The Stone of Farewell

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

DAW Books Presents

The Finest in Imaginative Fiction by

 

TAILCHASER'S SONG

 

THE WAR OF THE FLOWERS

 

SHADOWMARCH
Volume 1

 

THE DRAGONBONE CHAIR

STONE OF FAREWELL
TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

 

OTHERLAND
CITY OF GOLDEN SHADOW
RIVER OF BLUE FIRE
MOUNTAIN OF BLACK GLASS
SEA OF SILVER LIGHT

Copyright © 1990 by Tad Williams.

ISBN: 9781101160787

All rights reserved.

 

 

DAW Books Collectors No. 824

 

 

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

 

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Trade Printing, April 2005

 

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.

 

S.A.

This series is dedicated to my mother, Barbara Jean Evans, who taught to me a deep affection for Toad Hall, the Hundred Aker Woods, the Shire, and many other hidden places and countries beyond the fields we know. She also induced in me a lifelong desire to make my own discoveries, and to share them with others. I wish to share these books with her.

...
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.
Where are now the warring kings,
Word be-mockers?-By the Rood,
Where are now the warring kings?
An idle word is now their glory,
By the stammering schoolboy said,
Reading some entangled story:
The kings of the old time are dead;
The wandering earth herself may be
Only a sudden flaming word,
In clanging space a moment heard,
Troubling the endless reverie.

—WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (from
The Song of the Happy Shepherd)

 

I am indebted to Eva Cumming, Nancy Deming-Williams, Paul Hudspeth, Peter Stampfel, and Doug Werner, who all had a hand in the cultivation of this book. Their insightful comments and suggestions have taken root—in some instances, putting forth rather surprising blossoms. Also, and as usual, special thanks go to my brave editors, Betsy Wollheim and Sheila Gilbert, who have labored mightily through both storm and drought.

(By the way, all the above mentioned are just the kind of folk I want at my side if I'm ever ambushed by Norns. This might be construed as a somewhat dubious honor, but 'tis mine own to bestow.)

 

NOTE: There is a cast of characters, a glossary of terms, and a guide to pronunciation at the back of this volume.

For eons the Hayholt belonged to the immortal Sithi, but they had fled the great castle before the onslaught of Mankind. Men have long ruled this greatest of strongholds, and the rest of Osten Ard as well.
Prester John,
High King of all the nations of men, is its most recent master; after an early life of triumph and glory, he has presided over decades of peace from his skeletal throne, the Dragonbone Chair.

Simon,
an awkward fourteen year old, is one of the Hayholt's scullions. His parents are dead, his only real family the chamber maids and their stern mistress,
Rachel the Dragon.
When Simon can escape his kitchen-work he steals away to the cluttered chambers of
Doctor Morgenes,
the castle's eccentric scholar. When the old man invites Simon to be his apprentice, the youth is overjoyed—until he discovers that Morgenes prefers teaching reading and writing to magic.

Soon ancient King John will die, so
Elias,
the older of his two sons, prepares to take the throne.
Josua,
Elias' somber brother, nicknamed Lackhand because of a disfiguring wound, argues harshly with the king-to-be about
Pryrates,
the ill-reputed priest who is one of Elias' closest advisers. The brothers' feud is a cloud of foreboding over castle and country.

Elias' reign as king starts well, but a drought comes and plague strikes several of the nations of Osten Ard. Soon outlaws roam the roads and people begin to vanish from isolated villages. The order of things is breaking down, and the king's subjects are losing confidence in his rule, but nothing seems to bother the monarch or his friends. As rumblings of discontent begin to be heard throughout the kingdom, Elias' brother Josua disappears—to plot rebellion, some say.

Elias' misrule upsets many, including
Duke Isgrimnur
of Rimmersgard and
Count Eolair,
an emissary from the western country of Hernystir. Even King Elias' own daughter
Miriamele
is uneasy, especially about the scarlet-robed Pryrates, her father's trusted adviser.

Meanwhile Simon is muddling along as Morgenes' helper. The two become fast friends despite Simon's mooncalf nature and the doctor's refusal to teach him anything resembling magic. During one of his meanderings through the secret byways of the labyrinthine Hayholt, Simon discovers a secret passage and is almost captured there by Pryrates. Eluding the priest, he enters a hidden underground chamber and finds Josua, who is being held captive for use in some terrible ritual planned by Pryrates. Simon fetches Doctor Morgenes and the two of them free Josua and take him to the doctor's chambers, where Josua is sent to freedom down a tunnel that leads beneath the ancient castle. Then, as Morgenes is sending off messenger birds bearing news of what has happened to mysterious friends, Pryrates and the king's guard come to arrest the doctor and Simon. Morgenes is killed fighting Pryrates, but his sacrifice allows Simon to escape into the tunnel.

Half-maddened, Simon makes his way through the midnight corridors beneath the castle, which contain the ruins of the old Sithi palace. He surfaces in the graveyard beyond the town wall, then is lured by the light of a bonfire. He witnesses a weird scene: Pryrates and King Elias engaged in a ritual with black-robed, white-faced creatures. The pale things give Elias a strange gray sword of disturbing power, named
Sorrow.
Simon flees.

Life in the wilderness on the edge of the great forest Aldheorte is miserable, and weeks later Simon is nearly dead from hunger and exhaustion, but still far away from his destination, Josua's northern keep at Naglimund. Going to a forest cot to beg, he finds a strange being caught in a trap—one of the Sithi, a race thought to be mythical, or at least long-vanished. The cotsman returns, but before he can kill the helpless Sitha, Simon strikes him down. The Sitha, once freed, stops only long enough to fire a white arrow at Simon, then disappears. A new voice tells Simon to take the white arrow, that it is a Sithi gift.