282                                    Tad Williams

need not be fearing any such demon while we are staying here in your
home. In return, we have much gratitude for a roof and a hearth for
warming."
    "Oh, no," Skodi said, her eyes wide, "it is me who is grateful. We do
not get many visitors. Vren, help clear a place for the men to sleep. Vren,
do you hear me?"
    Vren was staring intently at Simon, an unfathomable expression in his
dark eyes.
    "Your mentioning of guests, my lady," Binabik began, "--it brings to
my mind a question I had meant to be asking you. How is it that you and
these children have come to be in such a place of isolation... ?"
    "The storms came. Others ran away. We had nowhere else to go." Her
brisk words poorly concealed her wounded tone. "None of us were
wanted--none of the children, nor Skodi either." The subject discussed,
her voice warmed again. "Now it is time for the little ones to sleep.
Come, all of you, help me up." Several of her wards scurried to assist
Skodi in levering her large body up out of the chair. As she moved slowly
toward the door at the back of the room, a pair of sleeping children
clinging to her like baby bats, she called: "Vren will help you find your
way. Bring the candle when you come, Vren." She disappeared into the
shadows.

    Simon awakened from an uneasy sleep in the depths of night, filled with
confused panic by the red-touched and starless darkness, and also by a
faint thread of sound that wove itself in and out of the muted tapestry of
windsong. It took some moments to remember that they slept near the
hearth of the old abbey, warmed by dreaming coals and sheltered from the
elements by the roof and decaying walls. The noise was Qantaqa's lonely
howl, floating distantly. Simon's fear faded a little, but did not disappear.
    Was that a dream I had last night? Shem and Ruben and the voices? Was it truly
just a mad ~ncy, or was it as real as it seemed.., as it sounded?
    Ever since the night of his escape from the Hayholt, he had not felt a
master of his own destiny. That same Stoning Night, when he had
somehow felt Pryrates' repellent thoughts and had unwillingly shared in
the ritual as Elias received the terrible gift of the sword Sorrow, Simon
had wondered if he was even a master of his own mind. His dreams had
become vivid far beyond the realms of mere night-wandering. The
dream at Gelo~'s house, in which a cadaverous Morgenes had warned
him of a false messenger, and the repeated visitations of the great, all-
crushing wheel and of the tree-that-was-a-tower, white among the stars--
these seemed too insistent, too powerful to be just unsettled sleep. And
now, in his dreams the night before, he heard heard Pryrates talking to
some unearthly thing as clearly as if Simon listened at a keyhole. These
were not anything like the dreams of his life before this last terrible year.


STONE OF FAREWELL

283

         When Binabik and Gelo~ had taken him on the Road of Dreams, the
     vision he experienced there had felt much like these others--like dream-
     ing, but with a wild and indescribable potency of vision. Perhaps some-
     how, because of Pryrates on the hilltop or something else, a door had
     opened in him that sometimes led to the dream-road. That seemed like
     madness, but what did not in this topsy-turvy age? The dreams must be
     importantmwhen he awoke, it was with the sense of something infinitely
     crucial slipping away--but terrifyingly, he had no idea what they might
     mean.
         Qantaqa's mournful cry sounded again through the storm that blew
     beyond the abbey's walls. Simon wondered that the troll did to get up to
     soothe his mount, but the sound of Binabik's and Sludig's snoring contin-
     ued unabated. Simon tried to rise, determined to at least offer her the
     chance to come in--she sounded so lone and lorn, and it was so very cold
     outside---but found that a heavy languor clutched his limbs, so that he
     could not force himself up. He struggled, but to no avail. His limbs were
     no more responsive than if they had been carved of ash-wood.
         Simon suddenly felt terribly sleepy. He fought his drowsiness, but it
     pulled him relentlessly downward; Qantaqa's distant howl faded and he
     went sliding as though down a long slope, back toward unknowingness ....
       When he woke again, the last coals had burned black and the abbey was
l'                        darkness. A cold hand                                  his face. He                  with
            in
                 utter
                                                                  touching
                                                                                                    gasped
                                                                                     was
            horror, but air barely filled his lungs. His body still felt heavy as stone,
            without the power of movement.
            "Pretty," Skodi whispered, a deeper shadow, sensed rather than seen,
            looming tall and wide above him. She stroked his cheek. "Just got your
            beard, too. You are a pretty one. I will keep you."
            Simon strove helplessly to wriggle from beneath her touch.
            "They don't want you, either, do they?" Skodi said, crooning as though
            to a baby. "I can feel it. Skodi knows. Cast out, you were. I can hear it in
            your head. But that is not why I had Vren bring you."
            She settled down beside him in the dark, folding into a crouch like a
            tent pulling loose from its stakes. "Skodi knows what you have. I heard it
            singing in my ears, saw it in my dreams. Lady Silver Mask wants it. Her
            Lord Red Eyes does, too. They want the sword, the black sword, and
            when I give it to them they will be nice to me. They will love Skodi and
            give her presents." She caught a lock of his hair between her plump fingers
            and gave it a sharp pull. The twinge of pain seemed far away. A moment
            later, as if in recompense, she ran her hand carefully over Simon's head
            and face.
            "Pretty," she said at last. "A friend for me---a friend my age. That is
            what I have waited for. I will take away those dreams that are bothering
            you. I will take away all your dreams. I can do that, you know." She
            lowered her whispering voice even further, and Simon realized for the first


284                                    Tad Williams

time that the heavy breathing of his two friends had ceased. He wondered
if they were lying silent in the darkness, waiting to save him. If that was
so, he prayed they would act soon. His heart seemed as nerveless as his
leaden limbs, but fear beat through him, aching like a secret pulse. "They
drove me out of Haethstad," Skodi muttered. "My own family and
neighbors. Said I was a witch. Said I put curses on people. Drove me
out." Horribly, she began to snuffle. When she spoke again, her words
were garbled by tears. "I sh-sh-showed them. When Father was drunk
and sleeping, I stabbed Mother with his knife and then put it back in his
hand. He killed himself." Her laugh was bitter but remorseless. "I could
always see things others could not, think of things they would not. Then,
when the deep winter came and would not go away, I began to be able to
do things. Now I can do things no one else can do." Her voice rose
triumphantly. ~'I am growing stronger all the time. Stronger and stronger.
When I give Lady Silver Mask and Lord Red Eyes the sword they're
looking for, the singing black sword I heard in my dreams, then I'll be like
they are. Then the children and I will make everyone sorry."
    As she spoke, she absently slid her cold hand from Simon's forehead
down into his shirt, letting it play over his naked chest as if she petted a
dog. The wind had stilled, and in the dreadful silence of its abatement he
suddenly knew that his friends had been taken away. There was no one in
the lightless room but Skodi and Simon.
 "But I will keep you," she said. "I will keep you for myself."


Witfiiu God's Wafts

F~ Dinivan toyed with his food, staring into his bowl as though
some helpful message might be written there in olive pits and breadcrumbs.
Candles burned fiercely the length of the table. Pryrates' voice was loud
and harsh as a brazen gong.
    "... So you see, Your Sacredness, all that King Elias wishes is your
acceptance of one fact: Mother Church's provenance may be men's souls,
but she has no right to interfere in the disposition of men's corporeal
forms by their legitimate monarch." The hairless priest grinned in self-
satisfaction. Dinivan's heart sank to see the lector smile dully in return.
Surely Ranessin must know that Elias was as much as declaring that
God's shepherd on earth had less right to power than an earthly king?
Why did he sit and say nothing?
    The lector slowly nodded his head. He looked across the table to
Pryrates, then briefly to Duke Benigaris, new master of Nabban, who
appeared a trifle nervous beneath the lector's scrutiny, hurriedly wiping
grease from his chin with the back of a brocaded sleeve. This Feast of
Hlafmansa Eve was usually only a religious and ceremonial occasion.
Although Dinivan knew him to be utterly the creature of Pryrates' master
Elias, at this moment the duke seemed to be wishing for more ceremony
and less confrontation.
    "The High King and his emissary Pryrates wish only the best for Mother
Church, Sacredness," Benigaris said gruffly, unable to hold Ranessin's
gaze, as though he saw his rumored murder of his father mirrored there.
"We should listen to what Pryrates says." He addressed his trencher once
more, wherein he found more convivial company.
    "We are considering all that Pryrates has to say," the lector responded
mildly. Silence fell upon the table once more. Fat Velligis and the other
escritors present returned to their own meals, obviously pleased that the
long-feared confrontation seemed to have been averted.
 Dinivan lowered his eyes to the remains of his supper. A young priest

285


286                                    Tad Williams

who hovered at his elbow refilled Dinivan's goblet with water--it had
seemed a good night to avoid wine---and reached forward to take his
bowl, but Dinivan waved him back. It was better to have something to
concentrate on, if only to avoid looking at viperous Pryrates, who was not
bothering to hide his immense pleasure at discomfiting the church hierarchy.
    Absently pushing breadcrumbs with his knife, Dinivan marveled at how
inseparably the great and the mundane were linked. This ultimatum from
King Elias and the lector's response might one day seem an event of
unforgettable magnitude, like that day long ago when the third Larexes
had declared Lord Subs heretic and apostate, sending that magnificent and
troubled man into exile. But even during that momentous event, Dinivan
reflected, there had probably been priests who scratched their noses, or
stared at the ceiling, or silently bemoaned their aching joints as they sat
within the very crucible of history--even as Dinivan now poked at his
own supper-leavings and Duke Benigaris belched and loosened his belt. So
men always would be, ape and angel mixed, their animal nature chafing at
the restraints of civilization even as they reached for Heaven or for Hell. It
was amusing, really . . . or should have been.
    As Escritor Velligis tried to initiate a more soothing supper-table con-
versation, Dinivan suddenly felt an odd trembling in his fingers: the table
was shuddering gently beneath his hands. Earthquake was his first thought,
but then the olive pits in his bowl began to slide together slowly, forming
themselves into runes before his astonished eyes. He looked up, startled,
but no one else at the banquet table appeared to notice anything amiss.
Velligis droned on, his chubby face gleaming with sweat; the other guests
watched him, politely feigning interest.
    Creeping like insects, the leavings in Dinivan's bowl had merged to
form two sneering words: "SCROLL PIG." Sickened, he looked up to
meet Pryrates' shark-black eyes. The alchemist wore a look of vast amuse-
ment. One of his white fingers was waving above the tablecloth, as if
sketching upon the insubstantial air. Then, as Dinivan watched, Pryrates
waggled all his digits at once. The crumbs and olive stones in Dinivan's
bowl abruptly tumbled apart, whatever forces that had bound them now
dispersed.
    Dinivan's hand rose defensively to grasp the chain that lay beneath his
cassock, feeling for the hidden scroll; Pryrates' grin widened in almost
childish glee. Dinivan found his usual optimism melting before the red
priest's unmistakable confidence. He suddenly realized what a thin and
breakable reed his own life actually was.
    "... They are not, I suppose, truly dangerous ..." Velligis was
blathering, "but it is a dreadful blow to the dignity of Mother Church,
these barbarians settling themselves afire in public squares, a dreadful
blow--as much as daring the church to stop them! It is a kind of contagious
madness, I am told, carried by bad airs. I no longer go out without a
kerchief to wear over my nose and mouth . . ."



STONE OF FAREWELL

287

    "But perhaps the Fire Dancers are not mad," Pryrates said lightly.
"Perhaps their dreams are more ... real ... than you would like to
believe."
    "That is... that is..." Velligis spluttered, but Pryrates ignored him,
his obscenely empty eyes still fixed on Dinivan.
    He J~ars no excess now, Dinivan thought. The realization seemed an
unbearable burden. Nothing binds him any longer. His terrible curiosity has
become a heedless and insatiable hunger.
    Had that been when the world had begun to go wrong? When Dinivan
and his fellow Scrollbearers had brought Pryrates into their secret coun-
cils? They had opened their hearts and treasured archives to the young
priest, respecting the honed sharpness of Pryrates' mind for a long time
before the rot at the center of him could no longer be mistaken. They had
driven him from their midst, then--but too late, it seemed. Far, far too
late. Like Dinivan, the priest sat at the tables of the mighty, but Pryrates'
red star was now ascending, while Dinivan's track seemed murky and
obscured.
    Was there anything more he could do? He had sent messages to the two
Scrollbearers still living, Jarnauga and Ookequk's apprentice, though he
had heard from neither in some time. He had also sent suggestions or
instructions to others of good faith, like the forest-woman Gelo~ and little
Tiamak in the marshy Wran. He had brought Princess Miriamele safely to
the SanceUan Aedonitis and made her tell her story to the lector. He had
tended all the trees as Morgenes would have wished: all he could do now
was wait and see what fruit might come ....
    Slipping Pryrates' troubling gaze, Dinivan looked around the lector's
dining hall, trying to take note of details. If this was to be a momentous
night, for good or ill, he might as well try to remember all he could.
Perhaps in some future--a brighter one than he could now envision--he
would be an old man standing at the shoulder of some young artisan,
offering corrections: "No, it wasn't like that at all! I was there . . ," He
smiled, forgetting his worries for a moment. What a happy thought--to
survive the cares of these dark days, to live with no greater responsibility
than being an annoyance to some poor artist laboring to complete a
commission!
    His moment of reverie ended abruptly, arrested by the sight of a
familiar face in the arched doorway that led to the kitchens. What was
Cadrach doing here? He had been in the Sancellan Aedonitis scarcely a
week and would have no business that could bring him near the lector's
private quarters, so he could only be spying on the lector's supper guests.
Was it only curiosity, or was Cadrach . . . Padreic... feeling the tug of
old loyalties? Of conflicting loyalties?
    Even as these thoughts flashed through Dinivan's head, the monk's face
fell back into the shadows of the door and was gone from sight. A


288                                    Tad Williams

moment later a server marched through with a wide salver, making it
obvious that Cadrach had vanished from the archway entirely.
    Now, as if in counterpoint to Dinivan's confusion, the lector rose
suddenly from his tall chair at the head of the table. Ranessin's kind face
was somber; the shadows thrown by the bright candlelight made him
seem ancient and bowed with troubles.
    He silenced prattling Velligis with a single wave of his hand. "We have
thought," the lector said slowly. His white-haired head seemed remote as
a snow-capped mountain. "The world as you speak of it, Pryrates, makes
a certain kind of sense. There is weight to its logic. We have heard similar
things from Duke Benigaris and his frequent envoy, Count Aspitis."
    "Earl Aspitis," Benigaris said abruptly, his heavy face flushed. He had
drunk a great deal of the lector's wine. "Earl," he continued heedlessly.
"King Elias made him an earl at my request. As a gesture of his friendship
to Nabban."
    Ranessin's slender features curled in a poorly-concealed look of disgust.
"We know you and the High King are close, Benigaris. And we know that
you yourself rule Nabban. But you are at our table now, in God's
house--my table--and we bid you to remain silent until Mother Church's
highest priest finishes speaking."
    Dinivan was shocked by the lector's angry tone--Ranessin was ordi-
narily the mildest of men--but found himself heartened by such unex-
pected strength. Benigaris' mustache quivered angrily, but he reached for
his wine-cup with the clumsiness of an embarrassed child.
    Ranessin's blue eyes were now fixed on Pryrates. He continued in the
stately manner he so seldom used, but which seemed so natural when he
did. "As we said, the world which you and Elias and Benigaris preach
makes a certain kind of sense. It is a world where alchemists and monarchs
decide the fate not only of men's corporeal forms, but of their souls as
well, and where the king's minions encourage deluded souls to burn
themselves for the glory of false idols if it suits their purposes. A world
where the uncertainty of an invisible God is replaced by the certainty of a
black, burning spirit who dwells on this earth, in the heart of a mountain
of ice."
    Pryrates' hairless brows shot up at this; Dinivan felt a moment of cold
joy. Good. So the creature could still be surprised.
    "Hear me!" Ranessin's voice gained force, so that for a moment it
seemed that not only the room had fallen silent, but the whole world with
it, as though in that instant the candlelit table rode the very cusp of
Creation. "This world--your world, the world you preach to us with your
sly words--is not the world of Mother Church. We have long known of a
dark angel who strides the earth, whose bleak hand reaches out to trouble
all the hearts of Osten Ard--but our scourge is the Arch-fiend himself, the
implacable foe of God's light. Whether your ally is truly our Enemy of


t

STONE OF FAREWELL

289

countless millennia or just another vicious minion of darkness, Mother
Church has always stood against his like.., and always shall."
    Everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath for an endless
moment.
    "You do not know what you say, old man." Pryrates' voice was a
sulfurous hiss. "You grow feeble and your mind wanders . . ."
    Shockingly, not one of the escritors raised their voices in protest or
dissent. They stared, wide-eyed, as Ranessin leaned across the table and
calmly engaged the priest's angry stare. Light seemed to quail and almost
die throughout the banquet hall, leaving only the two illuminated, one
scarlet, one white, their shadows stretching, stretching...
    "Lies, hatred, and greed," the lector said softly. "They are familiar,
age-old enemies. It matters not beneath whose banner they march." He
stood up, a slim, pale shape, and lifted a hand. Dinivan felt again the
fierce, uncontrollable love that had driven him to bend his back in suppli-
cation before the mystery of Man's divine purpose, to bind his life over
into the service of this humble and wonderful man, and to the church that
lived in his person.
    With cold deliberation, Ranessin drew the sign of the Tree in the air
before him. The table seemed to shudder again beneath Dinivan's hand;
this time he could not believe it the alchemist's doing. "You have opened
doors that should have remained closed for all time, Pryrates," the lector
proclaimed. "In your pride and folly, you and the High King have
brought a ponderous evil into a world which already groaned beneath a
mighty burden of suffering. Our church--my church--will fight you for
every soul, until the very Day of Weighing-Out dawns. I declare you
excommunicate, and King Elias with you, and also banish from the arms of
Mother Church any who follow you into darkness and error." His arm
swept down, once, twice. "Duos Onenpodensis, Feata Vorum Lexeran. Duos
Onenpodensis, Feata Vorum Lexeran/"
    No clap of thunder of horn of judgment followed the Lector's booming
words, only the distant peal of the Clavean bell tolling the hour. Pryrates
stood slowly, his face pale as wax, his mouth twisted in a trembling
grimace.
    "You have made a horrible mistake," he rasped. "You are a foolish old
man and your great Mother Church is a child's toy made of parchment
and glue." He was quivering with surprised fury. "We shall put a torch to
it ere long. The howling will be great when it bums. You have made a mistake."
    He turned and stalked from the dining hall, his bootheels clocking on
the tiled floor, his robes billowing like flame. Dinivan thought he heard a
terrible intimation of holocaust in the priest's departing footsteps, of a
great and final conflagration, a black scorching of the pages of history.


290                                    Tad Williams

    Miriamele was sewing a wooden button onto her cloak when someone
rapped on the door. Startled, she slid off the cot and padded to answer,
her bare feet chill against the cold floor.  "Who is it?"
  "Open the door, Prin... Malachias. Please open the door."
    She drew the bolt. Cadrach stood in the poorly lit hallway, his sweaty
face gleaming in the candlelight. He pushed past her into the small cell and
elbowed the door shut so abruptly that Miriamele felt a breeze as it swept
by her nose.
  "Are you mad?" she demanded. "You cannot just push in like this!"
  "Please, Princess..."
  "Get out! Now!"
    "Lady ..." Astonishingly, Cadrach fell to his knees. His normally
ruddy face was quite pale. "We must flee the Sancellan Aedonitis. Tonight."
    She stared down. "You have gone mad." Her tone was imperious.
"What are you talking about? Have you stolen something? I don't know if
I should protect you any longer, and I certainly will not go charging out
of.  .''
    He cut her off in mid-speech. "No. It is nothing I have done--at least,
nothing I have done tonight--and the danger is not to me so much as
to you. But that danger is very great. We must flee!"
    For several moments Miriamele could not think of a thing to say.
Cadrach indeed looked very frightened, a change from his usual veiled
expression.
    He broke the silence at last. "Please, my lady, I know I have been a
faithless companion, but I have done some good, as well. Please trust me
this once. You are in terrible danger!"
  "Danger from what?"
  "Pryrates is here."
    She felt a wave of relief wash over her. Cadrach's wild words had
frightened her after all. "Idiot. I know that. I spoke to the lector yester-
day. I know all about Pryrates."
    The stocky monk rose to his feet. His jaw was set in a very determined
way. "That is one of the most foolish things you have ever said, Princess.
You know very little about him, and you should be grateful for that.
Grateful!" He reached out and seized her arm.
    "Stop that! How dare you!" She tried to slap at his face, but Cadrach
leaned away from the blow, maintaining his grip. He was surprisingly
strong.
    "Saint Muirfath's Bones!" he hissed. "Don't be such a fool, Miriamele!"
He leaned toward her, holding her gaze with his own wide eyes. There
was, she fleetingly noticed, no smell of wine about him. "If I must treat
you like a child, I will," the monk growled. He pushed her backward until
she toppled onto the cot, then stood over her, angry yet fearful. "The



STONE OF FAREWELL

291

lector has declared Pryrates and your father excommunicate. Do you
know what that means?"
  "Yes!" she said, her voice almost a shout. 'Tin glad!"
    "But Pryrates is not glad, and something bad will happen. It will happen
very soon. You should not be here when it does."
    "Bad? What do you mean? Pryrates is alone in the Sancellan. He came
with half a dozen of my father's guardsmen. What can he do?"
    "And you claim to know all about him." Cadrach shook his head in
disgust, then turned and began scooping Miriamele's loose clothing and
few possessions into her traveling bag. "l, for one," he said, "do not want
to see whatever he will be getting up to."
    She watched him for a moment, dumbfounded. Who was this person
who looked like Cadrach, but shouted and ordered and grabbed her arm
like a river-barge bravo? "I will not go anywhere until I talk to Father
Dinivan," she said at last. Some of the edge had disappeared from her
voice.
    "Splendid," Cadrach said. "Whatever you wish. Just prepare yourself to
go. I'm sure that Dinivan will agree with me--if we can find him at all."
    Reluctantly, she bent to help him. "Just tell me this," she said. "Do you
swear that we're in danger? And that it's not something you did?"
    He stopped. For the first time since he had entered the room, Cadrach's
odd half-smile appeared, but this one twisted his face into a mask of
terrible sorrow. "We have all done things that we regret, Miriamele. l
have made mistakes that set God the Highest to weeping on His great
throne." He shook his head, angry at wasting time with talk. "But this
danger is real and immediate, and there is nothing we can either of us do
to make it less. Thus, we shall flee. Cowards always survive."
    Seeing his face, Miriamele suddenly did not ever want to know what
Cadrach had done to make him hate himself so much. She shuddered and
turned away, looking for her boots.

    The Sancellan Aedonitis seemed strangely deserted, even for the late
evening hour. A few priests had gathered in the various common rooms
where they sat gossiping in hushed tones; a handful more strode the
corridors with lighted candles, on errands of one sort or another. Except
for these few, the halls were empty. The torches burned fitfully in their
sockets, as though troubled by restless breezes.
    Miriamele and Cadrach were in a deserted upstairs gallery, passing from
the chambers where visiting churchmen stayed and into the administrative
and ceremonial heart of God's House, when the monk pulled Miriamele
over to a shadowed window alcove.
    "Put the candle clown and come look," he said quietly. She wedged the
taper in a crevice between two tiles and leaned forward. The cold air
struck her face like a slap.


292                                    Tad Williams

 "What should I look at?"
    "There, below. Do you see all those men with torches?" He tried to
point within the confines of the narrow window. Miriamele could see at
least a score of men in the courtyard below, amored and cloaked, bearing
spears on their shoulders.
    "Yes," she said slowly. The soldiers did not appear to be doing much
more than warming their hands at the courtyard fire-cairns. "So?"
    "Those are from Duke Benigaris' household guard," Cadrach said grimly.
"Someone is expecting trouble tonight, and expecting it to be here."
    "But I thought soldiers were never allowed to bear arms in the Sancellan
Aedonitis." The spearpoints caught the torchlight like tongues of flame.
    "Ah, but Duke Benigaris himself is a guest here tonight, since he
attended the lector's banquet."
    "Why didn't he go back to the SanceUan Mahistrevis?" She stepped
away from the drafty window. "It's not very far."
    "An excellent question," Cadrach replied, a sour smile playing over his
shadow-striped face. "Why indeed?"

    Duke Isgrimnur tested Kvalnir's keen edge with his thumb and nod-
ded with satisfaction. He slipped his whetstone and jar of oil back into his
bag. There was something very calming about sharpening his sword. A
pity he had to leave it behind. He sighed and wrapped it in rags once
more, then pushed it underneath his pallet.
    It wouldn't do to go see the lector carrying a sword, he thought, no matter how
much better it'd make me feel. I doubt his guards would take kindly to it.
    Not that Isgrimnur was going to see the lector directly. It was very
unlikely that a strange monk would be allowed into the Shepherd of
Mother Church's bedchamber, but Dinivan's chambers were close by.
The lector's secretary had no guards. Also, Dinivan knew Isgrimnur and
thought highly of him. When the priest realized who his late-night visitor
really was, he would listen carefully to what the duke had to say.
    Still, Isgrimnur felt his stomach fluttering, as it had before countless
battles. That had been the reason he'd brought out his sword: Kvalnir
hadn't been unsheathed more than twice since he'd left Naglimund, and
certainly hadn't seen any duty that would have dulled her Dverning-
forged blade, but honing his sword gave a man something to do when the
waiting became difficult. There was something in the air tonight, a queasy
expectancy that reminded Isgrimnur of the shores of Clodu during the
Battle of the Lakelands.
    Even King John, blooded war-hawk that he was, had been nervous that
night, knowing that ten thousand Thrithings-men waited somewhere in the
darkness beyond the sentry fires, and knowing also that the plains-dwellers


                                         STONE OF FAREWELL                                                                293

 were no adherents of orderly dawn starting-times for battles or any other
 such conventions of civilized warfare.
    Prester John had come to the fire that night, joining his young
Rimmersman friend---Isgrimnur had not yet inherited his father's dukedom--
for a jug of wine and a bit of conversation. As they talked, the king had
taken stone and polishing rag to fabled Bright-Nail. They spent the night
yarning away, a little self-consciously at first, with many a pause to listen
for unusual noises, then with increasing ease as dawn approached and it
became obvious the Thrithings-men planned no nighttime raids.
    John told Isgrimnur tales of his youth on Warinsten--which he de-
scribed as an island of backward and superstition-plagued bumpkins--
and of his early travels on the mainland of Osten Ard. Isgrimnur was
fascinated by these unexpected glimpses of the king's early life: Prester John
was already nearly fifty years old as they sat by the fire at Lake Clodu, and
to the young Rimmersman might as well have been king since the begin-
ning of time. But when asked about his legendary destruction of the red
worm Shurakai, John had waved the question away like an irritating fly.
He proved no more willing to discuss how he had received Bright-Nail,
saying that those stories were overtold and tiresome.
    Now, forty years later, in a monk's cell at the Sancellan Aedonitis,
Isgrimnur remembered and smiled. John's nervous whetting of Bright-
Nail was the closest the duke had ever seen his lord come to anything
approaching fear--fear about combat, at least.
    The duke snorted. Now, with that good old man two years in his
grave, here sat his friend Isgrimnur, moping about when there were tasks
to be done for the good of John's kingdom.
    Lord willing, Dinivan will be my herald, life's a clever man. He'll put Lector
Ranessin on my side and we'll track Miriamele down.
    He pulled his hood low on his head, then opened the doorway, letting
the torchlight spill in from the corridor. He recrossed the room to put
out the candle. It wouldn't do to have it fall over on his pallet and catch
the place on fire.

    Cadrach was becoming increasingly agitated. They had been waiting
inside Dinivan's study for some time; high above, the Clavean bell had
.just sounded the eleventh hour.
    "He is not returning, Princess, and I do not know where his private
chambers are. We must go."
    Miriamele was peering into the lector's great audience hall through the
curtain at the back of the secretary's work room. Lit by only a single
torch, the painted figures on the high ceiling seemed to swim in muddy
water. "Knowing Dinivan, his private chambers are probably close to



294                                    Tad Williams

where he works," she said. The monk's worried tone made her feel;
superior once more. "He'll come back here. He left all his candles
ing, didn't he? Why are you so worried?"
    Cadrach looked up from Dinivan's papers, which he had been sm
tiously examining. "/was at the banquet tonight. I saw Pryrates' fac
is a man not accustomed to being balked."
 "How do you know that? And what were you doing at the banqc
 "Doing what was necessary. Keeping an eye open."
    Miriamele let the drapery slide back into place. "You are full of hi
talents, aren't you? Where did you learn to open a door without a key
you did to this room?"
    Cadrach looked stung. "You said you wanted to see him, my lady.
insisted on coming here. I thought it was better we came inside than s
around in the halls waiting for the lector's guards to go by, or one o
other priests who might want to know what we were doing in this pa
the Sancellan."
 "Lock-pick, spy, kidnapper--unusual talents for a monk."
    "You may make fun if you wish, Princess." He seemed almost ashar~
"I have not had the life of my choice, or rather, I suppose, my chc
have not been good ones. But spare me your nasty jibes until we are
of here and safe."
    She slid into Dinivan's chair and rubbed her cold hands together, fi~
the monk with her best level gaze. "Where do you come from, Cadrac
    He shook his head. "I do not wish to talk of such things. I gr
increasingly doubtful that Dinivan will return. We must go."
    "No. And if you don't stop saying that, I will scream. Then we'll
how that will go down with the lector's guards, won't we?"
    Cadrach peeked out into the hallway, then quickly closed the door aga
For all the chill, his tonsured hair hung on the side of his head in swe;
strands. "My lady, I beg you, l am beseeching you, for your own life a
safety, please let us leave now. It is approaching midnight and the dan~
is increasing every moment. Just . . . believe me!" Now he sounded trc
desperate. "We cannot wait any longer . . ."
    "You're wrong." Miriamele was enjoying the way that things h
shifted back in her direction. She put her booted feet up on Diniva~
cluttered table. "I can wait all night if need be." She tried to fix Cadra~
with a stern eye once more, but he was pacing behind her, out of sigh
"And we are not going to go fleeing into the night like idiots witho
talking to Dinivan first. ! trust him a great deal more than I trust you."
    "As you should, I suppose," Cadrach sighed. He sketched the sign
the Tree in the air, then lifted one of Dinivan's heavy books and smashe
it down on top of her head, tumbling her senseless to the carpeted fioo'
Cursing himself, he bent to lift her, then stopped as he heard voices in th
corridor.



STONE OF FAREWELL                                                                295

    "You really must go," the lector said sleepily. He was propped up in his
wide bed, a copy ofEn $emblis Aedonitis open on his lap. "I shall read for a
short while. You really must get some rest yourself, Dinivan. It has been a
very trying day for all."
    His secretary turned from his inspection of the painted panels on the
wall. "Very well, but don't read long, Sacredness."
  "I won't. My eyes tire very quickly by candlelight."
    Dinivan stared at the old man for a moment, then impulsively knelt and
took the lector's right hand, kissing the ilenite ring he wore. "Bless you,
Your Sacredness."
    Ranessin looked at him with worried fondness. "You must indeed be
overtired, dear friend. Your behavior is quite unusual."
    Dinivan stood. "You have just excommunicated the High King, Sacred-
ness. That makes for a somewhat unusual day, does it not?"
    The lector waved his hand dismissively. "Not that it will do anything.
The king and Pryrates will do as they please. The people will wait to see
what happens. Elias is not the first ruler to suffer Mother Church's
censure."
 "Then why do it? Why pit ourselves against him?"
    Ranessin stared at him shrewdly. "You speak as though this excom-
munication was not your own fondest hope. You of all people know why,
Dinivan: we must speak out when evil shows itself, whether there is any
hope of changing it or not." He closed the book before him. "[ really am
too tired even to read. Tell the truth, Dinivan. Is there much hope?"
The priest looked at him, surprised. "Why do you ask me, Sacredness?"
"Again you are ingenuous, my son. I know that there are many things
with which you do not trouble a weary old man. I also know that there
are good reasons for your secrecy. But tell me, from your own know-
ledge--is there hope?"
 "There is always hope, Sacredness. You taught me that."
    "Ah." Ranessin's smile was oddly satisfied. He settled down into his
cushions.
    Dinivan turned to the young acolyte who slept at the foot of the lector's
bed. "Make sure you bolt the door behind me when I go." The youth,
who had been dozing, nodded his head. "And do not let anyone into your
master's chamber this night." "No, Father, I won't."
    "Good." Dinivan stepped to the heavy door. "Good night, Sacredness.
God be with you."
    "And you," Ranessin said, muffled in his pillows. As Dinivan stepped
out into the hallway the acolyte shuffled over to push the door closed.
 The hall was even more poorly lit than the lector's bedchamber. Dinivan


296                                    Tad Williams

squinted anxiously until he spotted the lector's four guards standing at
attention against the shadowed wall, swords scabbarded at their sides,
pikes in their mailed fists. He let out his breath in relief, then walked
toward them down the long, high-arched corridor. Perhaps he should ask
for another two pairs to join these. He wouldn't be sure of the lector's
safety until Pryrates had gone back to the Hayholt and treacherous Benigaris
had returned to the ducal palace.
    He rubbed his eyes as he approached the guards. He did indeed feel very
tired, wrung out and hung up to dry. He would just stop and get some
things from his workroom, then go to bed. Morning services were only a
few hours away . . .
    "Ho, Captain," he said to the one whose helmet bore the white plume,
"I think it might be best if you called ... called ..." He broke off,
staring. The guard's eyes gleamed like pinpoints in the depth of his helm,
but they were fixed on some point beyond Dinivan, as were the eyes of
his companions. They were all as motionless as statues. "Captain?" He
touched the man's arm, which was rigid as stone. "In the name of Usires
Aedon," he muttered, "what has happened here?"  "They do not see or hear you."
    It was a familiar rasping voice. Dinivan whirled to see a glint of red at
the far end of the hallway.
  "Devil! What have you done!?"
    "They are sleeping," Pryrates laughed. "In the morning, they will
remember nothing. How the villains got past them to kill the lector will
be a mystery. Perhaps it will be viewed by some--the Fire Dancers, for
instance---as a kind of... black miracle."
    Poisonous fear crawled up from Dinivan's stomach, mixing with his
anger. "You will not harm the lector."
    "And who will stop me? You?" Pryrates' laugh turned scornful. "You
can try anything you wish, little man. Scream if you like---no one will
hear anything that happens in this hallway until I leave."
    "Then I will prevent you myself." Dinivan reached into his robe and
pulled forth the Tree that hung around his neck.
    "Oh, Dinivan, you have missed your calling." The alchemist stepped
forward, the torch light burnishing the arc of his hairless head. "Instead of
lector's secretary, you should have sought a position as God's own fool.
You cannot stop me. You have no idea of the wisdom I have discovered,
the powers I command."
    Dinivan stood his ground as Pryrates advanced, bootheels echoing through
the corridor. "If selling your immortal soul on the cheap is wisdom, I am
happy to have none of it." His fear mounting, he fought to keep his voice
steady.
    Pryrates' reptilian smile widened. "That is your mistake---you and all
those timid fools who call themselves Scrollbearers. The League of the


STONE OF FAREWELL

297

Scroll! A gossip society for whimpering, quibbling, would-be scholars.
And you, Dinivan, are the worst of all. You have sold your own soul for
superstitions and reassurances. Instead of opening your eyes to the myster-
ies of the infinite, you have hidden yourself among the callus-kneed
ring-kissers of the church."
    Rage flooded through Dinivan's frame, momentarily reversing the tide
of terror. "Stand back!" he shouted, lifting his Tree before him. It seemed
to glow, as though the wood itself smoldered. "You will go no farther,
servant of evil masters, unless you kill me first."
    Pryrates eyes widened in mock-astonishment. "Ah. So the little priest
has teeth! Well, then, we shall play the game your way . . . and I will
show you some teeth of my own." He lifted his hands over his head. The
alchemist's scarlet robes billowed as though a wild wind gusted through
the hallway. The torches rippled in their sockets, then blew out.
    "And remember this . . ." Pryrates hissed in darkness. "I command the
Words of Changing now! I am no one's servant,t"
    The Tree in Dinivan's hand flared more brightly, but Pryrates remained
sunken in shadow. The alchemist's voice rose, chanting in a language
whose very sound made Dinivan's ears ache and wrapped a band of
agony about his throat.
    "In the name of God the Highest..." Dinivan shouted, but as Pryrates'
chant mounted toward a triumphant climax it seemed to tear the words of
prayer from his mouth almost before they were spoken. Dinivan choked.
"In the name of..." His voice fell silent. In the shadows before him,
Pryrates' spell had become a grunting, gasping parody of speech as the
alchemist suffered through some agonizing transformation.
    Where Pryrates had stood a roiling, unrecognizable shadow now flailed,
writhing in knotted loops that grew larger and larger until even the starlight
was blotted out and the hallway sank into unbreachable blackness. Pon-
derous lungs wheezed like a blacksmith's bellows. A deadening, ancient
cold filled the corridor with unseen frost.
    Dinivan flung himself forward with a shout of terrified rage, trying to
strike the invisible thing with his Holy Tree, but instead found himself
caught up like a doll by some massive yet horribly insubstantial appendage.
They struggled, lost in the freezing darkness. Dinivan gasped as he felt
something pushing its way into his terrified thoughts, scraping inside his
head with burning fingers, trying to pry open his very mind like a jam jar.
He fought back with all his strength, struggling to hold the image of Holy
Aedon in his flickering thoughts; he thought he heard the thing that held
him gasp in pain.
    But the shadow only seemed to grow more substantial. Its grip tight-
ened around him, a horrible bone-cracking fist of jelly and lead. Sour, cold
breath fluttered against his cheek like the kiss of nightmare.
 "In the name of God . . . and the League . . ." Dinivan groaned. The


298                                    Tad Williams

animal noises and terrible labored breathing began to fade away. Angels
of painful, burning hght filled his head, dancing to welcome the darkness,
deafening him with their silent song.

    Cadrach dragged Miriamele's limp form out into the hallway, swearing
panicky oaths to various saints, gods, and demons. The only light was the
thin blue of starlight bleeding in through the windows high overhead, but
it was difficult not to see the huddled figure of the priest laying like a
discarded puppet in the center of the corridor a few steps away. It was
equally impossible to ignore the ghastly cries and shrieks coming from the
lector's chamber at the end of the hall, where the thick wooden door lay
splintered across the floor.
    The noises ceased abruptly, ending on a drawn-out wail of despair that
dwindled at last to a gurgling hiss. Cadrach's face filled with horror. He
bent and swept up the princess, heaving her over his shoulder, then
crouched awkwardly to pick up their bag of possessions. He straightened
and staggered away from the destruction at the far end of the hall, fighting
to stay on his feet.
    Around the corner the passageway widened, but there also the torches
had been extinguished. He thought he could see the shadowy forms of
armored men standing sentry, but they were motionless as relics. The
unhurried echo of booted feet sounded in the arched hall behind him.
Cadrach hurried forward, cursing the slippery tiles.
    The passage turned once more, opening into the great entrance cham-
ber, but as he scurried through the arch he struck something solid as a wall
of adamant, although he had seen nothing in the doorway but air. Stunned,
he tripped and tumbled backward. Miriamele slid from his shoulder to
the hard floor.
    The sound of approaching bootheels grew louder. Cadrach reached
forward in a fit of panic, encountering an unnatural wall, an invisible but
unyielding something. More transparent than crystal, it showed clearly
every detail of the torchlit chamber beyond.
    "Ah, please, don't let him have her," the monk murmured, clawing
with desperate fingers, searching for some flaw in the invisible barrier.
"Please!"
  His questing was in vain. The wall was seamless.
    Cadrach kneeled before the doorway, head slowly sinking to his chest as
the approaching footfalls grew louder. The unmoving monk might have
been a prisoner waiting at the executioner's block. Suddenly, he looked
up.
    "Wait!" he hissed. "Think, idiot man, think!" He shook his head and
took a deep breath, then released it and took one more. He held his palm


                             STONE OF FAREWELL                                          299

before the archway and spoke a single quiet word. A wash of cold air blew
past him, ruffling the tapestries in the entrance chamber. The barrier was
gone.
    He dragged Miriamele through, pulling her across the floor and into
one of the archways opening off the grand chamber. They disappeared
from sight just as Pryrates' red-robed figure appeared in the doorway
where the unseen impediment had been. Dim sounds of alarm were
beginning to filter through the halls.
    The red priest paused as though surprised to find his barrier gone.
Nevertheless, he turned and sketched a gesture in the direction from
which he had come, as though to sweep away whatever traces of his
handiwork might remain.
    His voice boomed, reverberating down the corridors in all directions.
"Murder!" he cried. "Murderers are in God's house!" As the echoes died
away he smiled briefly and set offtoward the chambers where he stayed as
the lector's guest.
    Struck by a thought, Pryrates stopped suddenly in the archway and
turned to survey the chamber. He lifted his hand once more, fingers
flexing. One of the torches gouted sparks, then spat out a tongue of flame
which leaped across to a row of tapestries lining the wall. The ancient
weavings blazed, fire licking upward at the great ceiling beams and spread-
ing rapidly from wall to wall. In the hallway beyond, other fires were also
blooming.
    The alchemist grinned. "One must give omens their due," he said to no
one present, then departed, chuckling. All around, the babble of confused
and frightened voices began to fill the byways of the Sancellan Aedonitis.

    Duke Isgrimnur congratulated himself for bringing a candle. The hall-
way was black as tar. Where were the sentries? Why weren't the torches
lit?
    Whatever the problem was, the Sancellan was awakening all around
him. He heard someone shout boldly of murder, which set his heart
swiftly beating; this was followed by other, more distant cries. For a few
moments he considered returning to his tiny room, but decided that
perhaps the confusion was for the best. Whatever the cause of the alarm
really was--and he doubted it was murder--it might mean he would be
able to find the lector's secretary without having to answer wearisome
questions from the lector's guards.
    The candle in its wooden holder threw lsgrimnur's shadow high against
the walls of the great entrance hall. As the sounds of approaching discov-
ery grew, he wracked his brain for the proper exit from the chamber. He
chose the archway that seemed likeliest.




300                                    Tad Williams

    A short distance past the second turning of the hallway, he found
himself in a wide gallery. A robed figure lay sprawled on the floor amid a
tangle of draperies, beneath the unperturbed stare of several armed guards.
    Are they statues, then? he wondered. But, damn me, statuary never looked
like that. See, that one there is leaning as though he were whispering to the other.
He stared up at the unseeing eyes that gleamed within the helms and felt
his skin crawling Aedon save us. Black sorcery, that's what it is.
    To his despair, he recognized the body on the floor the moment he
turned it over. Dinivan's face seemed bluish, even by the dim candlelight
Thin stripes of blood had run forward from his ears, drying on his cheek
like red tears. His body felt like a sack of broken twigs
    "Elysia, Mother of God, what's happened here?" the duke groaned
aloud
    Dinivan's eyes fluttered open, startling Isgimnur so that he almost let
the priest's head fall back against the tiles Dinivan's gaze wandered for a
moment before fixing on him. It might have been the candle Isgrimnur
awkwardly held, but the priest's eyes seemed to burn with a strange spark
Whatever the case, Isgrimnur knew it was a spark that would not last long.
    "Lector..." Dinivan breathed Isgrimnur leaned closer "Look . . . to
 . . lector."
    "Dinivan, it's me," he said. "Duke Isgrimnur. I've comc looking for
Miriamele."
    "Lector," the priest said stubbornly, his bloodicd lips struggling to form
thc word. Isgrimnur sat up.
    "Very wcll." Hc lookcd helplcssly for something to cushion the pricst's
wounded head, but could find nothing. He let Dinivan down, then rose
and walkcd to thc end of thc hallway. Thcrc was little doubt which room
was thc lcctor's--thc door lay in grcat shards, and cvcn thc marblc around
the door-frame was scorched and crumblcd. Therc was cven lcss doubt
about Lcctor Rancssin's fate. Isgrimnur took one look around the ruincd
chambcr, then turned and retreated hurriedly into thc corridor. Blood had
been smeared across the walls as if by a hugc brush. The mangled forms of
Mother Church's ]cadcr and his young servant wcrc barely rccognizablc as
human: their corpses had been sparcd no indignitics. Even Isgrimnur's old
soldicr's heart quailed at the sight of so much blood.
    Flames werc flickering in thc far archway when thc duke rcturncd, but
he steeled himsclf to ignore them for a momcnt. Time for thought of
cscapc later. Hc took Dinivan's cold hand.
  "Thc lector is dead. Can you help me find Princess Miriamclc?"
    The pricst brcathed raggedly for a moment. Thc light in his eyes was
fading. "She's ... herc," he said slowly. "Callcd ... Malachias. Ask
room-warden." He gasped for air. "Take her . . . to . . . Kwanitupul . . .
to Pelippa's Bowl Tiamak is . . . there"
  Isgrimnur's eyes filled with tears This man should be dead. There could


STONE OF FAREWELL

301

be nothing keeping him alive but sheer will. 'Tll find her," he said. "I'11
keep her safe."
    Dinivan suddenly seemed to recognize him. "Tell Josua," he panted.
"I fear... J~Ise messengers."
    "What does that mean?" Isgrimnur asked, but Dinivan was silent, his free
hand crawling across his chest like a dying spider, fumbling hopelessly at
the neck of his robe. Isgrimnur gently pulled out Dinivan's Holy Tree and
laid it on his chest, but the priest shook his head feebly, trying once more
to reach inside his robe. Isgrimnur lifted out a golden scroll and quill
pendant on a chain. The catch broke as he held it; the chain spilled out into
the damp hair at Dinivan's neck like a tiny, gleaming snake.
    "Give . . . Tiamak," Dinivan rasped. Isgrimnur could barely hear him
over the clamor of approaching voices and the crackle of flames in the
corridor beyond. The duke slipped it into the pocket of his monk's robe,
then looked up, startled by a sudden movement nearby. One of the
immobile guards, illuminated by pulsing fireglow, was swaying in place.
A moment later he fell forward with a crash, his helmet skittering across
the tiles. The toppled soldier groaned.
 When Isgrimnur looked down again, the light had fled Dinivan's eyes.



The

only by Simon's ragged breath. Then Skodi spoke again, her voice no
longer whisperingly sweet.  "Stand up."
    Some force seemed to tug at him, a pressure delicate as a cobweb but
strong as iron. His muscles flexed against his will, but he resisted. A short
time before he had struggled to rise--now, he strained to lie still.
    "Why do you fight me?" Skodi asked petulantly. Her chilly hand
brushed across his chest and down onto the quivering skin of his stomach.
He flinched, and control of his limbs slipped away as the girl's will closed
on him like a fist. A forceful but intangible pull brought him to his feet.
He swayed in the darkness, unable to find his balance. "We will give them
the sword," Skodi crooned, "the black sword--oh, we will get such
lovely presents . . ."
 "Where... are.., my friends?" Simon croaked.
 "Hush, silly. Go out to the yard."
    He stumbled helplessly through the darkened room, barking his shins
on hidden obstacles, lurching like a clumsily manipulated puppet.
    "Here," Skodi said. The abbey's front door swung open on grating
hinges, filling the room with baleful reddish light. She stood in the
doorway, pale hair fluttering in the swirling wind. "Come, now, Simon.
What a night this is! A wild night."
    The bonfire in the dooryard blazed even higher than it had when the
travelers arrived, a beacon of flame that reached the height of the sloping
roof and threw the abbey's cracked walls into red relief. Skodi's children,
the young and old alike, were feeding all manner of strange objects into
the fire: broken chairs and other bits of ruined furniture, and deadwood
from the surrounding forest that burned with a ceaseless hiss of steam. In
fact, the bonfire's eager wardens seemed to be throwing everything they
could find into the blaze, without regard for suitability--rocks and animal


STONE OF FAREWELL

303


bones, cracked pottery, and shards of colored glass from the abbey's
decaying windows. As the flames roared and leaped in the surging wind,
the children's eyes caught the light, glowing like the yellow orbs of foxes.
    Simon tottered out onto the snowy courtyard with Skodi following
close behind. A keening howl lanced through the night, a wretched,
lonely sound. Slow as a sunning tortoise, Simon swiveled his head toward
the green-eyed shape crouched atop the hill that overlooked the clearing.
Simon felt an instant of hope as it lifted its muzzle and moaned again.
    "Qantaqa!" he cried; the name fell strangely from his stiff jaws and slack
lips. The wolf came no closer than the hill-crest. She howled once more, a
cry of fear and frustration as clear as if it had been spoken with a human
tongue.
    "Nasty animal," Skodi said with distaste. "Child-eater. Moon-shouter.
It won't come near Skodi's house. It won't break my charm." She stared
hard at the green eyes and Qantaqa's baying became a whimper of pain. A
moment later the wolf turned and vanished from the rise. Simon cursed
inwardly and struggled again to break free, but he was still as helpless as a
kitten dangled by the scruff. Only his head seemed his own, and every
movement was painfully difficult. He turned slowly, looking for Binabik
and Sludig, then stopped, eyes widening.
    Two crumpled shapes, one small, one large, lay on the frosty ground
against the abbey's rotted plaster front. Simon's tears froze into stinging
ice on his cheek as something tugged his head back around and drew him
another unwilling step toward the fire.
    "Wait," Skodi said. Her voluminous white nightdress flapped in the
wind. Her feet were bare. "I do not want you too close. You might be
burned and that would spoil you. Stand there." She pointed a plump arm
at a spot a couple of paces away. As if he were an extension of her hand,
Simon found himself trudging unsteadily across the thawing mud to the
spot she had indicated.
    "Vren!" Skodi cried. She seemed gripped by maniacal good cheer.
"Where is that rope? Where are you?"
    The dark-haired boy appeared in the abbey's front doorway. "Here,
Skodi."
 "Tie his pretty wrists."
    Vren shot forward, skittering over the icy ground. He grasped Simon's
limp hands and pulled them behind his back, then deftly bound him with a
length of rope.
    "Why are you doing this, Vren?" Simon gasped. "We were kind to
you."
    The Hyrka boy ignored him, pulling the knots tight. When he had
finished, he put his small hands on Simon's hips and pushed him toward
where Binabik and Sludig lay huddled.
 Like Simon, both had their hands trussed behind their backs. Binabik's

.IBRARY~



304                                    Tad Williams

eyes rolled to meet Simon's, the whites gleaming in the fire-shadowed
yard. Sludig was breathing but insensible, a strand of spittle frozen on his
blond beard.
    "Simon-friend," the troll rasped, each word a labor. The little man
drew breath as if to say more, but instead fell back into silence.
    Across the yard, Skodi had bent to draw a circle in the melting snow,
trickling a handful of reddish powder from her fist. When that was
finished, she began to scrape runes into the muddy ground, her tongue
clenched between her teeth like a studious child. Vren stood a short
distance away, swiveling his head from Skodi to Simon and back again,
face empty of all emotion but a sort of animal watchfulness.
    Finished stoking the fire, the children were huddled near the wall of the
abbey. One of the youngest girls sat on the ground in her thin shift,
sobbing quietly; an older boy patted her head in a perfunctory way that
seemed meant to comfort her. They all watched Skodi's movements with
fascinated attention. The wind had blown the fire into a rippling pillar,
which painted their sober little faces with vermillion light.
    "Now, where is Honsa?" Skodi called, clutching her nightdress closer
to her body as she straightened up. "Honsa!?"
    "I'll get her, Skodi," Vren said. He slipped into the shadows at the
corner of the abbey, vanishing from sight, then reappeared a few moments
later with a black-haired Hyrka girl a year or two older than himself. A
heavy basket swung between them, bumping and jostling across the
uneven ground until they set it down by Skodi's swollen feet and scam-
pered back to the crowd of watching children. Once there, Vren squatted
in front of the little group and pulled a knife from his belt, then began to
nervously shred the end of his remaining hank of rope. Simon could feel
the boy's tension from across the yard. He wondered dully what the cause
might be.
    Skodi reached into the basket and lifted out a skull whose mandible
clung by only a few knots of dried flesh, so that the eyeless face seemed to
gape in surprise. The bulging basket, Simon now saw, was full of skulls.
He suddenly felt sure he knew what had happened to the parents of all
these children. His numbed body shivered reflexively, but he perceived
the movement only dimly, as though it happened to someone else who
was some distance away. Nearby, dark-eyed Vren picked at the end of
rope with his gleaming blade, his features set in a brooding scowl. Simon
remembered with a sinking heart how Skodi had said that beside his other
chores, Vren butchered and cooked for her.
    Skodi held the skull before her, her oddly pretty face utterly absorbed--a
scholar studying a table of high mathematical formulae. She swayed from
side to side like a boat in high wind, nightdress flapping, and began to
sing in her high-pitched, childish voice.



           STONE OF FAREWELL

"In a hole, in a hole."

3O5

Skodi piped,

"... in the ground, in a hole, where the wet-nosed mole
sings a song of cold stone, and of mud and gray bone,
a quiet, small song all the chill, dark night long
as he digs in the deep, where the white worms creep,
and the dead all sleep, with their eyes full of earth
where the beetles give birth, laying little white eggs,
and their brittle black legs go scrape, scrape, scrape,
and the dark, like a cape, covers all just the same,
darkness hiding their shame as it covered their names,
the names of the dead, all gone, all fled,
empty winds, empty heads,
Above grass grows on stone, fields lie JMlow, unsown
all is gone that they've known
so they wail in the deep, crying out in their sleep,
without eyes, still they weep, calling out JSr what's lost,
in the darkness they toss, under pitweed and moss
in the deeps of the grave, neither master or slave,
has now fiature or fame, needs knowledge or name,
but they long to come back, and they stare through the cracks
at the dim sun above, and they curse cruel love,
and the peace lost in life, think of worry and styX,
ruined child or wife,
all the troubles that burned, dreadful lessons unlearned,
still they long to return, to return, to return,
they long to return.
Return!

In a hole, in the ground, under old barrow-mound,
where skin, bone, and blood turn to jelly-soft mud,
and the rotting world sings . . .

    Skodi's song went on and on, circling downward like a black whirlpool
in a weed-strewn and unfrequented pond. Simon felt himself sinking with
it, tugged by its insistent rhythms until the flames and the naked stars and
the gleaming eyes of children blurred together into streaks of light, and his
heart spiraled down into darkness. His mind could feel no connection with
his shackled body, or with the actions of those around him. A bleak hiss
of idiot noise filled his thoughts. Bleak shapes moved across the snowy
courtyard, unimportant as ants.




306                                    Tad Williams

    Now one of the shapes took the round, pale object in its hand and
tossed it into the fire, throwing a fistful of powder in after it. A plume of
scarlet smoke belched forth, trailing off into the sky and obscuring Si-
mon's view. When it cleared, the fire was burning as brightly as before,
but a heavier darkness seemed to have settled over the courtyard. The red
light that splashed the buildings had become subdued, old as sunset on a
dying world. The wind had failed, but a deeper cold crept through the
abbey's grounds. Though his body was no longer fully his own, still
Simon could feel the intense chill crawling right into his bones.
    "Come to me, Lady Silver Mask!" the largest of the figures cried.
"Speak with me, Lord Red Eyes! I want to trade with you! I have a pretty
thing you will like!"
    The wind had not returned, but the bonfire began to waver from side to
side, bulging and shuddering like some great animal struggling inside a
sack. The cold intensified. The stars dimmed. A shadowy mouth and two
empty black eye-smudges formed in the flames.
    "I have a present for you!" the large one shouted gleefully. Simon,
drifting, remembered that her name was Skodi. Several of the children
were crying, voices muffled despite the curious stillness.
    The face in the fire contorted. A low, grumbling roar spilled from the
yawning black mouth, slow and deep as the creaking of a mountain's
roots. If words were part of that drone, they were indistinguishable. A
moment later, the features began to shimmer and fade.
    "Stay!" Skodi cried. "Why do you go away?" She looked around
wildly, flapping her large arms; her exhilarated expression was gone. "The
sword!" she shrieked at the covey of children. "Stop crying, you stupid
oxes! Where is the sword? Vren!"
    "Inside, Skodi," the little boy said. He was holding one of the smaller
children on his lap. Despite the curious sense of dislocation--or perhaps
because of it--Simon could not help noticing that Vren's arms were bare
and thin beneath his ragged coat.
    "Then get it, you fool!" she cried, hopping up and down in a leviathan
jig of rage. The face in the flames was now barely distinguishable. "Get
it!"
    Vren stood up quickly, letting the child in his lap slide to the ground,
where it joined its wails to the general cacophony. Vren sped into the
house and Skodi turned to the billowing flames once more. "Come back,
come back," she coaxed the diminishing face, "I have a present for my
Lord and Lady."
    Skodi's grip on him seemed to diminish somewhat. Simon felt himself
slipping back into his body once more--a curious feeling, like donning a
cloak of softly tickling feathers.
    Vren appeared in the doorway, pale face solemn. "Too heavy," he
called. "Honsa, End~, you others, come here! Come and help!" Several of


STONE OF FAREWELL

3O7

              the children came creeping across the snow toward the abbey at his call,
              looking over their shoulders at the groaning bonfire and their gesticulating
              caretaker. They followed Vren into the shadowed interior like a string of
              nervous goslings.
              Skodi turned again, her round cheeks flushed, her rosy lips trembling.
              "Vren! Bring me the sword, you lazy thing! Hurry!"
              He stuck his head out of the doorway. "Heavy, Skodi, it's heavy like a
              stone!"
              Skodi abruptly turned her mad eyes on Simon. "It's your sword, isn't
              it?" The face had vanished from the flames, but the stars, pale as balls of
              ice, still barely smoldered in the night sky; the bonfire still rippled and
              danced, untouched by any wind. "You know how to move it, don't
              you?" Her gaze was almost intolerable.
              Simon said nothing, fighting inwardly with all his might to prevent
              himself from babbling like a drunkard, from spilling to those compelling
              eyes every thought he'd ever had.
              "I must give it to them," she hissed. "They are searching for it, I know!
              My dreams told me that they are. The Lord and Lady will make me . . . a
              power." She began to laugh, a girlish trill that frightened him as much as
              anything that had happened since the sun had set. "Oh, pretty Simon,"
              she giggled, "what a wild night! Go and bring me your black sword." She
              turned and shouted at the empty doorway. 'Wren! Come untie his hands!"
              Vren popped out into the open, glaring furiously. "No!" he screamed.
              "He's bad! He'll get away! He'll hurt you.t"
- Skodi's face froze into an unpleasant mask. "Do what I say, Vren. Untie
              him."
              The boy loped forward, stiff with rage, tears standing in his eyes. He
              roughly pulled Simon's hands out behind and thrust the knife blade
              between the cords. Vren's breath came in constricted gasps as he sawed
              the ropes away; when Simon's hands fell free, the Hyrka boy turned and
              sped back to the abbey.
              Simon stood, rubbing his wrists slowly, and thought about simply
              running away. Skodi had turned her back on him and was crooning
              imploringly to the bonfire. He looked out of the corner of his eye to
              Binabik and Sludig. The Rimmersman still lay without movement, but
              the troll was struggling against his bonds.
              "Take . . . take the sword and run, friend Simon!" Binabik whispered.
              "We will be escaping . . . somehow . . ."
              Skodi's voice cut through the darkness. "The sword!" Simon felt him-
              self turning helplessly from his friend, compelled beyond any possibility
              of resistance. He marched toward the abbey as though prodded by an
              invisible hand.
              Inside, the children were crouched in the darkened hearth-corner, still
              tugging without success at Thorn. Vren glared as Simon entered, but


308                                    Tad Williams

stepped out of his way. Simon kneeled before the sword, a hard, angular
bundle wrapped in rags and hides. He unwrapped it with hands that felt
curiously blunted.
    As he grasped the corded hilt, the firelight spilling through the doorway
painted a stripe of glowing red along Thorn's black length. The sword
shuddered beneath his fingers in a way he had not felt before, a tremble
almost of hunger or anticipation. For the first time, Simon felt Thorn to
be something unutterably and loathsomely alien, but he could no more
drop it from his hands than he could run away. He lifted it. The blade did
not feel painfully heavy, as it sometimes did, but it still had a strange
weightiness, as though he dragged it up from the muck at the bottom of a
pond.
    He found himself compelled toward the doorway. Somehow, even
though she could not see him, Skodi could still move him like a straw
doll. He let himself be tugged back out to the red-lit courtyard.
    "Come here, Simon," she said as he emerged, spreading her arms like a
loving mother. "Come stand in the circle with me."
"He has a sword!" Vren shrieked from the doorway. "He'll hurt you!"
Skodi laughed dismissively. "He will not. Skodi is too strong. Besides,
he is my new pet. He likes me, don't you?" She reached out her hand
toward Simon. Thorn seemed to be swollen full with some awful, slug-
gish life. "Don't break the circle," she said lightly, as though they played a
game. Skodi clasped his arm and pulled him to her, helping him to lift his
clumsy foot over the circle of reddish dust. "Now they will be able to see
the sword!" She glowed with her triumph. One of her warm pink hands
clasped his atop Thorn's hilt, the other coiled around his neck, pulling him
against her pulpy breasts and stomach. The heat of the fire softened him
like wax; the push of Skodi's body against his was like a smothering
fever-dream. He stood half-a-head taller, but had no more power to resist
her than if he had been an infant. What sort of witch was this girl?
    Skodi began to shout in piercing Rimmerspakk as she swayed against
him. The lines of a face began to reform in the bonfire. Through tears that
the heat forced from his eyes, Simon saw the unstable black mouth
opening and closing like a shark's. A cold and dreadful presence came
down upon them--questing, questing, sniffing for them with predatory
patience.
    The voice roared at them. This time Simon could hear speech in the
jumble of sound, unrecognizable words that made his very teeth ache.
    Skodi gasped in excitement. "It is one of Lord Red Eye's highest
servants, just as I hoped! Look, sir, look! The present you want!" She
forced Simon to lift Thorn, then stared eagerly at the shadowy thing
moving in the blaze as it spoke again. Her exhilarated grin soured. "It
does not understand me," she whispered against Simon's neck with the
easy familiarity of a lover. "It cannot find the right road. I feared this. My


             STONE OF FAREWELL

charm alone is not strong enough. Skodi has to do something she did not
want to do." She turned her head outward. "Vren! We must have blood!
Get the bowl and bring me some of the tall one's blood."
    Simon tried to cry out, but could not. The heat within the circle was
lifting Skodi's free hair like wisps of pale smoke. Her eyes seemed fiat and
inhuman as potshards. "Blood, Vren!"
    The boy stood over Sludig, an earthenware bowl in one hand, the
blade of the knife--huge in Vren's small fingers--lying against the
Rimmersman's neck. Vren turned to look back at Skodi, ignoring Binabik
as the troll struggled on the ground nearby.
    "That is right, the big one!" Skodi cried. "I want to keep the little one!
Hurry, Vren, you stupid squirrel, I need blood for the fire now! The
messenger will go away!" Vren lifted his knife.
    "And bring it carefully!" Skodi cried. "Don't spill any inside the circle.
You know how the little ones swarm when charms are spoken, how
hungry they are."
    The Hyrka boy suddenly whirled and came stalking toward Skodi and
Simon, his face suffused with anger and fear. "No!" he screamed. For a
moment Simon felt a rush of hope, thinking that the boy meant to strike
Skodi down. "No!" Vren shrieked again, waving the knife in the air as
tears coursed down his cheeks. "Why are you keeping them? Why are you
keeping him!?" He jabbed his blade in Simon's direction. "He's too old,
Skodi! He's bad! Not like me!"
    "What are you doing, Vren?" Skodi narrowed her eyes in alarm as the
boy leaped forward toward the circle. The blade swept up, red-gleaming.
Simon's muscles burned as he strove to throw himself out of the boy's
path, but he was clenched in a hand of stone. Sweat sluiced into his eyes.
    "You can't like him? Vren screeched. With a croaking shriek, Simon
managed to squirm just enough for the blade aimed at his ribs to miss and
tear along his back instead, leaving a track of cold silvery pain. Something
in the fire bellowed like a bull, then the darkness fell in on top of Simon,
blotting out the faded stars.

    Eolair had left her alone for a moment while he went back through the
great doorway to fetch another lamp.
    As she waited for the Count of Nad Mullach's return, Maegwin gazed
happily down at the vast stone city in the cavern below. A great burden
had been lifted from her. Here was the city of the Sithi, of Hernystir's
allies of old. She had found it! For a while, Maegwin had begun to believe
herself as mad as Eolair and the others thought, but here it stood.
 It had come to her at first as a certain disorder in her dreams--troubled


310                                    Tad Williams

dreams that were already dark and chaotic, full of the suffering faces of her
beloved dead. Then other images began to seep through. These new
dreams showed her a beautiful city rippling with banners, a city of flowers
and captivating music, hidden from war and bloodshed. But these visions
that appeared in the last, fleeting moments of sleep, although preferable to
her nightmares, had not helped to calm her. Rather, in their richness and
exotic wonder, they had inflamed Maegwin with fear for her own trou-
bled mind. Soon, in her wanderings through Grianspog's tunnels, she had
also begun to hear whispering in the earth's depths, chanting voices unlike
anything she had ever experienced.
    The idea of the ancient city had grown and flowered until it became far
more important than anything happening within reach of sunlight. Sun-
light brought evil: the daystar was a beacon for disaster, a lamp that the
enemies of Hernystir could use to seek out and destroy her people. Only
in the deeps did safety lie, down among the roots of the earth where the
heroes and gods of elder days still lived, where the cruel winter could not
go.
    Now, as she stood above this fantastic stone citymher city--a vast sense
of satisfaction spread over her. For the first time since her father King
Lluth had gone away to battle Skali Sharp-nose, she felt peace. True, the
stone towers and domes spread across the rock canyon below did not
much resemble the airy summer-city of her dreams, but there seemed
small doubt that this was a place crafted by inhuman hands, and it stood in
a place where no Hernystiri had walked since time out of mind. If it was
not the dwelling place of the deathless Sithi, then what was it? Of course it
was their city; that seemed laughably obvious.
    "Maegwin?" Eolair called, slipping through the half-open door. "Where
are you?" The worry in his voice brought a tiny smile to her face, but she
hid it from him.
 "I am here, of course, Count. Where you bade me stay."
    He came and stood at her shoulder, gazing down. "Gods of stock and
stone," he said, shaking his head, "it is miraculous."
    Maegwin's smile came back. "What else would you expect of such a
place? Let's go down and find those who live here. Our people are in great
need, you know."
    Eolair looked at her carefully. "Princess, I doubt very much that anyone
is living there. Do you see anything moving? And no lights are burning
but our own."
    "What makes you think that the Peaceful Ones cannot see in darkness?"
she said, laughing at the foolishness of men in general and clever ones like
the count in particular. Her heart was racing so that the laugh threatened
to get away from her. Safety! It was a breathtaking thought. How could
anything harm them in the lap of Hernystir's ancient protectors?
 "Very well, my lady," Eolair said slowly. "We will go down a short


STONE OF FAREWELL                                                                311

way, if these stairs are to be trusted. But your people are worrying about
you," he grimaced, "--and me, too, before long. We must return quickly.
We can always come back again later, with more folk."
    "Certainly." She fluttered her hand to show how little such concerns
affected her. They would return with all her people, of course. This was
the place they would live forever, out of reach of Skali and Elias and the
rest of the blood-soaked madmen above ground.
    Eolair grasped her elbow, guiding her with almost laughable caution.
She herself felt the urge to skip down the rough-hewn stairs. What could
hurt them here?
    They descended like two small stars falling into a great abyss, the flames
of their lamps reflecting from the pale stone roofs below. Their footsteps
echoed out through the great cavern and rebounded from the invisible
ceiling to be repeated in countless reverberations, returning to them as a
rush of pattering sound like the velvet wings of a million bats.
    For all its completeness, the city nevertheless seemed skeletal. Its inter-
connected buildings were tiled in a thousand colors of pale stone, ranging
from the white of a first snow through endless wan shades of sand and
pearl and sooty gray. The round windows stared like unseeing eyes. The
polished stone streets gleamed like the tracks of wandering snails.
    They were halfway down the stairs when Eolair pulled up short, clasp-
ing Maegwin's arm close against his side. In the lamplight his worried face
seemed almost translucent; she fancied suddenly that she could see every-
thing that was in his mind.
    "We have gone far enough, Lady," he said. "Your people will be
hunting for us."
    "My people?" she asked, pulling away. "Are they not your people, too?
Or are you now far above a mere tribe of cringing cave-dwellers, Count?"
"That is not what I mean, Maegwin, and you know it," he said harshly.
That looks like pain in your eyes, Eolair, she thought. Does it hurt you so to
be yoked to a madwoman? How could I have been fool enough to love you when
I could never hope for more than polite forbearance in return?
    Aloud, she said: "You are free to go whenever you wish, Count. You
doubted me. Now perhaps you are frightened that you might have to face
those whose existence you denied. I, however, am not going anywhere
but down to the city."
    Eolair's fine features wrinkled in frustration. As he unknowingly wiped
a smear of lampblack onto his chin, Maegwin wondered suddenly what
she looked like. The long, obsessive hours of searching and digging and
chipping away at the bolt that secured the great door floated in her mind
like a poorly-remembered dream. How long had she been down here in
the depths? She stared at her dirt-caked hands with a growing sense of
horror--she must indeed look the part of madwoman--then pushed the
thought away in disgust. What did such things matter at an hour like this?


312                                    Tad Williams

"I cannot let you lose yourself in this place, Lady," Eolair said at last.
"Then come with me or bully me all the way back to your wretched
camp, noble count." She suddenly did not like the way she sounded, but
it was said and she would not take it back.
    Eolair did not show the anger she expected; instead, a weary resignation
crept over his features. The pain she had seen before did not go away, but
rather seemed to sink deeper, spreading into the very lines of his face.
"You made a promise to me, Maegwin. Before I opened the door, you
said you would heed my decision. I did not believe you an oath-breaker. I
know your father never was."
 Maegwin pulled back, stung. "Do not throw my father up to me!"
 Eolair shook his head. "Still, my lady, you promised me."
    Maegwin stared at him. Something in his careful, clever face took hold
of her so that she did not hurry away down the stairs as she had intended.
An inner voice mocked her stupidity, but she faced him squarely.
     "You are only partly correct, Count Eolair," she said slowly. "You
could not open it yourself, if you remember. I had to help you." He looked at her closely. "So, then?"
    "So, then, a compromise. I know you think me headstrong or worse,
but I do still want your friendship, Eolair. You have been good to my
father's house."
 "A bargain, Maegwin?" he asked expressionlessly.
    "If you will let us walk down to the bottom of the stairs--jus( until we
can set foot on the tiles of the citywI will turn around and go back with
you.., if that is what you wish. I promise."
 A weary smile touched Eolair's lips. "You promise, do you?"
"I swear by Bagba's Herd." She touched her soiled hand to her breast.
"Better you should swear by Black Cuamh, down here." He grimaced
in frustration. His long tail of hair had shed its ribbon and lay black across
his shoulders. "Very well. I don't like the idea of trying to carry you back
up these stairs against your will."
    "You couldn't," Maegwin said, pleased. "I am too strong. Come, let's
go faster. As you said, people are waiting for us."
    They passed down the steps in silence, Maegwin reveling in the safety
of shadows and stone mountains, Eolair lost in his own unvoiced thoughts.
They watched their feet, fearful of a misstep despite the stairway's great
width. The stairs were pitted, crazed with cracks as though the earth had
shifted in uneasy sleep, but the stonecraft was beautiful and subtle. The
lamplight revealed traces of intricate designs that coiled across the steps
and onto the wall above the staircase, scribings delicate as the fronds of
young ferns or the shingled feathers of hummingbirds. Maegwin could
not help turning to Eolair with a smile of satisfaction.
    "Do you see!?" She held her lamp up to the wall. "How could this be
work of any mere mortals?"


STONE OF FAREWELL

313

    "I see it, Lady," Eolair responded somberly. "But there is no such wall
on the other side of the stairs." He indicated the drop-off to the canyon
below. Despite the distance they had already traveled downward, it was
still far enough to kill someone handily. "Please don't look at the carvings
so closely that you stumble over the edge."
  Maegwin curtseyed. "I will be careful, Count."
  Eolair frowned, perhaps at her frivolity, but only nodded.
    The great stairway opened out at the bottom a like fan, spreading onto
the canyon floor. Away from the overhanging cavern wall, the glow of
their lamps seemed to diminish, the light not strong enough to dispel the
deep and overwhelming dark. Buildings which had seemed cunning as
carved toys from the height of the canyon rim now loomed above them, a
fantastic array of shadowed domes and spiraling towers that tapered up
into the blackness like impossible stalagmites. Bridges of living stone
stretched from the cavern walls to the towers, winding in and about the
spires like ribbons. Its various parts tied together with narrow integu-
ments of stone, the city seemed more like a single, breathingly vital thing
than an artifact of lifeless rock--but it was surely empty.
    "The Sithi are long gone, Lady, if they ever lived here." Eolair was
solemn, but Maegwin thought she heard a certain satisfaction in his tone.
"It is time to return."
    Maegwin gave him a look of disgust. Had the man no curiosity at all?
"Then what is that?" she asked, pointing to a faint glow near the center of
of the shadowed city. "If that is not lamplight, then I am a Rimmersman."
    The count stared. "It does look like it," he said cautiously. "But it
might be something else. Light leaking down from above."
    "I have been in the tunnels a long while," Maegwin said. "Surely it is
well past sunset aboveground." She turned and touched his arm. "Come,
Eolair, please! Don't be such an old man! How could you leave this place
without knowing?"
    The Count of Nad Mullach frowned, but she could see other emotions
struggling beneath the surface. He did wish to know, that was plain. It
was just this transparency that had captured her heart. How could he be an
envoy to all the courts of Osten Ard and yet sometimes be as uncloudedly
obvious as a child?
 "Please?" she said.
    He checked the oil in the lamps before answering. "Very well. But only
to set your mind at ease. I do not doubt that you have found a place that
once belonged to the Sithi, or to men of old who had skills we have lost,
but they are long vanished. They cannot save us from our fate."
 "Whatever you say, Count. Hurry now!"
 She tugged him forward, into the city.
    Despite her confident words, the stone byways did indeed seem long-
deserted. Dust sifted beneath their feet, eddying listlessly. After they had


314                                    Tad Williams

walked awhile, Maegwin found her enthusiasm begin to diminish, her
thoughts turning melancholy as the lamplight threw the jutting towers
and swooping spans into grotesque relief. She was again reminded of
bones, as though they wandered through the time-scoured rib cage of
some impossible beast. Following the twisting streets through the aban-
doned city, she began to feel herself swallowed up. For the first time the
utterness of these depths, the sheer furlongs of stone between herself and
the sun, seemed oppressive.
    They passed innumerable empty holes in the carved stone facades, holes
whose smooth edges had once been tight-filled by doors. Maegwin imag-
ined eyes staring out at her from the darkened entrances--not malicious
eyes, but sad ones, eyes that gazed at the trespassers with more regret
than anger.
    Surrounded by proud ruins, Lluth's daughter felt herself weighted down
by all that her people had not become, all that they could never be. Given
the entirety of the world's sunlit fields in which to run, the Hernystiri
tribes had let themselves be driven into caves in the mountain. Even their
gods had deserted them. At least these Sithi had left their memorial in
magnificently crafted stone. Maegwin's people built of wood, and even
the bones of Hernystir's warriors now bleaching on the Inniscrich would
disappear with the passing of years. Soon there would be nothing left of
her people at all.
    Unless someone saved them. But surely none but the Sithi could do
that--and where had they gone? Was Eolair right? Were they indeed dead?
She had been sure they had gone deep into the earth, but perhaps they had
passed on to some other place.
    She stole a glance at Eolair. The count was walking silently beside her,
staring up at the city's splendid towers like a farmer from the Circoille
fringes on his first visit to Hernysadharc. Watching his thin-nosed face, his
bedraggled tail of black hair, she suddenly felt her love for him come
surging up from the place where she had thought it prisoned, a helpless
love as painful and undeniable as grief. Maegwin's memory went flying
back almost a score of years to the first day she had seen him.
    She had been only a girl, but already tall as a grown woman, she
recalled with disgust. She had been standing behind her father's chair in
the Taig's great hall when the new Count of Nad Mullach arrived for his
ritual pledge of loyalty. Eolair had seemed so young that day, slender and
bright-eyed as a fox, nervous, but almost giddy with pride. Seemed young?
He had been young: scarcely more than twenty-two years old, full of the
suppressed laughter of anxious youth. He had caught Maegwin's eye as
she peered curiously around the high back of Lluth's chair. She had
blushed scarlet as a berry~ Eolair had smiled then, showing her those
bright, small, sharp teeth, and it had felt as though he took a gentle bite of
her heart.


STONE OF FAREWELL

315

    It had meant nothing to him, of course. Maegwin knew that. She was
only a girl then, but already fated to become the king's gawky spinster
daughter, a woman who lavished her attention on pigs and horses and
birds with broken wings, and knocked things off tabletops because she
could never remember to walk and sit and carry herself delicately, as a
lady should. No, he had meant nothing more than a fretful smile at a
wide-eyed young girl, but with that unwitting smile Eolair had caught her
forever in an unbreakable net ....
    Her thoughts were interrupted as the walled road they had chosen ended
before a broad, squat tower whose surface crawled with ornate stone vines
and translucent stone flowers. A wide doorway gaped darkly like a tooth-
less mouth. Eolair looked at the shadowed entrance suspiciously before
stepping forward to peer inside.
    The interior of the tower seemed oddly spacious, despite the close-
hovering shadows. A stairway choked with rubble curled away up one
inner wall, and a descending stairway passed around the circumference of
the tower in the opposite direction. When they drew their lamps back
outside the door, a glimmer of light---only the faintest of sheens--seemed
to brighten the air where this downward passage disappeared from view.
    Maegwin took a deep breath. Astonishingly, she felt no fear at being in
such a mad place. "We will turn back whenever you say."
    "That staircase is far too treacherous," Eolair replied. "We should go
back now." He hesitated, torn between curiosity and responsibility. There
was indeed an unarguable gleam of light from the downtrack. Maegwin
stared at it, but said nothing. The count sighed. "We will just go a little
way on the other path, instead."
    They followed the downward path, spiraling for what seemed a furlong
into the depths until they leveled out at last in a broad, low-ceilinged
passageway. The walls and roof were carved with tangled vines and
grasses and flowers, a panorama of vegetation that could only grow far
above, beneath sun and sky. The interwoven strands of stem and vine
ran endlessly along the wall beside them in a tapestry of stone. Despite the
immensity of the panels, no part of the wall seemed carved with exactly
the same design as any other. The great carvings themselves were com-
posed of many kinds of rock, of an almost infinite variety of hues and
textures, but the panels were no mosaic of individual tiles as was the
patterned floor. Rather, the very stone itself seemed to have grown in
exact and pleasing shapes, as a hedge coaxed and pruned by gardeners
might mimic the form of an animal or bird.
 "By the gods of Earth and Sky," she breathed.
    "We must turn back, Maegwin." There was little conviction in Eolair's
voice. Here in the deeps, time seemed to have slowed almost to a stop.
    They walked on, examining the fantastic carvings in silence. At last, the
lamplight was supplemented by a more diffuse glow from the tunnel's far


316                                    Tad Williams

end. Maegwin and the count stepped out of the passageway and into the
open, where the shadowed ceiling of the huge cavern once more arched
distantly overhead.
    They stood on a broad fan of tiles above a great and shallow bowl of
stone.
    The arena, three stone-throws across, was lined all about with benches
of pale, crumbling chert, as though the deserted bowl had been the site of
worship or vast spectacle. A misty white light glowed in the open space of
the bowl's center, like an invalid sun.
    "Cuamh and Brynioch!" Eolair swore quietly. There was a distant and
anxious edge to his voice. "What is it?"
    A great, angular crystal stood on an altar of dull granite in the middle of
the arena, shimmering like a corpse-candle. The stone was milky white,
smooth-faced but rough-edged as a jagged chunk of quartz. Its strange and
subtle light slowly brightened, then died, then brightened again, so that
the ancient benches standing nearest seemed almost to flicker in and out of
existence with every scintillation.
    Pale light washed over them as they approached the strange object; the
chill air began to seem distinctly warmer. Maegwin felt a moment of
breathlessness at the queer splendor of the thing. For long moments she
and Eolair stood looking into the snowy glare, watching subtle colors
chase each other through the stone's depths, marigold and coral and shy
lavender, shifting like quicksilver.
  "It's beautiful," she said at last.
  "Aye."
    They lingered, transfixed. At last, with obvious reluctance, the Count of
Nad Mullach turned away. "But there is nothing else here, Lady. Nothing."
    Before Maegwin could speak, the white stone suddenly blazed, radiance
swelling and blossoming like the birth of a heaven-star, until the blinding
glare seemed to fill the cavern. Maegwin battled to orient herself in the sea
of terrifying brilliance. She reached out for the Count of Nad Mullach.
Blasted by light, Eolair's face had blurred until his features were almost
indistinguishable. His far side had vanished into absolute shadow so that
he seemed but half a man.
  "What is happening?!" she cried. "Is the stone burning up?!"
    "Lady!" Eolair snatched at her, trying to pull her back from the glare.
"Are you hurt?"
  " Ruyan ' s Children!"
    Maegwin reeled back in shock, stumbling unaware into Eolair's protec-
tive grasp. The stone had spoken with the voice of a woman, a voice that
surrounded them as though mouths spoke from every side.
    "Why do you not answer me!? Three times now have I called to you. I no
longer have the strength! I will not be able to try again!"
  The words were spoken in a tongue Maegwin had never heard, but still


STONE OF FAREWELL

317

their meaning was somehow as clear as if spoken in her own Hernystiri, as
powerful as if the woman's voice were inside her head. Was this the
madness she had feared? But Eolair, too, had clapped his hands over his
ears, beset by the same unnatural voice.
    "Ruyan's Folk! I beg you, forget our old stri~, the wrongs that were done!
A greater enemy now threatens us both!"
    The voice spoke as though with a great effort. Weariness and sorrow
was in it, but something also of immense power, a strength that set
Maegwin's skin to tingling. She held her hands splay-fingered before her
eyes and squinted into the heart of the glare, but could see nothing. The
light that beat out at her seemed almost to push like a strong wind. Could
some person be standing in the midst of that staggering incandescence? Or
could it somehow be the stone itself that spoke? She found herself sorrow-
ing for whoever or whatever should call out so desperately, even as she
fought against the lunatic idea of a shouting stone.
    "Who are you?!" Maegwin cried. "Why are you in the stone!? Get out
of my ears!"
    "What? Someone is there at last? Praise to the Garden!" Unexpected hope
flared in the voice, supplanting weariness for a moment. "Oh, ancient
kindred, black evil threatens our adopted land! I crave answers to my questions...
questions that might save us all!"  "Lady!"
    Maegwin at last noticed that Eolair was holding tightly to her waist. "It
will not hurt me!" she told him. She moved a little closer to the stone,
pulling against his strong arms. "What questions?" she shouted. "We are
Hernystiri. I am the daughter of King Lluth-ubh-Llythinn! Who are you?
are you in the stone? Are you here in the city?"
    The light from the stone dimmed and began to flicker. There was a
pause before the voice came back, more muted than before. "Are you
Tinukeda'ya? I hear you only J~intly," the woman said. "It is too late! You are
fading away. If you can still hear me, and would give aid against a shared enemy,
come to us in Jao & Tinukai'i. Some among you must know where it is." Her
voice grew softer still, until it was barely a whisper, tickling the insides of
Maegwin's ears. The stone had lapsed back into fitful gleaming. "Many are
searching for the three Great Swords. Listen! This might be the salvation of us all,
or the destruction." The stone pulsed. "This is all the Year-Dancing Grove
could tell me, all the leaves would sing . . ." Despair welled up in her dying
voice. "I have Jhiled. I have grown too weak. First Grandmother has Jhiled . . . I
can see only darkness coming .... "
    The soft words at last were gone. The speaking stone dimmed to a
smear of pale light before Maegwin's eyes. "I could not help her, Eolair."
She felt quite empty. "We did nothing. And she was so sad!"
    Eolair gently released her from his grasp. "We do not understand enough
to help anyone, Lady," he said softly. "We are in need of help ourselves."


318                                    Tad Williams

    Maegwin stepped away from him, fighting back angry tears. Hadn't he
felt the woman's goodness, her sorrow? Maegwin felt as though she had
watched a wonderful bird thrashing in a trap just beyond her reach.
    Turning to Eolair, she was startled to see moving sparks in the darkness
beyond. She blinked, but it was no phantasm of her dazzled eyes. A
procession of dim lights was moving toward them, wending its way
down the aisles of the shadowed arena.
    Eolair followed her stare. "Murhagh's Shield!" he swore, "I knew I was
right to mistrust this place!" He fumbled for his sword hilt. "Behind me,
Maegwin!"
    "Hide from those who will save us?" She darted around his restraining
hand as the bobbing lights approached. "It is the Sithi at last!" The
lights, pink and white, wavered like fireflies as she took a step forward.
"Peaceful Ones!" she cried. "Your old allies need you!"
    The words that whispered out of the shadows came from no mortal
throat. Maegwin was filled with wild excitement, certain now that her
dreams had spoken truly. The new voice spoke an antique Hernystiri that
had not been heard beneath the sunlight for centuries. Oddly, there
seemed also a touch of fear in its words.
    "Our allies are gone to bones and dust, now, as with most of our folk.
What kind of creatures be you, that fear not the Shard?"
    The speaker and his fellows slowly came forward into the light. Maegwin,
who had thought herself ready for anything, felt as though the bedrock
swayed beneath her. She clutched at Eolair's sword arm as the Count of
Nad Mullach hissed in surprise.
    It was their eyes that seemed so strange at first, great round eyes with
no whites. Blinking in the lampglare, the four newcomers seemed fright-
ened creatures of the forest night. Man-tall but achingly slender, they
clutched shining rods of some translucent gemstone in their long, spidery
fingers. Fine, pale hair hung down around their bony faces; their features
were delicate, but they wore rough clothes of fur and dusty leather,
knobbed at knees and elbows.
    Eolair's sword rasped out of the scabbard, gleaming pinkly in the light of
the crystal rods. "Stand back! What are you?"
    The being nearest took a step backward, then drew up, its thin face
evidencing nervous surprise. "But it is you who be trespassers here. Ah,
you do be Children of Hern, as we did suspect. Mortals." He turned and
said something to his fellows in a language like a murmur of song. They
nodded gravely, then all four pairs of saucer eyes turned to Maegwin and
Eolair once more. "No, we have spoken on this, and only meet it is that
you make shift to name yourselves."
    Marveling at how the dream had turned, Maegwin steadied herself on
Eolair's arm and spoke. "We... we are... I am Maegwin, daughter of
King Lluth. This is Eolair, Count of Nad Mullach."


STONE OF FAREWELL

319

    The strange creatures' heads bobbled on their slender necks; they spoke
melodically among themselves once more. Maegwin and the count shared
a look of stunned disbelief, then turned as the one who had spoken before
made a discreet noise in his throat.
    "You speak with good grace. So, be you gentlefolk among your kind,
in truth? And promise you mean no harm? Sadly, it has been long since
we have had dealings with Hern's Folk, and we are sore ignorant of their
doings. We were affrighted when you spoke to the Shard."
  Eolair swallowed. "Who are you? And what is this place?"
    The leader stared at him for a long moment, the reflection of the
lamp--flame bright in his great eyes. "Yis-fidri am I. My companions hight
Sho-vennae, Imai-an, and Yis-hadra, who is my good wife." They bowed
their heads in turn as he named them. "This city is called Mezutu'a."
    Maegwin was fascinated by Yis-fidri and his friends, but a nagging
doubt was making itself felt at the back of her mind. They were certainly
strange, but they were not what she had expected ....
    "You cannot be the Sithi," she said. "Where are they? Are you their
servants?"
    The strangers looked at her with alarm on their wide-eyed faces, then
took a few pattering steps backward and joined briefly in chiming collo-
quy. After a moment, Yis-fidri turned and spoke a little more harshly than
he had before.
    "We served others once, but that was long ages agone. Have they sent
you for us? We will not go back." For all his defiant tone, there was
something tremendously pathetic in Yis-fidri's wagging head and huge,
mournful eyes. "What did the Shard tell you?"
    Eolair shook his head, confused. "Forgive us if we are rude, but we
have never seen any like you. We were not sent to look for you. We did
not even know you existed."
    "The Shard? Do you mean the stone?" Maegwin asked. "It said many
things. I will try to remember them. But who are you then, if you are not
the Sithi?"
    Yis-fidri did not answer, but slowly lifted his crystal, extending his
spindly hand until the rod's rosy light burned heatlessly beside Maegwin's
face. "By your aspect, Hern's people stand not so much changed since we
Tinukeda'ya of the mountains last knew them," he said wistfully. "How
is it we are forgotten alreadymhave so many generations of mortals come
and gone? Surely it was only a few turnings of the earth since your
northern tribesmen, the bearded ones, did know us?" His thin face grew
distant. "The northerners called us Dvernings, and brought us gifts so we
would craft for them."
    Eolair stepped forward. "You are the ones our ancestors called Domhaini?
But we thought they were legend only, or at least were long dead. You
are.., the dwarrows?"


320                                    Tad Williams

    Yis-fidri showed a mild frown. "Legend? You do be of Hern's folk, be
you not? Who was it, think you, that taught your ancestors to mine these
mountains in days agone? We did. As to names, what matter? Dwarrow
to some mortals, Dverning or Domhaini to others." He waved his long
fingers, slowly, sadly. "Only words. We are Tinukeda'ya. We came from
the Garden and we can never return."
    Eolair sheathed his sword with a clang that echoed through the cavern.
"You sought for the Peaceful Ones, Princess! This is as strange or stranger!
A city in the mountain's heart! The dwarrows out of our oldest legends!
Has the world below gone as mad as the world above?"
    Maegwin was scarcely less astonished than Eolair, but found herself
with little to say. As she stared at the dwarrows, she mourned; the black
cloud that had lifted for a while seemed to roll back over her mind.
    "But you are not the Sithi," she said at last, voice flat. "They are not
here. They will not help us."
    Yis-fidri's companions moved up, so that they formed a semicircle
around the huddled pair. Watching Maegwin and Eolair worriedly, the
wide-eyed dwarrows seemed poised to bolt.
    "If you came searching for the Zida'ya--those who you name Sithi,"
Yis-fidri said carefully, "then that is of deep interest to us indeed, since we
brought us here to hide from them." He nodded slowly. "Long ago did
we refuse to bend any longer to their will, to their overweening injustice,
and so we escaped. We thought they had forgotten us, but they have not.
Now that we are weary and few, they seek to capture us once more." A
dim fire was kindled in Yis-fidri's eyes. "They even call to us through the
Shard, the Witness which has been silent for many long years. They mock
us with their tricks, trying to lure us back."
"You are hiding from the Sithi?" Eolair asked, confused. "But why?"
"We did serve them once, Hern's Child. We fled. Now they would
cozen us into coming back. They speak of swords to lure us--for they
know that such crafting was always our delight, and the Great Swords
some of our highest works. They ask us of mortals we have never met nor
heard of--and what would we have to do with mortals now? You are the
first we have seen in a long age."
    The Count of Nad Mullach waited for Yis-Fidri to continue. When it
appeared he would not, Eolair asked: "Mortals? Like us? What mortals do
they name to you?"
    "The Zida'ya woman--First Grandmother, as she is called--spoke sev-
eral times of..." the dwarrow conferred briefly with his fellows, "... of
Handless Josua.' ,
    "Handless... ! Gods of earth and stream, do you meanJosua Lackhand?!"
Eolair stared, astounded. "Oh, heaven, this is madness!" He sat down
heavily on one of the decaying benches.
 Maegwin slumped beside him. Her mind was already reeling beneath


STONE OF FAREWELL

321

such weariness and disappointment that she had no strength left to be
surprised, but when she at last turned away from the mild, wide eyes of
the puzzled dwarrows to look to Eolair, the count's face was that of a man
struck by lightning in his own house.

     Simon awakened from a flight through black spaces and screaming
 winds. The howling continued, but a red light bloomed before his eyes as
 the darkness receded.
     "Vren, you little fool!" someone was shrieking close by. "There is
 blood in the circle!"
    When he tried to take a breath, Simon felt something pushing down on
him, so that his lungs had to strain for air. He wondered briefly if a roof
had fallen on him. Fire? The red light danced and billowed. Was the
Hayholt on fire?
    He could see a vast shape now, dressed in flapping white. The figure
seemed to have grown tall as the trees, looming far into the sky. It took
long moments before he realized he was lying on the icy ground, that
Skodi was standing over him, screaming at someone. How long... ?
    The little boy Vren flailed on the ground a few cubits away, his hands
holding his throat, eyes bulging in his dark face. Untouched and unap-
proached, he was kicking his feet wildly, heels drumming on the frozen
mud. Somewhere nearby, Qantaqa was mournfully howling.
    "You are bad!" Skodi screamed, her face gone pinkish-purple with rage.
"Bad Vren! Spilled blood! They will swarm! Bad!" She gasped in a great
breath and bellowed. "Punishment!" The little boy writhed like a smashed
snake.
    Beyond Skodi, a shadowy face watched from the center of the rippling
fire, its unstable mouth moving in laughter. A moment later the bottom-
less black eyes settled on Simon, their sudden touch like an icy tongue
pressed against his face. He tried to scream, but some great weight was
pushing on his back.
    Littlefly, a voice whispered in his head, heavy and dark as mud. It was a
voice that had haunted many dreams, a voice of red eyes and burning
darkness. We meet you in the strangest places . . . and you have that sword, as
well. We must tell the master about you. He will be very interested. There was a
pause; the thing in the fire seemed to grow larger, the eyes cold black pits
in the heart of an inferno. Why, look at you, manchild, it purred, you are
bleeding ....
    Simon drew his shaking hand out from beneath his body, wondering
why it seemed strange that it should respond to his will. When he
disentangled it from Thorn's hilt, he saw that the trembling fingers were
indeed covered with slick red blood.


322                                   Tad Williams

    "Punished!" Skodi was shrieking, her childlike voice cracking. "Every-
one will be punished! We were to give presents to the Lord and Lady!"
The wolf howled again, closer.
    Vren had gone limp, facedown in the mud at Skodi's feet. As Simon
stared distractedly, the ground seemed to bulge, obscuring his view of the
boy's pale, crumpled form. A moment later another bulge appeared close
by, quivering; the half-thawed earth parted with a crunching, sucking
sound. A thin dark arm and long-nailed hand lifted from the agitated soil,
reaching toward the dim stars with fingers spread like the petals of a black
flower. Another hand snaked up beside it, followed by a pale-eyed head
scarcely bigger than an apple. A needle-toothed grin split the wizened
face, twitching the scraggly black whiskers.
    Simon squirmed, unable to cry out. A dozen bulges blistered the earth
of the courtyard, then a dozen more. In a moment the diggers were
seething up from below like maggots from a burst carcass.
    "Bukken!" Skodi shrilled in alarm. "Bukken! Vren, you little fool, I
told you not to spill blood in the charm-circle!" She waved her fat arms at
the diggers, who swarmed over the shrieking children like a plague of
chittering rats. "I punished him!" she screamed, pointing at the unmoving
child. "Go away!" She turned to the bonfire. "Make them go away, Sir!
Make them go away!"
  The fire fluttered in the chill wind, but the face only watched.
    "Help! Simon!" Binabik's voice was hoarse with fear. "Help us! We are
still tied!"
    Simon rolled over painfully, trying to pull his knees beneath him. His
back was clenched in an immovable knot, as though he had been kicked
by a horse. The air before his eyes seemed full of shining snowflakes.
    "Binabik!" he groaned. A wave of squealing black shapes split off from
the main cluster, flowing away from the children and toward the abbey
wall where Sludig and the troll lay.
    "Stop! I will make you!" Skodi had clamped her hands over her ears, as
though to shield herself from the children's pitiful screams. A small foot,
pallid as a mushroom, emerged briefly from the knot of diggers, then was
swallowed up again. "Stop!"
    The ground suddenly erupted all about her, gouts of gelatinous mud
spattering her nightdress. A flurry of spidery arms wrapped around her
broad calves, then a swarm of diggers were climbing her legs as though
they were tree trunks. Her nightdress bulged as they swarmed up beneath
it in ever-increasing numbers, until at last the thin fabric split like an
overstuffed bag, revealing a squirming mass of eyes and scrawny legs and
taloned hands that almost completely obscured her doughy flesh. Skodi's
mouth pulled wide to scream and a serpentine arm pushed into it, disap-
pearing to the shoulder. The girl's pale eyes bulged.
 Simon had finally dragged himself into a half-crouch when a gray shape


STONE OF FAREWELL

323

flashed past him, bowling into the slithering, squeaking mass that had
been Skodi and tumbling it to the ground. The diggers' mewing cries rose
in pitch, quickly becoming trills of fear as Qantaqa snapped necks and
crushed skulls, throwing small bodies in the air with gleeful abandon. A
moment later she was through and racing toward the throng of creatures
that had descended on Binabik and Sludig.
    The fire had flared up to a great height. The unformed thing within it
laughed. Simon's could feel its terrible amusement sapping him, sucking
the life from him.
    This is amusing, little fly, is it not? Why don't you come closer and we will
watch together.
    Simon tried to ignore the pull of the voice, the insistent power of its
words. He clambered agonizingly to his feet and staggered away from the
fire and the thing that lurked within it. He used Thorn as a crutch,
propping himself, though the hilt slid treacherously beneath his blood-
damped hand. The slash Vren had made across his back was a cold ache, a
numbness that was still somehow painful.
    The thing Skodi had summoned continued to taunt him, its voice
echoing inside his head, playing with him like a cruel child with a captured
insect.
    Little fly, where are you going? Come here. The master will want to meet
you ....
    It was a terrible struggle to keep walking in the other direction; life
seemed to be running out of him like sand. The diggers' squeals and
Qantaqa's wet, joyful growl had become no more than a faint roaring in
his ears.
    For a long moment he did not even notice the talons grasping at his
legs; when at last he looked down into the spider-egg eyes of the Bukken,
it was as though he stared through a window into some other world, a
horrible place that was fortuitously separated from his own. It was not
until the scrabbling claws began to shred the legs of his breeches and score
the flesh beneath that the dreamlike state fell away. With a shout of
horror, he smashed the wrinkled face with a balled fist. More were
climbing his legs. He kicked them away with moans of disgust, but they
seemed as numberless as termites.
    Thorn shivered again in his hands. Without thinking, Simon lifted it
and sent the black blade whistling into a clump of prancing creatures. He
felt it hum, as though it sang silently. Grown marvelously light, Thorn
sheared heads and arms like grass stems until dark ichor ran down the
bladed in streams. Every swing sent fiery pain lancing through Simon's
back, but at the same time he felt mad exhilaration course though him.
Long moments after all the diggers around him had died or fled, he was
still hacking at the tangled corpses.
 My, you are a fierce fly, aren't you? Come to us. The voice seemed to reach


324                                    Tad Williams

into his head as into an open wound, and he squirmed in disgust. Tonight
is a great night, a wild night.
    "Simon!" Binabik's muffled cry at last cut through his frenzy of hatred.
"Simon! Unbind us!"
    You know we will win, little fly. Even at this instant, far away in the south,
one of your greatest allies falls . . . despairs . . . dies . . .
    Simon turned and staggered toward the troll. Qantaqa, her muzzle
blood-washed to the ears, was keeping a hopping, shrilling throng of
diggers at bay. Simon lifted Thorn once more and began to cut his way
through the Bukken, smashing them down in bunches until at last they
scattered from his path. The voice in his head seemed to be crooning
almost wordlessly. The fire-washed courtyard shimmered before his eyes.
    He bent to cut the troll's bonds and a great wave of dizziness almost
toppled him to the ground. Binabik rubbed the rope against Thorn's
cutting edge for a moment until the pieces fell aside. The little man tried
briefly to rub life back into his wrists, then turned to Sludig. After picking
at the knot for a moment, he turned to Simon.
      "Here, lend your sword to this cutting," he began, then stared. "Chukku's
Stones! Simon, you are all of blood on your back!" Blood will open the doorway, manchild. Come to us!
    Simon tried to speak to Binabik but could not. Instead, he thrust
Thorn forward, clumsily pinking Sludig's back with the point. The
Rimmersman, coming slowly back to wakefulness, groaned.
    "While he slept they struck his head with a stone," Binabik said
mournfully. "Because of his bigness, I am thinking. Me they only tied."
He sawed Sludig's bonds against Thorn until they, too, fell slithering to the
snowy ground. "We must be reaching the horses," the troll said to Simon.
"Have you sufficent strength?"
    He nodded. His head felt far too heavy for his neck and the roaring in
his thoughts was giving way to a frightening emptiness. For the second
time that night he felt his inner self beginning to float free from its
confining shell, but this time he feared there would be no returning. He
forced himself to remain standing as Binabik coaxed the bleary Rimmersman
to his feet.
  The master is waiting in the Chamber of the Well ....
    "All we may do is run for the stables," Binabik shouted over the wolf's
menacing snarl. She had forced the diggers back, so that several yards of
open ground stood between the ring of Bukken and Simon's friends.
"With Qantaqa leading, we can perhaps be getting there, but we must
not slow or hesitate."
  Simon swayed. "Get the saddlebags," he said. "In the abbey."
  The little man stared at him incredulously. "Foolishness!"
    "No." Simon shook his head drunkenly. "I won't go . . . without...
White Arrow. She... they.., won't take that." He stared out across the


STONE OF FAREWELL

325

dooryard at the heaving mass of diggers gathered where Skodi had stood.
  You will stand before the Singing Harp, you will hear His sweet voice ....
  "Simon," Binabik began, then briefly swung his hand in the Qanuc
  ward against madmen. "You are barely able for standing," he grunted. "I
  will go."
    Before Simon could respond, the troll had vanished through the door
into the abbey's lightless interior. Long moments later he returned, drag-
ging the saddlebags behind him.
    "We will hang most on Sludig," Binabik said, eyeing the waiting
diggers apprehensively. "He is too full of sleepiness to fight, so he will be
our pack-ram." Come to us!
    As the troll draped the bags over the bemused Rimmersman, Simon
looked out at the circle of pale, naked eyes. The waiting diggers clicked
and chittered quietly as though talking among themselves. Many wore
tatters of crude clothing; some had rough, jagged-bladed knives clutched
in their spindly fists. They stared back at him, swaying like rows of black
poppies.
    "Are you now ready, Simon?" Binabik whispered. Simon nodded,
lifting Thorn before him. The blade had been light as a switch, but now it
suddenly seemed heavy as stone. It was all he could do to hold it before
him.
    "Nihut, Qantaqa!" the troll shouted. The wolf sprang forward, jaws
wide. Diggers piped in fear as Qantaqa plowed a furrow through flailing
arms and gnashing teeth. Simon followed, swinging Thorn heavily from
side to side to side to side.
    Come. There are endless cold halls below Nakkiga. The Lightless Ones are
singing, waiting to welcome you. Come to us!
    Time seemed to fold in on itself. The world closed down into a tunnel
of red light and white eyes. The throb of pain in his back seemed to grow
as rhythmic as his heartbeat, and the aperture of his vision alternately
spread and shut as he stumbled forward. A roar of voices as continuous as
the sea washed over him, voices both within and without. He swung the
sword, felt it bite, then shook it free and swung again. Things reached for
him as he passed. Some caught and tore at his skin.
    The tunnel narrowed to black for a while, then opened up for a few
moments sometime later. Sludig, who was saying words too quiet for
Simon to hear, was helping him up onto Homefinder's back, pushing
Thorn through the saddle-loops. They were surrounded by stone walls,
but as Simon drove his heels into his horse's ribs, the walls were suddenly
gone and he was beneath the tree-slashed night sky, the stars glimmering
overhead.
    Now is the time, manchild. The door is opened by blood! Come, join us in our
celebrations!


326                                    Tad Williams

 "No!" Simon heard his own voice shouting. "Leave me alone!"
    He spurred ahead, leaping out into the forest. Binabik and Sludig, not
yet mounted, shouted after him, but their words were lost in the din
inside his head.
  The door is open! Come to us!
    The stars were speaking to him, telling him to sleep, that when he
awoke he would be far away from ... eyes in the fire ... from ...
Skodi . . . from . . . clawing fingers . . . from . . . he would be far away
from . . .
  The door is open! Come to usl
    He rode heedlessly through the snowy woods trying to outrun the
terrible voice. Branches tore at his face. Stars peered coldly down through
the trees. Time passed, perhaps hours, but still he rode wildly onward.
Homefinder seemed to feel his frenzy. Her hooves flung clouds of snow as
they pounded through the darkness. Simon was alone, his friends far
behind, but still the fire-thing spoke gleefully inside his thoughts.
    Come, manchild! Come, dragon-burned! It is a wild night! We await you
beneath the ice-mountain ....
    The words in Simon's head were a swarm of fiery bees. He writhed in
the saddle, striking at himself, slapping at his ears and face as he tried to
drive the voice away. Even as he flailed, something loomed abruptly
before him--a patch of blackness deeper than the night. In a split instant
he felt his heart falter, but it was only a tree. A tree!
    His headlong flight was too madly swift to avoid the obstacle. He was
struck as though by a giant hand and thrown from Homefinder's saddle,
tumbling through nothingness. He was falling. The stars were fading.
 Black night came down and covered all.


17


rrlC.~
.i. I U~. U~ {,l~ I~kI~had worn away. The wind-scoured sky stretched
above the'/ ' ' 'grasslands like a purple awning. The first stars were coming

out. Deornoth, wrapped in a coarse blanket against the chill, stared up at
the faint points of light and wondered if God had finally turned away His
face.
    Josua's people were huddled together in a bull run, a long, narrow pen
of wooden palings driven deep into the earth and lashed together with
rope. For all their seeming flimsiness--in many places there were gaps so
wide that Deornoth could slip through his entire arm and most of his
shoulder--the walls were strong as mortared stone.
    As he looked around at his fellow prisoners, Deornoth's gaze stopped
on Geloi. The witch woman held Leleth in her lap, singing quietly into
the child's ear as they both stared up at the darkening sky.
    "It seems madness that we should escape from Norns and diggers to
end here." Deornoth could not keep an aggrieved tone from his voice.
"Geloi, you know charms and spells. Could you not have magicked our
captors somehow--put them to sleep, or turned yourself into a ravening
beast and attacked them?"
    "Deornoth," Josua said warningly, but the forest woman needed no
defending.
    "You understand little, Sir Deornoth, of how The Art works," Gelo~
replied sharply. "First of all, what you call 'magic' has its cost. If it could
be easily used to defeat a dozen armed men, the armies of princes would
be full of hired wizards. Secondly, we have not been harmed yet. I am no
Pryrates: I do not waste my strength in puppet plays for the bored and
curious. I have a greater enemy to occupy my thoughts, more dangerous
by far than anyone in this encampment."
    As if giving such a long answer exasperated her--and indeed, Gelo~
seldom said so much at once---she fell silent, turning away to stare at the
firmament once more.

327


328                                    Tad Williams

    Frustrated with himself, Deornoth shrugged off his blanket and stood.
Had it come to this? What sort of knight was he, that berated an old
woman for not saving him from danger? A shiver of anger and disgust
traveled through him; he clenched and unclenched his fists helplessly.
What could he do? What strength did any of this ragged band have left to
do anything?
    Isorn was comforting his mother. Duchess Gutrun's remarkable courage
had held though any number of horrors, but she seemed to have reached
her limit. Sangfugol was crippled. Towser had virtually given in to
madness. The old man lay curled on the ground, his eyes fixed witlessly
on nothing, seamed lips trembling as Father Strangyeard tried to help him
drink from a bowl of water. Deornoth felt another wave of despair rise
and break within him as he walked slowly to the muddy log on which
Prince Josua sat, chin on hand.
    The manacle that had once prisoned him in Elias' dungeon still dangled
on the prince's slender wrist. Josua's thin face was painted with deep
shadows, but the whites of his eyes gleamed as he watched Deornoth
slump down beside him. For a long while the two did not speak. The
sounds of lowing cattle and the shout and clatter of horsemen could be
heard all around as the Thrithings-men brought in their herds for the
night.
    "Welladay, friend," the prince said at last. "I said it was a poor game at
best, did I not?"
    "We have done what we could, Highness. No one could have done
more than you."
    "Someone has." For a moment, Josua seemed to regain his dry humor.
"He is sitting his skeletal throne in the Hayholt, drinking and eating
before a roaring fire, while we sit waiting in the slaughter pen."
"He has made a foul bargain, Prince. The king will regret his choice."
"But we, I fear, will not be around when the reckoning comes." Josua
sighed. "I am almost sorriest for you, Deornoth. You have been the most
faithful of knights. If you had only found a better lord to be faithful to..."
    "Please, Highness." In his present mood, such words brought Deornoth
real pain. "There is no one I would rather serve outside the Kingdom of
Heaven."
    Josua looked at him from the sides of his eyes, but did not reply. A
party of horsemen rode past the stockade, the palings rippling as the
horses thundered by.
    "We are far from that kingdom, Deornoth," the prince said at last, "but
at the same time only a few breaths away." His face was now hidden in
darkness. "But death frightens me little. It is the hopes I have crushed that
weigh down my soul."
 "Josua," Deornoth began, but the prince's hand on his arm stilled him.
 "Say nothing. It is no more than the truth. I have been a lodestar for


STONE OF FAREWELL

329

disaster since the moment I drew breath. My mother died birthing me,
and my father's greatest friend Camaris died soon after. My brother's wife
died in my care. Her only child has escaped my guardianship to suffer
Aedon only knows what fate. Naglimund, a keep built to hold siege for
years, fell beneath me in weeks; countless innocents died horribly."
    "I cannot listen to this, my prince. Would you take all the world's
betrayals on your own back? You did everything that you could!"
    "Did I?" Josua asked seriously, as though he debated a point of theology
with the Usirean brothers. "I wonder. If things are fated, then perhaps I
am merely a sorry strand in God the Highest's tapestry. But some say that
one chooses everything, even the bad."  "Foolishness."
    "Perhaps. But there is no doubting that an evil star has hung over all I
have undertaken. Hah! How the angels and devils both must have laughed
when I swore I would take back the Dragonbone Chair! Me, with my
ragtag army of priests and jugglers and women!" The prince laughed
bitterly.
    Deornoth felt anger boiling inside him once more, but this time it was
his liege lord who was the cause. It was almost breathtaking. He had never
thought he could feel like this.
    "My prince," he said between clenched teeth, "you have become a fool,
a damnable fool. Priests, jugglers, and women! An army of mounted
knights could scarcely have done more than your women and jugglers--
and certainly could not have been braver!" Shaking with fury, he rose and
stalked away across the muddy compound. The stars seemed almost to tilt
in the sky.
    A hand closed on his shoulder, pulling him around with surprising
strength. Josua stood stiffly as he held Deornoth at arm's length. The
prince jutted his head forward on his long neck, a bird of prey preparing
to stoop.
    "And what have I done to you, Deornoth, that you speak so to me?"
His voice was tight.
    At any other moment Deornoth would have fallen to his knees, ashamed
at his own disrespectfulness. Now, he stilled his trembling muscles and
took a breath before he spoke. "I can love you, Joshua, yet hate what you
say."
    The prince stared at him, his expression indecipherable in the evening
dark. "I spoke badly of our companions. That was wrong. But I said
nothing ill of you, Sir Deornoth . . ."
    "Elysia, Mother of God, Josua!" Deornoth almost sobbed, "I care noth-
ing for myselfl And as for the others, that was only a careless remark that
you made out of weariness. I know you meant nothing by it. No, it is you
who are the victim of your own cruelest treatment! That is why you are a
fool!"


330                                    Tad Williams

  Josua stiffened. "What?"
    Deornoth threw his arms up in the air, filled with the sort of giddy
madness felt on Midsummer's Eve, when all wore masks and told the
truth. But here in the bull run there were no masks. "You are a better
enemy to yourself than Elias can ever be," he shouted, not caring anymore
who heard. "Your blame, your guilt, your failed duty! If Usires Aedon
were to return to Nabban today, and again be hung on the Tree in the
temple garden, you would find a way to blame it on yourselfi No matter
who is speaking the evil, I will listen to a fine man slandered no longer!"
    Josua stared as if stunned. The terrible silence was broken by the creak
of the wooden gate. Half a dozen men with spears pushed into the
stockade, led by the one named Hotvig who had captured them on the
Ymstrecca's banks. He strode forward, peering around the shadowed pen.
  "Josua? Come here."
  "What do you want?" the prince asked quietly.
    "The March-thane has called for you. Now." Two of Hotvig's men
moved up, lowering their spear points. Deornoth tried to catch Josua's
eye, but the prince turned away and walked out slowly between the two
Thrithings-men. Hotvig pulled the high gate shut behind them. The wooden
bolt creaked back into place.
    "You don't think that.., that they will harm him, do you, Deornoth?"
Strangyeard asked. "They wouldn't hurt the prince, would they?"
    Deornoth sank down onto the muddy ground, tears rolling down his
cheeks.

    The interior of Fikolmij's wagon smelled of grease and smoke and oiled
leather. The March-thane looked up from his joint of beef to nod Hotvig
back out the door, then returned his attention to his meal, leaving Josua to
stand and wait. They were not alone. The man standing beside Fikolmij
was half a head taller than Josua and only slightly less muscled than the
broad March-thane himself. His face, clean-shaven but for long mus-
taches, was covered with scars too regular to be accidental. He returned
the prince's stare with undisguised contempt. One hand, clatteringly laden
with bracelets, dropped to caress the hilt of his long curved sword.
    Josua held this one's narrowed eyes for a moment, then casually allowed
his glance to slide away, taking in the vast array of harnesses and saddles
hanging from the wagon's walls and ceiling, their myriad silver buckles
glittering in the firelight.
    "You have discovered some of the virtues of comfort, Fikolmij," Josua
said, eyeing the rugs and stitched cushions scattered over the floor boards.
    The March-thane looked up, then spat into the fire-trough. "Pfah. I
sleep beneath stars, as I always have. But I need someplace safe from


                                         STONE OF FAREWELL                                                                331

 listening ears." He bit at the joint and chewed vigorously. "I am no
 stone-dweller, who wears a shell like a soft-skinned snail." A piece of
 danking bone rattled into the trough.
     "It has been some time since I have slept behind walls or in a bed
 myself, Fikolmij. You can see that. Did you bring me here to call me soft?
 If so, have done and let me go back to my people. Or did you bring me
 here to kill me? The fellow beside you has somewhat the look of a
 head-chopper.'
    Fikolmij dropped the denuded bone into the fire and grinned hugely, his
eyes red as a boar's. "You don't know him? He knows you. Don't you,
Utvart?"
  "I know him." He had a deep voice.
    The March-thane now leaned forward, peering at the prince intently.
"By the Four-Footed," he laughed, "Prince Josua has more gray hairs
than old Fikolmij! Living in your stone houses makes a man old fast."
 Josua smiled thinly. "I have had a difficult spring."
      "You have! You have!" Fikolmij was enjoying himself immensely. He
picked up a bowl and tilted it to his mouth.  "What do you want of me, Fikolmij?"
    "It is not me that wants, Josua, despite your sin against me. It is Utvart
here." He nodded at his glowering companion. "We spoke of age. Utvart
has only a few years less than you, but he does not wear a man's beard.
Do you know why?"
    Utvart stirred, rubbing his fingers on his pommel. "I have no wife," he
rumbled.
 Josua looked from man to man, but said nothing.
    "You are a clever man, Prince Josua," Fikolmij said slowly, then took
another long draught. "You see the problem. Utvart's bride was stolen.
He has sworn never to marry until the one who stole her is dead."
  "Dead," Utvart echoed.
    Josua's lip curled. "I stole no one's bride. Vorzheva came to me after I
had left your camp. She begged to go away with me."
    Fikolmij slammed the bowl down, splashing dark beer into the fire
trough, which hissed as if startled. "Curse you, did your father have no
male children!? What true man hides behind a woman, or allows one to
have her way? Her bride-price was set! All was agreed!" "Vorzheva had not agreed."
    The March-thane rose from his stool, staring at Josua as though the
prince were a poisonous serpent. Fikolmij's corded arms trembled. "You
stone-dwellers are a pestilence. One day the men of the Free Thrithings will
drive you into the sea and burn away your rotting cities with clean fire."
    Josua eyed him evenly. "The men of the Thrithings have tried that
before. It is how we met, you and I. Or have you forgotten the uncomfort-
able fact of our alliance--an alliance against your own people?"


332                                    Tad Williams

    Fikolmij spat again, and this time did not bother to aim for the trough
"It was a chance to increase my strength. It worked. I stand toda
unquestioned lord of the High Thrithings." He stared at Josua as if darin~
him to argue. "Besides, that treaty was with your father. For a stone.
dweller, he was a mighty man. You are a thin shadow of him."
    Josua's face was empty. "1 am tired of talking. Kill me if you wish, bu:
do not bore me."
    Fikolmij leaped forward. His broad fist crashed against the side of
Josua's head and the prince crumpled to his knees. "Proud talk, worm! I
should kill you with my own hands!" The March-thane stood over Josua,
his barrel chest heaving. "Where is my daughter.t?"  "I don't know."
    Fikolmij grabbed Joshua's tattered shirt and pulled the prince onto his
feet. Watching, Utvart swayed gently from side to side, his eyes dreamy.
"And you don't care, either, do you? By the Grass Thunderer, I have
dreamed of smashing you--dreamed of it! Tell me of my Vorzheva,
child-stealer. Did you at least marry her?"
    A bleeding welt showed at Josua's temple. He stared back. "We did not
wish to marry..."
    Another blow rocked the prince's head. Blood started from his upper lip
and nose. "How you laughed at old Fikolmij when you sat in your stone
house, eh?" the March-thane hissed. "Stole his daughter and made her your
whore, then did not have to pay a single horse for her! You laughed, didn't
you?" He slapped hard at the prince's face; pearls of blood flew through the
air. "You thought you could cut off my stones and run away." The
March-thane struck again, but though fresh blood seeped fron~ Josua's
nose, this blow was softer, dealt with a kind of savage affection. "You are
clever, Lackhand. Clever. But Fikolmij is no gelding."  "Vorzheva . . . is... no... whore."
    Fikolmij propelled him back against the wagon's door. The prince left
his arms dangling, making no attempt to defend himself as he was struck
twice more. "You stole what was mine," Fikolmij snarled, his face so
close to Josua's that his braided beard rubbed on the prince's bloody
shirtfront. "What would you call her, then? What did you use her for?"
     Josua's red-smeared face, despite his injuries, had been full of a terrible
calmness. Now, it seemed to break apart, dissolving into grief. "I . . . used her badly . . ." He hung his head.
    Utvart strode forward, drawing his sword from its tooled and beaded
scabbard. The tip clicked against a ceiling beam. "Let me kill him," he
breathed. "Slow."
    Fikolmij looked up, eyes squinting fiercely. Sweat dripped from his
face as he looked from Utvart to Josua, then lifted his thick-knuckled fist
over the prince's head.
 "Let me," Utvart pleaded.



?

STONE OF FAREWELL

333

The March-thane hammered three times against the wall. The harnesses
swayed, tinkling. "Hotvig!" he roared.
    The wagon door opened. Hotvig entered, pushing a slender figure
before him. The pair stopped just within the doorway.
    "You heard all!" Fikolmij bellowed. "You betrayed your clan and me
 . . for this!" He gave Josua's shoulder a push. The prince fell back against
the wall and slid to the floor.
    Vorzheva burst into tears. Hotvig's restraining hand held her back as
she leaned forward to touch the prince. Josua slowly lifted his head,
staring at her distractedly from eyes that were beginning to swell shut.
"You are alive," was all he said.
    She tried to pull away from her captor, but Hotvig grasped her close,
ignoring the nails that raked at his arm, leaning his head away when she
tried to reach his eyes.
    "Randwarders caught her in the outer grazing march," Fikolmij growled.
He slapped at her lightly, angered by her struggling. "Be still, you
faithless bitch! I should have drowned you in the Umstrejha at birth You
are worse than your mother, and she was the evilest cow I have ever
known Why do you waste your tears on this piece of dung?" He prodded
Josua with his foot.
    The prince's absorbed look had returned. He regarded the March-thane
with dispassionate interest for a moment before turning to Vorzheva. "I
am glad you are safe."
    "Safe!" Vorzheva laughed shrilly. "I love a man who does not want me.
The man who does want me would use me like a brood mare and beat me
if I ever left my knees!" She struggled in Hotvig's grasp, turning to face
Utvart, who had lowered his sword to the floor. "Oh, I remember you,
Utvart! Why did I run away, except to get away from you, you raper of
children--and of young sheep when you cannot get a child! You, who
love your scars more than you ever could a woman. I would rather be
dead than your bride!"
    Grim-faced Utvart said nothing, but Fikolmij snorted in dour amuse-
ment. "By the Four-Footed, I had almost forgotten that jagged knife
you have for a tongue, daughter. Maybe Josua here is happy to feel the
blows of fists for a change, eh? As for what you prefer, kill yourself the
moment the marriage ride is over if you wish. I only want my bride-price
and the honor of the Stallion Clan made good."
    "There are better ways to do that than slaughtering helpless prisoners,"
a new voice said.
    All heads turned--evenJosua's, though he moved carefully. Geloi stood
in the doorway, arms spread to the lintel, cloak rippling in the wind.
    "They have escaped from the bull run!" Fikolmij shouted wrathfully.
"Don't move, woman! Hotvig, saddle and bring the rest back. Someone
will howl for this!"


334                                    Tad Williams

    Gelo~ stepped into the wagon, which was rapidly becoming crowded.
With a muffled curse, Hotvig pushed past her and out into the darkness.
The witch woman calmly pulled the door closed behind him. "He will
find them still penned," she said. "Only I can come and go as I please."
    Utvart lifted his broad blade and held it near her neck. Gelo~'s hooded
yellow eyes touched his and the tall Thrithings-man stepped back a pace,
brandishing the sword as though he were menaced.
    Fikolmij looked her up and down with puzzlement and guarded anger.
"What is your business, old woman?"
    Released from Hotvig's grip, Vorzheva had dropped to her knees and
crawled past her father to dab at Josua's face with her tattered cloak. The
prince gently caught her hand, holding it away as Gelo~ spoke.
 "I said, I come and go as I please. For now, I choose to be here."
    "You are in my wagon, old woman." The March-thane wiped sweat
from his forehead with a hairy arm.
    "You thought to hold Gelo~ your prisoner, Fikolmij. That was foolish.
Still, I have come to give you advice, in hopes that you have more sense
than you have shown so far this day."
     He seemed to fight an urge to strike out once more. Seeing his struggle,
his strained look, Gelo~ nodded her head and smiled grimly. "You have heard of me."
    "I have heard of a devil-woman with your name, one who lurks in the
forest and steals the souls of men," Fikolmij grunted. Utvart stood close
behind him, mouth set in a tight line, but the tall man's eyes were wide,
and shifted as though he made certain of where the doors and windows
were.
    "You have heard many false rumors, I am sure," Gelo~ said, "but there
is some truth behind them, however twisted it may have become. That
truth is in the tales that say I make a bad enemy, Fikolmij." She blinked
slowly, as an owl blinks when it catches sight of something small and
helpless. "A bad enemy."
    The March-thane pulled his beard. "I do not fear you, woman, but I do
not trifle with demons needlessly. You are no use to me. Go away, then,
and I will not trouble you, but do not meddle in what does not concern
you."
    "Fool of a horse-lord!" Oelo~ flung up her arm, cloak trailing like a
black wing. The door burst open behind her. The wind that swept in
extinguished the lamps and plunged the wagon into near-darkness, leaving
only the fire glowing scarlet in its trough like a door into Hell. Somebody
cursed fearfully, barely audible above the moaning inrush. "I told you,"
Gelo~ cried, "I go where I please!" The door swung shut again, although
the witch woman had not moved. The wind was gone. She leaned
forward so that her yellow eyes reflected restless flames. "What happens
to these people does concern me--and concerns you as well, although you


STONE OF FAREWELL

335

are too ignorant to know it. Our enemy is your enemy, and he is greater
than you can understand, Fikolmij. When he comes, he will sweep across
your fields like a grassfire."
    "Hah!" The March-thane smirked, but the nervous edge was not gone
from his voice. "Do not preach to me. I know all about your enemy, King
Elias. He is no more a man than Josua here. The Thrithings-men do not
fear him."
    Before Gelo~ could respond there was a rap at the door, which swung
open to reveal Hotvig, bearing his spear and a puzzled expression. He was
only a young man, despite his heavy beard, and he regarded the witch
woman with undisguised dismay as he spoke to his chieftain.
    "The prisoners are still in the bull run. None of the men outside saw
this one leave. The gate is locked, and there are no holes in the fence."
    Fikolmij grunted and waved his hand. "I know." The March-thane's
gaze shifted to Gelo~ for a brooding moment, then he smiled slowly.
"Come here," he ordered Hotvig, then whispered into the rider's ear.
    "It will be done," Hotvig said, darting a nervous glance at Gelo~ before
going out again.
    "So," Fikolmij said, and smiled broadly, showing most of his crooked
teeth. "You think I should set this dog free to run away." He shoved
Josua with his foot, earning a swift glare of hatred from his daughter.
"What if I do not?" he asked cheerfully.
    GeloE narrowed her eyes. "As I told you, March-thane: I make a bad
enemy."
    Fikomij chortled. "And what shall you do to me, when I have told my
men to kill the remaining prisoners unless I come to them myself before
the next watch of the night to say otherwise?" He patted his hands on his
belly in contentment. "I do not doubt you have charms and spells that can
harm me, but now our blades are at each other's throats, are they not?" In
the corner of the wagon Utvart growled, as if excited by the image
invoked.
    "Oh, horse-lord, may the world be preserved from such as you," Gelo~
said disgustedly. "I hoped to convince you to help us, which would be for
your good as much as ours." She shook her head. "Now, as you say, our
knives are out. Who knows if they may be put away without causing
many deaths?"
 "I do not fear your threats," Fikolmij growled.
    Gelo~ stared at him for a moment, then looked at Josua, who was still
seated on the floor watching all that transpired with odd placidity. Lastly,
she turned her gaze on Utvart. The tall man scowled fiercely, not at all
comfortable under her scrutiny. "I think there is still one favor I can do for
you, March-thane Fikolmij." "I need no..."
 "Quiet!" Gelo~ shouted. The March-thane fell silent, bailing his fists, his


336                                    Tad Williams

reddened eyes bulging. "You are about to break your own laws," sh,
said. "The laws of the High Thrithings. I will help you avoid that."
    "What madness are you speaking, devil-woman?!" he raged. "I am th,
lord of the dam!"
    "The clan councils honor no man as March-thane who breaks their oh
laws," she replied. "I know this. I know many things."
    With a sweep of his arm, Fikolmij sent a bowl flying from atop hi
stool to clatter against the wagon's far wall. "What law? Tell me what lay
or I will throttle you even though you burn me to ashes!"
    "The laws of bride-price and betrothal." Gelo~ pointed at Josua. "Yot
would kill this man, but he is her betrothed. If another--" she indicated
brooding Utvart, "--wishes to have her, he must fight for her. Is that no!
true, Thane?"
    Fikolmij smiled, a great rancid grin that spread across his face like
stain. "You have outsmarted yourself, meddler. They are not betrothed.
Josua admitted that from his own lips. I would break no law to kill him.
Utvart stands ready to pay the bride-price."
    Gelo~ looked at him intently. "They are not married and Josua has nol
asked her. This is true. But have you forgotten your own customs,
Fikolmij of the Stallion-Clan? There are other forms of betrothal."
      He spat. "None but fathering..." he broke off, forehead wrinkling in
sudden thought. "A child?"  Gelo~ said nothing.
    Vorzheva did not look up. Her face was hidden by her dark hair, but
her hand, which had stroked the prince's bloodied cheek, froze hke a
snake-startled rabbit.
  "It is true," she said finally.
    Josua's face was a complicated puzzle of emotions, made even harder to
read by the elaborate tracing of bruises and weals. "You... ? How 10rig
have you known... ? You said nothing..."
    "I have known since just before Naglimund fell," Vorzheva said. "I
feared to tell you."
    Josua watched the tears cutting new tracks along her dusty cheeks. He
lifted his hand to touch her arm briefly before allowing it to drop back
into his lap, then looked from Vorzheva up to Gelo& The witch woman
held his eye for a long moment; some communicated thought seemed to
pass between them.
    "By the Four-Footed," Fikolmij growled at last, bemused. "A child-
betrothal, is it? If it's even his, that is."
"It is his, you pig!" Vorzheva said fiercely. "It could be no one else's."
Utvart stepped forward, boot buckles chinking. His swordpoint thumped
down into the floor boards, sinking half an inch into the wood. "A
challenge, then," he said. "To the death we fight." He looked to Gelo~
and his expression became cautious. "Vorzheva, the March-thane's daugh-



STONE OF FAREWELL                                                                337

ter, she is spoils." Turning back to the prince, he tugged his sword free.
The great curved glade came loose as lightly as a feather. "A challenge."
 Josua's eyes were hard as he spoke through torn lips. "God hears."

    Deornoth stared down at his prince's battered features. "In the morn~
ing!?" he cried, loud enough to draw a scowl from one of the guards. The
Thrithings-men, bundled in heavy woolen cloaks against the chill, did not
look pleased with their assignment in the windy bull run. "Why do they
not just kill you cleanly?"
"It is a chance," Joshua said, then surrendered to a fit of coughing.
"What chance?" Deornotb said bitterly. "That a one-handed man who
has been beaten bloody can get up in the morning and outfight a giant?
Merciful Aedon, if I could only get my hands on that snake Fikolmij . . ."
 Josua's only reply was to spit bloodily into the mud.
    "The prince is correct," GeloE said. "It is a chance. Anything is better
than nothing."
    The witch woman had returned to the bull run to tend the prince. The
guards had stepped back quickly to let her pass: something of her nature
had traveled through the camp in swift whispers. Fikolmij's daughter had
not come with her. Vorzheva had been locked in her father's wagon, tears
of sorrow and anger still clamp on her face.
    "But you had him at a disadvantage," Deornoth said to the witchwoman.
"Why did you not strike then? Why did you let him send guards?"
    Gelo~'s yellow eyes glittered in the torchlight. "I had no advantage at
all. I told you once, Sir Deornoth, I cannot make warlike magic. I escaped
this stockade, yes, but other than that it was all bluff. Now, if you will be
silent about what you do not know, I will put my true skills to their
proper use." She returned her attention to the prince.
    How did she escape the stockade? Deornoth could not help wondering.
One moment Gelo~ had been wandering in the shadows at the far end of
the bull run, the next she had been gone.
    He shook his head. It was useless to argue, and he had been little else
but useless of late. He touched Josua's thin arm. "If I may be of any help,
my prince, only ask." He dropped to his knees, then looked briefly to the
witch woman. "I apologize for my unthinking words, Valada Gelo~."
 She grunted an acknowledgment. Deornoth rose and walked away.
 The rest of the starveling band was seated by the other fire. The
 Thrithings-men, being not entirely without mercy, had given them brush
 and twigs with which to build it. They were not merciless, Deornoth
 thought, but not stupid, either: such poor fuel would provide heat--barely--
 but could not be used as a weapon, as could a flaming brand. The thought


338                                    Tad Williams

of weapons set him to musing as he seated himself between Sangfugol and
Father Strangyeard.
    "This is a foul way to end things," he said. "You have heard what has
happened to Josua?"
    Strangyeard swung his slender hands. "They are untutored barbarians,
these grasslanders. Mother Elysia, I know all men are equal in God's eyes,
but this is atrocious! I mean to say, even ignorance is not an excuse for
such..." He trailed off fretfully.
    Sangfugol sat up, wincing at the pain in his leg. Anyone who knew him
would have been astonished: the harper, previously meticulous in groom-
ing and dress almost to the point of comedy, was as ragged, soiled, and
burr-covered as a haystack vagabond. "And ifJosua dies?" he said quietly.
"He is my master and I love him, I suppose, but if he dies--what happens
to US.)''
    "If we are lucky, we will be little better than slaves," Deornoth said,
hearing his own words as if from another's lips. He felt quite hollow.
How had things come to such a point? A year earlier the world had been
as regular as supper bread. "If we are unlucky . . ." he continued, but did
not finish his thought--nor did he need to.
    "It will be worse on the women," Sangfugol whispered, looking over
to Duchess Gutrun, who held sleeping Leleth on her lap. "These men are
ungodly brutes. Have you seen the scars they give themselves?"
  "Isorn," Deornoth called suddenly. "Come here, if you please."
  Duke Isgrimnur's son crawled around the meager fire to sit near them.
    "I think," Deornoth said, "that we must prepare ourselves to do some-
thing tomorrow when Josua is made to fight."
    Strangyeard looked up, worried. "But we are so few.., halfa dozen in
the midst of thousands."
    Isorn nodded, a grim little smile showing on his wide face. "At least we
can choose the way we die. I will not let them have my mother." The
smile vanished. "By Usires, I swear I would kill her first."
    Sangfugol looked around as if hoping they would reveal their joke.
"But we have no weapons!" he whispered urgently."Are you mad? Per-
haps we might live if we do nothing, but if we make trouble we will
certainly die."
    Deornoth shook his head. "No, harper. If we do not fight, we will
certainly be less than men, whether they kill us or not. We will be less
than dogs, who at least rip the bear's guts as he kills them." His gaze
traveled from face to face. "Sangfugol," he said at last, "we must plan.
Why don't you sing a song against the chance of any of these cow-herders
wondering why we are gathered or what we speak of." "A song? What do you mean?"
    "A song. A long, boring song about the virtues of quiet surrender. If it
comes to an end and we are still talking, begin again."


                             STONE OF FAREWELL                                          339

 The harper was plainly agitated. "I know no tune like that?
    "Then make one up, Song-bird," Isorn laughed. "We have been too
long without music, anyway. If we die tomorrow, we should live tonight."
    "Make it a part of your plans, if you will," Sangfugol said, "that I
would prefer not to die at all." He sat up straighter and began to hum
tunelessly, searching for words. "I am frightened," he said at last.
 "So are we," Deornoth replied. "Sing."

    Fikolmij swaggered into the bull run soon after dawn touched the gray
sky. The March-thane of the High Thrithings wore a heavy embroidered
wool cloak and a rugged gold stallion on a chain around his neck. He
seemed to be in an expansive mood.
    "So the reckoning comes," he laughed, then spat upon the ground. His
wrists were weighty with metal bracelets. "Do you feel fit, Josua Lackhand?"
    "I have felt fitter," Josua said, tugging on his boot. "Do you have my
sword?"
    Fikolmij waved; Hotvig stepped forward bearing Naidel in its shearh.
The young Thrithings-man watched the prince curiously as Josua drew
the sword belt around his hips, managing adroitly despite his missing
hand. When it was buckled, Josua drew Naidel out, holding the slender
blade up to catch the morning light. Hotvig stepped back respectfully. "May
I have a whetstone?" Josua asked. "The edge is dull."
    The March-thane chuckled and produced his own kit from a pouch on
his wide belt. "Sharpen it, stone-dweller, sharpen it. We want the only the
best sport, as you have at your city tournaments. But this will not be quite
the same as your castle-games, will it?"
    Josua shrugged, smearing a thin film of oil along Naidel's cutting
surface. "I have never cared much for those, either."
    Fikolmij's eyes narrowed. "You seem very fit indeed, after the lesson !
gave you last night. Has this witch cast some spell on you? That would be
dishonorable."
    Joshua shrugged again to show how little he cared about Fikolmij's
ideas of honor, but Gelo~ stepped forward. "There have been no charms,
no spells."
    Fikolmij eyed her distrustfully for a moment, then turned back to Josua.
"Very well. My men will bring you when you are ready. I am glad to see
you up. It will make for a better fight." The March-thane strutted out of
the paddock, followed closely by three of his guard.
    Deornoth, who had watched the whole exchange, cursed quietly. He
knew what effort it had taken his prince to act so unconcerned. He and
lsorn had helped Josua climb to his feet in the hour just before first light.
Even after the healing draught Gelo~ had given himman unmagical con-


340                                    Tad Williams

cocoon to bolster Josua's strength; Gelo~ had bitterly regretted the lack of
a sprig of mockfoil to make it truly efficadous--the prince had still found
it difficult to dress himself. The beating Fikolmij had given him had taken
a terrible toll on his undernourished frame. Deornoth secretly doubted
that Josua would even be able to stand after swinging a blade for a short
while.
    Father Strangyeard approached the prince. "Your Highness, is there
truly no other way? I know the Thrithings-men are barbaric, but God
despises none of His creations. He has put the spark of mercy in every
breast. Perhaps..."
    "It is not the Thrithings-men who wish this," Josua told the one-eyed
priest kindly, "it is Fikolmij. He bears an old hatred for me and my house,
one that even he will not fully admit."
    "But I thought the Stallion Clan fought for your father in the Thrithings
War," Isorn said. "Why should he hate you?"
    "Because it was with my father's help that he became war-thane of the
High Thrithings. He cannot forgive the fact that it was the stone-dwellers,
as he calls us, who gave him the power his own people would not. Then
his daughter ran from him and I took her with me, losing him a bride-
price of horses. To our friend the March-thane, that is a terrible dishonor.
No, there are no words, priestly or otherwise, that will make Fikolmij
forget."
    Josua took a last look at Naidel's keen blade, then slid it back into its
sheath. He gazed around at his assembled people. "Heads high," he said.
The prince seemed strangely clear-eyed and cheerful. "Death is no enemy.
God has prepared a place for us all, I am sure." He walked to the gate in
the fence. Fikolmij's guards opened it, then formed a spear-bristling escort
as Josua walked across the wagon-city.
    A swift, cool breeze was blowing across the grasslands, an invisible
hand that ruffled the meadows and thrummed in the tentlines. The low
hills were dotted with grazing cattle. Scores of grimy children who had
been dodging in and out among the wagons left their games to follow
Josua and his makeshift court as they trudged toward the March-thane's
paddock.
    Deornoth looked at the faces of children and their parents as they came
to join the swelling procession. Where he expected to see hatred or
bloodlust, he found only eager expectancy--the same eagerness he had
seen as a child on his brothers' and sisters' faces when the High King's
Guard or a painted peddler's wagon had passed their Hewenshire freeholding.
These people hoped only for some excitement. It was unfortunate that it
would take somebody's death, most likely that of his beloved prince, to
provide it.
    Golden ribbons flapped on the fenceposts of Fikolmij's enclosure, as if
this were a festival day. The March-thane sat on a stool before his wagon


STONE OF FAREWELL

341

door. Several more bejeweled Thrithings-men--other clan leaders, Deornoth
guessed--were seated on the grouhd beside him. Several women of vari-
ous ages stood nearby, and one of them was Vorzheva. The March-thane's
daughter no longer wore the rags of her court dress. She had been dressed
in a more traditional clan costume, a hooded wool dress with a heavy belt
studded with colorful stones and a band across her forehead that tied at
the back of her hood. Unlike the other women, whose bands were of dark
hues, Vorzheva wore a white ribbon--no doubt indicating, Deornoth
reflected sourly, a bride for sale.
    As Josua and his followers stepped through the gate, the prince and
Vorzheva caught each others' eyes. Josua deliberately made the sign of the
Tree on his chest, then kissed his hand and touched it to that spot.
Vorzheva turned away as if to hide tears.
    Fikolmij stood and began to speak to the assembled crowd, slipping
back and forth between Westerling and the harsh Thrithings dialect as he
held forth to the seated dignitaries and the other clanfolk gathered around
the paddock fences. As the March-thane roared on, Deornoth slipped
forward between the half-dozen spearmen who had followed Josua into
the enclosure and moved to his prince's side.
      "Highness," he said quietly, laying a hand on his shoulder. The prince
started, as if woken from a dream.  "Ah. It's you."
    "I wanted to beg your forgiveness, my prince, before.., before what-
ever happens. You are the kindest lord a man could want. I had no right
to speak to you as I did yesterday."
    Josua smiled sadly. "You had every right. I only wish I had more time
to think about the things you said. I have indeed been far too self-absorbed
of late. It was the act of a friend to point that out."
    Deornoth fell to a knee, pulling Josua's hand to his lips. "The Lord bless
you, Josua," he said quickly. "Bless you. And do not close too swiftly
with that brute."
    The prince thoughtfully watched Deornoth rise. "I may have to. I fear I
have not the strength to wait long. If I see any chance at all, I must take
it."
    Deornoth tried to speak again, but his throat was too tight. He clasped
Josua's hand, then retreated.
    A ragged volley of shouts and cheers rose from the crowd as Utvart
climbed over the paddock fence and took his place before Fikolmij. Josua's
adversary stripped off his cowhide vest and displayed his muscular torso,
which had been rubbed with fat until it glistened. Seeing this, Deornoth
frowned: Utvart would be able to move quickly, and the fat would
help him keep warm.
    The Thrithing-man's curved sword had been thrust scabbardless through
his broad belt, his long hair pulled into a knot at the back of his head.


342                                    Tad Williams

Utvart wore a bracelet on each arm, and several earrings dangled against
his jaw. He had daubed his scars with red and black paint, making himself
seem a kind of demon.
    Now he pulled his sword from his belt and lifted it over his head,
engendering another chorus of shouts. "Come, Lackhand," he boomed.
"Utvart is waiting."
    Father Strangyeard was praying aloud as Josua walked forward across
the enclosure. Deornoth found that rather than soothing or reassuring
him, the priest's words rubbed on his nerves until he had to step away;
after a moment's consideration, he moved to a spot along the fence just to
the side of one of the guards. He looked up and saw Isorn staring.
Deornoth shifted his chin in a virtually undetectible nod; Isorn eased over
toward the wall also, until he stood a few yards from Deornoth.
    Josua had left his cloak with Duchess Gutrun, who cradled it like a
child. Beside her stood Leleth, dirty fist clutching the duchess' tattered
skirt. Gelo~ was a short distance away, her yellow stare hooded.
    As Deornoth surveyed the group, other eyes met his and slid away, as if
fearing to maintain too lengthy a contact. Sangfugol quietly began to sing.

    "So, son of Prester John, you come before the Free Folk of the Thrithings
a little less great than you once were," Fikolmij grinned. His clansmen
laughed and whispered.
    "Only in my possessions," Josua said calmly. "As a matter of fact, I
would like to propose a wager, Fikolmij--between the two of us, you and
me."
    The March-thane laughed, surprised. "Brave words, Josua, proud words
coming from a man who knows he will soon die." Fikolmij looked him
over calculatingly. "What kind of wager?"
    The prince slapped his scabbard. "I propose to bet on this and my good
left hand."
    "Good, since it is your only hand," Fikolmij smirked. His clansmen
roared.
    "That is as may be. If Utvart defeats me, he gets Vorzheva and you get
her bride-price, is that not true?"
"Thirteen horses." The March-thane was smug. "What of it?"
"Simply this. Vorzheva is already mine. We are betrothed. If I survive, I
gain nothing new." His eyes met Vorzheva's across the crowd of watch-
ers, then moved back to her father with cold regard.
    "You gain your life!" Fikolmij spluttered. "In any case, it is foolish to
talk. You will not survive."
    Utvart, waiting impatiently, allowed himself a thin smile at his thane's
words.


a
d

if

STONE OF FAREWELL

343

    "That is why I wish to make a wager with you," Josua said. "With you,
Fikolmij. Between men." Some of the clansmen chuckled at this; Fikolmij
looked around angrily until they fell silent.  "Speak on."
    "It will be a wager of httle value, Fikolmij, the kind that bold-willed
men make without hesitation in the cities of my people. If I win, you will
give me the same price you are asking from Utvart." Josua smiled. "I will
choose thirteen horses from you."
    There was an undertone of anger in Fikolmij's hoarse voice. "Why
should I wager with you at all? A wager is only a wager if both sides risk
something. What could you possibly have that I want?" His expression
turned cunning. "And what do you have that I cannot simply take from
your people when you are dead?"  "Honor."
    Fikolmij drew back in surprise. The whispers around him intensified.
"By the Four-Footed, what does that mean?! I care little for your soft-
hearted, stone-dweller's honor."
  "Ah," Josua said with a ghost of a smile, "but your own?"
    The prince turned suddenly to face the crowd of Thrithings-folk who
hung over the fences of Fikolmij's great paddock. A ripple of quiet
talk ran through the throng. "Free men and women of the High
Thrithings!" he cried. "You have come to see me killed." A bray of
laughter greeted this statement. A clod of dirt hurtled toward Josua,
missing him by only a few cubits and rolling past Fikolmij's clansmen,
who glared out at the assembly. "I have offered your March-thane a
wager. I swear that the Aedon, god of the stone-dwellers, will save
me--and that I will beat Utvart."
    "That would be something to see!" one of the crowd bellowed in
heavily-accented Westerling. There was more laughter. Fikolmij stood and
moved toward Josua as if to silence him, but after looking around at the
shouting spectators seemed to think better of it. Instead, he crossed his
arms over his broad chest and watched sullenly. "What do you wager,
little man?" one of the clansmen near the front shouted.
    "All that remains to me: my honor and the honor of my people." Josua
drew Naidel from its sheath and lifted it high. His shirt sleeve fell back;
Elias' rusted manacle, which he still wore around his left wrist, caught the
faint morning light like a band of blood. "I am the son of Prester John, the
High King who you remember well. Fikolmij knew him best of all of you."
The crowd murmured. The March-thane growled his discontent at this show.
    "Here is my wager," Josua shouted. "If I fall to Utvart, I swear it will
prove that our god Usires Aedon is weak, and that Fikolmij speaks true
when he says that he is stronger than the stone-dwellers. You will know
that your March-thane's Stallion is mightier than the Dragon and Tree of
John's house, which is the greatest house in all the city-lands of Osten Ard."


344                                    Tad Williams

    A chorus of shouting voices rose. Josua calmly surveyed the crowd.
"What does Fikolmij wager?" someone cried at last. Utvart, standing only
a few ells away, was glowering at Josua, obviously furious at how his
thunder had been stolen, but just as obviously unsure as to whether Josua's
wager could somehow increase his own glory when he slaughtered this
crippled city-dweller.
    "As many horses as Vorzheva's bride-price. And my people and I to go
free and unhindered," Josua said. "Not much when matched against the
honor of a prince of Erkynland."
    "A prince with no house!" someone catcalled, but a host of other voices
drowned out the heckler, exhorting Fikolmij to take the wager, crying
that he would be a fool to let this stone-dweller show him up. The
March-thane, features twisted in poorly-hidden rage, let the crowd's urg-
ings wash over him like rain. He looked quite ready to grasp Josua's neck
in his hands and throttle the prince himself.
    "So. It is done," he snarled at last, lifting his arm in a gesture
of acceptance. The watchers cheered. "By the Grass Thunderer, you
have heard him. The wager is set. My horses against his empty words.
Now, let this foolishness come to a swift end." Much of the March-
thane's enjoyment seemed to have evaporated. He leaned forward,
speaking low so that only Josua could hear. "When you are dead, I
will kill your women and children with my own hands. Slowly. No man
makes me butt of a joke before my clans and steals my rightful horses."
Fikolmij turned and stalked back to his stool, frowning at the jests from
his randwarders.
    As Josua unbuckled and cast away his sword belt, Utvart stepped
forward, corded arms gleaming as he lifted his heavy blade.
    "You talk and talk and talk, little man," the grasslander snarled. "You
talk too much."
    A moment later he bounded across the intervening space in three long
strides, his sword swinging in a great arc. Naidel flashed up, deflecting the
blow with a dull chime, but before Josua could bring his slim blade up for
a cut of his own, Utvart had whirled and begun another powerful,
two-handed sweep. Josua again managed to sidestep Utvart's attack, but
this time the curved sword rang hard against the prince's guard and Naidel
almost flew from his hand. He staggered back a few steps across the
muddy turf before he could regain his balance. Utvart grinned fiercely and
began circling, forcing Josua to turn quickly so the prince could keep his
left shoulder facing the Thrithings-man. Utvart feinted, then lunged. Josua's
boot heel slid on the hoof-trampled ground, forcing him to drop to one
knee. He managed to turn Utvart's thrust, but as the big man pulled his
blade free it sawed back across Josua's sword arm, freeing a ribbon of
blood.


STONE OF FAREWELL

345

    The prince rose carefully. Utvart showed his teeth and continued cir-
cling. A trickle of red dripped from the back of Josua's hand. The prince
wiped it on the leg of his breeches, then raised it again quickly as Utvart
feigned another thrust. Moments later the blood was again dribbling
down Josua's wrist and onto his hilt.

    Deornoth thought he understood the strange business of the wager--
Josua was hoping to make Fikolmij and Utvart angry in the hope it would
lead to some sort of mistake--but the prince's idea had all too obviously
not succeeded. The March-thane was indeed furious, but Josua was not
battling Fikolmij, and Utvart did not seem as hot-headed as the prince had
probably hoped. Instead, the Thrithings-man was proving himself a canny
fighter. Rather than relying blindly on his superior strength and reach, he
was wearing Josua down with heavy blows, then springing away before
the prince could counter.
    As he watched the one-sided combat, Deornoth felt his heart falling like
a stone. It had been foolish to think anything else could happen. Josua was
a fine swordsman, but he would have had trouble with one like Utvart at
the best of times. Today, the prince was injured and poorly-rested, weak
as a stripling. It was only a matter of time...
    Deornoth turned to Isorn. The young Rimmersman shook his head
grimly: he, too, understood that Josua was fighting a defensive action,
putting off the inevitable as long as possible. Isorn lifted his eyebrow
inquiringly. Now?
    Father Strangyeard's murmured prayers were a counterpoint to the
shouting throng. The guards around them were staring raptly, eyes wide,
spears held only loosely. Deornoth lifted his hand. Wait...

    Blood was rilling from two more wounds, a slash on Josua's left wrist
and a broad gouge in his leg. The prince wiped sweat from his forehead
and left a broad scarlet smear across his face, as though he sought to match
Utvart's painted scars.
    Josua stumbled back, ducking awkwardly beneath another of Utvart's
swinging attacks, then tensed and lunged forward. His thrust ended harm-
lessly, well short of Utvart's oiled stomach. The Thrithings-man, silent to
this point, laughed harshly and cut again. Josua blocked, then attacked.
Utvart's eyes widened, and for a moment the paddock echoed with the
percussive sound of steel on steel. Most of the throng were up and
shouting. Slender Naidel and Utvart's long sword spun in and out through
an intricate dance of silver light, ringing their own accompaniment.
    The Thrithingsman's mouth stretched in a grimace of wild glee, but
Josua's face was ashen, his bloodless lips pursed and his gray eyes burning
with some last reserve of strength. Two of the Thrithings-man's powerful
swings were clangingly rebuffed, then Josua's swift lunge drew a bright


346                                    Tad Williams

red line along Utvart's ribs. Some in the watching crowd shouted and
clapped at this evidence that the fight was not yet over, but Utvart
narrowed his eyes in anger and surged forward, raining blows like a
blacksmith hammering at an anvil. Staggered, Josua could only retreat,
trying to keep Naidel up before him, the thin strip of steel his only shield.
The prince's weak attempt at a counter-thrust was carelessly knocked aside,
then one of Utvart's bludgeoning swipes banged off the prince's guard and
struck his head. Josua lurched backward for several loose-jointed steps
before slumping to his knees, blood coursing from a spot just above his
ear. He lifted Naidel before him as though to ward off more blows, but
his eyes were bleary and the sword wavered like a willow limb.
    The noise of the throng rose to a howl. Fikolmij was on his feet, beard
blowing in the sharp wind, clenched fist in the air like an angry god
calling down the thunder of the heavens. Utvart approached Josua slowly,
still surprisingly cautious, as though he expected some stone-dweller trick,
but the prince was clearly beaten, struggling to rise from his knees, the
stump of his right wrist slipping in the mud.
    A different kind of noise suddenly arose from the far side of the
paddock. The crowd's attention grudgingly turned toward the source.
There was an eddying of bodies near where the prisoners stood, and spears
flailing like grass-stems. A woman's shriek of amazement was followed
immediately by a man's cry of pain. A moment later a pair of bodies
broke free from the press. Deornoth held one of the Thrithings guards, his
elbow around the man's throat. The knight's other hand clasped the
guard's spear just below the head, its sharp point pushed snug against the
man's belly.
    "Tell your other riders to stand back, horse-lord, or these men will
die." Deornoth prodded at his captive's belly. The man grunted but did
not cry out. A spot of blood appeared on his dun-colored shirt.
    Fikolmij stepped forward, flushed with wrath, his braided beard quiver-
ing on his jaws. "Are you mad? Are you madmen? By The Four-Footed, I
will crush you all!"
    "Then your clansmen will die as well. We do not like to kill in cold
blood, but we will not stand by and see our prince murdered after you
beat him until he could not fight."
    The crowd murmured unhappily, but Fikolmij, seething with rage, paid
no attention. He raised his braceleted arm to call for his warriors, but a
voice lanced out.
    "No!" It was Josua, climbing totteringly to his feet. "Let them go,
Deornoth."
 The knight stared in amazement. "But, Highness . . ."
    "Let them go." He paused to find breath. "I will fight my own battle. If
you love me, release them." Josua rubbed blood from his eyes, blinking.
 Deornoth turned to Isorn and Sangfugol, who held spears on three


STONE OF FAREWELL

347

 more guards. They returned his astonished stare. "Release them," he said at
 last. "The prince bids us release them."
     Isorn and Sangfugol lowered their spears, allowing the Thrithings-men
 to step away. They promptly did, scrambling out of reach of the spear
 points before they remembered their original roles as captors and stopped,
 muttering angrily. Isorn ignored them. Beside him, the harper was trembling
 like a wounded bird. Gelo~, who had not moved through all the furor,
 shifted her yellow eyes back to Josua.
     "Come, Utvart," the prince said haltingly, his smile a bitter slash of
 white across a bloody mask. "Forget them. We are not finished."
     Fikolmij, who stood close by, champing with his open mouth as though
 at a bit, started to say something. He never had the chance.
    Utvart leaped forward, battering at Josua's guard. The moment's respite
had not returned Josua's strength: he fell backward unsteadily before the
Thrithings-man's attack, fending off the curved blade only by the slim-
mest of margins. At last a swinging blow slid past, nicking Josua's chest,
then the following attack landed the fiat of Utvart's blade on Josua's
elbow, springing Naidel from his grasp. The prince scuttled after it, but as
his fingers closed on the bloody hilt his feet slipped from beneath him and
he sprawled on the trampled turf.
    Seeing his advantage, Utvart lunged forward. Josua was able to lift his
sword and turn the stroke downward, but his awkward position as he rose
from the ground allowed Utvart to grapple him in a hugely-muscled arm
and begin to pull the prince in toward the cutting edge of the curved
sword. Josua brought up his knee and right arm to try to hold his attacker
at bay, then managed to raise his other arm, keeping his blade locked
against Utvart's guard, but the stronger Thrithings-man pushed his sword
up slowly against the prince's stiffened wrist, forcing Naidel back as the
crescent blade rose toward Josua's throat. The prince's hps skinned back in
a grimace of ultimate exertion and sinews knotted along his slender arm.
For a moment, his supreme effort halted the rising blade. The two men
stood grappling chest to chest. Sensing the prince's flagging strength,
Utvart tightened his grip around his smaller foe and smiled, drawing Josua
toward him in a movement almost ritually slow. Despite the agonized
play of the prince's muscles, the long edge of the curved blade continued
inexorably upward, coming lovingly to rest against the side of Josua's throat.
    The crowd stopped shouting. Somewhere overhead a crane threw out
its clattering call, then silence swept back over the field.
    "Now," the Thrithings-man exulted, breaking his long silence, "Utvart
kills you."
    Josua suddenly ceased resisting and flung himself forward into his
enemy's grasp, snapping his head to one side. The curved blade slid along
the outside of his neck, slicing the flesh deeply, but in that fractional
instant of freedom the prince drove a knee into Utvart's groin.


348                                    Tad Williams

    As Utvart grunted in painful surprise, Josua hooked a foot around the
Thrithings-man's calf and pushed against him. Utvart could not find his
balance and tumbled backward. Josua fell with him, the Thrithings-man's
blade flailing past his shoulder. When Utvart struck the ground with a hiss
of released breath, Naidel snaked free. A moment later its point slid
beneath the Thrithings-man's chin and was hammered upward a hand's-
width or more, through the jaw and into the braincase.
    Josua rolled himself free of Utvart's spastic clutch and struggled to his
feet, dripping scarlet. He stood for a moment, legs shaking, arms dangling
limp and helpless, and stared at the body on the ground before him.
  "Tall man," he gasped, "it is... you.., who talks too much."
    A moment later his eyes rolled up beneath his lids and he fell heavily
across the Thrithings-man's chest. They lay together, their blood com-
mingling, and across the entire grasslands it seemed that nothing spoke or
moved for a long time. Then the shouting began.


PART THREE

StormJs Heart


Saegard

The

FROSTMARCH


HERNYSTIR

[ The Circoille

The Inniscrich

tdharc

,61jNad Mullach



18

The Lost Garden

After a long sojourn in soundless velvet emptiness, Simon returned
at 'last to the dim borderlands between sleep and waking. He came to
awareness in darkness, on the edge of dream, and realized that once again
a voice was speaking within his thoughts, as on the nightmarish flight out
of Skodi's abbey. Some door had been opened inside him: now it seemed
that anything might enter.
    But this uninvited guest was not the taunting flame-thing, the Storm
King's minion. The new voice was as different from that ghastly other as
the quick from the dead. The new voice did not mock or threaten--in
fact, it did not even seem to be speaking to Simon at all.
    It was a womanly voice, musical yet strong, shining in Simon's lightless
dream like a beacon. Though its words were sorrowful, it brought him a
strange sense of comfort. Even though Simon knew that he slept, and was
sure that it would only be the work of an instant to wake into the real
world, the voice captivated him so that he did not wish to awaken just
yet. Remembering the wise, beautiful face he had seen in Jiriki's mirror,
he was content to hover on the edge of wakefulness and listen, for this was
the same voice, the same person. Somehow, when that door into Simon
had been opened, it was the mirror-woman who had come through.
Simon was infinitely thankful for that. He remembered a little of what the
Red Hand had promised him, and even in the shelter of sleep he felt frost
upon his heart.
    "Beloved Hakatri, my beautiful son," the woman's voice said, "how I miss
you. I know you are beyond hearing or beyond replying, but I cannot help
speaking as though you were before me. Too many times have the People danced
the year's end since you went into the West. Hearts grow cold, and the world
grows colder still."
    Simon realized that even though the voice sang through his dream,
these words were not meant for his ears. He felt like a beggar child spying
on a rich and powerful family through a crack in a wall. But just as the

351


352                                    Tad Williams

wealthy family might have sorrows a beggar could not understand--miseries
unrelated to hunger or cold or physical painwso the voice in Simon's
dream, for all its majesty, seemed weighted with quiet anguish.
    "In some ways, it seems only the turning of a handful of moon-faces since the
Two Families left Venyha Do'sae, the !and of our birth across the Great Sea. Ah,
Hakatri, if only you could have seen our boats as they swept across the fierce waves!
Of silverwood they were crafied, with sails of bright cloth, brave and beautiful as
flying fish. As a child I rode in the bow as the waves parted, and I was surrounded
by a cloud of scintillant, sparkling seaJbam! Then, when our boats touched the soil
of this land, we cried. We had escaped the shadow of Unbeing and won our way to
fireedom.
    "But instead, Hakatri, we found that we had not truly escaped shadow at all,
but only replaced one sort with another--and this shadow was growing inside us.
    "Of course, it was long bejbre we realized it. The new shadow grew slowly,
first in our hearts, then in our eyes and hands, but now the evil it caused has
become greater than anyone could have suspected. It is stretching across all this land
that we loved, the land to which we hastened long ago as to the arms of a lover--or
as a son to the arms of his mother...
    "Our new land has become as shadowed as the old one, Hakatri, and that is our
~ult. But now your brother, who was ruined by that shadow, has himself become
an even more terrible darkness. He casts a pall over all he once loved.
"Oh, by the Garden that is Vanished, it is hard to lose your sons?
Something else was now competing for his attention, but Simon could
only lie helplessly, unwilling or unable to awaken. It seemed that some-
where outside of this dream-that-was-not-a-dream, his name was being
called. Did he have friends or family who searched for him? It did not
matter. He could not break away from the woman. Her terrible sadness
twisted within him like a sharpened stick or a bit of broken pot: it would
be cruel to leave her alone with her sorrow. At last the voices that faintly
called for him vanished.
    The woman's presence remained. It seemed that she wept. Simon did
not know her, and could not guess to whom she spoke, but he wept with
her.

    Guthwulf was feeling confused and irritated. As he sat polishing his
shield he tried to listen to the report of his castellain, who had just ridden
down from Guthwulfs hold in Utanyeat. He was not having much luck
with either chore.
    The earl spat citril juice into the floor rushes. "Say it again, man, you
are making no sense at all."
    The castellain, a round-bellied, ferret-eyed fellow, firmly repressed a
sigh of weariness--Guthwulf was not the kind of master before whom one



                             STONE OF FAREWELL                                          353

displayed imperfect patience--and started in again on his explanation.
    "It is simply this, Lord: your holdings in Utanyeat are nearly empty.
Wulfholt is deserted but for a few servants. Almost all the peasants have
left, There will be no one to bring in the oats or barley, and harvest can
wait little more than a fortnight."
    "My serfs have left?" Guthwulf stared distractedly at the boar and silver
spears that sparkled on his black shield, the spearheads picked out in
mother-of-pearl. He had loved that coat of arms, once, loved it as he
would a child. "How do they dare leave? Who but me has fed the ugly
louts all these years? Well, hire others for harvest, but do not let those
who fled come back again. Not ever."
    Now the castellain did make the smallest noise of despair. "My lord,
Earl Guthwulf, I fear you have not been listening to me. There are not
enough free folk left in Utanyeat to hire. The barons, your liege men,
have their own problems and few workers to spare. Fields everywhere in
eastern and northern Erkynland are going to seed unharvested. Skali of
Kaldskryke's army across the river in Hernystir has cut a swath through
all the border towns near Utanyeat, and will probably cross the river
soon, having exhausted Lluth's country."
    "Lluth is dead, I am told," Guthwulf said slowly. He himself had been
in King Lluth's house, the Taig. His blood had flowed hot in his veins as
he insulted the sheep-herder king in the midst of Lluth's own court. That
had been a few scant months ago. Why did he feel so terrible now, so
unmanned? "Why are all these villains running away from their rightful
homes?"
    The castellain looked at him queerly, as though Guthwulf had suddenly
asked which direction was up. "Why? Because of the wars and looting on
their border, the chaos of the Frostmarch. And the White Foxes, of
course."
 "The White Foxes?"
    "Surely you know of the White Foxes, Lord." The castellain was almost
openly skeptical. "Surely, since they came to the aid of the army you
commanded at Naglimund."
    Guthwulf looked up, pawing reflectively at his upper lip. "The Norris,
you mean?"
    "Yes, Lord. White Foxes is the name the common people give them,
because of their corpse-pale skin and foxy eyes." He suppressed a shudder.
"White Foxes."
    "But what of them, man?" the earl demanded. When there was no
immediate answer, his voice began to rise. "What do they have to do with
my harvest, Aedon shake your soul?"
    "Why, they are coming south, Earl Guthwulf," the castellain said,
surprised. "They are leaving their nest in Naglimund's ruins. People who
must sleep in the open have seen them walking the hills by darkness, like


354                                   Tad Williams

ghosts. They travel at night, a few at a time, and always moving
southward--heading for the Hayholt." He looked around nervously, as if
only now realizing what he had said. "Coming here."

    After the castellain left, Guthwulf sat a long time drinking from a stoup
of wine. He picked up his helm to polish it, staring at the ivory tusks that
lifted from the crest, then put it back down, untouched. His heart was not
in the task, even though the king expected him to lead the Erkynguarcl
into the field a few days hence and his armor had not been thoroughly
looked-to since the siege of Naglimund. Things had not gone right at all
since the siege. The castle seemed ghost-ridden, and that damnable gray
sword and its two blade-brothers haunted his dreams until he almost
feared to go to bed, to fall asleep ....
    He set the wine down and stared at the flickering candle, then felt his
melancholy spirits lift a little. At least he had not been imagining things.
The countless odd night-sounds, the untethered shadows in the halls and
commons, Elias' vanishing midnight visitors, all these and more had
begun to make the Earl of Utanyeat doubt his own good mind. When the
king had forced him to touch that cursed sword, Guthwulf had become
sure that, whether by sorcery or no, some crack in his thoughts had let
madness in to destroy him. But it was no whim, no fancy--the castellain
had confirmed it. The Norns were coming to the Hayholt. The White
Foxes were coming.
    Guthwulf pulled his knife from his sheath and sent it whickering end
over end into the door. It stuck, quivering in the heavy oak. He shuffled
across the chamber and pulled it loose, then threw again, fetching it out
with a swift jerk of his hand. The wind shrilled in the trees outside.
Guthwulf bared his teeth. The knife thumped into the wood once more.

Simon lay suspended in a sleep that was not sleep, and the voice in his
head spoke on.
    "... You see, Hakatri, my quietest son, perhaps that was where our troubles
began. I spoke a moment ago of the Two Families, as though we twain were the
only survivors of Venyha Do'sae, but it was the boats of the Tinukeda'ya that
brought us across the Great Sea. Neither we Zida'ya nor our brethren the
Hikeda'ya would have lived to reach this land had it not been for Ruyan the
Navigator and his people---but to our shame, we treated the Ocean Children as
badly here as we had in the garden-lands beyond the sea. When most of Ruyan's
folk at last departed, going forth into this new land on their own, that, I think,
was when the shadow first began to grow. Oh, Hakatri, we were mad to bring
those old injustices to this new place, wrongs that should have died with our home
in the Uttermost East .... "



    The clown mask bobbed before Tiamak's eyes, gleaming with firelight,
covered with strange plumes and horns. For a moment he felt confused.
How had the Wind Festival come so soon? Surely the annual celebration of
He Who Bends the Trees was months away? But here was one of the
wind-clowns bowing and dancing before him--and what other explana-
tion could there be for the way Tiamak's head ached but an excessive
intake of fern beer, a sure sign that Festival Days were here?
    The wind-clown made a soft clicking noise as it tugged at something in
Tiamak's hand. What could the clown be doing? Then he remembered. It
wanted his coin, of course: everyone was expected to carry beads or pieces
of money for He Who Bends the Trees. The clowns gathered these ghtter-
ing tributes in clay jars to shake at the sky, making a rattling, roaring
noise that was the chief music of the Festival--a noise that brought the
good will of the Tree-Bender, so that he would keep harmful winds and
floods at bay.
    Tiamak knew he should let the clown have his coin--wasn't that what
'he had brought it for?--but still, there was something about the insinuat-
ing way the wind-clown pawed at him that made Tiamak uncomfortable.
The clown's mask winked and leered; Tiamak, fighting a growing sense of
unease, clutched the metal more tightly. What was wrong... ?
    As his vision suddenly cleared, his eyes widened in horror. The bobbing
clown mask became the chitinous face of a ghant, hanging only a scant
cubit above his boat, suspended by a vine from a branch that overhung the
river. The ghant was prodding gently with its insectile claw, patiently
trying to poke Tiamak's knife loose from his sleep-sweaty grasp.
    The little man shouted with disgust and threw himself back toward the
stern of his flatboat. The ghant rasped and clicked its mouth-feelers,
waving a plated foreleg as though trying to reassure him that it had all
been a mistake. A moment later Tiamak swept up his steering pole,
swinging it broadside so that he caught the ghant before it could scurry
back up the vine. There was a loud clack and the ghant flew out across the
river, legs curled like a singed spider. It made only a small splash as it
disappeared into the green water.
    Tiamak shuddered in repugnance as he waited for it to bob back to the
surface. A chorus of dry clacking came from above his head and he looked
up quickly to see half a dozen more ghants, each the size of a large
monkey, staring down at him from the safety of the upper branches. Their
expressionless black eyes glittered. Tiamak had little doubt that if they
guessed he could not stand, they would be upon him in a moment; still, it
seemed strange for ghants to attack any full-grown human, even an
injured one. Strange or not, he could only hope they didn't realize how


356                                    Tad Williams

weak he really was, or what sort of injuries the bloody bandage on his leg
signified.
    "That's right, you ugly bugs!" he shouted, brandishing his steering pole
and knife. His own cry made his head hurt. Wincing, he prayed silently
that he didn't faint from the exertion; if he did, he felt sure he would never
wake up. "Come on down and I'll give you the same lesson I did your
friend!"
    The ghants chittered at him with offhanded malice, as much as to say
that there was no hurry; if they didn't get him today, some other ghants
would soon enough. Crusty, lichen-dotted carapaces scraped against the
willow branches as the ghants dragged themselves higher up into the tree.
Resisting a fit of shivers, Tiamak calmly but deliberately poled his flatboat
toward the center of the watercourse, out from beneath the low-hanging
limbs.
    The sun, which had been only midway up the morning sky when he
noticed it last, had moved shockingly far past the meridian. He must have
fallen asleep sitting up, despite the early hour. His fever had taken a great
deal out of him. It seemed to have abated, at least for the present, but he
was still dreadfully weak, and his injured leg throbbed as if it were aflame.
    Tiamak's sudden laugh was raw and unpleasant. To think that two days
ago he had been making grand declslons about where he would go, about
which of the mighty folk clamoring for his services would be lucky
enough to get him and which would have to wait! He remembered that he
had decided to go to Nabban as his tribal elders had requested, and to let
Kwanitupul go for now, a decision that had caused him many hours of
worrying deliberation. Now his careful choice had been reversed in a
freakish instant. He would be lucky if he even made it to Kwanitupul
alive: the long journey to Nabban was simply inconceivable. He had lost
blood and was sick with wound-spite. None of the proper herbs to treat
such an injury grew in this part of the Wran. Also, just to insure his
continuing misery, a nest of ghants had now spotted him and made him
out as soon-to-be easy pickings!
    His heart raced. A gray cloud of weakness was descending on him. He
reached a slender hand down into the rivercourse, then splashed cold
water onto his face. That filthy thing had actually been touching him, sly
as a pickpocket, trying to dislodge his knife so its brethren might drop on
him unresisted. How could anyone think that ghants were only animals?
Some of his tribesmen claimed that they were nothing but the overgrown
bugs or crabs they much resembled, but Tiamak had seen the terrible
intelligence lurking behind those remorseless jet eyes. The ghants might
be products of They Who Breathe Darkness rather than She Who Birthed
Mankind--as Older Mogahib so often proclaimed--but that did not make
them stupid.
 He swiftly surveyed the contents of his boat to make sure nothing had


STONE OF FAREWELL

357

been taken by the ghants before he had awakened. All his meager lot--a
few rags of formal clothing, the Summoning Stick from the tribal elders, a
few cooking things, his throwing-sling, and his Nisses scroll in its oilskin
bag--lay scattered in the bottom of the flatboat. Everything seemed as it
should be.
    Lying in the hull nearby were the skeletal remains of the fish whose
capture had begun these latest troubles. Some time during the last two
days of chills and madness he must have eaten most of it, unless birds had
picked the bones naked while he slept. Tiamak tried to remember how the
fever-time had passed, but all he could summon were visions of poling
endlessly down the watercourse while the sky and water bled color like
glaze running from a poorly-fired pot. Had he remembered to make a fire
and boil the marsh-water before washing out his wound? He seemed to
have a vague recollection of trying to lay a spark to some tinder piled in
his clay cooking-bowl, but had no idea whether a fire had ever caught
there.
    Trying to remember made Tiamak's head swim. It was useless to fret
over what had or had not happened, he told himself. He was obviously
s611 sick; his only chance was to make his way to Kwanitupul before the
fever returned. With a regretful head shake he dropped the fish carcass
overboard--the size of the skeleton confirmed that it had indeed been a
splendid fish--then donned his shirt as another bout of shivers ran through
him. He slumped back against the stern of the boat, then reached for the
hat he had woven from sand-palm fronds during his journey's first day.
He pulled it down low in an effort to keep the harsh midday sun out of his
smarting eyes. After dabbing a little more water on his eyelids, he began
to push with the pole, laboriously forcing the flatboat along the wide
channel while his aching muscles protested with every stroke.

    The fever did return sometime during the night. When Tiamak escaped
its clutches once more, it was to find himself floating in lazy circles, his
flatboat becalmed in a marshy backwater. His leg, although swollen and
tremendously painful, did not seem markedly worse. With luck, if he
could get to Kwanitupul soon he would not lose it.
    Shaking loose the cobwebs of sleep, he offered yet another prayer to He
Who Always Steps on Sand--whose existence, despite Tiamak's generally
skeptical nature, had come to seem a great deal more conceivable since the
misadventure with the crocodile. Whether this weakening of his disbelief
was due to the mind-dizzying fever, or to a resurgence of true faith
brought on by the nearness of death, Tiamak did not much care. Neither
did he scrutinize his feelings about the matter very deeply. The fact was,
he did not want to be a one-legged scholar--or worse, a dead scholar. If
the gods did not help him, then there was no resource available to him in
this treacherous marsh other than his own fast-failing resolve. Faced with
those simple alternatives, Tiamak prayed.


358                                    Tad Williams

    He poled himself out of this latest backwater, at last reaching a place
where several waterways came together. It was hard to tell exactly how he
had wandered to this point, but using the newly-kindled stars as a reference--
especially the Loon and the shining-pawed Otter--he was able to orient
himself toward Kwanitupul and the sea. He kept his barge-pole moving
until dawn, when he could no longer ignore his weary mind and wounded
body crying out for rest. Fighting to keep his eyes open, he floated down
the watercourse a little farther, poking in the muddy bank until at last he
located a large stone which he levered free. This he secured to his fishing
line and dumped it over the side to act as an anchor so he could remain
moored in an uncovered section of the waterway as he took his desperately-
needed sleep, safely away from tree-clinging ghants and other unwanted
company.

    Now able to preserve the gains made by his poling, Tiamak made better
time. He lost half of the next afternoon (his eighth or ninth since leaving
home, he guessed) to another resurgence of fever, but was able to push on
a bit during the evening, and even continue after dark in order to make up
some of his lost time. He discovered that there were far fewer biting and
stinging insects once the sun had vanished into the western swamp; this
and the oddly pleasant blue glow of twilight made such a nice change
from his sun-battered afternoons that he celebrated by finally eating the
rather forlorn-looking river-apple he had found on a branch overhanging
the watercourse. River-apples were usually gone by this late in the year,
those which had escaped the birds falling free at last to drift on the
eddying water, bobbing like fisherman's floats until their seeds wound up
at last in some mud-dam or root-tangled clump of soil. Tiamak had
considered the find a good omen. He had put it aside after many expres-
sions of thanks to beneficent deities, knowing he would enjoy it more if he
savored the thought of it for a while.
    The first bite through the rind of the river-apple was sour, but the pale
flesh nearer the middle was wonderfully sweet. Tiamak, who had been
surviving for days on waterbugs and edible grasses and leaves, was so
overcome by the taste of the fruit that he nearly fell into a swoon. He had
to put most of it aside for later.

    Kwanitupul could have been said to occupy the northern shore of the
upper prong of the Bay of Firannos, except that there was no real shore in
that location: Kwanitupul lay on the Wran's northernmost fringe, but it
was still very much a part of the greater marsh.
    What had once been a minor trading village made up of a few score
tree-houses and stilted huts had grown vast when the merchants of Nabban
and Perdruin and the Southern Islands discovered the array of valuable
things that came from the Wran's unreachable interior--unreachable by


STONE OF FAREWELL

359

any except the Wrannamen, of course. Exotic feathers for ladies' gowns,
dried mud for dyes, apothecarical powders and minerals of unequaled
rarity and potency, all these things and many more kept the bazaars of
Kwanitupul thriving with merchants and traders from up and down the
coast. Since there was no land worthy of the name, pilings were driven
deep into the mud instead, and shallow-drafted boats were laden with
powdered stone and mortar and allowed to sink along the banks of the
swampy waterways. Across these foundations countless huts and walk-
ways had sprung up.
    As Kwanitupul grew, Nabbanai and Perdruinese drifted in to share its
dilapidated precincts with the native Wrannamen, until the trading city
had spread its way over many miles of canals and swaying bridges,
growing across and clogging the outer byways of the swamp like water-
hyacinth. Its ramshackle eminence now dominated the Bay of Firannos as
its older and larger sister Ansis Pelipp~ did the Bay of Emettin and Osten
Ard's north-central coast.

    Still dizzy with fever, Tiamak found himself at last drifting up out of
the swamp's wild interior into the increasingly crowded arterial water-
ways of Kwanitupul. At first, only a few other flatboats shared the green
water with him, and these were almost entirely poled by other Wrannamen,
many wearing feathery tribal finery in honor of their first visit to the
grandest marsh-village of all. Farther into Kwanitupul the canals were
choked with a host of other crafts--not only small boats like Tiamak's,
but ships of all size and design, from the beautifully carved and canopied
barks of rich merchants to huge grain ships and barges carrying cut stone
that slid along the waterways like imperious whales, forcing smaller boats
to scatter or risk being swamped in their rolhng wake.
    Tiamak normally enjoyed the sights of Kwanitupul enormously--
although, unlike his tribesmen, he had seen Ansis Pelipp6 and the other
port cities of Perdruin, beside which Kwanitupul was only a slightly
shabby copy. Now, however, his fever was upon him once more. The
lapping of water and the shouts of Kwanitupulis seemed curiously distant;
the waterways he had traveled many times before were forbiddingly
unfamiliar.
    He wracked his wandering mind for the name of the inn to which he
had been directed to go. In his letter, the one whose delivery had martyred
Tiamak's gallant pigeon Ink-daub, Father Dinivan had told him . . . told
him...
    You are sorely needed. Yes, he remembered that part. The fever made it
so hard to think... Go to Kwanitupul, Dinivan had written, stay at the inn
we have spoken of, and wait there until I can tell you more. And what else had
the priest said? More than lives may depend on you.
 But what inn had they spoken of?. Tiamak, startled by a smear of color


360                                   Tad Williams

before his unfocused gaze, looked up in time to prevent his boat sliding in
front of a larger vessel with two flaring eyes painted on its hull. This
boat's owner jumped up and down in the bow, waving a fist at Tiamak as
he drifted past. The man's mouth was moving, but Tiamak heard only a
dull roaring in his ears as he poled out of the wake. What inn?
    "Pelippa's Bowl!" The name struck him like lightning out of the sky. He
did not realize he had shouted it aloud, but such was the din of the
waterway that his indiscretion mattered little.
    Pelippa's Bowl: an inn Dinivan had mentioned in a letter, because it was
run by a woman who had once been a nun of Saint Pelippa's order--
Tiamak could not summon the woman's name--and who still liked to talk
theology and philosophy. Morgenes had stayed there whenever he trav-
eled in the Wran, because the old man liked the proprietress and her
irreverent but thoughtful mind.
    As these memories came back to him, Tiamak felt his weary spirits
lifted. Perhaps Dinivan would join him at the inn! Or, even better,
perhaps Morgenes himself was staying there, which would explain why
Tiamak's latest messages to the old man's home at the Hayholt in Erkynland
had gone unanswered. Whatever the case, with the names of his Scrollbearer
friends to offer as currency, he was certain that he would find a bed and a
sympathetic ear at Pelippa's Bowl!
    Still fever-addled, but with a more hopeful heart, Tiamak bent his
aching back to the pole once more. His frail boat skimmed along
Kwanitupul's greasy green waterways.

    The strange presence in Simon's head spoke on. The spell of the wom-
an's voice held him gently prisoned, enwrapped in a charm that seemed to
have no seam or flaw. He was in perfect darkness, as in the moment just
before the final tumble into sleep, but his thoughts were as janglingly
active as those of a man who only pretends to slumber while his enemies
scheme across the room. He did not awaken, but neither did he pass into
forgetfulness. Instead, the voice spoke on, and the words summoned
images of beauty and horror:
    "... And although you have gone away, Hakatri--to death or the Ultimate
West, I know not which--I shall say these things to you; for in truth, no one
knows the way time flows on the Road of Dreams, or where it is that thoughts
may wander that have been cast out on the scales of the Greater Worm or on the
other Witnesses. It could be that somewhere.., or somewhen . . . you will hear
these words and know of your j~mily and your people.
    "Also, I have need just to speak with you, my beloved son, though you have
been long absent.
"You know that your brother blamed himseif jbr your terrible wounding. When



                                        STONE OF FAREWELL                                                                361

you went away at last into the West in search of heart's-ease, he became cold and
discontented.
    "I will not tell you all the story of the maraudings of the ship-men, those fierce
mortals.~om across the sea. Some hint of their coming you had before you went
away, and some would say that it was these Rimmersmen who struck the greatest
blow against us; ~br they threw down Asu' a, our great house, and those of us who
survived were driven into exile. Some would say that the Rimmersmen were our
greatest ~bes, yet others might say that our most terrible wound came when your
brother Ineluki raised his hand against your.~ther, yu'unigato--your jhther; my
husband--and slew him there in the great hall of Asu'a.
    "Still others would say our shadow first grew in the deeps of time, in Venyha
Do'sae, the Lost Garden, and that we brought it with us in our hearts. They
would say that even those born here in our new land--like you, my son--came
into the world with that shadow already staining your innermost selves, so that
there has been no innocence anywhere since the world was young.
    "And that is the problem with shadows, Hakatri. /it first consideration they
seem to be quite simple--a matter only of something that stands beJbre the light.
But that which is shadowed ~om one side may ~om another angle show as a
brilliant reflection. What is covered by shadow one day may die in harsh sunlight
another day, and the world will be lessened by its passing. Not everything that
thrives in shadow is bad, my son . . ."


 Pelippa's Bowl . . . Pelippa's Bowl . . .
    Tiamak was finding it difficult to think. He repeated the name distractedly
a few more times, having momentarily forgotten what it meant, then
realized he was looking at a swinging signboard that bore the painted
image of a golden bowl. He squinted at it woozily for a few moments,
unable to remember exactly how he had wound up in this spot, then
began looking around for a place to tie his boat.
    The sign of the Bowl hung over the door of a large but rather
undistinguished-looking inn in a backwater section of the warehouse dis-
tricc The rickety structure seemed to sag between two larger buildings,
like a drunk with a crony at each elbow. An armada of small and medium-
sized flatboats bobbed in the waterway below, tied at the building's crude
wharf or lashed directly to the pilings that held the building and its
slovenly fellows above water. The inn was surprisingly quiet, as if both
the guests and ostlers were sleeping.
    Tiamak's fever had returned strongly and his exertions had left him very
litfie strength. He balefully regarded the rope ladder that depended from
the landing. It was badly tangled: even reaching up with the steering pole
he came short of the lowest rung by a good cubit. He considered jumping
to make up the last bit of distance, but even in his diminished state Tiamak


362                                    Tad Williams

realized that when one was too weak to swim, there would be few things
more foolish than jumping up and down in a small boat. At last, stymied,
he called hoarsely for assistance.
    If this was one of Morgenes' favorite hostelries, he thought muzzily
some time later, then the doctor had a high tolerance for slackness. He
renewed his braying cry, marveling at the pained quality of his own voice
as it echoed through this unfrequented area of Kwanitupul. At last, a
white-haired head appeared in the doorway above and remained there for
long moments, regarding Tiamak as though he were some interesting but
unsolvable puzzle. At last the head's owner left the safety of the doorway
and came forward. It was an old Perdruinese or Nabbanai man, tall and
well-built, whose handsome pink face wore the simple expression of a
young child. He stopped and squatted at the edge of the landing, looking
down at Tiamak with a pleasant smile.
    "The ladder." Tiamak waved his steering pole. "I can't reach the
ladder."
    The old man looked kindly from Tiamak to the ladder, then seemed for
some time to reflect gravely on the whole question. At last he nodded, his
smile widening. Tiamak, despite extreme weariness and the pain of his
throbbing leg, found himself smiling back at this strange old bird. After
this exchange of unspoken good cheer had gone on for some little while,
the man abruptly turned and disappeared back into the doorway.
    Tiamak howled despairingly, but the old man reappeared a few mo-
ments later with a boat-hook clutched in his long-fingered hand which he
used to jiggle the ladder free; it uncoiled the rest of the way and the
bottom splashed into the green water. Tiamak, after a moment of mud-
dled deliberation, took a few things from the boat and began to climb.
The Wrannaman found he had to stop twice during the short three-fathom
trip to rest. His crocodile-bitten leg was burning with a pain like fire.
    By the time he reached the top his head was reeling worse than it had all
day. The old man had gone, but when Tiamak dragged the heavy door
open and hobbled through he found him again, now sitting in the corner
of an enclosed courtyard on a pile of blankets that looked as though they
served as his bed, surrounded by skeins of rope and various other tools.
Most of the space in the damp courtyard was taken by a pair of upturned
boat-hulls. One had been badly slashed, as though by a sharp rock. The
other was half-painted.
    As Tiamak made his way around the jars of white paint that cluttered
the path across the courtyard, the old man smiled foolishly at him once
more, then settled back into his blankets as though to fall asleep.
    The door at the far side of the courtyard led into the inn itself. This
bottom floor seemed to contain only a dowdy common room with a hand-
ful of stools and a few long tables. A sour-faced Perdruinese woman, heavy-
armed and with gray-shot hair, stood pouring beer from one jug to another.


STONE OF FAREWELL

363

  "What do you want?" she said.
    Tiamak paused in the doorway. "Are you..." he at last remembered
the former nun's name, "... Xorastra?"
    The woman made a face. "Dead three years. She was my aunt. Mad as a
mudlark. Who are you? You're a swamp man, aren't you? We don't take
beads or feathers here for payment."
    "I need a place to stay. My leg is injured. I am a friend of Father
Dinivan and of Doctor Morgenes Ercestres."
    "Never heard of them. Blessed Elysia, but you do speak decent
Perdruinese for a savage, don't you? We have no rooms available. You can
sleep with old Ceallio out there. He's simple-minded but he does no harm.
Six cintis a night, nine if you want food." She turned away, gesturing
absently at the courtyard beyond.
    As she finished speaking a trio of children thundered down the stairs,
smacking at each other with switches, laughing and shrieking. They
almost knocked Tiamak down as they pushed past him and went through
into the courtyard.
    "I must have help with my leg." Tiamak swayed as dizziness washed
over him. "Here." He reached into his belt-pouch and pulled out the two
gold Imperators he had been saving for years. He had brought them with
him for just such an emergency, and what good would money be to him if
he died? "Please, I have gold."
    Xorastra's niece turned. Her eyes bulged. "Rhiappa and her large Pi-
rates!'' she swore. "Look at that, now!"
    "Please, good lady. I can bring you back many n~ore of these." He
couldn't, but there was a much better chance this woman would help keep
him alive if she thought he could. "Just get a barber or a healer to see to
my leg, and give me food and a place to sleep."
    Her mouth, still gaping in surprise at the appearance of the glittering
golden coins, widened even further as Tiamak pitched over at her feet,
senseless as a stone.

"...But although not everything that thrives in shadow is bad, Hakatri, still
much that hides in darkness does so to keep its evil hidden .from all eyes."
    Simon was beginning to lose himself in this strange dream, to feel as
though it were to him that the patient, pained voice spoke: he felt bad for
having been so long absent, for bringing further suffering to such a high
yet afflicted soul.
    "Your brother has long hidden his plans beneath a cloak of shadow. The
year-end was danced countless times after Asu'a's .~ll be~re we had even a hint
that he still lived--if his spectral existence can be called l~. Long he plotted in
darkness, hundreds of years of black-minded deliberation beJbre the first steps were


364                                    Tad Williams

taken. Now, with his plan marching forward, there is so much still hidden in
shadow. I think and I watch, I wonder and I guess, but the subtlety of his design
eludes my old eyes. I have seen many things since first ! saw leaves Jhll in Osten
Ard, but I cannot make sense of this. What does he plan? What does your brother
Ineluki mean to do... ?"

 The stars seemed very naked over Stormspike, gleaming white as pol-
ished bone, cold as knobs of ice. IngenJegger thought them very beautiful.
  He stood beside his horse on the road before the mountain. The bitter
  wind whistled through the ivory muzzle of his snarling, dog-faced helm.
  Even his Norn-stallion, bred in the world's blackest, coldest stables, was
  doing its best to duck the brutal sleet that the wind flung like arrows--but
  Ingen Jegger was exalted. The shrill of the wind was a lullabye, the sting
  of freezing sleet a caress. Ingen's mistress had set him a great task.

    "No other Queen's Hunter has ever been granted such a responsibility,"
she had told him as the indigo light of the Well filled the Chamber of the
Harp. As she spoke, the groans of the Singing Harp--a great, translucent
and ever-changing thing cloaked by the mists of the Wellmhad made the
very stones of Stormspike shudder. "We have brought you back from the
outlands of Death's Country." Utuk'ku's glittering mask threw back the
Well's blue radiance so fiercely that her face was obscured, as though a
flame burned between shoulders and crown. "We have also given you
weapons and wisdom no other Queen's Hunter has ever had. Now we
offer you a task of terrible difficulty, a task like no one, mortal or
immortal, has ever faced."
    "I will do it, Lady," he had said, and his heart had throbbed within him
as though it would burst from joy.

    Standing now on the royal roadway, Ingen Jegger looked at the ruins of
the old city that lay all about him, skeletal litter on the lower slopes of the
great ice-mountain. When the huntsman's progenitors were scarcely more
than savages, he thought, ancient Nakkiga had stood beneath the night
sky in her full beauty, a needle-forest of alabaster and white witchwood, a
chalcedony necklace around the mountain's throat. Before the huntsman's
people had known fire, the Hikeda'ya had built pillared chambers within
the very mountain itself, each chamber blazing with a million crystalline
facets of glittering lamplight, a galaxy of stars burning in the darkness of
the earth.
    And now he, Ingen Jegger, was their chosen instrument! He wore the
mantle no mortal had ever borne! Even to one of his training, of his
horrifying discipline, it was a maddening thought.


gn in
~esign
9sten
other

~ol-
ful.
tter
lm.
vas
 ~ut
ng


STONE OF FAREWELL

365

    The wind gentled. His steed made a noise of impatience, a large pale
shape beside him in the flurrying snow. He stroked the horse with his
gloved hand, letting his touch rest on its powerful neck, feeling the quick
pulse of life. He put a boot into the stirrup and lifted himself into the
saddle, then whistled for Niku'a. A few moments later the great white
hound appeared on a rise nearby. Nearly as large as the huntsman's horse,
Niku'a ffiled the night with his steaming breath; the dog's short fur was
pearled with mist so that it glowed like moonlit marble.
    "Come," lngen Jegger hissed. "Great deeds lie before us!" The road
stretched before him, leading down from the heights and into the unsus-
pecting lands of sleeping men. "Death is behind us."
    He spurred his horse forward. The hooves fell on the icy road like
hammers.


    "... And so in a way I am blinded to your brother's machinations." The
voice in Simon's head was growing more and more faint now, withering
like a rose lingered past its season. "I have been forced to my own stratagems--
and poor, weak games they seem when placed against the swarms of Nakkiga and
the enduring, deathless hatred of the Red Hand. Worst of a!!, I do not know what
I am fighting, although I believe I am now discerning the first J~int shapes, lfl
have even a glimmer of the truth, it is horrible. Horrible.
    "Ineluki's game has begun. He was the child of my loins; I cannot shirk my
responsibility. Two sons I had, Hakatri. Two sons I have lost."
    The woman's voice was only a whisper, the merest breath, but still
Simon could feel its bitterness. "The eldest are always the loneliest, my quiet
one, but no one should be left behind for so long by those whom they had
loved . . ."
 And then she was gone.

    Simon awakened slowly out of the extended darkness that had held
him. His ears seemed to echo strangely, as though the absence of the voice
to which he had listened so long left a greater emptiness. When he opened
his eyes, light flowed in, dazzling him; when he closed them, rings of
bright color spun before his shuttered lids. He assayed a more careful view
of the world and found that he was in a tiny forest dell blanketed in
new-fallen snow. Pale morning light streamed down through the over-
hanging trees, silvering the naked branches and speckling the forest floor.
He was very cold. He was also completely alone.
    "Binabik!" he cried. "Qantaqa!" A moment later he added "Sludig!" as
an afterthought. There was no reply.
    Simon untangled himself from his cloak and clambered unsteadily to his
feet. He shook off a coating of powdery snow, then stood for a moment


366                                    Tad Williams

rubbing his head to clear the shadows. The dingle mounted up steeply on
either side of him; judging by the array of torn branches piercing his shirt
and breeches, he had tumbled down from above. He felt himself gingerly,
but other than the long, healing wound on his back and some ugly
toothmarks on his leg, he seemed only bruised and scraped and very, very
stiff. He grabbed a protruding root in his hand and clambered painfully up
the side of the dell. His legs were trembling as he scrambled over the edge
and stood up. A monotonous profusion of snow-robed trees stretched
away in all directions. There was no sign of his friends or his horse; in
fact, there was no sign of anything but endless white forest.
    Simon tried to remember how he had come to this place, but drew only
a shuddering memory of the last mad hours in Skodi's abbey, of a hateful,
icy voice that had plagued him, and of riding into blackness. Afterward
there had been a gentler, sadder voice that had spoken long in his dreams.
    He looked around, hoping at least to find a saddlebag, but with no luck.
His empty scabbard was tied to his leg; after some searching, he finally
spotted the bone knife from Yiqanuc lying at the bottom of the dingle.
With many a self-pitying curse, Simon climbed back down to retrieve it.
He felt a little better to have something sharp close to hand, but it was a
very tiny consolation. When he reached the top once more and looked
around at the inhospitable expanse of wintery woods, a sense of desertion
and fear crept over him that had been absent for a long while. He had lost
everything--everything! The sword Thorn, the White Arrow, the things
that he had won, all were gone! And his friends were gone, too.
    "Binabik!" he screamed. Echoes fled and vanished. "Binabik! Sludig!
Help me!" Why had they deserted him? Why?
    He shouted for his friends again, over and over as he stumbled back and
forth across the forest clearing.

    His voice hoarse, his many cries unanswered, Simon slumped down on
a rock at last and fought back tears. Men shouldn't cry just because they
were lost. Men didn't do that sort of thing. The world seemed to shimmer
a little, but it was only the fierce cold that made his eyes sting so. Men
shouldn't cry, no matter how terrible things had gotten ....
    He put his hands in his cloak pocket to ease the chill and felt the rough
carvings of Jiriki's mirror beneath his fingers. He lifted it out. Gray sky
was reflected there, as though the looking glass were full of clouds.
    He held the scale of the Greater Worm before him. "Jiriki," he mur-
mured, breathing on the shiny surface as though his own warmth might
lend the thing a kind of life. "I need help! Help me!" The only face that
looked back was his own, wearing a pale scar and a sparse red beard.
"Help me."
 Snow began to fall once more.


19

Cfiifdrm of tile Navicjator

~ AY4~'~,~,~,~f~,IVL*M I, gl. ll ~l.~ awakened slowly and unpleasantly. The pounding in
her head was not helped at all by the side-to-side swaying of the floor, and
she was unhappily reminded of a particular Aedonmansa supper at the
palace in Meremund when she was nine years of age. An indulgent servant
had allowed her to drink three goblets of wine; the wine had been
watered, but Miriamele had still become very ill, throwing up all over her
new Aedontide frock and spoiling it beyond reclamation.
    That long-ago bout of stomach-sickness had been preceded by just such
a sway as she was now feeling, as though she were aboard a boat rocking
up and down in the midst of the ocean. The morning following her
drunken adventure she had remained in bed with a horrific headache--a
pain almost as bad as the one she was experiencing now. What grotesque
indulgence had led her to this dreadful pass?
    She opened her eyes. The room was fairly dark, the roofbeams over-
head heavy and crudely cut. The mattress on which she was lying was
impossibly uncomfortable, and the room would not stop its terrible tilt-
ing. Had she been so drunk that she had fallen and struck her head badly?
Perhaps she had split her crown and was even now dying... ? Cadrach.
    The thought came to her suddenly. In fact, she remembered, she hadn't
been drinking or doing anything of the sort. She had been waiting in
Father Dinivan's workroom, and.., and...
    And Cadrach had struck her. He had said they could not wait any
longer. She had said they would. Then he had said something else and hit
her on the head with something heavy. Her poor head! And to think that
for a foolish moment she had regretted trying to drown him!
    Miriamele struggled to her feet, holding her head between her hands as
though to keep the pieces together. It was just as well she was bent
double: the ceiling was so low that she could not have stood up. But the
swaying! Elysia, Mother of God, it was worse than being drunk! It

367


368                                   Tad Williams

seemed mad that being cuffed on the head could make things veer an
wobble so. It was indeed just hke being on a ship ....
    She was on a ship, and a ship under sail at that. The realization cam
suddenly from a subtle amalgam of dues: the movement of the floor, th
faint but definite creaking of timbers, the thin, saltier-than-usual scent c
the air. How had this happened?
    It was hard to make out anything in the near-blackness, but as far a:
Miriamele could tell she was surrounded by casks and barrels. She was ir
the hold of a ship, that was certain. As she squinted into the darkness
another sound began to make itself heard, something that had been then
aH along, but was only now becoming clear.  Someone was snoring.
    Miriamele was immediately filled with a mixture of rage and fear. If it
was Cadrach, she would find him and strangle him. If it was not Cadrach--
Merciful Aedon, who could say how she had wound up on this boat, or
what the mad monk might have done that had made them both fugitives?
If she revealed herself, it might be to a stowaway's death sentence. But if it
was Cadrach---oh, she so wanted to catch hold of his flabby neck... !
    She hunkered down between a pair of casks; the sudden movement sent
a stabbing pain down the back of her neck. Slowly and quietly, she began
to crawl toward the source of the rasping noise. Whoever was burring and
mumbling so did not seem apt to be sleeping lightly, but there was no
sense taking unnecessary risks.
    A sudden thumping from overhead set her cowering both from possible
discovery and the painful noise itself. When nothing followed but softer
repetitions, Miriamele decided it was only the normal business of the ship
going on above. She continued to stalk her snoring prey through the rows
of close-stacked barrels.
    By the time she was a few cubits away from the snorer, she no longer
felt even the slightest doubt--she had heard that sodden, drunken rumble
too many nights to mistake it.
    At last she crouched over him. Feeling with her hand, she located the
empty jug curled in the crook of his arm with which he'd besotted
himself. Above that, she felt Cadrach's unmistakable round face, the
wine-sour breath piping wetly in and out of his open mouth as he snored
and muttered. The feel of him filled her with fury. It would be so easy just
to crack his sodden skull with the plundered jar, or topple one of the
leaning barrel towers to crush him like a bug. Hadn't he plagued her since
she had met him? He had stolen from her and sold her to her enemies like
a slave, and now he had struck her and dragged her by force out of God's
house. Whatever else she was, whatever her father had become, she was
still a princess of the blood of King Prester John and Queen Ebekah. No
drunkard of a monk had a right to lay hands on her! No man! No
one... !


STONE OF FAREWELL

369

    Her anger, which had been curling and spiraling higher within her like
the flames of a wind-tortured fire, blazed up and then abruptly vanished.
Tears choked her; sobs thudded painfully in her chest.
    Cadrach stopped snoring His slurred, querulous voice rose from the
darkness before her. "My lady?"
    For a moment she did not move; then, sucking in a fierce gasp of
breath, she struck out at the invisible monk. She made only the most
incidental contact, but it was enough to locate him in the darkness. Her
next blow landed stingingly on something. "You whoreson rogue!" she
hissed, then struck again.
    Cadrach let out a muffled cry of pain, scrambling away from her so
that her fingers struck nothing but the hold's damp floorboards. "Why
 . . why do you... ?" he muttered. "Lady, I saved your life!" "Liar!" she spat, and burst into tears once more.
    "No, Princess, it is surely the truth. I'm sorry I hit you, but I had no
choice"
 "Damnable liar!"
    "No!" His voice was surprisingly firm. "And keep quiet. We dare not
be discovered. We must stay down here until we can sneak offat nightfall."
    She sniffled angrily and wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve.
"Dullard!" she said. "Fool! Sneak where? We're at sea!"
    There was a moment of silence. "We can't be ..." the monk said
weakly. "We can't be .... "
    "Can't you feel that up-and-down dipping? You never did know any-
thing about boats, you treacherous little man. That's no rocking at anchor
in the harbor. That's sea-swell." Her anger was ebbing, leaving her empty
and stupefied. She fought its going. "Now, if you don't tell me how we
wound up on this boat and how we're going to get off, I'm going to make
you wish you had never left Crannhyr--or wherever you truly came
from."
    "Oh, gods of my people," Cadrach groaned, "I have been a fool. They
must have cast off while we were asleep .... "
 "While you were asleep, drunkenly asleep. I had been beaten senseless!"
     "Ah, you speak the truth, my lady. I wish you didn't. I did drink
myself into forgetfulness, princess, but there was much to forget." "If you mean hitting me, I won't let you forget."
    There was another silence in the darkness of the hold. The monk's
voice, when it came at last, was strangely wistful. "Please, Miriamele.
Princess. I have done wrong many times, but in this I did only what I
thought best."
She was indignant. "What you thought best! Of all the arrogance... !"
"Father Dinivan is dead, Lady." His words spilled out swiftly. "So is
Ranessin, Lector of Mother Church. Pryrates killed them both in the very
heart of the Sancellan Aedonitis."


370                                    Tad Williams

    She tried to speak, but something seemed stuck in her th~
"They're... ?"
    "Dead, Princess. By tomorrow morning the news will be traveling
wildfire all across the face of Osten Ard."
    It was hard to think about, hard to understand. Sweet, homely Fa
Dinivan, who had blushed like a boy! And the lector, who was goin
make everything right, somehow. Now, nothing would be right. N
ing ever again.
 "Are you telling the truth?" she asked at last.
    "I wish I were not, Lady. I wish this were only another of my l,
index of falsehoods, but it is not. Pryrates rules Mother Church, o~
good as. Your only true friends in Nabban are dead, and that is why
are hiding in the hold of a ship that was floating at anchor in the dc
below the Sancellan..."
    The monk found it hard to finish, but the odd catch in his voice fin
convinced her beyond any doubting. The darkness in the ship's bc
seemed to grow. In the immeasurable time that followed, when it seen
that all the tears she had held back since leaving home came welling up
once, Miriamele felt as though that black shroud of despair had grow~
enfold all the world.

    "So where are we?" she asked at last. Clasping her knees, she rock
slowly back and forth in countermotion to the swaying of the ship.
    Cadrach's mournful voice whispered out of the darkness. "I do r
know, my lady, as I told you I brought us to a boat that was ancho~
beneath the Sancellan. It was dark."
    Miriamele strove to compose herself, grateful that no one could see 1
tear-reddened face. "Yes, but whose ship? What did it look like? Who
mark was on the sail?"
    "I know little of boats, Princess, you know that. It is a boat, a lar
one. The sails were furled. I think there was a bird of prey painted on t
bow, but the lamps burned very low." "What bird?" she asked urgently.
 "A fish hawk, I think, or some such. Black and gold."
    "An osprey." Miriamele sat up straight, drumming her fingers agita
edly against her leg. "That is the Prevan House. I wish I knew how the
stood, but it has been so long since I lived here! Perhaps they are suppor
ers of my late uncle and would take us to safety." She smiled wryly--fi
her own benefit only, since the darkness hid her from the monk. "B1
where would that be?"
    "Believe me, Lady," Cadrach said fervently. "At this moment, th
coldest, darkest, inner chambers of Stormspike would be safer for us tha
the Sancellan Aedonitis. I told you, Lector Ranessin has been throw
down and murdered! Can you imagine how Pryrates' power must hay
grown that he would slay the lector right in God's own house?"



STONE OF FAREWELL

371

    Miriamele's fingers suddenly stopped drumming. "That was an odd
thing to say. What do you know of Stormspike and its inner chambers,
Cadrach?"
    The uneasy truce that shock and horror had built seemed suddenly very
foolish. Miriamele's quick-flaring anger masked a sudden fear. Who was
this monk, who knew so much and acted so oddly? And here she was
once more, trusting him, trapped in a dark place into which he himself
had led her. "I asked you a question."
    "My lady," Cadrach said, hesitant as he searched for words. "There are
many things..."
    He broke off suddenly. A wrenching noise echoed through the hold;
bright torchlight stabbed down as the hatch door rose. Blinking, the
princess and Cadrach threw themselves among the piled casks, squirming
for shelter like earthworms in a shovel-turn of soil. Miriamele caught a
brief glimpse of a cloaked figure climbing backward down the ladder. She
curled herself back against the inner wall of the hold and drew her legs up
before her, hiding her face beneath her down-dropping hood.
    The one who had entered the hold made very little noise, picking
carefully between the stacks of provisions. Miriamele's speeding heart
seemed to jump in her breast as the footsteps came to a sudden halt just a
few cubits away. She held her breath in her straining lungs until it seemed
she would burst. The sound of the surf was as loud in her ears as the
bellowing of a bull, but a strange musical humming floated beneath it like
the drowsy murmur of bees. Then the drone abruptly stopped.
    "Why do you hide here?" a voice asked; a dry finger touched her face.
Miriamele's pent-up breath flew out explosively and her eyes snapped
open. The voice exclaimed: "Ah, but you are only a child?
    The one who bent over her had pale golden skin and large, wide-set
dark eyes that peered from beneath a fringe of white hair. She seemed
aged and frail: her hooded robe could not hide the slightness of her frame.
  "A Niskie!" Miriamele gasped, then lifted her hand to her mouth.
  "Why should that surprise you?" the other said, thin brows arching.
  Her skin was netted with fine wrinkles, but her movements were precise.
  "Where better to find a Niskie than on a deep-water ship? No, the
  question, stranger-girl, is why are you here?" She turned toward the
  shadows where the monk still hid. "And that question also goes for you,
  man. Why are you skulking in the hold?"
    When there was no immediate answer from either stowaway, she shook
her head. "Then I suppose I must call for the ship's master..."
    "No, please," Miriamele said. "Cadrach, come out. Niskies have sharp
ears," She smiled in what she hoped was a conciliatory manner. "If we
had known it was you, we would not have bothered. It is foolish to try to
hide from a Niskie."
 "Yes." Their discoverer nodded, pleased. "Now tell me: who are you?"



372                                    Tad Williams

    "Malachias . . ." Miriamele stopped, realizing that her gender had al-
ready been identified. "Marya, that is. That's me. Cadrach is my compan-
ion.'' The monk, crawling out from a bulky fold of sailcloth, grunted.
    "Good." The Niskie smiled in tight-lipped satisfaction. "My name is
Gan Itai. Eadne Cloud is my ship. I sing the kilpa down."
Cadrach was staring. "Sing the kilpa down? What does that mean?"
"You said you were well-traveled," Miriamele broke in. "Everyone
knows that you can't take a boat out to deep sea without a Niskie to sing
the songs that keep the kilpa away. You know what kilpa are, don't you?"
    "I have heard of them, yes," Cadrach said shortly. He turned his
curious gaze back to Gan Itai, who rocked back and forth, listening. "You
are of the Tinukeda'ya, are you not?"
    The Niskie's mouth widened in a toothless grin. "We are Navigator's
Children, yes. Long ago we came back to the sea, and by the sea we
stayed. Now, tell Gan Itai what you do on this ship."
    Miriamele looked at Cadrach, but the monk seemed absorbed in thought.
The torchlight showed his pale face beaded with sweat. Whether from the
shock of discovery or something else, the fog of his drunkenness seemed
to have burned away. His small eyes were troubled but clear. "We
cannot tell all," the princess answered. "We have done no wrong, but our
lives are in danger, so we are hiding."
    Gan Itai narrowed her long eyes and pursed her lips meditatively. "I
must tell the ship's master you are here," she said at last. "If that is wrong,
I am sorry, but I owe first allegiance to Eadne Cloud. Stowaways are
always reported. No harm must come to my ship."
    "We wouldn't hurt the ship," Miriamele said desperately, but the Niskie
was moving swiftly toward the ladder, her nimbleness belying her appar-
ent frailty.
    "I regret, but I do what I must. Ruyan's Folk have laws that cannot be
overthrown." She shook her head and disappeared through the hatchway.
A splash of dawn-lit sky showed briefly before the hatch door thumped
down once more.
    Miriamele slumped back against a barrel. "Elysia save us. What will we
do? What if this boat belongs to enemies?"
    "As far as I am concerned, it is boats themselves which are the ene-
mies.'' Cadrach shrugged fatalistically. "My hiding us on one was foolish-
ness beyond understanding. As to discovery . . ." he waved his plump
hand dismissively. "It was inevitable once the boat actually put to sea, but
anything is better than staying in the Sancellan Aedonitis." He wiped
sweat from his face. "Ah, me, my stomach feels dreadful. As a wise man
stated, 'There are three kinds of people--the living, the dead, and those at
sea.'" His expression of disgust changed to one of contemplation. "But
Niskies! I have met the living Tinukeda'ya! Bones of Anaxos, but the
world is full of odd tales!"


                                              STONE OF FAREWELL                                                                             373

    Before Miriamele could ask him what that meant, they heard the sound
of heavy boots on the deck overhead. Deep voices spoke, then the hatch
door creaked up and the opening was abruptly filled with torchlight and
long shadows.

    Maegwin sat in a crumbling ancient arena, in the midst of a mysterious
stone city hidden deep in the heart of a mountain, face to face with four
creatures out of the legends of ancient days. Before her stood a great,
shining stone that had spoken to her as though it were a person. Still, she
was unutterably disappointed.
    "The Sithi," she murmured quietly. "I thought the Sithi would be
here."
    Eolair looked at her with seeming dispassion, then turned back to the
saucer-eyed dwarrows once more. "This is very strange. How do you
know the name ofJosua Lackhand?"
    Yis-fidri seemed uncomfortable. The earth-dweller's bony face bobbed
at the end of his slender neck like a sunflower on its stem. "Why do you
seek the Sithi? What do you want with our old masters?" Maegwin let out a sigh.
    "It was only a thin hope," Eolair said quickly. "The Lady Maegwin
thought they might help us, as they aided our people in days past.
Hernystir has been invaded."
    "And this Handless Josua of whom the Sithi spoke--is he the invader,
or is he one of Hem's children, like you?" Yis-fidri and his fellows leaned
forward solemnly.
    "Josua Lackhand is no Hernystirman, but neither is he an invader. He is
one of the chiefs in the great war that rages on the surface." Eolair spoke
carefully. "Our people have been invaded by Josua's enemies. Thus, it
could be said Josua fights for us--if he still lives."
    "Josua is dead," Maegwin said dully. The weight of earth and stone
around her pressed down, squeezing out her breath. What was the point in
all this blather? These spindly creatures were not the Sithi. This was not the
city of banners and sweet music she had seen in her dreams. Her plans had
come to nothing.
    "That may not be so, my lady," Eolair said quietly. "When I was last
afield, I heard rumors that he still lived, rumors that had more than a
slight sound of truth to them." He turned back to the patient dwarrows.
"Please tell us where you heard Josua's name. We are not your enemies."
    Yisofidri was not so easily swayed. "And does this Handless Josua fight
for our old masters the Sithi, or against them?"
    Eolair pondered before speaking. "We mortals know nothing of the
Sithi and their battles. Josua is probably as ignorant as we."


374                                    Tad Williams

    Yis-fidri pointed to the gleaming, shimmering chunk of stone at the
center of the arena. "But it was the First Grandmother of the Zida'ya--the
Sithi--who spoke to you through the Shard!" He sounded perversely
pleased, as though he had caught Eolair in a pointless fib.
    "We did not know whose voice it was. We are strangers here, and we are
strangers to your.., your Shard."
    "Ah." Yis-fidri and the others huddled and spoke in their own tongue,
the words flying back and forth like rippling chimes. At last they
straightened.
    "We will trust you. We beheve that you be honorable folk," Yis-fidri
said. "Even if we did not, you have seen now where the last dwarrows
live. Unless we make an end to you, we can only hope you will not reveal
us to our former masters." He laughed sadly, his dark gaze nervously
roaming the shadows. "And we are not folk who can compel others by
force. We are weak, old . . ." The dwarrow struggled to compose him-
self. "No more is saved by holding knowledge back. So, all our people
can now return to this place, the Site of Witness."
    Yis-hadra, the one Yis-fidri had named as his wife, lifted her hand.
She beckoned into the darkness at the top of the great bowl, then called
out in the musical dwarrow-tongue.
    Lights appeared and came drifting silently down the aisles of the arena,
perhaps three dozen in all, each a gleaming rose crystal clutched in the
hands of a dwarrow. Their large heads and wide, solemn eyes made them
seem distorted children, grotesque but not frightening.
    Unlike Yis-fidri's foursome, these new dwarrows seemed afraid to
approach Maegwin and Eolair too closely. Instead, they passed slowly
down the stone pathways and seated themselves here and there among the
hundreds upon hundreds of benches, faces turned toward the gleaming
Shard, thin fingers clutching their crystals. Like a dying galaxy, the vast,
gloomy bowl was pricked with dim stars.
    "They were cold," Yis-fidri whispered. "They are happy to come back
to the warmth."
    Maegwin jumped, startled after the long quiet. The realization came to
her abruptly that here beneath the world's crust there were no birds
singing, no rustling of wind-tossed trees; the city seemed almost con-
structed of silence.
    Eolair looked around at the ring of solemn eyes before turning back to
Yis-fidri. "But you and your people seemed afraid of this place."
    The dwarrow looked embarrassed. "The voices of our old masters
frighten us, yes. But the Shard is warm and great Mezutu'a's halls and
streets are cold."
    The Count of Nad Mullach took a deep breath. "Please, then. If you
believe we mean you no harm, explain to us how you know Josua's
name."


STONE OF FAREWELL

375

    "Our Witness--the Shard. As we told you. The Sithi have called to us
here at the Site of Witness, asking of this Josua, and of the Great Swords.
The Shard was long silent, but lately it has begun speaking to us again, for
the first time in recent memory."
"Speaking?" Eolair asked. "As it spoke to us? What is the Shard?"
"Old, it is. One of the oldest of all the Witnesses." Yis-fidri's worried
tone returned. His cohorts wagged their heads, narrow faces uneasy. "Long
has it been silent. None did speak to us."
    "What do you mean?" The count looked at Maegwin to see if she
shared his puzzlement. She avoided his eyes. The Shard pulsed with
gentle, milky light as Eolair tried again. "I am afraid I cannot understand
you. What is a Witness?"
    The dwarrow considered carefully, looking for words to explain some-
thing that had never before needed explaining.
    "In days long past," he finally said, "we and others of the Gardenborn
did speak through the particular objects that could act as Witnesses: Stones
and Scales, Pools and Pyres. Through these things--and through some
others, like Nakkiga's great Harp---the world of the Gardenborn was tied
together with strands of thought and speech. But we Tinukeda'ya had
forgotten much even before mighty Asu'a fell, and had grown far apart
from those who lived there.., those who we had once served."
   "Asu'a?" Eolair said. "I have heard that name before ....                "
    Maegwin, only half-listening, watched the coruscating colors of the
Shard dart hke bright fish below the crystal's surface. On the benches all
around, the dwarrows watched, too, their faces grim, as though their
hunger for its radiance shamed them.
    "When Asu'a fell," Yis-fidri continued, "the seldom-speaking became
silence. The Speakfire in Hikehikayo and the Shard here in Mezutu'a were
voiceless. Do you see, we dwarrows had lost the Art of their using. Thus,
when the Zida'ya spoke to us no more, we Tinukeda'ya could no longer
master the Witnesses, even to speak among ourselves."
    Eolair pondered. "How did you forget the art of using these things?" he
asked at last. "How could it be lost among even such few as there are of
you?" He gestured to the silent ones sitting around the stone bowl. "You
are immortal, are you not?"
    Yis-fidri's wife Yis-hadra threw back her head and moaned, startling
both Maegwin and the count. Sho-vennae and Imai-an, Yis-fidri's other
two companions, joined her. Their lament turned into a kind of eerie,
sorrowful song that rose to the cavern ceiling and echoed in the darkness
above. The other dwarrows turned to watch, heads slowly swaying like a
field of gray and white dandelions.
    Yis-fidri lowered his heavy lids and cupped his chin in trembling fin-
gers. When the moaning had died away, he looked up.
"No, Hern's Child," he said slowly, "we are not immortal. It is true we


376                                    Tad Williams

are far longer-lived than you mortals be, unless your race has much
changed. But unlike Zida'ya and Hikeda'ya--our old overlords, Sithi and
Norn--we do not live on and on, eternal as the mountains. Nay, Death
comes for us as for your folk, like a thief and a reaver." Anger touched his
face. "Mayhap our once-masters were of somewhat different blood since
back in the Garden of our old stories, whence came all the Firstborn;
mayhap then we are just of shorter-lived stock. Either that, or there was in
truth some secret kept from us, who were after all deemed only their
servers and vassals." He turned to his wife and gently touched her cheek.
Yis-hadra hid her face against his shoulder, her long neck graceful as a
swan's. "Some of us died, some left, and The Art of the Witnesses has
escaped us."
    Eolair shook his head, confused. "I am listening carefully, Yis-fidri, but
I fear I still do not understand all the riddles in what you say. The voice
that spoke to us from the stone--the one you called the grandmother of
the Sithi--said that Great Swords are being sought. What does Prince
Josua have to do with any of this?"
    Yis-fidri raised his hand. "Come with us to a better place for speaking. I
fear that your presence has bewildered some of our folk. It has been
beyond the lives of most of us since Sudhoda'ya were among us." He
stood up with a creak of leather, unfolding his spindly limbs like a locust
climbing a stalk of wheat. "We will continue in the Pattern Hall." His
expression became apologetic. "Also, Hern's Folk, I am tired and hun-
gry.'' He shook his head. "I have not talked so much in a long age."

    Imai-an and Sho-vennae stayed behind, perhaps to explain to their shy
fellows what sort of creatures the mortals were. Maegwin saw them
gather the other dwarrows together in a solemn group at the center of the
giant bowl, huddling near the inconstant light of the Shard. Only an hour
before she had been brimming with anticipation and excitement, but now
Maegwin was glad to see the arena disappearing behind them. Wonder
had turned to unease. A structure like the Site of Witness should stretch
beneath an open sky filled with stars, as did the circuses of Nabban or the
great theater of Erchester, not crouch beneath a firmament of dead black
basalt. Anyway, there was no help for the Hernystiri here.
    Yis-fidri and Yis-hadra led them through Mezutu'a's deserted byways,
crystal rods glowing in the murk like swamp-ghosts as they wound
through the narrow streets, across broad, echoing squares and over icicle-
slender bridges with only shadowed emptiness below.
    The lamps that Maegwin and Eolair had brought down to the subterra-
nean city had guttered and gone out. The soft, roseate glow of the
dwarrow's batons cast the only light. Mezutu'a's lines seemed softer now
than they had by lamplight, the city's edges gentler, rounded as though by
wind and rain. But Maegwin knew that here in the deeps of the earth no
such weather had troubled the ancient walls.


,ays,
rand
icle-

erra-
 the
now
h by
h no

                                         STONE OF FAREWELL                                                                377

    She found her thoughts straying even from such wonderfully strange
sights as these, returning instead to the trick that had been played upon
her. The Sithi were not here. In fact, if the remaining Peaceful Ones were
calling for the help of a diminished tribe like the dwarrows, they were
probably in worse straits than Maegwin's own folk.
    So here was the end of her hope of assistance--at least of earthly aid.
There would be no rescue for her people, unless she herself could think of
some way. Why had the gods sent Maegwin such dreams, only to dash
them to pieces? Had Brynioch, Mircha, Rhynn and the rest truly turned
their back on the Hernystiri? Many of her people, crouched in the cave
above, already thought it dangerous even to fight back against Skali's
invading army--as though the gods' will was so clearly against Lluth's
tribe that to resist would be to insult the minions of heaven. Was that the
lesson, both of her dreams about the lost Sithi and the actuality of
Yis-fidri's frightened folk? Had the gods brought her here only to show
her that the Hernystiri, too, would soon diminish and fade, as the proud
Sithi and crafty dwarrows had themselves been brought low?
    Maegwin straightened her shoulders. She could not let such qualms
frighten her. She was Lluth's daughter.., the king's daughter. She would
think of something. The error was in relying on the fallible creatures of
earth, men or Sithi. The gods would send to her. They would--they
must--give her some further sign, some plan, even in the midst of her
despair.
  Her sigh drew a curious glance from Eolair. "Lady? Are you sick?"
  She waved away his concerns.
      "Once all this city was full-lit," Yis-fidri announced suddenly, waving
an elongated hand. "The mountain-heart all besparkled, yes."  "Who lived here, Yis-fidri?" the count asked.
    "Our people. Tinukeda'ya. But most of our kind are long gone. A few
are here, and some few lived in Hikehikayo in the northern mountains, a
smaller city than this." His face twisted. "Until they were made to leave."
  "Made to leave? By what?"
    Yis-fidri shook his head, palpating his long chin with his fingers. "That
would be a great wrong to say. Unkind it would be to bring our evil on
Hem's innocent children. Fear not. Our few remaining folk there fled,
leaving the evil behind them."
His wife Yis-hadra said something in the fluttering dwarrow tongue.
"True, that is true," Yis-fidri said regretfully. He blinked his vast eyes.
"Our people have left those mountains behind. We hope that they have left
the evil behind as well."
    Eolair looked at Maegwin in a way she supposed was somehow signifi-
cant. The talk had mostly slipped past her, immersed as she was in the
greater problems of her unhomed people. She smiled sadly, letting the
Count of Nad Mullach know that his laboring after such fruitless details


378                                    Tad Williams

did not go unnoticed or unappreciated, then lapsed back into silent con-
templation once more.
    Count Eolair shifted his disconcerted glance from Lluth's daughter back
to the dwarrows. "Can you tell me of this evil?"
    Yis-fidri looked at him speculatively. "No," he said at last. "I have not
the right to share so much, for all you be noble persons among your kind.
Mayhap when I have had a greater while to think, you will hear more.
Content yourself." He would say nothing further concerning the subject.
    Silent now but for the quiet noise of footsteps, the odd procession crept
on through the ancient city, lights bobbing like fireflies.

    The Pattern Hall was a dome only slightly smaller in circumference than
the Site of Witness, set low in the midst of a forest of towers, surrounded
by a moat of rock sculpted to resemble the waves of a crashing sea. The
dome itself was fluted like a sea shell, constructed of some fair stone that
did not shine like the rose-crystal rods, but nevertheless seemed faintly
radiant.
    "The Ocean Indefinite and Eternal," said Yis-fidri with a gesture at the
spiky stone waves. "Our birth-home was an island in the sea that sur-
rounds all. We Tinukeda'ya built those craft that took all the Gardenborn
across that water. Ruyan V~, the greatest of our folk, steered the ships and
brought us here to this land, safe out of destruction." A light came to the
dwarrow's saucerlike eyes, a note of triumph to his voice. He wagged his
head firmly, as though to emphasize the importance of what he said.
"Without us, no ships would have been. All, both masters and servants,
would have passed into Unbeing." After a moment he blinked and looked
around, the fire abruptly gone. "Come, Hem-folk," he said. "Hie we
down to the Banipha-sha-z~--the Pattern Hall."
    His wife Yis-hadra beckoned, then led Maegwin and the count around
the frozen gray ocean to the back of the dome, which sat off-center in the
moat like the yoke of an egg. A ramp curled down into the shadowed
depths.
    "This is where my husband and I dwell," Yis-hadra said. She spoke
Hernystiri more haltingly than her husband. "We are keepers of this
place."
    The inside of the Pattern Hall was dark, but as Yis-hadra entered before
them, she drew her hands along the walls. Where her long fingers touched,
stones began to glow with a pale light, yellower than that given off by the
rods.
    Maegwin saw Eolair's sharp profile hovering beside her, spectral and
dreamlike. She was beginning to feel the burden of her long, strenuous
day; her knees were growing weak, her thoughts furry. How had Eolair
ever let her do such a foolish thing, she wondered? He should have . . .
have ... have what? Knocked her senseless? Carried her kicking and



STONE OF FAREWELL

379

screeching back to the surface? She would have hated him if he had.
Maegwin ran her hands through her matted hair. If only none of these
terrible things had ever happened, if only life at the Taig had gone on its
small, foolish way, with her father and Gwythinn alive, with winter in its
proper place ....
    "Maegwin!" The count took her elbow. "You almost hit your head
against the doorway."
 She shook off his hand and bent to pass through. "I saw it."
    The room beyond slowly revealed itself as Yis-hadra touched more
stones into radiant life. It was circular, the walls pocked every few paces
by a low doorway. The doors themselves were carved of dressed stone
and hinged with tarnished bronze. Their surfaces were covered with runic
letters unlike anything Maegwin had seen, different even than the great
gates that had led her to Mezutu'a in the first place.
    "Seat yourself, if you please," Yis-fidri said, gesturing to a row of
granite stools, solid upcroppings that rose like mushrooms beside a low
stone table. "We will prepare food. Will you dine with us?"
    Eolair looked at her, but Maegwin pretended to be looking in the other
direction. She was desperately tired and confused, full of regret. The Sithi
were not here. These bent, flawed creatures could be no help against the
likes of Skali and King Elias. There was no earthly help coming.
    "You are very kind, Yis-fidri," the count said. "We will be pleased to
share your table."
    A great show was made of lighting a tiny bed of coals in a trough set
into the stone floor. Yis-fidri's anxious care with them suggested that such
fuel was hard to find, and used only for very special occasions.
    Maegwin could not help noticing the strangely graceful way that the
dwarrows moved as they fetched the ingredients of their meal. Despite
their awkward, stiff-limbed gaits, they stepped in and out of the two
doors at the room's opposite end and shd around obstacles with an odd,
dancing fluidity, and seemed almost to caress each other in passing with
their tuneful, pattering speech. She knew she watched a pair of ancient
lovers, both enfeebled, but so accustomed to each other that they had
become two limbs of the same body. Now that the strangeness of the
dwarrows' owl-eyed appearance had worn away, Maegwin observed their
quiet interactions and felt certain that they were just what they seemed--a
couple who might have seen terror and sorrow, but whose happiness with
each other spanned centuries.
    "Come now," Yis-fidri said at last, pouring something from a stone
ewer into bowls for Maegwin and the count. "Drink."
    "What is it?" Maegwin asked quietly. She sniffed the liquid, but could
discern nothing unusual in its smell.
    "Water, Hem-child," Yis-fidri said, puzzlement plain his voice. "Do
your folk no longer drink water?"


380                                    Tad Williams

    "We do," Maegwin smiled, lifting the bowl to her lips. She had forgot-
ten how long it had been since she had last sipped from her water skin, but
it must have been hours. The water ran down her throat in gulps, cold and
sweet as iced honey. It had a taste she could not identify, something stony
but clean. If it were a color, she decided, it would have been the blue of
new evening.
 "Wonderful!" She let Yis-fidri pour her another bowl.
    The dwarrows next produced a dish piled high with pieces of white,
faintly luminous fungus, and other bowls with things in them that Maegwin
was sinkingly sure were some kind of many-legged bugs. These had been
wrapped in leaves and roasted over the coals. The spell cast by the draught
of delicious water abruptly vanished and Maegwin found herself tottering
once more on the edge of a terrible homesickness.
    Eolair manfully took a few bites of fungus--it was not by chance that he
was deemed the best court envoy in Osten Ard--and ostentatiously chewed
and swallowed one of the leggy morsels, then settled down to rearranging
his supper in a way that resembled caring. If Maegwin had needed any
additional proof, the expression on his chewing face was enough to keep
the contents of her own bowl far from her mouth.
    "So, Yis-fidri, why is your house called the Pattern Hall?" the Count of
Nad Mullach asked. He quietly let a few blackened grubs fall from his
fingertips and down into the hem of his cloak.
    "We shall show that to you when eating is finished," Yis-hadra said
proudly.
    "Then, if it is not impolite, may I ask you of some other things? Our
time here is growing short." Eolair shrugged. "I must return this lady to
our people in the caverns above."
  Maegwin bit back a sneering remark. Return this lady, indeed!
  "Ask, Hern's child."
    "You spoke of a mortal, one we know as Josua Lackhand. And the
voice from the stone said something about Great Swords. What are these
swords, and what do they have to do with Josua?"
    Yis-fidri scraped with his spoon-shaped fingers at a fragment of fungus
on his chin. "I must begin before the beginning, as we say." He looked
from Eolair to Maegwin and back. "In days agone, our folk made for a
king of the northern men a sword. That king betrayed his bargain. When
the time came to pay, the mortal king instead argued, then slew the leader
of our folk. That king hight Elvrit, first master of Rimmersgard. The
sword dwarrow-forged for him, he named Minneyar."  "I have heard this legend," Eolair said.
    Yis-fidri held up a spidery hand. "You have not heard all, Count Eolair,
if I have recalled your name aright. Bitter was our curse on that blade, and
closely did we watch it, though it was far from us. Such is dwarrow-
work, that nothing we have forged is ever far from our hearts or our


STONE OF FAREWELL

381

sight. Minneyar brought much sadness to Fingil and his tribe, for all it
was a mighty weapon."
    He took a swallow of water to clear his throat. Yis-hadra tenderly
watched his face, her hand atop his. "We told to you that our Witnesses
have stood unused for centuries of silence. Then, little more than one year
ago, the Shard spoke to us---or rather, something spoke to us through the
Shard, as in the elder days.
    "That which spoke was someone or something who we knew not,
something that used the Speakfire in the old dwarrow-home of Hikehikayo,
something that talked to us in gentle and persuasive words. Strange
enough was it to hear Shard and Speakfire talking as of old, but we also
remembered the evil that had driven our fellows from their home--an evil
of which you mortals need not hear, for it would throw you into great
fear--so we trusted this stranger not. Also, as long as it had been since we
had last used the Witnesses, still some for us remembered the elder days
and what it felt like when the Ziday'a did speak to us then.
    "This was not the same. Whatever stood before the Speakfire in the north
seemed more like a cold breath of Unbeing than a living creature, for all
its kindly words."
    Yis-hadra moaned softly beside him. Maegwin, caught up in the
dwarrow's story despite herself, felt a chill travel through her.
    "That which spoke," Yis-fidri continued, "wished to know of the
sword Minneyar. It knew we had been the blade's makers and it knew
that we dwarrows are bound to our work even after it has gone from us,
as one who has lost a hand often feels it still at the end of his arm. The
thing that spoke to us from Witness to Witness asked if the northern king
Fingil had indeed taken the sword Minneyar into Asu'a when he con-
quered that great place, and was it there still."
 "Asu'a," Eolair breathed. "Of course--the Hayholt."
    "That is its mortal name," Yisofidri nodded. "We were frightened by
this strange and fearful voice. You must understand, we have been as
castaways for more years than your people can dream. It was obvious that
some new power had arisen in the world, but one that nevertheless did
command the old Arts. But we do not wish any of our old masters to find
us and take us back, so at first we made no answer."
    The dwarrow leaned forward on his padded elbows. "Then, a short
time ago---a few of the Moon-woman's changes, as you would reckon it
beneath the sky--the Shard spoke again. This time it did speak with the
voice of the eldest of the Sithi, the voice you heard. She also asked us of
Minneyar. With her, also, we were silent."
 "Because you fear they will make you their servants again."
    "Yes, Hem's man. Unless you have ever fled from bondage, you will
not understand that terror. Our masters are ageless. We are not. They
retain the old lore. We diminish." Yis-fidri rocked back and forth on his


382                                    Tad Williams

stool, the ancient leather of his garments rubbing and squeaking like
crickets.
    "But we knew something neither of our questioners did," he said
finally; there was a gleam in his round eye unlike anything the surface
dwellers had yet seen. "Do you see, our masters think the sword Minneyar
never left Asu'a, and that is true. But the one who found the sword there
beneath the castle, the one you call King John Prester, had it reforged and
made new. Under the name of Bright-Nail, he carried it all across the
world and back."
    The Count of Nad Mullach whistled, a low, surprised trill. "So Bright-
Nail was the old Scourge of the North, Fingil's Minneyar. Strange! What
other secrets did Prester John take to his grave above the Kynslagh, I
wonder?" He paused. "But, Yis-fidri, still we do not understand..."
    "Patience." The dwarrow showed a wintry smile. "You could never
tend and harvest balky stone as we do, you quick-blooded Children.
Patience." He took a breath. "The mistress of the Zida'ya told us that this
sword, one of the Great Swords, was somehow much concerned with
events now transpiring, and with the fate of the mortal prince named
Handless Josua . . ."
  "Josua Lackhand."
    "Yes. But we think that is trickery, for she also said that this sword
might be somehow vital against that same evil that had driven our tribesfolk
out of Hikehikayo, and that the same evil soon might threaten all that
walked above or below ground. How could the fate of any mortal man
affect the squabblings of immortals?" The dwarrow's voice quavered. "It
is another trap, to play on our fear. She wishes us to seek her help, so we
will fall into their clutch once more. Did you not hear her? 'Come to us at
Jao 6-Tinukai'i.' Was ever a trap more cold-bloodedly baited before the
victim's eyes?"
    "So," the count said at last, "somehow Josua's survival is tied to this
blade?"
    Yis-fidri shot him a worried glance. "So she claimed. But how could
she say his fate is tied to that of Minneyar when she did not even know it
had been reforged? She said that none but us did know this thing, and that
possibly many fates--perhaps the threads of all fate--were tied to three
great swords, of which Minneyar was one."
    Yis-fidri stood, a haunted look upon his face. "And I will tell you a
terrible, terrible thing," he said miserably. "Even though we cannot trust
our once-masters, we fear that they may be telling the truth. Mayhap a
great doom has come into the world. If so, we dwarrows may have
brought it on."
    Eolair looked around, struggling to make sense of what he had heard.
"But why, Yis-fidri? Bright-Nail's history might be a deep and dark
secret, but you dwarrows did not tell it to anyone. When the Shard spoke


              STONE OF FAREWELL                                             383

 to us, we said nothing of it, because we did not know the tale. No secrets
 have been told. What doom have you brought on?"
    The dwarrow was deeply pained. "I . . . did not tell you all. One last
time before your arrival, the Shard called to us. It was the fearsome
stranger from Hikehikayo asking again of the sword Minneyar--that
cursed sword." He slumped bonelessly back onto the stool. "This time
there was only one of us at the Site of Witness--young Sho-vennae, who
you have met. He was alone and the voice laid a great fear upon him. It
threatened, then it promised, then threatened again." Yis-fidri slapped his
wide palm on the table. "You must understand, he was afraid! We are all
afraid! We are not what we were." He lowered his eyes as if shamed, then
looked up to find his wife's gaze. He seemed to gain courage. "At last,
Sho-vennae's terror did overwhelm him. He told the stranger the tale of
Minneyar, of how it was reforged and became Bright-Nail." Yis-fidri's
shook his great head. "Poor Sho-vennae. We should never have let him
stand watch at the Shard alone. May the Garden forgive us. Do you see,
you Hern's folk, our former masters may have lied to us, but still we fear
that no good can come out of the darkness in Hikehikayo. If the First
Grandmother of the Sithi has told the truth, who knows what power we
have given to evil?"
    Maegwin hardly heard him. She was losing the thread of Yis-fidri's
speech, dully registering bits and pieces while her weary mind swirled
with thoughts of her own failure. She had misunderstood the gods' will.
She needed to be free, to have time to herself, time to think.
    Count Eolair sat thinking for a long while; the room was full of
brooding silence. At last, Yis-fidri stood.
    "You have shared our table," he said. "Let us show you our prizes,
then you may go back to the bright, airy surface."
    Eolair and Maegwin, still silent, let themselves be led across the round
room and through one of the doors. They followed the dwarrows down a
long, sloping hallway before coming at last to a deeper chamber whose
outer walls were as complicated as a maze, angling in and out so that
everywhere Maegwin looked there were surfaces covered with carved
stone.
    "In this chamber and others below it are the Patterns," Yis-fidri said.
"Long the dwarrows have delved, and widely. Every tunnel, every deep
place we dug is there. This is the history of our folk, and we two are the
keepers of it." He waved his hand proudly. "Maps of bright Kementari,
the labyrinth of Jhin~-T'senef, the tunnels beneath the mountains Rim-
mersmen call Vestivegg, and those that honeycomb the mountains above
our heads--all here. The catacombs of Zae-y'miritha are long-buried and
silent.., but here they live!"
    Eolair turned slowly, looking from surface to surface. The interior of
the great chamber was as intricate as a many-faceted stone; each facet,


384                                        Tad Williams

every angle and niche, was covered with delicate maps carved into the
living stone. "And you said that you have maps of the tunnels that run
here, throughout the Grianspog?' he asked slowly.
    "With certainty, Count Eolair," Yis-fidri said. Being among the Pat-
terns seemed to have restored life to his sagging frame. "Those and
more."
    "If we could have those, it would be a great help to us in our own
struggle."
    Maegwin turned on the count, irritation finally bubbling to the surface.
"What, shall we carry a thousandweight of stone up to our caves? Or
climb down here to this lost place every time we must choose a fork in the
path?"
    "No," said Eolair, "but like the Aedonite monks, we could copy them
onto parchment, and so have them where we need them." His eyes shone.
"There must be tunnels we never dreamed off Our raids on Skali's camps
will truly seem like magic! See, Maegwin, you have brought great assis-
tance to your people after all--a help greater than swords and spears!" He
turned to Yis-fidri. "Would you allow us to do such a thing?"
    Worried, the dwarrow turned to his wife. As the sound of their conver-
sation chimed back and forth, Maegwin watched the count. Eolair was
walking from wall to wall, squinting up at the angled walls and their
beetle-busy carvings. She fought a rising tide of anger. Did he think he
was doing her a kindness when he complimented her on this "discovery?"
She had been looking for help from the shining, legendary Sithi, not a
gaggle of scarecrows with their dusty tunnel-maps. Tunnels! Maegwin
had been the one who had rediscovered the tunnels in the first place! How
dare he try and placate her?
      As she felt herself caught between fury and loneliness and loss, a sudden
realization cut through her confused thoughts like a knife.  Eolair must go away.
    She could have no peace, she could never understand what the gods
meant her to do, as long as he was around. His presence turned her into a
child, a whining, moody thing unfit to lead her people out of these
dangerous straits.
    Yis-fidri turned at last. "My wife and I must speak with our people
before anything can be decided. This would be a new thing, and could not
be done lightly."
    "Of course," said Eolair. His voice was calm, but Maegwin could hear
the suppressed excitement. "Of course, whatever may be best for your
people. We will go away now and come back to you in a day or two, or
whenever you say. But tell them that it will perhaps save Hern's folk,
whom the dwarrows often helped before. The Hernystiri have never
thought anything but good of you."
  Maegwin had another thought. "Are there tunnels near the Hayholt?"


the
run

Pat-
and


tce.
Or
the

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tps

is-
-Ie

as
ir
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 a
 n
 v

STONE OF FAREWELL

385

    Yis-hadra nodded. "Yes. Asu'a, as we call it, was delved deep as well as
built high. Now its bones lie beneath the castle of mortal kings, but the
earth underneath that castle is still alive with our diggings." "And are those maps here, too?"
 "Of course," the dwarrow replied proudly.
    With a satisfied nod, Maegwin turned on the Count of Nad Mullach.
"There," she said. "That is the final answer I sought. A course lies open
before us: we would be traitors to our own folk not to take it." She lapsed
into grave silence.
 Eolair rose to the bait. "What do you mean, Princess?"
    "You must findJosua, Count Eolair," she said abruptly. She was pleased
at the calm authority in her voice. "You heard what Yis-fidri said at the
table. This matter of the sword is of utmost importance. I was already
thinking that Prince Josua must be informed, in case there is a chance this
knowledge can be used to defeat Elias. You and I know that as long as the
High King prospers, Skali Sharp-nose will remain at our necks like a
knife. Go find Josua and tell him the secret of the sword. That will be the
deed that saves our people."
    In troth, Maegwin did not quite remember all the details of the dwarrow's
tale--she had been occupied with her own dire thoughts--but she remem-
bered that it had something to do with Josua and his father's sword.
    Eolair was astonished. "Go to Josua?! What do you say, Lady? We have
no idea where he is, or if he even lives. Do you ask me to leave our people
in their need to go rabbiting off on such a fool's mission?"
    "You claimed you heard that he was alive," she responded coldly.
"Only a short while ago you were lecturing me on the chance of his
survival. Can we afford to assume he is dead?"
    It was hard to tell from his practiced expression what he was thinking.
Maegwin took a breath before beginning again. "In any case, Count
Eolair, you fail to see the full importance of what these folk have told us.
Maps of our tunnels are important, yes--but we can now send to Josua
maps of Elias' stronghold, and of the secret entrances that could be the
High King's undoing." Listening to herself, it did suddenly seem like a
good plan. "You know that Skali will never loosen his grip on our land as
long as Elias rules at his back in the Hayholt."
    Eolair shook his head. "To many questions, my lady, too many ques-
tions. There is merit in what you say, certainly. Let us think about it. It
will take us days to make semblances of all these maps. Surely it will be
better if we consider it carefully, if we talk with Criobhan and the other
knights."
    Maegwin wanted to set the hook now, while Eolair was hesitating. She
feared that more time would mean time for the count to think of another
solution, and for her to sink back into her inclarity of purpose. Being near
him made her heart heavy as stone. She needed him to go away--she felt


386                                   Tad Williams

it now as a deep longing. She wanted him gone, so the pain and confusion
would stop. How was it he could cloud her wits this way?
    She made her face cold. "I do not like your resistance, Count. In fact,
you seem to be doing precious little here, if you have time to follow me
down holes in the ground. You might be better employed on a task that
has some chance of saving us from our current situation." Maegwin
smiled, purposefully mocking. She was proud of how well she hid her
true feelings, but this cruelty, however necessary, filled her with horror.
    What kind of creature am I becoming? she wondered even as she carefully
watched Eolair's reaction. Is this statecraft? She felt a moment of panic. Am
I being a fool? No, it is better he goes away--but if this is how kings and queens
must see their wills accomplished, Bagba's Herd, what a terrible thing!
    Aloud, she added, "Besides, Count, you are pledged to my father's
house--just in case you had forgotten. If you wish to flaunt the first
request Lluth's daughter has made of you, I cannot prevent you, but the
gods will know and judge." Eolair started to speak. Maegwin lifted a hand
to stop himma very dirty hand, she could not help noticing. "I will not
argue with you, Count Eolair. Do as you are told, or do not. That is all."
    Eolair's eyes narrowed, as though he saw her truly for the first time and
did not like what he now saw. His contemptuous expression leaned
against her heart like an impossibly heavy stone, but there was no turning
back.
    The count waited a long time before answering. "Very well, Lady," he
said quietly, "I will do as you command. I do not know where this sudden
fancy--fancy! It seems a kind of madness!--has come from. If you had
asked my counsel in this thing and treated me as your family's friend
instead of a vassal, I would have heeded your wish happily. Instead you will
have my obedience, but there will be little love with it. You thought to act
the queen, but instead you have proved yourself only a callow child after
~11."
  "Be silent," she said hoarsely.
    The dwarrows stared at Eolair and Maegwin curiously, as if they
performed a quaint but inscrutable pantomime. The lights of the Pattern
Hall dimmed for a moment, and shadows grew monstrously tall among
the labyrinthine walls of stone. A moment later the pale light flared once
more, illuminating the darker comers, but a certain shadow had taken up
residence in Maegwin's heart and would not be dismissed.

    The Eadne Cloud's crew did not handle Miriamele and Cadrach gently
as they routed the pair from the hold, but neither were they especially
brutal. The sailors seemed more than a little amused by such an unexpected
couple of stowaways. As the captives appeared beneath the lightening sky,


STONE OF FAREWELL

387

the crewmen jeered mockingly, speculating on the vices of monks who
took young women as companions, and on the virtue of young women
who allowed themselves to be so taken.
    Miriamele stared back defiantly, undaunted by their rough manners.
Despite the well-known sailor's custom of going bearded, many of the
Cloud's crew were smooth-cheeked, not yet old enough to grow whiskers:
she herself had seen more in a year, she felt sure, than these youths had
seen in their whole lives.
    Still, it was clear the Eadne Cloud was no plodding merchantman, no
carrack bobbing like a washing tub as it carefully hugged the coastline, but
a lithe ocean-rider. A child of river-fronted and sea-wrapped Meremund,
Miriamele could tell the ship's quality just by the spritely way the deck
rolled beneath her feet and by the sound of the white sails crackling overhead
as they drank deeply of the daybreak wind.
    An hour earlier, Miriamele had despaired. Now she found herself taking
great breaths, her heart rising once more. Even a whipping from the
captain would be bearable. She was alive and upon the open sea. The sun
was rising into the morning sky, a beacon of continuing hope.
    A glance at the standard snapping on the mainmast confirmed that
Cadrach had been correct. The Prevan osprey flew there, ocher and black.
If only she had found more time to talk to Dinivan, to find out more news
of the Nabbanai court and where the Prevan house and others stood ....
    She turned to whisper a warning to Cadrach about the need for secrecy,
but was brought up sharply before a wooden stairway by the sailor at her
side, who even in the stiff breeze smelled excessively of salt-pork.
    The man on the quarterdeck turned to look down upon them. Miriamele,
startled, sucked in a sharply audible breath of air. His was not a face she
knew, nor did he seem to recognize her. He was, however, very, very
handsome. Dressed in black breeches, jacket, and boots, each minutely
wrought with gilt piping, with a brilliant cloth-of-gold cape swirling
around him and the wind blowing his golden~101ond hair, this strange
nobleman seemed a sun god out of ancient legends. ';.
    "Kneel down, you louts," one of the sailors hissed. Cadrach dropped
immediately. Miriamele, nonplussed, complied more slowly. She was un-
able to take her eyes off the golden man's face.
    "These are they, Lord," the sailor said. "The ones the Niskie found. As
you see, one's a girl."
    "As I see," the man replied dryly. "You two remain kneeling," he
directed Miriamele and Cadrach. "You men, go. We need more sail if we
are to make Grenamman tonight." "Yes, Lord."
    As the sailors moved off hurriedly, the one they called lord turned to
finish his conversation with a burly, bearded man that Miriamele guessed
was the captain. The nobleman glanced at the prisoners once more before


388                                    Tad Williams

making his leonine way off the quarterdeck. Miriamele thought his eyes
might have lingered on her longer than curiosity alone would dictate, and
felt an unfamiliar tingle run through her--half fear, half excitement--as
she turned to watch him go. A pair of manservants scurried after him,
trying to keep his wind-whipped cloak from snagging on anything. Then,
for a brief instant, the golden-haired man looked back. Catching her eye,
he smiled.
    The burly captain stared down at Cadrach and Miriamele with poorly
hidden disgust. "Earl says he'll decide what to do with you after his
morning meal," he growled, then spat expertly with the wind. "Women
and monks--what could be worse luck, and especially in these times? I'd
throw you over if the master didn't happen to be aboard."
"Who... who is the master of this ship?" Miriamele asked quietly.
"You don't recognize, the crest, doxy? You didn't recognize milord
when he was standing in front of you? Aspitis Preves, Earl of Drina and
Eadne is master of this ship--and you'd better hope he takes a liking to
you or you'll find yourself sleeping in kilpa beds." He spat more gray
citril juice.
    Cadrach, already pale, looked ill at the captain's words, but Miriamele
barely heard. She was thinking of Aspitis' golden hair and bold eyes, and
wondering how in the midst of such danger she could suddenly feel so
unexpectedly fascinated.



20


g(.I[ I J,g.J c,rirl~"~4""l Now you have witnessed for yourself." Binabik gestured
at Qantaqa with helpless disgust. The wolf sat on her haunches, ears
flattened and hackles raised, her gray pelt starred with snowflakes. "Qinkipa's
Eyes!" the troll swore, "if I could be making her do it, have assurance that
I would. She will walk back toward the abbey, but only to stay at my side
and no more." He turned to his mount again. "Qantaqa! Simon mosoq!
Ummu!" He shook his head. "She will not."
    "What's wrong with her?" Sludig kicked at the ground, lifting a cloud
of snow into the biting wind. "Every hour we do not find him the trail
grows fainter. And if the boy is hurt, every hour leaves him nearer to
death."
    "Daughter of the Mountains, Rimmersman," Binabik shouted, "every
hour of every day is leaving all of us nearer to death." He blinked his
reddened eyes. "Of course we have need for haste. Do you think I do not
care for Simon? Why have we been at trudging here and there since sunup?
If I could exchange Qantaqa's nose for mine, I would with certainty! But
she was badly frightened by the horror at Skodi's abbey, I am thinking--
see! It is only with reluctance she is even following!"
    Qantaqa had again balked. As Binabik looked back, she dipped her
massive head and whined, barely audible against the rising wind.
    Sludig slapped his leather-clad hands on his legs with a wet smack.
"Damn me, troll, I know! But we need her nose! We don't even know
where the boy went, or why he won't answer us. We have been shouting
for hours!"
    Binabik shook his head morosely. "That is what gives me the most
worry. We did not go far before finding his horse---half of a league at the
most. We have been twice that distantness now, and most of the way
returning, but still no sign of Simon is there to see."
    The Rimmersman squinted into the flurrying snow. "Come. If he's
fallen off, he'd probably make his way back down his own tracks . . .

389


390                                    Tad Williams

while they lasted. Let's drag the wolf a little farther, head back toward the
abbey. All the way back, this time. Maybe if she actually smells the boy
close by, she'll do better." He urged his mount and the trailing pack-
horses forward. Binabik grimaced and whistled for Qantaqa. The wolf
came reluctantly.
    'I am not liking this storm that comes," the troll called; only a short
distance ahead, the Rimmersman had already become a bulky blur. "Not
any bit. This is the outrider for the darkness we saw gathering in the
north, near Stormspike. It is coming down with great swiftness."
    "I know it," Sludig shouted over his shoulder. "Soon we will have to
look to our own safety, whether we find the boy or not."
    Binabik nodded, then thumped his hand sharply against his jacketed
chest, once, twice, then a third time. Unless the gods of his people were
watching, no one saw his anguished gesture.

    The abbey, lately the scene of such wild horror, had become a quiet,
snow-draped sepulcher. The mounds of drifting snow obscured most
signs of what had become of Skodi and her young charges, but could not
hide all. Qantaqa would not approach within an arrow's flight of the silent
walls; Binabik and Sludig themselves only crossed into the abbey's door-
yard long enough to make certain that Simon was not one of the still,
white-shrouded forms, then left hurriedly.
    When they had put a thousand paces between themselves and the abbey,
they stopped and stood silently for a while, sharing long swallows from a
bottle of kangkang as they listened to the mournful wind. Qantaqa,
obviously happy to be heading away from that dire place once more,
sniffed briefly at the air before curling up at Binabik's feet.
    "Holy Aedon, troll," Sludig said at last, "what manner of witch was
that girl Skodi, anyway? I have never seen anything to match it. Was she
one of the Storm King's followers?"
    "Only in the way that those like her do what the Storm King wishes,
whether they are knowing it or not. She had power, but she was hoping
to become a Power--which, I am thinking, is very different. A little Norn
Queen with her own little band of followers was what she was wishing to
be. Times of war and strife are the arising times of new forces. The old order
begins its changing, and those like Skodi appear, seeking to make a mark."
    "I only thank blessed God for wiping out the whole nest of them to the
smallest pup." Sludig shivered and scowled. "No good could have come
from any of those witchlets surviving."
    Binabik looked at him curiously. "The innocent can be molded, as those
children were, but sometimes tuck is granting that they can be molded
back. I have little belief in evil beyond redeeming, Sludig."
    "Oh?" The Rimmersman laughed harshly. "What about your Storm
King? What good thing could you possibly say about such a black-hearted
hellspawn as that?"


STONE OF FAREWELL

391

    "Once he loved his people more than his own life," Binabik said
quietly.

    The sun made a surprisingly swift crossing through the murky sky. By
the time they halted again, early twilight was approaching. They had
twice more covered the distance between the abbey and the spot in the
deep woods that they had decided on as the outermost point. All their
shouting and beating of bushes had been to no avail: Simon remained
unfound, and now darkness and fresh storms were fast approaching.
    "Aedon's Blood," Sludig said in disgust, then patted Simon's gray
mare, which was roped to the train of pack horses. "At least we did not
lose the damnable sword as well." He waved a hand at Thorn, but did not
touch it. Where the black sword was visible through the loose swaddling,
snowflakes lit upon its surface and slid away, leaving it free of the white
that spattered everything else. "It makes our decision more difficult,
though. If the lad and the sword were lost together, we would have no
choice but to search."
    Binabik looked up with angry eyes. "What 'decision' do you speak
about?"
    "We can't very well abandon everything for the stripling, troll. I'm
fond of him, the good Lord knows, but we have our duty to Prince
Josua. You and the other book-readers keep saying that Josua needs this
blade or we are all doomed. Should we ignore that to hunt for a lost boy?
Then we would be more foolish than the boy was for getting lost in the
first place."
    "Simon is not foolish." Binabik buried his face in the ruff of Qantaqa's
neck for a long moment. "And I am tired of being an oath-breaker. I
swore for his protection." The troll's voice was muffled by the wolf's pelt,
but the straining edge was unmistakable.
  "We are forced to difficult choices, troll."
    Binabik looked up. His usually mild brown gaze had turned flinty.
"Do not be speaking to me of choices. Do not go teaching me about
difficulty. Take the sword. On my master's grave I swore to protect
Simon. To me, nothing else has more importance."
    "Then you are the most foolish of all," Sludig growled. "We are down
to two left while the world freezes around us. Would you send me alone
with the sword that could save your people and mine? All so you need not
be an oath-breaker to a dead master?"
    Binabik straightened. His eyes brimmed with angry tears. "Do not dare
speak to me of my oath," he hissed. "I am taking no advice from a witless
Croohok!"
    Sludig raised a gloved fist as though to strike at the little man. The
Rimmersman stared at his own trembling hand, then turned and stalked
out of the clearing. Binabik did not look up to see him ago, but instead


392                                    Tad Williams

returned to stroking Qantaqa's shaggy back. A tear ran down his cheek
and vanished into the fur of his hood.
 Minutes passed without even a bird's cry.
    "Troll?" Sludig stood at the edge of the glade, just beyond the horses.
Binabik still would not look up. "Listen, man," Sludig continued, "you
must listen to me." The Rimmersman still hung back, like an unexpected
guest waiting to be invited indoors. "Once, soon after we first met, I told
you that you knew nothing of honor. I wished to go and kill Storfot,
Thane of Vestvennby, for his insults to Duke Isgrimnur. You said I
should not go. You said that my lord Isgrimnur had given me a task to
perform, and that putting that task's fulfillment in jeopardy was neither
brave or honorable, but foolish."
 The troll continued to rub distractedly along Qantaqa's back.
    "Binabik, I know you are honorable. You know I am the same. We
have a bad choice to make, but it is not right that allies should fight and
throw insults like stones at each other."
    The troll still did not reply, but his hands fell from the wolf and into his
lap. He crouched unspeaking for long moments, chin on chest.
    "I have been disgracing myself, Sludig," he said at last. "You are right
to be hurling my own words back into my face. I beg for your pardon,
although I have done nothing for its deserving." He turned an unhappy
face up to the Rimmersman, who took a few steps back into the clearing.
    "We cannot afford to search for Simon forever," Sludig said quietly.
"That is a truth separate from love and friendship."
    "You are not wrong," Binabik said. He shook his head slowly. "Not
wrong." He stood and moved toward the bearded soldier, extending a
small hand. "If you can show forgiving of my stupidity . . ."
    "There is nothing to forgive." His broad palm clasped Binabik's, en-
gulfing it.
    A weary smile flitted across the troll's face. "Then one favor there is I
will ask. Let us be making a fire here during tonight and tomorrow night,
and we will call for Simon If we arc fnding no trace of him, then the
morning after tomorrow we will walk on toward the Stone of Farewell.
Otherwise, I will fecl as though I have deserted him without proper
searching."
    Sludig nodded gravely. "Fairly spoken. Now, wc should gather wood.
Night is coming on quickly."
    "The cold wind is not lessening, either," Binabik said, frowning. "An
unhappy thought for all who are out of doors without shelter."

    Brother Hengfisk, the king's unpleasant cupbearer, gestured to the
doorway. The monk's grin was as derangedly fixed as ever, as though he


STONE OF FAREWELL

393

struggled with some monstrous humor only barely held in check. The
Earl of Utanyeat stepped through the door and silent Hengfisk scuttled
away down the stairs, leaving the earl standing just inside the bell chamber.
     Guthwulf took a moment to catch his breath. It was a very long climb
up the tower steps and the earl had not been sleeping well lately. "You called for me, Highness?" he said at last.
    The king stood hunched over the sill of one of the high-arched win-
dows, his heavy cloak glinting in the torchlight hke a fly's glass-green
back. Although the afternoon was only half gone, the sky outside was
evefiing-dark, purple and sullen gray. The curve of Elias' shoulders made
Guthwulf think of a vulture. The king wore the heavy gray sword
scabbarded at his side; seeing it, the earl shivered uncontrollably.
    "The storm is almost upon us," Elias said without turning. "Have you
been this high in Green Angel Tower before?"
    Guthwulf forced himself to speak casually. "I have been in the entry
hall. Perhaps once to the chaplain's rooms on the second floor. Never this
high, sire."
    "It is a strange place," the king said, his gaze still fixed on something
beyond the northwestern window. "This place, Green Angel Tower, was
once the center of the greatest kingdom Osten Ard has ever seen. Did you
know that, Guthwulf?." Elias swung away from the window. His eyes
were bright, but his face was drawn and lined as though his iron crown
were cinched too tightly about his brow.
    "Do you mean your father's kingdom, Highness?" the earl asked,
puzzled and more than a httle fearful. He had felt only a kind of dread when
he had received this latest summons. This man was no longer his old
friend. At times the king seemed almost unchanged, but Guthwulf could
not ignore the underlying reality: the Elias he had known might as well be
dead. However, the gallows in Battle Square and the spikes atop the
Nearulagh Gate were now crowded with the mortal remains of those who
had upset this new Ehas in some way or other. Guthwulfknew to keep his
mouth well shut and do what he was told--at least for a while longer.
    "Not my father's, idiot. For the love of God, my hand stretches over a
far realer kingdom than his ever did. My father had King Lluth on his
very doorstep; now there are no other kings but me." Elias' moment of
bad temper faded as he waved his arm expansively. "No, Guthwulf, there
are more things in this world than such as you can even dream of. This
was once the capital of a mighty empire--vaster than Fingil's Greater
Rimmersgard, older than the Nabban of the Imperators, stronger in lore
than lost Khandia." His voice sank so that it was almost lost in the call of
the wind. "But with his help, I will make this castle the seat of an even
greater kingdom."
    "Whose help, Highness?" Guthwulf could not refrain from asking. He
felt a surge of cold jealousy. "Pryrates?"


394                                    Tad Williams

Elias looked at him oddly for a moment, then burst into laughter.
"Pryrates! Guthwulf, you are artless as a child!"
    The Earl of the Utanyeat bit the inside of his cheek to hold back the
angrywand potentially fatal--words. He clenched and unclenched his
scarred fists. "Yes, my king," he said at last.
    The king was once more staring out the window. Above his head, the
great bells slept in dark clusters. Thunder muttered somewhere far away.
"But the priest does keep secrets from me," Elias said. "He knows my
power is growing as my understanding increases, and so he tries to hide
things from me. Do you see that, Guthwulf?." He pointed out the win-
dow. "Well, Fires of Hell, man, how can you see from there?" the king
snarled. "Come closer! Do you fear the wind will freeze you?" He laughed
strangely.
    Guthwulf reluctantly stepped forward, thinking of what Elias had been
like before this insanity had begun to creep in: quick-tempered, yes, but
not inconstant as a spring breeze; fond of jokes, but with the bluff humor
of a soldier, not this mocking and incomprehensible wit. It was growing
harder and harder for Guthwulf to recall that other man, his friend.
Ironically, it seemed that the madder Elias became, the more he grew to
resemble his brother Josua.
    "There." The king gestured across the damp rooftops of the Hayholt
toward the gray bulk of Hjeldin's Tower, squatting along the Inner
Bailey's northern wall. "I gave that to Pryrates to use for his various
endeavours--his investigations, if you will--and now he keeps it always
locked; he will not even give a key to his king. For my safety, he says."
Elias glared across at the priest's brooding tower, gray as the sky, upper
windows of thick red glass. "He is growing very proud, the alchemist."
    "Banish him, Elias--or destroy him!" Guthwulf spoke without think-
ing, then decided to press on. "You know I have always spoken to you as
a friend, blunt when it was needed. And you know I am no craven who
whimpers when a little blood is spilled or a few bones are cracked. But that
man is poisonous as a serpent and far more dangerous. He will stab you in
the back. Only say the word and I will kill him." When he finished he
found that his heart was racing, as in the hour before battle.
    The king stared for a moment, then laughed again. "Ah, there is the
Wolf I knew. No, no, old friend, I told you once before: I need Pryrates,
and I will use whatever I need to perform the grand task before me.
Neither will he stab me in the back, for you see, he needs me, too. The
alchemist uses me--or thinks he does."
    Thunder pealed again in the distance as Elias stepped away from/the
window and laid his hand on GuthwulFs arm. The earl could feel'the
radiating cold right through his heavy sleeve. "But I do not want Pryrates
to kilt you," the king said, "--and kill you he would, make no mistake.
His courier arrived today from Nabban. The letter tells me that negotia-



STONE OF FAREWELL

395

tions with the lector are going very well, and that Pryrates will be back in
a few days. That is why it was a happy thought to send you out to the
High Thrithings at the head of my knights. Young Fengbald was pressing
for the command, but you have always been of great service to me,
and--more importantly--you will then be out of the red priest's path until
he has done what I need."
    "I am grateful for the chance to serve, my king," Guthwulf said slowly,
several kinds of anger and fear swelling venomously within him. To think
that the Earl of Utanyeat had come to such sneaking and bowing!
    What if he were to grab Elias, he thought suddenly, wildly--just grab
the king and then fling himself over the window's low railing, both of
them plunging down over a hundred cubits to smash like eggs. Usires the
Ransomer, what a relief it would be to end this festering brain-sickness
that had crept all through the Hayholt and through Guthwulf himselfl His
mind reeled. Aloud, he only said: "Are you sure that these rumors of your
brother are not just that? Rumors only, the imaginings of complaining
peasants? I find it hard to believe that anything could have survived . . .
could have survived Naglimund." One step, he thought, just one, then
the two of them would be gliding down through the heavy air. It would
all be over in moments and the long dark sleep would begin ....
    Elias moved away from the window, breaking the spell. Guthwulf felt
chill sweat beading on his forehead. "l do not heed 'rumors,' my dear
Utanyeat. I am Elias the High King, and I know." He stalked to a window
on the tower's far side, one that faced southeast, into the teeth of the
wind. His hair swirled, black as a crow's wing. "There." He pointed out
across the choppy, leaden-hued Kynslagh into the murky distance. A flash
of lightning briefly illuminated the deep wells of his eyes. "Josua lives,
indeed, and he is somewhere.., out.., there. I have received word from a
trusted source." Thunder came, chasing the lightning. "Pryrates tells me
my energies could be better spent. He tells me not to worry about my
brother. If I had not seen a thousand kinds of proof of Pryrates' black and
empty heart, I would think he felt sorry for Josua, so strongly does he
argue against this mission. But I will do as I please. I am the king and I
want Josua dead." Another lightning flare etched his face, which was
twisted like a ritual mask. The king's voice strained; for a moment it
seemed that only his white-knuckled grasp upon the stone sill kept him
from toppling. "And I want my daughter back. Back. I want Miriamele
back. She has disobeyed her father, joining with his enemies.., with my
enemies. She must be punished."
    Guthwulf could think of nothing to say. He nodded his head, trying to
dispel the terrible thoughts that now surged within him like a well filling
with black water. The king and his cursed sword! Even now, Guthwulf
felt the blade's presence sickening him. He would go to the Thrithings and
hunt for Josua, if that was what Elias wished. At least he would be out of


396                                    Tad Williams

this horrible castle with its night sounds, its fearful servants and mad,
mourning king. He would be able to think again. The earl would breathe
unsullied air and keep the company of soldiers once more, men with whose
thoughts and conversation he was comfortable.
    Thunder rang through the chamber, setting the bells to humming. "I
will do as you say, my king," he said.
 "Of course," Elias nodded, calm again. "Of course."

    Scowling Guthwulf had gone away, but the king stayed for some time,
staring out into the cloudy sky, listening to the wind as carefully as if he
understood its mournful tongue. Rachel, Mistress of Chambermaids, was
beginning to feel very uncomfortable in her cramped hiding place. Still,
she had learned what she needed to know. Her mind was full of ideas
quite beyond her usual concerns: lately, Rachel the Dragon had found
herself thinking thoughts she had never dreamed possible.
    Wrinkling her nose against the harsh but familiar scent of polishing
grease, she peeked out of the crack between the stone doorframe and the
warped wooden door. The king was still as a statue, gazing off into
nothingness. Rachel was again filled with horror at her own transgression.
Spying like the most slatternly, brought-in-just-for-the-holy-days servant
girl! And on the High King! Elias was the son of her beloved King
John--even if he couldn't hope to match up to his father--and Rachel, the
Hayholt's last bastion of rectitude, was spying on him.
    The thought make her feel faint and weak; the odoriferous grease did not
help. She leaned against the wall of the bell-ringer's closet and was grateful
for its narrow confines. Between the stacks of rope, the bell hooks and
grease pots and brick walls standing close at either shoulder, she could not
topple over even if she tried.

    She had not meant to spy, of course--not really. She had heard the
voices as she was examining the woefully dirty stairs at Green Angel
Tower's third floor. She had stepped quietly out of the spiraling passage-
way into a curtained alcove so as not to seem to be listening to the king's
business, for she had recognized Elias' voice almost immediately. The
king had climbed past, speaking as though to the grinning monk Hengfisk
who accompanied him everywhere, but his words had seemed like bab-
bling nonsense to Rachel. "Whispers from Nakkiga," he had said, and
"songs of the upper air." He had spoken of "listening for the cry of t~e
witnesses," and "the day of the hilltop bargain coming soon, and 'of
things even less understandable.
    The pop-eyed monk followed at the king's bootheels, as he always did
these days. The mad words of Elias washed over him, but the monk only


STONE OF FAREWELL

397

nodded ceaselessly as he scrambled along behind--the king's grinning
shadow.
    Fascinated and excited in a way she had not felt for some time, Rachel
had found herself following through the shadows a few ells behind the
pair as they climbed what seemed a thousand steps up the tower's long
stairway. The king's htany of incomprehensibles had continued until at
last he and the monk disappeared into the bell chamber. Feeling her age
and the throbbing of her infirm back, she had remained on the floor
below. Leaning against the oddly-tiled stone walls, fighting for breath, she
had wondered again at her own boldness. An open workroom lay before
her. A great pulley had been spread in pieces on top of a sawdust-mantled
block; a sledge lay on the floor nearby, as though its owner had disap-
peared in midswing. There was only the main room and a curtained
alcove beside the stairwell: thus, when the monk suddenly came pattering
back down the steps, there had truly been no choice but to bolt for the
alcove.
    At the far end of the niche she had discovered a wooden ladder leading up
into darkness. Knowing she was caught between the king above and
whoever his cupbearer might bring from below, she had seen no other
choice but to climb upward in search of a more secure hiding place:
anyone walking too close to the alcove might brush the curtain aside and
reveal her, delivering Rachel up to humiliation or worse.
    Worse. The thought of the heads rotting like black fruit atop Nearulagh
gate spurred her old bones up the ladder, which turned out to lead straight
to the bell-ringer's closet.
    So it had not really been her fault, had it? She had not truly meant to
spy--she had been virtually forced to listen to Ehas' confusing conversa-
tion with the Earl of Utanyeat. Surely good Saint Rhiap would under-
stand, she told herself, and would intercede on Rachel's behalf when it
came time to read from the Great Scroll in Heaven's anteroom.

    She peered out through the door-crack again. The king had moved to
another window--this one facing north, into the churning black heart of
the approaching storm--but otherwise seemed no nearer to leaving. Ra-
chel was beginning to feel panicky. People used to say that Elias spent
many sleepless nights at work with Pryrates in Hjeldin's Tower. Was it
the king's particular madness to walk around in towers until the break of
dawn? It was only afternoon now. Rachel felt another bout of dizziness.
Was she to be trapped in here forever?
    Her eyes, wildly darting, lit upon something carved on the inside of the
bolted door and widened in surprise.
    Somebody had scratched the name Miriamele into the wood. The letters
were cut deeply, as though whoever had done it had been trapped like
Rachel, fidgeting away the time. But who would be here in the first place
that might do such a thing?


398                                   Tad Williams

    For a moment she thought of Simon, remembering how the boy would
climb like an ape and get into trouble that others could not even find. He
had loved Green Angel Tower--wasn't it just a bit before King John
died that Simon had knocked over Barnabas the sexton downstairs? Rachel
smiled faintly. The boy had been a very devil.
    Thinking of Simon, she abruptly remembered what the chandler's boy
Jeremias had said. The smile dissolved from her face. Pryrates. Pryrates
had killed her boy. When she thought of the alchemist, Rachel felt a hatred
that burned and bubbled like quicklime, a hatred quite unlike anything she
had ever felt in her life.
    Rachel shook her head, dizzied. It was horrifying to think about Pryrates.
What Jeremias told her about the hairless priest gave her ideas, black
thoughts she had not known she was capable of thinking.
    Frightened by the power of her feelings, she forced her attention back to
the wall carving.
    Squinting at the careful letters, Rachel decided that, whatever other
mischief Simon had gotten into, this carving was not his doing. It was far
too neat. Even with Morgenes' instruction, Simon's writing had wandered
across a page like a drunken beetle. These letters were made by someone
educated. But who would carve the princess' name in such an out of the
way place? Barnabas the sexton used this closet, no doubt, but the idea of
that sour, juiceless, leathery old lizard carving Miriamele's name labori-
ously into the door beggared even Rachel's imagination, and Rachel could
imagine men committing virtually any evil or stupidity if freed from the
proper influence of women. Even so, sexton Barnabas as a pining lover
was too much to conceive.
    Her thoughts were wandering, Rachel chided herself angrily. Was she
indeed so old and fearful that she must distract herself at a time when she
had many important things to think about? A plan had been forming in
her mind since the night she and the other chambermaids had r~scued
Jeremias, but a part of her wanted to forget about it, wanted things %o just
be the way they once were.
  Nothing will ever be the same, you old Jbol. Face up to it.
    It was harder and harder to hide from such decisions these days. Con-
fronted with the runaway chandler's lad, Rachel and her charges had
eventually realized that there was no solution but to help him escape, so
they had smuggled him out of the Hayholt one day's end, Jeremias
disguised as a chambermaid returning home to Erchester. As she watched
the ill-used boy go limping to safety, Rachel had been seized by a revela-
tion: the evil haunting her home could be ignored no longer. And, she
now thought grimly, where the Mistress of Chambermaids saw that
which was foul, she must make it clean.
    Rachel heard the scuffling of heavy boots across the white stone floor of
the bell-chamber and risked a peek through the narrow opening. The


STONE OF FAREWELL

399

king's green-cloaked form was just disappearing through the doorway.
She listened as his steps descended and grew fainter, then waited a long
while after they had passed from her hearing altogether before she clam-
bered back down the ladder. She stepped out from behind the curtain into
the airiness of the stairwell, then patted at her forehead and cheeks, which
were damp with perspiration despite the cold stone. Stepping carefully and
quietly, she began to descend.
    The king's conversation had told her much that she needed to know.
Now, she must only wait and think. Surely planning such a thing could
not be half as complicated as commanding a spring cleaning? And, in a
way, that was what she planned, was it not?
    Her old bones aching, but her face stretched in an odd smile that would
have set her chambermaids to shuddering, Rachel walked slowly down
Green Angel Tower's endless stairway.

    Binabik's eyes would not meet Sludig's across the cookfire. Instead, the
troll swept his sad pile of knuckle-bones back into their bag. He had cast
them several times that morning. The results seemed to give him little
pleasure.
    Sighing, the troll pocketed the sack, then turned and poked in the ashes
of the fire with a stick, digging out their breakfast, a cache of nuts that he
had located and dug from the frozen ground. It was a bitterly cold day,
and their saddlebags were empty of food: Binabik was not above stealing
from squirrels.
    "Do not speak," the troll said abruptly. After an hour of silence, Sludig
had just opened his mouth. "Please, Sludig, for a moment be saying
nothing. Just the flask of kangkang from your pocket I am asking for."
    The Rimmersman sadly handed over the flask. Binabik took a long
swallow, then wiped the sleeve of his jacket across his mouth. The sleeve
made another pass across the troll's eyes.
    "A promise I made," he said quietly. "I was asking for two night's fires
and you gave them. Now I must be fulfilling the oath that of all I would
be most happily breaking. We must take the sword to the Stone of
Farewell."
    Sludig began to speak, but instead accepted the flask back from Binabik
and took a deep draught.
    Qantaqa returned from a hunting foray to discover the troll and the
Rimmersman wordlessly bundling their few belongings onto the pack-
horses. The wolf watched them for a moment, then uttered a. low moan of
distress and danced away. She curled up at the edge of the clearing and
peered solemnly at Binabik and Sludig over the fence of her brushy tail.
 Binabik lifted the White Arrow out of the saddle bag and held it up, then



400                                   Tad Williams

pressed its wooden shaft against his cheek; the arrow shone more bright
than the powdery snow lying all around. He tucked the arrow back in
the bag. "I will be back for you," the httle man said to no one present.
will fred you."
    He called for Qantaqa. Sludig swung up into his own saddle and the
vanished into the forest, the string of pack horses following. The downsiftin
snow began to fill in their footprints. By the time the muffled sounds
their passage faded, all trace of their presence in the clearing was gone.

    Sitting in one place lamenting his fate wasn't going to do him mud
good, Simon decided. In any case, the sky was becoming unpleasantl~
dark for mid-morning and snow was beginning to fall more heavily. Hc
stared ruefully at the looking glass. Whatever Jiriki's mirror might be, the
Sithi prince had spoken truth when he said that it would not bring him
magically to Simon's side. He put it back in his cloak and stood up,
rubbing his hands.
    It was possible that Binabik and Sludig were still somewhere close by:
perhaps, hke Simon, they had also been tumbled from their mounts and
were in need of help. He had no idea how long he had lain helplessly in
the grip of sleep, listening to the Sitha-woman speaking through his
dreams--it might have been hours or days. His companions could still be
close by, or they might have given up on him. They could be leagues
away.
    Pondering the bleak possibilities, he began walking in what he hoped
was an expanding spiral, something he dimly remembered Binabik sug-
gesting as a good thing to do when people were lost. It was difficult to
know if this spiral-walking was exactly the right thing to do, however,
since he was not sure precisely who was lost. Also, he had not paid
particularly close attention when the little man had explained how one
calculated this spiral--the troll's woodcraft lecture had concerned the
movement of sun, the coloration of bark and leaves, the direction certain
tree roots sprouted as they lay in running water, but at the time Binabik
had been explaining these things, Simon had been watching a three-legged
lizard slowly limping along the Aldheorte Forest floor. It was a shame
Binabik had not tried to make his explanation a little more interos'ting,
Simon thought, but it was too late to do anything about it now.
    He tramped on through the thickening snowfall as the sun rose invisibly
behind the smother of clouds. The brief afternoon arrived, then almost
immediately began preparing to leave. The wind blew and the storm
seized Aldheorte in its frosty fingers and squeezed. The cold jabbed at
Simon through his cloak, which began to feel as thin as a lady's summer
veil; it had seemed adequate while he was still in the company of friends,


STONE OF FAREWELL

401

but when he thought about it, he could not remember the last time he had
felt truly warm.
    As the day of unrewarded snow-trudging dragged on, his stomach
began to ache as well. He had last eaten in Skodi's house---the memory of
the meal and its aftermath dislodged one of the few remaining shivers that
the cold wind had not yet discovered. Who could say how much time had
passed since then?
    Holy Aedon, he prayed, give me food. The thought became a sort of verse
that echoed over and over in his head in time with the crunching of snow
beneath his boots.
    Unfortunately, this was a problem that would not go away by thinking
of something else. Neither had it gotten as bad as it could get: Simon
knew he could not get any more lost than he was at that moment, but he
could become a great deal more hungry.
    In h~s time with Binabik and the soldiers he had gotten used to others
doing the hunting and gathering; when he had helped, it was usually at
someone else's direction. Suddenly he was as alone as he had been during
those first awful days in Aldheorte after he had fled the Hayholt. He had
been dreadfully hungry then, and had survived until the troll found him,
but that had not been winter weather. He had also been able to pilfer from
isolated freeholdings. Now he wandered in a frozen and unpeopled wilder-
ness that made his earlier sojourn in the forest seem an afternoon outing.

    The storm winds rose in pitch. The very air seemed to grow suddenly
colder, sending Simon into a fresh spasm of trembling. As the forest
began to darken ever so slightly, sending the first warning that even this
weak daylight could not last forever, Simon found himself fighting back a
rising surge of horror. All day long he had tried to ignore the faint
scrabbling of its claws: at times he had felt as though he walked along the
edge of an abyss, a pit which had no bottom, no limit.
    In a situation like this, Simon realized, it would be very easy to go
mad--not to spring suddenly into arm-waving lunacy, like a beggerman
ranting on Tavern Row, but rather to slip over into quiet madness. He
would make some unrecognized misstep and topple slowly, helplessly into
the abyss whose nearness seemed at that moment so unarguably clear. He
would fall and fall until he did not even remember that he was falling
anymore. His real life, his memories, the friends and the home he had
once had, all would dwindle until they were nothing but ancient, dusty
objects inside a head like a boarded-up cottage.
    Was that what dying was like, he suddenly wondered? Did a part of you
stay in your body, as in Skodi's ghastly song? Did you lie in the earth and
feel your thoughts dwindling away bit by bit, like a sandbar broken down
and carried off by a flowing stream? And now that he thought of it,
would that be so terrible after all--to lie in the damp and dark and just


402                                    Tad Williams

slowly cease to be? Might it not be better than the frantic concerns of the
living, the useless struggle against impossible odds, the panicky and point-
less flight from death's ultimate victory?  To give in. To just stop fighting . . .
    It had a pacific sound to it, like a sad but pretty song. It seemed a gentle
promise, a kiss before sleeping . . .
    Simon was falling forward. Shocked into alertness, he threw out a hand
and steadied himself against the trunk of a skeletal birch. His heart was
beating very swiftly.
    He saw with astonishment that snow had gathered thickly on his shoul-
ders and boots, as though he had stood in this place for a long time--but it
had seemed like the merest instant! He shook his head and slapped at his
cheeks with gloved fingers until the stinging brought life surging back
through his body. He growled at himself. To almost fall asleep standing
up] To freeze on your feet! What kind of a mooncalf was he?!
    No. He growled again and shook his head. Binabik and Sludig had said
he was almost a man: he would not prove them wrong so easily. It was
cold and he was hungry, that was all. He would not cry and give up like a
lowly apprentice scullion locked out of the kitchen. Simon had seen and
done many things. He had survived worse than this. But what should he do?
    He couldn't solve the lack of food immediately, he knew, but that
wasn't so bad. One thing Binabik had said that Simon remembered very
well was that a person could go a long time without food, but could not
survive a single night in the cold without shelter. For this reason, the troll
always said, fire was very, very important.
 But Simon had no fire, nor could he make one.
    As he considered this grim fact, he kept walking. Despite the fast-
increasing darkness he hoped to find a better camping place before he
stopped. The snow was falling faster now, and at the moment he was
slogging along the bottom of a long, shallow canyon. He wanted to find
higher ground, someplace where he would not have to dig his way out if
he survived the night. Thinking about this, Simon felt a painful smile
form on his cracked lips. With the dreadful luck he had been having, the
high place he chose would probably be struck by lightning.
    He laughed hoarsely and was momentarily heartened by the soun~ of
his own mirth, but the wind snatched it away before he could savor it.

    The spot he chose was a stand of hemlocks clustered atop a low hill like
white-caped sentries. He would have preferred the shelter of several large
stones--or better still, a cave---but his luck was not so generous. He
ignored the gurglings of his empty stomach as he briefly surveyed the
little copse, then set to work pressing snow into hard lumps. These he
piled between the trees on the windward side, pressing and smoothing



STONE OF FAREWELL

4O3

them together until he had a serviceable wall that reached to a little above
his knees.
    As the last light started to bleed from the sky, Simon began pulling
branches from the surrounding hemlocks. He pilled them near the base of
his snow-bulwark until he had made a bed of springy needles nearly as
high as the wall. Not yet content, he continued his way around the
clearing, using his Qanuc knife to cut branches by the handful until a pile
of equal size lay beside the first. He stopped for a moment, breathing
heavily, and felt the chill air suck the warmth away from his exposed face
as abruptly as if he had been fitted with a mask of sleet.
    Suddenly aware of the enormity of trying to stay warm during the
wintery night to come--and of the fact that if he decided wrong, he might
not wake up the following morning--he was spurred to a feverish renewal
of his efforts. He shored up the snow wall, making it a little taller and
much thicker, then built a lower wall supported by tree trunks on the
other side of the first pile of branches. He raced around the copse cutting
more branches--his gloves were now so resinous that he could not sepa-
rate the fingers, and could only remove his hand from his knife by
stepping on the blade first--until the height of both piles equaled that of
his windward wall. By now it was almost too clark to see: even the great
trees were rapidly blurring into murky smudges against the near-luminous
snow.
    He lay down on his bed of branches, bending his knees and pulling his
long legs up against his body so that they would benefit as much as
possible from being wrapped in his cloak, then began to pull the remain-
ing branches over himself. He tried his best, with clumsy, sticky fingers,
to weave them together so that there were no large exposed areas, and
ended by reaching awkwardly up through the hemlock blanket to drag the
last few branches over his head. He then turned his face sideways so that it
was mostly hidden in his hood. The position was miserably uncomfort-
able and unnatural in the extreme, but he could feel his own warm breath
whispering in the pocket of the hood; for this little while at least, he
stopped shivering.
    He had been so exhausted when he lay down that Simon expected to be
asleep in a matter of moments, despite the tickling branches and his
cramped legs. Instead, he found himself growing gradually more wakeful
as the first hour of night wore on. The cold, while not as sharply biting as
when he had earlier walked through the forest into the teeth of the wind,
nevertheless sneaked through his meager shelter and seeped down into his
bones and flesh. It was a dull and relentless sort of cold, patient as stone.
    The chill was bad enough, but though the thunder of his breathing and
the drumbeat of his heart were loud in his ears, he could hear other,
stranger noises as well. He had forgotten how differently the night forest
sounded when no friend slept nearby. The wind moaned achingly through


404                                   Tad Williams

the trees; other sounds seemed ominously stealthy, yet were loud enou~
to be heard even above the lamenting wind. After all the horrors he h:
seen, he harbored no idle hopes that the night was innocent of dangers-
surely he was hearing damned souls crying in the storm, and lumberir
Hun~n prowling the forest in search of warm blood!
    As the night marched on, Simon felt black dread rising once more. H
was all alone! He was a lost, doomed fool of a mooncalf who should nev
have dabbled in the affairs of his betters! Even if he survived the nighl
even if he was spared the clutches of some gibbering, faceless nightwalkel
it would only be to starve in the daylight! Certainly he could last a fe~
days, perhaps weeks if he was lucky, but from what Binabik had told hit,
it was many leagues to the Stone of Farewell--and that was assuming tha
he knew how to get there at all, and could find his way through Aldheorte'
unsympathetic depths to do so. Simon knew he did not possess th,
woodcraft to survive a long exile in the wild: he was no Jack Mundwode
not even close. Similarly, there was almost no chance that anyone wh~
could help would pass through this remote part of the northeastern forest
especially in such hellish weather.
    Worst of all, his friends were long gone. In the middle of the afternoon
he had suddenly found himself in a fit of panicky shouting, repeating theil
names over and over again until his throat felt rough as a butcher's block.
At the last, just before his voice gave out, he thought he had been
screaming the names of the dead. That was the most frightening thought
of all, a path that ran very close to the abyss: shout for the dead today,
speak to them tomorrow, join them soon aftermin a living death of
irredeemeable madness if nothing else, and that might be worse than
actually dying.
    He lay beneath the branches and shivered, but no longer from only the
chill. Darkness rose within him and Simon struggled against it. He didn't
want to die yet, that he knew--but did it matter? There seemed to be
nothing he could do about it one way or the other.
    But ! will not die here, he decided at last, pretending for a moment he had
been offered some choice. He felt for his own desperation and began to
smooth it down and push it back, quieting it like a frightened horse. I've
touched dragon blood. I won a Sithi White Arrow. It all means something, dtqtsn't
it?
    He didn't know if it did all mean something, but he suddenly wanted
very much to live.
    I won't die yet. I want to see Binabik again, andJosua . . . and Miriamele.
And I want to see Pryrates and Elias su~r for what they did. I want a home
again, a warm bed--oh, merciful Usires, if you really are real, let me have a home
again! Don't let me die in the cold! Let me find a home . . . a home . . . let me
find a home... !
  Sleep was conquering him at last. He seemed to hear his own voice


STONE OF FAREWELL

405

echoing down an old stone well. At last he slid away from cold and
painful thoughts into a warmer place.

He survived that night and six more nights after it, each followed by a
morning of terrible, frigid stiffness, of solitude and increasing hunger.
    The unseasonal cold had killed many of Spring's children in the womb,
but some plants had managed to bud and flower in the brief, false season
of warmth before the deadly winter returned to stay. Binabik and the Sithi
had both given him flowers to eat, but Simon had no idea if there were
right or wrong kinds of flowers. He ate what few he could find. They did
not fill him up, but neither did they kill him. Patches of bitter yellow
grass--very bitter--had survived beneath some of the snow hummocks as
well, and he made full use of all he could find. Once, in a moment of
starved unreason, he even tried to eat a handful of fir needles. They tasted
astoundingly dreadful, and the sap and his own froth made a sticky,
half-frozen mess of his downy beard.
    One day, when his longing for something solid to eat had become a
maddening obsession, a chill-baffled beetle wandered across his path.
Rachel the Dragon had held a very firm line on the almost incalculable
filthiness of such vermin, but Simon's stomach had become a far more
powerful force than even Rachel's training. He could not let this opportu-
nity pass.
    Despite his hollow gut, the first one proved very difficult. When he felt
the tiny legs moving within his mouth, he gagged and spit the beetle into
the snow. Its aimless kicking made him want to be sick, but a moment
later he snatched it up again, then chewed and swallowed it as quickly as
he could. The beetle's texture was that of a delicate, slightly flexible
nutshell, the taste little more than a musty tang. When an hour had passed
with none of Rachel's dire predictions coming to pass, Simon began to
watch the ground carefully in hope of a few more such slow-moving
morsels.
    Different than his great hunger, and in some ways worse, was the
continuing cold: when he could find and devour a fistful of lutegrass, his
hunger was for a moment made less, and when he had hiked the first
rooming hour, his muscles stopped aching for a short time . . . but after
that initial moment when he first crawled into his forest-bed, he was never
warm again. When he ceased moving even for a few short moments he
began to shiver uncontrollably. The chill was so relentless that it began to
seem that it pursued him like an enemy. He cursed at it weakly, swinging
his arms through the air as though the malevolent cold was something he
could strike, as he had struck at the dragon Igjarjuk, but cold was every-
where and nowhere; it had no black blood to spill.
 There was nothing that Simon could do but walk. So, during all the


406                                    Tad Williams

painful hours of dayhght, from the time his cramped limbs forced him
from his makeshift bed each morning to the hour when the sun fmally
withdrew from the sodden gray sky, he walked almost ceaselessly south-
ward. The rhythm of his shuffling feet became as much a part of the cycle
of life as the rise and fall of the wind, the passage of the sun, the settling of
snowflakes. He walked because it kept him warm; he walked south because
he dimly remembered Binabik saying that the Stone of Farewell stood in
the grasslands south of Aldheorte. He knew he could never survive a
journey through the entire forest, a passage across a vast nation of trees
and snow, but he had to have some destination: the endless tramping was
easier if all he had to do was let the occluded sun pass from his left to
his right.
    He also walked because when he stood still the cold began to bring
strange, frightening visions. Sometimes he saw faces in the contorted
trunks of trees and heard voices speaking his name and the names of
strangers. Other times the snowy forest seemed a thicket of towers; the
sparse greenery was transformed into leaping flames and his heart tolled in
his ears like a doomful bell.
    But most importantly, Simon walked because there was nothing else he
could do. If he did not keep moving, he would die--and Simon was not
ready to die.

"Bug now, don't run, don't flitter
Taste bitter, don't care, don't care
Bug stay, happy day, tasty bite
Don't fight . . ."

    It was late morning, the seventh day since his awakening. Simon was
stalking. A spotted brown and gray beetle--larger and possibly more
succulent than the small black variety which he had made a staple of his
diet--was picking its way across the trunk of a white cedar. Simon had
snatched at it once, some twenty ells back, but this beetle had wingsmand
surely that proved its tastiness, since it had to work so hard to remain
uneaten!--and had gone humming away most ungracefully. It had not
flown far. A second attempt had also failed, which had led to this most
recent landing place.
    He was singing to himself, whether he sang out loud or not, he didn't
know. The beetle didn't seem to mind, so Simon kept it up.

"Beetle sleep, don't creep, trust me
Stand still, stand still, tasty crumb
Here I come, through the snow, don't go . . ."

Simon, his eyes screwed down in a hunter's squint, was moving as


STONE OF FAREWELL

4O7

slowly as his trembling, ill-nourished body would permit. He wanted this
betfie. He needed this beefie. Feeling a shiver beginning to well up inside of
him, a shiver that would spoil his careful approach, he lunged. His palms
slapped eagerly against the bark, but when he brought his cupped hands
up to his face to peer within he saw that he held nothing.
    "What do you want it for?" someone asked. Simon, who had carried on
more than a few conversations with strange voices during these last days,
had already opened his mouth to reply when his heart suddenly began
hammering in his chest. He whirled, but no one was there.
    Now it's begun, the going-mad has begun . . . was all he had time to think
before someone tapped him on his shoulder. He spun again and almost fell
down.
    "Here. I caught it." The beetle, curiously lifeless, hovered in the air
before him. A moment later he saw that it hung from the fingers of a
white-gloved hand. The hand's owner stepped out from behind the cedar
tree. "I don't know what you will do with it. Do your people eat these
things? I had never heard that."
    For a brief instant he thought Jiriki had come--the golden-eyed face was
framed by a cloud of pale lavender hair, Jiriki's own odd shade, and
feathered braids hung beside each up-slanting cheekbone~but after a long,
staring instant he realized it was not his friend.
    The stranger's face was very slender, but still slightly rounder than
Jiriki's. As with the prince, the alien architecture made some of this Sitha's
expressions seem cold or cruel or even faintly animalistic, yet still strangely
beautiful. The newcomer seemed younger and more unguarded than Jiriki:
her face--he had just realized that the stranger was female--changed
swiftly from expression to expression even as he watched, like an ex-
change of subtle masks. Despite what seemed the fluidity and energy of
youth, Simon saw that deep in the cat-calm, golden eyes, this stranger
shared with Jiriki the ancient Sithi light.
     "Seoman," she said, then laughed whisperingly. Her white-clad finger
touched his brow, light and strong as a bird's wing. "Seoman Snowlock."
 Simon was quivering. "Wh... wh... who... ?"
      "Aditu." Her eyes were faintly mocking. "My mother named me Aditu
no--Sa'onserei. I have been sent for you."  "S-sent? B-b-by... ?"
    Aditu tilted her head to one side, stretching her neck sinuously, and
regarded Simon as someone might an untidy but interesting animal that
crouched on the doorstep. "By my brother, manchild. By Jiriki, of
course." She stared as Simon began to sway gently from side to side.
"Why do you look so strange?"
  "Were you . . . in my dreams?" he asked plaintively.
    She continued to watch curiously as he abruptly sat down in the snow
beside her bare feet.


408                                    Tad Williams

    "Certainly I have boots," Aditu said later. Somehow she had built a
fire, scraping away the snow and stacking the wood right beside the spot
where Simon had crumpled, then igniting it with some swift movement
of her slender fingers. Simon stared intently into the flames, trying to
make his mind work properly once more. "I just wanted to take them off
so I could approach more quietly." She eyed him blandly. "I did not
know what it was that could make such a blundering noise, but it was
you, of course. Still, there is something fine about the feel of snow on the
skin."
    Simon shuddered, thinking of ice against bare toes. "How did you find
me?"
  "The mirror. Its song is very powerful."
"So . . . so if I had lost the mirror, you w-wouldn't have found me?"
Aditu looked at him solemnly. "Oh, I would have found you eventu-
ally, but mortals are frail creatures. There might not have been much of
interest left to find." She flashed her teeth in what he guessed was a smile.
She seemed both more and less human than Jirikimalmost childishly
flippant at times, but in other ways far more exotic and alien than her
brother. Many of the traits Simon had observed in Jiriki, the feline grace
and dispassion, seemed even more pronounced in his sister.
    As Simon rocked back and forth, still not absolutely sure he was awake
and sane, Aditu reached inside her white coatmwhich, with her white
breeches, had made her all but indistinguishable against the snow--and
removed a package wrapped in shiny cloth. She handed it to him. He
poked clumsily at the wrappings for some time before he was able to
expose what was inside: a loaf of golden-brown bread that seemed oven-
fresh, and a handful of fat pink berries.
      Simon had to eat his meal in very small bites to avoid making himself
ill; even so, each less-than-a-mouthful seemed like time spent in paradise.
  "Where did you find these?" he asked through a faceful of berries.
  Aidtu looked at him for a long time, as if debating some important
  decision. When she spoke, it was with what seemed an air of carelessness.
  "You will soon see. I will take you there--but such a thing has n~ver
  happened before."
    Simon did not pursue this cryptic last remark. Instead, he asked: "But
where are you taking me?"
    "To my brother, as he asked me to," Aditu said. She looked solemn,
but a wild light gleamed in her eyes. "To the home of our people--Jao
d- Tinukai'i."
    Simon finished chewing and swallowed. "I will go anywhere there is a
fire."



21

Prince of Gr. ss

(gOLlyC~'4' nothing," Hotvig murmured, "but look to the redcoat there
by the Irence."
    Deornoth followed the Thrithings-man's subtle gesture until his gaze lit
on a roan stallion. The horse regarded Deornoth warily, stepping from
side to side as though he might bolt at any moment.
    "Ah, yes." Deornoth nodded his head. "He is a proud one." He turned.
"Did you see this one, my prince?"
    Josua, who was leaning against the gate at the far side of the paddock,
waved his hand. The prince's head was wrapped in linen bandages, and he
moved as slowly as if all of his bones were broken, but he had insisted on
coming out to assist in claiming the fruits of his wager. Fikolmij, apoplec-
tic with rage at the idea of watching Josua picking thirteen Thrithings
horses from the March-thane's own pens, had sent his randwarder Hotvig
in his place. Instead of mirroring his thane's attitude, Hotvig seemed
rather taken with the visitors, and with Prince Josua in particular. On the
grasslands a one-handed man did not often kill an opponent half again
his size.
     "What's the red's name?" Josua asked Fikolmij's horsekeeper, a wiry,
ancient man with a tiny wisp of hair on the top of his head. "Vinyafod," this one said shortly, then turned his back.
    "It means "Wind-foot" . . . Prince Josua." Hotvig pronounced the title
awkwardly. The randwarder went and slipped a rope about the stallion's
neck, then led the balking animal to the prince.
    Josua smiled as he looked the horse up and down, then boldly reached
up and pulled at its lower lip, exposing the teeth. The stalhon shook his
head and pulled away, but Josua grabbed the lip again. After a few
nervous head-shakes, the horse at last allowed himself to be examined, the
only sign of anxiety his blinking eyes. "Well, he is certainly one we shall
take east with us," Josua said, "--although I doubt that will please Fikolmij."
 "It will not," Hotvig said solemnly. "If his honor was not held up

4O9


410                                    Tad Williams

before all the clans, he would kill you just for coming near these horses.
This Vinyafod was one that Fikolmij demanded specially as part of
Blehmunt's booty when Fikolmij became leader of the clans."
    Josua nodded solemnly. "I don't want the March-thane so angry that he
follows and murders us, pledge or no pledge. Deornoth, I give you leave
to pick the rest; I trust your eye better than mine. We will take Vinyafod,
that is certain--as a matter of fact, I think I will claim him for my own. I
am tired of limping from here to there. But as I said, let us not cull the
herd so thoroughly that we force Fikolmij to dishonor himself."
    "I will choose carefully, sire." Deornoth strode across the paddock. The
horsekeeper saw him coming and tried to sidle away, but Deornoth
hooked the old man's elbow and began asking questions. The keeper was
hard-pressed to pretend he could not understand.
    Josua watched with a faint smile on his face, shifting his balance from
one foot to another to spare his aching body. Hotvig watched the prince
from the corner of his eye for a long time before he spoke. "You said you go east, Josua. Why?"
    The prince looked at him curiously. "There are many reasons, some of
which I cannot discuss. But mostly it is because I must find a place to
make a stand against my brother and the evil that he has done."
    Hotvig nodded his head with exaggerated seriousness. "It seems that
you have kinsmen who feel as you do."
Josua's expression turned to puzzlement. "What do you mean?"
"There are others of your kind--other stone-dwellers--who have begun
to settle east of here. That is why Fikolmij brought us so far north of our
usual grazing areas for this season, to make sure that the newcomers were
not crossing onto our lands." A grin crossed Hotvig's scarred face. "There
were other reasons for our clan coming here, too. The March-thane of the
Meadow Thrithings tried to steal away some of our randwarders at the
last Gathering of Clans, so Fikolmij wanted his people far away from the
Meadow Thrithings. Fikolmij is feared, but not well-loved. Many wagons
have already left the Stallion Clan .... "
    Josua waved impatiently. The bickering between the Thrithings clans
was legendary. "What about the stone-dwellers you spoke of?. Who are
they?"
    Hotvig shrugged and fingered his braided beard. "Who can say? They
came from the westlwhole families, some traveling in carts as our people
do, some on footmbut they were not our people, not Thrithings-men. We
heard of them from our outriders when we were at the second-to-last
Gathering, but they passed through the north of the High Thrithings and
were gone."
 "How many?"
    Again the Thrithings-man shrugged. "Stories say as many as in two or
three of our small clans."



STONE OF FAREWELL

411

    "So, perhaps a hundred or two." The prince seemed to momentarily
escape his pain, for his face brightened as he pondered this news.
    "But that is not all, Prince Josua," Hotvig said earnestly. "That was one
group. Other companies have trickled past since then. I have myself seen
two hand's worth or so all counted. They are poor, though, and they have
no horses, so we let them pass out of our lands."
    "You did not let my folk pass and we had not a pony between us."
Josua's smile was sardonic.
    "That is because Fikolmij knew it was you. The randwarders had
watched your people for several days."
    Deornoth approached, the grumbling horse keeper in tow. "I have
chosen, Highness. Let me show you." He pointed to a long-legged bay.
"Since you have picked red Vinyafod for your own, Prince Josua, I have
selected this one for myself. Vildalix is his name--Wild-shine."
    "He is splendid," Josua said, laughing. "You see, Deornoth, I remem-
bered what you said about Thrithings horses. Now you have some, just as
you asked."
    Deomoth looked at Josua's bandages. "The price was too high, sire."
His eyes were sorrowful.
 "Show me the rest of our new herd," said Josua.

Vorzheva came out to meet the prince as he and the others returned
from the paddock. Hotvig took one look at her face and slipped away.
    "You are foolish to be up walking!" The thane's daughter turned to
Deornoth. "How could you keep him out so long? He is very unwell!"
    Deomoth said nothing, but only bowed. Josua smiled. "Peace, Lady,"
the prince said. "The fault is not Sir Deornoth's. I wanted to see the
horses, since I am most assuredly going to ride and not walk from here."
He chuckled ruefully. "Not that I could walk more than a furlong these
days in any case, even if my life were in the balance. But I will get
stronger."
    "Not if you stand in the cold." Vorzheva leveled her sharp-eyed glance
at Deornoth as if daring him to argue. She took Josua's arm, adjusting her
pace to his halting strides, and together all three went back toward the
camp.
    The prince's company was still housed in the bull run. Fikolmij had
snarled that just because he had lost a wager was no reason that he must
treat miserable stone-dwellers like clansmen, but several of the more
high-minded Thrithings-folk had brought blankets and ropes and tent
stakes. Fikolmij was not a king: while the people lending assistance to the
former prisoners gave the March-thane's camp a wide berth, neither were
they ashamed or afraid to go against his wishes.
    Led by practical Duchess Gutrun, Josua's people had quickly made of
these contributions a secure shelter, closed on three sides and double-


412                                    Tad Williams

roofed with blankets of heavy wool. This served to keep out the worst of
the cold rains, which seemed to increase in strength daily.
    Above the Thrithings the gray-black sky hung threateningly close, as
though the very grasslands had been lifted up by giant hands. This spell of
bad weather, which had lasted nearly a week straight and off and on for
over a month, would have been unusual even in early spring. It was now
high summer, however, and the people of the Stallion Clan were openly
worried.
    "Come, my lady," Josua said as they reached the enclosure. "Let you
and I walk a little while longer."
    "You should not walk more!" Vorzheva said indignantly. "Not with
your wounds! You must sit and have some hot wine."
    "Nevertheless," Josua said firmly, "let us walk. I will look forward to
the wine. Deornoth, if you would pardon us... ?"
    Deornoth nodded and bowed, turning at the gate in the bull run fence.
He watched the prince's laborious progress for a moment before he went
inside.
    Josua's victory over Utvart had brought certain amenities. Like his lady,
the prince had exchanged his rags for newer garb, and now wore the soft
leather breeches, boots, and baggy-sleeved wool shirt of a randwarder, a
bright scarf knotted across his brow in place of his princely diadem.
Vorzheva wore a voluminous gray dress, rolled and belted at the hips in
the Thrithings manner to lift the hem above the wet grass, leaving visible
her thick woolen leggings and low boots. She had discarded her white
bride-band.
    "Why do you take me away from the others to talk?" Vorzheva de-
manded. Her defiant tone was belied by apprehensive eyes. "What do you
say that must be hidden?"
    "Not hidden," Josua said, twining his arm around hers. "I only wished
to speak where we would not be interrupted."
"My people do not hide things," she said. "We cannot, since we live so
close."
     Josua nodded his head. "I only wished to say that I am sorry, Lady,
very sorry."  "Sorry?"
    "Yes. I have treated you badly, as I admitted in your father's wagon. I
have not given you the respect you deserve."
    Vorzheva's face twisted, somewhere between joy and anguish. "Ah,
still you do not understand me, Prince Josua of Erkynland. I do not care
for respect, not if that is all you give me. I want your attention. I want
your heart! If you give me that, then you can give to me all the . . . the
not-respect...
  Quietly: "Disrespect."
  "... All the disrespect you want. Do not treat me like, you do the

!ii.



                                        STONE OF FAREWELL                                                                413

farmers who come to you for justice. I do not want your careful thinking,
your measuring, your talking, talking, talking . . ." An angry tear was
quickly wiped away. "Just give your heart, you damned stone-dweller!"
    They stopped, standing in wind-rippled grass to their knees. "I try," he
said.
    "No, you do not," she hissed bitterly. "You have that other woman's
face in your heart, your brother's wife. Men! You are all little boys, you
keep old loves in your heart like polished stones you have found. How can
I fight a dead woman!? I cannot grab her, I cannot slap her, I cannot drive
her away or follow you when you go to her? She stood breathing
heavily, her legs wide-set as though braced for battle. Her hands dropped
to her stomach and her look changed. "But you did not give her a child.
You gave one to me."
    Josua looked helplessly at her pale face, at the rosy flush of her cheeks
and her cloud of black hair. A movement caught his eye: a rabbit,
emerging from a thatch of tall grass, stopped for a moment and rose on
its hindquarters to look around. Its dark, round eye touched his. A
moment later it sprang forward and was gone, a thin gray shadow skim-
ming the meadow.
    "You have done nothing wrong, Lady," he said. "Nothing but attach
yourself to a brooding ghost of a man." He smiled sadly, then laughed.
"But in a way, I suppose, I have been reborn. I have been allowed to live
when surely I ought to have died, so I must take that as an omen and see
my life differently. You will bear our child, and we will be married when
we reach the Stone of Farewell."
    A touch of indignation returned to Vorzheva's dark eyes. "We will be
married here, before my people," she said firmly. "We are betrothed: now
they will see and stop speaking behind their hands."
 "But Lady," he began, "we have need of haste..."
    "Have you no honor?" she demanded. "What if you are killed before
we reach this place? The child in me will be a bastard . . . and I will not
even be a widow."
    Josua began to speak, but instead broke into laughter once more. He
reached his arm around her and pulled her close, unmindful of his injuries.
She resisted for a moment, then allowed herself to be embraced, but
retained her frown. "Lady, you are right," the prince said, smiling. "It
shall not be put off. Father Strangyeard will marry us and I will be a good
husband to you and keep you safe. And if I die before we reach our
destination, you will be the finest widow on the grasslands." He kissed
her. For a while they stood in the rain, faces pressed close together.
    "You are trembling," Vorzheva said at last, but her own voice seemed
the unsteady thing. She pulled free of Josua's embrace. "You have stood
and walked too long. If you die before we marry, it will spoil every-
thing." He.r look was softer, but still some trace of apprehension re-


414                                    Tad Williams

mained, an edge of fear that would not go away. Josua took her hand and
lifted it to his lips. They turned and walked slowly back toward the
encampment, as carefully as if they were both very, very old.

    "I must leave," Gelo~ announced that evening. Josua's people huddled
around the fire as fierce winds strummed at the walls of their makeshift
shelter.
    "I hope you do not mean that," Josua said. "We have need of your
wisdom."
    Deornoth felt himself both glad and sorry at the thought of the witch
woman leaving.
    "We will all meet again, and soon," she said. "But I must go ahead to
the Stone of Farewell. Now that you are safe, there are things I must do
there before you come."
    "What things?" Deornoth heard the edge of suspicion in his own voice
and was embarrassed by his lack of charity, but no one else seemed to
notice.
    "There will be . . ." Gelo~ searched for words, "... shadows there.
And sounds. And faint traces like the ripples left behind when a pebble
drops into a stream. It is vital that I try to read these before people come
tramping around."
 "And what will these things tell you?" Josua asked.
    Gelo~ shook her graying head. "I do not know. Perhaps nothing. But
the Stone stands in a special and powerful place; it may be that there are
things I can learn. We face an immortal enemy; perhaps we can find some
clue toward his defeat among the vestiges of his immortal people." She
turned to Duchess Gutrun, who cradled sleeping Leleth in her lap. "Will
you keep the child until you see me again?" Gutrun nodded. "Of course."
    "Why do you not take her with you?" Deornoth asked. "You said she
helped to... to center your skills in some way."
    Firelight glinted in Gelo~'s great eyes. "True. But she cannot travel in
the way I must travel." The witch woman stood, tucking her breeches
into her heavy boots. "And I will do best traveling by night."
    "But you will miss our marriage!" Vorzheva exclaimed. "Father
Strangyeard is to marry Josua and me at morning-time."
    Those who had not yet heard offered congratulations; Josua received all
as calmly and graciously as if he stood again in his throne room at
Naglimund. Vorzheva's smiles at last dissolved into what were surely
happy tears, which she cried on Gutrun's accommodating shoulder. Leleth,
who had awakened and rolled out of the duchess' lap to stare silently at
the ruckus, was quickly scooped up into the thin arms of Father Strangyeard.


STONE OF FAREWELL

415

    "This is good news Vorzheva, Prince Josua, but I cannot stay," Gelo~
said. "I do not think you will miss me. I am not much for entertainments
or merrymaking and I am feeling particularly pressed. I had wished to
leave yesterday, but stayed to see that you actually claimed your horses."
She gestured out toward the darkness beyond the shelter, where the
prince's new steeds shifted and snorted in their own enclosure. "Now I
can wait no longer."
    After brief private conversations with Josua and Strangyeard and a few
words whispered into Leleth's ear--words which the little girl received as
impassively as if listening to the ocean's voice echoing in a sea shell--
Gelo~ said her brisk farewells and strode out into the night, threadbare
cloak snapping in the brisk wind.
    Deornoth, who sat closest to the edge of the shelter, leaned his head out
a short time later. He had heard a mournful echo sweeping down from the
wind-raked sky, but when he looked up he caught only a momentary
glimpse of some shadowy, winged thing passing before the gelid moon.

    Deornoth was standing his watch--they had not become so trusting of
the Thrithings-men that they had lost their sense---when Josua limped out
to join him.
    "The stars have barely swung around," Deornoth whispered. "Look,
there is the Lamp, scarcely moved." He pointed to a dim flare in the
cloudy night sky. "It is not your turn for hours, Highness. Go back to
bed."
 "I cannot sleep."
    Deomoth was sure his smile was invisible in the darkness. "It is not
uncommon to have worries and doubts on the night before a wedding,
sire."
    "It's not that, Deornoth. My worries and my self-doubts, as once you
so correctly pointed out, are trivial. There are larger matters to think of."
    Deornoth wrapped the collar of his cloak tighter around his neck during
the moment of silence. The night had grown very chill.
    "I am happy to be alive," Josua said at last, "but I do feel a bit like a
mouse that the cat has allowed to run into the corner. Alive, yes, but for
how long? Far worse than even my brother's evil, now the Hand of the
North is reaching out." He sighed. "Once I nurtured a hope that Jarnauga's
tale was untrue, despite all the evidence, but the moment I saw those
white faces staring up at me from before the walls of Naglimund, some-
thing within me died. No, do not worry, good Deornoth," the prince said
hastily, "I am not about to run maundering, as I know you secretly dread.
I have taken your admonitions to heart." He laughed sourly. "But at the
same time, I tell only the truth. There are hatreds that run through this
world like blood, hot and lively. All my studies of evil with the Usirean
brothers, all their learned considerations of the Devil and his work, never


