-

 lent. The Count of Nad Mullach was certain that he

 would be very tired of the painful sound of their creaking

 by the time his journey was finished.

 

 "Here we say farewell," he called to Isom. He left his

 horse in the care of one of the soldiers and walked

 through the snow to the young Rimmersman, who dis-

 mounted and embraced him.

 

 "Farewell, indeed." Isorn looked to the cart and

 Maegwin's shrouded body. "I cannot tell you my sorrow.

 She deserved better. So do you, Eolair."

 

 The count gave him a last handclasp. "In my experi-

 ence," he said with more than a touch of bitterness, "the

 gods do not seem to care much what their servants

 deserveor at least the rewards they give are too subtle

 for my understanding." He closed his eyes for a moment.

 "But enough. She is dead, and all the lamenting in the

 world, all the railing against Heaven, cannot bring her

 back. I will bury her with her loved ones and then I will

 help Inahwen and the rest of my folk do what they can to

 rebuild."

 

 "And after that?"

 

 Eolair shook his head- "I think that depends on whether

 the Sithi are able to stop Elias and his ally. I hope you do

 not think I wish you ill luck if I say that we may keep the

 

 570

 

 Tad Williams

 

 caves of the Grianspog prepared in case we need them

 again."

 

 Isom smiled thinly. "You would be a fool not to."

 

 "And you will go with them? Your own people will be

 looking for help, now that Skali is gone,"

 

 "I know. But I must find my family, and Josua. My

 wounds have healed well enough that I can ride, so I will

 go with the Sithi. The only mortal, I will be. It will get

 lonely on the way to Erchester."

 

 Eolair smiled. "The way that Jiriki's folk ride, I do not

 think it will be a long journey." He looked to his ragged

 troop of men. He knew that they preferred crossing the

 blizzard-ridden Frostmarch to any more travels with the

 immortals. "But if things go in such a way that the men

 of Hemystir are needed, send word to Hernysadharc. I

 will find a way to come."

 

 "I know."

 

 "Pare you well, Isom."

 

 Eolair turned and walked back toward his horse. As he

 mounted, Likimeya and Jiriki, who had been hanging

 back, rode toward them.

 

 "Men of Hemystir." Likimeya's eyes were bright be-

 neath her black helm. "Know that we honor you. Not

 since the days of Prince Sinnach have your folk and ours

 fought side by side. Your fallen lie with our own dead,

 both here and in your home country. We thank you."

 

 Eolair wanted to ask the stem-faced Sitha what value

 there had been in the deaths of four score Hemystiri, but

 this was not the time to recommence such an argument.

 His men stood, nervous but silent, wanting only to be on

 their way.

 

 "You freed Hemystir from a great scourge," he replied

 dutifully. There were observances that had to be made.

 "We thank you and honor you, as well."

 

 "May you find some peace at the end of your journey,

 Count Eolair," said Jiriki. His dark blade Indreju hung at

 his hip. He, too, was armored and looked every bit as

 much a strange warrior god as his mother. "And when

 you find it, may it last."

 

 "May Heaven preserve you." Eolair swung up into his

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 57i

 

 saddle, then waved his arm, signaling the carter. The

 wheels slowly began to turn. Maegwin's shroud rippled in

 the stiff, sharp wind.

 

 And as for me, he thought, may the gods from this mo-

 ment leave me alone. They have broken my people and my

 life. Let them now turn their attention elsewhere so we

 can begin to build anew.

 

 When he looked back, the Rimmersman and the Sithi

 still stood motionless, outlined by the rising sun. He

 raised his arm; Isorn returned the gesture of leavetaking.

 

 Eolair looked west across the snows. "Come, my coun-

 trymen," he called to his tattered band. "We are going

 home."

 

 26

 

 Song of the Red Star

 

 "Here., drin^." The troll held out a water skin. "I am

 Binabik of Mintahoq. Ookequk was my master. And you

 are Padreic. He was speaking of you many times."

 

 "Padreic is dead," the monk gasped. He took a sip of

 water, letting some run down his chin. He was clearly ex-

 hausted. "I am a different man now." He put up a trem-

 bling hand to push the bowl away. "By all the gods, old

 and new, that was a powerful ward on the door. I have not

 tried to defeat such a thing in two decades. I think it al-

 most killed me." He shook his head. "Better if it had, per-

 haps."

 

 "Listen to you!" Miriamele cried. "You appear from

 nowhere, but you are still spouting the same nonsense.

 What are you doing here?"

 

 Cadrach would not meet her eye. "I followed you."

 

 "Followed me? From where?"

 

 "All the way to Sesuad'rathen followed after you

 when you fled." He looked at the dwarrows, who had

 closed the stone door and now stood in huddled colloquy

 at the far end of the cavern, peering at the newcomer as

 though he might be a Nom in disguise. "And there they

 arethe domhaini." He grimaced. "I thought 1 felt their

 clever hand in that door-ward, but I couldn't be sure. I

 had never encountered one of theirs so new-minted."

 

 Miriamele would not be distracted. "What are you

 doing here, Cadrach? And who is following you?"

 

 The monk turned his gaze down to his own hands,

 which were clenched in the folds of his tattered robe. "I

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 573

 

 fear I have brought the Norns down on you and your al-

 lies. The white monsters have been following me almost

 since I descended through the catacombs. I have been

 hard-pressed to stay ahead of them."

 

 "So you led them to us?" Miriamele still did not know

 what she felt about seeing Cadrach again. Since he had

 deserted her and the rest of the company in the Lake

 Thrithing, she had done her best to put him out of her

 mind. She still felt shame about the argument over

 Tiamak's parchment.

 

 "They will never take me again," the monk said fer-

 vently. "If I had not been able to force the door, I would

 have thrown myself down the Tan'ja Stairs before falling

 into their hands."

 

 "But now the Noms are outside, you say, and the cav-

 ern has only one door for leaving," Binabik pointed out.

 "This is not much good you have done for yourself,

 Cadrach or Padreic or whichever name you now wear."

 Binabik had heard many stories about the monk from her

 and from Simon. Miriamele could see his respect for what

 the Hernystirman had once been warring with distrust of

 anyone who could betray one of the troll's friends. He

 shrugged. "Chukku's Stones'-Enough of talking. Let us

 be seeing to important things now." He rose and padded

 across the cavern toward the dwarrows.

 

 "Why did you run away, Cadrach? I told you I was

 sorry about Tiamak's parchment ... about all that."

 

 The monk finally turned his eyes to hers. His gaze was

 curiously flat- "Ah, but you were right, Miriamele. I am

 a thief and a liar and a drunkard, and that is the truth of

 many years. That I did a few honest deeds does not

 change that."

 

 "Why do you always say such things?" she demanded.

 "Why are you so determined to see the worst in your-

 self?"

 

 The look on his face became something almost accusa-

 tory. "And why are you determined to see the best in me,

 Miriamele? You imagine that you know all about the

 world, but you are only a young girl, after all is said and

 

 574

 

 Tad Williams

 

 done. There are limits to your imagination, to your under-

 standing of how black a place the world truly is."

 

 Stung, Miriamele turned away and busied herself look-

 ing in the saddlebag. He had only been back a few

 moments, and already she wanted to strangle himyet

 she was searching diligently for something to feed him.

 

 / suppose I might as well keep him healthy until I de-

 cide to kill him.

 

 Cadrach was leaning against the cavern wall, head

 thrown back and eyes closed, overcome with exhaustion.

 She took the opportunity to look him over. He had grown

 even thinner since he had abandoned her.on the grass-

 lands; his face sagged, the skin deprived of its padding of

 flesh. Even in the pink light of the dwarrows' stones, the

 monk looked gray.

 

 Binabik returned. "Our safeness may not last long. Yis-

 fidri is telling me the door-wards will never be as strong

 now that they have once been forced. Not all the Noms

 are being masters like your monkish friend, but some of

 them might be. And even if none of them can open it, it

 is likely that Pryrates will not be prevented."

 

 "Masters? What do you mean?"

 

 "Lore-masters. Learned in the Artwhat folk who are

 not Scrollbearers sometimes are calling magic."

 

 "Cadrach said he couldn't do magic any more."

 

 Binabik shook his head in bemusement. "Miriamele,

 once Padreic of Crannhyr was perhaps the most adept

 user of the Art in all of Osten Ardalthough that was in

 part being so because other Scrollbearers, even the great-

 est, Morgenes, chose not to risk its deepest currents. It is

 seeming that Cadrach has not lost his skills, eitherhow

 else did he force the dwarrows' door?"

 

 "It all happened so fast. I suppose I hadn't thought

 about it." She felt a brief upsurge of hope. Perhaps fate

 had brought the monk here for a reason.

 

 "I did what I had to," Cadrach said abruptly.

 Miriamele, who had thought he was asleep, jumped. "The

 White Foxes would have caught me in a few more mo-

 ments. But I am not what I was, troll. Working the Art

 takes discipline and hard work ... and peace. I have been

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER575

 

 a stranger to those things for many years." He let his head

 fall back against the cavern wall. "Now the well is dry. I

 have no more to give. Nothing."

 

 Miriamele was determined to have answers. "You still

 have not explained why you followed me, Cadrach."

 

 The monk opened his eyes. "Because there is nothing

 else. The world holds nothing else for me." He hesitated,

 then looked at Binabik angrily, as though the little man

 was eavesdropping on something he had no right to hear.

 The words came slowly. "Because ... because you were

 kind to me, Miriamele. I had forgotten what it feels like.

 I could not go with you to face the questions, the looks,

 the disgust of all those othersDuke Isgrimnur and the

 restbut neither could I let go of that small touch of life

 ... life as it once was. / could not let go" He reached up

 with both hands and rubbed at the skin of his face, then

 laughed wretchedly. "I suppose I am not so much a dead

 man as I thought."

 

 "Was it you who followed Simon and me in the for-

 est?"

 

 "Yes, and through Stanshire and Falshire as well. It

 was only when this one joined you," he indicated

 Binabik, "that I had to fall farther behind. That wolf has

 a keen nose."

 

 "You were not much help when the Fire Dancers

 caught us."

 

 Cadrach only shuddered.

 

 "So you followed us all the way here?"

 

 "I lost your track after Hasu Vale. It was pure luck I

 found you again. If you had not come to Saint Sutrin*s,

 where I had found a sheltering roof courtesy of that mad-

 man Domitis, I think we would never have met again."

 He laughed again, harshly. "Think on that, my lady. Your

 luck went bad when you entered God's house."

 

 "Enough of this." Miriamele was losing patience with

 Cadrach's self-loathing. "You are here. What do we do

 now?"

 

 Before the monk could offer any suggestion, Yis-fidri

 came shambling up. The dwarrow looked mournfully at

 Cadrach, then turned to Miriamele and Binabik. "This

 

 576 Tad Williams

 

 man is right in one thing. Someone else is now outside

 this cavern. The Hikeda'ya have come."

 

 There was a silence as the words sank in.

 

 "Are you certain?" Miriamele held little hope they

 were wrong, but the thought of being hemmed in the cav-

 ern with the corpse-faced Norns outside was dreadful.

 The White Foxes had been fearsome enough as characters

 in her uncle's tales of the fall of Naglimund, but on the

 hillside above Hasu Vale she had seen them for herself.

 She never wished to see them againbut she doubted she

 would be so lucky. Her panic, which had abated with the

 surprise of Cadrach's entrance, now returned. She was

 suddenly short of breath. "You're certain it's the Noms,

 not just some of my father's soldiers?"

 

 "This man we did not expect," said Yis-fidri, "but we

 know what things move through our tunnels. The door

 does for now hold them out, but soon that may change."

 

 "If these are your tunnels, you must know a way we

 can escape!"

 

 The dwarrow said nothing.

 

 "Perhaps we will after all be using those stones we

 gathered," Binabik said. "We should give thought to try-

 ing an escape before more of our enemies arrive." He

 turned to Yis-fidri. "Can you tell how many are being

 outside?"

 

 The dwarrow fluted what sounded like a question to his

 wife. After listening to her reply, he turned. "The number

 of one hand's fingers, perhaps. But that will not be true

 for long."

 

 "That few?" Miriamele sat up. "We should fight! If

 your folk wilt help us, surely we can defeat so few of

 them and escape!"

 

 Yis-fidri shrank back, plainly uneasy. "I have told you.

 We are not strong. We do not fight."

 

 "Listen to what the Tinukeda'ya say." Cadrach's voice

 was cold. "Not that it will make much difference soon,

 but I for one prefer to await the end here rather than be

 spitted on one of the White Foxes' spears."

 

 "But the end is certain if we wait. At least if we try to

 escape, there is a chance."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER577

 

 "There is no chance either way," the monk replied. "At

 least here, we can make our peace and die by our own

 choice when it suits us."

 

 "I cannot believe what a coward you are!" cried

 Miriamele. "You heard Yis-fidri! A half-dozen Noms at

 the most! That is not the end of the world. We have a

 chance!"

 

 Cadrach turned to her. Sorrow and disgust and barely-

 concealed fury warred in his expression. "It is not the

 Noms that I fear," he said finally. "But it is the end of the

 world."

 

 Miriamele caught something unusual in his tone, some-

 thing beyond even his ordinary pessimism. "What are you

 talking about, Cadrach?"

 

 "The end of the world," he repeated. He took a deep

 breath. "Lady, if you and I and this troll could somehow

 slaughter every Norn in the Hayholtevery Norn in

 Stonnspike, toostill it would make no difference. It is

 too late to do anything. It was always too late. The world,

 the green fields of Osten Ard, the people of its lands ...

 they are doomed. And I have known it since before I met

 you." He looked up imploringly. "Of course I am bitter,

 Miriamele. Of course I am almost mad. Because I know

 beyond doubt that there is no hope."

 

 A

 

 Simon woke from cloudy, chaotic dreams into utter

 darkness. Someone was moaning nearby. Every part of

 his body throbbed, and he could barely move his wrists

 and ankles. For long moments he was certain he had been

 captured and was bound in some black cell, but at last he

 remembered where he was.

 

 "Guthwulf?" he croaked. The moans continued, un-

 changing.

 

 Simon rolled over onto his stomach and crawled to-

 ward the sounds. When his swollen fingers encountered

 something, he stopped and explored clumsily until he

 found the earl's shaggy-bearded face. The blind man was

 blazing with fever.

 

 578 Tad Williams

 

 "Earl Guthwulf. It's Simon. You saved me from the

 wheel."

 

 "Their home is burning!" Guthwulf sounded terrified.

 "They cannot runthere are strangers with black iron at

 the gates!"

 

 "Do you have water here? Is there food?"

 

 He felt the blind man struggle to sit up. "Who's there?

 You can't take it! It sings for me. For me!" Guthwulf

 grabbed at something, and Simon felt a cold metal edge

 drag painfully along his forearm. He swore and lifted the

 arm to his mouth, tasting blood.

 

 Bright-Nail. It seemed impossibly strange. This /over-

 ridden blind man has Bright-Nail.

 

 For a moment he considered simply pulling it from

 Guthwutf's weakened grasp. After all, how could this

 madman's need outweigh that of entire nations? But even

 more troubling than the idea of stealing the sword from a

 sick man who had saved his life was the fact that Simon

 was lost without light somewhere in the tunnels beneath

 the Hayholt. Unless for some incomprehensible reason

 the blind earl kept a torch or lantern, without Guthwulf's

 knowledge of this maze he might wander forever in the

 shadows. What good would Bright-Nail be then?

 

 "Guthwulf, do you have a torch? Flint and steel?"

 

 The earl was murmuring again. Nothing Simon could

 understand seemed useful. He turned away and began to

 search the cavern by touch, wincing and groaning at the

 pain each movement caused.

 

 Guthwulf's nesting place was small, scarcely a dozen

 paces wideif Simon had been on his feet and

 pacingin either direction. He felt what seemed to be

 moss growing in the cracks of the stone beneath him. He

 broke some off and smelled it: it did not seem to be the

 same plant that had sustained him in Asu'a's ruined halls.

 He put a little on his tongue, then spat it out again. It

 tasted even more foul than the other. Still, his stomach

 hurt so much that he knew he would be trying it again

 soon.

 

 Except for the various rags strewn about the uneven

 stone floor, Guthwulf seemed to have few possessions.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 579

 

 Simon found a knife with half its blade snapped off.

 When he reached to tuck it into his belt, he suddenly re-

 alized he did not have one, nor any other clothes.

 

 Naked and lost in dark. Nothing left of Simon but Si-

 mon.

 

 He had been splashed by the dragon's blood, but

 afterward, he had still been Simon. He had seen Jao

 e-Tinukai'i, had fought in a great battle, had been kissed

 by a princessbut he was still the same kitchen boy,

 more or less. Now everything had been taken from him,

 but he still had what he had begun with.

 

 Simon laughed, a dry, hoarse sound. There was a sort

 of freedom in having so little. If he lived to the next hour,

 it would be a triumph. He had escaped the wheel. What

 more could anyone do to him?

 

 He put the broken knife against the wall so he could

 find it again, then continued his search. He encountered

 several objects he could see no purpose for, oddly shaped

 stones that felt too intricate to be natural, bits of broken

 pottery and splintered wood, even the skeletons of some

 small animals, but it was only as he reached the far side

 of the cavern that he found something truly useful.

 

 His numb, stiffened fingers touched something wet. He

 snatched his hand away, then slowly reached out again. It

 was a stone bowl half full of water. On the ground beside

 it, as wonderful as any miracle from the Book of Aedon,

 was what felt like a lump of stale bread.

 

 Simon had the bread to his mouth before he remem-

 bered Guthwulf. He hesitated, his stomach raging, then

 tore a piece loose and dipped it in the water and put it in

 his mouth. He ate two more small pieces the same way,

 then held the bowl carefully in his aching, trembling hand

 and crawled to where Guthwulf lay. Simon dipped his fin-

 gers in the water and let some dribble into the earl's

 mouth; he heard the blind man swallow thirstily. Next he

 took a morsel of bread and moistened it, then fed it to his

 ward. Guthwulf did not close his mouth, and seemed un-

 able to chew or swallow it. After a moment, Simon re-

 trieved it and ate it himself. He felt exhaustion creeping

 over him.

 

 580 Tad Williams

 

 "Later," he told Guthwulf. "Later you will eat. You

 will be well again, and so will I. Then we will leave

 here."

 

 Then I will take Bright-Nail to the tower. That is what

 I took back my life to do.

 

 "The witchwood is in flames, the garden is burn-

 ing. ..." The earl squirmed and twisted. Simon moved

 the bowl away, terrified it might be spilled- Guthwulf

 groaned. "Ruakha, ruakha Asu'a!"

 

 Even from a short distance away, Simon could feel his

 raging heat.

 

 A

 

 The man lay on the ground, his face pressed against the

 stone. His clothes and skin were so dirty it was hard to

 see him. 'That's everything, master. I swear it!"

 

 "Get up." Pryrates kicked him in the ribs, but not hard

 enough to break anything. "I can scarcely understand

 you."

 

 He rose to his haunches, whiskered mouth quivering in

 fear. "That's all, master. They run away. Down water-

 course."

 

 "I know that, fool."

 

 The alchemist had given his soldiers no directions

 since they had returned from their fruitless search, and

 now they stood uneasily. Inch's remains had been re-

 moved from the chains that turned Pryrates' tower top;

 

 they lay in an untidy heap beside the sluice. It was obvi-

 ous that most of the guardsmen wished they had been al-

 lowed to cover such of the overseer as had been

 recovered, but since they had received no order from

 Pryrates, they were studiously looking anywhere else.

 

 "And you do not know who these people were?"

 

 '"Twas the blind man, master. Some have seen him, but

 none ever catched him. He takes things sometime."

 

 A blind man living in the caverns. Pryrates smiled. He

 had a reasonably good idea who that might be. "And the

 other? One of the foundrymen being punished, I take it?"

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 581

 

 "That it was, master. But Inch called him something

 else."

 

 "Something else? What?"

 

 The man paused, his face a mask of terror. "Can't re-

 member," he whispered.

 

 Pryrates leaned down until his hairless face was only a

 handbreadth from the man's nose. "I can make you re-

 member."

 

 The forge man froze like a serpent-tranced frog. A

 small whimper escaped his throat. "I be trying, master,"

 he squeaked, then: " 'Kitchen Boy'! Doctor Inch called

 him 'Kitchen Boy'!"

 

 Pryrates straightened up. The man slumped, his chest

 heaving.

 

 "A kitchen boy," the priest mused. "Could it be?" Sud-

 denly he laughed, a rasping scrape of sound. "Perfect. Of

 course it would be." He turned to the soldiers. "There is

 nothing else for us to do here. And the king has need of

 us."

 

 Inch's henchman stared at the alchemist's back. His

 lips moved as he worked up the nerve to speak. "Mas-

 ter?"

 

 Pryrates turned slowly. "What?"

 

 "Now ... now that Doctor Inch be dead . .. well, who

 do you wish to ... to take charge here? Here in king's

 forge?"

 

 The priest looked sourly at the grizzled, ash-blackened

 man. "Sort that out yourselves." He gestured at the wait-

 ing soldiers, marking out half of the score of men. "You

 lot will stay here. Do not bother protecting Inch's

 croniesI should not have left him in charge of this place

 so long. I want you only to make sure that wheel stays in

 the water. Too many important things are driven by it to

 risk a second occurrence of a foliy like this. Remember:

 

 if that wheel stops turning again, I will make you very,

 very sorry."

 

 The designated guards took up positions along the edge

 of the watercourse; the rest of the soldiers filed out of the

 forge. Pryrates' stopped in the doorway to look back.

 Under the impassive gaze of the guardsmen. Inch's chief

 

 582 Tad Williams

 

 henchman was quickly being surrounded by a tightening

 ring of grim forge workers. Pryrates laughed quietly and

 let the door crunch shut.

 

 *

 

 Josua sat up, startled. The wind was howling fiercely,

 and the shape in the tent's door loomed giant-size.

 

 "Who is there?"

 

 Isgrimnur, who had been nodding during the long si-

 lence, snorted in surprise and fumbled for Kvalnir's hilt.

 

 "I cannot stand it any longer." Sir Camaris swayed in

 the doorway like a tree in a strong wind. "God save me,

 God save me ... I hear it even in my waking hours now.

 In the darkness it is all there is."

 

 "What are you talking about?" Josua rose and went to

 the tent flap. "You are not well, Camaris. Come, sit down

 here beside the fire. This is no weather to be out wander-

 ing."

 

 Camaris shook off his hand. "I must go. It is time. I

 can hear the song so clearly. It is time."

 

 "Time for what? Go where? Isgrimnur, come help me."

 

 The duke struggled to his feet, wheezing at the pain of

 stiff muscles and still-tender ribs. He took Camaris by the

 arm and found the muscles tight as wet knots.

 

 He is terrified! By the Ransomer, what has done this to

 him ?

 

 "Come, sit." Josua urged him toward a stool. "Tell us

 what ails you."

 

 The old knight abruptly pulled away and toqk a few

 staggering steps backward out into the snow. Thorn's long

 scabbard bumped against his leg. "They are catling, each

 to each. They need. The blade will go where it will go. It

 is time."

 

 Josua followed him out onto the hillside. Isgrimnur,

 puzzled and worried, limped after, pulling his cloak tight

 against the wind. The Kynslagh lay below, a dark expanse

 beyond the blanketing white. "I cannot understand you,

 Camaris," the prince called over the wind- "What is it the

 time for?"

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER583

 

 "Look!" The old man threw up an arm, pointing into

 the murk of storm clouds. "Do you not see?"

 

 Isgrimnur, like Josua, looked upward to the sky. A dull

 spot of ember-red burned there. "The Conqueror Star?"

 he asked.

 

 "They feel it. It is time." Camaris took another retreat-

 ing step, wobbling as though he might at any moment

 tumble backward down the hill. "God grant me strength,

 I can resist it no longer."

 

 Josua caught the duke's eye, silently asking his help.

 Isgrimnur walked forward and he and the prince again

 grasped Camaris' arms. "Come in from the cold," Josua

 begged.

 

 Sir Camaris yanked himself freehis strength never

 ceased to astonish Isgrimnurand for a moment his hand

 strayed to Thorn's silver-wrapped hilt.

 

 "Camaris!" Isgrimnur was shocked. "You would draw

 blade against us!? Your friends'?"

 

 The old man stared at him for a moment, his eyes cu-

 riously unfocused. Then, slowly, the duke saw his tension

 ease. "God help me, it is the sword. It sings to me. It

 knows where it wants to go. Inside." He gestured limply

 toward the dark bulk of the Hayholt.

 

 "And we will take you thereand the sword, too."

 Josua was calm. "But there is the simple matter of

 breaching the walls that we must deal with first."

 

 "There are other ways," said Camaris, but his wild en-

 ergy had faded. He allowed himself to be led into Josua's

 tent.

 

 Camaris downed the cup that Josua had filled for him

 in a single gulp, then drained a second serving. This wor-

 ried Isgrimnur almost as much as the strange things the

 old knight had said: Camaris was reknowned as a moder-

 ate man. Still, by his haunted look, the old knight now

 seemed to welcome anything that might bring him relief

 from the agony Thom caused him.

 

 Camaris would say nothing more, although Josua

 pressed him for information in what Isgrimnur thought

 was an exceedingly solicitious yet awkward manner. Ever

 

 584

 

 Tad Williams

 

 since the night on the ship, Isgrimnur had seen Josua's at-

 titude to the old knight change, as though even the old

 man's presence made him dreadfully uncomfortable.

 Isgrimnur wondered, not for the first time, what terrible

 thing Camaris had told him.

 

 After a while, the prince gave up and returned to the

 discussion interrupted by the knight's appearance,

 

 "We know now that there are indeed forces still within

 the castle walls, Isgrimnurconsiderable forces of men,

 mercenaries as well as the Erkynguard." Josua frowned.

 "My brother shows more patience than I would have sus-

 pected. Not even a sally while we were landing."

 

 "Patience ... or perhaps Elias has some worse fate

 planned for us." The duke tugged at his beard. "For that

 matter, Josua, we do not even know that your brother is

 still alive. Erchester is all but deserted, and the few peo-

 ple we have managed to find there wouldn't know if

 Fingil himself had come back from the grave and was sit-

 ting on the Dragonbone Chair."

 

 "Perhaps." The prince sounded doubtful. "But I cannot

 rid myself of the feeling that I would know if Elias were

 dead. In any case, even if Pryrates rules him, or has even

 taken the throne himself, we are still faced with the Storm

 King and the Scroll League's angry star."

 

 Isgrimnur nodded. "Someone is in there, right enough.

 Someone knows our plans. And they took your father's

 

 sword."

 

 Josua's mood darkened- "That was a blow. Still, when

 I saw that Swertclif was unguarded, I had little hope left

 we would find it there."

 

 "We always knew we would have to go insTde the

 Hayholt to get that fairy-sword, Sorrow." Isgrimnur

 pulled at his beard again and made a noise of disgust.

 War was difficult enough without these magical complex-

 ities. "I suppose we can go in for two as easily as one."

 

 "If it is even inside the walls," Josua pointed out. "That

 hole in the side of my father's cairn looked a hurried

 thing to menot what I would have expected from

 Pryrates or my brother, who need hide their works from

 no one."

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER585

 

 "But who else would do it?"

 

 "We still do not know what happened to my niece and

 Simon and the troll."

 

 Isgrimnur grunted. "I doubt that Miriamele or young

 Simon would have taken the blade and just disappeared.

 Where are they? They both know what Bright-Nail is

 worth to us."

 

 Camaris' sudden outcry made the duke flinch.

 

 "All the swords! God's Nails, I can feel them, all three!

 They sing to each otherand to me." He sighed. "Oh,

 Josua, how I wish I could silence them!"

 

 The prince turned. "Can you truly feel Bright-Nail?"

 

 The old knight nodded. "It is a voice. I cannot explain,

 but I hear itand so does Thorn."

 

 "But do you know where it is?"

 

 Camaris shook his head. "No. Itthe part that calls to

 meis not in a place. But they wish to come together in-

 side the walls. There is need. The time is growing short."

 

 Josua grimaced. "It sounds as though Binabik and the

 others were right. Hours are marching by: if the swords

 are any use to us, we must find them and discover that

 use soon."

 

 Madness, thought Isgrimnur; Our lives, our land, ruled

 by madness out of old tales. What would Prester John

 have thought, who worked so hard to drive the fairy-folk

 out of his kingdom and to push the shadows away?

 

 "We cannot fly over those walls, Josua," he pointed

 out. "We've won a victory in Nabban and sailed north in

 such a short time that folk will talk of it for years. But we

 cannot fly an army into the Hayholt like a flock of star-

 lings."

 

 "There are other ways ..." Camaris whispered. Josua

 looked at him sharply, but before he could discover

 whether this was more singing-sword maundering or

 something useful, another shape appeared in the tent

 doorway, accompanied by a blast of chill air and a few

 snowflakes.

 

 "Your pardon. Prince Josua-" It was Sludig, in mail and

 helm. He nodded to Isgrimnur. "My lord."

 

 "What is it?"

 

 586

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "We were riding the far side of Swertclif, as you asked.

 Searching."

 

 "And you found something?" Josua stood, his face

 carefully expressionless.

 

 "Not found something. Heard something." Sludig was

 obviously exhausted, as though he had ridden far and fast.

 "Horns in the far distance. From the north."

 

 "From the north? How far away?"

 

 "It is hard to say, Prince Josua." Sludig spread his

 hands, as though he could find the words by touch. "They

 were not like any horns I have heard. But they were very

 

 faint."

 

 "Thank you, Sludig. Are there sentries on Swertclif?"

 "On the near side. Highness, out of sight of the castle."

 "I do not care if anyone sees them," the prince said. "I

 am more concerned about who might be coming down on

 us from the north. If you and your men are tired, ask

 Hotvig to take some of his grasslanders and ride down the

 far side toward the skirts of Aldheorte. Tell them to return

 immediately if they see something coming."

 "I will, Prince Josua." Sludig went out.

 Josua turned to Isgrimnur. "What do you think? Is the

 Storm King going to play the same hand he produced at

 

 Naglimund?"

 

 "Perhaps. But you had castle walls, there. Here we

 have nothing before us but open land, and nothing behind

 us but the Kynslagh."

 

 "Yes, but we have several thousand men here, too. And

 no innocents to worry over. If my brother's chief ally

 thinks he will find us as easy a nut to crack as before, he

 will be disappointed."

 

 Isgrimnur stared at the fierce-eyed prince, then at

 Camaris, who held his head in his hands and stared at the

 

 tabletop.

 

 Is Josua right? Or are we the last raveled end of John's

 empire, waiting for a final pull before it falls into

 

 threads?

 

 "I suppose we'd better go and talk to a few of the cap-

 tains." The duke got up and held his hands close to the

 brazier, trying to dispel some of the chill. "Better we tell

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 587

 

 them something's coming than they hear it by rumor." He

 made a noise of disgust. "Looks like we don't get much

 sleep."

 

 A

 

 Miriamele stared at Cadrach. She, who had heard him

 lie so many times, could not free herself of the horrifying

 certainty that this time he was telling the truth.

 

 Or the truth as he sees it, anyway, she tried to comfort

 herself.

 

 She looked at Binabik, who had narrowed his eyes in

 concentration, then returned to Cadrach's bleak face.

 "Doomed? Do you mean some danger beside that we al-

 ready face?"

 

 He met her stare. "Doomed beyond hope. And I have

 played no little part in it."

 

 "What is it you are saying?" demanded Binabik.

 

 The dwarrow Yis-fidri seemed to want little to do with

 this volatile and frightening conversation; he hesitated,

 fingers flexing.

 

 "What I am saying, troll, is that all the scurrying about

 in caverns that we do here matters little. Whether we es-

 cape the White Foxes outside, whether your Prince Josua

 knocks down the walls, whether God Himself sends light-

 ning down from Heaven to blast Elias to ash ... none of

 it matters."

 

 Miriamele felt her guts twist at the certainty in his

 voice. "Tell us what you mean."

 

 The monk's hard face crumpled. "Aedon's mercy! Ev-

 erything you have thought about me is true, Miriamele.

 Everything." A tear ran down his cheek. "God help me

 although He has no reason toI have done such foul

 things...."

 

 "Curse you, Cadrach, will you explain!"

 

 As if this outburst had somehow pushed Yis-fidri past

 what he could bear, the dwarrow got up and moved away

 rapidly, going to join his whispering fellows on the other

 side of the cavern.

 

 Cadrach wiped at his eyes and nose with his dirty

 

 588 Tad Williams

 

 sleeve. "I told you of my capture by Pryrates," he said to

 Miriamele.

 

 "You did." And she in turn had told Binabik and others

 on Sesuad'ra, so she felt no need to retell the tale now.

 

 "I told you that after I had betrayed the booksellers,

 Pryrates threw me out, thinking I was dead."

 

 She nodded.

 

 'That was not trueor at least it did not happen then."

 He took a breath. "He set me to spy on Morgenes and

 others I had known from my days as a Scrollbearer."

 

 "And you did it?"

 

 "If you think I hesitated, my lady, you do not know

 how fiercely a drunkard and coward can cling to his

 lifeor how terrified of Pryrates' anger I was. You see,

 I knew him. I knew that the injuries he had done to my

 flesh in his tower were nothing set against what he could

 do if he truly wished to make me suffer."

 

 "So you spied for him?! Spied on Morgenes?"

 

 Cadrach shook his head. "I triedby the Tree, how I

 tried! But Morgenes was no fool. He knew that I had

 fallen into dreadful straits, and that the red priest knew

 both of us from elder days. He gave me food and a night's

 lodging, but he was suspicious. He made sure there was

 nothing for me to find in either his chambers or his dis-

 course that would be useful to someone like Pryrates."

 Cadrach shook his head. "If anything, my efforts only

 taught Morgenes that he had less time than he had

 hoped."

 

 "So you failed?" Miriamele could not see where this

 was leading, but a deep dread was spreading through her.

 

 "Yes. And I was terrified. When I werrt back to

 Hjeldin's Tower, Pryrates was angry. But he did not kill

 me, or do something worse, as I feared. Instead he asked

 me more questions about Du Svardenvyrd. I think by then

 he had already been touched by the Storm King and was

 beginning to bargain with him." Cadrach's look turned

 contemptuous. "As if any mortal could successfully bar-

 gain with one such as that! I doubt Pryrates has even yet

 realized what has come through the door he opened."

 

 "We will talk of what thing Pryrates has done later,"

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER589

 

 said Binabik. "You are telling us now of things you have

 been doing."

 

 The monk stared at him. "They are less separate than

 you think," he said at last. "Pryrates asked me many

 questions, but for one who had read Du Svardenvyrd

 indeed, for one who knew Nisses' book so well that the

 memory of its words still haunts my thoughts dailyit

 was easy enough to see the direction behind his questions.

 Somehow he had been reached by the Storm King, and

 now Pryrates was eager to know about the three Great

 Swords."

 

 "So Pryrates does know about the swords." Miriamele

 took a shaky breath. "I suppose he was the one who took

 Bright-Nail from the mound, then."

 

 Cadrach held up his hand. "Pryrates dealt with me

 harshly for failing with Morgenes. Then he had me send

 a message to old Jarnauga in the north, asking for infor-

 mation about the Storm King. I suspect that the alchemist

 was looking for ways to defend himself against his new

 and very dangerous friend. He made me write it as he

 watched, then sent it himself with a sparrow he had

 filched from Morgenes. He let me go free again. He was

 sure I would not run away when-he could so easily locate

 

 me.

 

 "But you did run away," Miriamele said. "You told me

 

 so.

 

 Cadrach nodded. "Eventually. But not then. My fear

 was too great. But at the same time I knew that Jamauga

 would not respond. The Rimmersman and Morgenes were

 closer than Pryrates realized, and I had no doubt the doc-

 tor would have already written to tell Jarnauga about my

 unexpected visit. In any case, Jamauga had been living in

 Stormspike's shadow for years and would not have

 opened his mind to anyone he did not know for certain to

 be untouched by Ineluki's long hand. So I knew that the

 imposture Pryrates had forced me to commit was useless,

 and that when the red priest discovered it, he would have

 no use left for me. My only worth was as one who had

 read Nisses' book and as a former Scrotlbearer. But I had

 answered all of his questions about the book, and now he

 

 590

 

 Tad miiams

 

 would discover that the other Scrollbearers had stopped

 trusting me years before...." He broke off, struggling

 again with powerful emotions.

 

 "Go on." Miriamele spoke a little more gently Aan be-

 fore. Whatever he had done, he seemed to be genuinely

 suffering.

 

 "I was in terrorstark terror. I knew that I had only a

 short time before Jarnauga's inevitably unhelpful reply. I

 wanted desperately to flee, but Pryrates would know the

 moment I left Erchester, and by his use of the Art would

 also know where I had gone. He had marked me in that

 high chamber of his tower. He would find me anywhere."

 Cadrach paused, struggling for self-control. "So I

 thought, and thought, and thoughtbut not, to my shame,

 of a way to escape Pryrates or thwart his plans. No, in my

 besottedness and my fear, I thought only of ways that I

 could please this horrid master, that I could convince him

 to grant me my pathetic life." He quivered, unable for a

 moment to continue.

 

 "I had thought much about his questions," the monk fi-

 nally resumed. "Especially about the three Great Swords.

 It was clear that they had some marvelous power, and

 equally clear that they meant something to the Storm

 King. What was not clear to anyone but me, I thought,

 was that the sword Minneyar, one of the three, was in fact

 Bright-Nail, the sword that had been buried with King

 John."

 

 Miriamele gaped. "You knew?"

 

 "Anyone who read the books of history that I had

 would have suspected it," Cadrach replied, "i am con-

 vinced Morgenes knew, but hid it in his own book about

 your grandfather so that only those who knew what to

 look for would find it, thus keeping it from common

 knowledge." He had regained a little composure. "In any

 case, I read the same sources Doctor Morgenes did, and

 had long held that opinion, although I had never shared it

 with anyone. And the more I thought about the market-

 place gossip that claimed Elias would not handle his fa-

 ther's sword, that he had, against custom, buried it with

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER591

 

 his father, the more I felt sure that my guess was not just

 likely, but true.

 

 "So I decided that if what Du Svardenvyrd seemed to

 suggest was also truethat the only weapons the Storm

 King feared were the Three Great Swordswhat more

 pleasing gift could 1 bring to Pryrates than one of the

 swords? All three were thought to be lost. Surely if I pro-

 duced one, I reasoned, Pryrates would find me useful."

 

 Miriamele gaped at the monk in disgust and astonish-

 ment. "You . . . you traitor! Was it you who took the

 sword from my grandfather's barrow? And gave it to

 Pryrates!? God curse you if it was, Cadrach!"

 

 "You may call curses on me all you likeand you will,

 with ample reason. But wait until you hear the whole

 tale."

 

 / was right to try and drown him in Emettin Bay. I wish

 he had never been fished out. She waved angrily for him

 to continue.

 

 "I went to Swertclif, of course," he said. "But the

 burial ground was closely guarded by the king's soldiers.

 It seemed that Elias meant to keep his father's grave safe.

 I waited two nights for a moment when I might get at the

 barrow, but ho such moment came. And then Pryrates

 sent for me." He winced, remembering. "He had learned

 well from his studies. His voice was in my headyou

 cannot imagine how that feels! He forced me to come to

 him, come slinking like a disobedient child...."

 

 "Cadrach, there are Noms who are waiting outside this

 cavern," Binabik interrupted. "So far your story is telling

 us little that will help us."

 

 The monk stared at him coldly. "Nothing will help us.

 That is what I am trying to explainbut I will not force

 you to listen."

 

 "You will tell us everything," Miriamele declared, her

 rage lighting free. "We are fighting for our lives. Speak!"

 

 "Pryrates called me to him again. As I knew he would,

 he told me that Jamauga had sent only information of no

 worth, that it was clear the old Rimmersman did not trust

 me. 'You are useless to me, Padreic ec-Crannhyr,' the al-

 chemist said.

 

 592

 

 Tad Williams

 

 " *What if I can tell you something that is very useful?'

 I asked. No, that is not the right word. I begged. 'If you

 will leave me my life, I will serve you faithfully. There

 are still things I know that might help you!' He laughed

 when I said thatlaughed!and told me that if I could

 give him even a single piece of information that was truly

 valuable, he would indeed spare me. So I told him that I

 knew the Great Swords were important to him, that all

 were lost, but that I knew where one of them was.

 

 " 'Do you think to tell me Sorrow is with the Noms of

 Stormspike?' he said scornfully. 'I know that already,' I

 shook my headin fact, I had not known that myself, but

 I could guess how he had discovered it. 'That Thorn did

 not sink into the ocean with Camaris?' he continued.

 

 "I hurriedly told him what I had discoveredthat

 Minneyar and Bright-Nail were one and the same, that

 one of the Great Swords was even now buried less than a

 league from where we sat. In my eagerness to gain his fa-

 vor, I even told him that I had tried to get it myself to

 bring it to him."

 

 Miriamele scowled. "To think that I saw you as a

 friend, Cadrachif you had even an idea of what this

 could mean to us all... !"

 

 The monk ignored her, grimly following her order to

 finish the tale. "And when I was done ... he laughed

 again. 'Oh, this is very sad. Padreic,' he hooted. 'Is this

 your great work of spycraft? Is this what you think will

 save you? I have known what Bright-Nail truly is since

 before you first entered this tower. And if you had moved

 it from its resting place, I would have plucked out your

 eyes and tongue with my own fingers. It will Jje there on

 old John's rotting breast until the proper time. When the

 hour is right, the sword will come. All the swords will

 come.* "

 

 Miriamele's thoughts suddenly went staggering- "The

 sword will come? He ... he has known all along?

 Pryrates ... wanted it left there?" She turned helplessly to

 Binabik, but the little man seemed just as amazed as she.

 "I don't understand. Elysia, Mother of Mercy, what are

 you telling us, Cadrach?"

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER593

 

 "Pryrates knows all." A certain black satisfaction crept

 into the monk's voice. "He knew what Bright-Nail was,

 where it layand he saw no need to disturb it. I feel sure

 that everything your uncle and these ..." he gestured to-

 ward Binabik, "latter-day Scrollbearers plan is already

 known to him. He is content to see it happen."

 

 "But how can that be? How can Pryrates not fear the

 one power that can undo his master?" Miriamele was still

 astonished. "Binabik, what does this mean?"

 

 The troll had lost his composure. He held up his trem-

 bling fingers, begging a moment to think. "It is much for

 considering. Perhaps Pryrates has a plan of some treach-

 ery against the Storm King. Perhaps he thinks to keep

 Ineluki's power restrained with the threatening of the

 swords' power." He turned to Cadrach. "He was saying

 'the swords will come'? Those words?"

 

 The monk nodded. "He knows. He wants Bright-Nail

 and the others brought here."

 

 "But no sense in this am I seeing," said Binabik anx-

 iously. "Why not then bring Prester John's blade in and

 hide it away until the time he waits is arrived?"

 

 Cadrach shrugged. "Who can know? Pryrates has

 walked strange paths and learned hidden things."

 

 As her shock lessened a little, Miriamele felt her rage

 at the monk return, battening on her fear. "How can you

 sit there so smugly? If you did not betray me and alt I

 care about, it was not for lack of trying. I suppose he set

 you free then to spy some more? Is that why you arranged

 to accompany me from Naglimund? I thought you were

 just using me to further your own greed .. ." as she

 thought about it, despair seized her, "but ... but you were

 working for Pryrates!" She turned away, unable to look at

 Cadrach any longer.

 

 "No, my lady!" Amazingly, he sounded hurt and upset.

 "No, he did not release meand I did not serve him

 again."

 

 "If you expect me to believe that," she said with cold

 hatred, "you are truly mad."

 

 "Is there more to your tale?" The tentative respect

 Binabik had earlier shown the monk had curdled into sour

 

 594

 

 Tad Williams

 

 practicality. "Because we are still trapped here, still in

 danger that is most dreadfulalthough there is little else

 we can do, I am thinking, until the Noms prove they can

 force the dwarrows* door."

 

 "There is a little more. No, Minamele, Pryrates did not

 release me. As I told you, he had proved that I was worth-

 less to him. I told you this much of the truth when we

 were in the landing boatI was not even worth more tor-

 tures. Someone clubbed me, then I was tossed away like

 offal dumped behind a rich man's house. Except I was not

 left for dead out in the Kynswood as I told you before.

 Rather, I was dumped into a pit in the catacombs that run

 beneath Hjeldin's Tower ... and that is where I awoke. In

 darkness."

 

 He paused, as though this memory was even more

 painful than the ghastly things he had already told.

 Miriamele said nothing. She was furious and yet empty. If

 Cadrach's tale was true, then perhaps there really was no

 hope. If Pryrates was as powerful as thisif he had a

 strategem to constrain even the Storm King to his will

 then should Miriamele somehow find her father and con-

 vince him to end the war, the red priest would still find

 some method to have things his own way.

 

 No hope. It was strange to think about. As unlikely as

 their chances had seemed, Josua and his allies had always

 had the slim hope of the swords to cling to. If that was

 gone . . . Miriamele felt dizzy. It seemed she had walked

 through a familiar door only to find a chasm yawning just

 beyond the threshold.

 

 "I was alive, but wounded and dazed. I was in a terri-

 ble placeno living man should have to visit the black,

 black places beneath Pryrates' tower. And to go upward

 would mean escaping through the tower, past Pryrates

 himself. I could not imagine succeeding at that. The only

 tiny scrap of luck I had was that he likely thought me

 dead. So I went ... another way- Down."

 

 Cadrach had to pause for a long moment and wipe the

 sweat from his pale face. It was not particularly warm in

 the cavern.

 

 "When we were in the Wran," he suddenly said to

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER595

 

 Miriamele, "I could not force myself to go down into the

 ghants' nest. That was because it was too much like .,.

 like going into the tunnels below Hjeldin's Tower."

 

 "You were here before?" She stared at him, her atten-

 tion unwillingly held. "Here beneath the castle?"

 

 "Yes, but not in the places you have been, the places I

 have followed you." He wiped at his forehead again.

 "Ransomer preserve me, I wish my escape had been

 through the parts of this vast maze you saw! The way I

 came was far worse." He tried to find words but gave up.

 "Far, far worse."

 

 "Worse? Why?"

 

 "No." Cadrach shook his head. "I will not tell you.

 There are many ways in and out of here, and not all of

 them are ... normal. I will speak no further on it, and if

 you could glimpse even a piece of what I saw, you would

 thank me for not telling you." He shivered. "But it felt

 like years that I was below the ground, and I saw and

 heard and felt things ... things that .. ." He stopped,

 shaking his head again.

 

 "Don't tell us, then. I don't believe you, in any case.

 How could you escape unnoticed? You said that Pryrates

 could find you, could summon-you."

 

 "I hadI stilt havesome little smatterings of the Art

 left to me. I was able to draw a ... a sort of fog over me.

 I have kept it since. That is why you were not summoned

 to Sesuad'ra as Tiamak and the others were. They could

 not find us."

 

 "But why didn't that shield you from Pryrates before.

 when he summoned youwhen you couldn't run away

 and had to spy and sneak for him like the worst sort of

 traitor in the world?" She was disgusted with herself for

 being drawn back into a discussion. She was even angrier

 that she had ever wasted her trust and concern on some-

 one who could do what the monk had done. She had de-

 fended him to the world, but it was she who had been the

 fool. He was a traitor through and through.

 

 "Because he thinks I am dead'" Cadrach almost

 shouted. "If he knew I lived, he would find me soon

 enough. He would blow my poor shielding fog away like

 

 596 Tad Williams

 

 a strong wind and I would be naked, and helpless. By all

 the gods old and new, Miriamele, why do you think I was

 so determined to get off Aspitis' ship? As I slowly came

 to realize that he was one of Pryrates' servitors I could

 think of nothing but that he might tell his master I still

 lived. Aedon save us, why do you think when we met him

 again on the Lakelands I begged you to kill him?" He

 mopped more sweat from his face. "I can only guess that

 Pryrates did not recognize the name 'Cadrach,' although

 I had used it before. But I have used many nameseven

 that red-robed demon could not know them all."

 

 "So you were making your way to freedom through the

 tunnels," Binabik prompted. "Kikkasul! This place is in-

 deed like our Mintahoq cave-citymost that is important

 happens beneath the rock."

 

 "Freedom?" Cadrach almost sneered. "How could any-

 one be free who lived with the knowledge I did? Yes, I fi-

 nally made my way up from the very deepest depths; I

 think I was quite mad by then. I headed north, away from

 Pryrates and the Hayholt, although at the time I had no

 idea of where I would go. I wound up finally in

 Naglimund, thinking that I would be safest in a place

 sworn to oppose Elias and his chief counselor. But it was

 soon apparent that Naglimund, too, would be attacked

 and thrown down, so I took up the Lady Vorzheva's offer

 to accompany Miriameie south."

 

 "You said you were not free because of the knowledge

 you had," said Miriamele slowly. "But you did not share

 that knowledge with anyone. That is perhaps the most

 wretched deed of all you have done, Cadrach. Fear of

 Pryrates might make you do terrible things, but to-be free

 of him and still say nothingwhile the rest of us have

 pondered and struggled and suffered and died ..." She

 shook her head, trying to make her words reflect the

 chilly contempt she felt. "That I cannot forgive."

 

 He looked at her without flinching. "Now you truly

 know me. Princess Miriamele."

 

 A long silence fell, broken only by the faint singsong

 of the dwarrows muttering among themselves. Binabik

 was the one who ended it. "We have talked enough of

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 597

 

 these things. And I need time for pondering on what

 Cadrach has said. But something there is that is clear:

 

 Josua and the others search for Bright-Nail, and they have

 Thorn already. They plan to bring them here if they can,

 but they are knowing nothing of what this one says of

 Pryrates. If we were having no other reason for surviving

 and escaping, we now have one that is large." He made a

 close-fisted gesture. "But what is outside our door is the

 first thing that will prevent us. How will we be making an

 escape?"

 

 "Or have we already lost the chance listening to

 Brother Cadrach's tale of treachery?" Miriamele took a

 breath. "There were a handful of Norns beforehow

 long before there is an army?"

 

 Binabik looked at Cadrach, but the monk had lowered

 his face into his hands.

 

 "We must make an attempt at escaping. If only one of

 us can survive to bear the tale, then still it will be a vic-

 tory."

 

 "And even if all is lost," Miriamele said, "there will be

 some Noms who will not be around to see it. I would set-

 tle for even a victory like that." She meant it, she

 realizedand with that realization, a part of her seemed

 to turn cold and lifeless.

 

 27

 

 Hammer of Pom

 

 "Prince JiriJU. At last we meet." Josua bowed, then ex-

 tended his left hand; the manacle he wore as a remem-

 brance of imprisonment was a shadow on his wrist. The

 Sitha made a strangely-jointed bow of his own, then

 reached out his hand to clasp Josua's. Isgrimnur could not

 help marveling at such a strange scene.

 

 "Prince Josua." The new-risen sun turned both Jiriki's

 white hair and the snow faintly golden. "Young Seoman

 told me much about you. Is he here?"

 

 Josua frowned. "He is not, to my regret. There is much

 to saymuch to tell you, and much we hope you can tell

 us." He looked up at the looming walls of the Hayholt,

 falsely welcoming in the dawn light. "I am not sure

 which of us should say to the other: 'Welcome home.' "

 

 The Sitha smiled coldly. "This is not our home any

 more, Prince Josua."

 

 "And I am not sure it is mine, either. But come, it is

 foolish to stand in the snow. Will you come and^ break

 your fast with us?"

 

 Jiriki shook his head. "Thanks to you for your cour-

 tesy, but 1 think not yet." He looked back at the milling

 Sithi, who had fanned out across the hillside and were

 rapidly setting up camp, the first colorful tents blooming

 like snowfiowers. "My mother Likimeya, I think, speaks

 with my sister; I, too, would like to spend a short time

 with Aditu. If you would be kind enough to come to my

 mother's tent by the time the sun is above the treeline,

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER599

 

 bringing those of your household you deem necessary, we

 will begin to talk. There is, as you said, much to tell."

 

 The Sitha gave a sort of graceful salute, bowed again,

 then turned and moved away across the snow.

 

 "That's cheek," Isgrimnur muttered. "Making you

 come to them."

 

 "It was their castle first." Josua laughed quietly. "Even

 if they do not wish to reclaim it."

 

 Isgrimnur grunted. "As long as they help us put the

 bastards out, I suppose we can go to their house for a

 visit." He squinted. "Now who's that?"

 

 A solitary rider had crested the hilltop behind the Sithi

 encampment. He was taller and more solidly-built than

 the immortals, but he slumped wearily in the saddle.

 

 "God be praised!" Isgrimnur breathed, then shouted for

 joy. "Isom! Hah, Isom!" He waved his arms. The rider

 looked up, then spurred his horse down the hill.

 

 "Ah, Father," he said after he had dismounted and re-

 ceived a backbreaking embrace from the duke, "I cannot

 tell you how good it is to see you. This brave Hernystiri

 mount," he patted his gray horse, "kept up with the Sithi

 almost all the way from Naglimund. They ride so fast!

 But we fell behind at the end."

 

 "No matter, no matter," Isgrimnur chortled. "I only

 wish your mother was not behind in Nabban. Bless you,

 son, it makes my heart glad to see you."

 

 "Indeed," said Josua. "You are a happy sight. What of

 Eolair? What of Hemystir? Jiriki said but little."

 

 Isom made a weary bow. "Everything I can tell you I

 will, Josua. Is there something to eat here? And some-

 what to drink, too?"

 

 "Come." Isgrimnur put his arm about bis tall son. "Let

 your old father lean on you for just a few minutesI was

 smashed beneath my horse in Nabban, did you know? But

 I am not finished yet! We will all break fast together.

 Aedon has blessed us this morning."

 

 The afternoon had turned dark and the wind had risen,

 clawing at the walls of the tent. Silent Sithi had put out

 

 6oo

 

 Tad Williams

 

 shining globes of light which were now warming into full

 brightness like small suns.

 

 Duke Isgrimnur was beginning to feel restless. His

 back was giving him no peace, and he had been sitting

 propped on cushionsand how did a war party of

 Sithi manage to carry cushions, he could not help

 wonderingso long that he did not think he could rise/to

 his feet without help. Even the presence of Isom sitting

 nearby was not enough to keep his thoughts from turning

 

 sour.

 

 The Sithi had destroyed Skali and his menthat was

 the first news Isom had given him. The immortals had

 brought the Thane of Kaldskryke's head back to

 Hemysadharc in a sack. Isgrimnur knew he should rejoice

 that the man who had stolen his dukedom and brought so

 much unhappiness to Rimmersgard and Hernystir was

 dead, but he felt mostly his own age and infirmity, as well

 as a certain angry shame. The revenge he had sworn so

 loudly at Naglimund had been taken by someone else. If

 he regained Elvritshalla, it would be because the Sithi had

 earned it for him. That did not sit well. The unhappy duke

 was having trouble paying attention to the things that

 seemed to fascinate Josua and the immortals. *

 

 "All this talk of Houses and Stars is very well," he said

 crossly, "but what exactly are we going to do?" He folded

 his arms across his broad chest. Someone had to hasten

 things along. These Sithi were like an army of golden-

 eyed Josuas, seemingly content to talk and ponder until

 The Day of Weighing-Outbut the reality of the Hayholt

 would not go away. "We have siege engines, if you know

 what those are. We can knock the gates down eventually,

 or maybe even burrow under the walls. But the Hayholt

 was built stronger than anything in Osten Ard, and it

 won't happen fast. In the meantime, your Conqueror Star

 

 is right overhead."

 

 Likimeya, who Isgrimnur supposed was the queen of

 the Sithi, though no one seemed to call her by that title,

 turned her faintly serpentine gaze on him. It was all the

 Rimmersman could do to meet her stare.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER601

 

 This one chills my blood. And I thought Adilu was

 strange.

 

 "You are correct, mortal. If our understanding, and the

 lore of your Scrollbearers is true, we have very little

 time." She turned to Josua. "We brought down

 Naglimund's walls in daysbut that did not stop the

 Hikeda'ya from doing what they wished, or at least we do

 not think it did. We cannot afford to make that mistake

 here."

 

 Prince Josua lowered his head, thinking. "But what

 else can we do? As Isgrimnur pointed out to me last

 night, we cannot fly over the walls."

 

 "There are other ways into the castle you call the

 Hayholt," said Likimeya. The tall, black-haired Sitha be-

 side her nodded. "We could not send an army in through

 those passages, nor would we wish to, but we can, and

 should, send a sufficient force. Ineluki has a hand in alt

 this; he or your mortal enemies have doubtless made sure

 that these ways are guarded. But if we keep our foes' at-

 tention on what happens out here before the walls, we

 might succeed in getting a small troop inside,"

 

 "What 'other ways' do you mean?" Josua asked,

 frowning.

 

 Tunnels," said Camaris suddenly. "Ways in and out.

 John knew them. There is one on the cliffside below the

 Sea Gate." The old man had a slightly wild look, as

 though any moment he might begin raving again.

 

 Likimeya nodded. The strings of polished stones

 braided into her hair clinked. "Just soalthough I think

 we can choose a better entrance than the caves along the

 cliff. Do not forget. Prince Josua: Asu'a was ours once,

 and many of us were alive when it was still the great

 house of the Zida'ya. We know its hidden paths."

 

 "The sword." Camaris rubbed his hand back and forth

 across Thorn's pommel. "It wants to go inside. It has

 been . . ." He broke off and fell silent. He had been

 strangely subdued through the entire day, but Isgrimnur

 could not help noticing that he seemed less daunted by

 the Sithi than any of the other mortals assembled in

 Likimeya's tent. Even Tiamak and Strangyeard, students

 

 602

 

 Tad Williams

 

 of old lore, sat wide-eyed and silent except when forced

 into stammering speech.

 

 Outside, the wind grew louder.

 

 "That is another, and perhaps the most important, mys-

 tery," said Jiriki. "Your brother has one Great Sword,

 Prince Josua. This mortal knight, Sir Camaris, has an-

 other. Where is the third?"

 

 Josua shook his head. "As I told you, it is gone from

 my father's barrow."

 

 "And how will they serve us if we bring them all to-

 gether?" Jiriki finished. "Still, it seems that Camaris must

 be one of those we send beneath the walls. We cannot af-

 ford the chance that we would gain the other two swords

 and have this black blade left outside." He steepled his

 long fingers. "I regret more than ever the fact that Eolair

 and I could not find the Tinukeda'ya of Mezutu'athose

 you call dwarrows. They know more of sword-lore and

 forging than anyone, and they certainly made Minneyar.

 There is doubtless much they could have told us."

 

 "Send in Camaris? Through some underground cav-

 erns?" Josua seemed more than dubiousthere was an

 edge almost of despair to his words. "We face perhaps the

 greatest battle that Osten Ard has seencertainly, it

 seems, one of the most importantand you say that we

 should send away our greatest warrior?" As Josua looked

 over to the old knight, Isgrimnur saw again the discom-

 fort he had sensed earlier. What had Camaris told him?

 

 "But surely you can see the sense of what my brother

 says, Prince Josua." Aditu had been almost deferentially

 silent through the afternoon. "If all the signs, if all the

 dreams and rumors and whispered lore are tme, then it is

 the Great Swords that will thwart Ineluki's plan, not

 menor even immortalsbattling before the gates of the

 castle. That has been the wisdom by which you have

 planned everything."

 

 "So because Thorn belongs to Camaris, he and he

 alone can take it inside? And not through the gate or over

 the walls with the army behind him, but like a sneak

 thief?"

 

 "Thorn does not belong to me." Camaris seemed to be

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER603

 

 struggling just to speak slowly and rationally. "Methinks

 it is the other way around. Merciful Aedon, let me go,

 Josua. I doubt I can wait much longer before this thing

 drives me mad."

 

 Josua looked at the old knight for a long time; some-

 thing unspoken passed between them. "Perhaps there is

 sense in what you all say," the prince admitted at last.

 "But it will be a hard thing to lose Camaris...." He

 paused. 'To lose him for the coming battle. It will be hard

 on the men. They feel invincible when they follow him."

 

 "Perhaps they should not know that he is gone," Aditu

 said.

 

 Josua turned, startled. "What? How would we hide

 such a thing?"

 

 "I think my sister has spoken wisely," said Jiriki. "If

 we hope to have a chance to send Sir Camaris into your

 brother's castleand he will not be alone, Josua; there

 will be Zida'ya with him who know those placesbut we

 do not wish to blow a trumpet and announce that we have

 done that, we must make it seem that Camaris is still

 here, even once the full siege has begun."

 

 "The siege? But if our only hope is the swords and our

 true stroke is this company that we send in through your

 secret ways. what point is there in throwing away the

 lives of others?" the prince demanded angrily. "Are you

 saying we should sacrifice men in a bloody siege that we

 already know .is starting too late to achieve success?"

 

 Likimeya leaned forward. "We must sacrifice men and

 Zida'ya both." Isgrimnur caught a flicker in her amber

 stare that seemed almost like regret, or pain, but he dis-

 missed it. He could not believe one so stem, so alien, felt

 anything but cool necessity. "Otherwise, we announce to

 our enemies that we have other hopes. We shout to them

 that we are waiting for some other stratagem to take ef-

 fect."

 

 "Why?" Isgrimnur could see that Josua was truly

 agonized. "Any sensible war-leader knows it is better

 practice to starve out a foe than to waste men's lives on

 thick stone walls."

 

 "You are camped beside the Zida'ya. Those who are

 

 604 Tad Williams

 

 even now watching from behind those stone walls have

 made compact with Ineluki. Some may even be our kin,

 the Hikeda'ya. They will know that the Dawn Children

 see the red star in the sky overhead. The Conqueror Star,

 as you call it, tells us that we have only a few days at

 most, that whatever your mortal sorcerer plans to do on

 Ineluki's behalf must happen soon. If we appear to ignore

 that fact, we will fool no one. We must launch the siege

 immediately, and your people and ours must fight as

 though we have no other hope. And who knows? Perhaps

 we do not. Not all tales end happily, Prince Josua. We

 Gardenbom know that all too well."

 

 Josua turned to Isgrimnur as if for support. "So we

 send our finest warrior, who is also our greatest inspira-

 tion, down into the earth. And we throw away the lives of

 our fighting men on a siege that we know cannot succeed.

 Duke Isgrimnur, have I gone mad? Is this all that is left

 to us?"

 

 The Rimmersman shrugged helplessly. It was dreadful

 to watch Josua's honest torment. "What the Sithi-folk say

 makes sense. I'm sorry, Josua. It galls me, too."

 

 The prince lifted his hand in a gesture of resignation.

 "Then I will do as you all say. Since my brother took the

 throne, I have been faced with horror after horror. It

 seems, as one of my teachers once told me, that God

 shapes us with a hammer of pain on an anvil of duty. I

 cannot imagine what shape we will be when He is fin-

 ished." He sat back, waving to the others to continue.

 "Make certain only that Camaris is well-defended. He

 carries the one thing we have that we did not already pos-

 sess when my brother and the Storm King broke

 Naglimundand we have lost much else since then."

 

 Isgrimnur looked at the old knight. Camaris was lost in

 thought, his eyes fixed on nothing visible, his lips mov-

 ing.

 

 A

 

 The king was lurking in the passageway above the en-

 trance to the forge. The soldiers, already nervous, startled

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 605

 

 when they saw the cloaked shape lurch forward out of the

 shadows. One of them even went so far as to draw his

 sword before Pryrates barked at him to put up; Elias,

 though, seemed oblivious to what would normally be a

 fatal error for a young guardsman.

 

 "Pryrates," the king rasped. "I have been searching and

 searching. Where is my cupbearer? My throat is so

 dry..-."

 

 "I will help you, Majesty." The priest turned his coal-

 black stare on the gawking soldiers, who quickly shifted

 their eyes sideways or down to their own chests. "The

 captain will take these men back to the walls. We are fin-

 ished here." He waved them away with a flapping red

 sleeve.

 

 When the noise of their footfalls grew faint in the cor-

 ridor, Pryrates gently took the king's arm so that Ellas

 could lean on him. The king's staring face was

 parchment-white, and he licked at his lips constantly.

 

 "Did you say you had seen my cupbearer?"

 

 "I will take care of you. Majesty. I think we will not

 see Hengfisk again."

 

 "Has he ... has he run away to ... them?" Elias

 cocked his head as though treachery might have a sound.

 'They are all around the walls. You must know. I can feel

 them. My brother, and those bright-eyed creatures ..."

 He pawed at his mouth. "You said they would be de-

 stroyed, Pryrates. You said all that resisted me would be

 destroyed."

 

 "And so they will be, my king." The priest induced

 Elias to walk down the hallway, heading him through the

 maze of corridors toward the residences. They passed an

 open window where snow blew in and melted into pud-

 dles on the floor: outside, Green Angel Tower loomed

 against the swirling storm clouds. "You yourself will de-

 stroy them and usher in the Golden Age."

 

 "And then the pain will go away," Elias wheezed. "I

 would not hate Josua so if he had not brought me such

 pain. If he had not stolen my daughter, too. He is my

 brother, after all . . ." the king clenched his teeth as

 

 6o6 Tad Williams

 

 though something had stabbed him, "... because family

 is blood... "

 

 "And blood is powerful magic," Pryrates said, half to

 himself. "I know, my king. But they turned against you.

 That is why I found you new friendspowerful friends,"

 

 "But you cannot replace a family," said Elias, a little

 sadly. He winced. "Ah, God, Pryrates, I am burning up.

 Where is that cupbearer?"

 

 "A little farther. Majesty. Just a little farther."

 

 "I can feel it, you know," Elias panted. He lay back on

 his mattress, which had rotted through in so many places

 that the horsehair stuck up all around him. A stained gob-

 let, now empty, was clutched in his hand.

 

 Pryrates paused in the doorway. "Feel what, Majesty?"

 

 "The star, the red star." Elias pointed at the cobwebbed

 ceiling. "It is hanging overhead, staring at me like an eye.

 I hear the singing all the time."

 

 "Singing?"

 

 "The song it singsor that the sword sings to the star.

 I cannot tell which." His hand fell and crawled like a

 white spider onto the long sheath. "It sings in my head.

 'It is time, it is time,' the voices say, over and over." He

 laughed, a cracked, jagged sound. "Sometimes I awaken

 to find myself walking through the castle and I cannot re-

 member how I came there. But I hear the song, and I feel

 the star burning into me whether it is day or night. It has

 a fiery tail, like a dragon...." He paused. "I will go out

 to them."

 

 "What!?" Pryrates returned to the king's bedside.

 

 "I will go out to themJosua and the others. Perhaps

 that is the time the sword means. Time to show them that

 I am different than they know. That their resistance is

 foolish." He brought his hands to his face. "They are ...

 they are my blood, Pryrates."

 

 "Your Highness, I ..." The priest seemed momentarily

 unsure. 'They are your enemies, Elias. They wish you

 only harm."

 

 The king's laugh was almost a sob. "And you mean me

 only well, is that right? That is why every night since you

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER607

 

 took me to that hill I have suffered dreams that God

 would not visit upon sinners in Hell? That is why my

 body aches and burns until I can barely keep from

 screaming out loud?"

 

 Pryrates frowned. "You have suffered, my king, but

 you know the reason. The hour is coming fast. Do not let

 your torments be for nothing."

 

 Elias waved his hand. "Go away. I do not wish to talk

 any more. I will do what I think best. I am the master of

 this castleof this land." He gestured violently. "Go

 away, damn you. I am in pain."

 

 The alchemist bowed. "I pray you can rest. Majesty. I

 will go."

 

 Pryrates left the king staring up into the shadows of the

 ceiling.

 

 After standing silently in the corridor for long mo-

 ments, the priest returned to the closed door and passed

 his hand over hinges and frame and door latch several

 times, mouth working soundlessly. When he had finished

 he nodded, then went briskly up the corridor, bootheels

 clicking.

 

 *-

 

 Tiamak and Strangyeard walked close together as they

 made their way down the hillside. Snow was no longer

 falling, but it was piled high on the ground; they made

 slow progress despite the comparatively short distance

 between the Sithi camp and the fires of the prince's army.

 

 "I am going to turn to ice in a moment," Tiamak said

 through clicking teeth. "How do your people live like

 this?"

 

 Strangyeard was shivering, too. "This is a terrible cold

 by any measurement. And we have thick walls to hide be-

 hind, and firesthe lucky ones do, that is." He stumbled

 and went down on his knees in a thick drift. Tiamak

 helped him back up. The bottom half of the priest's robe

 was covered in clinging snow. "I am tempted to curse,"

 Strangyeard said, and laughed unmerrily; his breath hov-

 ered as a cloud.

 

 6o8 Tad Williams

 

 "Come, lean on me," urged Tiamak. The priest's disar-

 ranged hair and sad face tugged at his heart. "One day

 you must come see the Wran. It is not all pleasant, but it

 is never cold."

 

 "Just n-now that sounds very n-n-nice."

 

 The storm clouds had been borne away by the wind,

 and a salting of dim stars glimmered. Tiamak stared up-

 ward. "It looks so close."

 

 Strangyeard followed his gaze, stumbled for a moment,

 then righted himself. The Conqueror Star seemed to hang

 almost directly over the Hayholt, a burning hole in the

 darkness with a tail like a smear of blood. "It is close,"

 the priest said. "I can feel it. Plesinnen wrote that such

 stars spout bad air over the world. Until n-now, I was

 never sure whether I believed himbut if there was ever

 a star that dripped p-pestilence, that is it." He hugged

 himself. "I sometimes wonder if these are the final days,

 Tiamak."

 

 The marsh man did not want to think about that. "All

 the stars here are a little strange. I keep thinking that I

 recognize the Otter or the Sand Beetle, but they seem

 stretched and changed."

 

 Strangyeard squinted his single eye. "The stars look

 odd to me, too." He shivered and lowered his gaze to the

 knee-high snow. "I am frightened, Tiamak."

 

 They staggered on toward the camp, side by side.

 

 "The worst of it," said Tiamak, holding his hands close

 to the fire, "is that we have no better answer to our ques-

 tions than we did when Morgenes sent the first sparrow to

 Jamauga. The Storm King's plan is a complete puzzle,

 and so is the one scheme we have to stop him." The small

 tent was filling with smoke despite the opening near the

 top, but at this moment Tiamak did not care; as a matter

 of fact. it felt somewhat homelike.

 

 "That is not completely true." Strangyeard coughed

 and waved away some of the smoke. "We know a few

 thingsthat Minneyar is Bright-Nail, for one."

 

 "But that Hernystirman had to come tell us that,"

 Tiamak said crossly. "You need not feel bad, Strangyeard.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 609

 

 From what I heard, you did much to help them locate

 Thorn. But I have done little to warrant being a member

 of the League of the Scroll."

 

 "You are too hard on yourself," the archivist said. "You

 brought the page of Nisses' book that helped bring back

 Camaris."

 

 "Have you looked into his eyes, Strangyeard? Was that

 anything other than a curse to him? And now it seems he

 is losing those wits all over again. We should have left

 him alone."

 

 The priest stood. "Forgive me, but this smoke .. ." He

 pulled the tent flap open and fanned vigorously. A blast

 of cold air pushed much of the smoke back inside and set

 them both to shivering anew. "I'm sorry," he said miser-

 ably.

 

 Tiamak gestured for him to sit down. "It is a little bet-

 ter. My eyes are not stinging so." He sighed. "And this

 talk of a Fifth Housedid you see how worried the Sithi

 looked? They may have said they did not know what it

 meant, but I believe they knew something. They did not

 like it." The Wrannaman shrugged his thin shoulders; he

 had already learned from Aditu that what the Sithi did not

 want to discuss remained a secret. They were polite, but

 could be stubbornly vague when they wished. "It matters

 little, I suppose. The siege begins tomorrow morning, and

 Camaris and the others will try to make their way inside,

 and whatever They Who Watch and Shape decide will

 happen ... it will happen."

 

 Strangyeard stared at him, his unpatched eye red-

 rimmed and watery. "You do not seem to get much solace

 from your Wran gods, Tiamak."

 

 "They are mine," the marsh man said. "I doubt yours

 would bring me any greater peace." He looked up, and

 was startled by the archivist's pained expression. "Oh! I

 am sorry, Strangyeard. I did not mean to be insulting. I

 am just angry ... and frightened, like you."

 

 Please, let me not lose my friends. Then I would have

 nothing at all!

 

 "Of course," the archivist said, then sighed. "And I am

 no different than you. I cannot escape the feeling that

 

 6io Tad Williams

 

 something important is just before mesome simple

 thing, as you mentioned. I can feel its presence, but I can-

 not grasp it." He stared at his knit hands. "It is infuriat-

 ing. There is some obvious mistake we have made, or will

 make, I am certain. It is as though I looked back and forth

 through a well-known book, looking for a page I have of-

 ten read, but now I cannot find it." He sighed again. "It

 is no wonder we are neither of us very happy, my friend."

 

 Tiamak warmed briefly at the word 'friend,' but then

 felt his sorrow return. "Something else is worrying me,

 too," he told the archivist.

 

 "What is that?" Strangyeard leaned over and tugged the

 door flap open for a moment, then let it fall shut.

 

 "I have realized that I must go down into the deeps

 with Camaris and the others."

 

 "What? Blessed Elysia, Tiamak, what do you mean?

 You are no warrior."

 

 "Exactly. And neither Camaris nor any of the Sithi

 have read Morgenes' book, or studied the archives at

 Naglimund, as you did, nor shared the wisdom of

 Jarnauga and Dinivan and Valada Geloe. But someone

 who has must gootherwise, what if the people of this

 raiding party secure the swords and cannot guess how to

 use them? We will not get a second chance."

 

 "Oh! Well, then ... mercy! I suppose I should go,

 since I have had the most time to study these things of

 anyone remaining."

 

 "Yes, Strangyeard, my good dryiander friend, of all of

 us, you know the most about the swords. But you have

 only one eye, and the sight in that one is not good. And

 you are many years older than I am, and no^so used to

 climbing and getting in and out of tight places. If Binabik

 of Yiqanuc were here, I would let him go and wish him

 well, since he is more learned in these things than I, and

 at least as capable in other waysnot to mention the least

 likely to get stuck in a narrow tunnel of any of us."

 Tiamak wagged his head sadly. "But Binabik is gone, and

 the wisewoman Geloe is gone, and alt the old

 Scrollbearers are dead. So it falls to me, I think. You have

 taught me much in a short time, Strangyeard." He let out

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 6ll

 

 another heartfelt sigh. "I have evil dreams still about be-

 ing in the ghant nest, of the pictures I saw in my head, of

 hearing my own voice clacking away in the dark. But I

 fear this may be worse."

 

 After a long silence, the priest went and pawed through

 his belongings, coming back at last with a skin bag.

 "Here. This is a strong drink made from berries. Jamauga

 brought it with him to Naglimund: he said it was a shield

 against the cold." He laughed nervously. "Cold we cer-

 tainly have, don't we? Try a little." He passed Tiamak the

 sack.

 

 The liquor was sweet and fiery. Tiamak swallowed,

 then took another swig. He passed the bag back to

 Strangyeard. "It is good, but strange-tasting. I am used to

 sour fern beer. Try some."

 

 "Oh, I think it too potent for me," the priest stam-

 mered. "I wanted you ..."

 

 "A little will help to keep out the chillperhaps it will

 even help set free that elusive thought you spoke of."

 

 Strangyeard hesitated, then lifted the sack to his lips.

 He took a tiny sip and worked it around his mouth, then

 took a little more. Tiamak was pleased to see he did not

 choke. "It's ... hot," the priest- said, wonderingly.

 

 "It feels that way, does it not?" The Wrannaman sank

 back against one of the priest's saddlebags. "Have an-

 other, then pass it to me again. I will need more than a

 few swallows before I work up the nerve to tell Josua

 what I have decided."

 

 The sack was mostly empty. Tiamak had heard the sen-

 tries change outside, and knew it must be near midnight.

 "I should go," he said. He listened to the words as he

 formed them, and was proud of how well-articulated they

 were. "I should go because I need to tell Prince Josua

 what I will do."

 

 "What you will do, yes." Strangyeard was holding the

 wineskin by its cord strap and watching it swing back and

 forth. "That is good."

 

 "So in a moment I will get up," Tiamak pointed out.

 

 "I wish Geloe were here."

 

 6l2

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "Geloe? Here?" Tiamak frowned. "Drinking this

 Rimmersgard liquor?"

 

 "No. Well, I suppose." Strangyeard reached up his free

 hand and set the skin swinging again. "Here to talk to us.

 She was a wise one. Frightening, a littledidn't she

 frighten you? Those eyes ..." His forehead creased as he

 remembered Geloe's alarming stare. "But solid. Reassur-

 ing."

 

 "Of course. We miss her." He got unsteadily to his feet.

 "Terrible thing."

 

 "Why did those ... things do it?" the priest wondered.

 

 "Kill Geloe?"

 

 "No, Camaris." Strangyeard carefully placed the skin

 on top of a blanket. "Why did they kill Camaris? No." He

 smiled, abashed. "I mean ... why did they try to kill

 Camaris? Just him. Doesn't make sense."

 

 "They wanted to take the sword. Thorn."

 

 "Ah," Strangyeard replied. "Ah. P'raps so."

 

 Tiamak struggled out through the tent flap. The chilly

 air was like a blow. He looked over at the priest, who had

 followed him out. "Where are you going?"

 

 "With you," Strangyeard said matter-of-factly. "Tell

 Josua I'm going, too. Down in the tunnels."

 

 "No, you're not." Tiamak was firm. "That would be a

 bad idea. I told you before."

 

 "I'll come with you anyway. To talk with him." The

 priest's teeth were already chattering. "Can't let you walk

 in the cold by yourself." He staggered a few steps, then

 stopped, peering upward, and frowned broadly. "Look at

 that red star. Mad thing. Causing all this trouble"The stars

 should leave us alone." He raised his fist. "We're not

 afraid!" he called to the distant spot of light. "Not

 afraid!"

 

 "You drank too much," Tiamak said as he took the ar-

 chivist's elbow.

 

 Strangyeard bobbed his head. "I might have done."

 

 A

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER613

 

 Josua watched the archivist and the Wrannaman lurch out

 of his tent and into the night, then turned to Isgrimnur. "I

 would never have believed it."

 

 "A drunken priest?" The duke yawned despite the ten-

 sion that roiled his stomach. "That's nothing strange."

 There was a dull pressure behind his eyes. It was past the

 middle of the night, and the next day promised to be

 something dreadful. He needed sleep.

 

 "Perhaps, but a drunken Strangyeard?" Josua shook his

 head slowly. "I think that Tiamak is right about going,

 thoughand he is, from what you've told me, a useful

 fellow."

 

 "Wiry as a hound," Isgrimnur said. "Brave, too, and so

 well-spoken I'm still not used to it. I'll confess, I didn't

 think marsh men were that learned. Camaris could do far

 worse than to take Tiamak, even with his limp. That was

 a cockindrill bit him there, did you know?"

 

 Josua's mind was on other things. "So that is two of

 our mortal contingent." He rubbed his temple. "I cannot

 think any moreit feels like three days have passed since

 this morning's sun rose. We will begin the siege tomor-

 row, and tomorrow evening will be time enough to make

 the final decision on who shall go." He rose and looked

 almost with tenderness at Camaris, who was stretched

 full-length on a pallet at the far side of the tent, moving

 fitfully in his sleep. The squire Jeremias, who seemed to

 attach himself to troubled folk, was curled up on a pile of

 blankets near the old knight's feet.

 

 "Can you find your way back?" Josua asked the duke.

 "Take the lantern."

 

 "I'll find my way right enough. Isom will be up telling

 tales with Sludig and the rest, I have no doubt." He

 yawned again. "Wasn't there a time when we could stay

 up all night drinking, then fight in the morning, then start

 drinking all over again?"

 

 "Maybe for you, Uncle Isgrimnur," Josua said with a

 tiny smile. "Never for me. God grant you good rest to-

 night."

 

 Isgrimnur grunted, then picked up the lamp and made

 

 614 Tad Williams

 

 his way out of the tent, leaving Josua standing in its cen-

 ter, staring at the sleeping Camaris.

 

 Outside the storm clouds had dispersed. The stars

 spread a faint light over the Hayholt's silent walls. The

 Conqueror Star seemed to hang just above Green Angel

 Tower like a flame above a candle.

 

 Go away, you cursed, ill-omened thing, he demanded,

 but he knew that it would not comply.

 

 Shivering in the chill, he stumped slowly through the

 snow toward his tent.

 

 *

 

 "Jeremias! Boy! Wake up!"

 

 The young squire sat up, fighting his way out of sleep.

 "What?"

 

 Josua stood over him, half-dressed. "He's gone. He's

 been gone far too long." The prince snatched up his

 sword belt and leaned to pluck his cloak from the floor.

 "Put on your boots and come help me."

 

 "What? Who's gone. Prince Josua?"

 

 "Camaris, curse it, Camaris! Come and help me. No,

 rouse Isgrimnur and find some men to help. Have them

 bring torches."

 

 The prince took a brand from the fire, then turned and

 pushed out through the door flap. He looked down at the

 snow, trying to make some sense out of the muddle of

 footprints. At last he chose a set of tracks that led down-

 hill toward the Kynslagh. Within moments he was beyond

 the light of the few campfires still burning. The moon had

 vanished from the sky, but the Conqueror Star still burned

 like a signal beacon.

 

 The trail twisted erratically, but within half a furlong it

 was clear that the footprints had turned toward the cliffs

 east of the Hayholt's seawall. Josua looked up to see a

 pale figure moving along the edge of the shoreline, sil-

 houetted against the wall of empty blackness that was the

 Kynslagh.

 

 "Camaris!" Josua called. The figure did not stop, but

 moved along unsteadily toward the edge, lurching like a

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 615

 

 puppet with knotted strings. The prince began to run,

 floundering in the deep snow, then slowed as he reached

 the cliffs. "Camaris," he said, his voice deceptively calm.

 "Where are you going?"

 

 The old man turned to look at him. He wore no cloak,

 and his loose shin flapped in the wind. Even seen by star-

 light there was something odd in his posture.

 

 "It is Josua." The prince lifted his arms as though to

 embrace the old man. "Come back with me. We will sit

 by the fire and talk."

 

 Camaris stared as though the words were animal

 noises, then began to make his way down the rocks. Josua

 hastened forward.

 

 "Stop! Camaris, where are you going?" He scrambled

 over the edge, struggling to keep his balance on the

 muddy slope. "Come back with me."

 

 The old knight whirled and pulled Thorn from its scab-

 bard. Although he seemed fearfully confused, he handled

 the sword with unthinking mastery. His hom Cellian dan-

 gled on its baldric, drawing Josua's eye as it swung back

 and forth. "It is time," Camaris whispered. He was barely

 audible above the waves that slapped on the shore below.

 

 "You cannot do this." Josua reached out his hand. "We

 are not ready. You must wait until the others can go with

 you." He advanced a few slithering steps down the slope.

 "Come back."

 

 Camaris abruptly swung the sword in a wide, flat arc;

 

 it was nearly invisible in the darkness, but it hissed as it

 passed the prince's chest.

 

 "Aedon's Blood, Camaris, do you not recognize me?"

 Josua took a step back. The old man raised the sword for

 another stroke.

 

 "It is time!" he said, and swung, this time with deadly

 aim.

 

 Josua threw himself backward. His feet skidded from

 beneath him and he whirled his arms for a moment, strug-

 gling for balance, then fell and tumbled down the slope,

 through long grasses and over mud and stones, landing at

 last in a drift of dirty snow where he lay for long mo-

 ments, wheezing in pain.

 

 6i6 Tad Williams

 

 "Prince Josua?!" A head appeared at the top of the rise.

 "Are you down there?"

 

 Josua dragged himself onto his feet. Camaris had made

 his way down to the bottom of the hill and onto the

 heach. Now he was a ghostly shape moving along the

 cliff face. "I'm here," he called to Jeremias. "Damn it,

 where is the duke!?"

 

 "He's coming, but I don't see him yet," the youth said

 excitedly. "I ran back after I told him. Shall I come down

 and help you? Are you hurt?"

 

 Josua turned and saw Camaris hesitating before one of

 the black openings in the cliff wall. A moment later he

 vanished into the hole. "No!" Josua shouted, then called

 up to Jeremias: "Get Isgrimnur, make him hurry! Tell him

 Camaris has gone into one of the caves down hereI will

 mark which one! We will lose him if we wait any longer.

 I am going to bring him out."

 

 "You ... you .. ." The squire was confused. "You're

 going to follow him?"

 

 "Damn me, I can't let him go down there himselfhe

 is mad. Aedon knows whathe might fall. be lost ... I

 will bring him back somehow, even if I have to outfight

 him myself and carry him back on my shoulder. But for

 God's sake, tell Isgrimnur to hurry with the torches and

 men. Go on, boy, run!"

 

 Jeremias hesitated a moment longer, then vanished

 from the prince's sight. Josua crawled the short distance

 to where his torch lay sputtering on a muddy outcropping,

 then clambered down the slope to the beach. He quickly

 made his way to the place where Camaris had disap-

 peared and found a cave mouth little different than any of

 the others along the cliff. Josua grabbed several stones

 and piled them next to the opening, then stepped in, hold-

 ing the torch before him.

 

 Isgrimnur stared at the soldiers. "What do you mean,

 gone?"

 

 The man looked back at him, half-apologetic and half-

 defensive. "Just that. Duke Isgrimnur. The hole splits off,

 goes different ways. We thought we saw some marks, like

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER6l7

 

 from a torch-end, up on the walls, but we didn't find any-

 body that way. We searched the other passages, too. It's

 like wormholes in there, tunnels everywhere."

 

 "And you shouted?"

 

 "Called the prince's name loud as we could. Nobody

 called back."

 

 Isgrimnur stared at the gap in the cliff wall, then

 looked at Sludig. "Ransomer preserve us," he groaned.

 "Both gone. We'll have to get the Sithi after them now."

 He turned to the soldier. "I'll be back before sunrise- Un-

 til then, keep looking and calling."

 

 The man nodded. "Yes, sire."

 

 Isgrimnur pulled at his beard for a moment, then began

 making his way back along the beach. "Oh, Josua," he

 said quietly. "You fool. And me, too. We've all been

 fools."

 

 28

 

 Abandoned Ways

 

 Bino6iJl touches! her arm. "Miriamele, what are you

 thinking?"

 

 "I'm trying to think of what we can do." Her head was

 pounding. The shadowed cavern seemed to be closing in.

 "We have to get out, somehow. We have to. I don't want

 to be trapped in here." She caught her breath and looked

 at Cadrach huddled against the wall on the far side of the

 cavern. "How could he do such things, Binabik? How

 could he betray us all that way?"

 

 "He was not knowing you then," the troll pointed out.

 "So he could not be thinking that it was you he was be-

 traying."

 

 "But he didn't tell us afterward! He didn't tell us any-

 thing! All that time we were together."

 

 Binabik lowered his head. "It is done. Now we must be

 thinking on other things." He gestured to the dwarrows,

 who were seated in a circle, singing quietly. "They are

 thinking the Norns come soon, they have said to me. Al-

 ready the ward is crumbling. The door will not hold for a

 much lengthier time."

 

 "And they're just going to sit and wait," said

 Miriamele bitterly. "I can't understand them any more

 than I can understand Cadrach." She stood and walked

 past the troll. "Yis-fidri! Why are you mooning around

 like this when the Noms are outside? Don't you under-

 stand what will happen to us?" She heard her voice rising

 shrilly, but she did not care.

 

 The dwarrows stared up apprehensively, mouths agape,

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 619

 

 Miriamele thought they looked like a nestful of baby

 birds. "We are waiting ..." he began.

 

 "Waiting! That's just it, you're waiting." She quivered

 with anger. They were alt waiting for those fishbelly-

 white things to come in and take themtake her and the

 troll, too. "Then let's open the door now. Why put it off

 any longer? Binabik and I wilt fight to win free and prob-

 ably be killedkilled because you brought us here to this

 trap against our willand you will sit and be slaughtered.

 So there is no sense waiting any longer."

 

 Yis-fidri goggled. "But ... perhaps they will go...."

 

 "You don't believe that! Come, open the door!" Her

 fear beat higher, rising like storm-tossed waves. She

 leaned down and grabbed the dwarrow's long wrist in her

 hand and tugged. He was as unmovable as stone. "Get up,

 damn you!" she shouted, and yanked as hard as she could.

 Alarmed, the dwarrows burbled at each other. Yis-fidri's

 eyes widened in consternation; with a flick of his power-

 ful arm he dislodged Miriamele's grip. She fell back on

 the cavern floor, breathless.

 

 "Miriamele!" Binabik hurried to her side. "Are you

 hurt?"

 

 She shook off the troll's helping hand and sat up.

 "There!" she said triumphantly. "Yis-fidri, you didn't tell

 the truth."

 

 The dwarrow stared at her as though she had begun to

 foam at the mouth. He curled his flat fingers protectively

 against his chest.

 

 "You didn't," she said, and stood. "You will push me

 away to keep me from forcing you against your will, so

 why not the Noms? Do you want to die, then? Because

 the Norns will certainly kill you, kill me, kill us all. Or

 perhaps they will make you slaves againis that what

 you are hoping for? Why do you resist me and not resist

 them?"

 

 Yis-fidri turned briefly to his wife; she stared back at

 him, silent and solemn-eyed. "But there is naught we can

 do." The dwarrow seemed to be pleading for Miriamele's

 understanding.

 

 "There is always something you can do," she snapped.

 

 620 Tad Williams

 

 "It may not change anything, but you will have tried. You

 are strong, Yis-fidriyou dwarrow-folk are very strong,

 and you can do many things: I watched your wife shaping

 stone. Maybe you have always run away before, but now

 there is nowhere left to hide. Stand with us, damn you!"

 

 Yis-hadra said something in the dwarrow tongue,

 which brought a murmuring but swift reply from others in

 the group. Yis-fidri entered in, then for a long time the

 dwarrows argued among themselves, voices rushing and

 burbling like water chiming on stone.

 

 At last Yis-hadra rose. "I will stand with you," she

 said. "You speak rightly. There is nowhere left to run, and

 we are almost the last of our kind. If we die, no one then

 will be left to tend and harvest the stone, no one to find

 the beautiful things in the earth. That would be a shame."

 She turned to her husband and again spoke rapidly to

 him. After a moment, Yis-fidri hdded his huge eyes.

 

 "I will do as my wife does," he said with obvious re-

 luctance. "But we do not speak for our fellow

 Tinukeda'ya."

 

 "Then speak to them," Miriamele urged. "There is so

 little time!"

 

 Yis-fidri hesitated, then nodded. The other dwarrows

 looked on, their strange faces fearful.

 

 Miriamele crouched in blackness, her heart thudding.

 She could see nothing at all, but apparently enough light

 was still bleeding from the crystal batons to allow the

 dwarrows to see: Miriamele could hear them padding

 back and forth across the cavern as unhesitatingly as she

 herself would walk through a lamplit room.

 

 She reached out to touch the small but reassuring shape

 of Binabik crouched beside her. "I'm frightened," she

 whispered.

 

 "As who is not?" She felt him pat her hand.

 

 Miriamele had opened her mouth to say something else

 when a slight sensation of movement passed through the

 stone behind her. At first she thought it was the strange

 shifting she had felt earlier, the thing that had so fright-

 ened Yis-hadra and the other dwarrows, but then a faint

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 621

 

 blue glow sprang up in the empty black where the door

 stood. It was not like any light she had seen, for it illumi-

 nated nothing else; it was only a pulsing sky-blue streak

 hanging in the darkness.

 

 "They're coming," she gurgled. Her heart raced even

 more swiftly. All her brave words now seemed foolish.

 On the far side of Binabik, she heard Cadrach's harsh

 breathing grow louder. She half-expected him to cry out,

 to try to shout a warning to the Norns. She did not believe

 his claim that he had no Art that would help them against

 the Norns, nor even the strength left now to use those few

 skills he retained.

 

 The blue line lengthened. A warm wind pushed through

 the chamber, tangible as a slap to her heightened senses.

 For the dozenth time since the dwarrows had darkened

 the cavern she tugged at the straps of her pack and wiped

 sweat from the handle of her dagger. She also clutched

 Simon's White Arrow; if the Norns grabbed her, she

 would stab at them with both hands. A shudder ran

 through her. The Norns. The White Foxes. They were

 only moments away....

 

 Yis-fidri said something quiet but emphatic in the

 dwarrow tongue. Yis-hadra replied in the same tone from

 somewhere across the cavern. The sound of moving

 dwarrows ceased. The chamber was silent as a grave.

 

 The blue gleam grew in a rough oval until one end of

 the line met the other. For a moment the heat became

 greater, then the glow faded. Something scraped and then

 fell heavily. A rush of cold air swept into the chamber,

 but if the door had opened, no light came through-

 

 Curse them! Despair swept over her. They are too

 clever to come in with torches. She clutched her knife

 tighter: she was shaking so violently she feared she might

 drop it.

 

 Suddenly there was a booming rumble like thunder and

 a high-pitched shout that came from no human throat.

 Miriamele's heart leaped. The great stones the dwarrows

 had loosened above the cavern door were tumbling

 downshe could hear the Norns' high-pitched, angry

 wailing. Another crash was followed by a scraping, grind-

 

 622 Tad Williams

 

 ing noise, then many voices were shouting, none of them

 in human languages. After a moment Miriamele felt her

 eyes begin to sting. She took a breath and felt it bum all

 the way down.

 

 "Up!" Binabik cried. "It is poison-smoke!"

 

 Miriamele struggled to her feet, lost in the dark and

 feeling as though her insides were on fire. A powerful

 hand gripped her and led her stumbling through the black-

 ness. The cavern was raucous with strange cries and

 shrieks and the sound of smashing stone.

 

 The next moments were blind madness. She felt herself

 pulled through into chilly air; within moments she could

 breathe again, although she still could not see. The hand

 that held her let go, and a moment later she caught her

 foot on something and crashed to the ground.

 

 "Binabik!" she shouted. She tried to rise, but some-

 thing had entangled her. "Where are you!?"

 

 Miriamele was seized again, but this time was lifted

 bodily and carried swiftly through the noisy darkness.

 Something struck her a glancing blow. For a moment

 whoever was carrying her stopped and put her down;

 

 there was a succession of strange noises, some of them

 grunts or gasps of pain, then a moment later she was

 snatched up again.

 

 At last she touched down again on the hard stone. The

 darkness was absolute. "Binabik?" she called.

 

 There was a spark nearby, then a flash. For a moment

 she saw the troll standing beside a cavern wall in the

 midst of darkness with his hand full of flame. Then he

 flung whatever he held outward, and it scattered in a

 shower of sputtering sparks. Tiny flames burned every-

 where. Frozen as if painted on a tapestry were Binabik,

 several dwarrows, and almost a dozen other shadowy fig-

 ures, all scattered about a long, high-ceilinged cavem.

 The stone door that had protected them lay in pieces be-

 hind her at the far end of this outer cavern.

 

 She had scarcely an instant to marvel at the effect of

 the troll's fire-starting powder before a pale-faced shape

 raced toward her, long knife held high. Miriamele lifted

 her own blade, but her ankles seemed bound somehow

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 623

 

 and she could not get her feet beneath her. The knife

 lashed toward Miriamele's face, but the blade stopped ab-

 ruptly a hand's length from her eyes.

 

 The dwarrow that had caught the creature's arm jerked

 upward. There was a sound of something snapping; a mo-

 ment later the Norn was pitched headfirst across the

 chamber.

 

 "Go that way," Yis-fidri gasped, pointing toward a dark

 hole at the near end of the cavern. In the faint, flickering

 light he looked even more grotesque than the enemy he

 had dispatched: one of his arms hung limply, and the bro-

 ken shaft of an arrow wagged in his shoulder. The

 dwarrow flinched as another arrow shattered against the

 cavern wall beside him.

 

 Miriamele reached down and disentangled her feet

 from what had held thema Norn bow. Its owner lay a

 few paces away, just inside the entrance to the dwarrow's

 hiding place; a thick shard of rock jutted from his crushed

 chest.

 

 "Move quickly, quickly," said Yis-fidri. "We have sur-

 prised them, but there may be more coming." His brisk

 tones could not hide his terror; his saucer eyes seemed to

 bulge. One of the other dwarrews threw a stone at the

 Nom archer. The motion was awkward, but the missile

 flew so swiftly that the white-faced immortal staggered

 backward before the dwarrow's arm had finished moving,

 then crumpled to the cavern floor.

 

 "Run!" Binabik called. "Before more archers are com-

 ing!"

 

 Miriamele rushed after him into the tunnel mouth, still

 clutching the bow. She stooped on the run to pick up a

 few scattered Norn arrows. She put Simon's arrow

 through her belt for safekeeping, and nocked one of the

 black arrows; as she did so, she looked back. Yis-fidri

 and the other dwarrows were backing after her, keeping

 their frightened eyes fixed on the Norns. These inched

 along behind them, staying out of the dwarrows' long

 reach, but obviously not intending to let them escape so

 easily. Despite the carnage, the half-dozen bodies lying

 scattered in the outer chamber and the breached doorway,

 

 624 Tad Williams

 

 the Norns seemed as calm and unhurried as hunting in-

 sects.

 

 Miriamele turned and hastened her pace. Binabik had

 lit a torch, and she followed its light down the uneven

 funnel.

 

 "They're still following!" she panted.

 

 "Run, then, until we find a better place for fighting,"

 the troll called back. "Where is the monk Cadrach?"

 

 "Don't know," Miriamele said.

 

 And maybe it would be better for everyone if he died

 back there. The thought felt cruel but just. Better for ev-

 eryone.

 

 She raced along after the bobbing torch.

 

 

 

 "Josua is gone?" Isorn was stunned. "But how could he

 risk himself, even for Camaris?"

 

 Isgrimnur did not know how to answer his son's ques-

 tion. He tugged fiercely at his beard, trying to think

 clearly. "Still, there it is," he said. He stared around the

 tent at the rest of the unhappy faces. "I have had soldiers

 hunting all through the caves for hours with no luck. The

 Sithi are preparing to go after the two of them, and

 Tiamak will accompany them. There is nothing more we

 can do about it." He blew out, fluttering his mustache.

 "Yes, damn me, Josua has hamstrung us, but now more

 than ever we must make sure we distract Elias. We can't

 waste tears."

 

 Sludig peered out through the door flap. "It is nearly

 dawn, Duke Isgrimnur. And snowing again. The men

 know something strange has happenedthey are growing

 restless. We should decide what to do, my lord."

 

 The duke nodded. Inwardly he cursed the fate that had

 dropped Josua's command into his lap. "We will do what

 we planned. All that has changed from yesterday's coun-

 cil is that Josua is gone. So we will need not one mimic,

 but two."

 

 "I am ready," Isom said. "I have Camaris' surcoat, and

 see," he pulled his sword from its scabbard: blade and hilt

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER625

 

 were shiny black, "a little paint and it becomes Thorn."

 He caught Isgrimnur's discomfited look. "Father, you

 agreed to this and nothing has changed. Of all who can be

 trusted with the secret, only I am nearly tall enough to

 pass as Camaris."

 

 The duke frowned. "It is so. But because you pretend

 to be Camaris, don't believe you are Camaris: you need

 to stay alive and on your horse so you can be seen. Take

 no foolish chances."

 

 Isom flashed him an unhappy glance, angry after all his

 experiences to be treated like a child. Isgrimnur almost

 regretted his fatherly worryalmost, but not quite. "So

 then. Who shall mime Josua?"

 

 "Are there any that can fight with their left hands?"

 Sludig asked.

 

 "S'right," said Freosel. "None'll believe Josua with a

 right hand."

 

 Isgrimnur felt his frustration growing. This was

 madnesslike choosing courtiers to act in the Tunath's

 Day pageant. "He need only be seen, not fight,"

 Isgrimnur growled.

 

 "But he must be somewhere in the fighting," Sludig in-

 sisted, "or no one will see him.""

 

 "I will do it," said Hotvig. The scarred Thrithings-man

 lifted his arm and his bracelets jangled. "I can fight with

 either hand."

 

 "But . . . but he does not took like Josua," said

 Strangyeard apologetically, "... does he?" He had so-

 bered since the duke had seen him earlier, but still seemed

 distracted. "Hotvig. you are ... you are very broad in the

 chest. And your hair is too light."

 

 "He will be wearing a helm," Sludig pointed out.

 

 "The harper Sangfugol looks much like the prince,"

 Strangyeard offered. "At least he is slender and dark-

 haired."

 

 "Ha." Isgrimnur barked a laugh. "I would not send a

 singer into the middle of such a bloodletting. Even if he

 need not fight, he must sit his horse in the clamor of

 fierce fighting." He shook his head. "But I cannot spare

 you, either, Hotvig. We need your Thrithings-menyou

 

 626 Tad Williams

 

 are our fastest horsemen, and we must be ready in case

 the king's knights make a sally from the gate. Who else?"

 He turned to Seriddan. The Nabbanai captains had been

 silent, stunned by Josua's disappearance. "Have you any

 ideas. Baron?"

 

 Before Seriddan could reply, his brother Brindalles

 stood. "I am close to the prince's size. And I can ride."

 

 "No, that is foolish," Seriddan began, but Brindalles

 halted him with a raised hand.

 

 "I am not a fighter like you, my brother, but this is

 something I can do. Prince Josua and these folk have

 risked much for us. They faced imprisonment or even

 death at our hands to bring us the truth, and then helped

 us to drive Benigaris from the throne." He looked around

 the tent somberly. "But what good is that to us if we do

 not survive to enjoy it, if our children are unhomed by

 Elias and his allies? I am still somewhat baffled by all

 this talk of swords and strange magics, but if this strata-

 gem is truly necessary, then it is the least I can do."

 

 Isgrimnur saw his calm resolve and nodded. "It is

 done, then. Thank you, Brindalles, and may Aedon give

 you good luck. Isom, get him into things of Josua's as

 will fit, then you can take whatever else of Camaris' that

 you need. From what Jeremias said, I doubt he took his

 helm with him. Freosel?"

 

 "Yes, Duke Isgrimnur?"

 

 "Tell the engineers to make ready. Everyone else, go to

 your men and make ready. God's grace on us all."

 

 "Yes," Strangyeard said suddenly. "Yes, of course

 God's grace on us all."

 

 A

 

 He Who Always Steps on Sand, Tiamak prayed silently,

 / am going into a dark place. I am far from our swamps,

 farther than I have ever been. Please do not lose sight of

 this marsh man!'

 

 The sun was invisible beyond the storm, but the deep

 blue of night was beginning to pale. Tiamak looked up

 from the Kynslagh beach at the faint shadows that must

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER627

 

 be the turrets of the Hayholt. They seemed impossibly far

 away, distant and forbidding as mountains.

 

 Bring me out alive and I will. .. and ... He could not

 think of any promise that might tempt the protector-god.

 / will honor you. I will do what is right. Bring me out

 alive again, please!

 

 The snow swirled and the wind moaned, whipping the

 black Kynslagh to a froth of waves.

 

 "We go, Tiamak," Aditu said from behind him. She

 was near enough that he jumped in surprise at the sound

 of her voice.

 

 Her brother disappeared into the black mouth of the

 cave. Tiamak followed; the noise of the wind began to di-

 minish behind him.

 

 Tiamak had been surprised to find the Sithi such a

 small group, and even more surprised to find Likimeya a

 part of it.

 

 "But isn't your mother too important to leave your peo-

 ple and come down here?" he whispered to Aditu. As he

 scrambled down a boulder, clinging to the shining globe

 that Jiriki had given him, he saw Likimeya turn to look

 back at him with what he felt sure was disgust. He was

 embarrassed and angry with himself for underestimating

 the Sithi's keen ears.

 

 Aditu slithered down beside him, nimble as a deer. "If

 someone must speak for Year-Dancing House, Uncle

 Khendraja'aro will be there. But the others will make

 their decisions as things happen, and all will do what

 needs to be done." She stopped to pick something off the

 floor and stared at it intently; it was too small for Tiamak

 to see. "In any case, there are things at least as important

 to be done down here, and so those most able to do them

 have come."

 

 He and Aditu were at the back of the small company,

 trailing Jiriki and Likimeya, as well as Kira'athu, a small,

 quiet Sitha-woman, another woman named Chiya, who

 seemed to Tiamak inexplicably more foreign than even

 the rest of the alien group, and a tall, black-haired Sitha-

 man named Kuroyi. All moved with the odd grace

 

 628 Tad Williams

 

 Tiamak had long noted in Aditu, and except for Aditu and

 her brother, none seemed to take any more notice of the

 Wrannaman than of a dog following in the road.

 

 "I found sand," Aditu called to the rest of the party.

 She had been careful to speak Westerling all morning,

 even with her kin, for which Tiamak was duly grateful.

 

 "Sand?" Tiamak squinted at the invisible something

 she held prisoned between finger and thumb. "Yes'?"

 

 "We are now far in from the water's edge," she said.

 "But this is rounded, formed by the motion of stone in

 water. I would say we are still on Josua's track."

 

 Tiamak had thought the Sithi were following the prince

 by some kind of immortals' magic. He did not know quite

 what to make of this revelation. "Can't you ... don't you

 just ... know where the prince and Camaris are?"

 

 Her amused smile was very human. "No. There are

 things we can sometimes do to make finding someone or

 something easierbut not here."

 

 "Not here? Why?"

 

 The smile went away. "Because things are changing

 here. Can you not feel it? It is as powerful to me as the

 wind was loud outside."

 

 Tiamak shook his head. "If anything dangerous comes

 toward us, I hope you will tell me. This is not my marsh,

 and I do not know where the dangerous sands lie."

 

 "Where we go was our place once," Aditu said seri-

 ously. "But no more."

 

 "Do you know your way?" Tiamak looked around at

 the sloping tunnel, the countless crevices and nearly iden-

 tical cross-passages, black beyond the range of the lighted

 globes. The thought of being lost here was terrifying.

 

 "My mother does, or at least she soon will. Chiya also

 lived here."

 

 "Your mother lived in this place?"

 

 "In Asu'a. She lived there for a thousand years."

 

 Tiamak shivered.

 

 The company followed no logical path that Tiamak

 could see, but he had long resigned himself to trusting the

 Sithi, although there was much about them that frightened

 him. Meeting Aditu on Sesuad'ra had been strange

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER629

 

 enough, but she had been singular, a freak, as Tiamak

 himself must have seemed to the drylanders. Seeing them

 together, either in their great numbers on the hillside east

 of the Hayholt, or here in a group that, despite making

 many decisions without discussion, seemed always in ac-

 cord, he felt for the first time the true force of their

 strangeness. They had ruled all of Osten Ard once. His-

 tory said they had been kind masters, but Tiamak could

 not help wondering if they had been truly kind, or had

 just given no attention at all, tyrannical or otherwise, to

 their mortal inferiors. If that was true, they had been cru-

 elly repaid for their heedlessness.

 

 Kuroyi halted and the others stopped with him. He said

 something in the liquid Sithi speech.

 

 "Someone is there," Aditu quietly told Tiamak.

 

 "Josua? Camaris?" He did not want to think it could be

 something worse.

 

 "We will find out."

 

 Kuroyi turned into a passageway and took a few steps

 downward. A moment later he danced back out, hissing.

 Aditu pushed past Tiamak and ran to Kuroyi's side- "Do

 not run!" she called into the dark space. "I am Aditu!"

 

 After a few moments a figure appeared, sword leveled.

 

 "Prince Josua!" Relief flowed through Tiamak. "You

 are safe."

 

 The prince stared at them for a long moment, blinking

 in the light of the crystal globes. "Aedon's Mercy, it is

 truly you." He sank down heavily onto the floor of the

 tunnel. "My ... my torch burned out. I have been in dark-

 ness some time. I thought I heard footsteps, but you walk

 so quietly I could not be sure...."

 

 "Have you found Camaris?" Tiamak asked.

 

 The prince shook his head miserably. His eyes were

 haunted. "No. I lost sight of him soon after I followed

 him in. He would not stop, no matter how I called. He has

 gone! Gone!" He struggled to control himself. "I have left

 my men without a leaderdeserted my people! Can you

 take me back?" He looked imploringly around the circle

 of Sithi.

 

 "The mortal Duke Isgrimnur is performing ably in your

 

 630 Tad Williams

 

 place," said Likimeya. "We cannot afford the time to re-

 turn you, nor any of our number, and you could not find

 your way back alone."

 

 Josua lowered his head, bowed by shame. "I have done

 a foolish thing, and failed those who trusted me. It was all

 to find Camaris ... but he has gone. And he has taken

 Thorn with him."

 

 "Do not worry yourself over what is done. Prince

 Josua." Aditu spoke with surprising gentleness. "As for

 Camaris, do not fear. We will find him."

 

 "How?"

 

 Likimeya stared at Josua for a moment, then turned her

 glance up the passageway. "If the sword is being drawn

 toward Sorrow and the other blade, as seems true from

 what you have told us, then we know where he is bound."

 She looked at Chiya, who nodded. "We will go there by

 the straightest route, or close to it. Either we will find

 him, or we will reach the upper levels before him and can

 wait."

 

 "But he could wander down here forever'" Josua said

 unhappily, and Tiamak remembered his own earlier

 thought.

 

 "I do not think so," said Likimeya. "If some conver-

 gence of power is drawing the swords togetherwhich

 may be our greatest hope, for it will bring Bright-Nail,

 toothen he will find his way, even with his wits as trou-

 bled as you say they were. He will be like a blind man

 searching for the fire in a cold room. He will find his

 way."

 

 Jiriki extended his hand to the prince. "Come, Prince

 Josua. I have some food and water. Take some nourish-

 ment, then we will find him."

 

 As the prince looked at him some of the hard edge of

 worry softened. "Thank you. I am grateful you found

 me." He took Jiriki's hand and stood, then laughed,

 mocking himself. "1 thought ... I thought I heard

 voices."

 

 "I have no doubt you did," said Jiriki. "And you will

 hear more."

 

 Tiamak could not help noticing that even the impassive

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER63!

 

 Sithi did not look entirely comfortable with Jiriki's re-

 mark.

 

 Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Tiamak's surroundings

 began to change. As he and Josua followed the immortals

 through the twisting passages, he first noticed that the

 floors seemed more level, the tunnels a little more regu-

 lar. Soon he began to see the undeniable marks of intelli-

 gent shapers, hard angles, arches of stone that braced the

 wider crossings, even a few patches in the rock walls that

 seemed to have been carved, although the decorations

 were little more than repetitive patterns like waves or

 twining grass stems.

 

 "These outermost reaches were never finished," Aditu

 told him. "Either they were built too late in Asu'a's life,

 or were abandoned in favor of more useful paths."

 

 "Abandoned?" Tiamak could not imagine such a thing-

 "Who would do all the work of gouging through this

 stone and then abandon it?"

 

 "Some of these passages were built by my people, with

 the help of the Tinukeda'yathe dwarrows as mortals

 call them," she explained. "And that stone-loving folk

 carved some just for themselves, unconcerned with fin-

 ishing or keeping, as a child might make a basket of grass

 stems and then toss it away when it is time to run home."

 

 The marsh man shook his head.

 

 Mindful of their mortal companions, the Sithi stopped

 at last for a rest in a wide grotto whose roof was covered

 with a tracery of slender stalactites. In the mellow light of

 the globes, Tiamak thought it looked entirely magical; for

 a moment, he was glad he had come. The world below, it

 seemed, was full of wonders as well as terrors.

 

 As he sat eating a piece of bread and a savory but un-

 familiar fruit the Sithi had brought, Tiamak wondered

 how far they had come. It seemed they had walked most

 of a day, but the full distance on the surface between

 where they had begun and the walls of the Hayholt would

 not have taken a fourth of that time. Even with the circu-

 itous track of the tunnels, it seemed they should have

 

 

 

 

 632 Tad Williams

 

 reached something, but they were still wandering through

 largely featureless caverns.

 

 It is like the spirit-hut ofBuayeg in the old story, he de-

 cided, only half in jest. Small outside, big inside.

 

 He turned to ask Josua if he had noticed the same odd-

 ity; the prince was staring at his own piece of bread as

 though he was too tired or distraught to eat. Abruptly,the

 cavern shudderedor seemed to: Tiamak felt a sensation

 of movement, of sudden slippage, but neither Josua nor

 the Sithi seemed to move in response to it. Rather, it was

 as though everything in the grotto had slid to one side,

 but the people inside had slid effortlessly with it. It was

 a frightening wrench, and for a long moment after it had

 passed Tiamak felt as though he occupied two places at

 the same time. A thrill of terror ran up his spine.

 

 "What is happening!?" he gasped.

 

 The obvious uneasiness of the Sithi did nothing to

 make him feel better. "It is that which I spoke of before,"

 said Aditu. "As we draw closer to Asu'a's heart, it is get-

 ting stronger."

 

 Likimeya stood and slowly looked around, but Tiamak

 felt sure that she was using more than her eyes. "Up," she

 said. "Time is short, I think."

 

 Tiamak scrambled to his feet. The look on Likimeya's

 stem face frightened him badly. He suddenly wished he

 had kept his mouth closed, that he had stayed above

 ground with the rest of his mortal companions. But it was

 far too late to turn back.

 

 

 

 "Where are we going?" Miriamele gasped.

 Yis-hadra, who had replaced her wounded husband as

 leader, turned to stare. "Going?" said the dwarrow. "We

 are fleeing. We run to escape."

 

 Miriamele stopped, bending over to catch her breath.

 The Noms had attacked them twice more as they fled

 through the tunnels, but without archers they had been

 unable to overcome the terrified dwarrows. Still, two

 more of the stone-tenders had fallen in the fighting, and

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 633

 

 the white-skinned immortals had by no means given up.

 Since the last struggle, Miriamele had already spotted the

 pursuers once when she had entered a passageway long

 and straight enough to permit a backward look; in that

 glimpse they had truly seemed creatures of the lightless

 depthspate, silent, and remorseless. The Noms seemed

 in no hurry, as if they were merely trailing Miriamele and

 her companions until more of their kind came bearing

 bows and long spears. It had been as much as she could

 do not to sink to the ground in surrender.

 

 She knew that they had been lucky to escape the

 dwarrows' cavern at all. If the White Foxes had antici-

 pated any resistance, they had doubtless expected it to be

 close combat in a narrow comer. Instead, the dwarrows'

 desperate attack in the dark and the avalanches of falling

 stone they had engineered had caught the immortals by

 surprise, permitting Miriamele and her companions to

 flee. But she had no illusions they could trick the cunning

 Morns twice.

 

 "We could be forced to run this way forever," she told

 Yis-hadra. "Perhaps you can outlast them, but we can't.

 In any case, our people are in danger up above."

 

 Binabik nodded. "She speaks truth to you. Escaping is

 not enough for us. We have need of finding our way out

 from this place."

 

 The dwarrow did not reply, but looked to her husband

 who was limping up the passageway toward them, trailed

 by the last of the dwarrows and Cadrach. The monk's face

 was ashen, as though he had been wounded, but

 Miriamele saw no injuries. She turned away, unwilling to

 waste sympathy on him.

 

 "They are a distance behind us, now," said Yis-fidri

 wearily. "They seem full content to let us run ahead." He

 leaned back against the wall, letting his head rest against

 the stone. Yis-hadra went to him and probed gently with

 her wide fingers at the arrow wound in his shoulder.

 "Sho-vennae is dead, and three others," he groaned, then

 fluted a few words to his wife, who gave a cry of grief.

 "Smashed like delicate crystals. Gone."

 

 "If we had not run, they would all be dead anyway

 

 634

 

 Tad Williams

 

 and you and the rest of us would be, too." Miriamele

 paused to fight back her anger and her horror of the pur-

 suing Noms. "Forgive me, Yis-fidri. I am sorry about

 your people. I am truly sorry."

 

 Sweat beaded on the dwarrow's brow, glimmering in

 the light of the batons. "Few mourn for the Tinukeda'ya,"

 he replied softly. "They make us their servants, they steal

 from us the Words of Making, they even beg our 'help

 when they are in needbut they seldom mourn us."

 

 Miriamele was ashamed. Surely he meant that she was

 as guilty of using the dwarrowsand Niskies, too, she

 thought, remembering Gan Itai's sacrificeas even their

 one-time masters, the Sithi.

 

 "Take us to where we can reach the world above," she

 said. "That is all I ask. Then go with our blessing, Yis-

 fidri."

 

 Before the dwarrow could reply, Binabik suddenly

 spoke up. "The Words of Making. Were all the Great

 Swords being forged with these Making-Words?"

 

 Yis-fidri looked at him with more than a little suspi-

 cion, then winced at something his wife was doing to his

 shoulder. "Yes. It was needful to bind their substanceto

 bring their being within the Laws."

 

 "What laws are these?"

 

 "Those Laws that cannot be changed. The Laws that

 make stone be stone, make water be water. They can

 be . .." he searched for a word, "stretched or altered for

 a short time, but that brings consequences. Never can they

 be undone."

 

 One of the dwarrows at the rear of the tunnel spoke

 anxiously.

 

 "Imai-an says he can feel them coming," Yis-hadra

 cried. "We must run."

 

 Yis-fidri pushed himself away from the tunnel wall and

 the group began its uneven progress once more.

 Miriamele's weary heart was racing. Wouy there never

 be an end to this? "Help us reach the surface, Yis-fidri,"

 she begged. "Please."

 

 "Yes! It is more than ever important!"

 

 Miriamele turned at the distraught tone of Binabik's

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER635

 

 voice. The little man looked terrified. "What is it?" she

 asked him.

 

 Sweat was running on his dark forehead. "I must think

 on this, Miriamele, but I have never had such fear as I do

 now. For the first time I believe I see behind the shadow

 that has been all our consideration, and I am thinking

 Kikkasut! To be saying such words!that the monk may

 have spoken rightly. There may be nothing left for our

 doing at all."

 

 With those words hanging in the air, he turned from her

 and hastened after the dwarrows. As though his sudden

 despair had passed to her like a fever, she felt hopeless-

 ness enwrap her,

 

 29

 

 Tfie Howf of tfte Nortd

 

 A

 

 Tfte Wtmts sftridied' around Stormspike's summit,

 but beneath the mountain all was silent. The Lightless

 Ones had fallen into a deep slumber. The corridors of

 Under-Nakkiga were nearly empty.

 

 Utuk'ku's gloved fingers, slender and brittle as cricket

 legs, flexed upon the arm of her throne. She settled her

 ancient bones against the rock and let her thoughts move

 through the Breathing Harp, following its twistings and

 turnings until Stormspike fell away and she became pure

 mind moving through the black between-spaces.

 

 The angry Dark One was gone from the Harp. He had

 moved himself to the placeif it could be called a

 placewhere he could act in concert with her to enact the

 final step of their centuried scheme, but she could still

 feel the weight of his hatred and envy, personified in the

 net of storms that spread across the land above.

 

 In Nabban, where the upstart Imperators had once

 ruled, snow piled high in the streets; in the great harbor

 high waves flung the anchored ships against each other,

 or drove them into the shore where their splintered tim-

 bers lay like the bones of giants. The kilpa, frenzied,

 struck at everything that moved across the water, and

 even began to make sluggish forays into the coastal

 towns. And deep within the heart of the Sancellan

 Aedonitis, the Clavean Bell hung silent, immobilized by

 ice just as the mortals' Mother Church was frozen by fear.

 

 The Wran, although its interior was sheltered from the

 worst of the storm, nevertheless turned chillingly cold.

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 637

 

 The ghants, undeterred as a group, though countless indi-

 viduals died in the harsh weather, continued to boil out of

 the swamps and harry the coastal villages. Those few

 mortals of Kwanitupul who braved the icy winds to walk

 outside went only in groups, armed with iron weapons

 and wind-whipped torches against the ghants who now

 seemed to be crawling in every shadowy place. Children

 were kept inside, and doors and windows were shuttered

 even during those few hours when the storm abated.

 

 Even Aldheorte Forest slept beneath a blanket of white,

 but if its ageless trees suffered beneath the freezing hand

 of the North, they did so in silence. In the heart of the

 woods Jao e-Tinukai'i lay empty, misty with cold.

 

 All the mortal lands lay trembling beneath Storm-

 spike's hand. The storms kept Rimmersgard and the

 Frostmarch an icy wasteland, and Hemystir suffered only

 a little less. Before the Hernystiri could truly reclaim the

 homes from which they had been driven by Skali of

 Kaldskryke, they had been forced back into the caves of

 the Grianspog. The spirit of the people the Sithi had

 loved, a spirit which had flamed high for a short time,

 sank back to a guttering flicker.

 

 The storm hung low over Erkynland. Black winds bent

 and broke the trees and piled snow high on the houses;

 

 thunder growled like an angry beast up and down the

 length of the land. The storm's malevolent heart, as it

 seemed, full of whirling sleet and jagged lightning, pulsed

 above Erchester and the Hayholt.

 

 Utuk'ku noted all this with calm satisfaction, but did

 not pause to savor the terror and hopelessness of the

 hated mortals. She had something to do, a task she had

 awaited since her son Drukhi's pale, cold body had been

 set before her. Utuk'ku was old and subtle. The irony that

 it was her own great-great-grandchild who had led her to

 her revenge at last, that he was also a scion of the very

 family that had destroyed her happiness, was not lost on

 her. She almost smiled.

 

 Her thoughts raced on, out along the whispery threads

 of being until they passed into the farther regions, the

 places only she of all the living could go. When she felt

 

 638

 

 Tad Williams

 

 the presence of the thing she sought, she reached out for

 it, praying to forces that had been old in Venyha Do'sae

 that it would give her what she needed to accomplish her

 final, long-awaited goal.

 

 A flare of joy passed through her. The power was there,

 more than enough for her purposes; now all that remained

 was to master it and make it hers. The hour was ap-

 proaching, and Utuk'ku had no need to be patient any

 longer.

 

 

 

 "My eyes are not good at the best of times,"

 Strangyeard complained. "And with this sunless day and

 the blowing snow, I cannot see anything! Sangfugol, tell

 me what is happening, please!"

 

 "There's nothing to see, yet." They were perched on

 the side of one of Swertclif's foothills, looking down on

 Erchester and the Hayholt. The tree beneath which the

 pair huddled and the low wall of stones they had made

 provided scant protection against the wind. Despite his

 hooded cloak and the two blankets he had wrapped

 around himself, the harper was shivering. "Our army is

 before the walls and the heralds have blown the trumpets.

 Isgrimnur or someone must be reading the Writ of De-

 mand. I still don't see any of the king's soldiers ... no,

 there are some shapes moving on the battlements. I had

 begun to wonder if anyone was inside at all...."

 

 "Who? Who is on the battlements?"

 

 "Aedon's mercy, Strangeyeard, I can't tell. They are

 shapes, that's all."

 

 "We should be closer," the priest said fretfully. "This

 hillside is too distant in weather like this."

 

 The harper darted a glance at him. "You must be mad.

 I am a musician, you are a librarian. We are too close as

 it iswe should have stayed in Nabban. But here we are,

 and here we will stay. Closer, indeed'" He blew into his

 cupped palms.

 

 A faint clamor of homs drifted over the wind. "What is

 it?" Strangyeard asked. "What is happening?"

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 639

 

 'They have finished the Writ and I suppose they've

 gotten no answer. That is just like Josua, to give Elias a

 chance to surrender honorably when we know already he

 will do nothing of the sort."

 

 "The prince is ... determined to do the right thing,"

 Strangyeard replied. "Goodness, I hope he is well. It

 makes me sick to think of him and Camaris wandering

 lost in those caverns."

 

 "There is that Nabbanman," Sangfugol said excitedly.

 "He does look rather like Josuafrom here, anyway." He

 turned suddenly toward the priest. "Did you really sug-

 gest / should mimic the prince?"

 

 "You look much like him."

 

 Sangfugol stared at him with disgust and bitter amuse-

 ment. "Mother of God, Strangyeard, do me no favors."

 He huddled deeper into his blankets. "Imagine me riding

 around waving a sword. Ransomer save us all."

 

 "But we all must do what we can."

 

 "Yesand what I can do is play my harp, or my lute,

 and sing. And if we win, I will most assuredly do that.

 And if we don'twell, 1 may do that anyway if I live, but

 it won't be here. But what I cannot do is ride and fight

 and convince people that I am-Josua."

 

 They were silent for a time, listening to the wind.

 

 "If we lose, I fear there will be nowhere else to run to,

 Sangfugol."

 

 "Perhaps." The harper sat unspeaking a while longer,

 then said: "Finally!"

 

 "What? Is something happening?"

 

 "They are bringing forward the battering ramsave

 me, but it is a frightening thing. It has a great iron head

 on it that looks like a real ram, with curling horns and all.

 But it's so big! Even with all those men, it is a miracle

 they can push it along." He took a sharp breath. "The

 king's men are firing arrows from the walls! There, some-

 one is down. More than one. But the ram is still going

 forward."

 

 "May God keep them safe," Strangyeard said quietly.

 "It is so cold up here, Sangfugol."

 

 "How can anyone shoot an arrow in this wind, let alone

 

 640 Tad Williams

 

 hit anything? Ah! Someone has fallen from the wall.

 That's one of theirs gone, in any case." The harper's

 voice rose in excitment. "It is hard to see what is happen-

 ing, but our men are close to the walls now. There, some-

 one has put up a ladder. There are soldiers swarming up

 it." A moment later he made a noise of surprise and hor-

 ror.

 

 "What do you see?" Strangyeard squinted his eye, try-

 ing to see through the swirling snows.

 

 "Something was dropped on them." The harper was

 shaken. "A big stone, I think. I am sure they are all

 dead."

 

 "May the Ransomer protect us," Strangyeard said mis-

 erably. "It has begun in earnest. Now we can only wait

 for the ending, whatever that may be."

 

 *

 

 Isgrimnur held his hands close to his face, trying to

 shield himself from the wind-flung snow. He was having

 great difficulty keeping track of what was happening, al-

 though the Hayholt's walls were less than five hundred

 cubits up the hillside from where he watched. Hundreds

 of armored men floundered in the drifts before the wall,

 busy as insects. Hundreds more, even dimmer shapes

 from Isgrimnur's vantage point, scurried about atop the

 Hayholt's walls. The duke cursed quietly. Everything

 seemed so damnably distant!

 

 Freosel climbed onto the wooden platform the engi-

 neers had built between the bottom of the hill and the

 empty, storm-raddled husk of Erchester. The Falshireman

 was visibly struggling against the wind. "Ram's almost to

 the gates. The wind, it'll be our friend todayhard on

 their bowmen, it be."

 

 "But we're not able to shoot any better," the duke

 snarled. "They've got free run of the walls and they're

 pushing our scaling ladders off easy as you "please." He

 smacked his fist into his gloved hand. "The sun's been up

 for hours and all we've done is wear a few trenches in the

 snow."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 641

 

 The Falshireman looked at him quizzically. "Pardon,

 Sir Duke, but seems you think we should knock these

 walls down 'fore sunset."

 

 "No, no. God knows the Hayhoit is built strong. But I

 don't know how much time we have." He looked up into

 the murky sky. "That cursed star they all talk about is

 right overhead. I can almost feel it glaring. The prince

 and Camaris are gone. Miriamele's gone." He turned his

 gaze to the Hayhoit, peering through the snow flurries.

 "And our men are going to freeze solid if we keep them

 out there too long. I wish we could knock the walls down

 by sunsetbut I don't hold much hope."

 

 A

 

 Isom pointed upward. The soldiers gathered around

 him looked up.

 

 "There. On the walls."

 

 Beside the helmeted heads peering through the crenel-

 lations were more than a few whose heads were bare;

 

 their faces were ghostly, and their white hair blew in the

 strong wind.

 

 "White Foxes?" asked Sludig. He made the sign of the

 Tree.

 

 "Indeed. And inside the Hayhoit. Cursed things!" Isom

 lifted his black-painted sword and waved it back and

 forth in challenge, but the distant figures on the walls did

 not seem to notice. "And curse Elias for whatever foul

 bargain he made."

 

 Sludig was staring. "I have not seen them before," he

 cried above the tumult. "Merciful Aedon, they look like

 demons!"

 

 "They are demons. And now the Hayhoit is their nest."

 

 "But they are doing nothing that I can see."

 

 "Just as well," Isorn replied. "Perhaps they are too few.

 But they are fearsome archers. I wonder why none of

 them seem to have bows."

 

 Sludig shook his head, mystified. He was unable to

 look away from the pale faces. "Preserve us," he said

 hoarsely.

 

 642

 

 Tad Williams

 *

 

 Baron Seriddan climbed heavily up the steps onto

 the platform, weighted by his armor. "What news?"

 Isgrimnur asked.

 

 Seriddan took off his gloves and held his hands close to

 the brazier of coals. "Things go well, I suppose. Elias'

 men are firing on the ram and it is slow going to keep it

 moving uphill, but it will be against the gate soon. Some

 of the siege towers are also being moved into place, and

 they seem to be concentrating their arrows on them. We

 are lucky there is such wind today, and that it is so hard

 for the king's archers to see."

 

 "That's what everyone keeps saying," the duke grum-

 bled. "But I am going quietly mad here anyway. Curse

 Josua for leaving me this way." He scowled, then made

 the sign of the Tree. "Forgive me. I did not mean that."

 

 Seriddan nodded. "I know. It is terrible not to know

 where he is."

 

 "That's not all that's bothering me. There are still too

 many unanswered questions."

 

 "What do you mean?"

 

 "If all they need to do is stall usif this flaming star

 truly signifies something will happen that helps Elias

 then why didn't they even try to parley? And you'd think

 that the king would want to see his brother at the very

 least, if only to shout at him and call him a traitor."

 

 "Perhaps Elias knows that Josua is not here."

 

 Isgrimnur flinched. "How could he know that? Josua

 on!y disappeared last night!"

 

 "You know more of these matters than I do, Duke

 Isgrimnur. You have been fighting the king and his mag-

 ical allies a long time."

 

 Isgrimnur walked to the front of the platform, staring at

 the Hayholt's shadowy walls. "Maybe they do know.

 Maybe they lured Camaris in somehowbut, ^amn me,

 that wouldn't mean Josua would come, too. They couldn't

 have planned on that."

 

 "I cannot even guess," said the baron. "I only came to

 tell you that I'd like to take some of my men around to

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER643

 

 the western wall. I think it is time we gave them another

 spot to worry about."

 

 "Go ahead. But that is another thing that troubles me:

 

 Elias doesn't seem very worried at all. With the battering

 ram so close, I would have expected at least one sortie to

 prevent us from dragging it into place."

 

 "I cannot answer you." Seriddan clapped him on the

 arm. "But if this is all that the High King has left to offer,

 we will have the gate down in a matter of days at the

 most."

 

 "We may not have days," Isgrimnur replied, frowning.

 

 "But we do what we can." Seriddan clambered down

 and moved toward his horse. "Take heart. Duke

 Isgrimnur," he called. "Things are going well."

 

 Isgrimnur looked around. "Jeremias!"

 

 The boy pushed through a small knot of armored men

 at the back of the platform. "Yes, sire."

 

 "See if you can find me some wine, boy. My guts are

 colder than my toes."

 

 The squire hurried off toward the tents. Isgrimnur

 turned back to the windy, snow-smothered battlefield,

 glowering.

 

 A

 

 "God preserve us!" Sludig gaped in astonishment.

 "What are they doing?"

 

 "Singing," said Isorn. "I saw it before the walls of

 Naglimund. It went on a long time." He stared at the two

 dozen Sithi, who had ridden forward and now stood

 calmly within bowshot of the walls, knee-deep in the

 drifting snows.

 

 "What do you mean, singing?"

 

 "It is how they fightat least it is how they fight with

 their cousins, the Noms. If I understood better, I would

 explain it to you."

 

 "And these are the allies we've been waiting for?"

 Sludig's voice rose in anger. "We battle for our lives

 and they sing? Look! Our men are dying out there!"

 

 "The Sithi can fight in other ways too, Sludig. You will

 

 644 Tad Williams

 

 see that, I think. And it worked for them at Naglimund,

 although I don't know how. They brought the walls

 down."

 

 His companion snorted derisively. "I will put my faith

 in the ram and the siege-towersand in men with strong

 arms." He looked up at the sky. "It's getting darker. But

 it cannot be much past midday."

 

 "The storm is growing thicker, perhaps." Isorn re-

 strained his horse, which was stepping nervously. "I do

 not like the looks of it, though. Do you see that cloud

 over the towers?"

 

 Sludig stared, following Isorn's pointing finger. He

 blinked. "Lightning! Is this the Sithi's doing?" Indeed, al-

 most the only thing that could be heard over the moaning

 wind was the strange, rhythmic rise and fall of the im-

 mortals' voices.

 

 "I do not know, but it might be. I watched them at it

 before Nagtimund for days, and still I could not tell you

 what they do. But Jiriki told me that his people work to

 counter certain magicks of the Noms." Isorn winced as

 thunder crashed, echoing across the hillside and down

 through the deserted streets of Erchester behind the

 prince's army. The lightning flashed again, seeming for a

 moment to freeze everything on and before the walls of

 the Hayholtmen, engines of war, flurrying snowflakes,

 even arrows in their flightbefore the storm darkness re-

 turned. Another roar of thunder sounded. The wind

 howled even louder. "Perhaps that is why the Noms are

 not among the archers," Isorn continued loudly. "Because

 they are preparing some trick, some spellsomething we

 will not like much. Oh, I saw horrors at Naglimund,

 Sludig. I pray Jiriki's people are strong enough to hold

 them back."

 

 "This is madness!" Sludig shouted. "I can see almost

 nothing!"

 

 Another crash came, this one a little softer. It was not

 thunder. "Praise Usires! They have brought tne ram

 against the gates," Isom called, excited. "See, Sludig,

 they have struck the first blow!" The black sword raised

 before him, he spurred his horse forward a few steps.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER645

 

 With the sea-dragon helm on his head and his cloak whip-

 ping in the high wind, even Sludig could almost believe

 this was Camaris and not his liege-lord's son. "We must

 find Hotvig's riders and be ready to go in if they can

 breach the gate."

 

 Sludig looked in vain for a messenger among the mill-

 ing foot soldiers. "We should tell your father," he

 shouted.

 

 "Go, then. I will wait. But hurry, man. Who would

 have thought we would be so close so soon?"

 

 Sludig tried to say something, but it was lost in the

 noise of the storm. He turned his horse away and rode

 back down the hill toward Duke Isgrimnur's watching

 place.

 

 A

 

 "The ram is against the gate," Sangfugol said

 exultantly. "Look at it! It is big as three houses!"

 

 "The gate is bigger." Strangyeard was shivering. "Still,

 I am astonished that there should be so little resistance."

 

 "You saw Erchester. Everyone has fled. Elias and his

 pet wizard have made this place a wasteland."

 

 "But there seem to be men enough inside the walls to

 defend the castle. Why did they dig no trenches to slow

 the siege engines? Why did they lay up so few stones to

 push down on the scaling ladders?"

 

 "The stones they had did their work," Sangfugol re-

 plied, angry that Strangyeard did not share his excite-

 ment. "The men who wound up beneath them are as dead

 as you could wish."

 

 "Elysia. Mother of our Ransomer!" The priest was

 shocked. "Sangfugol, do not speak so of our fallen sol-

 diers! I only meant it is strange the defenders seem so ill-

 prepared for a siege Elias must have known was coming

 for weeks, even months."

 

 "The king has gone mad," the harper replied. "You've

 heard what those who fled Erkynland say. And there are

 few left to fight with him. This will be no different than

 prodding a bear out of its cave. The bear is fierce, but it

 

 646 Tad Williams

 

 is an animal for all that, and must lose out to the clever-

 ness of men."

 

 "Cleverness?" The archivist did his best to shake the

 snow off his blanket. The wind slashed bitterly even

 through the low barrier of stones they had erected. "What

 have we done that is so clever? We have been led by the

 nose like oxen all along."

 

 Sangfugol waved his hand airily, although he too Was

 trembling with cold. "Having Isom and that Nabban fel-

 low pose as Camaris and Josuathat was a clever idea,

 you must admit ... except for your little suggestion that

 / be the one to play the prince. And going beneath the

 Hayholt's walls by caverns and tunnelsthat is some-

 thing clever indeed! The king would not think of that in

 a thousand years."

 

 Strangyeard, who was rubbing his hands together furi-

 ously in an effort to keep them warm, suddenly stopped.

 "The king might notbut his allies must know of those

 tunnels." His voice shook. "Surely the Norns must

 know."

 

 "That is why our fairy-folk have gone down after the

 prince and Camaris. I've seen them, Aditu's brother and

 mother and the rest. They can take care of themselves, I

 have no doubt ... even if the Norns know about the tun-

 nels and are waiting for them, as you seem to think."

 

 "That is not what I am thinking." Strangyeard stood.

 Snow fell from him and was promptly snatched away by

 the wind. "Not what I am thinking at all. The Noms know

 all about the tunnels." He stepped over the low wall of

 stones, knocking several loose.

 

 "Hi! What are you doing?"

 

 "I have to find Duke Isgrimnur. We are in more danger

 than we suspected." He turned and waded downhill

 through the drifts, leaning into the wind, frail but deter-

 mined.

 

 "Strangyeard!" cried Sangfugol. "Blast it, I am not

 staying here by myself. I'll come with you, Whatever

 madness you're onto." He followed the archivist over the

 barrier. "You are heading right toward the fighting!" he

 shouted. "You'll be shot with an arrow!"

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER647

 

 "I have to find Isgrimnur," Strangyeard called back.

 Cursing richly, the harper hurried after him.

 

 A

 

 "Isom's right, sire," said Sludig. "If we pass through

 the gate, we must make a great charge. The men have al-

 ready seen the Noms and they are frightened. If we hes-

 itate, the advantage will be the king's again. Who knows

 what will happen if he makes a sortie, and us fighting up-

 hill?"

 

 Isgrimnur stared at the Hayholt's high walls. It was

 only when seen against a storm like this that the works of

 man, even such a mighty construction as the Hayholt,

 seemed truly small. Perhaps they actually could knock

 down the gate. Perhaps Sludig and the others were

 rightElias' kingdom was a rotting fruit waiting to fall

 from the vine.

 

 There was another strange, sputtering flash of lightning

 over the tower tops. Thunder rolled, but following close

 behind it came a loud crash as the great ram was swung

 forward into the gate.

 

 "Go, then," Isgrimnur told Sludig. His earl had not dis-

 mounted, but had brought his steam-puffing horse to the

 edge of the wooden structure where the duke stood.

 "Hotvig and his riders are still waiting at the edge of the

 Kynswood. No, better yet, you stay here." Isgrimnur sum-

 moned one of the newly returned outriders and gave him

 a message for the Thrithings-men, then sent him on his

 way. "You go back to Isorn, Sludig. Tell him to hold fast

 and let the first of the men-at-arms go through on foot.

 There will be no storied charges here, at least not until I

 see what Elias has waiting."

 

 As the duke spoke, the ram smashed against the

 Nearulagh Gate. The timbers seemed to sag inward a little

 way, as though the huge bolts had been loosened.

 

 "Yes, sire." Sludig turned his charger toward the walls.

 

 The ram's engineers swung it forward once more. The

 iron-plated head crunched against the barrier. A length of

 wood splintered away down the length of the gate, and

 

 648 Tad Williams

 

 even through the storm noises Isgrimnur could hear the

 excited shouts of men all across the field. The ram was

 pulled back and then set in motion again. The Nearulagh

 Gate shattered and fell inward in an explosion of broken

 timbers and tumbling statuary. Snow swirled in the empty

 space. Isgrimnur goggled, almost unable to believe the

 gate was down. When the snow cleared, a few score of

 the castle's pikemen moved into the opening, braced

 against attack. No great hidden army charged outward.

 

 A long moment passed as the two forces eyed each

 other through the snow-flurries. It seemed no one could

 move, that both sides were astonished by what had hap-

 pened. Then a small, golden-helmeted figure lifted a

 sword and spurred forward. A score of mounted knights

 and several hundred foot soldiers surged toward the

 breach in the Hayholt's walls.

 

 "Damn me, Isom!" Duke Isgrimnur shouted. He leaned

 so far forward that he nearly lost his balance and toppled

 from the observation platform. "Come back! Where is

 Sludig!? Studig! Stop him!" Someone was tugging at his

 sleeve, pulling him back from the edge of the platform,

 but Isgrimnur paid the intruder no mind. "Can't he see

 that it's too easy? Isom?" He knew his voice could not

 possibly carry above the tumult. "Seriddan! Where are

 you!? Ride after himby Dror's red mallet, where are

 my messengers!?"

 

 "Duke Isgrimnur!" It was Strangyeard the archivist,

 stil! pulling at his sleeve.

 

 "Get away, damn you!" Isgrimnur roared. "I do not

 need a priest, I need mounted knights. Jeremias, run to

 Seriddan," he called. "Isom has forced our hand. Tell the

 baron to ride in."

 

 Strangyeard was undaunted. "Please, Duke Isgrimnur,

 you must listen to me!"

 

 "I have no time for you now, man! My son has just

 charged in like a fool. He must think he is Camari<after

 all I told him!" He stalked across the platform, satisfying

 himself that everyone was in as much of a furious state of

 excitement as he was. The priest pursued him like a dog

 nipping at the heels of a bull. Finally Strangyeard grasped

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER649

 

 Isgrimnur's -surcoat and yanked hard, pulling the duke

 off-balance and almost toppling him over.

 

 "By all that's holy, Isgrimnur!" he shouted. "You must

 listen to me!"

 

 The duke stared at the priest's reddened face.

 Strangyeard's eyepatch had slid almost onto his nose.

 "What are you on about?" Isgrimnur demanded. "We

 have knocked down the gates! We are at war, man!"

 

 "The Norns must know about the tunnels," Strangyeard

 said urgently. Isgrimnur saw Sangfugol the harper

 skulking beside the platform, and wondered what both a

 priest and a harper were doing in the middle of things

 that did not concern them.

 

 "What do you mean?"

 

 "They must know. And if we can think to send some-

 body under the castle walls ..."

 

 The clamor of men as they charged up the hillside to-

 ward the shattered gate, even the grumbling of thunder

 and the moan of the wind, were suddenly overtopped by

 a hideous grinding noise, a rasp like fingernails on slate.

 Horses reared, and several of the soldiers on the platform

 lifted their hands to their ears.

 

 "Oh, merciful Aedon," said Isgrimnur, staring up at the

 Hayholt. "No!"

 

 The last of Isorn's company had fought their way

 through the opening in the wall. At their backs, thrusting

 up from the snowy ground and the wreckage left by the

 battering ram, a second gate was rising. It climbed up-

 ward swiftly, rasping like an ogre's teeth grinding on

 bone. Within a few moments the wall was sealed again.

 The new gate, beneath a layer of snow and mud, was cov-

 ered with dull iron plates.

 

 "Oh, God help me, I was right," Isgrimnur groaned.

 'They have trapped Isom and the others. Sweet Usires."

 He stared in sick horror as the engineers rolled the ram

 forward and began hammering at the second gate. The

 metal-clad wood did not seem to give even an inch.

 

 "They think they have trapped Camaris," Strangyeard

 said. "That is what they planned to do all along."

 

 Isgrimnur turned and grabbed at the priest's robe,

 

 650 Tad Williams

 

 thrusting his face close to the smaller man's. "You knew?

 You knew?!"

 

 "Goodness, Isgrimnur, no, I didn't. But I see it now."

 

 The duke let him go and began shouting frantic orders,

 sending his remaining archers forward to help protect the

 engineers, who were receiving redoubled interest from the

 soldiers on the Hayholt's walls. "And find me that damn

 Sithi general!" he bawled. "The one in green! The fairy-

 folk must help us knock this new wall down!"

 

 "But you still must listen to me, Isgrimnur," said the

 priest. "If the Sithi know of those tunnels, the Noms

 must, too. The Storm King, when he lived, was master of

 Asu'a!"

 

 "What does that mean? Speak plainly, damn you!"

 Isgrimnur was furiously agitated. "My son is trapped in

 there with only a few men. We must break down this new

 gate and go in after him."

 

 "I think you must look ..." Strangyeard began, when

 another round of excited shouts interrupted him. This

 time, though, they came from behind Isgrimnur.

 

 "Coming up through Erchester!" one of the mounted

 men screamed. "Look! It is the White Foxes!"

 

 "I think you must look behind you, I was going to say."

 Strangyeard shook his head. "If we could go beneath the

 walls, so could they."

 

 Even in near-darkness it was possible to see that the

 host moving up Main Row was not human. White faces

 gleamed in the shadows. White hands held long sharp

 spears. Now that they had been sighted and the need for

 stealth was gone. they began to sing, a triumphant chant

 that fell painfully on Isgrimnur's ears.

 

 The duke allowed himself one moment of utter despair.

 "Ransomer preserve us, we have been snared like rab-

 bits." He patted the priest's shoulder in silent thanks, then

 strode to the middle of the platform. "To me, Josua's

 men! To me!" He waved to Jeremias, calling for his

 horse.

 

 The Noms came up Main Row, singing.

 

 30

 

 Beside tfte PooC

 

 ^Up to trie tree . . ." Guthwulf mumbled. His face

 beneath Simon's hand was oven-hot and slippery with

 sweat. "To the flaming tree. Wants to go ..."

 

 The earl was getting worse, and Simon did not know

 what to do. He was still badly hobbled by his own

 wounds, knew almost nothing of the healing arts, and in

 any case was in a lightless place with nothing that might

 be of use in easing Guthwulf's fever. Because of a dim

 recollection that fevers had to bum themselves out, he

 had covered the suffering earl with some of the rags

 strewn about the floor, but he felt like a traitor putting

 warm things on someone who seemed to be burning up.

 

 Helpless, he sat down beside Guthwulf once more, lis-

 tening to him rave and praying that the earl would sur-

 vive. The blackness pressed in on him like the crushing

 depths of the ocean, making it hard to breathe, to think.

 He tried to distract himself by remembering the things he

 had seen, the places he had been. More than anything he

 wanted to do something, but at this moment there seemed

 to be nothing to do but wait. He did not want to be left

 alone and lost in the empty places again.

 

 Something touched his leg and Simon reached out,

 thinking that Guthwulf in his misery was looking for a

 hand to hold. Instead, Simon's fingers trailed across

 something warm and covered with fur. He let out a shout

 of surprise and scrabbled back, expecting momentarily to

 feel rats or something worse swarming over him. When

 

 652

 

 Tad Williams

 

 there was no further contact he crouched, huddled into

 himself, for a long time. Then his feelings of responsibil-

 ity for Guthwulf won out and he edged back toward the

 earl. A squeamish exploration found the furry thing again.

 It shrank back as he had. but did not go far. It was a cat.

 

 Simon laughed breathlessly, then reached out and

 stroked the creature. It arched beneath his hand, but

 would not come to him. Instead it settled against the blind

 man and Guthwulf's movements became less agitated, his

 breathing quieter. The cat's presence seemed to soothe

 him. Simon, too, felt a little less alone, and resolved to be

 careful not to frighten the animal away. He fetched some

 of the remaining heel of bread and offered a pinch to the

 cat, who sniffed it but did not take any. Simon ate a few

 small pieces himself, then tried to find a comfortable po-

 sition to sleep in.

 

 Simon awakened, abruptly conscious that something

 had happened. In the darkness it was impossible to dis-

 cern any changes, but he had the inescapable feeling that

 things had shifted somehow, that he was suddenly in an

 unfamiliar place with no knowledge of how he had come

 there. But the rags around him were the same, and

 Guthwulf's labored breathing, though quieter, still rasped

 away nearby. Simon crawled over to the earl, gently

 pushed aside the warm and purring cat, and was heart-

 ened to feel much of the cramping tension gone from the

 blind man's limbs. Perhaps he was recovering from the

 fever. Perhaps the cat had been his companion and its

 presence had restored a little of his sanity. In any case,

 Guthwulf had stopped raving. Simon let the cat clamber

 back into the crook of the earl's arm. It felt strange not to

 hear Guthwulf's voice.

 

 During the earliest hours of his fever, the earl had been al-

 most lucid for short stretches, although he was so plagued by

 his voices and former solitude that it was difficult to separate

 truth from terrifying dream. He talked about crawling

 through darkness, desperate to find Bright-Nailalthough,

 strangely, he did not seem to think of it as a sword at all, but

 as something alive that summoned him. Simon remembered

 

 T

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER653

 

 Thorn's disturbing vitality and thought he understood a little

 of what the earl meant.

 

 It was hard to make sense out of the impressions of a half-

 mad blind man, but as Guthwulf spoke, Simon pictured the

 earl walking through the tunnels, lured by something that

 called to him in a voice he could not ignore. Guthwulf had

 gone far beyond his usual range, it seemed, and had heard

 and felt many terrible things. At last he had crawled, and

 when even those narrow ways were blocked, he had dug,

 fighting his way through the last cubits of earth that had sep-

 arated him from the object of his obsession.

 

 He dug into John's barrow, Simon realized, shuddering.

 Like a blind mole after a carrot, scraping, scraping ...

 

 Guthwulf had taken his prize and had somehow found

 his way back to his nest, but apparently even the joy of

 possessing the thing he had sought had not been enough

 to keep him in hiding. For some reason he had ventured

 out, perhaps to steal food from the forgewhere else had

 the bread and water come from?but perhaps for some

 deeper, more complicated reason.

 

 Why did he come to me? Simon wondered. Why would

 he risk being caught by Inch? He thought again of Thom,

 of how it had seemed almost to choose where it wished to

 go. Maybe Bright-Nail wanted to find ... me.

 

 The thought was a frighteningly seductive one. If

 Bright-Nail was being drawn to the great conflict that was

 coming, then maybe it somehow knew that Guthwulf

 would never willingly go up into the light again. As

 Thorn had chosen Simon and his fellows to bring it down

 from Urmsheim and back to Camaris, maybe Bright-Nail

 had chosen Simon to carry it up to Green Angel Tower to

 fight the Storm King.

 

 Another dim recollection surfaced. In my dream, Leieth

 said that the sword was part of my story. Is that what she

 meant? The details were strangely misty, but he remem-

 bered the sad-faced man who had held the blade across

 his lap as he waited for something. The dragon?

 

 Simon let his fingers trail away from the cat's back and

 down Guthwulf's arm until they reached Bright-Nail. The

 earl moaned, but did not resist as Simon gently pried his

 

 654

 

 Tad Williams

 

 fingers away. His finger reverently traced the rough shape

 of the Nail, bound just below the guard. A nail from the

 Execution Tree of holy Usires! And some sacred relic of

 Saint Eahlstan was sealed inside the hollow hilt, he re-

 membered. Prester John's sword. It was astonishing that a

 onetime scullion should ever touch such a thing!

 

 Simon curled his hand around the hilt. It seemed to ...

 fit. It lay in his hand as comfortably as though it had been

 made for him. All other thoughts about the blade, about

 Guthwulf, slid away. He sat in the dark and felt the sword

 to be an extension of his own arm, of himself. He stood,

 ignoring his aching muscles, and slashed at the lightless

 void before him. A moment later, horrified at the thought

 that he might accidentally strike Bright-Nail against the

 rock wall of the cavern and blunt its edge, he sat down

 again, then crawled away to his corner of the cavern and

 stretched out on the stone, clutching the sword to him as

 though it were a child. The metal was cold where it

 touched his skin, and the blade was sharp, but he did not

 want to let it go. Across the chamber, Guthwulf mur-

 mured uncomfortably.

 

 Some time had passed, although Simon did not know

 whether he had slept or not, when he suddenly became

 aware that something was missing: he could no longer

 hear the earl breathing. For a moment, as he scrambled

 across the uneven floor, he clung to the wild hope that

 Guthwulf had grown well enough to leave the cavern,

 but the presence of Bright-Nail still gripped in his own

 fingers made that seem very unlikely: the blind man

 would not for a moment allow someone else to have his

 blade.

 

 When Simon reached Guthwulf, the earl's skin was

 cool as river clay.

 

 He did not weep, but his feeling of loss was great

 His sorrow was not for Guthwulf the man, who except

 for these last dreamlike hours or days he had only known

 as a fearsome figure, but for himself, left alone once

 more.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER655

 

 Almost alone. Something bumped against his shin. The

 cat seemed to be trying to get his attention. It missed its

 companion, Simon felt sure. Perhaps it thought that some-

 how he could wake Guthwulf where it had failed.

 

 "Sorry," he whispered, running his fingers down its

 back and gently tugging its tail. "He's gone somewhere

 else. I*m lonely, too."

 

 Feeling empty, he sat for a moment and took stock of

 things. Now he had no choice but to brave the mazy,

 lightless tunnels, even though he doubted he would find

 his way out again without a guide. Two times he had

 stumbled through this haunted labyrinth, each time fol-

 lowed so closely by death that he heard its patient foot-

 steps behind him; it was too much to hope that he would

 be lucky again. Still, there was little else he could do.

 Green Angel Tower stood somewhere above, and Bright-

 Nail must be carried there. If Josua and the others had not

 brought Thorn, he would do what he could, although it

 would doubtless end in failure. He owed that much to all

 those who had sold their dear lives for his freedom.

 

 It was difficult to put Bright-Nail downhe already

 felt a little of Guthwutf's possessiveness, although there

 was nothing in the small cavern that might endanger the

 swordbut he could accomplish little with it clutched in

 his hand. He leaned it against one of the walls, then pro-

 ceeded to the unpleasant task of undressing the dead earl.

 When he had removed Guthwulf's tattered clothing he

 took some of the rags scattered about the cavern and, in

 poor imitation of the priestly labors in the House of Pre-

 paring, wrapped the body. A part of him felt ridiculous

 for going to such lengths for a man who had, by all re-

 pute, been little-loved in his life, and who would lie here

 alone and undiscovered regardless, but Simon felt a stub-

 born urge to pay the blind man back- Morgenes and

 Maegwin had given their lives for him, and they had been

 given no memorial, no rites, except those in Simon's own

 heart. Guthwulf should not go to the Fields Beyond un-

 heralded.

 

 When he had finished, he stood.

 

 656Tad Williams

 "Our Lord protect you,"

 

 he began, struggling to remember the words to the

 Prayer for the Dead,

 

 "And Usires His only Son lift you up.

 

 May you be carried to the green valleys

 

 Of His domains,

 

 Where the souls of the good and righteous sing from

 

 the hilltops,

 

 And angels are in the trees,

 

 Speaking joy with God's own voice....

 

 "Thank you, Guthwutf," he said when the prayer was

 done. "I'm sorry to take the sword away from you, but

 I'll try to do what should be done."

 

 He made the sign of the Treehoping that, despite the

 darkness, God would see and so take note of Guthwulf

 when at last the earl came before Himthen he pulled on

 Guthwulf's clothing and boots. A year before, he might

 have thought twice before donning a dead man's garb, but

 Simon had walked so close to death himself that he was

 now all practicality. It was warm and safe in the cavern,

 but who knew what cold winds, what sharp stones.

 awaited him?

 

 As he drank off the last drops in the water bowl, the cat

 nudged his leg once more. "You can come with me or

 stay here," he told it. "Your choice." He took up Bright-

 Nail, then wrapped a rag around the blade just below the

 hilt and tied the earl's buckleless belt around the sword

 and his waist so his hands would be free. It was more

 than a slight relief to feel it against him once more.

 

 As he felt his way toward the mouth of the cavern the

 cat was at his feet, twining in and out between his ankles.

 "You'll trip me," he said. "Stop that."

 

 He edged a little distance along the passageway, but the

 creature was between his legs again and made him stum-

 ble. He reached down for it, then laughed hollowly at the

 stupidity of trying to catch a cat in blind darkness. The

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER657

 

 cat moved under his hand and then slipped away in the

 opposite direction. Simon paused.

 

 "That way, not this way?" he said aloud. After a mo-

 ment, he shrugged, then laughed again. Despite all the

 horror behind him and before him, he fell curiously free.

 "Very well, then, I'll follow you for a while. Which

 means I'll probably wind up sitting next to the largest rat

 hole in Osten Ard."

 

 The cat bumped him, then slipped away up the corri-

 dor. Feeling along the walls, entirely surrounded by dark-

 ness, Simon trailed after it.

 

 A

 

 Yis-hadra stopped at the base of the stairs and chimed

 anxiously to her husband- Yis-fidri replied. They bent to

 examine the cracked stone baluster.

 

 "This place," Yis-fidri said. "If you follow these steps

 upward, you will come at last to the mortal castle built

 atop this one."

 

 "Where?" asked Miriamele. She dropped her bow and

 pack to the tunnel floor and slumped against the stone.

 "Where in the castle?"

 

 "We know not," Yis-hadra said. "All has been built

 since our day. No Tinukeda'ya touched those stones."

 

 "And you? Where will you go?" She looked up the

 stairwell. It spiraled up far beyond the weak light of the

 dwarrow's batons, twisting into darkness.

 

 "We will find another place." Yis-fidri looked at his

 wife. "There are few of us left, but there are still places

 that will welcome our hands and eyes."

 

 "It is time for our going," Binabik said urgently. "Who

 is knowing how far away the Noms are?"

 

 Miriamele asked the dwarrows; "Why don't you come

 with us? You are strong, and we can use your strength.

 You should know by now that our fight is yours, too."

 

 Yis-fidri shuddered and raised his long hands as though

 to fend her off. "Do you not understand? We do not be-

 long in the light, in the world of Sudhoda'ya. We have al-

 ready been changed by you, done things that Tinukeda'ya

 

 658 Tad Williams

 

 do not do. We have ... we have killed some of those who

 were once our masters." He murmured something in the

 dwarrow-tongue and Yis-hadra and his other remaining

 folk chorused unhappily. "It will take us long to leam to

 live with that. We do not belong in the world above. Let

 us go to find the darkness and deep places we crave."

 

 Binabik, who had spoken much to Yis-fidri during the

 last part of their flight, stepped forward and extended his

 small hand. "May you find safety."

 

 The dwarrow looked at him for a moment as if he did

 not understand, then slowly put out his own spidery fin-

 gers and wrapped them around the troll's. "And you. I

 will not tell you my thoughts, for they are fearful and un-

 happy."

 

 Miriamele bit back words of argument. The dwarrows

 wished to go. They had fulfilled the promise that she had

 forced out of them. They were already frightened and

 miserable; aboveground they might be less than useless,

 more a responsibility than an asset. "Farewell, Yis-fidri,"

 she said, then turned to his wife. "Yis-hadra, thank you

 for showing me how you tend the stone."

 

 The dwarrow bobbed her head. "May you also fare

 well."

 

 Even as she spoke, the lights of the batons flickered

 and the underground chamber seemed to shift, another

 convulsion without movement; a moment later, when

 things were again as they had been, the remaining

 dwarrows began to whisper.

 

 "We must go now," Yis-hadra said, her dark eyes wide

 with fear. She and her husband turned and led their troop

 of shuffling, spindle-legged kin away into the shadows.

 Within moments the corridor was as empty as if they had

 never existed. Miriamele blinked.

 

 "We must go also." Binabik started up the stairs, then

 turned. "Where is the monk?"

 

 Miriamele looked back. Cadrach, who had been at the

 rear of the assembled dwarrows, was sitting on the

 ground, his eyes half-closed. The flicker of Binabik's

 torch made him seem to sway.

 

 "He's useless." She bent to pick up her belongings.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER659

 

 "We should leave him here. Let him follow if he wants

 to."

 

 Binabik frowned at her. "Help him, Miriamele. Other-

 wise, he is left for the Noms' finding."

 

 She was not sure the monk didn't deserve just that, but

 she shrugged and went to him-anyway. A tug on his arm

 brought him slowly to his feet.

 

 "We're going."

 

 Cadrach looked at her for a moment. "Ah," he said,

 then followed her up the ancient stairway.

 

 *

 

 As the company of Sithi led them farther into the deeps

 below the Hayholt, Tiamak and Josua found themselves

 staring around in astonishment, like Lakeland farmers on

 their first visit to Nabban.

 

 "What a treasure trove this is!" Josua breathed. "And

 to think it was below me all those years I lived here. I

 would gladly spend a lifetime down here, exploring,

 studying...."

 

 Tiamak, too, was overwhelmed. The rough corridors of

 the outer tunnels had given way-to a decayed splendor he

 could never have imagined, and even now could scarcely

 believe. Vast chambers which seemed to have been pains-

 takingly carved out of living rock. every surface a min-

 utely detailed tapestry; seemingly endless stairways, thin

 and beautiful as spiderwebs, that curled up into shadow

 or stretched across black emptiness; entire rooms carved

 in the likeness of forest clearings or mountainsides with

 waterfalls, though everything in the chamber was solid

 stoneeven as crumbling ruins, Asu'a the Great was as-

 tonishing.

 

 They Who Watch and Shape, Tiamak thought, seeing

 this place has made every bit of my suffering worthwhile.

 My lame leg, my hours in the ghant nest/ would not

 trade them if I must also lose the memories of this hour.

 

 As they wound through the dusty byways, Tiamak tore

 his eyes away from the wonders that surrounded him long

 enough to observe the strange behavior of his Sithi com-

 

 66o Tad Williams

 

 panions. When Likimeya and the others stopped to let the

 mortals rest, in a high-roofed chamber whose arching

 windows were clogged with dirt and rubble, Tiamak sat

 beside Aditu.

 

 "Forgive me if my question is rude," he asked softly,

 "but do your people mourn their old home? You seem ...

 distracted."

 

 Aditu inclined her head, bending her graceful neck. "In

 part, yes. It is sad to see the beautiful things our people

 built in such a stateand for those who lived here ..."

 she made an intricate gesture, "it is even more painful.

 Do you remember the chamber carved with great flow-

 ered stepsthe Hall of Five Staircases, as we call it?"

 

 "We stopped there a long time," Tiamak said, remem-

 bering.

 

 "That was the place where my mother's mother,

 Briseyu Dawnfeather, died."

 

 The marsh man thought of how Likimeya had stood

 expressiontessly in the center of that wide room. Who

 could know these immortals?

 

 Aditu shook her head. "But such are not the greatest

 reasons we are, as you put it, distracted. There are ...

 presences here. Things that should not be."

 

 Tiamak had himself felt more than a touch of what he

 thought Aditu meanta riffle of wind on the back of his

 neck that seemed insistent as probing fingers, echoes that

 almost sounded like faint voices. "What does it mean?"

 

 "Something is awake here in Asu'a that should not be

 awake. It is hard to explain. Whatever it may be, it has

 given a semblance of life to what should not have one."

 

 Tiamak frowned, unsure. "Do you mean . .. ghosts?"

 

 Aditu's smile was fleeting. "If I understood First

 Grandmother when she taught me what the mortal word

 means, no. Not as such. But it is hard to show the differ-

 ence. Your tongue is not suited for it, and you do not see

 or feel what we do."

 

 "How can you tell?" He looked across to4osua, but the

 prince was staring fixedly at the ornately carved walls.

 

 "Because if you did," Aditu replied, "I suspect you

 would not be sitting there so calmly." She rose and

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER66l

 

 crossed the rubble-strewn floor to where her mother and

 Jiriki stood in quiet conversation.

 

 In the middle of emptiness, Tiamak suddenly felt sur-

 rounded by danger. He slid closer to Josua.

 

 "Do you feel it, Prince Josua?" Tiamak asked. "The

 Sithi do. They are frightened."

 

 The prince looked grim. "We are all of us frightened. I

 would have liked a full night to prepare for this, but

 Camaris took that away from me. I try not to remember

 where it is we are going."

 

 "And all with no idea of what to do when we get

 there," Tiamak mourned. "Was there ever a battle fought

 so confusedly?" He hesitated. "I have no right to question

 you, Prince Josua, but why did you follow Camaris?

 Surely others less crucial to our success than you could

 have tried to track him."

 

 The prince stared ahead. "I was the only one there. I

 sought to bring him back before he was lost to us." He

 sighed. "I feared others would not come in time. But even

 more ..."

 

 The strange perturbation of air and stone came again,

 sudden and disorienting, cutting Josua off in mid-speech.

 The Sithi's lights jittered, although the immortals them-

 selves seemed not to move- For a moment, Tiamak

 thought he sensed the presence of a host of others, a shad-

 owy horde disposed all through the ruined halls. Then the

 feeling was gone and everything was as it had been but

 for an odd, lingering smell of smoke.

 

 "Aedon's mercy!" Josua looked down at his feet as

 though surprised to discover them still on the ground.

 "What is this place?"

 

 The Sithi had paused. Jiriki turned to the mortals.

 

 "We must go faster," he said. "Can you keep up?"

 

 "I have a tame leg," Tiamak replied. "But I will do my

 best."

 

 Josua laid his hand on the Wrannaman's shoulder. "I

 will not leave you behind. I can carry you if need be."

 

 Tiamak smiled, touched. "I do not think it will come to

 that, Prince Josua."

 

 662 Tad Williams

 

 "Come, then. The Sithi need haste. We will try to give

 it to them."

 

 They moved at a fast trot through the winding passage-

 ways. Watching the backs of the Sithi, Tiamak had little

 doubt that if they chose they could leave their mortal

 companions far behind. But they did not, and that said

 much: the Sithi thought that Tiamak and Josua could do

 something important. He ignored the pain in his leg and

 hurried on.

 

 They seemed to run for hours, although Tiamak had no

 way of knowing if that was true: just as the substance of

 Asu'a itself seemed strangely unstable, so too did time

 move in a manner that Tiamak no longer trusted himself

 to interpret. The lag between steps sometimes seemed to

 stretch for long moments, then an instant later he would

 be in another part of the ruined sub-castle, still running,

 with no memory of the intervening journey.

 

 He Who Always Steps on Sand, keep me sane until I

 have done whatever I can do, he prayed. Beside him, the

 prince too seemed in silent communication with some-

 thing or someone.

 

 For a while the Sithi were so far ahead that their lights

 were little more than a glow in the tunnel before them.

 Tiamak's own globe, jiggling in his clutch, provided in-

 constant light; he and Josua found themselves stumbling

 through wreckage they could barely see, suffering more

 than a few cuts and bruises, until they caught up to the

 immortals once more.

 

 The Sithi had halted beneath a high archway where

 they stood silhouetted by a diffuse glow from the cham-

 ber beyond. As Tiamak hobbled to a stop beside them,

 gasping for breath, he wondered if they had finally

 reached the light of the upper world. As he sucked air

 into his lungs, he stared at the dragonlike serpent carved

 on the arch. Its tail stretched down one side and was

 carved across the dusty floor of the archway as well, then

 rose up the other side and back to the lintel, where the tip

 was clasped in its owner's mouth. There were still flecks

 of paint on its thousands of minute scales.

 

 The smoky light behind the Sithi made them seem dis-

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER663

 

 torted, freakishly lean and without firm edges. The near-

 est, Jiriki, turned and looked back at the panting mortals.

 There was compassion on his face, but it battled with

 more pressing emotions. "Beyond is the Pool of Three

 Depths," he said. "If I tell you it is a Master Witness, you

 may have some idea of what kind of forces are at work

 here. This is one of the mightiest of the places of power;

 

 the great worms of Osten Ard once came to drink its wa-

 ters and share their wordless wisdom, long before my

 people set foot in this land."

 

 "Why have we stopped here?" Josua asked. "Is

 Camaris.. . ?"

 

 "He may be, or he may have already been here and

 passed on. It is a place of potency as I said, and it is one

 of the sources of the change we have felt all around us.

 He may very well have been drawn here." Jiriki lifted his

 hand in warning; for the first time, Tiamak could see the

 weariness on the immortal's face. "Please do nothing

 without asking. Touch nothing except the floor where we

 walk. If something speaks to you, do not reply."

 

 Tiamak was chilled. He nodded his understanding. There

 were a thousand questions he longed to ask, but the tension

 he saw in the Sithi was a strong argument for silence.

 

 "Lead on," said Josua.

 

 Appearing a little hesitant themselves, the Sithi stepped

 through the archway into a wide chamber full of indirect

 light. Where Tiamak could see the walls through the

 strange mistiness of the air, they seemed almost new-

 built, undamaged and ribbed with great sculpted pillars

 that stretched up toward the hidden ceiling. The pool, a

 circular expanse of scintillant water, lay in the center of

 the chamber. A circular staircase whose landing touched

 on the pool's far side spiraled up, massive yet graceful,

 and vanished in the mists above.

 

 Something in the room was ... alive. Tiamak could

 think of no other way to describe the sensation. Whether

 it'was the pool itself, with its shifting blue and green

 glows flickering up from the depths, he could not say, but

 there was far more to this place than water and stone. The

 air was thunderstorm-taut, and he found he was holding

 

 Tad Williams

 

 his breath as they moved forward. The Sithi, moving as

 cautiously as hunters stalking a wounded boar, fanned out

 along the edge of the pool, growing unaccountably more

 distant from him with each single step. The smoky light

 glimmered.

 

 "Camaris!" shouted Josua. Tiamak looked up, startled.

 The prince was staring at a shape beyond the farthest of

 the Sithi, a tall figure with a long shadow in one h'and.

 The prince hastened around the tarn's rim; the Sithi, their

 attention pulted away from the pool, moved with him to-

 ward the solitary figure. Tiamak hurried after, the pain of

 his leg momentarily forgotten.

 

 For an instant Tiamak thought the prince was mistaken,

 that whatever this shape was, it was not Camaris: for a

 blink of time he saw someone completely different, jet-

 haired and dressed in strange robes, with a branching

 crown upon his head. Then the chamber seemed to shud-

 der and tip, and the Wrannaman stumbled; when he had

 regained his balance, he saw that it was indeed the old

 knight. Camaris looked up at the approaching figures and

 stepped back, his eyes wild with alarm, then leveled the

 black sword before him. Josua and the Sithi stopped be-

 yond its reach.

 

 "Camaris," said the prince. "It is Josua. Look, it is only

 me. I have been searching for you."

 

 The old man stared at him, but the sword did not waver

 from its defensive position. "It is a sinful world," he re-

 plied hoarsely.

 

 "I will go with you," said Josua. "Wherever you wish

 to go. Do not be afraid. I will not stop you."

 

 Likimeya's voice was surprisingly gentle. "We can help

 you, Hikka Ti-tuno. We will not stay you, but we can

 make your pain less." She took a step forward, her hands

 held with palms upward. "Do you remember Amerasu

 Ship-Born?"

 

 The old man's lips drew back in a grimace of pain or

 fear and he drew Thom back as if to strike. Dark Kuroyi's

 sword hissed from its sheath as he stepped in front of

 Likimeya.

 

 "There is no need," she said coldly. "Put up."

 

 T

 

 665

 

 The tall Sitha hesitated for a moment, then slipped his

 witchwood sword back into place. Camaris lowered his

 black blade once more.

 

 "Pity." Kuroyi sounded genuinely regretful. "I have al-

 ways wondered what it would be to cross swords with the

 greatest of mortal warriors...."

 

 Before anyone else spoke again the light flared wildly,

 then the room was plunged into blackness. A moment

 later light returned, but this time the misty air was blue as

 the center of a flame. Tiamak felt a freezing wind that

 seemed to blow through him, and the tension of the air in-

 creased until his ears hammered.

 

 "How you do love mortals." The dreadful voice

 sounded in his thoughts and all through his body; the

 words felt like insects skittering on the Wrannaman's

 skin. "You cannot leave them alone."

 

 Tiamak and the others turned. In the roiling mists be-

 hind them a shape was forming, pale robed and silver

 masked, enthroned in midair above the pool. The sickly

 blue light did not reach much beyond the water, and the

 chamber was now walled with shadow. The Wrannaman

 felt terror seize him by the spine. He could not move,

 could only pray that he would be unnoticed. Stormspike's

 queenfor who else could it be?was as dreadful as any

 nightmare vision of She Who Waits to Take All Back.

 

 Likimeya nodded her head. She held herself stiffly, as

 though even speaking took much effort. "So, Eldest. You

 have found a way to reach the Pool of Three Depths. That

 does not mean that you can use it."

 

 The masked figure did not move, but Tiamak felt some-

 thing almost like triumph emanate from it. "/ silenced

 AmerasuI broke her before my huntsman dispatched

 her. Do you think you are her equal, child?"

 

 "By myself, no. But I have others here with me."

 

 "Other children." A pale gloved hand lifted, wavering

 as the mist swirled.

 

 Tiamak was dimly aware of movement on the edge of

 the circle of figures around him, but could not tear his

 eyes away from the shimmering silver mask,

 

 "Camaris!" Josua cried. "He is leaving."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 666 Tad Williams

 

 "Go," said Jiriki. "And you, too, Tiamak. Follow him."

 

 "But what of you?" The prince's voice cracked. "And

 how will we find our way?"

 

 "He is going where he is drawn." Jiriki moved closer to

 his mother, who already seemed locked in some silent

 struggle with the Norn Queen. The muscles of Likimeya's

 face were rippling. "And that is where you must go, too.

 This is our struggle here." Jiriki turned to face the pool.

 

 "Go!" said Aditu urgently. She tugged at Tiamak's

 sleeve, pulling him off-balance and sending him stum-

 bling toward Josua. "We will call on the power of the

 Oldest Tree and hold her at bay as long as we can, but we

 cannot defeat their plan here. Utuk'ku is already drawing

 on the Master Witness. I can feel it."

 

 "But what is she doing? What is happening?" Tiamak

 heard his voice rising in terror.

 

 "We cannot see that," Aditu moaned. Her teeth were

 clenched. "We have all we can do to hold her back. You

 and the others must accomplish whatever remains. This is

 our battle. Now go!" She turned away from him.

 

 The pulsing radiance of the pool grew stronger, and

 lavender flames kindled along the walls, leaping as

 though in a fierce wind. The entire chamber felt tight as

 a drumhead. Tiamak thought he could feel himself

 shrinking, twisting, being slowly crushed by the forces

 now unleashed. Something powerful, yet without form or

 substance, was beating out at him from the misty shape

 that hovered over the water.

 

 Fumbling as though they were battered by gale winds,

 the Sithi formed into a line before the pool and linked

 their hands, then began to sing.

 

 As the immortals* strange music rose, the lights of the

 pool flickered wildly. Tiamak stared helplessly at the

 glowing mists, unable to remember how to move. The

 walls around the pool seemed to bend inward and then

 push out again, bend in and push out, as though the cham-

 ber breathed. On the rim of the pool Aditu staggered and

 slumped forward, but her brother, who stood beside her,

 pulled her upright; the song of the Sithi faltered for a mo-

 ment, then resumed.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 667

 

 In response to their wailing music, something else be-

 gan to form in the mists of the pool, something that rap-

 idly became entangled with the pate shadow of the Norn

 Queen. Tiamak saw it as a dim, dark shape with a wide

 trunk, swaying branches, and phantom leaves that flut-

 tered as though a wind caressed them. Aditu had said "the

 Oldest Tree"; Tiamak could sense this huge thing's antiq-

 uity, its deep roots and spreading, nurturing strength. For

 a moment he felt something like hope.

 

 As if in response, the blue lights in the water began to

 burn even more Fiercely, until the glare filled the chamber

 with blinding radiance. The tree shape grew less substan-

 tial. The Wrannaman felt himself sinking down to the

 ground as Utuk'ku's choking, freezing might surged out

 from the Pool of Three Depths.

 

 "Tiamak!"

 

 The voice was distant and far behind him; it meant lit-

 tle. Nothing could push through the fog that was filling

 his ears, his heart, his thoughts... .

 

 High above the center of the pool, the Nom Queen

 seemed a creature made entirely of ice, but something black

 pulsed at the heart of her, and jagged flares of purple and

 blue played about her head and glinted from her shining

 mask. She spread her arms, then clenched her gloved fists.

 Kuroyi abruptly shrieked and fell away from the rest of the

 Sithi to writhe on the ground. The dark-haired Sitha began to

 deform into impossibly swift-changing shapes, as though in-

 visible hands kneaded him like dough. The other Sithi

 slumped and fell back; the ghost-tree vanished completely.

 After a few moments Aditu and her kin recovered them-

 selves and began fighting to close the gap where Kuroyi had

 been. They struggled as though immersed in deep water,

 striving to join hands once more. The fallen Sitha had

 stopped struggling and lay still. There was no longer any-

 thing manlike in his form.

 

 Something jerked at Tiamak's arm, then jerked again.

 He turned slowly. Josua was screaming at him. but he

 could not hear the words. The prince pulled him up onto

 his feet and dragged him, stumbling, away from the pool.

 Tiamak's heart was rattling as though it might burst. His

 

 668

 

 Tad Williams

 

 legs did not want to support him, but Josua kept tugging

 until Tiamak could move on his own, then the prince

 turned and lurched away in pursuit of Camaris. The old

 knight was several score paces ahead, walking stiff-

 legged toward the dark passages at the far side of the

 wide chamber. Tiamak limped slowly after them both.

 

 The song of the Dawn Children rose again behind him,

 more raggedly this time. Tiamak did not dare look back.

 Blue light throbbed all across the cavern ceiling, and the

 shadows bloomed and vanished and then bloomed again.

 

 A

 

 Despite the strange shifting that seemed to be going on

 around him, despite the bodiless voices that sometimes

 shrieked or gibbered in the blackness, Simon did not sur-

 render to fear. He had survived the wheel and. then had

 passed over into the void and returned. He had won back

 his life, but he did not hold it as tightly as he once had,

 and so, in a way, his grip on it was more sure. What were

 little things like hunger or momentary blindness? He had

 been hungry before. He had wandered without light.

 

 The cat padded silently ahead, turning at intervals to

 rub against him before moving on, leading him slowly

 through the twisting tunnels. He had long since given his

 safety over into the animal's care. There was nothing else

 to do, and no use worrying about it.

 

 Something was happening around him, although he

 could not tell exactly what that something was. The

 ghostly presences and strange distortions were even stron-

 ger than before, and seemed to come now as regularly as

 waves dashing themselves upon a beach, sweeping all be-

 fore them, then ebbing away again. He hardened himself

 to the sensations as he had hardened himself to his own

 

 aches.

 

 Simon felt his way along the black corridors, Bright-

 Nail scraping the walls like a beetle's feeler, his fingers

 trailing through dust and dank moss and cobwebs and

 other things less pleasant. He could do nothing but what

 he was doing. He had faced the ice-dragon and shouted

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER669

 

 his name at it, had wandered the emptiness beyond

 dreams and clung to himself. He could not turn back from

 the task that was before him, and he would not.

 

 Bright-Nail seemed to change along with his lightless

 surroundings. One moment it was a simple blade slapping

 against his hip, then a moment later it seemed to throb in

 time with the convulsions of the castle depths, becoming

 for a moment a living thing; at those times, it was hard to

 tell whether one of them was master, or whether Simon

 and the sword were, as he and the cat were, two creatures

 traveling the darkness together in strange partnership.

 

 At such times, he could begin to hear its call in his

 thoughts; it was a faint presence, only a hint of the song

 that Guthwutf had seemed to hear, but it was growing

 steadily stronger. For brief moments he could almost un-

 derstand it, as though it spoke to him in a language he

 had forgotten long ago, but which was slowly surfacing

 from the place in his memory where it had been buried.

 But Simon did not think he wanted to understand what

 the blade sang. Perhaps if he wandered long enough, he

 thought, he would indeed become like Guthwulf, and hear

 almost nothing but the sword's compelling music.

 

 He hoped he would not be-in darkness that long.

 

 There came a time when the cat stopped and did not go

 on. It wreathed itself around his shins as though it wished

 to be stroked; when he bent to touch it, it pushed at his

 fingers with its muzzle, but did not continue on its way.

 He waited, finally wondering if he had not put far too

 much trust in a mere beast.

 

 "Where next?" he said. His voice scarcely echoed: they

 were still in one of the narrower passages. "Go on, now.

 I'm waiting."

 

 The cat rubbed against him, purring. After a few mo-

 ments, Simon put his hands out and began searching care-

 fully along the walls, looking for somethingperhaps a

 doorway of some kind that did not reach the floorwhich

 might have stopped their progress. Instead, on a shelf of

 rock set into the wall, nearly head high, he found a plate

 and a covered bowl.

 

 670 Tad Williams

 

 I've been here before.' he realized. Unless some mad-

 man is leaving food all across the tunnels. But if so, bless

 him, bless him anyway.

 

 Simon said a prayer of thanks as he took the bread and

 dried meat and small wedge of cheese from the plate,

 then sat down and ate enough of each to feel happier and

 more prosperous than he had in a long while. He drank

 half the bowl of water, then after a moment's considera-

 tion, finished it off. He regretted the lack of a water skin,

 but if he had to carry the water without one, it might as

 welt be inside him.

 

 The cat was at him again, butting and purring. Simon

 broke off a sizable piece of the jerked meat to share with

 his guidethe cat took it so quickly its sharp teeth

 scraped his fingersthen put the remainder in the pocket

 of his shirt. He stood.

 

 P 'raps he won't want to lead me anymore, he thought.

 This may have been all the little creature wanted.

 

 But the cat, as though some ritual had been success-

 fully observed, slithered in and out between his ankles for

 a few moments, then started off again. Simon bent and

 felt first its head, then its back, then its tail pass beneath

 his fingers. He smiled an invisible smile and followed it.

 

 It was so faint at first as to be almost unnoticeable, but

 gradually Simon realized that the walls around him were

 slowly becoming visible. The light was so dim that for

 hundreds of paces he thought it was only his eyes playing

 tricks on him, but eventually he realized that he was see-

 ing the rough surfaces across which he dragged his hands.

 The cat, too, had become a real thing instead of just an

 idea, a hint of movement on the tunnel floor before him.

 

 He followed the shadow-cat up through the coiling tun-

 nels. These were rougher hewn than those which tra-

 versed the ruins of Asu'a, and he felt a growing certainty

 that he was back in the mortal castle once more. As he

 turned another bend, the dim netherlight became a torch

 in a wall bracket at the far end of a long passageway.

 

 Light! Back again! He fell to his knees, unmindful for

 a moment of his aching limbs, and pressed his forehead

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER671

 

 against the stone floor. He stayed there, trembling. Light!

 He was in the world again.

 

 Thank you, Maegwin. Bless you. Thank you, Guthwulf.

 

 The cat was a gray shape against the gray stone. Some-

 thing else tugged at his memory.

 

 I've seen that cat beforeor have I? The Hayholl was

 full of cats.

 

 The air abruptly contracted and the walls shivered and

 then bowed inward as though to trap him. An image

 passed before his mind's eye, a great tree shivering in

 storm winds, its branches torn loose and spinning away.

 For a moment Simon felt as though he had been turned

 inside-out. Even when the vision had gone and all was as

 it had been, he remained on his knees for long moments,

 panting.

 

 His four-footed guide stopped and looked around to see

 if he was still following, then continued on, as though the

 strange slippage was beneath a cat's notice. Simon clam-

 bered to his feet.

 

 The creature paused in an archway. Simon saw a nar-

 row staircase climbing up into darkness. The cat bumped

 his shin but did not move on.

 

 "Should I go up here?" he whispered. He poked his

 head into the entranceway. High above, hidden by the

 twisting stairwell, another source of light glowed faintly.

 

 He stared at the cat for a moment. The cat stared back,

 yellow eyes wide.

 

 "Very well, then." He touched Bright-Nail, making

 sure the hilt was not tangled in the rags of his belt, then

 began to climb. After a few steps he turned and looked

 back. The cat still sat in the middle of the tunnel floor,

 watching. "Aren't you coming?"

 

 The gray cat stood and slowly sauntered away down

 the corridor. Even if it had possessed the gift of speech,

 it could not more clearly have told him that from this

 point he was on his own.

 

 Simon smiled grimly.

 

 / suppose there's no cat in the world stupid enough to

 go where I'm going.

 

 He turned and made his way up the shadowed stairs.

 

 672 Tad Williams

 

 The stairwell opened at last into a broad windowless

 room imperfectly lit by an open hatch door in the ceiling.

 As he stepped out from behind the wooden screen that hid

 the stairway, he realized that he was in one of the storage

 rooms below the refectory. He had been in this place be-

 fore as well, on the momentous, horrible day when he had

 discovered Prince Josua in Pryrates* prison cell ... but

 that time the storeroom had been packed to the ceilings

 with all manner of food and other goods. Now the barrels

 that remained lay empty, many in splinters. Dusty mantles

 of spiderweb covered the remains, and the few spatters of

 flour left on the floor were crisscrossed with the tracks of

 mice. It looked as though no one had entered the room for

 some time.

 

 Up above him, he knew, stood the refectory, and the

 hundreds of other close-huddled buildings of the Inner

 Bailey. Looming over them all was the ivory spike of

 Green Angel Tower.

 

 As he thought of it, he felt Bright-Nail's song grow a

 little more insistent.

 

 ... go there.... It was a whisper at the farthest edge of

 his thoughts.

 

 Simon found and replaced the hatchway ladder, which

 had toppled to the floor, then began to climb. It creaked

 ominously, but held. Beneath its complaining he could

 hear a faint murmur, as though the hissing voices of the

 tunnels were following him up from the dark.

 

 The only illumination in the refectory hall was the

 weak and unevenly pulsing gray light that leaked in

 through the high windows. The remaining tables and

 benches were scattered, some smashed to flinders, but

 most were gone entirely, perhaps taken to be burned as

 firewood. A bleak layer of dust lay everywhere, even on

 those things which had suffered a violent end, as though

 the destruction had happened a century before. -A pair of

 rats scurried across one of the broken tables, paying Si-

 mon no heed.

 

 The murmuring noise he had heard was louder here.

 The greatest part of it was the wind moaning outside the

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 673

 

 windows, but there were still hints of voices crying out in

 pain or anger or fear. Simon looked up and saw tiny

 flecks of snow whirling in past the broken shutters. He

 thought he could feel Bright-Nail stir, like a hunting beast

 catching the scent of blood.

 

 He looked once more around the refectorytaking

 note, however distractedly, of the damage visited upon his

 homethen moved as quietly as he could toward the

 eastern portico. As he approached the door, he saw that it

 sagged on broken hinges and he despaired of opening it

 without noise, but as he came closer and heard the tumult

 outside he realized no one would hear him even if he

 were to kick it loose. The menacing song of the wind had

 grown, but the shouting voices and other noises had be-

 come louder still, until it sounded as if a great battle were

 being fought just outside the refectory door.

 

 He crouched and placed his eye against the wedge of

 light where the door had edged free from its frame. It was

 hard at first to make sense of what he saw.

 

 There was a battle just outside, or at least great knots

 of armored men were surging back and forth across the

 bailey. The chaos was abetted by the snows which cov-

 ered the muddy ground and blew through the air like

 smoke, making everything murky; what sky he could see

 was full of streaming black clouds.

 

 Lightning flashed, turning all to brilliant noon one in-

 stant, then, on its disappearance, making it seem for a

 moment as though all light had fled. It looked like a battle

 at the gates of Hell, a madness of shrieking faces and ter-

 rified horses, and it raged like an angry sea all across the

 snow-smothered bailey. Trying to make his way through

 such madness would be choosing to die.

 

 On the far side, hopelessly out of Simon's reach. Green

 Angel Tower stood with its ivory spire wreathed in thun"

 derheads. Lightning burst across the sky once more, a

 jagged, flaring chain that seemed to encircle the tower.

 Thunder shook his bones. Staring upward in that instant

 of savage illumination, Simon saw a pale face gazing

 from the great bellchamber windows.

 

 31

 

 The False Messenger

 

 A

 

 Miriomete WOS staggeringly exhausted. She could not

 imagine how Binabik, with his shorter legs, could still be

 moving. She was certain they had been climbing for more

 than an hour. How could there be so many steps? Surely

 by this time they could have reached the Hayholt if they

 had started from the center of the earth.

 

 Panting, she stopped to wipe sweat from her face and

 look back. Cadrach was two flights down, barely visible

 in the torchlight. The monk would not give up; Miriamele

 had to credit him for that.

 

 "Binabik, wait," she called. "If I ... if I go another

 step ... my legs will fall off."

 

 The troll paused, then turned and came back down. He

 handed her his water skin, and as she drank, he said: "We

 have almost reached to the castle. 1 can feel the changing

 of air."

 

 Miriamele slumped down onto the wide smooth step,

 discarding the bow and pack she had been tempted to toss

 away so many times in the past hour. "What air? I haven't

 had any in my lungs since I don't remember when."

 

 Binabik looked at her solicitously. "Mountain-

 clambering is what we Qanuc leam before we can talk-

 You have been doing well to stay with me." ,

 

 Miramele did not bother with a reply. A few moments

 later Cadrach staggered up and toppled against the wall,

 then slid down onto the step an arm's length from her. His

 pale face was moist, his eyes remote. She watched him

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER675

 

 fight for breath, and after a moment's hesitation offered

 him the water skin. He took it without looking up.

 

 "Rest, both of you," said Binabik "Then after will be

 time for the last climbing. We are near, very near."

 

 "Near to what?" Miriamele took the water skin from

 Cadrach's unresponsive fingers and had another drink,

 then passed it back to the troll. "Binabik, I have been try-

 ing to find the breath to ask youwhat is happening?

 Something the dwarrows said, something you thought

 of . . ." She held his eye, although she could see he

 wished to look away. "What is it?"

 

 The troll fell silent, but he cocked his head as though

 listening. There was nothing to be heard in the stairwell

 except the rough noise of their breathing. He sat down be-

 side her.

 

 "It was indeed something the dwarrows were saying

 although that alone would not have been making my

 thoughts leap so." Binabik stared at his feet. "There are

 other thoughts I have, too. Something I have been long

 ponderingthe 'false messenger' of Simon's dream."

 

 "In Geloe's house," Miriamele whispered, remember-

 ing.

 

 "And he was not the only one. A message we were re-

 ceiving in the White Waste, sparrow-carriedwhich now

 it is my thinking was sent by Dinivan of Nabban, since

 Isgrimnur later heard him speak it as wellalso held a

 warning against false messengers."

 

 Miramele felt a pang at the memory of Dinivan. He had

 been so kind, so cleveryet he had been broken like a

 kindling-stick by Pryrates. Isgrimnur's tale of the horrors

 he had seen in the Sancellan Aedonitis still colored her

 nightmares.

 

 A sudden thought came to her: she had fought Cadrach

 when he tried to take her out of the Sancellan, resisted

 him and called him a liar until he was forced to strike her

 senseless and carry her outbut he had, in fact, told her

 the truth. Why hadn't he simply run and saved himself,

 leaving her to make her own way?

 

 She turned to look at him. The monk had still not

 

 6?6 Tad Williams

 

 caught his breath; he lay curled against the wall, his face

 blank as a wax doll's.

 

 "So long have I wondered who could be such a mes-

 senger," Binabik continued. "Many are the messengers

 who have come to Josua, and also to Simon and Dinivan,

 the two who somehow had these warnings. Which mes-

 senger was meant?"

 

 "And now you think you know?"

 

 Binabik started to answer, then took a breath. "Let me

 tell you what I am thinking. Perhaps you will be finding

 some flawyou too, Cadrach. I have hope only that I am

 wrong." He knitted the fingers of his small hands together

 and frowned. "The dwarrow-folk say the Great Swords

 were all having their forging with the help of Words of

 Makingwords that the dwarrows say are used for push-

 ing back the rules of the world."

 

 "I didn't understand that."

 

 "I will try for explaining," Binabik said unhappily.

 "But truly we are having little time to talk."

 

 "When I've caught my breath, you can talk while we're

 climbing."

 

 The troll nodded. "Then here is my explaining about

 the world's rules. One is that things want to fall down-

 ward." He put the stopper on the water skin and then

 dropped it, illustrating his point. "If some other kind of

 falling is wantedto make this fall upward, that might

 bethat is one thing that the Art is being used for. To

 make something that is going against the world's rules."

 

 Miriamele nodded. Beside her, Cadrach had raised his

 head as though listening, but he still stared out at the op-

 posite wall.

 

 "But if some rule must be broken for a long time, then

 the An used must have great powerfulness, just as lifting

 a heavy thing once and then dropping it is easier than the

 holding of it in the air for hours. For-such tasks, the

 dwarrows and others who were practicing the Art

 used ..."

 

 "... The Words of Making," Miriamele finished for

 him. "And they used them when the Great Swords were

 forged."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER677

 

 Binabik bobbed his head. "They did that because alt

 the Great Swords were forged of things that had no place

 in Osten Ard, things which were resisting the Arts used

 for creating a magical weapon. This needed overcoming,

 but not just for a moment. Forever was the time that these

 resisting forces must be subdued, so the most powerful

 Words of Making were being used." He spoke slowly

 now. "So those blades, it is my thinking, are like the

 pulled-back arm of the giant sling-stones your people use

 to attack walled citiesbalanced so that one touch sends

 a vast rock flying like a tiny, tiny bird. Such great power

 is being restrained in each one of those swordswho

 knows what the power of three brought together may be

 doing?"

 

 "But that's good," said Miriamele, confused. "Isn't that

 what we needthe strength to overcome the Storm

 King?" She looked at Binabik's sorrowful face and her

 heart grew heavy. "Is there some reason we can't use it?"

 

 Cadrach shifted against the wall, turning his gaze at

 last on the troll. A gleam of interest had kindled in his

 eyes. "But who will use it?" the monk asked. "That is the

 question, is it not?"

 

 Binabik nodded unhappily. "That is indeed what I am

 fearing." He turned to the princess. "Miriamele, why is

 Thorn being brought here? Why are Josua and others

 searching for Bright-Nail?"

 

 "To use against the Storm King," Miriamele replied.

 She still did not see where the troll's questions were lead-

 ing, but Cadrach evidently did. A grim half-smile, as of

 reluctant admiration, curled the monk's lips. She won-

 dered who the admiration was for.

 

 "But why?" asked the troll. "What was telling us to use

 them against our enemy? This is not something for trick-

 ing you, Miriameleit is what I myself have been worry-

 ing until my head feels full of sharp stones."

 

 "Because ..." For a moment, she could not remember.

 "Because of the rhyme. The rhyme that told how to drive

 the Storm King away."

 

 " When frost doth grow on Cloves' bell ..."

 

 678

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Binabik recited, his voice ringing strangely in the stair-

 well. His face twisted in what looked like pain.

 

 "And Shadows walk upon the road

 When water blackens in the Well

 Three Swords must come again

 

 f''

 

 "When Bukkenfrom the Earth do creep

 And Hunen from the heights descend

 When Nightmare throttles peaceful Sleep

 Three Swords must come again

 

 "To turn the stride of treading Fate

 To clear the fogging Mists of Time

 If Early shall resist Too Late

 Three Swords must come again ..."

 

 "I've heard it a hundred times'" she snapped. Anger

 only thinly covered her fear at the little man's strange ex-

 pression. "What are you saying?"

 

 Binabik lifted his hands. "Listen, listen to what it is

 telling, Miriamele. All the first parts are true things-

 diggers, giants, the great bell in Nabbanbut at the end

 it only speaks of turning Fate, of clearing Time ... and of

 Early fighting against Late."

 

 "So?"

 

 "What, then, is to say that it speaks to us'?" hissed

 

 Binabik.

 

 She was so astonished by the troll's agitation that it

 took several moments before his words sank in. "Do you

 mean to say... ?"

 

 "That it could just as easily be speaking of what will be

 helping the Storm King himself For what are we mortals

 being to him if not the Lateness to his Earliness? Who is

 turning this Fate? And whose fate is it being?"

 

 "But ... but ..."

 

 Binabik spoke on in a fury, as though the-words had

 been unbottled after a long fermentation and now foamed

 free. "Where did the idea to look for this rhyming come

 to us? From the dreams of Simon and Jamauga and oth-

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER679

 

 ers! The Dream Road has been long compromisedJiriki

 and the other Sithi have told that to usbut we were

 frightened enough to believe those dreams, desperate to

 have some way for fighting the returning Storm King'*'

 He paused a moment, panting. "I am sorry, but I have so

 much angriness at my own stupidity... ' We took a twig

 of great slendemess and hung a bridge upon it without

 thinking more. Now we are over the middle of the

 chasm." He slapped his palms against his thighs.

 "Scrollbearers, we are now called. Kikkasut!"

 

 "So -.." She struggled to understand the ins and outs

 of what the troll had said; a throb of despair had begun

 beating inside her. "So the dreams about Nisses' book

 those were the false messengers? The ones that led us to

 this rhyme?"

 

 "That is what I am now thinking."

 

 "But that doesn't make sense! Why would the Storm

 King play such a strange trick? If we cannot defeat him,

 why lead us to believe we could?"

 

 Binabik took a breath. "Perhaps he has need of the

 swords, but cannot bring them himself. Pryrates was tell-

 ing Cadrach that he knew where Bright-Nail was and did

 not wish it touched. Perhaps the red priest was having no

 plans of his own, and was doing only the Storm King's

 bidding. I am thinking the dark one in the north needs the

 great power that is in those blades." His voice broke. "It

 ... it is my great fear that all this has been a complicated

 game, like the Sithi's shent, created for making us bring

 the remaining swords."

 

 Miriamele sat back against the wall, stunned. "Then

 Josua, Simon ... all of us ..."

 

 "Have been doing the enemy's bidding all along," said

 Cadrach abruptly. Miriamele expected to hear satisfaction

 in his words, but there was none, only hollowness. "We

 have been his servants. The enemy has already won."

 

 "Shut your mouth," she spat. "Damn you! If you had

 told us what you knew, we would likely have discovered

 this already." She turned to Binabik, struggling to keep

 her wits. "If you're right, is there anything we can do?"

 

 68o Tad Williams

 

 The troll shrugged. "Try to be escaping, then find our

 way back to Josua and the others for warning them."

 

 Miriamele stood. A few moments earlier she had been

 rested and ready to climb again. Now she felt as though

 an ox-yoke had been laid across her shoulders, a ponder-

 ous, painful weight that could not be shrugged off. There

 seemed little doubt that all was indeed lost. "And even if

 we find them, now we will have no weapons to use

 against the Storm King."

 

 Binabik did not reply. The diminutive troll seemed to

 have shrunk even smaller. He rose and began clambering

 up the stairs again. Miriamele turned her back on Cadrach

 and followed him.

 

 A

 

 Order had been overthrown; screaming, grinding chaos

 raged before the Hayholt's walls. Pale Noms and shaggy,

 barking giants were everywhere, fighting with no discern-

 ible regard for their own lives, as though their only pur-

 pose was to strike horror into the hearts of their enemies.

 One of the giants had lost most of an arm to a warrior's

 ax-blow, but as it pushed through panicked human soldiers

 the huge beast swung the fountaining stub as vigorously as

 it did the club in its remaining hand, both combining to fill

 the surrounding air with a mist of red. Other giants were

 yet unwounded, and they quickly piled terrible carnage

 around themselves. The Noms, almost as fierce but far

 more canny, gathered themselves into small rings and

 stood shoulder to shoulder, their needle-sharp pikes facing

 outward. The swiftness and battle mastery of the white-

 skinned immortals was such that they seemed to fell two

 or three humans for each one of their own number that fell

 ... and as they fought, they sang. Their eerie, strident

 voices echoed even above the clamor of combat.

 

 And over all hung the Conqueror Star, glowing a sickly

 red.

 

 Duke Isgrimnur raised Kvalnir in the air and shouted

 for Sludig, for Hotvig, but his voice was swallowed by

 

 TO OREEN ANGEL TOWER681

 

 the din. He turned his horse in circles, trying to find some

 area where the forces were concentrated, but already his

 army was scattered in a thousand separate pieces. Al-

 though he had been fighting vigorously for some time,

 Isgrimnur still could not quite believe what was happen-

 ing. They were under attack by creatures out of old sto-

 ries. The battlefield, grim but familiar less than an hour

 before, had now become a nightmare of otherworldly

 punishment.

 

 Josua's standard had been thrown down; Isgrimnur

 searched in vain for something he could use to give his

 forces a rallying point. A giant fell to the snow, thrashing

 as it died with a dozen arrows crackling beneath it, and

 the duke's horse bolted away despite his attempts to con-

 trol it, pulling up at last in an eddy of calm on the part of

 the northeastern hillside nearest the Kynswood.

 

 When he had steadied his mount, Isgrimnur sheathed

 Kvalnir and removed his helmet, then tugged his surcoat

 up, grunting at the pain in his back and ribs. For a mo-

 ment his bulky mail prevented him from pulling the gar-

 ment over his head; Isgrimnur struggled, cursing and

 sweating, horrified at the thought of being taken by sur-

 prise and struck down in such a ridiculous position. The

 surcoat ripped at the armholes and he yanked it free at

 last, then looked around for something to which he could

 tie it. One of the Noms' pikes lay on the snow. Isgrimnur

 unsheathed his sword, then leaned over, grunting, and

 hooked it up so he could grab the long shaft. As he tied

 the shirt sleeves to the smooth grayish wood, he stared at

 the bladed tip that seemed to blossom like a knife-petaled

 flower. When he had finished, he lifted the makeshift

 banner above his head and rode back into the thick of the

 battle, roaring a Rimmersgard war song that even he

 could not hear.

 

 He had already dodged one swinging blow from an ax-

 wielding Norn before he realized his helm was still

 swinging on his saddle hom. Kvalnir bounced ineffect-

 ively from the creature's strange painted armor. Isgrimnur

 managed to catch the returning blow on his arm, suffering

 only torn mail and a shallow gouge in his flesh, but the

 

 682 Tad Williams

 

 Norn was very nimble on the slippery snow, and was cir-

 cling rapidly for another attack. The wind abruptly blew

 the banner across the duke's face.

 

 Killed by my own shirt, was his brief thought, then the

 cloth flapped away again. A dark something heaved into

 his field of sight and the Nom staggered sideways, blood

 erupting from a split helmet. The new arrival wheeled

 about in a splash of snow and returned to ride d6wn

 Isgrimnur's reeling enemy.

 

 "You are alive," Sludig gasped, swiping his dripping ax

 against his cloak-

 

 Isgrimnur took a breath, then shouted over the growing

 rumble of thunder. "This is a damnable messwhere's

 Freosel?"

 

 Sludig indicated a knot of struggling shapes a hun-

 dred cubits away. "Come. And put your damned helmet

 on."

 

 "They're coming down the waits!" someone shouted.

 

 Isgrimnur looked over to see rope ladders unrolling at the

 far end of the Hayholt's sloping outwall. The darkening sky

 and the dizzying flashes of intermittent lightning made it

 hard to see anything clearly, but to Isgrimnur the men mak-

 ing their way down the ladders looked like mortals.

 

 "God damn their mercenary souls!" the duke growled.

 "And now we're pinched from both sides. We're being

 forced back against the walls and we won't have the advan-

 tage of numbers much longer." He turned and looked past

 his small, besieged company. Across the battlefield he could

 see determined clumps of men, Seriddan's Nabbanai legions

 and Hotvig's horsemen, trying to fight their way toward his

 surcoat-banner, which now waved on the strut of a scaling

 ladder socketed in the muddy ground. The question was

 whether Hotvig and the rest could cut their way through be-

 fore Isgrimnur's small party was crushed between the Noms

 and the mercenaries.

 

 Perhaps we should fall back toward the'base of the

 castle walls, he thought,even try to fetch up in front of

 that new gate. There was little else he and Sludig and the

 rest could do: they were going to be forced back in any

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 683

 

 case, so they might as well pick their spot. The duke had

 noticed that none of Elias' soldiers were atop the gate: he

 guessed it might not be wide enough. If that was true, he

 and his small company could use it as a rearguard without

 having to worry about missiles from above. With their

 backs protected, they could hold off even the fearsome

 Norns until the rest of the soldiers fought through ... or

 so he hoped.

 

 And maybe if we make ourselves a little room we can

 force that cursed gate, or use those ladders, and go in af-

 ter Isorn. No reason Elias shouldn't have some mortal

 foxes in his henyard for a change.

 

 He turned back to the horde of pale, black-eyed crea-

 tures and their witchwood blades. Lightning split the sky

 again, eclipsing for a moment the scarlet smolder of the

 Conqueror Star. Dimly, Isgrimnur heard a bell toiling, and

 felt it in his gut and bones as well. For a moment he saw

 what looked like flames crawling at the edge of his vi-

 sion, but then the storm-darkness fell again.

 

 God help us, he thought distractedly. That's the noon

 bell in the tower. And here it is black as night. Aedon, it's

 so dark. .. .

 

 *

 

 "Oh! Mother of Mercy!" Miriamele looked down from

 the balcony, horrified. Below her perch on the king's res-

 idence, the Inner Bailey was a sea of men and horses that

 moved in strange rippling patterns of conflict. Snow

 whipped and circled in the wind, making everything in-

 distinct. The sky was knotted with stormclouds, but the

 red star burned visibly behind them, its long tail casting

 a faint bloody glow over all. "Uncle Josua has begun the

 siege!" she cried. Their hurry to find him and warn him

 seemed to have been for nothing.

 

 The climb up the stairs had led them at last to a door

 hidden in the lower recesses of the storerooms beneath

 the king's residence. Miriamele, who prided herself on

 her knowledge of the Hayholt's ins and outs, many of

 them discovered while in her Malachias disguise, had

 

 684

 

 Tad Williams

 

 been shocked to discover that a passageway to old Asu'a

 had been beneath her nose all the time she had lived

 herebut there were more surprises waiting.

 

 The second came when they emerged cautiously into

 the ground-level portions of the residence. Despite the

 howling of wind and the roar of wild voices outside, the

 many chambers of the residence were deserted ,and

 showed little evidence of any recent habitation. As they

 passed through the cold rooms and grimy hallways,

 Miriamele's fear of discovery had lessened, but her sense

 of things being wrong had grown steadily. Braced for any

 number of unhappy discoveries, she had entered her fa-

 ther's sleeping chamber only to Find it not just empty, but

 in such a fetid and bestial state that she could not imagine

 who might have been living there.

 

 Now they had emerged onto a small sheltered balcony

 off one of the third floor rooms, where they crouched be-

 hind its stone railing, peering through the ornamental slits

 at the madness below. The air smelled strongly of

 lightning-tang and blood.

 

 "I fear that is true." Binabik spoke in a loud voice: be-

 tween the uproar of combat and the howling winds, there

 was no fear of drawing attention. "People are fighting

 down below, and there are men and animals lying dead.

 But still something there is that is strange. I wish we

 could be seeing beyond the castle walls."

 

 "What do we do?" Miriamele looked about frantically.

 "Josua and Camaris and the rest must still be outside. We

 have to get out to them somehow!"

 

 The daylight, darkened by stormclouds until the whole

 of the castle seemed sunk in deep water, shifted and flick-

 ered strangely, then for a moment the world suddenly

 shouted and went white. A coil of lightning had snapped

 down like a fiery whip; thunder rattled the air and even

 seemed to shake the balcony beneath them. The lightning

 curled around Green Angel Tower, hung for a moment as

 the thunder echoes faded, then sputtered out of existence.

 

 "How?" Binabik shouted. "I do not know this castle.

 What places might there be for escaping?"

 

 Miriamele was having trouble thinking. The noises of

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER685

 

 wind and combat made her want to scream and cover her

 ears; the whirling clouds overhead dizzied her. She ab-

 ruptly remembered Cadrach, who had been trailing along

 behind them, silent and unresponsive as a sleepwalker

 Miriamele turned, certain that he had taken advantage of

 their confusion to sneak away, but the monk was

 crouched in the doorway, gazing up at the tempestuous,

 red-shot sky with a look of resignation.

 

 "Perhaps we could get out through the Seagate," she

 said to the troll. "If Josua's army is at the walls above

 Erchester, perhaps there will be only a few ..."

 

 Binabik's eyes widened. "Look there!" He thrust his

 hand through the slitted railing to point. "Is that not... ?

 Oh, Daughter of the Mountains!"

 

 Miriamele squinted, trying to make sense out of the

 madness below her, and saw that there was more to the

 antheap-swirl of activity than just defenders running to

 and from the moat-bridge that led to the Middle Bailey. In

 fact, there seemed to be a fight of some kind taking place

 on the bridge itself. A large knot of armed men in the

 Middle Bailey was forcing a smaller troop of riders and

 footmen back across the moat. As she stared, one of the

 horses reared and tumbled from-the span, taking its rider

 with it into the dark water. Were Josua's forces inside the

 wall already, and pushing toward the Inner Bailey? Could

 those few on the bridge be the last of her father's defend-

 ers? But then what of all the armored men just below her

 who were doing nothing to support the retreating horse-

 men? Who were they?

 

 And then, as the small troop on the bridge was forced

 back even farther, she saw what Binabik had seen. One of

 the riders, standing almost impossibly tall in his saddle,

 swung his blade high overhead. Even in the false twilight

 she could see that the sword was black as coal.

 

 "Oh, God, save us." Something cold clutched at her in-

 nards. "It's Camaris!"

 

 Binabik was leaning forward, his face pressed against

 the stone rails. "I am thinking I see Prince Josua, too

 there, in the gray cloak, riding near to Camaris." He

 turned to her, his face fearful. Another jagged lightning

 

 686 Tad Williams

 

 flash silvered the sky. "And there are so few with them

 they could not have been fighting their way inside the

 walls, I am guessing. Somehow they have been tricked

 into bringing the sword into the castle."

 

 Miriamele hammered her palms against the balcony

 floor. "What can we do?'"

 

 The troll peered out through the rails again. "I am not

 knowing," he half-shouted. "I have no thoughts at all!

 Kikkasut! We will be cut in pieces if we go down to

 themand they have already been bringing the sword!

 Kikkasut!"

 

 "There are flames in the tower window," Cadrach said

 in a loud, flat tone.

 

 Miriamele glanced briefly at both Green Angel Tower

 and Hjeldin's Tower, but except for the clot of writhing

 clouds above the tall spire of the first, she could see noth-

 ing unusual.

 

 "See!" Binabik called. "Something is happening!" He

 sounded angry and puzzled. "What are they doing?"

 

 Josua and Camaris and their small company of allies

 had been driven across the bridge and onto the soil of the

 Inner Bailey. But the rest of the mercenary troops milling

 haphazardly inside the bailey did not step up to cut them

 off; rather, a ragged gap formed in their ranks, a split

 which gradually opened into a path that led from the base

 of the moat-bridge to the front steps of Green Angel

 Tower. As the rest of the king's soldiers pushed their way

 across the bridge, Josua and his followers were forced to-

 ward the tower. Astoundingly, the mercenaries on either

 side did not menace them at all until Camaris, on his pale

 horse, tried to turn the troop sideways to cut his way

 through the wall of enemies. The king's forces resisted

 fiercely and the small company was thrown back, then

 driven again across the open space toward Green Angel's

 waiting steps.

 

 "The tower!" said Miriamete. "They're forcing them to

 the tower! What... ?"

 

 "The Sithi-place!" Binabik sprang up suddenly, all

 thought of hiding now gone. "The place ^vhere the Storm

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER687

 

 King was making his last battle- Your father and Pryrates

 are wanting the swords there!"

 

 Miriamele stood. Her knees were weak. What mon-

 strous thing was happening before them. as relentless and

 inescapable as the clutch of a nightmare? "We have to go

 to them! Somehow! Maybe ... maybe there's still some-

 thing we can do!"

 

 Binabik grabbed his pack from the floor inside the bal-

 jcony window. "Where and how are we going to them?"

 he asked her.

 

 Miriamele stared at him, then at silent Cadrach. For a

 moment, her mind was empty of everything except the

 howling of the wind outside. At last, a memory fluttered

 up from the depths.

 

 "Follow me." She shouldered her pack and Nom bow

 and ran across the damp stone toward the doorway and

 the residence stairs. Binabik hurried after her. She did not

 look back to see what Cadrach did.

 

 A

 

 Tiamak and Josua scrambled up the stairwell, silent ex-

 cept for their labored breath, struggling to stay close be-

 hind Camaris. A flight above them the knight climbed

 steadily, unheeding as a sleepwalker, his powerful legs

 carrying him upward two steps at a time.

 

 "How could any stairs stretch so high?" Tiamak

 gasped. His lame leg was throbbing.

 

 "There are mysteries in this place I never dreamed."

 Josua held his torch high, and the shadows leaped from

 crevice to crevice along the richly-textured walls. "Who

 knew a whole world still remained down here?"

 

 Tiamak shuddered. The silver-masked Norn Queen

 hovering over the Skin's sacred pool was a mystery that

 the Wrannaman wished he had never discovered. Her

 words, her chill invincibility, and especially the dreadful

 power that had filled the cavern of the Pool of Three

 Depths, had haunted him all the way up the great stair-

 case. "Our ignorance is thrown back at us," he panted.

 "We are fighting things we only guessed at, or glimpsed

 

 688 Tad Williams

 

 in nightmares. Now the Sithi are locked in struggle with

 that... she-thing, fighting, dying ,.. and we do not even

 know why."

 

 Josua turned his gaze from the old man's back to peer

 briefly at Tiamak. "I thought that was the task of the

 Scroll League. To know such things."

 

 "Those who went before us knew more than we do,"

 Tiamak replied. "And there is much that even Morgenes

 and the others never learned, much hidden even to

 Eahlstan Fiskerne, who they say was a true if secret

 friend to the Sithi. The immortals have always been tight-

 fisted with their lore."

 

 "And who can blame them, after the harm mortals have

 done with nothing more than stone and iron and fire."

 Josua glanced at the marsh man again. "Ah,' merciful

 God, we are wasting breath on talk. I see pain on your

 face, Tiamak. Let me carry you a white."

 

 Tiamak, climbing doggedly, shook his head. "Camaris

 has not slowed. We would fall farther behind, and if we

 leave the stairs we might lose him again, with no Sithi

 this time to help us find our way. He would be alone, and

 we might wander here forever." He mounted several more

 steps before he had the breath to speak again. "If need be,

 let me trail behind. It is more important you stay with

 Camaris than with me."

 

 Josua did not say anything, but at last nodded unhap-

 pily.

 

 The terrible sensation of shifting eddied away, and with

 it the dancing lights that, for a moment, had made Tiamak

 think the great staircase was burning. He shook his head,

 trying to clear his rattled thoughts. What could be hap-

 pening? The air seemed strangely hot, and he felt the

 hairs on his arm and neck prickling.

 

 "Something dreadful is happening," Tiamak cried. He

 staggered in Josua's shadow, wondering if the increasing

 force of the strange slippages meant that the Nom Queen

 was defeating the Sithi. The thought fastened on him as

 though it had claws. Perhaps she had escaped the pool.

 Would she follow him and the prince up the darkened

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 689

 

 stairs, silver mask expressionless, white robes flutter-

 ing. .. ?

 

 "He's gone!" Josua's voice was full of horror. "But

 how can that be?"

 

 "What? Gone where?" Tiamak looked up.

 

 The torchlight revealed a place where the stairwell

 abruptly stopped, capped by a low ceiling of stone.

 Camaris was nowhere in sight.

 

 "There is no place he could have hidden!" the prince

 said.

 

 "No, look!" Tiamak pointed toward a fissure in the

 ceiling wide enough to allow a man to crawl through.

 

 Josua quickly lifted Tiamak up into the hole, then held

 him steady while the Wrannaman probed for something to

 grasp. Tiamak found he could almost push his head above

 the surface on the far side. He pulled himself up and

 through, fighting against his treacherous, weary muscles,

 and when he lay quivering on the stone floor he called

 down through the fissure: "Come! It's a storeroom!"

 

 Josua tossed up the torch. With a helping hand from

 Tiamak, he struggled upward through the crack. Together

 they raced across the room, dodging the bits of wreckage

 strewn about, and climbed a rickety ladder through a

 hatchway. Beyond this was another storeroom, this one

 with a small window high in the wall. Threatening black

 clouds roiled in the box of sky visible there, and cold

 wind bled through. Another hatchway led to yet one more

 level.

 

 As Tiamak put his aching leg to the bottommost rung,

 a crash resounded back through the hatch door, a sudden

 and violent sound. Josua, who climbed above him, sped

 up the ladder and disappeared.

 

 When Tiamak made his way to the top, he found him-

 self in a small, shadowy room, staring at the flinders of a

 door strewn outward into the chamber beyond. He could

 see torchlight in the chamber, and figures moving. Josua's

 voice rang out.

 

 "You! May God send your black soul to hell!"

 

 Tiamak hurried to the doorway, then stopped, blinking

 as he tried to make sense of the wide circular room that

 

 690 Tad Williams

 

 opened before him. On his left, the windows above the

 tall main doors streamed with scarlet-tinted light that vied

 with the dull glow of torches in the wall sconces. Just a

 few cubits before the Wrannaman, Camaris stood in the

 ruins of the smaller door which had blocked his own way

 out into the chamber; the old knight now stood motion-

 less, as though stunned. Josua was only an arm's length

 away from Camaris, Naidel unsheathed and dangling in

 his hand. Two dozen paces beyond them, on the far side

 of the stone floor, a small door in the wall mirrored the

 one Camaris had just burst into flinders. On Tiamak's

 right, beyond a high arch, a great sweep of stairs coiled

 upward out of sight.

 

 But it was the figures on the bottom steps of this stair-

 case that caught and held Tiamak's eye, as they had

 Josua'sespecially the bald man in the flapping red robe,

 who stood tall in the midst of a strew of human bodies,

 like a fisherman in a shallow stream. One armored man

 he still held by the shoulders, though the way the sol-

 dier's gold-helmeted head wagged suggested he had long

 since stopped fighting.

 

 "Damn you, Pryrates, let him go!" cried Josua.

 

 The priest laughed. With a shrug, he effortlessly threw

 aside ... Camaris, who clattered on the stone flags and

 lay still, black blade clutched in his fist.

 

 Tiamak stared in numb astonishment. The Camaris he

 and Josua had followed still stood nearby, wavering

 slightly like a tree in a stiff breeze. How could there be

 two? Who sprawled there?

 

 "Isom!" Josua shouted, his voice ragged with grief.

 Tiamak suddenly remembered, and the terror that

 clutched him clamped tighter. The deception they had

 conceived with the Sithi had come to thisthis clutter of

 motionless men? Nearly a dozen soldiers, including pow-

 erful young Isom, and the priest had defeated them with

 his bare hands? What could possibly stop Pryrates and his

 immortal ally now? Josua and his companions had but

 one of the Great Swords, and its wielder, Camaris,

 seemed lost in a dreaming daze....

 

 "I'll have your heart for this," Prince Josua snarled,

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 691

 

 leaping toward the stairway. Pryrates lifted his hands and

 a nimbus of oily yellow light flickered around the alche-

 mist's fingers. As Naidel came flashing toward him in a

 wide, deadly arc, Pryrates' hand snaked out and caught

 the blade. The point of contact hissed like a hot stone

 dropped into water, then the priest grabbed Josua's sword

 arm and pulled him forward. The prince struggled, flail-

 ing at Pryrates with his other, handless arm, but the priest

 caught that too and drew Josua toward him until their

 faces were so close it seemed that the alchemist might

 kiss the prince.

 

 "It is almost too easy," Pryrates said, laughing.

 

 Tiamak, weak with fear, slid back into the shadows of

 the doorway. / must do somethingbut who am I? The

 Wrannaman could barely stand upright. A little man, a

 nobody! I am no fighter! He would catch me and kill me

 like a tiny fish.

 

 "There is no hell deep enough for you," Josua grated.

 Sweat streamed down his face, and his sword arm trem-

 bled, but he seemed as helpless as a child in the priest's

 prisoning grip.

 

 "And I will visit them all." Pryrates extended his arms

 again. The yellow light wavered around him. "You are

 one of the few who have balked me, Lackhand. Now you

 will see that your interference comes tonothing." He

 flung Josua against the nearby arch. The prince struck

 hard and slid down to lie motionless beside a man dressed

 in his own gray surcoat and armorthe Nabbanai baron's

 brother, Brindalles. The man's right arm, like Josua's,

 ended in a black leather cap, but Brindalles' arm was bent

 at an angle that made Tiamak's stomach lurch. There was

 no sign of life on the impostor's pale, blood-flecked face.

 

 Tiamak shrank farther back into the shadows, but

 Pryrates did not even look at him. Instead, the priest

 moved up the stairwell, then stopped and turned to

 Camaris,

 

 "Come, old one," he said, and smiled. Tiamak thought

 his grin as empty and mirthless as a crocodile's. "I can

 feel the ward solidifying, which means the time has come.

 You need carry your burden only a little farther."

 

 692 Tad Williams

 

 Camaris took a step toward him, then stopped, shaking

 his head slowly. "No," he said hoarsely. "No. I will not

 let it. .." Something of his real self had returned; Tiamak

 felt a faint swelling of hope.

 

 Pryrates only crossed his arms on his scarlet breast. "It

 will be interesting to watch you resist. You will fail, of

 course. The pull of the sword is too strong for any mortal,

 even a tattered legend like yourself."

 

 "Damn you," Camaris gasped. His body twitched and

 he shifted his balance back and forth, as though he fought

 some invisible thing that sought to tug him toward the

 stairs. The old knight sucked in a breath with a painful

 gasp. "What manner of creature are you?"

 

 "Creature?" Pryrates' hairless face was amused. "I am

 what a man who accepts no limits can become...."

 

 While his last words still hung in the air, there was a

 sudden booming concussion. Where the door on the op-

 posite side of the chamber had been, a murky cloud bil-

 lowed. Several shadowy figures stumbled through,

 indistinguishable in the smoke.

 

 "How exciting." Pryrates' tone was sardonic, but

 Tiamak saw a certain animation creep into the alchemist's

 face that had not been there before. The priest took a step

 downward and peered into the haze. A moment later he

 reeled back, gurgling, with a black arrow all the way

 through his neck, its head standing out a handspan be-

 yond the skin. Pryrates stumbled in place for a moment,

 then felt and rolled down the stairs to lie beside his vic-

 tims. Blood pooled beneath his head, as though his bright

 robes melted and ran.

 

 A

 

 Miriamele Stared up and down the narrow hallways,

 struggling to regain her bearings. The Chancelry had been

 a daunting maze when she had lived in the castle, but it

 was even more confusing now. Familiar doors and hall-

 ways were not quite where they should be, and all the

 passages seemed the wrong lengths, as though the Chan-

 celry's dimensions had somehow become shiftingly fluid.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 693

 

 Miriamele struggled to keep her head. She was certain

 she could eventually "find a way through, but she feared

 the loss of precious time.

 

 As she waited for her companions, the freezing wind

 which whistled through the unshuttered windows rolled a

 few crumpled parchments past her feet.

 

 Binabik trotted around the comer. "I did not mean that

 you should be waiting for me," he said. "I was stopping

 only because I saw these. They have come through the

 window, I am thinking." He handed her three arrows of

 plainer workmanship than the Nom shafts she had scav-

 enged earlier. "There were others, too, but they had been

 broken by striking on the stone walls."

 

 Miriamele had no quiver to put them in. She slipped

 them into the open corner of her pack beside Simon's

 prize and the shafts she had saved from the tunnels. Even

 with Binabik's additions she stil! had far fewer arrows

 than she would have liked, but it was a relief to know that

 if it came to it, she need not sell her life cheaply.

 

 Look at me, she marveled. The world is ending, the

 Day of Weighing-Out has come at last ... and I'm play-

 ing at soldier.

 

 Still, it was better than letting the terror push through.

 She felt it coiling inside her, and knew that if she let go

 of composure for even a moment she would be over-

 whelmed.

 

 "I wasn't waiting." She pushed away from the wall.

 "Just making sure I know the way. This place was always

 difficult, but now it's almost impossible. And it's not just

 this...." She gestured at the smashed furniture and the

 ghostly rags of parchment, the doors splintered off their

 hinges that lay across the passage. "There are other

 changes too, things I don't understand. But I think I'm

 right, now. We must go quietly from here, wind or no

 windwe're almost to the chapel, and that's right beside

 the tower."

 

 "Cadrach is coming." The troll said it as though he

 thought she might care.

 

 Miriamele curled her lip. "I'm not waiting. If he can

 keep up, then let him." She hesitated for a moment, then

 

 694

 

 Tad Williams

 

 pulled one of the arrows from her pack and nocked it, let-

 ting it sit loosely on the bowstring. Armed, she set off

 down the narrow hallway. Binabik looked back, then

 scurried after her.

 

 "He has been having as much hurt as us, Miriamele,"

 said the troll. "Maybe more. Who can say what things he

 or she would be doing under Pryrates' torturing?"

 

 "The monk has lied to me more times than I can

 count." The thought of his betrayals burned so fiercely in-

 side her that for a moment she was not even afraid. "One

 word of truth about the swords, about Pryrates, might

 have saved us all."

 

 Binabik's face was unhappy. "We are not losing every-

 thing yet."

 

 "Not yet."

 

 Cadrach caught up to them in the chaplain's walking

 hall. The monk said nothingperhaps in part because he

 was fighting for breathbut fell in behind the troll.

 Miriamele allowed herself one icy stare.

 

 As they reached the door, everything seemed to shift

 again. For a moment Miriamete thought ^he saw pale

 flames running up the walls; she struggled not to cry out

 as, for a dreadful instant, she felt herself torn apart. When

 the sensation passed, she did not feel as though she had

 been completely restored.

 

 Long moments passed before she felt able to speak,

 

 "The .., chapel is on ... the other side." Despite the

 incessant keening of the wind beyond the walls, Miramele

 whispered. The terror inside her was struggling to break

 free and it took all her strength to keep it in place.

 Binabik was wide-eyed and unusually pale; Cadrach

 looked ill, his forehead moist, his gaze fever-bright. "On

 the far side there is a short hallway that leads directly into

 the tower. Look to your feet. With all these broken things

 about, you might trip and hurt yourself" she pointedly

 addressed her concern only to Binabik, "or make

 enough noise that whoever is inside will hear us coming."

 

 The troll smiled wanly. "Like hare's feet are the steps

 of the Qanuc," he whispered. "Light on snows or rock."

 

 "Good." Miriamele turned to stare at the monk, trying

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER695

 

 to divine what further treachery might lurk behind his wa-

 tery gray eyes, then decided it did not matter. There was

 little Cadrach could do to worsen their situation: the time

 for stealth would be over in moments, and what had been

 their greatest hope seemed now to have been turned

 against them.

 

 "Follow me, then," she told Binabik.

 

 As she opened the door into the transept of the chapel,

 the cold reached out and grasped at her; a cloud of her

 steaming breath hung in the air. She paused for a moment

 and listened before leading her companions out onto the

 wide chapel floor. Snow had drifted into the corners and

 against the walls, and pools of water lay everywhere on

 the stone. Most of the benches were gone; the few tapes-

 tries that remained flapped in ragged, moldy strips. It was

 hard to believe it had once been a place of comfort and

 refuge.

 

 The storm and the clamor of the struggle outside were

 also louder here. When she looked up, she learned the

 reason.

 

 The great dome overhead had been ruptured, the glass

 saints and angels all tumbled and shattered into colored

 dust. Miriamele trembled, awed even after all she had ex-

 perienced to see a familiar thing so changed. Snowflakes

 swirled lazily downward, and the storm-darkened sky,

 touched with the bloodlight of the flaming star, twisted in

 the broken frame like an angry face.

 

 As they made their way across the front of the apse,

 past the altar, Miriamele saw that other forces beside im-

 personal nature had worked desecration here: crude hands

 had smashed the faces of the holy martyrs' statues, and

 had smeared others with blood and worse things.

 

 Despite the dangerous footing, they made their way si-

 lently across to the far transept. She led them down a

 slender passageway to a door set deeply into the rock.

 She stooped and listened at the keyhole, but could hear

 nothing through the echoing din that leaked from above.

 A strange, painful, prickling sensation came over her, as

 though lightning were in the airbut lightning was in the

 air, she reminded herself,

 

 696

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "Miriamele...." Cadrach sounded fhghtened.

 

 She ignored him, trying the latch. "Locked," she said

 quietly, then shrugged against the crawling itch, which

 was worsening. "And too heavy for us to knock down."

 

 "Miriamele!" Cadrach pulled at her sieeve. "Some kind

 of barrier is being formed. We will be trapped."

 

 "What do you mean?"

 

 "Can you not sense it pushing in on us? Feel your skin

 creep? A barrier is being formed and drawn inward to

 surround the tower. Pryrates' workI feel his heedless

 power."

 

 She stared at the monk, but there was no sign of any-

 thing but unfeigned concern on his face. "Binabik?" she

 asked.

 

 "I am thinking he speaks rightly." He, too, was begin-

 ning to twitch. "We will be squeezed in a most comfort-

 less way."

 

 "Cadrach, you opened the dwarrows' door. Open this

 one."

 

 "This is a simple lock. Lady, not a door-warding spell."

 

 "But you have been a thief, too!"

 

 He shivered. Wisps of hair were beginning to stand up-

 right on his head, and Miriamele could feel a stirring on

 her own arms and scalp. "I have no lockpicks, no

 toolsit is useless. Perhaps it is just as well. I wager it

 will be a quick death."

 

 Binabik hissed in exasperation. "I am not wanting any

 death, of quickness or slowness, if it can be escaped." He

 stared at the door for a moment, then threw down his

 pack and began to rummage in it.

 

 Miriamele watched helplessly. The oppressive feeling

 was growing by the moment. Praying they could find

 some other way into the tower, she hurried back up the

 passageway, but within a dozen strides the air seemed to

 become grossly thicker, harder to breathe. A strange hum-

 ming was in her ears and her skin burned. Unwilling to

 give up so easily, she took a few more steps; each was

 more difficult than the last, as though she waded in deep-

 ening mud.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER697

 

 "Come back!" Cadrach cried. 'That will do you no

 good!"

 

 She turned with difficulty and made her way back to

 the door. "You were right, there is no going back. But this

 thing, this barrier, moves so slowly!"

 

 The monk was scratching frenziedly at his arms. "Such

 things take a certain time to appear, and the priest has ex-

 pended much power summoning it. He obviously intends

 nothing should go in or come out."

 

 Binabik had found a small leather sack and was rooting

 in it. "How do you know it's Pryrates?" Miriamele asked.

 "Perhaps it's ... the other."

 

 Cadrach shook his head mournfully, but there was a

 hard core of rage beneath. "I know the red priest's work.

 Gods! I shall never forget the feeling of his filthy pres-

 ence in my head, in my thoughts...."

 

 "Miriamele, Cadrach," the troll said. "Lift me up."

 

 They bent and raised him from the floor, then moved at

 his direction to the side of the door. The air seemed to be

 tightening around them: the effort to lift tiny Binabik

 seemed tremendous. The troll climbed until he stood with

 his feet on their quivering shoulders.

 

 "It's ... hard to ... breathe," Miriamele panted. Some-

 thing was buzzing in her ears. Cadrach's mouth hung

 open and his chest heaved.

 

 "No speaking." Binabik reached up and poured a hand-

 ful of something into the door's upper hinge.

 

 Miriamele's ears were hammering now; she felt

 squeezed, as though held in a huge, crushing fist. A con-

 stellation of sparks spun in the shadows before her.

 

 "Turn away your faces," Binabik gasped, then took

 something from his hand and smacked it sharply against

 the hinge.

 

 A sheet of light filled Miriamele's eyes. The throttling

 fist became a giant open hand that slapped her away from

 the door. Despite the force, she fell backward only a little

 way and retained her feet, buoyed by the unseen but en-

 croaching barrier. Binabik toppled from her shoulders and

 fell onto the ground between her and Cadrach.

 

 698 Tad Williams

 

 When she could see again, the door lay a-tilt in its

 frame, half-obscured by drifting smoke.

 

 "Through!" she said, and tugged the troll's arm. He

 snatched up his pack, then they pushed into the dark

 space, stumbling on the tipped door. For a moment

 Miriamele stuck in the doorway, her pack wedged, her

 bow snagged on the broken hinge, but she fought free at

 last. When they had passed over into Green Angel Tow-

 er's broad antechamber, the pressure was suddenly gone.

 

 "Lucky we are the hinges were outside," Binabik

 gasped, fanning the air.

 

 Miriamele stopped and stared. Through the murk she

 could see a flash of bright red on the tower's staircase. A

 moment later the smoke had cleared enough that she

 could clearly see Pryrates' gleaming pink skull. Bodies

 lay scattered at his feet, and Camaris stood before him in

 the room's center. The old man was staring at the priest

 with such hopeless misery that Miriamele felt her heart

 tear in her breast.

 

 Grinning, Pryrates turned from the old knight and took

 a step down, swiveling his bottomless black eyes toward

 the doorway where she stood. The door's destruction

 seemed to have startled him no more than the fall of a

 tumbling leaf. Without thinking, Miriamele lifted her

 bow, straightened the arrow, drew, and fired. She aimed

 for the widest pan of the priest's body, but the shaft flew

 high. It seemed a miracle when she saw Pryrates stumble

 backward. When she saw that the arrow stood from his

 throat, she was too dumbfounded at her own shot even to

 feel joy. The priest fell and rolled bonelessly down the

 few remaining steps to the antechamber floor.

 

 "Chukku's Stones!" the troll gasped. "You have ended

 him."

 

 "Uncle Josua!" she shouted. "Where are you? Camaris!

 It's a trick! They wanted us to bring the swords!"

 

 I've killed him! The thought was a quiet bloom of ex-

 ultation deep inside her. I've killed the monster!

 

 "The sword must not be going any farther," cried

 Binabik.

 

 The old knight took a few lurching steps toward them,

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 699

 

 but even with Pryrates facedown on the floor, dead or

 dying, Camaris still seemed in the grip of some terrible

 power. Of Josua there was no sign; but for the old man,

 all in the chamber lay motionless.

 

 Before anyone could speak again a bell rang in the

 tower high above, monstrously loud, lower and deeper

 than any bell Miriamele had ever heard. The very stones

 of the wide room shuddered, and she felt its tolling strike

 into her bones. For an instant the antechamber seemed to

 melt away, the waterstained tapestries replaced by walls

 of gleaming white. Lights glittered everywhere, like fire-

 flies. As the cry of the bell faded, the illusion flickered

 and disappeared.

 

 As Miriamele struggled to regain her wits, a figure rose

 slowly near the foot of the stairs, grasping at the stone

 arch for support. It was Josua, his cloak hanging raggedly,

 his thin shirt torn at the neck.

 

 "Uncle Josua!" Miriamele hastened toward him.

 

 He stared at her, eyes wide and, for a brief moment,

 uncomprehending. "You live," he said at last. "Thank

 God."

 

 "It's a trick," she said even as she threw her arms

 around him. The small return of hope, when the greatest

 perils still remained, was painful as a knife-wound. "The

 false messengerthat was the rhyme about the swords! It

 was a trick. They wanted the swords here, wanted us to

 bring them!"

 

 He gently disengaged himself. A trickle of blood

 showed along his high hairline. "Who wanted the

 swords? I do not understand."

 

 "We were fooled. Prince Josua." Binabik came for-

 ward. "It has been the planning of Pryrates and the Storm

 King all along that the swords should be brought here. I

 am thinking the blades will be used in some great magic."

 

 "We didn't find Bright-Nail," Miriamele said urgently.

 "Do you have it?"

 

 The prince shook his head. 'The barrow was empty."

 

 "Then there's hope! It's not here!"

 

 Josua opened his mouth to reply, but a loud moan of

 pain from Camaris stopped him.

 

 7<x> Tad Williams

 

 "Ah, God, why do You torment me?" the old man cried.

 He lifted his free hand to his head as though he had been

 struck by a stone. "It is wrongthat answer is wrong!"

 

 The prince's face was full of startled concern. "We

 must take him out of this place. Something in the sword

 drew him here. While he still has his wits about him, we

 must get him outside again."

 

 "But Pryrates was making some barrier around the

 tower," said Binabik anxiously. "Our only hope is that

 now ..."

 

 "This is my punishment!" cried Camaris. "Oh, my

 God, there is too much blackness, too much sin. I am

 sorry ... so sorry'"

 

 Josua took a step toward him, then leaped away again

 as Thorn flickered through the air. The prince backed to-

 ward the stairwell, trying to keep himself between

 Camaris and whatever called him so powerfully.

 

 "The thing Pryrates has begun is not yet being fin-

 ished," Binabik shouted. "The sword must not be going

 further!"

 

 Josua danced back from another awkward blow. He held

 Naidel before him, but seemed reluctant even to use it for

 defense, as though fearing he might hurt the old man.

 Miriamele, full of fluttering panic, knew that the prince

 would be killed if he did not resist with all his power.

 

 "Uncle Josua! Fight back! Stop him!"

 

 As Josua backed up the wide stairway and Camaris

 reached the bottom step, Binabik bolted from her side. He

 leaped across the motionless bodies lying before the stairs

 and threw himself at the back of the old knight's legs,

 knocking Camaris down. As Miriamele hurried forward

 to help the troll, another figure came up beside her. She

 was amazed to see that it was the Wrannaman, Tiamak.

 

 "Take one of his arms, Lady Miriamele." The marsh

 man*s eyes were wide with fear and his voice shook, but

 he was already reaching down. "I will take the other."

 

 Although Binabik had wrapped both his arms and legs

 around the old knight's knees, Camaris was already be-

 ginning to rise. Miriamele grasped at the hand that sought

 to pull Binabik loose, but it slipped from her sweating

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER701

 

 grip. She clutched again at his upper arm and this time

 hung on as Camaris' long muscles bunched beneath her.

 A moment later all four of them tumbled to the floor

 again, landing among the scatter of bodies. Miriamele

 found herself staring down into the half-open eyes of

 Isom, whose slack face was as white as one of the Morns.

 A scream tried to force its way out of her, but she was

 clinging so fiercely to Camaris' flailing arm that she

 could not think much about Isgrimnur's son. There was

 only the scent of fear-sweat and rolling bodies.

 

 She caught a glimpse of Josua, who stood a short dis-

 tance away on the stairs. Camaris again began to climb to

 his feet, dragging his attackers up with him.

 

 "Josua," she panted. "He'll ... get away from us! Kill

 him ... if you have to ... but stop him!"

 

 The prince only stared. Miriamele could feel the old

 knight's tremendous strength. He would shake them off in

 a few moments.

 

 "Kill him, Josua!" she screamed. Camaris was half-

 standing now, but Tiamak was draped around his sword

 arm; the knight's chest and stomach were unprotected.

 

 "Something!" Binabik grunted in pain, struggling to

 hold Camaris1 legs together. "Be doing something!"

 

 But Josua only took a hesitant step forward, Naidel

 hanging slack in his hand.

 

 Miriamele let go with one arm and hurriedly groped for

 Camaris' sword belt. When she had it, she slid off his arm

 and grasped the belt with both hands, then braced her legs

 against the bottom step and pulled backward as hard as

 she could. The old man swayed for a moment, but the

 tangling weight of Tiamak and Binabik were making his

 movements clumsy and he could not keep his balance. He

 tottered, then fell backward as heavily as an axed tree.

 

 Miriamele's legs were caught beneath the knight. His

 collapse knocked the breath from her. When Camaris

 stirred after a long moment, she knew she did not have

 the strength to pull him down again.

 

 "Ah, God," the knight murmured to the ceiling. "Free

 me from this song! I do not wish to gobut it is too

 strong for me. I have paid and paid...."

 

 702 Tad Williams

 

 Josua seemed almost as wracked with torment as

 Camaris. He took another step downward, then paused,

 before backing up again. "Merciful God," said the prince. '

 "Merciful God." He straightened, blinking. "Keep

 Camaris there as long as you can. I think I know who isI

 waiting at the top of the stairs." He turned away.

 

 "Come back, Josua!" cried Miriamele. "Don't go!"^

 

 "There is no time left," he called over his shoulder as1

 he mounted upward. "I must get to him while I can. He

 is waiting for me."

 

 She suddenly realized who he meant. "No," she whis-

 pered.

 

 Camaris was still lying on the floor, but Binabik had

 not let go of the knight's legs. Tiamak had been flung to

 one side; he crouched at the foot of the stairs, rubbing a

 bruised arm and staring at Camaris with fearful anticipa-

 tion.

 

 "Tiamak, follow him," pleaded Miriamele. "Follow my

 uncle. Hurry! Don't let them kill each other."

 

 The Wrannaman's eyes widened. He looked at her, then

 back to Camaris, his face solemn as a frightened child's.!

 At last he clambered to his feet and hobbled up the stairs

 after Josua, who had already disappeared into the shad-

 ows.

 

 Camaris drew himself into a sitting position. "Let me

 up. I do not wish to hurt you, whoever you are." His eyes

 were fixed on some distant point beyond the antechamber.

 "It is calling me."

 

 Miriamele pulled herself free and, trembling, took his

 hand. "Sir Camaris, please. It is an evil spell that is call-

 ing you. Don't go. If you take the sword there, everything

 you have fought for may be destroyed."

 

 The old knight lowered his pale eyes to meet hers. His

 face was bleak, drawn with terrible strain. "Tell the wind

 not to blow," he said hoarsely. "Tell the thunder not to

 roar. Tell this cursed sword not to sing and pull at me."

 But he seemed to sag, as though for a moment the sum-

 moning grew less powerful.

 

 A wordless cry like a howl of animal fear rang through

 the antechamber. Miriamele suddenly remembered

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER703

 

 Cadrach. She whirled to look at him where he crouched

 by the doorway, but the monk yowled again and pointed.

 

 Pryrates was climbing slowly to his feet, loose-limbed

 as a drunkard. The arrow still protruded from either side

 of his neck. A faint, putrescent glow played about the

 torn flesh.

 

 But he's dead.' Horror gusted through her. He's dead!

 Sweet Elysia, Mother of God, I killed him!

 

 The priest staggered a step, groaning, then turned his

 sharkiike gaze toward Miriamele. His voice was even

 harsher than before, ripped raw. "You ... hurt me. For that,

 I will ... I will keep you alive a long time, womanchild."

 

 "Daughter of the Mountains," Binabik said hopelessly.

 He still clung to the old knight's legs. Camaris lay staring

 at the ceiling, oblivious to all but the call from above.

 

 Swaying, the priest reached up and grasped the black

 shaft just behind the arrowhead and snapped it off, bring-

 ing a fresh dribble of blood from the wound. He took a

 couple of whistling breaths, then grasped the feathers and

 drew the rest of the arrow back out through his throat, his

 face stretched in a rictus of agony. He stared at the blood-

 smeared thing for a moment before tossing it disdainfully

 onto the floor.

 

 "A Nakkiga shaft," he rasped. "I should have known.

 The Norns make strong weaponsbut not strong

 enough." The bleeding had stopped, and now a tiny wisp

 of smoke wafted from one of the holes in his neck.

 

 Miriamele had nocked another arrow, and now trem-

 blingly drew her bow and leveled the black point at his

 face. "May ... may God send you to Hell, Pryrates!" She

 struggled to form the words without falling into panicked

 shrieking. "What have you done with my father?!"

 

 "He is upstairs." The priest laughed suddenly. He stood

 now without wavering, and seemed almost gleefully

 drunk on his own display of power. "Your father is wait-

 ing. The time we have both waited for is come. I wonder

 who shall enjoy it more?" Pryrates lifted his lingers and

 curled them. The air grew momentarily hotter around

 Miriamele's hand, then the arrow snapped. The suddenly

 empty bow almost flew from her grasp.

 

 704

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "It is not so pleasant tugging out arrows that I will

 stand and let you feather me all day, girl." Pry rates turned

 to look back across the antechamber at Cadrach. The bro-

 ken doorway behind the monk, barred by the alchemist's

 ward, was full of shifting, crimson-streaked shadows. The

 priest beckoned. "Padreic, come here."

 

 Cadrach gave a low moan, then stood and took a lurch-

 ing step.

 

 "Don't do it!" Miriamele called to him.

 

 "Do not be so cruel," said Pryrates. "He wishes to at-

 tend his master."

 

 "Fight him, Cadrach!"

 

 The priest cocked his head. "Enough. Soon I-shall have

 to go and attend to my duties." He lifted his hand again.

 "Come here, Padreic."

 

 The monk staggered forward, sweating and mumbling.

 As Miriamele watched helplessly, he sank into a heap at

 Pryrates' feet. face pressed against the stone. He edged

 forward, quivering, and laid his cheek against one of the

 priest's black boots.

 

 "That is better," Pryrates crooned. "I am glad you are

 not so foolish as to challenge meglad that you remem-

 ber. I feared you had forgotten me during your travels.

 And where have you been, little Padreic? You left me and

 went to keep company with traitors, I see."

 

 "It is you who are being the traitor," Binabik shouted

 at him. He grimaced as Camaris shifted, trying at last to

 break the troll's grip on his legs. "To Morgenes, to my

 master Ookequk, to all who were taking you in and teach-

 ing you their secrets."

 

 The priest looked up at him, amused. "Ookequk? So

 you are the fat troll's errand boy? This is splendid, in-

 deed. All of my old friends gathered here to share this

 day with me."

 

 Camaris was clambering to his feet. Binabik struggled

 to retain his hold, but the old man reached down and ef-

 fortlessly dislodged him, then straightened, black Thorn

 dangling in his hand. He took a few hesitant steps toward

 the stairs.

 

 "Soon, now," said Pryrates. 'The call is very strong."

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 705

 

 He turned his attention to Miriamele. "I fear the rest of our

 conversation will have to wait. The ritual will soon reach

 a delicate moment. It would be good for me to be there."

 

 Miriamele was desperate to distract him, to keep him

 away from her uncle and father. "Why do you do this,

 Pryrates? What can you gain?"

 

 "Gain? Why, everything. Wisdom such as you cannot

 even imagine, child. The entire cosmos laid naked before

 me, unable to hide even its smallest secret." He extended

 his arms, and for a moment seemed almost to grow. His

 robe billowed, and eddies of dust whirled away across the

 chamber. "I will know things at which even the immortals

 can only guess."

 

 Camaris suddenly cried out as though he had been

 stabbed, then stumbled toward the wide staircase. As he

 did, the great bell tolled again from somewhere above,

 making everything shiver and rock. The room wavered

 before Miriamele's eyes; flames licked up the walls, then

 vanished as the echoes faded away.

 

 Miriamele's head was reeling, but Pryrates seemed un-

 affected. "That means the moment is very near," he said.

 "You hope to detain me while Josua confronts his

 brother." The priest shook his hairless head. "Your uncle

 can no more halt what is to come than he could carry this

 castle away on his shoulders. And neither can you. I hope

 I can find you when everything is finished, little

 MiriameleI am not quite sure what will remain, but it

 would be a shame to lose you." His cold eyes flicked over

 her. 'There is so much we will do. And we will have as

 long as we wantforever, if need be."

 

 Miriamele felt her heart smothered in an icy fist.

 

 "But you've failed!" she shouted at him. "The other

 sword isn't here! You've failed, Pryrates!"

 

 He smiled mockingly. "Have I?"

 

 She turned as something moved just at the edge of her

 vision. Camaris' resistance had faded at last, and he was

 shambling up the first flight of stairs; within moments he

 had vanished around the spiraling stairwell. She watched

 the old man go with dull resignation. They had done ev-

 erything they could, but it had not been enough.

 

 706 Tad Williams

 

 Pryrates stepped past Binabik and Miriamele to follow

 the old knight, then stopped at the base of the steps and

 slapped at his neck. He turned slowly to stare at the troll,

 who had just taken his blowpipe from his lips. Pryrates

 plucked something from behind his ear and examined it.

 "Poison?" he asked. "You are a fitting apprentice for

 Ookequk. He was always slow to leam."

 

 He dropped the dart on the floor and ground it beneath

 his black boot, then mounted the stairs.

 

 "He is fearing nothing," Binabik whispered, awed. "I

 do not ..." He shook his head.

 

 Miriameie stared at the priest's red garment until it had

 disappeared into the shadows. Her gaze moved down to

 the sad, broken bodies of Isom and the other soldiers. The

 flame of her anger, which had nearly been extinguished

 by fear, suddenly sprang up again.

 

 "My father is up there."

 

 On the floor beside them, Cadrach lay weeping with his

 face buried in his sleeve.

 

 A

 

 Tiamak hurried up the stairs.

 

 All our calculations, all our clever plans, our hopes, he

 mourned. All for nothing. The swords were a trick, they

 said. We have been foolish, foolish.. ..

 

 He scrambled upward, ignoring the flare of pain each

 step brought as he fought to keep close to Josua, who was

 a slender gray shadow moving through the near-darkness

 above him. Tiamak's mouth was dry. Something waited at

 the top of these stairs.

 

 Death, he thought. Death, crouching like a ghant in the

 treetops.

 

 From somewhere above the bell thundered again, a

 shuddersome impact that shook him as an angry parent

 shakes a child. Flames flickered again before his eyes,

 and the very substance of things seemed to shred apart. It

 seemed an agonizingly long time before he could see the

 steps before him once more, and could make his clumsy,

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 707

 

 nerveless legs do what he bade them. The tower ... was

 it coming to life? When everything else was about to die?

 Why did she send me? What can I do? He Who Always

 Steps on Sand, I am so frightened!

 

 Prince Josua pulled farther ahead, then disappeared

 from view, but the lame Wrannaman climbed on. Quick

 glances through the tower windows showed him brawling

 chaos raging across the unfamiliar terrain below. The

 Conqueror Star glared like an angry eye overhead. Snow

 cluttered the reddened skies, but he could make out the

 faint shapes of men swarming over the walls, small skir-

 mishes forming along the battlements, other combats

 spilling across the open ground around the tower. For a

 moment Tiamak felt hope, guessing that Duke Isgrimnur

 and the rest of Josua's army must be forcing their way

 inuntil he remembered the ward with which Binabik

 said the tower was sealed. Isgrimnur and the others would

 be unable to prevent whatever was to happen here.

 

 So much was confusing. What exactly had Miriamele

 and the troll meant about the swords? They were a trick,

 somehowand, more importantly, Pryrates and Elias

 wanted them brought here. But why? What had they

 planned? Clearly, Utuk'ku's presence beneath the castle

 had something to do with it. The Sithi had said they could

 slow her but not stop her. There had been some vast

 power in the Pool of Three Depths, and Tiamak felt sure

 the Nom Queen intended to harness it. The Sithi had been

 struggling to slow her, but they had seemed to be failing

 at even that task.

 

 Tiamak heard Josua's voice close by. He paused, quiv-

 ering, afraid to go the final steps. Suddenly he did not

 want to see whatever the prince had found at the top of

 the stairs. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and prayed

 with all his strength that he would wake up in his banyan-

 tree hut once more, everything that had happened just an

 evil dream. But the sound of the restless winds outside

 never faded, and when he opened his eyes the pale, pol-

 ished walls of Green Angel Tower's stairwell still sur-

 rounded him. He knew he must go on, although every

 

 708 Tad Williams

 

 hammerblow of his heart urged him to flee back down the

 stairs. His legs too weak to hold him upright, he sank to

 the stone, then climbed the last few steps on his hands

 and knees, until his head rose past the top step into cold

 wind and he found himself inside the airy bellchamber.

 

 The huge bronze bells hung beneath the vaulted ceiling

 like poisonous green marsh flowers, and indeed, despite

 the buffeting wind, the chamber was filled with the odor of

 decaying flesh that such flowers produced. Around the

 center of the chamber a cluster of dark pillars rose to the

 ceiling, and on all four sides great arched windows opened

 out onto swirling snow and angry crimson clouds. Josua

 stood a few steps before Tiamak, facing the north window.

 The prince's attitude was stiff, as though he did not know

 what to do, how to stand. Facing him, seated before the

 window on a simple wooden stool, was his brother Elias.

 

 The king wore a dark iron crown on his pale brow, and

 held in his hands a long gray something that Tiamak

 could not quite see. It had something of the shape of a

 sword, but Tiamak's eyes could not fasten on it properly,

 as though it did not entirely reside within the natural

 world. The king himself was dressed in full royal pomp,

 but his clothes were stained, and his cloak where the wind

 caught and lifted it showed more holes than cloth.

 

 "Throw it away?" Elias said slowly. His eyes were still

 downcast, and he replied to whatever Josua had said with

 the air of one who had been daydreaming. "Throw it

 away? But I could never do that. Not now."

 

 "For God's love and mercy, Elias!" Josua said desper-

 ately, "it is killing you! And it is meant to do more

 whatever Pryrates has told you, he plans only evil!"

 

 The king lifted his head, and Tiamak, though he was

 behind Josua and hidden by the shadows in the stairwell,

 could not help recoiling in horror. The red light from the

 windows played across the king's colorless face; muscles

 writhed beneath the skin like worms. But it was his eyes

 that made Tiamak choke back a shout of fear. A dull

 gleam smoldered in them, an inhuman light like the pallid

 glare of marsh-candles,

 

 "Aedon save us," Josua gasped.

 

 T

 

 709

 

 "But this is not Pryrates' plan." Elias' lips pulled back

 in a stiff smile, as though he could no longer make his

 face work properly. "I am the High King, do not forget:

 

 everything moves at my will. It is my plan. The priest has

 only done my bidding, and soon I will have no further

 need of him. And you ..." he rose, unfolding himself

 with odd jerking movements until he stood at full height,

 the uncertain gray thing still resting point-down on the

 floor, "... you were my brother. Once."

 

 "Once!?" Josua shouted. "Elias, what has happened to

 you? You have become something foulsomething de-

 monic!" He took a step back and almost fell into the hole

 of the stairwell, then turned NaideFs hilt in his trembling

 hand and made the sign of the Tree over his own breast.

 Thunder growled outside and the light flickered, but the

 king only stared at him blankly.

 

 "I am no demon," the king said. He seemed to be con-

 sidering the matter carefully. "No. But soon I will be

 moremuch morethan a man. I can feel it already, feel

 myself opening to the winds that cry between stars, feel

 myself as a night sky where comets flare...."

 

 "May Usires the Ransomer forgive me," Josua breathed.

 "You are correct, Elias. You are -no longer my brother."

 

 The king's calm expression twisted into rage. "And

 whose is the fault?! You have envied me since you were

 a child and have done your best to destroy me. You took

 my wife from me, my beloved Hylissa, stole her and gave

 her to Death! I have not had a moment's peace since!"

 The king lifted a twitching hand. "But that was not

 enoughno, cutting out my heart was not enough for

 you, but you would have my rightful kingship, too! So

 you covet my crown, do you?" he bellowed. "Here, take

 it!" He wrenched at the dark circlet as Josua stared-

 "Cursed ironit has burned me until 1 thought I would

 go mad!" Elias grunted as he ripped it free and cast it to

 the floor. A seared shadow-crown of torn, blackened flesh

 remained on his brow.

 

 Josua took a step back, eyes wide with horror and pity.

 Tears ran down his cheeks. "I pray ... Aedon's mercy! I

 pray for your soul, Elias." The prince lifted his leather-

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 7io Tad Williams

 

 capped arm as though to push away what he saw. "Ah,

 God, you poor man!" He stiffened, then raised Naidel and ,

 extended it until the point trembled before the king's i

 breast. "But you must surrender that cursed sword- There

 are only moments before Pryrates comes. I cannot wait."

 

 The king dropped his chin, peering out at Josua from

 beneath his eyebrows, head lolling as if his neck was bro- ,

 ken. A thick droplet of blood oozed from the place where '

 the crown had been. "Ah. Ah. Is it that time, then? I grow

 confused, since everything has already happenedor so it '

 seems ..." He swept up the gray thing, and for a moment

 it hardened into existence, a long mottle-bladed sword ,

 with a double guard, streaked with fiery gleams. Tiamak

 quailed, but stayed where he was, unable to look away.

 The blade seemed a piece of the storm-tortured sky.

 "Very well. ..."

 

 Josua leaped forward with a wordless cry, Naidel dart-

 ing like lightning. The king flicked Sorrow and knocked

 the blow aside, but did not return the thrust. Josua danced

 back, shaking as though fevered; Tiamak wondered if

 merely having the gray sword touch his own made him

 quiver so. The prince waded in again, and for long mo-

 ments he strove to break through his brother's guard.

 Elias seemed to fight in a sort of dream, moving in sud-

 den spasms, but only enough to block Josua's attacks,

 waiting unti! the last moment each time as though he

 knew where the prince would strike.

 

 Josua at last drew back, gasping for breath. The sweat

 on his brow gleamed as lightning flickered in the dis-

 tance.

 

 "You see," Elias said, "it is too late for such crude

 methods." He paused for a moment; a rumble of thunder

 gently shook the bells. "Too late." The smoky light in his

 eyes flared as he lifted Sorrow. "But it is not too late for

 me to enjoy a little repayment for all the evil you have

 done memy wife dead, my throne made unsafe, my

 daughter's heart poisoned against me. Later I will have

 other concerns. But for this time I can think on you, once-

 brother." He stepped forward, the sword a shadowy blur.

 

 Josua fought a desperate battle of resistance, but the

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 711

 

 king had a more than human strength. He quickly backed

 Josua against the southern window, then, despite the

 strange stiffness of his movements, kept the prince pinned

 there with heavy blows that Josua only barely managed to

 keep from his vital spots. Slender Naidel was not enough

 to hold the king away, and within instants Josua tottered

 against the window-ledge, unable to protect himself any

 longer. Elias abruptly reached out and grasped Naidel by

 the blade, then yanked it from Josua's grip. Tiamak, des-

 perate beyond sense, clambered up out of the stairwell

 and flung himself at the king's back as Sorrow rose over-

 head. The Wrannaman dragged at Ellas' sword arm.

 

 It was not enough to save the prince. Josua flung up his

 arms to protect himself, but the gray blade hammered

 down at his neck. Tiamak did not see the sword bite, but

 he heard the awful smash of impact and felt it shiver up

 the king's arm. Josua's head jerked and he flew to one

 side, blood streaming from his neck. He collapsed like an

 empty sack, then lay still.

 

 Thrown off his balance, the king staggered sideways,

 then reached up and grasped the back of Tiamak's neck

 with his free hand. For a moment the Wrannaman's hands

 closed on Sorrow; the sword was so cold that it burned

 him. A horrible lance of chill pierced Tiamak's chest and

 his arms lost their feeling. He had time only to let out a

 scream of anguish for his pain, for Josua, for all that had

 gone so terribly wrong, then the king tugged him free and

 threw him aside. Tiamak felt himself skid across the

 bellchamber's stone floor, helpless, then something

 smashed against his head and neck.

 

 He lay on his side, crumpled against the wall.

 

 Tiamak was unable to speak or move. His already fad-

 vision blurred as his eyes filled with tears. A great

 

 in

 

 noise suddenly boomed through the chamber, shaking

 even the floor beneath him. Red light bloomed even more

 brightly beyond the windows, as though flames sur-

 rounded the towerfor a moment they leaped high

 enough that he could see them, and see the king's fire-

 drawn silhouette in the window. Then they were gone.

 The bell had rung a third time.

 

 32

 

 Tfte Tower

 

 *

 

 Simon, paused at the throne room door. Despite the

 

 strange calm he had felt on his trip through the Hayholt's

 underbelly, despite Bright-Nail hanging on" his hip, his

 heart was thudding in his chest. Would the king be wait-

 ing silently in the dark, as in Hjeldin's Tower?

 

 He pushed through the doorway, one hand falling to his

 sword hilt.

 

 The throne room was empty, at least of people. Six si-

 lent figures flanked the Dragonbone Chair, but Simon

 knew them of old. He stepped inside.

 

 The heraldic banners that had hung along the ceiling

 had fallen, worried free by the leeth of the wind that

 streamed in through the high windows. Flattened beasts

 and birds lay in tangled piles, a few of them even draped

 limply across the bones of the great chair. Simon stepped

 over a waterstained pennant; the falcon stitched upon it

 stared, eye wide as though shocked by its tumble from the

 heavens. Nearby, partially covered by other damp ban-

 ners, lay a black cloth with a stylized golden fish. As Si-

 mon looked at it, a memory came drifting up.

 

 The tumult was growing outside. He knew he had little

 time to spare, but the wisp of memory teased him. He

 moved toward the black malachite statues. The pulsing

 storm light made their features seem to writhe, and for a

 moment Simon worried that the same magics that made

 the entire castle shift and change might be bringing the

 stone kings to life, but to his relief they remained frozen,

 dead.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 7i3

 

 Simon stared at the figure standing just to the right of

 the great chair's yellowed arm. Eahlstan Fiskeme's face

 was lifted as though he looked to a glory beyond the win-

 dows, beyond the castle and its towers. Simon had gazed

 many times at the martyr-king's face, but this time was

 different.

 

 He's the one I saw, he realized suddenly. In the dream

 Leieth showed me. He was reading his book and waiting

 for the dragon. She said: "This is a part of your story, Si-

 mon. " His eyes dropped to the thin circlet of gold around

 his own finger. The fish symbol scribed on the band

 looked back at him. What was it Binabik had told him the

 Sithi writing on the ring meant? Dragons and death?

 

 "The dragon was dead." That was what Leieth had

 whispered in that not-place, the window onto the past.

 

 And King Eahlstan is a part of my story? Simon won-

 dered. Is that what Morgenes entrusted to me when he

 sen! this ring to me? The greatest secret of the League of

 {he Scrollthat its founder killed the dragon, not John?

 

 Simon was Eahlstan's messenger, across five centuries.

 It was a weight of honor and responsibility he could

 scarcely think of now, a richness to savor if he survived,

 a delicate secret that could change the lives of almost ev-

 eryone he knew.

 

 But Leieth had shown him something else, too. She had

 given him a vision of Ineluki, with Sorrow in his hands.

 And all Ineluki's malice was bent upon ...

 

 The tower! The peril of the present hour suddenly

 rushed back. / must take Bright-Nail there. I have been

 wasting time?

 

 Simon turned to look again at Eahlstan's stone face. He

 bowed to the League's founder as to a liege-lord, relish-

 ing the strangeness of it all, then turned his back on the

 statue-flanked throne and walked .quickly across the stone

 tiles

 

 The tapestries in the standing room were gone, and the

 stairway to the privy was exposed. Simon scrambled up the

 stairs and out through the privy's window-slit, nervous ex-

 citement struggling with terror inside him. The bailey might

 be full of armed men, but they had forgotten about Simon

 

 714

 

 Tad Williams

 

 the Ghost-Boy, who knew the Hayholt's every nook and

 cranny. No, not just Simon the Ghost-BoySir Seoman,

 Bearer of Great Secrets!

 

 The cold wind hit him like a battering ram, almost top-

 pling him from the ledge. The wind threw snow almost

 sideways, stinging his eyes and face so that Simon could

 scarcely see. He held on to the window-slit, squinting.

 The wall outside the window was a pace wide. Ten cubits

 below, armored men were shouting and metal clashed

 against metal. Who was fighting? Were those giants that

 he heard roaring, or was that only the storm? Simon

 thought he could make out huge white shapes thrashing in

 the murk, but he dared not look too long or too closely at

 what waited for him if he tumbled from the wall.

 

 He turned his eyes upward. Green Angel Tower loomed

 overhead, thrusting out from the muddle of the Hayholt's

 roofs like the trunk of a white tree, the lord of an ancient

 forest. Black clouds clung to its head; lightning split the

 sky.

 

 Simon let himself down from the ledge, then inched

 forward along the wall on his hands and knees. His fin-

 gers rapidly grew numb, and he cursed the luck that had

 lost his gloves. He clung to the icy stone and tried to keep

 low so the incessant winds would not pluck him loose.

 

 Usires on the Tree! This wall was never so long before!

 

 He might have been on a bridge above the pits of Hell.

 Screams of pain and rage, as well as less definable

 sounds, drifted up from the murk, some of them loud

 enough to make him flinch and almost lose his grip. The

 cold was terrible, and the wind kept shoving, shoving. He

 kept his eyes on the wall's narrow top until it ended. An

 emptiness as long as he was tall yawned before the wall's

 edge and the turret that surrounded Green Angel Tower's

 fourth floor. Simon crouched beside this gap, braced

 against the buffeting wind as he tried to nerve himself to

 jump. A surge of air shoved him hard enough to make

 him lean forward until he was almost lying down atop the

 

 wall.

 There it is, he told himself. You've done it a hundred

 

 times.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 715

 

 But not in a blizzard, another pan of him pointed out.

 Not with armed men down below who would chop you to

 pieces before you even knew whether you'd survived the

 fall.

 

 He grimaced against the sleet and tucked his hands un-

 derneath his arms to bring some blood back into his fin-

 gers.

 

 You carry the secrets of the League, he told himself.

 Morgenes trusted you. It was a reminder, an incantation.

 He touched Bright-Nail to make sure it was still secure in

 his beltits quiet song rose to his touch like the back of

 a stroked catthen carefully lifted himself to stand

 hunched at the comer of the wall. After teetering precar-

 iously for long moments, waiting for the wind to slacken

 just a little, he said a brief prayer and leaped.

 

 The wind caught him in midair and shoved him to the

 side. He fell short of his landing. For a moment he was

 slipping away into empty space, but his clawing hand

 caught in one of the crenellations and he jerked to a halt,

 dangling. As the wind tugged at him the tower and sky

 seemed to twist above his head, as though any moment all

 of creation would go topside-down. He felt the stone slid-

 ing from beneath his damp fingers and quickly pushed his

 other hand into the gap as well, but it was scant help. His

 legs and feet dangled over nothingness, and his grip was

 giving way.

 

 Simon tried to ignore the fierce pain that raced through

 his already aching joints. He might have been tied to the

 wheel all over again, stretched to the breaking pointbut

 this time there was a way out of the torment. If he let go,

 it would be over in a moment, and there would be peace.

 

 But he had seen too much, suffered too much, to settle

 for oblivion.

 

 Straining until agony shot through him, he pulled him-

 self a little higher. When his arms had bent as far as he

 could make them, one hand scrabbled free, searching for

 a firmer handhold. His fingertips at last found a crevice

 between stones; he hauled himself upward again, an in-

 voluntary shout of pain forcing its way out through his

 clenched teeth. The stone was slippery, and for a moment

 

 7i6

 

 Tad Williams

 

 he almost fell back, but with a last jerk he pulled his up-

 per body into the crenellation and slithered ahead, his legs

 still protruding.

 

 A raven, sheltering beneath the tower's overhang,

 stared at him, its yellow eyes blank. He pulled himself a

 little farther forward and the raven danced away, then

 stopped with its head tipped to one side, watching. ,

 

 Simon dragged himself toward the tower window,

 thinking only of getting out of the icy wind. His arms and

 shoulders throbbed, his face felt seared by the bitter cold.

 As he caught at the sill, he suddenly felt something seize

 him from head to foot, a burning tingle that ran up and

 down his skin, maddening as biting ants. The raven

 leaped into the sky in a flapping blur of black feathers,

 caromed once again the powerful wind, then flew upward

 out of sight.

 

 The stinging grew stronger and his limbs twitched

 helplessly. Something began squeezing the air from his

 chest. Simon knew that he had leaped directly into a trap,

 a trap set just to catch and kill overeager scullions.

 Mooncalf, he thought. Once a mooncalf ...

 He half-crawled, half-fell through the tower window

 and onto the stairway. The agonizing pressure abruptly

 ceased. Simon lay on the cold stones, shivering violently,

 and struggled to catch his breath. His head throbbed, es-

 pecially the dragon-scar on his cheek. His stomach

 seemed to be trying to crawl up his throat.

 

 Something shook the tower then, a deep pealing like

 some monstrous bell, a sound that rattled in Simon's

 bones and aching skull, unlike anything he had ever

 heard. For a long moment the world turned inside-out.

 

 Simon huddled on the stairs, trembling. That wasn't the

 tower's bells! he thought when the echoes had died and

 his shattered thoughts had coalesced. They rang every

 day, all my life. What was it? What's happening to every-

 thing!?

 

 A little more of the chill wore away, and blood rushed

 back to the places it had fled. More than just his cheek

 was throbbing. Simon ran his fingers across his forehead.

 There was the beginning of a lump above his right eye;

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER717

 

 even touching it lightly made him suck in his breath. He

 decided he must have struck his head on something as he

 flung himself through the window and onto the stairs.

 

 It could have been worse, he told himself. / could have

 hit my head when I was jumping to the battlement. I'd be

 dead now. But instead I'm in the towerthe tower where

 Bright-Nail needs to . .. wants to ...

 

 Bright-Nail!

 

 He reached down in a panic, but he had not lost the

 sword: it was still caught against his hip, tangled in his

 belt. At some point it had rubbed against him and cut

 himtwo small snakes of dried blood coiled on his left

 forearmbut not badly. And he still had it. That was the

 important thing.

 

 And the sword was quietly singing to him. He felt

 rather than heard it, a seductive pull that fought past the

 pain in his head and battered body.

 

 It wanted to go up.

 

 Now? Should I just climb? Merciful Aedon, it's so hard

 to think!

 

 He raised himself and crawled to the side of the stair-

 well, then propped his back against the smooth wall as he

 tried to rub the knots from his muscles. When all his

 limbs seemed to bend again in more or less the way they

 should, Simon grabbed at the wall and pulled himself to

 his feet. Immediately, the world began to tip and spin, but

 he braced himself, hands pressed flat against the tracery

 of reliefs that covered the stone, and after some moments

 he could stand unaided.

 

 He paused, listening to the wind moaning outside the

 tower walls and the faint din of battle. One additional

 sound gradually became louder. Footsteps were echoing

 up the stairwell.

 

 Simon looked around helplessly. There was nowhere to

 hide. He drew Bright-Nail and felt it throb in his hand,

 filling him with a heady warmth like a swallow of the

 trolls' Hunt-wine. For a brief moment, he considered

 standing bravely with the sword in his hand, waiting to

 meet whoever was mounting the stairs, but he knew that

 was terrible foolishness. It could be anyonesoldiers,

 

 7i8 Tad Williams

 

 Norns, even the king or Pryrates. Simon had the lives of

 .others to think about, a Great Sword that must be brought

 to the final battle; these were responsibilities that could

 not be ignored. He turned and went lightly up the steps,

 holding Bright-Nail leveled before him so the blade

 would not scrape against something and give him away.

 Someone had already been on these stairs today: torches

 burned in the wall-sconces, filling the places between

 windows with jittering yellow light.

 

 The stairs wound upward, and within a score of steps

 he came upon a thick wooden door set into the inner wall.

 Relief swept through him: he could hide in the room be-

 hind it, and if he was careful, peer out through the slot set

 high in the door to see who climbed behind him. The dis-

 covery had come not a moment too soon. Despite his

 haste, the trailing footfalls had not grown any fainter, and

 as he paused to fumble with the doorlatch they seemed to

 become quite loud.

 

 The door pivoted inward. Simon peered into the shad-

 ows beyond, then stepped through. The floor seemed to

 sag beneath his feet as he turned and eased the door

 closed. He stepped away so the edge of the door could

 swing past without hitting him, and his back foot came

 down on nothing.

 

 Simon made a sound of startled terror and grabbed at

 the inside door handle. The door swung into the room,

 tipping him even farther backward as he stabbed with his

 foot for something to stand on. Panic-sweat made his grip

 on the door handle treacherous. The torchlight leaking in

 through the doorway showed a floor that extended only a

 cubit past the door jamb and then fell away in rotted

 splinters. He could see nothing below but darkness.

 

 He had barely regained his balance, pulling himself

 back onto the fragment of flooring with one hand, when

 the great and terrible bell rang a second time. For an in-

 stant the world fell away around him and the room with

 the missing floor filled with light and leaping flames. The

 sword, which he had held tightly even while dangling

 over nothingness, tumbled from his grip and fell. A mo-

 ment later the flames were gone and Simon was tottering

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 719

 on the edge of floor. Bright-Nailprecious, precious

 thing, the hope of all the worldhad disappeared into the

 shadows below.

 

 The footfalls, which had stopped for long moments

 started again. Simon pushed the door closed and huddled

 with his back against it, on a narrow strip of wood over

 empty blackness. He heard the footsteps pass his hiding

 place and move away up the stairwellbut he no longer

 cared who shared the tower with him. Bright-Nail was

 lost.

 

 ^

 

 They were so high. The walls of the stairwell seemed

 to lean inward, closing on her like a swallowing throat.

 Miriamele swayed. If that ear-shattering bell rang a fourth

 time, she would surely lose her balance and fall. The

 plummet down the battering stairs would be unending.

 

 "We are almost there," whispered Binabik.

 

 "I know." She could feel something waiting for them

 just a short distance above: the very air trembled. "I don't

 know if I can go there. .. ."

 

 The troll took her hand. "I ^m also frightened." She

 could scarcely hear him over the shrilling of the wind.

 "But your uncle is being there, and Camaris has now car-

 ried the sword up to that place. Pryrates is there, too."

 

 "And my father."

 

 Binabik nodded.

 

 Miriamele took a deep breath and looked up to where

 a thin gleam of scarlet leaked past the bend of the stair-

 well. Death and even worse was waiting there. She knew

 she must go, but she also knew with terrible clarity that

 the moment she took her next step the world she had

 known would begin to end.

 

 She ran her hands across her sweaty face.

 

 "I'm ready."

 

 Smoky light throbbed where the stairs opened into the

 chamber above. Thunder growled outside. Miriamele

 squeezed Binabik's arm, then patted at her belt, touching

 

 720 Tad Williams

 

 the dagger she had taken from the cold, unmoving hand

 of one of Isom's men. She took another arrow from her

 pack and fitted it loosely on the string of her bow.

 Pryrates had been hurt onceeven if she could not kill

 him, perhaps she could provide a crucial distraction.

 

 They stepped up into the bloody glow.

 

 Tiamak's thin legs were the first thing she saw. The

 Wrannaman lay unmoving against the wall with his robe

 rucked up around his knees- She choked back a cry and

 swallowed hard, then mounted higher; her face lifted into

 the streaming wind.

 

 Dark clouds knotted the sky beyond the high windows,

 ragged edges agleam with the Conqueror Star's feverish

 light. Flecks of snow swirled like ashes beneath the

 chamber ceiling where the great bells hung. The sense of

 waiting, of a world in suspension, was very strong.

 Miriamele struggled for breath.

 

 She heard Binabik make a small noise beside her.

 Camaris knelt on the floor beneath the green-skinned

 bells, his shoulders shaking, black Thorn held upright be-

 fore him like a holy Tree. A few paces away stood

 Pryrates, scarlet robes rippling in the powerful wind. But

 neither of these held her attention.

 

 "Father?" It came out as little more than a whisper.

 

 The king's head lifted, but the motion seemed to take a

 long time. His pale face was skeletally gaunt, his eyes

 deep-sunken, gleaming like shuttered lamps. He stared at

 her, and she felt herself falling into shards. She wanted to

 weep, to laugh, to rush to him and help to make him well

 again. Another part of her, trapped and screaming, wanted

 to see this twisted thing that pretended to be himthat

 could not be the man who had raised herobliterated,

 sent down into darkness where it could not trouble her

 with either love or terror.

 

 "Father?!" This time her voice carried.

 

 Pryrates cocked his head toward her; a look of annoy-

 ance hurried across his shiny face. "See? They pay no

 heed. Highness," he told the king. "They will always go

 where they do not belong. No wonder your reign has bur-

 dened you so."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 721

 

 Elias shrugged his shoulders in anger or impatience.

 His face was slack. "Send her away."

 

 "Father, wait!" she cried, and took a step forward,

 "God help us, don't do this! I have crossed the world to

 speak to you! Don't do this!"

 

 Pryrates held up his hands and said something she

 could not hear. Abruptly she was seized all over by some

 invisible thing that clung and burned, then she and

 Binabik were thrown back against the chamber wall. Her

 pack fell from her shoulder and tumbled onto the floor,

 spilling its contents. The bow flew from her hand and

 spun away out of reach. She fought, but the clinging force

 gave only enough to allow her a few slow, twitching

 movements. She could not move forward. Binabik strug-

 gled beside her, but with no more success. They were

 helpless.

 

 "Send her away," Elias repeated, more angrily this

 time, his eyes looking at anything but her.

 

 "No, Majesty," the priest urged, "let her stay. Let her

 watch. Of all the people in the world, it is your brother,"

 he gestured to something Miriamele could not see,

 "who is unfortunately beyond appreciating it nowand

 your treacherous daughter who forced you onto this

 path." He chortled. "But they did not know that the solu-

 tion you found would make you even greater than be-

 fore."

 

 "Is she in pain?" the king asked brusquely. "She is no

 longer my daughterbut I will not see you torture her."

 

 "No pain. Highness," he said. "She and the troll will

 merely be ... an audience."

 

 "Very well." The king at last met her eyes, squinting as

 though she were a mile distant. "If you had-only lis-

 tened," he said coldly, "if you had only obeyed me ..."

 

 Pryrates put a hand on Elias' shoulder. "All was for the

 best."

 

 Too late. The emptiness and desperation Miriamele had

 been fighting broke free and spread through her like black

 blood. Her father was lost to her, and she was dead to

 him. All the risks, the suffering, had been for nothing.

 Her misery grew until she thought it would stop her heart.

 

 722 Tad Williams

 

 A fork of lightning split the sky beyond the window.

 Thunder made the bells hum.

 

 "For ... love." She forced her jaws to work against the

 alchemist's prisoning spell. Each faint word echoed in her

 own ears, as though she stood at the bottom of a deep

 well. She told him, but it was too late, too late. "You . ..

 I ... did these things ... for love."

 

 "Silence!" the king hissed. His face was a rawboned

 mask of fury. "Love! Does it remain after worms have

 gnawed the bones? I do not know that word."

 

 Elias slowly turned back to Camaris. The old knight

 had not moved from his spot on the floor, but now, as

 though some power in the king's attention compelled him,

 he crawled a few steps closer. Thorn scraping across the

 stone tiles before him.

 

 The king's voice became curiously gentle. "I am not

 surprised to see that the black sword chose you, Camaris.

 1 was told that you had returned to the living. I knew that

 if those tales were true, Thorn would find you. Now we

 will act together to protect your beloved John's king-

 dom."

 

 Miriamele's eyes widened in horror as a figure that had

 been blocked from her sight by Camaris now became vis-

 ible. Josua lay crumpled just a little to one side of her fa-

 ther, arms and legs splayed. The prince's face was turned

 away, but his shirt and cloak were sodden crimson around

 his neck, and blood had pooled beneath him. Miriamele's

 eyes filled with blurring tears.

 

 "It is time, Majesty," said Pryrates.

 

 The king extended Sorrow like a gray tongue until it

 nearly touched the old knight. Although Camaris was vis-

 ibly struggling with himself, he began to lift Thorn to

 meet the shadowy blade in the king's hand-

 Fighting against the same force that bound Miriamele.

 Binabik gave a muffled shout of warning, but still Thorn

 rose in the old man's trembling hands/

 

 "God, forgive me," Camaris cried wretchedly. "It is a

 sinful world ... and I have failed You again."

 

 The two swords met with a quiet click that cut through

 the room. The noise of the storm diminished, and for a

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 723

 

 moment the only thing audible was Camaris' moan of an-

 guish.

 

 A point of blackness began to pulse where the tips of

 the two blades crossed, as though the world had been

 ripped open and some fundamental emptiness was begin-

 ning to leak through. Even through the bonds of the al-

 chemist's spell, Miriamele could feel the air in the high

 chamber suddenly grow hard and brittle. The chill deep-

 ened. Traceries of ice began to form in the arches of the

 windows and along the walls, spreading like wildfire.

 Within moments the chamber was furred with a thin sur-

 face of ice crystals that shimmered in a thousand strange

 colors. Icicles were growing on the great bells, translu-

 cent fangs that gleamed with the light of the red star.

 

 Pryrates lifted his arms triumphantly. Glinting flakes

 clung to his robe. "It has begun."

 

 The somber cluster of bells at the ceiling did not move,

 but the bone-shaking sound of a greater bell rang out once

 more. Powdery ice fluttered as the tower trembled like a

 slender tree caught in storm winds.

 

 A

 

 Simon tugged at the handle and cursed quietly. This

 lower door was wedged shutthere would be no easy en-

 try into the room beneath the missing floorand now he

 heard footsteps coming up the stairwell again.

 

 His joints still hurt fiercely, but he scrambled back up

 the stairs to the other door as quickly as he could, then

 stepped inside, taking care this time to stand at the very

 edge of the flooring, which had held his weight before.

 He was forced to move far to the side of the door as it

 closed. As the footfalls passed outside, he carefully made

 his way along the strip of wood to look through the door

 slit, but by the time he could reach it he glimpsed only a

 small dark shape vanishing up the stairwell, lurching

 strangely. He waited a score of heartbeats, listening, then

 crept outside and took a torch from the nearest bracket.

 

 To his vast relief, Simon saw by the torch's light that

 there was indeed a bottom to the chamber below, and

 

 724 Tad Williams

 

 though parts of that lower floor had rotted through as

 well, it was mostly intact Bright-Nail lay gleaming in a

 pile of discarded furniture Seeing it lying there like a

 piece of splendid jewelry thrown onto a midden heap, Si-

 mon felt a violent pang He must get it back Bnght-Nail

 must go to the tower Even from a distance, he could feel

 its yearning

 

 A faint thread of the blade's song coiled through his

 thoughts as he found what seemed the most stable spot on

 the floor below, gripped the butt of the torch between his

 teeth, then slid his legs over the edge of the strip inside

 the doorway He let himself down to the full extension of

 his arms, then dropped, his heart fluttering as he landed

 The wood creaked loudly and sagged a little,,but held Si

 mon took a step toward Bright-Nail, but his foot sank as

 though into muddy ground He hurriedly pulled it back to

 see that a section of the floor a little larger than his boot

 sole had crumpled and fallen in

 

 Simon got down onto his hands and knees He made

 his way across the treacherous surface with slow caution

 taking more than a few splinters as he probed before him

 The cry of the wind outside was muffled The torch

 burned hot beside his cheek, its quavering flame threw

 his shadow up on the wall, a hunched thing like a beast

 

 He stretched out his hand Nearernearerthere'

 His fingers closed around Bnght-Nail's hilt, and instantly

 he could feel its song intensify, vibrating through him.

 making him feel welcomeand more Its need became

 his need

 

 Up, he thought suddenly The word seemed a glowing

 thing before his mind's eye It's lime to go up

 

 But that was easier said than accomplished He sat back

 on his haunches, wincing as the floor creaked, and re-

 moved the torch from his teeth He lifted it and looked

 around This room was wider than the one above, the half

 of the ceiling that had not been the wood floor of the up-

 per chamber was a slab of pale stone, seemingly without

 support The walls were bare except for a faint scrawl of

 carvings, overlaid with dust and soot There was nothing

 to afford any holds for climbing, and even if he jumped,

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 725

 

 he could not reach the bit of flooring that edged the door-

 way above

 

 Simon pondered for a moment The sword's pull was a

 shadow behind his thoughts, an urgency like a quiet but

 steady drumbeat He slid Bnght-Nail into his belt, reluc-

 tantly releasing the hilt, then resettled the torch handle in

 his jaws He crawled back across the floor toward the

 door he had tried from the stairs, but it was just as im-

 passable from the inside either damp weather or shifting

 timbers kept it firmly closed no matter how he pulled He

 sighed, then crept back to the middle of the room

 

 Moving with extreme care, he dragged bits of broken

 furniture across the floor, setting each piece carefully on

 or beside the last, until he had made a shoulder-high pile

 near the sealed doorway As he was sliding the scarred

 surface of a discarded table into place at the top of the

 heap, he again heard someone mounting the steps

 

 It was hard to tell, but this time there seemed to be

 more than one set of' feet He crouched m silence, steady-

 ing the tabletop with his hand, and listened to the foot-

 falls move past the door beside him, then, after a few

 dragging moments, echo softly past the door above He

 held his breath wondering which of his many enemies

 might be climbing the tower, knowing that he would dis-

 cover the answer all too soon Bright-Nail tugged at his

 thoughts It was hard to sit still

 

 When the noises had faded, Simon prodded at the pile

 until he was certain it was steady He had tried to point all

 the jagged edges and snapped legs downward m case he

 fell, but he knew that if he did, he and the spiky pieces of

 broken chairs, stools, and heavy tables would probably

 break through the floor together and tumble down into yet

 a lower room He did not think much of his chances if

 that happened

 

 Simon climbed the pile as gently as he could, laying

 his body flat across the tabletop until he could draw his

 legs up behind him The flame of the torch he held in his

 teeth sizzled the ends of his hair He clambered to his feet

 and felt the unsteady mass rock gently beneath him Bal-

 ancing carefully, he removed the torch and held it up,

 

 726 Tad Williams

 

 looking for the sturdiest spot on the edge of flooring over-

 head.

 

 He was moving toward the edge of the teetering pile

 when the bell rang for a third time.

 

 Even as the thunderous peal grabbed the entire tower

 and shook it, and the pile of wood fell away beneath him,

 Simon let go of the torch and leaped. One piece of the

 flooring overhead broke loose in his hand, but the other

 held. Panting, he grasped another section with his free

 hand and struggled to pull himself up, even as gusts of

 purple fire chased themselves across the walls and every-

 thing shifted and blurred. His arms, already tired, trem-

 bled. He pulled himself higher, reaching out a hand to

 grab at the doorsill, then lifted his leg until it was on the

 strip of floor. The echo of the bell faded, although he felt

 it still in his teeth and the bones of his skull. The lights

 flickered and died, but for a faint glow beneath him. He

 could smell smoke rising from the torch that now lay

 among the shards of the piled furniture.

 

 Grunting with the strain, Simon dragged himself the

 rest of the way onto the safety of the narrow band of

 wood. As he lay gasping for air, he saw flames beginning

 to lick up from the floor below.

 

 He scrabbled to one side as cautiously as haste would

 permit, pulled the door open, then sprawled forth onto the

 stairs. He tugged the door shut, leaving a few orphaned

 tendrils of smoke to float and dissipate, and waited for his

 hands to stop shaking quite so violently.

 

 He pulled the sword from his belt. Bright-Nail was his

 once more. He was still alive, still free. Hope remained.

 

 As he began to climb he felt the blade's song rise in-

 side him, a chant of joy, of approaching fulfillment. He

 felt his own heart speed as it sang. Things would be set

 right.

 

 The sword was warm in his grip. It seemed a part of his

 arm, of his body, a new organ of sense as alert and at-

 tuned as the nose of a hunting hound or the ears of a bat.

 

 Upward. It is time.

 

 The pain in his head and limbs flowed away, to be

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 727

 

 filled with the ever-rising triumph of Bright-Nail,

 clutched firmly in his hand, safe from all harm.

 

 It is time at last. Things will be set right. It is time.

 

 The sword's urging grew stronger. He found it hard to

 think of anything but putting one foot before the next,

 carrying himself up toward the top of the tower, to the

 place where Bright-Nail longed to go. Knotted, red-shot

 clouds showed in the windows he passed, scarred by the

 occasional jagged flicker of lightning, but the noise of the

 storm seemed curiously muffled. Far louder now, at least

 in his thoughts, was the song of the sword.

 

 It's finally going to end, he thought. He could feel that,

 Bright-Nail's promise. The sword would bring a halt to

 all the confusions and dissatisfactions that had plagued

 him for so long; when it joined its brothers, everything

 would change. All that unhappiness would end.

 

 There was no one else on the steps now. No one moved

 but Simon, and he could feel that everyone, everything,

 waited for him. All the world hung on the fulcrum of

 Green Angel Tower, and he would be the one to shift that

 balance. It was a wild, heady feeling. The sword pulled

 him on, singing to him, filling him with imprecise but

 powerful intimations of glory and release at every upward

 step.

 

 / am Simon, he thought, and could almost hear trum-

 pets flare and echo. / have done mighty deedsslain a

 dragon.' Won a battle! Now, I bring the Great Sword.

 

 As he mounted up, the stairs shimmered before and be-

 hind, a downward-flowing river of ivory. The pale stone

 of the stairway wall seemed to glow, as if it reflected the

 light that burned within him. The sky-blue carvings were

 as heartbreakingly lovely as flowers strewn before the

 feet of a conqueror. Completion was ahead. An end to

 pain awaited him.

 

 The bell tolled a fourth time, even more powerfully

 than before.

 

 Simon staggered, shaken like a rat in a dog's teeth as

 the echoes boomed and resounded down the stairwell. A

 blast of freezing air rolled past him, blurring the carvings

 on the wall with a milky skin of ice. He almost dropped

 

 728 Tad William'i

 

 the sword again as he lifted his hands to his head and

 cried out. Stumbling, he grabbed at the frame of one of

 the tower's windows for support.

 

 As he stood, shivering and moaning, the sky outside

 changed. The broad smear of clouds vanished, and for a

 long moment the full blackness of the sky opened before

 him, dotted with tiny, cold stars, as though Green Angel

 Tower had torn free of its moorings and now floated

 above the storm. He stared, teeth clenched against the

 bell's fading echoes. After three heartbeats the black sky

 clotted with gray and red and the tower was surrounded

 by storm once more.

 

 Something tugged at his thoughts, fighting against

 Bright-Nail's unslackening pull.,

 

 This ... is .. . wrong. The joy that he had shared, the

 feeling that he would somehow make things right, ebbed

 away. Something had is happeningsomething very had!

 

 But he was already moving again, mounting the stairs

 toward the dim glow. He was not the master of his own

 body.

 

 He struggled. His limbs felt distant, numb. He slowed

 himself, then managed to stop, shuddering in the freezing

 wind that blew down the stairwell. Tiny whiskers of ice

 hung from the walls, and his breath clouded about his

 head, but he could feel an even greater coldness lurk-

 ing somewhere above hima coldness that somehow

 thought.

 

 He fought for a long time on the stairs, struggling to re-

 gain control of his own arms and legsa struggle against

 nothing visible that went unobserved except by the cold,

 inhuman presence. He could feel its hungry attention as

 the sweat beading on his skin froze and fell tinkling onto

 the steps. Steam rose from his overheated body, and

 where the warmth left, deadening chill crept in.

 

 The cold took Simon at last, filling him. It moved him

 like a puppet on a stick. He jerked and began to stagger

 upward once more, screaming silently from the prison of

 his skull.

 

 He stepped up out of the stairwell and into the vapor-

 ous bellchamber; the ice-blanketed walls glimmered and

 

 TO GRBEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 sparkled. Storm clouds surrounded the high windows and

 light and shadow moved sluggishly, as though the cold

 gripped them, too.

 

 Miriamele and Binabik stood beside the door, writhing

 slowly, caught somehow like flies struggling in amber.

 His eyes widened as he saw them and his heart thudded

 painfully behind his ribs, but he could not call out or even

 stop his feet from carrying him forward. Miriamele

 opened her mouth and made a muffled noise. Tears filled

 his eyes, and for a moment her pale face held him like a

 tamp in a dark roombut the thing that gripped him

 would not be denied. It swept him past his friends like a

 river current, tugging him toward the cluster of pillars at

 the center of the chamber.

 

 Beneath the frost-furred bells three figures waited, one

 kneeling. The part of Bright-Nail that had entangled itself

 with him danced and leaped ... but the still-Simon part

 quailed as Elias turned toward him with a face like a dead

 man's. The mottled gray sword in his two fists lay against

 black Thorn, and where they touched there was nullity, an

 emptiness that hurt Simon's mind.

 

 Shivering, Camaris turned to Simon, his hair and brows

 powdery with ice- The old man's eyes stared in abject

 misery.

 

 "My fault ..." he whispered through chattering teeth.

 

 Pryrates had watched Simon's lurching entrance.

 Now the priest nodded, smiling tightly. "I knew you were

 in the tower somewhere, kitchen boyyou and the last of

 the swords."

 

 Simon felt himself drawn closer to the place where

 Thorn and Sorrow met. Through Bright-Nail, whose song

 coursed inside him, he could feel the music of the other

 two swords as well: the dancing throb of life that was

 within all of them grew stronger as the moment of their

 joining approached. Simon felt it like the speeding cur-

 rent of a river's narrows, but he could also feel that there

 was a barrier that somehow kept the blades apart. Al-

 though two of them were touching, and only a few cubits

 stood between them and the third, they all remained as

 widely separated as they had ever been.

 

 730

 

 Tad Williams

 

 But what was different now, what Simon felt deeply

 and wordlessly in his mind's inmost, was that soon there

 would be a great change. Some mighty universal wheel

 lay loose on its axle, ready to turn, and when it did all the

 barriers would fall, all the walls would vanish. The

 swords sang, waiting.

 

 Before he knew it, he was stepping forward. Bright-

 Nail clicked against the other two blades. The shock of

 contact traveled not just through Simon, but through the

 room as well. The black emptiness where the swords met

 deepened, a hole into which the entire world might fall

 and perish. The light changed all around: the star-glow

 seeping in through the windows deepened, turning the

 chamber bloody, and then the dreadful bell tolled a fifth

 time.

 

 Simon trembled and cried out as the tower snook and

 the energies of the swords, still pent but fighting now for

 release, traveled through him. His heart stuttered, hesi-

 tated, and almost stopped. His vision blurred and dark-

 ened, then gradually came back. He was inextricably

 caught in something that burned like fire, that dragged

 like a lodestone. He tried desperately to pull away, but a

 supreme effort only made him sway gently, caught on

 Bright-Nail's hilt like a fish dying on a hook. The bell's

 echoes died out.

 

 Even through the music of the swords, Simon could

 sense the chill presence he had felt on the stairs growing

 stronger, vast and weighty as a mountain, cold as the gaps

 between stars. It was closer now, but at the same time it

 hovered just beyond some incomprehensible wall.

 

 Elias, who seemed almost unmoved by the exuberating

 power of the swords, raked Simon with mad green eyes.

 "I do not know this one, Pryrates," he murmured,

 "although there is something familiar about him. But it

 does not matter. All the bargains have been kept."

 

 "Indeed." The priest moved past, so close that his robe

 touched Simon's arm. A buried part of Simon shrieked

 with disgust and fury, but no sound passed his quivering

 lips: he was now little more than something that held

 Bright-Nail. The sword's vaulting spirit, connected now

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 73'

 to its brothers, uncaring of human struggles and human

 hatreds, waited only for whatever would happen next,

 eager as a dog expecting to be fed.

 

 "All bargains are kept," Pryrates rasped as he took a

 place beside the king's shoulder, "and all is now set in

 motion. Soon Utuk'ku the Eldest will have harnessed the

 Pool of Three Depths. Then we will have completed the

 Fifth House, and all will change." He looked at Simon

 and his eyes glittered. "This one you do not know is Mor-

 genes' kitchen-whelp. Highness." Pryrates grinned. "This

 is satisfying. I saw what you did to Inch, boy. Very thor-

 ough work. You saved me some tiresome effort."

 

 Simon felt a powerful rage bubbling up inside him. In

 the red light the priest's smug face seemed to hang

 bodilessiy, and for a moment Simon could see nothing

 else. He struggled to move his limbs, to pull Bright-Nail

 away from its brothers so he could smash out the murder-

 er's life, but he was helpless. The flame of anger blazed

 without release, so hot that Simon felt sure it would

 scorch him to ashes from within.

 

 The tower rocked again to the thunderous voice of the

 bell. Simon stared, even as the floor shook before him

 and his ears popped, but the bronze bells at the center of

 the chamber did not move. Instead, a ghostly shape ap-

 peared, a bell of sorts, but long and cylindrical. For a mo-

 ment, as the phantom bell vibrated, Simon saw flames

 sheeting again outside the windows, the sky gone end-

 lessly black.

 

 When the noise had died, Pryrates lifted his hands.

 "She has conquered. It is time."

 

 The king lowered his head". "God help me, I have

 waited long."

 

 "Your waiting is over." The priest crossed his arms be-

 fore his face, then lowered them. "Utuk'ku has captured

 the Pool of Three Depths. The swords are here, waiting

 only for the Words of Unmaking to release that which

 binds them, then the force that was prisoned within them

 will sing free and bring you everything that you have de-

 sired."

 

 "Immortality?" asked Elias, shy as a child.

 

 732 Tad Williams

 

 "Immortality. A life that outlasts the stars. You sought

 your dead wife. Highness, but you found something far

 greater."

 

 "Do not ... do not speak of her."

 

 "Rejoice, Elias, do not grieve!" Pryrates brought his

 palms together and lightning scratched across the sky out-

 side the tall windows. "You feared you would have, no

 heir when your disobedient daughter ran awaybut you

 yourself will be your own inheritor. You will never die!"

 

 Elias lifted his head, his eyes shut as though he basked

 in a warming sun. His mouth trembled.

 

 "Never die," he said.

 

 "You have gained powerful friends, and in this hour

 they will pay you back for all your suffering." Pryrates

 stepped away from the king and thrust his red-sleeved

 arm toward the ceiling. "1 invoke the First House!"

 

 The great invisible bell sounded again, crashing like a

 hammer in a god's smithy. Flames ran through the

 betlchamber, capering across the icy walls. "On

 Thisterborg, among the ancient stones," Pryrates intoned,

 "one of the Red Hand is waiting. For his master and you

 he uses the power of that place and opens a crack into the

 between-places. He unfolds the first of the A-Genay'asu'e

 and brings forth the First House."

 

 Simon sensed the cold, dreadful something that waited

 growing stronger. It was all around Green Angel Tower,

 drawing nearer, like a hunting beast coming stealthily

 through the darkness toward a campfire.

 

 "At Wentmouth," Pryrates cried, "on the cliffs above

 the endless ocean where the Hayefur once burned for

 travelers from the lost West, the Second House is now

 built. The Storm King's servant is there, and a far greater

 flame lifts to the skies."

 

 "Do ... not ..." Binabik, held by Pryrates' magics,

 struggled to move forward from the walls. His voice

 seemed to come from a great distance. "Do ... not... !"

 

 The priest flicked a gesture toward him and the troll

 was silenced, squirming helplessly.

 

 Again the bell rang, and the power of it seemed to

 pulse on and on, reverberating. For a moment Simon

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER733

 

 heard voices rising outside, screams of pain and terror in

 the language of the Sithi. Red lights flickered in the ici-

 cles hanging from the bell-chamber's vaulted ceiling.

 

 "Above Hasu Vale, beside the ancient Wailing Stone,

 where the Eldest before the Eldest once danced beneath

 stars that have burned outthe Third House is built. The

 Storm King's servant lifts another flame to the skies."

 

 Elias suddenly took a wobbly step. Sorrow's blade

 dipped as he bent, although it still touched the other two

 swords. "Pryrates," he gasped, "something ... something

 is burning ... inside me!"

 

 "Father!" Miriamele's voice was faint, but her face

 was contorted with terror.

 

 "Because it is time. Majesty," the alchemist said. "You

 are changing. Your mortality must be scorched away by

 clean flame." He pointed at the princess. "Look, Elias!

 Do you see what your weakness does to you? Do you see

 what the sham of love would bring you? She would make

 you into an old man, sobbing for your meals, pissing in

 your bed!"

 

 The king straightened up and turned his back on

 Miriamele. "I will not be held down," he gritted. Every

 word seemed an effort. "I will . .. take ... what was

 promised."

 

 Simon saw that the priest was smiling, though sweat

 trickled down his egg-smooth brow. "You will have it."

 He lifted his arms once more. Simon strained until he

 thought veins would burst in his temples, but could not

 pull free from the crossed swords. "In your brother's

 stronghold, Elias," Pryrates said, "in what was the very

 heart of his treacheryat Naglimund we build the Fourth

 House!"

 

 Simon again saw the unfamiliar black sky framed in

 the window. At the bottom of the sill, the Hayholt had be-

 come a forest of pale, graceful towers. Flames ran among

 them. The strange sight did not vanish. The Hayholt was

 gone, replaced by ... Asu'a? Simon heard shrieking Sithi

 voices echoing, and the roar of flames.

 

 "And now the Fifth House!" cried Pryrates.

 

 The tolling of the phantom bell this time brought back

 

 734

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Simon's view of storm clouds and whirling snow. The

 high-pitched anguish of the Sithi gave way to the dulled

 shouts of mortals.

 

 "In the Pool of Three Depths, Utuk'ku gives way to the

 last of the Storm King's servitors, and beneath us the fifth

 and final House is created." Pryrates spread his arms,

 palms down, and the whole tower trembled. A kind, <of

 sucking pull reached down the length of Bright-Nail,

 through Simon's arm, tugging at his heart and even his

 thoughts as though it sought to draw them out whole.

 Across from him, Camaris bared his teeth in an. agonized

 grimace, Thorn quivering in his fist.

 

 A fountain of icy blue light sprang up through the floor

 of the bellchamber, roaring and crackling as it passed

 through the blackness where the swords touched. Dimin-

 ished and distorted by that passage, it continued'up past

 Simon's face and spattered the glinting ceiling with blue

 sparks. Simon felt his body convulsing as tremendous en-

 ergies flowed around him and through him. Inside his bat-

 tered thoughts the swords thrilled exultantly, their spirits

 released. He tried to open his mouth and scream, but his

 jaws were locked tight, teeth grinding. The coruscating

 blue light filled his eyes.

 

 "And now the three Great Swords have found their way

 to this place, beneath the Conqueror Star. Sorrow, de-

 fender of Asu'a, scourge of the living; Thorn, star-blade,

 banner of the dying Imperium; Bright-Nail, last iron from

 the vanished West."

 

 As Pryrates called each name, the great bell rang. The

 tower and all around it seemed to shift with each sound-

 ing, the delicate towers and flames giving way to the

 squat, snow-covered roofs of the Hayholt, then appearing

 once more with the next reverberating clang.

 

 Caught in the grip of terrible forces, Simon felt himself

 burning from within. He hated. Smoldering clouds of rage

 rose up inside him, hatred at being tricked, at seeing his

 friends murdered, at the terrible devastation that Pryrates

 and Ellas had caused. He wanted to swing the sword in a

 deadly arc, to smash everything in sight, to kill those who

 had made him so horribly unhappy. He could not

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER735

 

 shriekhe could not even move except to twitch help-

 lessly. The rage, ordinary escape blocked, seemed to pour

 out through his sword arm instead. Bright-Nail became a

 blur, something not quite real, as though part of it had

 gone away. Thorn was a dark smear in Camaris' hands.

 The old man's eyes had rolled up in his head.

 

 Simon felt his monstrous anger and despair break free.

 The blackness where the swords met widened, an unend-

 ing emptiness, a gate into Unbeing, and Simon's hate

 poured into it. The void began to crawl up Sorrow's

 length toward Elias.

 

 "We harness the great fear." Pryrates moved to a spot

 behind the king, who now seemed as trapped and helpless

 as the other two swordbearers. The priest spread his arms

 wide, so that for a moment Elias seemed to have another

 pair of hands. "In every land, the fear has spread. The

 kilpa make the seas boil. The ghants crawl through the

 streets of the southern cities. The beasts of legend stalk

 the snows of the north. The fear is everywhere.

 

 "We harness the great fear. In every land, brother is

 turned against brother. Plague and famine and the scourge

 of war turn people into raging demons.

 

 "All the strength of fright and fury is ours, tunneled

 through the pattern of the Five Houses." Suddenly

 Pryrates laughed. "You are all such small minds! Even

 your terrors are small ones. You feared to see your armies

 defeated? You will see more than that. You will see Time

 itself roll backward in its rut."

 

 King Elias jerked and twitched as the blackness

 crawled up the blade toward him, but he seemed unable

 to release Sorrow. "God help me, Pryrates!" A convulsive

 shudder ran through him, a tremor of such power that he

 should have fallen to the floor. The nightdark void

 touched his hands- "Aaaah! God help me, I am burning

 up! My soul is on fire!"

 

 "Surely you did not think it would be easy?" Pryrates

 was grinning. Sweat sheeted down his forehead. "It will

 get worse, you fool."

 

 "I do not wish immortality!" Ellas screamed. "Ah,

 God, God, God! Release me! I am burning away!" His

 

 736 Tad Williams

 

 voice was distorted, as though some inconceivable thing

 had invaded his lungs and chest.

 

 "What you wish is not important," Pryrates spat back.

 "You will have your immortalitybut it may not be all

 you had hoped."

 

 Elias writhed. His shrieks were wordless now.

 

 Pryrates extended his hands until they hovered oo ei-

 ther side of Sorrow's hilt, only inches from Elias' own

 lingers. "It is time for the Words of Unmaking," he said.

 

 The bell thundered, and once more Green Angel Tower

 was surrounded by the tragic delicacy of burning Asu'a.

 The stars in that black sky were cold and tiny as snow-

 flakes. The tower seemed to shake like an agonized living

 thing.

 

 "I have prepared the way!" Pryrates called. "I have

 Grafted the vessel. Now, in this place, let Time turn back-

 ward! Roll back the centuries to the moment before

 Ineluki was banished to the realms beyond death. As I

 speak the Words of Unmaking, let him return! Let him re-

 turn!" He lapsed into a bellowing chant in a language

 harsh as shattering stone, as cracking ice. The blackness

 spread out over Elias and for a moment the king vanished

 utterly, as though he had been pushed through the wall of

 reality. Then he seemed to absorb the blackness, or it

 flowed into him; he reappeared, thrashing and shrieking

 incoherently.

 

 Elysia, Mother of Mercy! They've won! They've won!

 Simon's head seemed full of storm winds and flame, but

 his heart was black ice.

 

 Once more the bell caroled, and this time the very air

 of the chamber seemed to grow solid and glassy, bending

 Simon's gaze as though he looked through a mirrored

 tunnel. There seemed no up or down. Outside, the stars

 began to smear across the sky in long white threads, tan-

 gling like wormholes in sod. Even as his life bled from

 him and out of Bright-Nail in searing waves, he felt the

 world turning inside out.

 

 The beUchamber grew dark. Distorted shadows loomed

 and shifted across the icy chamber, then the walls seemed

 

 737

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 to open and fall away. Blackness flowed through, bring-

 ing with it a deeper chill, a freezing, ultimate cold.

 

 Elias' agonized screams had become a choking near-

 silence. He and Pryrates were now the only things visible.

 The priest's hands flickered with yellow light; his face

 gleamed. All the warmth of the world was leaking away.

 

 The king began to change.

 

 Ellas' silhouette bent and shifted, growing monstrously,

 even though his own contorted form was somehow still

 visible in the center of the darkness.

 

 The deadening chill was inside Simon, too, seeping in

 where the flames of his fury had burned away his hope.

 His life was being drawn out of him, sucked clean like

 marrow from a bone.

 

 The cold, cold thing that had waited so long was com-

 ing.

 

 "Yes, you will live forever, Elias," intoned Pryrates. "But

 it will be as a flitting shadow within your own body, a

 shadow dwarfed by Ineluki's bright flame. You see, even

 with the wheel of Time turned backward in its track and all

 the doors opened to Ineluki once more, his spirit must have

 an earthly home."

 

 The sounds of the storm outside had ceased, or could

 no longer penetrate through the strange forces that

 clutched the bellchamber. The fountain of blue light flow-

 ing upward from the Pool had narrowed to a silent stream

 that vanished into the blackness of the swords' joining

 and did not reemerge. When Pryrates had finished, there

 was no sound in the dark room but the rapid chuffmg of

 the king's breath. Scarlet flames kindled in the depths of

 Elias' eyes, then his head rocked back as though his neck

 had snapped. Vaporous red light leaked from his mouth.

 

 Simon watched in horror; through the swords he could

 feel the way being opened, just as Pryrates had said.

 Something too horrible to exist was forcing its way

 through into the world. The king's body jerked like a

 child's doll dangling on a string. Smoldering light seemed

 to spring forth from him everywhere, as though the very

 fabric of his body was fraying apart, revealing some bum-

 ing thing beneath.

 

 738

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Somewhere Miriamele was screaming; her small, lost

 voice seemed to come from the other end of the universe.

 

 The bellchamber was gone. All around, angles as strange

 as if reflected in broken mirrors, stood Asu'a's needle tow-

 ers. They burned as the king's body burned, crumbled as

 Time itself was crumbling. Five centuries were sliding

 away into the frozen black void. Nothing would be left but

 ashes and stone and Ineluki's utter triumph.

 

 "Come to us. Storm King!" shouted Pryrates. "I have

 made the way. The Words of Unmaking release the power

 of the swords, and Time turns withershins. History is un-

 done' We shall write it anew!"

 

 Elias writhed, and writhing grew larger, as though

 whatever filled him was too large for any mortal form and

 stretched him almost to the point of bursting. A sugges-

 tion of antlers flickered on the king's brow, and1 his eyes

 were pits of shifting, molten scarlet. His outline wavered.

 a moving tide of shadow that made it impossible to dis-

 cern his true shape. The king's arms parted. One hand

 still held the elusive blur of nothingness that had been

 Sorrow; the other hand extended and the fingers spread,

 black as charred sticks. EmberHght played in the creases.

 

 The thing paused, flickering and shifting. It seemed sag-

 gingly weary, like a butterfly newly emerged from a cocoon.

 

 Pryrates took a step back and averted his face. "I have

 ... I have done what you asked, mighty one." His smug

 grin was gone: the priest had willingly opened the door,

 but what had entered shocked even him. He took a deep

 breath and appeared to find some core of strength. His

 face again became feral. "The hour is comebut it is not

 your hour, it is mine. How could I trust one who hated ev-

 ery living thing to keep its bargain? I knew that once you

 had no need of me, your promises would be wind in dark-

 ness." He spread his wide-sleeved arms. "Mortal I may

 be, but I am no fool. You gave me the Words of Chang-

 ing, thinking them a toy that would keep me childishly

 amused as I did your bidding. But I have learned, too.

 Those Words will become your cage, and then you will be

 my servant. All creation will bend to youbut you will

 bow to meF

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER739

 

 The unstable thing at the room's center eddied like

 blown smoke, but its black, scarlet-streaming heart re-

 mained solid. Pryrates began to chant loudly in something

 only recognizable as language because of the empty

 spaces between noises. The alchemist seemed to change,

 reeling in the red-shot darkness that surrounded the king

 like a fog; his limbs curled and snapped in a ghastly, ser-

 pentine way, then he faded into a coiling shadow, a wide

 rope of blackness that drifted around the place where the

 king or whatever had devoured him now stood. The shad-

 owy coils tightened around the smoldering heart. The

 world seemed to bend farther inward, distorting the two

 shapes until only flame and steam and darkness pulsed at

 the center of the bellchamber.

 

 The whole of creation seemed to collapse in on this

 place, on this moment. Simon fell his own terror surge

 out, crackling through his arms, through Bright-Nail and

 into the midst of the clotted dark.

 

 The blackness bulged. Tiny arcs of lightning flickered

 about the room. Somewhere outside, Simon knew, the

 Asu'a of five centuries before was burning, its inhabitants

 dying at the hands of Fingil's long-dead army. And what

 of everyone else? Was all Simon knew gone, borne away

 by Time's circling wheel?

 

 The lightnings jittered about the chamber. Something

 pulsed at the center, a storm of fire and thunderheads that

 suddenly gaped, filling the room with blinding light.

 Pryrates, his real form restored, staggered backward out

 of the beating radiance, which promptly collapsed back

 into shadow. For a moment the priest raised his arms tri-

 umphantly over his head, then he teetered and dropped to

 his knees. A vaguely manlike form coalesced out of the

 darkness and stood over him, a scarlet suggestion of a

 face fluttering atop its misshapen head.

 

 Pryrates shuddered and wept. "Forgive me! Forgive my

 arrogance, my foolishness! Oh, please. Master, forgive

 me!" He crawled toward the thing, banging his forehead

 against the almost invisible floor. "I can still do you great

 service! Remember what you promised me. Lordthat if

 I served you well I would be first among mortals."

 

 740 Tad Williams

 

 The thing retained its grip on shifting Sorrow, but ex-

 tended its other blackened hand until it touched the alche-

 mist. The fingers cupped his smooth wet head. A voice

 more powerful than the bell, as ragged and deadly as the

 hiss of freezing wind, scraped through the darkness. De-

 spite everything else that had happened, Simon's eyes

 filled with frightened tears at the sound of it.

 

 "YES. YOU WILL BE FIRST."

 

 Jets of steam lifted from beneath the king's fingers.

 Pryrates shrieked and threw up his arms, grabbing at the

 hand, but the king did not move and Pryrates could not

 free himself. Runnels of flame sped down the alchemist's

 robe. Above him, the king's face was an indistinct lump

 of darkness, but eyes and ragged mouth blazed scarlet.

 The priest's scream was a sound no human throat should

 have loosed. Vapors enveloped him, but Simon saw his

 threshing arms steaming, cracking, shriveling into wag-

 gling things like tree limbs. After a long moment, the

 priest, all bones and burning tatters, fell to the floor and

 twitched like a smashed cricket. The jerking movements

 slowed, then stopped.

 

 The thing that had been Elias slumped, head down, so

 that nothing could be seen of it but shadow. Still, Simon

 could feel it drinking the energies that raced through

 Bright-Nail, Thorn, and Sorrow, regaining the strength to

 control its stolen body. Pryrates had hurt it, somehow, but

 Simon could sense that it would be only the work of mo-

 ments before it recovered. He felt a tiny flutter of hope,

 and tried to let go of his sword hilt, but it was as much

 a part of him as his arm. There was no escape.

 

 As though it sensed his attempt to break free, the black

 thing looked up at him, and even as his heart stumbled

 and almost failed, he could glean its implacable thought.

 It had smashed Time itself to return. Even the mortal

 priest, no matter what powers he had wielded, would not

 have been allowed to close the door againwhat possible

 chance could Simon have?

 

 In this moment of horror, Simon suddenly felt the

 shock of the dragon blood that had once scorched his

 flesh and changed him. He stared at the unsteady black

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER74!

 

 shape that had been Elias, the ruined husk and its fiery

 occupant, and felt an answering stab of pain where the

 dragon's black essence had scarred him. Through the

 pulsing unlighl that moved between Bright-Nail and Sor-

 row, Simon felt not only the all-consuming hatred that

 had been the blood of the Storm King's deathly exile, but

 also Ineluki's terrible, mad loneliness.

 

 He loved his people, Simon thought. He gave his life

 for them but did not die.

 

 Staring helplessly across the short distance between

 them, watching as the thing regathered its strength, Simon

 remembered the vision Leieth had shown him of Ineluki

 beside the great pool. Such shattering unhappiness had

 been in that face, but the determination had been a mirror

 of Eahlstan's as he had sat in his chair and waited for the

 terrible worm he knew he must meet, the dragon that he

 knew would slay him. They were somehow the same,

 Ineluki and Eahlstan, doing what must be done, though

 life itself was the price. And Simon was no different.

 

 Sorrow. His thoughts flittered and died like moths in a

 flame, but he clung to this one. Ineluki named his sword

 Sorrow. Why did she show me that?

 

 Something was moving af the edge of his vision.

 Binabik and Miriamele, freed by Pryrates' death, reeled a

 few steps forward. Miriamele fell to her knees. Binabik

 staggered closer, head held low as though he walked into

 a powerful wind.

 

 "You will destroy this world," the troll gasped. Al-

 though his mouth was stretched wide, his words seemed

 quiet as the whir of velvety wings. "You have lost your

 belonging, Ineluki. There will be nothing for your gov-

 erning. You do not belong here!"

 

 The clot of darkness turned to look at him, then raised

 a flickering hand. Simon, seeing Binabik quail before the

 destroying touch, felt his fear and hatred rise anew. He

 fought against that surge of loathing, although he did not

 know why.

 

 Hatred kepi him alive in the dark places. Five centu-

 ries, burning in emptiness. Haired is all he has. And I

 have hated, too. I have felt like him. We are the same.

 

 742 Tad Williams

 

 Simon struggled to keep the image of the living

 Ineluki's suffering face before him. That was the truth be-

 neath this horrible, burning thing. No creature in all the

 cosmos deserved what had happened to the Storm King.

 

 "I'm sorry," he whispered to the face in his memory.

 "You should not have suffered so."

 

 The surge of energy from Bright-Nail suddenly grew

 less. The thing that held Sorrow turned back to him, and

 waves of terror broke over Simon again. His heart was

 being crushed.

 

 "No," he gasped, and groped inside himself for a solid

 place to stand and live. "I will ... fear you, but I ... will

 not hate you."

 

 There came a still instant that seemed like years. Then

 Sir Camaris rose slowly from his knees and stood, sway-

 ing. In his hands, Thorn still throbbed with blackness, but

 Simon felt the drain of its forces weaken, as though what

 he himself felt had somehow run down through the point

 of connection into Camaris as well.

 

 "Forgiven ..." the old knight croaked. "Yes. Let all

 be ..."

 

 There was a wavering at the center of the darkness that

 was the Storm King. For a moment, the scarlet light grew

 less, then died. A glowing red haze leaked free, agitated

 as a swarm of bees. In the center of the shadows,

 wreathed in smoke, the pale visage of King Elias shim-

 mered into existence, his face contorted in pain. Wisps of

 smoke curled from his hair. Flames darted on his cape

 and shirt.

 

 "Father!" Miriamele's entire being seemed in her cry.

 

 The king turned his eyes to her. "Ah, God, Miriamele,"

 he breathed. His voice was not entirely human. "He has

 waited too long for this. He will not let me go. I was a

 fool, and now ... / am ... repaid. I am sorry ... daugh-

 ter. " He convulsed, and for a moment his eyes blazed red,

 though his knotted features stiil remained. "He is too

 strong . .. his hate is too strong. He will. .. not.. . let me

 ...go...."

 

 His head began to sag. Emberlight bloomed in the cav-

 ern of his mouth.

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 743

 

 Miriamele shouted wordlessly and lifted her arms. Simon

 felt rather than saw some fleeting thing snap past him.

 

 A feathered white shaft sprouted from Elias' breast.

 

 For a heartbeat the king's eyes were his own once

 more. and his gaze locked with Miriamele's. Then his

 features twisted. A roar louder than thunder tore from the

 king's gaping mouth and Elias toppled backward into

 shadow. The roar became an echoing, impossibly loud

 shriek that seemed to have no ending.

 

 For a fleeting instant Simon felt an impossibly cold

 something scrabbling at the place where the dragon's

 blood had entered his heart, seeking to find refuge in him

 if its other host was denied to it. The thing's hunger was

 all-swallowing and desperate.

 

 No. You do not belong here. Simon's thought echoed

 Binabik's words.

 

 The clawing thing fell away, shrieking soundlessly.

 

 Flames climbed up and outward where the king had

 stood, mushrooming beneath the roof of the bellchamber.

 A terrible cold blackness was at the center of them, but as

 Simon watched in shattered awe, it began to fragment into

 darting shadows. The world tipped again, and the tower

 shuddered. Bright-Nail throbbed in his grip, then dissolved

 in a whirl of black; a moment later, he was holding only

 dust. He lifted his trembling hand near his face to stare at

 the sifting powder, then stopped, astonished.

 

 He could move again!

 

 A chunk of stone from the ceiling overhead crashed

 down beside him, spattering him with sharp fragments.

 Simon took a reeling step. The chamber was afire, as

 though the stones themselves were burning. One of the

 blackened bells tumbled from the cluster at the ceiling

 and crashed to the floor, smashing a crater in the stone

 tiles. Shadowy figures moved around him, their motions

 distorted by the walls of flame.

 

 A voice was calling his name, but he stood at the center

 of fiery chaos and saw no direction in which to turn. The

 swirling sky appeared in a jagged opening above his head

 as more stone fell. Something struck him.

 

 33

 

 Hidden from the Stars

 

 *

 

 TmmaH StOOcC awkwardly, waiting. The duke listened

 patiently to the two Thrithings-men, then nodded and re-

 plied; they turned and walked through the melting snow

 toward their horses, leaving the duke and the Wrannaman

 alone beside the fire.

 

 When Isgrimnur looked up and saw his visitor, he did

 his best to smile. 'Tiamak, what are you doing standing

 there? Aedon's Mercy, man, sit down. Warm yourself."

 The duke tried to beckon, but his arm sling prevented it.

 

 Tiamak limped over and sat down on the log. For a mo-

 ment he held his hands before the flames without speak-

 ing, then said: "I am so sorry about Isom."

 

 Isgrimnur turned his red-rimmed eyes away and stared

 across the foggy headland toward the Kynslagh. It was a

 long time before he spoke. "I do not know how I will tell

 my Outrun. She will be heartbroken."

 

 The silence stretched. Tiamak waited, unsure whether

 he should say more. He knew Isgrimnur far better than he

 had known the duke's tall son, whom he had met only

 once, in Likimeya's tent.

 

 "He was not the only one to die," Isgrimnur said at

 last. He rubbed at his nose. "And there are the living to

 be taken care of." He picked up a stick and tossed it into

 the fire, then blinked at it with an intent fury. Tears

 glinted on his eyelashes. The silence grew again, swelling

 to almost frightening proportions before Isgrimnur broke

 it. "Ah, Tiamak, why wasn't it me? His life was ahead. I

 am old. My life is over."

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 745

 

 The Wrannaman shook his head. He knew there was no

 answer to that question. No one could plumb the reason-

 ing of They Who Watch and Shape. No one.

 

 The duke dragged his sleeve across his eyes, then

 cleared his throat. "Enough. Time for mourning will

 come." He turned back to Tiamak, and the Wrannaman

 for the first time saw the truth of Isgrimnur's words: the

 duke was old, a man long past his prime. Only his great

 vitality had masked it, and now, as though the struts had

 been kicked from beneath him, he sagged. Tiamak felt an-

 ger that such a good man should suffer.

 

 But everyone has suffered, he told himself. Now is the

 time to gather strength, to try to understand and to decide

 what comes next.

 

 "Tell me what happened, Tiamak." The duke forced

 himself to sit upright, restoring a semblance of self-

 discipline he clearly needed. "Tell me what you saw."

 

 "Surely I have little to say that you . . ." the

 Wrannaman began.

 

 "Just tell me." Isgrimnur shifted his broken arm to a

 more comfortable position. "We have a while before

 Strangyeard can come and join us, but I imagine you have

 spoken to him already."

 

 Tiamak nodded. "When I was putting salve on his

 wounds. Everyone has stories to tell, and none of them

 pleasant to hear." He composed himself for a moment,

 then began. "I traveled with the Sithi for what seemed a

 long time before we found Josua...."

 

 "So you believe Josua was dead already?" The calm-

 ness of the duke's deep voice was belied by the unhappy

 nervousness of his free hand, which passed in and out of

 his beard, tugging and plucking. His beard looked thinner

 and shabbier, as though he had pulled at it too often in re-

 cent days.

 

 Tiamak nodded sadly. "He was struck very hard on the

 neck by the king's sword. There was a terrible noise when

 it hit, a snapping, and then the blood... ." The small man

 shuddered. "He could not have survived it."

 

 Isgrimnur brooded for a moment, then shook his head.

 

 746

 

 Tad Williams

 

 "Ah, well. I thank Usires Aedon in His mercy that at least

 Josua did not suffer. An unhappy man, though I loved

 him. An unhappy ending." He looked up at a shout in the

 distance, then turned his gaze back to the Wrannaman.

 "And you were then knocked senseless yourself."

 

 "I remember nothing after I heard the bell again . .. un-

 til I awakened. I was still in the place where the bette

 hung, but I did not know it at first. All I could see was

 that I was surrounded by a whirlpool of fire and smoke

 

 and strange shadows.

 

 "I tried to climb to my feet, but my head was spinning

 and my legs would not work properly- Someone caught at

 my arm and dragged at me until I could rise. At first 1

 thought I had gone mad, because no one was there. Then

 I looked down and saw that it was Binabik who had

 

 helped me.

 

 " 'Hurry,' he told me, 'this place is falling into pieces.'

 He pulled at me againI was dazed and did not entirely

 understand him..Smoke was everywhere and the floor was

 pitching beneath my feet with loud grinding noises. As I

 stood wavering, another shape appeared. It was

 Miriamele, and she was dragging a body across the floor

 with great effort. It took me a moment to see through the

 dust and ashes that it was the young man Simon.

 

 " *I killed him,' Miriamele was saying over and over.

 Tears were streaming down her face. I did not understand

 why she thought-she had killed Simon when I could see

 his fingers moving,- his chest rising and falling. Binabik

 hastened to help her and they pulled Simon across the

 floor toward the stairwell. I followed them. A moment

 later the tower shook again and a great chunk of stone fell

 down and shattered on the spot where I had stood."

 Tiamak reached down and pointed at the cloth wrapped

 around his leg. "A piece flew free and cut me, but not

 badly." He straightened up.

 

 "Miriamele wanted to go back for Josua, but the floor

 was shaking powerfully now, and more pieces of the ceil-

 ing and walls were crumbling. Binabik was doubtful, and

 they began to argue. My wits were coming back. I told

 them that the king had broken Josua's neck, that I had

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 747

 

 seen it happen. Miriamele was hard to understandshe

 seemed to be half-asleep, despite the tearsbut she had

 begun to say something about Camaris when one of the

 bells broke loose and smashed down through the floor.

 We could hear it clang as it struck on something below.

 Smoke was everywhere. I was coughing, and my eyes

 were as wet as Miriamele's. I did not much care at the

 moment, but I felt sure that we would be burned or

 smashed to death, that I would never know what had hap-

 pened to cause all this.

 

 "Binabik grabbed Miriamele's arm, pointing to the

 ceiling, shouting that there was no time. Simon would be

 difficult enough to carry. She fought him for a moment,

 but her heart was not in it. The three of us picked Simon

 up as best we couldhe was limp; it made him very dif-

 ficult to carryand we scuttled into the stairwell.

 

 "The smoke was not so thick down below the first turn.

 The fire seemed to burn only in the bellchamber, although

 I heard Binabik say something that made it sound as if the

 whole tower had been in flames just instants before. But

 even if it was easier to breathe, I was still certain we

 would not survive to reach the ground: the tower was

 pitching like a tree in a strong wind. I have heard that in

 days long past one or two of the southernmost islands of

 Firannos Bay disappeared because the earth shook so hard

 that the sea swallowed them. If that is true, their last mo-

 ments must have felt like this. We could barely keep on

 our feet in the narrow stairwell. Several times 1 was

 thrown against one of the walls, and we were lucky we

 only dropped poor Simon twice. Stone was shivering

 down and dust was everywhere, choking me as thor-

 oughly as the smoke had."

 

 Tiamak paused and pressed his fingers against his tem-

 ples. His head hurt. Remembering the desperate flight

 down the stairs made it ache almost as badly as it had

 then.

 

 "We had gone down a little fartherit was fearfully

 difficult to make our way, and the very steps seemed to be

 breaking apart beneath our feetwhen a figure appeared

 out of the dust below us. It was smeared with ash and

 

 748

 

 Tad Williams

 

 grime and blood, and its eyes stared. At first I thought it

 some horrible demon that Pry rates had summoned, but

 Miriamele cried 'Cadrach!', and I recognized him. I was

 astonished, of courseI had no idea how he of all people

 had appeared in this place. I could hardly hear him above

 the groaning and rumbling of the tower, but he said: 'I

 waited for you/ to no one in particular, then turned and

 led us down the stairs. I was angry and frightened, and I

 could not help wondering why he did not offer to help

 carry Simon, who was a terrible load for a young woman,

 a troll, and a small man like me to bear. Simon was now

 beginning to move a little more, mumbling to himself and

 struggling weakly. It made him even more difficult to

 carry.

 

 "Then there was a time I can hardly remember. We

 went as fast as we could, but there seemed little chance

 we would escape before the tower collapsed completely.

 We were still very high up, maybe ten times a man's

 height. As we passed one of the windows, 1 saw the tow-

 er's spire hanging crookedly, as if the whole tower bowed

 from the waist. You notice strange things at such times, I

 suppose, and I saw that the bronze angel at the spire's tip

 had its arms extended as though it was poised to fly away,

 Suddenly the whole spire shivered, broke loose, and fell

 down out of sight.

 

 "There were cracks in the walls of the stairwell wide

 enough to put your arm into, Isgrimnur. Through some of

 them I could see gray sky.

 

 "Then the tower shook again, so strongly that we fell

 down on the stairs. It kept shaking; it was almost impos-

 sible to regain our feet, but we did at last. When we had

 scrambled down a few more paces, the twisting of the

 staircase suddenly opened onto nothing. The side of the

 tower wall had gone, fallen away outward: I could see it

 lying in great shards, spread out on the snow beneath,

 white on white. A great chunk of the staircase had gone

 with it, so that there was a gap many paces across, and

 beneath lay a fall of twenty cubits onto darkness and bro-

 ken stone."

 

 Tiamak paused for a moment. "What happened next is

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER749

 

 strange. Had I stayed in my swamp, I would not believe

 this tale from someone else. But I have seen things that

 have changed what I believe is possible."

 

 Isgrimnur nodded somberly. "As have I. Go on, man."

 

 "We were stopped at the gap, staring hopelessly at the

 bits of rubble working loose from the ragged edge and

 tumbling down into shadows."

 

 " 'So here it ends,' Miriamele said. I must say that she

 did not sound particularly upset. She was fey, Isgrimnur.

 She had worked as hard as any of us to stay alive, but she

 seemed to do it only to help the rest of us.

 

 " 'It is not over . ..' Cadrach said. The monk sank to

 his knees beside the edge of the pit and spread his hands

 flat over the nothingness. The tower was quivering itself

 apart, and it seemed to me that the man was praying

 although I admit I could think of nothing better to do at

 that point. As he did, he twisted his face like a man lifting

 a heavy load. At last he looked over his shoulder to

 Miriamele. 'Now cross,' he said. His voice was strained.

 

 " 'Cross?' She stared at him. There was anger on her

 face, strong anger. 'What final trick of yours is this?'

 

 " 'You once said ... only trust me again ... when stars

 shone at midday,' the monk said-softly. Every word was

 an effort. I could barely hear him, and 1 could not under-

 stand what he intended or what he was talking about.

 'You saw them,' he said. 'They were there.'

 

 "She looked at him for what seemed like a dreadfully

 long time as the tower trembled. Then she gently set Si-

 mon's shoulders down and took a step toward the pit. I

 reached out to pull her back, but Binabik stopped me. He

 had a strange look on his face. So did she, for that matter.

 So did Cadrach.

 

 "Miriamele closed her eyes, then stepped out from the

 edge. I was certain that she would fall down and be

 killed, and I may have shouted something, but she walked

 out onto the solid air as though the stone steps were still

 there. Isgrimnur, there was nothing beneath her feet!"

 

 "I believe you," the duke grunted. "I have been told

 Cadrach was once a mighty man."

 

 "She opened her eyes and did not look down, but

 

 750

 

 Tad Williams

 

 turned to Binabik and me and beckoned us to bring Si-

 mon. For the first time, there was something lively in her

 face again, but it was not happiness. We wrestled Simon

 downhe was groaning by then, awakeningand she

 reached up and took his feet, then began to back away

 over the nothingness. I could not believe what she was

 doingwhat / was about to do! I slitted my eyes'so I

 could see only Miriamele moving carefully downward,

 and followed her. Binabik was beside me, holding Si-

 mon's other shoulder. He looked between his feet, but

 then looked up again very quickly. Even a mountain-troll

 has some limits, it seems.

 

 "It took us a long time. There were still things like

 steps beneath us; we could not see them, and we had no

 idea how far to either side they extended, so we went

 very carefully. The tower was making deep moaning

 noises now, as though its roots were being plucked from

 the ground. If I live a thousand years, Isgrimnur, I will

 never forget walking across nothingness and trying to

 stay on my feet as everything pitched and tipped! He

 Who Always Steps on Sand was truly with us. Truly.

 

 "At last we reached a place where there was real stone.

 As I stepped onto it and let out my breath, I looked back.

 Cadrach was on the far side still. His face was gray as

 ashes and his sides were heaving. He looked like a

 drowning man before he sinks the last time. What

 strength did it take him to do what he had done? Nearly

 all, it seemed.

 

 "Miriamele turned and called to him to cross, but he

 only lifted his hand and sat back. He could barely speak.

 'Go on,' he said. 'You are not safe yet. That was all I

 had.' He smiledsmiled, Isgrimnur!and said: 'I am not

 the man I was.'

 

 'The princess cursed him and cursed him, but more

 rock was tumbling free, and Binabik and I shouted that

 there was nothing to be done, that if Cadrach could not,

 he could not. Miriamele looked down at Simon, then back

 at the monk. At last she said something I could not hear,

 then reached down for Simon's feet. As we hurried down

 the stairwell, I looked back and saw Cadrach sitting be-

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 751

 

 side the broken edge, and the light from the gray sky

 shone on him through the broken wall. His eyes were

 closed. He might have been praying, or just waiting.

 

 "We went down another flight, and then Simon was

 fighting to be let free. We set him down, since we could

 not carry him against his willhe is quite strong!but

 neither could we wait to see if his wits were about him.

 Binabik pulled at his wrist, talking to him all the while,

 and he stumbled along with us.

 

 "Dust was so thick from crumbling stone that I could

 barely breathe, and now there was fire, too, a blaze which

 had burned away one of the inner doors and was filling

 the stairwell with smoke. Beyond the windows we could

 see other pieces of the tower's upper stories topple past.

 Simon pointed to one of the windows and shouted we

 must go there. We thought he was addled, but he grabbed

 Miriamele and dragged her toward it.

 

 "He was not addled, or at least in this he was not, for

 outside the window was a porch of stoneperhaps it has

 some drylander nameand beyond it the edge of a wall.

 It was still a long drop to the ground, but the wall was not

 far away, only a little farther than I am tall. But the tower

 was shaking itself to pieces, and we almost fell from the

 porch. More pieces were dropping. Simon suddenly bent

 down and grabbed at Binabik, said something to him

 then flung him through the air! I was astonished! The troll

 landed on the edge of the wall, slipped a little on the

 snow, but held his balance. Miriamele went next, jumping

 without help; Binabik kept her from sliding off when she

 landed. Then Simon urged me, and I held my breath and

 jumped. I would have fallen if the other two had not been

 waiting, because the stone porch had begun to tip down-

 ward as I went, and I almost did not leap far enough.

 

 "Now Simon stood, trying to find his balance, and

 Miriamele was screaming at him to hurry, hurry, and

 Binabik was shouting, too. Simon leaped and landed,

 and as he did, most of the porch dropped away, crashing

 into the snow beneath. We all three caught at him and

 pulled him to safety before he toppled off the wall.

 

 "A few moments later the entire tower collapsed m on

 

 752

 

 Tad Williams

 

 itself with a noise like nothing I have ever heard, louder

 than any thunderstorm ... but you heard it. You know.

 Pieces of stone bigger than this tent smashed past us, but

 none hit the wall. Most of the tower fell inward, and a

 cloud of dust and snow and streaming smoke rose up as

 high as the tower had reached, then spread out across the

 castle grounds."':

 

 Tiamak took a deep breath. "We stood for a long time

 staring. It was as though I watched a god die. I learned

 later what Miriamele and the others had seen in the

 towertop, and that must have been stranger still. When we

 could think of moving again, Simon led us down through

 the throne room, past that astounding chair of bones, and

 out to meet you and the rest. I thanked my Wran deities

 that the fighting was all but overI could not have lifted

 a hand if a Nom had put a knife to my neck."

 He sat for a while, shaking his head.

 Isgrimnur cleared his throat. "So nothing could have

 survived, then. Even if Josua or Camaris lived until the

 end, they would have been crushed."

 

 "We will never know from what remains in that

 rubble," Tiamak said. "I cannot think we could

 recognize ..." He remembered Isorn. "Oh, Isgrimnur,

 please, please forgive me. I forgot."

 

 Isgrimnur shook his head. "The doors to the antecham-

 ber came open a short while before the endI suppose

 Pryrates' dying put an end to his deviltry, his magical

 wall or whatever it was. Some of the soldiers nearby

 pulled out those of the fallen they could before the tower

 began to collapse. I, at least, have my son's body." He

 looked down, struggling for composure, then sighed.

 "Thank you, Tiamak. I am sorry to make you remember."

 

 Tiamak laughed shakily. "I have not been able to stop

 talking about it. We are alt of us in this camp babbling

 away at each other like children, and have been since the

 tower fell, since . .. since everything happened."

 

 The duke stood, slowly and painfully. "I see

 Strangyeard coming. The others will meet us. Will you

 come along, Tiamak? These are important matters, and I

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 75:

 

 would like you to be with us when we talk. We need you

 wisdom."

 

 The Wrannaman gently bowed his head. "Of course

 Isgrimnur. Of course."

 

 A

 

 Simon wandered through the rubble of the Inner Bailey

 The melting snow had shrunk away to reveal patches o

 dead grass, and here and there a freshet of new plant lift

 which the sorcerous winter had not destroyed. The differ

 ent hues of green and brown were soothing to his eyes

 He had seen enough of black, ice-white, and blood-red t(

 last him several lifetimes.

 

 He only wished that everything followed such ordinar

 patterns of renewal. It was a short two days since thi

 tower had fallen and the Storm King had been van

 quished, a time when he and his friends should have beei

 rejoicing over their victory, yet here he was, wanderini-

 and brooding.

 

 He had slept through the night and the first day afte

 their escape, a thick, bone-weary slumber. Binabik hac

 come to him the second night, telling him stories, ex

 plaining, commiserating, then finally sitting with him ii

 silence until Simon fell asleep once more. Others had vis

 ited him throughout the morning of this second day,

 friends and acquaintances reaching out, proving to them-

 selves that he lived, just as the sight of these visitors

 showed Simon that the world still made a kind of sense.

 

 But Miriamele had not come.

 

 When the unclouded sun had begun to slide down past

 noon, he had nerved himself to go and see her. Binabik

 had assured him the night before that she lived and was

 not badly hurt, so he did not fear for her health, but the

 troll's reassurances had only made his other unhappiness

 stronger. If she was well, why had she not come to him or

 sent a message?

 

 He had found her at her tent, in conversation with

 Aditu, who earlier that morning had been one of his own

 visitors. Miriamele had greeted him in a friendly enough

 

 754

 

 Tad Williams

 

 fashion, and had exclaimed sorrowfully over his various

 wounds, as he had over hers, but when he expressed his

 sadness over the deaths of her uncle and father, she had

 suddenly grown cold and remote.

 

 Simon wanted to believe it was no more than the justi-

 fiable bitterness of someone who had lived through a ter-

 rible time and had lost her familynot to mention .her

 own unhappy role in her father's deathbut he could not

 fool himself that there was nothing more to her reaction

 than that. She had been reacting to him, too, as though

 something about Simon still made her dreadfully uncom-

 fortable. It made him miserable to see that distance in her

 eyes after all they had been through together, but he had

 also felt fury, wondering why he should be treated as

 though it had been his cruelty to her that had marred their

 trip into Erkynland, instead of the other way around. Al-

 though he had struggled to hide this anger, things had

 only grown chillier between them, and at last he had ex-

 cused himself and gone out into the wind.

 

 Into the wind and up the hill he had gone, to wander

 now through the slushy grounds of the abandoned

 Hayholt.

 

 Simon paused, staring at the great pile of spread rubble

 that had once been Green Angel Tower. Small figures

 moved in the ruins, Erchester-folk scavenging for any-

 thing worth saving, either to trade for food or as a keep-

 sake of what was already a fabled event.

 

 It was strange, Simon reflected. He had gone as deep

 into the earth as anyone could, and had climbed equally

 as high, but he had not changed very much. He was a lit-

 tle stronger, perhaps, but he guessed that was a strength

 mostly caused by the inflexibility of scarred places; other

 than that, he was much the same. A kitchen boy, Pryrates

 had called him. The priest had been right. Despite his

 knighthood, despite all else that had happened, there

 would always be the heart of a scullion inside him.

 

 Something caught his eye and he bent forward. A green

 hand lay at the bottom of the gulley beside his feet, fin-

 gers protruding from the mud in a frozen gesture of re-

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 755

 

 lease. Simon leaned forward and scraped away some of

 the soggy clay, exposing an arm, then finally a bronze

 face.

 

 It was the angel of the towertop, fallen to the earth. He

 poured a handful of puddle water over the high-boned

 face, clearing the eyes. They were open, but no life was

 in them. It was a tumbled statue, nothing more.

 

 Simon stood up and wiped his hands on his breeches.

 Let someone else drag it from the muck and take it home.

 Let it sit in the corner of someone's cottage and whisper

 to them beguiling stories of the depths and heights.

 

 But as he trudged away across the commons yard, turn-

 ing his back on the wreckage of the tower, the angel's

 voiceLeieth's voicecame back to him.

 

 "These truths are too strong," she had said, "the myths

 and lies around them too great. You must see them and

 you must understand/or yourself. But this has been your

 story."

 

 And she had showed him important things indeed. The

 proof of that, at least in part, lay scattered over a thou-

 sand cubits of ground behind him. But there had been

 more, something that had teased at the edge of his under-

 standing, but which time and circumstance had kept him

 from pondering. Now the curious thread of memory came

 back to him, and would not be denied. He had come clos-

 est to seeing it in the throne room....

 

 His footsteps echoed across the tiles. There was no

 other sound. This was a place no one had yet come to

 scavengethe mute specter of the Dragonbone Chair was

 enough to raise fearful hackles in the best of times, and

 these had not been the best of times.

 

 The afternoon light, warmer than the last time he had

 been here, spilled down from the windows and gave a lit-

 tle color to the strew of fading banners, although the mal-

 achite kings were stil! cloaked in their own black stone

 shadows. Simon remembered a void of spreading noth-

 ingness and hesitated, his heart pounding, but he swal-

 lowed his momentary fear and stepped forward. That

 blackness was gone. That king was dead.

 

 In full daylight the great throne looked less daunting

 

 756

 

 Tad Williams

 

 than he remembered it. The great toothy mouth still men-

 aced, but some vitality it had once had seemed gone.

 There was nothing in the eye sockets but cobwebs. Even

 the massive cage of wired bones sagged in places, and it

 was clear that some were missing, although none lay

 around the chair. Simon had a dim recollection of seeing

 yellowed bones somewhere else, but pushed it away:

 

 something different had caught his attention.

 

 Eahlstan Fiskerne. He stood before the stone statue and

 examined it, trying to find the thing that would scratch

 the itching spot in his memory. When he had seen the

 martyr-king's face in his Dream Road vision, there had

 been something familiar about it. In the throne room be-

 fore, on his way to the tower, he had thought the resem-

 blance was to the statue he had looked at so often. But

 now he knew there was something else familiar about the

 face. It was much like another, one he had also seen many

 timesin Jiriki's mirror, in reflecting ponds, in the shiny

 surface of a shield. Eahlstan looked much like Simon.

 

 He lifted his hand and stared at the golden ring, re-

 membering. The Fisher King's people had gone into ex-

 ile, and Prester John had later come to claim the killing of

 the dragon and with it the throne of Erkynland. Morgenes

 had entrusted him with the ring that told that secret.

 

 "This is your story," the angel had said. Who else to

 entrust with the knowledge and record of Eahlstan's

 house than .. . Eahlstan's heir?

 

 As he stood before the statue, the sudden, certain

 knowledge splashed him like cold water, raising

 goosebumps of fear and wonder.

 

 Much of the afternoon slid by as Simon paced back and

 forth across the empty throne room, lost in thought. He

 was staring at Eahlstan's statue again when he heard a

 noise in the doorway behind him. He turned to see Duke

 Isgrimnur and a few others filing into the chamber.

 

 The duke looked him over carefully. "Ah. So you

 know, do you?"

 

 A

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 757

 

 The young man said nothing, but his face was full o!

 conflicting emotions. Isgrimnur observed Simon care-

 fully, wondering how this could be the same person as the

 stripling brought to him on the plains south of Naglimund

 a year before, draped like a sack across the saddle of a

 riderless horse.

 

 He had been tall even then, although surely not this

 tall, and the thick reddish beard had been only soft boy-

 whiskersbut there was more to the change. Simon had

 developed an air of calm, a stillness that might have been

 either strength or unconcern. Isgrimnur worried more

 than a little about what the boy might have become: what

 had happened to Simon seemed to have changed that

 stripling of a year ago beyond reclaiming, almost beyond

 recognizing. His childhood had been burned away. and

 now only manhood remained.

 

 "I think I have realized some things, yes," Simon said

 at last. He carefully smoothed all expression from his

 face. "But I do not think they matter very mucheven to

 me."

 

 Isgrimnur made a noncommittal sound. "Well. We have

 been looking for you."

 

 "Here I am."

 

 As the group moved forward, Simon nodded toward the

 duke, then greeted Tiamak, Strangyeard, Jiriki, and Aditu.

 As Simon said a few quiet words to the Sithi, Isgrimnur

 saw for the first time how like them the young man had

 become, at least at this momentreserved, careful, stow

 to speak. The duke shook his head. Who would ever have

 imagined such a thing?

 

 "Are you well, Simon?" asked Strangyeard.

 

 The youth shrugged and offered a half-smile. "My

 wounds are healing." He turned to Isgrimnur. "Jeremias

 brought me your message. I would have come to your

 tent, you know, but Jeremias insisted you would come to

 me when you were ready." He looked around the small

 company, his face closed and careful. "It looks like

 you're ready now, but you've come a long way up from

 camp to find me. Do you have more questions to ask?"

 

 "Among other things." The duke watched the others

 

 758

 

 Tad Williams

 

 seat themselves on the stone floor and made a face. Simon

 smiled with good-natured mockery and motioned to the

 Dragonbone Chair. Isgrimnur shook his head, shuddering.

 

 "Very well, then." Simon collected a stack of fallen ban-

 ners and put them down on the step below the throne dais.

 

 With only one good arm, Isgrimnur took a little time to

 lower himself to the makeshift seat, but he was determined

 to do it without leaning on anyone. "I am glad to see you

 up and around, Simon," he said when he could talk with-

 out breathing hard. "You did not look well this morning."

 

 The young man nodded and eased down beside him.

 He moved slowly, too, nursing many hurts, but Isgrimnur

 knew he would heal soon. The duke could not help feel-

 ing a sharp twinge of envy. "Where are Binabik and

 Miriamele?" asked Simon.

 

 "Binabik will be here soon," Strangyeard offered.

 "And ... and Miriamele ..."

 

 The youth's calm evaporated. "She's still here, isn't

 she? She hasn't run off, or been hurt?"

 

 Tiamak waved his hand. "No, Simon. She is in camp

 and healing, just as you. But she . . ." He turned to

 Isgrimnur, seeking help.

 

 "But there are things to be discussed without

 Miriamele here," the duke said bluntly. "That is all."

 

 Simon absorbed this. "Very well. / have questions."

 

 Isgrimnur nodded. "Ask them." He had been expecting

 this since he saw Simon standing in mute absorption be-

 fore the statue of Eahlstan.

 

 "Binabik said yesterday that bringing the swords was a

 trick, a 'false messenger'that Pryrates and the Storm

 King wanted them all the time." Simon pushed at one of

 the sodden banners with the heel of his boot. "They

 needed them so they could turn back time to before

 Ineluki's last spell, before all the wards and prayers and

 whatnot had been laid on the Hayholt."

 

 "All of us outside saw the castle change," the duke said

 slowly, caught off balance by Simon's question. He had

 been certain the youth would want to ask about his newly-

 discovered history. "Even as we fought against the Noms,

 the Hayholt just ... melted away. There were strange tow-

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

 759

 

 ers everywhere, and fires burning. I thought I saw . . .

 ghosts, I suppose they wereghosts of Sithi and Rimmers-

 men in ancient costume. They were at war. right in the

 midst of our own battle. What else could it have been?"

 The clean afternoon light flooding in through the high win-

 dows suddenly made it all seem unreal to Isgrimnur. Just

 days ago, the world had been gripped by sorcerous madness

 and deadly winter storms. Now a bird twittered outside.

 

 Simon shook his head. "I believe that. I was there. It

 was worse inside. But why did they need us to bring the

 swords? Bright-Nail was less than a league away from

 Pryrates for two years. And surely, if they had really

 tried, they could have taken Thorn, either when we were

 coming back from Yiqanuc or when it was lying on a

 stone slab in Leavetaking House up on Sesuad'ra. It

 doesn't make sense."

 

 Jiriki spoke up. "Yes, this is perhaps the hardest matter

 of all to understand, Seoman. I can explain some of it. As

 we were struggling with Utuk'ku at the Pool of Three

 Depths, much of her thought was revealed to us. She did

 not shield herself, but rather used that strength in her

 fight to capture and use the Pool. She believed there was

 little at that point we could do even if we understood the

 truth." His slow hand-spread seemed a gesture of regret.

 "She was correct."

 

 "You held her off a long while," Simon pointed out.

 "And at a great price, from what I heard. Who knows

 what might have happened if the Storm King hadn't been

 forced to wait?"

 

 Jiriki smiled thinly. "Of all of who fought beside the

 Pool, Likimeya understood the most in the short time we

 touched Utuk'ku's thoughts. My mother is recovering

 very slowly from the battle with her ancestor, but she has

 confirmed much that the rest of us suspected.

 

 "The swords were almost living things. That will come

 as no surprise to anyone who bore one of them. A large

 part of their might was, as Binabik of Mintahoq suspected,

 the unwordly forces bound by the Words of Making. But

 almost as much of their power was in the effect those

 Words had. Somehow, the swords had life. They were not

 

 760 Tad Williams

 

 creatures like usthey had nothing in them that humans

 or even Sithi can fully understandyet they lived. This

 was what made them greater than any other weapons, but

 it was also what made them difficult for anyone to rule or

 control. They could be calledtheir hunger to be together

 and to release their energies would eventually draw them

 to the towerbut they could not be compelled. Part of-the

 terrible magic the Storm King needed for his plan to suc-

 ceed, perhaps the most important part, was that the swords

 must come to the summoning themselves at the proper

 time. They must choose their own bearers."

 

 Isgrimnur watched Simon think carefully before speak-

 ing. "But Binabik also told me that the night Miriamele

 and I left Josua's camp, the Norns tried to kill Camaris.

 But the sword had already chosen himchosen him a

 long time ago! So why would they want him dead?"

 

 in

 

 "I may have the beginning of the answer to that,"

 Strangyeard spoke up. He was still nearly as diffident a^,

 when Isgrimnur had first met him years before, but a little

 boldness had begun to show through in recent days.

 "When we fled Naglimund, the Noms who pursued us be-

 haved very strangely. Sir Deomoth was the first to realize

 that they were ... oh!" The archivist looked up, startled.

 

 A gray shape had rushed into the throne room. It

 bounded up onto the steps before the dais, knocking Si-

 mon onto his side. The young man laughed, tangling his

 fingers in the wolf's hackles, trying to keep the probing

 muzzle and long tongue from his face.

 

 "She is full of gladness to see you, Simon!" Binabik

 called. He was just coming through the doorway, trotting

 in a futile effort to keep pace with Qantaqa. "She has been

 waiting long to bring you greeting. I was keeping her away

 before, while your wounds were new-bandaged." The troll

 hurried forward, distractedly greeting the rest of the com-

 pany as he wrestled Qantaqa to the stone floor beside the

 dais. She yielded, then stretched out between Binabik and

 Simon, huge and content. "You will be pleased for know-

 ing I have found Homefinder this afternoon," the troll told

 the young man. "She wandered away from the fighting

 and was roaming in the depths of the Kynswood."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER761

 

 "Homefinder." Simon said the name slowly. "Thank

 you, Binabik. Thank you."

 

 "I will take you for seeing her later."

 

 When all had settled in once more, Strangyeard contin-

 ued. "Sir Deornoth was the first to see that they were not

 so much chasing us as ... herding us. They drove us out

 in fnght, but they did not kill us when they surely could

 have. And they only became desperate to stop us when

 we turned toward the innermost depths of Aldheorte."

 

 "Toward Jao e-Tinukai'i," said Aditu softly.

 

 ".. . And they also killed Amerasu when she had begun

 to see Ineluki's plan." Simon pondered. "But I still do not

 see why they tried to kill Camaris."

 

 Jiriki spoke. "They were content when you had the

 sword, Seoman, although I am sure it made Utuk'ku un-

 happy when Ingen Jegger brought her the news that Dawn

 Children accompanied you. Still, she and Ineluki must

 have thought it doubtful we would so quickly grasp what

 they plannedand as it turned out, they were correct.

 Only First Grandmother perceived the lineaments of their

 plot. They removed her and sowed much other confusion

 beside. For those who dwelled in Stormspike, the Zida'ya

 were then little threat. They must'have felt sure that when

 the time came, the black sword would select you or the

 Rimmersman Sludig or someone else to be its bearer.

 Josua would come for Bright-Nailhis father's sword,

 after alland the final rituals could take place."

 

 "But Camaris came back," said Simon. "I suppose they

 didn't suspect that might happen. Still, he had carried

 Thorn for decades. It only makes sense the sword would

 choose him again. Why should they fear him?"

 

 Strangyeard cleared his throat. "Sir Camaris, may God

 rest his troubled soul" the priest quickly sketched the

 Tree, "confessed to me what he could not tell others.

 That confession must go with me to my grave."

 Strangyeard shook his head. "Ransomer preserve him!

 But the reason he confessed to me at all was that Aditu

 and Geloe wished to know whether he had traveled to Jao

 ... whether he had met Amerasu. He had."

 

 "He told Prince Josua his secret, I am sure," muttered

 

 762 Tad Williams

 

 Isgrimnur. Remembering that night, and Josua's terrible

 expression, he wondered again at what mere words could

 have made the prince look as he had. "But Josua is dead,

 too, God rest him. We will never know."

 

 "But even though Father Strangyeard swears that it had

 nothing to do with our battles here," Jiriki said. "it seems

 that Utuk'ku and her ally did not know that. Nakkiga's

 queen knew that Amerasu had met Camarisperhaps she

 somehow gleaned the knowledge from First Grandmother

 herself during their tests of will- Having Camaris suddenly

 and unexpectedly appear on the scene, perhaps with some

 special wisdom Amerasu might have given him, and also

 with his long experience of one of the Great Swords ..."

 Jiriki shook his head. "We cannot know, but it seems they

 decided it was too much of a risk. They must have thought

 that with Camaris dead, the sword would find a new

 bearer, one less likely to complicate their scheme. After

 all, Thorn was not a loyal creature like Binabik's wolf."

 

 Simon leaned back and stared at nothing. "So all our

 hopes, our quest for the swords, were a trap. And we

 walked into it like children." He scowled. Isgrimnur knew

 that it was himself he berated.

 

 "It was a damnably clever trap," the duke offered.

 "One that must have been a-building for a long time. And

 in the end they failed."

 

 "Are we sure?" Simon turned to Jiriki. "Do we know

 they've failed?"

 

 "Isgrimnur has told how the Hikeda'ya fled when the

 tower fellthose that still lived. I am not sorry that he

 did not pursue them, for they are few now, and our kind

 give birth infrequently. Many died at Naglimund, and

 many here. The fact that they fled instead of fighting to

 the death tells much: they are broken."

 

 "Even after Utuk'ku wrested control of the Pool from

 us," Aditu said, "we fought her still. And when Ineluki

 began to cross over, we felt it." The long pause was elo-

 quent. "It was terrible. But we also felt it when his mortal

 bodyKing Elias' bodydied. Ineluki had abandoned

 the nowhere-ptace which had been his refuge, and risked

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER76^

 

 final dissolution to enter back into the world. He risked,

 and he lost. There is surely nothing left of him."

 

 Simon raised an eyebrow. "And Utuk'ku?"

 

 "She lives, but her power is destroyed. She, too, gam-

 bled much, and it was through her magics that InelukTs

 being could be fixed in the tower during the moment when

 Time was turned withershins. The failure blasted her."

 Adilu fixed him with her amber eyes. "I saw her, Seoman,

 saw her in my thoughts as clearly as if she stood before

 me. The fires of Stormspike have gone dark and the halls

 are empty. She is all but alone, her silver mask shattered."

 

 "You mean you saw her? Saw her face?"

 

 Aditu inclined her head. "Horror of her own antiquity

 made her hide her features long agobut to you, Seoman

 Snowlock, she would seem nothing but an old woman.

 Her features are lined and sagging, her skin mottled.

 Utuk'ku Seyt-Hamakha is the Eldest, but her wisdom was

 corrupted by selfishness and vanity ages ago. She was

 ashamed that the years had caught up with her. And now

 even the terror and strength she wielded is gone."

 

 "So the power of Sturmrspeik and the White Foxes is

 finished," Isgrimnur said. "We have suffered many losses,

 but we could have lost far mo're, Simonlost everything.

 We have much to thank you and Binabik for."

 

 "And Miriamele," Simon said quietly.

 

 "And Miriamele, of course."

 

 The young man looked at the gathering, then turned

 back to the duke. "There's more brings you here, I know.

 You answered my questions. What are yours?"

 

 Isgrimnur couldn't help noticing how Simon's confi-

 dence had grown. He was still courteous, but his voice

 suggested that he deferred to no one. Which was as it

 should be. But there was an undercurrent of anger which

 made Isgrimnur hesitate before speaking. "Jiriki has been

 talking to me about you, about your ... heritage. I was

 astonished, I must say, but I can only believe him, since

 it fits with everything else we've learnedabout John,

 about the Sithi, everything. I thought we would be bring-

 ing you the news, but something in your face told me you

 had already discovered it."

 

 764

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Simon's lips quirked in an odd half-smile. "I did."

 

 "So you know that you are of the blood of Eahlstan

 Fiskerne," Isgrimnur forged on, "last king of Erkynland

 in the centuries before Prester John."

 

 "And the founder of the Scroll League," Binabik added.

 

 "And the one who truly killed the dragon," Simon said

 dryly. "What of it?" Despite his calm, something intense

 and powerful moved beneath the surface. Isgrimnur was

 puzzled.

 

 Before Isgrimnur could say anything more, Jiriki spoke.

 "I am sorry I could not tell you earlier what I knew,

 Seoman, my friend. I feared it could only burden and con-

 fuse you, or perhaps lead you to take dangerous risks."

 

 "I understand," Simon said, but he did not sound

 pleased. "How did you know?"

 

 "Eahlstan Fiskerne was the first mortal king after the

 fall of Asu'a to reach out to the Zida'ya." The sun was

 setting outside, and the sky beyond the windows was

 turning dark. A brisk wind coursed through the throne

 room and ruffled some of the banners on the floor. Jiriki's

 white hair fluttered. "He knew us, and some of our folk

 came at times to meet with him in the caverns below the

 Hayholtin the ruins of our home. He feared that what

 we Zida'ya knew would be lost forever, and even that we

 might turn against humankind entirely after the destruc-

 tion that Fingil had wrought. He was not far wrong. There

 has been little love for mortals among my folk- There was

 also little love for immortals among Eahlstan's own kind.

 But as the years of his reign passed, small steps were

 taken, small confidences exchanged, and a delicate trust

 began to build. We who were involved kept it a secret."

 Jiriki smiled. "I say 'we,' but I myself was only the

 message-bearer, running errands for First Grandmother,

 who could not let her continuing interest in mortals be

 widely known, even within her own family."

 

 "I was always jealous of you, Willow-Switch," said

 Aditu, laughing. "So young, and yet with such important

 tasks!"

 

 Jiriki smiled. "In any case, whatever might have been

 if Eahlstan had lived and his line had continued did not

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 765

 

 come to pass. The fire-worm Shurakai came, and in kill-

 ing it, Eahlstan was himself killed. Whether his eventual

 successor John knew something of Eahlstan's secret deal-

 ings with us and feared we would expose John's lie that

 he was the dragon-slayer or there was some other reason

 for his enmity toward us, I do not know. But John set out

 to drive us from the last of our hiding places. He did not

 find them all, and never came near to discovering Jao

 e-Tinukai'i, but he did us great harm. Almost all our con-

 tact with mortals ended during John's life."

 

 Simon folded his hands. "I am sorry for the things my

 people have done. And I am glad to know my ancestor

 was such a man."

 

 "Eahlstan's folk scattered before the wrath of the

 dragon. Eventually they settled into their exile, I am

 told," Jiriki said. "And when John came and conquered,

 all hope of regaining the Hayholt was gone. So they

 nursed their secret and went on, a fishing folk living close

 to the waters as they had been in the days of Eahlstan

 Fiskerne's ancestors. But Eahlstan's ring they kept in the

 royal family, and passed it down from parent to child.

 One of Eahlstan's great-grandchildren, a scholar like his

 forebear, studied the old Sithi runes from one of

 Eahlstan's treasured scrolls, then had the motto that was

 the family's prideand Prester John's secret shame

 inscribed upon the ring. That was what Morgenes held in

 trust for you, Seoman: your past."

 

 "And I'm certain he would have told me some day."

 Simon had listened to Jiriki's tale with poorly-hidden ten-

 sion. Isgrimnur stared, looking for the cracks in Simon's

 nature that he half-expected, but feared, to see. "But what

 has it to do with anything now? All the royal blood in the

 world did not make me less of a dupe for Pryrates and the

 Storm King. It's a pretty tale, no more. Half the noble

 houses in Nabban must have Imperators in their history.

 What of it?" His jaw was set belligerently.

 

 Several of the company turned to Isgrimnur- The duke

 moved uncomfortably on the step. "Erkynland needs a

 ruler," he said at last. "The Dragonbone Chair is empty."

 

 Simon's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again.

 

 766 Tad Williams

 

 "And... ?" he said at last. He stared at Isgrimnur dis-

 trustfully. "Miriamele is in good health and has only a

 few wounds. In fact. she is just the same as she ever

 was,"the bitterness in his voice was plain"so surely

 she will soon be able to rule."

 

 "It is not her health that concerns us," said the duke

 gruffly. Somewhere, this conversation had gone wrong,

 Simon was acting like one awakened from his rightful

 sleep by a group of misbehaving children. "It isdamn

 it, it's her father!"

 

 "But Elias is dead. She killed him herself. With the

 White Arrow of the Sithi." Simon turned to Jiriki. "Come

 to think of it, since that arrow certainly saved my life, I

 suppose we have evened our debt."

 

 The Sitha did not respond. The immortal's face was, as

 usual, unrevealing, but something in his posture sug-

 gested he was troubled.

 

 "The people have suffered so under Elias that they may

 not trust Miriamele," Isgrimnur said. "It's foolish, I know,

 but there it is. If Josua had lived, they might have wel-

 comed him with open arms. The barons know the prince

 resisted Elias ever since he began to go bad, that he suf-

 fered terribly and fought his way back from exile. But

 Josua is dead."

 

 "Miriamele did all those things, too!" Simon cried an-

 grily. "This is nonsense!"

 

 "We know, Simon," said Tiamak. "I traveled with her

 a long way. Many of us know of her bravery."

 

 "Yes, I know it, too," Isgrimnur growled, his own irri-

 tation flaring. "But what is true does not matter here. She

 fled Naglimund before the siege started and she did not

 reach Sesuad'ra until after Fengbald had been defeated.

 Then she vanished again, and wound up in the Hayholt

 with her father at the very ending." He grimaced. "And

 there are tales, doubtless spread by that whoreson Aspitis

 Preves, that she was his doxy while he served Pryrates.

 Rumors are flying."

 

 "But some of those things are true of me, too. Am / a

 traitor?"

 

 "Miriamele is not a traitor. God knowsand / know."

 

 TOGRhPNANGELTOWER767

 

 Isgrimnur glared at him. "But after what her father has

 done, she may not be trusted. The people want someone

 on the throne they can trust."

 

 "Madness!" Simon slapped his hands against his

 thighs, then turned to the Sithi. He seemed ready to burst.

 "What do you two think of this?" he demanded.

 

 "We do not concern ourselves in these kind of mortal

 affairs," Jiriki said a little stiffly.

 

 "You are our friend, Seoman," Aditu added. "Whatever

 we can do for you to help you in this time, we will. How-

 ever, we also have only respect for Miriamele, though we

 know her but little."

 

 Simon turned to the troll. "Binabik?"

 

 The little man shrugged. "I cannot say. Isgrimnur and

 the rest of you must be making decisions to settle it your-

 selves. You and Miriamele are both my friends. If you are

 wishing advice later, Simon, we will take Qantaqa off for

 walking and we will speak."

 

 "Speak about what? People telling lies about

 Miriamele?"

 

 Isgrimnur cleared his throat. "He means he will talk to

 you about accepting the crown of Erkynland."

 

 Simon turned back to stare at.the duke. This time, for

 all his newfound maturity, the young man could not hide

 any of his feelings. "You are ... you are offering me the

 throne?" he asked derisively, incredulously. "This is mad-

 ness! Me? A kitchen boy!"

 

 Isgrimnur could not help smiling. "You are much more

 than a kitchen boy. Your deeds are already filling up

 songs and stories everywhere between here and Nabban.

 Wait until the Battle in the Tower is added to the tally."

 

 "Aedon preserve me," Simon said in disgust.

 

 "But there are more important things." The duke grew

 serious. "You are well-liked and well-known. Not only

 did you battle a dragon, you fought bravely for Sesuad'ra

 and Josua, and people remember that. And now we can

 tell them that you have the blood of Saint Eahlstan

 Fiskerne, one of the most beloved men ever to hold a

 throne. In fact, it if weren't true, I would be tempted to

 make it up."

 

 768 Tad Williams

 

 "But it doesn't mean anything?" Simon exploded.

 "Don't you think I've thought about it? I've been doing

 nothing but thinking since the moment I realized. I am a

 scullion who was taught by a very wise, very kind man.

 I have been lucky in my friends. I have been caught up in

 terrible things, I did what I had to, and I lived through it.

 None of that has anything to do with who my great-great-

 however-many-greats-grandfather was!"

 

 Isgrimnur waited a few moments after Simon finished,

 letting some of the youth's anger pass. "But don't you

 see," the duke said gently, "it doesn't matter whether it

 changes anything or not. As I said, I don't think it really

 matters much if it's true or not. Dror's red mallet, Simon,

 Prester John's story was a mytha lie! I've had to strug-

 gle with that discovery myself in the last few days. But

 does it make him any less a king? People need to believe

 something whether you want them to or not. If you don't

 give them things to believe, they will make things up.

 

 "Right now they are frightened of the future. Most of

 the world we know is in a shambles, Simon. And the sur-

 vivors are wary of Miriamele because of who she is and

 because of uncertainty about what she's doneand be-

 cause she's a young woman, to speak bluntly. The barons

 want a man, someone strong but not too strong, and they

 want no civil wars over a reigning queen's choice of hus-

 bands." Isgrimnur reached out to touch Simon's arm, but

 decided against it and drew his hand back. "Listen to me.

 The people who followed Josua love you, Simon, almost

 as much as they loved the prince. More in some ways,

 perhaps. You know and I know that what blood flows in

 you makes no differenceit's all red. But your people

 need to believe in something, and they are cold and hurt-

 ing and homeless."

 

 Simon stared at him. Isgrimnur could not help feeling

 the force of the young man's rage. He had grown indeed.

 He would be a formidable manno, he was so already.

 

 "And for such tricks you would have me betray

 Miriameie?" Simon demanded.

 

 "Not betray," Isgrimnur said. "I will give you a few

 days to think about it, then I will go and put it to her my-

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER769

 

 self. We will bury our dead tomorrow, and the people will

 see us all together. That will be enough for now." The

 duke shook his head. "I'm not going to lie to her,

 Simonthat's not my waybut I wanted you to have a

 chance to hear me first." He suddenly felt immensely

 sorry for the young man.

 

 He probably thought he would have a chance to lick his

 wounds in peaceand he's got plenty of them. We all do.

 

 "Think about it, Simon. We need youall of us. It will

 be hard enough for me to pull my own dukedom together,

 not to mention what will happen to young Varellan, or-

 phaned in Nabban, and whoever still remains in

 Hernystir. We need at least the appearance of the High

 King's Ward again, and someone the people trust sitting

 on the throne at the Hayholt."

 

 He rose from the low stair, trying not to show how

 much his back hurt, bowed stiffly to Simonwhich in it-

 self was an odd sensationand stumped away across the

 throne room, leaving the rest of the circle in silence. He

 could feel Simon's eyes on his back.

 

 God help me, Isgrimnur thought as he emerged into the

 twilight. / need a rest. A long rest.

 

 *

 

 He looked up from the fire at the sound of footsteps.

 "Bmabik?"

 

 She moved forward into the light. Despite the cool

 spring night and the patches of still unmelted snow, her

 feet were bare. Her cloak fluttered in the breeze that

 swept down the hillside from the Hayholt.

 

 "I couldn't sleep," she said.

 

 For a moment Simon hesitated. He had not expected

 anyone, least of all her. After the day-long memorial for

 Josua, Camaris, Isom, and the other dead, Binabik had

 gone off to spend the evening with Strangyeard and

 Tiamak, leaving Simon alone to sit before his tent and

 think. Her arrival seemed a thing he might have dreamed

 while staring into the campfire.

 

 "Miriamele." He clambered awkwardly to his feet.

 

 770

 

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 "Princess. Sit down, please." He gestured to a stone near

 the fire.

 

 She sat, drawing her cloak close around her. "Are you

 well?" she asked at last.

 

 "I'm . . ." He paused. "I don't know. Things are

 strange."

 

 She nodded. "It's hard to believe it's finished. It's hard

 to believe they're all gone forever."

 

 He moved uncomfortably, not certain if she spoke of

 friends or enemies. "There are still lots of things to be

 done. People are scattered, the world has been turned

 upside-down. . . ." Simon waved his hand vaguely.

 "There's lots to do."

 

 Miriamele leaned forward, stretching her hands toward

 the fire. Simon watched the light play across her delicate

 features and felt his heart clutch hopelessly. All the royal

 blood in the world might run in his veins, rivers of it, but

 it did not matter if she did not care for him. During all of

 today's rites for the fallen, she had not once met his eyes.

 Even their friendship seemed to have faded.

 

 It would serve her right if I let them force me to take the

 throne. He turned away to stare at the flames, feeling low

 and mean-spirited. But it is hers by right. She was Prester

 John's granddaughter. What difference did it make that

 some ancestor of Simon's had been king two centuries ago?

 

 "I killed him, Simon," she said abruptly. "I traveled al!

 that way to speak to him, to try to let him know I under-

 stood ... but instead I killed him." There was devastation

 in her words. "Killed him!"

 

 Simon searched frantically for something to say. "You

 saved us all, Miriamele."

 

 "He was a good man, Simon. Loud and short-tempered,

 perhaps, but he was . . . before my mother . , ," She

 blinked her eyes rapidly. "My own father!"

 

 "You had no other choice." Simon ached to see her in

 such pain. 'There was nothing else you could have done,

 Miri. You saved us."

 

 "He knew me at the end. May God help me, Simon, I

 think he wanted me to do it. I looked at him ... and he

 was so unhappy. He was in so much pain!" She rubbed at

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 771

 

 her face with her cloak. "I will not cry," she said harshly.

 "I am so weary of crying!"

 The wind grew stronger, sighing through the grass.

 "And sweet Uncle Josua!" she said, more quietly now, but

 with a core of urgency. "Gone, like everyone else. Gone. All

 my family gone. And poor, tormented Camaris. Ah, God.

 What kind of a world is this?" Her shoulders were heaving.

 Simon reached out and awkwardly took her hand. She did

 not try to pull away, as he felt sure she would. Instead, they

 sat in silence except for the crackling of the fire. "And

 C-Cadrach, too," she murmured at last. "Oh, Merciful Ely-

 sia, in some ways he is the worst. He wanted only to die, but

 he waited for me ... for us. He stayed, despite all that had

 happened, despite all the terrible things I said to him." She

 lowered her head, staring at the ground. Her voice was pain-

 fully raw. "In his way, he loved me. That was cruel of him,

 wasn't it?"

 

 Simon shook his head. There was nothing to say.

 She suddenly turned to him, eyes wide. "Let's go

 away! We can take the horses and be half a dozen leagues

 from here by morning. I don't want to be a queen!" She

 squeezed his hand. "Oh, please don't leave me!"

 

 "Go away? Where? And why would I leave you?" Si-

 mon felt his heart speed. It was hard to think, hard to be-

 lieve he had truly understood her. "Miriamele, what are

 you talking about?"

 

 "Curse you, Simon! Are you really as foolish as people

 used to think you were?" She now grasped his hand in

 both of hers; tears gleamed on her cheeks. "I don't care

 if you were a kitchen boy. I don't care that your father

 was a fisherman. I only want you, Simon. Oh, do you

 think I'm an idiot? I am an idiot, I suppose." Her laugh

 had a touch of wildness to it. She let go of his hand for

 a moment to wipe at her eyes again. "I've been brooding

 about this ever since the tower fell. I can't stand it! Uncle

 Isgrimnur and the others, they're going to make me take

 the throne, I know they will. And I'll go back to being the

 old Miriamele again, except this time it will be a thou-

 sand, thousand times worse! It will be a prison. And then

 I'll have to marry some other Fengbaldjust because

 

 772 Tad Williams

 

 he's dead doesn't mean there aren't a hundred more just

 like himand I'll never have another adventure, or be

 free, or do what I want to ... and you'll go away, Simon!

 I'll lose you! The only one I really care about."

 

 He stood, then pulled her up from the stone so he could

 put his arms around her. They were both shaking, and for

 a little time all he could do was grapple her to him and

 hang on, as though the wind might sweep her away.

 

 "I've loved you so long, Miriamele." He could not

 keep his voice steady.

 

 "You frighten me. You don't know how you frighten

 me." Her voice was muffled against his chest. "I don't

 know what you see when you look at me. But please

 don't go away," she said urgently. "Whatever happens,

 don't go away."

 

 "I won't." He leaned back so he could see her. Her

 eyes were bright, fresh tears trembling on the lower

 lashes. His own eyes were blurring as well. He laughed;

 

 his voice cracked. "I won't leave you. I promised I

 wouldn't, don't you remember?"

 

 "Sir Seoman. My Simon. You are my love," She

 sucked in her breath. "How did it happen?"

 

 He leaned forward, pressing his mouth against hers, and

 as they clung to each other the starry sky seemed to spin

 around the place where they stood. Simon's hands moved

 beneath her cloak and he ran his lingers down the long

 muscles of her back. Miriameie shuddered and pulled him

 closer, rubbing her damp face against his neck.

 

 Feeling the length of her pressed against him filled Si-

 mon with a kind of drunken, joyous madness. With his

 arms still locked around her, he took a few staggering

 steps toward the tent. He tasted the salt of her tears and

 covered her eyes and cheeks and lips with kisses as her

 hair swirled around him and stuck to his damp face.

 

 Inside the tent, hidden from the prying stars, they

 wrapped themselves tightly around each other, clutching,

 drowning together. The wind plucked at the tent cloth, the

 only sound beside the rustle of clothes and the urgent hiss

 of their breathing.

 

 For a moment the wind tugged the tent door open. In

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER773

 

 the thin starlight, her skin was pale as ivory, so smooth

 and warm beneath his fingers that he could not imagine

 ever wanting to touch anything else. His hand slid across

 the curve of her breast and ran down her hip. He felt

 something catch inside him, something almost like terror,

 but sweet, so sweet. She held his face between her hands

 and drank his breath, murmuring wordlessly all the while,

 gasping quietly as his mouth moved down her neck and

 onto the delicate arch of her collarbone.

 

 He pulled her closer, wanting to devour her, wanting to

 be devoured. His eyes overspitled with tears.

 

 "I've loved you so long," he whispered.

 

 Simon awakened slowly. He felt heavy, his body warm

 and boneless. Miriamele's head nestled in the hollow of

 his shoulder, her hair pressed softly against his cheek and

 neck. Her slender limbs were wrapped around him, one

 arm splayed across his chest, the fingers tickling beneath

 his chin.

 

 He pulled her nearer. She murmured sleepily and

 rubbed her head against him.

 

 The tent flap rustled. A silhouette, a slightly darker

 spot against the night sky, appeared in the gap.

 

 "Simon?" someone whispered.

 

 Heart pounding, suddenly ashamed for the princess, Si-

 mon tried to sit up. Miriamele made an unhappy sound as

 he slid her arm lower.

 

 "Binabik?" he asked. "Is that you?"

 

 The dark shape pushed in, letting the flap fall shut be-

 hind.

 

 "Quiet. I am about to light a candle. Say nothing."

 

 There was a muted clinking as flint met steel, then a

 tiny glow sprang up in the grass near the tent door. A mo-

 ment later a flame bobbed at the end of a wick and soft

 candlelight filled the tent. Miriamele made a groggy noise

 of protest and buried her face deeper in Simon's neck. He

 gaped in astonishment.

 

 Josua's thin face hovered above the candle.

 

 "The grave cannot hold me," said the prince, smiling.

 

 34

 

 Leavetaking

 

 *

 

 Simon's heart tftmnped,

 

 "Prince Josua... ?"

 

 "Quietly, lad." Josua leaned forward. His eyes widened

 for a moment as he saw the head pillowed on Simon's

 chest, but then his smile returned. "Ah. Bless you both.

 Make her marry you, Simonnot that it will take much

 coaxing, I think. She will make a splendid queen with

 you to help her."

 

 Simon shook his head in amazement. "But ... but you

 ... surely ..." He stopped and took a breath. "You're

 deador everyone thinks you are!"

 

 Josua seated himself, holding the candle low so that the

 gleam was mostly shielded by his body. "I should be."

 

 "Tiamak saw your neck broken!" Simon whispered.

 "And no one could have gotten out of that place after we

 did."

 

 "Tiamak saw me struck," Josua corrected him. "My

 neck should indeed have been brokenas it is, it still

 hurts fiercely. But I had my hand up." He extended his

 left arm and the tattered sleeve pulled back. Elias' mana-

 cle still hung on the swollen wrist, the metal flattened and

 scarred. "My brother and Pryrates forgot the gift they had

 given me. There is some poetry in thator perhaps God

 wished to send a message about the value of suffering."

 The prince's sleeve rustled back into place. "I could

 barely use the hand for two days after I awoke, but the

 feeling is coming back now."

 

 Miriamele stirred and opened her eyes. For a moment

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER775

 

 they widened in dread, then she sat up, clutching the

 blanket to her breast. "Uncle Josua!"

 

 Smiling crookedly, he lifted his finger to his lips. She

 pulled the top part of the blanket t -ound herleaving

 most of Simon exposed to the cold airand threw her

 arms around him, weeping. Josua, too, seemed almost

 overcome. After a few moments Miriamele pulled away,

 then looked down at her bare shoulders and colored. She

 hurriedly lay back on the bedroll again and pulled the

 blanket up to her chin. Simon took back his half of it with

 gratitude.

 

 "How can you be alive?" she said, laughing and dab-

 bing at her eyes with the blanket's edge.

 

 Josua explained again, showing her the dented mana-

 cle.

 

 "But how did you escape?" Simon was anxious now

 for the story to continue. "The tower fell!"

 

 The prince's head moved from side to side. Shadows

 flittered on the tent wall. "That is one thing I cannot

 know for certain, but my guess is that Camaris picked me

 up and carried me down in the first moments. I have

 come close to many campfires in the past nights, and

 heard many things. It sounds as though the confusion and

 smoke and flames were such that he could have gone

 down the stairwell ahead of you. We first came into the

 tower from beneath, through the tunnels; I believe he

 went out that way as well. All I know for certain is that

 I woke up beneath the stars, alone on the beach beside the

 Kynslagh. But who except Camaris would have had the

 strength to carry me so far?"

 

 "If he went down before us, then Cadrach must have

 seen." Miriamele fell silent, pondering this.

 

 "It's a miracle," Simon breathed. "But why have you

 told no one? And what did you mean when you said

 Miriamele would be queen? Won't you... ?"

 

 "You do not understand," the prince said quietly. There

 was a strange edge of merriment in his voice. "I am dead.

 I wish to stay that way."

 

 "What?"

 

 "Just as I said- Simon, Miriamele, I was never meant to

 

 776

 

 Tad Williams

 

 rule. It was ago >; -r me, but I saw no other course but

 to try to push Elias trom the throne. Now God has opened

 a door for me, a door that I believed forever shut. To die

 or to take the crown were my only choices. Now, I have

 been given another."

 

 Simon was stunned. For a long while he said nothing.

 Miriamele was silent, too. Josua watched them, a smile

 playing across his mouth.

 

 "It is shocking, I know." The prince turned to his niece.

 "But you will be a far better ruler than I ever wouldas

 will Simon."

 

 "But you are John's true heir," Simon protested, "even

 more than Miriamele! And I'm just a kitchen boy you

 knighted! They say I'm a descendant of Saint Eahlstan,

 but that means nothing to me. It doesn't make me fit to

 rule Erkynland or anything else."

 

 "I heard that tale, Simon. Isgrimnur and the others keep

 secrets poorly, if they ever meant to keep your heritage

 secret." Josua laughed quietly. "And I was not at all sur-

 prised to hear that you are of Eahlstan Fiskerne's blood.

 But as to whether that makes you more or less fit than

 me, Simonyou do not know all, even so. I am no more

 John's heir than you are."

 

 "What do you mean?" Simon moved slightly so that

 Miriamele's head found a more comfortable position on

 his breast. She was not looking at Josua now, but up at Si-

 mon, her brow furrowed with worry or deep thought.

 

 "Just as I said," the prince replied. "I am not John's

 son. Camaris was my father."

 

 Simon sucked in his breath. "Camaris... ?"

 Now Miriamele did look at the prince, as startled as Si-

 mon. "What are you talking about?"

 

 "John was old when he married my mother, Efiathe of

 Hemysadharc," Josua said. "A measure of the distance in

 their years is that he felt no qualms about giving her a

 new name, Ebekah, as though she were a child." He

 frowned. "What happened after that is not particularly

 surprising. It is one of the commonest and oldest stories

 in the world, although I do not doubt she loved the king

 and he loved her. But Camaris was her special protector,

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 777

 

 a young man, as great and fabled a hero as John. What

 began as a deep respect and admiration between them

 grew into something more.

 

 "Elias was John's child, but I was not. When my

 mother died birthing me, Camaris went mad. What could

 he think but that his sin had sentenced his beloved, who

 was also the wife of his closest friend, to death?" The

 prince shook his head. "His agony was such that he gave

 away everything he had, as one who knows he will die

 and he must have felt he was dying, since every breath,

 every moment, was so full of pain and terrible shame. At

 last he took the hom Ti-tuno and went in search of the

 Sithi, perhaps to expiate the sin of participating in John's

 persecution of them, or perhaps, like Elias, he hoped the

 wise immortals could help him reach his beloved beyond

 death. Whatever the aim of his pilgrimage, Amerasu

 brought him secretly to Jao e-Tinukai'i, for reasons of her

 own. I have not discovered all that happened: my father

 was so distraught when he told me it was hard to make

 sense of everything.

 

 "In any case, Amerasu met with him and took the hom

 back, perhaps to keep it for him, perhaps because it had

 belonged to her lost sons. Exactly what passed between

 them is still a mystery to me, but apparently whatever she

 told him was no comfort. My father left the forest deeps,

 still grieving. Soon after, when his despair finally out-

 weighed even his terror of the sin of self-slaughter, he

 cast himself over the side of a ship into the Bay of

 Firannos. He survived somehowhe is fearfully strong,

 you know; that trait his blood certainly did not pass on to

 me!but his wits were shadowed. He wandered through

 the southland, begging, living in the wilderness, subsist-

 ing on the charities of others, until he found his way at

 last to that Kwanitupul inn. In a way, I suppose, he knew

 peace for that time, despite the harshness of his life and

 his own poor wits. Then, after two score years, Isgrimnur

 found him, and soon peace was taken from him again. He

 awakened with the old horror still fresh in his mind, and

 the knowledge he had tried to murder himself added to

 it."

 

 1

 

 Tad Williams

 

 778

 

 "Mother of Mercy'" Miriamele said feelingly. "That

 unhappy man!"

 

 It was hard for Simon to encompass the breadth of the

 old knight's suffering. "Where is he now?"

 

 Josua shook his head. "I do not know. Wandering once

 more, perhaps. I pray he did not try to drown himself

 again. My poor father! I hope that the demons that plague

 him are weaker now, although I doubt it. I will find him,

 and I will try to help him toward some kind of peace."

 

 "So that's what you're going to do?" Simon asked.

 "Look for Camaris?"

 

 Miriamele looked at the prince sharply. "What about

 Vorzheva?"

 

 Josua nodded and smiled. "I will search for my father,

 but only after my wife and children are safe. There is

 much to be done, and it will be almost impossible for me

 to do any of it here in Erkynland where I am known." He

 laughed quietly. "You see, I am imitating Duke Isgrimnur

 and letting my beard grow to better my disguise." The

 prince rubbed his chin. "So tonight I ride south. Soon old

 Count Streawe will have a late-night visitor. He owes me

 a favor ... of which I will remind him. If anyone can

 spirit Vorzheva and the two children out of the Nabbanai

 court, it will be Perdruin's devious master. And he will

 enjoy the sport of it more than any payment I could ever

 make him. He loves secrets."

 

 "The dead prince's wife and heirs disappearing." Si-

 mon could not resist a smile of his own. "That will make

 for a few stories and songs!"

 

 "So it will. And I'm sure I will hear them and laugh."

 He reached over and squeezed Simon's arm, then leaned

 farther to embrace Miriamele, who clung to him for a

 long moment. "Now it is time for me to go. Vinyafod is

 waiting. It will be dawn soon."

 

 Dreamlike as the conversation was, as the whole night

 had been, Simon was suddenly unwilling to let Josua go.

 "But if you find Camaris, and if you have Vorzheva with

 you, what then?"

 

 The prince paused. 'The southland will need at least

 one more Scrollbearer besides Tiamak, I believeif the

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 779

 

 League will have me. And I can think of nothing I would

 like better than to put all the cares of battle and judgment

 behind me to read and think. Perhaps Streawe can help

 me purchase Pelippa 's Bowl, and I will be the landlord of

 a quiet inn at Kwanitupul. An inn where friends will al-

 ways be welcome."

 

 "So you are truly going?" asked Miriamele.

 

 "Truly. I have been given the gift of freedoma gift I

 had never expected to receive. I would be ungrateful in-

 deed to turn my back on it." He stood up. "It was very

 strange to hear my funeral rites spoken at the Hayholt to-

 day. Everyone should have such a chance while they still

 liveit gives one much to think about.'* He smiled. "Let

 me have a few hours' start at least, but then tell

 Isgrimnur, and whatever others can be trusted, that I live.

 They will be wondering about the disappearance of

 Vinyafod in any case. But do tell Isgrimnur soon. It pains

 me greatly to think of my old friend mourning for me: the

 loss of his son is burden enough. I hope he will under-

 stand what I do."

 

 Josua moved toward the tent flap. "And you two, your

 adventures are only beginning, I thinkalthough I hope

 those to come are happier." He blew out the candle and

 the tent was dark again. "Just as I would be a fool not to

 take what I have been given, Simon, you will be a foot in-

 deed if you do not marry my nieceand Miriamele, you

 will be a fool if you do not take him. The two of you have

 much work to do, and many things to set right, but you

 are young and strong, and you have been given a school-

 ing like none the world has ever seen. May God bless you

 both, and good luck. I will be watching you. You will

 both be in my prayers."

 

 The tent flap lifted. Stars glimmered above Josua's

 shoulder, then all was dark again.

 

 Simon settled back, his head whirling. Josua alive!

 Camaris the prince's father! And he, Simon, with a prin-

 cess lying beside him. The world was unimaginably

 strange.

 

 "So?" Miriamele asked suddenly.

 

 780 Tad Williams

 

 "What?" He held his breath, worried by the tone of her

 voice.

 

 "You heard my uncle," she said. "Are you going to

 marry me? And what's this about the blood of Eahlstan?

 Have you been hiding something from me all this time to

 pay me back for my serving-girl disguise?"

 

 He exhaled. "I only found out myself yesterday."'

 

 After a long silence, she said: "You haven't answered

 my other question." She took his face and pulled it near

 hers, running her finger along the sensitive ridge of his

 scar. "You said you would never leave me, Simon. Now

 are you going to do what Josua told you to do?"

 

 For answer, he laughed helplessly and kissed her. Her

 arms curled around his neck,

 

 ^

 

 They had gathered on the grassy hillside beneath the

 Nearulagh Gate. The great portal lay in ruins; birds flut-

 tered above the stones, quarreling shrilly. Beyond the rub-

 ble the setting sun glinted from the wet roofs of the

 Hayholt. The Conqueror Star made a faint red smear in

 the northernmost comer of the darkening heavens.

 

 Simon and Miriamele stood arm in arm, surrounded by

 friends and allies. The Sithi had come to say farewell.

 

 "Jiriki." Simon gently disengaged himself from

 Miriamele and stepped forward. "I meant what I said be-

 fore, although I said it in childish bad temper. Your arrow

 is gone, burned away when the Storm King vanished.

 Any debt between us is gone, too. You have saved my life

 enough times."

 

 The Sitha smiled. "We will start afresh, then."

 

 "I wish you didn't have to go."

 

 "My mother and the others will recover more quickly

 in their homes." Jiriki gazed at the banners of his people

 ranged along the hillside, their bright clothes. "Look on

 that. I hope you will remember. The Dawn Children may

 never be gathered again in one place."

 

 Miriamele stared down at the waiting Sithi and their

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER781

 

 bold, impatient horses. "It is beautiful," she said. "Beau-

 tiful."

 

 Jiriki smiled at her, then turned back to Simon. "So it

 is time for my folk to go back to Jao e-Tinukai'i, but you

 and I will see each other before long. Do you remember

 I told you once that it took no magical wisdom to say we

 would meet again? I will say it once more, Seoman

 Snowlock. The story is not ended."

 

 "All the same, I will miss youwe will miss you."

 

 "It may be that things will be better in days to come

 between my folk and yours, Seoman. But it will not hap-

 pen swiftly. We are an old people, slow to change, and

 most mortals still fear usnot without reason after what

 the Hikeda'ya have done. Still, I cannot but hope that

 something has indeed changed forever. We Dawn Chil-

 dren, our day is past, but perhaps now we will not simply

 disappear. Perhaps when we are gone there will be some-

 thing of us left behind beside our ruins and a few old sto-

 ries." He clasped Simon's hand and then drew him

 forward until they embraced.

 

 Aditu followed her brother, light-footed and smiling.

 "Of course you will come to see us, Seoman. And we will

 come to you, too. You and I have many a game of shent

 yet to play. I fear to see what clever new strategies you

 will have learned."

 

 Simon laughed. "I'm sure you fear my shent-playing

 the way you fear deep snow and high wallsnot at all."

 

 She kissed him, then went to Miriamele and kissed her

 too. "Be kind and patient with each other," the Sitha said,

 eyes bright. "Your days will be long together. Remember

 these moments always, but do not ignore the sad times,

 either. Memory is the greatest of gifts."

 

 Many others, some who would stay to help in the re-

 building of Erchester and the Hayholt and remain for the

 coronation, others soon to return to their own cities and

 people, clustered around. The Sithi gravely and sweetly

 exchanged farewells with them all.

 

 Duke Isgrimnur pulled himself away from the crowd

 surrounding the immortals. "I'll be here yet a while, Si-

 mon, Miriameleeven after Gutrun's ship comes from

 

 782 Tad Williams

 

 Nabban. But we'll have to leave for Elvritshalla before

 summer begins," He shook his head. "There will be an

 ungodly lot of work to do there. My people have suffered

 too much."

 

 "We couldn't hope to begin here without you, Uncle

 Isgrimnur," said Miriamele. "Stay as long as you can, and

 we will send with you whatever may help you."

 

 The duke lifted her in his broad arms and hugged her.

 "I am so happy for you, Miriamele, my dear one. I felt

 like such a damnable traitor."

 

 She smacked at his arm until he put her down. "You

 were trying to do what was best for everyoneor what

 you thought was best. But you should have come to me in

 any case, you foolish man. I would happily have stepped

 aside for Simon, or you, or even Qantaqa." She laughed

 and spun in a circle, dress flaring. "But now I am happy,

 Uncle. Now I can work. We will put things to rights."

 

 Isgrimnur nodded, a melancholy smile nestling in his

 beard. "I know you will, bless you," he whispered.

 

 There was a piercing shout of trumpets and a rumble

 from the crowd. The Sithi were mounting. Simon turned

 and lifted his hand. Miriamele pushed in beneath his arm,

 pressing against him. Jiriki, at the head of the company,

 stood in his stirrups and raised his arm, then the trumpets

 called again and the Sithi rode. Light from the dying sun

 gleaming on their armor, they picked up speed; within

 moments they were only a bright cloud moving along the

 hillside toward the east. Snatches of their song hung in

 the wind behind them. Simon felt his heart leap in his

 chest, full of joy and sadness both, and knew the sight

 would live with him forever.

 

 After a long and reverent quiet, the gathering at last be-

 gan splitting apart. Simon and his companions started to

 wander down toward Erchester. A great bonfire had been

 lit in Battle Square, and already the streets, so long de-

 serted, were full of people. Miriamele dropped behind to

 walk with Isgrimnur, slowing her pace to his. Simon felt

 a touch on his hand and looked down. Binabik was there,

 Qantaqa moving beside him like a gray shadow.

 

 "I wondered where you were," said Simon.

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER783

 

 "My farewells to the Sithi-folk were being said this

 morning, so Qantaqa and I were at walking along the

 Kynswood. Some squirrels that were living there have

 now come to a sad end, but Qantaqa is feeling very cheer-

 ful." The troll grinned. "Ah, Simon-friend, I was thinking

 of old Doctor Morgenes, and of the prideful feeling that

 he would have if he saw what is happening here."

 

 "He saved us all, didn't he?"

 

 "Certain it is that his planning gave us the only chance

 we had. We were being tricked by Pryrates and the Storm

 King, but had we not been alerted, Elias' ravagings would

 have been worse. Also, the swords would have been find-

 ing other bearers, and no fighting back would have hap-

 pened in the tower. No, Morgenes could not be knowing

 all, but he did what no other could have done."

 

 "He tried to tell me. He tried to warn us all about false

 messengers." Simon looked down Main Row at the hurry-

 ing figures and the flicker of firelight. "Do you remember

 the dream I had at Geloe's house? I know that was him.

 That he was ... watching."

 

 "I do not know what happens after we are dying,"

 Binabik said. "But I am thinking you are right. Somehow,

 Morgenes was watching for you. You were being like a

 family for him, even more than his Scroll League."

 

 "I will always miss him."

 

 They walked along for a while without speaking. A trio

 of children ran past, one of them trailing a strip of color-

 ful cloth which the others, laughing and shrieking, tried to

 catch.

 

 "I must go soon myself," said Binabik. "My people in

 Yiqanuc are waiting, wondering no doubt what has hap-

 pened here. And, being most important, Sisqinanamook is

 there, also waiting. Like you and your Miriamele, she and

 I have a tale that is long. It is time that we were married

 before the Herder and Huntress and all the folk of

 Mintahoq." He laughed. "Despite everything, I am think-

 ing her parents will still have a small sadness when they

 see I have survived."

 

 "Soon? You're going soon?"

 

 784 Tad Williams

 

 The troll nodded. "I must. But as Jiriki said to you, we

 will have many more meetings, you and I."

 

 Qantaqa looked at them for a moment, then trotted

 ahead, sniffing the ground. Simon kept his eyes forward,

 staring toward the bonfire as though he had never seen

 such a thing. "I don't want to lose you, Binabik. You're

 my best friend in the world."

 

 The troll reached up and took his hand. "All the more

 reason that we should not be long parted. You will come

 to Yiqanuc when you cansurely there is being a need

 for the first Utku embassy ever to the trolls'and Sisqi

 and I will come to see you." He nodded his head sol-

 emnly. "You are my dearest friend also, Simon. Always

 we will be in each others' hearts."

 

 They walked on toward the bonfire, hand in hand.

 

 A

 

 Rachel the Dragon wandered through Erchester, her

 hair bedraggled, her clothes tattered and soiled. All

 around, people ran laughing through the streets, singing,

 cheering, playing frivolous games as though the city were

 not falling apart around them. Rachel could not under-

 stand it.

 

 For days she had hidden in her underground sanctuary,

 even after the terrible tremblings and shiftings had

 stopped. She had been convinced that the world had

 ended over her head, and felt no urge to leave her well-

 stocked cell to see demons and sorcerous spirits celebrat-

 ing in the ruins of her beloved Hayholt. But at last

 curiosity and a certain resolve had gotten the better of

 her. Rachel was not the kind of woman to take even the

 end of the world without fighting back. Let them put her

 to their fiendish tortures. Blessed Rhiap had suffered,

 hadn't she? Who was Rachel to hesitate before the exam-

 ple of the saints?

 

 Her first blinking, molelike view of the castle seemed

 to confirm her worst fears. As she made her way through

 the hallways, through the ruins of what had been her

 home and her greatest pride, her heart withered in her

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER785

 

 breast. She cursed, the people or creatures who had done

 this, cursed them in a way that would have made Father

 Dreosan turn pale and hurry away. Wrath moved through

 her like a tide of fire.

 

 But when she had finally emerged into the almost-

 deserted Inner Bailey, it was to discover one puzzlement

 after another. Green Angel Tower lay in a shambles of

 stone, and the destruction and fire-scorchings of recent

 battle were everywhere, but the few folk she encountered

 wandering through the desolation claimed that Elias was

 dead and that everything was to be made right again.

 

 On the tongues of these, and of many others she met as

 she went down into Erchester, were the names of

 Miriamele, the king's daughter, and someone called

 Snowlock. These two, it was saidhe a great hero of bat-

 tles in the east, a dragon-slayer and warriorhad thrown

 down the High King. Soon they would be married. All

 would soon be made right. That was the refrain on every

 tongue: all would be made right.

 

 Rachel had snorted to herselfonly those who had

 never had the responsibilities she had would think this a

 task that could take less than yearsbut she could not

 help feeling curiosity and a faint flickering of hope. Per-

 haps better days were coming. The folk she met said

 Pryrates had died, too, burned to death somehow in the

 great tower. So a measure of justice had been done at

 least. Rachel's losses had finally been avenged, however

 tardily.

 

 And perhaps, she had thought, Guthwulf could be

 saved and brought up again from darkness. He deserved a

 happier fate than to wander forever while the world

 aboveground returned to something like order.

 

 Kind folk in Erchester had fed her from their own mea-

 ger stores and given her a place to sleep. And all evening

 she had heard the stories of Princess Miriamele and the

 hero Snowlock, the warrior princeling with the dragon-

 scar. Perhaps, she had considered, when things were calm

 again she would offer her services to the new rulers.

 Surely a young woman tike Miriamele, if she had been

 brought up at all well, would understand the need for or-

 

 786Tad Williams

 

 der. Rachel did not think that her heart would ever en-

 tirety be in her work again, but felt sure she had some-

 thing to offer. She was old, but there might still be use for

 her.

 

 Rachel the Dragon looked up. While her thoughts had

 been meandering, her feet had led her down to the fringes

 of Battle Square, where a bonfire had been lit. As much

 as possible had beeftmade of scant provisions, and a feast

 of sorts had been laid in the middle of the square. The

 remnants of Erchester's citizenry milled about, shouting,

 singing, dancing around the fire. The clamor was almost

 deafening. Rachel accepted a piece of dried fruit from a

 young woman, then wandered over to a shadowy corner

 to eat it. She sat down against the wall of a shop and

 watched the carryings-on.

 

 A young man passed her, and his eye caught hers for a

 moment. He was thin and his face was sad. Rachel

 squinted. Something about him was familiar.

 

 He seemed to have the same thought, for he wheeled

 and walked back toward her. "Rachel?" he asked. "Aren't

 you Rachel, the Mistress of Chambermaids?"

 

 She looked at him, but could summon no name. Her

 head was full of the noise of people on the roofs shouting

 down to friends in the square. "I am," she said. "I was."

 

 He stepped forward suddenly, frightening her a little,

 and put his arms around her. "Don't you remember me?"

 he asked. "I'm Jeremias! The chandler's boy! You helped

 me escape from the castle."

 

 "Jeremias," she said, patting his back softly. So he had

 lived. That was a good thing. She was happy. "Of

 course."

 

 He stepped back and looked at her. "Have you been

 here all along? No one has seen you in Erchester."

 

 She shook her head, a little surprised. Why should any-

 one have been looking for her? "I had a room ... a place

 I found- Under the castle." She raised her hands, unable

 to explain everything that had happened. "I hid. Then I

 came out."

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER787

 

 Grinning, Jeremias grabbed her hand. "Come with me.

 There are people who will want to see you."

 

 Protesting, although she did not quite know why

 surely there was nothing better an old woman like her had

 to doRachel allowed herself to be led through the

 swirling crowds, right across Battle Square. With Jere-

 mias tugging at her until she wanted to ask him to let go,

 they passed so close to the bonfire that she could feel its

 heat down into her cold bones. Within moments they had

 pushed through another knot of people and approached a

 line of armored soldiers who held them back with crossed

 pikes until Jeremias whispered something in the captain's

 ear. The sentries then let them through. Rachel had just

 enough strength to wonder what Jeremias had said, but

 too little breath to ask.

 

 They stopped abruptly and Jeremias stepped past her

 toward a young woman sitting in the nearest of two tall

 chairs. As he spoke to her, the woman turned her gaze to-

 ward Rachel and her lips curled in a slow smile. The Mis-

 tress of Chambermaids stared at her in fascination. Surely

 that was Miriamele, the king's daughterbut she looked

 so much older! And she was beautiful, her fair hair curv-

 ing around her face, shimmering in the fireglow. She

 looked every inch a queen.

 

 Rachel felt a kind of gratitude sweep over her. Perhaps

 there would be some kind of order to life after all, at least

 a little. But what concern could Miriamele, this radiant

 creature as exalted as an angel, have with an old servant?

 

 Miriamele turned and said something to the man sitting

 back in the shadows of the chair beside hers. Rachel saw

 him start, then clamber to his feet.

 

 Merciful Rhiap, she thought. He's so tall! This must be

 that Snowlock, that one they all speak of. Someone said

 his other name, what was it?

 

 "... Seoman ..." she said aloud, staring at his face.

 The beard, the scar, the streak of white in his hairfor a

 moment he was just a young man. Then she knew.

 

 "Rachel!" In a few long steps he was before her. He

 stared down at her for a moment, his lips trembling, then

 

 788 Tad Williams

 

 a wide grin broke across his face. "Rachel!" he said

 again.

 

 "Simon... ?" she murmured. The world had ceased to

 make any kind of sense. "You're ... alive?"

 

 He bent down and grabbed her, squeezing hard. He

 lifted her high in the air so that her feet wiggled above

 the ground. "Yes!" he laughed. "I'm alive! God knows

 how, but I'm alive! Oh, Rachel, you could never imagine

 what has happened, never, never, never!"

 

 He put her down but took both her hands in his. She

 wanted to pull them free because tears were,streaming

 down her cheeks. Could this be? Or had she finally gone

 mad? But there he was, red hair, idiot grin, big as life

 bigger than life!

 

 "Are you ... Snowlock?"

 

 "I am, I suppose!" He laughed again. "I am." He let go

 for a moment, then draped an arm around her. "There is

 so much to tell youbut we have time now, nothing but

 time." He lifted his head, shouting: "Quick! This is Ra-

 chel! Bring her wine, bring her food, get her a chair!"

 

 "But what has happened?" She craned her neck to look

 up at him, impossibly tall, impossibly alive, but Simon

 for all that. "How can this be?"

 

 "Sit," he said. "I will tell you all. And then we can be-

 gin the grand task."

 

 She shook her head, dazed. "Grand task?"

 

 "You were Mistress of Chambermaids ... but you were

 always more. You were like a mother to me, but I was too

 young and stupid to see it. Now you shall have the honor

 you deserve, Rachel. And if you want it, you shall be the

 mistress of the entire Hayholt. Heaven knows, we need

 you. An army of servants will attend you, troops of build-

 ers, companies of chambermaids, legions of gardeners."

 He laughed, a man's loud laugh. "We will fight a war

 against the ruin we have made, and we will build the cas-

 tle again. We will make our home a beautiful place once

 more!" He gave her a squeeze and steered her toward

 where Miriamele and Jeremias waited, smiling. "You will

 be Rachel the Dragon, General of the Hayholt!"

 

 Tears trickled down her cheeks. "Mooncalf," she said.

 

 Afterword

 

 Tiamak pustied with his toe at the lilypad. The part of

 the moat in the shadow of the wall was quiet but for the

 hum of insects and the splashing of Tiamak's own feet

 dangling in the water.

 

 He was watching a water beetle when he heard foot-

 steps behind him.

 

 "Tiamak!" Father Strangyeard sat down awkwardly be-

 side him, but kept his sandaled feet out of the moat. "I

 heard you had arrived. How good it is to see you."

 

 The Wrannaman turned and clasped the archivist's

 hand. "And you, dear friend," he said. "It is astonishing

 to see the changes here."

 

 "A great deal can happen in a year," Strangyeard

 laughed. "And people have been hard at work. But what

 is your news since your last message?"

 

 Tiamak smiled. "Much. I found the remnants of my

 townsmen, scattered mainly through other villages across

 the Wran. Many of them will come back to Village

 Grove, I think, now that the ghants have retreated to the

 deep swamp." His smile dwindled. "And my sister still

 does not believe half of what I tell her."

 

 "Can you blame her?" asked Strangyeard gently. "I can

 scarcely believe the things I saw myself."

 

 "No, I do not blame her." Tiamak's smile returned.

 "And I have finally finished Sovran Remedys of the

 Wranna Healers."

 

 "Tiamak, my friend!" Strangyeard was honestly de-

 

 790 Tad Williams

 

 lighted. "But that is wonderful! I am hungry for it! Is

 there a chance I can read it soon?"

 

 "Very soon. I brought it with me. Simon and Miriamele

 said they would have copies made here. Four writing-

 priests, just to work on my book!" He shook his head.

 "Who would ever have dreamed?"

 

 "Wonderful," Strangyeard said again. His smile was

 mysterious. "Come, should we not head back? I think ft is

 almost time."

 

 Tiamak nodded and reluctantly pulled his feet from the

 water. The lily pad floated back into place.

 

 "I have heard that this will be more than a memorial,"

 the Wrannaman said as they gazed at the incomplete shell

 of stone, littered with the boards and covering cloths of

 absent workers, that rose where Green Angel Tower had

 stood. "That there will be archives as well." He turned

 suddenly to look at his friend. "Ah. I suspect you know

 more about those four writing-priests than you told me."

 

 Strangyeard nodded and blushed. "That is my news,"

 he said proudly. "I helped draw the plans. It will be mag-

 nificent, Tiamak. A place of learning where nothing will

 be lost or hidden. And I will have many assistants to help

 me." He smiled and stared across the grounds. Two slow-

 moving figures made their way through the building site

 and passed through the recently completed doorway into

 the shadowed interior. "Most likely my eye will be so bad

 by the time the thing is finishedif God has not yet

 called me, that isthat I won't be able to see it. But that

 does not worry me. I see it already." He tapped his head

 and his gentle smile grew wider. "Here. And it is wonder-

 ful, my friend, wonderful."

 

 Tiamak took the priest's arm. They made their way

 across the grounds of the Inner Bailey.

 

 "As I said, it is astonishing to see the changes." The

 marsh man looked up at the castle's hodgepodge of roofs,

 almost all patched now, gleaming in the late afternoon

 sun. Higher up, a scaffolding had been erected over the

 dome of the chapel. A few workmen moved across it, ty-

 ing things down for the night. Tiamak's gaze roved to the

 

 TO GREBN ANGEL TOWER791

 

 far side of the Inner Bailey wall and he paused.

 "Hjeldin's Towerit has no windows in it any more.

 They were red, were they not?"

 

 "Pryrates' tower . . . and storehouse." Strangyeard

 sketched the Tree on his breast. "Yes. Fire will be put to

 it, I expect, then it will be leveled to the ground. It has

 been sealed a long time, but no one is in much of a hurry

 to go inside, and SimonKing Seoman, I suppose I

 should say, although that still sounds faintly strange tc

 mewants the entrance to the catacombs beneath seak

 as well." The archivist shook his head. "You know I thir

 knowledge is precious, Tiamak. But I have not objecu

 to any part of that plan."

 

 The Wrannaman nodded. "I understand. But let us talk

 of more pleasant things."

 

 "Yes." Strangyeard smiled again. "Speaking of such, I

 have come by a fascinating objectpart of the

 castellain's account book from the time of Sulis the Apos-

 tate. Someone found it when they were cleaning up the

 Chancelry. There are some astonishing things in it,

 Tiamakjust astonishing! I think we just have time to

 stop by my chamber and get it on our way-to the dining

 hall."

 

 "Let us go then, by all means," Tiamak said, grinning,

 but as he fell in beside the archivist, he turned for a last

 look at Hjeldin's Tower and its empty windows.

 

 A

 

 "You see," Isgrimnur said softly. "They have covered it

 with fine stone, just as Miriamele said."

 

 Gutrun wiped at her face with the scarf. "Read it to

 me."

 

 The duke squinted down at the slab set into the floor.

 The place was open to the sky, but the light was fading

 fast. "Isorn, son of Isgrimnur and Outrun, Duke and

 Duchess of Elvritshalla. Bravest of men, beloved of God

 and all who knew him." He straightened up, determined

 not to cry. He would be strong for his lost child. "Bless

 you, son," he whispered.

 

 792 Tad Williams

 

 "He must be so lonely," Gutrun said, her voice qua-

 vering. "So cold in the ground."

 

 "Hush." Isgrimnur put his arm around her. "Isom is not

 here, you know that. He is in a better place. He would

 laugh to see us fret so." He tried to make his words firm.

 It did no good to question, to worry. "God has rewarded

 him."

 

 "Of course." Gutrun sniffed. "But, Isgrimnur, I still

 miss him so!"

 

 He felt his eyes misting and cursed quietly, then hastily

 made the Tree sign. "I miss him, too, wife. Of course. But

 we have our others to think of, and Elvritshallanot to

 mention two godchildren down in Kwanitupul."

 

 "Godchildren I cannot even brag about!" she said in-

 dignantly, then laughed and shook her head.

 

 They stood a while longer, until the light had vanished

 and the stone slab had fallen into shadow. Then they went

 out again into the evening.

 

 *

 

 They sat in the dining hall, filling the chairs around

 John's Great Table. All the wall sconces held torches, and

 candles were set about the table as well, so that the long

 room was full of light.

 

 Miriamele rose, her blue gown whispering in the sud-

 den silence. The circlet on her brow caught the torchlight.

 

 "Welcome, all." Her voice was soft but strong. "This

 house is yours and always will be. Come to us whenever

 you wish, stay as long as you like."

 

 "But be sure and be here at least once a year," Simon

 said, and raised his cup.

 

 Tiamak laughed. "It is a long journey for some of us,

 Simon," he said. "But we will always do our best."

 

 Beside him, Isgrimnur thumped his goblet on the table.

 He had been making healthy inroads into the supply of

 beer and wine. "He's right, Simon. And speaking of long

 Journeys, I don't see little Binabik."

 

 Simon stood up and put his arm around Miriamele's

 shoulder, pausing for a moment to pull her close and

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 793

 

 brush the top of her head with a kiss. "Binabik and Sisqi

 have sent a bird with a message." He smiled. "They are

 performing the Rite of QuickeningSludig knows what

 I'm talking about, since it almost got us all killedand

 then traveling with their, folk down-mountain to Blue

 Mud Lake. After that, they will come to visit us here." Si-

 mon's grin widened. "Then, next year, Sludig and I will

 be off to visit them in high Mintahoq!"

 

 Sludig nodded his head vigorously as various jests

 were made. "The trolls invited me," he said proudly.

 "First what-do-they-call-it'Croohok'they have ever

 asked." He raised his cup. "To Binabik and Sisqi! Long

 life and many children!"

 

 The toast was echoed.

 

 "Do you really think you will slip off on such an ad-

 venture without me?" asked Miriamele, eyeing her hus-

 band. "Leave me home to do all the work?"

 

 "Good luck trying to outrun Miri," Isgrimnur chortled.

 "There's a woman who's already traveled more of the

 world than you have!"

 

 Gutrun elbowed him. "Let them speak."

 

 Isgrimnur turned and kissed her cheek. "Of course."

 

 "Then we will go together," Simon said grandly. "We

 will make it a royal progress."

 

 Miriamele gave him a sour glance, then turned to Ra-

 chel the Dragon, who had paused in the hall's far door-

 way to quietly berate a serving lad. Rachel's eyebrows

 had shot up at Simon's offhand remark. Now she and

 Miriamele shared a look of disgusted amusement.

 

 "Do you have any idea what sort of trouble that will

 be?" Miriamele demanded. "To take the whole court into

 the mountains to Yiqanuc?"

 

 Simon looked around the hall at me amused faces of

 the guests. He ran his fingers through his red beard and

 grinned. "I am not quite civilized yet, but they are doing

 their best." Miriamele poked his ribs, then leaned against

 him again. He lifted his goblet high. "It is so good to see

 you all. Another toast! To the Prince's Company! Would

 that Josua were here to see itbut I know he will be hon-

 

 794

 

 Tad Williams

 

 ored, wherever he is!" The rest of the companions

 laughed, all now privy to the secret.

 

 Tiamak stood. "As a matter of fact, I bring word from

 ... an absent friend. He sends his great love, and wishes

 you to know that he, his wife, and their children are

 well." The announcement was greeted with shouts of ap-

 proval.

 

 Isgrimnur rose abruptly, teetering a little. "And let us

 not forget to drink to all the others who also fought and

 fell that we could be here," he cried. "All of them." His

 voice shook a little. "God preserve their souls. May we

 never forget them!"

 

 "Amen!" cried many others. When the cheers fell

 away, there was a long moment of silence.

 

 "Now drink up," Miriamele ordered. "But keep your

 wits. Sangfugol has promised to play us a new song."

 

 "And Jeremias will sing it. He has been practicing."

 The harper looked around. "I don't know where he has

 gotten to. It is annoying to have the singer unprepared."

 

 "You mean some singers are prepared?" Isgrimnur

 laughed, then made a face of mock fear as Sangfugol

 waved a heel of bread at him threateningly.

 

 "When your ears are other than stone, Duke

 Isgrimnur," Sangfugol replied with a certain frostiness,

 "then you can make jokes."

 

 The hall had fallen back into merriment and general

 conversation when Jeremias appeared at Simon's shoulder

 and whispered something in his ear.

 

 "Good," said Simon. "I am glad he came. But you, Jer-

 emias, what are you doing, scuttling around like a ser-

 vant? They are expecting you to sing later. Sit down here.

 Miri will pour you some wine." He got up and forced a

 protesting Jeremias into his chair, then walked toward the

 door.

 

 In the entrance hall, a somber man with a dark horse-

 tail of hair awaited him, still wearing traveling clothes

 and a cloak.

 

 "Count Eolair." Simon went forward to clasp the

 Hemystirman's hand. "I hoped you would come. How

 was your journey?"

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 795

 

 Eolair looked at him keenly, studying him as though

 they had never met before. He bent his knee. "Well

 enough, King Seoman. The roads are still not good, and

 it is a long trip, but there is little fear of bandits anymore.

 It does me good to get away from Hernysadharc. But you

 know of rebuilding."

 

 "It is Simon, please. And Queen Inahwen? How is

 she?"

 

 Eolair nodded, half-smiling. "She sends her greetings.

 But we will play those tunes later, I suppose, when Queen

 Miriamele and others can hear themin the throne room,

 where these things must be done." He looked up sud-

 denly. "Speaking of throne rooms, was that not the

 Dragonbone Chair I saw in the courtyard outside? With

 ivy growing upon it?"

 

 Simon laughed. "Out for everyone to see. Fear nota

 little wind and a little damp won't hurt those bones. They

 are stronger than rock. And neither Miri nor I could bear

 to sit in the thing."

 

 "Some children were playing on it." Eolair shook his

 head in wonderment. "That was something I never

 thought to see."

 

 "To the castle children, it's only something to climb on.

 Although they were a little worried at first." He extended

 a hand. "Come, let me take you in and give you some-

 thing to drink and to eat."

 

 Eolair hesitated. "Perhaps I would be better off finding

 a bed. It was a long ride today."

 

 Now it was Simon's turn to look at Eolair carefully.

 "Forgive me if I am speaking out of turn," he said, "but

 I have known something for a long time that you should

 know too. I would have waited until we had spoken more,

 you and I, but perhaps it would be best to tell you now."

 He took a breath. "I met Maegwin before she died. Did

 you know? But the strange thing was that we were really

 leagues apart."

 

 "I know something of it," said the Count of Nad

 Mullach. "Jiriki was with us. He tried to explain. It was

 difficult to understand what he meant."

 

 'There will be much to talk about later, but here is the

 

 796 Tad Williams

 

 one thing you must know." Simon's voice dropped. "She

 was herself at the last, and the only thing she regretted

 leaving was you, Count Eolair. She loved you. But by

 giving up her life she saved me and freed me to go to the

 tower. We might none of us be here todayErkynland,

 Hernystir, everything else, all might be under cold

 shadowswere it not for her."

 

 Eolair was silent for a while, his face expressionless.

 "Thank you," he said at last. A little of his brittleness

 seemed to have gone.

 

 Simon gently took his arm. "Now come, please. Come

 and join us. Up the corridor you have a room full of

 friends, Eolairsome of them you don't even know yet!"

 

 He led the count toward the dining hall. Firelight and

 the sound of laughing voices reached out to welcome

 them.

 

 Appendw

 

 ^

 

 PEOPLE

 

 ERKTNLANDERS

 

 BamabasHayholt chapel sexton

 

 Deomoth, Sirof Hewenshire, Josua's knight

 

 EahlferendSimon's fisherman father

 

 Eahlstan Fiskerne"Fisher King," founder of League of

 

 Scroll

 Ebekah, also known as Efiathe of HemysadharcQueen

 

 of Erkynland, John's wife, mother of Elias and Josua

 EliasHigh King, John's oldest son, Josua's brother

 FengbaldEarl of Falshire, High King's Hand

 FreobeomFreosel's father, a blacksmith of Falshire

 FreoselFalshireman, constable of New Gadrinsett

 GuthwulfEarl of Utanyeat

 Heanwigold drunkard in Stanshire

 HelfgrimLord Mayor of Gadrinsett (former)

 

 798

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Inchfoundry master

 

 IsaakFengbald's page

 

 Jack Mundwodemythical forest bandit

 

 Jeremiasformer chandler's apprentice, Simon's friend

 

 JohnKing John Presbyter, High King, also known as

 "Prester John"

 

 JudithHayholt Mistress of Kitchens

 

 LeiethGeloe's companion, once Miriamele's handmaid

 

 Maefwarua Fire Dancer

 

 MiriamelePrincess, Elias' daughter

 

 Morgenes, DoctorScrollbearer, Simon's friend and

 mentor

 

 Old Bent Legsforge worker in Hayholt

 

 Osgalone of Mundwode's mythical band

 

 RachelHayholt Mistress of Chambermaids, also known

 as 'The Dragon"

 

 Roelstanescaped Fire Dancer

 

 SangfugolJosua's harper

 

 Sceldwinecaptain of the prisoned Erkynguardsmen

 

 Shem HorsegroomHayholt groom

 

 Simoncastle scullion (named "Seoman" at birth)

 

 Stanhelmforge worker

 

 Strangyeard, FatherScrollbearer, priest, Josua's archi-

 vist

 

 TowserKing John's jester (original name "Cruinh")

 

 Uicagirl on Sesuad'ra, called "Curly Hair"

 

 Welmagirl on Sesuad'ra, called "Thin One"

 

 Wiclafformer First Hammerman killed by Fire Dancers

 

 Zebediaha Hayholt scullion, called "Fat Zebediah"

 

 HERNTSTIRI

 

 Airgad Oakheartfamous Hemystiri hero

 Amoranminstrel

 Bagbacattle god

 Brynioch of the Skiessky god

 Bulychlinnfisherman in old story who caught a demon

 in his nets

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER799

 

 Cadrach-ec-Crannhyrmonk of indeterminate Order,

 also known as "Padreic"

 

 Caihwyeyoung mother

 

 Craobhancalled "Old," adviser to Hemystiri royal

 house

 

 Croich, Housea Hemystiri clan

 

 Cuamh Earthdogearth god

 

 Deanagha of the Brown EyesHemystiri goddess,

 daughter of Rhynn

 

 Diawenscryer

 

 Earb, Housea Hemystiri clan

 

 Eoin-ec-Cluiaslegendary Hemystiri harper

 

 EolairCount of Nad Mullach

 

 FeurghaHemystiri woman, captive of Fengbald

 

 Frethis of CuihmneHemystiri scholar

 

 Gullaighnescaped Fire Dancer

 

 GwynnaEolair's cousin and castellaine

 

 GwythinnMaegwin's brother, Lluth's son

 

 Hemfounder of Hemystir

 

 InahwenLluth's third wife

 

 Lach, Housea Hemystiri clan

 

 LluthKing, father of Maegwin and Gwythinn

 

 LlythinnKing, Lluth's father, uncle of John's wife

 Ebekah

 

 MaegwinPrincess, daughter of Lluth

 

 Mathangoddess of household, wife of Murhagh One-

 Arm

 

 Mircharain goddess, wife of Brynioch

 

 Murhagh One-Armwar god, husband of Mathan

 

 PenemhwyeMaegwin's mother, Lluth's first wife

 

 Rhynn of the Cauldrona god

 

 SiadrethCaihwye's infant son

 

 Sinnachprince of Hemystir, also known as "The Red

 Fox"

 

 Tethtainformer master of the Hayholt, "Holly King"

 

 Tad Williams

 

 8oo

 RIMMERSMEN

 

 Drorstorm god

 

 Dypnirone of Ule's band

 

 EinskaldirIsgrimnur's man, killed in forest

 

 Elvritfirst Osten Ard king of Rimmersmen

 

 Fingil Bloodfistfirst human master of Hayholt, "Bloody

 

 King"

 

 Frekke GrayhairIsgrimnur's man, killed at Naglimund

 GutrunDuchess, Isgrimnur's wife

 HengfiskHoderundian priest, Elias' cupbearer

 HjeldinFingil's son, "Mad King"

 Ikferdigthird Hayholt ruler, "Burned King"

 IsgrimnurDuke of ElvritshaHa, Gutrun's husband

 Isomson of Isgrimnur and Gutrun

 JamaugaScrollbearer, killed at Naglimund

 Nisse(Nisses) author of Du Svardenvyrd

 SkaliThane of Kaldskryke, called "Sharp-nose"

 SludigIsgrimnur's man

 TrestoltJamauga's father

 

 Ule Frekkesonleader of renegade band of Rimmers-

 men, son of Frekke

 

 NABBANAI

 

 Aspitis PrevesEarl of Drina and Eadne

 BenigarisDuke of Nabban, son of Leobardis and

 

 Nessalanta

 Benidrivisfirst duke under John, father of Camaris and

 

 Leobardis

 

 BrindaHesSeriddan's brother

 Camaris-sa-Vinitta, SirJohn's greatest knight, also

 

 known as "Camaris Benidrivis"

 DinivanScrollbearer, secretary to Lector Ranessin,

 

 killed in Sancellan Aedonitis

 

 Domitisbishop of Saint Sutrin's cathedral in Erchester

 EneppaMetessan kitchen woman, once called "Fuiri"

 Elysiamother of Usires Aedon, called "Mother of God"

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER801

 

 Fluiren, Sirknight of Sulian House, member of John's

 

 Great Table

 Gavanaxesknight of Honsa Claves (Clavean House) for

 

 whom Camaris was squire

 HylissaMiriamele's mother, Elias' wife, killed in

 

 Thrithings

 

 Lavennin, Saintpatron saint of Spenit Island

 LeobardisDuke of Nabban, killed at Naglimund

 Metessan HouseNabbanai noble house, blue crane em-

 blem

 

 MunshazouPryrates' Naraxi serving woman

 NessalantaDowager Duchess, mother of Benigaris

 Nuanni (Nuannis)ancient Nabbanai sea god

 PasevallesBrindaHes' young son

 Pelippa, Saintcalled "Pelippa of the Island"

 Plesinnen Myrmenisancient scholar

 Pryratespriest, alchemist, wizard, Elias' counselor

 RanessinLector of Mother Church, killed at Sancellan

 

 Aedonitis

 

 Rhiappa, Saintcalled "Rhiap" in Erkynland

 Seriddan, BaronLord of Metessa, also known as

 

 "Seriddan Metessis"

 Sulis, LordNabbanai nobleman, former master of

 

 Hayholt, "Heron King," also known as "The Apostate"

 ThuresAspitis' young page

 Usires AedonAedonite religion's Son of God

 Varellanyoungest son of Leobardis and Nessalanta,

 

 Benigaris' brother

 VelligisLector of Mother Church

 XannasavinNabbanai court astrologer

 Yistrin, Saintsaint linked to Simon's birth-day

 

 SITHI

 

 Aditu (no-Sa'onserei)daughter of Likimeya and

 

 Shima'onari; Jiriki's sister

 Amerasu y-Senditu no'e-Sa'onsereimother of Ineluki,

 

 killed at Jao e-Tinukai'i, called "First Grandmother,"

 

 also known as "Amerasu Ship-Bom"

 

 802 Tad Williams

 

 Benayha (of Kementari)famed Sithi poet and warrior

 Briseyu DawnfeatherLikimeya's mother, wife of

 

 Hakatri

 

 Cheka'isocalled "Amber-Locks," member of Sithi clan

 Chiyamember of Sithi clan, once resident of Asu'a

 Contemplation HouseSithi clan

 Drukhison of Utuk'ku and Ekimeniso, husband of

 

 Nenais'u

 

 Gathering HouseSithi clan

 HakatriAmerasu's son, vanished into West

 InelukiAmerasu's son, killed at Asu'a, now Storm King

 Initrihusband of Jenjiyana

 Jenjiyanawife of Initri, mother of Nenais'u, called "the

 

 Nightingale"

 Jiriki (i-Sa'onserei)son of Likimeya and Shima'onari,

 

 brother of Aditu

 

 Kendhraja'arouncle of Jiriki and Aditu

 Kira'athuSitha healer

 Kuroyicalled "the tall horseman," master of High

 

 Anvi'janya, leader of Sithi clan

 Likimeya (y-Briseyu no'e-Sa'onserei)mother of Jiriki

 

 and Aditu, called "Likimeya Moon-Eyes"

 Mezumiirumistress of moon in Sithi legend

 Senditumother of Amerasu

 Shi'ikifather of Amerasu

 Shima'onarifather of Aditu and Jiriki, killed at Jao

 

 e-Tinukai'i

 Vindaomeyofamed arrow-maker of Tumet'ai, called

 

 "the Fletcher"

 

 Year-Dancing HouseSithi clan

 Yizashi Grayspearleader of Sithi clan

 Zinjaduof Kementari, called "Lore-Mistress"

 

 QANUC

 

 Binabik (Binbiniqegabenik)Scrollbearer, Singing Man

 

 of Qanuc, Simon's friend

 Chukkulegendary troll hero

 Kikkasutlegendary king of birds

 

 TOGREENANGEL TOWER

 

 803

 

 NimsukQanuc herder, one of Sisqi's troop

 Nunuuikathe Huntress

 OokequkScrollbearer, Binabik's master

 Qinkipa (of the Snows)snow and cold goddess

 Seddamoon goddess

 

 Sisqi (Sisqinanamook)daughter of Herder and Hunt-

 ress, Binabik's betrothed

 Snenneqherd-chief of Lower Chugik

 Uammannaqthe Herder

 

 THRITHINGS-FOLK

 

 FikolmijVorzheva's father, March-thane of Clan

 

 Mehrdon

 

 HotvigHigh Thrithings randwarder, Josua's man

 LezhdrakaThri things-man, mercenary chieftain

 OzhbemHigh Thrithings-man

 

 Uigarta mercenary captain from the Meadow Thrithing

 VorzhevaJosua's wife, daughter of Fikolmij

 

 PERDRUINESE

 

 Chary stralandlady of Pelippa's Bowl

 

 LentiStreawe's servant, called "Avi Stetto"

 

 Streawe, Countmaster of Perdruin

 

 Taltistro, Sirfamous knight of John's Great Table

 

 XorastraScrollbearer, first owner of Pelippa's Bowl

 

 WRANNAMEN

 

 Buayegowner of "the spirit-hut" (Wrannaman fable)

 He Who Always Steps on Sandgod

 He Who Bends the Treeswind god

 Inihe Red-Flowerwoman in Tiamak's song

 NuobdigHusband of the Fire Sister in Wrannaman leg-

 end

 RimiheTiamak's sister

 

 804 Tad Williams

 

 She Who Birthed Mankindgoddess

 

 She Who Waits to Take All Backdeath goddess

 

 Shoaneg Swift-Rowingman in Tiamak's song

 

 They Who Breathe Darknessgods

 

 They Who Watch and Shapegods

 

 TiamakScrollbearer, herbalist

 

 TugumakTiamak's father

 

 TwiyahTiamak's sister

 

 Younger Mogahibman of Tiamak's village

 

 NORNS

 

 Akhenabispokesman at Naglimund

 "Bom-Beneath-Tzaaihta's-Stone"one ofUtuk'ku*s Tal-

 ons

 

 "Called-by-tne- Voices"one of Utuk'ku's Talons

 Ekimeniso Blackstaffhusband of Utuk'ku, father of

 

 Drukhi

 

 MezhumeyruNorn version of "Mezumiiru"

 Utuk'ku Seyt-HamakhaNorn Queen, Mistress of

 

 Nakkiga

 "Vein-of-Silverfire"one of Utuk'ku's Talons

 

 OTHERS

 

 Derraa half-Thrithings child

 

 Deomotha half-Thrithings child

 

 Gan ItaiNiskie of Eadne Cloud

 

 Geloea wise woman, called "Valada Geloe"

 

 Imai-ana dwarrow

 

 Ingen JeggerBlack Rimmersman, huntsman of

 Utuk'ku, killed at Jao eTinukai'i

 

 InjarNiskie clan living on Risa Island

 

 Nin ReisuNiskie of Emettin's Jewel

 

 Ruyan Vepatriarch of Tinukeda'ya, called 'The Navi-

 gator"

 

 Sho-vennaea dwarrow

 

 TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER805

 

 Veng'a Sutekhcalled "Duke of the Black Wind," one of

 

 the Red Hand

 Yis-fidria dwarrow, Yis-hadra's husband, master of the

 

 Pattern Hall

 Yis-hadraa dwarrow, Tis-fidri's wife, mistress of the

 

 Pattern Hall

 

 PLACES

 

 Anvi'janyaplace of Kuroyi's dwelling, also known as

 

 "Hidden" or "High" Anvi'janya

 Ballacymwalled town on outskirts of Hernysadharc ter-

 ritory

 

 Bradach Torhigh peak in Grianspog Mountains

 Bregshamesmall town on River Road between

 

 Stanshire and Falshire

 Cathyn Dair, by Silversea~Hernystiri town from

 

 Miriamele's song

 

 Cavern of Rendingwhere Talons of Utuk'ku are trained

 Chamui Lagoona place in Kwanitupul

 Chasu Yarinnatown built around keep, just northeast of

 

 Onestrine Pass in Nabban

 

 ElvritshallaIsgrimnur's ducal seat in Rimmersgard

 Falshirewool-harvesting city in Erkynland, devastated

 

 by Fengbald

 Fiadhcoilleforest southeast of Nad Mullach, also

 

 known as "Stagwood"

 

 Fire Gardentiled open space on Sesuad'ra

 FrasUis Valleyvalley east of Onestrine Pass (other side

 

 of pass from Commeis Valley)

 Garwynswoldsmall town on River Road between

 

 Stanshire and Falshire

 

 GratuvaskRimmersgard river, runs past Elvritshalla

 Grenammanisland in Bay of Firannos

 Hall of Five Staircaseschamber in Asu'a where Briseyu

 

 died

 

 Harchaisland in Bay of Firannos

 Hasu Valevalley in Erkynland

 

 8o6 Tad Williams

 

 Hekhasorformer Sithi territory, called "Hekhasor of the

 Black Earth"

 

 House of WatersSithi building on Sesuad'ra

 

 Khandiaa lost and fabled land

 

 Kiga'raskuwaterfall beneath Stormspike, called "the

 Tearfall"

 

 Leavetaking HouseSithi building on Sesuad'ra, later

 center of Josua's exile court (Sithi name: "Sesu-d'asu")

 

 M'yin AzoshaiSithi name for Hem's Hill, location of

 Hemysadharc

 

 Maa 'shahilly former territory of Sithi

 

 Mezutu'athe Silverhome, abandoned Sithi and dwarrow

 city beneath Grianspog

 

 Mount Den Haloimountain from Book of the Aedon

 where God created world

 

 Naraxiisland in Bay of Firannos

 

 Observatory, Thedomed Sithi building on Sesuad'ra

 

 Onestrine Passpass between two Nabbanai valleys, site

 of many battles

 

 Peat Barge Quaydock in Kwanitupul

 

 Peja'uraformer forested home of Sithi, called "cedar-

 mantled"

 

 Pulley Roadroad in Stanshire

 

 Risaisland in Bay of Firannos

 

 Shisae'ronbroad meadow valley, once Sithi territory

 

 Si'injan'dre Caveplace of Drukhi's confinement after

 Nenais'u's death

 

 Soakwood Roada major thoroughfare of Stanshire

 

 Spenitisland in Bay of Firranos

 

 Taig Roadroad leading through Hemysadharc, also

 known as "Tethtain's Way"

 

 Venyha Do'saeoriginal home of Sithi, Norns,

 Tinukeda'ya, called "The Garden"

 

 Ymittaisland in Bay of Firannos

 

 Wealdhelmrange of hills in Erkynland

 

 Ya Mologi ("Cradle Hill") highest point in Wran, leg-

 endary creation spot

 

 Yakh //uyerM("Hall of Trembling") cavern beneath

 Stormspike

 

 YasirdSithi sacred meeting place

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER

 

 CREATURES

 

 807

 

 BukkenRimmersgard name for diggers, also called

 

 "Boghanik" by trolls

 

 Cata gray (in this case) and undistinguished quadruped

 Diggerssmall, manlike subterranean creatures

 Ghantschitinous Wran-dwelling creature

 Giantslarge, shaggy, manlike creatures

 Droc/inar/iai'rHernystiri name for dragon Hidohebh

 

 slain by Ineluki and Hakatri

 HomefmderSimon's mare

 HunenRimmersgard name for giants

 Igjarjukice-dragon of Urmsheim

 Kilpamanlike marine creatures

 Niku'aIngen Jegger's chief hound, bred in kennels of

 

 Stormspike

 

 Oruksfabulous water monsters

 QantaqaBinabik's wolf companion, mount, and friend

 Shurakaifire-drake slain beneath Hayholt whose bones

 

 make up the Dragonbone Chair

 VildalixDeornoth's horse

 VinyafodJosua's horse

 Water-wightsfabulous water monsters

 

 THINGS

 

 A-Genay'asu("Houses of Traveling Beyond") places of

 

 mystical power and significance

 Aedontideholy time celebrating birth of Usires Aedon

 "Badulfand the Straying Heifer"a song Simon tries to

 

 sing to Miriamele

 

 Battle of Clodu Lakebattle John fought against

 Thrithings-men, also known as "Battle of the Lake-

 lands"

 

 "Bishop's Wagon, The"a Jack Mundwode song

 Boar and Spearsemblem of Guthwulf of Utanyeat

 Breathing Harp, TheMaster Witness in Stormspike

 

 8o8

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Bright-Nailsword of Prester John, formerly called

 

 "Minneyar," containing nail from the Holy Tree and

 

 finger-bone of Saint Eahlstan

 "By Greenwade's Shore"song sung at Bonfire Night on

 

 Sesuad'ra

 Cellian~Camaris' hom, made from dragon Hidohebhi's

 

 tooth. (Original name: "Ti-tuno")

 Citrilroot for chewing, grown in south

 CockindrillNorthern word for "crocodile"

 Conqueror Stara comet, ominous star

 Day of Weighing-OutAedonite day of final judgment

 Door of the Ransomerseal of confession

 Du Svardenvyrdnear-mythical prophetic book by Nisses

 Falcon, TheNabbanai constellation

 Fifty FamiliesNabbanai noble houses

 Floating Castle, Thefamous monument on Warinsten

 Frayja's FireErkynlandish winter flower

 Gardenbom. Theall who came from Venyha Do'sae

 Good Peasantcharacter from the proverbs of the Book

 

 of Aedon

 Gray Coastpart of the shent board

 

 Gray-capmushroom

 

 Great SwordsBright-Nail, Sorrow, and Thorn

 Great TableJohn's assembly of knights and heroes

 Green Column, TheMaster Witness in Jhina T'senei

 Hare, TheErkynlandish constellation name

 Harrow's EveOctander 30, day before "Soul's Day"

 Hesitancy, aNorn spell

 

 High King's Wardprotection of High King over coun-

 tries of Osten Ard

 Hunt-wineQanuc liquor

 IndrejuJiriki's witchwood sword

 Juya'haSithi art: pictures made of woven cords

 Kei-vishaaSubstance used by Gardenbom to make ene-

 mies drowsy and weak

 Kingfisher, TheNabbanai constellation

 KvalnirIsgrimnur's sword

 Lobster, TheNabbanai constellation

 Mansa NiclalisNight ceremony of Mother Church

 Market Halla domed building in central Kwanitupul

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER809

 

 Mist Lampa Witness, brought out of Tumet'ai by

 

 Amerasu

 

 Mixis the Wo//Nabbanai constellation

 

 Mockfoila flowering herb

 

 Muster of AnitullesImperatorial battle-muster from

 Golden Age of Nabban

 

 Navigator's TrustNiskie pledge to protect their ships at

 all cost

 

 Night HeartSitha star-name

 

 Ocean Indefinite and EternalNiskie term for ocean

 crossed by Gardenbom

 

 Oldest TreeWitchwood tree growing in Asu'a

 

 One Who Fled, TheAedonite euphemism for the Devil

 

 Pact of Sesuad'raagreement of Sithi and Norn to part

 

 Pool of Three Depths, TheMaster Witness in Asu'a

 

 Prise'a"Ever-fresh," a favorite flower of Sithi

 

 QuickweedWran herb

 

 Rabbit-nosemushroom

 

 Red knifebillWran bird

 

 Rhao iye-Sama'anthe Master Witness at Sesuad'ra,

 called the "Earth-Drake's Eye"

 

 Rhynn's CauldronHernystiri battle-summoner

 

 Rite of QuickeningQanuc Spring ceremony

 

 Saint Grams' Daya holy day

 

 Saint Rhiappa'sa cathedral in Kwanitupul

 

 Sand Beetle, TheWran name for constellation

 

 Serpent, TheNabbanai constellation

 

 Shadow-masteryNom magics

 

 Shard, TheMaster Witness in Mezutu'a

 

 Shenta Sithi game of socializing and strategy

 

 Snatch-the-featherWran gambling game

 

 SorrowElias' sword, a gift from Ineluki the Storm King

 

 Speakfire, TheMaster Witness in Hikehikayo

 

 Spinning WheelErkynlandish name for constellation

 

 Sugar-bulbWran tree

 

 Tarbox, Theinn at Falshire

 

 Tethtain's Axesunk in the heart of a beech tree in fa-

 mous Hernystiri tale

 

 Thornblack star-sword of Camaris

 

 8io Tad Williams

 

 Ti-twoCamaris* hom, made from dragon's tooth, also

 

 known as "Cellian"

 Tree. The(or "Holy Tree," or "Execution Tree") symbol

 

 of Usires Aedon's execution

 TwistgrassWran plant

 Uncharted, Thesubject of Niskie oath

 Wailing Stonedolmen above Hasu Vale

 Wedge and Beetle, TheStanshire inn

 Wind FestivalWrannaman celebration

 Winged Beetle, TheNabbanai constellation

 Winged dolphinemblem of Streawe of Perdruin

 WintercapErkynlandish winter flower

 "Woman from Nabban"one of SangfugoFs songs

 "Wormglass"Hemystiri name for certain old mirrors

 Yellow TinkerWran plant

 

 Yrmansoltree of Erkynlandish Maia-day celebration

 Yuvenis' ThroneNabbanai constellation

 

 Knuckle BonesBinabik's auguring tools,

 Patterns include:

 

 Wingless Bird

 Fish-Spear

 

 The Shadowed Path

 Torch at the Cave-Mouth

 Balking Ram

 Clouds in the Pass

 The Black Crevice

 Unwrapped Dart

 Circle of Stones

 Mountains Dancing

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER8lI

 

 WORDS AND PHRASES

 

 QANUC

 

 Henimaatuq! Ea kup!"Beloved friend! You're here!"

 Inij koku na siqqasa min taq"When we meet again, that

 

 will be a good day."

 Iq ta randayhet suk biqahuc"Winter is not being the

 

 time for naked swimming."

 Mindunob inik yat"My home will be your tomb."

 Nenit, henimaatuya"Come on, friends."

 Nihut"Attack"

 Shummuk"Wait"

 Ummu Bok"Well done!" (roughly)

 

 SITHI

 

 A y'ei g'eisu! Yas'a pripuma jo-shoi!"You cowardly

 

 ones! The waves would not carry you!"

 A-Genay'asu"Houses of Traveling Beyond"

 Hikeda'ya"Cloud Children": Noms

 Hikka Staja"Arrow Bearer"

 Hikka Ti-tuno"Bearer of Ti-tuno"

 M'yon rashf(Sithi) "Breakers of Things"

 Sinya'a du-n'sha e-d'treyesa inro"May you find the

 

 light that shines above the bow"

 Sudhoda'ya"Sunset Children": Mortals

 Sumy'asu"Fifth House"

 

 Tinukeda'ya"Ocean Children": Niskies and dwarrows

 Venyha s'ahn!"By the Garden!"

 Zida'ya"Dawn Children": Sithi

 

 NABBANAI

 

 ^ prenteiz"Take him!" or "At him!"

 Duos preterate!"God preserve"

 Duos Simpetis"Merciful God"

 

 8l2

 

 Tad Williams

 

 Em Wulstes Duos"By God's will"

 

 Matra sa Duos"Mother of God"

 

 Otillenaes"Tools"

 

 Son a"Sister"

 

 Ulimor Camaris? Veveis?"Lord Camaris? You live?"

 

 HERNYSTIRI

 

 Goirach cilagh!"Foolish (or mad) girl'"

 Moiheneg"between" or "empty place" (a ne,utral

 

 ground)

 Smearech fleann"dangerous book"

 

 RIMMERSPAKK

 

 Vad es ... Uf nammen Hott, vad es

 name of God, what?"

 

 ?"What? In the

 

 OTHER

 

 Azha she'she t'chak6, umn she'she bhabekr6 .,. Mudhul

 samat'ai. Jabbak s'era memekeza sanayha-z'a . . .

 Ninyek she'she, hamut 'ike agrazh'a s'era ye ..."

 (Norn song) means Something Very Unpleasant

 

 Shu'do-tkzayha!(Norn) "mortals" (var. of Sithi

 "Sudhoda'ya")

 

 S'h'rosa(Dwarrow) Vein of stone

 

 A GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION

 

 ERKTNLANDISH

 

 Erkynlandish names are divided into two types, Old

 Erkynlandish (O.E.) and Warinstenner. Those names

 which are based on types from Prester John's native is-

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER8l3

 

 land of Warinsten (mostly the names of castle servants or

 John's immediate family) have been represented as vari-

 ants on Biblical names (EliasElijah, EbekahRebecca,

 etc.) Old Erkynlandish names should be pronounced like

 modem English, except as follows:

 

 aalways ah, as in "father"

 

 aeay of "say"

 

 ck as in "keen"

 

 eai as in "air," except at the end of names, when it is

 also sounded, but with an eh or uh sound, i.e., Hruse

 "Rooz-uh"

 

 easounds as a in "mark," except at beginning of

 word or name, where it has the same value as ae

 

 galways hard g, as in "glad"

 

 hhard h of "help"

 

 ishort i of "in"

 

 jhard j of "jaw"

 

 olong but soft o, as in "orb"

 

 uoo sound of "wood," never yoo as in "music"

 

 HERNTSTIRI

 

 The Hemystiri names and words can be pronounced in

 largely the same way as the O.E., with a few exceptions:

 

 thalways the th in "other," never as in "thing"

 cha guttural, as in Scottish "loch"

 vpronounce yr like "beer," ye like "spy"

 hunvoiced except at beginning of word or after t or

 c

 

 eay as in "ray"

 //same as single 1: LluthLuth

 

 RIMMERSPAKK

 

 Names and words in Rimmerspakk differ from O.E. pro-

 nunciation in the following:

 

 814Tad Williams

 

 jpronounced y: JarnaugaYarnauga; Hjeldin-

 Hyeldin (H nearly silent here)

 

 eilong i as in "crime"

 

 eee, as in "sweet"

 

 6oo, as in "coop"

 

 auow, as in "cow"

 

 NABBANAI

 

 The Nabbanai language holds basically to the rules of a

 romance language, i.e., the vowels are pronounced "ah-

 eh-ih-oh-ooh," the consonants are all sounded, etc. There

 

 are some exceptions.

 

 (most names take emphasis on second to last sylla-

 ble: Ben-i-GAR-is. When this syllable has an i, it is

 sounded long (Ardrivis: Ar-DRY-vis) unless it comes be-

 fore a double consonant (Antippa: An-TIHP-pa)

 

 esat end of name, es is sounded long: GellesGel-

 

 leez

 yis pronounced as a long (", as in "mild"

 

 QANUC

 

 Troll-language is considerably different than the other hu-

 man languages. There are three hard "k" sounds, signified

 by: c, q. and k. The only difference intelligible to most

 non-Qanuc is a slight clucking sound on the q, but it is

 not to be encouraged in beginners. For our purposes, all

 three will sound with the k of "keep." Also, the Qanuc u

 is pronounced uh, as in "bug." Other interpretations are

 up to the reader, but he or she will not go far wrong pro-

 nouncing phonetically.

 

 SITHI

 

 Even more than the language of Yiqanuc, the language of

 the Zida'ya is virtually unpronounceable by untrained

 

 TOGREENANGELTOWER8l5

 

 tongues, and so is easiest rendered phonetically, since the

 

 chance of any of us being judged by experts is slight (but

 

 not nonexistent, as Binabik learned). These rules may be

 

 applied, however.

 

 ('when the first vowel, pronounced ih, as in "clip."

 

 When later in word, especially at end, pronounced ee, as

 

 in "fleet": JirikiJih-REE-kee

 aipronounced like long i, as in "time"

 ' (apostrophe)represents a clicking sound, and should

 

 be not voiced by mortal readers.

 

 EXCEPTIONAL NAMES

 

 GeloeHer origins are unknown, and so is the source of

 her name. It is pronounced "Juh-LO-ee" or "Juh-LOY."

 Both are correct.

 

 Ingen JeggerHe is a Black Rimmersman, and the "J" in

 Jegger is sounded, just as in "jump."

 

 MiriameleAlthough born in the Erkynlandish court,

 hers is a Nabbanai name that developed a strange

 pronunciation-perhaps due to some family influence or

 confusion of her dual heritageand sounds as "Mih-ree-

 uh-MEL."

 

 VorzhevaA Thrithings-woman, her name is pronounced

 "Vor-SHAY-va," with the z/i sounding harshly, like the

 Hungarian zs.


